Posted on 06/30/2008 4:41:23 PM PDT by Kevmo
The crevo threads typically degenerate into name calling. Recently, the Religion Moderator declared that "science is not religion", and did not publish the criteria for such consideration. My suggestion to the evolutionist community has been to acknowledge that Scientism is a religion and start to utilize the protections offered under the religion tags that are different than other threads (due to the intensity of feelings over religious issues). So this thread is intended to be an ECUMENICAL thread under the tag of SCIENTISM. The intent is to keep discussion civil.
I would like to see a straightforward discussion over the topic of whether scientism should be treated as a religion on FR. I'll try to find the links to the adminlecture series about what the ground rules are on ecumenical threads, and I'll copy some recent interactions that show the need for scientism to be treated as a religion on FR.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
If Darwinism is True, it Can’t Be
And when I say “Darwinism,” I am making a sharp distinction between the modest claims of natural selection versus the impossibly grandiose claims of reductionistic Darwinism, just as I always distinguish between science and philosophy of scientism, the latter of which far exceeds what is warranted by the evidence, and is only believed by a who’s hooter of philosophical boobs & rubes.
Naive Darwinism is a subset, or variety, of scientism. Only an immature mind could believe it, since it requires the simultaneous gullibility and grandiosity of a child. Or, to turn it around, if you can believe that, what won’t you believe? For it is pure magic, the kind of magic that always rushes in to fill the void where a coherent metaphysic should reside as an anchor and axis for the intellect. In the absence of real adult religion, people become either superstitious or substitious, but either way they miss the mark, for scientism is just a more sophisticated way of being stupid. It is primitivism for sophisticates, neopaganism for urban barbarians. ...”
Continued: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-darwinism-is-true-it-cant-be.html
First, “scientism” is a distortion of science but it is not “science.”
***Well, as far as I can tell, if you can point out to someone who believes in Scientism that they have distorted science, they are very likely to accept what you have to say and examine it carefully.
Second, while it may be a belief system, not all belief systems are religions.
***Ok, so you acknowledge that scientism may be a belief system. As such, shouldn’t it enjoy the ecumenical protections offered to other belief systems on Free Republic? It is actually those who HOLD to this belief system who are asking for the protections, but they don’t want to acknowledge it as a religion. Kind of a conundrum.
Maybe scientism is a political ideology.
***It seems to be a wide political spectrum thing. There are scientism followers who are leftist, rightist, centrist, and radical. I don’t know how you’d define something as a political idealogy. Nazism, communism, fascism, democratism/democracy (?) are the kind of ‘isms that I think of when I think of a political idealogy. But when I think of religious idealogies, I think of catholic, protestant, jewish, Islam, Hindu, baptist, etc. I think of scientism as a religious idealogy.
Third, is this really worth it? To what end?
***The end in sight is to have civil discussions on scientific issues, which is exactly what the scientism followers are asking for. To that end, I think we can arrive at a process where it can take place and the crevo wars would only continue on open threads.
Oh I’m sorry! I totally misunderstood your thread. I thought you were a non-religious person coming in to the religion forums wanting to argue.
Again, my apologies!
In the absence of real adult religion, people become either superstitious or substitious,
***Over at Dictionary.com:
No results found for substicious.
No results found for substitious.
What does it mean?
“...This idea actually goes to the very heart of Polanyi’s critique of positivism in particular and of scientism in general, something I’ll be discussing in more detail in subsequent posts. That is, he did not regard scientific theories as objectively true; but nor are they merely subjective. This represents a false dichotomy. In actuality, subjective and objective are complementary and operate in a dialectic fashion to extend the human mind into the unknown, thus expanding the interior (and therefore exterior) horizon of the cosmos.
That might sound overly abstract, but it’s not. Polanyi compared scientific theories to the cane of a blind man. Imagine if...”
Continue: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/11/probing-vertical-unknown.html
That guy is a good writer. I’ll have to finish reading his essay later.
One Cosmos
Circumnavelgazing the Whole Existentialada of Lumin Development with Mental Gymgnostics, Verticalisthenics, Freevangelical Pundamentalism, Dilettantric Yoga, Laughty Revelations, Wide Angle Pneumography, Isness Ministration, and Darwhiggian Evolution, all in a Reluxing Atmasphere of Omade Jehovial Witticisms and deep levitas
Aspire!
Ecumentic Thread=> Limited Debate=> Protected Status
If some can achieve it, why not Scientism?
I don’t think you are supposed to copy comments from other threads without the addressee’s name.
It would be better to just list the hotlinks.
I like the explanation of the guidelines.
JJ
In answer to your question — NO!
“Scientism” isn’t a good term.
***I would have used “Scientology” but that one was taken.
You could use “Freethinkers”, “Nontheists”, “Skeptics”, or maybe “Brights”.
***I have no preference. I’ll use whatever term they prefer for themselves. Unfortunately for them, many refuse to acknowledge the element of faith in their belief system — maybe science faith is a descriptive term?
“Skeptics” may be the best option, because it allows a distance for the members of the group when posting to the religion forum.
***I’m a skeptic. That one doesn’t fly very well.
What would be the point though? I would imagine that there would be threads like “10 reasons why God is a prick and Jesus was gay [Skeptic Caucus]”.
***That would be up to the religion moderator. The science faithers WANT protection from religious zealotry, and I agree that they should get it, even though I am more in agreement with the religious zealots than the science faithers.
I’m not even sure that FR is equipped to handle the current situation in the religion forum. I don’t think it is wise to invite even more vitriol here.
***Actually, the aim is to invite LESS vitriol, because the system appears to be working well on the religion threads.
Why?
The aim of this thread is to reproduce the discussion in an “ecumenical” environment rather than as an open thread. My understanding of the rules of having parallel threads allow this approach. Shall we have a discussion on this topic?
Hah hah, well said. ;-)
Note that from now on when I see some science faither complain about all the religious zealots on his precious thread, I’ll just point him to this thread and tell him to follow the instructions. ;-)
I agree. Here’s more:
“...If culture is to be understood, it must have a structure; if a structure, a hierarchy; if a hierarchy, an end. Nor is “infinite progress” possible. Rather, if a series is hierarchically ordered, it is conditioned from top to bottom and cannot be infinite; if it is infinite, then it cannot be conditioned from top to bottom. In other words, in the latter scenario, there is no higher and lower, just a kind of infinite horizontal dispersion in all directions.
No. Man, because he is man, may know the absolute within his own transcendent interiority, which paradoxically “contains” the infinite. Conversely, to deny this absolute is to deny man and to reject the measure of all knowledge: the uncreated intellect.
The world is not real, contrary to what the reductionists tell you. And when I say this, I mean “absolutely real,” in that if it were absolutely real, then we couldn’t be. Rather, we would be reduced to the “real nothing” beneath our feet, as opposed to the transcendent absolute above our heads: “The common illusion of an ‘absolutely real’ within relativity breeds philosophical sophistries, and in particular, an empiricist and experimental science wishing to unveil the metaphysical mystery of Existence.” But to pursue this illusion is analogous to believing “that an animal endowed with sight were more capable than a blind man of understanding the mysteries of the world” (Schuon).
As Perry writes, “man is virtuous because God is Good.” To the extent that the latter is not known, the former will eventually not be realized, for virtue is not mere behavior but consciousness of a reality. Nor will we know anything worthwhile, for we will have abolished the measure of all things, and thereby live long and meaningless lives that make up for in shallowness what they lack in depth.”
Continue: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/06/religious-humanism-vs-darwinist.html
Thanks for framing the discussion.
So, do you think Scientism should be considered a religion on Free Republic? Why or why not?
Scientism is philosophy, therefore it is religion.
The way I see it, it boils down to how a person answers this sort of question:
If everything were falling apart, the social order was breaking down in such a fashion as to make the Rodney King Riots look like Romper Room, and the economic system was faltering like in the great depression and [fill in the blank on various other disaster scenarios for mankind] and we had nuclear weapons at the ready with crazy generals in the field with their hands on the buttons, how do you think we would get out of this? Where do you place your faith? Would it be placed on man’s ability to right himself? Would it be placed on God and His care for His creation? How would we get out of this?
Science faithers typically answer by saying they have faith in how science deals with issues and that’s where the answers would come from. Their faith is in science, in the wisdom of man. I don’t think it’s a big deal that they place their faith there ( I used to ) but they should be up front about this supposition.
“...After all, anyone can practice a religion, whether it is Christianity, Darwinism, Atheism, or Materialism, but that doesn’t mean they understand their religion in any deep way. For an atheist to reject religion means only that he has failed to understand it, precisely. A confession of atheism is simply an honest confession of ignorance of any realities that transcend the human ego, nothing more, nothing less. And why argue with a man who not only clings to ignorance, but is proud of the fact?
When we talk about metaphysics, we are talking about very basic truths that are adequations to divine/human realities that cannot not be, such as “Absolute,” “being,” “truth,” etc. But...”
Continue: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/06/science-of-center-and-religion-of.html
The disdain this forum has for science is not one of its stronger points.
Why aren’t there more scientists here? Oh, that’s right. They were shown the door.
Equating science to religion as some sort of perjorative frankly makes no sense at a forum which values religion.
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