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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: one point in Rosen's response to my uplifting digression
Message-ID: <577@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 19:15:27 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.577
Posted: Thu Feb 21 19:15:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Feb-85 01:37:19 EST
References: <488@pyuxd.UUCP> <1825@pucc-h>, <536@pyuxd.UUCP> <1862@pucc-h>
Organization: Huxley College
Lines: 54

>>If individuals freely choose to use their own reasoning and figure out what's
>>best for them as individual human beings, then and only then will they be
>>"most free".  [WAGSTAFF]

> Surely your own reasoning would tell you that one thing that can help you
> find what is best for you is to utilize the wisdom of others who have dealt
> with the same sort of things you have to handle.  You seem to want to
> re-invent the wheel, ignoring or distrusting the advice of anyone outside
> yourself.  If you wish to do this, that's your choice; but you could 1) spare
> yourself a lot of trouble, 2) get valuable input to help you make the
> decisions of your life, if you consulted other people -- either talking with
> those living now, or reading the writings of those who lived previously.
>  [SRAGNET]

... and 3) if I uncovered presumptions and/or flaws in what I'd read, I could
choose to ignore such thinking, rather than accepting because I *assume* that
the writers knew what they were talking about.  Not everybody who writes things
down DOES, you know!

> I also dispute the idea that reason alone is sufficient to find a life that
> will satisfy the whole person; you aren't entirely made up of rationality.
> Or, put it another way, reasoning is only as good as its premises.  Your
> reasoning is founded on the premise that there is no God -- something which
> itself *cannot* be proved by reason.  Do not confuse rationality with
> empiricism.

First off, your premise about my premises is false.  As I've stated endless
times (not, though, to the satisfaction of those who repeatedly reiterate
that I assume that there is no god), NOT assuming that "there is a god" (which
is what YOU do) is NOT the same as assuming that "there is NO god".  The fact
that both options (the non-presumptive first one and the presumptive second
one) reach the same conclusion leads you to equivalence them, but the fact
remains that the first option (NOT assuming) is the most viable choice in ANY
analysis.  No matter.  Secondly, you're right about not basing all one's
choices in life on rational analysis; sometimes whims bring rewarding
experience.  (Thus, it's rational at times to act on whims.)  What I was
commenting on was making a decision to or not to do something based on
arbitrary outside influences (peer pressure, media influence, bibles, etc.)
when it runs contrary to one's thinking.

> Finally, I would invite all readers to contrast the joyous but realistic
> optimism of my "uplifting digression" with the rather dry and dead ideas
> of skepticism expressed by Rich and others.  Which would you prefer?

Just slipping the word "realistic" in there doesn't make it so, Jeff.  What you
call my "dry and dead ideas" are borne out by evidence, and have real value in
a real world.  Which brings us back to where we were before:  Jeff concludes
by asking "Which would you prefer?"  As if my (or anyone's) preference as to
how they might like to view the world has any bearing on reality.

Comments?  (Jeff?)
-- 
"Which three books would *you* have taken?"
				Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr