[net.religion] Experience vs. evidence

rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Fred Mertz) (02/01/85)

> To quote from your Jan 9 reply; "I was merely pointing out the fallacy of 
> taking a scientist as an authority on matters of religion. (I presume you mean
> Eccles)  Actually science itself should not be based on authority, but on
> DEMONSTRABLE, VERIFIABLE FACTS (italics mine).  Religious authority, it would
> seem, should be based on claims of religious experience, . . . "
> Well now.  This is a common notion, entirely false, of many people on the net.
> All knowledge is based upon 'fact', experience, authority.  We resort to 
> evidence to find out if, "its a bird, it's a plane, it's . . . ."
> 
> What's wrong with saying 'scientific' authority should be based upon claims of
> scientific experience'?  Is it not?  Is 'experience' somehow a 'lower' path
> to knowledge?  How do you know ANYTHING except through experience?  Of the 
> world I mean.  Math or 'pure' logic might be said to be done without reference
> to the world outside one's head.  But even math IS based upon ASSUMPTIONS!!!
> [KEN ARNDT]

What are those assumptions?  For the most part they are definitional
assumptions.  The natural numbers of those numbers used to count whole
discrete objects.  (I think that's both positive and negative, but I don't
recall.)  The rational numbers are all the natural numbers (pos and neg) plus
any other numbers lying between discrete natural numbers obtainable through
division of natural numbers.  Irrational numbers are those numbers that fall
inbetween natural numbers that CANNOT be obtained in this fashion.  And so
on.  Are the assumptions of religious believers definitions?  Or are they
assumed to be true "facts" to be taken for granted based, not on
evidence, but rather on wishful thinking as to what one would like to believe?

What's wrong with experience?  Experience alone is not a judgable criterion.
Through what process was the experience obtained?  Through serious inquiry and
analysis (of EVIDENCE???) or through presumptuous wishful thinking (perhaps
combined with some more rational elements to somehow "justify" the thinking)?

> In the first place just what IS a DEMONSTRABLE, VERIFIABLE FACT?  Is not the
> belief in such a thing a matter of 'faith' no less than Christian religious
> claims?

Much less.  The "fact" remains, that even the most devout religious believers
hold to the very same tenets of world view and observational analysis.  At
least the ones on the net do, or else they wouldn't be using devices built
by the process of scientific endeavor.  Yet in cases of religion, a special
case is made regarding what can and cannot be used to analyze "demonstrable,
verifiable fact".  The only reason I can see for their doing this is because
the beliefs themselves would fall apart in the face of serious analysis, and
they do WANT to hold those beliefs, so they ignore serious analysis, make
exceptions in the case of religion, etc.

>         Paul also says that if Christ has NOT risen (an actual event!) then
> let's close up shop and go home.

Not right now, it's snowing here.  Wait until the roads clear. :-)  Because
"Paul says"...  We're right back where we started, regarding Paul's
"experience".  Aren't we?

> Again and again we see a false dichotomy drawn between science and religion
> as if one were based on 'fact' and the other on 'faith'.
> This is a wrong definition of both 'fact' and 'faith'!!!

By *your* assertion?  Or by reasoned analysis?

NOTE:  All those wishing to use the above line to retort to all things Arndt
says (it is almost always appropriate) may feel free to do so.  It is
available in supermarkets in the GENERIC aisle:  "Generic answer to Ken
Arndt - 1 oz."  :-)

> Science doesn't hang in mid air.  It is grounded on certain assumptions.
> Just because something happend so many times in a row doesn't prove a 'law'.
> A 'law' is a construct of the mind.  A working idea.  You'd have to observe
> the 'happening' EVERY possible time to say absolutly it's a law.

Such laws aren't "proven".  They are codified observations about reality.  More
importantly, the only thing that disproves such a law is an example in which
it is clearly not obeyed.  Clearly, in the sense of "based on serious
objective analysis" and not string-pulling or observational manipulation.
Or wishful thinking.

> It's the brain the source only if you start from the ASSUMPTION that reality
> is only made up of the material universe.  A big, big assumption!

EITHER DEFINE WHAT YOU MEAN BY "NON-MATERIAL" OR "NON-PHYSICAL" OR
"SUPERNATURAL" OR DON'T BOTHER CONTINUING THIS VACUOUS LINE OF REASONING!!!!!
Is non-material "beyond that which we can observe"?  If so, is that nothing
but an arbitrary (anthropocentric) boundary that changes with time?  (Were
microorganisms "non-material" before the invention of the microscope???)
Or is "non-material" defined as "beyond that which we can EVER observe"?
I might ask how you know where such a boundary would be, or THAT such a
boundary does indeed exist!!!  Finally, is "material" or "physical" simply
"that which is"?  And doesn't that mean that "outside of the material
universe" is a meaningless concept!!!!!?  Religionists refuse to answer these
questions (repeatedly so) because to do so would require a total dismantling
of their belief structure, no?
-- 
"Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end."
						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr