rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (11/14/84)
>> my points may have been "repeated so often", but they usually go unanswered. > > I might mildly point out that either a) you have also, at times, left some > points unanswered, I'm not claiming a perfect record, but I'd like to see some examples of that. Or are you pulling a "Larry-Bickford" by just making a claim and expecting readers to simply believe it at face value? When I claim that points have gone unanswered, I name them. And they still go unanswered. I'd appreciate your doing the same. (However, I *should* say that I may not answer a counterargument if someone else has already done so better than I could, especially if there have already been further followups to THAT by the time I read it. But I'm talking about NO ONE from amongst the community of religious believers addressing the issues I've put forth. Recent articles from Wingate, where he makes claims about the nature of science, are the closest thing to doing so. Yet even they are avoiding the original points.) > ... or b) the articles containing those points never reached Piscataway. (Nothing of any worth EVER reaches Piscataway. :-) I may use netnews reliability (an oxymoron if ever there was one in these parts) to excuse my jumping in and possibly misinterpreting things in the middle of a discussion, but it should never be used to excuse answering questions. (Anyone who responds to the parenthetical remark above by saying "And nothing of any worth ever comes OUT of Piscataway" will immediately be sued for plagiarism because I beat you to it, so there! :-) > Prime example is: How do you explain the gifts of the Holy > Spirit -- particularly the most common one, most commonly called "speaking in > tongues"? How do you explain the fact that in May, 1972, a man laid his hands > on me and prayed, and I received the ability to speak without conscious > thought in a language I don't believe I've ever heard? And I'm not the only > Christian of my acquaintance with this gift. Babies also speak in a language that I've never heard, Jeff. If you were without conscious thought, how were you aware of what was going on? Have you analyzed what you have said by listening to recordings of the speech? Have you verified ANYTHING about the episodes? What is the miraculous thing about being hypnotized and babbling nonsense? Why do you believe that to be miraculous or divinely inspired? [GETTING BACK TO THOSE POINTS THAT DON'T GET ANSWERED...] >>My appeals to those I disagree with often take the form of asking them to use >>reasoning capacities that I think they might have to realize either the truth >>in some point of mine or the fallacy in one of theirs. > How about using your reasoning capacities to see the fallacies in some of > your points? I take it by this statement of yours that you simply don't believe that I reflect and analyze my own thoughts, beliefs, and preconceptions. In a country where one is free to believe in a deity or not as one chooses in any way that one likes (REMEMBER THAT!!!), I guess one is also free to believe what one likes about other people. Of course, you have less chance of knowing THAT about me (having met me only once) as you do about certain other more important issues. Since you feel I'm negligent in "using reasoning capacities to see my own fallacies", why don't you point some of those fallacies out to me? Or do you just assume that because I disagree with you, my points "must" have fallacies? If not, tell us what they are. > I am going to write a separate article (so it's short, and so >it's more likely to be read) highly recommending a book which, using excellent >logic, shows that it makes sense for there to be someone outside nature -- and >demolishes the idea that the physical universe is all of reality. Yes, C. S. Lewis' "Miracles". Again the presumptive claims of Mr. Lewis rooted in what he would like the universe to be like. Since I've only browsed through "Miracles" (and that was a while ago), I shouldn't comment on it per se. But I will ask again: what is the NON-physical universe? Is it anything more than an arbitrary demarcation denoting where current human perceptive ability ends, beyond which there are things that humans simply can't (at this point) observe, thus making these things "non-physical"? How arbitrary and anthropocentric can one get? (To go back to the old scenario that Wingate didn't like, were germs not part of the "physical universe" until we were able to see them? Is anything that "we" cannot explain by current knowledge therefore "non-physical" and not part of a "physical universe"? Does this talk of "outside the 'natural', 'physical' universe" mean ANYTHING????? (It would sound like this just demolished Lewis' demolition...) -- "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy!" Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (11/29/84)
[Rye toast? Is that nuking a city in New York or a very small town in Arizona?] >> How do you explain the fact that in May, 1972, a man laid his hands >> on me and prayed, and I received the ability to speak without conscious >> thought in a language I don't believe I've ever heard? And I'm not the >> only Christian of my acquaintance with this gift. > Babies also speak in a language that I've never heard, Jeff. If you were > without conscious thought, how were you aware of what was going on? Have you > analyzed what you have said by listening to recordings of the speech? Have > you verified ANYTHING about the episodes? What is the miraculous thing about > being hypnotized and babbling nonsense? Why do you believe that to be > miraculous or divinely inspired? [GETTING BACK TO THOSE POINTS THAT DON'T > GET ANSWERED...] It is, alas, sometimes hard for me to believe that you don't deliberately misunderstand me. All I meant was that my speech was not consciously controlled, not that I was unconscious. I was not hypnotized. When I speak in tongues nowadays, I am not hypnotized, since I can instantly start or stop. My experience is corroborated by that of many others. I have not analyzed my glossolalia; I don't need to. I believe this phenomenon to be a gift from God because it has been useful many times in helping me past psychological/spiritual roadblocks I could see no way around -- i.e. I come to a point in my conscious prayer where progress seems impossible, so I let the Spirit pray for me, and an exit is shown to me. I don't need to analyze it, because it works. >> How about using your reasoning capacities to see the fallacies in some of >> your points? > I take it by this statement of yours that you simply don't believe that I > reflect and analyze my own thoughts, beliefs, and preconceptions.... > Since you feel I'm negligent in "using reasoning capacities to see my own > fallacies", why don't you point some of those fallacies out to me? Or do > you just assume that because I disagree with you, my points "must" > have fallacies? If not, tell us what they are. I did get a little carried away there (I wasn't in a very good mood for some days last week). Some of the fallacies, or at least difficulties, are well pointed out in that book that you panned -- "Miracles", by Lewis. I venture to point out a few sentences from "Miracles", beginning with a couple of definitions: "Some people believe that nothing exists except Nature; I call these people *Naturalists*. Others think that, besides Nature, there exists something else; I call them *Supernaturalists*." "What the Naturalist believes is that the ultimate Fact, the thing you can't go behind, is a vast process in space and time which is *going on of its own accord.* Inside that total system every particular event...happens because some other event has happened; in the long run, because the Total Event is happening.... All...things and events are so completely interlocked that no one of them can claim the slightest independence from 'the whole show'.... Thus no thoroughgoing Naturalist believes in free will: for free will would mean that human beings have the power of independent action, the power of doing something more or other than what was involved by the total series of events. And any such separate power of originating events is what the Naturalist denies. Spontaneity, originality, action 'on its own', is a privilege reserved for 'the whole show', which he calls *Nature*." "By Naturalism we mean the doctrine that only Nature--the whole interlocked system--exists." "All possible knowledge...depends on the validity of reasoning.... Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true. It follows that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an argument which proved that no argument was sound--a proof that there are no such things as proofs--which is nonsense." "We may in fact state it as a rule that *no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes*.... Now it would clearly be preposterous to apply this rule to each particular thought as we come to it and yet not to apply it to all thoughts taken collectively, that is, to human reason as a whole. Each particular thought is valueless if it is the result of irrational causes. Obviously, then, the whole process of human thought, what we call Reason, is equally valueless if it is the result of irrational causes. Hence every theory of the universe which makes the human mind a result of irrational causes is inadmissible, for it would be a proof that there are no such things as proofs. Which is nonsense. "But Naturalism, as commonly held, is precisely a theory of this sort. The mind, like every other particular thing or event, is supposed to be simply the product of the Total System. It is supposed to be that and nothing more, to have no power whatever of 'going on its own accord'. And THE TOTAL SYSTEM IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE RATIONAL [emphasis mine]. All thoughts whatever are therefore the results of irrational causes, and nothing more than that. The finest piece of scientific reasoning is caused in just the same irrational way as the thoughts a man has because a bit of bone is pressing on his brain. If we continue to apply our Rule, both are equally valueless. And if we stop applying our rule we are no better off. For then the Naturalist will have to admit that thoughts produced by lunacy or alcohol or by the mere wish to disbelieve in Naturalism are just as valid as his own thoughts. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The Naturalist cannot condemn other people's thoughts because they have irrational causes and continue to believe his own, which have (if Naturalism is true) equally irrational causes." > But I will ask again: what is the NON-physical universe? Charley Wingate had what I thought was a reasonable answer to this; alas, I did not memorize it. Perhaps Charley can re-post it. > Does this talk of "outside the 'natural', 'physical' universe" mean > ANYTHING????? As per the above discussion, this talk of there being nothing but the natural, physical universe means nothing. -- -- Jeff Sargent {decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq Clearing /tmp