Suspending belief in the absence of evidence is quite obviously more scientific than believing something for no compelling reason; this is the entire basis of my philosophical stance.
And yes, I think it’s totally reasonable to treat fairy-tales differently to genuine hypotheses - IMO it’s a pretty safe bet that any random malarkey pulled out of some long-dead goat-herder’s arse is extremely likely to be close to 100% bullshit and should be called out as such. I suppose this puts me towards the atheist end of the agnostic spectrum… I just wish more folks were aware that dribbling on about the unknowable with complete certainty is just plain crazy talk.
And unfortunately, that includes Dawkins’ brand of strong atheism.
[quote=“chgoliz, post:15, topic:17333”]
But then, I’m not really interested in converting either guy.[/quote]
The thing is, Dawkins is flat-out begging to be corrected. Here he is on this crusade to dramatically improve the world, but it’s as if he decided to do it walking backwards using a mirror to look over his shoulder - it’s a doomed effort from the outset. There are very many people in the world who at least suspect there’s something pretty interesting about the big picture that’s less than entirely obvious, and many others who are quite convinced something pretty trippy is going on, and Dawkins simply cuts no ice with these folks owing to his outright rejection of their hunch.
But if he was to quit rejecting the possibility of anything resembling the divine existing, he’d be far more equipped to reach out to all these folks and point out the commonality of their experience, and expose the dross that all those people argue over and do really stupid things in service of as just so much window-dressing and ancient social engineering. The crucial handicap afflicting humanity here is the intellectual prison of dogma and alienation from reason, not a suspicion that reality is too clever by half.
His life’s work is wasted because he’s confused the certainty that fairy-tales are bullshit with the certainty that anything that sounds like a fairy-tale has to be bullshit…
Dawkins should consider how amazing and unlikely the reality science has uncovered seems. He appears to lack wonder.
