[ExI] Tolerance

[Damien Broderick]

On 12/7/2009 10:03 PM, Brent Neal wrote:

> I question the rationality of a worldview that provides such a
> black-and-white view of superiority and inferiority as the worldview of
> these so-called "Brights" does. Outside the realm of the scientific,
> I've learned to be profoundly distrustful of folks who offer me
> either-or choices: Believe in my god or suffer. Free markets mean zero
> regulation. You're either atheist or stupid.  The world is only that
> simple to people who are too lazy to think in depth about the issue at
> hand or are too uneducated to have a complex opinion.

I have an essay titled "Beyond Faith and Opinion" in a rather 
interesting "New Atheists" book, 50 VOICES OF DISBELIEF: Why We Are 
Atheists, eds. Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk (Wiley-Blackwell). My 
view is closer to Brent's:

<When it comes to God in any of the Abrahamic senses... I do disbelieve 
in these alleged deities. Indeed, I'm inclined to think that the 
existence of such a supernatural being is not just unsupported by any 
sound evidence, but is logically impossible and self refuting.

On the other hand, my grip on logic and reasoning is no better than most 
people's, despite some formal training in philosophy. Can I have any 
absolute warrant in my confidence that deities are unbelievable? I might 
be wrong.

Many of the contributors to this book will rehearse the arguments for 
and against various gods of their choice. I mean to make a sort of 
meta-argument about the vulnerability of all arguments. This might cut 
against disbelief and nonbelief as it does against the varieties of 
belief in the divine, but I think it's worth keeping in mind. Perhaps it 
urges a certain modesty about any utter conviction that what we know is 
true, let alone obviously true.>

Damien Broderick