Usenet debaters who take on God

Usenet is a very grumpy place. Cantankerous people gather there, ready to be irritated at the first sight of a statement that bothers them. I admit to frequently having been among their number. :-)

One thing I observe frequently is the debate about God. Someone makes an offhand remark that reflects his or her status as a believer, and some angry person jumps on them, challenges their theistic assumption, usually demanding Socratic proof that God exists.

Aside from the fact that the idea of God is actually not without some fairly substantive circumstantial evidence (the cosmological origin problem that most cosmologists are honest enough to admit troubles them, the anthropic principle) - we have to be careful not to make an idol of didactic reasoning; it is a useful tool, but not itself a god, or even a fundamental property of the universe. It is an analytical framework necessary to the conduct of good science and philosophy, and little more.

The great theoretician Roger Penrose, in his book that dismantles the concept of AI, "The Emperor's New Mind", posits that we are still largely driven by that flash of insight, the one that says, "That's it!" This is our base cognitive skill, and why computers, which can work out probabilities, will perhaps never be our equal.