John McCarthy: An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the god question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.
I am forced to wonder who has ever been crucified upside-down as St. Peter, persecuted and killed as certain Buddhist monks in Tibet, shot and speared as Chrsitians missionaries so often are, or stereotyped as terrorists as the Muslims are, simply because they believe in werewolves. And I would submit that perhaps this puts the god question on a level that is different: People claim experiences of werewolves, but those experiences don't call them to martyrdom. While the logic of the quotation seems to hold (I could elaborate my argument for that if asked) I wonder which athiest would honestly believe that justification which McCarthy submits.
Now back to figure out what's going on in that Calc problem. It's polar coordinates if you want or care to know.
Goodnight and God bless.
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2 comments:
I googled the word "werewolves" and came up with over 5 million hits. I think they're out there. More seriously, perhaps McCarthy could have done a better job of comparing apples to apples. Most people think of God as good, and almost everyone knows that werewolves are bad. Maybe he should have used God and elves or something like that. It would be interesting to know if he chose God/werewolves purposely for the contrast in character. Maybe he did do it on purpose but not for the contrast. Some people view God as capricious in nature and I guess a case for the same could be made for the werewolves, as they are usually pretty good during the day and only bad at night. Sheesh! I sound like someone I know!
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