RE: The story-telling ape (was virus: Logic)

chardin (chardin@uabid.dom.uab.edu)
Sat, 18 Oct 1997 13:48:05 CST+6CDT


> Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 22:35:58 -0500
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> From: Brett Lane Robertson <unameit@tctc.com>
> Subject: RE: The story-telling ape (was virus: Logic)
> Reply-to: virus@lucifer.com

> Chardin,
>
> I don't buy it. First you say that you are not attacking science,
> then you attack science. Not one word about faith or what it is
> trying to prove. You bring up an obscure reference to natives and
> complain because they were eating pot-roast.

I tried to show you the implications of an "obscure" claim in
science--so obscure in fact it won the Nobel Prize--however, all you
can do is drag religion into it. I am asking for some "universalism"
here. What is the merit of my idea? David is a scientist. Asked him
if I am attacking science. I have said once and I will say again:
science claims to be something it is not--it sees its self through
the eyes of the philosopher of science--I'm simply saying and the
authors of the book I quoted show--that it is not so. The way
science REALLY is makes your concept and the concept most folks have
a MYTH. WHAT HAS RELIGON GOT TO TO WITH IT, BRETT? Try reading
the post with an eye toward the message instead of that ole C. Hardin
is a Bible-believing Christain therefore nothing she says has merit
anyway--or has a hidden agenda. I've been honest with you, haven't
I? I'm not afraid to defend my religious beliefs. My religious
beliefs, in fact, have been under attack by people WHO THINK they are
defending science. Science is not understand--people misconcept of
it is what is under attack. See the truth of the matter and you will
respect science more, check abuses and we will all benefit.

>
> I asked if there is something which makes certain ideas "poison" for
> the other camp (science vs. spirituality*). I explained that I
> found no conflict with my internal representation--faith--and my
> external representation--hope (and I'm assuming that anything which
> needs replication or varification is merely *hoped* to be true no
> matter how much confirmation one gets from an outside source). I
> asked WHY people of faith continue to attack people of science. All
> you can respond with is more accusations against scientists. I
> don't think you even understand what your are doing...let me say it
> again: You are attacking science: You are NOT strengthening the
> arguments for faith.

I don't have to argue for faith. All I have to do is to be ready to
give a reason for what I believe. Every other person on the face of
the earth must decide for themselves about spiritual issues. I can
attempt to persuade someone, but that is it. Quit whining about my
attacking Science. Is what I said true or not? Look at the things I
said. You can't see the things I've said for worrying about a
"Christian Conspiracy". Science, however, and its
credibility affects us all--if you are a Hindu or a Church of Christ,
you depend on science and its findings for a quality of life and
perhaps for life itself. When we get to the point when we see it for what it is,
we will ask more questions, we will stop accepting something
without proof because some scientist says so. My ONLY beef with
science and scientists is when they try to hold themselves out as the
only rational means at arriving at truth because of a misconception
put forth about science--that it is an enterprise somehow above the
rest of human enterprises. I think I have
successfully shown that this is a wrongf interpretation of what
science is. Hard science can explain some things to me about the
world that religion cannot, for example, but that does not make it
more rational than any other descipline.

gy too, for that matter--is founded
> on the idea that there is an intelligent motivation for action;
> science can't study either intelligence or motivation as they are
> not objective phenomenon: I think that to accept intelligence and
> design is to take away from "scientific objectivity"; perhaps
> science cannot function on many levels if it allows for this type of
> thinking. I wondered if there is something about science--perhaps
> the idea that objects exist, I don't know--that makes the scientific
> thought process similarly poison to people with an internal
> understanding...is faith, as an internal varification of truth,
> harmed in some way by seeing an external representation?
>
> Brett
>
Brett, I don't even know what to say about the above. I certainly
believe objects exist. It is the "scientific thought process"
however that I am trying to debunk. You use" reason" man--that all you
got--you got knuthing else--ya hear me? When you usethe term "scientific
thought process" you are trying to put yourself above someone else
who uses reason. NOTHING MORE OR NOTHING LESS THAN HUMAN REASON.
You get a hunch, you reason it out, you see if it is so. That is all
any of us can do. You can say a person or a process is rational or
not rational.