From: gt0418c@prism.gatech.EDU (Shane Wm. McWhorter)
Newsgroups: ga.general
Subject: Re: Warning: Religion!
Keywords: religion, state
Date: 22 Aug 92 00:46:00 GMT
Distribution: ga
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Regarding that people have suffered under Communism, Marxism, and other
secular institutions, why didn't you say:

"Communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism -- Whoops, am I just
making a long list of the same thing? Sorry."

On a different philosophical track,

The last post wants to lump the term "Religion" in with "organized
belief."

I disagree. In my understanding, a religion is based on a UNDISPROVABLE
idea, for instance, there is one "God." Prove that there isn't!

Or, Christains believe the Bible is the Word of God, because you
can't prove that it is not. That's the makings of a religious argument,
not a scientific one.

Religions believe there is Truth. Scientists do not. A hardcore scientist
will even say there are no facts, only ideas that as of yet have not been
disproven. However, scientists are only interested in things that have a
measurable effect; an effect that you can test to see if the idea is   
correct (or, more correctly, as of yet not incorrect).

Because of this non-disprovability, there is no test or measure
to tell the difference between universe A with a deity, and universe B
without a deity. Therefore, the deity has no measureable effect on the
universe. If there is a measurable effect on the universe by a deity, then
we could prove the existence of that deity by the presence of that effect.

In universe A, people feel "the love of God in their hearts."
In universe B, people think they feel "the love of God in thier hearts."

But there is no way to tell those people apart: they look, act, argue,
and believe in their Morality exactly the same.

So, as it is a religion, there is no way to tell whether you feel the
love of God in your heart, or just think you feel the "love" of "God" in
"your heart."

So, if a deity has no measureable effect on the universe (e. g. feeling
the "presence of God" is not a measureable effect) then it doesn't
matter whether a god exists or not, because it has no effect anyway.

(The presence of Christians is also not a measureable effect of a god;
Christians can exist whether a god exists or not.)

So, to sum up, this is the stuff of religion; not feminism, atheism, or
Marxism. For example, the correctness of Marxism can be tested. Put one
half of the country under Marxism, and the other half under capitalism.

You cannot, however, have one half of the universe with a God, and the other
half without, to see if there would be a difference. You could put one
half under Christianity, and the other half under Atheism, but that is
comparing the effect of a culture, not a God.

So, in simpler terms, the difference between a religious argument and
a secular argument is not in content, but in structure. I can have a
secular argument about Christianity, and a religious argument about
the conservation of matter and energy.


-- 
 | Shane Wm. McWhorter | Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center | 
 | shane@cc.gatech.edu | Georgia Institute of Technology               |
 |                     | Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0355                   |  
 | Psychophysics, Displays and User Performace in Virtual Environments |
Newsgroups: ga.general