From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Subject: Re: Why I am an atheist  (long!)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 14:48:44 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Aug25.234845.12378@lmt.mn.org> ChazL@county.lmt.mn.org (Chaz Larson) writes:
>I agree, Brian.  This discussion reminds me of a guy in one of my basic 
>philosophy classes back at the U.  We were talking about Descartes and his 
>concepts of perfect minds and suchlike [which, of course, are all predicated 
>on the existence of a perfect God], and this one guy kept trying to turn 
>every discussion of every one of Descartes' ideas into an argument about the 
>existence of God, since without the existence of God most of Descartes 
>collapses.  This guy was totally missing the point.  In order to discuss this-
>or-that religious or philosophical construction, there are always some base 
>assumptions that have to be granted, else the discussion gets hopelessly 
>mired.
>
>Most of the actively believing Christians I have known have not been morons.  
>They have a very real faith that this God exists.  In order to discuss the 
>rest of the philosophical system and its validity [not, as Brian points out, 
>its "truth"], you have to grant that for sake of discussion, God exists.

There is a valid point here that in consideration of a philosophy as a
whole we must consider it at one level complete with its axioms as
givens.  That being said, this is talk.RELIGION.misc, (or even more so
alt.ATHEISM), not some pure philosophy group.  Religion is not,
universally, such an abstract thing, but includes those who want to
apply their philosophy to the behavior of others; when those others
don't share the base axioms, the discussion must turn in that
direction.  I should add that most of the discussions here tend to
work given the assumption of God, and hinging on the (purported)
contradictions that may arise.  It might actually simplify life
considerably at least on alt.atheism if more people were up front
about the broader issues: "since your argument presupposes the
existence of God, which I do not accept, it is completely invalid, as
far as I am concerned, and we needn't continue".  Instead, we tend to
get hung up on the little details, "but, if God is good, why did he
order those babies killed?"  Still, we're all here because it's
interesting and educational to discuss these things.

>Imagine that you're teaching Newtonian physics, and every time you try to 
>discuss the orbital behavior of Earth, someone demands that in order for the 
>discussion to be meaningful at all, you must first address the question of 
>whether or not gravitons exist, and if so, what form they take.  Ridiculous.

Not the best analogy: this would be more analogous to a situation
where in a discussion of theology a listener insists on concentrating
on the exact nature of the free will of angels.  A better analogy:
Imagine that you're teaching Newtonian physics, and every time you
discuss the orbital behavior of Earth, someone asks how you can talk
about the Earth orbiting the Sun, when this latter is a golden chariot
driven by the god Helios and crossing above the earth?
-- 
Jim Perry   	    	    	    Distributed Object Computing Program
perry@apollo.hp.com	    	    Hewlett-Packard Co., Chelmsford MA
This is the way the breakfast ends, not with a wimp but a banger.