Thank you Peter,
I find this work to be vital and refreshing. I am reminded of Budziszewski's thoughts about what we can't not know - what is written on the heart. I look forward to your future contributions.

This is the first part of a longer article. The rest is published today under the title: Human rights have no foundation.

Dear Peter,

I get the feeling that many of the respondents to your articles find it difficult to put a case without resorting to abuse of your faith and even the faith of other OLO’ers. I am no different.

Since you have acknowledged the progress and contribution to human society made by natural sciences, it is worth addressing the progression of the two main threads in human society, those of the sciences and humanities.

It’s clear that the sciences have been responsible for most if not all the great leaps in the discovery and application of knowledge, granted not always a benefit to society.

There are clearly victims of the application of science. IMHO the application of the products of science for their own gain by politics, investment banks, resource conglomerates and the big end of town generally, has not always lead directly to improvements in social justice and equity.

Adverse effects are not so much the fault of sciences, rather than the application of this knowledge by other humans seeking advantage. This I think has lead to the victims seeking to redress the balance and/or seeking truths.

The truth of the sciences is in the form of empirical proofs whereas the truths of faiths are not really truths at all; they are simply a belief that the faith is true.

As the rift between the science and the faith becomes clearer, the faiths seek to close the gap by assigning “truths” to their faith with ever increasing complexity. This process is increasingly identified as “narrative theory”. Nothing new to religion as this has been the primary tool for thousands of years, they invented it.

The problem for the 34,000 registered religions on our planet is that your narrative theory has been high jacked by the UN, EU, thousands of NGO’s, university academics, politics and much of our media.

Your problem is that as humans become increasingly sensitized to narrative theory and begin to question it, so too will your mantra be challenged by association.

Their truth is your truth, but it cannot be sold as empirical reality.