At 07:09 AM 4/28/99 -0700, Richard Brodie wrote:
>Let's explore, for a minute, what kinds of things it might be useful to
>believe in that cannot be proven scientifically. My strongest faith-based
>position is that people have the right to their self-determination.
No, your strongest faith-based position is that rational empiricists in general claim to be perfectly rational. If they don't (and I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that they don't), then the rest of your argument collapses.
>At this point, the rational empiricist is partitioning off positions like
>the above that start with "I believe IN" rather than "I believe THAT,"
>saying that they are a different class of belief, not provable or
>disprovable but rather moral values that do not fall into the category of
>faith-based beliefs. While I maintain that such a distinction is a
>self-deceit designed to give the rational empiricist short-term comfort in
>his fantasy that he has no fantasies, an even stronger case for faith can be
>made.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that since you can't or won't make a distinction between descriptive and prescriptive beliefs, there must not be a difference.
>What about the position that people are basically good? Scientifically, many
>counterexamples to this position can be found and perhaps used to disprove
>the statement.
Scientifically, counterexamples don't disprove the statement that people are basically good. Counterexamples would disprove the statement that *all* people are good, but that isn't what you said.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/