Enlightened Skeptic

Oh, I like this forum already! I see that I have to be more exact in my writing than I normally am when talking with the "common" person. Depending on what you are referencing with this statement, you are fully correct. If you are refering to religion or a proof for God as not serious adult discussions, then you understood my analogy correctly. I was comparing children to adult Christians, and Santa Clause to God. I should have wrote "To the child, Santa Clause exists, but to most, Santa Clause as a physical entity that lives at the North Pole and visits all the children in the world once every year, does not exist." Which when said about Chistianity can be read, "To the Christian, God exists, but to most rational individuals, God as an entity that watches over all, is omnipotent, and offers heaven to all that believe in him, does not exist." Or something like that. Is that what you were refering to? Or were you saying that your overly semantic analysis is not for adult discussions? Or were you saying that for me to use the analogy of Santa Clause was not a topic for adult conversations? I know it was sarcasm, but not sure what the focus of the sarcasm was... LOL

(I am new here, and not sure if I am permitted to quote non-Rand philosophers, but here it is.) Sadly, a high percentage of individuals do not see any error in these proofs. The problem is that the proofs are based on faith and to use logical reasoning to prove faith will never be valid. All of the proofs could be valid if the conclusions were not "Therefore, God exists," but instead were "Therefore, God exists to me." It would not make the proofs true to anyone else except the presenter of the argument. A child will say "Santa Clause exists" and may use some of the same arguments shown for the existence of God. To the child, Santa Clause exists, but to most, Santa Clause, as a physical entity in itself, does not exist. I think Bertrand Russell says it best: Thus, false belief or dogmatic belief in anything is not what one ought to do. Even if that Dogmatic belief is in something you "know" to be true, such as Objectivism. To continuously question your beliefs will make those beliefs stronger, if they are a probable truth, or they will be proven to be merely myths as to how the world is. I am not saying that Objectivism is false, I believe many of the arguments and concepts for Objectivism. But I do not believe that all of them are certain. I go with a Hegelian look at all thesis', in search of the truth. I realize I am getting into other topics which ought to probably be topics of their own. I will write an introduction and start a topic on skepticism, so that I can more fully understand Rand's Objectivism.