Famed Harvard Biologist Gould Dies

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&ncid=716&e=2&u=/ap/20020520/ap_on_re_us/obit_gould ^ | 5/20/02 | yahoo

[rpage3]

See source for details....

[f.Christian]

Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, says Calvin, human beings would believe in God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity displayed in our belief in the existence of other persons, or an external world, or the past. This is the natural human condition; it is because of our presently unnatural sinful condition that many of us find belief in God difficult or absurd. The fact is, Calvin thinks, one who does not believe in God is in an epistemically defective position-rather like someone who does not believe that his wife exists, or thinks that she is a cleverly constructed robot that has no thoughts, feelings, or consciousness. Thus the believer... reverses---Freud and Marx, claiming that what they see as sickness is really health and what they see as health is really sickness.

[Aquinasfan]

The Lord said, "Thou shalt not murder" and yet He personally (not through intermediaries) wiped out the entire world's population (with the exception of eight people) at one time and a couple of cities at another.  He sent his angel to kill the first born of the land of Egypt.  Through his intermediaries he has ordered the extermination of the native people of the land of Canaan.

Yes, WE shall not murder (although we can kill). Logically it is the prerogative of The Creator to give and take away life.

[Lurking Libertarian]

See, the problem is that you are going by your own perceptions and feelings rather than objective facts about God that are clearly presented in the Bible which was authored by God through men. the Bible says that God cannot sin - to say adultery is okay is to sin. Therefore, this is clearly impossible.

Leviticus says that eating pork is a sin; the New Testament says it isn't. Did God change?

[Aquinasfan]

We know God from His effects, just as we know the existence of other human minds from their effects. We do not understand other human minds in themselves.

[general_re]

Probably just transient problems on my end. Or maybe some mysterious force preventing me from seeing it - ya just never know ;)

[jennyp]

We know God from His effects, just as we know the existence of other human minds from their effects. We do not understand other human minds in themselves.

A) How can God have any effects at all if He is metaphysically static?

B) We do understand other human minds enough to know that if you damage the physical brain in specific ways, the person's mind will also be damaged in specific ways.

Can you tell me how a mind - any mind - could exist apart from a physical brain of some kind to hold & generate those thoughts?

Similarly, can you tell me how a triangle could exist apart from three entities that make up its vertices? (And just in case AndrewC is lurking, an image of a triangle in one's mind is not the triangle itself, and anyway even the idea of a triangle needs a few neurons in which to hold it. :-)

[scripter]

This link *might* work better. DNS is an accronym for Domain Name Service, which is a directory of IP addresses to host/domain names. The link above uses the IP address of ic.net instead of using DNS to look it up, which may resolve the problem.

[PatrickHenry]

Lurking ...

[Heartlander]

Pork – the other white sin?

Moral law vs cultural law

[jennyp]

Main Entry: tran·scen·dent
Pronunciation: -d&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin transcendent-, transcendens, present participle of transcendere
Date: 1598
1 a : exceeding usual limits : SURPASSING b : extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience c in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge
2 : being beyond comprehension
3 : transcending the universe or material existence
- tran·scen·dent·ly adverb

---

Main Entry: im·ma·nent
Pronunciation: -n&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin immanent-, immanens, present participle of immanEre to remain in place, from Latin in- + manEre to remain -- more at MANSION
Date: 1535
: remaining or operating within a domain of reality or realm of discourse : INHERENT; specifically : having existence or effect only within the mind or consciousness -- compare TRANSCENDENT
- im·ma·nent·ly adverb

continuing your post...

In fact, God is Being itself. He sustains everything in its existence. All things that exist participate in God's existence, since existence does not belong to the essence of any thing.

Uh-oh. First "God is pure act", and now "God is Being itself"! I hope you consider what I said before about reification being the general logic error of which anthropomorphization is a specific case.

For example, is it not in the nature of a dog for it to exist. I know the nature of my deceased dog. But my dog no longer exists. Therefore existence is not a part of my dog's nature.

Is that what you meant, or did you mean "it is not in the nature of a dog..."?

[general_re]

That's got it - thanks. Couldn't even do a DNS lookup to try it myself ;)

I'll read this more closely later, but one particular part jumps out at me upon a quick skimming:

If you say God is bound by logic, then you say that God can do nothing man cannot understand.

He's "bound" in the sense that He can't act contradictorily, or contrary to the laws of logic, but not in the sense that He is inferior to logic, since it is grounded in Him. Understanding is something entirely different, so that your sentence above does not follow. The laws of logic govern the relationships of propositions, theories, and facts. They have nothing to do with the content per se. The most airtight logic in the world will not make a false premise lead to a true conclusion. God understands and sees far more than us in the first place, so that this has nothing to do with logic, but rather, with God's omniscience. Since we are neither out of time, nor omniscient, nor omnipresent, obviously we cannot know everything God knows. This is a limitation of knowledge, not logic.

I've italicized one part here, because it's just dead-bang false. It's completely wrong. Consider the following argument:

P1: All fishes are mammals.
P2: All whales are fishes.
C1: Therefore, all whales are mammals.

A perfectly valid argument, with two completely false premises, but a true conclusion. Oops.

[general_re]

Given the obvious similarity between this page you have pointed me to and your own arguments, I assume that this is argumentation that you find particularly compelling - or maybe you're even the author of that page, I don't know. But, your arguments and the arguments on that page are very similar. So let's consider one that I don't think you've made here:

Is God omnipotent or isn't He?

He is. But "omnipotence" means the power to do all that is possible, not absolutely all. Even God can't make a circle a square at the same time, make 2+2=5, or make me exist and not exist simultaneously. And He can't make a rock so big He couldn't lift it, because that is a self-defeating proposition for an all-powerful Being from the get-go. :-)

Seems okay, eh? Except that that is most definitely not what "omnipotence" means. As one can clearly see from the dictionary definition, "omnipotence" means "having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful." Nowhere is this notion that omnipotence only includes the "possible" present.

This is a basic fallacy of ambiguity, when we give words non-standard meanings in order to support a particular case we wish to make, and I think I am not going too far to suggest that it is a deliberate ambiguity in this case, designed to mislead the reader into accepting the conclusions of the author. Although, I must admit that the other possible alternative to malicious misrepresentation of the term is simple ignorance - I will leave it for the casual reader to decide for themselves whether this is ignorance or malice at work.

Another:

And I would say that if God is omnipotent, He also is not "bound" by the laws of logic.

Again, you are confused over definitions, as explained above. God can't break the law of non-contradiction because that is simply the way things are. If they weren't, we would have a chaotic universe. God can't make Himself not exist either, or go back and prevent Himself from being eternal, because He is pure Existence. And Jesus (who is God) is also the Logos, or Word, and this is the very Greek word from which we get the word "logic." So logic, like love is grounded in God - not above Him. I put "bound" in quotes for a very good reason.

Same problem as above - we're relying on some special definition of "omnipotence", which just so happens to be a very convenient definition for the purposes of the author. The author is quite clearly the one who is confused over definitions - too bad his interlocutor wasn't sharp enough to realize that.

A different one altogether:

I believe that sin is sin because it contradicts what God desires, but that if He desired that we all wear green hats, then to wear a purple one would be sinful. There is no Universal Law of Green Hats, but if God desired it so, morals would require it.

So He could change His mind tomorrow and assert that the Nazi Holocaust or the abortion Holocaust is moral and praiseworthy? This is blasphemous.

This is hardly a refutation of the point being made, really - it is simply an attempt to draw a boundary in such a way as to define the questioner's point as being off-limits. Again, very convenient - it certainly saves one the trouble of bothering to construct a refutation. In any case, charges of "blasphemy" carry little weight with someone who doesn't share the author's particular interpretation of God and the Bible. My response to the author, given this charge? "Blasphemy? Not my problem. Your book - you figure it out. I'll be waiting for a substantive argument rather than argument ad populam..."

And so forth...

[PatrickHenry]

If God can only do things which are possible and logical, then that rules out the ability to work miracles, which by definition are impossible things (otherwise there is nothing miraculous about them). Take away the miracles and God is just an engineer -- a very competent engineer working on a cosmic scale.

[general_re]

You would certainly think that, but our faithful correspondent has anticipated this argument:

The last thing I want to say is about my statement about logic. I did not mean that logic has no value when I called it the pitiful excersice of human minds. I simply meant that God does not have to follow logic, because He created it. You say "God cannot make 2=2+5" becuase it defies logic,

Correct. I've dealt with this repeatedly, and I think you are not satisfactorily interacting with my arguments.

but I ask you, can a staff logically turn into a snake? Can a leper logically be healed with mud in his eyes? Can an ocean logically be parted by the hand of a stuttering Isrealite?

This has nothing to do with logic, but rather, the relationship of natural and supernatural (miraculous). Miracles do not contradict logic or reason. A miracle is not illogical because there is a Being Who can overturn the laws of nature temporarily whenever He wills.

And later:

If God could not make a circle a square, could He make water into wine?

Of course, because the latter is not logically impossible; it is a miracle, which is entirely possible; just contrary to the natural laws of physics, which God has to contravene for a time.

Well, then. God can violate the laws of physics at will and transform water into wine and so forth, but those laws of mathematics, they're just right off-limits for God. Those are really fixed and immutable, don't you know. Water into wine? Perfectly okay. Circles into squares? Absolutely out of the question.

And if this declaration of the laws of mathematics as more sacred and inviolable than the laws of physics strikes you as being rather arbitrary, you're not alone. Or maybe it's not so arbitrary after all - we're couching our argument in terms of logic and reason, after all, so we need logic and reason to be inviolable for our purposes here. Maybe this declaration is also rather convenient.

[Heartlander]

The intrinsically impossible is the self-contradictory, and its mutually exclusive elements could result only in nothingness.

[PatrickHenry]

Water into wine? Perfectly okay. Circles into squares? Absolutely out of the question.

I understand what's being proposed, but it doesn't satisfy anyone's craving for the truly supernatural. With such a limitation (nothing illogical or impossible), God is still just an engineer. He has a neat bag of tricks (water into wine, healing the sick), but that can only go so far. I ain't lighting any candles for that. If I'm going to worship a deity, I want the real thing. In for a dime, in for a dollar. Accept no substitutes.

[scripter]

Leviticus says that eating pork is a sin; the New Testament says it isn't. Did God change?

If you're talking about Acts 11 where Peter describes a large sheet coming down from heaven, some interpret that to mean the gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, others interpret it to have a double meaning of preaching to the Gentiles and allowing man to eat "four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air." The vision occurred 3 times.

I believe Matthew 5:17 answers your question: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

[gore3000]

Can God's law change over time? -general_re-

No. -me-

Which leads to the following rather amusing syllogism, which must then logically be true.

Hate to tell you but your syllogism is garbage. You are quick to bash religion and could not wait for an answer could you?

That God's law cannot change over time has nothing to do with his being omnipotent or not. He could change it if He wanted to. Thing is he does not want to. You see, God, like humans (because we are made in his own image) has free will. He can exercise it as he chooses but not being like the atheist heros Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Il, Castro, and Idi Amin he does not use his powers, his omnipotence to do evil. He has made a covenant with mankind and he is not going to break it.

[f.Christian]

To worship diety you need a savior!

[PatrickHenry]

Even numbered post.