Quote:patiodog wrote-
Quote:Oh how do I disagree with that.
Did you omit either a "?" or a "!" ? Is it a straightforward guileless question or a raised eyebrow. Should it read-
.
It was early in the morning and I had just a little time to get down what I wanted between slurping the morning coffee drug and checking on weather on sports on the tube.
Quote:But patiodog is one in 300 million and may well be able to deal with the meaninglessness of everything which atheism necessarily entails. It goes way beyond finding out there is no Father Christmas. It goes to finding out there is no anything. No State, no Church and no Family. ...
But clearly there is State, Church, and Family, whether there is/are god(s) or no. My belief or disbelief in an entity of which I have no evidence has no bearing on the existence of social institutions I encounter on a daily basis.
Quote:Evolution does imply that anything which gives pleasure is right.
If it feels right it is right or if you're balling a different chick every night you are superior scientifically and God must approve of you.
No it doesn't. If there is any value judgment to be read into it at all, it's that we came about in the midst of a very long line of trying to come about some more - which, and particularly in a social species where altruism does have biological value for both the species and the individual, does not equate with pleasure at all. With our huge-headed babies and their ongoing needs for sustenance, protection, and education, the greater part of reproduction is decidedly lacking in pleasure. Some even manage to make the act of conception itself a chore, the poor bastards. Even in large mammalian species where the male's existence might be consistent with the scenario you've posited (spreading seed far and wide = success) the reality of competition denies most males the right to inseminate, and these species are doing just fine. The individuals aren't having fun, by and large, but the line carries on.
Quote:I have known a number of atheistic scientists and as they get older they get more and more couldn't care less.
Have you considered that this might reflect on the sort of people you know?
Quote:What I think you are ignoring pd is the emotional need to fill the gap. ...
In my life, I am ignoring no such thing. On this thread, which is about the teaching of science in American primary and secondary schools - yes, I am ignoring that need. It's not the purview of the classroom in question, except perhaps (maybe, just maybe) as it might elucidate human behavior. Classes in literature, classes in psychology (where available) - these may and should address themselves to that very need.
Quote:Because it is an unknowable gap whatever fills it is necessarily a fairy story. It's a question of selling the fairy stories. ... You are into Orwell in one step. And how does it undermine the gap however small it gets.
Or you can deny this need in the mass of the population which is tantamount to rendering them emotionless.
Shouldn't there be a question mark there?
(god help me, a winky thing)
I don't deny the population this need. I just hope that for the 50 minutes per day, 180+ days per year for the 13 years (give or take) that attendants of public schools are to be educated and/or indoctrinated by the state in matters scientific, the unknowable (not to be confused with the unknown) is not a preferred subject of conversation. I don't think this is too much to ask, especially as portions of our airwaves are filled coast-to-coast with characters offering to fill the gap with tried-and-true methods of interpretation of ancient text and various forms of chicanery. (As you've noted, TV likely has a more profound impact on the populace than public education anyway.)
Quote:Quote:The way I see the past tells me that filling the gap with the silly putty of received religion does more harm than good, and in preparing folks for the future I'd rather they catch a glimpse of the gap, regardless of whether it makes them curious or vertiginous.
That's a pretty big statement. The question of what caused the "harm", if such it was from our point of view; it has got us here, has been gone into up the thread and was left unresolved as it had to be. The use of "silly putty" is no use to your own case.
It's not a big statement at all. It's simply a report of my own reasoning and opinions. I make no claims to seeing objective truth here, but I've got to formulate opinions based on something, haven't I?
And I use silly putty because it amused me. But Heaven forfend I should be caustic or flippant on these hallowed boards...
Quote:And you haven't thought of the possible numbers of the "vertiginous".
My allocation of digits only lets me count to 21, and rules of conduct in my society frequently limit me to 20 and sometimes only 10.
Quote:"The carpet too is moving under you."
Or the social effects if it was a significant number.
But the vertigo comes from the nihilism not the gap. ...
I think you grossly overestimate the influence of the American teacher if you think that a firm adherence to the teaching of evolution (and not ID or creationism) in schools if you're going to link what goes on in the classroom to the spiritual needs and practices of American youth.
They're not there to work on their soul, and I doubt many kids step into their science classes looking for existential comfort. They're there to be introduced to various intellectual tools of contemporary society, one of which is biology. And just as they shouldn't be taught that there's voodoo inside the turbines at the Hoover Dam making electricity happen for the people of Las Vegas, they needn't learn that there must be a guiding hand making sure life turned out the way it did. Either may be the case. Neither can be demonstrated scientifically.
Quote:Your second paragraph is phrased in a way which gives it little meaning except a restatement that you can take it and you don't see why others can't irrespective of how they have been brought up and the living structures of their communities.
But it is that emotional need you need to address. First I mean. It came first historically. There are other things.
Much of education is dedicated to giving children the means to address those needs. And, presumably, that is also a function of the family, the church, and whatever other social institutions are at their disposal. It is not the function of a science curriculum.
