The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #100330   Message #2033720
Posted By: Bee
23-Apr-07 - 04:35 PM
Thread Name: BS: New things about atheism
Subject: RE: BS: New things about atheism
Little Hawk, perhaps you misinterpreted Mrrzy's comment - I'll leave that to him.

However, you have several times inferred, by my interpretation that people who are materialists like myself, and who believe there is available a physical, rational explanation for everything (given enough time, knowledge, and research, even if the answer is hundreds of years away), are somehow lacking, are stunted in some mysterious manner. For example, this comes from one of your responses to Mrrzy, I think, but you include enough generalisations to point at myself and others: see bolded:

"You, like they, are an absolutist who thinks he knows THE ONE AND ONLY TRUTH, and that's all there is to it. You, like they, are probably quite wrong in that assumption.

I bet you that in a hundred years from now science will have greatly modified or even superseded the theory of evolution with a brand new one, and some self-important fellows like you will be quite sure that the new theory is "absolutely beyond question".

Why not admit that maybe you don't know for sure how human life developed on this planet, and that no one else does either? Would that hurt too much?

I admit that I don't know for sure, and it doesn't hurt a bit. I am not afraid to admit that I don't know. We have theories. We will continue to have theories. Lazy thinkers will continue to cling to those theories with the absolute faith of a religious fanatic. It has ever been so. People are deeply afraid to admit how little they know...so they just parrot stuff someone else, someone in authority, has told them with utter and absolute assurance. ("Daddy" must know best, right?)"
- Little Hawk

Some of us 'lazy thinkers' have spent a great deal of time researching these subjects, for the pure joy of learning. It is neither faith nor fanaticism that leads most of us to the conclusions we draw regarding, for instance, evolution, but study and reason.

However, I usually read those parts of your comments, when they seem a touch insulting, as a little heated hyperbole, and therefore don't let them bother me. Especially as there are plenty of issues on which we likely agree.