Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 09:25:35 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fw: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020905091446.R41451-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020905005747.1f5964a2.yid@softhome.net>
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On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Joshua Lee 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. Nobody has even mentioned the cosmological argument until now, so you are the one invoking a 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. Why do you refer to God as "G-d"? > 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; There is no part of the universe that is devoid of the divine presence. (Psalm 139:7-12) Philosophical arguments are unavoidable. The fact that philosophers have struggled with questions that still remain unsolved is just one more piece of evidence that without God, you can't prove anything. > 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. :-) ) I think you are operating on a Thomistic notion of "faith". Faith does not take over where reason leaves off. Faith is the foundation of reason. Reasoning would not even be possible without faith. I argue that only *Christian* faith can account for reason, but here I suppose we disagree. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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