From: martinharran@gmail.com   
      
   On Sun, 8 Feb 2026 18:51:44 -0600, sticks    
   wrote:   
      
   >On 2/8/2026 5:52 PM, MarkE wrote:   
   >   
   >>> Thank you for keeping it brief.   
   >>>   
   >>> Yet these people keep looking for Holes in Science (easy enough!) where,   
   >>> well, the only answer must be a Divine Intervention. But there's no need   
   >>> for any of that - if you want a Better God (he's certainly a dodgy   
   >>> designer) simply have him create the world just as it is, only a bit ago,   
   >>> say Last Thursday.   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> Is all you have to offer this repetitious get-out-of-jail-free   
   >> avoidance? It's of the same value as the Monopoly card.   
   >   
   >Christian Anfinsen (1916–1995), Professor of Chemistry at Harvard and   
   >winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry:   
   >“I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there   
   >exists an incomprehensible power or force with limitless foresight and   
   >knowledge that started the whole universe going in the first place.”   
      
      
   I struggle to understand the rationale behind atheism; I mean atheism   
   in the strict sense of completely rejecting the existence of any kind   
   of God.[1]   
      
   I don't have an issue with agnosticism, the view that we simply don't   
   have enough evidence to either accept or reject the existence of a   
   God. Whilst I think there is supporting evidence for religious belief,   
   that evidence is far from conclusive. Religious belief, at the end of   
   the day, is a very personal thing; I recently mentioned elsewhere a   
   'Thought for the Day' newsletter I received titled "Faith comes from   
   encounter, not hearsay". On that basis, I have no issue whatsoever   
   with someone saying "Sorry, you haven't convinced me" - that is a   
   perfectly rational conclusion.   
      
   I can't, however, see any rationality in atheism. I have heard various   
   atheists criticising religious believers for thinking that there is   
   something special about humans but it seems to me, that they are the   
   people who are making their own special claims about humans. They are   
   essentially saying that humans are the end of the chain in terms of   
   intelligence or intellectual development; that if we humans cannot   
   physically detect something, then it must not exist. That seems to me   
   an exceptional degree of hubris.   
      
   ========================================   
      
   [1] I realise that there is a continuum between agnosticism and   
   atheism but I don't want to get into semantic arguments about where   
   people might be on that continuum; I'm using "atheist" in the   
   generally understood sense of rejecting the very possibility of God   
   and "agnostic" in the generally understood sense of thinking we simply   
   haven't enough evidence to come to a rational decision (and might not   
   ever able to get enough evidence).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)