From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: Mr. Clippingdale's religion
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:33:55 GMT

In article <laf6o4INNh5e@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes:
>(Randall Desmond) invites:
>  
>   Post me a list of questions that you feel must be answered in order to
>   decide on the validity of any religion.
>  
>  (Simon Clippingdale) in his usual admirably witty, yet
>  polite way replies:
>
>   1. Are all its claims falsifiable?
>   2. Is each of its claims as yet unfalsified?
>   3. What is the procedure for modification of the religion and its claims
>      in the event that new evidence falsifies certain of those claims?
> 
> Note that this is akin to demanding music come in
> vanilla, strawberry or chocolate.

My point entirely. To paraphrase you, "this is akin to demanding that
religion be a useful method of establishing objective truth".

Trouble is, many adherents of religion regard it as just that, hence
the multiplicity of differing "objective truths", over which differences
our species may well wipe itself out. Same goes for unfalsifiable dogma
in politics, philosophy (he anticipates) or whatever.

> Apparently, Mr. Clippingdale already has a religion:
> scientific empiricism.

No, I have (or consider to have) a useful method of establishing
objective truth. What *distinguishes* it from religion is precisely
its satisfaction of the criteria above, especially its plasticity
in the face of evidence (#3).

> Merely substitute "theory" for "religion" in (3) above, and you now
> have a good test of any hypothesis whose eventual empirical proof
> could be ascertained.

Quite so.

> Note that (1) above also gets rid of most "philosophy".

Well, I'm approaching Randall's question tongue-in-cheek in that
I have answered the somewhat different question: "Post me a list
of questions that you feel must be answered in order to decide on
the utility of any purported method of establishing objective truth",
and I did so in order to illustrate the absurdity of the notion that
religion can be considered such a method.

And yes, although philosophy is interesting, if it ain't falsifiable
then it ain't worth squat as a method of etc. etc. Which isn't to say
that it's worthless per se, merely that it's worthless as a
method of etc. etc.

You can coerce *anything* into a Marxist worldview, for instance.
If the international proletariat rise up and shout with one voice
"Marx was a jerk and Marxism is crap" then they've been brainwashed
by the ruling class oppressors.

This may or may not be true; the point is there's no way of testing
it. The acceptance of such unfalsifiable dogma *as*objective*truth*
is qualitatively no different from, and as dangerous to our survival
as, religion as far as I can see. It's that whole way of thinking
that bothers me.

> Dano

Cheers

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.            or 0203 etc. if you're in the sunny UK
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc