Posted by fachad on October 28, 2002, at 20:15:08
In reply to Re: Lou's response to Liz's post: an example » fachad, posted by FredPotter on October 17, 2002, at 0:05:37
> Fachad I thought Galileo said, "It still moves" meaning the Earth.
You are right on the Galileo reference. I was just on a roll and going from memory.
>But it's not just that organized religion uses faith to get things wrong, but that its adherents are so horribly cruel to anyone who dares to disagree. I think that is what is so very, very bad about organized religion, particularly, it would seem, Christianity.
Yes, that is my big beef with dogmatic religion. And yes, historically, Christianity has been one of the biggest offenders. Not because it is any worse (or any better) than others, but because of accidents of history that gave it more power to enforce it's intolerance and inflict cruelty.
> However I think we should watch we don't get too naive about this "reality" business. Let's keep in mind Kant's (or was it Plato's?) distinction between Phenomenal and Noumenal.
It was Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781).
I was never advocating naive realism in the philosophical sense. I was speaking in the practical context of ordinary discourse.
To make the distinction clear, take the example of the solidity of a marble table. I may say it is solid, but a theoretical physicist may interject that it is not really solid; it has more empty space than solid matter. He may even tell me that there is no such thing as solid matter, and show elaborate equations as proofs.
But - if you smack you head against it - you will find that it does hurt, will leave a mark, and it's perfectly appropriate to say "it is solid".
In the same way philosophers try to make exact, technical descriptions of concepts like "truth", "reality", "knowledge" and find them problematic, more so since Kant. But in the ordinary sense, and from the practical standpoint that we use to conduct our lives, it's fair to say that something is "true" if it corresponds to what is "real".
> Fachad I thought Galileo said, "It still moves" meaning the Earth. Anyway he was a great and brave man. I agree with you basically. But it's not just that organised religion uses faith to get things wrong, but that its adherents are so horribly cruel to anyone who dares to disagree. I think that is what is so very, very bad about organised religion, particularly, it would seem, Christianity.
>
> However I think we should watch we don't get too naive about this "reality" business. Let's keep in mind Kant's (or was it Plato's?) distinction between Phenomenal and Noumenal
>
> Peace
>
> Fred
poster:fachad
thread:1086
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20021001/msgs/1179.html