From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2001 9:36 AM To: Brian Holtz Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument "Paul Filseth" wrote: > > > > > I don't have a definition of "deity" > > > > > to work with that's capable of partitioning the set of possible > > > > > beings into deities and nondeities. > > > > > > are you saying that > > millenia of philosophical debate has been about a concept > > (deity) that is too ill-defined (and undefinable?) to justify > > taking a position? > > No doubt somebody, somewhere, has proposed a well-defined deity > concept. OK, so you've just never personally seen such a definition. What is the best one you've seen? Are all the ones you've seen equally "mush"? By the way, do you have a definition of "chair" that's "capable of partitioning the set of possible beings" into chairs and non-chairs? > > refute "millenia of philosophical debate" by people you don't name? William Lane Craig. Quentin Smith. Alvin Platinga. Richard Swinburne. David Hume. Immanuel Kant. Thomas Acquinas. > My position is simple. I believe, deny or say "insufficient data" > about _propositions_. I do not believe mush. I do not deny mush. So when you read philosophy journal papers on "the existence of god" like those at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html, what do you think they are debating? Do you think they are debating "mush"? If not, what definition(s) do you suppose they are implicitly using? -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net