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[yak@collab] Re: -> fundamentalism

To: yak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "Peter P. Jones" <ppj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:15:12 -0000
Message-id: <4001D900.8364.7A41AE@localhost>
On 11 Jan 2004 at 15:37, Chris Dent wrote:    (01)

[...]
> 
> Many people who complain about fundamentalist thinking have
> problems with it because they (the complainers) have the mistaken
> belief that there is a form of thought that is not based on faith and
> that that form is closer to some absolute form of correct. That belief
> is fundamentalism in a nutshell.
> 
> It's faith all the way down, whether your god is Science or Shiva.    (02)

(Ahem) I wish to disagree.
It isn't faith all the way down, it's reason.     (03)

Here we are in the universe...    (04)

Either there is something beyond or there isn't.
If there is then we'll be ignorant of it.
If there isn't something beyond then there isn't, so we don't have to 
worry.
Therefore, we reason that at one side there might be ignorance.
At what point does that acknowledgement require faith? Surely it is 
reasoned?    (05)

Within what universe we know, many people reason that it is more 
instrumental to believe in critical reason as providing better 
explanations. They don't have to have faith in reason to do that - 
they know it's better because the results are better 'in concreto': 
it is continuously testable.    (06)

-- 
Peter    (07)

-- 
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