From: esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Faith
Date: 11 Sep 92 19:53:53 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)

Graham Matthews writes in response to me:
}esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak) writes:
}>  You seem top think that the unprovability of an axiom is the same as
}>the unverifiability of an axiom.  Of course a fundamental axiom of a
}>formal system cannot be proved within that system (that's why it's an
}>axiom).  But you seem to think this implies that one set of axioms is
}>just as good as another.  But this is simply false.  We can test a set
}>of axioms by using the system as a model, and then seeing how well the
}>model maps onto what we experience in the world.

}Eric the counter to this is completely obvious, namely how do you know
}what the mapping between the real world is and your perceptions of the
}real world? You assume that there is some near identity mapping, but this
}is an axiom *in* your system, so Jarek's point still holds.

  Fortunately, it is also an axiom of Jarek's (or, more broadly, the
theist's) system, so it is not under dispute.  What is under dispute is
whether certain theistic claims based on experiences that some people have
had, i.e., experience of the existence of a god, are on equal footing with
non-theistic claims about the nature of the world based on sense
perception or measurement by instruments.  That is, both theists and
non-theists take their sense experience to provide them with evidence
about the nature and existence of an objective reality.  But theists
claim that a transcendent being is part of the furniture of this
objective reality, whereas non-theists either deny such a being or at
least suspend judgment about it.
  In the second place, even though I take as a fundamental axiom of my
world-view that there is some sort of mapping of my experiences onto a
mind-independent world, that in no way means that the denial of this
axiom is "equally good".  I could, I suppose, take as a fundamental
axiom of my world-view that all my experiences map (rather inaccurately)
onto a piece of burnt toast which constitutes ultimate reality, but this
would hardly be just as good as the axiom that my experiences somehow
represent or correspond to a world about which my experiences give me
information.  If nothing else, the latter axiom is more fecund and
provides better ground for explanations and predictions than the
burnt-toast axiom.
  In sum, to say of two axioms that both are fundamental is not thereby
to say that both are equally good.  If you want to be a die-hard
epistemological skeptic and claim that the criteria for assessing goodness
or fecundity of axioms are also axiomatic in just the same problematic
sense, then obviously no dialogue is possible, and we will just have to
throw up our hands and abandon any effort at resolving any question.  Theism,
Burnt-toastism, etc. will all be on equal footing.

--
********************************************************************
Eric Sotnak                   |  One life.
esot@troi.cc.rochester.edu    |  One chance. 
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:15984 talk.religion.newage:4292