Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 14:05:40 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fw: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020906124405.V94577-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020905202034.77ef17b3.yid@softhome.net>
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On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Joshua Lee wrote:
> > > Occam's razor is being used here to refute the cosmological
> > > argument; you're distorting things with this strawman.
> >
> > Nobody has even mentioned the cosmological argument until now, so
> > you are the one invoking a strawman.
>
> You are arguing about the creation of the universe neccesitating a
> creator, right? That's the cosmological argument. At least that's what
> they taught me in philosophy 101 class in college.
No. The cosmological argument, in its most rigorous forms, argues that
every effect must have a cause, therefore the effect we call the universe
must also have a cause, and that cause is God. This is not an argument
I have proffered on this list. While I do not think that the refutations
of it are as convincing as many people assume, I recognize that a person's
presuppositions govern his evaluation of the argument, so I generally will
argue at a presuppositional level, i.e., what are the preconditions of
intelligibility? What are the necessary preconditions for rationality,
science, ethics, etc. to be meaningful?
> > Why do you refer to God as "G-d"?
>
> According to Jewish law, the divine name cannot be used in print in a
> profane context. (Also pronounced in any context.) This is in Hebrew. A
> chumra of the Gaonim extends this to the vernacular. Of course, this
> doesn't count on a CRT according to recent rulings, but someone (even
> more foolish than us) might want to print this stuff out....
Fair enough.
> > Philosophical arguments are unavoidable.
> > The fact that philosophers have struggled with questions that still
> > remain unsolved is just one more piece of evidence that without God,
> > you can't prove anything.
>
> You can't prove anything *with* G-d either, at least not that simply.
I must humbly disagree. 8-)
> Isn't there a saying, for the atheist there are no answers, and for the
> religionist no questions? Of course, considering how many questions Jews
> tend to ask in debates ("learning b'chavrusa") during Talmud study
> perhaps this is not true. :-)
Well, I would certainly disagree with that sentiment. There are plenty
of questions. Maybe they are not the same sorts of questions, but
studying God's creation to His glory seems to me to be a good enough
rationale for doing science.
> > > than better. (This is not a "blind faith" position, it's important
> > > to examine as far as possible everything with the intellect, which
> > > is a better guide to what's good than the seat of emotions; but a
> > > man has got to know his limitations. :-) )
> >
> > I think you are operating on a Thomistic notion of "faith". Faith
> > does not take over where reason leaves off. Faith is the foundation
> > of reason. Reasoning would not even be possible without faith. I
> > argue that only *Christian* faith can account for reason, but here I
> > suppose we disagree.
>
> Until you prove that through your faith you can reason better than the
> rest of us, a thesis very much in doubt, this statement is unsupportable.
Well, please go back and read some of my posts to Terry and Dave. BTW,
I never claimed that unbelievers don't reason. Many of them are very
good at it. The point I was making was that if they were to be consistent
in their atheism, they would *in principle* not be able to reason at all.
For example, the naturalist cannot account for human reason, since
according to a naturalist, everything that happens in the human brain
is just electro-chemical responses in the brain which have nothing to
do with "truth", "error", "right reason", etc. If a person is a
naturalist, he has no reason to be a naturalist. He must also say
that other people's beliefs in God are also only the result of
electro-chemical responses in the brain. He could never know whether
or not he was right, since every attempt to reason his way to the
truth is just more electro-chemical responses in the brain, and hence,
the results of *these* reactions are also suspect.
Cheers,
Neal
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