Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Evidences for Religion (reposting) Message-ID: <800@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 22:18:05 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.800 Posted: Wed Jul 10 22:18:05 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 09:15:56 EDT References: <1182@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 42 Summary: Oh, God, not again! In article <1182@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >Now hold on! The "lower" view is only "lower" when held up in comparison to >that "higher" view. And what is that higher view? Why, it's called >"anthropocentrism", that old standby of those who proclaim humanity as the >center of the universe, because they'd like to think of them (i.e., >themselves) >that way. (Motivations for that I'll leave to the psychological minded among >us.) In other words, wishful thinking. The so-called lower view is only >"low" with respect to this wishful thinking "higher" view. "Nothing more >than" >what makes up the rest of the universe. This "higher" view is held by people >for whom that view is "not enough" for their tastes. Is there any reason to >hold such a view other than anthropocentrism? Is there any evidence to >support it? I am not going to step into this firefight again, but I would like to make a couple of observations: (1) These aren't the only two possibilities; there's a whole scale from on to the other. (2) Rich's anthropocentricism argument doesn't make much sense. Nobody said anything about man being the center of the universe. It's pretty hard to characterize Don's description of the nature of man as anthropocentric in the face of persistent speculation about what relationships hold between whatever extraterrestrial peoples there may be and YHWH. (3) Both sides seem to think that psychology and Christianity are irreconcilable. This just isn't true (read any book by M. Scott Peck if you think otherwise). (4) Nor should one take behaviorism as the epitome of current psychological thought. People seem to reconciled to the fact that people act on the basis of mental states, as well as a result of stimulae. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe "What about all that talk about changing future events, the space-time continuum?" "Well, I figured, what the hell."