[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[ian glendinning]

Marsha, Arlo, Mark,

Marsha, "if, if's and and's were pots and pans ..." but I suspect you are right.

Arlo, and you are absolutely right to be concerned. My point is, it is
not the word people use, but their actions and the way they use the
words in real dialogues and over longer periods. That's how you find
out what these people mean by the word, their intentions. (I do recoil
slightly at the "these people" apparrent generalisation, but you mean
the ones you have exprience of dealing with. Personally I like to give
any new individual encounter the benefit of the doubt with words used,
until we have some transaction history .... Ah, right so you're are
that kind of ID person, now I know how to deal with you ... rather
than knee jerk reaction to the words.)

I think the damning by faint praise in the "means well" phrase we need
to come back to. I'd like to think I'm not as naive as I may sound
(I'm an educated person in my 50's with a fair bit of first experience
of the world's cultures, etc ...) but having an intellectual
conversation with someone I trust is quite different to the way I
would behave in a different social situation - you do believe that
right ? I can be as defensive as the next man where there is something
to defend, but my intellectual views are open to modification at all
times - I don't close off intellectual avenues the same way I might
close of a social one.

Hence Mark made his point about the social power of the words, and my
admission of the difficulty socialising any intelectual view of a word
in that environment. I have no illusions. I'm looking for help.

Ian

On 1/19/07, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> [Marsha]
> If it were Goddess rather than God under consideration there would be no
> discussion.  The concept would have been ridiculed and the religion destroyed
> centuries ago.
>
> [Arlo]
> What do you mean "would have been", I'd say "had been". But this just
> underscores the two-faced agenda of the "intelligent design" crowd. I have
> argued several times in our local school district for a "comparative mythology"
> course. Each time, and I mean _each_ time, the suggestion is squelched by
> _Christians_ who would hear NOTHING about any _other_ "God" mentioned in
> school. It has been made clear to me, under no uncertain terms, that any course
> that _lowers_ Christianity to a comparable "myth" with other world mythologies
> would be rejected outright. These are the same people who argue the next day
> for "intelligent design". Now do you _really_ think these people want ID to be
> a metaphor? Do you really think they want the Tao taught in schools? Or the
> Buddha? Or the Norse account of creation? Or Goddess mythology?
>
> The day you can stand up in school and say "Christianity is a useful metaphor to
> understand the human condition, and like other world metaphors which we will
> examine as situated cultural analogies on par with the Occidental mythologies,
> is useful only when one remembers 'all this is just an analogy', and one
> analogy among many, all of which speak to parts of the human experience equally
> and with valid voice. Buddha, Christ, Kuan Yin, White Buffalo Calf Woman (two
> male, two female) are metaphors. Let's explore them.", I'll drop my
> condemnation of the theist/ID crowd and support their cause.
>
> I truly believe Ian means well, and likely could indeed make a cogent argument
> for "intelligent design" as an "anthropological metaphor" for Quality. But this
> is not what the ID crowd wants, like others on this board, they want complexity
> and diversity and beauty to be "proof" of a "God"... and from there its a short
> jaunt (as Mark implies, if I read him correctly) to "my God". Would it be that
> the ID crowd were interested in metaphor and art and analogy. Sadly, they are
> interested in literal, theistic dogma to replace "science". That is the agenda.
>
> So I am cautious in between a crowd that sees "intelligent design" as a means to
> bring literal Christianity into our schools as a plausible and equal
> alternative to "reason", and a philosophy discussion group that uses
> "intelligent design" as an "anthropological metaphor" to further our
> understanding of the cosmos.
>
>
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