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" 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