Dally wrote:
So what? He's ascribing a personal value to something (books, science, etc) that the other people may simply not value. Why is that somehow logically superior?...
Knowledge, arrived at scientifically, is not perfect but is as close to truth as we can get.
In the absence of any scientific knowledge about deities despite efforts to find any, you might prefer to rely on guesswork or gut feeling or just wanting it to be so, but how is
that logically superior or even logically on-a-par?
To make your point you are inventing a value for people that, I would contend, they mostly don't have.
Many, or even most, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Shintoists, Taoists etc etc quite like having mobile phones, clean water and penicillin.
Dally wrote:
... Indeed, if we were to be serious about this science and human "endeavour" is destroying and will destroy the world to the extent that humanity will die out more quickly that in would in normal evolutionary terms. If you wish to take the true high moral ground it cannot be to side with the scientific community.
Do you want to give up knowledge acquired since the stone age and go back to living in a round house with an earth floor and a turf roof, or further back to the days when having cataract meant that you and your family would likely die of starvation?
If you do, that option is open.
If not then you need to accept that knowledge can be used for good or ill ... and join a group such Friends of the Earth/Greenpeace to exert pressure on the areas that need it.
Or you could pray, given the great track record that method has.
Dawkins has said nothing about Islam that is untrue.
Christianity was in a similar position back in the old days, knowledge was often seen as heresy, and would be again if the papacy had its way.
