I love the book Ideas That Changed the World by Felipe Armesto. (See earlier post for a review.) It has taught me so many things.
Here's an interesting passage from the chapter "The Idea That Numbers are Real":
Once it became entrenched in the learned tradition of the Western world, most people believed in - or simply accepted - the reality of numbers. It enabled them to accept that reality can be invisible, untouchable and yet still accessible to reason. This deduction paved the way for an alliance between science, reason and religion that has lasted until our own times.
I googled the words science and reason and discovered that most people seem to consider the two words synonymous. As if all scientists are reasonable and all reasonable people are scientists. But to Felipe, the words science, reason and religion mean quite different things altogether. We need reason to deal with things that are invisible and untouchable (or cannot be measured scientifically). Things like God and numbers, for example. You can say belief in God is unscientific but you can't say belief in God is unreasonable.
Which brings me to Deism. I was a church-goer for 10 years and got totally disillusioned. I decided to cast all previous religious knowledge of God aside and start from scratch. I was thinking like a Deist before I even knew the word existed. Deists stand apart from both science and religion. So does Reason.
Felipe: Yet reason has helped to temper or restrain rival approaches to regulating the world such as systems founded on dogma or charisma or emotion or naked power. Alongside science, tradition and intuition, reason has been part of our essential tool kid for discovering truths.
Amen.
[Clip art from http://estabrook.ci.lexington.ma.us]
Here's an interesting passage from the chapter "The Idea That Numbers are Real":
Once it became entrenched in the learned tradition of the Western world, most people believed in - or simply accepted - the reality of numbers. It enabled them to accept that reality can be invisible, untouchable and yet still accessible to reason. This deduction paved the way for an alliance between science, reason and religion that has lasted until our own times.
I googled the words science and reason and discovered that most people seem to consider the two words synonymous. As if all scientists are reasonable and all reasonable people are scientists. But to Felipe, the words science, reason and religion mean quite different things altogether. We need reason to deal with things that are invisible and untouchable (or cannot be measured scientifically). Things like God and numbers, for example. You can say belief in God is unscientific but you can't say belief in God is unreasonable.
Which brings me to Deism. I was a church-goer for 10 years and got totally disillusioned. I decided to cast all previous religious knowledge of God aside and start from scratch. I was thinking like a Deist before I even knew the word existed. Deists stand apart from both science and religion. So does Reason.
Felipe: Yet reason has helped to temper or restrain rival approaches to regulating the world such as systems founded on dogma or charisma or emotion or naked power. Alongside science, tradition and intuition, reason has been part of our essential tool kid for discovering truths.
Amen.
[Clip art from http://estabrook.ci.lexington.ma.us]
