The Order of Rank (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, April 27, 2012, 03:18 (4592 days ago) @ dhw

dhw, I'm going to answer you here in small chunks. -> MATT: We have finally reached the point where we can start discussing what I have always felt was the *only* distinction between theists, agnostics, and atheists.
> 
> What kinds of explanations hold more weight? [...]
> If I say lightning is 
> 1. caused by a difference in potential between positively charged particles and negatively charged particles, is that explanation better than 
> 2. "Zeus throws lightning from Olympus?"
> 
> Now, dhw is right--the ultimate truth is sincerely unknowable. How do we know when we've reached it? My position now--as it has been all along--is that ultimate truth is irrelevant. Only if you become God can you gain it, so that entire avenue is done before it begins.
> 
> We are in agreement that the commonsense level is the only one that enables us to continue our discussions, though that still doesn't mean that scientific theories are always better than any others. We discussed this issue under Re: dhw ... Epistemological Framework (Order of Rank?), and I quote my response on 1 February 2011 at 20.05, which sums up my position:
> -To throw your own question back at you, how do you decide what question is and is not answerable by science? What criteria can you use?-> "My subjective view of "rank" is that it all depends on the topic under discussion and on the purpose of the discussion. If we're studying how the material world works ... the cosmos, the Earth, the body ... I think it would be foolish not to acknowledge the absolute supremacy of science. For all its inadequacies, it has the tools for examining and testing, and our technological and medical triumphs alone prove that it's possible to gain knowledge, which in these fields is indeed the priority.
> 
> However, if the topic is whether the mechanisms of life are too complex to have arisen by chance, whether our mental faculties and emotions are solely the product of chemicals, whether there's a life after death, whether there's some kind of universal intelligence at work, scientific materialism is not equipped to answer.-I will then argue, that if scientific materialism isn't equipped to answer them, than neither is any alternative form of inquiry.

--
\"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.\"