I was born a protestant and I still find this an okay word for dealing with intellectualisms of all kind. Person-made or not.
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 5:07 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > The ultimate answer for me is that belief in god lacks intellectual > honesty. I wouldn't seek any argument on the existence of god - for > me an answer either way is a rationalist fantasy - i.e. there is no > answer. I reject most of the ideology I was brought up in as based in > fables. The idea of scripture as revelation from god doesn't appeal > in the slightest. Most of it is wrong and flatly uninteresting - one > would expect any such conversation to reveal what we don't know and be > less obviously made up by human beings. This doesn't make me > unreligious, but does make me consider religion as person-made. > > Much of the non-religious ideology of my youth fails for similar > reasons. I once believed the British Empire was a fine thing and the > world wars were the fault of rotten Germans and Japanese. I now know > this was because more accurate history was denied me. As a kid, I > thought the Opium Wars must have been about our brave Royal Navy > chasing drug dealing Chinamen around, and our empire about bringing > civilisation, fair-play and cricket to the 'undeserving'. I couldn't > understand why Americans had been so dumb as to reject our rule. I > thought our society was broadly fair and you got by on skill and > merit. I know this was all bunk. > > The essential component of intellectual growth is belonging to a group > free of infectious diseases - average IQ (however suspect a measure) > is reduced by this kind of disease. Over the years I've found some > solace in science, but it's clear this form of reasoning is only a > starting place. We lack any proper account of what science is, and as > usual the widely held ideas are plain wrong. Science is not value- > free or intellectually linear and requires massive effort, passion and > some clear-break thinking and a gereat deal of training on what > evidence amounts to and how it fits with theories. Its quest is truth > but a quest is not truth. > > My grandson (14) is having a hard time at school just now and like > most teenagers knows more or less 'sweet FA' - other than how to get > into arguments with his mother and into detention. He came home with > s story that WW1
