On Sun, 2004-04-18 at 18:33, Justin Findlay wrote: > No. Whose chapter and verse indeed! Revealed truth is absolute; that extends to > scripture.
Then why aren't you following the Q'uran? It is "revealed truth" and "scripture" yet I'm fairly sure you would not claim that it is absolute truth. > Scientific knowledge is nothing more than an aggregation of models, some of which > are better models > of reality than others, but ALL are incomplete and/or inconsistent with reality. Your worldview derived from "revealed truth" is nothing more than a model to describe reality as well. You claim it is complete, consistent, and absolute. How do you know? You feel good? A man who claimed he was sent from God, be it Joseph Smith or Muhammed (pbuh), said so? You cannot know that they were telling the truth. David Hume who spoke much on the problem of induction that you allude to also spoke on the inability for us to know causation. You cannot know the cause of your good feelings. > If I hold a rock in my hand and let go of it, what will happen?... We let go of the > rock and it didn't fall. Suppose a good, moral person reads the Book of Mormon and takes the missionary lessons and then prays with fervor and real intent to know if it is true. They follow all of the instructions in Moroni and their life is in order. Now, suppose that this person does not get an answer or they get the answer that it is not true. They followed all of the instructions yet things did not go as your "revealed truth" would claim. > The point is that science is not reality and can never touch reality. Scientific and scriptural models are both only abstractions to describe physical phenomena. Can you say that either can ever "touch" reality? Of course they are not actually reality but only pictures to describe it. > Because a great scientist has said or written or reasoned it doesn't make it true, > but at most a useful model which will most likely be found unuseful. Because a revered prophet has said or written or prophesied it doesn't make it true. There are many theories in science over time that have been proved wrong but were useful in their time. Newton's "laws" of motion even have exceptions which makes them not laws. Yet would you claim that the "laws" were not useful? You claim that science is wrong and that may well be true but look what it has gotten us. Show us something better than science for trying to figure out the world and how it works. Science is a self-correcting guessing machine which becomes more and more useful over time. Myths and religions are suppositions of reality which most of the time accept no revisions. Your assumption that they are true does not make them such. -- Michael Golden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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