From: dabrowsk@parc.xerox.com (Jarek Dabrowski)
Subject: Re: Justifying Views related to Valid Proof
Organization: Xerox PARC
Distribution: world, public
Date: 22 Jul 92 04:50:03 GMT

SUMMARY: 1) "My standards" as a general, quite objective pattern. 2) The
         "mirror theory" ctiticized as useless. 3) It's impossible today
         to read the Bible without interpreting it. 4) I use the Bible
         because I see it points to God. Otherwise I would reject it. 

QUOTE: I say: "If the Bible leads me to God, then it really 
       means TO ME what it should mean TO ME. And God is the 
       Judge". Now please find a Christian which will tell you 
       that the Bible should not lead to God...

In <1992Jul20.190437.24539@nmsu.edu> Stephen Doe writes about Jarek's
standards, about false prophets, and about his way to atheism: 

(Steve, I replied to all subjects, sub-subjects, and sub-sub-subjects. 
Please select one or two most interesting to you and remove the rest.
Files like this one have an uncanny tendency to grow to infinity).

*** JAREK'S STANDARDS FOR (accept X? reject X? change view?) ***
-[edited to form questions]:
>>>>>  1) is X logical?
>>>>>  2) is X useful to Jarek?
>>>>>  3) is X acceptable to Jarek?
>>>>>  4) is X compatible with Jarek's world view?
-Jarek:
>>the more complicated model is unacceptable (Occam Razor). 
-Steve:
>what if both models are equally complex, or equally "acceptable,"
>
Then not only a 'jarekist' would have been troubled. But this 'trouble'
is not real, because you have assumed that it doesn't matter to me which
model will I accept. 

Remember, there's no objective rule which says that models of reality
must be unique, even if we assume that this 'reality' which is modelled
is unique itself. Models are just models, and nothing more. It may be
ASSUMED that models can mirror the reality with any precission, but it
is only a groundless assumption additional to logic and with the same
epistemological value as the assumption that God exist. If the mirror
theory is adopted, then if two models appear the same given a system of
thought, then the system must be EXPANDED by additional restrictive set
of rules which will eliminate one of the solutions; such a procedure is
of course always possible, as long as the models really differ, but it
brings no information about the reality. It only unnecessarily affirms
the uniqueness of the arbitrarily chosen solution (Marxist's One Way). 
But as the people who believe in God can defend their position saying
that they have their subjective insight, the "mirror people" can't use
this argument: the purpose of the mirror was to REMOVE subjectivity. And
this purpose is unattainable, simply because logic was assumed...

-Steve:
>Your standards are so fuzzy ("useful," "acceptable," etc.
>
The crux is, as you noted, what is understood by useful, by acceptable,
and what does one's world view actually contain. These are subjective,
personal variables in a quite objective, general block diagram (there
was also a brief prescription how to use these items) of a logical and
practical program which reads input data, compares it to the stored data
using a set of rules, and then rejects the input data as irrelevant or
wrong, or accepts the data as compatible with the program, or rewrites
itself to increase its predictive power and/or its domain of validity.

-Steve:
> And how do [these variables] change for other people?
>
Who knows? I am not "other people" :-D.


>>************ IS JAREK A FALSE PROPHET? *******
-Steve:
>>>many paths [...].  Yet Christ himself said [...]
-Jarek:
>>Did the guy come to God? Yes? Then he did it through Jesus.
-Steve:
>The Scripture seems most emphatic that Christ is the only way.
>
That's exactly what I said.

>If you read Paul for example [...]
>
Paul was responsible for broadcasting and establishing the new message
brought by Jesus to the people. The closer in time and space one comes
to the historical Jesus (or to events which initiated the allegory; let
me however stress that I believe that Jesus was a historical person), 
the more is the literal understanding of the words used by the Apostols
tuned to one's behavior and thinking pattern and reflects the original
message. The spectacular success of the Apostols shows that the tuning
was excellent. It is clear why Paul saw other religions as blasphemous;
they WERE such indeed. If the world had really been on its straight way
to God, there would have been no reason for Jesus to suffer for it. 

But when we go historically and geographically further and further from
Jesus, the term "literal understanding" loses its meaning, just because
of tremendous cultural and psychological difference between us here and
now and the people there and then. It is not possible any more just to
look into the Bible and grasp the frehs idea, that is, have it filtered
through nearly the same psychological sieves that the Authors used. One
may be convinced one has got it without 'interpretation', but there is
no longer any UNIQUE (sociologically determined) way of extracting the
message. This 'without interpretation' claim means that one FEELS that
the Holy Words describe exactly what one thinks they describe, not that
the Holy Words ARE understood exactly as they were meant by the Authors.
So virtually anyone who reads the Bible sincerely, be it a Christian, an
atheist, or a Buddhist, anyone can claim he reads the Bible without any
'interpretation'. Thus this term looses its practical meaning indeed. 

The only way to determine 'correctness' in one's understanding of the
Bible (or in one's religion, in general) is now to determine whether one
does or does not come close to God (of course assuming that God exists).
There's no unique social measure for it anymore. The sociologically well
defined One Way became split into many paths and the Guide may be given
many names and may be described in many religious languages. Still, as
Jesus said, He is the Guide. If you do come to God, you will doubtlessly
(assuming the Bible, again) come through Him though you do NOT even have
to know the sound of the WORD 'Jesus', or even though your environmental
brainwashing made you HOSTILE to that sound. For the Spirit that Guides
is not in the lettering, but in the Person. 

-Steve:
>you're arguing for a "many ways to God" approach *from a Christian
>context*.  THAT requires some pretty convincing arguments, 
>given the Scripture's attitude on the issue.
>
You've given the satisfactory argument: "No one comes to the Father but
through me"... You may also search for the quotes which say that it is
not the Law, but the proximity to God that counts. And which say that
you may have a deep knowledge of the Word but have no knowledge of God.
And which say that one should love God as children do (children have no
knowledge of the Written Law, mind you). If you are familiar with the
Bible, you will find these quotes without any problem. And if you have
some counter-arguments (from the Bible), I'll be happy to discuss them
with you (but remember about my introduction to this subject).

-Steve:
>>>Paul [...] "if Christ was not resurrected, then our faith is in vain."
-Jarek:
>>If we rejected the participation of God in our life, then our faith
>>would be indeed in vain. 
-Steve:
>Paul was refering to an actual, physical, bodily Resurrection of
>Christ, and also that he expected the same for all believers when
>Christ would return. 
>
So do I, but the point is that this is not ESSENTIAL but AUXILLARY. You
mix the method (the belief in Resurection) with the purpose (salvation).
Moreover, note that the resurected Body of Christ was only superficially
the same as the human body (cf. your Bible). The same is true for other
human bodies (cf. your Bible again). This is probably a way of pointing
out that we won't loose our identity if that what we understand as our 
selves (in a simple-minded way, just 'bodies') follows the way of God.

-Steve:
>What it all comes down to is "Does the Bible really mean what it says
>it means?"  If not, who do we believe?  The Apostle to the Gentiles
>(not to mention Christ himself) or Jarek?
>
As we always did: We believe the Bible AS WE ARE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT.
Of course if you think that what I say disagrees with the Bible, you
should believe what you think the Bible says. Which anyway makes sense
only if you understand what and why do I say.

-Steve:
>I think I do understand your approach to the Bible, which seems to be,
>"It *really* means what I think it should mean."
>
Not exactly. I say: "If the Bible leads me to God, then it really means
TO ME what it should mean TO ME. And God is the Judge". Now please find
a Christian which will tell you that the Bible should not lead to God.

>>********* DID JAREK CONSIDER REJECTION OF CHRISTIANITY ****
-Jarek:
>>I had been an atheist for many years. 
-Steve:
>My family is RC [...] Eventually I realized [...] so I quit [...]
>
So far the pattern of our history is the same.

>Even afterwards I felt pretty bad because I felt I had rejected
>Christianity for the wrong reasons [...]
>
In my case, I thought I rejected Christianity for very good reasons. And
I could come back (in a very indirect way which I had never expected to
take) only when all those "good reasons" disappeared. Just to give one
example: I thought that people believe in God because they are afraid of
death, so as long as I was afraid of death, there was no way for me to
believe in God. But I had to get rid of this fear to make sure that it
is quite normal to be an atheist; thus, becoming a more and more grown
up atheist, I - involuntarily - came closer and closer to God.

>Now I have convinced myself
>
Maybe one more difference between us was that I was always following the
choice which I found the right and well grounded one (at least, that's
what I tried to do :-D), so I did not have to force myself to accept my
solutions. But maybe you did the same and I misunderstood your words.

****** IS (JAREK'S) THEISM A POSSIBLE PREY FOR THE RAZOR? ******
-Steve:
>Earth-based model, so whenever theory and observations didn't match,
>they would add epicycles to planetary orbits.  Whenever someone points
>out a problem with Christian doctrine to you (free will vs.
>determinism, for example) you throw in a few ad hoc assumptions about
>
No, it's not like that. These 'problems' are like experimental data to
me. The correct interpretation of experimental data cannot ignore any
relevant information. Because the existence of God, as the existence of
my self, is for me a relevant data, the presence of other data can only
affect my interpretation of God and my self, much in the way our data
obtained from many fields of physics change our interpretation of the
outside world ("this *$&# quantum mechanics with its *@#% equations")
but do not affect our beliefs in the existence of the outside world.  

My mystical metaphysics is extremely simple: God exists. Fullstop. From
this mystical knowledge everything else (including me and you) follows.
This 'else' is just a particular representation of this mystical view.
Call it a "philosophical speculation".

-Steve:
>I just do not see any benefits to your attempt to save the Bible and
>Christianity from irrelevancy, except to provide you with an
>impressive sounding way of saying, "I'm not changing my mind, so
>there."
>
??? I am changing my mind regularily, it is healthy. I am not changing
myself, this would be mad because (ALLERT!) I like my personality (STAND 
EASY!). I use the Bible because I see that it points to God. If I didn't
see that, I would simply reject it. 


Best wishes,
             Jarek
------------------------------------------------------
 .-----.      Jarek_Dabrowski@Parc.xerox.com         
 `-> <-'    Jarek(u)Dabrowski@Parc.xerox.com         
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