[Buddha-l] science #3

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Dan Lusthaus schreef:

>Erik Hoogcarspel carped,
>
>  
>
>>Maybe you should stop listening to mullahs and rabbi's and read a book
>>    
>>
>about science.
>
>Is that an either/or?
>
> >Medieval times and Enlightenment are over, we live in the postmodern era
>now.
>
>Are you an irremediably ignorant fellow, or do you just play one on email
>lists? As I made clear a number of times in those posts, they were about
>rhetorical strategies for addressing the zealous rightwing religious idiots
>who are hell bent on returning western culture to the middle ages. 
>
OK, I misread your post.

>Their
>numbers and political power in the US today are formidable, so they can't be
>ignored, and effective strategies need to be forged. I took Richard's
>approach as a useful strategy up to point, but suggested there might be a
>better (and as it turns out, more historically accurate) strategy available.
>  
>
What on earth has retorics to do with history? And who knows history, 
certainly not the 'religious idiots'. So what 's the use of historically 
accurate version? A retorical strategy just has  to be convincing, 
that's all!

>If they are going to return us to the middle ages, it can either be the
>hate-mongering, witch-burning, Jew and Turk despising one Europe still
>perpetuates in various ways, one which despises "science" and knowlege (just
>as the religious right in this country is still fighting the American Civil
>War, and turning over aspect after aspect of it, e.g., states rights,
>federalism), OR with a less confrontational approach it can be one that
>embraces science, pluralistic universalism, etc.
>
Have you been in Europe lately? You have very strange ideas about the 
place, maybe a patriottic bias?

> Imagine if diehard
>Christians actually were seduced into doing real science instead of simply
>rejecting Darwin, physics, plate techtonics, stem cell research, etc., by
>caricaturing it in ignorance ("I don't come from no monkey!). 
>
In fact in backward old Europe most scientists who are religious just, 
separate work and religion.

>What the
>religious right is doing is trying to take us back 500 years, to when faith
>and knowledge parted company. The last time knowledge and science triumphed
>in the culture at large; this time they want to make sure thatfaith (or
>their narrow version of it) wins, plunging us all into another Dark Ages. If
>you think that hasn't reached your part of the continent yet, you probably
>haven't stepped outside lately with your eyes open.
>  
>
Maybe your retorics work better for the speaker then for the audience. 
You're not very convincing. I read some newspapers, a.o. Le Monde, but I 
cannot think of any comfirmation. (there was some talk about the 
intelligent design theory, but no biologist took it serious.)

>No one lives in a postmodern world. To call anything postmodern is to say
>one is only looking backward (post-) at a past one no longer is comfortable
>with or belongs to, but has no idea where to go from here -- which is to
>cede control of the future to others, such as the religious zealots who at
>least know what they want the future (and present) to look like.
>  
>
Retorics of fear, my dear fellow. And I find retorics based on bad 
ethymology not convincing. Fear is a bad advisor. But don't worry, as 
Nietzsche said: 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', and we're 
not dead yet. And yes, we don't know where we're going, if you would 
know, you wouldn't be scared. Only the religious zealots think they 
know, but they're not completely convinced, otherwise they would just 
lean back and let God's plan execute itself.
You mentioned Husserls book about the crises of science. If I'm not 
mistaken, his argument was that the crises is caused by the loss of 
contact with the lifeworld. Now it has been proved that scientific 
theories and theoretical terms cannot be expained in terms of the 
lifeworld. So the breach is definitive. (I wonder if this is the case in 
buddhology and buddhist theory as well, this would explain the problems 
of a western buddhism.) If truth is part of our lifeworld, if truth is 
part of our life and experience, science has nothing to say about it.

>Erik
>
>
>www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
>