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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Logic based on different sets of assumptions (reposting)
Message-ID: <618@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Mar-85 16:54:34 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.618
Posted: Sun Mar  3 16:54:34 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Mar-85 02:56:24 EST
References: <589@pyuxd.UUCP> <22580@lanl.ARPA>
Organization: Huxley College
Lines: 49

> In article <589@pyuxd.UUCP>, Professor Wagstaff (what kind of Jewish
> name is this, Rich?) writes:

It must be a Jewish name.  Groucho Marx used it.  ("My name is Captain
Spaulding, the African explorer, did someone call me 'schnorrer'?  Hooray,
hooray, hooray!")

>>Since there is no hard evidence to support the existence of a deity, one would
>>normally work (in a typical analysis of a non-religious oriented phenomena)
>>from the assumption that the thing for which there is no evidence does not
>>exist.  Without evidence showing proof of a thing's existence, or its observed
>>effect on the "physical" world, via Occam people would generally assume that
>>it does not exist until evidence of a viable nature presents itself.  The
>>*possibility* that it may exist is left open, but such a possibility evinces
>>itself if and only if evidence is presented to support it.  [ROSEN]

> I don't understand your logic at all, Professor.  I use Newton's laws of
> motion all the time--AND I BELIEVE IN THEM!--yet I can never hope to prove
> them!  All that I can say is that Newton's laws of motion (for non-relativ-
> istic motion, of course) are not inconsistent with any known       
> observations or experiments.  These laws--and all scientific laws--can
> never be proven.  However, their general applicability to a wide range
> of EXPERIENTIAL evidence INDICATES that these laws do "exist". [BILL PETER]

Nowhere in the previous paragraph did I mention the word "proof".  You can
say much more than what you've said.  You can say that no known phenomenon
has resulted in an inconsistency with those laws (until new laws had to be
formulated to more accurately describe motion at much higher speeds based
on relativity).

> Similarly, with the existence of a deity.  There is no way to prove the
> existence of a deity, but a good case can be made for the fact that
> certain peculiar physical coincidences and the structure of mathematical
> and physical laws INDICATES to many intelligent people the existence of a  
> creator.  Note the existence of such a creator is not inconsistent with
> any known physical law or experimental observation.

Not similarly at all.  The point being that the existence of a deity is just
an opinion that people have of the universe:  they (these "many intelligent
people" you describe) contend that the structure of the universe IMPLIES or
would seem to imply the existence of a creator.  "Intelligent people" should
(but they don't necessarily) know better than to play teleological games with
"it seems that this was 'designed' with *this* purpose in mind" when such
presumptions are in fact only in the eye of the beholder.  Moreover, taking
this opinion and utilizing it as an axiom is highly suspect in any viable
analysis of the universe.
-- 
"When you believe in things that you don't understand, you'll suffer.
 Superstition ain't the way."		Rich Rosen  ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr