Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!orawest.SRI.COM!ejs From: ejs@orawest.SRI.COM (e john sebes) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Message-ID: <19880903035118.5.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 3 Sep 88 03:51:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 106 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu To: pyramid!decwrl!comp-ai-digest@decwrl.dec.com Path: sri-unix!orawest!sri-unix!ejs From: e john sebes Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Summary: T. William Wells on religion and science Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 14:41 EDT References: <19880830031753.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Organization: Odyssey Research Assoc, Menlo Park, CA Lines: 94 I'd like to respond to a few of things that T. William Wells has been writing lately about that good ole hobby-horse "science and religion". In a previous article, T. William Wells writes: >: > >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), rejects the >: > >validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense >: > >utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. >"Lawful" does not mean "following, by choice, law", rather, it >means: "constrained by law". However, religion posits "god" or >"the absolute" or what have you as that which is beyond, above, >determines, flouts, or whatever adjective you like, natural law. >This is essential to religion. It is erroneous to say that "religion" requires belief any particular idea. *Some* religions require belief in *some* particular ideas. Specifically, the western, theistic religions Mr. Wells is familiar with (to the exclusion of all others, apparently) does include belief in God, with those attributes Mr. Wells mentioned. But this is *absolutely not* essential to religion in general, or to all particular religions. A further point is that there are several theistic religious attitudes which in no way entail any notion about a God acting in the physical universe which scientists take as their puview. The "watchmaker" God of late 18th century European thought is probably the best known example to netters; God made the universe, set it going, and enjoys the show. Ah, Mr. Wells will say, but God *could* then act in the universe, but just doesn't. A response then might be that perhaps He created the universe so that He couldn't interfere after creation. Does this make sense? Can God constrain Himself? Can he create an unmovable stone and an irresistable force? Honestly, there is no point to such freshman philosophy hairsplitting. Even R.C. Church theologians got over that stuff centuries ago. Get this: it doesn't have anything to do with science!!! After all, what is it that is so repugnant to Mr. Wells and his ilk about a theistic scientist who also beleives that God (or whatever) doesn't act in the physical universe? Perhaps I am missing something here, but we went over a lot of the same ground in my 6th grade science class. I will also try to clarify the notion of "revealed knowledge". You call something knowledge because you beleive it is true. Current usage of terms like "knowledge" and "fact" tend to be in the context of "physically or objectively verifiable", but of course that is because we believe in such verification. Revealed knowledge is simply what people call fact, but do not claim to be verifiable. In common usage, it is therfore a misnomer. But saying that >This translates to: "this knowledge is unknowable". just plays on this fact, and doesn't refute the fact that some people have beliefs to which they choose to apply this term. I think Mr. Wells' strong concern over the fact that even today many "rational" people are not logical positivists, really stems from a kind of hysteria over "creationism" and similar things. He says that > >This individual has managed to illustrate in one very short note >*exactly* why religion has *no* place in scientific discussion: >the use of religion perverts reasoning by substituting "revealed >knowledge" for evidence, requires the unknowable as part of >reasoning, and uses ignorance as its justification. >--- >Bill >novavax!proxftl!bill > Well, I hate to let the cat out the bag, but "religion" does no such thing. This perversion (if you want to call it that) is done by individuals who try to compel people who want evidence to believe in things that will not admit of evidence. And some of these people even try to hoke up some evidence as well! Despicable, I admit, but also more pitiable that anything else. And equally so is Mr. Wells religion-bashing. Try to make this connection: yes, religion has no place in scientific discussion, but that it because it is *irrelevant*, not evil (the only "evil" in this context is masking religion as science); therefore it is of little concern in scientific discussions, and in little need of being bashed. Rest from your intellectual imperialism, and concentrate on whether someone's science is good work, regardless of whatever other thoughts there might be lurking in his or her mind, thoughts which you say are "wrong" or "silly", but are in fact merely irrelevant. After all, isn't that what we are supposed to be about, in these scientific discussion groups? --John Sebes As a postscript, I beleive that all this came about not because someone opined "I know God exists, and you AI types leave God out of your theories" but because someone had the temerity to ask if others might be missing ideas for interesting models of mind because of wholehearted indulgence in total reductionism. Unfortunately, this question was stated in a way that mentioned that fateful word "God". Oh well.