Article: "A case for God" by Kevin Dillon (Op-Ed, Nov. 7)
Posted by: Christopher Ray
Post: My eyes glazed over at the notion that science is "merely a perspective," as if science is as much a lens for the world as capitalism or Islam.
"Science" isn't a perspective, nor are its discoveries "corollaries" of science. "Science" is a technique that you use when looking at the real universe as it actually is. "Faith" is the perspective that, well, maybe things are how I want them to be, because that is how I want them to be.
Kevin Dillon is employing the oldest dodge in theism: "You might have facts, but I have faith."
Dissect the word faith. What do you get? You get either "I believe because I believe" or "I believe because I want to." If you believe in spite of the facts or in spite of your reason, then you are either using your imagination, stupid or insane.
If faith is a valid inference for belief, then he's in trouble, because lots of people have "faith" that his god does not exist. For example, Hindus have faith that monotheism is unintelligible and silly.
If we assign even the slightest measure of epistemic weight to faith, then every conclusion of faith is a hopelessly incoherent mess.
Let us be clear: "A case for God" is a total misnomer for this article. A better name would be "A case for Kevin Dillon's faith in Kevin Dillon's version of one of several possible Gods," because that is actually what is going on here.
There is no case for God in this article: there is an impassioned plea to play along with Kevin Dillon's imagination.
Article: "A case for God" by Kevin Dillon (Op-Ed, Nov. 7)
Posted by: Janet Smith
Comment: Theism = belief in god(s). Prefix "a" = lacking, without, not. Therefore, atheism is the lack of belief in god(s). Why is this so difficult for people to understand? I'm disappointed that a student of such a fine university is so lacking in understanding of language.
Article: "A case for God" by Kevin Dillon (Op-Ed, Nov. 7)
Posted by: Richard Sanchez
Comment: Out of curiosity, what makes faith any "stronger" than or "more human" than facts? God and religion all aside, this notion that facts are cold or inhuman in some sense (or, at least, less human than faith) is rather odd.
