From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: WEEMBA jests or admits atheism? (Was: Re: WEEMBA and DABROWSKI Angst
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:54:20 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Distribution: world,public
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: J5J@psuvm.psu.edu (John A. Johnson)

In article <92099.140742J5J@psuvm.psu.edu>, J5J@psuvm (John A. Johnson) writes:
>>>Easy, God = any of the Gods mentioned by any known religion.

>>Well, yes, that much I figured.  But the fact that the mention them
>>frequently doesn't mean that they define or explain them very well.

>>Can you *please* fill in this void?

>Let me try some reflective listening.  Matthew Wiener, are you saying that
>god(s) have been so poorly defined for you that you do not have sufficient
>information to decide whether or not to believe in any of these gods?

Uh no.  There's the Christian version, which I certainly don't believe
in.  There's the Big-Guy-in-the-Sky-with-Beard version which I certainly
don't believe in.  They may be poorly defined, but they are defined well
enough for me to reject them.

>If I got that right, the next question is, are you jesting?

I am trying to have fun.  Did you not notice the hidden kibo baits?

>If not, then I have changed my mind and now assume you are an atheist.
>Anyone who does not have a full and clear enough description of gods to
>profess belief in gods is, by default, an atheist (a-theism = without
>belief in gods).  Have I solved the riddle, or does the game go on?

It depends on whom you ask.  Smullyan has, in one of his books, a
conversation between an ideal theist and an ideal naturalist.  At one
point the theist says "Why not call that God?" and the naturalist replies
"Why not call it Nature?"  You've seen this style exchange before, I'm
certain.  Since the theist is cast as the evangelist, naturally he gets
rebuffed.  But ignore the evangelism.  Ignore the rebuff.  The conver-
sation was framed that way since that is what we run into.  The argument
works, in an abstract form, just as symmetrically.  Just consider: the
naturalist has belief in XXX, for some XXX.  He doesn't think XXX is
God--to him, nothing is--but if it is, does this make him a theist?
Dually, is the theist really a naturalist, but just doesn't want to
say so?

There's a Chassidic story told about a disciple having deep anxiety over
his philosophical doubts regarding God.  He goes to his rebbe and tells
him his troubles.  The rebbe asks him if he's eating the pork, cursing
his parents, working on the Sabbath etc.  The disciple is shocked and
repulsed at the suggestions.  So the rebbe tells him he doesn't have any
real doubts (ie, in the real world), just imaginary ones (ie, in his mind).

There are many points to this story, but the one relevant here is whose
notion of theism-vs-atheism should I hold by?  Yours?  Or Judaism's?

Do you yet see the difficulty I have in answering your question?  I
have had some interesting philosophical/theological discussions with
various rabbis, and one said something to the effect, "So you believe
in the Big Bang?  Great, you believe in God!"  And then summarized an
argument in the Talmud that retroactively reads as Big Bang vs Steady
State.  I thought it was nonsense, but if that *is* what God means,
then obviously I believe in God.

That's why I mentioned the Emacs RMS example: that one is obviously,
totally ridiculous.  I think that the Big Bang example is merely
ridiculous.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)