Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!apple!bloom-beacon!grian.UUCP!liz From: liz@grian.UUCP (Liz Allen-Mitchell) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: The Godless Assumption Message-ID: <19880905183547.0.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 5 Sep 88 18:35:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 83 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu To: elroy!ames!comp-ai-digest@ames.arc.nasa.gov cc: liz@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: The Godless Assumption Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 18:16 EDT From: Liz Allen-Mitchell Where are we starting with this? Too many folks seem to be starting with science and saying that God can't exist because of whatever or that God does exist because the world is orderly or whatever. But I don't think too many people actually start there. Science can't prove or disprove the existence of God (as at least one person *did* point out). Where do *I* start? Where many people start -- I believe there is a God. A lot of people start with the opposite assumption -- that there is not a God. So, how does either assumption effect how we do science? For me, my belief in God goes a little further than just an assumption that there is a supernatural being out there somewhere. I believe some very particular things about God. I don't, for example, believe that God is whimsical and changes the results of my experiments just to confuse or mislead me. I believe that God created the universe and that He did so in an orderly way -- in a way that allows us to reason about everything from whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow to whether or not my connectionist network is going to settle down with reasonable results. I do believe that God does "interfere" in the natural world from time to time, but that is more the exception than the rule (I could go into more detail here, but I think it is getting rather far off the digest's subject). But, because I believe that God made the world in an orderly way and that He does want us to learn about His creation, I can do science believing that I will learn not only about the world but also about God. For me believing in God enhances doing science. Others may believe in a God, but not believe in one who is orderly. They may well have problems doing science, as some have pointed out. Many do not believe in God at all. They may well believe the world is orderly but others, who are probably not scientists, may *not* believe in an orderly world. I don't think that a belief that there is no God can lead one to assume that the world is a place that we can understand in a scientific way. I can see how one who *is* doing science can expect it to be fruitful because it has been in the past, but if you have never been exposed to science, you may be difficult to convince that science is not a rather hopeless pursuit. You may believe that while some things (like the sun rising) are predictable, other things (like the wind blowing) are totally random events. I assume that since we are all scientists (or at least trying to be!), that we do believe in an orderly universe. Believing that there is a God no more precludes that than believing that there is no God. Re Bill Wells' article about revealed knowledge: He seems to be assuming that anyone believing in revealed knowledge must hold all revealed knowledge absolutely. This is not necessarily so. I think all of us hold some knowledge absolutely (eg that the world is orderly). For those of us who believe that some knowledge is revealed by God, the knowledge we hold absolutely includes some revealed knowledge. But does that mean we hold all revealed knowledge that way? No. One can believe in God, believe that He is perfect and believe that He speaks to you and yet believe that not everything you think He has told you is absolutely true. Some do come to this conclusion, but they are basing this on the (false) assumption that they always hear God perfectly. Let me give you an example and then explain how I handle this. If you run an experiment twice and get results that contradict previous results, how do you handle it? Do you decide that the world must not be orderly after all? Maybe you do on a cynical day, but most likely, you decide you made a mistake somewhere. That's how I handle revealed knowledge. If it contradicts some other beliefs I have or if some later evidence contradicts the revealed knowledge, I don't stop believing in God or in an orderly world. I try to figure out where I made a mistake -- and I do allow for the possibility that I simply made up my "revealed knowledge". From a scientist *and* a Christian... -- - Liz Allen-Mitchell liz@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us ames!elroy!grian!liz "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." -- 1 John 1:5b