Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uicsl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!rmooney
From: rmooney@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: creationism topics
Message-ID: <27700005@uicsl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Oct-84 15:28:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uicsl.27700005
Posted: Thu Oct 11 15:28:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 07:08:05 EDT
References: <32500003@uiucdcsb.UUCP>
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #R:uiucdcsb:32500003:uicsl:27700005:000:1853
Nf-From: uicsl!rmooney    Oct 11 14:28:00 1984

>> > My original statement:
>> > Creationists seem to think that since scientists need to postulate at least
>> > the initial existence of matter, then they are just as free to postulate the
>> > initial existence of God.  

>> Mike Ward:
>> But scientists have no need to postulate the initial existence
>> of matter.  They only need to postulate the existence of matter
>> at a certain point in time, and can very easily state that events
>> before that time, being unobservable, are beyond the realm of
>> science.  (and quite possibly in the realm of religion)
>> What that point in time is, of course, depends on the current
>> state of mankind's ability to observe.

>Larry Bickford:
>So evolutionists can have things "beyond the realm of science" but
>creationists can't? That's hypocritical cheating!


Obviously, any system must be based eventually on certain assumptions.
Every logical system requires a set of axioms.  I see little practlcal
difference between supposing matter has always existed and saying it
was created at one time and we are eternally ignorant of anything before that.

As I initially stated, the important thing is to "minimize the complexity"
of any assumptions.  Creationists violate this by immediately resorting
to another unobservable realm to explain origins instead of 
first exhausting all possible natural (and therefor simpler) explanations.
Even if one considers the supposition of the existence of matter and
the supposition of an initial cause in a chain of cause and effect part of
"evolution" (a term which creationists interpret as any natural
explanation for the origins of anything), it is not at all hypocritical
to deride creationism since their suppositions involve a more complicated
ontology.

       Ray Mooney
       ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!rmooney
       University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign