Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: re: The true God lives in the real w Message-ID: <528@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA> Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 17:50:43 EDT Article-I.D.: k.528 Posted: Wed Sep 11 17:50:43 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 09:57:42 EDT References: <22300014@faust.UUCP> Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking Lines: 32 Thank you to Jerryl Payne for an unusually polite message. I trust our disagreement will remain on this level. For any concrete belief, I require reliable evidence. You set up "supernatural perception" as the only valid tool for obtaining evidence of God's existence. Unfortunately, any reasonable amount of experimentation with this perception reveals problems with this approach. A Hindu will perceive the supernatural entities most favored by his local sect; a monotheist will perceive God; a Buddhist will perceive the Void. One is forced to the conclusion that all these have only symbolic truth, not literal truth, unless one is willing to play favorites (which is incompatible with the idea of gathering evidence.) I accept all these as worthwhile symbols of religious experience, but I do not go along with literal interpretations of any of them. "Supernatural perception" is not a cyclotron or an electrometer. It is a distorting mirror. The existence of mesons has been established using instruments which allow replication; the existence of God has not. The instrument used to "demonstrate" God's existence gives different results depending on the preconceptions of the operator. I feel that it is unethical to label people. However, someone who freely indulges in unfair labelling themselves waives the protection of this ethical rule. Both Arndt and Dyer have indulged in extremely hostile and nasty personal attacks on me without provocation; therefore, I feel no hesitation in labelling them "loony tunes" where I would simple say "their positions are inconsistent and poorly thought out" about a polite poster who believed as they do. -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!"