Ron quoted somebody: "Scientific faith is based in the belief, or assumption, that given enough time and careful consideration of the right questions, there is no (physical) phenomenon in the universe that cannot be understood."
dmb says: I think its important to realize that nobody here is saying that everybody has to adopt the same worldview or adopt the same conclusions, let alone the type of scientism that's targeted by Ron's quote. The argument against faith is not an argument for scientific materialism. It is only an attack on beliefs that don't stand up to reason and for which there is no evidence. And the thing that makes science work in the first place is that it is based on empirical evidence. It is based on experience and includes the whole range of reasonable things that can be said about that experience. I've never been able to see how a person can reasonable escape the authority of experience. Experience is the only reality we can ever have and I've never been able to see how one can deny that. In the MOQ, everything follows from experience and philosophical claims are limited by experience. That's one of the reasons I love it so much. The value of our intellectual descriptions and the provisional nature of those descriptions are both based on experience. As Dewey likes to point out, even logic is based on experience. Apparently the formal logic philosophers tend to forget that logic is really just an formalized abstraction of so many sequential events as they're known in ordinary experience. Science too, is a formalized abstraction of more practical and ordinary investigations. It just keeps coming back to experience. And that's what "faith" ain't got. As I remember from my pragmatism class, each of them took the time to refute the belief in trans-substantiation, which is when the bread and wine miraculously change into the body and blood of Christ. Yum! This is a classic example of a belief held on the basis of faith, tradition and authority rather than experience or reason. In fact, it contradicts everything we can reasonably say about the difference between blood and wine or the difference between bread and savior tar tar. Yet millions believe this transformation happens somewhere in their digestive tract every Sunday. In all seriousness, is that a belief we're obliged to respect? Is it wrong to say that such a belief has no merit? Or does intellectual honesty demand the opposite? Add this to what Steve has been saying. I agree with everything he's said on the topic. Thanks. dmb _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
