Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: The Revelation to Mike Huybensz Message-ID: <530@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-May-85 15:01:30 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.530 Posted: Thu May 9 15:01:30 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 23:59:16 EDT References: <5087@umcp-cs.UUCP> <502@cybvax0.UUCP> <5159@umcp-cs.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Distribution: net Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 56 In article <5159@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes: > In article <502@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes: > >A longer game of "telephone": not only in accretions to the original > >interpretations, but also in the cultural assumptions that determine > >the interpretations. That's the good part of the fundamentalist heresy. > >The bad part is that they still take the bible seriously. > > I don't know about that. I think their chief problem is not that they take > the Bible seriously; it's that, rather than using both the techniques of > modern textual analysis and the teachings passed on through the church, they > reject both, clinging instead to a Pietistic view of the Bible that refuses > to be informed by anything else. I think "teachings passed down through the Church" are exactly the sort of accretions that should be rejected and reformulated from scratch (if one assumes truth of the bible.) I agree that refusal to be informed by anything else is foolish. > I see a similar problem with your analysis. When you compare the church to > various cults which have followed, it seems to me that you neglect to take > into account that these cults are essentially perversions of christianity. > They take the forms that we see precisely because they were conceived in a > society where christianity is in the air. It is not suprising to me that > they resemble christianity in various aspects, but the fact that they are > copied from christianity doesn't necessarily reflect upon the original. For one who talks in other notes about the idea of "vertical miracles", it is surprising to me that you don't consider that maybe JC intended these cults to be the fruit of the seed he planted. You have no reason to expect that JC intended to found a static, monolithic church. > And besides, there is always the same problem; it is difficult to > distinguish between a world in which there is no God, and a world with a God > who is almost totally concealed. As I see the Christian faith, it posits a > God who has deliberately chosen to set up this ambiguity. One would > therefore expect an experimental test of his existence to fail, if treated > rigorously. Science is therefore correct in rejecting the miraculous as > explanitory. For precisely the same reason, it is not scientifically valid > to say that you can demonstrate the non-existence of such a God, because you > cannot set up a test which can distinguish between the two hypotheses. You > have to choose on some other basis. Some, for instance, would put their > faith in the power of simple explanations. It would then be reasonable, > however, to look at these beliefs. Why are simpler explanations more > valuable? What if one explanation, even if it cannot be scientifically > verified, has vastly different implications than the other? It's quite possible this is a universe with a concealed god. And that it is impossible to distinguish this. However, it's then also impossible to distinguish whether that god really wants what the Bible claims. For all I know, there might be a god out there who will damn me to eternal torment for believing the Bible. Because I cannot rationally find any way to choose a strategy for dealing with an unknown deity, it behooves me to not waste my efforts on any one strategy. Thus, agnosticism. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh