Re: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/50476
Quote from Audrey:
[Fundamentalist atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris do not
differ much from fundamentalist religionists. They all believe they
are right and the others are wrong.]
Dear Audrey,
I am a bit taken aback by your labelling of Dawkins as
Fundamentalist(atheist). As an early member of MM you must have read the
plethora of messages and exchanges (many in which I participated besides
Avijit and many other freethinkers) which clarified the fallacy of this
mislabelling of rationalist views as fundamentalist. So its a bit
disappointing to see you still making this characterization after all this.
Let me try to clarfiy this issue here again.
Dawkins himself has refuted this allegation/mislabelling very eloquently
in his NYT best seller "The God Delusion" which is sort of the leit
motif of his book. The point is that there is a fundamental difference
between a scientists's belief in the correctness of his/her theory and
that of a religious or any dogmatic believer. The latter holds on to
their belief irrespective of what the evidence and logic dictates.
Scientists assume something is true after thoroughly examining it with
logic and evidence. Scientists are ready to discard any theory if new
evidence and logic contradicts it. He himself will doubt evolution if a
fossil rabbit is discovered in precambrian era. Not so with the
dogmatists (fundamentalists). Their belief is absolute and unalterable
by any evidence or logic. The difference is so substantial and profound
that to paint both of them with the same brush of fundamentalism label
is signally insensitive and unconsciounable.
In fact if by believeing that one is right one becomes a fudamentalist
then all scientists are fundamentalist. Einstein is also a
fundamentalist by this criterion for belieivng that his notion of time
and space is correct. You and I are also fundamentalists for believing
that we are right in assuming that a traffic light is green when driving
through an intersection and believing that whoever sees it as red
is wrong. This is a trivial example but it serves to make the point.
As Dawkins points out in the God Delusion, just because a scientist can
passionately defend a position just as a religious believer passionately
defends his, that doesn't make both of them right or both of them wrong.
It can simply be that one is right and the other is wrong (by an
objective criterion). Dawkins is passionate about defending evolution as
he sees evidence for it and as he sees dogmatic positions opposing
evolution despite evidence supporting evolution.
Now let me come to the specific case of existence of God issue. This is
not a scientific problem, its a philosophical issue. And it is critical
that one resorts to rigorous logic in any philosophical debate, because
that is the only recourse available in absence of any observational
evidence for a meaningful resolution of an issue. What Dawkins and other
scientists state is the logical absurdity of the notion of the personal
God of the religions. Scientist or science do not claim to know THE
origin of the THE universe. Science can only attempt to explain the
birth of the OBSERVED universe in terms of the laws of Physics. But
science cannot explain the origin of the laws of physics (i.e the cause
of the THE universe). Cosmologist Barrow ends his book "The Origin of
the Universe" by the line "We can never know the origin of THE
universe". If one defines an atheist as one who claims that there is no
origin of the laws of Physics, then such an atheist is a fundamentalist
because he is obviously claiming to know an unknowable. But other that
that there is nothing fundamentalist about stating the facts of science
and opposing views that contradict science. We simply don't know why the
universe (with the laws of physics governing it) exists This ignorance
gives rose to the "God feeling" among scientists and leaves room for
metaphysical speculation (of course without contradicting the laws of
phsics).
- Aparthib
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