Path: ultra.sonic.net!miwok!news1.best.com!news.sgi.com!howland.erols.net!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!aristos.demon.co.uk!aristos.demon.co.uk!sam From: Sam Dodsworth Newsgroups: alt.books.cs-lewis Subject: Aargh! Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 23:49:44 +0000 Organization: Annexia Free Press Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <32D95DE7.367F@flash.net> <32dd906f.3898631@nntp.a001.sprintmail.com> <32E34629.2E82@informatica.com> <32EE0AD4.3E79@cant.ac.uk> <32F8A7A5.6082@cant.ac.uk> <0$wbDGAP9j+yEwUt@aristos.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike Version 3.01 <7c0azr3XvpMr4dZzpifF$I+pPf> Lines: 80 In article , Ed Robillard writes >On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, to his everlasting regret Sam Dodsworth wrote: > >> >> > >> >> > "I have put a full-grown elephant in my wardrobe." (Not reasonable) >> >> > >> >> > "I have put an overcoat in my wardrobe." (Reasonable) >> >> > >> >> > "I may not have put anything in my wardrobe." (True) >> >> > >> >> > If you don't acknowledge the difference between "reasonable" and "true" >> >> > then the last two statements must both be considered "true". You now >> >> > have to deal with the resulting contradiction. > [snip in the interests of sanity] > >To be honest, I don't know if I'd call the third statement true or not, >because it is not a definitive statement. You're saying you MAY NOT have >done something. Since your statement is in the past tense, we have to >assume that you know if you did or didn't put something in your wardrobe. >But your statment isn't giving us an oppertunity for a true or false >answer. > A useful rule of thumb: if it's got one of those squiggly things (like this: ?) on the end then it's a question and it has an answer. If it doesn't then it's probably a statement, and can be true or false iself without needing an answer. If I say I might have done something that's physically possible then it's a true statement - it's true that I might have done it. >If I go and look in your wardrobe, then I'll know whether or not you've >put something in it. At that point, I could say 'You put socks in your >wardrobe' and you can respond 'I didn't say I didn't put anything in my >wardrobe.' But if I look and find nothing. I can state 'You put nothing in >your wardrobe' to which you can respond 'I didn't say I didn't put nothing >in my wardrobe'. Opposite results, both covered by your words. Thus, your >words give us no value with which to verify the truth, and the words 'I >may not have put anything in my wardrobe' is not a statement to which >truthfulness can be applied. > I thought this was supposed to work the other way round: atheists are the ones who are supposed to lose track of what's important because they're obsessed with physical reality. Forget the bloody wardrobe. Look at the statements. Use logic. Use your skill and judgement. Use a crowbar. Use anything, but for gods' sake just _try_ to understand what I was talking about. I was trying to illustrate that "true" and "reasonable" are two different things and that confusing them was a very silly thing to do. Do you agree with this? If not, then tell me why not and we'll start all over again. I you do, then it doesn't matter that you don't understand the example. >> >> Why do I not accept the truth of Christianity? Well... the short >> answer is that there's no conclusive evidence that it's true and I do >> not, personally, find it reasonable. My original point, though (which >> I'd hoped was sufficiently clear from the original post) was simply that >> "true" is not the same thing as "reasonable" and confusing the two leads >> to all kinds of problems. > >If there was conclusive evidence, then everyone would believe, and there >would be no reason for faith at all. But for whatever reason, God seems >to want us to have Faith in him in spite of the lack of sufficient >evidence to make it reasonable to an intelligent man. I am, truely, sorry >that you feel it necessary to see to believe. I hope that God finds a way >to get to you despite this insistance of yours. But that is between you >and Him. > If God wants to get to me then It'll doubtless find a way - It's omnipotent, after all. And even if my insistence that I have to see to believe (for which there is, after all, an excellent Biblical precedent) does get in the way of finding God, I'll save an awful lot on bogus real-estate deals... Sam Dodsworth (sam@aristos.demon.co.uk) "I think there should be more sex and violence on television, not less. Both are powerful catalysts of social change, at a time when change is desperately needed." -J.G. Ballard