[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
Tue May 31 09:10:15 PDT 2005


sorry for the overposting, but i've got my back up, on this.

yoshie sez: --- The virtue of science is that it has made it unnecessary for us to have any hypothesis concerning God or gods or goddesses. Science doesn't seek to disprove the existence of God or gods or goddesses, though it can and (if called upon) does disprove specific miraculous acts attributed to God or gods or goddesses. God or gods or goddesses -- and hypotheses concerning their existence or lack thereof -- are merely irrelevant to science, so they are not included in it. It is science's lack of interest in God -- rather than any argument against God's existence any scientist makes -- that really outrages theists who are not content to reduce God to a matter of ethics. ---

i agree that god is not relevant to science, not, as it were, part of the subject matter and disallowed as an explanatory option. that's precisely part of the deal and precisely where intelligent design arguments go wrong *as science* (not necessarily as religion).

watch out on the ethics, though. god is not a matter of ethics, either, and the problem with theists is that they can't see that their idea of god actually undermines ethics in much the same way that it undermines science. for all kant's myriad problems, i think he hit this one on the head.

j

-- Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.

- Alfred North Whitehead



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