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leoofno
Skeptic Friend
USA
346 Posts |
 Posted - 01/28/2008 : 07:58:36
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http://www.episcopal-dallas.org/evangelism_j.html
I just came across this, and I found it interesting that the author has a very different definition of “skeptic” than I do. I bet it's different than most of the regulars here, too.
Basically (let me know if you think I misunderstand), she says that modern skeptics follow a postmodern philosophy that equates Truth with personal opinion. Skeptics believe that all truth is relative, personally and culturally, and so all are equal, and any attempt to establish a universal Truth is only cultural imperialism, an attempt by one cultural to exert control and dominance over others. Skeptics believe that two people can believe two different truths, and both are correct.
Now, that sounds NOTHING like the skeptics I know or have read about. I can't imagine Dawkins, Harris or Randi ever saying such nonsense. And I know I've never heard any of the regulars here says such things. It sounds more like some of the new-age stuff I hear, much closer to some of the believers in woo than to a skeptic.
It seems to me that this is just another strawman created to easily attack Skeptics. Unable to refute real skeptics (who more resemble her definition of Modernists), she lumps them in with new-agers and attacks those beliefs instead.
I'm not even sure her review if Modernism and Post-Modernism is correct. She describes Modernism as an assertion that there is Truth that transcends all cultures and is only knowable via rational inquiry and the scientific method. Then she says “Modernism's conquest tendencies fueled Western imperialism…”. Conquest tendencies? How on earth would rationalism lead to conquest tendencies? I don't get it. Imperialism and “conquest tendencies” predate the age of reason by quite a bit. Recent events show that God Believers are doing most of the conquesting these days.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on this article.
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"If you're not terrified, you're not paying attention." Eric Alterman
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 08:07:25 [Permalink]
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That's so distorted a definition of skepticism, it's just about the opposite of what modern skepticism is.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 09:36:27 [Permalink]
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My guess is that she is talking about cultural moral relativism. That is, some cultures reject or just don't care about the bible's rules on morality while considering laws of their land. And for some reason she chooses to call that post modernism and builds a strawman version of skeptics around her ideas.
While it's true that many of us are moral relativists with regard to culture, that says nothing about our search for objective truths in matters of, for example, science.
In other words, she is full of crap and this is just another religious screed against those who do not accept the bible as the authority on morality.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 10:59:27 [Permalink]
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Ok, here it is, raw & bloody. In this paragraph there is a line that refutes every word of what she (tries) to state: Basically (let me know if you think I misunderstand), she says that modern skeptics follow a postmodern philosophy that equates Truth with personal opinion. Skeptics believe that all truth is relative, personally and culturally, and so all are equal, and any attempt to establish a universal Truth is only cultural imperialism, an attempt by one cultural to exert control and dominance over others. Skeptics believe that two people can believe two different truths, and both are correct.
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Personal opinion signifies squat! When I run across something like this as related to skeptisim, or much of anything else for that matter, I immediately consider the author to be an idiot, and an idiot he/she shall remain until the evidence demonstrates otherwise. I don't see that happening here, what with this blather about "Postmodern Philosophy" & all.
As someone famous, whose name I can't remember, once said: "They can't handle the Truth!"
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 11:03:18 [Permalink]
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I think it's important to note that the word "skeptic" doesn't even appear until the section "The Christian Response," at the end. The author confuses "truth" for "worldview" (or "philosophy") on numerous occasions in the piece, and can't be bothered to do simple fact-checking (hydrogen peroxide is H2O2, not HO).
It's a really bad piece. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 11:53:58 [Permalink]
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I think that the word "Skeptic" was originally meant to signify people who were skeptic about the existence of an absolute, objective reality, so you can't really fault her for using the word in this context.
The rest of the piece is the rather usual "we follow absolute rules, so therefore we are superior" mumbo-jumbo. What people who advocate this view inevitably forget is that anyone can set up any "absolute" rule he/she wants, meaning that there can be multiple conflicting abolute worldviews - all relative to eachother. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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leoofno
Skeptic Friend
USA
346 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 12:14:33 [Permalink]
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Yikes! Now that I read it again, I can see that she means a different kind of skeptic than you'll find here on SFN. My bad.
I was searchig on "Skeptic Friends Network" to see what the wider world thought of SFN when I came upon the article. I read it with that kind of skeptic in mind and totally misunderstood her.
I suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere. I really should contemplate on it and see what it has to teach me about... oh look, a butterfly! |
"If you're not terrified, you're not paying attention." Eric Alterman
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2008 : 12:53:25 [Permalink]
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| Skeptic: (n.) Stinky jerk face, not to be trusted. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2008 : 07:24:40 [Permalink]
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Sounds like the old ancient greek philosophical skepticism. The basic idea is that any certain knowledge is impossible, and then taken to the extreme by never assigning anything a value of "true". All knowledge was considered opinion only, becuase of the central tenet that human knowledge can't be objective.
Modern skeptics wouldn't take it to such an extreme, but it is the precursor of our thinking. Absolute certainty is something most of us here will scoff at, but most are ok with conditional certianty, and I think most of us would agree (even though we couldn't prove it) that knowledge can be objective.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2008 : 07:31:23 [Permalink]
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Found a link in an old favorites file... long article, but interesting and a reasonable description of the ancient skeptics.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/skepanci.htm
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2008 : 13:21:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Sounds like the old ancient greek philosophical skepticism. The basic idea is that any certain knowledge is impossible, and then taken to the extreme by never assigning anything a value of "true". All knowledge was considered opinion only, becuase of the central tenet that human knowledge can't be objective.
Modern skeptics wouldn't take it to such an extreme, but it is the precursor of our thinking. Absolute certainty is something most of us here will scoff at, but most are ok with conditional certianty, and I think most of us would agree (even though we couldn't prove it) that knowledge can be objective.
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Whenever I do thought experiments about the Universe or philosophy, I always try to take the non-human perspective, that of non-life, or that of a generic non-terrestrial. It helps in a completely impractical way. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Odd Definition Of a Skeptic
