Re: The six signs of "Scientism"
Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:42 am
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/893 ... arbarians/
I agree with what some of the Rabbi claims in this article, but not all of it.
Here is something that caught my eye:
There is a deep intellectual shallowness here. The new atheists (present company excluded) who look to science as the only source of knowledge fit this description to the last letter:
What if we were to erase from our history belief in God from the mind of Man? How much art, poetry, literary works, GOOD deeds (yes, there's always a flip side). What would be left to treasure? What would the atheist have for us? What magnificent works does he have for us?
How would communities have been built? And what role did the atheist play in community fellowship in history )and moving forward)?
What value is the "rational" atheistic meme to us in the future if its presence is essentially all but absent from what I've mentioned above?
Superficial debates about the mechanics of nature are useless without the ability to transcend our animal natures with the Purpose that Belief in something greater than ourselves has given us. That is the radical difference between Man and Ape. That is something which the atheist remains tone def too and continues to ignore and or explain away unconvincingly.
I agree with what some of the Rabbi claims in this article, but not all of it.
Here is something that caught my eye:
The new atheists blindly follow the lead of atheistic scientists like Dawkins who do not bother with ethical / moral aspects of our nature that can not be explained away by ape behavior; radical altruism is a good example here. It is deeply ungratifying to see love as simply a biological drive to continue the species when reduced to animalism. Or why the raping and murder of children is morally abhorrent universally.Richard Dawkins, whom I respect, partly understands this. He has said often that Darwinism is a science, not an ethic. Turn natural selection into a code of conduct and you get disaster. But if asked where we get our morality from, if not from science or religion, the new atheists start to stammer. They tend to argue that ethics is obvious, which it isn’t, or natural, which it manifestly isn’t either, and end up vaguely hinting that this isn’t their problem. Let someone else worry about it.
There is a deep intellectual shallowness here. The new atheists (present company excluded) who look to science as the only source of knowledge fit this description to the last letter:
If belief in God is and has been nothing more than a delusion it certainly is the most important thought mankind has ever entertained. Our most valued "pathological" lie to ourselves.‘On the surface, he’s profound, but deep down, he’s superficial.’
What if we were to erase from our history belief in God from the mind of Man? How much art, poetry, literary works, GOOD deeds (yes, there's always a flip side). What would be left to treasure? What would the atheist have for us? What magnificent works does he have for us?
How would communities have been built? And what role did the atheist play in community fellowship in history )and moving forward)?
What value is the "rational" atheistic meme to us in the future if its presence is essentially all but absent from what I've mentioned above?
Superficial debates about the mechanics of nature are useless without the ability to transcend our animal natures with the Purpose that Belief in something greater than ourselves has given us. That is the radical difference between Man and Ape. That is something which the atheist remains tone def too and continues to ignore and or explain away unconvincingly.