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There is a popular perception that skeptics are all just cynics who are unable to tolerate the existence of mysteries while believers — whether in gods or in the paranormal — are more open minded and willing to embraces the mysteries of life. Atheists are often accused of being unable to say "I don't know" and appreciate mystery in their lives. This is not only false, but it's exactly the opposite of the truth: it's the believers who reject mystery while atheists and skeptics accept it. Link
9 comments:
As someone who is starting to embrace the Orthodox faith I don't have a problem with mystery at all. I think that alot of the protestants have a problem with it though.
it's the believers who reject mystery while atheists and skeptics accept it.
You don't say..
Well golly gee. How many times have we heard with regard to some scientific mystery – say, the origin of the universe and the reason for its particular state, the origin of life from inorganic matter, or the origin of our moral impulse – a theist say, in so many words, "Science can't explain it, therefor GOD."
God is nothing more than the biggest argument from ignorance ever devised – an attempt to hastily dismiss mysteries by appealing to a bigger, by-definition-unsolvable mystery.
I am a Zen Buddhist and a hard core atheist. I reject the concept of diety completely. However, as a skeptic and developing profesional in the field of the behavioral sciences, I am in awe and I am astounded by the level of mystery in life. We know so much, but there are some deep and beautiful mysteries which we don't know. If we ever find the answers to them, it still will not take away from the beauty of the miracle and mystery of life.
We have degrees of certainty, we can have degrees of confidence, and we must learn to have and deal with ambiguity. The synthesis of knowledge and ambiguity leads us to an appreciation of what life has to offer us.
The issue is that atheists are committed philosophically to a reductionist trajectory of epistemology. (and, they reject self-presenting evidence)
The only reason theists oppose reductionism is because the final reduction would eliminate God, and they can't tolerate that.
Other than that, anyone care to explain why, without resorting to the above problem for theism, that reductionism is either:
bad
wrong
not useful
?
Tell us why it should be scrapped.
GHE,
I think reductionism is bad because it is false, i.e. it will not adequately explain the workings of the universe and of humanity. The best reductionist theories right now are completely un-evidenced, like, say, quantum cosmology or abiogenesis or punctuated equilibrium or an emergent view of mind. Many skeptics claim to go on evidence, but these theories, as a matter of record, are held not on evidence but because of a philosophical commitment to reductionism.
That's my problem in a nutshell.
I should qualify that, though, and say that careful, detailed scientific study is good, and has produced real knowledge, but it is surely not all-encompassing.
Uh, Brad, you're really talking out of your ass here. Each of the examples that you give, do indeed have proponents for various ideas within them, but that shouldn't be taken as evidence that anyone thinks that the questions here have been settled (without evidence), because nobody thinks that. Most laughably here is that you apparently don't know that there are emergent theories of mind that aren't reductionist (or at least, I would have a hard time characterizing them as such).
This is nothing more than how science progresses, people propose speculative ideas to explain various phenomena, then they or others go look at the implications that follow from those ideas and look for additional evidence to confirm or deny them.
The real issue here is that you don't like reductionism, and so you're trying to knock it where you think it is vulnerable (and maybe even it is). However, you haven't given us any reason to believe you're right other than your dislike of reductionism.
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