I don't deny an atheist's faith in the absolute, but keep in mind that I base my views on physics as we can now comprehend them--there are no absolutes.
I don't need faith in the absolute to be an atheist any more than I need it to put my coffee cup down on the desk every day without first putting down a couple of towels underneath in case all the atoms in the desk spontaneously decide to rearrange themselves and let my coffee cup fall through. Science assures us that there is certainly enough empty space in the desk to make a hole big enough for my coffee cup, should it be properly arranged; both science and philosophy assure us that they cannot prove that such a thing will not happen in the next five minutes. And if it makes you happy to keep these possibilities in mind, feel free; I think they are neat thought experiments that keep alive our sense of wonder & possibility in the world. But what I take exception to is your statement that "agnosticism is a more valid scientific spiritual path": it sounds to me as though you are saying that it would be more scientific to put down the towels. And with that I disagree. I'm going to use dictionary.com's briefest description of the scientific method:
Scientific method, the method employed in exact science and consisting of: (a) Careful and abundant observation and experiment. (b) generalization of the results into formulated ``Laws'' and statements.
Careful and abundant observation and experiment, as well as reading other people's research, lead me to formulate the statement that the possibility of the table's spontaneously rearranging itself to my coffee cup's detriment is vanishingly, vanishingly small; so small that I need not take it into account. It is still possible. But I am not discounting physics when I ignore that possibility. And I am being just as scientific when I ignore the possibility of the existence of any or all gods.
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Date: 2004-10-06 06:18 pm (UTC)I don't need faith in the absolute to be an atheist any more than I need it to put my coffee cup down on the desk every day without first putting down a couple of towels underneath in case all the atoms in the desk spontaneously decide to rearrange themselves and let my coffee cup fall through. Science assures us that there is certainly enough empty space in the desk to make a hole big enough for my coffee cup, should it be properly arranged; both science and philosophy assure us that they cannot prove that such a thing will not happen in the next five minutes. And if it makes you happy to keep these possibilities in mind, feel free; I think they are neat thought experiments that keep alive our sense of wonder & possibility in the world. But what I take exception to is your statement that "agnosticism is a more valid scientific spiritual path": it sounds to me as though you are saying that it would be more scientific to put down the towels. And with that I disagree. I'm going to use dictionary.com's briefest description of the scientific method:
Scientific method, the method employed in exact science and consisting of: (a) Careful and abundant observation and experiment. (b) generalization of the results into formulated ``Laws'' and statements.
Careful and abundant observation and experiment, as well as reading other people's research, lead me to formulate the statement that the possibility of the table's spontaneously rearranging itself to my coffee cup's detriment is vanishingly, vanishingly small; so small that I need not take it into account. It is still possible. But I am not discounting physics when I ignore that possibility. And I am being just as scientific when I ignore the possibility of the existence of any or all gods.