[Vision2020] Gary Larson on one of today's headlines

Mon Jan 10 11:25:43 PST 2005

>From that previous post: 

"These assertions are generally recognizable by the practical
impossibility of being neither unequivocally confirmable nor
falsifiable..." (em. mine)

Mr. Fox,

I am pleased to see your admission that my religious beliefs are not
"falsifiable". You have given me more that your atheistic cohorts, and
for that I thank you. And since my beliefs are not falsifiable, why
reject them so readily? 

"When searching for "the truth" it may be useful to understand that some
statements are neither true nor false.  For example: 

'The square root of blue recrystalizes sodomy.'"

Please point out one of my statements that is equivalent to that.
Perhaps I could have stated my case more plainly, but I do not recall
making such a silly statement.

 "Ron, I hope you are a sincere person who wishes to better the world."

Sometimes I am and I do, and sometimes I am a selfish s.o.b. Thank you,
Jesus for obeying and suffering on my behalf for all my imperfections.

"you might consider shifting the focus of your faith and the use of your
talents from proselytization to working directly, non-judgmentally, and
non-theologically to alleviate some of the obvious sufferings in the
world -- hunger, disease, illiteracy, war, religious strife, crime,
social disorganization, etc."

Please try and look at it from my point of view, Mr. Fox. According to
the scriptures, this suffering is all caused by mankind's war with God.
We can try our best to alleviate all the suffering in the world, but
those efforts apart from the reconciliation of mankind with their
Creator would be akin to putting a band-aid on cancer. My religious
convictions tell me to do both.

Matthew 4:4 But He [Jesus] answered and said, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL
NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE
MOUTH OF GOD.'"

Ron Smith

________________________________

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
[mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Art Deco
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 10:49 AM
To: Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Gary Larson on one of today's headlines

Ron,

As expected, you only reassert your position, without giving any
verifiable evidence to support it.  C. S. Pierce in his essay "The
Fixation of Belief" called such ways of fixing belief the Method of
Tenacity.  The users of such methods have contributed little or nothing,
save acting as a bad example, to the advancement of knowledge or to the
alleviation of the causes of suffering of humankind.

Rather than argue about first principles, Occam's Razor, etc.  I recycle
the post below, slightly altered.  Consider the last paragraphs in the
light of the discussion of the quotes from Mark (also appended) in a
recent thread on V 2020.

__________________________________

When searching for "the truth" it may be useful to understand that some
statements are neither true nor false.  For example:

"The square root of blue recrystalizes sodomy."

Just because words can be strung together in an apparently syntactically
correct sentence doesn't mean the sentence has a comprehensible,
literal, testable meaning.

In your quest for "the truth" you might watch out for these kind of
assertions.  Religion, philosophy, politics, etc. are rife with such
statements.  These assertions are generally recognizable by the
practical impossibility of being neither unequivocally confirmable nor
falsifiable or for the establishment of any significant probability of
thier truth.  The latter two cases is often especially the case.

A parable derived from an example written by an apostate Catholic
disciple of Wittgenstein intended to illustrate the point of Occam's
Razor may be helpful as an illustration to you.  

Neighbors A & B were having an over-the-back-fence discussion:

A:    I heard you have a new kind of powerful watchdog or something.

B:    Yes, it is called the Odg.

A:    What does it do?

B:    It watches over us continually and protects us and our property
from harm.

A:    I haven't seen anything.  Where is it?

B:    The Odg is invisible.

A:    I have heard any barking or anything.

B:    The Odg makes no sound.

A:    You don't have a fence.  How do you keep the Odg in?

B:    The Odg stays with us always.  It is the loving nature of the Odg
to do so.

A:    Your lawn is immaculate.  I don't see any Odg droppings at all.

B:    The Odg never eats.  Consequently, it makes no droppings.  It
doesn't slobber or have bad breath either.

A:    Tell me again what it does.

B:    It watches over us and protects us from all harms.  It requires
only unquestioning belief on our part in return.

A:    But wasn't your home robbed of everything of value, weren't you
badly beaten up, and wasn't your wife taken for and enjoyed a month-long
sexual romp by a motorcycle gang a few months ago?

B:    Yes, but it must of been good for us, else the Odg would not have
let it happen. [

Also, consider the Tsunami in this context.]

Ron, I hope you are a sincere person who wishes to better the world.  

After understanding the above parable and its ramifications, perhaps you
might consider shifting the focus of your faith and the use of your
talents from proselytization to working directly, non-judgmentally, and
non-theologically to alleviate some of the obvious sufferings in the
world -- hunger, disease, illiteracy, war, religious strife, crime,
social disorganization, etc.

When I lived in Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I meet a number of
missionaries and other once very religious people of various faiths who
came to Africa originally to spread their religious beliefs.  [Though a
nonbeliever, I was a volunteer distribution point for Catholic Relief
Services.]

The pursuit of the alleviation of suffering and the physical improvement
of the general conditions of life for many of these one-time fervently
religious people soon became the meaning of and center for their
existence.  Religious beliefs, if not abandoned completely for many of
these people, became a very less important part of their lives.  Their
faiths, like that of Albert Schweitzer's were greatly altered.  I know
because I worked with and enjoyed several of these people.  They openly
and unabashedly talked about their spiritual transformation from an
impotent pseudo-oracle to a foe of suffering and unattained aspirations.
They talked about their determination to help those less fortunate than
themselves in a multitude of non-spiritual, but very welcome ways.

Many formerly very religious persons believed that in the overall scheme
of the universe as they came to see it, preventing glaucoma or teaching
Africans to farm productively enriched humankind a great deal more than
such self-serving activities like building churches, making doubtful
converts, or singing hymns.  Again, in this context, I refer you to the
passage from Mark below.

Wayne

Art Deco  (Wayne Fox)
deco at moscow.com

_____________________________

Matthew 25:31 - 46 (YLT) 31'And whenever the Son of Man may come in his
glory, and all the holy messengers with him, then he shall sit upon a
throne of his glory;  

32and gathered together before him shall be all the nations, and he
shall separate them from one another, as the shepherd doth separate the
sheep from the goats,  

33and he shall set the sheep indeed on his right hand, and the goats on
the left. 

34'Then shall the king say to those on his right hand, Come ye, the
blessed of my Father, inherit the reign that hath been prepared for you
from the foundation of the world;  

35for I did hunger, and ye gave me to eat; I did thirst, and ye gave me
to drink; I was a stranger, and ye received me;  

36naked, and ye put around me; I was infirm, and ye looked after me; in
prison I was, and ye came unto me.

37'Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see
thee hungering, and we nourished? or thirsting, and we gave to drink?  

38and when did we see thee a stranger, and we received? or naked, and we
put around?  

39and when did we see thee infirm, or in prison, and we came unto thee? 

40'And the king answering, shall say to them, Verily I say to you,
Inasmuch as ye did it to one of these my brethren-the least-to me ye did
it. 

41Then shall he say also to those on the left hand, Go ye from me, the
cursed, to the fire, the age-during, that hath been prepared for the
Devil and his messengers;  

42for I did hunger, and ye gave me not to eat; I did thirst, and ye gave
me not to drink;  

43a stranger I was, and ye did not receive me; naked, and ye put not
around me; infirm, and in prison, and ye did not look after me. 

44'Then shall they answer, they also, saying, Lord, when did we see thee
hungering, or thirsting, or a stranger, or naked, or infirm, or in
prison, and we did not minister to thee? 

45'Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as
ye did it not to one of these, the least, ye did it not to me.  

46And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to
life age-during.' 

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