>A certain key atheistic argument is so obvious as to be boring, which is of course a good sign for its validity:
>”We don’t see any sign of God’s presence. Therefore there is no God.”
I just watched “Silence of the Lambs”—what a nice coincidence.
“We don’t see any sign of Buffalo Bill’s presence (apart from all the evil things he’s done). Therefore there is no Buffalo Bill.”
Is this a valid argument?
I mean if there is a God/ Godlike being but he’s truly evil, then this argument goes out the window, and so does “The Problem of Evil”. He doesn’t want to be found because, being evil, that might lead a critical number of people to want to overthrow or kill him (if there are other more benevolent entities that have any means of doing so in principle, and that can recruit any intelligent mind such as a human to help them do so).
A generalized Roko’s Basilisk on this issue is that Earth is a safe-ish place precisely because the evil God can’t blackmail atheists (or indeed Christians) when they are sufficiently unaware of his existence. Benevolent simulating entities that do know all about Him would not want to tell the majority of human beings that He exists, or they would only do so indirectly.
Also a little rationalist principle I want to throw in here: haven’t you made a big assumption that “we” (every reader) has seen no sign of God (or any such being)’s presence? Would it not have been better to say ask yourself, dear reader, whether you have seen any sign of God’s presence?
You never know who is reading your blog posts, after all :-)
>A certain key atheistic argument is so obvious as to be boring, which is of course a good sign for its validity:
>”We don’t see any sign of God’s presence. Therefore there is no God.”
I just watched “Silence of the Lambs”—what a nice coincidence.
“We don’t see any sign of Buffalo Bill’s presence (apart from all the evil things he’s done). Therefore there is no Buffalo Bill.”
Is this a valid argument?
I mean if there is a God/ Godlike being but he’s truly evil, then this argument goes out the window, and so does “The Problem of Evil”. He doesn’t want to be found because, being evil, that might lead a critical number of people to want to overthrow or kill him (if there are other more benevolent entities that have any means of doing so in principle, and that can recruit any intelligent mind such as a human to help them do so).
A generalized Roko’s Basilisk on this issue is that Earth is a safe-ish place precisely because the evil God can’t blackmail atheists (or indeed Christians) when they are sufficiently unaware of his existence. Benevolent simulating entities that do know all about Him would not want to tell the majority of human beings that He exists, or they would only do so indirectly.
Also a little rationalist principle I want to throw in here: haven’t you made a big assumption that “we” (every reader) has seen no sign of God (or any such being)’s presence? Would it not have been better to say ask yourself, dear reader, whether you have seen any sign of God’s presence?
You never know who is reading your blog posts, after all :-)