Are science and religion compatible?
To answer this question, I would like to propose a three-pronged approach:
(A-) From the historical point of view, the answer is Yes.
Thomas Dixon, in his very good and concise introduction "Science and Religion", writes: "Although the idea of warfare between science and religion remains widespread and popular, recent academic writing on the subject has been devoted primarily to undermining the notion of inevitable conflict. [...] there are good historical reasons for rejecting simple conflict stories." - - -
The same conclusion can be found in Peter Harrison's detailed historical analysis "The territories of Science and Religion" : "...the idea of a perennial conflict between science and religion must be false (...)".- - - -
And John Hedley Brooke in "Science and Religion" :
"The popular antithesis between science, conceived as a body of unassaiable facts, and religion, conceived as a set of unverifiable beliefs, is assuredly simplistic." - - - "... an image of perennial conflict between science and religion is inappropriate as a guiding principle.".
(B-) The personal point of view. Again the answer is Yes.
There are real scientists who believe in a personal triune God, and in Jesus as their savior, and in the Bible as the word of god... and all the rest of Christian creed and dogma. These scientists assure us that they do not have 'split personalities' and I have no reason to doubt their testimony. They believe that God created the universe and life, and they see it as their job to analyse and describe and understand His creation. How they manage to do this without mentioning the Holy Spirit or the Divine Logos in their papers is up to them. Obviously they are able do this and they are respected by their peers.
(C-) The methological point of view. Here the answer is No!
Christian scientists may not have 'split personalities', but they have to practice what I would call a methodological atheism at work. As they enter the lab, they have to keep God out of their mind, or to encapsulate their belief. There is simply no possibility whatsoever to mix their work and their faith. Science as a method and religion as a faith can never form an alloy. Christian scientists may be motivated by their faith to work as scientists, to better understand His creation, but this motivation is confined to the personal level (B_).
The contents of their faith must never contaminate the method they have to apply so that the results of their work count as "science". The career of an evolutionary biologist would be over the very moment s/he opines publicly something like "The known mechanisms of evolution can only account for microevolution, but in order to explain macroevolution we need a transcendent and divine force."
Are science and religion antithetical or contradictory as such?
There is no contradiction neither on the theoretical nor on the personal level if person X studies nature according to the scientific method AND believes that nature was created by a divine being or that a divine *logos* is at the core of nature. In this case the scientific stance and practice is just embedded in a wider circle of faith. The two are not contradictory. That is the reason why nearly all scientists of the early modern period (those who brought about the "Scientific Revolution") were deeply religious (it is a myth that they were all closet atheists), and that is why there are still some religious scientists. If science and religion were antithetical, a religious scientist would be a contradiction in terms (like "socialist capitalist" or "peaceful warrior")
(A-) From the historical point of view, the answer is Yes.
Thomas Dixon, in his very good and concise introduction "Science and Religion", writes: "Although the idea of warfare between science and religion remains widespread and popular, recent academic writing on the subject has been devoted primarily to undermining the notion of inevitable conflict. [...] there are good historical reasons for rejecting simple conflict stories." - - -
The same conclusion can be found in Peter Harrison's detailed historical analysis "The territories of Science and Religion" : "...the idea of a perennial conflict between science and religion must be false (...)".- - - -
And John Hedley Brooke in "Science and Religion" :
"The popular antithesis between science, conceived as a body of unassaiable facts, and religion, conceived as a set of unverifiable beliefs, is assuredly simplistic." - - - "... an image of perennial conflict between science and religion is inappropriate as a guiding principle.".
(B-) The personal point of view. Again the answer is Yes.
There are real scientists who believe in a personal triune God, and in Jesus as their savior, and in the Bible as the word of god... and all the rest of Christian creed and dogma. These scientists assure us that they do not have 'split personalities' and I have no reason to doubt their testimony. They believe that God created the universe and life, and they see it as their job to analyse and describe and understand His creation. How they manage to do this without mentioning the Holy Spirit or the Divine Logos in their papers is up to them. Obviously they are able do this and they are respected by their peers.
(C-) The methological point of view. Here the answer is No!
Christian scientists may not have 'split personalities', but they have to practice what I would call a methodological atheism at work. As they enter the lab, they have to keep God out of their mind, or to encapsulate their belief. There is simply no possibility whatsoever to mix their work and their faith. Science as a method and religion as a faith can never form an alloy. Christian scientists may be motivated by their faith to work as scientists, to better understand His creation, but this motivation is confined to the personal level (B_).
The contents of their faith must never contaminate the method they have to apply so that the results of their work count as "science". The career of an evolutionary biologist would be over the very moment s/he opines publicly something like "The known mechanisms of evolution can only account for microevolution, but in order to explain macroevolution we need a transcendent and divine force."
Are science and religion antithetical or contradictory as such?
There is no contradiction neither on the theoretical nor on the personal level if person X studies nature according to the scientific method AND believes that nature was created by a divine being or that a divine *logos* is at the core of nature. In this case the scientific stance and practice is just embedded in a wider circle of faith. The two are not contradictory. That is the reason why nearly all scientists of the early modern period (those who brought about the "Scientific Revolution") were deeply religious (it is a myth that they were all closet atheists), and that is why there are still some religious scientists. If science and religion were antithetical, a religious scientist would be a contradiction in terms (like "socialist capitalist" or "peaceful warrior")
Comments (368)
I then asked the same question to my religion teacher and she replied in a more complete way: she said that a Christian had the right to believe that the theory of evolution was true, or that any other scientific theory or principle was true, because the fact that evolution, for example, is a valid theory doesn't exclude the fact that God could have initiated everything. Of course, if you come from a branch of Christianity that takes the Bible ad litteram, then that's another whole story.
Also, a while ago, I watched a Richard Dawkins interview in which he said that science answers to the question "how?", while religion answers to the question "why?". According to Dawkins, however, the "why?" question was irrelevant, while for me it's actually an interesting query which doesn't necessarily have "God" or "Gods" as an answer.
Quoting Matias
That is true but there are some interesting borderline cases. There was a very well-known evolutionary biologist of Russian birth but whose career was based in America, by the name of Theodosius Dobzhansky, a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis. One of his oft-quoted statements is that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'. Yet later in life he wrote a deeply philosophical and even religious book called The Biology of Ultimate Concern, which was deeply influenced by Pierre Tielhard du Chardin and included a chapter on Evolution and Transcendence. He maintained an Orthodox faith all of his life and this book was written to consider the philosophical and indeed spiritual implications of his life work. I don't believe the term 'intelligent design' had been coined in his day, although I suspect he would never have supported such an idea; but he clearly illustrates the principle that you're arguing for, I think.
Regarding 'methodological naturalism' - I agree with you there as well, but I do think there is an awful lot of leakage from methodological naturalism to metaphysical speculation; non-philosophically-aware scientists will often make metaphysical pronouncements on the basis of their methodological principles (a sterling example being Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe from Nothing, with endorsements from a number of popular atheists). Of course sophisticated scientists and philosophers realise this error, but there is still plenty of it about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn2F2BWLZ0Q
"Are science and Christian religion compatible?"
As a non-Christian religious person, I feel a bit discriminated ...
We should carefully differentiate whether we talk about fundamental conflict between a religious and a scientific world view in general (Which would first have to be defined properly).
Or more specifically, as you seem to do, Christian religion and science.
Evolution obliterating the ABCs of Genesis is no small matter, and so now we know that the Bible can't be counted on in its areas of metaphysics. There is more, too, such as that we know how solar systems form, plus that there is one tree of life, not a separate one for the animals. Further, additional claims of divine inspiration among the Bible's xyzs lose their creditability.
What's left happens to be invisible and so it cannot be known, much less shown; so, religion's dogma, doomed to but a 'maybe', can't even be honestly preached as being a truth, this further diminishing its attractiveness and lessening its impact, driving church attendance way down, even in the once stable northeast.
'God' has become constrained to act in exactly the same way nature would if there were no 'God'.
And science is always about facts, or what is. So any normative prescriptions about what is "right" or "wrong" to believe (i.e. Evolution is "right" therefore believing in the bible is "wrong") are NOT themselves scientific. So science and religion are or should be fully reconcilable.
Except that they do, so your comment is meaningless. The biggest organised religions make factual claims - factual claims which aren't supported by science.
Quoting Pantagruel
But they're not.
What is is that evolutionary science informs us that humans were not made as is, immutable, instantly, in the form of modern humans; so, Genesis is flat out wrong.
It gets even worse, in that the supposedly divinely revealed 'God' turns out to be a bad role model.
You seem to be committing the No True Scotsman fallacy. I've just brought to your attention the [I]fact[/I] that the biggest organised religions do make factual claims which aren't supported by science. It is therefore [I]not[/I] the case that these religions and science are reconcilable, and dismissing them along the lines that they're not True religions and therefore don't count isn't a valid response.
Pretty much any pagan recognizes that there are patterns in nature since they all used patterns, tool use, and passed down and found knowledge of nature, empirically based, to survive, thrive, make and so on.
If you're one of those "It's all a metaphor" theists, then a) you're not really a theist in any meaningful sense, and b) you're not who I was referring to, and therefore beside the point I was making.
As said, we get informed.
But the point you accuse him of missing is a red herring. [I]His[/I] point (and it is a salient one) is that there are claims of religion which are contradicted by science.
Yes, there are areas of scripture that can be taken as metaphorical, such as the length of time the earth has been here. But you can't take [I]everything[/I] in scripture as metaphorical whilst maintaining to be a theist in any [i]meaningful[/I] sense of the word, and this is not a common position. The key tenets, most essentially God, are not widely considered metaphors, and no credible science leads to a supernatural creator of the universe or whatever. In Christianity, Jesus isn't held to be a human like other humans. He is believed to be the son of God, whose holy spirit rose from the grave. Again, this isn't supported by science.
Actually the Genesis creation mythology has little direct connection with Christian metaphysics which was mainly adapted from Greek philosophy.
And unless you believed in the literal truth of the creation story, then the fact that it's not literally true doesn't have a great deal of significance. In other words, if you understand it to be an allegorical story, then the actual physical facts are not that relevant to it. And besides all of that, Big Bang creation theory is quite plausibly allegorised by ‘creation ex nihilo’ - so much so that the Pope had to be tactfully advised not to keep saying in in public speeches.
So, it’s true that science has undermined ‘the literal reading of genesis’, but a lot of Christians could easily say, ‘and so what?’
So, someone made it up—your foundational page one. Then they could say, "no big deal" or "who cares!"
Religions don't make claims; people make claims. So, within the class of the religious who make, or appear to make, factual claims based on scripture, there is a diversity of interpretation of scripture that exists on spectrum from completely metaphorical to completely literal, and hence there is a diversity of claims, more or less compatible or incompatible with science..
As I see it, this discussion is still suffering from the definition of terms. For some, religion is A and science is B and clearly A is incompatible with B. And the others are talking about religion as C, and look at that: C and B are clearly compatible.
My approach would be this:
1. Humans try to understand the world, try to understand how everything works.
That's logical: If you understand the system you can predict the outcome and plan for it. And in the next step you can adapt the system to your advantage, that is: adapt and use nature to your advantage. So we use our capabilities for learning and rational thinking, and we experiment until we have a solid working model of "how things work"
This is what I call science.
2. There are some cases, however, when science doesn't quite work out.
Perhaps they don't have the proper tools and theories yet to figure out the scientific answer, or perhaps they have a scientific answer, but it just doesn't satisfy.
Like that thing with death and immortal souls... Science suggests that once you're dead you're gone. End of story. Human experience disagrees: We remember our dead quite vividly and we feel that they are still with us in our minds and hearts. So a scientific answer may be available, but for many humans it contradicts our social and emotional experience.
Another area where science is not much help is indeed the normative. Science says: you can take that stone and hit your rival's head, and given enough momentum, the stone will break the skull. Science may also give you some predictions on how killing a rival might help or hinder you standing with the rest of the group. Will they fear you? Respect you? Punish you?
But science doesn't tell you in clear and easy terms that killing is either right or wrong.
If you look at ethics, most ethical systems are based on certain unscientific preconceptions, like the Golden Rule, the greatest benefit for the greatest number, etc.
3. We humans hate feeling insecure. We hate to leave questions open, to have fundamental stuff unexplained, something like "Why did this shit happen to ME?"
This is where religion steps in. Religion accepts that we'd rather make up a story than leave a question unanswered, that we humans love metaphor to explain complex and abstract concepts more easily, that we look for guidance and meaning in our lives
So does that mean that religion is false, an illusion, a man-made fiction? Not quite.
Have not science and philosophy themselves shown the fallacies and inadequacies of rational thinking? There are limits to science, and very often the "scientific fact" is nothing but "the model that currently holds up in most tests".
So when we look for answers in other things than our rational mind - what's to say that this does not yield true results? When we turn to emotion and intuition to find those religious answers, perhaps this is truly a way to connect to higher beings, who may choose to help and guide us. I personally believe that the mythology is man-made, but the underlying truth and inspiration is divine.
I think that religion, as I understand it, cannot be proven or refuted by scientific means - that's rather the point of it. Religion explores exactly those areas that lie outside of science.
For the same reason, religion cannot claim to present "truth" or "fact" in a scientific sense, religious truths remain inherently subjective.
Therefore, I see no incompatibility between my understanding of science and my understanding of religion.
So what, if an old creation myth is contradicted by evolution or geology?
Our ancestors didn't have those answers, so the religious metaphor was all they could rely on.
Today, you can choose to discard the metaphor of myth. Or you can understand that it is, indeed, allegorical, and it may still teach you something useful, and then you keep it alongside the science.
Another example: Even if you know that the sun does not move around the earth and is nothing but a big ball of gas: you can still speak about the sun "rising", and you can find profound meaning in a hymn that praises the sun god for nurturing life on earth.
A very pragmatic exposition.
Right, I meant that one would take the idea that there is a God literally, and that one can have a relationship with that God, and that the commandments will be of aid in being a Good person, say, and that Jesus' teaching are also an aid in both being good and being close to God and perhaps adding in taking the parts about Heaven literally. IOW the core theist positions. I actually think this is fairly common.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
They could say it doesn’t change the overall meaning. It's a question of interpretation.
The conflict is between literalism or fundamentalism, on the one side, and scientific materialism on the other. Scientific materialism stands in relation to science as fundamentalism does to religion.
Indeed :up:
"Scientific facts" change as well as religious metaphors. The stories that scientists used to tell are very different from the one they tell now, and the ones they tell in the future may again be very different. It seems many believe that science is now close to truth, and all that remains is to work out the details, but that's what people said too before the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics and computers, so I really wouldn't count on the "scientific facts" of today to be the final version of the scientific tale.
There is also the widespread view that science works while religion doesn't, but that's not right, spirituality works for many people in ways that science doesn't work for them. People who want most of all to feel love and connectedness and meaning don't care much about the latest technologies or about sending spacecrafts into outer space, technology can be a useful tool but they don't see it as the most important thing, as something to idolize. The importance of scientific 'successes' is relative, among other things they have given us the tools to destroy one another more efficiently, the quest for incessant progress has led to the progressive destruction of nature and other species and cultures, and it doesn't look like scientific stories will be enough to make us change course.
We might very well continue praising the successes of science all while continuing to destroy the world and ourselves until our last breath, stuck in the belief that science could find the solution to all our problems. Science can tell people that nuclear war would bring global destruction, but it won't stop people from using nuclear weapons. To say that only science works is to focus on the material while being oblivious to everything else, and that's a religion in itself.
Have you listened to the Rorty clip (above) ? There is no 'conflict' if science and religion are seen as operating in different domains of human necessity. Ostensibly, science operates in the domain of 'prediction and control'; Religion operates in the domain of 'emotional and social need'. Conflict arises when 'needs' stray out of their domains, like fundamentalist views regarding evolution, or when scientists ask for 'empirical evidence' for a deity.
Unfortunately, it takes a certain level of intelligence and confidence in self integrity to understand this potential resolution in those terms, because social and psychological forces tend to fog a terrain which is already intellectually unreachable by much of humanity. Nor is the 'control' aspect of science 'value neutral' with respect concepts of 'progress', which gives a potential 'handle' to religionists. (as exemplified by the post above).
If science is popperian falsificationism and religion is axiomatic morality, then they do not even have common subject matter.
The real question is whether scientism and religion are compatible. Answer: obviously not. The idea that there would be only one epistemic domain, i.e. falsificationism, should not even be taken seriously.
Thanks, this was my initial premise. You can also frame it in terms of the is-ought gap (Hume's law).
Yes, and I learned that distinction many years ago. It is, however, a distinction of no relevance to the point I've been making.
Quoting Pantagruel
You're the one who is ignoring my valid point about the claims of religion. Whether you like it or not, religions do make factual claims, not just normative claims. Apparently you have nothing to say about that, except to repeat your red herring which has no bearing whatsoever on the point I'm making.
And the answer is still a resounding no, unless they scrap their most fundamental tenets.
Sure, but there the core claims do not contradict science. The core claims that many hold, which do not go into the claims that, for example, fundamentalists hold. One can easily be Christian and believe in a God, believe that Jesus had great tips about being good and close(r) to God, and then, yes, that the normative claims are correct. One can not care much about when exactly the world formed and other parts of the Bible that are directly contradicted by science. And there is a distinction between direct contradiction and something not being supported by current models or even seemingly extremely unlikely given current models.
Oh really? Thanks for pointing that out. :roll:
But people make religions, and they make them with commitments which can be expressed through language. And that's what I was referring to. If you're a Christian, for example, then that means that you have a set of key beliefs, or things you'd claim to be true.
Quoting Janus
Yes, and that's basically a repetition of an earlier response which I've already addressed, so please see my earlier response to this.
Not the same thing at all. He, apparently, was trying to exclude any religion which makes factual claims, whereas I'm saying that the term "theism" doesn't mean whatever you want it to mean, and it must have a meaning in distinction from atheism.
This is how Google dictionary defines theism:
Are you seriously going to tell me that a theist would claim that that is a metaphor, too, like everything else? A metaphor for what? And what would distinguish them from an atheist?
Cut the crap, I say. No actual theist believes that that's just a metaphor. They really do believe that there's a Being, namely God, who literally created the universe. No actual theist really believes that the entirely of the scriptures which comprise their religion contains not a single literal passage, but instead is full of nothing but metaphor. No actual theist has a set of beliefs which are entirely consistent with atheism, or else they're a theist in name only.
You have just committed the no true Scotsman fallacy.
So then you should agree with the point that I was making, namely that there are at least some key beliefs which must be taken literally. And these beliefs are not supported by science. Unless you know something that I don't, i.e. that some group of scientists, say, has just discovered God and Heaven after running some lab tests.
No? Didn't think so.
Hence the ridiculousness of saying that the two are compatible.
Bullshit. I'm just talking about what theists believe. The answers you'd get if you went out into the real world and spoke to theist after theist. Do you think you know of an exception? There must be some definition of theism or set of criteria for one to count as a theist. I'm simply abiding by the conventional definition, which is meaningful. Are you going by some idiosyncratic meaning which suits your own beliefs, ideals, preconceived notions...?
And there it is. Not supported is not the same as incompatible.
This would mean that current scientists who have beliefs that are not currenly supported by science, but will be next month or in twenty years or more have beliefs that are incompatible with science. It would mean that lots of people, both scientists and non-scientists, who have been correct had beliefs that were incompatible with science, when in fact it was merely that their beliefs were not supported (or falsified) by current science.Quoting S
Lose the attitude.
Things that are not supported
is a set of things
that is not the same as the set of things that are incompatible. The latter is a smaller subset of the former. And that's not even getting into revision related to induction.
I'll give a specific example: rogue waves. Individuals at sea reported seeing solitary huge waves. scientists poo pooed these sightings as emotionally influenced estimations or hallucinations. Then technology changed and there were videos. Then it changed more, and satellite images showed them. Now the scientists set about explaining it.
The rogue waves were not incompatible with current science. But there were not supported in any way by current models. Yet, some set of scientists thought in binary and conflating terms.
If there is nothing to support it in current science, then it is incompatible. That's binary. There is the category of things that are not supported now but that may be later. And some of those are true or science itself is complete.
So what's the exception that I'm wrongfully excluding? Explain yourself properly if you're going to accuse me of committing the fallacy.
No true theist believes that scriptures are metaphorical.
You can believe there is a divine being without believing scriptures are literal or factual. There is absolutely, absolutely no reason that those two beliefs have to be interdependent. Except that you are forcing it to be so.
You haven't fully answered my response to your criticism. Again, you must explain how it makes any sense for a theist to believe that scriptures are entirely metaphorical. (I've already acknowledged that some areas of scripture can be interpreted metaphorically, but "some" doesn't refute my position). In what sense are they theist? What does that mean? How are they distinct from an atheist? What's a divine being a metaphor for, then?
Please answer these questions so I don't have to keep repeating myself.
The definition of theism is belief in the existence of a deity. Scriptures do not even enter into the definition of theism. Is that succinct enough for you?
Sorry to be curt, but this is getting kind of childish.
The problem with that characterization is that people can then claim that "emotional and social needs" can be controlled or fulfilled through "prediction and control", and that's how science gets to the position of authority that it has today, people believe that whatever problem that can be solved can be solved through science and so there is no need for anything else. There are elements of prediction and control and emotional and social need both in what we call science and what we call religion.
I think a more accurate characterization would be to recognize that science is not fundamentally different from religion, the apparent difference lies in that what we call science is more focused on what we perceive with our usual senses, whereas religion or spirituality is usually more focused on feelings.
In any discussion about science I feel it is important to point out the problem of demarcation that seems to be consistently ignored: we can't even define precisely what is science and what isn't science! All such attempts fail in some way. If we say science is defined through falsifiability, there are plenty of so-called scientific theories that aren't falsifiable. If we say science follows a scientific method, there are plenty of practices that follow this scientific method and that are considered non-science. People who call themselves scientists decide what theories or practices they call 'science' to give them more importance, and to dismiss theories and practices they don't like, calling them 'pseudoscience', 'fiction', 'fairy tales', 'unworthy of consideration'.
I would characterize Science as a religion all the same, with its own system of beliefs and practices, that doesn't have inherently a position of authority over other systems of beliefs and practices, besides the authority that its numerous adherents confer to it. At that point Science believers usually react furiously, saying Science tells how the world is, Science has successes, but so do other systems of beliefs and practices, they all tell their own story of how the world is and they all have their own successes, it's simply that what counts as a success within one system doesn't always count as a success within another system, smartphones and spacecrafts and nuclear weapons can be seen as great achievements within one system, while being seen as signs of retrogression within another system, depending on what the system values most.
True that. I am often amazed at how dogmatic some science disciples can be. To me, the most important aspect of science is always retaining an open mind.
Empty charges without explanation. You clearly don't know what you're talking when it comes to fallacies. I've neither changed the subject nor equivocated my terms.
And to answer you question, no, that's not succinct enough for me because you are, deliberately, evading my questions seeking clarification. You talk about metaphor, yet don't bother to properly explain yourself. If deity is a metaphor, then once again, there's the question of what it is a metaphor of. And if it's to be taken literally, then we're back to my original point that there's no science to support it. You can't both abide by the scientific method, and at the same time make special exemptions without warrant. Therein lies the inconsistency, therein lies the incompatibility.
Do you actually have a larger framework within which this obsession to put down this set of non-scientific beliefs has meaning that might conceivably be of some value to the rest of the world? Why don't you just leave the poor theists alone?
No, that's an erroneous inference on your part. I already quoted the definition of theism I'm adhering to. I've mentioned scripture because it's of obvious relevance in a discussion about religion.
And I'm certainly not going to answer your questions when you've repeatedly evaded so many of mine.
What a load of nonsense. I didn't make it up. If you were paying any attention, you would've noticed that I said I'd got it from Google dictionary, and this can be easily verified.
When you've read my posts properly, feel free to get back to me for a serious discussion in relation to scripture.
Yes they do. Core claims in Christianity: God exists, there's an afterlife, Jesus is the son of God, the Holy Spirit of Jesus rose from the grave.
Science has a method. Application of that method does not result in the above. So you can't both adhere to the scientific method, which would result in scepticism at best, and at the same time hold beliefs which fly in the face of that scepticism.
How can anyone be so blind to the obvious incompatibility here?
This would be the fallacy of overgeneralization. Christianity is not religion, any more than you are "humanity."
The topic is not "Are science and scripture compatible" or "Are science and Christianity compatible".
Descartes is the father of methodological skepticism, of the strictest kind. And he was a devout Catholic. Maybe it just requires exceptional abilities.
Yes, that's the idea of science I grew up with, but then more and more I realized how keeping an open mind is precisely not an attitude that characterizes most scientists nowadays, instead they see an open mind as a defect, as a mind that lets in ideas and beliefs and theories and practices that do not fit the superior realm of Science. If only they could at least define that realm precisely and consistently, but they don't, or rather they can't and that's the worst part of it, they say something is Science because it fits some criteria, and then they say some other thing isn't Science even though it fits the exact same criteria, and then they ridicule that other thing and use derogatory terms to qualify it. That's like the antithesis of having an open mind.
The two are not compatible.
Its not that complex. Just because someone believes in science and believes in god doesn't mean the two are compatible. Its called cognitive dissonance I believe.
If science is your standard, you cannot believe in god. If you have some other standard, “faith” probably, then have it but it isnt science. Thats it. Simple.
And to those discussing the open mindedness, perhaps some knows who said this (rough paraphrase) “do not have a mind so open that your brain falls out”. Also, the traits you specify scientists possess apply to the wider population. Its a human thing, not a scientist thing.
That's right. It's pretty much the whole point that has been made. Conclusions about god are not scientific. Science and religion are different domains, that's all. They are neither compatible or incompatible. They could, however, be complementary.
Like I said, cognitive dissonance.
It isn't causing any dissonance for me. Quite the reverse.
Your logic is not sound.
There is no scientific prove for the existence of gods - true
Therefore gods don't exist - false! The absence of proof does not prove absence.
Even if the existence of gods cannot be proven, neither can their non-existence be proven.
The absence of useful falsification methods further removes the religious sphere from the scientific.
Therefore I can see science as my standard in some matters, and religion as my standard in other matters. Applying scientific method to the religious sphere is about as useful as trying to measure temperature with a speedometer.
If a question does not fall under the purview of a particular epistemic method, it could still be handled by another one. The fallacy of scientism, is that experimental testing would be the only legitimate, epistemic method.
For example, It is not possible to determine if the Battle of Waterloo took place in 1815 using the method of experimental testing. The question is simply part of another epistemic domain, i.e. the historical method, and can only be handled by corroborating witness depositions.
The question of completeness has been investigated for the axiomatic method.
A set of axioms is (syntactically, or negation-) complete if, for any statement in the axioms' language, that statement or its negation is provable from the axioms. This is the notion relevant for Gödel's first Incompleteness theorem. There are sentences expressible in the language of first order logic that can be neither proved nor disproved from the axioms of logic alone.
The axiomatic method is capable of self-investigation and determine by itself that it is incomplete. The scientific method is not even capable of carrying out that kind of self-investigation. So, how could the scientific method possibly be complete?
Therefore, scientism is an irritating absurdity:
Scientism is an ideology that promotes science as the only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, pointing to the cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.
You're apparently using Abrahamic religion as your only point of reference.
I don't have any "scripture" at all, as my religion is not a revealed religion.
We have an abundance of religious texts and mythology, but all of these we acknowledge as being written by human beings. There may be bits of divine revelation among those texts, but we have no method nor any desire to hunt for those bits, because this is not the point.
Mythology is meant to be metaphorical, and our conceptions of gods and goddesses are naturally allegorical. The aim of myth is to give us a framework of meaning and reference to understand our place in the world. And myth teaches us useful insights by pointing out certain archetypes and structures.
Quoting S
I personally believe that the gods and goddesses exist, that I can interact with them in meaningful ways and that one of them created our world (ok, more like three of them, but it's complicated :grin: ) Therefore: Theist. (Polytheist, to be precise)
One point I have to concede is that I take my beliefs to be entirely subjective and based on personal study and experience. And I freely admit that I may be wrong. So you might say that I am a bit of an agnostic - but certainly not an atheist!
Quoting S
I believe that the divine is too vast to be grasped by a human mind. Therefore metaphor is a necessary instrument to approach it.
All the images we have of the gods can never reflect a pure and absolute truth.
Instead the names, titles and pictures we have each reflect a certain aspect of the gods. The more we have, the richer and more varied our perception of the divine becomes.
The monotheists call it idolatry, of course...
Quoting S
Well, my approach is not very conventional in the modern Western world, but I didn't make it up to "suit my preconceived notions", I merely build up on an old African tradition.
However, I think that I am within your proposed definition of:
" Belief in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe. "
That is not what I said, while you are looking up cognitive dissonance also take a look at the term “strawman”.
Pay closer attention to my first paragraph, there are distinct differences between what I said and what you characterised as my argument.
I have read the paragraph again, but I apologize, I have not found these differences.
Your text it still seems to imply that from your proposition that god cannot be proven by science you follow that "If science is your standard, you cannot believe in god".
Why does the scientific approach prevent belief? That was exactly my point: It's not like science can disprove the existence of gods either.
If you feel that I'm misrepresenting your position, would you kindly explain where I'm going wrong?
I also don't see the cognitive dissonance.
Your argument basically goes: "I cannot hear the color red, so as a person who hears I cannot believe in the color red"
Where's now the cognitive dissonance if you say: "I cannot hear "red", but I can see it, for I am a person who both hears and sees."
By the way, thank you for the "strawman" - I was not familiar with the term and learned something new in looking it up. :grin:
I don't know what you intend by having science as a standard (a standard for what).
Perhaps you can help delineate it in the following way.
Which, if any, of the following are compatible with your stance
If science is your standard
- you cannot believe that you exhibit subjective self-awareness
- you cannot believe that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists
- you cannot believe that blue is a nice color
- you cannot believe that you love your child
Oi.
“Insufficient evidence to support the proposition that there is a god” is not the same as “there is no scientific proof that god exists therefore there is no god”.
I get that it can be difficult to catch certain subtle differences in word use but come on...if you cannot tell that those sentences mean different things then you are displaying a poor understanding of science and its method, and I would guess the burden of proof as well.
I seriously have to explain to you what science is a standard for?! Hard pass.
I cannot believe I exhibit subjective self awareness? This is the most basic, singular certainty anyone can have, it has zero need of the scientific method. Terrible example for you to use here.
I cannot believe that alien intelligence exists? Correct, not using the scientific method. Its entirely possible, thats as far as science can say at this time.
I cannot believe that blue is a nice colour? Correct, according to the scientific method blue is not a nice color, as colors being nice is a subjective fact about someones tastes. That is not what science is used for, but then I guess you dont really know that considering you indicated as much above.
I cannot believe I love my child? Again, this subjective experience you reference multiple times here (excepting the alien one, your few claims are actually all the same thing, already dispelled when I addressed the first one) is more fundamental than science, it is actually the one thing we do not need science for at all because we have something better...Descartes inarguable “I think therefore I am”.
Anyway, that was fun and all but you clearly have some things you need to brush up on before you can properly have this discussion, maybe we can pick it up after you do so.
So, you claim to speak for all Christians? (And take note that the OP is not specifically about the compatibility of science with Christianity).
Quoting S
The point about metaphor in religion is that religious ideas such as the resurrection of Christ need not be taken literally, and if they are not, then there is no coherent question about their compatibility with science. (Even on a literal interpretation that Christ's resurrection actually took place, and is thus to be considered an empirical event; it is not an event that science could investigate, since it took place 2000 years ago). Same goes for most of history, in fact.
Most religions, whether primitive, ancient or modern, think the existence of spiritual beings. Since the existence of spiritual beings, or the spirituality of empirical beings is not a question science can either ask or answer, there would seem to be no inherent incompatibility between science and religion.
True, but not for followers of scientism.
I distinguish between science and scientism. Science’s domain is the physical world. Scientists do not have to adhere to scientism, the unfounded faith that science can explain everything. Many scientists don’t adhere to scientism. Dfpolis is such a person right here on this forum.
There is one problem with interpreting scripture's impossible tales as moral metaphors or religious metaphors. I believe that the authors of scriptural mistakes in science were not trying to write metaphors, and neither was god when he instilled the prophets to write the scriptures. They were simply ignorant, and their efforts were honestly science-minded; they did not follow through, or had no sufficient knowledge base to follow through the ramifications of their facts; re: Noah's story, the guy in the big fish, etc. etc.
To call these tales scientific metaphors or moral- or religious metaphors is one the vile tricks the religious employ to defend their indefendible faiths.
My point about what practitioners of science should be called was, of course, a little "tongue in cheek", but the name 'scientist' does literally mean "adherent of scientism",in the same sense as a feminist is an adherent of feminism, a racist is an adherent of racism, a utopianist is an adherent of utopianism and so on.
That there are disciplines such as geology, psychology, archeology and others where this principle doesn't follow is just another example of the inconsistency of English.The difference between the two sets seems to involve the presence of some ideology or other.
Janus, you speak truly like one who is devoted to a faith, and facts, arguments, will never daunt you. This diatribe you wrote only proves your ignorance borne out of blind faith and borne out of a conviction to never accept an otherwise valid argument if it speaks against your religion.
Your devotion to faith on the expense of rejecting known facts and valid teories is well described in your little note there.
When you say "they can provide no good argument" you admit that the huge amount of good arguments already extant, you simply, by necessity of convenience, ignore.
Scientism doesn’t provide any cogent arguments that science can explain everything. That’s the point. Scientism is the religion. Science includes fields of study and the scientific method. I don’t think Janus is religious by the way.
Would you say you don't believe in god, or do you believe in god? Many interpret religiosity as an adherence to one dogmatic faith or to another. Many call themselves not religious, becasue they don't associate with an organized religion, yet they believe in a god.
So I put you the question, Janus: Are you not religous and believe in god or are you not relgious and do not believe in god. Please feel free to answer or not answer this. In case you decide not to anser, I shall take it that you are not religious but have a faith in god.
Scienticism does not claim that it can explain everything. So what's your point with saying that it can provide no arguments that it can explain everything? You made a statement that is neither here nor there in this debate.
Then you say Scienticism is a religion. Religions all involve a god figure, who has supernatural powers. Show me a the god in scienticism. There is no god in scienticism. Your claim that scienticism is a religion is false.
Janus denied being religious. But he did not deny a belief in god. Not to date, yet, anyway.
You can deny knowledge of the existence of god. But you can't both beleive and disbelieve at the same time and in the same respect. Your answer is nonsensical, because it denies the validity of the excluded middle.
Since you gave a nonsensical answer, I take it as a denial of answering my question. I take it you believe in god, just as I said earlier.
I didn't say I "both" believe and disbelieve; I said I neither believe nor disbelieve. Are you reading selectively or merely poorly?
I understand Buddhism as taught by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) to not have a god, nor to have anything to do with the supernatural. Karma and Dharma can be seen as metaphors for natural processes. Nirvana can be interpreted as oblivion, something atheists believe in. One need not believe in reincarnation to be a Buddhist.
Furthermore, one could believe that their god is wholly natural, not supernatural, but it depends how you define “supernatural.”
Quoting god must be atheist
Science does not claim that it can explain everything. People who have faith that it can are followers of scientism.
Your language skills are rather poor, Janus. "I neither believe nor disbelieve" excludes both. Both can't be excluded. If you exlcue "I believe" then you necessarily don't believe. If you exlcude "I don't believe" then you necessarily believe. You exclude both. You are really just mincing words now, because you are cornered, and you can't fight your way out of your stated self-contradiction.
And please stop accusing me of not understanding your writing. I have a superb sense of the language.
No, I am not childish. I am presenting valid arguments, and your only possible defence is an insult, by calling me childish. This is despicable and deplorable that you do it on a philosophy website, that you try to win arguments on the strength of your unfounded and vile insults.
What do you mean? Please elaborate.
A belief or disbelief is an active thing. Without empirical evidence or a personal experience, one can withhold judgment, neither believing nor disbelieving.
The only medium in which logic and reason can not be ineffective is a medium of not understanding, or in a medium of pretense non-understanding.
I am not a bully. You mistake those who don't hold your opinion to be bullies. I am simply a person who strongly disagrees with you, and I stated my reasons for my disagreement. You in turn can't defend against my reasonable disagreement, and therefore you call me childish, a bully. But this is not kindergarten, this is a philosophy website. If you don't present valid counter-arguments, then you do not belong here.
Not disbelieving is not necessarily equivalent to believing. This should be obvious. I'll provide a simple example that may help you understand: Do I believe Trump colluded with the Russians? No, because I have no evidence that he did. Do I disbelieve that Trump colluded with the Russains? No, because I have no evidence that he did not.
Quoting god must be atheist What are you doing here then? :joke:
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
You’re being a bully because you are presenting a false dichotomy. I’ve explained this. You’re either an ineffective bully, or you don’t understand the fallacy you are committing.
Belief is not a judgement. You can withhold judgement but belief isnot an active thing. It bases itself on things thjat have no or very little empirical evidence. If empirical evidence were extant, you would not need belief, you'd have knowledge.
Your counter-argument is invalid.
This is incoherent, unjustified and may be false. I reject your premises, and your conclusion doesn’t follow.
You never explained any fallacy I am committing. You simply base your judgment on my being a bully because you obsere me as a person who voraciously sticks to arguing his reasonable thoughts, and expects the same in return. You are incapable of returning the challenge in kind, and therefore you go outside the debate and call me a bully.
I could call you names, too. In fact, I have collected quite a few for you since this began. But I withhold uttering them, because, unlike you, I have respect for the site, and I follow its unwritten rules: when on a philosophy site, argue on bases of philosophical considerations, and name calling is not one of those.
Not a surprise, then, that you the find the topic "simple".
Quoting DingoJones
But they are not all subjective in the same way. Trying to find the contours of your standard.
I have this inkling that some astronomers believed in the existence of extra-solar planets in 1980. I don't really have an issue considering that a scientific belief, even though evidence for it was not yet accepted.
Quoting DingoJones
But can you demonstrate it? What objective evidence can you present that you are self-aware?
Now you are talking. You have the right to reject anything, as you are an autonomous human being.
But your rejection of my argument by no meanst renders my arguemnt invalid. Just declaring "it's wrong" does not do anything, but you have the perfect right to utter it,and thus admit to your ignorance of detecting and understanding valid statements.
I am comfortable with this. In fact, this rejection goes in line with my original objection and your rejection supports my thesis I described earlier.
It's more like you can't argue.
Belief is a judgment, a decision to affirm or deny something.
To say you have to believe or disbelieve is a false dichotomy because one can neither affirm nor deny something to be true in some cases. This is called “withholding judgment.”
Belief need not be based on empirical evidence. I believe in extraterrestrial life in this galaxy, but there is no empirical evidence for that belief.
Your lack of comprehension of the language is brilliantly displayed here.
"Not not believeing is not believing." This is your statement.
I rest my case.
As to:
Quoting Janus
Your example is faulty. For belief you don't need evidence, and yet you hold evidence as a crucial prerequisite for faith. A lot of people believe in god with no evidence. A lot of people believe in no god with no evidence. But knowledge can't be claimed without evidence. Yet you use faith as if it acted on evidence like knowledge does.
You are talking about knowledge. "Do I know that Trump, (etc.etc)".
Belief and knowledge are different things. You are trying to dress up the act of belief with the qualities of knowledge. That is your fallacy right there.
Noah, this is not my statement. I quoted Janus's statement, paraphrased. You are getting angry and it is influencing your judgement. Please take a deep breath and maybe you should retire for a while from this thread. Just a suggestion, please don't misconstrue that I'm bullying you. You do what you want, I only suggest that you are getting overly emotional here.
We're getting to say the same thing. I've been saying all along that belief does not need evidence; Janus bases his arguments that need beleif to have evidence.
I like this argument, Noah. This makes much more sense than the name-calling up to now.
Let's see what I can do with it.
To affirm or to deny something are both cummunicating your opinion to the outside world. You can deny you are married, while you know you are married, and you can affirm you are married, while you are single.
Thus denial and affirmation have potentially nothing to do with your opinion.
If you neither deny, nor affirm, you simply refuse to communicate your knowledge, or your opinion, or your belief, to others.
But you do have a knowledge, an opionion, a belief. You just refuse to communicate what it is.
So while your argument is good, in the sense that you are presenting reasonable thought, it is sitll not an argument to show that Janus's point can be valid.
Another way to state my counter-argument is that given a knowledge, an opinion, a thought, a belief, you can't negate it for your own inner self if it exists in a sense or the other.
Unfortunately for you, you don't have a case to rest. So, you are saying it is not possible to be neutral, neither believing nor disbelieving, on any question?
Quoting god must be atheist
Bringing "knowledge" in here is a red herring. We are discussing belief, not knowledge. The fact that some people may have opinions about whether Trump colluded in the absence of what I would consider to be sufficient evidence is irrelevant to what we are discussing. In empirical matters it is bad form to believe without sufficient evidence. The only people who have a right to call their opinion "knowledge" would be those who have incontrovertible evidence that Trump either did, or did not, collude.
Of course I understand that when it comes to religion, and to questions of the existence of God, which are not empirical matters those who believe do so without what could be considered to be, empirically or inter-subjectively speaking, sufficient evidence. So what? I don't.
The example I'm considering is the proposition "There is currently a man wearing a hat standing at 10th and 1st in New York City".
Is it not possible to neither believe nor disbelieve this proposition? Which is to say that it I've parsed it and contemplated it, but don't adhere to the truth or falsity of the proposition. I am agnostic on the proposition.
I'm with @Noah Te Stroete (I think) in that in withholding my judgment on this proposition I can neither be accused of believing nor of disbelieving it.
Yes
Like you said,
Quoting Janus
I thought we are arguing about god-belief, not about any question. You are being tiresome. Very. You changed the topic, and strawmanning is a fallacy.
If you take my getting tired of this as an admission to defeat, it is not. But if you insist that one of us is right, and one of us is wrong, and since I have no responses to you any further, I give you the right to claim victory.
However, if you refer to victory in the future, and I see it, based on this argument, then I hold the right to bring the attention of onlookers of the future argument to this argument, and let them decide whehter they agree with your points or with mine.
I had enough of this. I ran out of steam.
Yes
I am not interested in "claiming victory" just in clarifying thought and argument. If you don't have the energy for it, that's OK.
Cool. Thanks for understanding my tiredness.
A couple of corollaries, if you will, to this are:
- A rock is not an atheist as it is not capable of conceptualization
- A newborn is neither theist, atheist, nor agnostic as these all require the conceptualization of the proposition that 'there exist(s) a god(s)'
Or have I taken it too far?
But if you witnessed something of the kind, something for which there is no apparent rational explanation, then you would be justified in believing that as 'evidence', don't you think?
Just something that I've mulled over a few times in my head without any validation one way or another.
Wasn't sure if there was a confounding epistemological principle that I had missed.
Basically, that to believe X pre-supposes:
- the capability to hold a concept
- the ability to parse the concept X
- the consideration of the parsed concept
Well, I don’t know about any epistemological principle that it violates. I’ve only taken one course on the theory of knowledge, but all of the rest of my philosophy courses dealt with epistemology. You should ask some more experienced philosophers. That said, to me it passes the smell test.
Thanks. I'm just a data analyst with an interest in philosophy.
Oh! So you actually studied something that society values. :smile: Philosophy is something valuable to a lot of people personally, but there’s no money in it. Studying philosophy in college, for me, was like several years of therapy, something I just needed to keep on living.
Yes, I think so. "Seeing is believing" as they say. As we have discussed before, I have had quite a few what I would consider numinous experiences, variously psychedelically induced, during art, music and literary practice and during meditation. So, I have a "sense of the numinous" that I feel somehow informs my poetry, my painting and my musical improvisation (on the piano). But I don't have any definite beliefs about spiritual beings, God, karma, afterlife, the transcendent, the real possibility of enlightenment or awakening and so on. In fact I tend to think that we cannot speak propositionally about such things with any coherence at all. I think this is the precise point where many become confused when it comes to religion and spirituality.
It's significant that there is no Nobel Prize for philosophy.
Which is what is called 'does not support'.Quoting SAnd there you go again with the attitude.
Here's what I notice: you are supposedly representing rationality and science. But in the discussion me so far, you do not respond to points I made, most importantly the one's I made related to the difference between incompatibility and 'not support by' and what your position would mean in relation to changes inside the history of science. IOW you ignored the main point of my post. And then you also go implicity ad hom.
Repeating your position is not responding in a philosophical discussion.
And yet you are supposedly the rational one with the scientific attitude.
Your responses have been rude and hypocritical.
Now I could go on an explain my points a third time - since I posted the same points earlier in the thread and you did not respond - yes, this happens, but now you have specifically ignored them.
But I'll ignore you from here on out. There are perfectly rational atheists and agnostics to have such discussions with. And it is certainly not that they suddenly give up in the face of my arguments, in fact they read them and respond to them and manage not to go ad hom.
IOW they do not smugly waste my time. And yes, I have now gone ad hom also.
And I mean ad hom in the sense of 'to the man' and not the formal fallacy. This last was actually an appeal to incredulity on your part.
Who gets to decide what counts as "sufficient evidence"? Scientists talk about other universes and about dark energy, yet I'm sure you don't treat those like you treat god, why the double standard? Or if you say that conclusions there are other universes or that there is dark energy are not scientific, then you agree that scientists make unscientific conclusions.
Quoting DingoJones
Some scientists treat other universes and dark energy as hypotheses, some other scientists believe in them, why don't you tell those who believe in them that they have cognitive dissonance?
Believing in god and applying scientific standards isn't incompatible, what's incompatible is believing in god and believing in science and believing that science proves there is no god.
Quoting DingoJones
That's the saying I had in mind, and it's quite a shit metaphor: the mind is not the skull.
Quoting DingoJones
So if scientists contradict themselves to push the theories they like and dismiss the theories they don't like, it's ok because other humans do it too, that has zero repercussion on the scientific enterprise?
...
Sufficient evidence according to the scientific method, including peer review and testability. Yes, scientists can reach unscientific conclusions, humans make mistakes, they can fail to properly apply the scientific method.
I wouldnt apply cognitive dissonance to your example because that isnt the error the dark energy believer would be making.
Science doesnt prove there is no god, thats not a falsifiable claim just like invisible unicorns and magical butt monkeys or pasta monsters. Rather, science says there is insufficient evidence. You need to understand that distinction to understand science.
Lastly, another strawman for the offering. I didnt say its ok because other humans do it, I said its a human trait not a scientist trait...therefore, incorrect to single out scientists. Also, I didnt say it had zero repercussions on scientific enterprise. You conjured both those things out of thin air.
It was an example of a religion. The biggest one, by the way. The topic is religion. That is of obvious relevance to the topic. My points have only ever been about some religions, not all religions.
He was a devout Catholic and he wasn't a skeptic, so there's no contradiction.
Exactly.
That's nothing but a self-serving delusion. You turn a blind eye to those religious claims of fact. These claims [i]are[/I] open to scientific examination, whether you like it or not. And trying to distract attention away from these claims, as you've consistently done here, won't achieve anything, logically speaking.
The historical method doesn't support the incredible claims of religion either.
Quoting alcontali
Scientism is a red herring used in discussions such as this as a smear by people who can't win arguments.
Lol, nice to have you back.
Are they consistent?
And I use the term “consistent” in the strict epistemological sense.
And I don't know why some people are still acting as though the question of consistency hasn't already been answered.
The reasoning behind the conclusion has been explained. What don't you understand about it? They're inconsistent in the sense which matters most, which is the logical sense.
By definition, yes. Unless you have some other meaning in mind. What's your point?
A belief in God is not justified empirically, but it is not inconsistent with having beliefs that are justified by science.
In other words, you want these absurd claims shielded from scientific scrutiny, on the basis of a complete irrelevancy, namely that they are taken upon faith.
Well, no.
I’ve brought up the Kalam Cosmological Argument before with you. WLC uses scientific evidence to back up its second premise, the first premise is backed up by straightforward logic, and the conclusion is a logical deduction. Science and God complement each other very well in the context of that particular argument.
Lol.
Witty and insightful, thank you.
Look, if you you're an exception, then good for you. You obviously in that case wouldn't be who I'm talking about, and therefore beside the point.
The Abrahamic religions happen to be the biggest religions by far.
Quoting WerMaat
Sure, except that you don't really believe that if that's all a metaphor for something else entirely. You can't have it both ways.
So Christian's [i]don't[/I] have a set of key beliefs or things they'd claim to be true? (And I can read, thanks. You don't need to point out things that I'm well aware of).
Quoting Janus
There's a name for someone who has no literal theistic beliefs: an atheist. I'm not talking about atheists. I specifically addressed theistic religions in my original comment.
And even for those claims which science can't investigate, there's still an inconsistency, as the scientifically-minded person would be a sceptic, not a believer, with regard to these claims. It's either one or the other. It can't be both.
Quoting Janus
The argument has been made, and the above is not a refutation of it. It doesn't even address it.
Well, for me whatever causes our conscious experience which made the laws of nature discoverable is what I call “God.” I suppose I don’t need to call it that. I could call it “Sally.”
And I’m not talking about the brain. Whatever causes dead matter to organize itself into life is Sally. Or God.
Or you could just not give that a silly name.
It’s my personal preference which isn’t subject to the scientific method, nor is it inconsistent with science.
It seems he isn't worth responding to, since he is only interested in maintaining at any cost his illusion that he must be right.
You can call it whatever you like, but the cause of our consciousness is subject to the scientific method. Saying things like, "It's my personal preference", or "It's my faith", doesn't make any difference. It just seems to be an attempt to get a free pass. Well, permission denied.
A subject that is unanswerable by the scientific method, but that brings us to the “hard problem,” and I’m not interested in having that debate here.
I have no literal theistic beliefs, and I am not an atheist. I am not religious either. Some religious people have no "literal theistic beleifs": have you never heard of apophatic theology?
Quoting S
All that demonstrates is an incompatibility between the mind-set of faith and the mind-set of skepticism when it comes to questions that are not within the purview of science; it indicates no inherent incompatibility between science and religion (or Christianity in this case).
You don't have to. There's a simple and short answer if that's the case, namely scepticism. But you're not a sceptic, so you're not scientifically-minded.
Of course there's an incompatibility! You just spoke of it yourself. There's nothing in the scientific method which says, "Just believe whatever you like because it is a part of some religion".
I have done so. You want me to repeat it? You enjoy going around in circles?
There's nothing in the scientific method that says anything about what to believe about subjects which fall outside the purview of science.
The scientific method doesn’t say anything about leaning to one side or the other when it comes to the unanswerable.
This "exception" is a religion that has endured for more than 3000 years as the main religion of large and powerful nation.
Again: the title of the thread says "science and religion" not "science and Christianity", and the term "theist" is not limited to Christians either. This is why I consider it legit to offer a non-Christian perspective to the discussion.
Quoting S
Why not? It's not a metaphor for "something else", but a metaphor for that which it truly is.
If I show you a model: a big yellow plastic ball in the center, and a number of smaller balls arranged on wires around it. And I tell you: "This is the solar system... here's the sun, this is earth, this wire here represents a distance of 150 million kilometers"
Would you say that I'm lying, that I cannot point to little bits of plastic and say "that's a planet", this is obviously false?
The mythology and the images of the gods - that's my model, the representation. The divine being behind it is more vast and abstract.
You're wrong on that point. You are responding to this matter like someone who is unduly focused on the letter of the law, whilst neglecting the spirit of the law. The scientific method isn't based on principles whereby one can believe whatever they like purely on faith. That's about as far away from the scientific method as you can get. So sure, you can do both, if you're disingenuous and able to compartmentalise.
Yeah, of course I am wrong because you must be right!
You are responding like someone who thinks there is an objective or absolute law where there is none. You should know by now that I do not have any sympathy for any kind of fundamentalism including the kind of scientism you are espousing.
That’s where you’re wrong. Science cannot answer everything, and any scientist worth his salt knows this. One can believe anything one wants when it comes to things science cannot deal with.
Unless, you’re talking about the other domains, viz. history, psychology, sociology, etc. None of these can answer the spiritual questions either. To deny spirituality says more to having a brain defect. A majority of people experience these things.
That doesn't make any sense.
Quoting WerMaat
So, in this example, a plastic ball is a metaphor for something else: a planet. That's how metaphors work.
Quoting WerMaat
A god isn't a metaphor for a "divine being". That's just what a god is. And again, there's no scientific support for a god or a divine being. So we're back at square one where you can't approach the issue both ways: it's one or other, otherwise you're inconsistent.
Oh look, it's the childish "scientism" smear again. Nothing in your above reply addresses my point, which I stand by. You're not wrong because I must be right, you're wrong because you're wrong. You're acting like a lawyer or someone who is oblivious to the context behind the scientific method. You know that I'm right that no one who is true to the spirit of the scientific method would believe the whacky unsubstantiated stuff of religion.
That's simply bullshit. There are many scientists who are religious. What they believe about matters that science and the scientific method have nothing to say is a matter for them. This talk about "the spirit of the scientific method" just is an expression of scientism, because it is saying that if science cannot give us an answer, then we should remain skeptical, and that those kinds of questions are not of any importance, in any case.
This really amounts to a form of dogmatic authoritarianism. Most of what is most important to people consists in just the kinds of questions that science cannot answer, and your version of the spirit of the scientific method would have everyone remain skeptical about it. That is impractical because skepticism simply won't satisfy most people.
Look at this way: the scientific method itself says nothing about whether anyone should adhere to it outside the domains of science. There is no "spirit of the scientific method" there are just different people's responses to it as a normative principle, and how far they see that normative principle as having its proper range of application and influence.
I know that science can't answer everything, and I've never claimed or suggested otherwise. Not once. This ridiculous suggestion, or outright accusation in some instances, coming from yourself and others that I'm somehow defending scientism is a product entirely of your respective imaginations.
And yes, you can believe anything you want, but if you're going to kid yourself into believing that that doesn't fly in the face of the spirit of the scientific method, then I'm minded to set you straight.
Yes, and they selectively lower the high standards you get with the scientific method when it comes to their dogmatic religious beliefs. They lower the standard to such an extent that virtually anything goes.
Anyone who doesn't see a clear conflict here between science and religion is either dumb or wilfully blind. Perhaps you have some stake in the game. That would explain why you're responding in this way. Are you religious?
And what is “the spirit of the scientific method?” And why should people value it?
Why don't you read about the Enlightenment and contrast it with the Dark Ages? That should give you some idea of what I'm getting at.
The spirit of the scientific method is about the epistemological standard employed, about the broader context.
The point that Janus and others are making is comparable to pointing out that you can be a serial killer and a Judge, and then pretending as though there's no conflict here.
Care to back up this analogy with an argument?
Quoting S
This epistemic standard only deals with the physical world, and almost all of the people who were responsible for the Enlightenment were believers in God.
I've been making the argument throughout this discussion. That analogy is just a different way to express what I've been saying from the start. Just because it's possible to do two things, whether that be selectively suspending the epistemological standard you abide by with regard to science by believing in God or the tooth fairy or all manner of fantastical things based on nothing but faith, or serially murdering people despite upholding the rule of law and passing judgement in court as part of your job role, that doesn't for a second mean that there's no inconsistency here. That's an argument which holds no water.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
So what if it only deals with the physical world? It does so for a reason, and that reason is because it is part of a broader framework whereby there's a standard for what passes as knowledge, and all else warrants only scepticism, not diving headfirst into fantasy land. God-of-the-gaps-style thinking is neither scientific nor even comes close to the standards of the scientific method.
And so what if the people who were responsible for the Enlightenment were largely believers in God? Are you trying to miss the point or what? Those people didn't go far enough in that respect, but the point is about the direction of travel.
The epistemic standard for investigating the physical world is grounded in sense data. Couldn’t the epistemic standard for investigating the spiritual be grounded in conscious experience? If not, please explain.
Sure it can. Why not? I'm only making the point that the epistemological standards are nothing alike in terms of merit or credibility, and that it's inconsistent to selectively flip flop like that when it suits you. But also, you're not giving a clear or full account of what you mean by that. What you mean is that you'll have some "conscious experience" and then jump to conclusions about what exactly it was an experience of, what it consisted in, and what it entails. It's not really an investigation at all, it's just wishful thinking.
Sorry, it's just that the hot air you're sending my way is making me drowsy.
Well, as a Hume scholar yourself, you already know that induction, the basis of science, is nothing more than habit. Habit, wishful thinking... pick your poison.
Furthermore, and I don’t have the statistics to say what percentage of experiments fall into this category, but many experiments are not repeatable.
Well, I’m not a physicalist. I don’t find their arguments compelling, so I must rely on my conscious experience for some beliefs. This conscious experience may not give rise to predictions about the physical world or discover any laws about itself, but that’s not the same domain.
Oh, right. I see. So, because I think highly of Hume, I must therefore agree with everything he had to say. I think that very few people, in this day and age, would agree that the basis of science is nothing more than habit.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Is this point leading somewhere, or...?
All a cogent argument can result in is “probably true.” That is induction, and it only deals with the physical world.
A believable conscious spiritual experience is when it occurs to many different people throughout the ages. We don’t use induction in this domain. We use abduction.
You don't have to be. I'm not a physicalist either.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
But I have no problem with arriving at beliefs through conscious experience. I have a problem with arriving at religious beliefs unjustifiably based on conscious experience.
Well, I don’t think we would disagree that believing the Bible stories are literal truths are justifiable.
I happen to think that there is a God that causes dead matter to collect itself into conscious beings, and I think this is a good abductive inference.
Problem is that you know only your own conscious experience and how you interpret that as constituting evidence for any belief, and can only guess at the nature of the conscious experience of others and how they might interpret that as constituting evidence for any belief.
I don't care about any of that unless you expect me to take any beliefs you might have about supernatural beings and whatnot credibly. Because they're not credible, they're based on flawed thinking. I don't doubt that people have these experiences, just the conclusions they reach and how they get there.
Organized religion as dogma is unjustified in the epistemic sense. Practicing a religion without accepting dogma can be and is a good exercise for a lot of people, as it gets them to feel love for reality. Science cannot do that.
No, I don't have to resort to guesswork. What a ludicrous thing to say. It's possible that there are some people who have secret paranormal abilities and the like. I can't rule that out with absolute certainty. But just because it's possible, that doesn't mean that it has anything going for it or that it should be treated seriously in academia. That's the stuff of science fiction and fantasy.
And yes, once again, I can read. Obviously I was mentioning paranormal abilities as an analogy. Back to basics?
But that is the topic of discussion, because it is on the basis of that individual experience and interpretation of it (given that someone is not merely subject to social influences or brainwashing) that people form their ethical, aesthetical, social, political, economic and religious beliefs and judgements.
The "spirit of the scientific method" has little or no sway in the above-mentioned domains of belief and judgement, and hence beliefs in those domains cannot be in conflict with science (unless they purport to be empirically, fundamentally or objectively true). You need to produce an argument or account to show just how such beliefs and judgements should, or even could, be subject to the scientific method. You have previously admitted that aesthetical, ethical and moral beliefs (at least) are matters of personal experience and judgement, so now you appear to be contradicting yourself.
But that's what we're talking about: epistemology. Anything else is a digression. Certainly remarks about feeling love for reality are light-years away from any point I've raised.
Religion, if understood in anything but fundamentalist terms, has nothing whatsoever to do with epistemology.
They need not be credible to you. If they are credible to the believer is another matter, and it depends on the specific beliefs in question whether or not they are consistent with science.
The epistemic standard for science is whether a belief about the physical world is justified by other beliefs about the physical world and by sense data and whether the beliefs correspond to actual states of affairs in the physical world.
There is no epistemic standard for spiritual beliefs that I’m aware of. For me personally, my spiritual beliefs have to be consistent with my other spiritual beliefs and justified by my experiences and by reports throughout human history. Then an abductive inference is made as to the source of these experiences.
Historical claims, examples:
- virgin birth
- 2 of every species aboard a ship
Non-historical claims:
- Individual judgment upon death
- God as author of directive to be good to others
- God as first cause
Neither the former not the latter should insulate those who hold them from ridicule, but if we're talking about the tool of ridicule, the former provides a more expansive tool chest. The latter doesn't insulate one from ridicule but simply that those who would ridicule it might accept that its profile provides a smaller exposure to attack.
I have no intention of attacking anyone's icons, but consider the current dispute one might be sharpened and refined by considering the nature of the dispute.
I wouldn’t say “ridicule” is appropriate for any religion, except maybe Satanism. Questions are completely appropriate, though.
Now you're just basically echoing my own point back to me, namely that it's only relevant to the topic insofar as it relates to religious beliefs, although you've also mentioned a load of other topics which are clearly not the focus of this discussion.
Quoting Janus
You've already said that. Obviously I disagree. We're talking about two standards of judgement which couldn't be further apart. Science doesn't jump to conclusions. Religious experience-based belief does. That's a big difference. That's two diametrically opposed and incompatible approaches.
Quoting Janus
No I don't, because that's not a claim that I've made. Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying? Whether it's subject to the scientific method is neither here nor there. As I've said, in those cases where a religious belief of the sort I've referred to is not subject to the scientific method - and no, I don't mean ethical or moral beliefs, which is not the subject of my criticism, and is off-topic - then the default position consistent with the spirit of the scientific method is scepticism. That's the point you're supposed to be addressing, although you seem to have run out of new things to say.
I haven't contradicted myself at all, you've just misunderstood.
That's a highly misleading statement. It's not a "beauty is in the eye if the beholder" type thing. You can't polish a turd.
Of course I am not saying that the faith approach is compatible with the scientific method in the field of science, nor am I saying that the approach that we call "the scientific method" is compatible with the "faith" or intuitional approach in the field of religion. The other fields I mentioned are to various degrees kinds of hybrids where something of both approaches operates, again demonstrating that they are not incompatible except when ones tries to use one or other approach in a domain where it does not belong. Each domain has its own appropriate method of reaching judgement. the point is that there is no incompatibility, per se.
Anyway the fact that highly intelligent scientists can be religious shows us that the two approaches are not incompatible in any context-free way: the proof is in the pudding. If you want to object to that fact, then it would only be because you asset that those scientists are not behaving as you think they should; an attitude which, again, has nothing to do with the scientific method, but is merely your own prejudice.
There's no universal epistemic standard, you must mean. And yes, you haven't told me anything new there. I've been over where the two standards differ, and why it's inconsistent to flip flop between the two extremes instead of maintaining an overarching consistent standard in your world view.
I don't hold an opinion about Deepak Chopra and his reflections on quantum mechanics. I do, however, find value when a scientist who I've read and value responds to the claims of a Chopra or a Penrose (this is not in any way to say I find any commonality between the two -- only that I'm aware of attacks on Penrose's thoughts on quantum effects relation to consciousness).
It is a means for a layman to prioritize how much of our limited time is spent reading an author.
For the current discussion, I find your comments and those of @Janus in agreement with those of mine, but I'm open to splicing the space of the conversation to give @S a region where I can at least understand (while not sharing) his perspective.
Because I’m not a physicalist! Sheesh
I realize that as a metaphysical truth. I was making a normative claim.
But it's hard to get over such a silly comment. I get that someone else might be stupid enough to call all manner of ridiculous things credible, but that's not a point that has any weight or bearing on a discussion that's supposed to be of a serious, intellectual nature such as this.
No wonder you erroneously believe that science and religion are incompatible; they are incompatible for you, and being a fundamentalist you are incapable of imagining that it would not be the same for others. But keep up your vacuous stream of assertions: I'm still finding it mildly amusing. It would be much more interesting if you actually provided a single argument, though, it is starting to wear thin.
:rofl: Coming from an "intellectual" such as you who apparently lacks all subtlety, that is simply hilarious!
Anyway, thanks for the laughs, I'm done now.
It's simply not true that all claims of a religious nature are nonempirical. You seem to be confusing your own personal take on religion for religion itself. Either that or your have a major lack of imagination.
And it's only "not a problem" in a psychological sense, as in, people can get by just fine with the shortage of critical thinking skills or turning a blind eye entailed by the kind of religious beliefs I've mentioned. It's definitely a problem if you actually care enough about these matters intellectually. That would call for an urgent rethink.
You're done now? Phew, that's a relief. You almost blew me away! Not with impressive arguments, of course. You've produced enough hot air to have filled an entire airfield of hot air balloons.
I'm tired of wasting time with your strawmen. I have acknowledged several times in this thread that fundamentalist religious claims are (or do at least purport to be) empirical claims.
Quoting S
It is a problem for you because you apparently want to arrogate over how others should think. I don't share that arrogance of yours, so it doesn't matter to me except when people become fundamentalistic (from either side) in their thinking. That kind of thinking creates the very incompatibilities it erroneously claims are simply inherent.
Anyway I can't see anything new coming out of this discussion; so I think we are done.
That's a complete [i]non sequitur[/I]. Again, you do not have to be a physicalist in order to maintain consistency in the sense I've described.
That's the funniest thing you've said by far.
I don't think you know what it means to be a physicalist, and you now seem to have lost track of our conversation.
My point is that there are different epistemic standards for different domains.
I'm not sure you understand the point that [i]I'm[/I] making. I am critical of those who think that it is acceptable to drastically lower the [i]quality[/I] of their epistemic standard when it comes to religion, when they don't do so with regard to other matters. That's where the inconsistency lies, even if there's no choice but to approach a particular religious claim through a means other than the scientific method. It is not just the methodology of science which is of import, but the reason why it is so successful. It wouldn't be so successful if it permitted the kind of flawed thinking behind many religious beliefs.
Done with attempting to discuss anything with you, not done with ridiculing you.
Quoting S
Again you show your ignorance; I'm not telling anyone what to think, I'm only telling you what I think about your telling others, and without any cogent arguments to back it up, what they should think.
If you were to say that for you religion and science are incompatible, I would say that is fine; I am not arrogant enough to claim that you should not find them incompatible for you. But when you are arrogant enough to claim they are incompatible per se, as though that is some kind of objective or empirical fact, then you are just talking unsubstantiated shit, and I will be arrogant enough to call you out on it. (And that wasn't part of any "discussion" by the way (how could it be when dealing with you?) just in case you want to gleefully score some kindergarten points by saying I'm "full of it" because I said I was done with attempting to carry on a discussion with you). :lol:
Ok.
Why would I say that the two are incompatible for me? They're incompatible in the sense I've described, not just for me, but for anyone with half a brain.
So not for you, then.
Read Spinoza's Ethics...
I'll give that a pass. But if you have a point to make, then make it.
Not all religious belief is incompatible with science. A creator of the universe that does not interfere is perfectly compatible. Many derive such from Spinoza. Einstein believed in a Spinozan God.
Einstein.
Many also derive pantheism, although I've read counters to that derivation. That's still the same point. Pantheism(God is within all things) is also not incompatible with science.
I suspect you're talking about compatibility in a different sense. In order to argue against the sense of incompatibility that I am speaking of, you would have to tell me what principle of science would lead one to the conclusion that there is a creator of the universe in the first place, whether intervening or otherwise. Perfectly compatible? I think not. In terms of methodology, I agree with the original poster 100%. They are chalk and cheese.
If it's not contradictory to science, then answer my question. Explain the scientific process which results in the conclusion that there exists a God.
Of course it is. Science results in no such conclusion. Going by science, I have no such belief. Going by blind faith, I have such a belief. I cannot both have such a belief and at the same time have no such belief. That's a contradiction. The two methods or ways of approaching this are not compatible. Science does not permit blind faith, and blind faith has no need of science, and the two can and do lead to different beliefs.
If you intend to overlook or disregard my meaning and talk past me by implicitly arguing in favour of a [i]different[/I] sense of compatibility, then I will be making a swift exit from our discussion.
Science can't explain the 'order of nature' which underwrites the principles that it discovers and then utilises in order to proceed. Newton discovered that F=MA, and Einstein that E=MC[sup]2[/sup] - but neither could tell you why this should be so.
Scientific cosmology now says that the universe exploded into existence from a single point in a single instant. But there is no way of determining why, when this happened, it culminated in a stable Universe populated by intelligent beings. Even for there to be living planets, there had to be many pre-existing conditions. Science knows quite about about what happened, but it can't say why it happened, or why it culminated in an ordered universe. That leads to many debates about 'the fine-tuning argument vs the multiverse' - but all those arguments are likewise beyond the scope of science to solve.
So really all you're doing is preaching positivism.
I suggest that you first figure out what incompatibility means... then re-read what I've said.
:kiss:
Well "should" is the wrong word. They wouldn't be burdened with that to begin with. The burden would be on the person who assumed that there's an objective way the universe should be.
Quoting Wayfarer
First of all, no, I'm not preaching positivism at all. That's just another misleading characterisation, much like the scientism label.
And although you think you're highlighting a fault with science, you're actually only making apparent your own unwarranted expectations of science.
And you know what you can do with that suggestion.
Again... you're conflating implication/entailment with incompatibility.
Suit yourself. Ignorance is bliss. Laterz. I have better things to do.
No. Just no.
What is at stake is whether 'science explains how the universe is'. And you're the one claiming that science is the sole criterion for determining the answer to such questions. What I'm showing you, is that science cannot determine the answer to those questions; science begins with the (quite reasonable) assumption that the universe exists, but really it is silent on what if anything is behind it all, whether there is a higher intelligence or not.
Quoting S
Everything you say on this topic falls into the category of both scientism and positivism. If you don't like it, change your tune!
No, don't go. Please stay.
(You'll just have to imagine my poker face and deadpan delivery, as it's difficult to convey in the text).
This is a fallacy, the argument from ignorance I believe. Since science doesnt know the answer, it can’t know the answer and I can insert so and so god did it. (Or whatever).
You do not get to make up an answer because you aren’t comfortable with “I dont know” as an answer. Not if you are interested in being rational/reasonable.
Well yeah, of course it does to a large extent. Are you serious? There's no better recourse.
Quoting Wayfarer
It would be helpful if you refrained from making up claims and attributing them to me. Do you think you can manage that?
Quoting Wayfarer
No, it can explain how the universe is in great detail, and with a wealth of evidence behind it. And it is not at all silent in affirming that there has so far been no scientific evidence of any imagined "higher intelligence".
Quoting Wayfarer
It's alright, I understand that you see it as advantageous to mischaracterise my position in that way, even though resorting to such underhanded tactics doesn't exactly put you in a good light.
Quoting DingoJones
Not so. Neither of you are seeing the point - science cannot explain the order of nature. Given the order of nature, then science can explain many things, but it doesn't explain the order. It can't, for example, see 'before the singularity'. So natural theology can argue that the Big Bang developed in just the way it did,because God made it so; you may choose not to believe that, but science can't help make your case. It's out of scope.
I'm not mischaracterising your position - you're arguing positivism, pure and simple. I did an undergraduate unit in A J Ayer, Language Truth and Logic. And you're singing from that hymnsheet, even if you don't understand that you are.
I understand your criticism, and it is no more a valid criticism of science than criticising mathematics for not having any input on the latest fashion trends.
...you realise me and S are not the same person right? I didnt say you were mischaracterising my position...
Anyway, you denied that you committing a fallacy and then just repeated the fallacy. This is the structure of you argument from ignorance:
Science doesnt know the answer, so I am perfectly justified in my belief that god did it. (Or whatever)
This is a fallacy, you are not justified in making up an answer just because science doesn't know the answer. The correct answer is “I do not know”, even though it might not be particularly satisfying.
It's not 'an argument from ignorance', it's an argument from a matter of principle. As a matter of principle, science has nothing to say on 'first causes', or whatever, because that is not how science proceeds. This is a philosophy forum, and this is Philosophy 101.
A lot of popular atheism says that science 'proves' or 'shows' that God doesn't exist, but it's no more true than an ID exponent saying that it 'proves' that God does exist. Both are incorrect, for very similar reasons, which is, not understanding the nature of the question.
It's a daft argument: the equivalent in text form of shouting in anger at a lamppost for not playing fetch.
:wink:
Well Jeep you certainly recognized Ayer's influence on my position what... a decade ago? Unfortunately the positivist guiding principle is untenable/self-defeating. There is still much to be admired about the positivist outlook, certain aspects of it at least...
Just because we've been mistaken about some things, it doesn't follow that we've been mistaken about everything. Just because we cannot see everything as it is, it doesn't follow that we see nothing as it is. We are both objects in the world and subjects taking account of it and ourselves, etc...
Do you know what a fallacy is? You have made a fallacy here, and have failed a third time to understand that you did...
Quoting Wayfarer
I would appreciate it if you didnt apply other peoples arguments to me...I dont really care what some other dummies you talked to had to say. This is me and you talking, not you and them.
This coming from one who has no argument... mind you. Sitting high up in the stands heaving personal ridicule and criticism at those doing the work is the safest place for some. Such people do not have what it takes to garner the kind of respect that warrants much attention from those who actually get into the ring. Yellow Napes and African Greys are prettier.
I cannot keep track, do you have a personal beef with S? I observe he has provided arguments, good ones that have not been refuted. I can see for myself that what you just accused of S is not true. Either you do not understand those arguments or you have some personal reason to ignore them and pretend he has said nothing of substance...
Quote them please.
Im not going to do that. Maybe I wasnt clear...I was asking if you thought you didn't understand the arguments or if you thought you might be ignoring them because you do not like S...
No, you've *claimed* I'm arguing from a fallacy, and I have *refuted* your claim. it's not 'an argument from ignorance' - I'm saying, science can't, in principle, determine if there is a 'first cause' or higher intelligence. It's simply not equipped to discover that, it's out of scope for scientific method.
Here's a pretty good quick summary of what modern scientific method comprises:
Now, there's nothing in that method which could ever possibly tell you what, if anything, is 'before' or 'above' or 'outside' the Universe. Science requires there to already be a world within which it operates. And to say that is not to accuse science of being ignorant - it's a pretty straightforward fact.
The idea that science 'proves' or 'shows' anything about a 'first cause', is effective only against literalistic interpretations of religious mythology. But if religious mythologies are understood as symbolic or allegorical, then the facts of science have nothing much to do with it.
You were clear enough. You were and still are - quite simply - mistaken. I was clear as well, and I'm not. There has been no argument given by S. I don't know S. What I do know is that S substitutes ridicule and rhetoric for philosophical argument. I'm not making it up, rather, I'm pointing it out. Look for yourself. If you find one, then copy and paste it here. Easy enough right?
Do it.
I can find loads of personal insult and rhetoric offered in lieu of argument, as can anyone else who so chooses to look.
What you say is true. What I have learned from these debates is that speculative philosophy is impossible to defend. However, there is still wisdom in religious texts if you are open to receiving it.
Indeed. Sometimes hard to pick out of all the other stuff, but there's some good stuff in lots of places, as long as one is willing to separate it from the other stuff.
I beg your pardon, but you certainly have not refuted my claim. You have merely declared it not to be the case. Also, you wandered off down some divergent path that im tempted to call non- sequitur. Im not engaging with your little argument about first cause, Im engaging you about the logical fallacy you have made which I have described.
You are getting confused by your dislike for his posting style/personality. He actually has arguments in between the bits you focus on.
Anyway, I get why you haven't noticed them now. They are there though, so you should stop acting like he isnt making them.
Show one. Just one.
I already told you Im not going to do that. Did you miss that? Im really not going to do it. If you are interested in correcting your erroneous conclusion about S not making arguments then you do the work. If you are comfortable with being wrong about it, then don’t.
Sure... I'll run right out and prove that S has offered no argument here. How do I do that again?
:brow:
Look Dingo, you're the one who said I'm wrong, and that he has... That's your burden to bear, not mine. Bear it.
I cannot prove that he has not. Anyone can look for themselves and see that much. The thread bears witness to that.
So, you aren't willing to bear the burden of your claims?
:brow:
Tradition has it that when one voluntarily enters into a debate, s/he and/or they volunteer to justify their claims. You've a burden a bear here.
With justification, because it isn't!
Would you say fashion trends are therefore incompatible with mathematics?
:100:
Right. Which is why your argument was an overgeneralization. There are myriad religions, many of which do not share the characteristics of Christianity which you find so troubling.Which you would know if you had done any serious studies in comparative religion. Which I have.
I have to say, you have repeatedly taken an aggressive and dismissive posture and tone which I, personally, find offensive, and which I think debases the spirit of philosophy in general. I won't be dignifying any further response of yours. You are persona non grata.
Assent is either assent or dissent.
I like John Henry Newman's phrase, "assent to degrees of inference" for this reason.
While there might be an objective level to the "existence" (in some form) of a god, e.g the statue is actually standing in our building and there is a body of writings about it, nonetheless this does not in any way negate the essentially personal level including the freedom for any of us to treat it as impersonal, or deserving to be ignored by us, if we choose.
Hence the work of inference is the job of each of us individually, and the degrees of inference on many points is the job of each of us as individuals. Then the yes-no assent process is also the job of each of us as individuals, once we are clear what we want to or can assent to or not.
Hence I think "god must be atheist" is making a point about assent, and janus and noah are making a point about inference.
It does amuse me when people make that accusation against me, on a public forum, in the middle of a debate we've been having. Janus did it too.
And yes, he does have a personal beef with me. It probably stems from the fact that when he says something stupid, I will have the gal to tell him.
And you apparently have no response to my criticism of that argument, which I'm guessing you'll have convinced yourself is dismissible for some superficial reason.
But there are still clear arguments I've made which contain no ridicule at all, so that still wouldn't explain this apparent delusion he has.
Certain kinds of religion have become assumed to be loaded down with baggage by certain people, bringing risks of genetic fallacy when we think about them, if we're careless, or swayed emotively against or for, inappropriately.
Some kinds of scepticism also get loaded down with baggage.
While S J Gould mentions "non-overlapping magisteria" I prefer to speak of "non-conflicting magisteria" for reasons as above. In my case I insist this supports freedom to maintain the atheistic kind of agnosticism, just as much as a more religious outlook.
Given that both religion and science are infinitely huge, let alone life, the universe and everything, it wouldn't be logical to get doctrinaire about any supposed wholesale, absolute clashes. Conflicts are generated by faulty reasoning and faulty relating between individuals (including some who misuse authority).
If they lead to contradiction with mathematics, then in that respect, yes. But it's hard to see how fashion trends could lead one to believe, say, that one plus one equals three, so the analogy doesn't work in every respect.
No, it's why you misunderstood the target of my criticism.
Providing mathematics has no input on fashion trends (and vice versa), could there be a contradiction?
But as I've said many times now, religion [i]does[/I], in at least some cases, have an input on worldly matters open to science, so you're breaking down the analogy. That's why the notion of two entirely separate and non-overlapping domains is bullshit propaganda.
So implicitly your answer is “no”. And therefore as long as religion has no input on scientific questions (how old is the earth?), and science has no input on questions of natural theology/philosophy (does God exist?), then there will be no contradiction. But from your post you seem to be saying they conflict only when they encroach on each other’s territory; not that they do in principle.
No, that's not what I'm suggesting at all.
Quoting AJJ
There are extremely prevalent religious beliefs, the [i]content[/I] of which is in conflict with science, and also the respective [i]methods[/I] of arriving at belief are opposed and incompatible for any given belief.
I didn’t say you were. It’s what follows from you implicitly answering ‘no’ to my previous question.
Quoting S
Yes. When religious beliefs conflict with science, they do indeed conflict with science. Thank you.
Quoting S
What is the scientific method for arriving at the belief in a transcendent God, and why is it incompatible with the Kalam Cosmological Argument’s method, say?
You are the one who made an initial claim you fucking dunce. Holy shit. You told me the sky wasnt blue, I looked and saw that it was and pointed that out to you and you demand the burden of proof is on me to show you the blue sky (an analogy you imbecile) . Only a dishonest sack of shit like you could possibly think I have the burden of proof when you are the one that made the initial claim, you fucking fucktard dipshit loser.
Ok, so if you pay attention to my insult laden paragraph above, you will see that there are arguments and points being made. Did you notice them? Both insults and argument are present.
This is the case with S and his posts.
Now, once again, you either care about correcting your error or you dont. Comfortable about being wrong about it, or not comfortable with being wrong about it. Either way, I will not spend MY time doing the work you should already have done and you should stop making a claim thats so easy to see is false.
...all you have done is repeat your declaration. I have an equally valid argument. You are an idiot, because thats what you are!
Wow. That IS easy. Now I get why you do it that way. What other magic can I perform with this buffoonish device of yours?
I can fly, because flying is what I can do! There is no such thing as god, because no god exists! Look ma, I solved all the religious debates! Oh and I am going to go jump off a building because my argument is so strong id be stupid NOT to think I can fly.
You need a nice big bowl of Humility with a side of Shut the Fuck Up Until You Do. Lovely dish.
I win, you lose, good day sir!
Since you know it, then you know that you have been successful. I'd suggest just walking away with the W. Allowing your own arguments to deteriorate into insults (whether warranted or no) adds nothing to your position.
In this case the insults do in fact add to my position, as the insults are specifically included to illustrate my point.
It doesn't matter whether it's science or religion. They're all trying to give us information with some kind of utility in our lives. So, what if the delivery isn't the best - religion is not a joke, so it's ok to miss the punchline; and what if it doesn't appeal to our hearts or explain the personal (subjective) - science is not reason or common sense, we still have to apply our thinking abilities despite the experiments.
I don't know if it's the fear that if we're wrong then we've failed or something much more primal than that, like fear of the dark, or the unknown, but there is a need to stop bulshitting ourselves.
Most people haven't conducted scientific experiments for themselves to be able to say they trust scientists. Most people accept on faith that scientists know what they're doing. Try applying that to religion, spirituality or metaphysics - what do we get? And, why the difference?
The answer is simple - they target the personal. How come meditation wasn't deemed scientific (until recently, if that) when it's been known for thousands of years that it is useful? Why don't we accept qi (or prana) when the evidence of bio-energies (bio-electrical/bio-magnetic/bio-electro-magnetic) are so obvious in our physical mechanics or so readily acceptable to our intuitions?
It's because we're afraid. Unlike science which is all about the external, religion (spirituality and metaphysics) direct greater influence to the inner person (the psyche). That's why we don't question faith, because if we're wrong then it might mean failure, loss (death). And we hate loss (death), by a lot. Unfortunately, we fear it even more.
You're are about as much of either a fuckwit or a troll as S and Terrapin, It amazes me that many of us seem to be too stupid, undisciplined or forgetful to simply ignore the three of you.
S just wants all people to think and value how he thinks and what he values. S supremacy. It’s like using a blunt object. Instead of guiding people by asking the right questions, he wants to force his will on the world. Asking the right questions gets others, as well as oneself, to discover new truths. S seems to think he already has all the answers, and the unthinking masses need to be subjugated and tamed.
Round 1
[i]In the Beginning,
God played an active role in the Cosmos,
After creating it, each and every verse,
And especially the life upon the Earth,
Which planet is supposedly
Only a few thousand years old,
Or so it has been told.
God won this round, hands down,
For even those many science clowns
Who were around at the time
Thought that mankind was prime,
Being the special center of creation,
And that the sun and the stars in elation
Revolved around his holy nation,
The Earth fixed, under a dome.
And, furthermore,
That evil spirits caused physical ills,
Along with all of our mental slips,
As aggravated by life’s frills,
Which were all called ‘sins’,
With blame that still came from within.
Even fun was one of sin’s evil cousins,
In the Bible made from old Jewish legends.
Thankfully, those hundreds of odd Gods
Who had come to reign before GOD
Were crushed, as by Jehovah trod.[/i]
We are spun of the Eternal Golden Braid,
Those windings of Truth, Love, and Beauty made
From the Goodness of Purity Immortal—
The Theory of Everything’s singular portal.
What is Man but the special chosen species
For which all the plants grow and the waters reach,
For which the Earth turns ‘round, and orbits
A sunny furnace, spreading Love’s energy,
Enabling us to thrive above any and all creation.
It’s ever on forever’s edge that we meet our destiny,
That in our temporary parentheses of Eternity
We would flourish for just this moment, bidden,
As the blossoms of Perfection’s Flower Garden.
A hundred trillion stars and countless shores
Were built to light our universal nights explored;
Forty million other lower species too, the All-Might
Placed about our world, merely for our delight.
Our names are Writ Large on the Heaven’s marquee,
In the supernovae stardust showered from Thee.
From Nothing You came not, but of a naught
Our own universe was made and ever wrought.
A starring role we play in this reality show,
Every atom spinning fine just for us to know,
Our ancestors rising/falling for us to stand upon,
Oh man! They lived and died for our lone promise!
Every shaft of light shines with us in mind;
Thus it beams forth our beginning and our end—
In and of God’s hidden and Heavenly Shrine.
Oh life! We cherish being, that of Yours and mine.
We do so much deserve reward beyond this role—
And so it is that one’s immortal spirit-soul,
That angelic vapour that drives a living being,
Will go forth to glory on, beyond the scene.
[i]However, about three centuries ago,
The realm of natural law was extended, so
The Supernatural Kingdom
Began to shrink away some,
Eventually vanishing from all of existence,
But we get ahead of our own persistence…[/i]
From what beastly heart sprung our zest?
Through what searching eye became our sight?
What sounds in the bushes let us hear?
What dark past haunts but helps us be?
Across what ink black rivers did we have to swim?
To what ends at length did we search for food?
In what deep entangled forest were we bred?
Of what stars did we shine in their stead?
Oh Man! What a piece of work—the mind;
What noble deeds done and undone in kind.
What Rube Goldberg inventions heaped upon—
In the layers of brains the mind is made upon.
What is this sapiens mammal animal,
But of some slime and of brutish law!
So, let’s ‘neglect’ this state of affairing,
On the grounds that it is unappealing.
What is Man but the only bloom for which all
The 13.7 billions years of evolution and love
Have occurred, in a predetermined swirling yeast,
To form and flower such a vainglorious beast.
God came out quick, now claiming the writ
That He guided the Earth safe through its orbit
Around the the now centered sun in space,
For by now the Earth’s motion around the sun
Was known to be true to nearly everyone.
Newton demolished this notion
With his laws of motion.
God thus no longer ruled Nature’s course,
For the world was free to run its course.
From Isaac: Laws and Revelations:
There is a mote in space known as Earth,
A pale blue dot of fluff orbiting a hearth.
Due but to Newton’s laws of motion there’s none:
No Godly hand guiding it safe around the sun.
The vanishing had now really begun.
The heavens and the Earth were one.
Stars and galaxies went on and on puffing
And we became the center of nothing.
God was losing his definition in stone,
As his sworn traits disappeared one by one.
So, He’s retreated to higher ground, that is,
Outside of space, time, and all that exists.
I believe in a single substance, the mother of all forces, which engenders the life and consciousness of everything, visible and invisible. I believe in a single Lord, biology, the unique son of the substance of the world, born from the mother substance after centuries of random shuffling of material: the encapsulated reflection of the great material sea, the epiphenomenal light of primordial darkness, the false reflection of the real world, consubstantial with the mother-substance. It is he who has descended from the shadows of the mother-substance, he who has taken on flesh from matter, he who plays at the illusion of thought from flesh, he who has become the Human Brain. I acknowledge a single method for the elimination of error, thus ultimately eliminating myself and returning to the mother substance. Amen.
‘The God Delusion’, and ‘god is Not Great’ were well written, too.
The best is to leave them alone. If you don't, you may blow up in anger or in frustration by seeing them claim so many fallacious, improper, stupid, and ignorant facts and arguments, and then sticking by them despite overwhelming evidence, both a priori and empirical.
Religions are no longer opiates that sedate... they have turned noxious. The shelf-life has expired a long time ago, and the followers of them still try to force them dow our throats.
If one defines religion as belief in God, that is not a reason to reject scientific investigation. It could be argued that God created science. That concept appears in the writing of Einstein and Hawking. However, I should add that while I will always be willing to discuss the matter, I really don't give a rat's ass. But . . . religion does not mean belief in God, and that is why one has to be very careful how one words philosophical questions. If the question was meant to be - Are science and the belief in God contradictory, then it should be written as such.
I'd say it applies to even to moderates of both camps.
I agree with you, however, that the debates should stop. They are fruitless, they are vengeful, and they create a level of unnecessary frustration.
No, no anger, for they like what they want and their doing so is actual and so that's how it is and thus can be with humans. Their 'God' remains as a shrinking 'maybe', true, for science has closed many of the gaps of their supposed, posited, and revealed 'God', which is the popular one, though unfortunately that 'God' is the polar opposite of a good role model, which will eventually doom that particular notion of 'God'.
Do you understand what ‘positivism’ is? Or ‘scientism’ Do you know why Dawkins/Dennett are accused of ‘scientism’?
It’s a myth that ‘science disproves religion’ in any general sense. Sure, science undermines many forms of religious belief, but questions as to whether the Universe is animated by an underlying cause are quite out of reach for science. The kinds of religious belief that science undermines, for instance ‘biblical literalism’, are based on faulty readings of religion in the first place. So the conflict is really often between biblical fundamentalism on the one side, and scientific materialism, on the other. And they’re mirror images of each other.
As for ‘the gaps’ - they simply reappear in different forms. Right now, there’s a big debate about the so-called ‘fine tuning principle’ - why it is that the Universe seems to have just those attributes required to give rise to complex forms, when there’s nothing science can demonstrate that shows why it should be so. One of the arguments against that is that the universe is just one instance of a vast ‘multiverse’, and the one that just happens to support life - something for which there could be no more evidence than there can be for a ‘first cause’.
And it’s a perfectly legitimate subject for a philosophy forum; only ‘fruitless’ for fundamentalists who want what they consider ‘proof’ one way or the other, because that’s never going to be had.
I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me nor that they make me angry and frustrated.
Quoting god must be atheist
I didn't say the debates should stop.
Please don't include me in lists, if you are going to assign positions to me.
I heard great theory, about life elsewhere in the Universe, from a Christian friend of mine. He said words to the effect: It is highly unlikely there is intelligent life other than on Earth, because the Lord would have had to send is only son and saviour to die for their souls too.
I cracked up.
Yes, with some demolished by science and some just plainly showing God's lack of integrity. All that remains, really, beyond the trivial, is whether a 'God' is probable or not, beyond us never being able to know for sure, leaving it ever to be a 'maybe'.
Hail! Lord Byron’s Golden Mean extends:
Let us have wine, lovers, song, and laughter—
Water, chastity, prayer the day after.
Such we’ll alternate the rest of our days—
So on the average we’ll make Hereafter!
Science simply disproves many religious beliefs, such as with evolution and other scientific discoveries that the people who invented world religions had no clue about, so it's not a myth.
Such questions are within the reach of human imagination, and the imagination of scientists is just as good as the imagination of some goofy religious dude in robes.
Yeah but if you never believed that Adam and Eve was literally true, then the fact that it's *not* literally true doesn't 'prove' anything. That's why people like you are similar to fundamentalists.
Your mental contortions are quite unnecessary, Wayfarer, but if it makes you feel good to think of me as some kind of fundamentalist then be my guest. :smile:
It makes no difference to me, but it explains everything you say about the topic, so you will understand if I don't engage further with you on this subject.
We both know that you cannot make a convincing argument that I’m any sort of fundamentalist. It is your dishonesty and cowardice that prevents you from even trying.
Yes, and herein we saw the whole of Genesis not just go away but get demolished, for it was the polar opposite of what was found, along with more, such as the Earth not being fixed in space. Those kinds of things spoke to the OP, it being about religion's 'God', which is the Biblical 'God', for the most part. Plus, the Guy had no integrity and was a conditional giver/commander, etc.
It was good practice for the next step, which is to figure the probability of a regular, non-Biblical 'Being' vs 'no Being', which positions are not necessarily equiprobable.
To qualify, the Being needs to be person-like, with a system of mind, and must be Fundamental/First, fully intact from the get-go or as ever, which rules out an evolved smart alien dependent on other things having happened.
Known events can tell us more. For example, no magic is apparent. Both cosmic and biological evolution took very l-o-n-g; the Earth is in the Goldilocks orbital zone, not out by Neptune, etc. All looks to be natural.
Or, the Being could be a Deity, a kind a very smart scientist who foresaw every interaction in the Universe that He started going with the right mix of stuff, never intervening in it thereafter. If so, then so be it, and the fine-tuning that worked.
Whichever, the Being does not show itself, which stands against there being a Being. Also, we note a progress from very tiny things to the more and more composite and complex, again a polar opposite, to Complexity First.
Well, that's a start, for all readers here. I invite more, either for or against. We're just doing probability here. No one can know for sure, either way, nor honestly teach/preach either way for sure as truth.
The argument is like this: to believe that science disproves a religious myth then you have to believe that the myth in question was true to begin with. In the case of the creation account in Genesis, about the only people who believe it is literally true are called young-earth creationists. They believe that the earth was miraculously created a few thousand years ago and that the science of radio-carbon dating and everything of the kind is wrong.
Very few people believe that, and I certainly don't believe it. I've never believed that the creation account of the Bible was anything other than a myth. But in the context of the overall Biblical narrative, it's still meaningful. Just because it's not literally true, doesn't make it meaningless.
So, Richard Dawkins, for example, depicts all religious belief as basically being fundamentalism - that to have any kind of religious sensibility, puts you in the same camp as fundamentalism. But it's obviously not true, as there are many religious people who have no trouble accepting the scientific account of evolution, and interpreting the Biblical account symbolically. In fact, the Catholic Church (nor the Anglican Church) has never questioned the scientific account of evolution. It's mainly the province of US fundamentalism.
Here's an interesting passage:
That was written by Augustine, 430 AD De Genisi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis). One can assume he would take a dim view of today's fundamentalism.
Socrates did not fear gods. He just realized the god-concept is an unnecessary concept.
Most atheists I know don't fear god. If you believe something does not exist, then it's impossible to fear it. That is self-evident.
You seem to imply that atheism is born, or created, by a fear of god. That may be partly true, in some instances, but in most instances of atheism, people are raised without a god-belief and they simply follow the crowd, much like religious follow the crowd.
There is a slim stratum of atheists, who are the most vocal, and their atheism is stemmed from their realizing that religions are self-contradictory, and although they would otherwise accept it, they can't abide by a system that is ruled by logical self-contradictory tenets.
For an overwhelming majority of Europeans life now is understandable and science answers more and more questions now, which could only be answered by religious faith before. The need for religion is fading fast in western type democracies in the Europe.
And there are a lot of needs of humans and societies, that can be satisfied, while no prayer or other appeals to gods are needed-- so mankind can and does cast those practices away, along with the belief in the supernatural.
I don't think you are right in saying that atheists simply fear god and therefore they deny its existence. Many people do use denial as a defence mechanism against anxiety, but the atheists mostly don't, they instead chose a no-god world view because they can and because it is conducive to their lives. In fact, if anything, then it is the LACK of fear of god that enables the atheist to cast away or stay away from a belief in god.
He was at the same time advocating to deny the truth claimed by the bible.
If one or more claims in a certain set of claims, which set comprises the truth because it is spoken by god, are proven to be certainly wrong, it establishes a valid doubt in the rest of the claims to be true.
Quoting god must be atheist
Quoting Wayfarer
Why would i need to understand what the concepts are behind these expressions?
You don't understand a simple sentence. I wrote "Facts and reason support anti-religionism", and you read it as "science disproves religion". The two are not even remotely equivalent.
If you don't understand English, and you don't understand science, and you don't understand the concept of "proof," then you don't understand a lot more than what I don't understand, and your non-understanding is more basic than mine.
1. Science never proves anything. You claimed that science can prove things.
2. Your paraphrasing is way too liberal.
This shows a basic non-understanding on such a level, that I don't think I can penetrate your thinking with my reason and arguments.
Quoting Coben
Quoting Coben
Coben: "I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me" yes, you did say it by agreeing with Wayfarer, who stated this as a counter-claim to mine. I you read the texts carefully, you will see.
Coben: "I didn't say the debates should stop." Yes, you did say it, when you expressed your agreement with Wayfarer, who said my statements of the religious also apply to anti-religious fanatics. Wayfarer did not specify which part of my script applies, so the infernece is valid,that all my text applies. Therefore by agreeing with Wayfarer you agreed that the debates should stop.
I have included you in that list, because you voluntarily joined to be on that list. You voluntarily joined when you expressly stated agreement with Wayfarer, who expressily said "this applies" to all. And "this" in "this applies" was not specified, so I have the right to include all I said that Wayfarer reacted to, as included in "this".
OK, seems a stretch to me to assume I meant everything and not that last portion, but fine, I get how you took it now. In any case I saw those quaities of debating style in both groups and extended this to include moderates of both sides. I was not referring to the debates being useless. Now, one could wonder if I also agreed with your conclusion that the debates are useless. IOW one ought to be able to see the difference between what is potentially implicit in my agreement and
my having said.....X,Y and Z, when you can't even quote yourself accurately and then attribute statements to me I did not make.
I do see how it would be fair to think I might have agreed to the whole post via him.
But as it happens I do not in regard, for example to the debates.. And apparantly, by your behavior, and despite your assertion, you do not either, think them useless. Isn't it hypocritical to participate on your part?
And I stand by the position that anti-religions can exhibit all sorts of aggressive frustrated behavior and also to engage in fallacious arguments, ad hominim attacks and a poor understanding of epistemology when dealing with theists. I also see this behavior in theists and I see it even in moderate examples of both theists and antitheists.
You present perfect examples to support this....the post that set our dialogue in motion
is off topic, offering no substance on the issue of the thread. Is a general insult and is, sure, toxic. And it is not toxic because it offers reasoned anti-reglisious arguments, but rather because it is off-topic bile. Effectively, if not intentionally, trolling.
So are other posts in this thread...
Let's look at your first contribution, I think, to this thread....
Quoting god must be atheist
Now in your defense the other poster was using a general ad hom, against those he disagreed with. Your contribution is to make this personal, about him, including mind reading about his characte: 'will never daunt you' and more. You decided that what the thread needed was insults or more insults and mind reading, including about what someone else will never do. We could call that an implicit claim to having precognitive powers.
Oh, pardon, that was your second post. Your first begins as debate, discussing an issue, but quickly moves into ad hom mind reading.....
IOW it is not the case that they are mistaken yet truly believe what they are arguing, for example. You know it is a vile trick - meaning intending to mislead, an ad hom focus on the people and not the issue.
Presumably you are anti-religious and you exhibited some of the traits I think that the anti-religious, just like the religious can exhibit.
And in this second example, you were not responding to a person using ad homs, at least going by the quote they were making an argument and were on topic. Whether they were right or wrong is no justification for your ad hom and insulting approach at least in some post.
You may not stop being hypocritical and may continue to engage in debates you consider useless.
But I can ignore you and will. There are atheists, anti-religionists, agnostics and theists I can discuss and debate with who do not fit, in many ways, your own description of religious people. I can have these discussions with them and not find the discussion useless.
I hope that's clear to you now.
It is not my contention that Atheists fear God. The Abrahamics are said traditionally to fear God. They invented Atheism as a term for convenience when dealing with people who do not see reality through their dogma. That is one reason I am not an Atheist. I am not going to buy into the trichotomy of Atheist-Agnostic-Theist. The sky is blue, now that's important.
Continuing from my previous post on the Being's probability of being…
Since the Being never shows and we note the long and slow but natural road of 13 billion years leading to us, either there is no Being or the Being doesn't have the power to create more quickly what it wants, the latter lessening the likelihood of a Being. This lack of power applies to both a hands-off Deity and an intervening Theity (a word I invented).
How, then, is an Intelligent Designer going to be able to foresee all eventualities and kick off a fine-tuned universe when we don't even have the math to solve the three body problem?
If there is intervention or foreseeing, how it is that extinctions, notably the one wiping out 95% of all life, including the dinosaurs, would be an intelligent sledgehammer for providing an opening for mammals to evolve, such as a shrew-like creature at the time? And, again, why can't the Being operate directly instead of always presumably under the cover of natural events.
Finally, why is a Great Complexity of a large System of Mind of a Being suggested as being able to be Fundamental/First, for systems ever have parts, these parts then having to be more fundamental. Here we come very close to disproving the Being. Plus, that we see the opposite, as a progression of the tiny and simple to the larger and more complex.
You’ve not made an argument that I’m any sort of fundamentalist. If you’re going to make a wild claim like that you should at least try to support it.
Fundamentalism takes a 'literalist' view of the meaning of sacred texts; that they are to be understood in a literal sense. Obviously a scientific theory such as evolution by natural selection threatens that view - which is central to the whole 'culture wars' between religion and science, as in, for instance the books of Richard Dawkins.
But assuming that all Christians are fundamentalist, is a dogmatic view that is ironically similar to the dogma being criticized. So saying that 'evolution undermines religion' is only true for a fundamentalist view of religion.
If you're not familiar with it, google Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, and have a read about it.
During conscious observation,
The ‘hereness’ and ‘nowness’
Of reality crystalizes and remains,
We establishing what that reality is to some extent.
We define and refine the nature of reality
That leads to the mind’s outlook.
Counterintuitive? Cyclical?
Yes, but it is the universe in dialog with itself;
The wave functions, and yet the function waves.
The universe supplies the means of its own creation,
Its possibilities supplying the avenues
And the probability and workability
That carve out the paths leading to success.
So, here we are, then and now,
The rains of change falling everywhere,
The streams being carved out,
The water rising back up to the sky,
The rain then falling everywhere,
The streams recarving and meandering
Toward more meaning and so on.
Dawkins doesn’t make this assumption. While verifying that online I ran across the curious notion of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Stephen Jay Gould describes it as follows:
Oddly, according to the principal it could not be considered a factual principle until its scientifically proven, and that’s never going to happen.
Religious people are so goofy.
While the number of people who believe in biblical inerrancy is slowly diminishing, that number is still quite large - and these people have significant influence on American (and global) politics.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/210704/record-few-americans-believe-bible-literal-word-god.aspx
They have zero visibility in Australian politics. One of the most well-known fundamentalists, Ken Ham, is an Australian, he had to relocate to Kentucky to find an audience.
Dear Coben, thanks for clearing this up.
I read what is written, and I understand what I read. If someone makes a mistake by writing what they don't mean, then it is something they must fix later; and you came through with that. I appreciate your effort.
That’s what she said.
Yes, you clearly did, and now you're contradicting yourself. You should reread what you wrote. You said that I was suggesting something I wasn't. Your exact wording was as follows:
Quoting AJJ
I deliberately rejected your question itself, as opposed to giving either an affirmative or negative answer, on the grounds that it was irrelevant and inapplicable, given that it was framed as a false analogy. We aren't talking about maths and fashion anymore if you're going to break that analogy. I stand by my previous answer about the incompatibility of science and religion.
You then responded with nothing other than your own misinterpretation of what I said. And you repeat that same misinterpretation yet again, as though it is fact, here:
Quoting AJJ
You need to learn the difference between an implication and a misinterpretation.
If you aren't even capable understanding what I'm saying, which isn't all that complicated, then further discussion with you will be futile.
Quoting AJJ
That's an odd question to ask in relation to my comment. I have no idea why you'd assume that there's a scientific method for arriving at the belief in a transcendent God, and I'm certainly under no burden to answer for your own peculiar imaginings which appear to have no logical relevance to my comment.
I live in an apartment building. The surrounding gardens on the premises are kept up by the tenants, on a volunteer basis. There is no contract with the landlord that we must do it; it's just that some of the tenants are keen on gardening.
One day I come home and Chuck was sweeping up the sidewalk. I told him, he is doing a good job. He thanked me. Then I screamed at him in an agry, ugly voice, saying it very abruptly, "BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!"
We both laughed.
Quoting Drazjan
These are two direct quotes uttered by you. The referencing is easily done.
So... you later say that the TERM atheism has been invented by those who fear the Abrahamic god, and the term is to mean those who are heathens.
I wish people would be more careful in composing their posts, and wish people would pay more attention to be not misleading by carelessness. I read what is written, and I understand what I read. If someone by mistake writes other than what they meant, they should clear it up. Thanks for clearing this up, Drazjan. I appreciate the effort.
The first quote is correct. Its cryptic, but its food for thought. I used to think I was an Atheist, until I discovered that it was part of a trichotomy that facilitates those who "fear God." I don't mind being categorised by something I believe, but certainly not something that is someone else's idea. As to the first quote : Atheists fearing God would be contradictory. So I do not see that as an interpretation.
The God-ists seem to need to codify reality as cosmic or mystical. I would not say that need is wrong, any more than the other neuroses that make up the human condition. But I doubt they would disagree with the notion that reality is something with which the individual comes to terms.
Perhaps the most amusing aspect of Abraham and his followers (and there is not much) is that they feel that one supreme "spirit" is more logical that several.
While I believe in the power of knowing historical development and etimology of words, I think if someone goes by the current usage, irrespective of the meaning's development, then he or she has a greater chance of not being misunderstood.
If you haven't had the opportunity to read physicist Paul Davies' Book...it's a great, great read!!
Accordingly, I believe the short answer is yes. I was always inspired by Einstein's search for answers and sense of wonder...
"Knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man." (Albert Einstein)