Gray on Atheism
Mar. 15th, 2008 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylI've never been particularly impressed with John Gray and his piece on atheism in today's Guardian has done nothing to disabuse me of my preconceptions. Here's an example of the man in full flood:
Updated: A more extensive critique of Gray's piece is now available from the Lord of the Octopus Throne.
The growth of knowledge is a fact only postmodern relativists deny. Science is the best tool we have for forming reliable beliefs about the world, but it does not differ from religion by revealing a bare truth that religions veil in dreams. Both science and religion are systems of symbols that serve human needs - in the case of science, for prediction and control. Religions have served many purposes, but at bottom they answer to a need for meaning that is met by myth rather than explanation.
And the piece carries on in this fashion for paragraph after interminable paragraph. I'm now more convinced than ever that I don't want to read Black Mass.
Updated: A more extensive critique of Gray's piece is now available from the Lord of the Octopus Throne.
