[RJT]

In the movie <u>Absence of Malice</u>, Paul Newman plays a liquor distributor with a shady past. Sally Field portrays a newspaper reporter covering a murder investigation. In her investigation she comes upon “evidence” that suggests that Newman’s character was involved in the crime. (He was not involved.)

At one point Newman asks Field, “What do you think you know?”

I can’t help but think of this line when I read things like:

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4. Those who look at the things that science has only recently explained. Things that previously seemed so astonishing that a God, as farfetched as the idea is, was a more likely explanation than anything else. And upon looking at those recent explanations come to the conclusion that it is now much more reasonable to expect that still unexplained phenomenon will also eventually be explained by science rather than the God of the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not suggesting the #4 atheist feels that he knows anything. I am wondering, though, why this atheist feels he knows more than he would have known had he lived x number of years ago?

It seems to me that we know only more intricate details of how things work than we did years ago. I do not see ruling out God (or making Him more viable) as more logical today than it was yesteryear. (Certainly, some of the nuances of some beliefs have to be reviewed and either re- interpreted or ruled out.)

The last part of #4 is where I see men of science making their “error”:

[ QUOTE ]
…that it is now much more reasonable to expect that still unexplained phenomenon will also eventually be explained by science rather than the God of the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, things will be “explained by science”. But, I find nothing to justify “rather than …God” should be assumed. The scenario can just as well be explained by science yet still include God. The probability of God is the same today as it was years ago.

So I ask the (can be rhetorical) question: What do you (the #4 atheist) think you know?

RJT