In the words of Richard Kluft, in an article pertaining to psychiatric research,
"I mention this because today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth."
That, in a nutshell, is what I take issue to. The same can be said of those who cling heavily to the religious camp but it would be applied in a different way. They are more determined to disprove other religions or belief systems than to prove their own. They take if for a given that they are right.
Dogmatic adherance to an opinion in the face of counterargument is unfavorable, I do agree.
But so to is the concept that criticism itself is insulting, and that disagreement is some terrible social break, and that all disagreements must be mediated and that comprimises must be found to advance. That's bullshit. Some ideas ARE wrong. Some opinions AREN'T valid. And invalid opinions SHOULD be questions, should be fought, and should be debated.
That's how you find out their invalidity.
DracoSuave said:
Being 'the voice of moderation' requires actually looking at both arguments, and coming to a reasonable conclusion based on the validity of the premises.
What you are doing here is intellectually equivalent to saying 'I DON'T CARE FIND MIDDLE GROUND' when that might not actually be the viable or honest position. For example... the middle ground is NOT reasonable in a case of Flat Earth vs Round Earth debate.
Again, I'm sorry if don't agree with me, but don't equate agnosticism with apathy and don't call me apathetic. I care very much about my position, why else would I risk the wrath of either side?
You didn't present an agnostic opinion. Moreover, the scientific opinion IS the agnostic opinion.
Your usage of the Flat v. Round earth argument is not the type of middle ground I am talking about. Now if you wanted to talk about how both positions were derived, that would be a worthy conversation since it would deal with scientific observation against (supposed) divine revelation. Those are two different lens for discerning truth. One was found to superior to the other. The question remaining would be "Is there ever a case that one is preferable to the other?" Science would say "Yes, it's always Science." Religion would say "Yes, it's always religion." I would say it depends on the situation.
That's a misrepresentation of the Science position, however, and that's the point I am getting it.
The scientific position is not 'We are always right!' and that's the problem with this.
The religious position is 'We are right, because it is written' and the scientific position is 'We have an idea, let's test it out to see if it mgiht be right.' The scientific position is ALWAYS tentative to further evidence, it is malleable based on observation. It is not a dogmatic position, it is the opposite of dogma. The only axioms science follows is 'There's a universe' and 'It works to certain rules' and 'Hopefully we can figure those rules out.'
The scientific side has, inherent to its position, the admission that it is wrong, and that is why science IS the agnostic position.
The position that the current understanding science has is correct is actually NOT the scientific opinion. The agnostic position IS the scientific opinion--the opinion that the scientific understanding must be infallably correct is a strawman misunderstanding of science.
Further, the religious side does NOT have a lens of truth. It has no way of expressing that it knows its premises. It has no way of showing KNOWLEDGE. Belief, yes. But knowledge requires more than belief, it requires believing in something that is true, and that can be demonstrated to be true via the belief's argument.
Religious opinions cannot be verified to be true, so it cannot be a lens to truth--in fact make religious precepts can be shown to be untrue--and often will not change beliefs once demonstrated to be untrue.
So even the position that 'both have their place' is invalid. You cannot demonstrate a single instance where religion--any religion--has any sort of demonstrable method to approach truth. Thus religion is an invalid argument.
That said, science is not the antithesis of religion, except that questioning ideas is the antithesis of accepting ideaes without questioning.
And that comes down to the central point of the thread: Faith is the accepting of ideas without question. Science REQUIRES questioning, and thus is NOT based on faith. even the scientific method itself is not accepted on faith--if a more reliable method is found, it will replace the current method.
You don't have to blow up at me I didn't poke your craw.