Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 00:57:47 -0400 From: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Fw: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020905005747.1f5964a2.yid@softhome.net>
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On Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:57:58 -0700 (PDT) "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> wrote: > > > It's because if you supply your own definition of "simple", > > > Occam's razor can be used to prove anything. > > > > No, it cannot be used to prove *anything*; only that which may be > > reduced to definitions and terms consistent with simplicity and > > complexity, with the former affirmed and the latter rejected. That > > A naturalist would insist that "natural" explanations are > the simplist, no matter how complex the details. On the Occam's razor is being used here to refute the cosmological argument; you're distorting things with this strawman. > other hand, a supernaturalist would claim the exact opposite, > although he cannot even begin to explain *how* God does the > things that he does. Actually, the simplist theological argument is that G-d is one; a trinity is not the most simple theological position. That being said I am not inclined to prove my religion with philosophical arguments because, following the Breslover Rebbe, I believe that philosophy provides unanswerable questions from the part of the universe that appears as a void devoid of the devine presence; hence all a religionist can do in the face of such modes of thought is offer weak answers that make his intellectual position and level of faith worse rather than better. (This is not a "blind faith" position, it's important to examine as far as possible everything with the intellect, which is a better guide to what's good than the seat of emotions; but a man has got to know his limitations. :-) ) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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