Thanks, Fellow Uncertain (agnostic...). Let me quote to your question at the end the maxim from Mark's post:
"I think therefore I am right!" - Angelica [Rugrat]
(whatever that came from. Of course we value more our (halfbaked?) opinion than the wisdom of others.People die for it.
With the religious marvels: I look at them with awe, cannot state "it is impossible" because 'they' start out beyond reason and say what they please.
The sorry thing is, when a crowd takes it too seriously and kill, blow up, beat or burn live human beings in that 'belief'. Same, if for money.
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: Stathis Papaioannou
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 6:49 PM
Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life
I don't "know" a right position from a wrong one either, I'm only trying to make the best guess I can given the evidence. Sometimes I really have no idea, like choosing which way a tossed coin will come up. Other times I do have evidence on which to base a belief, such as the belief that the world was not in fact created in six 24-hr days. It is certainly possible that I am wrong, and the evidence for a very old universe has either been fabricated or grossly misinterpreted, but I would bet on being right. Wouldn't you also, if something you valued depended on the bet?
Stathis Papaioannou
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From: jamikes.domain.name.hidden
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:28:25 -0500
And you, Stathis, are very kind to assume that I "know' a right position from a wromng one. I may be in indecision before I denigrate...
On the contrary. if someone 'believes' the 6 day creation, I start speculating WHAT "days" they could have been metaphorically, starfting before the solar system led us to our present ways of scheduling. Etc. Etc. Accepting that whatever we 'believe' is our epistemic achievement, anything 'from yesterday' might have been 'right' (maybe except the old Greeks - ha ha). in their own rites.
Sometimes I start an argument about a "different" (questionable?) belief just to tickle out arguments which I did not consider earlier. But that is my dirty way.
I am a bad judge and always ready to reconsider.
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: Stathis Papaioannou
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:54 PM
Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life
John,
Some people, including the mentally ill, do have multiple inconsistent belief systems, but to me that makes it clear that at least one of their beliefs must be wrong - even in the absence of other information. You're much kinder to alternative beliefs than I am, but in reality, you *must* think that some beliefs are wrong, otherwise you would hold those beliefs! For example, if you say you don't personally believe the earth was created in six days, but respect the right of others to believe that it was, what you're really saying is that you respect the right of others to have a false belief. I have no dispute with that, as long as it is acknowledged.
Stathis Papaioannou
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From: jamikes.domain.name.hidden
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 11:07:52 -0500
Stathiws,
no question about that. What I was trying to stress was the futility of arguing from one belief system (and stressing its solely expanded "truth") against a different "truth and evidence" carrying OTHER belief system.
BTW: don't schyzophrenics (maybe multiple personalitics) accept (alternately) ALL the belief systems they carry? (=layman asking the professional).
IMO we all (i.e. thinking people) are schizophrenix with our rather elastic ways of intelligence. Beatus ille qui est "onetrackminded"..(the 9th beatitude).
To your initial sentence: do you believe (in YOUR criteria of your beliefs) that TWO people may have absolutely identical beliefs? I am almost certain that as your immune system, DNA, fingerprint and the other zillion characteristics are not identical to those of other animals, the mental makeup is similarly unique.
We are not zombies of a mechanically computerized machine-identity (Oops, no reference to Loeb). Duo si faciunt (cogitant?) idem, non est idem.
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: Stathis Papaioannou
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:38 AM
Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life
John,
You shouldn't have one criterion for your own beliefs and a different criterion for everyone else's. If Christians said, "those old Greeks sang songs about their gods' miraculous exploits, really seemed to believe in them, and on top of that were pretty smart, so I guess everything in the Iliad and Odyssey must be true", then they would be consistently applying the standards they apply to the Bible. Of course, they don't: other peoples' religious beliefs are subjected to rational scrutiny and (rightly) found wanting, but their own beliefs are special.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:17:57 -0500
From: jamikes.domain.name.hidden
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life
Stathis:
is it not a misplaced effort to argue from one set of belief system ONLY with a person
who carries two (or even more)? I had a brother-in-law, a devout catholic and an excellent
biochemist and when I asked him how can he adjust the two in one mind, he answered:
"I never mix the two together". Tom is an excellent natural scientist and has brilliant
arguments in it, as long as it comes to his 'other' belief system - what he, quite
inderstandably - does not want to give up.
We all have 'second belief bases' in our multiple schizophrenia of intelligence.
Some have 'Platonia', some 'primitive matter view' - it is your profession.
Do you really think you can penetrate one by arguments from another?
John M
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Received on Thu Feb 08 2007 - 17:15:01 PST