From: ivaliote@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus )
Subject: Re: Atheism and Intelligence
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:35:48 GMT

gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart) writes:
>>>>I tend to think that agnosticism (a word that annoys me even 
>>>>to type, for personal reasons) is basically a declaration faith should not 
>This, I've got to hear.  I'm kind of disappointed after all we hear nowadays
>about every Joe and Sally and their kin being "offended" by the existence or
>practices of every other Sally and Joe, and now there's someone who has a gripe
>about a group that merely says that they "don't know"?  Yikes.  Maybe
>my "sensitivity meter" is set too low.
I am not 'offended by' agnostics.  Please, I have no intention of picking a 
fight with intelligent agnosticism.  The word agnostic annoys me because it has
been cheapened by people who say 'I'm an agnostic' simply because they are too 
dang lazy to give thought to anything more complex than Love Connection.

>>>>exist, perhaps does not exist, or whatever.  To be an agnostic is to say, 
>>>>in my view, that one can never have faith in anything.  
>Work on that view.  And watch the caffein.  How could anyone claim that one
>can't have faith in anything.  Obviously, people do.  Obviously there are
>many, many, many things in the world that cannot be proven, or that would be
>impractial to spend any effort trying to prove.  I can't prove the sun will
>come up tomorrow (although I'd bet my bottom dollar -- that tomorrow, tomorrow
>...  never mind.  Wrong show.), but I'd be pretty illogical, IMHO, to have
>no faith it will, not to mention mighty depressed.  
It still seems to me that agnosticism is drawing a line for convenience's sake.
They seem to say,"Well, we know that essentially we can prove nothing at all, 
but we are only going to believe in things that our reason will tell us have 
'good odds' of being true."  Don't get me wrong; at one level, these assertions 
make sense.  But when it comes to questions of eternal and god-oriented nature,
I tend to think that reason is not enough.
>>
>>>So as I tried to say before, those who have have faith (pro or con) could 
>>>have gained it not from the intellect, but only from the heart.
>I understand that it's a drive people have to glorify this "thinking with
>the heart", but it's still a good idea to use reasoning to evaluate it.
>It's a bit of an insult to say that all Christians and atheists are thinking
>with their "hearts" and not using any criteria whatsoever to evaluate the
>results of doing so.  I think what you mean is that they are thinking with
>their emotions, but I also think you know that Only using emotions without
>logical reasoning is impractical and dangerous and allows people to act
>without evaluation of the actions.  Logic doesn't mean only yes or no,
>but obviously takes into account the probability of a conclusion leading
>to positive results of some kind.
I agree with you on this, although I think I weight the heart more than you.  I
can't be sure.
>>
>>It is my feeling that there are far too many things which the reason is 
>>incapable of conclusively dealing with in any effective way.  Love, eternity,
>>right and wrong all disintegrate into relativistic nonsense if reasonnis all 
>I find love, eternity and right and wrong to be purely logical and reasonable
>concepts in that they have an effect on my actions and what I believe will
>be my enjoyment of the end results.  How can you love someone and not have
>any idea why?
I have known several who have done it.  MOre importantly, even if you have
*some* idea, your reason isn't giving you the full answer as to *exactly* why
you love someone.
		
>At the very least, the person will cause some kind of a reaction
>in you, and even if you don't understand the chain of events or previous
>experiences that cause you to react that way doesn't mean that it isn't
>logical.  I can't understand all the logic behind the behavior of electrons,
>but that doesn't mean there isn't any.
Again, I am not denying that there is *no* logic to love, eternity, etc.  I am
saying, however, that there id *more* than just logic underlying them.  Hence,
logic is not adequate to describe or explain any of them.

>>and that, in fact, those who claim no faith or a lack of ability to believe 
>>in anything are merely believing in something else less describable and capable
>>of being pinned down.
>In may cases that's true.  But there are lots of things in the world I
>just don't have much knowledge of.  So what would be my "faith" with
>respect to those things?  For instance, what am I "merely believing
>in" other than Igor Sivetsky losing his job in Moscow, when I don't have
>any knowledge of him at all.  Wouldn't I be better off just being
>neutral and saying, "I don't know"?  Or does this concept only apply
>to gods or love?  Anyway, you see my point.
I don't *entirely* agree.  It is my feeling that ideas as important as God and
love and eternity are important enough to merit my attempting, at the very 
least, to come to grips with them.  But you most definitely could be right.

Matt I.
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