Posted on 10/06/2003 6:00:49 AM PDT by OESY
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:50:03 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"We have always had atheists among us," the philosopher Edmund Burke wrote in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," "but now they have grown turbulent and seditious." It seems that in our own day some prominent atheists are agitating for greater political and social influence. In this connection, leading atheist thinkers have been writing articles declaring that they should no longer be called "atheists." Rather, they want to be called "brights."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Just because I'm an atheist doesn't me I don't listen to or respect what religious people have to say (whether they be Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other faith). If I had Dennett's attitude, I wouldn't have many friends.
Beyond that, this article is mostly nonsense. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
If there has ever been a philosopher or an atheist who has said anything like, "human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality," I have never run across them, and I have read most to the philosophers (and theologians as well). What I have found, and agree with, is that anything makes a claim for truth that is not based on reason cannot be known to be true.
Reason is the only capacity we have been given as human beings for understanding anything. When Kant makes the claim that this is not true, it is his (quite human and quite wrong) reason that makes this claim. What, was Kant privy to some other kind of reason that all other mortals are not?
But why should we believe, Kant asked, that our five-mode instrument for apprehending reality is sufficient for capturing all of reality?
Why indeed, since no one in the entire history of the world has ever made that claim. This is nothing but a straw man, than anybody could knock down. What Kant really foisted on the world was an attempt to repudiate the senses and substitute mysticism. No one claims, not even the most materialistic of empiricists, that knowledge comes exclusively and completely from the senses. (Maybe one has, but their influence must be very small, since no one has heard of them.) First of all, there are not only five senses. There is the whole world of internal experiences, like the sensations of elation, fear, nausea, vertigo, etc. that are directly perceived but not by any of the five senses.
What the rationalist opposes is mysticism, which is the belief that knowledge is possible without either evidence or reason. Being opposed to mysticism is not atheism.
It is mysticism that allows people to believe any superstitious nonsense and encourages people to do things, that, if they only used their senses and their reason, they would never do, like flying planes into sky-scrapers killing thousands of people or strapping explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves and as many others as they can to kingdom come. It is the philosophy of Kant and all other forms of mysticism that propagate superstition and irrationality.
If you understand why you believe what you believe, that belief is rational. If you believe something, but do not know why you believe it, or how you know it is true, that is superstition. Most people do not call it superstition, they call it faith. But, if you believe something, and cannot find either evidence or reason for that belief, how do you distinguish it from an illusion, or hallucination, or dementia.
Suppose we accept the premise that it is possible to have true knowledge without reason or evidence. Now comes a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a Christian, all bearing their Scriptures which they claim is a source of knowledge that must just be believed, because it cannot be known by reason or evidence. How does one decide which supposed claim to mystic truth is the correct one? Certainly, if the higher truth comes without reason, reason cannot be used to judge which higher truth is the really true higher truth. How do you decide, I mean, without using reason?
Whether you believe the nature of man is determined by God or "nature," the ability to reason is the only faculty man has been given with which to understand the truth. This article is nothing but an assault on reason, and thereby the truth, whatever you believe the truth is.
Hank
The Gospels, and Paul's and John's espistles, make the case that a belief in the Resurrection -- and miracles -- are rational.
But, as soon as God is defined, then it is no longer necessary to prove a negative, only to prove the God just defined is not possible. When someone asks me if I believe in God, I always ask, "which God, Allah? Shiva? Zeus, Dianna? A Greek God" a Roman God, a Norse God, which?
Usually they tell me, "the God of the Bible," which they think gets them out of trouble, but it doesn't, so I have to then ask, "which God of the Bible, the Unitarian God of the Bible, the Tirinitarian God of the Bible, the Mormon God of the Bible, the Gnostic God of the Bible, which?" ...because these all define God differently.
This usually leads to an absurd statement like, "God cannot be defined." So, I ask, "do you believe in Morkano?" When they ask what that is, I say, "well, it cannot be defined, but what difference does that make. Its just like your God, only different. The only reason you don't believe in Morkano is because your refuse to. You're just an amorkanoist."
Hank
I disagree.
Christianity is not the only belief system that exists. To others Buddhism makes the most sense to explain reality, or Islam, or Hindu, etc. All the believers of their individual faiths believe their god(s) explain their existance.
That's true. And ultimately one is right.
Science explains most of what I see everyday.
Science is good. Modern science was conceived by Christians -- the Bacons, Francis and Roger, and Descartes.
I just do not believe that there is a God(s) behind it.
It takes a greater faith to believe we are here by accident.
I have made no argument against what is rationally based belief, only those beliefs people claim without a rational basis. God said, Come let us reason together, and Paul said it is the eyes of our understanding which are opened, not the throats of our credulity, by which just anything can be swallowed.
Hank
That's true.
God or accident are not the only possiblle alternatives. If they were, then whatever exists would exist by accident; either the the universe would exist by accidenct or God would exist by accident. Most theist have trouble saying God is an accident, but, if God does not have cause, what do you call it?
Accident is the only natural explantion (and frankly its not rational.) Everything else implies a violation of natural laws i.e. the supernatural. The debate then becomes one about the nature of God.
if God does not have cause, what do you call it?
The limit to reason :-)
LOL -- Very prudent of him, I'm sure!
3. How natural is it for those who observe this extreme, to run into the contrary! While they are strongly impressed with the absurdity of undervaluing reason, how apt are they to overvalue it! Accordingly, we are surrounded with those (we find them on every side) who lay it down as an undoubted principle, that reason is the highest gift of God. They paint it in the fairest colors; they extol it to the skies. They are fond of expatiating in its praise; they make it little less than divine. They are wont to describe it as very near, if not quite, infallible. They look upon it as the all-sufficient director of all the children of men; able, by its native light, to guide them into all truth, and lead them into all virtue.
4. They that are prejudiced against the Christian revelation, who do not receive the Scriptures as the oracles of God, almost universally run into this extreme: I have scarce known any exception: So do all, by whatever name they are called, who deny the Godhead of Christ. (Indeed some of these say they do not deny his Godhead; but only his supreme Godhead. Nay, this is the same thing; for in denying him to be the supreme God, they deny him to be any God at all: Unless they will assert that there are two Gods, a great one and a little one!) All these are vehement applauders of reason, as the great unerring guide. To these over-valuers of reason we may generally add men of eminently strong understanding; who, because they do know more than most other men, suppose they can know all things. But we may likewise add many who are in the other extreme; men of eminently weak understanding; men in whom pride (a very common case) supplies the void of sense; who do not suspect themselves to be blind, because they were always so.
I dare you to prove that. ;-)
Actually, though, you can prove a negative, at least in some cases. I once took a rather painful Abstract Linear Algebra class that ended up proving that there was nothing after an "octonion," (or was it nothing after a 16-space transformation? -- I forget now...)
It seems, though, that your argument is vulnerable to a nebulous definition - for instance, that God created the universe. The Deists believed that God's "testament" was in His works, which we see all around us.
On that basis I think you'd be left trying to prove a negative.
One of the best treatments of this argument (in fiction) is the novel Voyage From Yesteryear by James Hogan.
Your math is way beyond mine - I stopped at linear algebra, after differential equations.
Within the contraints of mathematical logic, you could certainly prove a negative. For instance, that there are no whole numbers between 1 and 2. But that's a function of the definitions.
In the context of the current discussion, it's a lot tougher. If I postulate the existence of gnorixes, for example, who control the rate of corrosion on pennies, can you prove they don't exist?
I couldn't.
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