Unexpected response
While nobody commented on my last post here, I talked to a couple of friends on Lambda who read it, and their reaction startled me. It was a negative reaction, both times, from people I like and who like me, I think.
We didn't talk about it much in either case. But the reaction was essentially the same as if I had written the following. Note: the following is not my opinion, it's just a straw man.
I don't believe in the supernatural. I think science is the only way to know things. Everybody who believes in anything supernatural (including religious beliefs), is a credulous idiot.
I must have gotten the tone of my essay Science and the Supernatural very wrong indeed. I wonder if it's possible to say what I want to say without coming off as rigidly opposed to all supernatural beliefs. And I'm not. I have some beliefs myself that I think one would call supernatural.
Anyway, I'm probably not a good enough writer to communicate what I think. Nuts.
We didn't talk about it much in either case. But the reaction was essentially the same as if I had written the following. Note: the following is not my opinion, it's just a straw man.
I don't believe in the supernatural. I think science is the only way to know things. Everybody who believes in anything supernatural (including religious beliefs), is a credulous idiot.
I must have gotten the tone of my essay Science and the Supernatural very wrong indeed. I wonder if it's possible to say what I want to say without coming off as rigidly opposed to all supernatural beliefs. And I'm not. I have some beliefs myself that I think one would call supernatural.
Anyway, I'm probably not a good enough writer to communicate what I think. Nuts.