Truth About the Atehist Take on Knolwedge

One of the greatest ironies in life is how this group that prides itself upon being smarter than their hated enemy the Christians, and that prides itself on "free thinking," they think for themselves and love knowledge and learning, they are so very smart, are actually narrow minded and opposed to learning. Not only do they reduce all knowledge one kind (science) but they are also indignant and insulting toward those who seek learning. Nothing is more telling of the anti-intellectual than their hatred of scholarship.


Tralala
on CARM a few
days ago

 What does arguing and studying the minutia of bronze age mens writing really give back? Its not like they actually expect to find something that will have practical value.Mostly it seems it is just about confirming their own belief system. Not exactly the same results to give to the world as applying one mind to working on cancer research or even being an artist. Even Newton wasted a huge amount of his time doing this. It is such a waste of human potential.

Or am I missing something? Is there something useful that comes from all this effort other than self gratification?

 Square one

In the modern era I would say zero great minds are wasted on this.

A great mind would have the wherewithal to abandon religion.

I'm moderately intelligent and I managed. So those who are much smarter than I am, the "great minds" really have no excuse.

Newton's excuse was the general ignorance of his age.

MarkUK

 Being a Bible Scholar is like being a Batman scholar

What? Golden age Batman? Silver age Batman? Dark Knight?


My response?




Meta:

why do atheists want to be stupid?
Look at the attitude toward learning and knowledge:

linked to the stuff above.

History is nothing but study of the past is stupid. scinece is the only thing there is. But they can't think scientifically becuase they don't know anything. When faced with the the reality of social science reserach they fall back on silly prejudice and mocking rather than real methodological analysis.

It has been demonstrated over and over again that theology is good and valuable. It' s utterly stupid to think that major intellectuals are wasting their time on something they spend their lives studying. they know more than you and they are smarter so obviously they see stuff you don't see. Maybe atheist are just too stupid to get it? HU? Everything has to be measured by scinece, but not real science, their little ideological version of scinece. The ideological version is actually anti- scientific.In their view scinece = atheism. scinece is the enforcement mechanism of atheists. all the studies and research they just ignore until it say stuff they like. that is anti-scientific.

down with history
down with social scinece
down with art
down with logic
down with thinking

the only thing there is is learning how the physical world works reduce everything to that lose the phenomena. Look BT he says we understand all about feelings because we know how to manipulate them with brain chemistry.

I say what about X,Y,Z we don't understand that

He says that's not worth understanding becuase its not derived at though our methods. that means it's subjective so we can wipe that out. That just means that you are losing the phenomena. Rather than explaining it you are just hiding the bit you can't answer. tha'ts not scinece.

He has this preconceived idea about objectivity and subjectivity and anything not amenable to his research method he's going to write off as unimportant is that scinece did it? I don't think so. I think that's ideology rather than scinece. They reduce everything to this one form of knowledge but then that one forms shows the inadequacy of their views They sacrifice even that one form of knowledge.

Do you get that? He says we understand all about it, I point out an area about ti we don' t understand, he says that's not worth understanding because it can't be subjected to our methods. So in others if we don't control it and we can't already understand, if it doesn't fit our agenda, then it's not worth understanding. He should say "we understand all that we care to understand about feelings." Which ant much.

Hilly Billy: "Your bald assertions are not demonstrations."

All you have to do is look at their words.

he says:

"You have yet to demonstrate even once "that theology is good and valuable".

Of course they wont accept that it matters that it's good at its own task because that's about God so that' no good. That's just circular reasoning. Typical circular reasoning that allows them to rationalize their ideology. When I've given examples of theolgoians doing good things in other areas such as the contribution of Alfred North Whitehead to Mathematics:

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was a British mathematician, logician and philosopher best known for his work in mathematical logic and the philosophy of science. In collaboration with Bertrand Russell, he co-authored the landmark three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910, 1912, 1913). Later he was instrumental in pioneering the approach to metaphysics now known as process philosophy.[1]

also:

Principia Mathematica, the landmark work in formal logic written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, was first published in three volumes in 1910, 1912 and 1913. Written as a defense of logicism (the view that mathematics is in some significant sense reducible to logic) the book was instrumental in developing and popularizing modern mathematical logic. It also served as a major impetus for research in the foundations of mathematics throughout the twentieth century. Along with the Organon written by Aristotle and the Grundgesetze der Arithmetik written by Gottlob Frege, it remains one of the most influential books on logic ever written.[2]

 Also quoting Nancy Murphy in her book Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will states that theologian Hans Kung's article provides a fine overview for many of the conclusions reached by the volume. [3] The CARM atheist just say "big deal that's not their function as theologians so that's not a contribution from theology." Look at the ciruclar reasoning here. Theology is stupid becuase it's about God and we don't believe in God becuase theology is stupid. If that's not enough the when you show theologians doing good thing sin other ares it doesn't count for theology becuase it's not theology. But theology is stupid a priori becuase its about God so nothing could ever count in its favor.

 Is it just the CARM atheists who talk this way? See my article "anti-intellectual tendencies of New Atheism" [4] where I quote Larry Moran, PZ Myers, and Dawkins making more sophisticated version of the same kind of circular Bull Honky do do. this is from my article:

 The Courtier's Reply
by PZ Myers

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.

Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.

Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

 In other words, knowledge of theological subjects is just plain bull shit and it doesn't matter if Dawkins doesn't understand it because it's not worth understanding. So it's not valid criticism of him to say that. Except the problem is, if he understood theology he would see that his criticisms are wrong. The criticisms he makes are almost always about fundamentalists views. Since he refuses to accept that there are other non fundamentalist types of theology, when you point it out he just says O that's ridiculous because all theology is crap so it doesn't matter--but if he knew that he might not make the criticisms becasue they don't apply. But it's not worthing knowing that. he's just reasoning in a cirlce.

They are basically saying that history, literature, philosophy, logic, Sociology, Anthropology all forms of human knowledge are as useless as outmoded fashion. Only scinece matters. They then deny that it's an ideology but one the major hall makrs of ideology is reducing all forms of knowledge to the ideology.

Why would anyone want to be part of movement that is dedicated to the destruction of learning? A movmeent that openly expresses it's contempt for intellectual endeavors?



sources

[1]Irvine, Andrew David, "Alfred North Whitehead", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=whitehead
accesed 10/9/13

[2] Irvine, Andrew David, "Principia Mathematica", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/principia-mathematica/
accessed 10/9/13

[3]Nancy Murphy, George FR Ellis, Timothy O'Connor, Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2009, 24.

[4] Metacrock, "Anti-Intellectual Tendencies of New Atheism," Atheistwatch, Nov 13, 2012.
http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2012/11/anti-intellectual-tendencies-of-new.html
accessed 10/9/13