Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lanl.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!lanl!wkp
From: wkp@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Re: Bill Peter
Message-ID: <23301@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 04:49:21 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.23301
Posted: Fri Mar 15 04:49:21 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 02:00:33 EST
Sender: newsreader@lanl.ARPA
Distribution: net
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 64

(from Ernest Hua aka Keebler:)
>I am not going to wait that long.  I did not liken your views to those of
>you-know-who's.  I simply said that they are the ones that will quickly
>pick up and abuse that which you claim existed.  They also pick up and
>abuse a LOT of other things which can hardly be liken to their views.
>(e.g. scientific evidence for evolutionary theories)

The problem lies with your initial reaction to my posting.  Just because
I posited that intelligent people can see indications of a design or
plan in the universe, this automatically meant that I believed in angels,
devils, and holy spirits.

The statement I did make (see below) was in response to atheists' beliefs
that if the 10*10 neurons in their brains cannot allow them to see
evidence for the existence of a deity, then it is unreasonable to believe
in a god.  I think this especially ridiculous since they fully expect the
10*10 neurons (or 10**14 synapses) to fully understand a universe of (by
current estimates) AT LEAST 10**80 particles.  What sheer presumptiousness!

Although I do not discount the possibility that the present state of the
universe is just a random distribution of events, I consider this from
the scientific point of view rather unlikely (e.g., try calculating
the probability that carbon, oxygen, etc. atoms would by random methods
form a DNA molecule.  Then compare this time to the known age of the
universe!)   In any case, I find it hard to believe that laws such as of the
conservation of energy-momentum or of general relativity were a giant 
coincidence, a random throw of the dice, on a universal time scale.

What is interesting is that not only is nature (or as the old
physicists wrote it, Nature) unified, but our minds seem
especially able to appreciate this unity in an aesthetic way.
I make no conclusions from this statement except that this
does INDICATE to some people the existence of a plan, or a design,
in the universe, i.e., a creator.


>> { from: bill peter }
>> When you retire from your mind-reading career and write a book
>> about your exploits, I hope you mention how you deduced from so
>> short a posting the true extent of my beliefs in a deity.  If you
>> can read my mind now, I hope you take my advice and jump into the
>> Monongahela river.

>(from Ernest Hua aka Keebler:)
>Why did you bother mentioning your original statement if you did not
>support its implications?  one of which happens to be that you believe
>in a creator and are defending your position ...

Why do you insist on telling ME what my positions were?  All that I 
proposed was (and I quote!):

  "Similarly, with the existence of a deity.  There is no way to prove the
  existence of a deity, but a good case can be made for the fact that
  certain peculiar physical coincidences and the structure of mathematical
  and physical laws INDICATES to many intelligent people the existence of
  a creator."

If you still don't understand this statement, write me by e-mail, and    
we can discuss your intellectual problems in private.

By the way, there is only one river around here into which I could jump:
the Rio Grande.  But it's twenty miles away, and only a few feet deep.
--
bill peter