Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: non-evidence for the non-existence of non-god Message-ID: <637@pucc-h> Date: Thu, 5-Apr-84 05:14:37 EST Article-I.D.: pucc-h.637 Posted: Thu Apr 5 05:14:37 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 04:12:18 EST References: <896@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <519@pyuxn.UUCP> <621@pucc-h>, <530@pyuxn.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 139 Here is an attempt at a reply to Rich Rosen. I will freely admit that I really had to pray for patience to avoid making this a flame; Rich's attacks do make me angry sometimes. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. --the Bible (Hebrews 11:1) One definition of faith is holding on to what one's mind has come to believe, in spite of moods that may tend to alter that belief. --approximate quote from C. S. Lewis BTW, a good one-word paraphrase of Lewis's definition is "consistency", or "faithfulness". > Those with logical minds among us probably take for granted that such > definitions are inconsistent with a rational mind. Does one hold on > to beliefs simply because we hope for them to be true? In spite of > contrary evidence? The fact that Jeff does not see these tenets as > contrary to rationality makes logical discussion fundamentally impossible. Judging from your own writings, those with "logical minds" would never take anything for granted! But, as I've said before, if one reads the rest of Hebrews 11, the faith being talked about is, or involves, staking your life that God is trustworthy, that He will be with you and that He will keep His promises. How do you decide that a human is trustworthy? I doubt that it is entirely by rational, logical means. Sure, you do go partly on his past, objective record; but isn't a lot of it just a sense, an intuitive (for lack of a better word) sense, that the person is good? That is not strictly rational, and yet I suspect that you do it. And the curious thing is that usually if you decide (based on this "sense") to trust someone, things work out well. Hebrews 11 is an entire chapter recapitulating numerous Old Testament cases where people trusted God in this way--believing His promises and just believing Him--and things worked out well! I won't say the overworked catch-phrase, but I see no "contrary evidence" that would prove that a loving God doesn't exist. And I don't see faith as contrary to rationality, but rather as superseding it, purifying it, realigning it. Again, there are famous cases in the Old Testament where people, because they believed in God, did things that were seemingly irrational, but things worked out well because God helped them. Some of the most striking and famous examples are in the book of Daniel. Thus, based on the evidence of the Bible and on my own experience, I am sticking to the demonstrated truth that God really works. You are missing out on so much by refusing to believe. (I'm sure I miss out on a lot of blessings myself due to the incompleteness of my faith.) > Jeff says (several times) that the only evidence to prove god's existence > must come from within. He repeatedly says "Try it yourself," "Try it - > you'll like it," and "Taste and see...". Thus the only evidence he has for > the existence of god (and apparently, according to this, that I myself > would have if I believed) is based on subjective, personal experience. Yet > Jeff derides "the elevation of the rational mind to the status of god". > Jeff's rational (but subjective) mind tells him that there is a god, so > thus he believes based on his own sensory input and interpretation of that > input. But when logical rational thinkers do the same (on a more rigorous > and scientific level---attempting to delineate the subjective and the > objective), Jeff scoffs at them. Thus the point is, if you scoff at the > logical, scientific conclusions that have been arrived at by a consensus of > rational minds, how can you then claim that through just the experience of > your own "rational" mind, you have experienced god and "know" your beliefs > to be true? Did I write unclearly? I didn't mean to say that the ONLY evidence of God's existence would come from within; just that convincing evidence would. "This is how we know that He [Christ] lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us." (I John 3:24) Knowing God is not like knowing something out of a book; it is like knowing a person. (I believe that the same word is used in the O.T. to denote "knowing" God and a man "knowing" his wife, i.e. having sexual intercourse--i.e. the knowledge of God is intimacy with Him, not knowing a bunch of things about Him.) I'm not doing the deriding; you are, if anyone. I DECRY making one's mind one's god. I don't scoff at logical, rational, scientific thinkers if they stick to their field--the observable, testable, tangible world. Science has done much good in that area (we couldn't communicate like this without a lot of scientific discoveries). But the assertion, "There is a God", and the assertion, "There is no God", are neither of them assertions that science can properly make, since neither of them can be proven by scientific laboratory techniques. It is worthy of note, however, that one of the finest logical, rational, scientific minds of the century, Albert Einstein, believed in God at least partly because of his discoveries in physics ("Surely God would not miss a chance to make the equations so beautiful"). I don't know what subjective experience of God Einstein had, but at least some of his belief was inspired by objective reality, the same objective reality that is available to us all. Rich asks how belief in God differs from belief in Hitler. Actually, they are not entirely dissimilar. Many people are hungry for real religion of some sort (with one or more actual god figures, sacrifices of some sort, etc.); the German churches were not providing this; and Nazism did in fact become a religion. The difference between belief in Christ and in Hitler can be found in (gag!) an old gospel song called "He Lives", which contains the lines: "You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart." (BTW, "heart" in Biblical usage does not mean emotions; rather it means the real center of the person, the will.) This ties in with the verse from I John quoted above. One sentence in Rich's Hitler paragraph deserves special note: > You must first substantiate your belief that > god first exists, then that it is more than human in some way. Rather than ask me to substantiate God's existence and divinity, why not ask Him yourself, if you're really interested in knowing the truth? But don't demand that He prove Himself; just ask Him, humbly, to make Himself known to you. If you do this honestly (rather than defiantly), He will welcome you and enable you to know Him and His love. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." > The scientific method functions as a means of eliminating the subjective > mind and seeking a more universal (objective) perspective. As discussed earlier, this has its place--in science; but human beings are not just physical things amenable only to being dealt with like objects. > Saying that one "found god" through introspection and subjective reasoning > doesn't hold any water. I never quite said that. I have done considerable introspection, yes; but much of it has been taking an honest, objective look at my emotions and my behavior. > The fact that other methods of psychotherapy were effectively blocked from > working ..., while believing that an external offered you love and guidance > DID help is not proof that the external exists---only that that belief > helped you. But many times when I haven't understood just how I was mucked up in some way, I have quit beating on the problem with my mind, and just prayed that God would make it clear to me; and He has. God can observe me a lot better than I can (I'm too close to me sometimes), and His observations are quite good. System's going down for the night; I'll finish later. -- -- Jeff Sargent {allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq Software maintenance: It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.