[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

All people are fallible, that's true. But then once we accept that truth, we still have a marked distinction to acknowledge. When we get into comparing scientists with dogmatists (or rather, those choosing the scientific method versus those choosing the dogmatic one), I'm happy enough that one represents a group of people mostly striving for knowledge in a significantly more honest way than the other.

I have no desire to knock science nor scientists for that matter. I just want to argue that knowledge is illusory within the scientific method. I'm not doing this to open up the possibility of God. I'm doing this to curtail the arrogance of religious conviction towards the outcomes science produces, up to and including the assertion that there is no God.

I argued against such convictions and blind acceptance of scientific "knowledge", but I can give more. Kuhn talks about the process by which we throw away old scientific paradigms for new ones. To paraphrase crudely, in the beginning there is paradigm A and general hostility and shock towards anything that refutes A. Then there's a small bridge of time where paradigm B supercedes A. And finally a long period of general hostility and shock towards anything that refutes B.

What does this describe besides the process of fixating one's *beliefs* as if they were thumb tacks going from one position on the bulletin board to the next? People hate not "knowing", the lack of believing is painful, which is why the bridge between A and B is so comparatively short. But that's ok because the scientific method is user friendly. It says: start believing something, and I'll show you how much you can believe it.

Originally Posted by Deckard

But I'm happy with that. I'm happy with an analog word expressing a level of probability I take it as read that the truth value never reaches 1, and that what we call certainty is an abstract idea(l), like the perfect circle. (No doubt believers would jump in at this point and attribute this level of certainty and perfection to 'God' in some aesthetically-pleasing but highly nebulous way!)

the neo-platonists who basically founded christian theology...

Originally Posted by Deckard

Probably a good point at which to quote Robert Anton Wilson:
Wilson's central tenet, about us being "agnostic about everything"

WOW!! I f-ing loved that quote. That is so perfect to what i'm trying to much less eloquently argue.

Semantics: There was a time when agnostic meant exactly what Wilson's quote is describing. But since the atheist uprising, its been modified to stress the disbelief in God and diminish the other half, belief in uncertainty.

Dawkins: I wholeheartedly agree with all of your good points on him and the "atheist crusade" All can add is this. In the God Delusion he talks about the same probability system we've been discussing. If I remember right he uses a number system of 1 to 7 where 7 is absolute certainty. He says that the possibility that God does not exist is like a 6.999. I respect him for saying this instead something more obtuse. My problem is that he and more so Hitchens and Harris act like the majority of the evil of the world stems from religion.

Part of this, I'm sure, is just to provide a champion to the beleaguered atheist cause, which is understandible. But my point is that its no gaurantee the world would be any better without the major world religions. I think that's wishful thinking. But sometimes they get freaking misty eyed. Like unicorns and rainbows are going to come or something. An example of this is Hitchens arguing Saddam is a religous person and does all of his evil deeds from that motivation. I mean Saddam was about as religious as marilyn manson, lets be honest. That fucker was just evil.

The point is that while a system based on truth has clear humanist advantages over a system based on lies, its not clear that faiths of god has the monopoly on lies. I mean from an atheist's point of view, religion is man made which is even more evidence that the evil is actually in man, not religion.

Religion doesn't kill people, People kill people

Originally Posted by Deckard

I'm not sure I agree that people witness those characteristics and define it as being religious tbh, but it's possible I'm missing your point.

Yeaaahh.. that's not quite the point. Its not that people associate these characteristics with religion. My point is that they should start.