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Quote by: Jason Is reason just as unsatisfactory a framework for thinking as theism and superstition? |
Absolutely NOT!!!! .
Is reason/rationality perfect . No of course not because the tools (humans) that are using it are limited in their capabilities. But to compare it to superstition and theism is ridiculous since they have absolutely nothing going for them at all. The only times that superstition and theism advance the human situation is either when they use dumb luck or simply use reason disguised as revelation (i. e. Incan priests using real astronomy to predict eclipses and then pretending that the Gods revealed it to them)
This method of attacking a concept is identical to what the intelligent Designers use against Evolution. They erroneausly think that by finding places when Evolution has been shown to be incorrect of has not yet explained everything that they prove ID to be correct. This is completely mistaken. To show that superstition/theism is superior you must compare to two approaches to one another and discard the one which performs the worst. The "winner" will not be perfect but we can only use the best we have.
Imagine you wanted to get to England in 1801. You are planning on going by boat but a friend tells you
- You will be not going by the shortest route. in fact it will take you hundreds of miles further than if you flew in a straigth line like a bird
- Sometimes there are storms that cause you to go further off course or even die
So therefore your friend says you should just go in a straight line on horseback in some other direction because then you will not be tacking back and forth and getting blown all over by storms.
Obviously you have had to be an idiot to take the friends advice. This line of attack on reason is identical. Science may not always get you there immediately. It may take you in circles for some time and run you down a few dead ends but it has a mechanism for getting us closer and closer to our goals. It discards bad ideas and rewards (over time) things that actually produce the results we want. Theism and superstition fail miserably in the only test that matters. Getting the result we wish more often than pure chance.