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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Logic based on different sets of assumptions (part 2 of 2)
Message-ID: <4933@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 16:17:09 EST
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Posted: Thu Mar  7 16:17:09 1985
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Part 2 of my response to Rich's article:

>With that in mind, the only other reason that such people might readily accept
>the notion of the existence of a god is precisely because they already believe
>it to be so:  they hold the existence of god as an assumption, an axiom, and
>work ALL analysis of the world from there.  "Why is life full of problems? 
>Because god designed the world that way knowing that it would be best for us
>not to have a perfect life but rather to struggle and learn."  Contrast this
>with the simpler, less presumptive notion that life is full of problems because
>all those problems are simply a part of the natural flow of things, based on
>what we observe and codify as physical laws.  We experience them as problems
>because they conflict with our wishes for a world ordered around our lives,
>and because such conflicts are inevitable in a world with trillions of
>organisms and objects caught up in the "natural flow".  As opposed to assuming,
>for whatever reason, the existence of an ultimate "good" force that "designed"
>the universe to be a certain way.

Here is where I think your argument gets off on the wrong tack.  You conlude
that belief that there is a God to be an assumption.  There is another
possibility:  It is a proposition held to explain questions (often metaphyical)
that we encounter about our own existence and that of the world we live in.
In this sense I do not take God's existence to be axiomatic.  I offer it
as a consistent explanation of the world as I encounter it.  It may not be
the only one, but as far as *I* know it is the best for many things I consider.

I think that your example only appears to be less presumptive on your part.
You haven't removed the "deity" you have only renamed it "natural flow".
Show me the same evidence for the existence of natural flow (and it's
performance of the functions you claim for it) that you want for
the existence of God.  Are our wishes part of that natural flow or separate
from it?  If they are part of it why do they conflict? How did such conflict
arise and why do we even percieve it as conflict?  Why and how is the
perception sustained?  If our wishes are separate from the natural flow
then you have opened the door to something that at least may not be rooted
in what is natural.  Your world view does not allow you to do that, however.
So your natural flow has produced something that to me seems to be unnatural;
wishes and a consiousness that pretend to asess the natural world somewhat
objectively as if it weren't itself controlled by that natural flow.  Here
you run into the possibility of you own objectivity being a delusion and
I think you must ascribe to your "natural flow" some deific functions
or charactistics (such are not demonstrable with "hard evidence") in order
to trust your objectivity when considering things beyond the physical
realm.

Some arbitrary series of natural events must have led humans to the ability to
hold these perceptions.  The ability and even the perceptions themselves
are somehow "caused" in the natural flow of things.  But to be caused is
not to be proven.  Determining that something *is* is a different matter
from determining wheter something is true or false.  Cause does not imply
proof.  I can cause a certain number to appear on the display of my
calculator by pushing buttons, but the fact that I caused the number
doesn't make it meaningful and the determination as to wheter the number
is true or false depends on some factors that are external to my causing
the number to appear.

Yet our own consciousness pretends to come to true and false perceptions
about the very natural processes that supposedly brought it
into being and sustain it?  How?  Maybe all our perceptions and wishes are
workable delusions,  but they are all we have  we must believe them or
we get nowhere.  Very well.  But here lies your hidden "deity".  Can you
explain (supporting your explanation with "hard evidence") how something
that is the product of the natural flow also trancends that flow in order
to make "viable" asumptions about the very things that produce and
control it?  Objective judgements require some measure of trancendence
over what is being judged.  How do your perceptions of things like evidence
achieve that?  At this point I think your "natural flow" takes on the
characteristics of a deity in order to achieve the feat.  Your deity is
pantheistic.  The only difference I see between a Naturalist
and a Pantheist is that the former rules out religious experiences as
such ...  unnecessarily, I think.  (Could this be right, Laura?)

>I contend that all such analysis of the world by religious believers, and the
>answers offered in such analysis, stem directly from an a priori assumption of
>the existence of god.  Lewis' works are prime examples.  Jeff Sargent, for
>example, has used the phraseology "Why would you want to believe that human
>beings are 'nothing but' lab specimens?"  (... when you have this other
>possibility to believe instead.)  "Wanting to believe", the desirability of
>holding certain beliefs as opposed to others owing to their intrinsic
>"aesthetic" value rather than their veracity, becomes a factor in forming
>belief systems for certain people.

Another note about Lewis:  If you are going to assert that Lewis' works
are a prime example of anything, I hope you have read them.  If you haven't
and I have how do you expect to convince me if I disagree with your
assertion?  What reason is there for me to believe that you might even
know what you're talking about?  The question then becomes, who are
you trying to convince?  Those who have read Lewis, or those who haven't?
I think that you should only use what you have read to support your position.
Cite those particular works if you will, don't make blanket assumptions
about all of it.  Would I be justified in saying that Aristotle's 'Ethics'
is a prime example of something, if I have only read his 'Politics', or
nothing of his at all?

Still, you haven't removed this factor for your own beliefs.  You say the
same thing as Jeff in effect:  "Why do I have to beleive in a god to help
explain certain things when I have this other possibility instead?"  Your
position doesn't make you inherently immune from "wanting (not) to believe"
any more than Jeff's does for him.  What makes yours the de facto standard?

>Given that we are dealing with two forms of logic, one of which starts off
>making the assumption that god exists and the other of which does not, a person
>using one form of logic cannot possibly convince the person using the other
>form of logic to accept his position.  This is not always true, because the
>two forms of logic and their two sets of assumptions are NOT disjoint sets. 
>In fact, for most reasonable people, they are practically equivalent, with the
>addition of the a priori assumption of god being the only major difference
>between the two sets.  Conclusions drawn from the two sets of assumptions,
>however, can and will (and do) wind up being radically different.  The
>"impossibility of convincing" that I mentioned above only comes into play when
>the "extra" assumption has a role in the formation of some conclusion. 
>Religions have (individually and collectively) formed whole volumes of such
>conclusions and codified them.  In many cases, the "existence of god"
>assumption doesn't even enter into certain of these conclusions, and they form
>viable conclusions about the world at large and life itself. (Some have devoted
>entire lifetimes to thinking and writing about such analysis and conclusions.)
>In other cases, assumptions about the nature of god and "god's word" take
>precedence over both scientific investigation and individual human needs.

One thing that you seem to have gotten confused here is deductive and
inductive methods.  I would agree that that there is no logical, deductive
proof for the existence of God.  I rather think natural theology is a dead
end.  We cannot deduce God's existence based only on the things around us.
However, when you talk about scientific investigation you are shifting
gears.  Science often involves positing explanations for observable phenomena.
These are not proven explanations in the logical sense.  They are positions
to be disproven; working models that may allow us to make sense out of
what we see.  *Anologous* to this (not identical to it) is the propositional
truth that God exists.  There are many things that just make a lot more
sense to me if I include him in the picture ... and I can't honestly rule
him out of the picture.

>The conflict comes into play where "existence of god" assumptions (compounded
>by assumptions about what IS "god's word" and who is qualified to be god's
>authority representative on earth) are contradicted by rational inquisitive
>analysis and investigation of the world itself, or by individual human needs
>(arbitrarily?) denied/forbidden/not met by "god's word".  Those who make such
>assumptions may deny the claims of the investigators (in "protest") solely
>because the claims would force them to change their whole view of the
>universe based on the evidence.  If those people are in positions of earthly
>authority, we may witness repression of such ideas, and of people who hold
>them.  We HAVE witnessed such repression in the past, and we may be witnessing
>it again today.

Here you step a little over the threshold of whether or not God exists to
the conflicts that arise when we accept that he does.  This is stepping
out of metaphysics into philosophy of religion or comparative theology.
Religious beliefs can be compared.  They are not all compatible, but
neither are the mutually exclusive.  They all present their own answers
to the same sort of questions.  (E.g. Who are we?  Why are we here?  For
what purpose, if any?  What should we do, if anything, about evil?  What
is evil?  Does God care?  Why do we often feel compelled to ask 'why?'? :-)
... On and on.)  In your example of an answer to why there are so
many problems in the world, I think you gave a description of how
they might be caused, but not why they are there.  I think your
answer to "why?" reduces to "It just is", or "Never mind 'why', I'll
explain 'how'".  "Why?" isn't really a valid question in your world
view for some of these things, is it?  "Why" asks for a reason; an
apparent purpose, not a mechanism.  I think comparing answers to the
"why" questions help people to ajudicate various religious beliefs.
It helps is to better decide what to do about certain problems and
if feeling like we need to do something is a right thing to do and
if doing something is really worthwhile and meaningful.  Lot's of people
don't stop to ask these questions, others (like myself) think they're
important.  If the people of various religious faiths really communicated
with one another instead of fighting holy wars, better choices might
become more apparent than they are.

The conflict and repression does not go away when you remove the existence
of God assumption.  It exists with or without it.  Anyone who is in a position
of earthly authority will have the same temptations to repress (directly
or inderectly) opposing views whether they believe in God or not.  The
Soviet repression of challenges to Lamarckism and Trofim Lysenko's jealous
guarding of his "vernalization" technique (claimed to boost the Soviet
winter wheat crop) are good examples.  (See "Betrayers of the Truth" by
Broad and Wade, Ch. 10).

In any case the conflict works both ways.  Atheists are just as likely
to deny theistic claims in protest to the change in world view
it would require.  Why should I go along with your assumption that your
view of the universe is correct "based on the evidence".  As I said before,
evidence may support more than one conclusion.  Conclusions are not
inherent in evidence, they are subject to the interpretation of such
evidence.

>The points are: 1) Given that evidence contradicts, if not the basic assumption
>that there IS a god, further assumptions that certain texts labelled as god's
>word are what they are purported to be (absolute truth), what is the basis for
>retaining those assumptions? and 2) Given that repression as described above
>does indeed take place in the advent of that which contradicts the status quo,
>can we afford to let ANY group, religious or otherwise, wield enormous power
>over people's lives when the basis for their governing involves, not rational
>thinking, but "does it conform to pre-conceived assumed ways of thinking?"

I cannot give you your first "given".  I disputed the notion that evidence
speaks your conclusions the way you imply and even the notion of evidence
itself as you use it.  You see evidence through your eyes.  I see it through
mine.  I think the god that supports your perceptions of evidence as being
accurate is a hidden one.  It is contained in the perceptions themselves.
I think mine must be trancendent to those perceptions for me to trust them
in the first place, so I'll work with that.

I agree fully with point 2 above, provided that "ANY group" means the one
you're in also and as long as my world view doesn't automatically exclude
me from supporting my own ideas in the "public square" simply because they
are religiously based.  One of the pre-concieved assumed ways of thinking
I see here is that the atheistic viewpoint is inherently more objective
than any theistic one; that the "evidence" is oviously on their side (obvious
to whom?).  I see no reason to assume that, of course.  I claim an equal
right to represent my own views.   Despite what some people feel obliged
to point out, having a religious world view does not automatically mean
that I aspire to dicatorship.  Some feel they can judge that better than
I do, it seems.

>Despite what some people feel obliged to point out, I do NOT assume that there
>is NO god, I simply do not assume that there is one.  The two are not
>equivalent.  My point is not to show that "god doesn't exist" (I've speculated
>on the net several times about what such a deity might be liked if it does
>exist), but rather to show that there may be something very wrong with certain
>notions of "god"-ness, when those notions were formulated based on presumptions
>about the nature of the universe that may seem "appealing", not based on
>evidence about reality, and when the premises surrounding those notions appear
>to be contradictory and malformed.

I'll grant you your assertion that you don't assume that there is no God.
But you made a lot of claims that that assumption was supported by 
evidence.  Why was that necessary if you don't make the assumption?
Also, as I have tried to point out the existence of God is not necessarily
and assuption on which everything else is based.  It is a proposition,
just like your belief that there is no God.  My point was not to show
that God exists, just to show that your notions of what constitutes
conclusive "evidence about reality" are not inherently better than mine.

-- 

Paul Dubuc	cbscc!pmd