Reduction of knowledge to science: Atheist invovlement

 photo GHMC_zps294ecee6.jpg
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
 warned of rise of one-dimensional 
man





The dangers of scientism and the loss of humanity have been lurking over modernity for a long time. These things go way back to the nineteenth century. What we see emerging today as the perils brought on by scientism is just the modern outcome of trends that were engaged by Albert Schweitzer as early as 1900. Schweitzer is all but forgotten today. He’s mainly remembered as a great humanitarian who went to Africa to nurse the poor. In the early part of the twentieth century and up to the 1960s he was given huge respect one of the most profoundly brilliant and great men of human history. Schweitzer had four brilliant careers going at the same time. He was a theologian, philosopher, Bible Scholar and concert musician. In addition to all that he built organs. After having achieved greatness with his book Quest of the Historical Jesus[12] he went to medical school and became a doctor. Then he went to Africa and spent his life nursing the poorest of the poor. One thing he did not do even in leaving civilization was to give up on civilization. He wrote one of the first philosophies of civilization and was one of the first philosophers to seriously argue for animal rights. As early as 1900 Schweitzer already argued that civilization was dead and we lived in barbarism. The reason, because civilization is more than just indoor plumbing and modern inventions it is an ideal about the quality of life in affording the individual purist of his/her cherished goals. Yet modern life negates the individual and reduces ideals and personal concepts of freedom to matters of taste and eccentricity. Schweitzer identified that process by which this reduction takes place.[13] The forces that Schweitzer traces as the collapse of civilization may well have culminated in World War I.
           Schweitzer anticipated the work of Karl Jaspers, C. Wright Mills and Herbert Marcuse, thinkers who flourished five decades after he began his thinking on civilization. Karl Jaspers reflected upon the end of Western civilization in Man In The Modern Age, likening it to the end of Hellenism before the dark ages.[14] For Jaspers, the current phase in modernity (the 1920s) marked the turning point from human pursuits such as discursive reasoning, thought, understanding, and artistic production, to the dominance of a highly organized super-structure based upon reducing content to "technique." Art becomes "mere amusement and pleasure (instead of an emblem of transcendence), science becomes mere concern for technical utility (instead of the satisfaction of a primary will to know).[15] He warned that the growing tendency to "wrap the world in apparatus," the building of a giant inter-connected infrastructure based entirely on calculation, would have a deleterious effect upon humanity. According to Jaspers, society faces the extinction of those qualities and aspirations which have always defined humanity, such as rational discourse and ethical norms. These warnings seem quaint when one considers that they were made before regular air travel in the days of radio. It may be that at each stage in technical development, society becomes more habituated to technique, closed in a technological womb that grows ever more content with closed possibilities for qualitative change. The contemporary litany of dangers, ecological destruction of the planet, the failure of the educational system, growing violence, and governmental control, should bare out the realization that society is complacent in the face of growing peril. Jasper's notion that discursive reasoning was being replaced by technique anticipates the work of C. Wright Mills in the 1950s.
            Mills was a sociologist at Columbia University in New York. He is best known for his work The Power Elite.[16] It is from that work that we take the popular phrase of the 1960s, “military industrial complex.” In The Sociological Imagination[17] he explodes the illusions by which the power elite cover their own lack of understanding. His message there is that not only does the system run over the individual but even those who are in charge of it are dragged along by its momentum and don’t really know where they are going. Mills was one of the first thinkers to use the term "post-modern" (which he hyphenated). For Mills, writing in the '50s, modernity had already passed away, post-modernity had dawned. "The ideological mark...[of the post-modern epoch] --that which sets it apart from the modern age-- is that the ideas of freedom and of reason have become moot; that increased rationality may not be assumed to make for increased freedom."[18] As with Schweitzer, Mills reflects that the technological structure separates people from control over or reflection upon the ends of their lives. "Caught in the everyday milieux of their limited lives, ordinary people cannot reason about the greater structures both rational and irrational of which their milieu are subordinate parts."[19] (168).

The individual learns not to reason, but to rationalize the goals and ends of life, and his or her position in the overall scheme of things. Given...the ascendant trend of rationalization, the individual 'does what he can.' He gears his aspirations and his work to the situation he is in and from which he can find no way out. In due course he does not seek a way out: he adapts. That part of his life which is left over from work he uses to play, to consume, to have fun. Yet this sphere of consumption is also being rationalized. Alienated from production, from work, he is also alienated from consumption, from genuine leisure. This adaptation of the individual and its effects upon his milieux and self results not only in the loss of his chance, but in due course of his capacity and will to reason; it also affects his chances and his capacity to act as a free [person]. Indeed, neither the value of freedom nor of reason, it would seem, are known to him.[20]

The end result, according to Mills, is that society becomes filled with "cheerful robots," those who obey the programming of technique and cannot seek alternatives.[21] Mills charged that the social sciences help to further the aims and methods of technique, hiding behind the " scientific objectivity," unwilling to mount any critique. Mills anticipates Herbert Marcuse's work, written in 1964, One-Dimensional Man.




            Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German academic who fled to America to avoid the Nazis in the 30s. He worked for the OAS during the war and latter become the major intellectual powerhouse behind the New Left of the 1960s. He was based in San Diego where the taught, Ronald Reagan tried to have his Doctorate revoked to silence his criticisms of the war and the establishment. He was a Marxist, some say Neo-Marxist he was critical of Stalin and called a revisionist by Stalinists. Marcuse was best known for his seminal work One-Dimensional Man (1964), one of the greatest books of the era and one of primary importance for the century. In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse argues that affluent capitalist society has been good at providing primary needs to a mass population (despite continuing poverty for some) and it has created a bourgeois society that perpetuates false needs. The American worker has bought into his place in the capitalist order as a cog in the machine, or a bit of overhead for the owners of the means of production, because in exchange will continue to supply the false needs upon which he has become admitted; that is the material trammels of an affluent society.

...The irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits...The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against falsehood. And as these beneficial products have become available to more individuals, in more social classes, the indoctrination they carry ceases to be publicity; it becomes a way of life. It is a good way of life' much better than before and as a good way of life, it militates against qualitative change. Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior, in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of this [social-political] universe. They are re-defined by the rationality of the given system and of its quantitative extension.[22] (12).

The prognosis for one-dimensional man doesn’t end with just supporting capitalism as the basis of false needs. The whole concept of being a thinking person who lives in a society in which thinking people can determine their own lives is called into question and in fact done away with because the concept of freedom is illusory and not scientific. The scientistic crowd is telling us that freedom is a trick. The issues of one-dimensional man don’t stop Marxism because there is more to power than just capital vs labor, or capitalism vs. Marxism. Lurking behind the accumulation of false needs (technological version of bread and circuses) is operational thinking. This is what Marcuse means by "quantitative extension of the given system" (quotation above). " The trend [one-dimensional consumer society] may be related to a development in scientific method: operationalism in the physical, behaviorism in the social sciences. The common feature is a total empiricism in the treatment of concepts; their meaning is restricted to the representation of particular operations and behavior...In general, we mean by a concept nothing more than a set of operations...a positivism which, in its denial of the transcending elements of reason, forms the academic counterpart to the socially required behavior."[23] The positivist and reductionist tendencies of contemporary scientific thought, which props up the technostructure and furnishes it with "empirical proof," works to eliminate all concepts that cannot be quantified, and therefore, eventually ”commodified.”
            Stanly Aronowitz wrote Science as Power, in which he argues two things: power is possessed by a process of legitimating, and science has lent itself to that legitimating at the expense of all other forms of truth.[24] In other words power is not merely taken by a group or an institution but it is built through a process of self legitimating moves. That process is part of the means by which modern science procures funding and perpetuates itself in modern society; by being of use to power through lending itself to the development of the means of power. We see this explicitly through the military but more subtly through industry and the development of technology, the status of scientific funding in the university and so on. In lending itself to power as an enforcement mechanism science subsumes other views and other concepts of truth. This process is inherent since science has always provided a certain aspect of truth in revealing the mechanism through which the natural world functions. Apart form the cultural currying of power, Aronowitz finds, science has an intrinsic power in its conflation of truth and knowledge. “Devising a method of proving the validity of propositions about objects taken as external to the knower has become identical with what we mean by ‘truth.’” [25] In other words science purports to tell us how the physical world stacks up and wont allow any other method to introduce other kinds of truth that it would consider authoritative, that becomes all there is in the world, the physical set up that science can study and quantify. The process by which modern though came to understand itself as its own object, from Plato’s observation of truth as self representing, to Hegel’s notion that consciousness takes itself as its own object, is done away by modern science. [26] Perhaps that’s why atheists have such abhorrence for the subjective. We can’t trust our own perceptions we can only trust that which is produced by the scientific method. The problem is so much of modern science is not procured through the process of empirical verification that is the hallmark of modern science, but must be reached though calculation, in terms of modern quantum theory for example. Then truth comes to be a rubber stamp placed upon “truth” by science. As Aronowitz points out, “Science is truth, and can for this reason represent itself by means of its procedures…self criticism of science is conducted within the boundaries of its own normative structures.”[27]
            The thinkers from Schweitzer to Marcuse and Aronowitz they are all building on the indicators of civilization in decay that Schweitzer originally saw. By the time we get to the end of the twentieth century they are so far gone one dimensional man is established. We are now working on moving from one-dimensional to cheerful robot. There’s a snowball relationship in that the scientistic mentality creates the situation then feeds off of it. Knowledge is reduced to one thing, science, then that one thing is transmogrified from knowledge to technique, or illusion of technique. Finally humanity itself is displaced as freedom is reduced to just anther false need. That is to say freedom becomes confused with the products one buys and with the process of choosing products. The concept of freedom itself is ratcheted down from a personal philosophical understanding of the goals and ends of one’s life to purchasing power to obedience. The real discourse becomes closed around the one possibility left to us, which is how best to obey. When the only form of knowledge is science knowledge of freedom must disappear, there is no freedom in science. The concept of freedom requires a substantial conceptual background to cover all the bases. We have to understand the parameters of freedom, the possibilities, the impediments to freedom, balancing freedom against responsibility and so on. When the only form of knowledge is about the facts of nature and how they work there’s no room for an abstraction like ‘possible freedom.’

Separation from God.

            For those of us who feel we know the reality of God in our lives, this is a great harm. It would rob those who don’t know that reality of the ability to ever learn. Reduction of knowledge to only scientific knowledge, ala the ideological administration of scientism, robs us of knowing God because it reduces religious experience to the level of the “subjective” the emotional, these are greatly things to be avoided in the ideology of scientism. Scienstism portrays itself as rational and objective it places all that does not bow before it in the category of the irrational and the subjective. We have already seen the way new atheism rationalizes scientific protocols to manipulate “God does not exist” into a scientific fact, via Austin Cline (see above FN 7).  To reprise that statement:
"this alleged entity has no place in any scientific equations, plays no role in any scientific explanations, cannot be used to predict any events, does not describe any thing or force that has yet been detected, and there are no models of the universe in which its presence is either required, productive, or useful." [28]
But that’s just circular reasoning because it assumes at the outset that since there is no argument that is deemed acceptable scientifically, there can be no warrant for belief in God. As long as the only form of knowledge is science then the only valid argument is scientific. While there are valid scientifically based arguments for God (see chapters nine and ten) there is no “fact” accepted in science such that “God exists.” Therefore, any argument for the existence of God is met with “that’s disproved before we start because it’s not science.” Cutting off other forms of knowledge the gate keepers of scientific acuity merely denounce warrant for belief based upon their own prejudices. Based upon that assumption it is deemed “unscientific” to argue for such a warrant. In fact what I’m saying is that scientists are human and they embody the same prejudices as anyone. That has to be ignored when the only from of knowledge is science because the human factor is not part of the scientific process. Thus belief in God is removed from reality by a series of protocols that amount to nothing more than jumped up ideology.

God belief and the realm of discourse

            Belief in God is more than just belief in an entity. It’s also the basis for rejecting the closed realm of discourse. This is true for two reasons, (1) because as the Transcendental signified God sets in motion the basic first principles that serve as premises of logic. God determines the basis upon which truth is held, since God alone is the ultimate creator then God alone is the final assigner of meaning. Thus the realm of discourse can never be truly closed by temporal power or human concerns. (2) Because in a practical sense the open nature of discourse depends to a great deal upon the understanding of technique. When we come to vest the illusion of technique with all power and all logic then we vest it with all right. That’s when we start thinking its right to pursue actions merely because we have the physical prowess to do so. As long as God is understood as the orbiter of truth no human technique affords one the efficacy to close the realm of discourse around any one social project. An example of what I’m talking about is the case of a worker in stem cell research who was injured by the technology but was denied direct medical care. “I was denied directed medical care for exposures from dangerous embryonic stem technologies incurred while at work. Unbelievably, I was denied under the premise that ‘trade secrets’ supersede a worker’s right to specific exposure information. Welcome to the embryonic stem cell world, a world of legal quagmire where human rights and public rights are slated toward the chopping block.”[29]

In fact, the public has been fooled. The embryonic stem cell research industry is far from the altruistic persona it has painted itself to be. Rather, embryonic stem cell research is about big money, first and foremost. It is about securing a position of power within the economic and legal mainstream of the American public. That is why biotech worker’s rights regarding safety and healthcare have been denied. That is why, unfortunately, the public’s right will be denied too.

And the media has not helped. The media has purposely turned the human embryonic stem cell debate into a polarized “religion versus science” contest.

But issues lying in-between those two polarities contain much of the tainted meat that can negatively impact the public toward human rights. These concerns get no media attention. The public remains ignorant. In fact, the public lacks an understanding of the legal, social and cultural effects that could negatively impact them as advanced technologies move forward.[30]

What’s the link from science as the only form of knowledge and this case? The realm of discourse is closed around the illusion of technique. Ethical consideration disappear because we have the technology we know how to do it, it’s sanctioned by the thinking experts who make decisions for us. These are the guys that know stuff, there’s no knowledge outside of science, these are scientists so they must know all about ethics and if they do can do it, must be good to do.

tune in Monday for 3d and final part in
"Atheist Reduction of Knowledge to Science."

 sources



[12] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede. New York: MacMillan, originally 1906, MacMillan paperbacks 1961, eighth printing, 1973.
[13] J.L. Hinman, “Albert Schweitzer On The Death of Civilization.” Negations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Criticism. No 3. (Winter 1998). On line copy,  http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/ accessed 1/4/14.
See also: Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization. Translated C.T. Campion, Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. 1980 (original German pulbication 1923). The work is divided into two sections, the "Decay and Restoration of Civilization," and "Ethics and Civilization." Unwin has published the first section as an independent volume entitled The Decay and Restoration of Civilization.
[14] Jaspers, Karl. Man In The Modern Age. New York: Doubleday, 1957, 20. 
[15] Ibid., 137.
[16] C Wright Mills, the Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. No page given.
[17] C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination. New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1967 (originally 1959)
[18] Ibid, 167
[19] Ibid., 168
[20] Ibid., 170
[21] Ibid., 171
[22] Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Soceity. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964, 12.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Stanley Aronowitz, Science as Power: Discourse and Ideology In Modern Society. Minneapolis Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1988, ix.
Stanley Aronotwitz is professor of Sociology and cultural studies at CUNY Graduate Center, New York. He is a long time cultural critic and political activist.
[25] Ibid., vii.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid., viii the idea about quantum physics he states on page ix
[28] Austin Cline, “Scientifically God Does Not Exist: Science allows us to say God Does not Exist, there is role for God in science, no explanation that God can provide.” About.com, Agnosticism/Atehism. Online publication: http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsagainstgod/a/GodScience.htm  accessed 12/27/13.
[29] Becky A. McClain, “Embryonic Stem Cell Research Funding Threatens Human Rights and Public Interests.” Watchdog on Science. On line resource. Septermber 14, (2010). http://watchdogonscience.blogspot.fr/2010/09/embryonic-stem-cell-research-funding.html   
accessed. 1/15/14.
[30] Ibid.









Comments

neither of our atheist commenters thinks to argue that Marcuse is also an atheist and he's my epitome of the answer to the reduction.
im-skeptical said…
Marcuse is also an atheist
- So what? Am I supposed to buy any kind of bullshit if it is espoused by an atheist? What's your point in making that comment?
im-skeptical said…
In other words science purports to tell us how the physical world stacks up and wont allow any other method to introduce other kinds of truth that it would consider authoritative, that becomes all there is in the world, the physical set up that science can study and quantify. The process by which modern though came to understand itself as its own object, from Plato’s observation of truth as self representing, to Hegel’s notion that consciousness takes itself as its own object, is done away by modern science. [26] Perhaps that’s why atheists have such abhorrence for the subjective.
- Joe, you really don't know what you're talking about. Atheists don't abhor the subjective. They just understand better than you the difference between feelings and objective reality. And that's your real gripe, isn't it? It isn't about reason and rationality. Those things are the very reason we don't buy your belief in God. So that's why you rail against "scientism". That's what you are fighting. That's what you consider to be shallow and one-dimensional.
m-skeptical said...
meIn other words science purports to tell us how the physical world stacks up and wont allow any other method to introduce other kinds of truth that it would consider authoritative, that becomes all there is in the world, the physical set up that science can study and quantify. The process by which modern though came to understand itself as its own object, from Plato’s observation of truth as self representing, to Hegel’s notion that consciousness takes itself as its own object, is done away by modern science. [26] Perhaps that’s why atheists have such abhorrence for the subjective.



- Joe, you really don't know what you're talking about. Atheists don't abhor the subjective.


Of course they do you moron, they've been telling me that on every single message boared for years,I can quote tons of atheists saying that from CARM to my old message boards.

They just understand better than you the difference between feelings and objective reality.

what evidence do you have that I don't understand that distinction stood? I don't believe you understand it,you are reacting to the enemy, fight the enemy that's your mentality, you are letting your feelings of anger toward Christians govern your judgement,


And that's your real gripe, isn't it? It isn't about reason and rationality. Those things are the very reason we don't buy your belief in God. So that's why you rail against "scientism". That's what you are fighting. That's what you consider to be shallow and one-dimensional.


That's an attempt to pscyo aalyze rather than discussion if the ideas presented,I document my point with reference to Aronowitz:


Stanley Aronowitz, Science as Power: Discourse and Ideology In Modern Society. Minneapolis Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1988, ix.

If you do;t start dealing with the ideas in the paper I wont let you post here aymore.
The Pixie said…
Joe: Of course they do you moron, they've been telling me that on every single message boared for years,I can quote tons of atheists saying that from CARM to my old message boards.

This is not just nonsense, but patently so.

What you will have is quotes by atheists saying objective is better than subjective when trying to determine fundamental truths, and you have taken that to mean they think subjective should always be rejected.

All atheists have opinions on topics like favourite sports teams, music, ice cream or whatever. That you suppose otherwise, and that your argument is founded on that belief, is reason enough to reject put of hand.
What you will have is quotes by atheists saying objective is better than subjective when trying to determine fundamental truths, and you have taken that to mean they think subjective should always be rejected.

All atheists have opinions on topics like favourite sports teams, music, ice cream or whatever. That you suppose otherwise, and that your argument is founded on that belief, is reason enough to reject put of hand.


Come on pix that is a totally lame point. of course they have favorite things of course we are talking about using subjective feelings to decide important things like God's existence. we know that's not the issue. I did not say atheists don't have likes and dislikes that is not the point and you know it,
Atheists reject RE om the grounds that feelings are subjective, one can have objective analysis about subjective feelings. That is proven by the M scale my overall point is the effects of having those experiences are studied objectivity even though the experiences themselves are subjective.

Px you have lost the debate on the TS argument. you are trying to detract attention from that fact.

you were unable to answer any premises or disprove them. you didn't even disagree with them,

you can't show any reason why my conclusion is illogical. the argument is established.
im-skeptical said…
If you do;t start dealing with the ideas in the paper I wont let you post here aymore.
- I was responding directly to an idea that you expressed IN THIS ARTICLE (an idea that simply isn't true). I try to discuss the topic of the article or respond to things that you say in the comments. Besides, you already delete half of my comments, or simply cut off the discussion. And it isn't because I'm not trying to discuss the issues you raise in a civil manner.


Atheists reject RE om the grounds that feelings are subjective, one can have objective analysis about subjective feelings
- You don't understand what we reject. It isn't the religious experience. It is the way you interpret it. Yes, we would agree that you are experiencing something, and the feelings you have are real, and they are moving. As I've told you before, these are feelings we all have to some degree. But it's still subjective - it doesn't mean that you are feeling the presence of God, and not everybody interprets it the same way. Your interpretation is based on what you already believe. It isn't objective evidence for what you believe.
Jaspers:


e warned that the growing tendency to "wrap the world in apparatus," the building of a giant inter-connected infrastructure based entirely on calculation, would have a deleterious effect upon humanity. According to Jaspers, society faces the extinction of those qualities and aspirations which have always defined humanity, such as rational discourse and ethical norms. These warnings seem quaint when one considers that they were made before regular air travel in the days of radio. It may be that at each stage in technical development, society becomes more habituated to technique, closed in a technological womb that grows ever more content with closed possibilities for qualitative change.
You don't understand what we reject. It isn't the religious experience. It is the way you interpret it. Yes, we would agree that you are experiencing something, and the feelings you have are real, and they are moving. As I've told you before, these are feelings we all have to some degree. But it's still subjective - it doesn't mean that you are feeling the presence of God, and not everybody interprets it the same way. Your interpretation is based on what you already believe. It isn't objective evidence for what you believe.

your pinon of religious exerciser is based upon sheer ignorance. The M scale is totally scientific you know nothing about it.
im-skeptical said…
The M scale is totally scientific you know nothing about it.

- But you hate scientific thinking. I guess it's OK when you think you can use it to confirm your beliefs.
Skepie you re such a child, if you don't worship science you must hate it. Stop wasting our time,
im-skeptical said…
Just basing my comment on what you said in this article, which has every appearance of being an anti-science rant. You constantly rail against scientific thinking (which you label as "scientism"), complaining that it doesn't allow God into the picture. But like most anti-science religious crusaders, you will jump at any chance to enlist science as a means to bring God into the picture, as this pseudo-scientific M-scale purports to do. Sounds rather hypocritical to me.
Skepie you are ignorant, You not mature enough to handle valid criticisms, any criticism however slight beings you out n war mode, you are not a thinker you are a devotee.

The critics I'm discussing are valid, great,accepted . highly thought of. All I;ve done is unite their criticism into a coherent view the idea of criticism science is so new to you you can;t get your head around it.
But like most anti-science religious crusaders, you will jump at any chance to enlist science as a means to bring God into the picture, as this pseudo-scientific M-scale purports to do. Sounds rather hypocritical to me.

5/24/2018 08:09:00 AM Delete

that's like saying "you keep criticizing capitalism but you have to use economics to do it." To make that statement you have to think capitalism is the only form of economics. So to say criticism of science is wrong a priori one must think science is the only form of thinking,
im-skeptical said…
that's like saying "you keep criticizing capitalism but you have to use economics to do it."
- No, Joe. It's actually more like saying "you keep criticizing capitalism, but you take advantage of the capitalist system whenever you find it economically worthwhile." This statement does not imply that capitalism is the only economic system. But it does point out a blatant hypocrisy.

With regard to science, it's the same thing. You agree with the notion that "science purports to tell us how the physical world stacks up and wont allow any other method to introduce other kinds of truth" (your own words). But along comes somebody with this M-scale, which purports to be scientific, yet it violates the very precept of naturalism in science that you so despise. And you are quite happy to latch onto it, claiming that you have scientific backing for your non-naturalistic beliefs.
Blogger im-skeptical said...
that's like saying "you keep criticizing capitalism but you have to use economics to do it."
- No, Joe. It's actually more like saying "you keep criticizing capitalism, but you take advantage of the capitalist system whenever you find it economically worthwhile." This statement does not imply that capitalism is the only economic system. But it does point out a blatant hypocrisy.

there is no hypocrisy in being critical of science and using scientific thinking. The porpoise of criticism is to make science better. The use of science is limited to those areas where it applies. I don't use science to tell me about God because God is not under the domain of science,

With regard to science, it's the same thing. You agree with the notion that "science purports to tell us how the physical world stacks up and wont allow any other method to introduce other kinds of truth" (your own words). But along comes somebody with this M-scale, which purports to be scientific, yet it violates the very precept of naturalism in science that you so despise.


First of all naturalism is not science. It is not a methodology it's a philosophy;a metaphysical assumption. Rejecting naturalism and doing science is not a contradiction. You can do science and not be a naturalist.You claim to know so much about science and yet you don't even know the difference in philosophy and scientific method.

Secondly, there is nothing in M scale that opposes naturalism. It doesn't make any supernatural assumptions,it has nothing to do with the theory of naturalism. the M scale does not assume God exists.

And you are quite happy to latch onto it, claiming that you have scientific backing for your non-naturalistic beliefs.

In your,little cult of science worship the philosophical assumptions like naturalism are integral to science bit in real science they are not,,


the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

"The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed “naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944; Kim 2003)."





https://www.gotquestions.org/naturalism.html

"Question: "What is naturalism?"

Answer: Naturalism is the belief that all that exists in the universe is physical, material matter. There is no soul; we are just a complex collection of neurons. There is no Creator; there is evolution. And experiences like pain, pleasure, beauty, and a sense of self do not really exist. They are merely physiological reactions.

The philosophy of naturalism leads to several incomplete ways of thinking about the world. One of the most important concerns the philosophy of telos, or purpose. The Christian worldview holds that the purpose of a thing must be given to it by a higher authority. Since naturalism teaches there is no higher authority (no deity), it deduces that mankind, creation, and individuals have no purpose in life."
im-skeptical said…
The use of science is limited to those areas where it applies. I don't use science to tell me about God because God is not under the domain of science
- That statement is inconsistent with your claims that the "scientific" M-scale gives you empirical evidence that provides warrant for believe in God.

First of all naturalism is not science. It is not a methodology
- That's right. And it is the metaphysical basis on which science is based. I never said otherwise.

Secondly, there is nothing in M scale that opposes naturalism.
- If it gives you reason to believe in something supernatural (which is your claim), then it is not a tool of science. Science does nor deal with the supernatural.

In your,little cult of science worship the philosophical assumptions like naturalism are integral to science bit in real science they are not
- See section 2 of the SEP article in naturalism (yes, the same one that you cited but didn't read). Science cannot proceed without a presumption that the physical world behaves in accordance with laws of naturalistic regularity.


Blogger im-skeptical said...
The use of science is limited to those areas where it applies. I don't use science to tell me about God because God is not under the domain of science
- That statement is inconsistent with your claims that the "scientific" M-scale gives you empirical evidence that provides warrant for believe in God.

Not at all inconsistent it just means you haven't bothered to follow the argent.No one ever said evidence for God has to be direct empirical observation of
God. That's why it's called the 'trace' of God and not "the direct observation of God."




First of all naturalism is not science. It is not a methodology
- That's right. And it is the metaphysical basis on which science is based. I never said otherwise.

yes you did, You said M scale violated naturalism as though Naturalist is a methodology rather than a metaphysical assumption,

Secondly, there is nothing in M scale that opposes naturalism.
- If it gives you reason to believe in something supernatural (which is your claim), then it is not a tool of science. Science does nor deal with the supernatural.

that is based upon your misunderstanding of what SN is,

Me: "In your,little cult of science worship the philosophical assumptions like naturalism are integral to science bit in real science they are not"


- See section 2 of the SEP article in naturalism (yes, the same one that you cited but didn't read). Science cannot proceed without a presumption that the physical world behaves in accordance with laws of naturalistic regularity.

that is not naturalism: one can assume that the the world behaves with naturalistic regularity without makimng it a metaphysical assumption. Moreover, you can't account for such laws, the major point of my overall argument(remember the argument?) is to account for those laws. The only rational way to account for them is to see them as product of mind,


I am closing this discussion because I am going to post this last exchange as the major post on Monday.

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Children in Bethlehem Did Herod Kill?

Where did Jesus say "It is better to give than receive?"

The Bogus Gandhi Quote

A Non-Biblical Historian Accepts the Key "Minimum Facts" Supporting Jesus' Resurrection

Exodus 22:18 - Are Followers of God to Kill Witches?

Discussing Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Jewish writings and a change in the Temple at the time of the Death of Jesus

Revamping and New Articles at the CADRE Site

Asherah: Not God's Wife

A Botched Abortion Shows the Lies of Pro-Choice Proponents