by Fernando 7 Replies latest jw friends
I would like to better understand what Richard Dawkins is saying and would appreciate your help, views and opinions, including the implications:
"Far from being demeaning to human spiritual values, scientific rationalism is the crowning glory of the human spirit."
Where God once stood Dawkins has put in his place the human mind. Whereas once God was relied upon as the source of truth, Dawkins supports the current orthodoxy that says truth is determined by human rationality.
This is a good book on the metaphysical assumptions lying behind the modern belief that human rationality is the source of truth.
What Dawkins has been trying to say is that the conceptualization of spirituality has had some incremental value for humanity but it is still rooted in unreliable basic human ignorance, that should not be forgotten about or disregarded from that fact.
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” - The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine
Rationalism is the exact opposite of religious fundamentalism.
What has more merit? To blindly believe something just because your parents do, without question, or to take the time and effort to research the beliefs that you have been told to live your life by.
From the interviews and discussions of Dawkins I have seen , one message I take from him is that 'living a good life is its own reward'.
Much of religion has at its root a fear of dying and the promise that it is possible to cheat death by living according to certain principles. Only your group know the secret to eternal life and only your group have gods favour.
From my experience, fundamentalism seems to be inversely proportional to reasoning ability. So, if a person can cast off generations of traditions and rituals, actually THINK for themselves and base their conclusions on verifiable evidence and then continue to live a good decent life, showing love and respect for their fellow man because they want to, not because they have to, and see the reason and logic for doing so, that, to me speaks well of what man can accomplish.
The alternative is to be a drone, passing your drone blueprint to your offspring ad nauseam.
He's saying after thousands of years of being at the mercy of ignorance of biology and cosmology and prey to religious leaders and their made up stories we are beginning through science to find out how we got here and what the universe is made of. Finding that we are animals is therefore not demeaning.
We have been on a long journey from looking up at the stars in wonder and asking who made it all to beginning to learn what our universe is all about. We should be proud of what we have become, he's saying. These apes have surpassed themselves. We done good.
Quote mining ...
truth is determined by human rationality - SBF
