On 27 Nov 2002, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >David Silberstein <davids at kithrup.com> writes: > >> On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Andrew Bailey wrote: >> >"If Gods existance was proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt , >> >tomorrow, how would that affect you?" >> Well, I guess my response would be "What sort of god, and what sort >> of proof?" >A proof "beyond a shadow of a doubt". That is, you aren't allowed to >argue about that part. > Hey, let 'em try and stop me. :-) Proof is exactly what I'd want to argue about! In that vein, I had another thought: Just as it impossible to prove the negative (that God does not exist), it's also impossible to prove God's existence *if* you define God as being the absolute infinite, because you could always posit that there's always more levels up. So for example, let's say that tomorrow, geneticists find that encoded in the genes of every living thing on earth is a sequence that decodes to "Intelligent Designer Wuz Here", thus proving that evolution had a bit of a boost. Theists, of course, will crow that proof of God's existence has been found! Not so fast, comes back the response of the militant agnostics. All you have is the Intelligent Designer. You don't yet have any proof that this entity has anything to do with the creation of the earth, let alone the creation of the entire universe. You certainly don't have any proof that this being's character has anything in common with the God of the Bible. How do you know the I.D. isn't just an extremely powerful alien entity? And so on. For any entity that is proven to exist, there's the counterargument, "Who created that entity?" And I don't see how the proof could be made that that entity existed eternally, because eternity is a long, long time. How can you prove that an entity is eternal unless you are eternal as well?