Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick Julian who wrote (34624)	4/12/1999 10:32:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 108807

Some believe. Some don't. Some wonder why others believe, or why they don't. It comes naturally, though I've learned to stay out of it. We don't learn much about God - nobody ever does - but we do learn a bit about each other, and the way we think.

To: Rick Julian who wrote (34624)	4/12/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Well, speaking about my husband's posts alone, no discussion of spirituality was broached. It was a discussion about historical claims regarding an historical figure. If there is a God, He gave us language and logic and the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, presumably. Why, in the name of God, should any concept not be discussed? Should St. Thomas Aquinas have shut up? St. Augustine? The Church Fathers? Your clergyperson? Everybody talks about the things that puzzle and concern them on this thread, and although my husband did not discuss God or spirituality at all, I have been known to do so, here, I confess.

To: Rick Julian who wrote (34624)	4/13/1999 2:19:00 AM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Karma, do you honestly believe that a human being, in exercising his intellect, is engaged in an act of folly? There is a general proposition in Western philosophy as expressed in science. The idea is generally this: If you propose a hypothesis to explain some set of events or circumstances it is incumbent upon you to offer some sort of proof in favor of your view (whatever that view may be). Furthermore, if you propose a view you must be prepared to either defend the view on the basis of available data, or amend the view to conform to the data, or barring that, reject the view. Finally, if two or more competing hypotheses explain the date you reject the more complicated hypothesis in favor of the simpler one. Academics relish and look forward to those kinds of discussions and debate. They are part of the intellectual process of discovering the truth, or at least obtaining closer approximations of the truth. N has done an admirable job in that context. But your comment breaks faith (may I use that word?) with the foundations of the structure of Western knowledge. Would you try building a bridge or treating disease on that basis? What you propose boils down to this: you believe because you believe, and your conviction in your beliefs is sufficient proof of their veracity. How can human progress occur with that kind of "thinking"? Let me lay out a general postulate. If you assume as a matter of definition that God is infallible then it is easy for me to prove that the Bible cannot be the word of God. Why? Because the Bible contradicts itself in many instances. So we are left with the only reasonable interpretation: the Bible is not the word of God: it is the word of man trying to express the word of God. It is reasonable to ask whose word is attributable to whom? But you would have us forego this discussion. N has brought significant historical data to bear, and I would think that any believer would hang on his every word because it would allow him to hone in on the truth. But instead N is subjected to a criticism that I would think is contradictory to what believers ought to be seeking: additional information about their God. But what do I know? CTC