Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
But if a theist claims to believe in a god who speaks to everybody, and I haven't been spoken to by such a being - doesn't that mean they are just wrong?
Although proving it to them on the basis of anecdotal truth is awkward, they are still wrong in what they claim.
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Possibilities include:
1) You have been spoken to, and weren't paying attention (this is the most common Christian claim; it fits their "god as parent" metaphor),
2) You have been spoken to, and don't have the capacity to perceive the speech (this is what a lot of polytheists believe--deities are everywhere, talking to everyone; not everyone is able to hear them; while most of us don't believe in omnipotent deities, we do tend to believe they can make themselves known to the people they're interested in),
3) You have not been spoken to because terrazoid's god has no interest in contacting you personally, but does speak to terrazoid,
4) Terrazoid's deity does not exist and therefore is not speaking to anyone.
None of these are provable or disprovable in this setting. It is *possible* that 1, 2, or 3 might be provable, on an individual level, by a series of tests that would be so customized as to be useless to draw general conclusions from them. 4 is neither provable nor disprovable and its only purpose as a claim is antagonism. Which is, IMHO, often justifiable; the claim "god loves everyone and therefore has created a hell to punish the people who don't believe the way I claim they're supposed to" is just as pointlessly antagonistic.