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Letters
Letters to the Editor
Meaning and Proof • Immortal Lines • Religious Belief and Santa Claus • Immortal Oaks? • Chappell Not Dotty • Scepticism about Scepticism • Containerisation • Guilt and Nostalgia
Meaning and Proof
Dear Editor,
Anthony Thorpe’s review of Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion tells us that for me “any discussion of the existence of God is meaningless because religious people never make it suitably clear what could count as proof for God’s existence or, more crucially … what would count as proof for non-existence of an Ultimate Being” (PN Issue 8).
The truth, however, is that my Note on ‘Theology and Falsification’, to which Brian Davies was obviously referring, makes no claim that theological assertions are meaningless. My aim was indeed precisely not to echo such Vienna Circle dogmatism but instead to challenge believers to begin to make clear what they do mean by answering “the simple central questions, ‘What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?’”
Because that Note on ‘Theology and Falsification’ has to my certain knowledge been reprinted over 30 times since its first publication in 1950 Brian Davies cannot reasonably excuse his misrepresentation by claiming that its text is so inaccessible that he had to rely on some secondhand account of its contents.
Yours faithfully,
Professor Antony Flew
Reading
Immortal Lines
Dear Sir,
I hope you will allow me space to express my gratitude to the several readers who wrote in to the Editor assuring him that Les Reid, contrary to all appearances and his own convictions, is indeed immortal. And to think that one article in Philosophy Now was all it took! Still, a few million years will certainly come in handy for sorting out all the subsequent correspondence.
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