No . . . not at all. Although I must admit to some surprise at what happens when I push the right button, please feel free to ‘digress’ anytime it fits your inclination. In the meantime I’m sure that Dawkins and those of a like mind regard as mere irrelevant sentiment the observation of Adam Smith that “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent”
What ever else it has done, or not done, the Dawkins article has surely made it clear that this little ongoing controversy in which we’ve been indulging with our positivist friends, is about more than the difference between Christianity and Materialism or the relative virtues of raptor bones vs philosophy. It must be the case that many of his fraternity find Dawkins an acute embarrassment – for prematurely giving the game away, if nothing else – if not downright horrifying because of some of the ideas he advocates. Just the same, The Masters of the Universe agree with Dawkins that it is just a matter of time before they will know enough about ‘matter in all its motions’ to understand and treat any criminal pathology without resort to actions based on what they regard to be little better that a savage morality. Maybe so, but I can wait until the day actually arrives. In the meantime, ‘betting on the come’ is bad gambling policy, and likewise for extracting premature sociological conclusions from raw scientific data. Facts without Truth will fare no better than Truth without Facts (another tautology?).
”And so I give you a tautology”
Uhhh . . . what tautology is this? Excuse me, but I’ve not identified any tautology (not in the context of your discussion). I cannot accept as tautological, not even in a technical sense, something that is manifestly true. Restating something manifestly true in other words to the same effect, might be tautological, but that does not somehow alter the manifestly true into a lesser article. Sometimes ‘A’ is not only not ‘B’; it is also not a tautology. Puts me in mind of the Marshall Court. When the court found the Tenth Amendment an inconvenience, they were able to remove the obstruction by declaring the Amendment a ‘mere tautology’. And so it has remained, an emasculated tautology, to this day. Gee, I wish I could get things to work that way for me. Anything I don’t like, just call it a tautology.
Don’t count on a cessation of ‘food fights’ any time soon. Dawkins has made it clear that the heat is going to be ratcheted up. Not that he’s opposed to the right of conscience, mind you, just to any effective expression of the right.
When I entered FR this pm I saw that you’ve shifted the issue to another thread. Guess I’ll have to hurry over there and see what else new I can learn.
See you over on the Pearcey thread. I think you'll like that one. It picks up on some of the themes/observations you made in the post I'm replying to here.