h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Emmy. Between us, we seem to have stirred up the philosophers' guild to unprecedented activity. That has to be good news. You're a legend in your own lunchtime, or something like that.

toxx

Lunchtime? Okay...Thanks for the ever so lovely compliment, though.

I'd better head over to the thread now, as I see I've got posts to catch up on -- it's amazing what being offline for a day will do to you.

EMR

'Lunchtime/lifetime' - it's all the same to me. :) Do you say 'lunch' over there, or is it 'brunch' or something similar? I wonder whether you've yet looked in on us as we get well beyond the 20,000 messages on the 'God' thread: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F55607?thread=192835&post=6065191#p6065191 or wherever we're up to now. I know most folks in the USA are believers of some kind. I like to actually argue about things like the problem of evil, in its modern atheistic form, rather than comment on what others might have said according to your dad. Ooooh, what a giveaway! Well, it's only an educated surmise, since there are three 'Romeos' in the department. Two of 'em seem too young though. Hey, I'm saying nothing if you aren't. toxx

It's lunch, usually. 'Brunch' only comes up if we're having an unusually early lunch, or if we're having breakfast food (like pancakes or bacon) for lunch. I don't think anyone uses the expression aside from my mom and fancy restaurants.

I'm not saying anything. Nothing at all....

God: religion doesn't really enter into my existence. I just don't think about it. I was raised as an atheist, but I don't really think of myself as one, though I don't really think of myself as a religious person either. I tend to tell people I'm an agnostic, but I generally say whatever will best suit whatever argument I happen to be making at the moment. Sometimes I'll say I'm Jewish, since my mother was raised Jewish. It depends. But, yes, I'll go on over and check out the 'God' thread, as long as I don't have to read the whole backlog.

EMR

Hi Emmi. I guess much of the interesting argument on the 'God' thread comes from those who take an extreme line. As you probably know, a 'weak' position is actually easier to defend, while 'strong' claims are easy to defeat by something like a single counterexample. This is one reason why Occam's razor is such a powerful device. It keeps 'strong' claims to a minimum.

This works for some things, but for science we need hypotheses that are strong enough to be testable and potentially falsifiable on the basis of evidence. Whether God should be a topic of science or philosophy or both (is that possible?) interests me. But I'm lecturing, aren't I!

Have fun, toxx.