Subject:
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Re: God and the Devil and forgiveness (was Re: POV-RAY orange color)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 2 Sep 1999 03:01:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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1699 times
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On Thu, 2 Sep 1999 01:13:31 GMT, Christopher Weeks <clweeks@eclipse.net> wrote:
> Sproaticus wrote:
> > Yes, but you still have to take quite a lot on faith. Barring *personal*
> > experimentation, how do you know that:
> Faith in God is untestable
> and thus not really subject to review or verification.
Yah, well, that depends on who you talk to.
> That is, unless
> you suggest that those 'scientific ideas,' for instance
> > ...chromosomes carry the stuff that tells your body how to build itself?
> are part of some large world-wide conspiracy. I doubt it.
But you can't discount it. Conspiracies do happen. But I don't think it
would help my case if I were to argue this one! :-,
> > We accept various scientific models which work well with these phenomena.
> > Few people, if any, have personally scientifically concluded all answers.
> So? Everyone who believe in science as an appropriate paradigm for the
> search theoretically plays by the rules and just as you can trust my
> findings, I can trust yours. I don't have to personally conclude _everything_.
This is a mistake. You have no real reason to trust my word except that
I've told you that you can. Unless you'd take it on faith...
Waitaminute. So what you're saying, then, is that people you've never met
can be trusted in the realm of science, while people you've probably met
before in the realm of religion cannot? I have two words to say to that:
cold fusion.
> > Ergo, few people, if any, are true scientists.
> It sounds as if you are saying that 'true scientists' have concluded all
> answers. I'll assume unless you correct me that you mean something
> else. A true scientist is one who uses TSM to search for truth. Right?
I'll accept that as a definition, with the understanding that the scientific
method is flawed by its dependence upon an honest community.
> > Science is okay for explaining "how", but really crappy at they "why" part.
> [...]
> I think we're just not very mature WRT to psychology. Give it fifty years.
Wow, we're optimistic today! :-,
Psychology has been little better than reading tea leaves since day one.
Current psychology theory is based upon the ramblings of a cocaine-addicted
fraud whose main objective was to make a splash in Austrian society. I'm
willing to give it fifty years to see if it improves, but I'm not holding
my breath.
> > > > What's wrong with answering, then, "Because God did
> > > > this" or "Because God allowed this"?
> > > As I see it, accepting a question as unanswerable causes you to not try
> > > to answer it.
> > Erm, so you stop in your quest when you get an answer? What happened to
> > trying to disprove it?
> I totally miss what you mean. I'm saying that attributing phenomenon X
> to God's will (defined as un-understandable) leads us away from trying
> to explain X. I think that's bad.
Ah. Sorry, my mistake. I'm going from the assumption that is is eventually
possible for one to understand God, in fact, to become like God. Attributing
a phenomenon to God would be little more than putting its explanation on the
back burner, in effect, allowing more time to be dedicated to more important
affairs.
> > > We should try to answer everything. Accumulation
> > > of knowledge is all that differentiates us from the other animals and to
> > > reject that is to embrace being other (some would say less) than human.
> > This argument holds no water.
> OK, let's take it step by step:
> > By this definition of human, we're all living
> > (and blood-related to) large communities of organisms, some of whom are
> > human and some of whom are animal.
> OK, to the best of my knowledge, we are all living. Right? And we are
> all related to (not sure what you mean blood-related) lots of critters
> (probably everything that we count as life), human and otherwise. Right?
"Blood-related" meaning by immediate family. I am human, I am related to
my brother, therefore my brother is human. By the argument you've posited
(I'm not sure whether you subscribe to it, but anyway), I could have
a sociopathic homocidal Nintendo addict, who idles away every breathing
moment viewing naked goats on the Internet, in my family -- your basic no-good
"animal" -- even though I am human. We share genetic code in the closest
sense, but we're separate species. Hmmm... Not a valid argument.
> > My autistic brother looks like me, eats
> > like me, and speaks like me, and I can personally vouch that he's human.
> Personally? Do you mean genetically human. I would expect that's true
> too :-)
:-D
> > and profession, he's no great accumulator of knowledge.
> Right, some humans are broken such that some of their essential humanity
> are lost. It's a shame, but doesn't effect my claim as far as I can see.
Broken humanity. What a sad view. I guess this goes back to Todd's original
question...
> > So, by that definition, he is an animal and I am a human.
> No, you're both animals. In addition, you're both physically human.
> But this brother (real or not - I'm guessing real) is missing something
> important and makes his behavior less human and more alien of some kind.
Hmmmm... By "alien", I'm assuming that you mean some element of strangeness
which can't be reconciled with a human sensability. If so, then you're
pretty far from the mark. If anything, it brings out *more* humanity through
his emotions -- joy and sadness, triumph and discovery, etc. -- which I
haven't witnessed in any animal.
> > > We will answer what was there before the BB, just like we answered "why
> > > do bird wings allow flight?"
> > BTW, the bird flight answer is by no means flawless. We've been alternating
> Right, I could have picked something else, the point is still valid.
So is mine. With any real scientific discovery comes the possibility that it
will eventually be disproven.
Arg. Lastworditis. My point: science is a form of religion.
Cheers,
- jsproat
--
jsproat@io.com ~~~ http://www.io.com/~jsproat/
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