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From: sewalter@ilstu.edu (Scott Walters)
Subject: Re: Goedel, and thc Proof of "god"
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Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 13:09:13 -0600
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In article <ANSM.95May8174304@term12.tfd.chalmers.se>,
ansm@tfd.chalmers.se (Andrew Smirnoff) wrote:

> In article <3ohq6l$s8h@slip-1.slip.net> Jon Tyson <tyson@crl.com> writes:
> 
 
> Now, religion presents simple answers for those who want to hear
> simple answers and complex answers for those who want to hear complex
> ones. As I said religion can explain everything as a will of God
> (giving the explanation a complex or a simple way, depending on your
> taste) but can predict nothing because no one knows what's on His
> mind. In this sense it is useless as a model of the world, or to put
> it other way - inferior to those models that can make right
> predictions based on evidence and logic.
> 
> 
>    And with your clear derivation of religion as a product of people, 
>    shouldn't you include it as part of the "real world"?
> 
> Religion is a product of people's imagination and it constitutes one
> of the models of the world. All the products of our imagination are
> just products of our imagination and not any part of the real
> world. The question is how to select the correct models out of this
> uncountable set from our imagination. The only reasonable criterion I
> see is their ability to make right predictions.
> 
> Andrew

Perhaps religion has the "ability to make right predictions" about a world
that is beyond our own, and your inability to perceive (at the moment)
that world may not disprove its existence.  In the past, people did not
believe in germs, but that didn't mean that they didn't exist.  They just
couldn't PERCEIVE them.  Your utilitarian premise has a hole in it,
Andrew, and while I am not certain that god exists, I'm not certain that
it doesn't either -- and your argument hasn't changed that, I'm afraid.

Scott Walters
