PZ Watch 06.15.10

PZ takes the standard anti-ecclesiastical approach to religions, all of them.

If religions were true, they would be consistent. If religions were consistent then they would all produce the same answers, especially morals. But also consistent theology. And they would produce consistent knowledge of material laws of the universe. They don’t so that, so they are false, all of them. If religions are false, then Atheism is justified.

Well, they can’t all be right. In fact, none of them are right. A deity is as mysterious to the Theist as it is to an Atheist, the only difference being that Atheists deny the existence of a deity based on the Theist’s inability to make a deity seem materially coherent enough to satisfy the Atheist. Theists make their mistake in trying to do so.

It should be obvious that those contending to know the attributes and “mind” of a deity cannot be telling the truth, no matter what “religion” they profess. A deity is not material, not mass / energy, not observable, not testable, not accessible to scientific material procedures for either confirmation or denial. Science has no say in the matter, regardless of the attitudes of some “scientists”. It is equally obvious that those contending to know that there is no deity cannot be telling the truth, either.

PZ:

“It's also not scientism. There is no expectation that a system for generating knowledge has to follow a narrowly defined scientific method (although no one has yet shown us a functioning alternative.)

“Here's the logic behind the scientific rejection of religion, ….

“The success of science has shown us what an effective knowledge generator accomplishes: it produces consensus and an increasing body of support for its conclusions, and it has observable effects, specifically improvements in our understanding and ability to manipulate the world. We can share evidence that other people can evaluate and replicate, and an idea can spread because it works and is independently verifiable”

Religion does not generate material knowledge. It is not supposed to. Religions acknowledge a greater reality than the material, most of them acknowledge a creating entity that is not material; they generate codes for behavior, and ultimately, attempt for wisdom. Some religions contradict other religions. This in no way invalidates the probability of the existence of a First Cause for a rational universe.

It is irrational to reject the first cause due to the erroneous attempts by humans to quantify and qualify a being that is in no way coherent within our material limits. But this is exactly the constraint that Philosophical Materialists place upon a deity: it must be materially apprehended and comprehended, and replicably tested by its material effects, upon command of the experimenter.

Here is an expanded version of PZ’s statement, including the addition of the presupposition of Materialism as a statement:

”It's also not scientism. There is no expectation that a system for generating [MATERIAL] knowledge has to follow a narrowly defined scientific method (although no one has yet shown us a functioning alternative.)

“Here's the logic behind the scientific rejection of religion….

The success of science has shown us what an effective {MATERIAL] knowledge generator accomplishes: it produces consensus and an increasing body of support for its [MATERIAL] conclusions, and it has [MATERIALLY] observable [MATERIAL] effects, specifically improvements in our understanding and ability to manipulate the [MATERIAL] world. We can share [MATERIAL] evidence that other people can evaluate and [MATERIALLY] replicate, and an idea can spread because it works and is independently [MATERIALLY] verifiable.”

The presupposition that all knowledge is material and is generated by replicable experiments is false. Under these conditions, no abstract thinking is viable as knowledge or producing knowledge, or producing wisdom. No abstract concepts of things like love, compassion, justice or truth exist as knowledge. No designs of material objects exist as knowledge; patents are not knowledge; laws are not knowledge; history is not knowledge; no forensic science produces knowledge (this includes paleo-science).

The pretensions of “scientists” as the ultimate repositories of knowledge based on empiricism alone is ludicrous. No scientific precept is anything more than a tentative factoid, which might be overturned by the next technological development. Scientific “knowledge” is always contingent: always. Science can be practiced without the knowledge of, or acknowledgment of universals, such as First Principles. Science is a procedure. Wisdom, on the other hand, is a universal; if attained it references universal, non-contingent truths.

The absolute last place one would look for “wisdom” is science. Many in science deny that wisdom even exists. In fact they have a long list of things that cannot exist, including consciousness, agency, life essence, even the “self”, and definitely the intentional mind. (Man is a “meat machine”; a host for DNA).

Not so oddly, Atheo-biologists are in the lead when it comes to scientific denial. But despite their other denials, evolution is a secular-sacred, unquestionable precept in their construction of a personal vision of reality, regardless of the lack of experimental proof and independent verification, which PZ insists upon for knowledge generation. Evolution depends completely upon extrapolations from instances, which is another definition of religion, this time a secular religion. These extrapolations are inferred projections, not empirical knowledge in the form PZ claims.

And not so oddly, Atheists do claim to have a corner on ethical behavior, which they define through Consequentialism and Humanism. This comes to them as knowledge via introspection, one presumes, and despite the lessons of historical instances of Consequentialist Humanism in the 20th century’s darkest social experiments.

So knowledge is only what you want it to be, whatever you say it is, if you are an Atheo-science proponent. You then are free to define anything and everything however you wish. It’s good to be totally unencumbered by anything but experiments (and only select experiments at that).

Interestingly, logic also cannot be experimentally verified, without first accepting logic as valid without the experimental verification. So logic doesn’t exist as an entity either. And life just gets easier for Atheists.

PZ concludes,

” Just because the fervency of a belief smothers those who hold it into a vision of the world does not make it true, and definitely does not make it exempt from treating it as a hypothesis, and evaluating whether it is actually true or not.”

To which we must agree if and only if the premises, axioms and presuppositions are also true (Philosophical Materialism is not a valid premise); and for Atheists there is no Truth, it is all relative. So their evaluation of an hypothesis must be carefully re-evaluated under the cognizance that Philosophical Materialism is their only Truth, and will be presupposed as an axiom.