za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill) (09/06/86)
In article <5160@decwrl.DEC.COM> arndt@lymph.dec.com writes: >In my posting of the dialogue from the Christian science fiction book, >WHEELS OF HEAVEN I made the point that there is ROOM for God even in >the current 'secular' view of matter. Surely a reasonable position. > Certainly...but there is evidence, circumstantial in your view, but still evidence, that the natural laws are obeyed at all times, but there is NO evidence that any of the laws are subject to exceptions at random (Some of the laws are subject to exceptions, but these are few and far between, like collapsars and such, and certainly not at random, like the book you read postulates...) >[Deleted analogy] > >Gordon Davisson seemed to think I was saying modern chemists didn't know >about QM. Rather the point I was making, and the point of the book, was >that the QM does not NECESSARILY rule out room for God to act in the world. > But again, see above. I would tend to support a position when there is any evidence, even circumstantial (and, sooner or later, you can reduce ANY evidence to circumstantial evidence), to a position where there is NO supporting evidence of ANY KIND. True, half the rules in existance might be in abeyance in some unseen corner of the univers, or one of my pixels might be spelling out "F*CK you" when Im not looking, or whatever, but the evidence is against it, and the most likely conclusion to draw from this is that the rules are absolute, and that my screen is not saying dirty words to me behind my back, because we have no evidence that it does. Tell me, how come you don't think your God is off slaughtering billions of people in some other universe that he just decided "What the hell...so what if these people worship me, I want to kill a few billions..." Its because your evidence indicates that your God does not do these things, isn't it? If your God did these things he would be evil, but your evidence says he is good, and therefore doesn't do these things, right? Same here. We have evidence that the universe behaves in certain logical ways, and very rarely, if ever, it violates them. We accept this evidence because we have no evidence to the contrary, and may therefore assume that this is the correct hypothesis. >Scott McEwan, Hi ole Scott, admits that it is 'impossible to prove that >natural laws really apply everywhere all the time'. I deny, and again it >was a point of the story, that we have a 'staggering amount' of evidence >for 'natural law' GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL IN THE UNIVERSE AND OUR >ABILITY TO EXAMINE IT!! We have an interesting, 'beautiful', well thought >out 'model' of the universe which, every time we look, seems to hold up. >The story merely points out the LIMITATIONS inherent in our ability to >VIEW the universe! There are limitations everywhere, for instance, suppose you are sitting in a locked room with brain probes attached, with a computer feeding you nervous impulses simulating your life, belief in God, etc. as an amusement program in PLY (pointless year) 21911? Disprove that one. You can't, can you? The point of this little statement is to show how futile it is to argue the limits of human reason and consciousness. There is no point arguing the limits of humanity, because YOU ARE WITHIN THESE LIMITS. You are unable to see outside, and DON'T EVEN KNOW there is an outside. No argument using these limits is able to be either proved or disproved, and so there is no point is arguing them. >Scot even allows the possibility of God acting! >You are not far from the Kingdom, Scott! You say, "If the scientific >assumption is wrong, it doesn't matter." Welllll . . . maybe so, maybe so. > What if your knowledge of God is wrong? What if God is an impassionate scientist experimenting with higher forms of life the way we experiment with bacteria? Hmmmmm... >[Deleted] > >Aside from art what about human relationships - that which most people say gives >'meaning' to their lives. For instance, just the other night I was watching >the telly news and they showed a story of a three year old boy who had died of >liver disease. I was struck to tears. There was this beautiful little boy >sitting between his parents who were holding his hands (a close in shot of the >boy's hand in his father's as his father rubbed his thumb over the top of the >little boy's yellowish tiny hand - damm the medium) and reading a story to him. >The little boy had that smile of hope and self knowledge that only a child >seems to have, as with his big eyes he smiled at the camera. THEN they said >he had died! Now if it's all just chemicals, atoms, 'natural laws' to explain >'mind', 'love', 'relationships' and it all 'don't matter' in the long run - well >life is shitty indeed (to quote Monty Python). On what basis does one curse >the darkness or grieve?? The nattering nabobs of naturalism urge us to just >accept it as 'life'. Talk about dumb sheep and loving it! > What is meaning? The meaning my life has is what I give to it. It's not permanent, but then, nothing is. Life is worth living in and of itself, though. There does not have to be meaning. The mere fact that you WANT life to have meaning does not make it have any cosmic, final meaning. If you are wrong, and I am right, and there is no God, life will be (in your opinion) meaningless, despite what you believed when living. I would like to have 10 million dollars, and the world, from my view would be better, but I don't. Your view is merely wish-fulfillment. >And we are assured there is nothing else, all the reports of 'supernatural' >experiences some no doubt which are bogus, notwithstanding. There can BE >no God, not because we have not found him but because on principle we have often >cut the definitions so that there CAN be no God. I have stated the case >that you can't look for God everywhere in several ways. Life, WHAT I AM, >makes no sense WITHOUT an infinite personal God!! And sure enough the Bible >describes people, in their own words, meeting such a God. > This is because many people have always felt insecure without final meaning to their life. This is my view of why there is religion in the world, and of so many types. If there were some basis, I feel most, if not all of the religions would fundamentally be similar, which they are not. Which religion you belong to is largely a matter of which religion is predominant in the land of your birth and education. People have invented religion to give their lives meaning, to assuage their fear of death. >What's wrong with Evolution, without recourse to God creating the world either >all at first or as it went along, is we are left with dust and then NO DUST!! >Life, the world, the Universe is a big 'ho hum', 'so what', or in the words >of the artists who see this, we look at the universe and ask questions and hear >SILENCE!!! Dust then no dust....actually...dust, then conglomerations of dust, then machines made of dust, then highly complex machines made of dust, capable of thought (feedback upon themselves)....this is my view. Scientists attempting to figure out how life started, in reproducing the approximate conditions of the times when life started shot a bolt of lighting through an nitrogen/oxygen/carbon dioxide atmosphere, and guess what they got...thats right...AMINO ACIDS...the building blocks of life...amino acids are what most of your body is made of, excluding the raw elements and water. Add a few amino acids together, and you get various kinds of tropisms, etc...until, finally, after 2+ billion years, you arrive at man... takes a long time, and rather roundabout, but it finally gets there. >[moral argument for God, which suffers same flaws as meaning in > life argument...ie...wish-fulfillment] >Keep chargin' > >Ken Arndt /-----------------------------------------------------------\ | Brian McNeill ARPA : za56@sdcc3.ucsd.edu | | HASA "A" Division UUCP : ...!sdcsvax!sdcc6!sdcc3!za56 | |-----------------------------------------------------------| | Disclaimer: I hereby disclaim all knowledge of opinions, | | expressed or implied, including this disclaimer. | | Flames ---> /dev/null | \-----------------------------------------------------------/