In article <slr### [at] bisqwitikifi>, bis### [at] ikifi 
says...
> On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 18:41:27 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/02/winning_athiests.jpg
> 
> That image is just as ignorant waltzing to the victory as
> are many of the arguments of christians.
> 
> God is able, but whether he's willing is a matter more
> complex than of "yes" and "no". It is a "yes", because
> he will do it at his own pace, and it is a "no", because
> he will do it at his own pace.
> Saying that he is malevolent because of that is just ignorant,
> and neglects the possibility that God's reasoning can be
> something no human can even comprehend.
> 
> Humans tend to overestimate their own ability. It is the same
> regardless of how intelligent one is. A cat cannot comprehend
> the simple concept of "pointing at something with the finger",
> no matter how you try to teach it. (Well, at least I haven't succeeded.)
> Similarly, it stands reason to assume that there may be a similar,
> but even greater gap between the mental capabilities of a human
> and the God. A human cannot be made to comprehend some concepts
> that are trivial to God, without extraordinary measures.
> And if you take omnipotency to the issue -- God could possibly
> do it, but would the human still be a human after that? And what's
> the point? The human only needs to have faith in God. God doesn't
> need the human's approval in his actions.
> 
> 
Perhaps. But the problem with this argument is that I am reasonably sure 
my *cat* can prove I exist, to its, and other cats, satisfaction. 
Arguing that something you can't prove exists at all **might** be 
outside the comprehension of mere humans not only isn't all that useful, 
it invalidates pretty much **any** argument that anything we claim to 
know about it could be accurate either, including what its supposedly 
telling us to do. You can't win the argument with that. All it does is 
place God in the position of being something so fundamentally intangible 
and beyond our understanding that, almost by definition, the atheist 
arguments about the validity of our definitions of God, or what is/isn't 
just/valued/sinful, etc. to one, must be considered more likely than the 
unbelievable premise that you can't comprehend such being, label its 
attributes, or in any other way "define" what it is, does, or wants, but 
at the same time, it somehow "told" us those very things.

I.e., if you can't get your cat to point to thing, why would a God so 
far beyond our comprehension to make the example valid, have any more 
luck getting us to do anything at all? And more to the point, unlike the 
cat, how the heck would we know he/she/it was the one doing so?

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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