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**dselectronics** · 09-24-2009, 12:36 AM

I agree that it's impossible to prove God's existence, BUT
there's a big difference between a believer saying, "I just saw a vision of Mary in the evening sky" and a nonbeliever saying, "I was in my study this evening and, well, I didn't see God around."
Believers require no proof, and they can always insist that nonbelievers just haven't seen the light yet.

True, it's a choice, but what if I said I had a bottle of magic WD-40 in my possession that cures blindess and speaks seven languages, but that I can't prove it because it stubbornly insists on working in mysterious ways. Would you then say that believing and disbelieving in the WD-40 are equally logical/illogical?

As for the William James thing, check out Pascal's Wager. There's a wikipedia page on it that sets out some of the logical problems with that same supposition as James'.

the scenarios above are incomparable. and let's face it, a deist isn't going to say any such thing as seeing the light. deists are typically very secular. I'm not sure you understand the difference between a deist and an evangelist. you can study WD40 and see outcomes, the same cannot be said for the existence of God. a more comparable situation would be if I someone told us there was a beachball in box 1 but there was no way of opening or examining box 1 in any way.

09-24-2009, 12:36 AM	#14
dselectronics Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 469 Senior Member	I agree that it's impossible to prove God's existence, BUT there's a big difference between a believer saying, "I just saw a vision of Mary in the evening sky" and a nonbeliever saying, "I was in my study this evening and, well, I didn't see God around." Believers require no proof, and they can always insist that nonbelievers just haven't seen the light yet. True, it's a choice, but what if I said I had a bottle of magic WD-40 in my possession that cures blindess and speaks seven languages, but that I can't prove it because it stubbornly insists on working in mysterious ways. Would you then say that believing and disbelieving in the WD-40 are equally logical/illogical? As for the William James thing, check out Pascal's Wager. There's a wikipedia page on it that sets out some of the logical problems with that same supposition as James'. the scenarios above are incomparable. and let's face it, a deist isn't going to say any such thing as seeing the light. deists are typically very secular. I'm not sure you understand the difference between a deist and an evangelist. you can study WD40 and see outcomes, the same cannot be said for the existence of God. a more comparable situation would be if I someone told us there was a beachball in box 1 but there was no way of opening or examining box 1 in any way.
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