08-19-2017, 10:04 PM
(08-19-2017, 06:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(08-19-2017, 03:38 PM)Mikebert Wrote: You are clearly coming at this from a humanities angle. I thought you were in a technical field?
A scientific approach starts with conjecture. It then uses the tools of logic (although not as well as philosophers) to derived consequences/predictions. Then it looks for them either in a controlled study (analogous to laboratory experiments) or in the observable world (analogous to observational sciences like astronomy).
A humanist approach is to compare and contrast which of various conjectures and logical arguments derived from them seems to fit best with how reality appears now. Thus, radically different "interpretations" of the same writings of a dead person (which cannot actually change) can appear at various times all based on the exact same source material.
I come from software engineering, for what that's worth.
I think of my own values as science first, political / philosophy second, with religion third.
When working in science, I vastly prefer to see both the premise and the conclusion confirmed through experimentation or observation. If not, it is questionable science. Conjecture is fine, but only to suggest what experiments and observations ought to be tried. An example conjecture might be that gravity causes massive objects to be attracted to one another. Nice conjecture, but I'd want to see equations written and observations confirming the equations before I'd call it science.
With political philosophy, it is hard to prove that all men are created equal under law. That's more an assumption one makes which sounds good and one desires it to be true. You end up striving to assure such values which one knows are floating in thin air. One has to look hard at the results of people striving for such goals. I end up saying equality under law is one base premise of democracy, and democracy has fared well for the common man as compared to authoritarianism. If one wants anything like scientific objectivity, one must frequently look at the results of various assumptions.
With religion, you have lots of wisdom of the ages, but also lots of contradiction, and lots of alleged supernatural effects contradicting what has been observed in the real world. I've no objection to cherry picking wisdom of the ages, but again you have to make sure the results are working. You know Jesus loved peace, and peace makes one feel good, but has Christianity always resulted in peace? If not, why not? Should one look skeptically at certain branches of Christianity?
I've no real objection to your perspective, and if it helps you to understand things, fine. It's not really my approach though.
The prophets are generally decent-enough fellows, but the priests become like bureaucrats. The Prophet may be in the ether in denunciation of peace, love, kindness, and vision while the priests have more down-to-earth concerns. Like their own comfort and indulgence which make it possible to make critical decisions. That implies fund-raising, which often means scaring people to put a few more denarii (or later dinars or dimes) into the collection plate. Or (once the religious belief is no longer obscure or underground) political power.
Would Jesus have ever called for a Crusade? Of course not.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.