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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A Call to Religious Unity   -   The Scientific Faith
Message-ID: <1420@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 18:40:15 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1420
Posted: Wed Nov 28 18:40:15 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 02:37:45 EST
References: <248@mhuxh.UUCP> <241@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: mangoe@maryland.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 37

In article <241@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:

>I suppose that the idea is to look beneath the surface of human religions to
>find what they hold in common, and to suppose that to be "true".  This could
>(in the long run) produce a very catholic and adaptive theology that would
>allow for cultural differences.
>
>However, I don't think that the religious approach is the correct way to
>deal with the task of seeking commonality of religion.  For example, I can
>point to their assumption of a single universal god as one of the
>prejudices that they haven't given up.
>
>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.

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?

>I can just imagine bahais happily chorusing "Oh yes, science is true too."
>That's the oldest political trick in the book.  Put your seal of approval on
>something you can't fight, and then try to regulate it.  Occam's razor?
>"Oh, science doesn't work for religion.  It's separate." they'll say.

Well, yes indeed, it doesn't work unless you disallow irreproducible actions.
The claim that "we don't need God to explain the day-to-day working of the
universe", if true, still doesn't imply "there is no God."  If God does some
action to the universe only once ever, there is no way to determine this.
You can always explain it away with a purely physical explanation, and
unless you want to guarantee rejecting God, you can't simply opt for the
purely physical.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe