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quote:Originally posted by the Fool:
What about Aesthetics then? It has no citeria for falsifiability other than ones internally generated. Does that means aethetics are invalid?
Actually, the
Philosopher's magazine has a game on aesthetics, which is quite interesting. The main point being that people do not agree on Aesthetics. This is sort of obvious, since everyone has different tastes. Aesthetics is about subjective experience and individual criteria for assessing that experience. Hence the rational debate is conducted on those terms - you can argue whether your tastes match certain criteria eg Is artistic skill a basis for aesthetics?
This doesn't make it invalid, but it does limit it in scope. If I say, "I find that painting beautiful" then there is little to argue about. I could then try to justify my assertion and we could have a rational debate about that. However, if I were to assert that everyone finds that painting beautiful, then my statement becomes falsifiable - and is almost certainly untrue.
The same is true of theism. If you say that your own personal experiences lead you to have those feelings, then fair enough. If you assert the existence of some deity, then you don't just assert it for yourself, you assert it for everyone. Making statements about existence is not a purely subjective game. Im not sure whether you disagree or not. Your statements about belief affecting reality could be seen in a purely psychological light - in which case I'd agree to some extent. If you are claiming anything more than that, Id have to disagree strongly. For instance, holocaust denial is not an equally valid belief system about history.
You are right that rationality requires some belief, but it is a minimal one. If you don't accept rationality, then we can no longer communicate. You could just spew forth any old gobbledegook and I would have no way of arguing it with you if you didn't accept rationality. People who are very paranoid can get like this.
quote: I see no review in atheism, only dogmatic belief backed up by convienient 'evidence'.
This is a misrepresentation of atheism. The evidence I take is not convenient evidence, but all available evidence. My view is not dogmatic, I remain open minded but with a healthy degree of sceptiscism. It is a scientific way to approach the question of theism.
You may disagree with my conclusions, but up to now you've done nothing but confirm my assessment of the evidence. By claiming that all viewpoints are equally valid, you are really saying that there is no evidence that favours any one. A rational person would then say that it is reasonable to disbelieve all until such time as there is some concrete evidence. I cannot stress enough that this is the way we reason every day. When I leave the room, it may be that a troop of cenobites (demons) enters and waits for me. I don't worry about it, because I have no reason to believe it has happened.
As to your critiscisms of rationality, truth and science (all with the obligatory quotation marks), I think that this is not only badly wrong it is positively harmful. People believe in science, because if you jump off a tall building you fall to the ground in a rather predictable way. Now, I loved the Matrix as much as everyone else and if you mean to say that gravity is something you can choose to ignore at any time then I'd be amazed. In fact, I'd be converted pretty quickly if you could break out of that "dogma". The breatharians say things on pretty much the same lines as you and people die. Thats the power of belief - you can get people to believe the most stupid things that go against everything they experience.
quote: ...and wouldn't it be nice to believe in invisible ewoks again, we did it with Leprechauns, we can do it again!
I notice how you take my ridiculous example and make it sound more reasonable by appealing to a well known myth. I reiterate, this is argument by propoganda. "The US is the fairest, most democratic, egalitarian society that ever was because everyone knows it is". All you are doing is taking myths that you like but that's hardly the basis for convincing someone that you are right.
Finally, I think you are deliberately misunderstanding me when you say that abstract concepts are also invisible. If something has a detectable effect on the world then of course it is real. I was arguing that it is unreasonable to believe in things which are not observable. Now, you will probably say that some deity or other does affect the world. Ok, that is a much more defendable position (which I disagree with) than the one you seem to be taking now. |
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