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Rather than allowing KoM to change the question, why don't you insist that he answer the question you asked him? Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
You have in no way answered it. You simply substituted a question that you felt put you in a more defensible position. The question is why do you speak of the nonexistence of God as a certainty when you are incapable of proving it. You could dispute the premise of the question, or you could answer it. Your question about Santa Claus accomplishes neither, and is simply intended to put theists on the defensive. Yes, well, you think they're as silly as adult believers in Santa Claus. Very good. Now: answer the original question.
Or is it that you take it on faith?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Ok, this does help me better understand your stance.
It does however cause me to question the further exposition about basing your beliefs on a "false" belief (reading false as highly unlikely and not supported by reason, if not disproved either) as inherently causing those beliefs to be negated or flawed or whathaveyou.
If I chose to believe that there was a teapot in orbit around mars does that negate the validity of any of my other beliefs or conclusions which do not rely on this teapot?
If I chose to be a moral person who happens to believe in God as part (but not a strictly necessary part) of my moral standing am I really worse off or just no better than the atheist standing next to me with the same end moral standing?
I acceed that there is the possibility of people being led astray and against reason by an overzealous belief in the divine, but what about those who only use him as an explanation (for now) of the unexplainable. But what about the person who believes in God because of the possibility that there is an afterlife, but doesn't let that belief interfere with reason in general?
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Icarus, I think KoM did in the end answer my question in a roundabout way:
Q: Why do you say that a belief in God is categorically False?
A: In fact I call it "false" because I find it to be without reasonable support, and unlikely to the extent that it is useless to consider it a possibility.
and the previous post was meant to sum up: do you completely discount the potential validity of Pascal's wager?
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Do you know any such people? Apart from that, if you had a belief in god but didn't reason from it, I suppose you would be as well off as an atheist in terms of getting goals accomplished. Such a belief strikes me as rather pointless, but I concede the theoretical possibility. I still think you'd be worse off on the other part of my 'should' statement, namely, that you have a moral responsibility not to believe things without having evidence for them.
quote:You have in no way answered it. You simply substituted a question that you felt put you in a more defensible position. The question is why do you speak of the nonexistence of God as a certainty when you are incapable of proving it.
For the same reason that I speak of the nonexistence of Santa Claus as a certainty : There is zero credible evidence in favour of the theory.
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Yes, Pascal's wager is completely useless, because I can just as well postulate that the Satanists are right, and it is really the Christians who will be punished for eternity, while atheists are rewarded. That has exactly the same probability as the Christians being right, and the same infinite payoff, so you're back to a zero expected payoff from belief in Christianity.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by ginette: Oh yes, Einstein was religious.
Not in any of the usual sense of the word. I believe he grew up in a somewhat traditionally Jewish home, but other than the occasional mention of God (the vast majority of which were clearly jokes), I know of no evidence that he was in any way religious as an adult.
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Since Storm said anyone could join in I’m going to post *some* my views on what I think is wrong with religion and why I don’t think its right for me. Not that anybody is interested Haha I just feel like posting in one of the religious threads for once. You guys have all the fun. In no particular order:
1. I don’t think it’s fair that G-d gets all the credit for the good things but never gets blamed for the bad things that happen in life.
2. I don’t think it’s fair that apparently I’m going to hell because I don’t believe in G-d even though I’m a really good person otherwise. (Honest! )
3. I can’t believe in a G-d in a world where suffering is out of control.
4. I can’t believe in G-d just by reading a book/living by a book that I feel is fiction ,(great stories they may be but I still don’t think that the majority of them are true Aesop’s fables are just as effective if not more effective at telling children not to lie etc. Actually Aesop’s fables have immediate consequences that a child can relate to rather than the only consequence being that they will go to hell when they die which will probably be a long way away.). I think the morals came first and then the religion not the religion first and then the morals came from that.
5. A big thing for me is that I can’t just have faith. I need something to prove to me that there is a G-d.
6. I don’t get organized religion in that so much time is devoted to worship etc. Why can’t you just acknowledge that He/She is there and get on with life, maybe thank him every now and then, maybe ask him why? every now and then. Why do you need to devote so mich time to Him/Her?
7. I don’t know if the world would be better off without religion but I really don’t think it would be that much different. People would just be saying “ Because I think so” instead of “ Because G-d thinks so”. Which I think is better. People get to use G-d for any old argument, and it’s not fair that it just trumps everyone elses!
So, yeah that’s a few of my reasons. I am always open to revising my opinions if something someone else makes sense, but I don’t think that I could ever believe in G-d just like some of you couldn’t not believe in G-d. G-d or any other spiritual being just doesn’t make sense to me and therefore I can’t accept that He/She is real.
posted
and so to sum up the entire thread people who believe in god fall into ad ignorantium because it cannot be proven he doesnt exist, and the people who dont believe in god fall into ad ignorantium because there is no proof of a god and therefore doesnt.
next on the list
Fluffy bunnies. Is seems many people have had several bad run-ins with such creatures. Should they be allowed to exist?
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I suggest that there are degrees of rationality involved in all of this that are important to make clear.
Here's a for-instance.
Many people believe in God based on personal experience. That is, that they have directly felt the action of the divine in their lives and have interpreted it as such. Direct, positive influence upon them. Now, an empiricist would say two things about this, I imagine:
1) The experiences of one person (however that person interprets them) are not relevant to the discussion. Things must be repeatable.
2) If a simpler explanation for the observed phenomena exists (i.e., one not requiring divine intervention), we would do well to accept that explanation (aka Occam's Razor, but I think for discussion we should spell out the exact principle and not use the name as short-hand).
A STRONG empiricist -- one who believes that empiricism is the only sure source of fact-based knowledge that can be relied upon for logical deductive reasoning -- would add to #2 that "there is always a simpler explanation not requiring the existence of God."
That is merely one type of reasoning. It is a particularly successful one, granted. It is the source of much that has proven good and useful in the world. It is also the source of much error because, as we learn over and over, sometimes the simplest explanations are not exactly correct, and...follow me here...there is still a need for conjecture, guess-work, and action without complete information. Without having to spell things out in more detail than a post on a BB warrants, let's just say that this brand of logic almost always leaves us taking action based on partial information. We simply MUST use our (educated) guesses about the future state of the world in order to proceed.
Let's call all of the above PART A. If you have a problem with PART A, we should resolve that first. If not, we can then move on to PART B.
PART B is this: ACTION, NOT JUST THOUGHT
Humans are capable of many, many modes of thought, and action based upon those thoughts. The modern term "rational thought" also encompasses more than just empirically-based reasoning. Part B is pretty simple in short-hand. It is the principle that people may ACT rationally even when the original thought or idea cannot be supported within a framework that could be called rational or "reasoned." Assuming we've gotten to discussion of Part B yet, I'll assume that we've come to grips with this principle -- that even within our most "rational" framework possible, actions must often be taken that are are not fully supported by the verfiable facts. Part B of my mini-treatise simple extends this to say that it is a characteristic of all sentient life that we know of to act even when we cannot fully support our choices rationally. In part because we MUST act, and in part because we are finite and impatient, and curious, and a host of other things that make activity almost a biological imperative.
Okay...that's PART B. So far so good? I will continue to Part C because I feel like I haven't actually said anything that should cause anyone any problems, and because Part C is where the crunch comes in. Part C is this:
PART C: From Action to Thought...
"All I gotta do is...act ration'ly" (sung to the tune of "Act Naturally")
Cognitive scientists have discovered this wonderful thing called "cognitive dissonance." In a nutshell, it is the internal discussion one has with oneself when ones actions are different from ones "internal state." A simple example; smiling when you are sad sets up a "dissonance." Big deal...except...the weird thing is that people will quite often change their internal state to match the behavior rather than the other way around. So...smile when you are sad and you have a reasonable shot of internally convincing yourself that you were actually happy all along. Weird, huh?
Except that we're wired that way.
Why bring this up? Well...because I submit that what really matters is actions. That our internal monologue -- our own self-monitoring if you will -- is in charge of our reasoning capacity more than we'd ever want to admit in open court (or perhaps, on an internet forum). There are some startling implications, though. One thing that has been observed, time and again, is that every behavior we emit is somehow "rationalized" internally. And I don't mean that in the sense of "made excuses for" but rather in the sense of "I amd doing it, therefor it IS rational...and so it must be explained or explainable."
In other words, behaving as if there IS a God convinces us that God exists. It is inescapable for most humans. It is also...in the most human sense of the word, completely rational.
Now...our stalwart STRONG empiricist senses a trap. If his (or her) materialistic approach is as much a product of an internal monologue as the God-driven world-view of the most fervent of religious folks, what exactly is the thing that separates their way from my way, and vice versa?
In truth, nothing, or nearly nothing.
It is mere illusion that we act our beliefs, when in reality we are just as likely to be "believing out our actions."
Which, if you stop and think about it, is as natural as can be, and completely irrational from any point of view that would satisfy our stalwart empiricist.
And yet, there it is. We act without full data, we interpret our actions and reach conclusions that...in a neatly circular fashion, color our perceptions and help us to interpret new facts and both support new actions and color our interpretation of those actions.
NOW...I'm going to assume we will need to spend a great deal of time on Part C before (if ever) going on to the implications of all this in Part D.
I will thus use this as a convenient stopping point. Those with better minds than mine have no doubt already figured out what Part D must be if we are not to simply throw up our hands and say that "all is meaningless." If you have something figured out and want to proceed to Part D, then by all means, indulge yourself. I won't stop you.
But, I'm going to assume that...unless people just think it's too stupid an idea to even contemplate...we will need to chew on Part C first.
posted
I have an elegant little proof of part D which unfortunately does not fit in this text box . . .
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ginette: [Well, I don't think it is the myths that cause the problem, I think it's the 'multi' in itself: Whether you are talking about multi-cultural, multi-religion or multi-whatever, it always causes conflict. I don't know why, I guess it must be in our human nature to feel safest when everything around us is uniform, predictable.
And why would you WANT to take away other peoples myths? Even if you could (which I doubt), what would you gain by it?
First paragraph: Its not either/or. As I stated *at length* in my very first post, religion is far from the only source of conflict. It just happens to be a particularly big and arbitrary cause, one that we can easily do without.
Second paragraph: You seem to have missed the entire point of the post. I'll try again in story form if that makes it easier.
Oog and Oogette are a caveman couple. They have children but inevitably the children die from lack of food. One day, they notice that one area is teeming with strawberries. They also notice that they vacated their bowels in that area after eating strawberries. Not understanding the connection between the seeds in their feces and plants, they decide that their feces must have pleased something nearby. They look around and notice a big pine tree. Clearly, their feces must have pleased the Pine Tree.
Several generations later, their descendents worship the Pine Tree. They crap near the tree and then their children have lots of food. Gradually, they come to the belief that if they fail to crap near the Pine Tree, then the pine tree will mutate into a giant Godzilla and crush them all. Their religion has encoded a useful fact (crap has seeds, seeds grow into food) into a myth (the giant Oog killing Godzilla).
Several more generations later, the people of Oog have developed Kraft Dinner and Big Macs. They no longer require the plants growing near the Pine Tree to live. They no longer even crap near the pine tree. Instead, they built a grand structure around it. Inside, they perform a ritual, they place chocolate (which after a priest has blessed it, becomes metaphorical feces) near the Pine Tree. The useful fact has been superceded but the myth remains. They sit around and praise the Pine Tree for their good fortune and are eternally in awe of the power that the Pine Tree must have.
Later, a new people moves nearby. However, they *don't* worship a Pine Tree. Instead, they worship a Cactus that their ancestors happens to dump nearby. Fearful that their Pine Tree will mutate into a giant Godzilla and crush them, the people of Oog declare war on and wipe out the Cactus worshipers.
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Actually, I just figured that since we were on page 4 of the same discussion replayed multiple times, it couldn't actually HURT to adopt a somewhat different approach and question rationality as being an especially "rational" choice, superior to all other modes of human operation.
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About Einstein being religious: Well, ok, if you define it as having adapted a certain religion I guess you are right.
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Icarus, I assume you are referring to the famous "2+2=5" proof which, while sublime, has nothing over the "2+2=3" proof, which has its own special elegance.
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There's a problem with your summation, Bob: religion (and to some extent materialism) is predictive and prescriptive. They're not just attempting to justify behaviors after the fact; they're actually attempting to recommend behaviors based on an external ethical framework. Now, it's true that people frequently look for ways to force their own current behaviors into that framework, but it's equally true that people often find themselves taking actions they otherwise would not as a consequence of that framework.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom...you're jumping ahead of me. WAY far ahead.
I haven't even gotten to the discussion of religion yet.
The point, so far, is that human rational thought is not necessarily reliable, or consistent across humans except in very limited spheres (such as, perhaps, engineering and judging Olympic figure skating...but certainly NOT science or religion).
Frankly, I thought the post was getting too long and that there was no point going there if people couldn't at least consider Part C to be worth discussing.
I don't think I can discuss this back-to-front though. You, for example, have assumed much to get to your critique.
If you don't mind, I'd rather see if people need/want to talk about Part C before forging ahead...
But it'll be tonight (at the earliest) before I can make any further responses anyway.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: The point, so far, is that human rational thought is not necessarily reliable...
I think it's a terminology problem. What you're calling "human rational thought" is what I would call "rationalization," in an effort to draw a distinction. In other words, as you admit up front, it's not actually rational thought; it's post-facto rationalization that in many ways resembles rational thought, but which is not.
Now, I'll freely admit that people are capable of fooling themselves into thinking that they're being "rational" when they aren't. The problem here is that neither the word "rational" or the word "logical" are really particularly descriptive of what we're attempting to describe.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Can they demonstrate a causative relationship between a hypothetical hole and an absence of faith? Can we lay out what the attributes of the hole are? Or are we first required to believe in a hole, too?
Yes, I bet we could lay out the attributes of the hole left by an unwillingness to have faith in things - although I suspect it would vary based on what subject we are talking about. A lack of faith when it comes to moral beliefs, for instance, would probably lead to an inability to confidently judge right from wrong. A lack of faith in beliefs about one's own abilities would probably lead to a lowering of self-esteem and self-worth. And so on.
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quote:Can they demonstrate a causative relationship between a hypothetical hole and an absence of faith? Can we lay out what the attributes of the hole are? Or are we first required to believe in a hole, too?
Yes, I think we can lay out the attributes of the hole left behind by a lack of faith, although I suspect it would vary depending on what it is we lack faith about.
As for causative relationships, I suspect we can't demonstrate any casuative relationship through any purely rational means - at best we can demonstrate correlation, and even that depends on faith in our observational powers and a consistency of universal laws that we cannot prove.
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posted
The problem, Tom, is that all thought works this way...and in multiple ways.
There is no such thing as "pure reason."
I think the problem with Empiricism is that it relies on just the same thought mechanisms that it denigrates in "religious thought" when its proponents make their own leaps.
The rules for evaluating thoughts might be different (in science or religion), but the processes behind the thinking are the same ones humans have always used, and probably will always use.
Claims for superior rational thought are thus not really anything more than claims for ex-post-facto contstraints on those thoughts -- the rules for what's admissable...not the thoughts themselves.
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quote:The rules for evaluating thoughts might be different (in science or religion), but the processes behind the thinking are the same ones humans have always used, and probably will always use.
From my perspective, that's a lot like saying that because plants and animals are both made of carbon, they're largely interchangeable. I maintain that there are clear, demonstrable differences between the process of "faith" and the process of "logic," despite the fact that as humans our underlying mechanisms are limited by biology.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by ginette: About Einstein being religious: Well, ok, if you define it as having adapted a certain religion I guess you are right.
No, I define it as belief in a god. And I'm still right.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.
Oh?? I thought you came up with this quote yourself Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:Now, there are certainly some quotes by Einstein referring to god as doing this, that or the next thing; however, I think it is clear that this does not reflect any belief on Einstein's part in an actual divinity, even a fairly vague, Deistic one, but is just a convenient way of speaking.
posted
So...what, you've added mind-reading to your lengthy list of talents now? Actually, I guess it would count as a seance more than mind-reading. Unless it's an involuntary mind-reading of the dead, in which case I'm not sure what the term is.
Or do you have something other than your own thoughts on the matter as to why you're right?
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other than Einstien being raised jewish there doesnt seem to be any evidence that he supported any religion. then again having a religion and being religious are two different things
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Rakeesh, who are you addressing? Because if it's KoM, postmortem mind-reading isn't necessary. It's pretty clear from some of Einstein's personal correspondence that he did not believe in God. I tend to thing the famous quotes are him joking, rather than "a convenient way of speaking," but I confess that to be an assumption on my part.
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It seems to me that Einstein has made enough contradictory statements about religion (and God) that it's difficult to do anything but guess whether or not he had any sort of religion. Possibly he changed his mind (back and forth) on that question himself.
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Why are we arguing here the religiosity of a dead man (who cannot defend himself ) ? Is it because we consider him a great man and “each party” wants to have him on their side?
Just as it happens with any other written source (think of the Bible for example) all we have now are interpretations of what the real reasons behind the writings* were. Therefore, out of context we can quote and support any particular view. Why bother?
Why not be a great person yourself, and then explain the goodness that you do as a result of your “religiosity” (or lack thereof).
*except for those that had a personal experience of enlightenment about it.
A.
PS: I’m still compiling a list of “what is wrong/good about religion” as far as I’m concerned Posts: 1154 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Bob, I like your PART C, because if we hold it to be true, it follows that any belief with no strong empirical basis falls into the same category as religion.
That's actually one of the many problems I have with religion. If there is no way to show evidence for a belief, then it makes just as much sense as any other belief, and has the same value of Truth.
Why base life choices on any one particular faith then? Is there any reason to believe that Christianity is True, while Hinduism is False? Any way tho show that Satanism is Correct, while Islam is False? Or perhaps the opposite?
People of each faith have equally strong beliefs that they are correct, and they have the same ability to prove those beliefs.
It makes just as much sense to worship Unicorns, and believe that the planet Jupiter is a mighty Titan who controls all the natural laws and punishes anyone who speaks the word "chutney."
As one of the planet's faithful, it is my duty to punch anyone who says "chutney" within my hearing. Don't get mad at me, I'm only following the True Laws of the great Planet Jupiter.
I'm working on getting some followers together, and we're going to make sure it's illegal in America to ever speak the accursed word. Once we get the Constitution changed, we'll see about starting up some wars to cleans the world of any who speak the evil name.
Who wants to join? If you do as I say, you get a magic space pony when you turn 200 and are teleported into the inner depths of the Great Planet's bowels, there to live forever among magical sausages and fruit-bearing hummingbirds who sing in the language of Ugnanboldepton.
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Part D is to examine the nature of EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE itself. What is it really? There are some facts that we can say are irrefutable. They deal with physical properties of elements and compounds, or the physics of moving bodies, etc. As we move through time and gain more knowledge, we see that those fundamental properties (of things or motions) change little -- we merely gain precision in our measurements and come up with better theories to cover all conditions.
While such facts cover a broad range of humans' experiences with the world, they don't cover it all -- not by a long stretch.
Importantly, as we get closer and closer to the subjects of the debate we're involved in here in this thread -- things like the ultimate origins of life, where physical entities came from in the first place, and so on...we have either few real facts...or NO FACTS AT ALL.
And yet, some empiricists like to claim that we do...or rather claim that empiricism will eventually discover all that there is to discover and our knowledge, through facts alone, will be complete.
They can't really know that. They are extrapolating from what turn out to be rather static and simplistic things to vastly more fluid and complex things. They are bridging chaotic boundaries with nothing but a belief in the method.
Better thinkers than most of us on this thread have opted for a different resolution than the one that leaves empiricists believing they they must either function solely in the physical plane or fall prey to the same sort "mistakes" of faith that they accuse the religionists of having. And...conversely, of leaving religious people stuck in the stupid error of denying the essential contributions and progress of science and empiricism.
It has been called "separate magesteria." And it's worth reading about. Essentially it is the point of view that acknowledges that religion and science can operate side by side because they occupy different niches, if you will. Each can borrow from the other (just as religions can update their understanding of various scriptures through the potential illumination provided by science, science can -- and always has -- take a few lessons from religion (or more broadly, religion and philosophy) like how to think in the absence of a complete set of empirically established facts. But, for the most part, they simply deal with different things. And...speak a different language. Simple words have incompatible meanings in these two languages.
In short -- dialogue between scientists and religious folks is often made difficult, but not impossible, by the definitional differences.
So...
In Part D what we have is the potential for a truce and permanent resolution to this problem. Suprisingly, it even works within a single person (such as myself -- both a scientist and an active member of an organized religion). It says that there are limits to both empiricism and to religion. That the two interface on a relatively small number of, often, unimportant or completely unanswerable and indecipherable issues -- like the REAL ultimates.
We can choose to recognize the limits and boundaries, or not. We can further choose to worry about those small areas of interface, or not. We can choose to argue ourselves into circles about what turn out to be unanswerable things, or not.
I am a scientist. I am also religious. This does work.
When I need to think about "THE ULTIMATE" I have two sets of cognitive tools to use. Not just one.
I consider this superior to either set alone. It still doesn't answer the questions -- not about THE ULTIMATE -- but I don't set out expecting it to either.
Will this work for everyone? Clearly not. There are some religious folk who demand and assert certainty in all things. There are some empiricists who demand and assert certainty as well. I consider both such groups to be mistaken. But it is not my mission in life to convince them of anything.
I can happily go on living the way I do, thinking about these things from as many perspectives as my mind can comprehend. And I can hope that others will also find this a more fruitful way to engage at the interfaces of science and religion.
Part of getting there, I think, is starting to worry less about "right" and "wrong" when it comes to the things that are just plain unknowable.
If I believe in God based on the religious side of me...my scientific side might wish for proof. But both sides know they aren't going to get it. There's no possibility (at least not now) of proving to the empiricist in me that God truly exists. And yet, the religious side of me knows without question that it is so. And has all the proof it needs, which is exactly NONE that can be a shared experience with almost anyone (some of them are shared experiences with the people closest to me, but some are just mine and mine alone).
I can't explain the certainty of my faith any more than I can prove it you all. I tried to explain a bit how human minds work (as best we can tell) and I believe that some of the explanation of faith resides in how the mind works. At least the decision procesess in the absence of real data work pretty much the same way whether it's a religious topic or a scientific one. They are pretty much indistinguishable from a cognitive standpoint.
So what are we left with but the fact of faith's existence in every realm of human thought (with very few possible exceptions). As for faith in ultimate things -- it is often foolish to try to share a conclusion based on faith, and yet people do. Why? Because we like our fellow humans and want to be around them, seems to me.
Special to Tom: I hope this clarifies that my prior post was about something far deeper than simple "rationalization."
It's not just the human capacity for rationalization that gives rise to religious feelings and scientific leaps of theorizing. It's the human capacity for imagination, as well as the human capacity to connect the dots in interesting and useful ways. Part of what convinces a faithful person of their faith is its effect in their life. You raised the issue of predictive power. Well, from a personal standpoint, the predictive power of faith is pretty darn hard to argue with. Whether or not it predicts in the same way as a scientific prediction is meaningless. Not just missing the point, but honestly meaningless. This is one of the expressions of the separate magesteria, I suspect. But yes, if you ask ANY faithful person whether they believe their faith has a predictive component to it and whether they've experienced the predictive power to be accurate and useful, they will say yes, I suspect.
And yes, there are people who will say the same thing about tarot, and crystals and so on. All I know is that for me, those things didn't work and don't work, but believe in God does. The predictive power of the horoscope has never been good. The predictive power of my faith in God has been.
And I don't question it because I know there's no empirical test that could get at it, and no contrived experiment would convince me that it's wrong. If, somehow, it stopped "working" in my life, maybe that would show me that I had been wrong. I can't be sure what my reaction would be.
But my faith hasn't been test that way...as yet.
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posted
I've always found this paradox quite funny:
Suppose you have adapted a religion that says there is only one God; At the same time, this religion says it's the only right religion; So then you would tell people from other religions they believe in the wrong God?? You can't say that, because then it's YOU assuming there's more than one God. Ok, so then they believe in the same God, but then how to tell which religion is right?
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bobs post is a fairly long way of stating that facts that follow the imperical rule are found based on deductive logic. A logic that can expand your ideas but never gets you proof. Facts are subject to change. KoM talked about the philosophical idea that the sun may not come up tomorrow. Its a popular saying in philosophy classes because it opens the peoples minds up about how many things they take for fact that are in no way provable that they will continue as so. No to mention imperical facts would suggest that they would need to be obsrved, which is why any form or origins (special creation, moonies, evolution) and any dieties are beyond the realm of any empirical evidence. No one was there for the begining, gods have not poured out of the heavens to show the people of the world their wrongdoings. In this thread alone we assert that a man named Einstein exhisted. It is beyond rational ideas and empirical data to actually know he existed since we could not ourselves see him alive.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:It has been called "separate magesteria." And it's worth reading about. Essentially it is the point of view that acknowledges that religion and science can operate side by side because they occupy different niches, if you will.
The problem is that this is exactly the same thing as being "a God of the gaps." But most religious people find the latter concept insulting. I suspect the word "magesteria" sounds better, and is therefore less insulting than saying "we'll let you keep your God in the places we don't have answers yet."
It amounts to admitting that religion is a form of delusion, the one "faith" -- here meaning "belief without proof, and perhaps even in the face of conflicting evidence" -- that we don't consider a sign of insanity.
"Okay," we say, "science can't yet explain what it means to love. So we'll let you believe that there's this whole special realm of things out there which can only be addressed through pseudo-mythology, provided that your obscure mythological requirements don't go stepping on my civil rights."
I find that incredibly patronizing, and am amazed that more religious people don't. It's certainly practical, since there are demonstrable sociological and psychological benefits of having mythologies when compared to actually requiring that people face up to the gaps in their knowledge. But I'd be offended if someone shrugged off the existence of my God in that way.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Not really, Tom. It's not a question of "what we don't know yet"; it's a question of what TYPES of questions can each of the two answer. And while there is some degree of overlap, I agree with Bob that there is far less than some people think there is.
And Anon, I'm one of the ones claiming Einstein was not religious. So much for "parties."
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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rivka, I don't know why but I have the impression that here on Hatrack the exceptions are more often found than elsewhere. And that's a good thing, I think.
quote:it's a question of what TYPES of questions can each of the two answer.
But as science continues to make inroads into the "types" of questions it can feasibly answer, as we map the brain and locate consciousness and other such things, the realm left to religion will get smaller and smaller. Is that really what the religious want?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Only true if the "realm" itself is finite. I don't believe it is. I think it just means our questions get better.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:"Okay," we say, "science can't yet explain what it means to love. So we'll let you believe that there's this whole special realm of things out there which can only be addressed through pseudo-mythology, provided that your obscure mythological requirements don't go stepping on my civil rights."
Well, in fairness, it is better than saying "Science can't explain what it means to love, so love must not really exist, or we should just leave love unexplained."
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Tom, I'm not talking about the types of types you are talking about.
There are certain types of questions -- about the whys and first causes, for example -- that science will never be able to answer. The converse is true as well.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:But as science continues to make inroads into the "types" of questions it can feasibly answer, as we map the brain and locate consciousness and other such things, the realm left to religion will get smaller and smaller. Is that really what the religious want?
The problem with this line of reasoning is that science can't make inroads into the most important religious questions. It can map the brain, but it can't locate consciousness, since consciousness is a mental rather than physical thing - it has no "location". Similarly, it can explain the history of the universe insofar as it is measurable, but it will not be able to explain anything beyond that. It can't determine whether or not there is a God, which is why ID Theory has been excluded from many science classes. And although it can explain how morality functions in social society, it cannot explain what it means to be right or wrong, and why things are right or wrong in any true sense.
These areas are beyond the scope of science's powers, not just because we haven't advanced to that point yet, but rather by definition - science defines itself in a way that limits it to the objectively and physically testable.
And that is a big part of the danger of losing religion. If we were to attempt to rely solely on science to answer the above questions, we would almost certainly conclude that there is no morality, that there is no consciousness, and that there is nothing to the universe beyond what we can physically and objectively test. This would be a horrible mistake - if for no other reason that it eliminates any and all understanding of meaningfulness. Looking at the world ONLY through a scientific lens, nothing has any value whatsoever because value is a subjective, nonphysical, untestable thing.
I'd hate to think what sort of decisions society would make if it failed to possess an understanding of what is worthwhile and what isn't. My suspicion is that they'd end up following only very basic impulses and instincts instead - pursuing whatever "feels good" in a hedonistic sense.
Fortunately, I don't think we have to worry about that quite yet. Although there are lots of people who claim that we should all act purely rationally and follow only science, I don't really know anyone who actually acts that way. Instead, pretty much everyone I know has faith in some set of beliefs and values that they take on some degree of faith - whether they call it religion or not.
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