From: L.Newnham@bradford.ac.uk (Leonard Newnham)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Just how much smarter are atheists?
Date: 16 Dec 92 14:38:37 GMT
Organization: University of Bradford, UK
Originator: 90908502@muser

910773f@ace.acadiau.ca (HEATHER LEE FYFFE) writes:
>
>As for truth, somebody mentioned that there are many truths, until they get 
>disproved, or something like that.  Might I point out that that implies a 
>very liberal definition of truth - that truth is relative, that each person 
>can have their own truth, that truth is transient and changeable.  Well, I'm 
>sorry, but the big-T Truth, as in the way things actually are, the way the 
>universe actually was created, the real purpose in our being here (if you 
>believe there is one), can only be one thing.  The universe DID come into 
>existence a certain way, it can not possibly have happenned differently for 
>different people.  And whether we were created by a benevolent God, or an 
>evil one, or evolved by chance, or were created by the god Nature, whatever, 
>we came into existence one way and one way only.  Different religions and 
>beliefs cannot all be right, and I cannot understand how some people can 
>say `well, whatever works for that person'.
>

Yes I totally agree with this point.  "Let's not get in each other's
way", is avoiding the real issue.  However, it is at this point that I
part company with you.  I simply use scientific method, which has had
a good track record over the last few hundred years in giving us
information about our surroundings.  If there is no clear evidence for
a god or gods, or even any clear evidence for anything strange going
on, couple that with psychological theories of why people might want a
god to exist, then I am forced to the conclusion that the existence of
a god is extremely unlikely, just like leprechauns.


>Like I said, I'm not dimwitted, nor am I superstitious.  I think a great 

I'm sure you are not.


> Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, knows that they have 
>a soul.  Noone can possibly believe that `I', what makes me `me', my 
>thoughts, my feelings, my personality, is merely a product of atoms jumping 
>around in the brain.  You all know that there is something intangible that 
>is `you'. 

A big mistake here.  You are arguing from a position of incredulity.
This is the 'Blind Watchmaker' type of argument, generally discredited
these days.  Not being able to imagine how something can possibly
be true is not a sound argument.  A person with the brain the size of
a planet really should know better!

Strong AI is a well respected faction of the artificial intelligence
community and believes just this, as indeed I do.  If you are trying 
to make a point here you will need to be a little more specific and 
provide some evidence before I will seriously start to doubt that in 
feelings, personality etc. there is something more at work than the 
laws of physics.

What you state is merely your, and probably most people's, intuition 
of self.  However many commonly held intuitive beliefs have been
conclusively shown to be false.  A good example is time dilation in
special relativity.  Extremely counter-intuitive but fact.  Ever since
I studied relativity at school, I have come to realise that intuition
is based on experience and experience is limited therefore is often
completely wrong.

Support your claim please!

-- 

Leonard               e-mail:  L.Newnham@bradford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.atheism