From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2003 - 19:13:15 EDT
>From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> I am not as nervous as some about the term "provisional atheism," recalling
> that in the first centuries Christians were sometimes called "atheists"
> because they didn't
> believe in the deities that the pagans worshipped. & if it's a question of
> whether or
> not I believe in the god who insists on leaving his fingerprints all over
> the evidence, I am /a/ that particular /theos/.
In a world in which everyone both understood and respected the limited
technical meaning of a term like "provisional atheism," perhaps I would have
far less objection to it. However, observing the rhetorical strategy of
using such a term to reinforce the careless melding of methodological
naturalism (a statement about the limitations of natural science) with
ontological naturalism (a statement that excludes the category of deity from
reality) would, I presume, bother both of us.
Howard Van Till
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