[was: RE: [PEN-L:23057] Re: On the necessity of socialism and grammar]
Rev. Tom writes: >Sabri has framed the issue correctly. Both are beliefs.
For the same reason as Sabri, I believe in God but not in a God or gods.<
I was raised as a Unitarian, a "faith" that believes that there exists at
most one god (and argues about whether or not to capitalize). So my
question: is why believe in the existence or non-existence of "god"?[*] why
not simply express ignorance on this question?
As far as I can tell, there's no logical argument either for or against the
existence of "god." Similarly, all the empirical evidence can be interpreted
in more than one way. People have religious experiences in which they
encounter supernatural entities who they interpret as good. But looking at
the so-called "Holy" Land suggests that there ain't anything holy in this
world of ours. But we'll never know.
(BTW, the issue of the so-called "transformation problem" isn't analogous to
that of the existence of supernatural entities. It's a standard scholastic
trap that ensnares the left the way other scholastic traps that keep
non-leftists out of trouble. If it didn't exist, the Mandarin-minded
Marxists (MMMs) would think up some other problem to keep themselves
occupied. Besides, there's an easy solution...)
;-)
[*]Economic theory suggests that we shouldn't be concerned only with the
existence of "god" but also its stability and uniqueness. As is the "god" of
2002 the same as the one of 1999? Just as the "real GDP" of 2002 isn't
strictly speaking comparable to that of 1999, perhaps there are index-number
problems...
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 6:24 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:23057] Re: On the necessity of socialism and grammar
>
>
> Sabri Oncu wrote,
>
> >> Um, as soon as we can figure out whether
> >> God does or does not exist...
> >>
> >> Ian
> >
> >My dear Ian,
> >
> >This problem is not that difficult. I solved it when I was 14. I
> >realized that there was no difference between believing in the
> >existence or non-existence of God.
>
> Sabri has framed the issue correctly. Both are beliefs. For
> the same reason
> as Sabri, I believe in God but not in a God or gods. The
> distinction is
> crucial. There IS a difference between believing in God and
> believing in "a"
> God or "the" God. God is a unique part of speech that cannot
> be a noun. The
> article makes God into a noun, which is grammatically absurd.
> It is like
> saying, in English, "I the go to store" or "She a eat apple."
> It is clearly,
> obviously ungrammatical. God is also not a verb, an
> adjective, an adverb, a
> preposition or any other common part of speech. In fact, one
> might say that
> the linguistic function of God is precisely to stand as other
> to all the
> common parts of speech and thus to remind us of the
> incompleteness, the
> inadequacy of any conceivable utterance. God is the unique
> grammatical term
> for the ultimate unutterableness of being.
>
> Tom Walker
>
