Re: God is not a cat in Schroedinger's box!

OK, let's stay with the epistemological issues for another round or two. I
think they are important issues.

In response to a statement by Glenn I said:

>> Beneath these statements is the tacit assumption that if both A and B are
>> human products, they must be of equal quality. I don't think you really
>> believe that.

Glenn replied:
 
> When applied to philosophical systems, and to theological systems, I do
> beleive that. It is because there is no objective mechanism to tell which
> one is better other than internal self-contradiction. Assuming both systems
> are internally consistent, then I do beleive that one can't be any better
> than the other.

I disagree. I think it's a lot like the situation in scientific theory
evaluation. Internal consistency is only one of several values that we
expect of a good scientific theory. If two theories both satisfy the test of
internal consistency, then we move on to other epistemic values and see how
well each of the two theories fare. The question is, What are those other
epistemic values that a good theological theory should exhibit? (That could
be the subject of a good discussion.)

I suspect that one of your core goals is to find agreement on what is the
ultimate objective and authoritative test that settles the theological issue
once and for all. Many (perhaps most) people want a level of certainty for
theological theories that is unattainable for philosophical or even
scientific theories.

My position: I don't think that absolute certainty is any more attainable
for theological theories than for philosophical or scientific theories.
However, the fact that absolute certainty is impossible in science does not
make all scientific theories equally valuable. Neither does it make the
scientific enterprise a worthless exercise in futility. Both scientific
theorizing and theological theorizing have value even in the absence of
absolute certainty.

On another issue:

>> I had asked:
>>
>>>> Are you claiming that your portrait of God is not a humanly
>>>> crafted product?
>>
>> You replied:
>>
>>> If all I have is a Portraits-by-Glenn(TM) image of God, then I
>> have little
>>> more than a self delusion.
>>> Aren't you aware that there are people who believe they have spoken with
>>> aliens from space? Is their portrait of the aliens really so
>> much different
>>> than what you are advocating for a portrait of God?
>>
>> Sorry, but I do not see an answer to my question.
>
> It's there. look a bit deeper, Howard. Self-deluded people think they have
> had experiences of aliens. There is nothing implicit in an 'experience' with
> God which is any more subject to verification. Thus an experience with
> 'god' may be nothing more than a Scroogian bit of undigested cheese. And if
> so, the person who draws his portrait of god from that experience is no
> better than those who think they see little green men or the pink elephants
> of the DTs.
>

Glenn, you have still avoided the one simple question that I asked. I know
full well that there are self-deluded people in the world. That's the world
we live in.

The question that I asked was this: Are you claiming that your portrait of
God is not a humanly crafted product?

Howard
Received on Sat Oct 9 17:38:54 2004