Hi Mary,
> Thoughtful lengthy post of 1/27. Thank you. What I get out of it is, if > you are going to put forth a theory (such as Creationism, for example) in a > science classroom, it needs to be able to withstand the scrutiny of > scientific rigor. ... Steve: I wholeheartedly agree that Creationism as science just as anything put forth as science needs to stand to up to the standards for scientific truth, but that was not my point. Sam Harris said in his Atheist Manifesto, "The atheist is merely a person who believes that the...[people] who claim to never doubt the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his existence..." In this thread I wanted to investigate such questions as, is there really such an obligation? Are there no limits at all to the sorts of beliefs someone can be rationally entitled to have without submitting to other people's demands for evidence? Clearly a claim put forth as scientific truth needs to answer to demands for justification, but what if someone just says that they believe in God? If it is not meant as a scientific assertion, is Harris still right that the person should be obliged to provide evidence? My thesis in the original post was that people are only obligated to provide evidence on demand in support of the their beliefs to the extent that their actions based on the belief may frustrate the needs of others. I'm not convinced that believing in God in itself is something that atheists should be concerned about. There are many ways of being religious. Some of them should be of great concern, but I think others need not concern us in the least, so such blanket demands as Harris's are out of line. Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
