Your efforts are mere exasperations, for those of us who are impatient for the human race to grow up, take hold, and build a better world, which utterly refuses to show deference to any BS threats or guidance from non-existent deities, described via the mouths and writings of nefarious, delusional or frightened humans. — universeness
In what way is this different from the moral code of an atheist humanist? — universeness
Give me one of YOUR examples of a theistic claim, that might be made by a non-literal theist?
So what is it concerned with that is representative of theism? — universeness
God is love, still posits a prime mover that created this universe as an act of it's will. — universeness
Then what is the difference between the bible and any other book of old stories? — DingoJones
why not rely on all the other much better quality books that have improved and expanded on everything the bible has to teach us? — DingoJones
What conviction level do you personally assign to the proposal that the supernatural has one or more existents? — universeness
So why not recommend the final step and recommend that if you are a theist or you are religious or you are a theosophist then you are irrational, as you are conflating fables and myth with reality. The supernatural has no demonstrated existent and never has had. If you agree with that then WE agree. — universeness
It certainly does. If it does anything, it emphasizes difference in the interpretation of "interpretation". The difficulty is that sometimes interpretations sometimes exclude each other - or seem to. They certainly reflect different presuppositions and different interests.
I suspect two different uses of interpretation here. One is a use in which interpretations do not exclude each other; each is valid or invalid on its own terms. The other is a use in which a rule is applied to a case. (Yes, I'm channelling Wittgenstein). Each application of a rule is an interpretation, so it may be applied in different ways. Sometimes, we can agree that the rule might be applied in different ways; then we seek a "ruling". But if the rule is to have any meaning, we need to be able to say that one way of applying the rule is right and another is wrong.
It seems to me that the conviction that one has the right, correct, true answer is the source of dogma, and consequently the most pernicious view. I don't think that atheism or religion are necessarily pernicious, it is the conviction that does the harm.
Yet, if there is any truth to be found in this chaotic world, and even if there is none, one has to take a stand somewhere. How can one do that and avoid becoming dogmatic? — Ludwig V
If none of these biblical stories are to be taken literally, then perhaps the story of god should not be taken literally, — universeness
Interesting. Talking snakes is one thing. But dismissing the existence of Jesus would undermine Christianity, surely? How many practicing Christians would there be who think Jesus never lived? If everything comes down to compelling stories rather than truth then Hamlet or David Copperfield may was well be worshiped (actually I think Harold Bloom did just that). — Tom Storm
The film seems to be a piece of post-modern pop, a hybrid of mythology and film history styles, so anything you want you will probably find in it - from pirate movie tropes to Cold War metaphors. :smile: — Tom Storm
it'd seemed back in '77 that Star Wars was only a corny mashup of 1930s' era Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Wizard of Oz & bad samurai flicks ... — 180 Proof
The interesting part is the hold it has had on culture. — Tom Storm
I don't have an issue with that. But there is another point to take into account. Some people talk about "hinge" propositions - ideas around which the debate turns, but which are never the focus of debate. I don't understand the ins and outs of this idea. A related idea is that of conceptual or grammatical propositions. Most people are happy to talk about analytic or a priori propositions. These relate to the language in which debate is carried on or to the ideas that frame the debate.
However that may be, for a debate to occur, there needs to be an agreement about what is at issue and what isn't and what counts as evidence or argument. These things are not dogmas merely because they are not at stake. They can be challenged at any time, but that amounts to changing the subject and that's the difference.
My point is that these are also protected, but legitimately. On the other hand, they can be challenged at any time, and to refuse such a challenge would be dogmatic.
Following this a little further, "dogma" used to mean simply doctrine or principle, but it now has a a value built in to it, so it means something like unreasonable resistance to a reasonable challenge (where what is reasonable can itself be open to challenge). That's my basic point. Unfortunately, one person's dogma is another person's evident accepted truth. So I wouldn't necessarily feel upset if someone called me dogmatic. I might just feel that the discussion was over and about to degenerate into abuse. — Ludwig V
I think that emphasis upon factual knowledge comes in some portion from the emphasis upon the confession of belief that is expressed through creeds. Contrast the significance of repeating the Nicene creed with providing an offering to Athena at her temple. Athena is not testing if you have a correct set of beliefs. She might help you if you honor her properly. — Paine
Did you grow up in the U.S. South? Mormons have historically been especially disfavored in that region, although that is changing. — Hanover
I'm sure there are many varieties of dogmatic atheism and one of them may be anti-scientific. But I think science is not exempt from dogmatism quite apart from the atheistic variety. Dogmatism is a tendency (!) in people, including scientific people to protect what they believe in, and there is a temptation to rule difficult questions out of court because they are inconvenient and to confuse that motive with more respectable justification for rejecting a question. I would agree that it's not part of what science should be. But then, one needs agreed starting-points to start any research. Is temporary or provisional dogmatism ok? — Ludwig V
Dogma is not only religious. 'The central dogma of molecular biology is a theory stating that genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA, to RNA, to protein, or RNA directly to protein.' Political orthodoxies have their dogmas, as do many other disciplines - Soviet Communism was notoriously dogmatic. Dogma is simply the regular form of an accepted principle or axiom. In itself it is not necessarily problematic, but becomes so when it is allied with authoritarianism, which is often is. — Wayfarer
Is it something like "the importance of truth is not at issue" (which I agree with)? — Ludwig V
But surely it's obvious that what is true - whether a particular proposition is true or not and even which propositions are capable of truth or falsity - is often at issue?
It seems to me that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. Religion often includes claims that are supposed to be facts about the world which provides what is most important to it - an account of the world that provides purpose and meaning - I prefer structure - to life. Science includes ideas about what is valuable, primarily truth, of course, but a great deal about how to live life, what is worth pursuing and how it is to be pursued (which, of course, is the stock in trade of religion). Incidentally, how far modern capitalism is an outcome of science is unclear to me, but I would like to think that alternative outcomes of the primacy of science are available. — Ludwig V
But anything that provides a basis for a way of life and justifies certain practices and is available to large numbers of people, is going to find lots of different kinds of people amongst its followers. So whatever was originally proposed or recommended is going to find different tendencies developing. So all religions have fundamentalist tendencies, liberal tendencies, intellectual tendencies, practical tendencies, missionary tendencies, quietist tendencies, and on and on. That includes the way(s) of life that exist around science. So I'm inclined to see dogmatic atheism as a tendency within the practice of science which is bound to develop.
I find grand narratives like the conflict between religion and science very difficult. They tend to evaporate when looked at too closely.
It X a dogma when X is demonstrably true? I don't think so. — 180 Proof
1. Make a strong fact/value distinction, as per Hume.
2. Establish the scientific method with truth as the only and unquestionable value. — unenlightened
An intermediate sort of lightweight realism has also developed, holding that while there are
objective answers to ontological questions, these answers are somehow shallow or trivial, perhaps reflecting conceptual truths rather than the furniture of the world. Deflationary views of this sort have been developed by Hirsch (1993; this volume), Thomasson (this volume), Wright and Hale (2001; this volume), and others. These views contrast with what we might call the heavyweight realism of Fine, Sider, van Inwagen, and others, according to which answers to ontological questions are highly nontrivial, and reflect the ultimate furniture of the world
(I'm not being at my most systematic here, I'm afraid, but luckily this *is* the lounge.) — Dawnstorm
I come from a sociology background; this sounds rather... mundane? — Dawnstorm
Quantifying innumerable things is what sociologists have always done. But they don't usually do it for the sake of it; there's a research question that drives how to quantify things.
I've once been asked, on the street, to test new recipees for orange juice. They'd ask questions about how much I liked the taste, colour, etc., and they provided me with a ordinal scale from 1 to 10. Oh goody. The ordinal scale made sense. I mean, the minimal ordinal scale would be: (1) don't like, (2) like. It's an ordinal scale, because we value (2) more (I won't buy juice I don't like). What's not there is a stable distance between (1) and (2). It's just an order.
The minimal ordinal scale isn't very thorough, though, and judging can become kind of arbitrary for so-so cases, which might fall in either slot, depending on mood. So maybe something like this (1) yuk, (2) meh, (3) yum.
Or maybe (1) get this away from me, (2) if it's all there is, (3) maybe sometimes, if I'm in the mood, (4) yeah, that's good, (5) MUST HAVE!
Go higher than (5) and the accuracy of the scale falls apart, because it's really hard to even figure out what the bullet points mean. — Dawnstorm
So, yeah, knowledge is probably best described as an ordinal scale. It doesn't meet the requirements for an interval scale. And how you quantify it depends on what you want to know, and how you can fruitfully measure it. — Dawnstorm
Interesting: could you elaborate more an this distinction between a proposition being "objectively true" vs. "objectively good"? I do not fully understand what that entails. — Bob Ross
Very interesting: so, to you, a moral judgment can exist without being true or false and whether it is true or false can be later provided by a will? Is that the idea? — Bob Ross
I am a naturalist in the sense that I do think we are all a part of one, natural reality though; I just don't think that that justifies claiming that the propositions who's truthity is relative to (a) will(s) is somehow objective in virtue of our will's being a part of nature. — Bob Ross
I want to clarify that my commitment to fixating upon what is of my nature is not itself an objective moral judgment. I don’t think that a metaethical theory that simply contains the obligation to what is one’s nature is thereby a form of moral realism. — Bob Ross
I am not sure if I entirely understood your second post, but let me try to adequately respond. If someone acts as though “P is good”, that does not thereby make P objectively good (although, arguably, it may be subjectively good). A normative judgment is objective iff the proposition (that expresses it) has a truthity that is will-independent. If the truthity, on the other hand, is indexical, then it is subjective. — Bob Ross