From: gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart)
Subject: Re: Atheism and Intelligence
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 15:57:02 GMT

In article <Bz6zz7.3BD@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ivaliote@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus ) writes:
>crawford@boole.mitre.org (Randy Crawford) writes:
>>>I tend to think that agnosticism (a word that annoys me even 
>>>to type, for personal reasons) is basically a declaration faith should not 

This, I've got to hear.  I'm kind of disappointed after all we hear nowadays
about every Joe and Sally and their kin being "offended" by the existence or
practices of every other Sally and Joe, and now there's someone who has a gripe
about a group that merely says that they "don't know"?  Yikes.  Maybe
my "sensitivity meter" is set too low.

>>>exist, perhaps does not exist, or whatever.  To be an agnostic is to say, 
>>>in my view, that one can never have faith in anything.  

Work on that view.  And watch the caffein.  How could anyone claim that one
can't have faith in anything.  Obviously, people do.  Obviously there are
many, many, many things in the world that cannot be proven, or that would be
impractial to spend any effort trying to prove.  I can't prove the sun will
come up tomorrow (although I'd bet my bottom dollar -- that tomorrow, tomorrow
...  never mind.  Wrong show.), but I'd be pretty illogical, IMHO, to have
no faith it will, not to mention mighty depressed.  
>
>>Those who call themselves christians are only in the last camp, with atheists
>>only in the first.  To be resident in either groups 2 or 3 is to be uncommit-
>>ted, and in the the parlance of christianity, to have no faith.  Those without
>>faith are agnostics.  It's by their faith that christians are christians, and 
>>atheists are atheists.  
>
>>So as I tried to say before, those who have have faith (pro or con) could 
>>have gained it not from the intellect, but only from the heart.

I understand that it's a drive people have to glorify this "thinking with
the heart", but it's still a good idea to use reasoning to evaluate it.
It's a bit of an insult to say that all Christians and atheists are thinking
with their "hearts" and not using any criteria whatsoever to evaluate the
results of doing so.  I think what you mean is that they are thinking with
their emotions, but I also think you know that Only using emotions without
logical reasoning is impractical and dangerous and allows people to act
without evaluation of the actions.  Logic doesn't mean only yes or no,
but obviously takes into account the probability of a conclusion leading
to positive results of some kind.
>
>It is my feeling that there are far too many things which the reason is 
>incapable of conclusively dealing with in any effective way.  Love, eternity,
>right and wrong all disintegrate into relativistic nonsense if reasonnis all 

I find love, eternity and right and wrong to be purely logical and reasonable
concepts in that they have an effect on my actions and what I believe will
be my enjoyment of the end results.  How can you love someone and not have
any idea why?  At the very least, the person will cause some kind of a reaction
in you, and even if you don't understand the chain of events or previous
experiences that cause you to react that way doesn't mean that it isn't
logical.  I can't understand all the logic behind the behavior of electrons,
but that doesn't mean there isn't any.

>that is consulted.  I just tend to think that faith is as necessary as emotion,
>and that, in fact, those who claim no faith or a lack of ability to believe 
>in anything are merely believing in something else less describable and capable
>of being pinned down.

In may cases that's true.  But there are lots of things in the world I
just don't have much knowledge of.  So what would be my "faith" with
respect to those things?  For instance, what am I "merely believing
in" other than Igor Sivetsky losing his job in Moscow, when I don't have
any knowledge of him at all.  Wouldn't I be better off just being
neutral and saying, "I don't know"?  Or does this concept only apply
to gods or love?  Anyway, you see my point.

GMS
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa