From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: God and Science:  The Ramblings of The Nightstalker
Date: 11 Nov 1992 20:27:01 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1992Nov11.043814.795@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:
=>'Scientism?'  First I heard of that!  But I will state the following: if there
=>is a cosmic purpose, I don't know what it is.  I've never seen any signs
=>pointing to it, either.  And Christianity does no better a job at answering
=>'why': it just pushes things back a step.  Why are we here? 'Because God Made
=>It That Way.'  Why did he make it that way?  'Ummmm ...'
=
=	"Well... but science works that way too, to a certain extent.
=`Where did the Earth come from?'  `Condensation from a cloud of dust,
=with the rest of the solar system?' `Where did the dust come from?'
=`Supernova explosions adding to interstellar hydrogen and helium.'
=`Where did the original matter come from?'  `The Big Bang.'  `What
=caused the Big Bang?'  `Ummmm ...'  The question is whether the
=explanation gives greater understanding than we had before, not
=whether it explains _everything_.  Religion _may_ explain human
=beings' purpose in the world-- but it won't and doesn't need to
=explain the purpose of quasars or radio galaxies or sea anemones or
=aliens billions of light years away whom we'll never meet.

The problem is that MANY religions PURPORT to explain human beings' purpose in
the world.  This would not, of course, be a problem execept for the fact that
they don't all agree on just WHAT that purpose is.  So we're left with a number
of apparently purely arbitrary and conflicting claims as to what that purpose
may be.  How does one choose?

=Why are we here?'  Christianity claims it's `Because God wants us to become
=more like Him-- to become closer to Him because He's the source of all
=things good, and distance from Him hurts us.'

Other religions say it's because one or more gods expect to end up involved in
a huge war and they'll need all the help they can get.  Again, none of these
religions seems to have any greater claim to truth than the others.

=	But those are all just more questions.  And, of course,
=getting to them requires accepting the hypothesis advanced-- which in
=turn means considering the Christian answer to the `whys' more
=compelling than other answers to the question of `Why are we here?'
=Many don't consider the question meaningful at all.  I do, because I
=think most people can't help but assign moral meaning to their actions
=(i.e. believing certain acts committed by them or against them to be
=unjust) and I consider a mass delusion of meaning and free will to be
=a less compelling hypothesis.

Why do you consider it a less compelling hypothesis? 

=	"Maybe, maybe not.  After all, some believe that conscience is
=in part a communication from God.

Then they must, I assume, believe that dogs also receive the same sort of
communication from God?  After all, dogs have been known to exhibit behavior
which in a human would be ascribed to a guilty conscience.  So, do dogs have
souls?