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From: ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11.BITNET
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Subject: The Godless asumption
Message-ID: <19880823022404.5.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 23 Aug 88 02:24:00 GMT
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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 10:38 EDT
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From: ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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Subject:  The Godless asumption
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 10:31 EDT
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From: ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11
To:   AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU at EDU


I was surprised at Professor Minsky's use of so naive an argument against
Religion. If Religion is discredited because Giordano Bruno was burnt at
the stake in 1600, then Science is discredited because 120,000 people were
burned in Hiroshima in 1945. In actual fact, neither Religion nor Science
are discredited because of that, only people who do things can be discredited
by them. Theories are discredited by negative evidence or by reason.

And this takes me to another append (which unfortunately I have lost, and
do not recall the signer) where it was stated that Religion and Reason
are contradictory. I challenge this assertion. For it to be true, there should
exist an argumentation that starting at a set of axioms accepted by everybody,
and through a set of reasonable steps, would arrive to the conclusion
"God does not exist". I do not know of such an argument. God's existence
or non-existence is an axiom for most of us, and axioms are not "Reason".

M. Alfonseca

(Usual disclaimer)