Now, if you want to frame the matter to include
humans on some part of this planet that has never encountered basketball
and Western thought, then you have a point.
But religious belief is very much a part of Western thought. In fact, if you tote up the number of people over the centuries of Western thought who have believed in Papal infallibily vs. those who believed in the infallility of deductive reasoning, the Papists would win hands down. Not that I think that majority vote is any basis for discerning truth. But for you to implicitly contend that your view is the more prevalent Western thought view is, IMO, simply wrong.
What fascinates me as I watch society unfold is the possibility that in the US the trend may be moving away from the concepts of the Enlightenment back to the Age of Faith as it prevailed in the Middle Ages as our primary framerork for understanding the key elements of the experience of what it means to live a (not the, but a) good life, to be a fulfilled human being. This is playing itself out in many ways, and I don't know whether what we're seeing is a blip or a major societal shift, but from the re-emergence of evangelical religions to battles over such things as evolution vs. creationism and abortion, to such simple but highly symbolic things as the number of people walking around wearing crosses and W.W.J.D. bracelets, is a substantive shift from the first three quarters of the 20th century.
For better or worse, I know of no society that has endured for more than a few generations that has not had at its ground level a broadly held commitment to belief in some God or Gods and some form of organized religious exercise. The Russians and the Chinese tried to create such societies, and both have failed. The left in this country and Europe from WWII even to the present have tried and are trying, but are also failing. Religious belief, after a decline in the 60s to 80s, is growing again, and growing strongly.
So your concept of a world view that is based on reason and logic as bases for ultimate truth, as opposed to submission to a Divine as a basis for ultimate truth, is, based on my observations, diminishing in importance and influence.
For example, I think that in the 1960s or 1970s it would have been possible for an avowed agnostic, or even atheist, to have made a serious run for President. I think it would not be possible today.
Sso goingback to your statement "But the concept of certainty is different from the concepts of believing and supposing and probability" I contend that the concept of certainty and the concepts of believing and supposing are not as clear-cut as you would like them to be. |
