Freightdawg, to say that the whole issue of this thread is avoided by saying "We can't know what he knows, so we can't judge the question" is possibly true, but it's obscurantism, and it denies the applicability of reason to not only this question but to any question regarding religion. I, for one, can't live that way--or at least find it impossible to deal with any question relating to religion if another person in the discussion can flee the field by simply saying "We don't or can't know."

That's exactly why I am forced to be at most an agnostic, at those times when I'm trying to be intellectually responsible. And now and then I lose patience and just say, "Eff it! I don't believe there even is a god!" Which I know is not intellectually supportable, but feels good emotionally, and is just as respectable (or disrespectable) as the person who says, "I don't know, but I feel there is a god."

Dave Oesterreich

Dave Oesterreich