[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Yr right, I am. There are many beliefs (below & beyond) which require
> "BELIEF" (ie w/out empirical evidence). Only, if they are worth a shit, they
> have something more backing them than a "guess" or a hip whim. It's rather
> insulting (not to mention a horrible sign of ignorance) that you refer to it
> as "unfounded guesswork."
I think you misunderstand my standpoint. Everything is "unfounded
guesswork", which henceforth I will refer to as "belief". I "believe"
that my self exists, I "believe" that my environment exists, but I have
absolutely no way of knowing, for certain, ANYTHING AT ALL. Therefore,
no matter how much "evidence" for something, it's still "belief". There
is no such thing as a "fact" or a "truth" - there are things which can
infinitely approach the status of "fact" (such as stating that one color
of light is different from another color of light) but which
nevertheless can never truly be "fact", because all any person has is
the information available to him/her, which can never be verified from
an objective perspective. Therefore, I "believe" in gravity, and I
"believe" that there are many people in the world that have "proven" its
"existance", but for all I know, the entire Universe is just a
simulation created entirely for my amusement (cf. Cronenberg's
"eXistenZ", a very good flick).
Everything I'm saying is just recycled from my knowledge of the concept
of "subjective reality", which I happen to "believe" in, so I suggest
you look up some literature on the subject rather than argue with me
about it.
> > I've found that there are two types of "atheists" among Kids These Days
> > - the ones who listen to death metal and like to piss off Christians in
> > their spare time and scream "God is dead!!!" a lot, and the ones who
> > simply don't believe in any of the established religions, which is NOT
> > the same as atheism. For all we know, God lives all the way across the
> > Universe and hasn't even gotten around to talking to us yet. What makes
> > us think we're worth His attention, anyway?
>
> What? I don't hardly know where to begin with those latter comments.
> Actually, I don't think I'll bother w/ them at all. Would it suffice to
> say that creation assumes attention?
No, it would not. How do you know that God created us? How do you know
that God isn't a blind, ignorant energy field which has no direct way of
communicating with us (that's actually pretty much what I believe)? How
do you know that God didn't create some much more advanced life-forms in
Alpha Centauri who show MUCH more promise than us and don't spend all
this time bickering and listening to music and watching TV, and we are
just some nutty accident that He's watching with amusement?
np:Yo La Tengo, "Cherry Chapstick"
--
Hard like Tarot cards, behold the one-man million man march.
Rev. Jack Godsey.
http://spill.tripod.com
Spiritual counsel and webmaster for Pegasi 51.
http://pegasi51.tripod.com
