Evolution, Science & Religion (Evolution)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, June 21, 2012, 23:55 (4326 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Here and in your latest response to Romansh you are arguing against materialism, but that is not the subject you and I are discussing! I stated explicitly in the post to which you are replying: "the overall quest for so-called "truth" does not entail one branch of knowledge excluding others, or even taking precedence over others" ... see also my next quote:
> 
> Agreed. They are equal. They all are different perspectives. They are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. 
> 
> > 
> > DHW: There are many forms of understanding ... intuitive, spiritual, purely materialistic, theistic ... and while some may overlap, some cannot possibly agree. 
> > 
> > TONY: If you do not KNOW it from all of those angles then you do not UNDERSTAND it.
> > 
> > As far as we are aware, nobody UNDERSTANDS it, from no matter which angle or how many angles. Only blinkered fundamentalists (religious and anti-religious) even CLAIM to understand it. Every single world view is subjective, and unless there really is a God and he decides to tell us the whole story, we shall never know the objective truth. 
> 
> Agreed. No one currently understands it, from any angle. I do not claim to understand it myself. I only posit that understanding can only come from the application of all of the disciplines in a unified manner. 
> -My argument, and indeed dhw's argument as I interpret it, is that it is precisely this "unified" that doesn't exist. There are places where no matter how hard you try... a square peg won't fit in a round hole. It is these gaps that will always require HUGE jumps of faith to bridge. If you haven't met me, I'm the guy that is generally anti-faith. Not anti-faith as in anti-religion, but anti-faith in that I don't believe that faith is an appropriate strategy to deal with the universe. -> 
> > And that is the source of most of our misunderstandings in this discussion. You have an anti-materialist agenda, but I am not defending or attacking materialism any more than I am defending or attacking the study of ancient texts. I am merely saying that if I want to study the material world, I'll turn to science, and if I want to study the non-material aspects of the world, I'll turn to philosophy. Neither will give me the objective truth, but perhaps I'll find a subjective world view that satisfies me. We will never ever be able to unify all world views, i.e. there can never ever be "unity between the various schools of thought". That can only happen if there is a God who chooses to enlighten us.
> 
> Surpisingly enough, my agenda is not actually anti-materialist, though I know it seems that way. I am not even certain I would call it an agenda, as I have absolutely nothing to lose or gain from anyone sharing my worldview. My perspective, though, is that a unilateral world view based solely on materialism or naturalism is dysfunctional, and that the evidence of that dysfunction is all around us. This same argument could be applied to any of the disciplines; theology, philosophy etc. A unilateral materialistic world view is precisely the mentality that the militant atheist like Dawkins are proposing, and is also the prevailing mindset of the world today. Hence the reason that it has been the focus of my discussion. If the dominant philosophy was religion and it was being applied unilaterally to our destruction, I would be arguing against it just as hard. There is a very very good reason that I chose the screen name Balance_Maintained. I think that sums up my position.-You're either becoming as mercurial as myself, or you always were. This is a Nietzschean statement of profound entanglement. -I don't believe at all that science is destroying us. In the worst case--global warming. But both yourself and David don't agree that it is occurring. What else does that leave?-There have been less wars in the 20th century than in the first half of the 19th alone. -We're not about to come unglued from the hinges and destroy each other. The crime rate in the US over the least 20 years demonstrates that we're on a massive "pacification" of our violent tendencies. -So what then, is it... that you seem to be fighting against, Tony?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"