Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site sdcc7.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcc3!sdcc7!ln63fac From: ln63fac@sdcc7.UUCP (Rick Frey) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.origins Subject: Re: Unprovable ideas in science and God Message-ID: <151@sdcc7.UUCP> Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 14:17:07 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc7.151 Posted: Mon Nov 4 14:17:07 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 05:13:28 EST References: <2294@ukma.UUCP> <121@uscvax.UUCP> <139@sdcc7.UUCP> <155@uscvax.UUCP> Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center Lines: 138 Keywords: Black holes, Creationism, Evolution Xref: linus net.religion:7756 net.origins:2542 Summary: Astrology, Christianity and unprovability In article <155@uscvax.UUCP>, kurtzman@uscvax.UUCP (Stephen Kurtzman) writes: > >Here's where you start going off track. Has no one who ever gotten into > >astrology gotten out of it because they realized it was rediculous? People > >have left astrology and denied its truth and validity even after believing > >in it whole heartedly. > > The question does not pertain to the history of a particular individual. The > question is how are failed predictions treated by the practising astrologer? > What theories are used to explain failed or accurate predictions? If the question doesn't pertain to the individual then why do you turn around and say that it is the individual, practising astrologer who must deal with failed predictions? If 'astrology' existed as something aside from the people who pactised it (i.e. an external God or a provable set of laws that operate regardless of the individual practitioners) then what you're saying would make more sense. But since astrology seems to be somewhat subjective, you get back to individual people and then you are going to get into prior experiences, individual tendencies and no simple generalization can categorize what every practitioner of astrology will do. > find that accurate predictions are touted as proof that astrology is valid > and that failed predictions show the limitations of data or the astrologer. > In other words, for the practising astrologer, nothing can falsify his > subject. > Fortunately that's just not true. If people (again we're back to individuals) could competely sell out to something like astrology than you might be right, but people rarely whole-heartedly believe anything. There's always doubt and mistrust and these can be rationalized away in a myriad of different ways. To many things to rationalize or explain away and you get disbelief (i.e. Santa Claus). > > You are right. The problem is that much of Christianity is based on a > concensus of belief by a number of chosen people. The Roman Catholics have > the college of cardinals and the pope, many protestant sects have > organizations for pastors and elected leaders, and some sects look to a single > individual for spiritual truth such as the Moonies. Christianity has always > been defined by what people that call themselves christian think and do. > And very wrongly so. Christianity if it is to live up to its title must be based on what only Christ thought and did. When the Church or men come in and claim to be prophets or additional voices from God, you get a distortion of what the Bible and what Christ said. Granted I'm assuming that the Bible is the word of God, but if it's not, then all religion is subject to the whim of the group of people who are in power or the leader who can write the most books and get them out to the followers. That's the whole essence to why the Bible is so crucial to Christianity. If we can't say that that is the authority, then we're left floating around with no anchor. > > Nothing is wrong with starting with a premise as long as you do not give it > some special status just because it is your premise. You should be just as > willing to disprove (as well as prove) any hypothesis that results from the > premise. In the case of creationism the premise is that the earth was created > by God in a certain way and nothing can be said to disprove it. Creationists > give their premise the special status of being true. In science every > premise is ultimately challengable. > That's a little unfair. A great number of 'Creationists' have abandoned the literal 7 days idea and have tried to understand how Genesis might fit in with evolution. Hebrew scholars have shown that the word used for day was alternately used for period of time throughout the Old Testament. While it might come slowly (if it has to come at all) Christian scientists can turn from what they've believed and even from what they've sworn the Bible to say. Not to many Christians today believe that the earth is the center of the universe, and while it took a great while for that to get around, strongly believed, supposedly Biblically based ideas can be discounted. > > That is true. Some Christians take the product of scientific inquiry and say > that God is awfully clever to have set things up that way. Creationists on > the other hand believe that evolution does not occur. Forget about all those > pesky DDT resistant mosquitos out there - they say nothing about natural > selection. > Not true. No Creationists that I know of will deny environmental adaptation and natural selection, what they deny is that humanity developed due to that process. They don't deny the process, just the conclusion that since it's taking place now (on the small levels we can observe) it must therefor account for how all life developed. > > Why doesn't your God fall prey to that "same original cause dilemma"? Just > because you define your god to be the uncaused cause? Because something must. Since there is something now and we know that something does not come from nothing and since we can imagine as far back as the beginning of time itself and we can ask the question what was before that, your univese that has always existed is simply another uncaused cause. What seems unlikely to me is something that follows natural and orderly laws to seemingly break one of them to just appear (or to simply have been) when God, who claims to have created the laws would be an original cause much more likely to have the ability to create or to have existed eternally. > This is part of the creationism > problem: they define a theory and continue to dogmatically assert it even > after it is demonstrated to be false ... That's simply not true. Isn't our topic unprovable ideas? Are you going to tell me that you can now demonstrate (let alone prove) that evolution IS how life developed and that creation is not? I'd love to see it. > > So you think a god is likely because of the way man perceives questions of > being and order. Did I say that? I think God is likely because of a simple experimentally proven idea that something does not come out of nothing. If everything has to follow laws then to me, this law prohibits big bangs and eternally existant universes but does not prohibit Gods who say they have created these laws and universes. > Why can't I just assume that the universe is uncaused? > What is it about the universe that makes you think it must have been caused > by something? Why can't the universe be the uncaused cause? Simply because uncaused causes are improbable in themselves. I used to try to tell my Dad I never did anything bad that happened. Instead of making up a story that could possibly explain it, I just said I don't know, it happened. My dad never bought it and I can't either. If we're going to get mystic, in my mind you can't get mystic when dealing with things like natural laws. > Don't you think that it is rather egocentric for you to assume that > there is some being somewhat like yourself that caused everything? It could be, but how 'like me' is God? He doesn't have a physical body, a shape, a sex, an age, he has no physical attributes or tie to this physical world other than having created it. How similar are we? Secondly, the main similarity we do have is that we can both tell right from wrong (an ability He says He gave us) and He has asked us to become as much like Himself as we can. I'm not saying that God is like me, I'm saying that we are like God and only because He chose to create us that way. Rick Frey "He it is who reduces rulers to nothing and makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely they have been sown Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth but He merely blows on them and they wither and the storm carries them away like stubble. To whom then will you liken Me that I should be his equal?" Isaiah 40:23-25