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Any of you dudes read John Gray? He argues, like Diarmuid, that modern liberal atheism is as much a form of mind-control as organized religion ever was. But then he seems to hate more or less everything.
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i don't know if science can use emotion; i'm sure some would argue that that's one of its strengths - emotion is subjective, and science needs to be as objective as possible, for reasons of clarity among other things.
it's not that science is denying emotion, it's just that it's not science's task to deal with emotion (in general; i'm obviously not talking about those parts of science which study human emotion).
Me, personally? Absolutely.Anyway, egg, it's not that so much - do you really think there's any point in trying to convince you of beliefs other than the ones you have, in cold, logical , non-cultural terms?
... but having said that obviously atheism is fashionable at the minute, in the media and on the internet at least. Like indie rock
(bah! quoted the wrong quote)
I dunno, snaky and D - it seems a little bit like your main problem with "atheism" is its annoying evangelisers, and your distaste for the chip-eating proles that are taking a passing interest in it
Would you say that the young Catholics of Meath are genuinely devout? I suspect most people are thoroughly secularised but still go through the motions.
Me, personally? Absolutely.
How about you? Are you advising me to give up trying to convince people that I'm right?
whatever you might think about dawkins, i certainly don't think he'd refuse to change his stance if faced with solid evidence which contradicted his beliefs.sorta thinking a bit about what snaky is saying there, does dawkins accept that if he 'converted' people to science - they'd probably just blindly follow the exact same science for another 2000 years, and hung draw and quarter you for telling them that parts are debatable and open to reinvention??
i don't see how physics, for example, can be dealt with on an emotional level - the laws of physics exist without regard for human expression.I actually think that science must change into something that can encompass the entire human expression potential, or it will die. (I'm talking over a long time, you understand).
Why not? Maybe we will soon be able to describe them in terms of neuro-physiological processes.
In the future there is no reason why we couldn't have a precise vocabulary to express these things unambiguously.
I think that their religion is a fundamental part of their lives that they just take for granted and don't spend any time intellectualising. They believe that God made the world and their grannies are in heaven, they get their children baptised and go to Mass on Sundays (and they know the priest). Is that what you mean by "devout"? They don't wonder about what God is, or what heaven is like, and I wouldn't say any of them ever had a mystical religious experienceWould you say that the young Catholics of Meath are genuinely devout? I suspect most people are thoroughly secularised but still go through the motions.
i don't see how physics, for example, can be dealt with on an emotional level - the laws of physics exist without regard for human expression.
maybe we're arguing about different things - the difference between the laws of nature and what those laws actually mean for us?
That's exactly what science does, isn't it? Or tries to do, with some success?By the same token, can these things be untangled?
And yes, pop science is the new vehicle for mind control whether you see it or not.
sorta thinking a bit about what snaky is saying there, does dawkins accept that if he 'converted' people to science - they'd probably just blindly follow the exact same science for another 2000 years, and hung draw and quarter you for telling them that parts are debatable and open to reinvention?? even science has always been guilty of that. great one liner my uncle came out with recently 'the pioneer is the guy with the arrow in his back'
..people like to think they know definite things, even if they are mental..
And I actually think this is another reason atheists, or at least those atheists with an axe to grind, always bring out the biologists. Because it's easy to poo-poo abstract thought when you have the plain bread-and-butter realism of biology by your side.
looking to an institution that harbours paedophiles to tell you that gay people are immoral and sex before marriage is a sin.
That's exactly what science does, isn't it? Or tries to do, with some success?
You know, this all feels stuffy and academic and completely missing the point when you read this. I honestly wouldn't blame any Irish person for becoming an atheist.
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