From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Correcting Creationists
Date: 10 Oct 92 12:52:28 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.
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In article <73086@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
>From: mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins)
>Subject: Re: Correcting Creationists
>Date: 5 Oct 92 16:49:42 GMT

>In article <Lou1RB1w165w@bluemoon.rn.com> darist@bluemoon.rn.com (david stroop) writes:
>>>From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
>>>Message-ID: <1992Oct01.084647.24107@bmerh85.bnr.ca>
>> 
>>>Science is telling us that we're insignificant.  Religion
>>>tells us that we're not. 

It might even be said, with some truth, that some religions, including
Christianity, have doctrines which may be interpreted, and which actually
have been interpreted, as implying that human beings were not so 
very significant at all. Consider "human depravity" interpretations of
the Original Sin dogma by Calvin et all. Consider the absolute gulf which
divides the Divine from all other non-divine indiividuals, including
man. The very idea of a supernatural, superhuman being who towers 
not relatively but infintely over human intelligences, would seem to me at
least to have far greater consequences for the "significance" of man
than would something like a naturalist or secularist view, in which there
is no such superior being which to compare him in value.

>>Science tells *atheists* that they're insignificant.  Science 
>>tells theists how wondrously God created the universe.  This also 
>>tells theists how significant *people* are because it was all done 
>>for them.  The theist wonders why the atheist wants to save a
>>species (man) that he believes is so insignificant.

This point has merit but probably not as much merit as you might think. There
is simply no way of knowing, even relying the Bible, how central man is to
God's activity in the entire universe apart from this Earth.

>This is BS. Science doesn't tell us anything about how
>significant people are. From the point of view of a
>scientist, a thing can only be significant with respect
>to some standard of comparison in some domain. For instance,
>a human being is not significant in measurements of the
>earth's mass. So what?

My elephant argument already took care of this point.

>The sort of significance you are talking obliquely about
>above has nothing to do one way or the other with
>science.

>>The theist views atheism as putting a cap on knowledge about the
>>universe because it prevents seeing the universe as the theist sees
>>it: with a God.  Do you assume science and atheism are the same?  The
>>theist sees science revealing God and thus being a-atheism (!(!God)).

>If you posit a philosophy (call it 'Anti-theism') that requires
>rejecting any view of the world in which a god turns up, then
>that philosophy 'puts a cap on' knowledge in the way that you
>describe. However, Anti-theism is by no means subscribed to by
>all atheists. Many are people who simply have yet to see any
>good reason to believe that this or that religion's account
>of existence as proceeding from some god or other is accurate.
>The challenge from such atheists to theists is: 'produce a
>convincing reason for me to believe you're right.' In absence of
>such a reason, the atheist remains atheist.

This is a good point and is well taken.  Extreme atheism, what you
have called 'anti-theism', does seem to smack of obscurantism. Although
this way of putting the matter leaves me undecided about how my own atheism 
should be understood.  I am a personal idealist.  My own substantive 
personal philosophy of religion is largely influenced by J.E.M McTaggart, 
who was not an anti-theist.  Of course, the reasons I would give for my 
atheism are different from those McTaggart gave, and are largely the result 
of not having seen any description of either theistic or nontheistic god-
concepts which can't be shown to be at bottom incoherent, either with 
with itself, other parts of the religious outlook in which the concept is 
found, or with the rest of what I know.  My attitude is: remain tough-yet-
open minded on the whole problem of God, while believing that I am 
rationally justified in so far thinking that the God of traditionnal theism 
does not exist.

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Newsgroups: alt.atheism