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To: betty boop
So do you want to qualify evidence such that we might have an argument precisely about this matter???

Since my intellectual fulfillment is something only I can directly perceive, it seems I have an unfair advantage over you. I can proclaim myself fulfilled, and you'd have a hard time contradicting me. After all, if you said you were hungry, I'd be at a simillar disadvantage to prove you un-hungry.

I guess one could look at a representative sample of atheists, to see if they're showing behavior that would indicate intellectual unfulfillment. It brings to mind Weinberg's observation that most scientists care so little about religion, they don't even bother to call themselves atheists. That does not seem to indicate a yawning pit of intellectual angst. In contrast, I know many people who've drifted from religion to sect to denomination, out of dissatisfaction with each successive one.

What Dawkins meant, I think, was the evolution gives one a credible explanation for most of the world as we observe it. It gives us the 'how'. 'How?' is almost always a good question. Many people are looking for an answer to 'why?'; most atheists, I think, think the 'why' is meaningful only if there is a volition; and if you deny a deity, then there is no volition to puzzle about.

Likewise good to hear from you.

1,788 posted on 05/29/2005 7:04:52 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Alamo-Girl

Ping to the immediately preceding post. (Sorry! read your request after I replied to BB)


1,789 posted on 05/29/2005 7:06:43 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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