Dan Steenwyk
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Re: Whom you would you like to see interviewed on bigthink?
Sam Harris … Read More
January 17, 2008 |
Dan Steenwyk commented on What is your question? on January 17, 2008, 5:07 PM
Saba, you make a good point about the tension between "meta" certainty and "physical" certainty, but you then proceed to contradict that point by implying that the two types of certainty are mutually exclusive. You say, "'meta-certainty' does not matter when it comes to getting along with finding some kind of meaning in our lives." But if the meaning you are so physically certain of necessarily hinges on a belief in God (a meta-certainty), then it seems to me that it does indeed matter very much. If a meta-certainty is crucial in first providing you with meaning or purpose, it follows that the same meta-certainty is a crucial step to your physical certainty about the effects of that meta-certainty upon your life. So your initial statement that there is tension between the two certainties is on firmer ground than your concluding statement.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an extremely intelligent and articulate woman, not to mention courageous, considering the stand she has taken for women's rights, free inquiry, and reason at great peril to her own life. I wholeheartedly agree with her on the importance of keeping nuclear arms out of the hands of ALL religious fanatics and fundamentalists (incidentally, which heavily religious country has more nukes than every other nuclear capable country in the world but one? Hint: Its initials are U and S). Her comments about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, bare an unfortunate resemblance to the rhetoric of fear being peddled by Bush, Cheney, and their neoconservative war hawks, and should therefore be taken with a big grain of salt. She says Ahmadinejad has told Israel "I'm going to wipe you off the map," paraphrasing an oft-cited and terribly mistranslated statement made by him in 2005. The truth is that Ahmadinejad was reciting an old quote by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the "regime" occupying Jerusalem to "vanish from the page of time." That sounds like a call for regime change, NOT marching orders to commit mass genocide or nuke an entire country. Furthermore, Iran does not even have nuclear weapons capability. Its uranium enrichment program, about which it has been quite open to the IAEA of late, can only produce low-grade uranium for generating power, not the high-grade stuff needed to build a bomb. Ali should be careful about falsely characterizing Iran as some rogue nuclear aggressor, because it can only give credence to the Bush administration's illegitimate, destructive, and anti-human use of preemptive war as an instrument of foreign policy. … Read More
January 16, 2008 |
Dan Steenwyk commented on What is your question? on January 17, 2008, 10:07 PM
Saba, you make a good point about the tension between "meta" certainty and "physical" certainty, but you then proceed to contradict that point by implying that the two types of certainty are mutually exclusive. You say, "'meta-certainty' does not matter when it comes to getting along with finding some kind of meaning in our lives." But if the meaning you are so physically certain of necessarily hinges on a belief in God (a meta-certainty), then it seems to me that it does indeed matter very much. If a meta-certainty is crucial in first providing you with meaning or purpose, it follows that the same meta-certainty is a crucial step to your physical certainty about the effects of that meta-certainty upon your life. So your initial statement that there is tension between the two certainties is on firmer ground than your concluding statement.