[ExI] Tolerance

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 11, 2009, at 9:05 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> 2009/12/11 Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it>
> This, in change, limited their ability think in terms that we give for granted.
> For example, the belief that unchanging natural laws exist and can be discovered was not their. This came with Christianity, where God is described as a creator that follows its own laws.
> 
> Why, things obviously happen to exhibit a perverse consistency, because as a good atheist/neopagan/idealist/skeptic/whatever, I am inclined on the contrary to believe that "natural laws" have nothing to do with immutable decrees of an entity (be it God, or even "Mother Nature") establishing how things must go, in more or less the same fashion the human legislators try and regulate social affairs, but simply with our way of understanding and describing how they actually do...

It is much more than an "inclination".  There is no evidence whatsoever of this "Law Giver".  To believe despite this lack is intellectually perverse and shows a quite corrupt epistemological structure.  

> 
> So, while I think that adopting one view or the other is more of a philosophical stance than a matter of fact,

If you understand what it is "to know" then it is a lot more than a mere "philosophical stance" as that is usually construed.


> I am needless to say much more at ease with the Greek (say, Eraklit or Democritus) than with the biblical worldview (say, the Genesis or Saint Thomas). And I suspect that modern science and epistemology, especially since the quantum mechanics revolution, have an easier and more elegant coexistence with the former.


Saying it is a merely a matter of preference is giving much to much power to every demon haunted notion that ever arose in the human mind.   It is a capitulation that is quite harmful.

- samantha
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