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The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
The Magic of Reality
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Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
DG-
Yes, well, I assumed you understood where I was coming from, so I didn't preface it with "in a purely naturalist (atheist) universe..." Still, thanks for that answer.
The thing is, you are actually asserting the existence of a supernatural, universal reality on which human knowledge is contingent, and the supernatural part is just gratuitous. Well, okay, I could echo other people in this thread by saying: back it up. because it seems to me that things like a changing zeitgeist, changing physical models, the waning and waxing of compassion or hate in our societies, and so on, against the backdrop of "the universe" seem to lend more support to the notion of human constructs. I mean, in what way are justice, love, logic, cruelty etc. universals? Show me an instance of justice among the moons of Saturn. Or love. It just doesn't make any sense outside of human interaction. But I feel dumb even bringing it up again.
The whole argument against scientific naturalism reminds me of a teenager who just saw The Matrix for the first time, or a student who heard his first philo 101 lecture. "Hey dude, did you know that nothing is real?! It's all an illusion." Fair enough, that's a position that cannot be disproved by definition, but it also doesn't allow any conclusions concerning the nature of nature, super- or otherwise. :)
Permalink Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:56:00 UTC | #82493