Re: A crisis in prayer

On Mon, 5 Oct 2009 20:46:47 +0000 (UTC), "Steve Goldfarb"
<slg@xxxxxxxxx> said:

In <38ekc5htrlmlcpvbvmh9boo8il8hbv8phh@xxxxxxx> Yisroel Markov <ey.markov@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Maybe I'm unclear of what you meant by "our system." My system, the
scientific system, works very well for dealing with reality.

Right. I use it, too. It works very well within this universe.
Outside, all bets are off.

OK - but you don't seem to use it exclusively, see below.

But I didn't
think that was the system you were referring to, thought you meant your
religious/philosophical system, which of course has nothing to do with
logic applied to observation.

How do you know that? What do you know of my religious/philosophical
system anyway, or how it differs from, say, Micha's? Or whatever
you've observed at Mir?

Pardon me if I misunderstood, but I thought we were talking about the
theodicy contradiction. I guess I'm not being clear - I'm saying that,
IMO, there are two choices with regards to that contradition - either you
say that logic is valid, and therefore God is a) evil b) limited in scope
or c) doesn't exist, or else you say, as I thought you did, that logic is
invalid. In my opinion - and this is my point, my premise - you can't
assert that logic is broken here but OK elsewhere. If you've found even a
single contradiction in logic itself, then all of logic must be discarded
- it's been disproven. (Newtonian physics isn't a contradiction of
Einstienean physics)

I disagree with your premise, then. I don't think we're limited to two
choices here. Heck, we're not even applying logic to God - we're
applying it to our perception of His "projection" in - His interaction
with - this world. And that has to be distorted, by definition. (Now
please don't go off saying: "Then how can you base any actions on a
distorted perception?" That is precisely our job. I'm trusting that He
allowed for the limitation when giving the actual commandments.)

That, specifically, is the religious/philosophical system I'm referring
to.

Well, that's the question I was asking - if it is in fact real.

If you can't tell the difference, does it matter?

Well, that's the point back at you - the head-banger chose a different
wall, but can he tell the difference? Is there a difference to him? We're
saying look, you have a choice, you picked a different wall, and he might
well be saying "choice? what kind of choice is that?"

To expand: I have something I perceive as free will. It looks and
feels pretty real to me. So why should I care if it's "real" vis-a-vis
an omnipotent being?

I actually agree with that.

(I hold similar views regarding reincarnation - even if my soul has
visited this world prior to this body, it is completely irrelevant to
me, since I can detect not a whiff of those prior incarnations.)

Certainly. Of course, be careful because I take this precise argument one
step further - if I can't tell whether or not God exists, then it too is
completely irrelevant to me, since I can detect not a whiff of his
existence or lack thereof.

I know you do; that's why I was glad to use your argument.

Doesn't work means doesn't work. If you've proven that it's broken, then
it's broken.

Proven? How?

You provided the proof yourself. You've shown that God is Good AND God is
Omnipotent AND God is not (GOOD AND OMNIPOTENT) is not consistent. X = !X,
the system fails.

I have *not* shown that God is good according to the (limited) human
perception of "good". I think He's "good" by definition. His, of
course. Creator's prerogative.

If it's the case that sometimes (X = Y) AND (X != Y) then you've got a
problem with your entire system, not just at the extremes, because there's
no yardstick to tell you when you're near an extreme.

OK, then the statement "logic is broken" is not a good one. I'm not
saying that logic doesn't work in our universe - only outside of it.
But for a moment, you seemed to be saying something that I could
relate to, so I latched onto it. Too soon, it seems.

The logic of theodicy exists inside our universe. If logic is broken, it's
broken inside our universe. You can't just punt.

Rather, theodicy itself exists because of insufficiency of logic when
it has to incorporate a Being outside the universe. I'm not punting,
I'm insisting on this fundamental limitation.

But you weren't claiming this revelation was historical - you were
claiming it was personal experience.

What?! When did I ever do that?

On Oct 2nd - "E.g., even assuming a Sinai Revelation, how are we to know
that the entity that appeared to us was indeed who He said He was, and not
some lesser supernatural power?"

I was going on the "appeared to us" - but perhaps I missed the "even
assuming." If so, sorry.

I see. "Us" was short-hand here, because I tend to think of the People
of Israel as a single entity existing through time. The Sinai
Revelation is, in this view, part of the national (but not personal,
of course) experience.

[snip]
--
Yisroel "Godwrestler Warriorson" Markov - Boston, MA Member
www.reason.com -- for a sober analysis of the world DNRC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Judge, and be prepared to be judged" -- Ayn Rand
.

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