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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Sat, 4 Sep 1999 16:01:46 GMT
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LPIENIAZEK@NOVERA.spamcakeCOM
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<37CE848C.90906C8C@voyager.net> <37D027DB.AB97ECF8@io.com>
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Sproaticus wrote:
>
> (This wording took me a day to figure out. If I'm going to have Larry spend
> his time countering what I say, I'd better say something good. ;-)
Flattery will get you anything, big fella. :-)
> The point I was trying to make there was, there are quite a lot of
> experiments which, for lack of resources, you *cannot* verify.
As I said it's not required that I personally verify them. Only that I
could, if I had the resources, and that I buy the web of trust tying me,
what I have personally verified, and what I hold as axioms, to the
experimentors.
> Nuclear
> physics is a *VERY* good example. Arguing against the existance of nuclear
> decay will undoubtably bring conspiracy theories into play. I'm not even
> going to try, though, because I have no reason to doubt the existance of
> nuclear decay. Nor will I argue against microbiology, celestial mechanics,
> quantum mechanics, forsenic pathology, etc. for the same reason. I'll just
> take them on faith, and accept the personal consequences.
That's fine, but I think a web of trust is better than faith as it
requires no leaps.
>
> > > Arg. Lastworditis. My point: science is a form of religion.
> > Bull. Unless you mean it's a form that has hypotheses (how DO you
> > pluralise that?) and theorems that can be verified and that can predict
> > useful things.
>
> Lemme get some semantics out of the way: A religion is a set of beliefs and
> rules which govern and explain the universe, and has great influence over
> your life and the lives of those around you. Faith is *NOT* required for
> religion.
Wheeee-hew. We have a huge chasm here, all semantics. To me, faith is a
defining characteristic of religion (as distinguished from science,
philosophy, world views, and ethics, and yes I realise there is some
blurring). If you don't have to take SOMETHING on faith, it's not a
religion. Just a philosophy or a framework. Science, by my definition of
faith, takes nothing on faith. (my definition excludes taking the
knowledge of your own existance or the actuality of matter as something
taken on faith...)
> I'll repeat that: Faith is *NOT* required for religion.
>
> ...Sidetrack:
>
> I'm often amused by the notion of a faith-o-meter next to God's throne
> which, if it drops below a certain mark, becomes the heavanly equivalent of
> Kryptonite. Baloney.
If there is an omnipotent god, his existence does not depend on
believers. If it did he would not be omnipotent. Now, lesser gods (see,
for example Saberhagen's swords books) maybe.
> There are many places in the scripture where God's existance is proven to an
> individual. That individual's faith diminishes in the face of this
> knowledge. Some examples follow: (Old Testament) Moses, when he spoke with
> God on the mountain (1), received this knowledge. (New Testament) Peter,
> James, and John witnessed the Transfiguration (2) and heard the voice of
> God. In Mormon scripture (Book of Mormon), the brother of Jared directly
> viewed the hand of God (3). In these cases, belief is irrelevant, being
> replaced by knowledge. Conclusion: at least within the realm of
> Judeo-Christian religion, faith is extremely useful, but is not required for
> the definition of religion.
Granted that there are people who testify of personal knowledge. But
they are not tied to my web of trust. The links from me to them are not
verifiable, they're all stale. Further, even with verifiable links,
testifying is insufficient.
The fact that nobel Laureate Crick is a good scientist with knowledge of
biology and chemistry means that I am web-of-trusted to him when he
speaks of DNA and its characteristics, but NOT when he speaks of the
existence of god as being personally revealed to him to his satisfaction
but not in a way that is independently verifiable. (that's an example, I
am unaware of his opinion on the matter, as I am of most people's
opinions unless they bring it up)
> So: Those who exercise the scientific method to the exclusion of any other,
> worship science as their religion. The chants are a lot different (but
> equally boring), and the priests wear slightly more interesting clothing,
> but it's still a religion.
Feel free to feel that way but I believe I have sufficiently
demonstrated why, under my definitions, and in my world view, that is
not the case.
> Another thing which amuses me is the notion that science and religion don't
> mix. I have a great level of respect for the scientific method (don't get
> me wrong, please), and I'm pretty much a God-fearing individual. Actually,
> everything I've seen tends to prove otherwise -- God in fact uses scientific
> principals for the daily terrestrial and celestial chores. Until I see an
> argument which conclusively and without uncertainty proves that God doesn't
> exist (and I've probably seen them all), I see no reason to include the
> teachings of science in religion.
Agreed. The two are completely different. Science is relevant to here
and now, it makes useful predictions in a verifiable way. Religion is
irrelevant to the here and now, except and to the extent that it
influences the behaviours of its adherents, it makes no useful
predictions in and of itself.
One of those behaviours that gets me the most worked up is when religion
crosses over its valid boundaries, for example in trying to prevent the
teaching of evolution, or to require the presentation of creationism as
equally valid.
Creationism has been pretty thorougly discredited as a valid and
verifiable scientific explanation for the origin of species. So it only
has validity as a thing to take on faith. And thus it's not a valid
subject for a science class. The number of people that take a thing on
faith is not relevant to its actual truth or falsehood. It properly
belongs in an epistemology or comparative religion class.
PS - two points on Mormonism. I find it a fascinating sect. Never has
there been such a wide disparity between the writings of a sect (The
book of Mormon is pretty nutty) and the sect itself. Mormons, publicly,
are some of the nicest and hardest working christians out there. Having
food set aside for hard times is not a bad idea, really.
Which leads me to my second point. Were someone to force me to be
christian (a ludicrous thought experiment, but ...) but gave me a choice
of sect, I'd either choose Mormon (for the hard working aspects) or
Methodist (who seem to be the most tolerant).
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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