tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post8585671940433013859..comments2023-09-20T07:36:46.785-07:00Comments on cgranade::streams: Rebuttal: The Difference Between Religion and WooAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10298483138666657303noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-2402784607419731432010-08-22T19:30:38.367-07:002010-08-22T19:30:38.367-07:00Rob, with all of the years of great thinking and e...Rob, with all of the years of great thinking and expounding on, discussing and debating, what sort of solid conclusions that are reliable have been drawn with regards to the existence of God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost? Is there a reliable ethics gained only through religion that could not have come about other ways, and how can you demonstrate such reliability?Mike Haubrichnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-6692023028032685912010-08-22T10:52:21.388-07:002010-08-22T10:52:21.388-07:00As I explained here, the teapot is a thought exper...As I explained here, the teapot is a thought experiment that helps in seeing that making claims that are not even in principle testable is "simplistic, silly and childish," if you wish to use such a description. That we find such a pattern in religion generally and in Christianity in particular makes that argument a useful one, even if it does not deal with the totality of what makes religion what it is.<br /><br />By contrast, the average writings of seven-year-olds are not intended to extract some interesting feature of Robert Frost. Rather, they are largely independent of Frost and have no bearing whatsoever on the usefulness and value of Frost's works.cgranadenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-10615221624167493272010-08-22T10:48:42.426-07:002010-08-22T10:48:42.426-07:00That's quite a tall claim, and one that despit...That's quite a tall claim, and one that despite how frequently it is repeated, I have seen very little evidence for. Why should we assume that ethics are outside the realm of science instead of the much more modest assumption that we simply don't know everything about how to study ethics yet?<br /><br />Yes, I am familiar with the "is v. ought" argument, but why should we assume that we cannot reduce the scope of what falls under "ought" by examining what "is?" We can take a complex set of "ought" goals and with careful examination find out which are redundant, which are contradictory, and which are truly fundamental. That is, we can tease patterns from even our ethical arguments.<br /><br />In a way, this was my whole point: we should not be in the business of imposing such limits on what we can in principle learn. Just because we do not currently know the best ways to empirically reason about ethics doesn't mean that we are justified in assuming such knowledge being permanently inaccessible. That is an extraordinary claim which requires likewise extraordinary evidence.cgranadenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-45076354828091702312010-08-22T10:47:55.458-07:002010-08-22T10:47:55.458-07:00That's quite a tall claim, and one that despit...That's quite a tall claim, and one that despite how frequently it is repeated, I have seen very little evidence for. Why should we assume that ethics are outside the realm of science instead of the much more modest assumption that we simply don't know everything about how to study ethics yet?<br /><br />Yes, I am familiar with the "is v. ought" argument, but why should we assume that we cannot reduce the scope of what falls under "ought" by examining what "is?" We can take a complex set of "ought" goals and with careful examination find out which are redundant, which are contradictory, and which are truly fundamental. That is, we can tease patterns from even our ethical arguments.<br /><br />In a way, this was my whole point: we should not be in the business of imposing such limits on what we can in principle learn. Just because we do not currently know the best ways to empirically reason about ethics doesn't mean that we are justified in assuming such knowledge being permanently inaccessible. That is an extraordinary claim which requires likewise extraordinary evidence.cgranadenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-56603704880430459082010-08-22T10:46:23.454-07:002010-08-22T10:46:23.454-07:00Look, the point is that "belief in a teapot b...Look, the point is that "belief in a teapot between Earth and Mars" is simplistic, silly, and childish, whereas Christianity is something that many of history's great thinkers have written on, expounded on, discussed, and debated-- and they continue to do so. Likewise, the works of Robert Frost compared to silly stories written by 7-year olds. The latter is obvious to everybody; the former seems to be obscure to folks like the writers and commentors on this blog.Robert Knophttp://pulse.yahoo.com/_2WG3OOQBCR5C7H4XAMFHQEW56Unoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-62844571707560796802010-08-22T10:39:59.935-07:002010-08-22T10:39:59.935-07:00If there is one sure way of pissing me off, it'...<i>If there is one sure way of pissing me off, it's to tell me that something "isn't a scientific question." Given that science is the methodology of pragmatism, such claims are no more than a way of giving up reasoned analysis.</i><br /><br />"Is it ethical for the state to kill convicted murderers?" You can't answer that only using science. In fact, there are many "is it ethical?" questions that are impossible to answer only using science.Robert Knophttp://pulse.yahoo.com/_2WG3OOQBCR5C7H4XAMFHQEW56Unoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-19771854566635642112010-08-21T21:00:35.902-07:002010-08-21T21:00:35.902-07:00I had real troubles following the line of argument...I had real troubles following the line of argument from the 7yo/Frost comparison to the teapot/religion comparison. His point seemed to drift from "it's not a scientific question" to "it's a stupid reason to throw out Frost" with no real clear transition. That made talking about that part tough, but it was such a terrible line of argument, I couldn't let it be.cgranadenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-72601398250614697422010-08-21T20:33:05.790-07:002010-08-21T20:33:05.790-07:00I never got to read his "brilliant" atte...I never got to read his "brilliant" attempt to dismiss equating religion and woo (and Russell's Teapot) with comparing his 7-year-old writings with Robert Frost. I'm pretty sure that this is both good and bad.<br /><br />To Knop, I would like to point out that literature, language, rhetoric, linguistics and all other studies that fall under the heading of "English" are indeed understandable through Science (and, as you have shown, quite assuredly scientific things). The main reason that we haven't really come to view them in this way is because we aren't even to the equivalent of Galileo in the Language Sciences yet. Much of what we view as "intuitive" or "integral" in Language and Literature is explainable scientifically... we just haven't got the precise formulae to explain it precisely yet. I'm sure there were similar situations when Science was young where people just intuitively knew that one action predicted another without knowing why. Unfortunately, we're still in that stage with Language Science and we will be for quite a while longer. Linguistics has broken the barrier, but there's still a great deal of study and work to be done before we can define scientifically why Robert Frost wrote great literature and Rob Knop can barely string a logical argument together.Samanthanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13466737.post-6437953190073960352010-08-21T16:18:26.734-07:002010-08-21T16:18:26.734-07:00Loving this blog, Chris. Will be visiting often. T...Loving this blog, Chris. Will be visiting often. Thanks!Joshua Fisherhttp://www.textsavvyblog.netnoreply@blogger.com