On 1/21/2013 1:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Monday, January 21, 2013 4:20:16 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 1/21/2013 9:11 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:It is only recently, as the limitations of the narrow Western approach are being revealed on a global scale, that science has fallen into a fundamentalist pathology which makes an enemy of teleology.Yes, it is only the recently, since the Enlightenment, that science has displaced theology as the main source of knowledge about the world. Coincidentally is only recently that the sin theory of disease was replaced by the germ theory...that the geocentric model of the solar system was replaced by the heliocentric...that insanity has been due to bad brain chemistry instead of possession by demons...that democracy has replaced the divine right of kings...that lightning rods have protected us from the wrath of God...that the suffering of women in childbirth has been alleviated...Those things were all brought about by thinkers and experimenters in the early part of the Enlightenment, who had a balanced cosmological view rooted in meaning and purpose,
Nonsense. All the above examples were only possible by the rejection of a teleological metaphysics.
not by the extremism which has dominated science since the 1980s. We seldom see such useful and realistic theories being produced today.
The treatment of mental disorders by chemistry and brain surgery is almost all since the 1980's. Smallpox was eradicated in 1979. Homosexuality is a preference not a sin, since the '80's.
Science has entered into it's corrupt twilight, pimping justifications for the highest bidder just as church indulgences were once offered. Then as now, these institutions are not without benefits, but failure to recognize their deterioration is not progress.
Political institutions become corrupt precisely when they adopt a teleology, a great metaphysical goal to which the well being of individual citizens may be sacrificed: The Crusades. Lebensraum. Communism. The Cultural Revolution. The Caliphate...
Brent The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to him who has accustomed himself from his youth up to find something necessary in what is capricious, and who would ascribe something like reason to Chance and make a religion of surrendering to it. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
