Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 11:31:35 -0500
From: Unka Bart <mendicant-AT-buddhist.com>
Subject: Thanks, but...


Andy responds:

> > I'm not talking about merely believing something that you simply have no
> > evidence or first hand experience that would prove the matter, such as
> > believing that the sun will come up tomorrow; so let's not get into that;
> > but Holden, or anyone, would you care to help me understand how a thinking
> > person can believe that god is one thing or another, or that the Bible is
> > the unvarnished word of god?

> Isn't this the problem of cultural relativism? We all operate within
> Kuhn's paradigms, relying not on proveability for knowledge, but
> rather on falsification - we go along with a theory until it's well
> and truly falsified. Which is why [sorry] we expect the sun to go up.

Well, since I can't grasp what is going on in the mind of the believer (not
criticizing, merely observing), I suppose that it could be just about
anything.  but I don't see any "cultural relativism" here, I'm talking
about the faith of westerners in their own cultural millieu.

And as to just "going along with the idea," I also suppose that this could
be the case.  But if you look closely at the basic tennants of the faith,
they do seem a bit, ummmmm... (want to be careful not to step on any toes
here) "extra-ordinary."  Well beyond the bounds of logic or common sense.

For example, given the seemingly infinite nature of the cosmos, doesn't it
seem a bit strange to you that a being so powerful as to be the creator of
all this, would be even aware of the *exixtence,* much less concerned about
the behavior, of one individual on one little pimple of a planet in one
insignificant star system?  Yet is this not a basic tenant of
judeo-christian belief?

Or that such a being would give a fig one way or another about being
*Worshiped?*  The whole idea of someone wanting to be worshiped by someone
else has a bit of the flavor of an inferiority complex, to me.  Yet this is
another of those bed-rock beliefs.

And yes, I'm quite familiar with the book of Job.  The argument that "god"
makes there is a pretty good one, the bit where he asks Job if he can make
the rivers flow, yada yada yada, and if not, just who does he think he is
to question god -  until one asks the next logical question; the first one
I posed above.

I could go on, but this gives you the flavor of the problem I'm having with
this...

Yer Kindly Ol' Unka Bart