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Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
A better question might be: Can one's particular belief-set non-inconsistently contain both beliefs which attribute features of reality to the supernatural and beliefs about the evolution of life as a natural phenomenon on this planet?
The answer could only be yes if you took Gould's NOMA absolutely seriously and made sure that the sphere of beliefs for each category were in no way at all overlapping. I think it's logically possible to do (that is, it is possible that one's thought could conform to such strictures), but as far as whether any particular person's beliefs are that rigorously organized... I doubt it.
In fact, I doubt most people including most atheists are that organized in their beliefs. It is far more likely that people generally cherry-pick things to be consistent about (based on what they happen to care about), while ignoring the rest. At least, so far as I can tell.
Permalink Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:12:00 UTC | #447433