From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Oct 10 2004 - 13:33:25 BST
> msh says:
> You're missing the point. If one is interested in communication, not
> obfuscation, then one will use words as they are commonly understood, not
> turn to a fourth or fifth level definition bordering on the idiosyncratic.
Just because you don't accept my use of word "faith" doesn't mean you have
special insight into what is "commonly understood." For example, the
definition of "faith" in the Oxford American dictionary begins with "1.
reliance or trust in a person or thing." Your insistence on a one right
definition according to msh reminds of what Humpty Dumpty said to Alice:
"When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more or
less."
> platt:
> ... those who believe in a higher power also accept their first
> principles out of utility because their beliefs, (just as those
> accepted by scientists) serve to explain experience.
> msh says:
> This is highly doubtful. Religious beliefs contradict experience way more
> often than not. As for utility, there's nothing useful about explaining
> one mystery by positing another. There are perhaps psychological and
> emotional benefits to mystery substitution, but the explanatory power of
> saying, for example, that mind derives from God, rather than matter or
> Quality, is nil.
This just shows your bias against religious belief. For you, explanation
requires a scientific or philosophical approach. As I've pointed out, such
approaches inevitably depend on unprovable assumptions, just as the
religious approach does. The physicist Paul Davies put it well:
"But in the end a rational explanation for the world in the sense of a
closed and complete system of logical truths is almost certainly
impossible. We are barred from ultimate knowledge, from ultimate
explanation , by the very rules of reasoning that prompt us to seek an
explanation in the first place. If we wish to progress beyond, we have to
embrace a different concept of "understanding" from that of rational
explanation."
Platt
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