[lbo-talk] RE: An Appeal to Ignorance

[It's me.]

>
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> According to any plausible definition of science, the question of God is
>> in fact not a scientific one.  I'm not being a dogmatic (rabid?) atheist
>> here; the problem is that there are no accepted scientific methods to
>> determine how "man may find God" or if "God exists" or if "God likes
>> to play bingo".  Theological speculation is outside the circle of what
>> science can study, at the present time.  (Science can neither support
>> nor undermine my belief in God.)
>
> Look, what I'm trying to say is this: we should not let the fundies define 
> the meaning of religion any more than we let Bush and the IMF define the 
> meaning of democracy.
>
> Try to entertain the possibility that both religion and science are forms 
> of inquiry and are only meaningful as such. When either hardens into 
> orthodoxy, it is dangerous and, by definition, false.
>
> Joanna

I agree. The various religious creeds can be considered theophanies of the 
Unknowable Reality that presents itself when the objects of our rational 
inquiry turn to gibberish, as they always seem to do. There's valid 
experiential content in all religious creeds but, of course, it's crowded by 
tradition and dogma. The same is true for science: scientism; and maybe it's 
just me but there is something incongruous about people on a _politics_ list 
berating Christians for the forces of tradition and dogma that separate men 
into warring tribes.