Padding the Case for the New Atheism

[Betterave]

Hi TS,
Sorry for the delay getting back to you, I had a hectic couple of weeks.

I think it’s pretty basic. How do you “demonstrate” something objectively? Do you have some method that is not bound to the examination of evidence, analysis of experiment and results, gauging of predictions?

Of course not (although, an obvious word of caution, the extensions of terms here are subject to debate).

You’re enamored of “alternative science” (your unnamed* Wissenschaften, below)*, so here’s a good place to layout how the science you advocate “demonstrates” some proposition. Failing some competing approach, I think we default to the common rendering of the word:

I can work with novel definitions, but I need some referents and clear semantics if I’m going to use them. What does “demonstrate” mean in your world, in your science?

Alternative science? That’s a strange term for you to interject. What is it supposed to mean?

I think my use of ‘demonstrate’ is far from novel! It fits very well with the definitions you list. What novel definitions do you take me to have offered?

It is? If I take a de fide bit of dogma from the Catholic Church, like this:
“God was moved by His Goodness to create the world.”
How does it’s presentation change the underlying dogma, the unassailable, revealed claim? However you want to wordsmith it, or present it, it’s fundamentally a fideist proposition, impervious to critique or evaluation.

Are you serious? You can’t see how the claim you mentioned can be presented in more and less dogmatic ways??? You can’t expect me to take this seriously, surely? Anyway, you’re also chasing a bit of a straw man here. Presentation changes dogmatic character, not necessarily underlying dogma. (This isn’t my wordsmithing by the way - it’s common usage!) As for the bit about “impervious to critique or evaluation”, again, are you serious? Surely you bin hangin round enough to know that ain’t so!!! What’s this thread about? Doesn’t it seek to develop a critique of this claim, at least indirectly?

You are confusing the map and the territory here. The concept of “real” – our definition, is NOT reality itself. This distinction breaks out of the tautology (all concepts are defined and related in terms of other concepts… explanations are inherently tautological as descriptions). When I say “reality is real”, the referent of my concept of reality are the extramental objects that I perceive. I think about what those stimuli mean and what kind of thoughts and reacts might follow from that, considering them to be conceptually real, but reality obtains no matter what I think, or what my concepts are like in my brain. Saying “reality is real” is to say that extramental reality is not contingent on my conceptualization of it.

Actually, I think you’re confusing saying one thing with saying another. Saying “reality is real” is **not **to say “extramental reality is not contingent on my conceptualization of it.” Why would you think those two very different statements amount to the same thing?

 

[Betterave]

I’m still not clear on what the gestalt of scientism is. Googling it a little seems to confirm that it’s a polemical tool for theists in conversations like this – a way to disparage scientific epistemology. Maybe you should provide a good, concise working definition of scientism as you see it, then I can tell you where my beliefs fall in relation to that.

Google - so helpful, yet at times so misleading. Could you be a little more specific? Personally I’ve never run across ‘scientism’ in the context of theistic polemics. Theists often enough have a sad tendency to be overly scientistic. If you think the only people who can see that scientism has grave shortcomings are theistic apologists, you’re way off the mark.

As I said, I don’t pretend anything more than a vague familiarity with the term. It’s not got currency anywhere that I encounter accept in theistic apologetics. For some, science just ain’t such a much, I understand. I ran across this term in passing in an discussion on another forum in link to this article:

“While one development of this point of view leads to scientism, the view that any meaningful question can be answered by the methods of science; another development leads to inquiry into what social conditions promote the growth of scientific knowledge.”

I don’t have a way to gauge the “authority” of that description, but as stated, I’d say “scientism” is not something I embrace. I emphatically deny that all meaningful questions are best answered, or are answerable at all through science.

Don’t know what the quote is supposed to mean. I don’t think it’s helpful (unless you’d care to explain further). You know Francis Bacon, right? Knowledge is power/mastery. Those who know are the scientists, i.e., the experimenters. Technology is the rule and measure of progress. All being (‘nature’) is essentially ‘technical’. Here’s Wikipedia’s take:

"Reviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R. Peterson[10] detects two main broad themes:

"It is used to criticize a totalizing view of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true way to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things;
“It is used to denote a border-crossing violation in which the theories and methods of one (scientific) discipline are inappropriately applied to another (scientific or non-scientific) discipline and its domain. Examples of this second usage is to label as scientism any attempt to claim science as the only or primary source of human values (a traditional domain of ethics), or as the source of meaning and purpose (a traditional domain of religion and related worldviews).”

As for your emphatic denial, it’s prima facie reassuring, but then again, perhaps just empty words. Could you elaborate?

Knowledge is a team sport. If I only could know that which I independently confirm, I’d not get on an airplane, or accept a hypodermic needle in my arm with putative “medicine” in it. The principle of objectivity is not one that demands I confirm a proposition myself. Rather, that the claim is amenable to outside confirmation, critique and refutation.

Allow me to finish this for you: “…And that is why it was silly for me to claim that anyone could perform their own (dis)confirmation [of cold fusion] independently.” Or did you have a different point you were trying to make?

Well, lets suppose for the moment that I am, so I can get you to explain the one(s) you endorse. Per above, how is knowledge demonstrated in your alternative science of choice?

Well thanks for asking (I guess - although, again: ‘alternative science’…?)…

All of this is predicated on evidentialist, empirical epistemology – vanilla science!

…and thanks for answering.

Do you see the irony in saying you’ve debunked some claim by looking at the evidence as a way of pointing me at alternatives to empirical analysis?

You’re the one who said he was uncomfortable with social history, were you not?! Changed your mind? Or are you just uncomfortable with the content of social history?

Silly strawman aside, ‘empirical analysis’ is an ‘interesting’ term with an interesting history. You are in grave danger of saying silly things if you forget this. Demonstration is not at all the same as empirical-analysis-testing-more-analysis or however you envision the team-sport of science. Check your definition. Anyway, when you have a discussion with someone and you demonstrate that they have misunderstood something, this does not constitute making a contribution to science, at least on standard usage of the term.

I’d suspect you were trying to pull my leg if I hadn’t been aware of your earlier comments.

Sorry, which comments?

 

[Touchstone]

Hi TS,
Sorry for the delay getting back to you, I had a hectic couple of weeks.

Hey, no problem. Welcome back and thanks for the replies.

Alternative science? That’s a strange term for you to interject. What is it supposed to mean?

That seemed less awkward than “a way of knowing that is distinct from (conventional) science”. You were reminding me about the Wissenschaften outside of Naturwissenschaften, remember? Perhaps I should have just stuck with "Wissenschaft" there.

I think my use of ‘demonstrate’ is far from novel! It fits very well with the definitions you list. What novel definitions do you take me to have offered?

None. You haven’t offered demonstration or clarified what paradigm you are talking about, except that its not *Naturwissenshaften *(natural science). I guess I can be more clear and say “tell me about the *Wissenschaft *you are commending here and how it demonstrates and tests knowledge”.

How’s that?

Are you serious? You can’t see how the claim you mentioned can be presented in more and less dogmatic ways??? You can’t expect me to take this seriously, surely? Anyway, you’re also chasing a bit of a straw man here. Presentation changes dogmatic character, not necessarily underlying dogma. (This isn’t my wordsmithing by the way - it’s common usage!) As for the bit about “impervious to critique or evaluation”, again, are you serious? Surely you bin hangin round enough to know that ain’t so!!! What’s this thread about? Doesn’t it seek to develop a critique of this claim, at least indirectly?

Well, I stand to be corrected if de fide dogmata are open to dispute, doubt, criticism or even dissent by the faithful. Have I got that wrong?

Actually, I think you’re confusing saying one thing with saying another. Saying “reality is real” is **not **to say “extramental reality is not contingent on my conceptualization of it.” Why would you think those two very different statements amount to the same thing?

It’s the non-contingency that reifies it! I can dream up all sorts of things, but what makes reality real, and the dream not real is extramental reality’s complete apathy towards my wishes or conceptualizations – its objectivity. So long as reality is indistinguishable from a dream, just pictures and words, malleable in my mind, I have no warrant to call it “real”. All along, “reality is real” has meant just that: extramental reality is not contingent on my conceptualiztion of it. That independence is what establishes its externality.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Google - so helpful, yet at times so misleading. Could you be a little more specific? Personally I’ve never run across ‘scientism’ in the context of theistic polemics. Theists often enough have a sad tendency to be overly scientistic. If you think the only people who can see that scientism has grave shortcomings are theistic apologists, you’re way off the mark.

Well, specifically, I run into the term here, which is what I meant by “theistic polemics” – many posters in threads here I notice seem to have taken a shine to the term. Also, over at EvolutionFairyTale.com, a young earth creationist site where I posted for a while before being banned, “scientism” was the perjorative de rigeur.

I’m still not sure how or if that applies to me. But I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Don’t know what the quote is supposed to mean. I don’t think it’s helpful (unless you’d care to explain further). You know Francis Bacon, right? Knowledge is power/mastery. Those who know are the scientists, i.e., the experimenters. Technology is the rule and measure of progress. All being (‘nature’) is essentially ‘technical’. Here’s Wikipedia’s take:

"Reviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars, Gregory R. Peterson[10] detects two main broad themes:

[snip for brevity – got it]

As for your emphatic denial, it’s prima facie reassuring, but then again, perhaps just empty words. Could you elaborate?

Well, I don’t understand science to carry authority on moral particulars, or even moral principles in general. We can and should be informed by science’s testimony as to how humans think and work, physiologically, but the decisive authority on moral values and distinctions doesn’t come from an empirical, objective source, but is instead a subjective value calculus.

Further, it’s hard to see science as even meaningful in weighing in on the meaning, significance and value of aesthetic choices. I’m a Bach fanatic, and my wife’s the Mozart type, my eldest son loves Chopin best. I’m sure science has tidbits to offer (perhaps) about the psychoacoustics involved, or the internal structure of a three part fugue, but that doesn’t begin to participate in the aesthetic calculus we apply, to the meaning and values we apply in those domains.

I’m sure there’s more – science itself is underwritten by a metaphysical commitment which is itself impervious to scientific validation or justification – we don’t judge the metaphysics based on ‘metaphysical evidence’; we pursue because we wanna, and don’t (and shouldn’t) give a rip about scientific justification for the basis of scientific pursuits!

So, you tell me, is that ‘scientism’? Perhaps scientism can accomodate all that, I don’t know.

Allow me to finish this for you: “…And that is why it was silly for me to claim that anyone could perform their own (dis)confirmation [of cold fusion] independently.” Or did you have a different point you were trying to make?

It’s not important that I personally can’t do it. The experiment and claims just need to be liable to verification and (repetitive) falsification. In principle, I could be the catalyst for such a challenge, even if it’s not my lab. But not matter, even then – what’s important is that claims made and conclusions drawn are liable to critical and independent verification.

You’re the one who said he was uncomfortable with social history, were you not?! Changed your mind? Or are you just uncomfortable with the content of social history?

I forget where I said I was uncomfortable with social history, but no matter. The dialog there I thought was quite odd, as I have been taking up this banner of scientific methodogy in approaching these matters – hypothesize, test, analyze, revise, re-test, analyze, revise… – in working toward knowledge from shared evidence, objective (name removed by moderator)uts, and you no sooner get done with a bit of scolding about other "Wissenschaften", when you start pointing at bread-and-butter evidential analysis as your method of argument. I welcome it, of course, but it strikes me as odd, given what you’d just told me.

Silly strawman aside, ‘empirical analysis’ is an ‘interesting’ term with an interesting history. You are in grave danger of saying silly things if you forget this. Demonstration is not at all the same as empirical-analysis-testing-more-analysis or however you envision the team-sport of science. Check your definition. Anyway, when you have a discussion with someone and you demonstrate that they have misunderstood something, this does not constitute making a contribution to science, at least on standard usage of the term.

I’d agree with that last bit on principle, but not sure what you’re meaing by that in context here – it seems heavily “encoded”. Maybe better to hit me with what you mean more directly, I can take it!

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Getting back to this one, which I never answered before:

Well, here’s my chance to be educated! Cite your scientists, please!

You’ll find many citations in Mary Eberstadt’s article “The Vindiction of Humanae Vitae”.

It’s fine if some homosexual chooses a life of celibacy for themselves. To demand they eschew their core sexuality nature, to avoid all expression out of that, is cruel, inhuman, evil.

Abstract, but perhaps true. The Catholic Church teaches that sexuality is indeed part of human nature and that it is expressed in many ways, not just orgasmic activity, and that simple repression of sexuality is indeed inhuman.

Well, things are going badly, now. “just doesn’t do that”??? By ‘nature’ i mean the constitution of the being, the materials and patterns and structures that make it what it is, that ground its goals, behaviors and dispositions. Do you think sexuality does not come from genes, even in part???

By ‘nature’ I think I would mean much the same as you do, although our concrete interpretations obviously differ. And of course I don’t think that sexuality is unrelated to genes! Why would you suggest such a thing?

No, they are highly systematic. They just are not accountable to the tests for knowledge. They aren’t falsifiable, for example. As a programmer, one interest I’ve long had is “alternative logic”, and I’ll skip the boring details, but you can create very complex and exotic logical frameworks that are formally complete and thus perfectly systematic, but it’s completely detached from the real world. It’s systematized rule sets that just don’t overlap with reality. So it’s not the systematization that’s problematic, it’s the accountability to objective validation that I find problematic about much of theology.

And what are “the tests for knowledge”? When you offer comments like this, that is what makes me think that you are substantively in thrall to scientism. Such a comment suggests to me that you think that accountability in knowledge must derive from what are known as empirical experiments. Demonstration, however, which you have kindly given the definition of, is a much broader concept than this. I think that fundamentally what I would describe as your scientism arises from a misunderstanding of the general nature of the linkage between reality and formal conceptual systems. You appear to think that linkage to reality requires ‘empirical investigation’, with the usual Baconian connotations of torturing nature by means of experiment in order to make her yield her secrets. But at the same time I think you do recognize, at times you have at least implicitly admitted, that such a narrow view is naive and misleading.

Well, let’s see how that bears up. How would you falsify the claims of “original sin”, for example. If that was a bogus concept, a theological bit of fanciful thinking, how would you objectively establish that?

Really interested in the answer to that question!

What does falsifiability mean to you? When you pose questions with rather obvious answers like this one, I infer that you have in mind a notion of falsifiability with typically scientistic connotations, i.e., you are implicitly invoking inappropriate criteria of falsifiability and ignoring those that are actually operative in order to make it seem as if a certain doctrine is immune to attack (which it obviously is not! - for confirmation you need only check out some historische Geisteswissenschaft relative to the issue).

 

[Betterave]

That seemed less awkward than “a way of knowing that is distinct from (conventional) science”. You were reminding me about the Wissenschaften outside of Naturwissenschaften, remember? Perhaps I should have just stuck with "Wissenschaft" there.

My basic point here is that your ascriptions of alternative and conventional are common sense, but historically and philosophically naive. They don’t reflect reality, if you will, i.e., what goes on in human cognition, in both its team and individual aspects, independently of what is understood by ‘common sense’ (which actually never really bothers to ask any real questions).

None. You haven’t offered demonstration or clarified what paradigm you are talking about, except that its not *Naturwissenshaften *(natural science). I guess I can be more clear and say “tell me about the *Wissenschaft *you are commending here and how it demonstrates and tests knowledge”.

I have done this already.

Well, I stand to be corrected if de fide dogmata are open to dispute, doubt, criticism or even dissent by the faithful. Have I got that wrong?

Look around you, the answer is obvious, is it not? Of course “faithful dissent” is a bit of an oxymoron, but it depends exactly what you mean. (These terms have technical meanings, but people who use them are not generally using them in their technical sense.)

It’s the non-contingency that reifies it! I can dream up all sorts of things, but what makes reality real, and the dream not real is extramental reality’s complete apathy towards my wishes or conceptualizations – its objectivity.

So if my dreams don’t accord with (do show complete apathy towards) my wishes or conceptualizations, then dreams constitute extramental reality? And if reality conforms to/is not apathetic towards my wishes and conceptualizations, then it is not “real”? Hmmm… I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. (I’m tentatively inferring that you don’t understand idealism and are delivering a very hackneyed straw man attack against it.)

So long as reality is indistinguishable from a dream, just pictures and words, malleable in my mind, I have no warrant to call it “real”. All along, “reality is real” has meant just that: extramental reality is not contingent on my conceptualiztion of it. That independence is what establishes its externality.

Fine, that’s what you meant (it’s not the only possible sense of the words you used). But how is that a substantive claim? It’s as trivial as ever. It’s not a ‘dogmatic’ precondition for doing science.

 

[Betterave]

Well, specifically, I run into the term here, which is what I meant by “theistic polemics” – many posters in threads here I notice seem to have taken a shine to the term. Also, over at EvolutionFairyTale.com, a young earth creationist site where I posted for a while before being banned, “scientism” was the perjorative de rigeur.

Sorry about the banning, that must have hurt! Stuff like that annoys me anyway. I learned about scientism in a thoroughly secular philosophy of science class. Paul Feyerabend comes to mind, though there are many others with very diverse views on all sorts of issues.

Well, I don’t understand science to carry authority on moral particulars, or even moral principles in general. We can and should be informed by science’s testimony as to how humans think and work, physiologically, but the decisive authority on moral values and distinctions doesn’t come from an empirical, objective source, but is instead a subjective value calculus.

Your view here seems too abstract and stipulative. I’ll say no more unless you do.

Further, it’s hard to see science as even meaningful in weighing in on the meaning, significance and value of aesthetic choices. I’m a Bach fanatic, and my wife’s the Mozart type, my eldest son loves Chopin best. I’m sure science has tidbits to offer (perhaps) about the psychoacoustics involved, or the internal structure of a three part fugue, but that doesn’t begin to participate in the aesthetic calculus we apply, to the meaning and values we apply in those domains.

I’m not a great music connoisseur, but I favor Chopin myself. But do you really want to create this clear separation between aesthetics and science? I’d have thought that aesthetic considerations were very important when it comes to theory choice in science. You’re familiar with W.V.O. Quine I believe - think of his ‘desert’ aesthetic.

I’m sure there’s more – science itself is underwritten by a metaphysical commitment which is itself impervious to scientific validation or justification – we don’t judge the metaphysics based on ‘metaphysical evidence’; we pursue because we wanna, and don’t (and shouldn’t) give a rip about scientific justification for the basis of scientific pursuits!

So, you tell me, is that ‘scientism’? Perhaps scientism can accomodate all that, I don’t know.

Scientism can be local and implicit. I don’t think trying to make a general abstract diagnosis of your particular case will be helpful to this discussion. What is at issue is your tendency to make scientistic statements. Your common sense view of science would be fine if you were a scientist doing science. But you’re not - you’re engaged in a philosophical discussion about the nature of science and its relation to human cognition in general. In this context I think it’s just dogmatic and naive.

It’s not important that I personally can’t do it. The experiment and claims just need to be liable to verification and (repetitive) falsification. In principle, I could be the catalyst for such a challenge, even if it’s not my lab. But not matter, even then – what’s important is that claims made and conclusions drawn are liable to critical and independent verification.

Abstract, but I won’t argue.

I forget where I said I was uncomfortable with social history, but no matter. The dialog there I thought was quite odd, as I have been taking up this banner of scientific methodogy in approaching these matters – hypothesize, test, analyze, revise, re-test, analyze, revise… – in working toward knowledge from shared evidence, objective (name removed by moderator)uts, and you no sooner get done with a bit of scolding about other "Wissenschaften", when you start pointing at bread-and-butter evidential analysis as your method of argument. I welcome it, of course, but it strikes me as odd, given what you’d just told me.

I don’t know what you’re talking about here. Perhaps you are unaware of the scope of the term ‘natural science’ as it is currently used - it does not include all forms of evidential analysis as you imply here.

I’d agree with that last bit on principle, but not sure what you’re meaing by that in context here – it seems heavily “encoded”. Maybe better to hit me with what you mean more directly, I can take it!

Have I answered this yet? (I think the answer is necessarily a holistic understanding one, rather than a hit me with the answer one.) Anyway, see directly above and try to connect the dots.

 

[brandymmiller]

I have read some of these tomes and I shall come a-galloping to the defense of my heretical brothers.

Hitchens does make a (I think) new argument in God is not Great that the 3 monotheisms are in essence totalitarian

Yes, they are totalitarian in that absolute obedience is not only expected but required. He’s not wrong. What He fails to see, what they all the atheists fail to see is WHY it is required. It is required because it is GOOD for us to obey the laws. God never sets a law which is not ultimately for our good nor requires a sacrifice that is unnecessary.

and that the last commandment is the first recorded mentioning of thought crime.
You can be convicted not just for what you do but for what you think about doing.

Thinking leads to doing and this is the reason behind the law - to acknowledge our weakness and defend ourselves from behavior which hurts ourselves and others by defending ourselves against imaginging ourselves engaged in that action.

Another one would be Sam Harris’ observation about the link between the widespread practice of human sacrifice throughout history and the gruesome method that Christians deem a crucial part of their soteriology.

Using Christianity as a display of the wrongs of human sacrifice is a rich irony! While other religions were sacrificing their babies and young virgins, Christianity PROHIBITED the taking of innocent human life and demanded the protection of all human life - both believer and non-believer alike. The only cases in which Church law permitted the taking of another life was in the case of self-defense or to stop one who was a murderer from continuing to murder.

The notion that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that his death constitutes a successful propitiation of a “loving” God is a direct and undisguised inheritance of the scapegoating barbarism that has plagued bewildered people throughout history. Viewed in a modern context, it is an idea at once so depraved and fantastical that it is hard to know where to begin to criticize it.".

Christ came to show us the way to love one another. It wasn’t God who directed the men to flog Christ, nor who demanded that they nail Him to a cross in a gruesome way. The argument blames God for the sins of humanity and then accuses it of being at fault for scapegoating barbarism?? That’s too funny. Christ showed us by His example that when we are hurt we don’t need to strike back like those who don’t know God do. We must love the person who hurts us enough to be willing to die for them. It takes courage to love the unlovable - and that’s what Christ came to teach us how to do.

People blame Christianity for all kinds of evil. It isn’t Christianity that is at fault. The fault lies with the people who live it badly. Nobody blames the exercise machine sitting unused in the closet for the belly of the fat guy who owns it, why do people insist on blaming religion for the sins of the sinner? Being surprised to find hypocrites, thieves, and liars in a church is a bit like being shocked to find sick people in a hospital!!

 

[Touchstone]

You’ll find many citations in Mary Eberstadt’s article “The Vindiction of Humanae Vitae”.

Oh. OK, thanks!

Abstract, but perhaps true. The Catholic Church teaches that sexuality is indeed part of human nature and that it is expressed in many ways, not just orgasmic activity, and that simple repression of sexuality is indeed inhuman.

That seems a problem if one is homosexually-disposed in the way one might be left-handed, no? Without having to clash swords on whether that is the case just here, can we agree that if homosexuality is dispositionally equivalent to left-handedness, that is problematic in light of Humanae Vitae, and lots of prior doctrine, stretching all the way back to Paul in Romans 1 (and back into Hebraic abominations long before that)? Just thinking back on where this point got going, I believe my point was that scientific trends can be and are problematic for dogma. If being gay is just like being left-handed, prohibition of the “left-handedness” would be repressive in the worst way, no? Left-handedness, after all, isn’t nearly so central to one’s core identity and sense of self as one’s sexuality.

By ‘nature’ I think I would mean much the same as you do, although our concrete interpretations obviously differ. And of course I don’t think that sexuality is unrelated to genes! Why would you suggest such a thing?

Well, I do assume you are willing to allow for “part”. I’m interested in what you see as the ramifications of homosexuality being “decoded” as every bit as deterministic as a basic sexual orientation as “left handedness” is to “handedness”. Again, not saying that has or will happen, but am wondering what that prospect portends for Catholic dogma and doctrine.

And what are “the tests for knowledge”? When you offer comments like this, that is what makes me think that you are substantively in thrall to scientism. Such a comment suggests to me that you think that accountability in knowledge must derive from what are known as empirical experiments.

That’s more narrow than I’m comfortable with. I think the essential is liability to objective falsification. That doesn’t imply empiricism – it works for math as an analytic project – we accept mathematical proofs based on their liability to falsification by any and all others based on the rules of the relevant calculus.

Furthermore, “experiments” suggests way more formality than I demand. Historical evidence is not an “experiment”. It doesn’t arrive under controlled, repeatable conditions. It just gets tripped over in a dig, or found in an old crypt. It’s emprical – based on observation, but it’s not experimental in any systematic way, and it’s good grounds for establishing a hypothesis, and for falsifying one.

But at the end of the day, knowledge is either necessary, or qualified by doubt – critical analysis, with a premium placed on objectivity and independence of the critique. If it doesn’t meet either of those two criteria, and really it is just one criterion, as necessity is a means of getting over any hurdles of doubt, then you can call it “knowledge”, or “God’s truth”, or “old bananas”, but it’s a proposition of a fundamentally different epistemic status. Such unqualified propositions may well be true, and represent real knowledge. But without qualification, it’s capricious to say so.

Demonstration, however, which you have kindly given the definition of, is a much broader concept than this. I think that fundamentally what I would describe as your scientism arises from a misunderstanding of the general nature of the linkage between reality and formal conceptual systems. You appear to think that linkage to reality requires ‘empirical investigation’, with the usual Baconian connotations of torturing nature by means of experiment in order to make her yield her secrets. But at the same time I think you do recognize, at times you have at least implicitly admitted, that such a narrow view is naive and misleading.

Well, the “replay” you offered above, I saw as overly narrow, but the epistemic principle remains – we invest meaning in the term “knowledge” as opposed to “claim” by means of qualification. That certainly is a broader “funnel” than just “experiments”. But it’s not so broad it yields the crucial epistemic benefits of qualification.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Betterave:

What does falsifiability mean to you? When you pose questions with rather obvious answers like this one, I infer that you have in mind a notion of falsifiability with typically scientistic connotations, i.e., you are implicitly invoking inappropriate criteria of falsifiability and ignoring those that are actually operative in order to make it seem as if a certain doctrine is immune to attack (which it obviously is not! - for confirmation you need only check out some historische Geisteswissenschaft relative to the issue).

Uh, you are giving the theological critics of that doctrine way more credit than they deserve. They are trading on the same facile premises that the proponents of Original Sin are. Do you suppose exegesis is sufficient to falsify the concept? Exegesis is the problem that caused the error, the pretense of knowledge in the first place.

Maybe you have some other form of critique I’ve missed than theological objections to the doctrine, but if you are thinking that theology can falsify theology, I think you are very seriously confused. Anything theological you might point to as an assault on that idea (Original Sin) gets mowed down by a simple demand for qualification of the knowledge claims the assault rests on.

For example, even if you show that the original doctrine was “made up”, or just a clerical error, you haven’t falsified the concept, the concept that man is born in a state of sinfulness. The clerical error might be proven, and the writer never intended such a thing, but the “sinfulness at birth” might still obtain.

I’m quite interested to see the “obvious” method of falsification you have in mind for the claim of Original Sin, given that. What cannot be made credible by theology cannot be dismissed by theology, as far as I can see. We might as well try to disprove astrology with astrology.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

That seems a problem if one is homosexually-disposed in the way one might be left-handed, no? Without having to clash swords on whether that is the case just here, can we agree that if homosexuality is dispositionally equivalent to left-handedness, that is problematic in light of Humanae Vitae, and lots of prior doctrine, stretching all the way back to Paul in Romans 1 (and back into Hebraic abominations long before that)? Just thinking back on where this point got going, I believe my point was that scientific trends can be and are problematic for dogma. If being gay is just like being left-handed, prohibition of the “left-handedness” would be repressive in the worst way, no? Left-handedness, after all, isn’t nearly so central to one’s core identity and sense of self as one’s sexuality.

Sure, that’s right. But homosexuality is obviously not just like left-handedness, so there’s not much of interest in your counterfactual here.

Well, I do assume you are willing to allow for “part”. I’m interested in what you see as the ramifications of homosexuality being “decoded” as every bit as deterministic as a basic sexual orientation as “left handedness” is to “handedness”. Again, not saying that has or will happen, but am wondering what that prospect portends for Catholic dogma and doctrine.

The consequence would perhaps be that Catholic doctrine is wrong, specifically, wrong to think of handedness and sexuality as fundamentally different kinds of categories of human identity. But unless you have some reason to think otherwise, again, this is just an absurd counterfactual that is not at all interesting to those who are interested in reality.

Furthermore, “experiments” suggests way more formality than I demand. Historical evidence is not an “experiment”. It doesn’t arrive under controlled, repeatable conditions. It just gets tripped over in a dig, or found in an old crypt. It’s emprical – based on observation, but it’s not experimental in any systematic way, and it’s good grounds for establishing a hypothesis, and for falsifying one.

But interpretation is always essential. Always; even when this has been forgotten and common sense or scientism prevents non-thinkers (in the Heideggerian sense) from asking questions. And interpretation is not something you trip over or dig up. That’s important.

But at the end of the day, knowledge is either necessary, or qualified by doubt – critical analysis, with a premium placed on objectivity and independence of the critique. If it doesn’t meet either of those two criteria, and really it is just one criterion, as necessity is a means of getting over any hurdles of doubt, then you can call it “knowledge”, or “God’s truth”, or “old bananas”, but it’s a proposition of a fundamentally different epistemic status. Such unqualified propositions may well be true, and represent real knowledge. But without qualification, it’s capricious to say so.

I don’t follow, could you make this more clear? Are you saying that scientific knowledge is necessary? (I assume necessary doesn’t mean ‘necessary’ in this case - what does it mean? Are you inventing words (you accuse me of wordsmithing!)?)

Well, the “replay” you offered above, I saw as overly narrow, but the epistemic principle remains – we invest meaning in the term “knowledge” as opposed to “claim” by means of qualification. That certainly is a broader “funnel” than just “experiments”. But it’s not so broad it yields the crucial epistemic benefits of qualification.

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems incoherent. I could guess at what you mean, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be productive. Please clarify.

 

[Touchstone]

Sure, that’s right. But homosexuality is obviously not just like left-handedness, so there’s not much of interest in your counterfactual here.

The consequence would perhaps be that Catholic doctrine is wrong, specifically, wrong to think of handedness and sexuality as fundamentally different kinds of categories of human identity. But unless you have some reason to think otherwise, again, this is just an absurd counterfactual that is not at all interesting to those who are interested in reality.

It’s salient because it demonstrates the liability (if just “perhaps”) of the doctrine to falsification. That’s a good thing. And the example in view isn’t the point, it’s just a foil to elicit the underlying dynamics, to uncover the operating principle. I don’t expect homosexuality to ever be revealed as equivalent to left-handedness, but that was never the point of invoking that example.

But interpretation is always essential. Always; even when this has been forgotten and common sense or scientism prevents non-thinkers (in the Heideggerian sense) from asking questions. And interpretation is not something you trip over or dig up. That’s important.

It’s certainly essential in that you can’t get from here to there without it – interpretation is a necessary part of the workflow, but that’s such an obvious point, I have to think you are stressing it for some other reason than its just being unavoidable. What is it you are emphasizing here beyond it’s necessary role in the process, if anything? It’s gamma, it’s ability to introduce an “X factor” and confound any systematization (heh, maybe that would be “inauthentic” in the Heideggerian sense, eh?)?

I get that you are shining your spotlight on interpretation, here. But I don’t know why.

I don’t follow, could you make this more clear? Are you saying that scientific knowledge is necessary? (I assume necessary doesn’t mean ‘necessary’ in this case - what does it mean? Are you inventing words (you accuse me of wordsmithing!)?)

Some propositions are accepted as necessary. This does not apply to scientific propositions, but transcendental truths, like “I exist”. That’s what “necessary” referred to – that which cannot be refused as a proposition. Beyond what is necessary, we ask for credentials for claims to knowledge: is this proposition apportioned to the evidence? Is it liable to objective falsification?

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems incoherent. I could guess at what you mean, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be productive. Please clarify.

As I read you, you suppose my “filter” for what qualifies as knowledge requires “experiment” or something equally systematic. If that’s what you understand, that’s not my view. The principle that qualifies knowledge, beyond any positive case for the proposition, is liability to falsification.

If one supposes there is meaning in saying a proposition is “true” as a statement about the real world, there must be meaning invested in “false” for that statement. If it’s a tautology, then it’s not a statement about the real world. For statements about the real world, its “truth” is only as meaningful as its “falsehood”. If you can’t say what the world would look like if that statement were false, there’s little to no meaning (or point) in saying it is “true”.

-TS

 

[brandymmiller]

If being gay is just like being left-handed, prohibition of the “left-handedness” would be repressive in the worst way, no? Left-handedness, after all, isn’t nearly so central to one’s core identity and sense of self as one’s sexuality.

Sex is ordered toward reproduction, therefore same sex attraction is a disorder in that is outside of the natural order. If it is biological - which science HAS NOT proven - it is a defect to be corrected and not tolerated much as we work to correct problems such as blindness, deafness, or deformities of limbs. However, there is much evidence that it is a psychological condition treatable through therapy.

The Catholic Church is entirely right to categorize the adoption of homosexual relations as both disordered and sinful. Disordered, as I explained above, in that they are counter to the natural order. Sinful in that it is sinful to engage in sexual relations without benefit of marriage and marriage between same sex is impossible. Marriage is only possible between a male and a female as that is the only way in which life is conceived - and in vitro fertilization does not change that fact. A child conceived by in vitro fertilization still has a mother and a father.

A homosexual couple lacks the ability to provide the life-giving quality marriage requires. Even if they adopt they cannot give the child all that it needs because they simply don’t have it to give. A homosexual couple cannot teach a child how to have a healthy heterosexual relationship. A person who is in a homosexual relationship is rejecting the natural role of their own gender and thus cannot teach a child how to respect the gender they are rejecting. Further, a man is the only one who can teach a boy how to be a man and a woman is the only one who can teach a girl how to be a woman.

 

[Touchstone]

Sex is ordered toward reproduction, therefore same sex attraction is a disorder in that is outside of the natural order. If it is biological - which science HAS NOT proven - it is a defect to be corrected and not tolerated much as we work to correct problems such as blindness, deafness, or deformities of limbs. However, there is much evidence that it is a psychological condition treatable through therapy.

Well, Catholicism cannot be cursed strongly enough as utterly perverse and wicked if its position is that a person’s sexual orientation – affinity for the same sex as the means to intimacy and deepest relationship – is a defect if it IS a biologically determined disposition. Catholicism has brought many good things to the world, but insofar as this is its position (and I’m not convinced it is, but allow that it may be), the sooner it perishes from the earth in ignominy, the better of humanity is.

I’d be interested in seeing this evidence you talk about, however.

The Catholic Church is entirely right to categorize the adoption of homosexual relations as both disordered and sinful. Disordered, as I explained above, in that they are counter to the natural order. Sinful in that it is sinful to engage in sexual relations without benefit of marriage and marriage between same sex is impossible. Marriage is only possible between a male and a female as that is the only way in which life is conceived - and in vitro fertilization does not change that fact. A child conceived by in vitro fertilization still has a mother and a father.

Setting aside a raft of problems in there concerning the notion that sex is only about reproduction, or somehow meaningless or necessarily illicit if it’s not pro-creative in intent, it’s just outrageous to suggest that a homosexual disposition is something like a genetic defromity. Even those who have genetic deformities are treated in humane fashion by the Church, unlike homosexuals.

I note that male sexual promiscuity is a conspicuous feature of the “natural order”. This is the nature of the male, and has been for millions of years. Nothing is more definitive of the “natural order” than male promiscuity – a sustained campaign to impregnant as many females as practically possible before death. And yet, this is probihibited as sinful, as well. As a monogamous heterosexual male, married more than twenty years with six kids now, I have a lot of sympathy for monogamy and can commend the value and wisdom of monogamous, enduring marriage wholeheartedly.

But such a fact puts paid to the disingenuous natural of relying on “natural order” as normative for human behavior. What rubbish! Homosexuality is as old and as pervasive and as natural as human sexuality itself, so far as we know. The caprice of Catholic teaching is just transparent here, and it’s clear that “natural order” is a cynical euphemism deployed to support this caprice.

A homosexual couple lacks the ability to provide the life-giving quality marriage requires.

You mean their bond and relationship are invalid because they can’t produce children? The solemnization of their mutual commitment and sacrifice isn’t solemn? What can be more cynical, or pathetic, than restricting marriage to fecundity. The lowest animals can do that, and much more efficiently than we can. This hardly qualifies as primitive as a qualification for marriage, as the basis for a solemnized, committed, permanent relationship.

Even if they adopt they cannot give the child all that it needs because they simply don’t have it to give.

This is just sad. If this is Catholicism, it is below wicked. What is it that an adopted child needs that can’t be given – love? support? education? affirmation? grace? a lullaby and an ibuprofen at 3am for the child who has a fever? Meeting Junior at the bus stop every day after school? coaching Junior’s little league team?

What is it an adopted child needs most that a homosexual couple cannot give them?

I hope you will get to know some homosexual people someday so that your conscience can be exposed to the evidence of your egregious and hateful errors, here.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

brandymmiller:

A homosexual couple cannot teach a child how to have a healthy heterosexual relationship.

Why not??? I worked in the Bay Area for 15 years, prior to moving back to my hometown in Minnesota, and had a chance to work with and know well many homosexual couples, some of which adopted, and went on to raise great kids, all of whom happened to be heterosexual, and perfectly able to engage in loving, healthy heterosexual relationships. Two of those young men are now married, and have kids of their own.

You are simply in denial about the reality going all around you. You are welcome to delude yourself all you like, but please don’t go to pains to tell me black is really white.

A person who is in a homosexual relationship is rejecting the natural role of their own gender and thus cannot teach a child how to respect the gender they are rejecting. Further, a man is the only one who can teach a boy how to be a man and a woman is the only one who can teach a girl how to be a woman.

Having a father figure is important, and a mother figure, too. Fortunately, two dads or two moms does not preclude healthy female or male “heroes” for kids in those families. And even in the absence of that, there are so many kids who are in terrible, cruel, lonely, neglected situations that are available for adoption that would be so much better off – unquestionably – in the loving care of a stable, homosexual couple. I have friends in ministry who have adopted more than one kid from the orphanages in Romania, and if you aren’t familiar with that tragic situation, that little piece of hell on earth, you should check it out. No human with a conscience could help but be moved to tears by the tragedy of neglect and abuse and despair all these kids in Romanian orphanages have for lives.

And yet, my friends tell me, the Romanian government this summer outlawed adoption by homosexual couples. So many loving, attentive, secure and healthy households that want a child to love, support, teach, train, take to school, and field trips to the museum, and vacations to DisneyLand.

But no dice. For the kids that could be there, their lot is despair, isolation, loneliness, no parental love whatsoever.

All for the sake of a barbaric, inhumane and irrational dogma.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Well, Catholicism cannot be cursed strongly enough as utterly perverse and wicked if its position is that a person’s sexual orientation – affinity for the same sex as the means to intimacy and deepest relationship – is a defect if it IS a biologically determined disposition. Catholicism has brought many good things to the world, but insofar as this is its position (and I’m not convinced it is, but allow that it may be), the sooner it perishes from the earth in ignominy, the better of humanity is.

I’m confused by you, TS, when you say stuff like this. You praise science, you criticize me for thinking it’s not all that, but why? Is it just because you like flying in jet planes (etc.) and science made this possible? (You’re not a pilot, are you?) Or do you actually appreciate intellectual rigor, looking at and trying to understand the evidence, being a team player, etc.? Or do you believe that individual intellectual rigor is superfluous in the self-correcting team sport of science and so you don’t need to bother with it yourself? You’re content to not own your own intellectual rigor because you think science owns it for you? (I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but what strikes me as your inconsistency just strikes me as very strange.)

 

[Touchstone]

I’m confused by you, TS, when you say stuff like this. You praise science, you criticize me for thinking it’s not all that, but why? Is it just because you like flying in jet planes (etc.) and science made this possible? (You’re not a pilot, are you?)

Not a pilot. I just fly a whole lot for my job. I do a lot of my thinking on an airplane, as I’m not on the net, which as you know, dulls the mind.

I’m an internet geek, software developer, technology evangelist.

Or do you actually appreciate intellectual rigor, looking at and trying to understand the evidence, being a team player, etc.?

I claim this.

Or do you believe that individual intellectual rigor is superfluous in the self-correcting team sport of science and so you don’t need to bother with it yourself?

No, quite the opposite. Like I said, it’s a team sport. If you can’t make the jump shot, your teammates figure it out real quick. Team mates, and competing teams, competing vigorously, provide crucial feedback loops for gauging my performance. I know how well I’m doing and when I’m fooling myself in light of that feedback loop far better than I would as a lone ranger.

You’re content to not own your own intellectual rigor because you think science owns it for you? (I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but what strikes me as your inconsistency just strikes me as very strange.)

I own my claims, and will defend them. But, to quote Feynman, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool.” As we get older, more experienced, and wiser, we come to face our own epistemic limitations. To be intelligent is to understand the boundaries of one’s knowledge.

That doesn’t distance me from any of my claims. Instead, it affirms that a single mind is quite limited in terms of its epistemic faculties – not disabled, not impotent, but limited – compared to enterprise of knowledge building as a collective enterprise. That affords measures of objectivity and independence and diverse perspectives that are crucial for building real knowledge.

That’s a call to excellence in an indivual sense, in the same way a basketball team demands discipline and excellence from each player if it is going to succeed.

-TS

 

[Matthias123]

I’m an internet geek, software developer, technology evangelist.

I am taking UNIX and SQL right now in school.

 

[brandymmiller]

I hope you will get to know some homosexual people someday so that your conscience can be exposed to the evidence of your egregious and hateful errors, here.
-TS

No pun here, Touchstone, but I seem to have touched a nerve. You’re assuming that I am arguing from a bigotted and hate-filled point of view, and that I lack love for and friendships with people with same-sex attraction. Nothing could be further from the truth. You’re also arguing from emotion, not logic or reason.

Well, Catholicism cannot be cursed strongly enough as utterly perverse and wicked if its position is that a person’s sexual orientation – affinity for the same sex as the means to intimacy and deepest relationship – is a defect if it IS a biologically determined disposition. Catholicism has brought many good things to the world, but insofar as this is its position (and I’m not convinced it is, but allow that it may be), the sooner it perishes from the earth in ignominy, the better of humanity is.

Blindness is biologically determined - is it any less a defect or disorder? Which is the more loving thing to do - to pass the blind man on the street and say “Well, it sucks that you’re blind but since you were born that way there’s nothing you can do you’ll just have to accept your blindness” or to say “You are blind, my friend, but if you will take my hand I will walk with you and we will work together to find a way to help you see” ?

I’d be interested in seeing this evidence you talk about, however.

Setting aside a raft of problems in there concerning the notion that sex is only about reproduction, or somehow meaningless or necessarily illicit if it’s not pro-creative in intent.

Sex is not, nor has the Church ever claimed it was, nor did I state that it was soley about procreation but that IS its primary biological function. It is meaningless and a grave SIN to have sex without it being open to creation.

, it’s just outrageous to suggest that a homosexual disposition is something like a genetic defromity. .

There’s nothing outrageous about it. Think it through. Use your scientific brain, not your emotions. If this entire generation were to engage in homosexual relations we would not have a next generation. It’s disordered because it’s counterproductive to the good of the individual and the good of society. Homosexual relations are biological suicide.

Even those who have genetic deformities are treated in humane fashion by the Church, unlike homosexuals.

The Catholic Church treats those suffering with same sex attraction humanely. We recognize that although they may have a problem, they are still made in the image and likeness of God. They are welcome to participate fully in the Church life provided that they are not engaged in a homosexual relationship. Homosexual relationships are strictly forbidden by God. We encourage them to practice celibacy, pray for strength and healing, and to grow in holiness. It’s not that different from the advice we give someone who is unmarried - be celibate, pray for strength, and grow in holiness.

I note that male sexual promiscuity is a conspicuous feature of the “natural order”. This is the nature of the male, and has been for millions of years. Nothing is more definitive of the “natural order” than male promiscuity – a sustained campaign to impregnant as many females as practically possible before death. And yet, this is probihibited as sinful, as well. As a monogamous heterosexual male, married more than twenty years with six kids now, I have a lot of sympathy for monogamy and can commend the value and wisdom of monogamous, enduring marriage wholeheartedly.

But such a fact puts paid to the disingenuous natural of relying on “natural order” as normative for human behavior. What rubbish! .

Funny that you of all people should say that relying on the natural order is rubbish, since that is all that is left when you banish God.

Homosexuality is as old and as pervasive and as natural as human sexuality itself, so far as we know. The caprice of Catholic teaching is just transparent here, and it’s clear that “natural order” is a cynical euphemism deployed to support this caprice.

There is no caprice. You have obviously bought into the "homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual relationships) idealogy - but the evidence simply does not support this. Homosexual relationships are not beneficial to anyone - not the individuals and not society. Practicing homosexuals are far more likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589133), far more likely to die young, far more likely to suffer mental illnesses, far more likely to have unstable relationships and promiscuous behavior (traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/statistics_on_homosexual_lifestyle.pdf). The Church is not condemning the person but she DOES condemn the relationships BECAUSE they aren’t GOOD for the people engaged in those relationships.

 

[brandymmiller]

You mean their bond and relationship are invalid because they can’t produce children? The solemnization of their mutual commitment and sacrifice isn’t solemn? What can be more cynical, or pathetic, than restricting marriage to fecundity. The lowest animals can do that, and much more efficiently than we can. This hardly qualifies as primitive as a qualification for marriage, as the basis for a solemnized, committed, permanent relationship…

This is just sad. If this is Catholicism, it is below wicked.

What is it that an adopted child needs that can’t be given – love? support? education? affirmation? grace? a lullaby and an ibuprofen at 3am for the child who has a fever? Meeting Junior at the bus stop every day after school? coaching Junior’s little league team?

What is it an adopted child needs most that a homosexual couple cannot give them?..

You won’t agree with what I’m about to say and given that you aren’t giving your children this either will probably be livid that I say it at all - but beyond anything what a homosexual couple cannot give to a child they adopt is an example of a life lived in full communion with the Catholic Church and God. They cannot give them the example of love that is willing to sacrifice the self in order to attain the highest good for another because they AREN’T WILLING TO DO IT. They don’t commit to one another, they run from commitments flitting from partner to partner hoping that THIS one at last will make me happy and moving on when they discover it doesn’t work that way. It’s no acccident that less than a YEAR after homosexuals were given permission to marry they’ve found their way into divorce court. It’s not an accident that there wasn’t the mad dash to the altar that the states who have legalized homosexual “marriage” were expecting.

A child needs to know that they are not an accident or a random fillament in the workings of the universe but that they have purpose and meaning and their life is worth living. They need to know that there is something bigger than they are, and bigger than their parents are, and bigger than the biggest problem they have. They need to know how to truly love by giving completely of themselves to someone else. They won’t learn it in that home.

I truly and really do love the homosexual friends that I have. I love them with open eyes, though. I know what it’s like to be like they are. I wasn’t a fit mother, though I tried to be. I was too broken, too wounded, to be able to love my son the way he needed me to love him. It took my son threatening - and then telling me how he was going to do it - to commit suicide at age 8 for me to wake up and realize what I was doing to him by the way I was living my life. I am healing, and I am a better mother today than I ever dreamt of being back then, but because I am being given the grace to heal I have a responsibility and a duty to others to warn them by speaking the truth with love. And so I do.