From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 8:50 PM
To: James Patrick Holding
Subject: RE: Christianity: arguments against; questions for


> > you want to go further and say that this heavenly
> > realization will for every person in heaven yield an
> > emotional state better than the happiest state one can
> > experience on earth?
> 
> Not particularly.

This is unclear. You don't particularly want to go 
further, or it's not particularly the case that every person 
in heaven will be thusly happy?

> > in heaven. At what point are our heavenly minds so
> > rewired that heaven is indistinguishable from a
> drug-induced stupor?
> 
> How about, rational faculties still being intact?

Is there no point at which a hypothetical wholesale 
rewiring of our preferences and happiness criteria on entry 
into heaven becomes comparable to drug-induced artificial 
ecstasy?

> > pre-Renaissance world, or not?  Are you saying that the
> > progress in learning was anywhere near as steady before
> > the Renaissance as after?
> 
> "Prgress in learning" has always and will continue to vary

Non-responsive.

> > notable about modernity is not the variety of fringe
> > thinking but the consensus around mainstream thinking. 
> 
> Very generalized assertion. Very easy to make.

It's even easier to duck an issue by making the facile
observation that widely-scoped assertions are generalized.

Are you not familiar with the Kuhnian notion of paradigms,
or instances like the Standard Model in physics or the
Modern Synthesis in biology?

> Knowledge may be dangerous, but when it lacks sharp edges it
> really doesn't catch my interest.

I guess you measure "sharp edges" by insults given, evasions
employed, and questions ducked.  Your five emails to me
included these insulting comments:

  Those are some pretty simplistic questions.
  Please!! They make me LAUGH.
  I am not moved by such meanderings.
  My greatest fear is death by boredom. 
  Generalizing gibberish.
  Such chauvanism!
  Then quite honestly, you know very little. Start reading the
  authors I have given you. 
  That is the sort of response I would expect from a
  questioner with an inflated view of his own importance. ;-)
  Why, I couldn't imagine you actually going to a library
  yourself, now could I?
  You may want to write in clearer language instead. 
  if you don't mean what you say, make sure you know what 
  you are saying.

Here is a sample of your evasions:

  If more time was
  spent on such speculation, the critics would complain
  I can speculate until the end of time, and every moment
  would be wasted doing so.
  I have not chapter and verse in hand.
  And I have higher detail-priorities than to indulge those
  who won't do their own legwork.
  It's as much as I feel like spending time on, with 25+ more
  messages in my box each day and little in the way of a
  threat factor evident.

Here is the sum total of the substantive answers to my
original questions that you were able to generate over
your five emails:

  I often think of 
  Heaven in terms of an alternate universe or dimension.
  God as an infinite source provides the energy..
  A mere realization that all is as it should be..
  our deeds here will pale in
  significance -- shame will be of no issue or moment..
  I actually don't think there will be an end to [learning]

Here are some of the questions and challenges from me that 
you've ducked:

the great Christian thinkers were
(as far as I know) not interested in exploring how Christianity
might be falsified, or what they would do if they had no hope
of salvation.  If you know otherwise, please enlighten.

were either uninterested in (or afraid of) considering questions
about e.g. our intellectual life in heaven. Again, whip
out the great Christian thinkers' answers if you know of any.

they tended not to discuss deeply the psychological
or physical nature of our expected experience in heaven.
If my impression is mistaken, please cite at least one
such specific discussion.

I want
to know what *you* in particular anticipate. If there is some 
Christian thinker whose analysis you agree with, just mention
it.

If you're claiming that the great Christian thinkers
dealt with the issue of the comparitive present and
future success of the world's various religions in 
the marketplace of ideas, then by all means share your
references.

how Christianity might be falsified,
or what they would do if they had no hope of salvation.
I'm skeptical that you can produce any citations
of such discussions in the great Christian thinkers.

I still challenge you to cite a single case of
the ancient authors comparing progress toward a Christian
consensus with progress toward any other scientific or
philosophical thesis.

If you have a non-simplistic 
physical theory of heaven, I'd like to hear its details.

Is God as an infinite energy source the full extent of your
complex theory of physical heaven, or is there more? :-)

does one have good days and better days in heaven?

Can we
on earth know what "should" be?  If so, how?  If not, how
can we know that we'll like how things "should" be?  What
determines what "should" be?  Is the way things "should"
be contingent on God's whim, or is God constrained by
objective criteria of goodness that are beyond his power
to change?

or does my heavenly happiness assume
that I will have different criteria for happiness?"  If so,
how different might those criteria be?  For example, am I 
guaranteed not to find "happiness" in everlasting pools of fire?

> You may write once more but don't expect an answer.

As shown above, I haven't been getting much in the way
of answers from you anyway, so I might as well wait to
see if you write an article for your site responding to my 
questions. :-)

Also, I invite any constructive criticism you might have of
my capsule summary of the primary arguments against
Christianity:
http://humanknowledge.net/Thoughts.html#ArgumentsAgainstChristianity

brian@holtz.org
Knowledge is dangerous
http://humanknowledge.net