From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 2:11 PM
To: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument

I will confine my posting to the philosophical substance of your
article, and so it will necessarily be brief. :-)  I will be happy
to discuss my debating practices, alleged incivility, etc. over
private email. I note for our readers that you have not responded
at all to my two earlier emails rebutting your previous complaints
about my practices.

"Paul Filseth" <pgxf@lsil.com> wrote

> If you stipulate that you aren't claiming your philosophers
> have a good reason to agree with the dictionary definitions, then the
> rest of us are fully justified in putting no weight on their alleged
> agreement.

I stipulate no such thing. I simply note that I've given URLs
for specific philosophical usage of 'supernatural' that my definition
explains, but for which you offer no alternative explanation.

> > I note that the philosophy literature also use terms like
> > "concept", "scientific", "event", "phenomenon", and "true" --
> > all without any evidence that they are invoking any published
> > philosophical justification for their meaningfulness.  Are you
> > claiming that a term used ordinarily and repeatedly in the
> > philosophical literature should be presumed not to be meaningful?
>
> To decline to presume X is not the same thing as presuming NOT X.

If I wanted to claim you presume not-X, I wouldn't ask "do you presume
not-X?".  I'd instead say "you presume not-X".  Let me try again:

A term used ordinarily and repeatedly in the philosophical literature
should be presumed to be meaningful.  Do you disagree?

> I was not talking about the merit of your philosophical position.

If and when you do decide to talk about it, here are two questions:

Do you or do you not think there is any possible definition of
'supernatural' that would render meaningful the discussion of
supernaturality in these articles:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/victor_reppert/miracles.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/thesis/chap1.html

Why would the Christian God Yahweh not meet my definition
(or, alternatively, not be possible to exist)?

--
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net