Posts by slimboyfat

If Bruce took calls from his friend Rawe after he became an apostate then it makes him a good human being (in my view) but also clearly a poor JW (according to their own rules).

10

Indoctrination or insistence on being right?

by OutsiderLookingIn in

nobody likes to be wrong.

so after being taught that they have "the truth" for so long, is it that jws just don't want to admit that they are wrong so they'll keep going in the same direction rather than reversing course?

this is different from indoctrination when you truly believe what you're saying.

slimboyfat

Indeed most often a complex mixture of both.

43

Who is B.W. Schulz? Anyone know?

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

i am writing an article on whether c.t.

russell was a mason.

i am of the opinion that he was not, given the evidence.. i just bought b.w.

slimboyfat

Wasn't Richard Rawe a well known apostate? Did Nathan Natas say B W Schulz was friends with Rawe?

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

"Scientism" tends to be used as a pejorative rather than a self-designation, we can probably agree on that. But the question is whether it can be well defined and has valid application. I think it can and it does. The original question was whether scientism is "nothing but" an insult. I would agree it's mostly used as an insult, but that it also has substance.

Scientism is the view that only science or the scientific method can deliver real knowledge. Other kinds of knowledge are either either collapsed into science or else they are not classed as real knowledge. Dawkins tends to do this when he disparages philosophy. And Harris does this when he claims ethics can be reduced to a branch of science. Dennett does this when he says consciousness can be reduced to physical properties. It's an extreme form of materialist reductionism. It is a fundamentalist position held by people who claim to oppose fundamentalism.

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

Sometimes I wonder if it's simply trolling. Like this exchange of comments on the second page where one poster made a long thoughtful post citing the example of mathematics, but also saying:

There are many examples I could offer, but the arguments are complex and I fear they might lead to off topic detours, so instead of discussing Leibniz, I will use a simple example that anyone can understand and agree with: mathematics... I could give you other examples but I trust I have made my point.

Cofty didn't respond to any of the part of the post discussing mathematics, instead simply making the comment:

I get the impression that the only example of things that cannot be known through empirical scientific evidence is pure mathematics.
Is that correct?

That's more than simply being obtuse, is it not? That's got to be deliberate trolling.

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

I made the above post yesterday in reply to a post a few pages back. It only just arrived so it's a bit out of context now.

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

It was you who asked if there is knowledge outside scientific method. Well there is. History is one example, there are others. Lesson learned.

You do have a rather amusing tendency to call any point you don't agree with "semantics". You can call anything semantics if you like, it doesn't change the situation.

There are important ways in which science and history (and other forms of knowledge) are distinct, not simply part of a continuum. For example emotion and empathy are no help and likely a hinderance to a chemistry experiment. The same is not true of history. If you remove emotion and empathy you don't get better history you get worse history. Science and history are different kinds of knowledge with different procedures and results. Scientism is the attitude that other forms of knowledge don't really count as knowledge. That attitude certainly does exist and is worth describing as such. Frankly I don't know if you have a scientistic outlook or not because your position changes from post to post. I'm not sure even you know what you think.

Many theists would say God acts through the physical world or that the physical world is an expression of God rather than that God acts "in" the physical world. As if he's yet another empirical object that could be captured and defined. It's by no means a necessary part of theism that God should break his own laws to make himself somehow conspicuous.

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

I don't think he's clear in his own mind. To Cofty the whole world can be divided into other opinions that are either "ignorant" and "bullshit" or else "unimportant" or "true but trivial". Often he switches from one to the other in the middle of the discussion!

147

Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?

by cofty in

it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.

if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.

followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.

slimboyfat

Well I'd be interested if there are any contemporary textbooks that categorise history as a science. They make the distinction as Tosh does as quoted above. Certainly adopting rigorous methods as far as possible but recognising it's a different kind of knowledge.

If you are simply saying history follows rigorous methods and can produce reliable results then I mostly agree with that.

I thought the debate was whether history is a "science". Clearly it is not a science for the reason above and others beside. But it is a legitimate form of knowledge.

Which I thought was the point of the thread.