From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Aug 24 2004 - 03:45:01 BST
Hi Scott, and all,
Thanks for presenting the "other" side in a thoughtful manner. FWIW,
I'm neither atheist, theist, or agnostic. If anything, hyper-
agnostic, I guess. So far, I'm too dumb to understand what it is I'm
supposed to believe in, or not believe in. One of the reasons I
started the POE thread was to get people talking about what they mean
by "God."
Some comments below, but no real disagreement.
On 23 Aug 2004 at 0:16, Scott Roberts wrote:
The falsifiability criterion is, of course, only applicable to
religion for those who think religion is supposed to make sense the
same way science does.
msh:
Agreed. As I stated earlier, religious people begin to have problems
only when they try to convince others that there is some rational
and/or scientific foundation for their beliefs. The "science" of
Creationism, for example.
scott said:
For example, there is a web site that supposedly tests one logic, and
accuses you of being illogical if you don't believe in the Loch Ness
Monster, but do believe in God. You are being illogical, they say,
because there is no physical evidence for either.
msh says:
Yes. Such bonehead web sites give both science and logic a bad name.
The great thing about the web is that anyone can publish to it; and
the worst thing about the web is that anyone can publish to it. I
was peripherally involved in the development of some of the first
software which allowed people to generate HTML pages by clicking,
dragging, dropping, rather than coding. To me, it seemed like we
were handing out driver's licenses without road test requirements.
scott said:
It is very easy to see the faults in religion as practiced, but one
should bear in mind that most all those who call themselves Christian
are idolators or heretics of some kind or other. The doctrine of the
Trinity, for example, pretty much boils down to "God is a triunity,
and if you think you understand it, you have fallen into some heresy
or other." Definitely not science, but a powerful koan.
msh says:
I like this very much.
scott said:
Of course, one can just forget about the Trinity, but I have found
the same sort of mystery in human consciousness. The main answers to
the mystery (idealism and materialism) are understandable, and wrong,
since they attempt to solve the mystery by redefining one half or the
other of consciousness phenomena out of existence.
msh says:
Maybe a slight disagreement here. It seems to me that people often
create mysteries in order to solve them. The mystery of the
"purpose" of life is the prime example. It seems to me that humans
see (or, more accurately, create) purpose in their own lives and
therefore can't believe that life itself is without purpose. They
solve the "mystery" by positing the existence of God, not seeing that
all they are doing is replacing one mystery with another.
scott said:
Anyway, I find religious thinking to be fascinating, because it's
task is to think about the unthinkable.
msh says:
Yep. That's some task, all right. ;-)
Thanks again for your comments.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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