[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] An Appeal to Ignorance
>Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>Thu Jun 16 08:09:34 PDT 2005
<snip>
>and btw - part of what stopped me was yoshie being yoshie -- namely, 
>in this case, completely (i think deliberately, because she's not 
>that stupid) misreading my point about scientists rejecting 
>religion, which was not that it's all western religion, but that to 
>reject ""religion" is utterly non-sensical, especially when no one 
>on this list has -- unless i missed it, which i admit is possible -- 
>satisfactorily defined religion. and i'll bet those scientists 
>can't, either. unless precision only matters with atoms and 
>molecules (aka, "real" knowledge), and not with cultural phenomena. 
>the disdain of so many scientists for the humanistic disciplines is 
>really staggering, sometimes. and i encounter that in my work.
<snip>
>and this is why i keep saying that scientists don't reject 
>"religion" or "god", but fairly specific conceptions of religion and 
>god. to claim anything else is to be, well, unscientific.

By that logic, not just scientists but no one else can reject 
religion, since, in your opinion, "true rejection" should entail not 
only rejection of actually-existing religions but also all possible 
religions (which are unlike actually-existing religions and which may 
never even come to exist).  That's like saying that one can never 
reject X (e.g., capitalism), because rejecting actually-existing 
forms of X (e.g., capitalism) doesn't mean also rejecting other 
possible forms of X (e.g., capitalism) which may or may not come to 
exist.  It doesn't seem possible to reject anything by your standard.
-- 
Yoshie

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