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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: phs.2144: Re: Educated religious people
Message-ID: <1448@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Nov-83 03:23:41 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1448
Posted: Fri Nov 18 03:23:41 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Nov-83 03:30:32 EST
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Ahem, (Andy, will you let me get in for a bit?)
	In case you don't know, Rabbis do not wake up one morning and
say that "the world is X thousand years old" because God told me this
in a dream last night. It is an awful lot of *scholarly work*. They
take a given set of postulates as true, and then work out what is the
logical outcome of that. This sounds like science, right?

	No? But there are given scientific postulates that work that
way. For instance, the notion of repeatability. If X implies Y today,
then X is going to imply Y tomorrow and the day after as well. This is
rather basic, and you had better agree to that one, or otherwise you
are going to have to keep doing every scientific experiment that ever
was to see if it is "still true" (ie still works).

There are other ones as well. An article or event has significant bearing
on another iff the second varies when the first is and is not present.
Thus in throwing a ball out of a window, whether or not the ball is full
of helium has an effect on whether and how fast it will fall. What I
had for breakfast, should not be considered significant.

And there are a lot more of these. So now we get back to Andy and his
awe. 

First of all, it is necessary to remember that although science tries to
model the external world that is visible through our perceptions (and
understandable through our intellect) there is no guarantee that the
relgions are trying to do the same thing. Spiritual realities need not
correspond to physical realities. Some people try to claim that they
refer to the same reality (as in when a Creation Scientist tries to
prove scientifically that the Flood occurred) but a lot of people do
not. (Note that this implies that there are other realities beyond that
which one can experience with the senses and/or understand with the
intellect. I don't know of a single religious person who does not
believe this <though I expect to get 100 letters from them this
week after posting this article.>) For those of you who are uncomfortable
with the idea of "more than one reality", remember that it is now
common to speak of 'psychological realities', which share similar
properties.

Okay. Given the plurality of realities, then it is not necessary to
conclude that either the scientists or the Rabbis are lying. So now
you are left with "Why are you impressed by the scientists and the Rabbis?"
It is not that the world which they are describing is impressive, although
it is, for strawberries would still be wonderful things if there were no
Rabbis, and understanding the biochemistry of them does not improve their
taste. So it is not the world that is impressive, but the intense human
effort and labour which went into constructing the theory which models
the world and makes it intelligible for those of us who did not compose
the model.

Rabbis and scientists are awesome because they think, and because of the
effort that went into their models, and indeed because the models themselves
have beauty.

it is only those who are constitutionally unable to accept the notion of
multiple realities who do not see this. I am trying, but i do not know
whether I am getting through to them. This is for them:

	Look, this does not mean that having been impressed by Rabbis
	you abandon science. 

	it does not mean that the religions themselves are all clamouring
	for people to abandon science, either.

	you get to throw out whatever models you do not find useful
	under this theory. it does not mean that you are forced to find
	a truth in every theory, though it would be courteous to remember
	that *somebody* believes that he has.

And yes, some people reject science. I find this sad. But perhaps they are
unable to perceive physical realities and only spiritual ones. If this
is the case, then science needs to teach itself better to these individuals.

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura