Pages

▼

Monday, November 13, 2006

Secular credulity

The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.

A man who won’t believe in God will believe in anything.

When a Man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.

—G. K. Chesterton (attributed)

http://www.chesterton.org/qmeister2/any-everything.htm

Of course, "God performed a miracle" is even less plausible than "Space aliens healed Jesus," because we do have credible evidence to believe that there could be space aliens with the means and the motive to heal Jesus: the existence of a spacefaring species is well attested in at least one case: us; the technology to travel through interstellar space and restore life to a corpse is within the realm of known physics (faster-than-light travel would not be necessary for a species that has conquered death); etc.

—Richard Carrier

http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/TheftFAQ.html
at

5 comments:

  1. kletois11/13/2006 9:23 PM

    I think it would be a good idea to bar Mr Carrier from operating heavy machinery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11/13/2006 11:04 PM

    Good call!!!

    That is what I call a RIDICULOUS idea/belief.

    What a nut!!!

    Now, let's talk about the credible evidence for talking plants, snakes, and donkeys. Maybe we could also examine the "true" stories of the Tower of Babel and women that transform into table condiments.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James Brown11/14/2006 1:36 AM

    Well he does make the point that Little Green Men are more believable than Jeabus and the cross...

    ReplyDelete
  4. nsfl11/14/2006 8:33 AM

    A better quote:

    "When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything." -Umberto Eco

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11/14/2006 1:06 PM

    Lol, I almost spit out my drink when I read this post.

    Caught me off guard there :).

    CMA

    ReplyDelete