From: ron_s@verifone.com
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: VaticanDIR/ALL Finds Galileo 'Not Guilty'
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:08:06 -1000
Organization: VeriFone Inc., Honolulu HI

> I inadvertantly deleted your Occam's razor comment.  You feel I need to prove
> that the supernatural exists.  But, to say that something doesn't exist is
> the statement that demands evidence/proof because it is the stronger statement.
> I have claimed that the supernatural may or may not exist.  You have claimed
> that it doesn't.  You have drawn a conclusion whereas I have not.  Drawing
> a conclusion requires support, stating a possibility does not.  Occam's razor
> does not come into play.
> 
>>What exactly do you mean by prove any physical law?  I suggest an experiment
>>-- jump off of a tall building, if you fall to the ground, I would consider
>>it evidence of gravity.  If, on the other hand, you should fly up into the
>>sky and be whisked into heaven, then I shall  become a believer.
>>Care to try?  Didn't think so.
> 
> Evidence for gravity is not proof of gravity.  One cannot prove anything in
> science because everything in science is based on assumptions which are stated
> without proof.
> 
>   -- Scott @Brandeis
> 
    When 12 men and women find a person guilty of a crime, and convict
him, it is not absolutely certain he is in fact guilty. Th truth may
not reflect our assessment of it.  It is better that we strive to
use whatever methods does give us a better view of the truth, or
actuality.  We avoid the deeper problems of discerning truth in the
court system by using a pretty good method of assigning the truth
rather than  ultimately determining it.  This does not mean the
truth is a figment or even unattainable by some other method, it does
mean having a practical tool for the maintenance of a sane and just
society.  12 fallible interpreters of evidence think it over, and
dispense justice in every rendered verdict.  

    Now on the question of God's existence, if we may for the moment
treat it as a question legitimately investigated by rational thought--
we must discover some characteristics or traits or properties of God,
then knowing these things we may attempt to render an imperfect
verdict, but a verdict which might well be accepted as doing "justice"
to God - or his lack - in our world.

   There is nothing in my experience of the world which could approximate
something having omniscience, or something which always was and always
will be - not even the world itself if we listen to the astronomers,
cosmologists of the big-bang theory.  So lets leave out omniscience
and immortality temporarily - though if he exists he may well be just so.

    Next we have miracles, or unusual phenomena, whose author is thought
to be God, you know ths stories - the walking on water, the shroud of Turin,
the healings and feedings of the gospels, the opening of the red sea waters,
the pope in the pizza, and on and on.

    I'm sorry, but unusual phenomena of many kinds happen even now
which are quite real and quite unexplained by either religion or by
science. These phenomena are the raw material of good science, and
also the evidence used to prove God's existence.  Of course, the
religious folks are more selective in their choice of miracles
than science because they are trying to make a more specialized case.
or to make the miracles fit the "godlike" paradigm they are stuck in.

  God concepts are also "meta" concepts, which can render Occam's
razor rather dull -- that is god both exists and does not exist
in the limited physical world, but in the combined psycho-physical
world he definitely either manifests or disappears completely, and
rationality is saved and the razor gets sharp again....

aloha


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