Lew wrote (01/08/2010 23:13:18):

Hi David,

Thanks for the "brief" response. I look forward to the substantial one. You haven't tackled one of my more salient points yet, and I've tried to take yours on as directly as possible.

To your brief response: I'm not sure if we're reading the same thing or not, but you seem to be attacking straw men left right and centre.

No-one on this site has, as far as I've seen, said that "reason is ... autonimously supreme and reliable". It is also difficult to ascertain exactly what you are trying to say because you use terms with distinct meanings interchangeably.

Reason is the capacity to rationally discriminate or infer or think. Reason needs to be applied both to things and with things. To say it is “autonimously supreme and reliable” [your words] is nonsense.

As I've said, people are irrational. But reason, aided by the scientific method, does give us our best aprehension of the world. The rigours of the critical (scientific - if you will) method have been adapted variously for disciplines such as history, literary criticism etc. We don't jump to conclusions when we're examining something critically. We test our hypotheses. We second guess ourselves. What this gives us is our best guess, if you will.

What this means is that - and I have said this already too - science (and these other disciplines to an extent) is intrinsically revisionist. It is self-correcting precisely because it does not erect monoliths. It holds up nothing as "autonimously supreme". It is, by its method, applied by a properly trained practitioner, with the aid of his reason and critical faculties, and access to the information he needs, and the scrutiny of his peers, reliable.

You ask: "Can man 'prove' his own reasonableness?" I'm humouring you here but I have to doubt how serious you are being. Your questions are egocentric. What I can say is that as the highest animal, with (as far as we know) the most sophisticated form of communication, we can record information and learn from each other across time and space. We now have a vast store of knowledge and a means of testing it rigorously, and because of this the sophistication of our knowledge has begun to increase exponentially.

Only claims which can be tested are dealt with by serious scholars. It is this testability on which the soundness and reliability of the corpus depends. Also in science, any claim that “a causes b” must be both falsifiable and predictable in other circumstances. Within these bounds we have made very, very great strides.

"The humanist's starting point is a nonesense."

Why are you brining humanism into this and what, pray tell - honestly - do you know about it? Nothing, I'd say, with all due respect, on the basis of the nonsense you follow that statement with.

Belief in God was dominant in history. Read some.

Atheism as religion: This is really tired. I love the way the ultra-religious are so good at thinking outside their own box. And the way they find it so easy to agree with each other. Or not. While remaining absolutely certain that their own particular doctrine is the Way.

Atheism is no more a religion than a-fairyism.

I wouldn't actually call myself an atheist either. But what seems to eat at Christians of the literalist type is that what we now know has consigned the god of the bible to the dustbin. And that's why we're having this conversation, really. Because their response has been to attack and deny knowledge and learning, which I find abominable.
The “benefits” of religion? Apart from devotional art, the calendar is what Christianity has given us. Everything else has been bestowed with a keen eye on self-preservation.

I look forward to your more substantial response.

Yours,

Lew

Lew - brief response for just now.  The point I was endeavouring to make is not that reason is irrational, but that the assumption that it is autonimously supreme and reliable is irrational.  Can man 'prove' his own reasonableness?  The humanist's starting point is a nonesense.  He cannot reliably know what he is - he needs to be told, and he has been, by God.

The view of history that talks only of when belief in God dominated compared to when it didn't (if there is such a time) is superficial.  For the purposes of this site's stance - the only relevent comparison is when the Biblical view of God prevailed as opposed to Roman Catholicsm, Islaam etc. since these have a non-Biblical view of God.  For us, atheism is just a variant of non-Biblical religion with a non-Biblical view of God (in this case, the denial of his existance altogethr, rather than a distortortion).  The Bible-based Protestant Reformation brought immense benefits to men and women even in this life, as well as for eternity.