RE: Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position
February 14, 2020 at 7:52 pm
(This post was last modified: February 14, 2020 at 7:54 pm by Belacqua.)
(February 14, 2020 at 5:13 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Hey there,
Non religious people tend to overly use words without thinking about them, just like many religious people do, only in a much more dishonest manner.
This seems a bit over-general to me. It's true that human beings tend to use words that we haven't thought about much. I think we pretty much have to do this. But to say that non-religious people as a group are more dishonest about it surely isn't fair. There are honest ones and dishonest ones.
Quote:Let's take the motto "I believe in science" for example
I can see how "believe in science" could be problematic. Science is a method. Still, if people say that they consider it to be the best method for studying the world, that's a reasonable position.
Quote:So the purpose of science is attempts to figure out a posteriori how stuff works. Religion is about wondering why there is an a priori to discover in the first place. These are two entirely distinct compartments. Huge advancements in one don't negate the importance of the other.
Yes, this makes sense. Science and religion do different things, and we get in trouble when we pretend they are the same.
Some vehement atheists seem to think that religion is always just failed science, and that's not true. Some vehement religious people think that religion should overrule the discoveries of science, and that's also bad.
Quote:Saying that you're open to science discovering god is a grave misunderstanding of both science and religion.
I agree with this. Questions about God are metaphysics, and therefore not science by definition. But that doesn't lead me to agree with the sentence you wrote prior:
Quote:The only honest position is actually to take one of the two extremes.
It is perfectly honest for many people to say that they don't know, that they're still working on it. Honesty doesn't require us to pick one team and oppose the other one.