Subj : Re: "Hams to the Rescue After Katrina" MSNBC News Article
To   : alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf,rec.radio.amateur.antenna,rec.radio.amateur.dx,rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.amateur.policy
From : Matt Osborn
Date : Thu Sep 29 2005 19:14:57

From Newsgroup: alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 01:16:51 -0700, Zoran Brlecic
<...WA7AA...@get.lost> wrote:

>Matt Osborn wrote:
>
>> You're walking on an assumption that is called gravity.  Just like
>> G-d, plenty of evidence but no proof.
>
>What pisses me off about your posts is this almost deliberate attempt to 
>obfuscate by equivocating, word playing and substituting terms which are 
>incompatible. You keep doing it in almost every post and it gets tired fast.
>Like, for instance, in the example above: "plenty of evidence but no 
>proof" is meaningless drivel. Of all the scientific disciplines, only 
>mathematics deals with proof. Others, physics included, deal with 
>evidence which is derived from a direct or indirect observation of 
>certain phenomena and is the basis for a theory, such as the 
>gravitational theory, for example.
>Therefore, to say that there is "no proof" for gravity is gibberish, 
>even in the solipsist sense.
>
>
>73 .... WA7AA
>
>
>P.S. I am dying to hear some "evidence" of what you call "G-d". I am 
>sure the Nobel committee would be interested as well.

You may not like have your faith pointed out to you, but there it is.
All you can say about gravity is that "It is as if...".  That's it,
you can say no more than that.  You expect that your 'facts' be taken
at face value.  I reject your facts as they are merely one of an
infinite number of other possible interpretations of our observations.

I'm not a proponent of G-d, so you're asking of me something that I
don't have.  I'll borrow a little something from Spinoza.

I live in Minneapolis, Minneapolis is contained by Minnesota,
Minnesota is contained by the USA, the USA is contained by  the
Northern Hemisphere, the Northern Hemisphere is contained by the
planet Earth, the planet Earth is contained by the solar system, the
solar system is contained by the Milky Way Galaxy, the Galaxy is
contained by the Universe, the Universe is contained by what? I don't
know.

We can take this the other way. I am made up of chemicals and water,
which consist of molecules which are made up of atoms which consist of
sub-atomic particles, which are made up of what? Again I don't know.

Spinoza has a bit of a tautology that basically says that the way
perceive the world is limited by the way we can perceive the world. We
don't have one-ended sticks for instance, because we couldn't
comprehend the concept.  He goes on to argue that the faculties with
which perceive, our 5 (or possibly 6) senses are only a few of the
infinite variety of senses possible.  We cannot understand those that
we lack, just as a person blind from birth cannot conceive of the
color blue.

But Spinoza, points out, we do have senses  whether or not we
understand them correctly (just as with your gravity). We do exist
whether or not we understand our existence correctly, and the universe
within which we live our lives whether or not we understand it
correctly.

Spinoza's final point is that while we cannot understand even the most
mundane of things with certainty, we can be certain that those senses
with which we perceive exist despite out ability to know them as do
the things which they perceive.

Given all that, Spinoza proposes that we find ourselves, we know not
where, on scale that measures infinitely. So where do we exist?  Are
we on the small end of the scale of things, someone else's sub-atomic
particles if you will, or are we on the larger end of things where our
sub-atomic particles are made up of sentient beings much the same as
we?

What is it that an atheist would like to declare about such a system?
That it doesn't exist?  That there are no rules being followed?  That
there is no point to the system?

Those who are not atheists make no such presumptions.  Most conclude,
wisely in my opinion, that our experience should be our guide.  That
if we don't eat we starve, that if we jump off to high a platform we
die, that if we stay under water too long we drown.  That there are
rules that we disobey at our own peril.  The above are the simple
rules, those that are readily perceived and accepted by most.  They
were not, however, always so well known or so  well understood, like
hygiene for instance.

So in what context do we contain poorly understood rules and
perceptions?  How do we speak of them? We could always resort to
obtuse phrases such as 'that which cannot be contained', or 'that
which is smaller than smallest small' or 'that which is larger than
largest large'.

Mankind has historically ascribed the above to G-d. Just as with
science, our understanding of G-d has changed over the millennia. and
I would expect it to continue to change.

That anyone could declare that G-d does not exist would be the same as
declaring that gravity does not exist.  A particular interpretation of
either may, eventually, be proven to be right or wrong, but to declare
that there is no such thing seems absurd.


-- msosborn at msosborn dot com

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