No, not in the way the term suggests, which is essentially a lack of ability. The inability to separate or compartmentalize types of values, basically, such as the broad distinction between religious values and scientific values.Malcolm wrote:They are most definitely drinking a brand of sugar water.boda wrote:Anything that offers purpose and meaning can take the place of religion, so yes of course science could adequately fill that role. What you don't seem to appreciate is that atheists such as Dawkins are essentially opposed to the irrationality that can result from the inability to separate "hard facts," as Bikkhu Bodhi puts it, from other spheres of value. They are opposed to 'drinking the Kool-Aid', to put it more colloquially, and yet your point seems to suggest that they are merely drinking a different brand of sugar water. If that is your point point then you are fundementally mistaken.Wayfarer wrote:... the point about the modern scientific materialism of the sort preached by Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawkings, is that they want to put science in the place of religion. It has been described as the 'religion of scientism'.
It is utterly ridiculous, for example, to suggest that someone like Dawkins would drink cyanide, or fly a jetliner into a building of civilians, at the request of a fellow scientist, merely out of deference to their authority.
The scientific community is not immune fallacies of authority of course, but they are regarded as mistakes or bad science, and not viewed as a virtue of faith.