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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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You might have missed the line about mistaking methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory.

What does this mean?

But that's kind of the whole point. They created the corpse! They knew what they were doing when they killed it.

Why would it matter? The truth value of a statement or belief stands independent of whatever it may engender.

Science has methodological constraints; it makes certain assumptions and speaks only to things within the constraints of those assumptions. But instead, folks want to claim that those are not constraints on the method; they're constraints on reality. Rather than building an actual metaphysical theory, they just declare that their constraints handwave the whole problem away.

Why would it matter? The truth value of a statement or belief stands independent of whatever it may engender.

To be as flippant as the commenter two posts up in this thread, because the atheists are wrong. /thread

It's only bonus badness that their wrongness led to one of the very things the OP was complaining about.

Are you sure the constraints on science are not actually constraints of reality? How could you tell from the inside? You say thats what they do, but you haven't made that argument.

Are you sure that in a world with magick, science could not quantify the heat of a fireball and trace where the energy came from? and in a world with djinn, science could not measure how many wishes they can give and when?

And are you sure that in a world with a God, science could not see Him? Perhaps Hubble would see His face in the sky or microscopes would indeed see angels dancing on the head of a pin?

Can we not prove God because He is unprovable or because He does not exist? What evidence (scientific or "other") would sway you?

Are you sure the constraints on science are not actually constraints of reality?

I'm sure that the irrational confidence in the converse is irrational.

  • -12

But you haven't made any arguments it is irrational? You are assuming it is. Is it irrational to focus on the measurable and observable?

It MIGHT be but i think you have to make that argument.

There's a difference between "focusing on" and "mistaking it for a metaphysical theory".

Aren't materialism and naturalism metaphysical theories though?. So why are they more or less irrational than any other?

They are. They can be argued for. Not all that conclusively, though. Similarly, people can argue for various Christian positions, and I imagine you would say that such arguments are similarly not conclusive. Yet one of these things is to be ridiculed. Which one?

Why is one of them to be ridiculed?

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