BA,
I simply will not respond to an infantile person who talks in terms of "fairies."
Again you miss the point entirely. The
outcome of the argument - god, fairies, whatever - isn't the issue. Rather the point of the analogy is to show that when the
arguments you attempt for god work equally well for fairies then your arguments are probably bad ones.
It's a simple enough point I'd have though so why consistently aim your fire a the wrong target?
Now for all I know you
do have one or more arguments for your god that don’t work just as well for fairies, but what the analogy does is to allow us to dismiss at a stroke the various arguments that you and others attempt (“but that’s my faith”, “there are claims about the object of my belief written in a book”, “anything’s possible/you can’t disprove it”, “my belief gives my life meaning”, “my belief fills the explanatory gap in areas for which I have no better explanation” etc etc) without endlessly having to explain why they’re bad arguments.
So there’s the filter for you – if ever you
do feel like attempting an argument for an objectively true god just run it past the fairy test first and junk it if it fails and bring it to the table if it doesn’t.
Just a warning by the way though – I’ve yet to hear a theological argument for a god that
doesn’t work for fairies, but you never know – you could surprise us yet!
Grow up!
See above.
Anyway, for you and that other guy to suggest that you have imagination in the sense that Einstein was suggesting is both laughable, and absurdly arrogant.
Yes it would be. Fortunately though, neither of us have done any such thing. What we
have done though is to show that you misunderstood Einstein's point - imagination is essential all right, but it's no substitute for verification.
