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

[Maximilian Wilson]

On 5/22/07, Kenneth Gorelick <pulmon at mac.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>

I hope I'm not out of line here in replying, but since this was addressed to
me I'll answer it, and if it's too far OT I'll leave it.

I'm quite sympathetic to everything you say here about "witnessing" and
ancient miracles, and miraculous modern cures, and I'm certainly not
offended by it. When I mentioned witnesses, I was referring to the fact that
when you're dealing with unusual events, events which cannot be expected to
be repeated by asking for them, you really don't have any better recourse
than getting a witness to those events to back up your testimony, and the
credibility which people extend to you is balanced between their trust in
the witnesses vs. the improbability of the events. Some things (the Loch
Ness monster) are incredible enough that a "witness" such as a blurry
photograph is simply not sufficient to convince most people, which I think
is good since Nessie probably doesn't exist. However, if you're the person
looking at Nessie and all you have is a cheap camera, taking a picture is
about the best you can do unless you happen to have lots of other people on
hand to back up your story.

My point is that you do your best to provide credible witnesses. Joseph
Smith claimed that God had called him to restore the Church of Jesus Christ.
He didn't have any witnesses to that first vision, but when he was given the
golden plates from which he was to translate the Book of Mormon, he showed
them to 8 witnesses in broad daylight and had them sign their names to a
statement saying that he had them, and then in a very different experience
an angel testified to 3 other witnesses that the translation was correct and
of God, and they signed their names to a statement too, and the lives of
those men are known and you can judge whether you believe their statement
from that. It seems to me that God did everything reasonable to ensure that
evidence exists, and that doing something undignified like parading the gold
plates around the town wouldn't add anything useful to the discussion. It's
much more useful to an individual evaluating that story to be able to read
the words which were written on those plates, and indeed he can. (
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/ttlpg, etc.)

But witnesses aren't enough, because there are witnesses to all kinds of
crazy *events* in history, and ultimately true religion is about truth, not
events. Some truths are doctrines, for instance where we were before we were
born (cheesy link:
http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=5e25055b23710110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=e1746db0580a1110VgnVCM100000176f620a____)
and some are principles, such as "hard work is part of happiness." I don't
know of any number of witnesses that can convince you of the value of work
without experiencing it; the most they can do is convince you that God says
it's part of happiness, which may be enough for you to give it a try and
know for yourself--and even that isn't knowledge in any strict
epistemological sense, in that it still requires faith that the universe
isn't fooling with you.

Anyway, I agree that if "witnessing" without substance and Internet rumors
of miraculous cures were all there were to some idea, I wouldn't give it
much credibility either.

-Max

-- 
Be pretty if you are, be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Everything in Windows is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
    -Clausewitz