At 10:02 AM 10/18/2000, you wrote:
>SJ>Here is a test of "dogmatism". I have in the past stated that I am prepared
>to admit that I could be completely wrong about theism, Christianity, ID
>and/or creationism and that atheism, Darwinism, and/or naturalistic
>evolution could be completely right.
>
>I have invited Chris and other atheists to similarly state publicly that
>they could be completely wrong about atheism, Darwinism, and/or naturalistic
>evolution and that theism, Christianity, ID and/or creationism could be
>completely right.
>To date, AFAIK, no atheist has been willing to admit this.
Chris
Though I've responded to Jones' post earlier, I decided I had some more to
say on the general topic.
Whether I admit that I could be wrong about something depends one whether I
think the negation of what I *do* hold is logically possible. I don't
believe that the various mainstream Gods of Christianity *are* logically
possible, so the first thing that would have to be done would be to show
that they are in fact logically coherent Gods.
ID is a different matter, but it depends on what variant of ID is being
asked about. Since Jones' variant depends on his variant of Christianity,
I'd have to reject it outright as being logically impossible. Other
variants could be, given the evidence, possible in an abstract sense,
though I don't believe that any of them are really "live" possibilities,
given the lack of any need for such extreme theories to deal with the
evidence we have so far amassed.
Creationism, as a Christian doctrine, cannot be true because the God
involved cannot exist, but non-theistic variants could in principle, be
true, in the sense that we don't have positive evidence that flatly
contradicts the proposition that something created the world and life via a
process that results in the appearance of a universe that is at least some
12 billion years old, and an Earth that has the appearance of being a few
billion years old itself, etc. Without plausible positive support, however,
this, too, is not a "live" possibility, especially since no one seems to
know of any good reason why a being capable of such feats would have the
slightest interest in creating a universe that, at its inception, was
already apparently well along in its "life" span.
Atheism, as the doctrine that there cannot be an ultimate personal supreme
being, in my case, rests on the idea that a supreme being would have to be
composed of some sort of pre-existing "stuff." This would make him less
than the Gods of mainstream theistic beliefs, in general. Also, much of my
theism is merely a *presumption* that Existence is "innocent" of having a
God in it until it is proved "guilty" of having a God. Since I do not see
any logically possible mechanism for proving the existence of a truly
supernatural being, even if it happened to exist, I would say that my
atheism is a pretty safe bet.
One of my general principles is to keep my mind open to reality by
rejecting obviously pre-mature or un-provable claims, at least in
philosophy. Theism, in nearly all serious forms that I know of (perhaps a
dozen or more, with many sub-variants), is cognitively unsupportable or
merely amounts to redefining something naturalistic as God (some have
claimed that God was the hydrogen atom, etc.).
Since I also reject such radical re-definitions unless there is a good
*cognitive* basis for making them, I also reject using the word God to
designate the hydrogen atom or energy or even the Universe in general. Such
re-definitions are guaranteed to cause confusion and conceptual muddles,
and they are only justified in situations where theological dishonesty with
other people is justified, such as to save one's skin when amongst
not-quite-so-liberal theists; sometimes such people will be more tolerant
of a person who merely re-defines "God" than of one who claims no belief in
God at all.
In short, whether one *should* admit that one could be completely wrong
about something depends on its epistemological status. Scientific ideas
can, in principle, be either falsified or superceded by broader/deeper
theories. Certain philosophical ideas do not allow for such flexibility.
*My* belief that I exist, for example, is not subject to such revision
(though I'd be willing to entertain (or at least amuse) any claims to the
effect that it could be! :-) ).
One of the reasons I make fun of Johnson's book title: "Defeating Darwinism
by Opening Minds" is that that, of course, is precisely what he seeks *not*
to do, as I've already illustrated in evaluating some remarks from the
book. If you "open" your mind and then, out of bad habits of thought, fill
it with illogical and outright irrational and impossible nonsense, you have
not done yourself a favor. If I ever write a book about Johnson's work, I
will be tempted to title it something closer to Johnson's *actual* goals:
"Defeating Darwinism by Making People Stupid."
The point is that whether a theory might be wrong depends on the kind of
support it has (and the kind of support that *that* support has, if any,
and so on). Jones' attempts at claiming (by implication, mostly) that the
claims of non-naturalism need no special cognitive support beyond what is
needed by the belief in the natural world suggest that he is not aware of
this distinction, so perhaps, in his mind, the claims of science, the
claims of logic and mathematics, and the absolute primaries of rational
philosophy are all on the same level and subject to the same kinds and
degrees of doubt. But they are not. Thus, it makes very little sense to
group Christianity, theism, ID-theory, Darwinism, naturalistic evolution,
and creationism all together and ask if one could be completely wrong or
right about them.
It is also, might I add, hardly evidence of "dogmatism" if one holds
certain ideas as being necessarily true and others as being logically
contradictory and therefore false or nonsensical. It depends on *why* one
holds these views about such ideas, and on one's willingness or eagerness
to place them up for testing by any means available. I cannot rationally
believe that I do not exist, but I would generally find it interesting to
examine any alleged evidence that I don't exist, even though I cannot
seriously even begin to doubt such a belief in my own existence. I must
exist; I write posts. :-)
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