On 13 Oct, 05:15, Al Klein <ruk...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> You present objective evidence of the objective existence of a god -
> any god - and there'll be very few atheists left.
I wouldn't make assumptions on that score. After all, there is plenty
of objective evidence for evolution, yet it is still rejected by some
Christian fundamentalists. Now, you might argue that that's because
such people are stupid - but it's not. Many fundies - and I'm not
talking about the amateurs you'll likely meet in groups like this, who
parrot stuff they've heard but don't really think about it - are very
intelligent indeed. Nevertheless, their intransigence is still rooted
in the fact that they know what they prefer to think and they'll
accept whatever evidence and arguments support that conclusion, and
reject or reinterpret any that doesn't.
And it's not just the religious, either. Take our friendly resident
conspiracy theorists: the 9/11 'Truth' movement, or those determined
that the British royal family had Diana killed. It doesn't matter
*what* evidence you present to these people: they already *know* the
'Truth' - and any evidence that doesn't correspond is misinformation
or trickery. Remember the Face on Mars? The subject of innumerable
wild assertions since the first photo was taken - and when Mars Global
Surveyor snapped a mere rock formation, what happened? Did the Face-
huggers slump their shoulders and scurry off in defeat? No, of course
not. Instead, they wove the 'faked' MGS images into their conspiracy
as further evidence of NASA's sinister plot.
Likewise, should God appear on the White House lawn (for some reason,
all extraterrestrial visitors are expected to land on the White House
lawn), there will no doubt be some erstwhile atheists who'll be
convinced. But I'd expect to see a fairly large number of them trying
to find alternative explanations for what they saw.
Perhaps I should try to mitigate that a little: I'm not actually
comparing atheist to conspiracy theorist as a matter of course. I'm
simply illustrating the human tendency to stick to what you think you
know (not to mention what you *prefer*) and to resist any compulsion
to change an established opinion.
> Most non-believers know only that there's no evidence that there's
> anything there. Provide it and they're no longer non-believers.
Which is more or less what I said, but from a different angle. Anyone
who recognises evidence for belief is already a believer, whether or
not they realise it. For a non-believer, there is and can be no
evidence.
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