From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Thu 27 Jan 2000 - 04:40:15 EET
Trotsky:
> Well, to return briefly to the Brithini: They believe in a 'Creator', in
> some sense, but don't believe it's possible/meaningful/morally correct to
> attempt to 'worship' this entity as such. >>
> As I said, deists rather than atheists.
Well, if we're going to fight dirty and use dictionary definitions...
My COED defines deist rather differently from this, as per the meaning
Peter supplied, and by which pretty much all Malkioni are deists, never
mind the Brithini... (Not that I doubt the word's been authentically
used in that sense: terminology, schmerminology...)
> Admittedly, it rather depends
> what they think the Creator *is* - is He an uncaring, distant God (deist) or
> just a mechanistic process with no identity or self-awareness (atheist)?
That's a somewhat fine distinction to slice as a means of deciding if
someone merits the appelation 'atheist' or not, so I'm not at all sure
Greg's on such thin ground as you seem to think. Given the proferred
definitions, we might conclude that three consecutive Hindus were
variously 'theist', 'deist', and 'atheist', while different perhaps
not at all in their religious practice, on the basis of a cosmogenic
nuance...
> But 'mainstream' Malkioni magic doesn't come from God either, other than in
> an indirect and rather philosophical sense. (Assorted forms of saint worship
> I may have to grant you...) >>
>
> Its those forms of saint worship I was referring to.
Well, in those cases it doesn't come from _God_ either, it comes in
some sense from the Saint, no?
> And they obviously must think prayer serves some purpose (although
> obviously not one with a direct feedback, as in a Heortling religious
> service) or they wouldn't do it.
Well, there's the small matter of getting into Solace, for a start.
In some flavours of Malkionism it may also be explicit that this has
a 'support your local wizard' sort of function, but I'm not certain of
that.
> << Phillip:>Nowadays, it means "There's no evidence, but I believe it anyway"
> Another notion is that of 'emotional truth': it's so because I feel it
> Seems to me those two statements are the same - the latter just
Well, they may or may not be the same depending on what you mean by
> ("know" it) to be so, regardless of Positivists banging on about the
> meaningless of said claims. >>
> provides the explanation of why 'evidence' isn't needed in order for one to
> believe. But I digress...
'evidence'. Given maximally rigorous criteria, can you get much
further than cogito ergo sum? (Sorry, Gian.) It's one thing to say
you have belief, without what a LP would call a means of verification,
(I'm not a religious person, but I'm sure I do that twelve times a
day if I trouble to get out of bed at all...), and quite another to
say you have a belief on no basis at all. Back in the real world,
away from philosophy, law courts, and maths, belief is conditioned
by experience, not by proof.
Not that lawyers, philosophers, and mathematicians agree what 'proof'
is either, mind...
Cheers,
Alex.
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