More Godless Stuff

A few other highlights from today's CotG(dirty or clean; the dirty version is much more interesting; if nothing else, I didn't know that book covers like that even existed! `/^ ) :

A very nearly Epicurean Rant.

A question of Beliefs vs. Lifestyles. Also a question of how many people actually live as if they believe in a hell for nonbelievers.

A look at biases and perception. Actually, I can answer part of the dilemma. One party is trying to establish plausibility, and then claim that's sufficient as proof; the other is looking for hard evidence and not finding any. People who care about hard evidence will find the latter more convincing; people who only want vindication of something they already believe to be true will have no quibbles with the former, and not understand why anyone would even care about hard evidence. As for me, I think that if you're going to take the track of finding a "rational reason to believe," you'd better have some hard evidence. The "plausibility" track is actually the opposite of finding a "rational reason to believe": it's finding a "rational reason not to stop believing". That is, apologetics will never convince a non-believer of a gods-bedamned thing. The purpose of it seems to be to keep believers who have noticed some of the discrepancies from jumping ship.