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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Evidences for Anthropocentricism
Message-ID: <635@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 17:42:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.635
Posted: Thu Aug  8 17:42:38 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 02:45:12 EDT
References: <855@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1226@pyuxd.UUCP> <942@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1298@pyuxd.UUCP> <592@psivax.UUCP> <1419@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 106

In article <1419@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>He didn't ASK a question.  He made a statement.  I merely proposed some of
>those principles he was speaking of.
>
	The "question" I was speaking of was *implied* in the following:
>>>>Besides, practical application of this often leads to conflicts in goals. 
>>>>It's the principles that you use to resolve these conflicts that count.
>
	Or asked more explicitely as a question:
>> When survival or maximal freedom of two people are in direct conflict
>> how do *you* decide who's survival or freedom to honor? What
>> principles do you propose for resolving conflicts generated by your
>> primary principles?
>
>As I said, the principles I suggested are at least a start in the direction
>mentioned.  The question originally asked had nothing to do with such
>conflicts, it merely asked why we valued survival.  And I answered that.

	Yes, and then a difficulty with that was brought up, namely
the problem of internal conflict with your own principles, and you
seemed to ignore it.

>Why don't you give some specific, even hypothetical examples and we'll
>see what principles we can come up with.  Nothing can be said in the
>absence of such specifics.

	Alright, the let's use the old classic of two men in a
lifeboat with little food. If they do nothing they will *both*
starve, if one kills the other he will have a *much* better chance
of survival. Now we have twom people whose survival is in *direct*
conflict, at *least* one of them will die!  Now, who lives, and who
dies, and above all, HOW do you decide!

>
>> 	Again, since it is written *for* humans, it quite naturally
>> concentrates on them!
>
>Physics texts are written FOR humans, yet they would seem to offer a much more
>objective and certainly less anthropocentric view of things.
>
	In a completely different way! A physics book is intended to
provide understanding of the "physical" world while the Bible is aimed
at a completely different set of goals, so the comparison is not valid.

>> It does *not* actually claim any ultimately central position for humanity.
>
>I humbly suggest that you haven't read Genesis too recently.
>
	Oh, but all Genesis says is that we have dominion(i.e. control)
over the Earth, which is obviously true even if you are not a
Christian. Or do you believe that the incredible changes in the
surface of the Earth we have performed are not control? Ever been to
Los Angeles lately? Hundreds of square miles of land so utterly
changed *by* *man* that the original animals can no longer live
there! No other animal has anywhere *near* the power that man does
over the Earth and everything in it. Why, when another animal causes
us too many problems we kill it, we have even driven many spp to
extinction.

>> Also, if the Bible is read as talking
>> about *spritual* matters then trying to read it *literally* becomes
>> *invalid* and any arguments based on the "falsity" of such a "literal"
>> interpretation are also invalid.
>
>Fine, tell that to those who would use its "literal" interpretation to
>justify impositional morality.  Furthermore, it seems that some people have
>very different dividing lines between what's "spiritual" and what's "literal".
>
	Oh, I do! But what thier *opinions* of the Bible are not
binding on me, and arguments based on those interpretations are only
significant to those who accept those interpretations. My problem is
that you seem to be trying to say that the Bible itself is invalid
because of some *interpretation* of the Bible. This just doesn't wash
unless the interpretation in question is the only reasonable one,
which it most certainly is *not*. An example from another field.
In the early part of this century when the scientific theory of
evolution was first becoming widely known a group of philosophers
reached the conclusion that it applied to human *society* as well
as to organisms, thus producing the theory of Social Darwinism,
which provide a wonderful justification for the ravages of the
very rich, and implied that the poor essentially *deserved* to be
poor. Does this misinterpretation of Darwinism invalidate the theory
of evolution? I would say NO, it is merely a silly, poorly concieved
misunderstanding of what the theory was about. So why should
Fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible be any more applicable
to the validity of the Bible?

>
>First, thank you for pointing out that the authorship of the Bible is clearly
>in the hands of a wishful thinker who took existing myths to fit them to
>hie new world view about HIS god.  Second, see above (regarding those who do
>take it literally and those who use it to justify impositional morality).
>-- 
	I would rather say that Genesis is an *allegory*, intended to
*illustrate*(not define) the relationship between God and the world.
I believe the author was trying to show that the *existing*,
*accepted* account of the origin of the world was consistant
with God's sovereignity. This is the opposite of what fundamentalists
are trying to do!
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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