Robert Tulip wrote:If you look at my conversations with ant, the general trend is that ant makes stupid, deceptive and rude faith-based arguments, which I challenge.

I didn't say it wasn't justified. I believe much of Dawkins' harsh rhetoric is justified. What I'm saying is that sometimes, the delivery undoes what the words seek to do. The way a message is delivered renders the content polarizing regardless of it's rational direction.

Saint Paul said the three greatest virtues are faith, hope and love. Jesus Christ said that faith can move mountains and enable miracles such as walking on water. I don’t believe that either of these claims should really be viewed as promoting a view of faith that is in conflict with science. Rather, Christ’s point is that a sense of total confidence is central to inspiration. I agree that total confidence is a risky and dangerous thing. When our confidence is misplaced, we follow the pied piper into the mountain. But when people have a shared vision, and implicit trust in each other, they can achieve great things. Without such shared vision, it is hard to see how anything can get done. Faith is about the stories that give us meaning and direction.

You blur the boundaries of this concept until I can barely tell what you're saying. How is faith about stories that give us meaning and direction? Isn't that purpose? Speaking of the inspiration of a musician or artist, that is confidence. It's common usage to say "I have faith in myself", but that's social faith. The same as faith in cohorts to a cause. If we seek to change our community through cause driven initiatives, faith in the group is a good thing. Social faith is more like trust. Trust or confidence.

The problem here, which gives rise to some long-winded philosophical debates, is that if we say faith is illegitimate as a basis for truth claims, we have no basis for any claim to be certain that the universe exists in reality, and fall back upon our confidence that things appear to be consistent.

Does the universe exist in reality? Why not unreality? What are you saying here? That the universe certainly exists? It can be argued that this is analytic, and we can be certain of it. The connotations of 'universe' and 'existence' overlap, referring to precisely the same thing. The statement doesn't do anything for me.

At the root of our knowledge is a necessary trust in our senses. This simple trust is altogether different than the sort of faith we would have in a proposition. If we accept assumptions and axioms to function, they are not held with certainty. They are(or at least should be) correctly seen as provisional. We should never turn a blind eye to the weak areas of our worldviews.

In the end, my trust in my senses is provisional. There could come the day when I have a legitimate hallucination, where the trust in my senses would be betrayed.

Maybe it is just my personal philosophical attitude, but I think we should be able rank scientific claims regarding their level of certainty, and take it as axiomatic that some abundantly corroborated information is certainly correct.

Why the obsession with absolute certainty? If something is corroborated to the 99.99999%th percentile, there is no functional difference.

I think I see why you believe faith to be a virtue. Because it legitimizes the leap from confidence to certainty with regards to some claims. Corroboration beyond a certain magnitude is worthy of faith on top of reason, so we can have absolute certainty in the truth of the proposition.

I disagree with it, but I can respect it. I think the need for absolute certainty is psychological. It's a form of closure, allowing us cognitively to move on to other problems.

Interbane wrote: much of Dawkins' harsh rhetoric is justified. … sometimes, the delivery undoes what the words seek to do. The way a message is delivered renders the content polarizing regardless of its rational direction.

There is a polarity here between truth and error. Evolution is true and anti-evolution views are wrong. But where the real room for debate emerges is when scientists and philosophers develop metaphysical claims on the basis of physical facts. For example Social Darwinism was the most extreme example, using survival of the fittest to justify laissez faire capitalism. In that case, evolution is used politically by analogy to support values that are not themselves evidence based.

Dawkins’ alarm is about the 40% of Americans who have consistently told polls they believe the universe was created in the last ten thousand years by God. It is morally essential to expose anyone who would give comfort to this evil delusion. Believing in the alienated fantasy of YEC opens the path to support for climate denial, nuclear war, indifference to ecology and science and various other apocalyptic dangers that threaten to cause human extinction. The situation is highly polarised, and being polite about it is like refusing to tell the coal miners that their canary has just died.

I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.

Interbane wrote: How is faith about stories that give us meaning and direction? Isn't that purpose?

Faith is entirely about stories that give us meaning and direction. For example the Christian faith is expressed in the creeds of the church. The Nicene Creed https://www.ccel.org/creeds/nicene.creed.html expresses belief in the second coming of Jesus Christ as the basis of an endless kingdom, as a framework for hope. It is about explaining why the world is bad and how to fix it. (Amazingly that linked version has a shocking typo regarding the Catholic Church).

When Jesus Christ is asked what is most important in life, he says love of God and neighbour. So faith is meant to provide meaning and purpose through the centrality of love.

Interbane wrote: Does the universe exist in reality? Why not unreality? What are you saying here?

This point about the meaning of ‘real’ is a useful example to show that atheist materialist philosophy cannot really do without metaphysics, despite the efforts of creationists to monopolize discussion of everything that is not directly scientific.
It is a simple logical point going back to the foundation of philosophy with Parmenides of Elea who held that “the way of truth" discusses that which is real and contrasts with "the way of opinion," which is illusory. “Under the "way of truth," Parmenides stated that there are two ways of inquiry: that it is, on the one side, and that it is not on the other side. He said that the latter argument is never feasible because nothing can not be: "For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are.”"

So if we wish to have a coherent logical discussion about truth, we have to assume the universe is real. In answer to your question ‘why not unreality?’, that would be to accept the nihilist possibility that everything we know is false. While logically coherent, this acceptance that unreality may be true is in conflict with the common faith that the universe is real.

Interbane wrote: That the universe certainly exists? It can be argued that this is analytic, and we can be certain of it. The connotations of 'universe' and 'existence' overlap, referring to precisely the same thing.

No, the claim is synthetic as soon as we assert the universe actually has any properties such as containing space, time, matter, energy and causality. The term ‘universe’ means ‘physical universe as observed by science’. Our assumption that the universe actually exists is based on faith in the reliability of our senses in view of consistency of data.

Interbane wrote: At the root of our knowledge is a necessary trust in our senses. This simple trust is altogether different than the sort of faith we would have in a proposition. If we accept assumptions and axioms to function, they are not held with certainty. They are (or at least should be) correctly seen as provisional. We should never turn a blind eye to the weak areas of our worldviews.

Yes, it is always possible that faith could be shattered. But it is a great tragedy that Paul Simon says he doesn’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, in one of my favourite songs.

I am exploring the psychology of the provisional. When a sense of provisionality acquires too strong a status, it can create a climate of suspicion and mistrust, paralysing the ability to act. Since Popper, philosophers of science have seen provisionality as a key ethical value for a proper liberal skepticism. To a large extent I believe this was in reaction against the mad messianic certainty of Adolph Hitler, who piped the German people into a mountain like in the story of the children of Hamlin, through beguiling insane faith in dreams of racial hatred. Hitler is the great cautionary tale of the danger of certainty, poisoning the well for certainty, and I suggest leading those who should be certain to vacate this ethical field for those whose certainty is demonstrably misplaced. Yeats put it well a hundred years ago when he wrote that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Interbane wrote: I think I see why you believe faith to be a virtue. Because it legitimizes the leap from confidence to certainty with regards to some claims. Corroboration beyond a certain magnitude is worthy of faith on top of reason, so we can have absolute certainty in the truth of the proposition. I disagree with it, but I can respect it. I think the need for absolute certainty is psychological. It's a form of closure, allowing us cognitively to move on to other problems.

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Philosophically, the problem of certainty is the question of whether what are termed ‘synthetic a priori propositions’ are possible. Kant, who I greatly admire, found in this claim the basis of his whole philosophy, resting on faith that space, time, matter and causation are real and necessary conditions of all experience.

This synthetic faith, putting things together by reason to provide systematic foundations for thought, was the only basis for Kant to refute David Hume’s observation that there is no necessary connection between a cause and an effect. This rather obscure piece of logic extended for Kant into a basis for arguing why doing duty is morally good.

The problem is that duty, what Kant called the moral law within, always seems to come back to the circular argument that we should do our duty because it is our duty. Accepting that faith is morally necessary seems to be the only way to resolve this problem of the logical foundation of ethics.

In terms of why people don’t believe in evolution, the situation is that the philosophy of science never really went through its Kantian Copernican Revolution, but remains with David Hume in a nihilist scepticism, unsure of anything, paralysed by doubt. So ordinary people compare the new atheist intellectual smugness with the simple engagement of Christian evangelists, and too often find the evangelical message more comforting and believable.

I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.

I like the irony of turning scripture against creationists. I think the war isn't only with them, but fundamentalism in general. Though if fundamentalism is a condition that is sometimes inevitable depending on your parenting, culture, and schooling, I wonder if we aren't simply fighting a part of ourselves. That part that is easily addicted to false memes.

My point at the start was that if you fight such a war, you can hurt your own cause depending on how you deliver the message. This is true even if your position is justified. I do think there needs to be a leader like Dawkins for the troops to rally behind, but the environments are minds themselves. We fight in the brains of people, especially the young. They remember who is more rough handed even more than they remember the content, and that can be intimidating.

So faith is meant to provide meaning and purpose through the centrality of love.

I don't think we'll ever agree on faith. Your definition is like an amoeba, stretching all over the place. In trying to make sense of the above, you're saying that faith in a specific proposition, such as loving your neighbor, leads to meaning and purpose. Why does this require faith? Do ethics in their various modern forms require faith? There is a free floating rationale to them, where they are justified by the end on effect result. At the start, we need faith in an axiomatic value such as that our actions should maximize human flourishing. Beyond that the web is justified.

This point about the meaning of ‘real’ is a useful example to show that atheist materialist philosophy cannot really do without metaphysics, despite the efforts of creationists to monopolize discussion of everything that is not directly scientific.

The words "reality" and "existence" are synonymous the way you used them. But you're right, it's synthetic. What you say about metaphysics is confusing. Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy based on physicalism, determinism. The metaphysical part is that information is an emergent phenomenon, though always supervening on a physical medium.

Yeats put it well a hundred years ago when he wrote that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Another good one:
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

Accepting that faith is morally necessary seems to be the only way to resolve this problem of the logical foundation of ethics.

So it's not faith in general that you're saying is a virtue. It's faith in specific assumptions, a handful of them. For faith to be a virtue in general, it would be virtuous with regards to any assumption, not merely those that we determine through reason that are worthy of faith. Perhaps this is why you say "faith through reason".

In terms of why people don’t believe in evolution, the situation is that the philosophy of science never really went through its Kantian Copernican Revolution, but remains with David Hume in a nihilist scepticism, unsure of anything, paralysed by doubt.

Perhaps it's just me, but I see a perfect middle ground between these two positions. We need not be certain, but neither do we need to be paralyzed by doubt. We can admit the provisional nature of our knowledge while still being fierce advocates of it.

Robert Tulip wrote:It is morally essential to expose anyone who would give comfort to this evil delusion. Believing in the alienated fantasy of YEC opens the path to support for climate denial, nuclear war, indifference to ecology and science and various other apocalyptic dangers that threaten to cause human extinction.

Robert Tulip wrote:I personally think of the debate between scientists and creationists in terms of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation 12:7-13 of the war in heaven between Satan and the Archangel Michael, with the creationists representing Satan against the scientists who are on the side of God. As God implicitly says at Revelation 11:18, his wrath is against those who seek to destroy the earth. That means creationists.

These delusional ravings would be hilarious if the author was not deadly serious. Creationists are opening a path to support nuclear war and apocalyptic dangers threatening human extinction. They seek to destroy the earth.It is an evil delusion.
I suppose creationists are stockpiling nuclear,chemical and biological weapons in the vaults of their creation museums? Was it the satanic creationists or the godly scientists who invented these weapons? Any fool knows that it's human greed that is the prime cause of the rape of the earth.
If it is really true that creationist's evil delusion is making them the destroyers of the earth, then of course it is "morally essential" to do something about it.
Sam Harris the compassionate,would hold that they have no real choice about what they think and do and he would do the same in their shoes. For evildoers whatever that might mean in a Dawkinsian world, such people logically, should be isolated from the healthy mass of society and treated presumably with some sort of truth serum being put in their aberrant brains.

Interbane wrote:Do ethics in their various modern forms require faith? There is a free floating rationale to them, where they are justified by the end on effect result. At the start, we need faith in an axiomatic value such as that our actions should maximize human flourishing.

If the majority shared the rationale of Robert might not the end justify the means of dealing drastically with the cancerous 40 percent for the good of the overall majority? The end justifying the means has a familiar ring to it and we are at the tender mercies of majorities and their ideologies in such scenarios.The majority are not always right.Check history.
Attempts by Harris to be robust about morality are commendable, but imagining science can determine right and and wrong and defining flourishing is erroneous and the second subjective and ambiguous.
This on Harris. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstt ... d-from-bad

Interbane wrote: Another good one:
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

Robert Tulip wrote:There is a polarity here between truth and error. Evolution is true and anti-evolution views are wrong.

Maybe, but who is being cocksure? http://www.discovery.org/a/2450

Hi Flann, Robert tends to take a hard tone and I've been on the receiving end of it myself. I can easily see how this ruffles your feathers. Interbane makes an excellent point that how a message is delivered will play a huge role in how that message is received.

On the other hand, there's no question that evolution is true. It's easy to see this if you're willing to look at the evidence honestly and openly. A cocksure attitude is somewhat warranted when it comes to certain scientific facts because the evidence very clearly supports them beyond a reasonable doubt (although obviously tone is still something to consider if you're interested in friendly discourse with others).

I do think Robert goes well beyond scientific fact in this post. Overall it's really quite an excellent post (right down to the Paul Simon link).

But take a look at the comments by Silvanus Publishing, who assumes an equal but opposite cocksure stance on denial of evolution and belief in a young earth. Silvanus' stance isn't evidence-based and, indeed, his position requires a rejection of all evidence accumulated by scientists trained in their respective fields across multiple disciplines. It’s astonishing really to see someone so brazenly and arrogantly dismiss all evidence in order to accommodate what is clearly a personal religious belief. It’s not that farfetched to see that such delusional beliefs can be quite dangerous. Indeed we see this right now with radical Muslims who want to kill all others simply because they don’t think as they do.

This isn’t a denouncement of religion by the way because obviously the vast majority of Christians clearly aren’t so radical or delusional. It’s a denouncement of any kind of radicalized belief that relies on distortion and lies to maintain itself.

Interbane wrote:I like the irony of turning scripture against creationists. I think the war isn't only with them, but fundamentalism in general. Though if fundamentalism is a condition that is sometimes inevitable depending on your parenting, culture, and schooling, I wonder if we aren't simply fighting a part of ourselves. That part that is easily addicted to false memes.

I really like how you worded this.

Flann 5 wrote: If it is really true that creationist's evil delusion is making them the destroyers of the earth, then of course it is "morally essential" to do something about it. Sam Harris the compassionate,would hold that they have no real choice about what they think and do and he would do the same in their shoes. For evildoers whatever that might mean in a Dawkinsian world, such people logically, should be isolated from the healthy mass of society and treated presumably with some sort of truth serum being put in their aberrant brains.

Maybe not, believe what you want about creationism, but when your beliefs involve coercing other people, it becomes an issue. For non-Christians the influence of the Christian right in politics is dangerous. If they had their way, there would be a lot more legislating morality. And their religious views affect foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East. That's been admitted all the way up to the presidency (Bush).

And whole regions of the country are being taught total nonsense in public schools and will graduate being ignorant of modern science.

In a religiously tolerant nation like the United States it's impossible to not expect its citizens not to participate in the public square, guided by worldviews grounded in a faith based context.

The beauty of a free society is that if your worldview differs from that of your neighbor's you too are able to participate in the public square and vote according to your personal persuasions.

its just a fact of a democracy like ours.

ant wrote:In a religiously tolerant nation like the United States it's impossible to not expect its citizens not to participate in the public square, guided by worldviews grounded in a faith based context.

The beauty of a free society is that if your worldview differs from that of your neighbor's you too are able to participate in the public square and vote according to your personal persuasions.

its just a fact of a democracy like ours.

Freedom of religion is an absolute in a free society. I don't think anyone questions that.

But what do you do when a large percentage of people deny evolution and believe the earth is only 6,000 years old? This is just bad theology as Marcelo Gleiser points out in the article that opens this thread because it is completely at odds with modern science.

People have a right to believe anything they want, but we as a society must do whatever we can to ensure a quality education and access to knowledge as well as foster critical thinking skills that are crucial to the success of a democracy. As James Madison wrote, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Not only must we provide a quality education, but we must challenge faulty thinking in the marketplace of ideas. It’s unfortunate that so many bad ideas get a free pass under the auspices of religious belief. Most Americans would rather throw themselves off the nearest cliff rather than criticize someone’s religious beliefs, no matter how bizarre they may be.

Good ideas can withstand any amount of scrutiny we throw at them. And bad ideas should be challenged whether they are religious or not. If not, we will become a nation of idiots where everyone gets to choose their own reality, facts be damned.

I agree with you about quality of education and how the US is woefully behind in the sciences and math.

I also am of the opinion that religion should not enter the science classroom, but neither should it be entirely excluded from the curriculum. That aligns with Carrier's opinion.

Our worldviews are shapped differently and we should have access to mutliple sources of thought.

However, it doesnt stop here.
We need to question how science is being taught.
I am of the opinion that we need more history of science and how methodolgy has developed over the years.
The way its taught now is short changing our young minds.