NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/callahan/13837

Text File | 1992-11-18 | 3.4 KB | 63 lines

Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!uchinews!kimbark!mss2
From: [e-mail] (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re:  Science and god:  Are they incompatible?  If so, why?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
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Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 04:30:56 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Green) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>->In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David Green) writes:
>->=To answer a question with a question: How would an agnostic respond if I
>->=were to ask, "What do you believe about God?"

>->An agnostic would respond along the lines of "The question is ill-formed.  I
>->don't know whether or not god exists, so how can I possibly believe anything
>->about it?"

>*cough* What it looks like to me is that the person _believes_ that s/he cannot
>know whether God exists.  Unless you can point out to me how this differs
>significantly from what you just said?

    "Um... believes that s/he _does_ not know whether god exists,
whether or not said person thinks there exists some way of proving it.
Some agnostics believe the answer to be unknowable, others can imagine
particular tests which would move them to one category or another, and
still others can't come up with any test offhand but are willing to
grant the possibility that one exist.  Given the fact that some
agnostics become atheists and some become one or another form of
theist, obviously many find _some_ argument which satisfies them

    "Still, while I know that my agreeing with StM on an issue
touching upon religion will cause people to check for two-headed
cattle, dogs and cats living together, and other signs that the
natural order's given up and gone south for the winter, I have to
agree that including agnosticism in the category of `religion' seems a
stretch to me.  Like so many nouns, the term is fuzzy, but I think
`belief that concerns God' (even to the extent of whether He exists or
not) is overbroad.  For that matter, while I consider the strong form
of atheism ("I believe that I know there is no God") to be as much a
leap of faith as any religion, I wouldn't class that as a religion
either.  Words like philosophy, religion, faith, mysticism,
discipline, cult, ideology, and probably others I haven't thought of
describe sometimes overlapping classes but not identical ones.  (I do
not, however, propose to try to give firm definitions of the terms--
particularly since I think many important English words don't have
rigorous definitions.  For a prime example, see John Campbell's essay,
"What do you mean, _human_" and try to come up with a rigorous
definition of _that_ word which doesn't exclude entities that we would
normally consider human.  Or ask Snark what he's doing his Ph.D. work
on.  :-) )"

Michael
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS    "Indeed I tremble for my country
[e-mail]     when I reflect that God is just."
[e-mail]     -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
[e-mail]        Virginia (1784)