Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Rosen comments at length on Sargent on rye toast Message-ID: <265@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 18:13:02 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.265 Posted: Tue Nov 13 18:13:02 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 14-Nov-84 05:38:09 EST References: <231@pyuxd.UUCP> <1469@pucc-h> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 81 >> my points may have been "repeated so often", but they usually go unanswered. > > I might mildly point out that either a) you have also, at times, left some > points unanswered, I'm not claiming a perfect record, but I'd like to see some examples of that. Or are you pulling a "Larry-Bickford" by just making a claim and expecting readers to simply believe it at face value? When I claim that points have gone unanswered, I name them. And they still go unanswered. I'd appreciate your doing the same. (However, I *should* say that I may not answer a counterargument if someone else has already done so better than I could, especially if there have already been further followups to THAT by the time I read it. But I'm talking about NO ONE from amongst the community of religious believers addressing the issues I've put forth. Recent articles from Wingate, where he makes claims about the nature of science, are the closest thing to doing so. Yet even they are avoiding the original points.) > ... or b) the articles containing those points never reached Piscataway. (Nothing of any worth EVER reaches Piscataway. :-) I may use netnews reliability (an oxymoron if ever there was one in these parts) to excuse my jumping in and possibly misinterpreting things in the middle of a discussion, but it should never be used to excuse answering questions. (Anyone who responds to the parenthetical remark above by saying "And nothing of any worth ever comes OUT of Piscataway" will immediately be sued for plagiarism because I beat you to it, so there! :-) > Prime example is: How do you explain the gifts of the Holy > Spirit -- particularly the most common one, most commonly called "speaking in > tongues"? How do you explain the fact that in May, 1972, a man laid his hands > on me and prayed, and I received the ability to speak without conscious > thought in a language I don't believe I've ever heard? And I'm not the only > Christian of my acquaintance with this gift. Babies also speak in a language that I've never heard, Jeff. If you were without conscious thought, how were you aware of what was going on? Have you analyzed what you have said by listening to recordings of the speech? Have you verified ANYTHING about the episodes? What is the miraculous thing about being hypnotized and babbling nonsense? Why do you believe that to be miraculous or divinely inspired? [GETTING BACK TO THOSE POINTS THAT DON'T GET ANSWERED...] >>My appeals to those I disagree with often take the form of asking them to use >>reasoning capacities that I think they might have to realize either the truth >>in some point of mine or the fallacy in one of theirs. > How about using your reasoning capacities to see the fallacies in some of > your points? I take it by this statement of yours that you simply don't believe that I reflect and analyze my own thoughts, beliefs, and preconceptions. In a country where one is free to believe in a deity or not as one chooses in any way that one likes (REMEMBER THAT!!!), I guess one is also free to believe what one likes about other people. Of course, you have less chance of knowing THAT about me (having met me only once) as you do about certain other more important issues. Since you feel I'm negligent in "using reasoning capacities to see my own fallacies", why don't you point some of those fallacies out to me? Or do you just assume that because I disagree with you, my points "must" have fallacies? If not, tell us what they are. > I am going to write a separate article (so it's short, and so >it's more likely to be read) highly recommending a book which, using excellent >logic, shows that it makes sense for there to be someone outside nature -- and >demolishes the idea that the physical universe is all of reality. Yes, C. S. Lewis' "Miracles". Again the presumptive claims of Mr. Lewis rooted in what he would like the universe to be like. Since I've only browsed through "Miracles" (and that was a while ago), I shouldn't comment on it per se. But I will ask again: what is the NON-physical universe? Is it anything more than an arbitrary demarcation denoting where current human perceptive ability ends, beyond which there are things that humans simply can't (at this point) observe, thus making these things "non-physical"? How arbitrary and anthropocentric can one get? (To go back to the old scenario that Wingate didn't like, were germs not part of the "physical universe" until we were able to see them? Is anything that "we" cannot explain by current knowledge therefore "non-physical" and not part of a "physical universe"? Does this talk of "outside the 'natural', 'physical' universe" mean ANYTHING????? (It would sound like this just demolished Lewis' demolition...) -- "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy!" Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr