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From: jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Ool - out at first base?
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2024 17:53:04 -0500
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On Sun, 22 Dec 2024 18:12:42 +0000, Martin Harran
<martinharran@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't know if you are still reading this but in case you are, I
>thought of you today when I read this in a religious newsletter that I
>subscribe to:


The author of the above doesn't explicitly identify who is the "you"
to whom he refers.  Even if one assumes an simplicity specific poster,
perhaps based on the post's relative position in a hierarchical sort,
this lack of explicit identifier negates any objection he may have to
others like myself replying to his post.


>"Only the silliest of scientists would think they could find God in
>the world or prove that God does not exist. Existence is a property of
>things within the world. Pose the matter in those terms, and you might
>as well admit, God does not exist.
>
> No, in creating the world God establishes it so thoroughly in freedom
>that many can deny the very existence of a creator. Looking for God in
>the world is like looking for the novelist in the novel. He=E2=80=99s
>everywhere and nowhere. Someone had to write the story, but she will
>not be appearing on its pages."
>
>(A Reflection for Fourth Sunday of Advent By Terrance Klein, a priest
>of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.)


The quote above implies a common Creationist trope; as the existence
of a novel implies the existence of a Novelist, and the existence of
the "world" implies the existence of a "world" Creator.

This trope suffers from several fundamentally fatal flaws.  First, it
assumes a false equivalence, that all created objects are equivalent
to human manufactured objects like novels, and by so doing
inaccurately implies that Creators are necessarily conscious entities.
Unfortunately, it's almost certain that both the quote's author and
the post's author are well aware of countless items which are/were
created by unguided natural processes. =20

One might charitably assume these authors allow a definition which
includes unguided natural processes as part of the "Creator" set. That
would lead to yet another fundamentally fatal flaw, as this would
allow God to have been created by unguided natural processes, and by
so doing negates the very argument the quote tries to make.

Typically Creationists make no such allowance, and instead assert God
always existed and so required no Creator.  Unfortunately, this leads
to yet another fundamentally fatal flaw, of circular reasoning.  To
argue that the world's existence implies God, necessarily also argues
that God's existence implies the existence of God's Creator, and so
moots their assertion. =20

Typically Creationists work around this problem by asserting God as a
special case.  Unfortunately, this leads to yet another fundamentally
fatal flaw, of begging the question, which does nothing to eliminate
the fallacy.

Of course, the larger point is that proving a negative, ex. God
doesn't exist, is notoriously difficult.  My impression is that's why
Creationists like to accuse others of saying it.

--=20
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge