"God of the gaps" - the fuzzy thinking that blights the arguments of the faithful and superstitious.
If you like listening to debates between the skeptical/secular/atheist and the faithful/religious/credulous like I do, you might notice a really clear difference in one key part of how each side thinks.
The skeptical people are comfortable saying "I don't know". They're comfortable with saying that things are undiscovered, unknowable etc.
The religious etc have a bad habit in that regard. They almost always use the warped logic of saying "if science etc can't explain the big bang, what created the universe etc ... then it MUST instead be my God that did it".
That's a generalisation. But it happens everywhere.
It's the same with things like homeopathy and other very dubious quack medicines. Any minor gaps in the knowledge of scientists, for example around the deep and complex aspects of quantum physics, are seized-upon by quacks to promote their own ends. And suddenly they claim that the difficulties of quantum theory support their magical view of the universe.
There are so many problems with this thinking. Perhaps the worst is the sheer personal bias and ack of imagination. There are myriad diferent religions with different creation myths, so a Catholic will be quite stupid to assume that science's lack of total certainty about the start of the universe in any way supports their particular brand of religion.
It's always the same thing, "If it isn't x then it must be y", with complete disregard for whether there are additional arguments around. Moreover, it's fallacious to pair together such things anyway. Religion is not a "counter-argument to science" and should never be taught in science lessons.
Where does this dangerous thinking come from? Biologically our brains our programmed to think in a basic geometric.way. But also there are plenty of faiths...
"God of the gaps" - the fuzzy thinking that blights the arguments of the faithful and superstitious.
If you like listening to debates between the skeptical/secular/atheist and the faithful/religious/credulous like I do, you might notice a really clear difference in one key part of how each side thinks.
The skeptical people are comfortable saying "I don't know". They're comfortable with saying that things are undiscovered, unknowable etc.
The religious etc have a bad habit in that regard. They almost always use the warped logic of saying "if science etc can't explain the big bang, what created the universe etc ... then it MUST instead be my God that did it".
That's a generalisation. But it happens everywhere.
It's the same with things like homeopathy and other very dubious quack medicines. Any minor gaps in the knowledge of scientists, for example around the deep and complex aspects of quantum physics, are seized-upon by quacks to promote their own ends. And suddenly they claim that the difficulties of quantum theory support their magical view of the universe.
There are so many problems with this thinking. Perhaps the worst is the sheer personal bias and ack of imagination. There are myriad diferent religions with different creation myths, so a Catholic will be quite stupid to assume that science's lack of total certainty about the start of the universe in any way supports their particular brand of religion.
It's always the same thing, "If it isn't x then it must be y", with complete disregard for whether there are additional arguments around. Moreover, it's fallacious to pair together such things anyway. Religion is not a "counter-argument to science" and should never be taught in science lessons.
Where does this dangerous thinking come from? Biologically our brains our programmed to think in a basic geometric.way. But also there are plenty of faiths that heavily promote the idea of polar opposites, reducing the world to simple choices in order to hem-in your imagination and scare you into obedience. In particular the idea of religious enlightenment is very repugnant, instantly disputing any claim that it's ok simply to 'not know' and encouraging you to fill your head with made-up claims about things you couldn't possible really know about (the end of the world, the origiin of the universe, the fate of individuals, the right morality etc).
This thinking is clearly still massively pervasive in modern society.
I especially enjoyed this interview with Don Webb, ex leader of the Setian spin-off of Satanism. He makes some excellent points around the reason for worshipping 'darkness' being an acceptance that the most godly, powerful, things out there is that vast area of things that are in shadow that we either do not know or can not know. It's perhaps a much healthier viewpoint than the religious claims to knowledge.
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/don_webb_devils_advocate/
If you like listening to debates between the skeptical/secular/atheist and the faithful/religious/credulous like I do, you might notice a really clear difference in one key part of how each side thinks.
The skeptical people are comfortable saying "I don't know". They're comfortable with saying that things are undiscovered, unknowable etc.
The religious etc have a bad habit in that regard. They almost always use the warped logic of saying "if science etc can't explain the big bang, what created the universe etc ... then it MUST instead be my God that did it".
That's a generalisation. But it happens everywhere.
It's the same with things like homeopathy and other very dubious quack medicines. Any minor gaps in the knowledge of scientists, for example around the deep and complex aspects of quantum physics, are seized-upon by quacks to promote their own ends. And suddenly they claim that the difficulties of quantum theory support their magical view of the universe.
There are so many problems with this thinking. Perhaps the worst is the sheer personal bias and ack of imagination. There are myriad diferent religions with different creation myths, so a Catholic will be quite stupid to assume that science's lack of total certainty about the start of the universe in any way supports their particular brand of religion.
It's always the same thing, "If it isn't x then it must be y", with complete disregard for whether there are additional arguments around. Moreover, it's fallacious to pair together such things anyway. Religion is not a "counter-argument to science" and should never be taught in science lessons.
Where does this dangerous thinking come from? Biologically our brains our programmed to think in a basic geometric.way. But also there are plenty of faiths...