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Love has nothing to do with spirituality or the supernatural; there is no universal meaning of life. Dreaded Anomaly Send a noteboard - 03/12/2011 04:33:13 AM
A rather daring statement, I must say. Personally, I have always thought Scooby Doo works a lot better with the occasionally bona fide supernatural element thrown in to keep both audiences and "the gang" honest. Presenting a world where everything has mundane empirical explanations is at least as dogmatically DIShonest as presenting one where ghosts or a Magic Mans arcane actions opaquely lurk behind every event. The truth is somewhere in between; natural explanations fall woefully short at the uttermost limits of understanding, but granting an initial supernatural impetus does not preclude mundane natural causes observed as the norm ever since.


Everything does have an empirical explanation; we just don't know all of those explanations yet. Never in our millennia of history has a supernatural explanation ultimately triumphed over natural ones. Mostly, this is because supernatural explanations don't really explain anything: they don't help us predict or understand subsequent events.

Regardless, the case for a world premised entirely on the supernatural to the exclusion of the natural or vice versa is inadequate, to say the least. In the final analysis, the argument accepting only the conclusively proven will provide all answers has itself not been conclusively proven, quite the opposite, in fact. Likewise, the notion any supernatural element similarly invalidates all natural ones is refuted by common sense and experience. Both spiritual and empirical traditions have great value within their respective bailiwicks, but the value diminishes the further they are removed from their proper domains. If it is foolish to expect Paul or Lao-Tzu to explain refraction or celestial mechanics, it is no less so to expect Planck or Hawking to explain love or the meaning of life. None of those people is any more qualified than any other random person to speak on those subjects, but that does not diminish their qualifications to speak on subjects where they DO possess great knowledge.


Love is a chemical and neurological process. That does not diminish its importance to us, because explaining something does not make it "mundane." Things are what they are, and explaining them only helps us understand them better. An explanation does not change any fundamental qualities of a thing; mystery only exists in our minds.

The idea of a universal meaning of life is basic anthropomorphism. Meaning is a function of minds, and minds are not ontologically basic entities; they're complex, and the only examples we have of them come from Earth. We generate meaning for ourselves, but again, this does not diminish its importance, because there is no other real way for meaning to come into existence.

So, I would not expect Planck or Hawking to explain love. I would expect neuroscientists to do it, because the brain and nervous system are their field of study, and that's where love happens.

The prospect of the same wearisome artificial conflict between science and religion thrust into even childhood favorites like Scooby Doo is disappointing. Not only is it inappropriate, but it as just as unfaithful to the truthseeking tradition as ignoring secular humanisms debt to Medieval Christian humanism along with philosophers from Greeces Golden Age. If Scooby Doo were actively teaching kids everyone experessing any belief in the supernatural is deluded, dishonest or both that would be detrimental rather than beneficial to society; fortunately, I am confident that is not the case.

Also, this thread may belong on the TV & Movies MB. :P


What's artificial is the concept of "separate magisteria" that religions have cooked up over the past few hundred years in an attempt to survive the trouncing of their previous empirical claims by scientific research.

Scooby Doo teaches that there is always a reasonable explanation, and that is something that people desperately need to learn.

(Although, I agree that the Chesterton paraphrase was a bit out of place.)
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Scooby Doo and Secular Humanism. Stephen - 02/12/2011 09:58:49 PM 711 Views
Paraphrasing G.K. Chestertons famous affirmation of Christianity to justify secular humanism, eh? Joel - 02/12/2011 11:02:54 PM 433 Views
Love has nothing to do with spirituality or the supernatural; there is no universal meaning of life. Dreaded Anomaly - 03/12/2011 04:33:13 AM 504 Views
Those are legitimate beliefs, but not proven facts. Joel - 03/12/2011 10:05:44 PM 511 Views
Quite a combination of impossible standards, artificial categories, and misunderstandings of science Dreaded Anomaly - 04/12/2011 02:53:44 AM 515 Views
I have a question about log-odds formulation. Ghavrel - 04/12/2011 06:36:02 AM 303 Views
It depends on if that's a realistic example or a toy example. Dreaded Anomaly - 04/12/2011 05:32:34 PM 347 Views
That's pretty much what I thought. I meant in a toy example. Ghavrel - 04/12/2011 10:17:47 PM 297 Views
That's how I would use it, anyway. Dreaded Anomaly - 04/12/2011 10:41:01 PM 302 Views
Indeed Joel - 05/12/2011 11:05:41 PM 455 Views
Re: Indeed Dreaded Anomaly - 08/12/2011 02:25:13 AM 471 Views
Scooby Doo is not about secular fucking humanism. It's a Gnostic allegory. Tom - 02/12/2011 11:57:37 PM 394 Views
I had all but forgotten that post, one of the first I read at wotmania. Joel - 03/12/2011 10:09:36 PM 326 Views
Comparing me to Santa selling crack has positively made my day. Thank you! Tom - 05/12/2011 01:50:54 AM 443 Views
Not you, Scooby. Joel - 05/12/2011 11:09:45 PM 321 Views
Great article. *NM* Dreaded Anomaly - 03/12/2011 04:57:50 AM 226 Views
Scooby Doo, Secular Humanism or Gnostic allegory? Danu - 04/12/2011 12:36:09 AM 688 Views
You are welcome *NM* Stephen - 04/12/2011 01:50:41 AM 128 Views
but if you think about it Yunalesca - 04/12/2011 01:03:58 PM 310 Views
Have you seen the Tim Minchin video/song? Camilla - 04/12/2011 06:36:48 PM 421 Views
Look at the thread above this one. *NM* Dreaded Anomaly - 04/12/2011 06:59:40 PM 143 Views
What Dreaded Anomaly said *NM* Stephen - 04/12/2011 08:01:52 PM 152 Views
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