[Dragaera] agnosticism (no flame) (was, long ago: (no spoilers) The 17 [Great Weapons])

[Kenneth Gorelick]

On May 22, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Maximilian Wilson wrote:

> On 5/22/07, Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net> wrote:
>>
>> But over time, our confidence in the repeatability of science and  
>> even
>> soft sciences went up, while our confidence in the testability of
>> religious ideas went down.   So churches put more emphasis in faith.
>
>
> [snip]
>
> But if I go to some proselytizers from various religions and ask them
>> for evidence so that I can pick the correct religion, neither they  
>> nor I
>> have confidence that they can demonstrate that the other religions  
>> are
>> wrong.
>>
>
> I don't think you're trying to be offensive here, but I find the  
> notion of
> relying on faith because you have no evidence to be ridiculous, and  
> I'm
> pretty sure most intelligent people would too, including members of my
> church. Faith requires evidence as a *pre-requisite*, and the  
> reason faith
> is necessary is because generally we have to act before we receive  
> enough
> evidence to be dispositive. That doesn't mean you give up on the  
> notion of
> receiving evidence.
>
> Most members of my church probably don't realize it, but we  
> actually place a
> lot of emphasis on witnesses, times and dates, written revelations,  
> and
> generally doing everything possible for mortals to do in order to make
> things documentable. If you ask about a particular doctrine, "When  
> did God
> say that?" obviously nobody can give you a vision where you can  
> watch God
> conversing with a particular prophet (and also convince you you're not
> hallucinating, etc.), but we can at least point to a time and date  
> and the
> words that were said so you can decide for yourself if the  
> interpretation is
> correct, and more importantly so you can decide from a primary source
> whether you believe it. We're strongly encouraged[1] to ask  
> questions, to
> test faith, and otherwise learn to rely on it. Just because  
> something is
> true doesn't mean you're born never doubting it.
>
> -Max
>
> [1] This doesn't mean there aren't people who will tell you not to ask
> questions, ask "Does that really matter to your salvation?" and  
> otherwise
> act incurious. They haven't caught the spirit of the religion yet.
>
> -- 

I don't mean to be offensive, but I probably am, so please excuse me.  
I find all the "witnessing" and "testifying" to be fiction at best.  
Nobody documented a burning bush, a single plague, a stroll across  
the water or any other "miracle" in fact, there are NO  
contemporaneous records of any of these things. Modern miracles such  
as "cures" of cancer never provide compelling evidence that the  
cancer was there in the first place. I don't believe in what I cannot  
show for myself to be real. When I read a scientific paper, I know  
that if I wished, I could do the exact same experiment and get the  
exact same result, which saves me the trouble of doing everything.  
But miracles are not reproducible. I have not seen a staff turn into  
a serpent and nobody can tell me how to do it. In fact, if 10,000  
people tried, none would succeed in a verifiably miraculous manner.

All that religious texts do when they "document" their miracles is to  
try to make a written proof of the unprovable. People LIKE proof  
which is why the religious try to provide it. It just can't be done.