I would like to respond to a post , a few weeks ago, the friend Leibniz Reloaded about militant atheism.
Actually I'm not really the best person to do it right, because, although rather an anticlerical, not at all consider myself a militant atheist. I'm not writing I'm interested in the EU or to register, nor are those who are keen to "sbattezzarsi" (which is useless from a Catholic perspective, as the baptism does not go away however, and thus even more pointless for an atheist). I try to respect the faith of others as a private matter, and not to disturb them with blasphemy or profanity different (though when they are alone or with friends often let myself go), and so on. Among other things, there are certainly among the faithful readers of this blog, and really I see no reason to remove them out of pure spirit of contradiction.
However, I think I understand more than to Leibniz, the reasons for the militant atheists, that if our country step into the shoes a bit 'too gigioneschi of Odifreddi are worthily represented in the Anglo-Saxon countries by people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett or Sam Harris.
A first objection that I would move to Leibniz, is that atheism for me "is not a choice fideistic, as well as its symmetric. This fact would mean that there are degrees of plausibility, or more likely, in accepting a hypothesis, but it is only a "take it or leave it." No one can be absolutely certain that God does not exist, because the bottom seems to be at least a logical possibility, but it can be assumed without contradicting a rational and scientific attitude, that there is not a hypothesis, but much more likely than ' existence. The old argument of Russell's teapot is valid, in this case.
Leibniz is also asked: "certain positions are not deeply individual and naturaliter Codest incompatible with the spirit of party aggregazionismo?". There may be a link between individualism and atheism, although I do not see so obvious, but nothing in any case forbade individualists come together to pursue the common public purposes. I do not believe, in fact, that the purpose of these associations is to meet each other for comfort in the "dogma of the absence of faith," or to perform rituals in addition to those of the faithful.
The aim is also essentially public because religion tends not to be an entirely private affair, and that is to neutralize those that atheists believe to be objective damage produced by religious beliefs in the public sphere. The most immediate comparison is with the Associations of skeptics and debunkers who try to debunk pseudoscientific beliefs, urban legends, and various quackery. One could also argue that those who fight against the nonsense of sciachimisti waste time in a similar manner to sciachimisti themselves (and a bit 'is also true), but it is also clear that the sciachimisti, and generally those who spread false and alarmist beliefs, some damage they do, and therefore can be regarded as meritorious action of those who contrasts.
believers (all believers) to sciachimisti may be perceived as very offensive and insulting, so now I hasten to clarify that I do not put them all on the same floor, and I think nobody does. But if the essence of true faith is to believe certain allegations without any rational reason or empirical support, I can also understand that this principle is considered ethically wrong, and perhaps even harmful, who has done instead of scientific reason why his of life.
believe in miracles, the healing power of prayer, or intercession of the saints, for example, can be regarded as a waste of resources che potrebbe essere più facilmente impiegato alla ricerca di mezzi più efficaci per ottenere i propri scopi (taccio per amor di quiete i pericoli del fondamentalismo religioso). In fondo, perché dovrei criticare chi si rivolge all'omeopata per guarire da una malattia, e non chi si rivolge a padre Pio? Oppure, perché nessuno ritiene offensivi quei libri che si dedicano a screditare le false credenze sull'astrologia, o sugli Ufo, o le strategie per vincere al lotto basate su ipotesi matematico-probabilistiche fantasiose, ma non appena ci si rivolge a cose come il parto virginale della Madonna ci si sente dare, con una certa stizza, del "positivista ottocentesco"?. Quali sono le false credenze che è giusto screditare e quelle che invece devono essere lasciate stare perché riguardano "la fede religiosa", e quindi al di fuori del campo della scienza? Perché dev'essere considerato politicamente scorretto mettere pubblicamente alla berlina le credenze religiose?
Nonostante tutto, sono però abbastanza d'accordo con l'ultima parte del post di Leibniz Reloaded, quando sostiene che la matematica (e secondo me anche la scienza, nonostante Dawkins abbia dimostrato che fra gli scienziati la percentuale di atei è molto più alta della media), ai suoi massimi livelli, avvicina a Dio, invece di allontanare. In un certo senso.
Onestamente, faccio fatica comprendere quella religiosità che results in a purely factual assertions that have a clear, though perhaps unknown truth value (as Christ was resurrected after three days, "but also" a Being omniscient and omnipotent God created the world and we thought the law "). But actually I do not think religion has been reduced to this. "Religion - William James said - is the overall reaction of a man to life," and in this sense it can be extended to issues that do not seem to have much to do with organized religions and their collection of dogmas.
It can be found, for example, in their devotion to a disinterested scientist searching for truth's sake. Or, more generally, the attitude of sacred awe before the mystery of existence, or in front of the vastness and beauty of the cosmos. "The ineffable there - said Wittgenstein - it is the mystical." For Wittgenstein, however, was precisely the mystic in all that "can not be said," and in this sense, mysticism and scientism coincide: expanding the boundaries of knowledge call for exclusion, including all that's left out (the purpose of Tractatus, that is to limit what can be said just to better show the mystic, of which one must be silent). Another interesting, and most recent attempt to delineate a "mysticism rational, it is found instead in the book by John Horgan, Rational Mysticism , but is aimed more to the East, the experience of enlightenment, and shamanism.
The problem is that this "attitude mystic, "if it can be reconciled with the spiritual quest of many people, not too attached to the tenets received during childhood, is completely incompatible with most organized religions, whose mission is not to ask questions or to maintain a attitude of openness to the world of sense, but in giving responses (wrong) is in fierce competition with other religions and with science, and thus preventing a true search of "ultimate meaning". Not surprisingly, some scientists who have studied brain activity during those individuals described as "mystical experiences", they also noted that such experiences are less common in people officially own "religious", like priests. Not surprisingly, they have all the answers written in a book.
It is also clear, in short, that as far as respect or admiration for the attitude you can have religious and mystical, so defined, nothing that is not a real cognitive content, propositional, with value and expressible in the language of truth, we can the name of "belief." Religious beliefs, as such, are wrong, all of them. Attitudes maybe not
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