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From: jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Is Belief in God Rational? A Fresh Look at the Evidence
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 06:05:09 -0400
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On Tue, 3 Jun 2025 11:17:31 -0400, Carl Kaufmann
<cwkaufmann@netscape.net> wrote:

>jillery wrote:
>> On Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:13:25 +0200, IDentity <identity@invalid.org>
>> wrote:
>>=20
>>> On Sun, 1 Jun 2025 13:03:32 +0100, David <David@invalid.invald> =
wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello.
>>>>
>>>> I'd very much welcome reader's views on this recent article:-
>>>>
>>>> =
https://aish.com/is-belief-in-god-rational-a-fresh-look-at-the-evidence
>>>>
>>>> //What if belief in God isn=E2=80=99t blind faith=E2=80=94but a =
logical conclusion drawn
>>> >from cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom?//
>>>
>>> "The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into
>>> an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."
>>>   - Werner Heisenberg, physicist
>>>
>>>From a conversation with the Indian guru Mirra Alfassa, (AKA "The
>>> Mother"), many decades ago:
>>>
>>> Q: Mother, can physical science by its progress open to occultism?
>>>
>>> A: It does not call it "occultism", that's all. It is only a question
>>> of words.... They are making sensational discoveries which people =
with
>>> occult knowledge already knew thousands of years ago! They have made =
a
>>> long circuit and come to the same thing.
>>>
>>> With the most recent discoveries in medicine, in the applied =
sciences,
>>> for instance, they are contacting in this way, with a wonder-struck
>>> interest, things which were known to certain sages a very, very long
>>> time ago. And then they present all this before you as new marvels =
=E2=80=94
>>> but indeed they are rather old, their marvels!
>>>
>>> They will end up by practising occultism without knowing that they =
are
>>> doing so! For, in fact, as soon as one draws close, however slightly,
>>> to the truth of things and when one is sincere in one's search, not
>>> satisfied by mere appearances, when one really wants to find =
something
>>> and goes deep, penetrates behind appearances, then one begins to
>>> advance towards the truth of things; and as one comes closer to it,
>>> well, one finds again the same knowledge that others who began by
>>> going within have brought back from their inner discoveries.
>>>
>>> Only the method and the path are different but the thing discovered
>>> will be the same, because there are not two things to be found, there
>>> is only one. It will necessarily be the same. It all depends on the
>>> path one follows; some go fast, others slowly, some go straight,
>>> others, as I said, go a long way round =E2=80=94 and what labour! How=
 they
>>> have laboured!... Besides, it is very respectable.
>>=20
>>=20
>> Arthur Clarke's Third Law states "Any sufficiently advanced technology
>> is indistinguishable from magic." This might seem to follow the spirit
>> of what you post above.  An important distinction is, while some
>> people might regard technology as magic, there is no reasonable way
>> magic can be regarded as technology.
>>=20
>
>WRT the last sentence, there is an argument I often make in the=20
>context of fantasy RGPs that magic as presented IS technology. It is=20
>an intrinsic, understandable, repeatable phenomenon that can be=20
>consciously exploited towards desired effects.
>
>That leads to the question of when does something stop being magic=20
>and start being science? "Girl Genius" has a corollary to Clarke's=20
>Third Law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from=20
>science.
>
>The real question, IMHO, is what constitutes "sufficiently=20
>advanced/analyzed"? Where is that line?
>
>Carl


Consider the question: Is it possible to sufficiently analyze magic?
If technology is phenomena based on natural law, and magic is
phenomena based on supernatural law, then in principle anything that
can be sufficiently analyzed is by definition technology.  If I could
reliably make phenomena happen by waving a stick and/or chanting odd
words, then I would have identified a natural law, which makes it not
magic by definition.

--=20
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge