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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Tue, 7 Sep 1999 13:59:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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1493 times
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Sproaticus ->
> 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.
Larry ->
> 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)
Jsproat ->
> I'm probably getting in over my head here, as I am not as well-read on this
> subject as I probably should be, but are the Founding Fathers within your web
> of trust? Several of them are reputed to be very religious men. Even if you
> consult their writings for purely political reasons, weren't a lot of their
> decisions affected by their faith? Do you discount the Christian
> (teachings and philosophy, not rumblings of a fanatical horde) aspects of
> their advice?
I'll try a crack at defending Larry's point-- or at least making one of my
own... I think the idea is that science is methodically verifiable. By
employing methods of science, I can come to the same conclusions these other
scientists have. I don't have to believe Watson and Crick's ideas on DNA
structure initially. I can doubt them. But the scientific ideal is that by
performing their same experiments and studies, I can proove to myself that
their findings were correct. The religious references that Sporaticus made
earlier are less proovable. How can I myself witness God? Science offers us the
solution of "If you don't believe it, you can proove it right yourself, or you
have the means to prove it wrong." Religion doesn't have such an easy time with
this. Religion is only proovable in this manner via trust... there is no way
for me to verify Peter's experience of witnessing an act of God myself. You can
argue that we all have experiences of God and that most people choose to ignore
them, or don't see them, but that's still a big problem. Science has a
huge foot up... no-one in the can deny the physical world easily (which is
science's realm); hence, EVERYONE has a common experience that they can't
deny-- the real world. Metaphysical experiences are a whole heck of a lot less
trustworthy (IMHO).
The web of trust is kind of a tough subject though. It might be fair to say
that we take people's words in the scientific community more easily than those
in religious rings, but why? I think it has to do with the conclusions they're
making. If Watson and Crick make a scientific claim about DNA, I choose to
agree with it because I have no means or desire to disagree. And when someone
presents an idea about God, I may not have the means to disagree (other than my
own beliefs or experiences) but I am more likely to have a desire not to
believe it. If someone makes a ridiculous religious claim, people are less
inclined to believe it. Take the theory of evolution... it was deemed
ridiculous for a while-- but when the means became available, it was more or
less proven. People in the scientific community doubted the theory, but because
of the nature of science, they could confirm the theory through experimentation
for themselves. And the semi-reverse is somewhat true (although a lot less
likely)... when religion makes a believable claim, we trust it. Religion says
"killing is wrong"... (is it a RELIGIOUS claim, per se? No, but it is a claim
of some religious nonetheless) and that's not too untrustworthy. Further,
because of the nature of science and that of religion, people are more inclined
to trust scientific claims on faith rather than religious ones. (Ok, maybe not
"faith" but you get the idea... terminology, terminology :) ) Science usually
comes to an agreement. It may be a long, raging debate, but eventually it comes
to a single answer. Religion doesn't. It seems (historically) that in fact more
and more answers present themselves, as opposed to certain beliefs becoming
obsolete. The only real exceptions I can think of are God being physical (this
was made more obsolete (not fully, mind you!) by science) and that of
polythesim (again, not fully obsolete). Hence, people feel that science is more
of a sure bet.
DaveE
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