The Opposite of Faith is NOT Reason

I understand the limits of language in small spaces; and I understand how language choices on complex topics can make or break an argument.  The word choices in this small article on what Neil deGrasse Tyson said, starting with the title, are unfortunate. [Re: “Neil deGrasse Tyson: Science and Religion Are Not ‘Reconcilable,’ So Stop Trying“]

When it comes to categories, “reconciliation” is a matter of degree, not a statement of absolutes.  Reconciliation does not mean one thing becomes the other or that one is subsumed by the other.  It means there are harmonies, with each component remaining itself with concessions in tuning.  Religion and Science, on the surface of the words, can indeed be reconciled.  And Faith and Reason are made polar and mutually exclusive opposites willfully, not necessarily.

I can certainly sympathize with an argument that reconciliation means something like “make align.”  I favor the definitions that focus on making “exist or be true at the same time.”

For reason to operate, it requires assertions whose truthfulness is validated structurally (formally) and substantively (informally).  Reason is a faculty, not an operation or machine.  Logic is the machine and operation.  Reason is not science – science, also, is an operation, an approach.  Reason as a faculty is about giving thought to, and due processing and consideration beyond faith in, concepts and perspectives.  It is the ability to comprehend and to make comprehensible.

Matters with more faith than science can be approached reasonably.

Our Weakness for Agnotology

We typically think of ignorance as the absence of knowledge or education. In fact, it can be the opposite: “knowledge” that is founded on untrue information. It is what you believe is knowledge, when in actuality it was false information designed to resist the scrutiny of provable or proven fact. The resistance comes as a function of how deeply it is believed to be true: the more strongly we believe it, the more we resist data that disproves it. Cognitive Dissonance.

Meet Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: « If HIV caused AIDS, Magic Johnson would be dead. Doesn’t even look sick to me. How about you? »

Doubt anyone?

Agnotology is the manufacture of ignorance by cognitively structuring misinformation to represent reality to support a desired narrative. Agnotology is « culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.»

For example, as Wikipedia has recorded, the tobacco industry’s constant barrage of misinformation to create what would henceforth be mistaken for actual knowledge within the culture: the doubt about cancer risk in smoking.

If you are a medical scientist, you know HIV causes AIDS because you have investigated all the invisible micro & macro factors that Joe the Plumber cannot see by simply staring at the surface of a person’s body.  You know how smoking harms the lungs and cancers develops.

Arrestable Development of Dominionism

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same man.”
~ Heraclitus.

The America of today is different from the newly born America and the 50-year old America and the 100-year old America. As different as a new-born human is from his teenage years and his 60th year.

Anyone who wants to “take back America” – back as in some delusional ownership or back in time to some fantastic state when their perspective is imagined to have reigned supreme – is really trying to transform America in his image, similarly to how the dominionist has crafted his God and his Christ.

Even if he should succeed, the resulting America won’t be the same as the America of the past. Current America has gotten large and complex. He would have to distort today’s America in ways that suits his imagination.  It is easy to think you can go back in time IF you mean less complexity and purer faith. But what one will be imagining as less-complexity and pureness is really one’s rejecting today’s realities, narrowing minds, and dumbing down our thinking. In that way, simplicity means willful stupidity.

Do we need to fear the Christian Dominionist movement?

Change is evolutionary in the sense that it happens in reaction to environmental conditions (not progress in the ameliorative sense). If we think of dominionism as environmental conditions, we are at this moment changing in response. Somehow, I don’t think the loudness and extremeness of their voice equates to actual power to realize dominionism. It could be just the opposite, where the evolutionary adaption that results is to solidify ourselves against what amounts to a bacterial disease.

Can You Advocate Violence & Not Mean It?

Words have impact, especially on non-critical-thinking hordes & minions. People with aggressive tendencies (whether overt or just in their daydreams) are particularly susceptible. Rhetoric that borrows from the vocabulary of violence & war BREEDS thoughts of violence in these same hordes.

I often bring up how the words one chooses to convey or understand his world are from a vocabulary that aligns with how one thinks about his world.  If you believe that time comes in finite chunks and time you dedicate to yourself is holy, then giving up that time is “sacrifice.”  It’s a “frame,” a way of thinking.  Like a box.  If you’re thinking something is a war (your frame), you’ll refer to that thing in warlike terms.  And you can pass that frame along.

You cannot say “we don’t advocate violence” but imply armed conflict if you don’t get your way, blatantly say the opposition (the Left) is preparing for armed conflict against you (the Right), use images and frames of war and violence, and speak in terms of revolution.  If you do these things, you ARE advocating violence by framing your message (and, therefore, the solutions) in terms of violence.