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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Looking under Rosen's rocks
Message-ID: <624@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-May-84 16:48:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.624
Posted: Wed May  2 16:48:02 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-May-84 19:56:04 EDT
References: <4286@duke.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 47

NORRIS: {on physical laws accounting for both animate and inanimate objects}
>I do not like what I find when I carry this reasoning to its logical
>conclusion.  Are murder and rape then justifiable as a particular mixture of
>chemicals and electrical impulses in our brain, none of which we are
>responsible for?  By the same token, are virtues such as patience, love,
>or gentleness not to be rewarded for the same reason?

ROSEN:
>David has absolutely hit the nail on the head with this one.  What's more, he's
>shown that what I've thought all along about the nature of religion is probably
>true.  HE DOESN'T LIKE WHAT HE FINDS WHEN HE CARRIES THIS REASONING TO ITS
>LOGICAL CONCLUSION!!  HE DOESN'T LIKE THE NOTION THAT MURDER AND RAPE AND
>PATIENCE AND LOVE RESULT FROM CHEMICAL PROCESSES!  HE DOESN'T LIKE THE NOTION
>OF A UNIVERSE WITHOUT ULTIMATE REWARD/PUNISHMENT!
>So what David do?  Since he doesn't like it, he figures it *can't* be this way.
>The universe must be the way *he* perceives it, and since strict ratioanalism
>produces a world that he doesn't like the shape of, he designs a new one.

TINKHAM:
> Perhaps the wording "I do not like what I find..." was unfortunate.
> At any rate, it seems to have been misinterpreted.  If I understand
> David correctly, he's not trying to say that the idea of an entirely
> material world is unpleasant (though it might be), but rather that
> such an assumption has implications which are contrary to his perceptions;
> it is these apparent contradictions rather that mere unpleasantness
> which make materialism seem inadequate.

We're always hearing this, too, just as we've always heard "I have evidence"
followed by deafening silence.  What are these contradictions and
implications?  Are they based on anything more than what we've already
discussed, the way you'd *like* to see the world as opposed to the way it is?
Please provide a list of such contradictions.  (actually, you try to do so
below, but read on...)

> Now, many (perhaps not all) of us have a strong intuitive idea of morality:
> that it is meaningful, e.g., to say "murder is wrong", and that such
> a statement means more than just "my mother/Sunday School teacher/government
> forbids murder" or "I find murder repulsive".  Materialism seems to
> imply that this intuition of good and evil is illusory.  And perhaps it
> is.  But a theory which better provides for morality will be more
> satisfying to those of us who are convinced that there is genuine good and
> evil in the world.

Of course, what "convinced" you of this has a basis in fact, and has nothing
whatsoever to do with, ahem, the way you'd like to believe the world to be?
-- 
"Submitted for your approval..."		  Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr