Subj : Re: The universe
To   : Bob Eyer
From : Joshua Lee
Date : Sun Dec 31 2000 07:49 pm

-=> Bob Eyer wrote to Joshua Lee <=-

 BE> -universe to exist?" There is no logically possible way to answer
 BE> -such a question.

 >simple divine will itself; or cause. Thus, cause was emmenated
 >before the material universe, known as "the world of action";
 >so the entire problem you stated is avoided.

 BE> This is all very well as a matter of religious faith; but it won't
 BE> cut the mustard as empirical science.  There is no way, not even

Since when was the creation of the universe "empirical"? It certainly
isn't replicable.

In any case, Jewish mystical theology manages to foil the problem
well; and this teaching was not formed as an apologia for present-day
science.

 BE> But it had no cause.  It began, simpliciter.

 >Atheists keep forgetting that Ocham was a theist.

 BE> And a Catholic.

Oh well, even philosophers can be wrong sometimes. :-)

 BE> However, this is neither here nor there.  Practically all the
 BE> philosophers and scientists of the modern period, even those which
 BE> elaborated and defended the Big Bang Theory, were theists.  The

A co-discoverer, and nobel laureatte, of the background microwave
radiation that provides cosmologists with the best evidence for the
big bang is an Orthodox Jew.

 BE> popular among scientists during the 1950s; but nobody made the
 BE> mistake of supposing that the Big Bang theory ought to be attached
 BE> to the catechism of some religion.  The issues in this theory are

Judaism doesn't really have a catechism, other than the short 13
principles of Maimonidies, and even that formulation, though not
it's substance, has been challenged. Judaism focuses more on behavior,
it doesn't have a "statement of faith". That having been said, I
don't honestly see anything wrong with reconciling science to
religion, as long as one doesn't see the formulations in a finalistic
manner. Would you religionists attack science than reconcile it? Or,
better yet, compartmentalise themselves into a schizophrenic divide
between man the scientist and man the religionist? (Though perhaps
on a certain level, the conflict is welcome, at least that is the
thesis of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's "The Lonely Man of Faith".)

 BE> purely scientific and mathematical in nature; and the mathematical
 BE> side of it actually prohibits any interpretation suggesting that
 BE> the Big Bang itself had a cause.  For such an hypothesis involves

Only if you assume that everything was created only at a particular
time, rather than still at every moment, with the same holy letters
that were used to make it.

                       JBL

.... Nachal Novea Mekor Chochmah
___ MultiMail/Win32 v0.37

--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Juxtaposition BBS, Telnet:juxtaposition.dynip.com (1:167/133)

.