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From: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Newsgroups: sci.research
Subject: Re: Life imitates art?
Message-ID: <1213@sigi.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Sat, 30-May-87 22:43:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: sigi.1213
Posted: Sat May 30 22:43:06 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jun-87 00:46:59 EDT
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Sender: news@sigi.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 64
Summary: don't blame science for fatalism

Sender:


Bob Weigel writes:
>
>
>I say this because if this assumption were true,
>everything I am saying here is the result of history (Before you prejudge, try
>thinking this through).  The processes of my mind, when viewed from this sense,
>are either completely predictable, (ie. Newtonian Physics), or a mixture of this
>and randomness.  Either way, I'm not in control,.. right!!  My Bible says God
>created the creatures out of the dirt, but he made man in his image.  ( With a
>free will too!)  Somehow, that seems to fit reality a little better in view of
>who I am.  But keep on matching those Chromosomes! 
> 

I am not sure this is a topic for this group.  But it is a pet of mine
(it seems to me that somewhere back a few years I picked up a degree in
philosophy of religion).

well...we'll see what people say.


About your comment on free will:  Aquinas wrote that each thing has a cause
that predates it.  He argued, in what is still the most elegant argument
for the existence of god, that an infinitely regressive chain of causation
was impossible (I do not intend this to be a complete account of the argument.
please do not be upset that I left so much out).
Therefore, he argued that there must be a prime efficient cause.
The argument's main flaw is that it cannot escape itself. 
Given god is the prime cause and all things are created by her,
then all things derive through the chain of causation from god.
If you agree that god is the prime cause of all things, then you are
a product of history.  It seems to me that the very thing to which you object
about science is inherent in your own belief system.
One does not need science to derive fatalism.  All mono and montheistic
religions must deal in some way with that problem (the Hindi approach
attacks the problem most directly, but I might suggest careful reading
of Qohelth (Ecclesiates in most english translations) as a Judaic
attempt at the problem).  Your bible also says "all is vanity and there is
nothing new under the sun"--to include you and the processes of your mind.

About reality:
I put to you that if man is in gods image, then god too is 99% homologous
to a chimp (at the molecular level).
It seems obvious we are of the same "dirt" as the apes ("dirt" here could
refer to any biological macromolecule).
If I were to succeed in crossing a chimp and a human,
would that refute or threaten your beliefs?
Would you merely re-define the parameters such that they fit your beliefs?
If the former is true, I suggest that your faith is rooted in poor soil
and in danger of dying.
If the latter is true, then you faith denies the test of falsification
and therefore cannot be admitted by science in any form.
Understanding what is a soul and what constitutes Spirit is certainly
outside the realm of applicability of science.  Understanding matter
and the workings of living things is outside the that of religion.

We should probably move this elsewhere if we are to continue.
I don't want to inflict it on unwilling scientists.  Though I would
like responses from the willing ones.

tony  (few degrees are worth remebering)
 
                 Anthony Pelletier
                 Molecular etc. Biology 
                 Boulder, Co