1. Assume atheism.
2. Theorize based on this assumption.
3. Proclaim that the conclusions flowing from the theories that made the assumption prove the assumption. But don't mention the assumption.
4. Define all theories that do not make the atheist assumption as "religion", and all those that do make the assumption as "science".
5. Outlaw "religion" from interfering with "science".
6. Apply "science" to "disproving" religion.
6. Relish the solid scientific ground on which atheism rests.
UPDATE: Perhaps it is not clear to some, but I'm primarily referring to Darwinism above, although it applies just about as well to memetics, sociobiology, the multiverse theory, and the Search For The 'Real' Jesus.
7 comments:
Your recipe starts out wrong, I think. It more often goes:
1. Live in the world for a given amount of time.
2. Ponder life.
3. Discover the various theories on the meaning of life, such as theism, agnosticism, atheism, and so on.
4. Hold the claims of the various theories up to life, and pick the best fit.
That is my method. Using it, I have traveled through a number of different beliefs. Agnostic, wannabe Hindu, proto-Catholic, and finally secular humanist.
I did not assume there was no god from the beginning. I found it to be the best explanation for life.
As for your number 5, I thought it was theists as much as atheists who wanted there to be a divide between religion and science. Isn't it a Catholic belief that faith and reason address two different, exclusive realms of knowledge?
Thanks for the comment. I too applied your recipe, and ended up a Catholic, via secular humanism, and Hinduism. From this point of view I wrote the post, and I stand by it.
I put quote marks around "religion" and "science" in point 5 for a reason. The definitions in point 5 are the spurious ones inflicted by the atheists in point 4, so your last question is not pertinent. The atheists are the ones slapping the name "religion" on a competing scientific hypotheses, in order to avoid any honest engagement with it (in my experience). Except for this atheist smokescreen, the faith and reason question does not even enter into the subject matter of my point 5. Your query simply begs the question.
So you consider all religious claims as scientific in nature?
What are you referring to when you say that atheists have slapped the name 'religion' on some scientific hypotheses?
Which hypotheses do you mean exactly?
I don't consider all truth claims to be scientific in nature. I do consider ID theory to be scientific, not religious in nature (as does atheist Thomas Nagel; see link).
There are plenty of things that are not scientific in nature that are reasonable to believe. Science is not the source and summit of all valid knowledge (don't expect a philosophical education from me on this in a blog comment).
kaltrosomos, I assume you've been paying attention to the ID debate for the last decade. You yourself are an atheist that is slapping the name "religion" on scientific hypotheses. Isn't that the point of your comments? Sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time here enlightening you about a debate that you have no doubt already been following in depth. If you really don't know, then start reading your Dawkins, Dennett, Johnson, Dembski, Behe, etc and educate yourself.
And my apologies for not being more clear in the original post that it was primarily focused on the ID/Darwinism debate. This may have caused some confusion. If so, the fault is mine.
Please don't accuse me of "slapping the name 'religion' on scientific hypotheses" when I haven't made any comments like that. I read your post in a more general sense than just applying to the ID/evolution debate. I commented based on that general sense.
I am familiar with the ID debate. I looked into ID seriously at one point, reading some work by Behe and Dembski among others.
Then I read Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller. Excellent book. As far as I'm concerned, it demolished the case for ID. Have you read it?
And it's not like Miller is an atheist out to pick on believers. He's a practicing Catholic.
Anyway, I don't intend to argue the case for darwinism. Just pointing out my view.
I've read Miller, and I find him woefully far from demolishing the case against anything.
However, the fact that Miller is a practicing Catholic only serves to underscore the point. Religion is compatible with a sufficiently supported Darwinism (it is also compatible with a sufficiently supported phlogiston, Ptolemaic epicycles, and the luminiferous ether. Does pointing out this compatibility strengthen the scientific case for those theories?) I do not reject Darwinism for religious reasons. I reject it because I think it is ludicrously bad science. If it were good science, my religion would not be affected. This is the state I was in a dozen years ago. A devout Catholic and a believer in Darwin.
Let's be honest here. The truth or falsity of the Darwinian story is of far, far less import to my religious viewpoint (and to Miller's) then it is to the viewpoint of the atheist. They need something like it to be true. This colors their science. I think they've gone scientifically off the rails because of it. I find it far more likely that their vision is clouded due to their atheism than that mine is clouded due to my theism.
Thanks for the comments, and thanks for not trying to "educate" me concerning Darwinism. I'm well familiar with the literature. I find it boorish when the typical Darwinist barges in and assumes I need some sort of remedial education on the issue, that my primitive little Christ-addled mind has simply failed to grasp their shining self-evident concept, and that if they just repeat it to me slowly, while calling me a moron, I'll come around. You have not done this, and I find it highly refreshing. Thanks!
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