rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (12/08/84)
>From an article in net.flame: > I have problems with theories which remove > personal responsibility from the system, and this is precisely the effect > of equating neurosis with "any physical disorder". [WINGATE] >From another article in net.religion: >>Unfortunately, Larry's (and others') "understanding" of justice is nothing >>more than wishful thinking that there IS a god who administers justice. If >>one wants the universe to be just, one has to work to make it so. Instead >>of just believing that there's something else that takes care of it for you. >> [ROSEN] > Rich, I think you completely missed the point - twice. This deals with > *final* judgment, not the day-to-day justice which we administer here. > [BICKFORD] Do I need to re-enter my incldued paragraph again? The same statements still hold. Wishful thinking that the universe has a deity which administers day-to-day and/or "final" justice, and which enforces rules of personal responsibility, SOLELY BECAUSE YOU *WANT* THE UNIVERSE TO BE THAT WAY (apparently you have "problems" with it NOT being that way) *does* *not* *make* *it* *so*. I just got a letter from someone thanking me for my articles on Lewis. Apparently some others who have been better exposed to him feel the same way I do: that his theses/hypotheses are full of empty wishful thinking. Assume his conclusions about the way the universe MUST be (it MUST have meaning, life must have meaning, there must be universal justice and personal responsibility and free will and ...), and, of course, his own "conclusions" are obvious. (The person who wrote the letter, who doesn't quite feel like getting into the publication business in net.religion, called Lewis' notion "Conservation of Meaning": humans cannot spontaneously create meaning out of a vacuum, there must be some ultimate meaning. Given the diversity of meanings that humans create and apply to everything, the number growing by the second, I'd say that this notion of "Conservation of Meaning" is, as this person suggests, meaningless.) (A "P.S" to the letter-writer: Thanks. I'm not mentioning your name because I know how you feel about "tons of hate mail". Actually, there's very little hate mail that results from such things, but there's plenty of mail to go through nonetheless.) -- "Be seeing you..." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (12/10/84)
In article <319@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >Unfortunately, Larry's (and others') "understanding" of justice is nothing >more than wishful thinking that there IS a god who administers justice. If >one wants the universe to be just, one has to work to make it so. Instead >of just believing that there's something else that takes care of it for you. >Wishful thinking that the universe has a deity which administers >day-to-day and/or "final" justice, and which enforces rules of personal >responsibility, SOLELY BECAUSE YOU *WANT* THE UNIVERSE TO BE THAT WAY >(apparently you have "problems" with it NOT being that way) *does* *not* >*make* *it* *so*. Wishful thinking is a two-edged sword, Rich; denying a God who is the embodiment of love and justice and resposibility, SOLELY BECAUSE YOU *WANT* THE UNIVERSE TO BE THAT WAY (and you clearly have problems with it NOT being that way) *does* *not* *make* *it* *so*. For your information, Rich, I do not believe that the universe is just. Both Judaism and Christianity agree: the world is not just. Maybe you've lapsed into some sort of pantheism, but we do not equate God with the universe; neither is God in the universe, any more than the programmer is in his program or the musician is in his music. Frankly, Rich, this is getting very tiresome. It would save us many megabytes of needless output if you would go and find something out about Christian and Jewish positions on these issues before you start making pronouncements about our beliefs. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (12/11/84)
Thanks to Rich Rosen and Mike Huybensz for their thorough debunking of the absurd rationalizations of C. S. Lewis. I have not read "Miracles", but after wasting my time on that incredibly flimsy piece of trash, "Mere Christianity", the most rationalization I have ever seen together in one place, I have no intention of wasting my time on further works by the man. His are arguments so weak that no one could possibly go along with them unless there were some emotional attachment to the conclusion. I was really stunned when I read the book, because so many people had recommended it that I figured it would at least have a few good arguments. No deal. -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!" "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (12/11/84)
>>Wishful thinking that the universe has a deity which administers >>day-to-day and/or "final" justice, and which enforces rules of personal >>responsibility, SOLELY BECAUSE YOU *WANT* THE UNIVERSE TO BE THAT WAY >>(apparently you have "problems" with it NOT being that way) *does* *not* >>*make* *it* *so*. [ROSEN] > Wishful thinking is a two-edged sword, Rich; denying a God who is the > embodiment of love and justice and resposibility, SOLELY BECAUSE YOU *WANT* > THE UNIVERSE TO BE THAT WAY (and you clearly have problems with it NOT being > that way) *does* *not* *make* *it* *so*. [WINGATE] Oh. Since being unbiased means being effectively biased against propositions that have no substantive merit in favor of those with unambiguous backing, denying Wingate's belief in a god is tantamount to wishful thinking. Thus, not believing *anything* that *anyone* says/believes is WISHFUL THINKING. "Denying a god"? Or simply not believing one to exist based on the (lack of) evidence, and not intending to until such evidence is presented? Denying something that someone else simply believes to exist is NOT wishful thinking at all; in fact, it's very much wishful thinking to believe that it IS. > For your information, Rich, I do not believe that the universe is just. Both > Judaism and Christianity agree: the world is not just. Maybe you've lapsed > into some sort of pantheism, but we do not equate God with the universe; > neither is God in the universe, any more than the programmer is in his > program or the musician is in his music. Frankly, Rich, this is getting very > tiresome. It would save us many megabytes of needless output if you would go > and find something out about Christian and Jewish positions on these issues > before you start making pronouncements about our beliefs. I've asked before what Charlie's definition of "universe" and "natural" would be, so that we can understand what "outside the universe" and "supernatural" would mean. He has consistently been silent. With that in mind, I take his statements about god being outside the universe to be poppycock: if the universe consists of al that exists, then if god is outside of the universe, he doesn't exist. If he exists, he's inside the universe by definition. However, if he defines universe to mean "that which is perceivable to humans", he loses again, because such a demarcation is purely arbitrary, and changes with human scientific endeavor (remember the microscope?). The use of the justice belief referred to both justice in "this world" ("See? *He* got what was coming to him! It proves there is a god!") and "ultimate justice" (which I assume Charlie has no problem with). Other wishful thinking examples such as universal unconditional love, absolute good/evil, externally derived responsibility, are also included in the wishful thinking repertoire. (Frankly, I find Charlie's sudden interest in saying "some of my best friends hold Jewish positions on these issues" to be rather tasteless and obvious.) -- "Oh, crumbs!" Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (12/14/84)
[] From Rich Rosen (pyuxd!rlr): > I've asked before what Charlie's definition of "universe" and "natural" would > be, so that we can understand what "outside the universe" and "supernatural" > would mean. He has consistently been silent. With that in mind, I take his > statements about god being outside the universe to be poppycock: if the > universe consists of al that exists, then if god is outside of the universe, > he doesn't exist. If he exists, he's inside the universe by definition. > However, if he defines universe to mean "that which is perceivable to humans", > he loses again, because such a demarcation is purely arbitrary, and changes > with human scientific endeavor (remember the microscope?). I believe I remember Charlie defining "supernatural" at least once. But I know Rich mentioned that news to his site has been irregular, so I guess he missed it. Maybe mine will have better luck. I agree with Rich's objections to the two definitions of "supernatural" that he offers, but I don't think he's exhausted the list of reasonable definitions. Let's try this one: "supernatural" events are events which obey no known or unknown physical laws, but instead occur at the Will of Something which can abridge the (otherwise accurate) physical laws which describe physical reality. I don't see Rich's objections applying to this definition. If we grant that this Will is part of the universe by definition, it would also follow that the behavior of the universe as a whole (i.e., the known, physical universe + the Will) is not governed by law at all, but by that Something else. Only a subset of the universe, namely the physical reality we observe, is governed by law, and even that law can be abridged by the active intervention (through no mechanism) of the other part of the universe, the aforementioned Will. I, myself, don't buy this description of reality. I consider physical law truly inviolable, and true miracles impossible. But I have to concede to Charlie that he's correct in labelling this point of view as not provable. Belief in the possibility of supernatural events cannot be invalidated scientifically, any more than you could *prove* that anything other than your own consciousness exists (maybe I'm dreaming you all). Belief in the supernatural questions the basic scientific assumption that there are underlying regularities in what we observe that *account* for those events (as opposed to merely predicting them with great accuracy). Any proof which makes the assumption of effect *necessarily* following cause is therefore circular, and invalid. By Occam's razor, I have decided that belief in the supernatural complicates the description of reality unnecessarily. BUT, that does *not* disprove it in any formal sense; it only makes it seem unlikely. To maintain intellectual honesty, I cannot say that supernatural events are provably impossible; I can only say that the occurrence of such seems *very* improbable. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry SOURCE: ST7891