I agree that belief or disbelief in God is a matter of faith. Of course, we
can view that as basic presuppositions that people make to be able to make
sense of the whole of reality. I have learned a lot from watching political
debates :) and hope that I can handle most things. Thanks. Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Petermann <SteveGP@email.msn.com>
To: Joel Cannon <jcannon@jcannon.washjeff.edu>; Moorad Alexanian
<alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: atheism vs theism
>Moorad,
>
>I've had a lot of discussions with atheists and the one thing that is both
a
>hallmark of religion and a non-refutable aspect is religious experience.
By
>religious experience I don't mean just some rare dramatic event. What I am
>referring to is the underlying sense of the sacred that is universal to all
>peoples and is talked about all through scripture and characterized in
>ritual and piety. Atheists must always deny any objective validity to
those
>types of experiences because they point beyond the material world. Also,
>even though religious experience is not empirical evidence, per se, as a
>universal phenomenon it also cannot be dismissed out of hand. Atheists
>often try to explain it away as a strictly psychological aberration or
>phenomenon with no objective truth, but if so, they should be obliged to
>provide convincing arguments to support that position. They cannot,
>however, do that because just as God cannot be the object of empirical
>proof, God can also not be disproved by that means or even by reason. Even
>parsimony is not a valid final argument against theism because of its
>universality. In the final analysis the belief or disbelief in God is a
>matter of faith. For those who are open to the sacred in life, they may
>without hard proof choose to believe in God or not.
>
>As an aside, I view many atheists as having a similar psychological makeup
>as fundamentalists. They require a high degree of certainty for belief(
>must have empirical evidence ) and they view their revelatory resource(
>typically science ) as absolute and sufficient. Both those features
>can sometimes make for a rigid, dogmatic, militancy with a strong aversion
>to anything contrary to their view.
>
>All the Best,
>Steve Petermann
>
>
>
>>
>> I was asked by the Philosophy and Religion student organization on campus
>if
>> I wanted to "debate" a professor of their department who is an
atheist---I
>> am supposed to represent the theistic point of view. I have accepted.
>Any
>> comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Moorad
>>
>
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