From: shouse@oscar.UUCP (claude shouse)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Deja vu all over agai
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:52:25 GMT

In article <emc.717802880@noonian>, emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
> In <713@oscar.UUCP> shouse@oscar.UUCP (claude shouse) writes:
> >In article <emc.717532405@ro>, emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
> 
> >> The line between Agnosticism and Atheism is actually very thin
> >> or nonexistant.  I suggest you tune in to alt.atheism.  
> 
> >The argument that Agnosticism being virtually the same as Atheism is
> >simply not valid.
> 
> Usage and meaning of words is the result of  a community of users,
> not by a private declaration.  I would ask atheists how they define
> themselves before I resort to your personal validation.  (Just as
> I would ask Christians how they define themselves).
>

But my point was that you were defining agnosticism by finding them
in the community of atheists thereby neglecting what I maintain to
be sizeable numbers of them in the ranks of believers.  Theistic
agnostics is not a null set.
 
 
> >My view is that True Believers (tm) very often take
> >belief to be equivalent to knowledge and that the failure to 
> >recognize the difference is the reason that many find them arrogant
> >and severely lacking in common sense.  The statement of Mr. Chiprout
> >above is a consequence of this failure.

> 
> Do you mean to say, that if I answer epistemological questions such as:
> 
> -How do I come to knowledge?
> -How well does my knowledge represent reality?
> -What is the value of secondary sources of knowledge (as
>  opposed to direct experience)?
> -How well do I have to define something before I
>  am ready to judge its possibility as true or false knowledge?
> -How much "proof" do I need before belief becomes knowledge?
> -How much knowledge from experimental evidence do I need before 
>  I believe that a proposed theory corresponds to reality.
> Etc.
> 
> that there is no element of belief in the answers? 

Excepting self awarness, there is an element of belief in all knowledge
as Descartes has said.  And while one may say there is an element
 of belief in the apprenhension of physical reality, at some level
of functioning within it, one must "know" that there is an objective,
physical reality.  In order to understand this physical reality,
modern science has provided a beautiful model of what it is and how
it works.  The strength of the model lies in its coherence, structure,
integration, and mathematical underpinnings.  It is so persuasive
one can *believe* it to the point of *knowledge*.

> The big problem in the
> philosophy of "science" (as an acknowledged method of obtaining
> knowledge) is that it is difficult to define a
> universally accepted "Scientific Method". Yet, somehow, we all believe
> we know what "science" means (oops! there is that word believe again).

I am not a scientist so it comes but it comes as a complete suprise
to me that the scientific method of thesis, hypothesis, synthesis,
experiment, prediction, etc. is not well established.  I *believe* your
assertion here is false, but I do not *know* it to be so. (Much like
my belief in God.  I believe there is a God but do not know it.)
 
> (This discussion is better carried out in talk.religion.misc,
> talk.philosophy, or, God forbid, alt.atheism)

I disagree.  While the discussion is colaterally germane to those
groups, the implications for t.o are important.  It is for those
whose religious beliefs intrude on scientific knowledge that this
group exists.  

> Also, if you are going to quote me, please don't ignore relevant
> statements that I made to the argument, such as:  it is 
> possible to find people (however few) who feel their knowledge 
> is complete but still reject God  -- "strong" atheism.

I appologize if I edited something you consider important.  But I
really doubt you are going to find many people in this group who
feel that their knowledge is complete except those who reject the
scientific evidence in favor of a literal interpretation of Gensis.

Best regards,

Claude Shouse









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