Don't take offense at what follows, because if you go to a University worth whatever you're paying to go, you're going to get a lot of this.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
Thanks for all the great replies, (by the way, Astrologer/Astronomer is of course one of my pet peeves too, I even went through and edited my post to make sure I hadn't left a slip, apparently missing one) I should of course have expected an audience of informed, logical people. There are a few posts that I feel have some telling points of contention however, things that obviate the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to proscribe by fiat to their theistic counterparts.
The first sentence is what I'm referring to when I say you can at times come across as patronizing, specifically where you say "I should of course have expected an audience of informed, logical people". Were you expecting an audience (really?) of uninformed, illogical people?
I'm also wondering if you meant what you said, when you said:There are a few posts that I feel have some telling points of contention however, things that obviate the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to proscribe by fiat to their theistic counterparts.
Quite the mouthful indeed. Let's rephrase this sentence using clearer language:
There are a few posts that I feel have some telling points of contention however, things that [negate] the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to [forbid] by [decree] to their theistic counterparts.
Were you under the impression that 'obviate' meant 'to make obvious'? This sentence seems to make more sense if read as meaning, 'things that [make obvious] the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to [forbid] by [decree] to their theistic counterparts'. But even here what you're saying isn't entirely clear. Let's leave that for now. The issue is the remainder of the sentence: 'the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to proscribe by fiat to their theistic counterparts'. I think the question we ought to ask is, inclination to arbitrarily forbid what? Or is it that the non-religious arbitrarily forbid 'their theistic counterparts' certain inclinations (that doesn't make much sense)? I believe what you're trying to say is that the non-religious make certain assumptions about theists, for example that theists distrust modern science.Then we must consider that your example is of Tango who, presumably, you have taken aschallenging science and mathematics in some degree. You may have been understood as saying that Tango's post goes as evidence against the assumptions the non-religious make about theists, but this doesn't seem a valid possibility given what you do say about Tango's post -- I'm actually not sure what you're saying about Tango.
What if instead your sentence read:There are a few posts that I feel have some telling points of contention, however; that make obvious the sort of inclinations the non-religious tend to arbitrarily attribute to their theistic counterparts.
That makes much more sense to me. But let's assume that you meant Tango went against the stereotype, then I would understand you as saying:There are a few posts that I feel have some telling points of contention, however; that negate epistemological assumptions the non-religious tend to make about their theistic counterparts.
Regardless the wording is a bit nonsensical, which is made all the more obvious by my having to try to figure out what you're saying: I shouldn't have to. It would do you well to adopt a principle readily demonstrated in certain classical works, particularly those by Plato: plain language is used wherever complicated language is not absolutely necessary. The Socratic dialogue, for example, was not a complicated lesson in who had memorized the long words of a dictionary or thesaurus. Of course a little word humor is always appreciated. The title of this thread, for example, could mean 'a few extremely large questions', or 'a few questions concerning astronomy'. I found that quite amusing, assuming you intended the play on the ambiguity.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
A few sections of Tango's post for example, have a discernible "slant" on the validity of science and mathematics.
For the most part ideas like these are emotionally neutral, (in my estimation) that is to say people aren't generally inclined to distrust scientific conclusions or hold a hostile bias towards academia, or knowledge, or deduction through observation and confirmation of hypotheses. What we atheists assume instead however, is that a theistic person is much more likely to have less information about the world around them, on account of the simple and entirely forgivable ignorance we all experience (nobody told me they measured the distance to the stars through time tested euclidean geometry such as parallaxes) coupled with the specialists' inevitable neglect of studies outside of his field. What happens in our stress dreams and nightmares of course is that christian children are born into a household lacking in the fundamental nourishment they need to develop a rich intellect and strong passions about the world they will eventually have to lead.
This here is the reason why I can't decide what you're saying about Tango. The reason is that Tango never questioned the validity of science and mathematics. The point Tango was making was directed towards, if you will, the philosophy of mathematics and science (respectively, allowing that mathematics is a science in and of itself). It is of course true that science does at time operate on little more than assumption camouflaged as 'hypothesis'. This in itself isn't a challenge to the practice of mathematics and science, however, but of the practice of individuals who themselves practice mathematics and science. The best example of such 'assumptionary' thinking - that I can think up at the moment - would be with respect to those who followed Aristotle and adopted his philosophies almost unquestioningly. If this were a few centuries earlier and you were a devout disciple of Ptolemy you might object to Tango's post on the basis of Ptolemy's mathematical models, which did assume Aristotle was correct. To move off this point for a moment...
...Let's say you meant that Tango went against the stereotype, then your previous words are, at worst, nonsense. Do be careful your choice of words does not get in the way of what you're trying to say.
Back to the portion of your reply above. The atheistic assumption is of course unnecessary (although I don't hail from the Southern United States, so perhaps there it is). Historically many natural philosophers were theistic to some degree, and we seem to be doing just fine building off of their legacy.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
I'd like to stress that I don't claim superiority of intellect or information, and I make an almost constant effort to stay in the realm of the simple aristotelian logic on which everyone is an expert.
Not everyone is an expert on Aristotelian logic. For instance, I have yet to find someone off the street who knows what first, second or third order enthymemes are, or who can explain what a sorite or epicheirema is. That is not to say that everyone isn't capable of employing Aristotelian logic to a degree - if Aristotelian logic is as commonsensical as it claims to be, and sometimes is - but this is a different thing than being an expert in Aristotelian logic.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
But admitting that and the intellectual capability of my presumed audience (I got the distinct impression of a well organised mind from many of your replies), I still maintain that you'd be challenged to show that religion is a reliably additive (opposing detractive) trait for the mind, and it's acquisition of content. The pretext of religion makes the world a far more complicated place to live in, especially for the religious literalists and (my biggest issue) their children, and (my purpose in bringing up hubble etc.) it lends itself well to a geocentric or human centric (and therefore self-centric and tradition-centric) view of the world.
This is only a problem if theism were definitively shown to be false, which it hasn't been. As a result I will say, rather simply, that because Christian theism is true, and knowledge and pursuit of truth a virtue, then the adoption of Christian theism is both a good and a virtue for the individual. Oh, and it doesn't seem to me that by adopting Christian theism the world is suddenly far more complicated. Is it wrong to be 'self-centric or tradition-centric'? If so, why?
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
Rather than calling us towards the stars, by these means theism tends to pull us back to the earth, and all the folly and tragedy we have done on it. This isn't to say that religion is in all cases a detrimental factor in a person, but that when it is not (we fear), it may be despite rather than because of it's effect on people. One doesn't need to look very far to find theistic mouse traps (similar to cycles of abuse or poverty, there are cycles of religious upbringing, and mimetic selection inevitably occurs), and as it so often said, you can't build a better mousetrap. Propagation and natural selection of religious memes follow the same laws, by the same means as child abuse or poverty, or slavery have for thousands of years, in that it's effect on people is self perpetuating and self sustaining.
Or education, for that matter. I'm not sure the point you're trying to make here? Clearly state what are now enthymemes, because the cycle of abuse argument is outright silly.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
Ultimately (like Facebook, proscriptions on adolescent sexual behaviour, racism, chauvinism etc.) religion is seen as the province of the "nerds" and this is essentially what we are most concerned about. That excesses are inevitable, opinions sharply coloured and bell graphs wildly separating in the majesterium of the "specialist" is a simple logical truism, (take for example the state of dissent and debate in america) divisions will always occur, enormous effort will always be spent determining when the human soul was injected in the evolutionary line, demonstrating the inferiority of the female brain, and bad mouthing that B*tch in your english class, and ultimately no one outside of the specialist interest group will benefit in any way (and there is always the possibility of doing harm in the process).
This is just a bit of theatrics in our slow drift out of the realm of question asking into treastise writing.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
Eventually I think the word "religion" will simply quietly disappear from the english language, like "computer" or "car-accident", these days one frequently encounters religious people with a concrete understanding of the obvious, that thing which is so essential to human flourishing, and ultimately their children and grandchildren will be induced to accept a progressively tamer set of religious interpretations until the distinction becomes meaningless.
The distinction between religion and what?
The word 'religion', of course, won't quietly disappear. What then would vehement a-theists write about? I find the claim, while interesting, is both old and tired.
Originally Posted by
Euthyphro
That is I think at the centre of my thinking on religion. So often I meet religious people who confound my expectations of ignorance, but sadly not always. I can say the same thing about athiests or mexicans or any other group of course, there are bad apples and fools, and psuedo-mystics of every creed and denomination, but why does religion have such a unique capacity for division of knowledge and people? How can there be some theists who are of such average predisposition and do so well to maintain their intellect, in the face of an ideology that sets so many dour precedents, equips one so poorly to understand the universe, and functions essentially as a parasite, or a "mousetrap", being ingrained into and supplementing a persons identity?
Religion isn't a unique divisive 'force'. Many idealogies are divisive, and many are destructive.
As for your wonder at theists maintaining their intellect, the answer would seem to be that you're simply not as well versed in theism as you believe you are. You said yourself your understanding of the universe wasn't deep (odd that you should stick to atheism, but that's your decision), so I'm not sure why you're so surprised.
By the way, you never did mention what those 'inclinations' were that you mentioned at the very beginning of your post.
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. I absolutely stand in awe when out under the stars in a dark sky, or view galaxies and other deep sky objects in my telescope.
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