[net.religion] Logic based on .... Evidence

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (04/23/85)

[note that this article has been posted only to net.religion, since it is
not explicitly about either Christianity or Judaism.]

In article <897@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Dr. Emmanuel Wu) writes:

>> 	Since there is no hard evidence to support the existence of a
>> 	deity or, for that matter, of any so-called "supernatural"
>> 	entity,
>> 
>> Aha. Here is Rich Rosen belief #1. This belief is definitely not shared
>> by most of the people who claim to have religious experiences. They
>> claim that there is a lot of hard evidence that they are having an
>> experience.
>
>Then let's see some of it, Laura.  Saying, as you have, "Look, the metabolic
>reading of her body have changed, that PROVES a supernatural/religious
>experience took place!!"  Your evidence is always either subjective ("I felt
>that this happened, and I'm not willing to examine it in an objective light")
>or presumptive (see above quote).

Well, unfortunately, Rich, the evidence simply doesn't exist in a "nice"
form.  It largely consists of stuff like

   "And a strong east wind blew, and the waters of the sea were parted..."

and 

   "In the beginning,...."

and 

   "And reading this, I looked and saw all the complexity of the world like
flowers on the hill."

(The last is a paraphrase of one of my diaries.)

How do you deal with such evidence?  Simply calling it "subjective" is
trying to pick up the problem by the wrong end, especially in the case of
the last form.  If you chose not to believe the gospel writers, I must ask:
on what grounds?  If you chose to apply a naturalistic interpretation to my
experience, again I must say: on what grounds?  On what basis do you examine
a phenomenon which leaves no appreciable physical traces?

>>  This may not correspond to what you mean by a
>> ``supernatural entity'', though. We can now play ``what does
>> supernatural mean'', but I warn you, there is much greater disagreement
>> here than over ``what does religion mean''.
>
>And we've been through that too.  If supernatural, as the name implies,
>means "beyond the natural", what indeed does that mean?  What things that
>exist are not NATURAL?  Thus supernatural must mean "things that don't
>exist".  In its usage, it tends to mean "those things that are beyond our
>current limits of observation".  Which would have made microorganisms
>supernatural hundreds of years ago.  This is rehash.

Well, since it was wrong the first time, it's still wrong now.  As I
understand it, supernatural is used to mean things that are not in nature.
One could say that nature consists of the manifestations of matter and
energy.  I prefer to consider it as the things for which the notion of
natural law applies, i.e. that which science can examine.  Calling the
supernatural "things which don't exist" is mere orator's rhetoric.

>What is it about my criteria that would make it impossible for me to
>accept your evidence?  Is there something wrong with the criteria?  What
>does it erroneously exclude?  OR is there something wrong with the
>evidence?  

Well, obviously, I don't accept your reasons for rejecting the evidence.
Justify them.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe