Instead of spelling galaxies, how about this one? I changed the name at the end, however.
Suppose . . . that on next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap. Snow swirls; leaves drop from trees; the earth heaves and buckles; buildings topple and towers tumble; the sky is ablaze with an eerie silvery light. Just then, as all the people of the earth look up, the heavens open - the clouds pull apart - revealing an unbelievably immense and radiant Zeus-like figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightening plays across the features of his Michelangeloid face. He then points down - at me! - and exclaims for every man, woman, and child to hear, " I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of theology. Be assured Richard Dawkins, that I do most certainly exist!"
3 comments:
Since Dawkins identifies himself as a 6 ("or 6.9," as I believe he said to Bill Maher) on his own 7-point scale of atheism, I'm guessing that he would reconsider at that point.
Victor: why do you think your God doesn't do something like this? I've asked this question of theists in the past, and usually all I get is a lame assertion that it would violate free will. (It obviously wouldn't; having information doesn't compel us to action -- lots of us choose to drink alcohol, smoke, do recreational drugs, eat fatty foods, etc., even though we know they're bad for us. So I don't see how having really good evidence for God's existence would force people to choose him.)
If you have an argument for why God doesn't do for me what he is supposed to have done for Saul on the road to Damascus, I'd love to hear it.
I wouldn't make any difference whether God did or didn't, it wouldn't get more people to trust in him, it would only make their hatred of him surface.
Anonymous: that's precisely my point! If additional evidence does not compel belief, then we have to ask ourselves why God is satisfied with giving the overwhelming majority of the world's populations the paucity and disputed nature of the "evidence" that we see today, whereas a handful of lucky folks got to meet him in the flesh.
I know it's kind of a child's question, but I've been asking it for 30 years and I still haven't gotten a good answer.
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