Re: The problems of religion and atheism

In message <e11442$1dmh$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Simon Robinson <Email.Address@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Michael J Davis wrote:
Ah - that's not the point. To pursue knowledge for it's own sake is to give one
a) self esteem & self worth
b) power over others
c) an obsessive concern with intelligence (I grant you that's not the same as knowledge)

Not necessarily. Other underlying motives why you might be pursuing knowledge, ostensibly for its own sake, might include:

d) a belief that such knowledge would better enable you to understand God, or to carry out some good in the world.
e) you simply enjoy learning new things
f) a belief that adding new knowledge to the pool of knowledge available to humanity will at some point allow others to do some good (this is I suspect close to the motivation of most pure scientists)
g) a belief that having knowledge is intrinsically better than not having knowledge

As Gareth pointed out, none of the above are reasons for pursuing knowledge for its own sake!

All of which contribute to the ills of society - seeing that others are worthless because they are different from me, are unable to reason, think or whatever.

I very much doubt that seeing others as worthless because they are different is particularly connected with how much knowledge you might have. Perhaps if you are already predisposed to think of others as worthless, then you might also be inclined to use any knowledge you have as 'evidence' to help back up your existing prejudice, but I don't think you can blame the search for knowledge itself for that.

You are probably right here.

If knowledge is unimportant, why would the existence of an absolute that truth can be measured against matter? (By way of context for my question, ISTM that 'knowledge' and 'truth' are pretty intimately connected, so if one is unimportant....)
No - truth is important. But we can never know everything, re-read what I said, indeed let me re-state it:- "knowledge is not a *basis* for a fulfilled life".

OK, put like that, I agree with you.

;-)

Mike

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Michael J Davis
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