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To: Alamo-Girl
But of course atheists who have created their own hermetically sealed "second reality" to justify themselves cannot see that or anything else outside their self-imposed conceptual boundaries.

Nobody can see beyond this conceptual boundaries - that's what belief is for.

On the radioactive decay, I didn't mention clocks, I mentioned causation.

okay, not a clock, a kind of burning fuse - does this metaphor pleases you more?

Causation is the poison pill to atheism.

And the Copenhagen Interpretation is the poison pill to causation :-)

Indeed atheists can justify almost anything to themselves (we call it "living in a second reality") - but that doesn't make them rational in the larger sense much less in their cosmology.

Laplace said, regarding god: " Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là." And Laplace was quite a rational man. As a roman catholic I believe that god created the universe. As someone who likes science, I think it was done without posting a sign "I DID IT" at the beginning, so that our perception of the universe is - to abuse the phrase - independent of the axiom "there is a god". To quote an atheist - B. Brecht:

The question of whether there is a God
A man asked Mr. K. whether there is a God. Mr. K. said: “I advise you to consider whether, depending on the answer, your behavior would change. If it would not change, then we can drop the question. If it would change, then I can at least be of help to the extent that I can say, you have already decided: you need a God.”

118 posted on 10/25/2006 2:57:31 AM PDT by si tacuissem (.. lurker mansissem)
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To: si tacuissem; betty boop
Thank you so much for your reply!

To respond to your radioactive decay assertion, we'll need to clear up the difference between the terms randomness, unpredictability and pseudorandomness (unpredictability as the effect of a cause.) If you are game, let me know.

LaPlace actually threw a lot of fuel on the Deist (also strong determinist and predestination) fire by declaring God as an unnecessary hypothesis for the advancement of scientific knowledge. Newton did not hold that view - nor was that the intent of Liebnitz' questions "why does it exist" and "why does it exist this way and not some other way."

163 posted on 10/25/2006 12:22:37 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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