A few comments - first the sideshow
Charlemagne:
But then, he probably thinks Thomas Kuhn is an anti-scientific irrational idiot.
Richard, for all intents and purposes, is a cheerleader. He makes my “brethren” if you want to call it that way, feel nice. “Yay its great to be an atheist.” His atheism is linked directly to his positive experiences with science - although in formal debate he tends to waive off the criticism of “Scienticism” much like his opponents waive off the label “fanatic.”
I don’t think he’s ever tried to comment on the works of folks like Thomas Kuhn and Bruno Latour. Historians and Philosophers of Science (much like those of religion) have this rather unfortunate tendency of pointing out inconsistency, failure, error, and flaw.
As such - i doubt he could make even a coherent statement that didn’t land him back in say the mentality of Revolutionary France. Better to leave such matters to more level-headed atheists like Dan Dennett.
Or as Miguel stated:
This is pretty much universally accepted and why Dawkins should stick to Biology…also why folks should avoid giving Dawkins expert status in areas beyond his expertise.
Agreed. There’s a line of anthropologists and sociologists who already have a bone to pick with him regarding the validity of “memetic theory.” Outside of his subject matter, he tends to overstep himself.
Now onto the meat of the matter:
Faith, like skepticism, is a learned thing.
Totally 100% agreed. You can’t have faith in something or express disbelief in something
if you haven’t even considered the question to begin with.
Some have brought up indoctrination or brain washing. I don’t know how to distinguish the two from education.
Education = Indoctrination.
From the time of the ancient Greeks and Chinese (there are others but let me run with these two for a second), communities have attempted to mold the character of their children correct?
We want them to act in a certain manner, in a certain way, and to join our society in a constructive and engaged manner.
So we give them frameworks, praise certain virtues, and give them interesting reading material like the Iliad, the Analects of Confucius, the Bible, the Qu’ran, the Torah, the Communist Manifesto, the Federalist Papers/Constitution/Declaration of Independence (Americans have never really been that efficient in expressing their ideas - much like the Romans), Mein Kampf, Mao’s Little Red Book, etc.
Some might find discomfort with grouping certain of the above volumes with the others.
And that’s kind of the point. All of the above are in certain ways, touchstones for a variety of different values in a certain time or place. Values that will inherently conflict.
If you come from that particular community - when you see someone imbibe the tradition you belong to - you don’t see someone who has been brainwashed at all. It fits your own biased viewpoint of what an educated person is.
So there’s the high/low issues:
The High Issue (for ye Philosophers) is try to close to the gap between all the above. Find the ground of Objectivity to which you can start eliminating ideas. Good luck with that, as we’ve tied ourselves in enough knots given issues of epistemology and linguistics. Oh…and those Postmodernists knocking on your door aren’t going to help.
The Low Issue (for ye Pragmatists) is on a practical level, how do we negotiate a living space for all these ideas given that the High Issue is not going to be solved to everyone’s satisfaction anytime soon.
ex. Yes i’ve seen Jesus Camp, yes i think its disturbing. So what? Even if i somehow had the power to enact a law against such things and the ability to enforce it, all i’m going to get is a counter/sub cultural movement against my actions.
That and i’ve probably trampled on the acknowledged rights enshrined and granted by the society i live in.
