arndt@lymph.DEC (01/22/85)
Ahhhhhhhhh! Let's see now. Get comfee in my chair here.
A little sip of the grape. (Almond flavor - different, interesting, a
saucy little vintage)
It's late at night, as I sit here bathed in the mystical glow of the
phosphors from the magic eye upon which I write. I've just slipped out
of bed - no mean task with five people in it. We sleep with our children.
It's great. Has it's little drawbacks - I've been tinkled on (but what could
be purer than little girl tinkle?), thrown up on - at least it's warm, and
the other. But there are rewards too. Little kids make great 'hot water
bottles'. And I can very nearly break wind with impunity.
"SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS"
"Emily, is that you?" (me)
"No daddy"
"Yes it is!" (Elissa)
"Quiet!" (Mom)
"Maybe it's Ethan" (Emily)
"Whoever it is, knock it off - cough, cough." (Mom)
"er . . cough, cough" (me)
But I haven't asked you here to talk about my problems, Rich. I'd like to
propose we discuss another problem. You know, the 'GOD' problem. The one
that seems to be such a concern to so many people.
Let's see, it goes like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose/Design implies Intelligence which implies Personality. There.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course you recognize the Telelogical Argument for the existence of God.
The counters have been: 1) not everything has a purpose - but this still
doesn't speak to things that do, 2) nothing has purpose - which I think runs
counter to what we observe and makes it pretty hard to get from work to home
and back again the next day.
Paul in Romans 1:18-20 says: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth
by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world
God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are
without excuse."
Or in the Old Testament, Psalm 19 - "The heavens declare the glory of God,
etc."
Let's set some ground rules. I'm not trying the impossible - to 'Prove' the
existence of God. Can we agree that absolute certainty about anything appears
to be beyond our means? Let's weigh evidence. Make a case. I don't expect to
change your mind, only to hear what you have to say. Which should be interest-
ing because sometimes you DO have some good stuff to say.
Feel free to bring in other sources (quotes?!) if you wish. Like . . .
Lord Russell, etc. Or whatever. But what do you say to someone who
looks at the universe and sees order, design, - the face of God. Now
we're not talking about the Christian God, not yet. Just the concept of
what if . . . .
And please, leave the 'wish it's so' argument behind. I'm not talking about
what some people wish were so or even need, but what IS per the evidence of
the world and logic.
Also, very important. Let's keep to a small topic (in this case the
telelogical argument) and drop it after we have covered everything once or
twice at most. "He said, I said, He said, quickly gets boring not to mention
unreadable. And oh yes. You can have the last word.
Erase your first reply and leave the rubber chicken untouched. I will too.
En garde!
Will I regret this in the morning?????
Regards,
Ken Arndtbch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) (01/25/85)
In article <decwrl.286> arndt@lymph.DEC writes: >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Purpose/Design implies Intelligence which implies Personality. There. >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Of course you recognize the Telelogical Argument for the existence of God. >The counters have been: 1) not everything has a purpose - but this still >doesn't speak to things that do, 2) nothing has purpose - which I think runs >counter to what we observe and makes it pretty hard to get from work to home >and back again the next day. Let's give another counter, which is my re-interpretation of what I think Rich is saying: "purpose" is a quality which is often in the mind of the beholder and often *only* in the mind of the beholder. One must be careful to try to determine whether one is imputing purpose and organization to a pattern which may or may not exist. The human brain is a fairly powerful organizing device -- often imputing organization and causality to unconnected events. There is a simple experiment which I stumbled on inadvertantly in my formative years which demonstrates this very well. (1) Take a string of independently flashing Christmas-tree lights and install them using a screw-in socket in a light fixture with a translu- cent bowl around it. The objective is to get the flashing colors without seeing the individual lights. (2) Turn it on -- you get a nice display of apparently randomly flashing colors. (In truth, the flash rate for any given light is probably dependent on the color of the light and the impedence of the bulb, but this is not relevant at the moment.) (3) Put some music on the radio or on your stereo. (4) Note how the lights appear to flash in time with the music. (Extremely suggestible people will also see various colors reflecting the frequency of the sound.) Now, while there is no connection between the music and the light the brain takes the rhythmic organization of the music and uses it to interpret the apparently random light flashes -- imputing a pattern to the lights that just isn't there. Similarly, given a philosophical predisposition to an organizing principle (admittedly whether scientific or religious) one is habituated to interpretation of events or phenomenon within that organization. Simply, if you are human you can't help but do it. That's the way the machinery works. You can, however, be aware of it. In fact, the commitment to truth (if such exists) demands that you be aware of it and consider that your beliefs may in fact be unwitting artifacts of the mind's demand for organization. -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (01/28/85)
Even if the perceived pattern is real (& can be shown to be), this doesn't necessarily imply Purpose, or any particular purpose (it's much easier to describe than to explain via ideas of cause or function; yet a cause or function is not the same as a purpose, which is more). For example, how you get "purpose" out of big-bang cosmology? The words "design" & "purpose" themselves tend to have the idea of "intelligence" packed into them. If computers can one day be said to possess intelligence, then does intelligence imply personality? What do animal brains do? Probably not all of them possess "intelligence", i.e, human cog- nitive processes, in anything like the sense we mean it, yet it's not implausible to say that these animals have "personality". In short, the connections in the chain "design/purpose->intelligence-> personality" are assumptions, particular philosophical beliefs, and not logical or self-evident links. Ron Rizzo