...many things other than religion also conflict with Moran's great God, Reason: literature, drama, the visual arts, and human relationships to name but a few.
How do literature, drama, the visual arts, and human relationships conflict with reason? I have not heard the argument. The latter, maybe, I can grant you, but only in some cases, not in all.
This just seems to be whining from the Neville Chamberlain School. One important distinction RSR isn't making: I happen to know that literature, drama, the visual arts, and human relationships are things that actually exist. I do not know that a god exists. So the analogy fails.
Finally, calling reason a "great God" is fundie talk. I kind of expected better here.
Martin, you write that you expected better here. I think that's just what you got.
Calling reason a "great God" is not fundie talk. It's the talk of someone who sees the fatal error Moran and others make by turning reason into a religion.
I don't think that literature, drama, or the visual arts conflict with reason. I do think they are different.
Science, which uses reason, is a method of hypothesis construction, testing, and observation to reach conclusions about the natural world.
The arts, on the other hand, work on a subconscious level. In literature, they employ metaphor, in the visual and auditory arts they act in ways that we have no written language to describe.
Many of the criticisms of religion offered by Moran and other Darwinian fundamentalists whether they realize it or not apply equally to the arts.
The further criticism that I have of Moran and those who think like him is that they wrongly conflate all the varieties of faith with religious fundamentalism.
Thus, Ken Miller is just as bad, in their eyes, as William Dembski.
To do this, they convince themselves falsely that all believers interperet the Bible in a literal way rather than as metaphor.
These Darwinian fundamentalists convince themselves that all those who profess faith in God believe in miracles, heaven and hell, a personal God who is active in the world, and an after life.
It simply isn't true, as any reading of someone like Karen Armstrong -- who calls herself a freelance montheist -- will quickly demonstrate.
RSR is a skeptic, a nonbeliever, a damned atheist, what you will, but, like the faithful, we have beliefs that can't be tested.
That is part of being human.
Those extremists who profess to be moved only by scientific proof or reason won't admit it, but they're believers, too.
Their religion is called scientism.
AmeriChristian decided long ago that every issue has at least a right deep end and a left deep end---and that some number of folks have gone over the edge on both of those deep ends and are freefalling into infinity. Before starting my quest to save legitimate science and fend off the fundamentalists, the pastor at my church (a very educated guy from Duke University Divinity School) warned me to always remember that the fundies on the far right have their equally dubious counterparts on the far left. I always try to keep that in mind.
I would seem to think that Moran is not putting a hard position, but instead a soft one that advocates discussion instead of hard belief.
The old, 'Devil's Advocate.'
Anyhow, his serious points are that people who refuse to take the scientific method seriously shouldn't be passed - and they shouldn't - in science programs. ...And maybe it is a waste of time to teach them.
Of course, we know from experience that it's not a waste of time to teach, as that's the best cure for ignorance. Besides, if they've been taught, and then refuse to consider... That's prolly when they should fail.
If this is the way it's going to work, if you're going to go along with Brayton's division into us and them, and his outrageous distortions of our position (we're out to attack and destroy religion by any means possible? Please.) then I will plainly state that I am not on "Ed's team".
I'm also not interested in being on any "team" that treats criticisms of its members as intolerable dissent, and who react to disagreement by announcing that they're going to treat the critics as schismatics. I know which side is hypocritically demanding conformity and purity of the movement, and it ain't us evil atheists.
Have you even noticed the irony of decrying those " who want to divide the movement" while announcing that you've decided there are two teams, and denouncing the other guys?
As for literature, drama, the visual arts, etc....only an idiot would think Moran or I are denying the importance of art, and only an idiot would equate superstition with art. That was an appallingly stupid comment.
Pat, everything you just said was a complete distortion, and also a pretty clear exercise in projection. Moran does not turn reason into a religion; he just understands that reason is the best toolkit for determining facts. If you can think of a better means to determine facts, then show us how it works. And for the record, I do not have "beliefs that cannot be tested." In life there is what I know and what I do not know; at no time do I fill in gaps in my knowledge with beliefs.
"Scientism"? The last place I heard that word was Trinity Broadcasting Network. Do you really have a clue who you Chamberlain-camp guys are sounding like?
IF you are in favour of evolution why not make a belief in Eugenics also compulsory.
Richard dawkins believes in Eugenics and even wrote a letter to a sunday newspaper
‘‘Eugenics may not be bad’’
IN THE 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous - though of course they would not have used that phrase. Today, I suspect that the idea is too dangerous for comfortable discussion, and my conjecture is that Adolf Hitler is responsible for the change.
Nobody wants to be caught agreeing with that monster, even in a single particular. The spectre of Hitler has led some scientists to stray from "ought" to "is" and deny that breeding for human qualities is even possible. But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not one-dimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice.
I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?
Richard Dawkins is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University
"I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons"
Because the cow that doesn't produce as much milk ends up in the Campbell's soup plant.
Because, when you breed for a particular trait, you almost always have to make compromises with some other trait. We breed dogs for aesthetic traits (what else might musical talent be) and have to put a certain number down for hip displaysia.
It's not that we can't breed humans for certain traits like any other livestock, it's that we aren't bright enough to predict the unforseen consequences, nor are we prepared to take the measures animal beeders do with their failures.
'Their religion is called scientism'
Oh c'mon. This comment at this blog is really beneath you.
'the pastor at my church (a very educated guy from Duke University Divinity School) warned me to always remember that the fundies on the far right have their equally dubious counterparts on the far left'
Thats baloney. PZ and Dawkins are nothing like the fundies. They have evidence for their point of view.
Well. (chuckle)
Yep, we know.
Your breed of control freak only demands the occasional virgin 'sacrifice' (or sacrifice of virginity) in exchange for immortality.
Their breed of control freak wants to force everyone free of the mass hallucination that permits you to sample the youth group's talent pool.
We have to choose sides? Are RSR, Ed, and PZ all 12 year olds? Jeez, goodbye RSR.
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