I am sorry, Mr Dawkins, you are sadly mistaken!
1st June 2006
You claim that you are dedicated to seek truth and that through science and the scientific method you and your cohorts have the monopoly on Truth. By “your cohorts,” I mean those who take science to be the only source of human knowledge and who champion the scientific method as the only route to acquiring knowledge. You also claim that religion is opposed to Truth just because it is in the domain of faith. For you, faith is any belief that isn’t based on evidence. You assume that science is not like religion because science has no room for faith.
You claim to know a whole bunch of stuff through your science, but alas, in reality science gives you precious little knowledge about a whole bunch of other stuff. Science will be hard pressed, for instance, to tell us about the true nature of light, space and time. Even your most esteemed colleagues argue about the very nature of these matters.
If you think you have evidence for these phenomena, stop for a moment and think. Perhaps what you suppose are your evidence are but constructs of your mind and conventions about which we have all gotten familiar. Perhaps we are so used to these concepts that we do not realize that they are after all quite mysterious.
You see, Mr Dawkins, the world of ours is rather complex. It just cannot be compartmentalized into those that are evidential and those that aren’t. The world is not just made up of scientific facts and non-scientific mambo-jumbo. In fact, there is a continuum from material objects to immaterial entities.
Among those that tend towards the opposite end of the spectrum from empirical matter, Mr Dawkins are those things that surround, come between, and interact with human beings like you and me. I mean, Mr Dawkins, when was the last time you look through a microscope and see “love” and “compassion”. How do you distill in your test-tubes honor, bravery, friendship and betrayal? How do you define truth in music? How do you test taste, aesthetics and culture? What is the meaning of meaning? What is language? What are ideas? What are concepts?
You claim to be irreligious because you do not have faith. But you really do have faith and lots of it. You say, your religion is science (actually you say we who are “religious” accuse you erroneously that your religion is science), but actually your religion is scientism. Contrary to your belief, we who are religious are not all anti-science. Sure, you caricature the fundamentalists among us as the epitome of those who have faith, but many of us have faith without falling into the error of fundamentalism, authoritarianism, absolutism and dogmatism.
In fact, Mr Dawkins, perhaps you are in danger of doing so yourself. You, Mr Dawkins, are the epitome of worst of the Error of Fundamentalism (Yes, with a capital “E” and a capital “F”). If religious fundamentalism leads to all kinds of vices in the name of religion, then atheistic fundamentalism as you exhibit it, Mr Dawkins might lead to similar if not worse, vices in the name of science. The evidence I have in support of this are your suggestions regarding child abuse, education and in fact, your harsh, arrogant and unconcienably rude behavior and disregard for the dignity of those who do not share your faith. Yes, and I do accuse you of having Faith, Mr Dawkins!
While I do agree with your attack on religious fundamentalism and intolerant dogmatism, I think that you have made a grave error of lumping all religious expression with one broad stroke. It would be a terrible day indeed if Scientism as you have exhibited it were to take over our society. For science has its place, as does religion, in the world of humans.
Let us not pit one rich and beautiful aspect of our race against another. Let us drop the arrogance. In so doing, perhaps, we can all live together in harmony and in humility, learning from each another.
Other posts of interest:
Are religious people less intelligent?
The Problem with Dogmatism
Scientific and Religious Dogmatism
Technorati Tags: empiricism, scientism, science, scientific method, truth, religion, faith, tolerance, humanity, culture, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, atheism, fundamentalism, dogmatism
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:00 am
Science is what as humans how wooutld i say explain the things in our perspective!!!! Actually it is uncalled for a debate rather an opinion, it is a question of belief & knowledge? A perfect example of this are those people in tribes! Their faith must have been never heard of neither the rules of gravity by Newton but they do exist! People judge according to what they know, experinece & belief etc. We are entitle to our own opinion & to the extend of that are also accountable to what we live for! If u think that what makes you feel or free from guilt then go ahead live your life according to it. As what it is said & written in the bible you will be judge according to what you use to judge others.
June 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 am
The main problem with science is that it only seeks to answer the questions it defines. There is no room in science to answer questions that are not part of the process. If for example I look for the composition of atoms, that’s what I’m going to find… but that doesn’t answer the question of why something is the way it is, why it has a certain effect on me (you already mentioned beauty and music as examples), how it came to be this way and not one of the millions of other ways it could have turned out if this is all just coincidence…
June 2nd, 2006 at 7:50 am
Great post! I’m not sure how my post on the Dixie Chicks beat this passtionate diatribe last night!
June 8th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Well put.
I found this post through the Christian Carnival.