Harv,
" If they just do "whatevergetsthingsdone" without "thingsthatImustassumetobevalid", then "nothinggetsdone" is what happens "
If "nothinggetsdone" is what happens, that can only mean they were not doing "whatevergetsthingsdone"! How can you be so oblivious to that?
You are saying we must make assumptions in order to get things done. Why, I have no problem with that, how could I?
My wife was very sick yesterday. She had been sick for several days, so before we went to bed I asked the children to join me in prayer for her recovery. She woke up this morning feeling a lot better! Is the power of prayer real? Was it just a coincidence? Is she really, really better or am I deceiving myself? Some people attempt to approach the issue that way. My approach is quite different: we prayed, she got better, next time we'll pray again. If it keeps working, we'll keep praying, if not, we'll stop. That's all there is to it! (I must mention that I've been praying since I was a kid, which means I'm still not disappointed)
This is just an example, which I'm sure will invite scorn from the skeptics. What the skeptics don't realize, however, is that they do the same kind of irrational thing all the time, only they think they don't. My point is that life is far too complicated to be understood on any level, and that the only reason we are able to think is so that we can establish cause-and-effect relationships. That is all there is to being rational, you do A, you get B, you don't get C, sometimes you get D; reason takes care of all those facts and tells you what is the best thing to do when you want E, F, or G.
What reason cannot possibly do is find out how B, C, D, relate to A by thinking alone. Strangely, a lot of people who consider themselves rational believe in such a preposterous proposition.
That's all I wanted to say on this subject.
Cheers,
Aurino |