Maths, science, culture and religion

Monday, December 24, 2012

Stop abusing science as a rhetorical bludgeon


Some (e.g. Richard Dawkins) think 

“it is time to leave superstition behind and embrace the beauty and challenges of the world without supernatural beings. We … use critical thinking to overcome religious fundamentalism, intolerance, and human suffering.”

Others think that it is rather time to leave behind slogans and clichés based on 19th century philosophy of science and embrace the insipartion and challenges coming from the interrelation of new physics and metaphysics, without a priori materialist (metaphysical) restrictions. Because, as J. W. Goethe put in his ‘Faust’, 

“True, human beings may abound
Who growl at things beyond their ken, 
Mocking the beautiful and good,
And all they haven't understood”

It is time to stop misusing science as a a rhetorical bludgeon against this or that world-view, and instead use critical thinking to overcome intolerance towards other world-views - theist or atheist - (and human suffering often resulting thereof).