At 12:17 PM -0600 3/5/01, jim clark wrote:
>Hi
>
>The article Steve mentioned is excellent! It can be found at:
>
>www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20010114mag-atheism.html
>
>In reading the article and looking at related material on the
>www, the idea sharpened for me that psychology's involvement in
>discussions about religiousness should be quite central. Would
>not a fundamental question be whether in explaining human
>religiousness (beliefs, feelings, actions) we need to incorporate
>supernatural elements? Or are natural processes adequate to
>explain such beliefs?
Isn't this tantamount to proving the null hypothesis?
There will always be unanswered questions about human behavior (we lack
complete data), and God can always slide into these gaps (to coin a phrase
;-).
The real question is whether natural processes are the most effective way
to account for human behavior.
Again, the two sysytems work under such different assumptions that it's
really hard to make a comparison. By accepting one set of assumptions we
have made out choice!
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
