Well I say you're cross-eyed RJD.
I suppose somewhere in the 23 pages someone has pointed out that one doesn't 'believe in' a scientific principle. One can accept it but it isn't a religion so using religious language to describe that acceptance is playing into the hands of the people whose agenda is to set the two in opposition.
OK--here's where I get to experience some lovely bi-directional flaming from extremists on both sides.
Technically, it is not scientific principles
per se that one must make a leap of faith to believe in. (This is what I stated before, but now I am going to go into detail as to why I said it.) It is rather the validity of our sensory input itself. Since we cannot step outside of ourselves to actually assume any other frame of reference but our own, we must make the leap of faith that solipsism is an invalid philosophy. Any person can accept the truth of
I think, therefore I am, because that person knows their own thoughts. (And yes, there's some irony in quoting that particular individual to YOU.
) But he cannot know others' thoughts or existences in the same intimate manner. This particular part of the solipsism question is sometimes termed the "other minds problem."
There is no experiment one can perform that can prove the existence of the outside world as anything different than the way one experiences dreams. Obviously the greater consistency and logic of the outside world should sway the sane individual, in my opinion, to accept external reality as
real, but I am referring here to the use of the scientific method to make a conclusive determination. So in the end, for this, one must make a leap of faith.
BUT--once that leap is made, certain things must come with it in order to be logically consistent. If we accept the validity of the outside world and the logic that governs it, then the scientific method and its findings are part and parcel with that, and in my opinion it is illogical not to accept them if the validity of sensory input itself and external reality is accepted.
Now it is interesting to note that from a religious person's standpoint it can often seem as though some of atheistic bent commit the opposite fallacy to the religious fundamentalist who accepts that his or her senses tell the truth yet denies the logical results of experiments that can be perceived through those senses. The atheist very strongly accepts external reality and the findings of experiments conducted upon material phenomena.
However, internal, experiential reality seems to be invalidated, and the "other minds" problem seems to extend even to knowing one's own mind and soul. As stated earlier, experiential reality is non-transferable. I cannot take my thoughts, my dreams, and make you experience them as I did--you can only read my description, or if I were hooked up to an EEG, observe my measurable brain activity. It is as though because scientific experiments cannot divine meaning and value in the world (and should not be used with the intent of doing so), then what one feels in one's heart does not matter or must automatically be mistrusted, ignored, or reduced to no significant value as though on par with an unthinking lump of dirt.
There is also the problem, it seems, that because subjective perception is sometimes wrong, then it is
always invalid and untrustworthy. When this same sort of bias happens in personnel decisions, this is referred to as the "horned effect" and we are educated against it because of the destructive biases that can affect hiring and other decisions if we don't watch for it. (I'm coming back to that point about education soon.) What the "horned effect" means is that because you may see one thing wrong about a candidate or phenomenon, then you begin to perceive only the negative and develop a skewed opinion of that person. (Its opposite is the "halo effect," where one sees a positive aspect and this then colors everything positive in the mind's eye, and in between is the "central tendency" effect.) This is particularly dangerous when using an unstructured interview process. Which might
seem to support the opposite point of view, but I will return to this as well.
I posit that many atheists regard the internal perceptions with what amounts to the horned effect. However, it is important to remember that we can be educated to understand how the physical aspect of our mind works--trained how to recognize optical illusions, how to counteract our biases with external checks upon them (returning to the job interview comparison, the use of a structured interview can help, as well as scientifically-tested survey instruments). That said, over-reliance upon these instruments can sometimes be stifling as well, given that we do sometimes have those intuitive moments that work.
The kind of view I believe is healthiest is a balanced one--one that neither dismisses the material nor the experiential/spiritual. Education remains critical...in both aspects. We need both external checks on our gut, and gut checks on our external circumstances. We need to research and understand the material world as well, but I believe we ignore our spiritual health at our own peril, that to do so is to deny ourselves and others the real richness and flavor of life itself.
Wow. And somehow I actually managed to weave my way back onto the original topic of this thread.
)
