[ExI] Belief in maths

Fred C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com
Thu Jul 8 18:26:29 UTC 2010


On Thu, 2010-07-08 at 01:10 -0400, darren shawn greer wrote:
>  
>  The point of that post was my belief that human beings might be
> better off if we collectively abandon such arguments altogether as
> irrelevant, unwinnable and ultimately unknowable. Not to mention that
> they often deteriorate into derision and sarcasm. 
> 

But the arguments are not irrelevant if those arguments are successful
in getting people to stop holding certain beliefs.  There are people who
ran the Inquisition because of their beliefs.  There are people who fly
planes into buildings because of their beliefs.  There are people who
deny full civil rights to LGBT people because of their beliefs.  The
roles of arguments is to help refine our cognitive space by rejecting
and/or correcting ideas which can not stand up to rational criticism.

For a further exploration of these idea see:
     The Retreat to Commitment by W. W. Bartley
and
     The End of Faith by Sam Harris

Fred






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