From: mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: some gods are _not_ creaters of all things, apparently
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:22:31 GMT
	<MIB.92Jul20145934@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
	<1992Jul21.161700.4077@advtech.uswest.com>
Organization: Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, MA

In article <1992Jul21.161700.4077@advtech.uswest.com> steven@jaynes ( Steve Novak) writes:

   >I don't completely understand my computer,
   >but I know how its instruction set works.  

   Of course, there *are* people that DO fully understand your computer.

Nonsense.  They may understand hy it produces the results it does on
my screen, in part, but to claim they fully understand it is to claim
that physics is now Done and the physical universe is Understood.

   There *are* scientists who fully understand the workings of stars including
   our own.  Your claimed supernatural being has been interpreted every which
   way by anyone with an agenda, and of course no one really knows.

No, there aren't.  Right now there is an "undercount" of neutrinos
from our sun--the detectors find one-third the neutrinos expected.
This indicates that we don't understand the workings of the sun fully,
because we don't understand the reactions that are producing the light
and heat.

   >I don't completely understand my CD player, but I know how to play a
   >CD on it, and even enjoy the music.  

   Plenty of people know EXACTLY how CD players work.  No one similarly
   understands one of many supernatural beings that are purported by some to
   exist.

Not at all.  There is a lot of unknown in the realm of lasers, not to
mention the "simple" dynamic instability of the platter that supports
the disc as it spins.  CD players are well-enough understood to play
music and to build them, but they are not completely understood.

   >I don't completely understand my coffee mug, nor the capuccino in it,
   >and yet I get a great deal of pleasure from drinking coffee.

   This statement makes no sense.  Are you baffled my the mug's rim, or the
   handle?

I'm baffled by how the solid hangs together.  The physics of
ceramics--things that have been made and used by humans for
millenia--is a big unknown, largely.  My coffee cup doesn't have a
very pure composition.  Nobody really knows just how it is that the
glaze contributes to the solidity of the mug, yet it does.  Getting
the paint of the logo to stick is a baffling problem, since it's not
made out of the same glaze.  Sometimes paints stick, sometimes not.
There is no general theory (that is, no complete understanding) about
how to predict the behavior of glazes, clays, or the bonding between
them. 

   >Why do you have trouble with the concept that I don't completely
   >understand God, and yet there are certain things that I do know about
   >the divine?

   No, there's certain things you've gleaned from the man-made bible or had
   preached to you, but you don't *know* a damn thing about your alleged
   "God".  It's called faith.

   You only think you know something about YOUR divinity, a big difference
   from "...I do know about the divine".

But all I know about the world is the evidence of my senses.  I don't
directly perceive the sun, or my mug, or my CD player--I only perceive
sense impressions.  They don't always make sense--there are physical
theories, all accepted, which are mutually inconsistent--but that
doesn't make a real problem in USING the objects or in BELIEVING in
their existence.  Which is why I say that a lack of complete
understanding does not preclude usefulness.

--
Michael I. Bushnell             |		Benedictus qui venit
+1 617 625 4518 (H)            -+-                       in
+1 617 253 8568 (W)             |                      Nomine
mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu              |                      Domini
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