At 05:12 PM 6/27/03 +0200, Tomasz wrote:
On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 07:41:32AM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
Richard Grevers wrote in part:
You are comparing apples and oranges here... The holocaust is knowable because people actually experienced if first hand. The existence of God is not provable and is based upon belief ('faith'). Anyone who "knows" rather than "believes" that God exists is probably violating the tenets of their professed religion.
I'd wager that there are more people alive today that have directly experienced God first hand than have /ever/ directly experienced the Shoah. I don't pretend to have data to back up that hunch; however, I do know some of the former people personally, and if you like, then I'll ask if it violates their beliefs to claim to /know/ that God exists. I doubt it. Not all faiths are as wishy-washy as (say) liberal Protestantism.
There is exactly 0 people who have experienced any god, while there are still quite a few that survived Shoah, so I don't know how you got your results.
I know at least two people who have experienced gods, and more than two who survived the Shoah. In both cases, I'm basing this on direct personal report.
(One of the two mentioned above is now a serious follower of the gods in question; the other had an idle conversation, enjoyed the garden as the god invited him to, and hasn't changed his life in any way.)