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What arrogance! What circular logic tripe. To prove a god, you say just look around and see all of a god’s works? We don’t deserve a miracle for proof because his greatness is evident? How do I know that the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn’t do that? (His most holy Noodleness – Pesto be upon you.) Maybe it was aliens? Or (per Douglas Adams) two white mice? Maybe, just maybe, Earth evolved over billions of years and by blind chance life starting forming because the conditions were just perfect for it to happen – but it took billions of years. Maybe, just maybe, what formed on Earth isn’t overly common throughout the universe because it requires some blind luck. Maybe, there are only a few thousand planets like us randomly scattered through the universes. Looking around me for some supernatural theory isn’t convincing – it just convinces gullible boobs like Bacon.
You know, upon my first reading of today’s quote, I thought Bacon was saying that “his ordinary works convince it [of his non-existence].” A modern atheist might say something similar in the same wording, to be pithy.
But upon a second look, TH is right. Bacon’s not trying to be pithy, he’s just applying circular logic like a fool. Which is a shame, coming from the same guy who wrote:
Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men’s efforts than good by their own.
I know I’m two days too late for this, but what I get out of this is that it’s ironic that God only sends “miracles” to convince people who already believe. If “convincing people” were His goal, then miracles would be performed for the benefit of non-believers. God is wasting his efforts on people who need no convincing to begin with. Atheists, on the other hand, are “convinced” of the ordinariness of the universe, by its ordinary functions.
I have no idea what Francis Bacon actually meant by his quote, or what he actually believed. This was just my take.
February 8th, 2013 at 15:52
What arrogance! What circular logic tripe. To prove a god, you say just look around and see all of a god’s works? We don’t deserve a miracle for proof because his greatness is evident? How do I know that the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn’t do that? (His most holy Noodleness – Pesto be upon you.) Maybe it was aliens? Or (per Douglas Adams) two white mice? Maybe, just maybe, Earth evolved over billions of years and by blind chance life starting forming because the conditions were just perfect for it to happen – but it took billions of years. Maybe, just maybe, what formed on Earth isn’t overly common throughout the universe because it requires some blind luck. Maybe, there are only a few thousand planets like us randomly scattered through the universes. Looking around me for some supernatural theory isn’t convincing – it just convinces gullible boobs like Bacon.
February 8th, 2013 at 20:28
You know, upon my first reading of today’s quote, I thought Bacon was saying that “his ordinary works convince it [of his non-existence].” A modern atheist might say something similar in the same wording, to be pithy.
But upon a second look, TH is right. Bacon’s not trying to be pithy, he’s just applying circular logic like a fool. Which is a shame, coming from the same guy who wrote:
Ironic.
February 8th, 2013 at 22:07
This is all way above my pay grade.
February 11th, 2013 at 4:30
I know I’m two days too late for this, but what I get out of this is that it’s ironic that God only sends “miracles” to convince people who already believe. If “convincing people” were His goal, then miracles would be performed for the benefit of non-believers. God is wasting his efforts on people who need no convincing to begin with. Atheists, on the other hand, are “convinced” of the ordinariness of the universe, by its ordinary functions.
I have no idea what Francis Bacon actually meant by his quote, or what he actually believed. This was just my take.