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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Justice, responsibility, and belief
Message-ID: <698@ames.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Dec-84 02:45:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.698
Posted: Fri Dec 14 02:45:51 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Dec-84 09:17:45 EST
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Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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	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
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