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Originally Posted by roachboy
for example, i dont see where dawkins is in a position to claim that IN GENERAL religion is less rational than "science" IN GENERAL--first because neither category designates a single entity (like filtherton said above--to spin it a different way---within christianity, say, a cathlic theologian and a fundamentalist protestant do not share the same kind of approach to questions of religious belief, just as someone working within biological science out of a complex dynamic systems model is not operating with the same data, conceptual or argumentative frame as someone who works in mechanics--or even within biology on the basis of more traditional ways of modelling biological systems)--second: if you grant that the nouns dawkins is using refer to something, both are at one level or another built around deductive relations to the world....so at the level of logical procedures, someone working from either position could generate proofs that are equally correct. so a debate between the two positions is not really about which is more rational than the other, since rational can simply mean the ability to generate results within a given framework that do not violate the rules that make that frame operate. "true" results are those which follow from the data and rules for derivation without violation of those rules. a conflict between the two would really be about premises or axioms--which cannot be proven from within proofs that they shape in any event.
so the problem dawkins is getting at is not about one view being rational and the other not being rational--it is a conflict over axioms.
if that is accurate, then it seems stupid to cast it as if there was a conflict over who gets to call themselves more rational.
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I disagree that it is simply a conflict about their axioms.
If I understand what you're saying, roachboy, you're assuming that a religious society and an atheistic one will produce the same predictions of reality and only their models differ. Is this the case? If not, can you clarify? I found the quoted text hard to understand. In particular, it was difficult to descern your argument and even your point...
Again, if my understanding is correct, because their models produce different predicitons, it's pefectly reasonable to debate them, including their axioms...
Quote:
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Originally Posted by roachboy
for example, i dont see where dawkins is in a position to claim that IN GENERAL religion is less rational than "science" IN GENERAL--first because neither category designates a single entity (like filtherton said above--to spin it a different way---within christianity, say, a cathlic theologian and a fundamentalist protestant do not share the same kind of approach to questions of religious belief, just as someone working within biological science out of a complex dynamic systems model is not operating with the same data, conceptual or argumentative frame as someone who works in mechanics--or even within biology on the basis of more traditional ways of modelling biological systems)--second: if you grant that the nouns dawkins is using refer to something, both are at one level or another built around deductive relations to the world....so at the level of logical procedures, someone working from either position could generate proofs that are equally correct. so a debate between the two positions is not really about which is more rational than the other, since rational can simply mean the ability to generate results within a given framework that do not violate the rules that make that frame operate. "true" results are those which follow from the data and rules for derivation without violation of those rules. a conflict between the two would really be about premises or axioms--which cannot be proven from within proofs that they shape in any event.
so the problem dawkins is getting at is not about one view being rational and the other not being rational--it is a conflict over axioms.
if that is accurate, then it seems stupid to cast it as if there was a conflict over who gets to call themselves more rational.
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I disagree that it is simply a conflict over their axioms.
If I understand what you're saying, roachboy, you're assuming that a religious society and an atheistic one will produce the same predictions of reality and only their models differ. Is this the case? If not, can you clarify? I found the quoted text hard to understand. In particular, it was difficult to descern your argument and even your point...
Again, if my understanding is correct, because their models produce different predicitons, it's pefectly reasonable to debate them, including their axioms...