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i think the argument your friend made is valid, but not exactly a punch in the face.
We all have to be dogmatic sometime or another to take a stance on something, boil everything down to the extremes and everything becomes dogma. The universe seems infinite, we do not know for sure, the universe exists, we exist, we think, we can never be sure, religion may be true, anything could be true. We can never know any of these things with complete objectivity. That is the entire debacle behind the theory of knowledge.
I commend your friend's effort to remain scientific in his practice, but i think it becomes narrow-minded when a main argument for him is "negation theory," which is not necessarily a good thing. Also, it seems by negating your idea in the first place, he begins too indulges in negation theory and hence can be labeled as dogmatic as well. Here is something to sum up the idea of negation theory.
" A property of any proposition for which it is possible to specify a set of circumstances the occurrence of which would demonstrate that the proposition is false. According to Karl Popper, falsifiability is the crucial feature of scientific hypotheses: beliefs that can never be tested against the empirical evidence are dogmatic."
It may not seem like he is arguing from a negative angle, but i think he does, especially effectually. Playing the assertive actor (in this instance, the person who decides that unconditional love is impossible) does not except anyone from the consequences of his own argument. Just because you and i play the passive actors who accept possibilities, that makes us on-face dogmatic. Why on-face, and why is that worse? it is not, people just can see it easier, and people do not realize that everything they believe is, in fact, dogmatic when it all boils down. The only reason it is on-face dogmatic is because our side of the argument does not have immediate empirical evidence, while the other side has a "sample" of evidence they can compare to. That sample still is only a sample, and in all it is a belief.
Both viewpoints are dogmatic, and i think it is unwise in all to advocate your friend's viewpoint of audacious certainty towards this question. If there is a probability, then why not? An open mind is better than a closed, and certain one i think.
I am atheist, but i still never decry religion for the sake that it possibly could be true. That does not make me agnostic though, i believe there is no god, but just account for my possibility for error. Rather than the typical agnostic who rides the fence on the issue. Every idea ever conceived is a belief, nothing is a universal fact.
Knowledge is dogma.
edit - and yes, the argument you and i present is, indeed, logical.
__________________
Long messages do not equal aggravation of any sort,
rather they reflect nothing more than a response of insight
that should always be read in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Those womyn that seek equality with men, lack determination."
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be wrong."
-Cromwell
Last edited by PsychoSnowman on 07-07-2004 at 08:03 AM
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07-06-2004 09:47 AM
you dont remember!! 
remember in our phone conversation dayyyys ago...? and u asked me again before too... 
¿¡À̽Ã! ¸ô¶ó! 
