rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (11/30/84)
>>Instead, I endorse science (sociology, anthropology, sociobiology, etc.) as >>the route to understanding. (And for that matter, why shouldn't religions >>be designed scientifically, rather than by cabal and political pressures?) >>Science is the methodology that best allows casting off of prejudices of >>tradition, and has a long history of doing so. [HUYBENSZ] > Science applied as a universal system of knoledge (which it is not) has a > bad history of prejudice against the supernatural. When you start from the > position that you will accept no supernatural causes, is it any wonder that > you end up endorsing atheism or agnosticism? [WINGATE] *************************************************************************** WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED "SUPERNATURAL"??????????????????????????????????? *************************************************************************** Does it mean, as the name implies, beyond the natural? If so, what is meant by "natural"? Does it mean the real world, the one that exists, including those things which we do not see (e.g., as with microorganisms up until only recently)? In that case, the word "natural" encompasses everything that IS, including any deities one might find lying around. Or does the word "natural" really imply "that which we can see and perceive", beyond which lies the ominous "supernatural"? If so, we're dealing with a bogus and empty definition. By this definition, as I've said before, microorganisms were "supernatural" until we were able to see them. By this definition, the boundary between natural and supernatural is designated arbitrarily, only by the current limits of human perception!! Thus we have only two possible definitions: one says there is no supernatural (everything that exists and happens is by definition "natural"), and the other simply divides the universe into what humans CAN perceive and what humans CAN'T perceive. Rather arbitrarily, I might add. With this in mind, what would be the reason for "accepting [the possibility of] supernatural causes"? These questions are ones that never get responded to, so I wonder if Mr. Wingate might deign to tell this "jewish-surnamed" person what the answers to my questions are. -- "Come with me now to that secret place where the eyes of man have never set foot." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr