Slashdot Mirror

emacs is my god by wikinerd · 2008-01-05 01:13 · Score: 1

Public education *should* include the limitation of science.

I propose that public education should include the teachings of St IGNUcius.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by stewbacca · 2008-01-05 01:13 · Score: 1

They're simply unrelated.

Everything is directly related to science as science is a human concept that helps us understand EVERYTHING. People who lack the ability to understand things scientifically revert to religious explanations.

The standards of truth are entirely different. by walterbyrd · 2008-01-05 01:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Don't kid yourself, religion and science use entirely different standards to decide what is true. Science uses logic and evidence, religion uses faith and dogma. Dogma is defined as "a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof."

Science may not have an answer for everything, science has made mistakes, not every accepted theory can be 100% proven. But religion does not even try to prove anything, religion requires you to accept what is proclaimed without any attempt of evidence, or logic, what-so-ever. With religion, it's true just because somebody said so - no other reason.

Don't let yourself be fooled by an argument of ignorance. Don't think "if science doesn't have every answer that proves religion to be true." Because that is just illogical.

What is known about science is backed by hard evidence - religion has no such standard.

Re:The standards of truth are entirely different. by theheadlessrabbit · 2008-01-05 02:24 · Score: 2, Funny

"What is known about science is backed by hard evidence - religion has no such standard."

what are you talking about....religion totally has a rock solid standard.
1) Religion is based on the Bible, and the Bible is infallible.
2) we know the bible is infallible because the bible says that it is infallible. and if you doubt this to be the case, see reason 1.
3) religion makes people feel warm and fuzzy.

you just can't argue that kind of logic.

How can a vast body of thoroughly tested, peer-reviewed knowledge supported by millions of facts possibly compare to that?

in all seriousness, it's shit like this that makes me feel lucky that I wasn't 'educated' in America.

--
-I only code in BASIC.-
Re:The standards of truth are entirely different. by skeftomai · 2008-01-05 06:24 · Score: 1

Mathematics? The expanding universe? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html ?

Where is the evidence for your god?

"randomly" by SanityInAnarchy · 2008-01-05 01:15 · Score: 1

While it may be more difficult to believe if you're brought up in a religion, and while it couldn't really be backed by science, I can imagine that one could believe everything was just randomly thrown together.

No, I don't think any religious people have problems with Evolution unless they are also a Creationist. Creationism is something which is really not compatible with evolution, or with dinosaur bones, unless you just handwave it off as "God can plant whatever evidence He wants."

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:Logic vs Faith by nick255 · 2008-01-05 01:16 · Score: 1

Faith is subjective, mystical, and can have the appearance of utter hogwash to someone not participating therein.

That is not true. That is how people like Dawkins define faith (and in all fairness how post-modern, liberal Christians define faith), but is not how Christians traditionally have define it.

Faith, as traditionally defined by Christians, is closer in definition to trust. Faith is defined as, because of objective past experience of God's action, trusting his promises of future action. Christianity claims God has objectively acted in history and have this as the basis of faith, not some subjective feeling.

Christianity is not subjective, it makes objective historical claims (most importantly that Christ rose from the dead). You may objectively disagree with them, but you can claim they are subjective: either they did or didn't happen.

Mod parent up by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-05 01:16 · Score: 1

Just as science has come a long way from "rocks like the earth, smoke likes the sky", religion has come a long way from "Magic Man dunnit".

Also mod TFA up if that's possible. I think a reason there's so much friction on the topic of evolutionary biology is because people *don't understand that science and religion try to explain different things, and have different ways of testing their truths. If a book can help them out of that habit, I say put it in the schools.

Incidentally, I know we all know people whose religion is still at "Magic Man dunnit" level. But we also know people with similarly insipid ideas about science ("the Uncertainty Principle means we can't know anything for sure" and that sort of thing.)

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love

Re:Mod parent up by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-05 03:07 · Score: 1

See, that's my point. "Magic man dunnit" is no more the core of religious belief than "people came from monkeys" is the core of evolutionary science. When people attack evolution on those grounds, you can't do much but recommend they read S.J. Gould et al.

Likewise, I recommend people look at, say, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, Hans Kung, Simone Weil, to get an idea of what a sophisticated religious outlook can be.

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Re:Mod parent up by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 03:52 · Score: 1

See, that's my point. "Magic man dunnit" is no more the core of religious belief than "people came from monkeys" is the core of evolutionary science.

So what is the core of religious belief?

I've come across countless people who will say things like "Science can't explain X, but religion can: God did it!" Perhaps this is just a minority - what do the majority believe then, if they don't believe in a God that created the Universe?
Re:Mod parent up by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-05 04:31 · Score: 1

"So what is the core of religious belief?"

Well, a full discussion thereof would be outside the scope of a slashdot thread, but off the cuff I'd say:

the core idea of religion is that there is *meaning in, around, behind, or through the things that occur in the universe.

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Re:Mod parent up by ArcherB · 2008-01-05 05:43 · Score: 1

So what is the core of religious belief?

The core of religious belief is that God created the heavens and the Earth.

The core of science is to figure out how.

I've come across countless people who will say things like "Science can't explain X, but religion can: God did it!" Perhaps this is just a minority - what do the majority believe then, if they don't believe in a God that created the Universe?

From HERE:
Ten years later, Alexander Friedmann, a Russian cosmologist and mathematician, derived the Friedmann equations from Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity, showing that the universe might be expanding in contrast to the static universe model advocated by Einstein.[3] In 1924, Edwin Hubble's measurement of the great distance to the nearest spiral nebulae showed that these systems were indeed other galaxies. Independently deriving Friedmann's equations in 1927, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, predicted that the recession of the nebulae was due to the expansion of the universe.[4] In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the universe began as a simple "primeval atom", perhaps echoing previous speculations about the cosmic egg origin of the universe. So it was a Catholic Priest that came up with the "Big Bang Theory". Don't say that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Scientists ask how. Religion asks why.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Mod parent up by 0xdeadbeef · 2008-01-05 05:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

religion has come a long way from "Magic Man dunnit"

The complexity of someone's fantasy does not make it any less fiction.
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-05 06:21 · Score: 1, Insightful

The core of religious belief is that God created the heavens and the Earth.
The core of science is to figure out how.
No. Why should there be any need for a creation? Time being, as it is, part of the struture of the universe, it is senseless to talk about a time before it, or even the universe changing. It doesn't. The universe _is_. It always has been.
There is science and there is metaphysics. There's no need for magic sky men.

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by mrpeebles · 2008-01-05 06:53 · Score: 1

I think the core to western religion is hope, and personal transformation. Historically most lettered people have read the Bible as allegory, including those of ancient times. The assertion made with Jesus' alleged miracles is that he is a figure of hope and healing. It does not try to provide an experimental justification of the existence of God.
Re:Mod parent up by 0xdeadbeef · 2008-01-05 06:54 · Score: 1

Religion asks why.

No, the religious ask, but religion tells. And it tells self-serving lies.
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-05 07:00 · Score: 2, Informative

Sigh... No. Time - well, Space-Time, since you bring Einstein into it - is an internal part of the universe's structure. The Big Bang is not where the universe began, it is merely a subdomain in which some parameters approach zero from our perspective. It is no more true to say that the universe began there than to say the unit circle began at (-1,0). You might want to google 'block universe' and stop referring to the bible everytime you're in danger of having to think logically.

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by ArcherB · 2008-01-05 08:33 · Score: 1

I said:
So it was a Catholic Priest that came up with the "Big Bang Theory". Don't say that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Scientists ask how. Religion asks why. You said:
No, the religious ask, but religion tells. And it tells self-serving lies. Are you saying that the big bang theory is a self serving religious lie? And you think religious people ignorant? I think you've crossed ignorance and went straight to bigotry.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Mod parent up by ArcherB · 2008-01-05 08:53 · Score: 1

You might want to google 'block universe' and stop referring to the bible everytime you're in danger of having to think logically.

Uh, I didn't. I said science uses relativity and quantum mechanics to try to explain the beginning of the Universe. Religion uses the Bible, Torah, Koran or whatever. I was explaining that science and religion ask different questions and therefor have different answers and methodology. Science is based on empirical evidence from observation, experimentation, mathematics and theory. Religion is based on faith. They are apples and oranges. You shouldn't point fingers every time you're in danger of facing a different point of view.

Besides, we are talking about science and religion. Block Universe is a philosophical argument. Apples, oranges, and grapes.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Mod parent up by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 09:25 · Score: 1

So it was a Catholic Priest that came up with the "Big Bang Theory". Don't say that science and religion are mutually exclusive.

He may have happened to have been a catholic priest as well, but I presume he was following the scientific method, not religion, when he developed his theory.

Scientists ask how. Religion asks why.

Yes. The difference is that scientists get their answers, but religion doesn't.
Re:Mod parent up by uglyduckling · 2008-01-05 09:45 · Score: 1

The universe _is_. It always has been.

What you assert is in direct contradiction to mainstram cosmology, which holds that the universe is expanding, started with a singularity at the 'big bang' and therefore did have a beginning.
Re:Mod parent up by uglyduckling · 2008-01-05 09:57 · Score: 1
--> Scientists ask how. Religion asks why.

Yes. The difference is that scientists get their answers, but religion doesn't.

But there are different categories of answers. Think about this question: 'I made my wife a cup of tea. Explain'. What reasonable answers are there?
- boiling water mixed with dried leaves and milk produces a drink (this could be expanded to detail the complicated chemistry of a good cup of tea)
- my wife is thirsty and needs liquids to prevent dehydration, renal failure and eventual death
- it is customary and polite in the UK to offer tea to people
- I love her
You could analyse any occurance in a similar way, and I'm sure there are hundreds of other categories in which the question could be answered. All of those answers are correct, but none of them is complete.

In most situations that actually matter to people, the purely scientific answer is usually the least satisfying: 'your father died because he lost most of his blood volume' is far less acceptable than 'your father was a hero, he died in the line of duty, serving his country, under enemy fire', but which is scientifically 'correct'? Is nationality a scientific 'fact'? What is a 'hero'? The second statement is highly subjective but far more relevant than the former.
Re:Mod parent up by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 10:06 · Score: 1

boiling water mixed with dried leaves and milk produces a drink (this could be expanded to detail the complicated chemistry of a good cup of tea)
my wife is thirsty and needs liquids to prevent dehydration, renal failure and eventual death
it is customary and polite in the UK to offer tea to people
I love her

But all of these answers can be given rationally, using evidence, reasoning and logic. Okay then, so not everything is answered purely by "science" - some things might be a matter of History, Economics, Psychology, Politics and so. But none of these things are religion or faith. You are conflating the scientific method with "pure science" (i.e., what scientists usually investigate). Things like love are still under the domain of scientific enquiry, as is that people die because they were serving their country. Yes, the fact that WW1 started in 1914 might be usually referred to as a matter of History rather than Science, but that doesn't mean that knowing when wars started is beyond the realms of the scientific method - obviously it is. It's just that we label people who research the past "Historians" rather than "Scientists", even when they use evidence and scientific methods in their approach.

So give me a question where the answer is found (and by "found", I don't mean "made up") through religion?
Re:Mod parent up by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2008-01-05 10:40 · Score: 2, Informative

My old high school science teacher was religious, and was heavily involved with his local church (as I was shocked to find out). He taught us the theory evolution without caveat, without overemphasis on the word "theory", and with only one mention of any controversy on the topic. Even then, he only mentioned that he had no trouble resolving science and faith, that faith is something you believe in despite all scientific evidence, that science is done by the scientific method, and that no matter what his faith is, the scientific method delivers the same results, and that he can learn them, and teach them.

I think he was right. If you are truly faithful to your God and his teachings, then no amount of scientific evidence or reasoning should really make a difference to that. Science shouldn't really threaten religion.

--
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Re:Mod parent up by oliderid · 2008-01-05 11:15 · Score: 1

I beg to differ,

The assertion that the Bible should be read as allegories is quite modern. Don't forget that 500 years ago, you would have been killed/tortured because you thought the earth "could be" flat. The catholic church didn't recognize that the 6000 years old earth (or something equivalent) was an allegory until very recently (decades mean nanoseconds in history).

In the long term I do believe that the Bible will vanish just like all these old religions like polytheism (somes last for 4000 years see the Egyptian religion). It looks like we are a bit in the situation of the Roman empire when all sorts of funny religions (like new ages/Paganism/DIY God today) appeared until christians took the power with Constantin.

But I firmly believe that atheism won't win too. People desesperatly a needs "father/mother" figure, whatever it can be. They need to worship something, death and the human condition are too difficult to accept for most of us.
Re:Mod parent up by Pseudonym · 2008-01-05 12:47 · Score: 1

So give me a question where the answer is found (and by "found", I don't mean "made up") through religion?

Sure.

There used to be an "argument" for the existence of God, the "Ontological Argument". The argument is obviously flawed, because it leads to absurdities. However, the precise reason why it's flawed is deeply subtle.

It was while investigating this argument that the scientist, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, theologian and priest Pierre Gassendi (this was at a time in history when it was possible to be all of these at once) came up with the idea that existence is not a predicate.

This idea was one of the key steps in the development of mathematical logic. It was Gottlob Frege who eventually came up with the idea of "quantifiers" to express "existence", and now, the famous "for all" and "there exists" symbols that maths students know and love are commonplace.

Now I'm not saying that this discovery couldn't have been developed by someone else. However, the historical fact is that it was produced by a theologian as part of a theological argument.

Being a former logic programming theorist, this is probably the one example that I'm familiar with. I'm sure there are others, but they're outside my area of expertise.

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-05 14:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

No.

No.

No, no, no.

The universe-as-a-whole (which contains time) is different from the universe-within-time. The difference is equivalent to the difference between the set of positive integers and the sequence 1,2,3,... . The latter begins at 1, while the former merely has a lower limit at 1.

We clearly need to distinguish between the atemporal universe and its temporal counterparts, since by 'universe' I mean the former and you don't. Let us, for now, call the latter the cosmos.

Whether or not a singularity ocurred at the big bang is both debated and irrelevant, since this would merely be a beginning for the cosmos and not the universe. For the universe, the big bang is simply the lower corner of some parameters.

Is this now understood?

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-05 14:18 · Score: 1, Insightful

You think religion counts as an explanation? Seriously? Faith is an explanation now? Screw that.

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 15:11 · Score: 1

I agree logic and philosophy are obviously important, and part of that is theology. But in the example you describe, firstly the answers are still found by following logic and reasoning, and not by religious faith or accepting something written down in a book or said by a person, which is what I meant by "religion". Secondly, the answers come from attacking the claim that God must exist.

As I said in my previous post, there are obviously things outside the domain of science, simply because what we usually refer to science is usually only concerned with physics, chemistry and biology, and not say history - or logic and theology. But this doesn't mean that religion has any answers. It's not clear here that theological thought should be put under the religion camp anyway, since this discovery came from disproving the proof - arguably therefore it's more atheism than theism.
Re:Mod parent up by mrpeebles · 2008-01-05 16:17 · Score: 1

I think that 500 years ago, the Catholic Church was worried about its slipping political control. You could be killed/tortured for challenging that control. If the Catholic Church didn't recognize that the Earth wasn't really 6000 years old, this was because there was no evidence otherwise. This doesn't mean that it didn't read large parts of the Bible as allegory.

For example, I remember reading Augustine referring to the "stories" of the old testament in 300 ad. He says he initially thought them to be simple childrens stories, unable to compare to the other ancient classics, but that with more readings, his appreciation of them grew.

I don't know a whole lot about Biblical history, but I sometimes wonder if ancient and medieval readers of the Bible would be unable to even appreciate what we mean by "reading the Bible literally", which seems to me to be a statement very influenced by enlightment thinking (even if it is enlightment thinking gone wrong.)
Re:Mod parent up by spun · 2008-01-05 16:51 · Score: 1

the core idea of religion is that there is *meaning in, around, behind, or through the things that occur in the universe. Why does anyone need to invent more meaning than the occurrence itself? It occurred, that is exactly it means, anything more is not just gilding the lily, it is smearing the lily with shit. I mean, if you want to do that, I won't stop you, but if you try to convince other people that making up arbitrary stories helps anything, I'll respectfully point out that it doesn't. Making up stories because you can't face the world as it is is exactly like taking drugs for the same reason. Religion really is the opiate of the masses. Now even Karl Marx admitted that sometimes, when people are really hurting, opium helps. But for healthy, sane people, it's not only unnecessary, it's dangerous.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:Mod parent up by Pseudonym · 2008-01-05 17:39 · Score: 1

I agree logic and philosophy are obviously important, and part of that is theology. But in the example you describe, firstly the answers are still found by following logic and reasoning, and not by religious faith or accepting something written down in a book or said by a person, which is what I meant by "religion".

Obviously, I'm taking a broader and, I think, much more fair view. Religion is not all about accepting something written down in a book, And, to cap things off, it has made real, useful discoveries.

Secondly, the answers come from attacking the claim that God must exist.

No, this answer comes from attacking a specific, wrong claim. Which also, I might add, effectively refutes the claim that you hear sometimes that theology is not falsifiable.

It's not clear here that theological thought should be put under the religion camp anyway, since this discovery came from disproving the proof - arguably therefore it's more atheism than theism.

Sorry, you can't have it both ways. If you're allowed to claim that the best of religion isn't really religion, then religious people are allowed to claim that the worst of religion isn't really religion either. And if you're allowed to claim that the worst of religion is "real" religion, then religious people are allowed to claim that the worst of atheism (e.g. Stalin, Pol Pot) is "real" atheism.

Alternatively, we could all learn to get along. Just a suggestion.

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:Mod parent up by eraserewind · 2008-01-05 19:54 · Score: 1

There is no why. There just "is".
Re:Mod parent up by eraserewind · 2008-01-05 19:57 · Score: 1

But then people should stop pretending that it has anything to do with reality.
Evidence is how we determine what's what in the real world.
Re:Mod parent up by c6gunner · 2008-01-05 21:03 · Score: 1

Which also, I might add, effectively refutes the claim that you hear sometimes that theology is not falsifiable.
WTF?

Ok, fine, since you think that theology is falsifiable, explain to me what it would take to prove that there is no God.
Re:Mod parent up by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-06 04:11 · Score: 1

"Why does anyone need to invent more meaning than the occurrence itself? It occurred, that is exactly it means,"

I don't agree w/r/t occurrences that come from our actions. Those are not simple, independently observed events, but derive meaning from factors such as what-we-intended. "A guy died" is a description of a simple occurrence. "I killed a guy" is quite different.

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Re:Mod parent up by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-06 04:40 · Score: 1

I agree with Pseud you're trying to have it both ways. Your earlier statement:
"It's just that we label people who research the past "Historians" rather than "Scientists", even when they use evidence and scientific methods in their approach."
applies here.

If people use logical reasoning to explore religious questions, we call them theologians. My whole point in here is that such people are *different from anti-darwin, anti-science "religious".

Using your analogy, the anti-Darwin mob is more like those people who deny we landed on the moon: they're like bad historians, but the existence of bad historians doesn't mean there's no such thing as History.

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Re:Mod parent up by ArcherB · 2008-01-06 05:39 · Score: 1

You think religion counts as an explanation? Seriously? Faith is an explanation now? Screw that.

OK, let's try this one more time. Try to keep up this time.

Religion does not need an explanation. Religion is not an explanation. Religion is based on faith, not logic. It does not require evidence or explanation. It's just believed. That is what faith is. Religion does not care about how things happen. It is completely irrelevant to faith.

Is it science? No. Is it a substitution for science? For some yes. Others like me, no. While there may be some overlap, neither can prove the other. Fortunately, neither relies on the other.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-06 05:52 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, I've completely lost where in any of this religious faith actually counts for anything at all. I like my metaphysics with a sprig of logic; what business does faith have in an argument?

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by spun · 2008-01-06 06:17 · Score: 1

"A guy died" is to "I killed a guy" as "a guy died" is to "an avalanche killed a guy." Intent doesn't enter into it at the level you've laid out. It's a simple matter of fact. Intent, in this case, is like the snowflake that finally set off the avalanche. A decision to kill some guy happened, that is the meaning of that occurence. Sure, you can bring more detail into it, but then you are talking about a broader set of occurrences.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:Mod parent up by ArcherB · 2008-01-06 09:59 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, I've completely lost where in any of this religious faith actually counts for anything at all. I like my metaphysics with a sprig of logic; what business does faith have in an argument?

In an argument about the difference between science and religion.

In a science argument, religion has about as much relevance and philosophy, none. In a discussion about religion and science (like this one), religion has exactly 50% relevance, with science taking up the other 50%.

Since you have no grasp of religion, think of it as philosophy. Except, think of it as a philosophy that means more than life itself to a vast majority of the world's population. When seeking answers to quantum entanglement, are you going to refer to DesCartes? I hope not. When contemplating the meaning of life, are you going to refer to , Hawking or Einstein? Maybe you should ask Schrödinger and his cat. Again, I hope not. Some questions science can not answer. Same for religion and philosophy.

Maybe that will help.

--
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Re:Mod parent up by Rosy+At+Random · 2008-01-06 10:15 · Score: 1

In that case, 50% of the relevance in the argument between science and religion is irrelevant.

I don't care what you call it, even philosophy - especially, perhaps - needs to justify itself. It can't just assert itself loudly and hope that counts.

Those looking for an external meaning for their lives are looking in the wrong place. The universe is not built on human 'meaningfulness'.

And yes, I get far more interesting and relevant philosophies from scientific ideas and theories.

--
Would you like a slice of toast?
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-06 20:33 · Score: 1

Why is it that the ten plagues , parting of the sea, and mount sini, all magically get omitted from these discussions, when they are the biggest and most notable examples of miracles in the bible?

Just curious, you know.
Re:Mod parent up by ultranova · 2008-01-06 22:25 · Score: 1

In the long term I do believe that the Bible will vanish just like all these old religions like polytheism (somes last for 4000 years see the Egyptian religion).

AFAIK Hinduism is still alive and strong, so it's not like polytheism has vanished anywhere. Besides, Roman Catholicism isn't actually all that far from polytheism; it simply calls its lesser gods saints.

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Re:Mod parent up by c6gunner · 2008-01-07 05:18 · Score: 1

So....in other words, your beliefs aren't falsifiable, only some of the minor details are. Interesting.
Re:Mod parent up by Some_Llama · 2008-01-07 13:16 · Score: 1

Because they often are dismissed as "there is no proof that these things happened"?
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-07 18:13 · Score: 1

and, of course, you can only say there is no evidence if you already set your mind to believe there is no god.
Re:Mod parent up by Some_Llama · 2008-01-08 04:58 · Score: 1

I often think about the requests for proof, like divine intervention.. I mean if god came down today and parted the ocean, wouldn't this just be a "legend/myth" in 2000 years time?
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-08 09:43 · Score: 1

that is true, but how do we know it's not a myth? we can't believe something just because it's old, and we can't deny something just because it's old.

truth doesn't have an expiration date. apparently some people are so caught up in modernism that they can't grasp this concept.

clarification about previous comment of mine: I was agreeing that there is no proof that the Jewish Scriptures (I'm ignoring all other texts and traditions here) are true, because to me proof means evidence that undeniably leads to a specific conclusion. I also added that there is (plenty of strong) evidence that the Jewish Scriptures are true. I feel this clarification is needed because I myself had no idea what I was writing until I submitted it. all I knew was that it was the right thing to say, even though I had no idea what it meant. I was not using the word "evidence" as a synonym of "proof".
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-08 09:55 · Score: 1

I really hate it when people talk about "religion" when they mean catholicism, or shiite Islam, or orthodox Judaism. each religion is different, so generalizing from a specific one you've encountered to all religions out there is stupid.

my religion, Orthodox Judaism, seems to me to be not about meaning, but about purpose. it is purpose that gives meaning. all information given is given so that we may accomplish this purpose.

science doesn't matter all that much. it doesn't change our purpose, it just helps us understand it and work towards it.

the idea that evolution contradicts the Jewish Scriptures seems to me to be laughable at best, because evolution describes a mechanism, while the Jewish Scriptures describe who used it. there are multiple instances where an action is described, such as that a person built a city, but any detail of how it was done is not mentioned.

you can take the Jewish Scriptures in the most literal sense, and they still won't contradict science, because science can't tell you what existed before the work of creation was over. however, it could theorize based on the assumption that creation happened earlier. for instance, science now sees the "Big Bang" (or whatever the current leading theory is) as the starting point before which we can know nothing.

as the famous Jewish scholar RASH"I wrote in his commentary for the first word in the Jewish Scriptures (loose translation from memory): "The Tora (literally: teachings) is a book of laws. therefor it should start from the first law: sanctifying the new month. why then did it start from the beginning? to give them (Israel/Jews) the land of 7 nations (Canaan). that if the world would say 'theives you are, who have stolen the land of others' you will say 'the world (this was 800 years ago, so in his time "world" and "universe" were pretty much synonymous) was created by god and belongs to him. in his will he gave it to them, and in his will he took it from them and gave it to us'"

The Jewish Scriptures are not books of nice stories. they have a purpose.

as they say: 2 Jews, 3 opinions. so don't take my words and generalize from them about all Orthodox Jews or anything. these are my personal opinions, not official doctrine being parroted. and as they say, there are 70 faces to the Tora (teachings), so no 1 understanding is the only valid one, but also not every understanding is valid. as they say, that one must be careful of the 71 first opinion which is outside the Tora.
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-08 10:19 · Score: 1

sounds like he was making excuses as for why he believes in something he knows is a lie. people should believe in truth, and stop talking about the specific brand of Christianity they are familiar with as if what applies to it inherently applies to every religion that ever existed.
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-08 10:32 · Score: 1

you are making here 2 unfounded assumptions:
1. that all religions exists only because people have a need to believe. (i.e., non are true)
2. that religions are going to disappear.

it seems that to your thinking, religion is meant to serve man. this is a concept I only encountered in Christianity, in the 3 religions that I am at least somewhat familiar with.

you accept the above 2 points as axioms because they fit your way of thinking and the world as you know it, not because that is actual reality.
Re:Mod parent up by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2008-01-08 16:00 · Score: 1

sounds like he was making excuses as for why he believes in something he knows is a lie.
I don't think you understand. Not everyone believes that science is the be-all and end-all of truth and reality. It only sounds that way because of your personal bias. A more devout (and misguided) religious person may see it as making excuses for evolution, since he seems to only teach it, not to believe it. Why can't he just be content with privately viewing science as one of God's logic puzzles or one of his tests of faith?

(Disclaimer: all these views are just followed tangentially from the few words he actually said on the subject, they may not represent his opinion with perfect accuracy)

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You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Re:Mod parent up by A+Jew · 2008-01-08 18:32 · Score: 1

neither do I, but from the way you phrased it, it sounds like he believes in it because it makes no sens kind of like he thinks the the more absurd his belief is, the better person he is because he is sticking with god regardless of it.

but probably you meant that believing in god is not absurd, but that he thinks that there is scientific evidence that says otherwise. as far as I can tell, all science has been doing is filling the gaps in the bible. you know, the parts that were irrelevant to it's message.

The intrinsic limits of science by Per+Abrahamsen · 2008-01-05 01:16 · Score: 1

> True, but it has absolutely no relevance to cult beliefs. The solution to limited
> scientific knowledge is better science, not to give up and invent a god of the gaps.

The great scientific discoveries of the 20' century was the realization of the theoretical limits of science. Not just that there are areas that has not yet been mapped yet, but that there are areas that are unmappable. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Goedel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem, chaos theory... it is all exploration of what can be mapped.

The existence of God is not a scientifically testable hypothesis. The solution to that is not to "invent a better science", but for people to understand where science is and is not applicable. Science is the best at what it does, but when you apply it outside its domain it is no longer science, but scientism. Something that is no better than when creationists and other religious nuts try to apply religion on the domain of science.

Re:The intrinsic limits of science by Rogerborg · 2008-01-07 01:53 · Score: 1

There are no "theoretical limits of science", only quitters.

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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.

If not evolution, what? by Omniskio · 2008-01-05 01:17 · Score: 1

If evolution, well understood within the context of science theoretical and practical, does not prompt one to question the necessary existence of a deity, then what would? At the very least, a sound understanding of evolution would require a complete revolution in one's understanding of a deity and its relationship to its purported creation -- something that the French paleontologist and Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin managed, but who's insights the Magisterium of Roman Catholic Church hasn't been able to fully digest (yet). While an understanding of evolution may allow for the non-essential existence of a deity as a kind of floating sidecar for those who feel the need for such, the kind of deity that a complete understanding of evolution and science allows is not the kind of deity that most theists will be comfortable with: a deity not prone to miracles ... a deity comfortable with millions of generations of fear, flight, slaughter, and death ... a deity which seems more prone to hiding than revealing itself ... a deity which has a necessary existence of precisely zero ... and a creation (including its human elements) that does very well without its deity.

Honest dialogue is a two-way street. Opening a door like this in the adamantine wall between science and religion will affect science little, but that door has already allowed science to irremediably change religion. Evolution is part of science, but so is physics, psychology, sociology, biology, and, more broadly, the historical sciences. Open that one door and the rest fly open. Open that one door and deities and their ways must forever bow in humility to science and its understandings. Evolution may allow for the existence of a non-essential deity, but it will not allow for the existence of a deity called YHVH or Elohim that created the universe in seven days less than seven thousand years ago that planted a garden in Iraq where it made a male human out of dirt. "Reconciling" evolution and religion will demand the reconciliation of all science with religion, and that will be a much greater disaster for religion than for science.

This can of worms may start with evolution and an abstract notion of deity, but it can only continue with the A.P.A. and homosexuality, and end with archaeology and a mythic godman. It's a bad, bad precedent that will sneak a Trojan horse straight into the heart of religion and eviscerate it from within.

Which, to this former theist, is quite okay. Science sneaked in, turned up the heat, and religious doctrine evaporated. Fundamentalists should be exceedingly cautious about what they desire from "science", for it is a potent psychotropic that will alter their religious perceptions beyond their wildest fears.

Re: If not evolution, what? by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 03:10 · Score: 1

Which, to this former theist, is quite okay. Science sneaked in, turned up the heat, and religious doctrine evaporated. s/science/reality/

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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:If not evolution, what? by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 03:19 · Score: 1

...a deity which has a necessary existence of precisely zero...

And the Big Bang came from ... where?

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"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Re:If not evolution, what? by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 06:11 · Score: 1

And the Big Bang came from ... where?

I don't know - what's your point?

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by SanityInAnarchy · 2008-01-05 01:18 · Score: 1

Assuming there is a correct conclusion.

Anyway, I have yet to see a compelling argument by an atheist who converted. The most compelling was Pascal's Wager, which is not logically sound -- it only works if the only possibilities are Judeo-Christian-God or no Judeo-Christian-God, and does not account for other religions one might believe in if one were to wager.

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Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:Logic vs Faith by francium+de+neobie · 2008-01-05 01:19 · Score: 1

My only faith lies in logic.

Reconciled! Done!

Wisdom by jawahar · 2008-01-05 01:23 · Score: 1

God and religion are distinct.

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Slashdot = Sarcasm

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by bwalling · 2008-01-05 01:24 · Score: 1

Teaching impressionable children to believe what basically amounts to magic has no effect on their ability to think critically? Do you really believe that?

You're still thinking that the two are related. They're not. Teach your kid science. Teach your kid that God created the world. You don't have to pick one or the other. There are many scientists that are believers in God. Do you think that they are not able to think critically? Was Newton unable to do so? I know a number of folks with PhD's in difficult scientific disciplines that are uncovering new theories that are also believers. I know evolutionary biologists that are believers. Teaching your kid that science is a way of uncovering the things we don't understand is not an affront to belief in God. Belief in God is not an affront to using science to understand why things happen.

God is not an explanation of how. It may be an explanation of why, but science isn't looking into why we are here, it's looking into how. Atheism is a belief of why just the same as God is. Everyone has an opinion on why, even if it is "I don't know", "fate", "random chance" or "God". None of these are any threat to thinking critically or using science.

Re:Logic vs Faith by WolfWithoutAClause · 2008-01-05 01:25 · Score: 1

I don't find that. Faith has logic, based on axioms such as the existence of God and so forth. The axioms are, in my opinion, completely stupid, but faith *is* logical. Wrong, but logical. :-)

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-WolfWithoutAClause

"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"

Re:Sellouts by cheater512 · 2008-01-05 01:27 · Score: 1

Apparantly its very difficult to make a sensor to detect things like strings. :)
Its not impossible, its just a matter of giving it time so technology can catch up.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by bwalling · 2008-01-05 01:28 · Score: 1

People who lack the ability to understand things scientifically revert to religious explanations.

That argument is as foolish as the argument of the creationists who fight against evolution. It's narrow minded. There are plenty of people that allow for both. The fact that some people are narrow minded on the other side of an argument doesn't mean you should be narrow minded on yours. That's how we ended up with Republicans and Democrats.

Re:Logic vs Faith by mrami · 2008-01-05 01:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

Reconcile?

Logic is a system of rules which let you take truths (which may be axioms or derived truths) and manipulate them into (i.e., derive) other truths.

Faith is those axioms.

Maybe I have an overly broad definition of faith.

But as far as I know, there is no proof that 1+1=2 without including some definitions first like 1 is successor to 0 and 2 is successor to 1 (and we take 0 as an assumption).

My understanding is that the definitions of 0, 1, and 2 are outside of the framework of number theory, and hence illogical. They are taken on faith, with the assumption that it will be beneficial to have made these assumptions down the line. Just like most religions. I can't think of any major religions that promise, "Just stick with us, and when you die you'll say to yourself 'What a fucking waste of time that was'". Even the Church of the Subgenius offers camaraderie!

Re:Sellouts by OSXCPA · 2008-01-05 01:29 · Score: 1

A scientist who pursues belief will find things increasingly difficult unless s/he manages to either broaden his/her take on god, or find a branch of science to pursue where there is either too little data for a 'definitive' answer or an area so new that there is little danger of explaining too many unknowns. Isaac Newton was a man of faith, but in his day, the sphere of human knowledge was small enough that it would be far easier to maintain faith-based explanations for natural phenomena. The more we know, the more we can explain, and the less 'evidence' there is of the classic Abrahamic god. Of course, if you are a Buddhist, this won't phase you, but if you are Catholic, you may suffer extreme cognitive dissonance over time and leave the church screaming and swearing... not that I know anyone like that or anything... but to the point, thinking like a scientist will, over time, push out 'traditional' faith in the mind - it can't do otherwise, as long as traditional faith tries to explain things it was not meant to. Faith is for the faithful alone - the rest of us are happy with science and philosophy, thanks very much.

There is no basket but what we make by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 01:32 · Score: 1

However since we came up with the idea of both baskets, and the one marked 'Science' is actually useful for our progress (progress meaning ability to support survival of larger and larger population through 'artificial' means,) and the one marked 'Religion' is getting less and less useful for the aforementioned purpose, the conclusion is that the 'Religion' basket is irrelevant.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:There is no basket but what we make by Moofie · 2008-01-05 04:41 · Score: 1

I submit that the people who eat dinner tonight because a religious organization gave it to them would not agree with you.

That's not to say that non-religious people aren't charitable, of course. However, it's unreasonable to discount the substantial investments in charity that religious believers make.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:There is no basket but what we make by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 04:55 · Score: 1

I submit that the people who eat dinner tonight because a religious organization gave it to them would not agree with you. - I understand what you are saying, but understand that it is still irrelevant from point of view of survival of billions of people on this planet. Religion and charity is all good, but basically irrelevant when you are presented with a problem of how to make a system that allows billions of people to survive and do it with comfort too.

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:There is no basket but what we make by Moofie · 2008-01-05 05:35 · Score: 1

I take a retail approach to survival. I think individual humans are valuable. I don't have the evolved sensibility to only consider the faceless billions.

I'm sure this is a serious moral flaw. I'll work on it.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:There is no basket but what we make by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 06:32 · Score: 1

Again, your religion/charity is all good but has nothing to do with survival of the entire population at this point. Today population survives not because of any religions, but because the scientifically based progress allows it to. Communications, transportation, farming, housing, clothing, sanitation, providing power, providing clean and safe food/water is not the domain of religion. I consider science to be a million times more useful to the survival of the species and to the progress at this point than religion.

You can believe whatever you want, but when was the last time your religion was able to move around millions of people a day at high speeds around the globe?

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:There is no basket but what we make by Moofie · 2008-01-05 06:36 · Score: 1

"but when was the last time your religion was able to move around millions of people a day at high speeds around the globe?"

Um, it didn't. I wasn't aware that that was one of the mission objectives for philosophy. You are grading on an extremely strange curve...

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:There is no basket but what we make by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 06:51 · Score: 1

My point is that religions are not useful for the population survival on a huge scale. On a small scale charity and religions are useful, on a large scale only scientific/technological progress provides the population with enough power/knowledge to survive.

If religion cannot move millions of tons of useful products around in a day, then it is not powerful enough to allow billions of people to survive and not to starve to death, not to die from terrible diseases. Religion is irrelevant for survival of 6 billion people, technology is essential and the only thing that allows this population to exist in the first place.

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:There is no basket but what we make by Moofie · 2008-01-05 06:56 · Score: 1

I simply don't care. I'm not responsible for 6 billion people. I'm responsible for me. I will make choices based on my own costs and benefits. My religious faith benefits me. You don't get a vote.

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Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:There is no basket but what we make by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 07:00 · Score: 1

But I am not out to change the way you are thinking. I don't want you to interfere with the public education system, science based economy and the social systems through political means. You can practice whatever you want, but the society for its own sake must rely on science, not on useless believes.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Pseudonym · 2008-01-05 01:34 · Score: 1

People who claim they know what "the problem" is are more likely to be cranks than not. I'm just sayin'.

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sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});

Religion and science are incompatible by jopet · 2008-01-05 01:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

On first sight, it won't harm to, while accepting Evolution, believe in God, the easter bunny or anything else nobody has ever seen and nobody has ever come up with any indication for existince.

However, this would really be totally schizophrenic: it would require somebody to base his acceptance about what is on something that is completely without any logical cause (God) and something that has been derived from many pieces of unrelated evidence (Science). I don't see how this can go together in any reasonable way. How should one decide when to believe and when to require evidence? Somebody who believes in God could just as well believe in Creationism or some other silly fairy tale.

The argument of some religious people, some of them calling themselves scientists is that science cannot answer all questions and religion comes in then: why was there the big bang etc.
Of course science cannot and will never be able to answer all question. But what good is it to believe in some fairy tale answer for those unanswerable questions instead of just accepting that we simply dont know? Isn't it evident that "answering" the question about why there was a big bang with "God did it" makes everything just more complicated instead of easier? Why is there "God" then? We do not gain anything by this "answer" but we lose a lot.

I think it is evident that there simply is no place for religion to answer the wonders of what is anymore. None of the explanations for how stuff works thousands of religions came up with ever turned out to be true or remotely sensible.

That leaves religion as some kind of ethical instance: maybe it cannot explain nature and reality, but it tells us how to behave ethically, no?
I think, this is actually not true either, on the contrary: ethical behavior comes from the human ability of compassion. It is biologically built into us. No need for God here either. It is no coincidence that practically all mahir rules of ethics, save some details about sexual behavior, are identical between religions: you dont kill, you dont cause pain, you dont steal etc.
The role of religions here is to make it unnecessary to *think* about ethics. After all God told us the does and donts. And that is the problem: when it is not necessary to think about ethics any more, compassion can be switched off. Yes, it is not right to kill, but its ok to kill that criminal. Yes it is not ok to cause pain, but it is ok with that slave or that member of another religion.

Religion is opium, because its sole purpose is to make thinking unnecessary and make people feel comfy in their self-rightous ignorance.

Re:Religion and science are incompatible by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 03:41 · Score: 1

Religion is opium, because its sole purpose is to make thinking unnecessary...

You are not fairly representing the argument for faith.

Faith is the end-product of thinking. It is simply what one concludes about the meaning of life, based on the evidence one sees. It is metaphysics, not physics.

Faith doesn't have a "purpose" in any of the senses you're using here. It is not some kind of philosophical tool that one hauls out when science fails to adequately explain the physical world. Faith is what comes after all the facts have been presented.

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"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Re:Religion and science are incompatible by SlowMovingTarget · 2008-01-05 09:37 · Score: 1

Your "opium" argument does not have a lot of force. The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures both recommend the hard work of study and deep meditation (in the sense of deep silent thought) on ethics and the nature of good. Nor does the Bible leave this as the duty only of a priestly class, but it commends every individual to do this. That many organized religions today have distorted what the Bible teaches with mysticism and ritual tells more of Rome than it does of the Scriptures themselves.

Religion was intended to produce happiness in people. Marx was gravely wrong, however, in saying this was a false happiness, judging it to be mere pleasure analogous to what an opiate produces. Happiness does arise from living up to standards of right, and engaging with family, neighbor and stranger. If one throws out the standards in the Bible, then one must adopt relative measures. Any measure that is relative must ultimately reduce to amorality and pleasure-seeking. It is pleasure-seeking amorality that is the true opiate of the people. In a feel-good society, people don't bother with marriage and children, family duties, neighborhoods and communities. "Why should I take care of Grandma? What's in it for me?" They take their pleasure and isolate themselves.

True religion and true science are not incompatible. Religion-as-political-tool and science-as-religion certainly are incompatible. I believe both will ultimately be discarded. True religion's purpose is to teach us about God and about how to live up to his standard's of goodness, and how to treat one another. True science seeks to increase knowledge and understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

On the matter of whether scientists will ever be able to "observe" God, I suggest a simple question. If every phenomena in the universe is, for lack of a better analogy, computations occurring in God's imagination, then how could science ever step outside of its own system? Can science disprove the notion? No. Can that notion be proven scientifically? No. Can things that are true be unprovable? We know the answer to this question is "Yes" (from Godel, Turing and others). Does the truth of the notion matter? If it is true, it does matter quite a bit. It means that the entire existence of everything around us is evidence of God's existence and doings. If it is false, then it doesn't matter. In either case, it is up to each individual to pursue that choice of belief.

If you say that you have some right to make that choice for another person, then I think you ought to check your thinking. The same goes for anyone, believer or not, that would make that choice for another. That way leads totalitarianism and despotism. These things things are measurably bad.

Darwin by Per+Abrahamsen · 2008-01-05 01:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

> Indeed, Darwin was a practicing Anglican most of his life, and the fact he could not
> reconcile his scientific observations with the theological thought of his day was a
> short-term bug.

According to Wikipedia, Darwin lost his faith when his daughter died, which is very much a "why" rather than a "how" question (the problem of pain).

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 01:37 · Score: 1

But hey, I'm not afraid of punching back if someone starts something. - you are the troll in this case.

Socialism - failure to recognize the power of individualism, subversion of an individual to the collective.

I prefer the libertarians to any other. Actually the anarcho-capitalist - libertarians.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Pseudonym · 2008-01-05 01:38 · Score: 1

Everything is directly related to science as science is a human concept that helps us understand EVERYTHING.

Helps? Perhaps. But science knows its limits. If it's not repeatable and testable, it's not something that science can answer.

Morality, for example, isn't science. If you don't believe me, come up with a controlled double-blind test to prove that murder is wrong.

Not that you need the supernatural to answer that particular question, but science won't cut it.

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sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});

Science and religion are mutually incompatible by Colin+Smith · 2008-01-05 01:43 · Score: 1

One requires unquestioning faith, the other requires healthy scepticism.

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Deleted

Re:Science and religion are mutually incompatible by pagaboy · 2008-01-05 01:50 · Score: 1

Although given some of the comments here, it's not obvious which is which.

Re:Logic vs Faith by foobsr · 2008-01-05 01:50 · Score: 1

invalidates them from having a higher meaning

Why is there a need for the attribution 'higher'? I am working from the premise that 'meaning' is a transitory phenomenon.

impossibility in rationalizing the two

Here I am troubled with the term 'rationalizing' – integrating? as parts of a whole?

I'm a philosophical Taoist mathematician

Well, I am in good faith :) that I am in the process of approaching the still distant target to have a grasp of Taoism (for short: Taoist agnostic).

CC.

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TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)

Re:Logic vs Faith by DarkIye · 2008-01-05 01:50 · Score: 1

Logic dictates that I verify the link for myself

This is the internet, man. Logic dictates you stay the hell away from that thing.

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To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH

I have only one question... by asuffield · 2008-01-05 01:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Which God are they promoting as being compatible with their science curriculum? Because I'm pretty sure that they can't be claiming all religions are compatible with it - there are sure to be some which just aren't.

Odds are that they're only promoting one (or a handful of) major religions. Aren't there laws against that sort of thing?

Re:I have only one question... by asuffield · 2008-01-05 04:43 · Score: 1

Ok so you say that religion and science are incompatible because some religious believes are incompatible with science.

Sheer nonsense. You did not even bother to read the post which you are replying to.

Re:Logic vs Faith by Oligonicella · 2008-01-05 01:52 · Score: 1

Your explanation did a lot of dancing around the word objective. It's not a simple word and you have appeared to use it several ways while trying to seem to use it only one. Try explaining yourself without the word and see how it does. I can interpret "objective historical claims" at least three ways, for instance.

Re:What created the universe? by asuffield · 2008-01-05 01:55 · Score: 1

For example, as we know it there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that have to be set just right in order for the universe as it is currently set to exist. That is for the strength of the gravitional force, magnetic force, atomic etc.

Numerous hypotheses have been advanced for this, some of which may (or will) become provable or falsifiable when science develops far enough. Your argument is based on current ignorance, not some fundamental limitation of the scientific method.

(One of the simplest theories states that all possible combinations of parameters are instantiated in some universe, and only those which are viable survive; this one would become provable if we found a way to access the others)

Re:What created the universe? by wanderingknight · 2008-01-05 01:55 · Score: 1

I'm not saying "it can't be proven", I'm saying "there's no evidence". If there's no evidence, there's no reason to believe it. The burden of "proof" is on whoever wants to prove its existence.

Re:Logic vs Faith by sentientbrendan · 2008-01-05 01:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

>Essentially, I think we needn't care too much about whether people choose to see everything
>as fitting into 'God's Plan' or being just 'Stuff that happens' or whatever, as long as
>everybody is committed to uncovering the truth, whatever it turns out to be.

I think the problem is that some people aren't committed to finding out the truth, whatever it turns out to be. There are some religious organizations, such as those promoting creationism that are using intellectually dishonest arguments and some outright lies to spread a world view that has been thoroughly disproven for hundreds of years.

I think it is true that science and religion can easily coexist in general. However, science cannot coexist with people who are not committed to discovering the truth. A person cannot be a scientist or understand science without a commitment to the truth.

This creates great stress on our society, because on the one hand people need science both to survive and to provide a reasonable explanation of the objective truths of the world. On the other and people also need help understanding the things that science doesn't have very good explanations of, like morality, or their subjective experience of the world.

Modern science and philosophy don't give clear guidelines on what sort of things a person should do, and they don't provide any sort of explanation on what our experiences of the world are. For instance, modern science provides an explanation of how light works, and how the brain works (to some degree), but there is no explanation of our experience of the color red, since red is not quantitatively defined. Note by the color red, I am not referring to a particular frequency of light, but our experience *of* that frequency of light. These are important aspects of how we partake in the world that have yet to be tackled.

Since psychologically people have a strong desire for explanations and reasons for both the things that we have explanations to, and the things we have yet to find explanations to, there is a strong need for belief in addition to knowledge. Religion typically fulfills this role in society with supernatural explanations of aspects of reality that our knowledge of the natural world falls short of. Unfortunately, people offering supernatural explanations for the things that we don't understand will sometimes try to offer supernatural explanations for the things we *do* already understand and those two explanations will stand at odds with one another.

In my mind is is clearly the responsibility of any religious organization to mend their religious doctrine so that it does not conflict with facts that are known about the world. Indeed, most major modern sects do so to some degree. The catholic church for instance has changed many of its stances on various issues to correspond with scientific understanding. Ideas like the big band theory and evolution are accepted and taught at catholic institutions, and of course there is no mention of a geocentric model of the universe anymore. Many protestant denominations have made similar changes.

Unfortunately, some religious groups feel that their beliefs about supernatural matters are on par or superior to knowledge about the physical world. They ask, why should we have to change our beliefs just because we know otherwise? Instead, these groups ask their members to believe one thing and know another. This is not a healthy attitude, and causes psychological and social strife I feel pretty strongly that such religious organizations are doing their members a disservice and should be called to task for the harm they are doing.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2008-01-05 02:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sellouts by Oligonicella · 2008-01-05 02:06 · Score: 1

Up until the point that the body of knowledge refuted them, yes.

Re:What created the universe? by Oligonicella · 2008-01-05 02:12 · Score: 1

"For example, as we know it there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that have to be set just right in order for the universe as it is currently set to exist."

Bad phrase. Source of your error.

As we know it, there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that must have certain values in order of the universe we observe to exist.

Stated that way, you don't need a cause for the "settings".

Biblical literalism by midnighttoadstool · 2008-01-05 02:12 · Score: 1

Biblical literalism, upon which creationism depends, is a minority christian idea. Most Christians are not bound to such a view of the Bible, and can accept that God's words to Moses may have been aimed at a non-scientist.

Protestantism, which holds that the Bible has no higher authority on Earth, is liable to biblical literalism since otherwise the Bible requires an interpreter with authority over the Bible (like Catholics and Orthodox, who claim the guidance of God for their authority). Interestingly most protestants indulge in biblical interpretation anyway. It's a mess.

The context of this debate is not examined: Christians, in the main, are not formal creationists.

It is particularly scandalous because Creationists are delivering a message within a realm in which they have no authority, science, rather than witnessing to God the Saviour: Jesus Christ.

My witty but unhelpful contribution by Normal_Deviate · 2008-01-05 02:17 · Score: 1

Believers say "Religion and science are compatible" with the same earnestness that fat people say "Big is beautiful", and for the same reason.

SIlliness to the Nth degree by geggam · 2008-01-05 02:17 · Score: 1

Faith is the requirement of belief without proof.
Scientific study is the requirement of proof before belief.
Religion and faith are, by definition, the opposite of science and the scientific method.

Additional thoughts by KaeloDest · 2008-01-05 02:19 · Score: 1

Besides all of the other salient points. We are counting on Judeo-Christian religion. Which is blatantly cobbled together from other bronze age stories. This is the third most populous religion and here in the United States we act as though it is the only true word. The simple fact is These stories in the bible have the same significance as other ancient texts which claim that the world is carried on the back of a great turtle. Or that is was created by a serpent that cleft the waters in two. There are many myths and these contradict each other. And if you can say that one religion is false and was made up by 'them guys' in that 'other tribe' then it is quite possible that 'our' religion was also made up

No I am not saying that religion has no place in the world, it seems to put the believers minds at ease, yet it also seems to cause true believers at least as much angst. Despite my distaste for religion I believe that they are all based on 'love' or a culturally accepted version of 'love'. However religion and science should not be in the same ring. Let these so called christians debate with other and see what they love.
this was the old domain of religious wars

Science has remarkable fidelity. it can be understood and interpreted in both the present and the past. Kepler would have had an easier time with his math if he said that God likes ellipses

--
--Shaddup and support your local PBS station Plan for it

Yes, having faith in God can be "logical" by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 02:22 · Score: 1

I'm not up with using faith as a noun ("There is no logic in faith..."). One has faith _in_ something or someone.

The real questions, then, are is it reasonable to believe there is a God? How can one tell if one's belief or non-belief is sound?

To answer these questions, one would explore issues of evidence (What evidence exists for the existence or non-existence of God? What would such evidence look like? What kind of evidence are admissible and inadmissible?), issues of authority (How can we trust the evidence? How can we judge other's claims and answers?), and so on.

"No logic in faith"? No, rather one uses logic to help one decide what to believe or not to believe.

--
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday

Re:Yes, having faith in God can be "logical" by JavaRob · 2008-01-05 11:07 · Score: 1

I'm not up with using faith as a noun ("There is no logic in faith..."). One has faith _in_ something or someone. That's still a noun. Maybe you mean it shouldn't work as a general term, only in relation to a specific thing?
The real questions, then, are is it reasonable to believe there is a God? How can one tell if one's belief or non-belief is sound?

To answer these questions, one would explore issues of evidence (What evidence exists for the existence or non-existence of God? What would such evidence look like? What kind of evidence are admissible and inadmissible?), issues of authority (How can we trust the evidence? How can we judge other's claims and answers?), and so on. That's true. I think the frustration of the people who've already gone through that exercise is that it's very do-able, most concepts of God aren't even logically consistent internally, and in the end there is no evidence that supports any real belief in God... certainly not the level of absolute assurance that many people have.
"No logic in faith"? No, rather one uses logic to help one decide what to believe or not to believe. I guess that could be re-worded as "no valid logic in faith."

Sorry for sounding cranky and condescending about it, but it's an important logical exercise that amazingly few people go through. They find a question that we're still puzzling over, and say "ah... perhaps it's logical to believe in God after all," because that's the conclusion they wanted to reach in the first place.

But no, the answer is "ah, so we don't have an answer with any good level of certainty for that one." Suggesting a sentient, supernatural being that violates every law we *do* know about -- and would be even harder to explain than the original question -- is simply not a reasonable conclusion.

In the end, though, I can't just *tell* you this and have you understand it. I didn't just *accept* it from someone I trusted. You have to do the work yourself, and if you live in the US at least, there are probably going to be plenty of people around you who will argue for God until their last breath.

Re:Logic vs Faith by ProfessionalCookie · 2008-01-05 02:23 · Score: 4, Funny

if evolution(){
u = monkey++;
} ;)

I believe I have read this before... by BigFootApe · 2008-01-05 02:25 · Score: 1

When I read it, it was called "Fear and Trembling". Kierkegaard, who is that?

unbelievable by Swampash · 2008-01-05 02:27 · Score: 1

The simple fact that a textbook on teaching from the National Academy of Sciences even mentions a god is evidence that the intellectual health of the country is basically screwed.

Re:unbelievable by Omniskio · 2008-01-05 02:42 · Score: 1

Don't you mean " ... is another piece of evidence that the intellectual health of the country is basically screwed"?
Re:unbelievable by SpinyNorman · 2008-01-05 03:25 · Score: 1

The same thing happened at the end of the Roman empire - rational thought and intellectualism (which had been highly valued by the Greeks, and earlier in the Roman empire) gave way to religious belief, and no doubt this was partly to blame (along with many other factors - such as mass influx of barbarians) for the decline of the culture and fall into the dark ages.

This really is an end-of-empire bell ringing for the short lived American empire. Extremist (e.g. literal biblical belief) christian religous views are SO common in America that it's hard to see this getting turned around - instead the culture will decline as other empires (europe, asia) that more value rationality and intellectualism will rise.
Re:unbelievable by c6gunner · 2008-01-05 21:35 · Score: 1

Extremist (e.g. literal biblical belief) christian religous views are SO common in America that it's hard to see this getting turned around - instead the culture will decline as other empires (europe, asia) that more value rationality and intellectualism will rise.
:lol:

I know you weren't trying to be funny, but damn, you couldn't have done a better job of it. Even ignoring the nonsense about "extremist religious views" being extremely common in America, the rest of your rant is just....right out there! Europe's full of idiots who believe in everything from psychics to miracle healing. The middle east and africa are full of religious zealots. South America is still on it's communism schtik. And the Asians are some of the most superstitious bastards on this planet!

Face it, the world's full of moron's, and the US is no exception. The only difference is what particular brand of stupidity the group under discussion happens to believe in. If you truly think that there's some sort of resurgence in religious thought which is about to destroy the US, then I've got some nice beach-side property in Nunavut to sell you...
Re:unbelievable by SpinyNorman · 2008-01-07 10:00 · Score: 1

Even ignoring the nonsense about "extremist religious views" being extremely common in America

Well, unlike you, I AM an American. I've lived the last 20 years of my life in America, and the first 25 in England, which I think positions me quite well to contrast the two and especially to see first hand what it is like in America (not at all what I imagined it to be like from the outside, notwithstanding having heard about the bible belt, etc).

Aside from first hand experience, polls say it all. You can't get much more extremist as a Christian than literal biblical belief (creationsism, young earth, etc), yet that is indeed what a huge swathe of the American population believe - while things like the recently opened creationist "museum" will still thankfully make most east/west coasters roll their eyes in disbelief, in the heartland this is a fairly mainstream belief.

You will get kooks of all sorts in any country, but there is a difference in having kooks regarded as such as opposed to being regarded as mainstream.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:29 · Score: 1

Don't be such a fool. You're as bad as the creationists when you posit that science and God are at opposition with each other. They're simply unrelated. Until a religion starts making claims about reality that can be falsified.

Science is not a threat to religion. Until a religion starts making claims about reality that can be falsified.

Smart religious leaders limit their claims to a fantasy world that can't be checked on. Idiots stake their beliefs on claims that were refuted 200 years ago, and try to get their school boards and legislators to trump reality.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re:Sellouts by adrianbaugh · 2008-01-05 02:29 · Score: 1

That's a ridiculous statement. The scientific method simply isn't the right toolbox to discuss questions of faith (and vice versa). Just because (say) woodworking uses different tools to plumbing doesn't mean you can't do both. Science can answer questions about the physical world, in which context it seems dangerous to use religious ideas; religion (in which category I include atheist religions such as humanism) can answer questions about our moral compass, which science cannot. While science can invent the atom bomb and describe its effects, it cannot say whether or not we should use it.

To put it another way, science and religion are orthogonal. There's no point in trying to apply the tools, the methods or even the language of one to the other. But both can teach us things about the world.

--
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.

No conflict? by alcmaeon · 2008-01-05 02:31 · Score: 1

I suppose there is no conflict between science and religion in the same sense that there is no conflict between science and Batman, i.e. one, science, is a way of explaining how the world actually works and the other is a work (or body of work) of fantasy fiction.

But, in the sense that most religious people understand their religion to actually describe the real world, then there is most assuredly a conflict and it is a conflict that science wins because scientific theories are testable and provable, or disprovable. Religious dogma is not.

Re:Sellouts by roman_mir · 2008-01-05 02:31 · Score: 1

Of-course there is a gigantic impenetrable wall there. If you actually a strong believer in an almighty god, then you may have trouble interpreting results of a scientific experiment.

Here is the problem: if god is almighty, it can simply remove the chaining of cause and effect. How can results of an experiment be trusted if it is unknown whether the same outcome will be observed every time the experiment is performed? If god decides to mess with the experiment you are setting, you may have totally useless data. Maybe god changes the outcome every time to satisfy its boredom. What if you ask a particular question, set an experiment and get consistent YES as the answer. Then the next time you get a consistent NO in the next experiment. Then again consistent YES. Will you trust your experiment?

What if your experiment would have given a consistent NO, if god didn't mess with you?

I am not saying that it is impossible to be a theist and a scientist, but then while you are doing science you must either trust your god to not mess with you or you have to suspend your believe in god while you are doing science. Are you then a real believer if you can suspend it when it is useful to you?

--
You can't handle the truth.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by nagora · 2008-01-05 02:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

Einstien did not believe in god, despite using the word as a surrogate for "nature". As to the others, yes, they were wrong. I notice that all the ones you mention believed in one of the the European versions of the Judeo/Christian/Pauline god(s); this was nothing more than social context.

If they had each been Indian they would have belived in Rama, Shiva etc. but their work would have been the same, or at least of the same quality. That's because science and rational thought are striving towards a truth, whereas religion, having no basis in reality, is arbitrary and whimsical with no need to strive towards any particular thing. Indeed, it is one of the defining characteristics of religion that it avoids striving towards any truth since that would require an admitance that the current dogma is not the final word. Such admitance is suicide for something as paper-thin as religious "thought".

TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:32 · Score: 1

Look at CS Lewis and Josh Mcdowell. Both atheists that converted. Mcdowell's stated goal was to prove the Christian belief a myth, and what happened? He became a believer. What's your point? Do you offer this as evidence that religion is real, or as evidence that they weren't critical thinkers?

What about "conversions" in the other direction? Or from your religion to some other? Have there ever been any? If so, what's the explanation?

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 02:33 · Score: 1

If one truly keeps an open mind and lets the evidence speak for itself, the more one learns about the universe, the more one should sees how improbable life is. By one calculation, that figure is 1 chance in 10^-282. Citation: Reasons to Believe"

--
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday

Read for yourself by mpsmps · 2008-01-05 02:35 · Score: 1

You can read the book online for free here.

You can also hear the press conference (Real media format) and read the News Release, which (surprise!) is a lot different than than the article summary.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:35 · Score: 1

In the minds of most of the religious public that has a real aversion to evolution of any kind - based on my experience with those people - evolution _specifically_ requires abandoning belief in God. Yes, because they have decided to make "evolution didn't happen" an article of faith for their sects.

Other sects, including many Christian ones, don't have any problem with it.

Religion is exactly as flexible as you want it to be. These people just don't happen to want to be flexible about evolution, even though it brings on a direct collision with reality.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

you don't know what logic is. by pikine · 2008-01-05 02:39 · Score: 1

You should take a course in logic.

Before we can define what logic is, we need to define a calculus, which describes what well-formed formulas are. From that, there are two ways to assign semantics to these formulas. You can either define rules that reduce a well-formed formula to another well-formed formula (operational semantics), or model your well-formed formulas after something else that is well-understood (denotational semantics).

What is commonly understood as "Boolean logic" is just a calculus. They way you typically learn its semantics is by truth table, which is the denotational approach. Modus ponens for intuitionistic logic is the operational approach to define semantics.

A logic is a collection of well-formed formulas under a calculus. A logic being "consistent" is defined by not being able to prove a well-formed formula and its negation. A paradox is a special case of inconsistent logic, where if you hold a formula true, you can prove it's false; but if you hold it false, you can prove it's true.

An axiom in logic is a well-formed formula initially admitted to the logic system without needing a proof. Once after admitting some axioms, you can then prove additional formulas that will be bootstrapped into the logic's collection of formulas.

If religion is a logic, then faith is an axiom. You are admitting it without requiring to prove it. Those who find faults with a religious faith are helping the religion to refine its axioms to make the logic consistent.

The only difference between science and religion is that, science is a special kind of logic such that the logical consequences must be observable *and* deterministically reproducible (meaning: you always get the same result under controlled situation). If it is not, it ain't science, and whatever it is cannot be differentiated from religion.

That said, although many aspects of evolution---such as mutation, natural selection, and viral DNA traces---are observable, but the claim about origin of species is only an interpretation of what's being observed. There is no meaningful consequence out of that interpretation, so it's only a philosophy, not science.

For example, I have another interpretation. I disagree with the common ancestor conjecture that life evolved from a single-cellular life form. My theory is that there used to be much more diverse spread of species in a spectrum. Many of the species that are close on the spectrum scale can cross-breed, so there is no common ancestor. However, natural selection narrows down the spectrum into small pockets of bands, so that species can no longer breed across band. This theory can be nudged to work well with mutation, natural selection, and viral DNA traces. It just doesn't answer the question, "where do species come from." This is the kind of question that science is not supposed to answer because, whatever the answer is, it can't be reproduced.

--
I once had a signature.

Re:you don't know what logic is. by smittyoneeach · 2008-01-07 23:57 · Score: 1

You should take a course in logic.
I would not deny that. Quite a shame that logic has to be so complicated.

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear

Re:Evolution happens and God is real, Jesus is Lor by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:41 · Score: 1

Evolution has a large number of concepts though and it infers a Big Bang and a Spark of Life for it to work. Biological evolution does not require the big bang. It merely requires the existence of a system of imperfect self-replicators. Whether that system arose by divine intervention or purely natural processes is irrelevant.

We infer the big bang from a completely different set of observations. We infer that life started somewhere along the way because we know that the universe was once uninhabitable by LAWKI, but LAWKI exists now.

Strictly speaking we don't know whether the big bang and abiogenesis had natural or supernatural causes, but given the track record for claims of supernatural causes, I'm banking on the former.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re:Sellouts by vertinox · 2008-01-05 02:42 · Score: 1

No! That's what some creationists say, but it is a fallacy. It is well known that science makes the materialistic assumption that everything has a natural cause, and this obviously excludes supernatural things such as God.

The key problem is interpretation of religion taken into literally context excludes a universe without supernatural occurrences. Either you have to change the scientific method to take into account super-natural occurrences or you have to reinterpret religion to conform with science.

For the most part religion has discounted science without changing, but one could reverse that and say something like God is a quantum simulation and Jesus Christ was the inevitably outcome of a civilization that had to reach a technological singularity before the next meteor impact because had Christianity not come about the Roman empire would have not fallen as soon and slave labor would not have gone out of style in which technology would not have flourished quick enough to avoid the next impact that would put mankind into extinction which would go against the idea of quantum observation.

Of course this entails nothing of an afterlife or salvation which puts Christianity, Judaism, and Islam at odds with Science if all were taken literally. The only religion as of know that comes close to being compatible literally with science is of course Buddhism which simply explains the situation of the mind, but not trying to claim away all natural phenomena as the will of god or gods.

--
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)

God in the classroom by poptones · 2008-01-05 02:42 · Score: 1

Look, I am not defending religious training in public schools, but it really seems the "separationists" have gone off the deep end in recent years. Remember that even Jefferson, that bulwark of the separation crowd, held that it was up to THE COMMUNITIES to decide this issue.

And while we're on the issue, let me say we really need to bring back latin (a subject Jefferson also pointed out the importance of). With most of the world's languages based on latin, teaching this "dead language" could go a long way toward expanding our view of the world stage.

Nothing wrong with education, so long as it has balance. Teaching comparative religion in schools is not the same as indoctrination.

Re:Sellouts by Wonko+the+Sane · 2008-01-05 02:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Some things can not be proven at the moment, because we lack the necessary resources or because the theory has not yet progressed to the point of making a testable prediction.

Some things are inherently unprovable. That is a large distinction.

I might have some theory that makes a prediction of the behavior of matter at extremely high temperatures. Maybe I can't test it right now because there is no way (yet) to generate that temperature, but it is still testable in principal.

If I speculate about the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient entity that regularly alters reality without leaving behind any evidence then this will always be untestable. No experiment will every be able to conclude: "the result was X, therefore god doesn't exist", because the answer to that will always be, "your result X happened that way because god wanted it to happen that way"

Re:Logic vs Faith by smussman · 2008-01-05 02:47 · Score: 1

if evolution(){
u = monkey++;
} ;) Wouldn't that actually be ++monkey? I mean, I'm not a monkey, only the descendant of a monkey.

I call bullshit by Afecks · 2008-01-05 02:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

God and science are unrelated. If that is true then God has no contact with the physical world and he is irrelevant.

If you believe that somehow the thoughts in our head caused by our neurons and synapses reach God then he must be in contact with nature somehow. If God sends his magical wishes into our world to be written down in a book then it must also be so. If you claim that God affects our world then he must be part of nature or extend somehow into the physical world and science is the only possible successful method at discovering it. If you reject science you reject the only possibility of ever truly finding a god.

You can say that your idea of a god isn't related to science but the Christian God most certainly is and it's absurdly false.

Stop confusing your redefined vague new age bullshit god with the vengeful, jealous and petulant God of the desert.

Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 05:01 · Score: 1

If that is true then God has no contact with the physical world and he is irrelevant.

That's a completely illogical statement to make. God not being testable by scientific means does not mean that he has no contact with the physical world or that he is irrelevant. The relationship between me and my brother has nothing to do with science, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it is irrelevant. God can't be tested or predicted by science, but he can still affect the physical world in scientifically unpredictable ways and still be immensely relevant.

If you believe that somehow the thoughts in our head caused by our neurons and synapses reach God then he must be in contact with nature somehow. If God sends his magical wishes into our world to be written down in a book then it must also be so.

Interactions with the physical world do not have to be testable or predictable in order to occur. They do have to be testable or predictable in order to be science. What scientific hypothesis do you propose we form about God? What are you going to try and learn about the laws of nature from that which is not bound by them?

If you claim that God affects our world then he must be part of nature or extend somehow into the physical world and science is the only possible successful method at discovering it.

No. Creation can be examined by science, but the creator can't because he is not bound by the laws that science operates within. History, revelation and experience are what are used to know about God.

If you reject science you reject the only possibility of ever truly finding a god.

You should read a bit abut epistemology. Or any book about knowing God. Check a good systematic theology - won't have a thing there about needing science.

You can say that your idea of a god isn't related to science but the Christian God most certainly is and it's absurdly false.

Your rather glib answers seem to bear no relation to actual scholarship and thinking about the Christian God. What makes you think you're right and everyone else is wrong?
Re:I call bullshit by NEW22 · 2008-01-05 05:44 · Score: 2, Informative

Umm, he doesn't think he is right and everyone else is wrong. You make it sounds like he stands alone in his position. The world is not full of theists, and particularly Christians. What you are doing with that is a sort of false bandwagon argument. I mean, a bandwagon argument is poor anyways, but yours is also false because the "bandwagon" isn't even necessarily holding to your view.

You say that the creator is not bound by the laws that science operates in. Maybe that is somehow possible, in a theoretical sense we have no way of knowing. How do you know this? You say that history, revelation, and experience are used to know about God. How do you distinguish between history and mythology? How do you know who's revelation to trust? Can't one person's "revelation" just be their imagination, or their own wishes, or a lie to coerce others? What do we do when some have no experience of a God, and others do, while others have experience of encounters with extraterrestrials? Choosing to know a God in the ways you describe leads to irreconcilable differences when people have conflicting revelations or experiences with no way to sort out their differences. At least science can attempt to go to the evidence, and if it fails to resolve a difference now, there is a hope evidence may be uncovered as our knowledge advances.

Now, your relationship to your brother... well, science has some things to say about it. Things to say about genetics, mechanisms, how memories form, outside things. Your internal and shared subjective experiences, however, well, it is its own thing. Science is not so much about that internal feeling of social things, though it has certain things to say about objective mechanisms involved. Some people point to these sorts of things as the place for religion, though it has seemed better filled by philosophy and psychology and community to me.
Re:I call bullshit by Blakey+Rat · 2008-01-05 06:16 · Score: 1

If that is true then God has no contact with the physical world and he is irrelevant.

If God created all the physical laws that science studies, then he's hardly irrelevant even if he doesn't interfere in the working of those laws. And I don't even believe in God, I'm just pointing out an obvious hole in your response.

--
Comment of the year
Re:I call bullshit by schweini · 2008-01-05 07:06 · Score: 1

The relationship between me and my brother has nothing to do with science,
But 'relationship' is just a fancy word for 'complex interaction (taking into account their current state, and their vectors of change of properties) between a bunch of molecules, part of them in neurons, but to understand the whole deal, you'd have to have the state-information of almost all molecules in the universe', and if you put it that way, the relationship between your molecules and your brother's molecules certainly do fall in the realm of science. Or, to rephrase the GF's gist: if god had anything to do with your relationship, then point me EXACTLY to the point in the infinite chain of action-reactions that make up your relationship, where god fiddled with things, to make them so, which science can't explain. As far as i can see, the only 'escape routes' for theists are that a) god set up the rules of the game at the beginning or b) god somehow controls the really random stuff like nuclear decay. case a) would make god irrelevant, since he wouldn't be able to influence anything ever again (including the afterlife, since your consciousness is subject to scientific investigation of your molecules), and given case b) would make god's action unstudiable, and unpredictable.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 07:07 · Score: 1

Umm, he doesn't think he is right and everyone else is wrong. You make it sounds like he stands alone in his position. The world is not full of theists, and particularly Christians. What you are doing with that is a sort of false bandwagon argument. I mean, a bandwagon argument is poor anyways, but yours is also false because the "bandwagon" isn't even necessarily holding to your view.

I can pretty confidently say that Christians don't think the Christian God is testable by science. Who can speak with authority about how Christians define their God better than Christians themselves? This isn't a question of a bandwagon, it's a question of who defines a belief: those who believe it, or those who don't.

You say that the creator is not bound by the laws that science operates in. Maybe that is somehow possible, in a theoretical sense we have no way of knowing. How do you know this?

It's one the fundamental attributes of the Christian God, as revealed in the Bible. If you want to talk about some other deity, than by all means do so, but so long as we are talking about the Christian God, this is one of his attributes, regardless of whether you believe in him or not.

You say that history, revelation, and experience are used to know about God. How do you distinguish between history and mythology?

History happened, mythology didn't, therefore there will be historical evidence to verify the events.

How do you know who's revelation to trust?

With regards to the Bible, there's a chain of reasoning that starts with evidence for the crucifixion and resurrection. If they happened, then Jesus' claims are accepted and the gospels are regarded as reliable. From there we go to the authority of the apostles to speak on God's behalf, validating the rest of the NT and also the words of Jesus in Luke 24 for instance, where he verifies that the OT is the word of God and therefore revelation to be trusted. If you're talking about subsequent 'words from God' then I become a lot more sceptical and go back to the biblical stance that all such words should be tested against scripture to see if there is any confirmation/contradiction. Ultimately, it all goes back to whether Jesus really rose from the dead and was therefore the Son of God.

Can't one person's "revelation" just be their imagination, or their own wishes, or a lie to coerce others?

Which and the Bible warns about that and suggests safeguards against it.

What do we do when some have no experience of a God

Christian belief does not require that all people have conscious experience of God, therefore it isn't a problem for the Christian faith to be true.

while others have experience of encounters with extraterrestrials?

What does ET have to do with it?

Choosing to know a God in the ways you describe leads to irreconcilable differences when people have conflicting revelations or experiences with no way to sort out their differences.

Which is why we go back to historical events for confirmation of the gospels and back to the Bible to test what others claim as revelation. There's also the matter of the Holy Spirit convicting others of the truth, so the Christian faith has mechanisms for dealing with these issues. Luke and John's gospels in particular go to great lengths to talk about evidence and reasons for believing.

Some people point to these sorts of things as the place for religion, though it has seemed better filled by philosophy and psychology and community to me.

I agree (largely). My point was simply that science is not the be all and end all when it comes to knowing things.

Anyway, thanks for a reasoned discussion with some good questions.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 07:19 · Score: 1

but, presumably, your brother exists.

for more funny quotes, take your ridiculous post and replace 'god' with 'brother'. see if you can spot where your reasoning spectacularly failed.

Science examine natural phenomena. God is not a natural phenomena. And you suggesting that my brother is supernatural or that God is natural? Because unless they are both bound by the laws of nature or both above the laws of nature, substituting them would make no sense. If you disagree, please spell out how my reasoning has 'spectacularly failed.'
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 07:29 · Score: 1

Your issue seems to be with a god of the gaps, which the Christian God is not. I don't believe in God simply to fill in what science can't explain. I believe in a God who created the world, sustains it (primarily through 'means' such as the laws of nature), has acted in history, who will judge everyone some day and send them to hell or a new creation and who sent us son to make it possible for guilty people like me to be forgiven and enter the new creation instead of hell. I believe in a God who keeps promises, who loves, who judges, who has relationships. I don't believe in a god which is simply a placeholder for as yet undiscovered natural laws.

Incidentally, God not being bound by natural laws doesn't mean he can't act in the physical world - it just means he isn't limited in what he does and cannot be studied as a natural phenomenon. hence him being outside of the scope of science. His actions are predictable only to the extent that he has promised to do certain things and his revealed a part of his nature. It's a question of knowing someone, rather than knowing about something.
Re:I call bullshit by bwalling · 2008-01-05 07:42 · Score: 1

Sorry to send you off on a rant. Simply substitute "the idea of God" or "belief in God" in place of "God" in what I said. I guess that could have been more clear.
Stop confusing your redefined vague new age bullshit god with the vengeful, jealous and petulant God of the desert.
Stop completely misunderstanding Christian theology.
Re:I call bullshit by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 08:51 · Score: 1

You should read a bit abut epistemology. Or any book about knowing God. Check a good systematic theology - won't have a thing there about needing science.
You should read something with some science in it. Might stop you from saying things like:
The relationship between me and my brother has nothing to do with science, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it is irrelevant. Because the relationship between you and your brother has to do with the following branches of science: Biology, sociology, and psychology.

And you should know this.

--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 12:20 · Score: 1

You should read something with some science in it

I have a physics degree from Oxford.

Because the relationship between you and your brother has to do with the following branches of science: Biology, sociology, and psychology.

I should have said that you cannot reduce a relationship to scientific statements.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 12:25 · Score: 1

What a sad statement.

What an arrogant statement.

How old are you anyway?

25. You?

Start to critically reflect your religious indoctrination before it's too late and before you've got too much invested in "believing" such inanities.

Again with the arrogance. I've done quite a bit of critical thinking, was never indoctrinated (my parents aren't religious) and studied physics at Oxford, so really I have no bias inf avour of being a Christian other than sincerely believing it to be true.
Re:I call bullshit by schweini · 2008-01-05 13:29 · Score: 1

I am an atheist, but i would still even accept the theory that a god-thing created the rules at the very beginning, and then stood back and watched to see what happens, so to speak, without interfering in any way - but you insist that god DOES interfere. In my previous post i was trying to show you that this is, as far as i can see, impossible, because if e.g. you'd pray before an exam that you'll get a good grade, and i'd start to monitor every little physical interaction that occurs to you after your prayer, i would have to notice SOMETHING that couldn't be explained with our scientific toolbox - which would at least leave the possibility open that some god or something supernatural influenced your actions (i.e. responded to your prayer). If i cant measure ANYTHING out of the ordinary, how exactly did god then manage to modify your neurological signals in a way that you get a better grade at the end?
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 13:47 · Score: 1

Why would you have to see something out of the ordinary? Christianity never claims that God's answers to prayer will be distinguishable from natural phenomena, so that is not a means of falsifying Christianity. Of course It's not a means of proving it either. And there's no guarantee that God will answer the prayer in the way in which the pay-er wants. If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then there we have a miraculous event that stands as evidence. I believe we have that in the gospels. Christianity never claims that God will hop into a test tube on demand.
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-05 17:10 · Score: 1

I really thought the GP couldn't put it any simpler, but let me try: you assume god exists. Your relationship with your brother could very easily be analyzed by the scientific method, because your brother exists.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-05 17:12 · Score: 1

How do we know Jesus rose from the dead? Gospels written mostly by men who didn't know him? Gospels that contain contradictions even between themselves? Why would you believe the gospels over any other ancient text that describes miracles?

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-05 17:15 · Score: 1

Of course you can reduce a relationship to scientific statements. Your entire range of experiences could be described purely by physics and chemistry. Your relationship with your brother can be explained through psychology. As you are an educated person, you should know that. Religion has evidently damaged your critical faculties. Let us hope the damage isn't permanent.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-05 21:37 · Score: 1

Fairly common actually. A fair number of the current faculty at Oxford would believe in a personal god and some would even call themselves Christian. Plenty of historical precedent for that too. Many of the greatest physicists were evangelical Christians, e.g. Faraday and Maxwell.
Re:I call bullshit by Afecks · 2008-01-06 03:45 · Score: 1

I can pretty confidently say that Christians don't think the Christian God is testable by science. Who can speak with authority about how Christians define their God better than Christians themselves? This isn't a question of a bandwagon, it's a question of who defines a belief: those who believe it, or those who don't. Wrong. You don't get to just say if God is testable or not. I'm sure you wish you could just change things like that on a whim but no not happening. God is defined as testable only because Christians make certain claims about his actions. If ever God contacted humans, there would be a way to detect and prove that it happened. If not, it doesn't matter because God is silent and hasn't given us any rules to follow.
It's one the fundamental attributes of the Christian God, as revealed in the Bible. If you want to talk about some other deity, than by all means do so, but so long as we are talking about the Christian God, this is one of his attributes, regardless of whether you believe in him or not. As in many other places, the Bible contradicts itself there.
History happened, mythology didn't, therefore there will be historical evidence to verify the events. Then you don't believe Jesus Christ died on the cross and then rose bodily to Heaven. There is NO evidence for that.
I agree (largely). My point was simply that science is not the be all and end all when it comes to knowing things. Please go and gain some knowledge about the physical world in any other way besides science then report your results. If you claim to exist in any world beyond the physical then please prove that first. If you can't do either then you must admit you're wrong.
Re:I call bullshit by Afecks · 2008-01-06 05:59 · Score: 1

Right, the most powerful being in the universe made us imperfect then demands us not to sin and of course when we fail the best solution is to kill himself as a blood sacrifice so he can make himself happy?

Wow man, that's just fucking stupid. Trying to change it from the literal interpretation, which is how most people in history took the creation story, to an allegorical one only increases the stupidity. God symbolically killed himself for a symbolic original sin? Oh, ok then, I symbolically give a shit in that case.

You can get all offended and act like you're so much more civilized than us because you have a shit-eating-grin on while spouting fantasy but I really don't care. I'm equally offended by dogma so we're even on that.

Speaking of arrogance. Which one of us is the one that thinks he knows more than science can show us and asserts it without any contact with this supposed other realm of existence?

You are infinitely more arrogant and presumptuous than we could ever be.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 05:59 · Score: 1

Wrong. You don't get to just say if God is testable or not. I'm sure you wish you could just change things like that on a whim but no not happening. God is defined as testable only because Christians make certain claims about his actions.

We're debating about the Christian God. The Christian God is defined as not being subject to natural laws. Ergo, if you want to test a god, you cannot be talking about the Christian God. If you are able to test god, then that calls into question the claim that the Christian God exists, but you cannot demand that he be testable.

God is defined as testable only because Christians make certain claims about his actions. If ever God contacted humans, there would be a way to detect and prove that it happened.

That's somewhat different to testing God and falls more properly within the domain of historical research rather than scientific endeavour.

As in many other places, the Bible contradicts itself there.

What a pithy statement. Where's the evidence to back it up?

Then you don't believe Jesus Christ died on the cross and then rose bodily to Heaven. There is NO evidence for that.

You may not find the evidence conclusive, but it is absurd to claim there is no evidence. The gospels (and indeed the rest of the NT) are evidence, amng other things and there is evidence to support their veracity. Evidence =/= 100% proof and absence of 100% proof =/= total absence of evidence.

Please go and gain some knowledge about the physical world in any other way besides science then report your results.

I'll do that if you go ask all the historians of the world if they're scientist and if their field of study is another branch of science, or a separate discipline.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 06:02 · Score: 1

Are you married? If so, please don't tell me you use the scientific method to analyse how well your marriage is going or I really will despair for the world.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 06:04 · Score: 1

How do we know Jesus rose from the dead? Gospels written mostly by men who didn't know him? Gospels that contain contradictions even between themselves? Why would you believe the gospels over any other ancient text that describes miracles?

I believe because of the strong historical credentials of the documents, they consistent and coherent testimony with one another, with other New Testament documents and with the rest of the Bible and because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. But you're likely not interested in the last one.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 06:07 · Score: 1

I find it somewhat ironic that your email address begins with 'loverevolutionary' yet you seek to reduce everything to physics and chemistry. If that is truly your position then we are at an impasse, particularly in light of your specious comment than no man who believes in anything beyond the physical and chemical can be educated. Plenty of educated men - well educated - would take issue with your statement.
Re:I call bullshit by Afecks · 2008-01-06 06:14 · Score: 1

The Christian God is defined as not being subject to natural laws. Then he cannot interact with us.
What a pithy statement. Where's the evidence to back it up? Back what up? That the Bible is full of contradictions or that the scripture you referenced but failed to cite is contradicted?
I'll do that if you go ask all the historians of the world if they're scientist and if their field of study is another branch of science, or a separate discipline. Wow, that's the whole point! Woosh!

Only through science can we actually KNOW things. The rest is just hearsay.

Do we take history at face value because we read it in a book? NO! We dig up the ground and look for evidence and corroboration from other sources that these stories are true. Even then it's only a best GUESS. We assume it's true because we have nothing better. That's not truth.
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-06 06:24 · Score: 1

Yes, I'm married. For eight years. Yes, I use the scientific method in my marriage, as I use it in every relationship. I make a hypothesis regarding the other person's mental state. I act on that hypothesis. I observe, using all my senses, and my empathy, the results of my actions. Based on the results, I revise my behavior. If you have a better way, I'd love to hear it.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-06 06:27 · Score: 1

I don't believe there are any strong historical credentials in the Bible. I don't believe the gospels are consistent and coherent, and I asked for that kind of conviction with all my heart and got nothing. Evidently, God plays favorites. Some honest seekers get conviction, some get touched by priests (not that I was, I was an adult when I gave Christianity a try.)

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-06 06:32 · Score: 1

Everything reduces to the physical and chemical, but from these humble beginnings, countless new behaviors emerge that can not be addressed by mere physics and chemistry. The system is more than the sum of its parts, there are all the myriad interactions as well. To me, this explanation of reality is far grander and more mysterious than any magical fairytale. When I think of the explanations provided by religion, I feel sad and limited. When I look at the explanations provided by science, I feel awe and exultation.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by fwr · 2008-01-06 09:08 · Score: 1

Do we take history at face value because we read it in a book? NO! We dig up the ground and look for evidence and corroboration from other sources that these stories are true. Even then it's only a best GUESS. We assume it's true because we have nothing better. That's not truth.

Hmm, so you don't believe what you read in a book. Then you dig up the ground and look for evidence. Then you... write it down in a book, or scientific report. Interesting.
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 11:28 · Score: 1

Then he cannot interact with us.

That's completely illogical. No bound by the laws of nature =/= unable to interact with the natural world.

Back what up?

You claimed the existence of contradictions but didn't back up your claim with an evidence or reasoning.

Only through science can we actually KNOW things. The rest is just hearsay.

That's nonsense. You don't 'KNOW' anything through science. The closest you can get to 'KNOW'ing something is in mathematics. Science involves building little models of systems that produce the same results for a given input as the real counterpart they are intended to represent. That doesn't mean reality functions in the same manner as the model; it just means that the model is our best means of predicting how reality will behave. At any time some new result could come along and turn the model on its head. You never 'KNOW' ANYTHING in science. Once you think you do, you're not doing science anymore and you end up with the Flat Earth Society. /p
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 11:31 · Score: 1

I'm sure your wife to love to hear that your marriage is simply a result of physical and chemical reactions. Is that how you proposed to her, or did you tell her you love her?
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-06 11:54 · Score: 1

Right, the most powerful being in the universe made us imperfect

Not restricted to being in the universe and didn't make us imperfect.

then demands us not to sin

Actually, Paul's letter to the Romans helps clarify that we were handed over to sin as punishment for disobedience. It's a subtle difference.

and of course when we fail the best solution is to kill himself as a blood sacrifice

Actually it was the Son submitting to the Father's plan and freely sacrificing himself by being put to death by other moral agents (people).

so he can make himself happy?

He was already happy.

Trying to change it from the literal interpretation, which is how most people in history took the creation story, to an allegorical one only increases the stupidity. God symbolically killed himself for a symbolic original sin? Oh, ok then, I symbolically give a shit in that case.

I quite agree. Besides which, why treat a historical event as symbolic?

You can get all offended and act like you're so much more civilized than us

I answered all your questions; if I was outrageously offended, I probably wouldn't have. Additionally, I've gone back to read all my comments and I'm having trouble picking out the bit where I act more civilised than you. Could you possibly enlighten me on that subject so we can explored where our interpretation of certain phrases differs?

I really don't care. I'm equally offended

Uh huh.

by dogma so we're even on that.

Dogma is essentially doctrine that is considered to have supreme evidence for its truth and is therefore regarded as authoritative and foundational to other doctrines. What about that offends you? Or is it dogmatism that is the real problem, which is another matter entirely?

Speaking of arrogance. Which one of us is the one that thinks he knows more than science can show us and asserts it without any contact with this supposed other realm of existence?

Might I suggest the use of punctuation or alternative phrasing in future long sentences? I'm afraid it took me a few attempts to parse. Would help avoid any misunderstandings. And discussion of epistemology do not require contact with another realm of existence. Not sure I'm even happy with the phrase; sounds like superstitious astrological claptrap.

You are infinitely more arrogant and presumptuous than we could ever be.

Don't you find that phrase somewhat ironic? Especially in the light of the rest of your comments? Seriously, what have I assumed about you? Why don't you go through all the comments we've made to each other and note every time someone makes an assumption about the other person. When you've done that, post the list and we'll discuss the validity of your claims.

Incidentally, you never answered my question about your age after I answered yours. You have me at a disadvantage there.
Re:I call bullshit by Afecks · 2008-01-06 12:05 · Score: 1

Exactly my point again. Only when you can read something out of a book and then go and match it up with the physical world or what I like to call REALITY can you actually know it is true.
Re:I call bullshit by spun · 2008-01-07 03:22 · Score: 1

Why should the fact that love is just a physical and chemical process make it any less real? Why would it being the result of some kind of mythical 'soul' or 'spirit' make it any more real? Wow, I feel sorry for any students you might have. And you are a very poor Christian, what with all the judging others. One of Christ's main messages, yet you seem to have missed it.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:I call bullshit by JonathanBoyd · 2008-01-07 04:36 · Score: 1

Where did I judge? Concern for someone's dismissal of love as purely physical/chemical reaction is not judging someone. Feeling sorry for someone as a result of the views they hold is not judging them either. I am not comparing our moral goodness, nor am I stating whether you are going to heaven or hell. I have made no comment about whether or not you are saved. I could now say that unless you have asked God for forgiveness for all you've done wrong and trusted in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to accomplish that, then you will assuredly go to hell, but equally assuredly will go to heaven if you do do it. In all this, you are no different to me.

Additional additional thoughts by jopet · 2008-01-05 02:49 · Score: 1

I was trying to keep my quick post free of references to any specific religion. Of course the fact that there are so many different gods and dogmas especial when it comes to the explanation of nature and reality should be an additional easily graspable argument that not all of the can be true although their believes think that only one can be true.

> No I am not saying that religion has no place in the world, it seems to put the believers minds at ease
Exactly. That is what opium can do quite well.

> However religion and science should not be in the same ring.
I really don't see a ring for religion except the mind-numbing when I look more closely.

> Let these so called christians debate with other and see what they love.
It is not so easy. Unlike atheists like me, the so-called christians and also the muslims, jews etc. have strong opinions not only about what they should or should not do, but what I should or should not be allowed to do.
I have no problem about Christians believing they will rot in hell if they have sex before marriage or sex with a condom, but I do not see why they should mess with what others do in that respect.

And this is one of the most ugly aspects of religion, predominantly the book-religions that have their origin in desert people: they have a built-in imperative to force their own fairy-tale beliefs upon others.

Not a Government Matter by Braxton_the_Covenant · 2008-01-05 02:51 · Score: 1

This 'problem' of controlling which scientific theories/hypotheses the government schools are 'allowed' to discuss only exists because of government schools. If all schools were private schools, then parents can simply send their children to whatever school they think is best, pro-Darwinian, anti-Darwinian, or mixed ('teach the controversy') biology/cosmogony curriculum. The current 'strategy' of mandating a physicalist/materialist theory of origins, banning and making illegal teleological theories, then using the Federal(!!) court system to defend this setup will obviously only lead to continued attempts to overthrow it every few years (unsuccessfully?) and lead to the continued emmigration from the public schools to private schools and home-schooling, which only strengthens the growing calls for government-vouchers to pay for private school, or for abolishing federal (and state?) government schooling altogether.

That, and twelve-year olds having sex and doing cocaine while being functionally illiterate (and remaining so at their graduations) also probably undermines the government schools' credibility.

The Feds involvement in this all is also on dubious legal grounds for semi-obvious reasons (so where is the Federal Department of Education in the US Federal Constitution anyway?): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education#Opposition . But what's a hundred billion dollars of our money between friends, anyway? Unless you happen not to be a friend.

Re:Logic vs Faith by alexgieg · 2008-01-05 02:51 · Score: 1

So how do you reconcile logic and faith.

Given that "faith" is just a synonymous of "trust" and "confidence", here's a way to construct a "logic of faith" as a special case of your typical inductive logics:

"For each 'n' in the range 1 to 'p', 'X' said on occasion 'On' he would do 'Yn' at moment 'Mn'."
"For each 'n' in the range 1 to 'p', 'X' actually did 'Yn' at moment 'Mn'."
"Therefore, 'X' is faithful."

Going on the other direction, one can hardly ignore that logic is "believed in" because we trust what, to our eyes, looks like absolutely undeniable a priori evidence: the implicit connection between logical statements. Meaning, when we say:

"All men are mortal."
"Socrates is a man."
"Therefore, Socrates is mortal."

We "trust" (have faith) in the meaning of the words "man", "men", "Socrates", "mortal", "is", "are" etc. to remain the same from one instant in time to the next, and thus for the 3rd sentence to be saying something valid and actually contained in the two previous sentences. In other words, for logic itself to be possible we must first have "faith on it".

As you see, either by going the more abstract path of a "logic of faith", or the more subjective one of our "faith on logic", or even by following both, there's no difficulty at all in "reconciling" these two fields. Whoever thinks one is exclusive of the other has clearly not understood what each term means.

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by caseih · 2008-01-05 02:51 · Score: 1

I think that you point out a very strong weakness in the position of the Christian right-wing, particularly protestants as they exist in America. That doesn't mean that Religion itself must always be abandoned to partake of Science, though. Maybe for this group. But in the end, if science demonstrates something conclusively, then a religious belief has to be compatible with it, or else the religion must not be true.

The problem is that many Christians believe in Creation ex nihilo, which is something that Science has essentially disproved for hundreds of years. Even Newton himself put forth some basic laws that state matter can not be created nor destroyed. Well it turns out that Creation ex nihilo is not really a biblical concept. It was simply a medieval explanation of the Bible's simple words about the creation of the earth. That doesn't mean the Bible is completely wrong, it just means that someone interpreted it wrong along the way. All of these so-called contradictions, then, can still be reconciled. If the Creation was an organization of matter, through whatever process, then the Bible words are still true.

As for the Garden of Eden, the Bible really only says that it existed. The specifics of how and chronology are not mentioned.

Regardless of whether evolution occurred or not, the concept of original sin remains the same. Although I am Christian, and think that "original sin" in orthodox Christianity is completely bunk. Sex did not cause the fall of man. But whatever the case, I fail to see how evolution influences the story of the fall.

Furthermore, whether or not evolution occurred is also irrelevant to the Christian idea of the need of a redeemer.

Many believers look into the cosmos and see what's out there (or in here) as evidence of God's handiwork, and evidence of his existence. Others look out and see not God at all. The problem with anyone on either side setting to prove the non-existence or existence of God is that God is not out there in the cosmos. One could travel the length and breadth of the universe and not find him. While others sit close to home and find him as they consider the whys of their own metaphysical existence.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by stewbacca · 2008-01-05 02:53 · Score: 1

It's not that I'm narrow minded, it's that every person I know who is religious doesn't seem to understand everyday events (easily explained by science) so they revert to relgion to help make meaning in their lives. I'm not saying they are right or wrong because that would be narrow minded. Make your own inferences.

Re: Slashdot and religion.. by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:55 · Score: 1

I've read slashdot for a long time. And the one thing that irritates me the most is the hatred everyone has towards religion and god. Post after post moderated to +5 insightful for saying "it's stupid to believe in god". Would you mind providing links to a dozen or so of those posts?

The bible actually agrees with science on a fair number of things. So does Lord of the Rings. The sun rises and sets. Trees have shadows. When you drop things they fall. Armor provides resistance to swords and arrows.

But that hardly recommends believing in all the rest of the story.

Big Bang - e=mc2 basically a lot of energy can create matter. God is stated repeatedly of having abundant power or energy. Now imagine the beginning of time, empty universe or what have you and God begins creation. He puts his finger to the empty 'canvas' and pours out his energy, and matter 'explodes' from his fingertips outward. (I'm not aware of) anything in the bible that contradicts this. But it damn sure isn't what the bible says.

Given enough of a free hand for interpretation, you can make a religious text "agree" with anything.

Dinosaurs - Everyone loves saying the bible is wrong on the creation account due to the lack of dinosaurs in the bible. Actually, I don't think I've ever head that claim at all.

There's more but I can't think of them atm.. So I'll close with an anecdote: I, OTOH, didn't start pulling my life together until I gave up religion.

So much for anecdotes...

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re:Logic vs Faith by SerpentMage · 2008-01-05 02:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ok please answer the following.

> Faith is defined as, because of objective past experience of God's action, trusting his promises of future action.

How do you know it was God? Why not the purple people eater monster?

Ah yes, you take it on faith that it was God and not some purple people eater. In other words...

> Faith is subjective, mystical, and can have the appearance of utter hogwash to someone not participating therein.

--

"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"

Re:What created the universe? by lanswitch · 2008-01-05 02:57 · Score: 1

so you have a theory that all theories are wrong. If you're right, you're wrong.

Re:Logic vs Faith by maraist · 2008-01-05 02:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

Faith has logic, based on axioms such as the existence of God and so forth.

I disagree. There have been incredible minds in history that NEEDED to apply logic to the basis of their existence, so they BROUGHT logic to Religion. But religion was free of logic long before and after their collective contributions.

Religion is, quite frankly the father telling his son a bed-time story.. The story is NOT intended to be logical, but to convey significance. It is meant to be remembered, it is meant to impart guidelines, it is meant to bring race-pride (to foster loyalty, etc). I'm generalizing all religions.

In the bed-time saga, the target audience is the inquisitive youth - religion is always the 'master speaking to his flock', or the elder speaking to the community, or the parents/grand-parents teaching their children. In this, there is an implicit respect (otherwise there wouldn't have been a conversation), such that we 'trust' our elders and that what they have to say was important for their survival, and thus is likely important in our own.

Further, elders don't just spout the history of the bible.. They impart useful info - dating advice, how to cook, how to hunt. My great great grand-daddy built this farm with this bare two hands.. And don't worry about lying to your wife just then.. God will forgive you.. See Jesus sacrificed himself knowing that each of us is flawed, but he loved us so much.. And so on.

It's all part of a cultural acceptance for each successive generation. It's not:
1) God created the world
2) God gets angry
3) God punishes bad people
4) The first person was bad
5) God punished all his children
6) God gets over his anger and makes promises to avoid punishing us in the future
7) Jesus's sacrifice represented a new covanant where God will not punish those that honor the sacrifice
8) You should do whatever the f*#k I say because I've accepted Jesus, so I'm going to heaven, and you might not.

That's a logical progression (with a LOT of assumptions of course). But who in church ever talks like this? People would tune out the pastor. Religion, is a series of unrelated assertions - where you trust the lecturer. Dawkins book talks about this phenomena. Basically that it is biologically important for children to absorb their parent's instructions without question (at least until a certain age). It is also biologically important for us to work as a team (group-think). This combination leads to a meta-life-form. Legends, rituals, etc. Religion is one of the ultimate forms of meta-life-forms that Hawking describes (quite offensively) as a parasite, living entirely off it's hosts; surviving from generation to generation.. Slightly evolving to fit the environmental changes, or dieing, in the face of natural selection.

What I find significant about this meta-life-form perspective is that we can never be free of such parasites entirely.. Look at Christmas - it is now expected of us to act crazy on Black-Friday through past new years in the US. It's a culturalism that has grown out of a complex series of unrelated historical events and will likely continue to evolve for another thousand years into something as yet unrecognizable. The ramifications have extended to most countries around the world, because need to be part of the economic event. We are in a generation that can not ignore the phenomena (if you are a business owner at least). Much like the founding generations of other religions. If the whole community necessitated a cultural series of actions (for weddings, funerals, child-bearing, what-have-you), you couldn't afford to isolate yourself... Judeo-Islamo-Christianity is getting the hard stuff now because it's actually possible to live in non-religious communities. It's possible to not baptize your children now or what-ever, and not be effectively stoned to death or burned at the stake. How many thousands of years did that take? 5?

Further, I rather loved the Segan movie 'contact', for the part wher

--
-Michael

Re:Logic vs Faith by david_thornley · 2008-01-05 02:58 · Score: 1

Okay, to do the parsing:

The original poster's version says "if evolution() { u = monkey++; }", which means that monkeys increase in value, while "u" is assigned the old value of "monkey". The second substitutes "u = ++monkey", which means that monkeys increase in value, while "u" is assigned the current value.

So, the original is that, if evolution exists, monkeys evolve past you; the second is that, if evolution exists, monkeys and you evolve the same.

It's unfortunate when a C syntax joke has to be explained on /.. Some of you need to stay away from xkcd.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Re: Sellouts by Black+Parrot · 2008-01-05 02:59 · Score: 1

If you believe in science AND god then your a bloody hypocrite because the scientific method can never be used on god. I agree with that last part, but I don't see how it makes anyone a hypocrite. There are lots of things that I don't apply the scientific method to.

Its irrational to believe in something there is no proof of. Sounds good on paper, but I'll wager that there's no one on the planet who doesn't believe in things there isn't any proof of. (Even using a very loose notion of 'proof'.)

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Religion can not be reconciled with science... by SpinyNorman · 2008-01-05 03:03 · Score: 1

The only part of religion that are compatible with science are the parts that don't contradict it.

Any religious claims for a god that has even the tiniest power over or interaction with the physical world are demonstrably wrong.

Every time an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, or heated water boils, or anything keeps on happening (without exception) according to the laws of nature discovered by science, it continues to confirm that any predictions contrary to the predictions of science are wrong.

However much you pray for god to intervene in your life he won't, because never in the history of the world has even a single atom of matter or molecule of neurotransmitter ever been seen to behave counter to the laws of science.

The only value of religion, and part of it not in contradiction with science, is the moral/social element, but frankly I think most aethiests are more moral than most religious folk, and that we'd be better off without religion all together, even if no doubt people would still find other excuses to kill each other and argue over.

Re:Religion can not be reconciled with science... by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 03:48 · Score: 1

...never in the history of the world has even a single atom of matter or molecule of neurotransmitter ever been seen to behave counter to the laws of science.

Prove it.

--
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Re:Religion can not be reconciled with science... by damienl451 · 2008-01-05 03:52 · Score: 1

Think about what you have just written (I know, it's hard and likely to give you a headache - don't worry, you'll get used to using your brain). Let's see
Any religious claims for a god that has even the tiniest power over or interaction with the physical world are demonstrably wrong. Now, explain to me how you intend to prove this negative. At best, you might be able to show me that never in history has the action of a supernatural agent been witnessed or recorded. That's still a far cry from proving that God has no power over the physical world (which would require you to exclude any supernatural intervention in every single thing that's ever happened in the universe).
Every time an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, or heated water boils, or anything keeps on happening (without exception) according to the laws of nature discovered by science, it continues to confirm that any predictions contrary to the predictions of science are wrong. Wait... I can make an apple fall off a tree but God cannot? Maybe you could try to turn your argument into a valid syllogism. I'd be interested to know how you go from 'the laws of nature accurately describe the way the world works' to 'God cannot intervene in the world'. I really don't see (probably because it's simply not there) what falling apples and boiling water tell you about the existence (or lack thereof) of God.
never in the history of the world has even a single atom of matter or molecule of neurotransmitter ever been seen to behave counter to the laws of science. Never in the history of the world has a man written 'XDDGFDFEGERDND' on Slashdot. Therefore, it will never happen. Wait... I just did it. Guess my message will vanish in a puff of logic.
In addition, you're confused as to what the laws of science really are. They are descriptive and not prescriptive. By definition, a miracle *is* a departure from the way the world usually works (but not a violation of the laws of nature, which describe how the world works in the absence of any supernatural intervention).
but frankly I think most aethiests are more moral than most religious folk Define 'moral' and, if you think morality is absolute (which apparently you do ), explain to me how science studies it and where moral values come from.
Re:Religion can not be reconciled with science... by SpinyNorman · 2008-01-05 04:06 · Score: 1

I rather think it'd have made the headlines, don't you?

Apple flies off tree upwards! Water over flame stays stone cold! Shroedringer wave equation violated!

Space shuttle fails to take off - jumps ten feet sideways instead, and turns green!

Could be that god is just powerless in the science lab. Scared of the white coats.
Re:Religion can not be reconciled with science... by SpinyNorman · 2008-01-05 04:33 · Score: 1

I'd be interested to know how you go from 'the laws of nature accurately describe the way the world works' to 'God cannot intervene in the world'. I really don't see (probably because it's simply not there) what falling apples and boiling water tell you about the existence (or lack thereof) of God.

If nature is controlled and describable by fixed laws then there is no room for it to be controlled by non-fixed laws (such as decision of god)! Simple as that.

e.g. It'd be ridiculous to say that an apple that just broke off it's branch fell down (vs up) due to god's will when science predicts that's what it's always going to do anyway - it makes any such god totally impotent because all you can ascribe to him (without being wrong) is that he will do what science says is going to happen anyway!

For there to be any possibility of a god with some power over the universe you'd have have to have things that occur contrary to science, but history has shown that that the number of things occuring contrary to science reduce as science advances (i.e. they are due to ignorance, not the will of god), and today we have arrived at the point where we essentially have a 100% description of nature (even if it'd be more intellectually satisfying to combine the lowest level laws such as general relativity and quantum physics into a single framework).

The only things that science can't predict today are large scale effects of non-linear systems where things like chaos (in mathematical sense) come to play, but this is matter of mathematical intractability not violation of physical law (which is still used to predict the dynamics of such systems, on different terms).
Re:Religion can not be reconciled with science... by damienl451 · 2008-01-05 04:41 · Score: 1

Well, considering that God never promised that Christians would be healed, that he's not a circus animal, that it's basically impossible to make sure that only 'genuine' Christians are part of the experimental group (how to you *know* if someone is sincere or not? Maybe he's just a hypocrite and not a Christian a all). There are so many confounding variables that it's impossible to conduct such a statistical analysis and have it yield valuable results.

While I'm at it, most studies on intercessory prayer are also deeply flawed for the exact same reasons. How do you control for variables such as sincerity of belief, God's sovereign will, the non-mechanistic nature of prayer,etc.?

God Created It, Science Describes It by TooLazyToLogon · 2008-01-05 03:05 · Score: 1

God created it. Science describes what God created. Science is still coming up with new descriptions. If on the first day, Adam decided to core a tree to look the tree rings, those tree rings would still have represented a year of growth for each ring. Same principle with plate tectonics. God created it that way. Science is describing his creation. Over the years Science has changed it's description of God's creation. Once Science thought matter was made of particles, then not, now particle again. I'm still not sure whether God made light from particle or waves. But I do know that Science will come up with new descriptions.

Re:Logic vs Faith by alexgieg · 2008-01-05 03:07 · Score: 1

Scientists who disagree do not burn each other at the stake, or begin wars of extermination against those who advocate alternate theories.

Maybe not, but notice that, the way you put it, there's still a requirement for both parts to agree on principle on the validity of science and of the scientific method.

What would scientists do if, say, a political movement grew around the idea of "separation between science and state", arguing that the scientific method is just a philosophical concept, and thus the government, since it must be neutral, must therefore refrain from placing public money at the service of any specific philosophy, be it through teaching to children, be it through officially-sponsored research?

My bet is that scientists wouldn't take it lightly. And were they in sufficient numbers, and with sufficient political power, and the "anti-science" folk growing in numbers by leaps and bounds, who can say the scientists wouldn't pursue a more... definitive... solution to the problem? Knowing human nature, I surely won't say they wouldn't.

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

Re:Logic vs Faith by fbjon · 2008-01-05 03:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Religions derived from Mosaic beginnings are based on intolerance and exclusivity. So are the browser wars based on intolerance and exclusivity, since they're derived from "Mosaic beginnings"?

--
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.

No, standards of truth are similar by davide+marney · 2008-01-05 03:08 · Score: 1

But religion does not even try to prove anything, religion requires you to accept what is proclaimed without any attempt of evidence, or logic, what-so-ever.

You've improperly stated the nature of faith. Faith is not a fact like gravity is a fact. Faith is a conclusion one reaches based on one's interpretation of the facts. It's metaphysical, not physical.

All that is required to believe in God is to add up everything we know about the world -- who we are, where we came from, where everything came from -- and then simply ask, why? What's it all about? What's it all for?

The answer you come up with is what you believe, what you "have faith" in. You can have faith that it all means nothing, that it came from nowhere and is going nowhere. Or you can have faith that it must have a meaning above what we can see, that there must be something else beyond it all.

Speaking for myself, I do believe that life has meaning.

--
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday

Re:No, standards of truth are similar by walterbyrd · 2008-01-05 07:53 · Score: 1

>>Faith is a conclusion one reaches based on one's interpretation of the facts.

Interpretation of what facts? There are stars in the sky, therefore there must be a god - something like that?

In that case, does everybody get to all the same religious beliefs individually, or does somebody proclaim something, and all his followers believe it?

Also, what about all the specifics? Did Jesus come back from the dead? What facts are interpreted to support that?

Not Insightful by aepervius · 2008-01-05 03:10 · Score: 1

Although I fully agree the GP amde a fallacy, you used a strawman : the confusion between "I believe in god" where belief=religious faith without evidence, and "I believe in science" as in "I am confident in science" as in "If I did the experience myself i could prove point by point the principle already discovered in the past, no matter my religious belief in god or not". The word believe here is not taken as "faith without evidence". Moderator, this was not an insightful jab at the troll, this is one of the oldest strawman argument used by religious faithful. Don#t fall for it. The troll was not hypocrite, he was using like most of us the word in the non religious sense. I believe/I think/I am confident that....

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org

err... by Tom · 2008-01-05 03:12 · Score: 1

acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God. Not "god" in the sense of "some über-powerful being" perhaps, but certainly the biblical version. When your holy book starts with claims that your scientific knowledge refutes as nonsense, it's very hard to continue being convinced of both.

There's a reason all the xian fundamentalists so desperately oppose evolution, and that's precisely because understanding evolution means understanding that most of the bible is badly written fiction.

--
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by bechthros · 2008-01-05 03:15 · Score: 1

your original point was that to engage in rational thought one must suspend belief in God. i pointed out several people who both believed in God and engaged in a great deal of rational thought. you admitted that many of those people did indeed believe in God and also engaged in rational thought. anything further to add?

National Academy of Sciences Report on Evolution is Long on Assertion, Short on Evidence

Re:Logic vs Faith by cHiphead · 2008-01-05 03:18 · Score: 1, Offtopic

I'm inclined to say that faith has been effective in keeping peace, its the organized and centralized power structure in a religion that has done well disturbing that peace...

--

This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Send out gratis copies? by pbooktebo · 2008-01-05 03:18 · Score: 1

I hope they send copies to the Republican candidates who don't believe in evolution... :)

irrationality and religion.. by rs232 · 2008-01-05 03:22 · Score: 1

'I've read slashdot for a long time. And the one thing that irritates me the most is the hatred everyone has towards religion and god. Post after post moderated to +5 insightful for saying "it's stupid to believe in god". What happened to open-minded?'

What people object to is the basic irrationality of all religlous belief systems, in order to be a member of the club, you have to be certifiably insane.

"Now imagine the beginning of time, empty universe or what have you and God begins creation .."

How did 'God' come into existence, if you say 'God' existed forever, then why not say the same for the material universe.

"He puts his finger to the empty 'canvas' and pours out his energy, and matter 'explodes' from his fingertips outward"

Where's the evidence for such an occurrence, can we measure it. If not then it isn't science. Observation, speculation, theory and testing with experiment - that's science. Religion says believe what I say because I say so.

Actually the current scientific thinking puts it as the Universe being created by two multi dimentional branes colliding.

Of course there is only the one true religion the church of Pastafarianism. All hail his immensity the Flying Spaghetti Monster ..

--
davecb5620@gmail.com

Re:Logic vs Faith by polar+red · 2008-01-05 03:23 · Score: 1

faith is a tool: it keeps the people ignorant, uncritical and divided... (just as nationalism does: that's the new tool)

--
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by pkphilip · 2008-01-05 03:32 · Score: 1

That is a very arrogant viewpoint. If you are associating the ability to think (that is intelligence) with atheism, then how do you explain the fact that Issac Newton, Pasteur etc were all believers in God? Were they stupid?

Also, are you claiming that pretty much the entire planet (apart from a small minority who call themselves atheists) are stupid?

"Does not require abandoning belief in God"? by Belisarivs · 2008-01-05 03:33 · Score: 1

I read the chapter on Creationism, and it's basically a point-by-point beatdown of said ideology. In fact, apart from a couple brief FAQs at the end of the text, they really don't address the theological aspects at all. It's basically a manual on how to rebut a creationist - not a look at how to reconcile science and religion, as the summary would have you believe. In fact, they treat creationists as little more than anthropological curiosities.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by david_thornley · 2008-01-05 03:41 · Score: 1

The problem is that many Christians believe in Creation ex nihilo, which is something that Science has essentially disproved for hundreds of years.

Nope. Consider the Big Bang, which has been scientifically established. What came before it? For all you or I know, there was nothing but a Supreme Being then, who started the entire Universe by saying "Let there be light!" The days of Creation aren't too bad a summary of the development of the Universe, assuming that somebody with infinite knowledge is trying to explain things quickly to a bunch of shepherds completely innocent of formal education. (I have this mental image of Moses saying, "Oh Lord, is it really necessary to learn these tensors?")

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

It's just autocratic politics by dbIII · 2008-01-05 03:44 · Score: 1

Too many lay people see scientists as modern priests

I would say that this mistake is due to a poor science education. We should be seeing it as commonplace and not getting it mistaken for a holy mystery.

Neither science nor religeon are really the issue anyway, it's just politics. As I see it there are a variety of offshoots of Christianity that rejected an educated clergy and now that they have succeded in that they are rejecting the educated in general as a threat to their organisations. It's just simple autocratic politics at work - if you do not obey the leader you are ostricised or verbally attacked. Those who are very far gone are forbidden from using the net or even telephones anyway but they have influence on the more moderate groups right through to causing discord between the mainstream churches and biologists, geologists etc. Feel free to tell me I'm bound for hell - my entire nation was "damned for all eternity" by Oral Roberts when he was subjected to the indignity of an airport baggage search.

I suspect that those at the core of "Intelligent Design" advocacy would see a Jesuit with scientific training as their own personal antichrist. Remember folks, it's not just bad science it's apparently bad theology as well.

It's called atheism. by PhxBlue · 2008-01-05 03:45 · Score: 1

It takes a narrow minded person to believe in the basket analogy, whether you're on the God side or the science side.

A lot of very reasonable people could easily believe in the basket analogy. They're called atheists.

--
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.

Re:Logic vs Faith by cHiphead · 2008-01-05 03:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, arrogance is what keeps the people ignorant, uncritical, and divided. Faith in and of itself can keep an individual sane. I guess its along the lines of an individual being smart, but that same individual in a large group can be very dumb. Its got nothing to do with faith in and of itself, its the outside influences and self inspired arrogance that brings those things about.

Proclaiming that its a tool shows you either haven't really considered what faith is, have had negative experiences with someone who was using their faith as a justification for an argument, or just don't give a shit what faith at its core is and what its can be. I will agree that arrogant faith can be worse that arrogant 'unfaith'. But don't blanket the idea of faith as a negative, its disrespectful. Do unto others and all that jazz.

Cheers.

--

This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by Bearhouse · 2008-01-05 03:58 · Score: 1

Ouch. I think that the better forms of religion are perhaps not striving for truth, but 'perfection' and a sense of altruism that will lead people to behave in a better way to themselves, and others.
(And I say this as an agnostic).

They also teach tolerence and charity.

The vast majority of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and whatever don't go around trying to shove their faiths and ways of life down other people's throats, they are just happy to live within a system of beliefs and associated rules that suit them. A bit like many people like being in the armed forces, (many have problems adapting to the 'real world' when they leave).

Even if science finally does 'explain everything', will it make us and the world a better place?

Re:What created the universe? by KDR_11k · 2008-01-05 04:00 · Score: 1

You mean "if there is no evidence there's no reason to assume it exists". That's not the same, science does NOT claim to deliver absolute truths, it only claims to give us tools to manipulate the world around us.

--
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.

Re:What created the universe? by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 04:00 · Score: 1

In my opinion science should pursue everything that can be learnt. However science has no way of proving that there is no teapot in orbit around Jupiter.

I believe the it is a more difficult miracle for God to set this stuff up into motion 15 billion years ago so that today you have humans walking around than to have created everything 3000 years ago with the illusion of having been created so long ago.

And why would he do that? This sounds like an argument against God to me - yes, that this is all done by a single being, or that he would need to resort to some grand illusion, does seem rather ludicrous.

Anyhow, if there is no testable difference between the Universe being as we observe it, or it only having been created 5 minutes ago, who cares?

Re:What created the universe? by KDR_11k · 2008-01-05 04:03 · Score: 1

Yeah and if those constants where different, the universe would be completely different and we probably wouldn't be there to describe it as a miracle

Or we would be around and wondering why the universe is just that other way.

--
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.

pseudo-reality by spongebobsquarepants · 2008-01-05 04:09 · Score: 1

This is a sad development. There is no reconciliation to be had between science and religion. Anyone who will tell you such a thing is lying. Anyone who believes it is deranged. The best way to kill scientific, technological, medical, and social progress would be to adopt such a philosophically indefensible view.

Don't do it!!! by Orig1 · 2008-01-05 04:19 · Score: 1

The schism between science and "religion" is mainly a Christian thing. The other religions don't have the problem. I think it is a way for God to protect humanity from the Christians. After ethnically cleansing three continents and much of the plant and animal life, burning millions at the steak in Europe, colonizing and enslaving much of Asia and Africa we can only imagine what would be left of life on earth if the christian religious elect had embraced technology even more. Remember it was the inter-christian hostility that caused Europeans to emigrate to the new world on the Mayflower and a continence of this hostility that lead the founding fathers of the US to try to prevent the government from being used as a tool of this hostility with the very first amendment to the constitution. But if you question this analysis, study the "Christian Values" unpresident bush demonstrated in shipping cluster bombs to Israel to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon. The schism should be enhanced not smoothed over.

Re:Don't do it!!! by ProteusQ · 2008-01-05 06:40 · Score: 1

The schism between science and "religion" is mainly a Christian thing. The other religions don't have the problem.

If atheism is defined as a religion in a social sense, then you're wrong, as Richard Dawkins and others have demonstrated.

I think it is a way for God to protect humanity from the Christians.

You're showing your hate and intolerance here; why should you treat hateful and intolerant Christians differently than yourself?

After ethnically cleansing three continents and much of the plant and animal life, burning millions at the steak in Europe, colonizing and enslaving much of Asia and Africa we can only imagine what would be left of life on earth if the christian religious elect had embraced technology even more.

Every migration includes vast changes to the landscape and thus the native flora and fauna. Read 1491 to see this. Christians burned about 2,000 people at the stake in the history of Europe, not millions. Again, read 1491 to see how the Mexica forcibly converted their fellow man (i.e., via a religion that involved human sacrifice of those who didn't accept their control). Africans and Asians colonized and enslaved each other also, so such activity is not exclusively Christian.

Remember it was the inter-christian hostility that caused Europeans to emigrate to the new world on the Mayflower

That and wage control. And the price of land. And entrenched bureaucracies. And the lack of economic development. And the lack of free speech. And so on.

and a continence of this hostility that lead the founding fathers of the US to try to prevent the government from being used as a tool of this hostility with the very first amendment to the constitution.

Which modern atheists are trying to rescind. It is not Christians who are going to court to repress the right of minors to speak about atheism in schools.

But if you question this analysis, study the "Christian Values" unpresident bush demonstrated in shipping cluster bombs to Israel to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon. The schism should be enhanced not smoothed over.

Do the Muslim fanatics have nothing to do with it? Why is it a Christian's or a Jew's fault whenever there is violence in the Middle East? And if one hypocrite destroys the bunch in the case of Christianity, where does that leave atheism after Stalin? And Mao? And Pol Pot?

Your analysis is merely an excuse list as you why you hate Christians, I'm sorry to say. Your call to increase the schism would lead to... what? Would you go as far as Robespierre with those he considered his enemies? Or would it be enough to chant, "Hate! Hate! Hate!" at a crucifix at regular intervals?

It's time to stop hating.

Re:What created the universe? by mmcuh · 2008-01-05 04:19 · Score: 1

For example, as we know it there are some parameters in the standard model of physics that have to be set just right in order for the universe as it is currently set to exist. That is for the strength of the gravitional force, magnetic force, atomic etc. We also know that our current fundamental physics theories are incomplete, so those free variables may not exist at all.

Re:Logic vs Faith by alexgieg · 2008-01-05 04:22 · Score: 1

Wow that's some pretty impressive double speak and bullshit. Are you in Marketing by any chance?

No. That's the effect of 3 years of Philosophy College.

You don't have faith that words mean the same thing in multiple sentences. They either do or they don't.

So, you trust, have faith and hold a strongly belief in the principle of non-contradiction, eh? Good to know! ;-)

That triad works because of the logic underlying each of those statements or propositions.

What if I challenge you to prove this "underlying" you talk about? Yep, you'll have to use logic to prove me logic, thus producing a tautology.

No, my friend. It's an assumption, or an axiom, if you prefer. In any case, something you either "accept", or don't. Now, exchange the word "accept" for one of its synonyms ("belief", "trust", "faith" etc.) and you'll see where's the problem. Waving it away won't do it, sorry.

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Moofie · 2008-01-05 04:23 · Score: 1

"it's that every person I know who is religious doesn't seem to understand everyday events"

OK. Many of the people I've met in religious organizations understand everyday events perfectly, up to and including advanced physics sorts of events.

Just because YOU don't happen to know smart people who are also religious doesn't mean they don't exist. Your conflation of the two unrelated characteristics makes me think you're not very scientifically minded, either.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Wildclaw · 2008-01-05 04:25 · Score: 1

But by definition, if we exist in this universe, there is a 100% possibility of life in this universe. And saying god did it isn't an explaination either, since it wouldn't explain the existance of god.

If the article in question does anything, it is argue for two things. The existance of multiple universes, and that we are most likely alone in this universe. And that is if you agree with the numbers in the article, which are up for debate.

Re:Sellouts by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 04:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

It is perfectly possible for someone to "think like a scientist" and also have strong religious faith, and there is a long list of scientists who have done so, including the "father of physics" Isaac Newton. He was also high on mercury vapors from believing in alchemy.
Just because you're good at math doesn't mean everything you believe is true.

--

You can't take the sky from me...

What can be gained from studying religion? by totierne · 2008-01-05 04:27 · Score: 1

There are lots of people involved in religion and the big religions try to stay relatively stable.

It follows that a study of religion is essentially a study of controlling devout people, it also follows that where, why and how the devout paper over the cracks to appear consistent in a changing world is a circus act that all of us can watch.

Credo.
I believe that any place we have access to free information about people should be mined relentlessly and vigorously with the minimum of belief.

--
Be Free: Free Software Tuition

Re:What can be gained from studying religion? by totierne · 2008-01-05 05:02 · Score: 1

Maybe the death of religion is the ability to find groups of people with whom you could share/learn useful information/best practice. The problem is our shared context is English language - try www.italki.com . That is my fault I have been fed English language even other countries radio (on short wave from the age of 12) in English has not been enough to train me to communicate, and a environment that was poisoned by bipolar and a monoculture of single sex schools and Irish Catholicism. I tried to escape it but if you try to be from nowhere you meet nobody.

Allegedly - maybe it was all a dream

--
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Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by gardyloo · 2008-01-05 04:28 · Score: 1

That argument is as foolish as the argument of the creationists who fight against evolution. It's narrow minded. There are plenty of people that allow for both. One of the jobs of scientists is to be narrow-minded, in the sense that they try to explain using the simplest possible explanations. Once Ockham's razor principle is slighted, scientists often get a little touchy (as they should). In this sense, science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, because religion proposes some very complicated, unexplainable, untestable, overreaching essences which science says shouldn't be allowed to the tea party.
Religion's job is to be narrow-minded, because religion either i) proposes a very generic "power" or "force" or "entity" which mops up between the gaps unexplained by "common sense" or hard science -- this form of religion is virtually worthless as either a comfort to people, or (especially) as an explanatory tool; or ii) a very specific god, endowed with a long white beard, or eight arms, or noodly appendages, which is definitely multiplying quantities unnecessarily.

stop capitalizing random words by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 04:30 · Score: 1

The idea of God was around before we understood much Civilizations and agriculture predate monotheism.
Your understanding of ancient beliefs is tenuous, at best.

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You can't take the sky from me...

Re:The limits of science (mod parent up) by bertramwooster · 2008-01-05 04:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Mod parent up. Science has limitations, but the only way around it is more scientific research, not substitution with religion. In fact, if you view religious beliefs from a scientific view point, there is no evidence to back religious claims (including the God hypothesis) and there is no reason to believe in God more than in a celestial teapot revolving around the earth (Bertrand Russell) or in the Flying Spagetti Monster.

As HL Mencken says "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." I think it is a good thing that religious belief should be questioned in the classroom and what better forum than a science class.

Dawkins makes all these points and more in his book "The God Delusion".

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by tgibbs · 2008-01-05 04:35 · Score: 1

Einstien did not believe in god, despite using the word as a surrogate for "nature".

Then why would he need a surrogate? If he meant "nature," why not say "nature?" It seems more likely that Einstein did not think of God in the same way as you do, and did not see a meaningful distinction between "God" and "nature." Who is to say that this is not a form religious belief, even if it is not the kind of personal God that many people visualize?

Einstein === Atheist; by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 04:37 · Score: 1

wow. ok. so einstein It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-Einstein

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You can't take the sky from me...

Because the more we stop believing... by kc2keo · 2008-01-05 04:38 · Score: 1

The weaker the Ori will become and we might face a mass plague to renew our faith in Origin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori_(Stargate).

The Minoriy Report by endoplasmicMessenger · 2008-01-05 04:41 · Score: 1

Here are some alternate views on that report:

"In the ample space of 89 pages, the NAS manages to celebrate evolution as an unassailable truth, completely misrepresent intelligent design, and rehash the same standard Darwinist arguments which have been refuted by critical scientists time and again. ... Instead of treating evolutionary theory as an area open to further scientific inquiry, the NAS report canonizes evolution as perfect and immutable, 'so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter it.' 'Under their definition, a theory is not a testable area of science but rather an unquestionable dogma,' said CSC program officer Casey Luskin. ... this report does little more than reveal a tired and weary voice of an establishment unwilling to actually address the scientific claims or the thoughtful skepticism of a growing number of scientists who disagree."

Report from the NAS Book Release

"Most ironic was that, while the whole room fumed with animosity toward religious people and, one sensed, the "religious right," the NAS panelists sought to promote the view of the new booklet that science and religion do not conflict because the two ways of knowing do not overlap. As Richard Dawkins has noted, this is a blatant political and rhetorical strategy, believed by very few who advance this proposition."

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Evolution is a fact. Darwinism is a joke.

An actual link to the actual book, woohoo! by cayle+clark · 2008-01-05 04:50 · Score: 1

Before everyone completely disappears in a cloud of disputation, here is where you can actually read the actual book: www.nap.edu -- as opposed to reading the NYT's linkless description, or worse, reading reactions to the NYT by a lot of people who have read neither that nor the book... I am disappointed in the Academy: they do not offer a free downloadable copy. You can read it for free but only online on their site, page by page, in a format that does not permit increasing the text size or searching.

Re:An actual link to the actual book, woohoo! by stm2 · 2008-01-05 16:34 · Score: 1

If you get that link from a underdeveloped country, you get a free copy. At least I found something good of living in Argentina :)
Here is your link (please go there only if consider that you live in a 3er world country)

http://rapidshare.com/files/81620401/evolucionNAS.pdf

--
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux

yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 04:52 · Score: 1

wow, athiest spin from dawkins. you can do better than that.

"I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." -a.e. as quoted in brittanica (teensy bit less biased methinks)

from what i've gleaned over the course of the morning, einstein denied belief in God's interest in mankind's day to day affairs ("a personal God"), but maintained that the universe was created by a deity. call him ambivalent or agnostic, but to call him an atheist is nothing more or less than redefining the word.

Re:yawn by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 05:02 · Score: 1

from what i've gleaned over the course of the morning, einstein denied belief in God's interest in mankind's day to day affairs ("a personal God"), but maintained that the universe was created by a deity. It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-Einstein

You. Were. Lied. To.

--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:yawn by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 05:11 · Score: 1

wow, athiest spin from dawkins. you can do better than that.

Wait - you happily what "godandscience.org" says, but you refer to a direct quotation from Einstein as "atheist spin" because it's on Dawkins's site?

call him ambivalent or agnostic, but to call him an atheist is nothing more or less than redefining the word.

Well he wouldn't be agnostic either, if this was true.

I wouldn't call him an atheist simply because he didn't identify as such, but that's not the point. Just because Einstein used the word "God" doesn't mean he has anything in common with the billions of people who believe God to be some thinking interventionist being.

When I say I don't believe in God and refer to myself as an atheist, I am doing so in the context of "God" as defined by the usage of billions of people. My stance is not invalidated because a minority of pantheists etc who use "God" to basically mean "nature", just as someone using "God" to mean "elephants" doesn't make it true that God exists. It is a logical fallacy to suggest that people share a common belief, just because they use the same labels.

I can't speak for the OP nagora, but I suspect he refers to "God" as the common majority usage, not those who use "God" to mean other things (be it "nature" or "elephants").
Re:yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 07:57 · Score: 1

repeating what you already said in boldface... what exactly is this supposed to achieve?

are you familiar with the context of the quote you cited? the "lie that is being repeated"?

anyway, here's the only one that matters to me in this discussion (although there are many more:
Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by "science," they are likely to differ on the meaning of "religion."

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They will never stop until somebody makes the
Re:yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 08:13 · Score: 1

"Wait - you happily what "godandscience.org" says, but you refer to a direct quotation from Einstein as "atheist spin" because it's on Dawkins's site?"

the quote that i cited, while published on godandscience.com, was attributed to encyclopedia britanica. which i mentioned.

"When I say I don't believe in God and refer to myself as an atheist, I am doing so in the context of "God" as defined by the usage of billions of people."

which billions? Christians? Hindus? Bhuddists? Muslims? Pagans?

"My stance is not invalidated"

well of course not. neither is it validated. the existence or inexistence of God are both equally and utterly non-provable. this is my whole point in this thread. religion and science do not apply to each other. science deals with the natural world, with provable fact. faith deals with the supernatural, with things that are not testable. both are valuble tools. and, like all other tools, can be abused as weapons.

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They will never stop until somebody makes the
Re:yawn by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 08:33 · Score: 1

here's the only one that matters to me in this discussion (although there are many more:
Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by "science," they are likely to differ on the meaning of "religion."
Where, in that paragraph (the only one that matters to you in this discussion), does he say what you claim he said: "maintained that the universe was created by a deity"?

He said in that paragraph that science does not replace religion. That is far from maintaining that the universe was created by a deity. All he is saying is * Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us.

* The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God.

That is what he has to say about religion and god: Societies create gods and religion to ease their existential pain.
This is what he has to say about his own belief: "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly."

You take a statement about the coexistence of religion and science, and you twist it to mean the opposite of what he expressed quite plainly. Stop that.
Don't try to twist one of his statements to mean something else than what he said clearly, when he says religion and science can coexist, he doesn't mean he thinks a sky daddy is watching over his test tubes, he means that: "The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it."

His religious side means reverence to the world in all it's rational glory, not the worship of an invisible superbeing. He's very clear about that.

--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:yawn by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 09:38 · Score: 1

which billions? Christians? Hindus? Bhuddists? Muslims? Pagans?

Yes to Christians, Hindus and Muslims. Christians and Muslims both have pretty much the same view of God (the Abrahamic view), and form over 3 billion - about half of the population, and the majority of theists on this planet.

Hindu perceptions of God vary, but AIUI, they still generally believe in a powerful personal God. Together, these now form over 4 billion people on that planet. They have a view of "God" which has many things in common, that is distinct to the meaning as used by Einstein. I have no time to get into a word definitions debate - if I make a statement about "God" as viewed by the majority of people on the planet - billions of - people - it is not helpful to the debate to say things along the lines of "But so-and-so believes in elephants, which he refers to as 'God', therefore God exists, or belief in God is intelligent".

Bhuddism does not specify a belief in God (though some Bhuddists may happen to believe in God), so that's not relevant here. Paganism can refer to all sorts of different beliefs and religions, so you'll have to specify.

both are valuble tools.

I was with you up until this point. I have nothing against someone who simply believes, but I can't see how it is a valuable tool - you acknowledge yourself that it is unprovable, untestable, dealing with things that don't even have a common definition. What value does it have as a tool?
Re:yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 09:41 · Score: 1

i should have been clearer that the two points were unrelated.

where did he say God created the universe?

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

there.

but that really was a secondary point. the thing that i'm trying to get across to people is that faith and science do not apply to each other. faith exists outside reason and logic. that's why they call it faith.

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They will never stop until somebody makes the
Re:yawn by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 10:23 · Score: 1

i should have been clearer that the two points were unrelated.

where did he say God created the universe?

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

there. You need to learn what an "allegory" is. He clearly stated he did not believe in a god as in a supernatural individual, but in Spinoza's god: By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite -- that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
Explanation -- I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind: for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation.

He means the universe, not a person.

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You can't take the sky from me...
Re:yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 10:31 · Score: 1

"What value does it have as a tool?"

okay. personally? my faith has value to me because when one suicide attempt failed, as i was planning another, God communicated to me that even though i didn't believe in him, he believed in me. which nobody had ever told me before that day. my faith in God is important to me because, when nobody else did, God had faith in me. and i'm alive today because of it.

talk about illogical.

i've never experienced that degree of personal involvement before or since. but then, it's never been as important as it was that day. and remember what he told bender: use a light touch. when you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

on a broader scale? faith has value because sometimes it's all that can keep a person going. not strictly religious faith, it could be faith in the sunrise tomorrow, faith in one's self, faith in karma, faith in true love, faith in all kinds of elusive, unprovable things. faith has value because, when held deeply, it is the most indestructible thing ever. faith has value because it helps people survive war, disease, and all kinds of other worldly atrocities. faith has value because it is a key component of trust, and without trust there could be no society. i could go on for hours.

the point is, as mission-critical as science is - and it is - faith is the opposable thumb.

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They will never stop until somebody makes the
Re:yawn by bechthros · 2008-01-05 12:12 · Score: 1

so he wants to know how the universe created the world? and he wants to know the universe's thoughts?

SIR. if you can say for certain, decades after the fact, what einstein meant better than einstein himself could, you are certainly wasting your intellect on slashdot.

albert einstein was a theologically educated Jew and a scientifically educated genius. i think when einstein said "God" he meant God. i think when einstein said "the universe" he meant the universe. i think when einstein said "nature" he meant nature. i think einstein's mind and vocabulary were large enough to encompass and distinguish all three. and i frankly don't give a shit if you agree with me or not. to be charitable, you are really reaching.

NOW. if you mean to imply that einstein rejected the anthropomorphization of God, i would agree. one of the interesting concurrencies in my dual baptist/unitarian upbringing is that the doctrines of both churches soundly rejected, and were careful to warn against, any anthropomorphization of God. it's human nature to try and identify with anything unusual we encounter (see alien encounter stories featuring binocular, bipedal humanoids). God has been anthropomorphized for as long as there have been anthropos. and it is only ever fallacy.

speaking strictly from personal experience, it seems to me that the only things humans and God have in common is love.

but i could always be wrong.

could you?

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They will never stop until somebody makes the
Re:yawn by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 14:57 · Score: 1

Fair enough, I can agree there may be psychological benefits to religious belief.

faith has value because sometimes it's all that can keep a person going. not strictly religious faith, it could be faith in the sunrise tomorrow, faith in one's self, faith in karma, faith in true love, faith in all kinds of elusive, unprovable things. faith has value because, when held deeply, it is the most indestructible thing ever. faith has value because it helps people survive war, disease, and all kinds of other worldly atrocities. faith has value because it is a key component of trust, and without trust there could be no society.

Be careful not to conflate different meanings of "faith" here. It can mean:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See synonyms at belief, trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
5. A set of principles or beliefs.

So by religion, we're talking 3 or 4. You generalise to 2 - although I'd say only karma falls into this. Again, I agree that it can have psychological advantages to believe in it, but beyond that I see no use. Faith in love, that the sun will come up, trusting people, are all things that fall into 1 - this is a different meaning of the word altogether. These are things which we can have evidence for.

Re:Sellouts by Cheesey · 2008-01-05 04:52 · Score: 1

Creationists also worry about that very problem. Some genuinely believe that there is a conspiracy of atheist scientists attempting to marginalise religion by presenting the scientific assumptions of materialism as fact! Ever wondered why some scientists don't believe in God? The creationists say it's because other scientists put pressure on them to conform.

But really, science has nothing to say about faith at all. I wish that more atheists and religious people would accept that!

--
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?

einstein rises above the mud-slinging by johnrpenner · 2008-01-05 04:55 · Score: 1

most of the debate between science and religion takes place at a very stupid level -- between simple-minded religious zealots and sometimees narrow-minded scientific adherents -- therefore, it is refreshing to have a somewhat more insightful take as given by mr. albert einstein:

"It is, therefore, easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.

"What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!

"Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious workers are the only profoundly religious people.

"In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this [cosmic religious] feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. "

(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, New York, 1954)

Re:Slashdot and religion.. by greyhueofdoubt · 2008-01-05 04:55 · Score: 1

>>I've read slashdot for a long time. And the one thing that irritates me the most is the hatred everyone has towards religion and god. Post after post moderated to +5 insightful for saying "it's stupid to believe in god". What happened to open-minded?

Most people on /. are of a scientific mindset. They hear an assertion and respond, "Show me evidence. Prove it." Conversely, many of us will change our views on a topic (eventually) based on new evidence contrary to our previous beliefs. These are the foundation to science itself, which has proven very useful for the last thousand years.

Asking a person like this (from now on referred to as "me") to suspend requirements for evidence and logical explanations- why, that would be like asking me to pretend that red was green, or that unconstitutional laws are constitutional because they protect children, etc.
You are asking me to suspend disbelief in favor of completely arbitrary and nonsensical systems.

If I was open-minded to zombie-jesus-type religions, complete with obedience to 2k year old written doctrine... Then I might be the kind of person who would believe a president based on appeal to authority, or believe that socialized health care is evil based on straw-man arguments, or that Godsmack is a good band just because it's been crammed into my ear a thousand times. I might begin to lose what you might call 'critical thinking' or self-determination. I might become susceptible to all the things about american society that my scientist brain has been observing and loathing since I realized that political power lies in emotion and not facts.

I feel like I'd be a cross between the "Math is hard" Barbie and a Big Mac- Willfully ignorant, bland, fat, and useless to society.

Don't take this as an ad hominem. Atheism and religion are NOT two sides of the same coin. As has been said before, coin-collecting is a hobby; 'not-collecting-coins' is not a hobby. Atheism is NOT a religion. Most of all, atheists are tired of having their lives run by people who DO believe in a man in the sky, and it makes us fucking miserable.

-b

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No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.

Re:Logic vs Faith by mrbluze · 2008-01-05 04:55 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, some religious groups feel that their beliefs about supernatural matters are on par or superior to knowledge about the physical world. [...] these groups ask their members to believe one thing and know another. This is not a healthy attitude, and causes psychological and social strife I feel pretty strongly that such religious organizations are doing their members a disservice and should be called to task for the harm they are doing.

This has more to do with defective personalities than belief systems. Cultists and others with malevolent intent deliberately contradict widely accepted fact to distinguish themselves from everyone else, backing up their stupid claims with conspiracy theories or some kind of sophistry.

Decent organized religion rarely has this problem and scientific progress continues, albeit in a shaped form (eg: ethically).

Yet amazingly, sometimes the 'kooks' are right by mistake, such as the JW's who refuse blood transfusions. Actually they end up having overall better survival rates than those that do receive blood transfusions.

--
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]

Re:Slashdot and religion.. by Scrameustache · 2008-01-05 04:56 · Score: 1

It was a coincidence I couldn't ignore. [...] I consider my logic to be one of my strongest characteristics. A coincidence does not prove a relationship, but related events may be expected to have a higher index of coincidence. From a statistical perspective, coincidences are inevitable and often less remarkable than they may appear intuitively. The odds that two people share a birthday, for example, reaches 50% with a group of just 22.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally unrelated. In order to be synchronous, the events must be related to one another conceptually, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

Your logic needs work: You reached out to someone with the same musical tastes as you and it turns out they have the same cultural background as you. You were an emotional wreck when that happened and you imbued that mundane event with a lot of personal meaning.
The fact that you and that other person felt the same need to get in touch with each other after the same amount of time is more telling to the sympathetic mechanisms of human social interaction than they are to the metaphysical possibility that an invisible third party motivated your German friend to act in response to your telepathic request.

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You can't take the sky from me...

One scientist's perspective on God by tgibbs · 2008-01-05 04:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why do I have to believe or disbelieve in God? Some religious views I find repugnant, in the sense that I would not consider such a God as deserving of worship, but that is not disbelief. I don't have any personal emotional need for "meaning," nor do I have any emotional need for everything in the universe to be explained to me right now. I am comfortable with mystery, and am more interested in the process of discovery and puzzling out the answers than in what the final answers might be. If everything were explained to me tomorrow, it would spoil all the fun, like somebody telling me the end of a movie when I walk in the door. What would be left for me do?

God as a general concept is just not interesting. It is too vague too be testable, so it falls into the category of ideas like solipsism or the notion that the entire universe and all of our memories were created 10 seconds ago. It certainly could be right, but so what? It is an intellectual blind alley that does not lead anywhere interesting. It is boring. You take it as far as it goes (not very far) and then you look for something more interesting to think about.

If somebody wants to propose a testable God hypothesis, fine. I'll give it the thought that it merits. God created all of the species at one time a few thousand years ago? OK, that one's been tested and it's wrong. Next?

Re:One scientist's perspective on God by Jim_Callahan · 2008-01-05 15:35 · Score: 1

It's a good emotional shorthand for dealing with the universe, plus a general exercise of some of the capabilities that humans have found useful during our history.

Or, putting it another way, anthropomorphizing natural forces lets us blow off steam and bounce ideas in a manner that would normally require another cooperative person of comparable intelligence were we behaving in a manner that was strictly rational. And it sort of stretches our brain's capacity to comprehend things that don't actually exist -- as that's the same general thing that's given us all our technology and a lot of our social and philosophical ideas and ideals, I'm not really gonna complain when it decides to go out for a walk and conjure up some lightning-slinging bearded guys.

I've kind of fallen out of any specific modern religion due to a combination of apathy and not liking how seriously most of the other guys take it, but I don't intend to depart entirely from a useful and entertaining form of literature any more than I intend to stop playing with paper airplanes during boring seminars. You should give believing in a God or two a try, it's handy. And even if it doesn't work out for you, it's not like you can't stop anytime you want.

--
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Re:One scientist's perspective on God by tgibbs · 2008-01-05 17:19 · Score: 1

Seems like a queer belief for a scientist. It almost sounds like you have no preference between knowledge and ignorance.

When you say you don't care what the final answers are, does that extend to your experiments, if you perform experiments? And do you mean that you don't care whether your hypotheses turn out to be true or false? You don't care if you never learn anything in the rest of your career as a scientist, except that every experiment failed, because you're totally happy with mystery?

One thing that you have to accept when doing science is that there are no final answers. The only facts are your data. All interpretation and generalization is provisional--"just" theory. We expect, based on experience, that most of our theories will turn out to be wrong--in detail, if not in overall outline. The value of a hypothesis is not in whether it is true or false, but where it leads--how well as it works as a tool for discovery. We are constantly learning more, but we have no certainty that any answer is the final answer, and no way of recognizing a final answer if we succeed in discovering it.
You don't care if you never learn anything in the rest of your career as a scientist, except that every experiment failed, because you're totally happy with mystery?

A successful experiment is one in which I learn something, even if what I learn is simply that my hypothesis is wrong.
Conversely, if you say that you do desire answers and that you appreciate learning, but just don't happen to care whether it's final or not, does that not imply that you prefer answers to mysteries?

I prefer finding answers to having them given to me. And to find an answer, you must first have a mystery.
Re:One scientist's perspective on God by eraserewind · 2008-01-06 00:59 · Score: 1

in other words you don't actually believe in god or gods, but for some social reasons you feel better not actually saying that, or take some sort of pride in not saying that so as to appear tolerant or just like to play some kind of word game?
Re:One scientist's perspective on God by tgibbs · 2008-01-06 01:51 · Score: 1

in other words you don't actually believe in god or gods, but for some social reasons you feel better not actually saying that, or take some sort of pride in not saying that so as to appear tolerant or just like to play some kind of word game?

Not really. It is more accurate to say that it is a possibility that has little personal relevance to me, and one where I see no real basis for investigation, so I neither believe nor disbelieve.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 05:01 · Score: 1

Then why would he need a surrogate? If he meant "nature," why not say "nature?"

Why do I say "God damn it"? Many scientists use "God" as a metaphorical personification for nature - it's a figure of speech. "God does not play dice" sounds better than "Nature does not play dice", at least, it does for people who realise this isn't to be taken literally.

Consider "Mother nature does not play dice" - would you say that also implies no belief in God? But what if then there were a load of people who worshipped a being called "mother nature", claiming she was an intelligent thinking being who created everything, and also claimed therefore that Einstein shared their beliefs?

Who is to say that this is not a form religious belief, even if it is not the kind of personal God that many people visualize?

And who is to say it is? If you make the claim that Einstein has some undefined form of religious belief, you can show the evidence.

Re:Slashdot and religion.. by greyhueofdoubt · 2008-01-05 05:03 · Score: 1

You know, I hate to respond to your post in two separate responses, but I missed part of what you said in my earlier response. Sorry...

>>Two prayers three months apart. Two answers on the same exact day of the prayers. It was a coincidence I couldn't ignore. This is the basis of my faith.

Can I ask how many of your prayers went _unanswered_ during those three months? Not to be a dick or anything, but you sound like the people who claim that seatbelts claim more lives than they save, or that their grandpa lived until he was 100 and he smoked, so smoking is ok.

You completely ignore every single refutation to your belief until you find one piece of corroborating evidence, and then you shout VICTORY! God is great!

You asked about having an open mind... Well, I would have to wonder what your own response would be.

-b

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No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.

What do you believe? by zigziggityzoo · 2008-01-05 05:05 · Score: 1

So this is what they tell me: The big bang randomly happened. from that, by chance, everything in the universe came to be. By chance, Earth was positioned at the correct distance from the Sun so that life as we know it is able to exist. By chance, biological material was created in a little pit. By chance, that pit's life form evolved, and from that evolution, it evolved into many different things. (Think about this, Why were they different? Evolution is supposed to be survival of the fittest, and these all survived?)

In all of this, we have a lot of chance which requires a lot of faith in order to believe it. Gee, that sounds familiar. So we can believe that we're an accident; a result of many occurrences that have odds worse than winning the lottery 5x in a row, or we can believe that we're not the smartest ones in this universe, and that being(s) exist that have more knowledge and control over the universe we know, and may have even set life as we know it into motion.

If you asked me, I'd say either side takes a fairly large spoonful of sugar to swallow. I wasn't there to see any of these processes in action; no one else on earth today saw it either. So it all comes down to faith.

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Zing!

Re:What do you believe? by gotpaint32 · 2008-01-05 06:16 · Score: 1

The universe is a big place, far larger than the scales we are used to. In that big place there are countless stars with even greater amount of planets orbiting them with about 13 billion years (as far as we know) to configure itself. So I'd say the possibility of nature finding the winning combination to life given these extreme tolerances are quite good.

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Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner

Shhhh, you can get a free copy by StringTech · 2008-01-05 05:06 · Score: 1

After going to their online reader, you'll see a link on the left saying you can download the pdf if you "login". No login/signup pages are to be found anywhere, but follow the link and sign up with just your zipcode and something about what "sector" you are from (ie. education, government, commercial). Then you can get the .pdf (all without turning off noscript).

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They who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. B.Fkln

Re:Sellouts by Cheesey · 2008-01-05 05:10 · Score: 1

I am not saying that it is impossible to be a theist and a scientist, but then while you are doing science you must either trust your god to not mess with you or you have to suspend your believe in god while you are doing science. Are you then a real believer if you can suspend it when it is useful to you?

Yes and yes. You assume that God isn't interfering with the world constantly, because without that assumption you can't do any science at all. But you're still a real believer: you're just applying the rules of science, which ensures that no-one can tell you that your work is invalid because it doesn't fit their own religious beliefs.

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>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?

Re:Sellouts by Cheesey · 2008-01-05 05:14 · Score: 1

Just because you're good at math doesn't mean everything you believe is true.

I couldn't agree more. But that statement applies to all scientists, not just religious ones! Good scientists can keep faith and science separate and use both as appropriate: the fact that Newton produced lots of good science despite being religious indicates that being religious doesn't imply you'll be a shitty scientist.

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>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?

Re:Logic vs Faith by greyhueofdoubt · 2008-01-05 05:20 · Score: 1

Ideas like the big band theory and evolution are accepted and taught at catholic institutions...

Man, I'm sorry- I agree with your post and everything- but that was the funniest typo I've seen all day.

J.C. and his Big Band play "Once, twice, three times a savior" tonight at the Odeon.

-b

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No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.

Do you think "God Cares"?! by erroneus · 2008-01-05 05:20 · Score: 1

I just love the "God is what you make of him" point of view that believers continue to maintain. Every time I have to sit through a prayer, people thank god for their achievements and ask god to care about their business and personal lives.

Perhaps god's personality did actually shift dramatically from the old testament, turns you into salt, casts you into hell, makes you kill your babies, god and the new testament, kinder-gentler god that heals the sick. (They really seem like two completely different gods to me) But neither of those gods ever cared about how well a football team played or how well your business or financial matters worked out. (In fact, there's evidence to the contrary that god doesn't like rich people!)

So every time I hear a prayer asking for anything at all from god, I imagine them sitting on santa's lap! It's the same damned thing but without the elves taking your picture and selling it to you for $20.

Just as I give the devil his due, I give the faithful their due -- it's hard to be "objective" on the subject when some of your perceived reality and your sense of identity are wrapped up in the god myth... it's nearly impossible to think of things under any other terms. But when you look at other cultures, both ancient and present, each with their own set of mythologies, each of them clinging to their gods and goddesses with equal faith and devotion, it's easy to see why it's foolish for them to act and behave as they have and do. But the faithful were to dare to compare the other myth-believers with their own faith, they would find the fundamental differences are few to none. And perhaps by seeing where one myth is foolish, it can be seen that ALL of them are foolish... and even dangerous.

After all, cases where following religious belief is dangerous not only to human progress, but to human survival aren't only historical, but are present day! Every religious-driven killing you hear about on the news, every time you hear about stem cell research being forbidden, you should be reminded that while eventually scientific and human progress eventually pushed through religious blockades against knowledge and understanding, the same resistance is present. The EXACT same resistance. Only the issues have changed. There are still people who will kill and destroy anyone else who dares to tamper with "god's realm."

People would say that "times have changed" or that "times are changing." I would argue that only the numbers on the calendar have changed. There are still those that would push us back into the dark ages and discard all knowledge just as has happened in the past.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 05:21 · Score: 1

I wouldn't go as far as the OP - certainly one can be very intelligent whilst still having irrational beliefs, phobias and so on.

However, one should be wary of using this as a counter-argument. People have already disputed Einstein. The problem with many of the rest is that they lived before Darwinism, and in general they didn't have the benefit of hundreds of years of scientific knowledge. Before knowledge of evolution, it was hard to counter the claim that there must have been a God who made everything.

I mean, Newton believed in all sorts of crap such as Alchemy . This didn't mean that he was stupid, because he didn't have the benefit of what we know today. But if people were trying to force Alchemy to be taught in place of Chemistry lessons, I might think of them as stupid - I'm not sure that's best countered by pointing to Newton's belief.

(Also, an argument on suggesting that it is ludicrous that they "were all wrong" is not a good one either - these people are now known to have been wrong on all sorts of beliefs they held - Einstein and Quantum Mechanics, for example.)

Re:Logic vs Faith by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · 2008-01-05 05:36 · Score: 1

> Logic is something mostly objective, and provable in a mathematical sense.

Logic is "provable in a mathematical sense"? What in heaven's name are you talking about? Logic is the tool by which you prove things. You can't prove "logic". In fact, I challenge you to either "prove logic in a mathematical sense" or admit that you just strung together a bunch of long words to give yourself an air of authority. (It worked, you were modded up.)

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Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by GoofyBoy · 2008-01-05 05:43 · Score: 1

>because religion proposes some very complicated, unexplainable, untestable, overreaching essences which science says shouldn't be allowed to the tea party.

Read up on quantum mechanics much?

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The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.

Re:Logic vs Faith by The+Famous+Brett+Wat · 2008-01-05 05:46 · Score: 1

I think the problem is that some people aren't committed to finding out the truth, whatever it turns out to be. There are some religious organizations, such as those promoting creationism that are using intellectually dishonest arguments and some outright lies to spread a world view that has been thoroughly disproven for hundreds of years.

It's not true that any particular world view has been disproved. It's not even true that some other world view has been more dominant for "hundreds of years". Charles Lyell popularised the principles of uniformitarianism starting in 1830, and Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859. Young earth creationism was the dominant position until these works had a chance to penetrate mainstream thought. Long-age naturalistic evolution is still slightly less than one hundred and fifty years old as a respectable scientific theory.

This would be a minor correction on my part if not for the overall tone of your post, which harps so heavily on the dishonesty of your ideological opponents, and implies that you and your like-minded peers have such a great commitment to truth and accuracy. I'm not going to accuse you of lying to promote your cause (I don't think you're a liar -- just sloppy), but it's only fair to draw attention to the unmitigated hypocrisy in your post.

I'll leave it to someone else to address the other problems.

--
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.

Maybe we can take a deep breath. Finally. by H3six · 2008-01-05 05:46 · Score: 1

I know it seems a little silly to have to spell out the differences between science and religion but if the evolution/creationism debate has taught us anything it's that we're gonna have to. The National Academy of Sciences is looking for a cool neutral ground here where the two sides can be reconciled. This is most important as is dispels some of the fear and myths that have been fueling this debate and the children will for the first time actually be able to choose for themselves. When there is no fear, they will choose both.

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Uh, what do you think? Me too!

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by GoofyBoy · 2008-01-05 05:55 · Score: 1

>Until a religion starts making claims about reality that can be falsified.

I never understood this argument as a strike against religion

Theory: Christ existed and said X. (Or use any "Event X occurred.")
Test: Build something that can view the past and observe.

Now, we don't have that "something that can view the past" but that doesn't make it less a test. We can't perform the test YET, but there are lots that were accepted as scientific theory based on tests that we couldn't perform yet. (e.g. Theories of life on other planets, quantum theory and I believe that Einstein never performed any tests himself before he proposed something.)
In any case, because the test cannot be performed, at the very least, should make the person with the "scientific" mind say "Maybe its correct, maybe its not" even to religous aspects.

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The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.

Jews by Per+Abrahamsen · 2008-01-05 05:56 · Score: 1

> Well, you took some shots at the Christians and the Islamics.

Only *stupid* Christians and Muslims. No intelligent Christian or Muslim (and there are plenty) needs to feel offended.

> Care to have a go at the Jews now, Per "Abraham"sen?...

Jews are cool, and I sometimes want to change my last name to ben Abraham to be more cool.

Mostly Jews are cool for being non-missionary. Both Christians and Muslims are commanded by their prophets to bring their confusion to other people.

Something bad about Jews? The ritualistic mutilation of male children is of course totally unacceptable by any civilized person.

Happy?

The question "who created god" misses the point... by mark-t · 2008-01-05 06:01 · Score: 1

Everything that exists in a story exists there because the author put it there. Does the author, in turn, need to have a story written by somebody else about him writing that story before he may write it? No. The same thing applies to the concept of an eternal God. Consider that everything that we perceive as reality is in fact merely a figment of an eternal God's imagination, and although everything we could ever begin to understand as real needs to have a beginning, the God who is imagining it would not necessarily have to follow that same reasoning since he does not fit inside the domain of "reality" in the first place.

Re:Logic vs Faith by kurzweilfreak · 2008-01-05 06:24 · Score: 1

Any government that would be stupid enough to do such a thing wouldn't last very long as it would soon descend into the mire of third-world existence and place itself at a technological disadvantage that would most certainly lead to its demise. The fact that you and everyone else who joins in made your post on a computer through the internet shows implicit subscription to the philosophy of science. Name one technological invention or innovation that has come about through the application of theology or faith?

--

kurzweil_freak

5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student

Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by nagora · 2008-01-05 06:30 · Score: 1

you admitted that many of those people did indeed believe in God and also engaged in rational thought. anything further to add?

I admit it, I was being idealistic.

The ultimate goal of thinking rationally is to abandon all irrational beliefs, clearly. Sadly, most people do not achieve perfection. I, for example, have managed to shake off superstitious fears of almost all sky-deities but would never have come up with Godel's theorm in a million years. The people you listed had indeed managed a great deal of rational thought but their childhood programming and social context had left them without the ability to judge (or even question, in most cases) the irrational, trivial, and nonsensical whafflings of badly written jewish folklore correctly.

Being right about calculus does not mean that you're right about everything else.

TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 06:31 · Score: 1

I never understood this argument as a strike against religion

Well you're both right really - yes, religion has made many testable claims about reality. But time and time again these are disproven by science. You then get one of several responses:

1. A denial that it has been disproven (e.g., those who still believe in ID over evolution) simply by ignoring or misunderstanding the evidence.

2. A denial based on "God made it look that way" (e.g., saying God put the dinosaur bones there to confuse us, or he created the world recently but made it look older).

3. Those who retreat into a position of "But God is the one behind it" (e.g., theists who believe God started life, and then things happen according to evolution, or that he somehow influences evolution in that mutations are caused by God, not random chance).

2 and 3 are now unfalsifiable positions. Furthermore, even though specific claims of religion can and have been falsified, the fundamental religious belief in their God is never falsifiable, because they will always retreat to "God was the one behind it". Even if some core belief such as Jesus being the son of God, or existence of specifically the Christian God, was disproven, I bet billions of Christians would then retreat to some more vague notion of "God" (consider the Christians who think Einstein shared their belief in God, simply because he used the label "God", even though he specifically stated he didn't believe in a personal God).

Science and Religion are incompatible. by ChaoticLimbs · 2008-01-05 06:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't think one can be both religious and scientific. The reason is that science tells you to believe that which the evidence shows to be true, and religions give the answers up front and then tell you not to even do the experiments.

'Do not test the Lord your God' is what we're told when we seek to investigate the existence of gods.
'Faith is the belief in things not seen' is what the religious man tells us as he waves his hand in the manner of a jedi after experiments and analysis fail to show the Almighty.

Religions seek an exception to the scientific method, specifically the parts where you do any science. Experimentation is forbidden, doubt is sin, and failure to believe can result in eternal damnation.

Religion and science are not simply two ways of looking to the universe for answers to our questions. They are absolute opposites of each other. If I were a boy asking his parents a question about something I observed, such as the growth of a plant from a seed, a scientific parent would have to encourage me to experiment on seeds, dissect them, and find out when a seed becomes a tree. A religious parent would simply hand me a book and tell me that if my answer wasn't in there, it probably wasn't important, and may be heretical.

Heresy. A concept foreign to science, but present in all the world's major religions. Freedom to think as you choose, to ask questions without being burned alive at the stake, hung, tortured, stretched or beheaded is a part of science and not a part of religion.

The choice between science and religion is the same one as the choice between trial by peers or simple lynching.

Re:Science and Religion are incompatible. by Anonymous Coward · 2008-01-05 14:09 · Score: 1, Interesting

The reason is that science tells you to believe that which the evidence shows to be true, and religions give the answers up front and then tell you not to even do the experiments.

That may be true of some religions, but that doesn't make it true of all religions. Catholics are encouraged to question not only the world around them but their own religion and faith as well. If science is about dispelling ignorance, it has failed for you.
Re:Science and Religion are incompatible. by tfiedler · 2008-01-06 07:58 · Score: 1

>>I don't think one can be both religious and scientific. The reason is that science tells you to believe that which the evidence shows to be true, and religions give the answers up front and then tell you not to even do the experiments. Why, because you can't? Perhaps the problem is that your view of religion is narrow and constrained by what you see from fundamentalism? Perhaps because your arogance tells you that yours and yours alone, is the correct way to view the universe? I have no problems being religious and being scientific. The two endeavors address different things, one is "how" and the other is "why". "Why" will always be a philosophical discussion that science can't address. "How" on the other hand is something that science and only science can answer.

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Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Re:Science and Religion are incompatible. by jazman · 2008-01-06 23:04 · Score: 1

> I don't think one can be both religious and scientific. The reason is that science tells you to believe that which the evidence shows to be true, and religions give the answers up front and then tell you not to even do the experiments.

I don't see why. Here's an example:
Drop object 1, mass m1, hits the ground at time t1.
Drop object 2, mass m2, hits the ground at time t2.
Repeat several times, not forgetting to allow for wind resistance (for example by using exactly the same container each time with different contents).
Observe t1=t2=t3...
Conclusion: contrary to expectations, heavy objects don't drop faster than light objects. Further, given t_n, a value for the acceleration can be obtained (s=ut+att/2)
I believe God created gravity, and there's two of the ways it works.

Could you point out exactly where this is unscientific? (There's probably a lot of scientific rigour missing since I'm not a trained scientist, but the above should at least qualify as an outline for a suitably qualified scientist to follow). If I were to perform the test in reality and give you quantified values for m_n and t_n, along with the descriptions of object_n, then anyone with an "I don't believe in God" axiom should be able to reproduce exactly the same results and come up with exactly the same conclusion. Does the different axiom make their result "scientific" and mine "unscientific", even if we both come up with exactly the same results?

> 'Do not test the Lord your God' is what we're told when we seek to investigate the existence of gods.

That's because a relationship with God is based on faith, not proof. "Do not test..." was Jesus' answer to Satan when he suggested he jump off a cliff to prove that God would prevent him coming to any harm. You will not come to know God through scientific proof, but you can easily get there through faith. This does not prevent the vast majority of scientific research.

> 'Faith is the belief in things not seen' is what the religious man tells us as he waves his hand in the manner of a jedi after experiments and analysis fail to show the Almighty.

Actually "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (KJV) or in a modern translation (NIV) "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1. This is nothing to do with the biblical view on scientific experimentation, but from a treatise on faith, which is defined in the dictionary as "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence". Since science is all about logical proofs and material evidence, all this verse shows regarding science and religion is that they can quite easily coexist.

> Religions seek an exception to the scientific method, specifically the parts where you do any science. Experimentation is forbidden, doubt is sin, and failure to believe can result in eternal damnation.

Really? Where do you get that from? Does my thought experiment above really condemn me to hell? In some religions it might, I accept that, but it doesn't in Christianity.

> Heresy. A concept foreign to science, but present in all the world's major religions. Freedom to think as you choose, to ask questions without being burned alive at the stake, hung, tortured, stretched or beheaded is a part of science and not a part of religion.

Not at all foreign to science. "Evolution isn't proven fact" is the ultimate scientific heresy. Try investigating the falsifiability of the theory of evolution and see what happens. Dictionary(heresy): "A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine, as in politics, philosophy, or science." String theory is scienfic heresy, going by that definition, although I wouldn't have thought to call it that before looking up the definition.
Re:Science and Religion are incompatible. by jazman · 2008-01-07 23:40 · Score: 1

I don't follow you. This is a discussion about science, not sociology. What teachings about man and society do you think I'm throwing out?

Believing Jesus is God is not "the Christian cop-out" - it's the whole basis of Christian faith. If Jesus is not God then Christianity is null and void. See John 1 - the Word is clearly Jesus ("the Word became flesh and dwelt among us for a while"), who created everything ("without him nothing was made that has been made"), and Genesis 1 makes it clear (however you interpret it) that it was God that made everything. Also see Matthew 26:62-65 where the high priest asks Jesus directly if he is the Son of God, Jesus' answer is equally direct: yes, and the HP judges him guilty of blasphemy for giving that answer.

I try not to judge or classify people. I don't think my previous post suggests I do.

> And what is "wrong" with that small minority of scientific research?

Nope, you've completely lost me there. I didn't suggest any scientific research is wrong; on the contrary, I was arguing that scientific research is not incompatible with religion which seemed to be the previous poster's position.

Re:Are NOT the limits of human knowledge! by 0xdeadbeef · 2008-01-05 06:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

As if hypothetical examples of non-repeatable events for which no evidence exists and a naive definition of "knowledge" aren't begging the question. Your experience isn't knowledge. Your experience isn't even necessarily real. Please quit invoking Godel, or I'm going to ask you to demonstrate how his theories are germane to this discussion.

Actually by Freedom451 · 2008-01-05 06:38 · Score: 1

it says if evolution exists, you are a big monkey ;-p.

--
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu

Re:Logic vs Faith by Eli+Gottlieb · 2008-01-05 06:39 · Score: 1

Religions derived from Mosaic beginnings are based on intolerance and exclusivity. Well screw you too.

Re:Logic vs Faith by QuantumLeaper · 2008-01-05 06:41 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm not a Monkey, but an Ape, last time I looked I didn't have a tail.

Consistancy, hobgoblin, small minds by Freedom451 · 2008-01-05 06:45 · Score: 1

etc. Sciences requires a testable explanation for why and how of the flying spaghetti monster, which no religion can provide.

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When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu

Darwin said it best by Danny+Rathjens · 2008-01-05 06:47 · Score: 1

"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science." -- Charles Darwin

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by gardyloo · 2008-01-05 06:59 · Score: 1

You're calling quantum mechanics untested? Overreaching? Nice.

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-05 07:00 · Score: 1

....For thousands of years, faith has not been very effective in keeping the peace.......

Neither has science. If anything, all science has done in that department is given one single human the ability to kill more fellow humans than was ever possible in the "dark ages" before the "enlightenment" of science came along. One person now has the ability to push a button and wipe out millions. Some call that progress. I suppose it is, but not toward peace.

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All theory is gray

Re:Evolution happens and God is real, Jesus is Lor by darkhitman · 2008-01-05 07:01 · Score: 1

To answer your first question, perhaps sexual selection?

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Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?

Re:Evolution happens and God is real, Jesus is Lor by ChaoticLimbs · 2008-01-05 07:03 · Score: 1

Evolution theory does not presuppose the Big bang or the Spark of Life. Those are completely different theories dealing with completely different questions. Evolution is the theory that through natural selective pressures, creatures make small changes and that over time these small changes become cumulative and organisms become different in form and in behavior. This has been completely supported in the late 20th century as the ability to view and compare the genetic code of the organisms on this planet. For example, you are 75% genetically identical to a pumpkin plant, and that pumpkin plant is 90 percent identical to a palm tree which has most of its genetic code in common with a donkey. In other words, the genetic codes you use in your metabolism have been forged over time and plants and animals are not as different as we might have thought they were. We truly are minor modifications of some code used to make proteins and construct organisms. Darwin could not have known this, but his theory has been shown to be correct now that we can look where he could not. His theory was based largely on the physical qualities of the different animals and plants, and now we know that they do not just look similar, they in fact are similar to a degree we could not have anticipated.

FAIL by Nursie · 2008-01-05 07:06 · Score: 1

""where do species come from." This is the kind of question that science is not supposed to answer because, whatever the answer is, it can't be reproduced."

Err, no, we can observe historical and reasonably contemporary examples of speciation, we know where species come from and your theory is a load of old cod.

Re:Logic vs Faith by polar+red · 2008-01-05 07:06 · Score: 1

But don't blanket the idea of faith as a negative, its disrespectful. D 10000 years of killing is enough to justify distrust in religion.

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Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?

Re:Sellouts by meringuoid · 2008-01-05 07:11 · Score: 1

Following your logic, it must be perfectly OK for scientists to indulge in alchemy, numerology, sacred geometry and the quest for the philosopher's stone.

Why not? Newton's work as an alchemist was a good deal better than most - he was more methodical, more careful, more, well, scientific about it. That Sir Isaac Newton spent much of his life working on alchemy and got nowhere has got to be a big factor in why the practice fell out of favour in later years. His years of failure did a fine job of demonstrating that it just didn't work. But as a side effect, he laid the groundwork for the future systematic study of chemistry. Scientific study of alchemy in time did away with the superstition and gave us knowledge of immeasurable value.

Numerology and sacred geometry are really more related to mathematics than to science. Numerologists never discovered a reliable method of divination, but they did a great deal of work in what we would now recognise as codes and ciphers - the art of consistently converting between text and numbers, I'm sure you'll agree as you read this stream of Unicode, is a valuable one. As for the sacred geometries, I can only assume that you find the golden ratio entirely useless in your work in art and architecture.

--
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by caseih · 2008-01-05 07:16 · Score: 1

I agree with you on all points, except for using the theory of the Big Bang as a demonstration of some kind of creation from nothing. Big bang theory postulates that what was before the big bang was lots of matter that compressed together. Most big bang scientists would view it as a cyclic thing. Big bang, expansion, contraction, big bang, expansion, etc.

As for the image of Moses and learning his tensors, I say why not?! :)

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-05 07:33 · Score: 1

......Faith is subjective, mystical, and can have the appearance of utter hogwash to someone not participating therein........

This idea was expressed centuries ago by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:14

"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them , because they are spiritually discerned."

For context read that whole chapter.

Some human experiences, especially those of a spiritual nature are hard to communicate to others and may seem non-sensical. Even in the physical world this is sometimes hard. How do you describe the taste of a banana to someone who has never eaten or even seen one? It's not easy.

The best way to find out what a banana tastes like is to BELIEVE, that is trust someone who has eaten one, enough to want to try one yourself.

David, the writer of Psalms give that invitation in reference to God in Psalm 34:8:

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him."

Faith is the ability to trust, even if our limited human logic fails. A little child doesn't apply logic to see whether his/her Dad is able catch him/her if he/she jumps out of a tree into his open arms.

--
All theory is gray

No Matter What You Think by Anonymous Coward · 2008-01-05 07:33 · Score: 1, Interesting

Religion is not a science, it can't be explained in the logical sequence so many of the tech types on /. believe in. Even as I write this, there are those of you who will say "see how they (believer) dodge the explanation, because they can't explain it".

Belief in God and His son Jesus Christ is widely held throughout the world. There are those that take the name of God and his son for their own benefit and they are wrong in doing so. Believing in the Lord doesn't have to be in a big church, run by a bunch of men with questionable backgrounds. It can be nothing more than living your life by a set of moral standards; for example, the Ten Commandments and quietly saying "thank you for this day" while in the shower, or in your car on the way to work. The Lord will hear you.

I'm not here to convince you that any of you are wrong by being non-believers. God may show you that in His own time. But, as you continue to post comments assuring yourself and others that religion is all just BS, please consider the question of how science came to be. How did all of those things in the universe get there? How did the fabulous human mind become the powerhouse that it is? Was it truly just a happy coincidence that all of the right amino acids and proteins came together? Are you really certain that God didn't have a hand in it all? Would it be so terrible that you acknowledge that God may exist, and may have had a plan for the human race that we just can't understand yet?

I enjoy technology and science as much as anyone here and often wonder how it all came to be. I do acknowledge the existence of God because even if we somehow can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that it's all BS, I won't be any worse off. And, since I believe that God does exist and I see proof of it every day, on the day when I draw my last breath, I'll do so believing I'm going home, and hope that my years as a living, breathing human made a difference, even in a small way. Having helped bring three kids into the world was all the evidence I needed that God is real, and as they live their lives, maybe that's how I'll have made a difference.

Re:Logic vs Faith by ardle · 2008-01-05 07:35 · Score: 1

Are you saying that a Christian's actions are dictated by dogma, not their personal sense of values?

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by bechthros · 2008-01-05 07:38 · Score: 1

"The ultimate goal of thinking rationally is to abandon all irrational beliefs, clearly."

uh, whose ultimate goal would that be? not mine. my goal in thinking rationally is to solve immediate problems and prevent future ones.

as far as irrational beliefs go, i have many beliefs that may be irrational. there is no empirical evidence that causing others harm is morally wrong, but that doesn't stop me from believing it. there's no proof that a plane won't fall on my house overnight, but i believe that it won't. and, like somebody else in this thread already commented, i don't even have proof that the universe exists or that i have free will. but i believe that it does and that i do. none of those beliefs are provable - but they help me sleep at night.

as for my faith, it's a very personal thing that was brought about by things that actually happened to me. things that couldn't be explained rationally to anybody who hadn't experienced them. that's pretty much the definition of faith - that which transcends logic and reason.

"The people you listed had indeed managed a great deal of rational thought but their childhood programming and social context had left them without the ability to judge (or even question, in most cases) the irrational, trivial, and nonsensical whafflings of badly written jewish folklore correctly."

first of all, i don't think you give them enough credit. from what i've read of him, isaac newton was not a man easily brainwashed, browbeaten, or bamboozled. i find it difficult to believe that he was incapable of asking deep theological questions.

second of all, even assuming that the best pre-20th century thinkers were utterly incapable of the kind of hard questions about the existance of God that people have been asking for at least 3,000 years (the first records of atheism are from the fifth century BCE), that still doesn't explain why
two thirds of modern scientists surveyed believe in God.

anyway, this is all icing on the cake. my only point in delurking in this thread at all was to make the case that science and religion have about as much to do with each other as a bulldozer and a daydream. science deals with the natural world and provable, testable things. faith deals with the supernatural world and unprovable, untestable things. apples and oranges. neither is applicable to the other. and a great many better thinkers than you or i have been coming to this conclusion for centuries.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by bwalling · 2008-01-05 07:47 · Score: 1

Simple minded people will chalk things up to God and move on. That in and of itself does not mean that Christianity dictates this behavior. It seems people want to look at a certain subset of Christians and use them as an example of what Christianity really is. Are all college students pot smoking vegans? Just because I can point to a bunch of pot smoking vegans who are in college doesn't make that what college is all about.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by bwalling · 2008-01-05 07:51 · Score: 1

Until a religion starts making claims about reality that can be falsified.

Christianity itself doesn't make these claims. Some of its followers do. Some of its followers also say you shouldn't drink alcohol, despite the fact that the Bible clearly says drinking wine is good for you. So, don't believe all the things that come out of the mouths of people and don't assign all of the foolish things to the religion as a whole. It seems that a lot of people want to go out and find the foolish people and knock them down while saying they are knocking down the whole of Christianity. There are foolish atheists the same as there are foolish Christians. Knocking down the foolish ones doesn't serve as much of an argument towards anything.

They should also mention by Sleeping+Kirby · 2008-01-05 07:53 · Score: 1

That understanding the laws of physics doesn't mean you can't believe underpants gnomes come in the middle of the night and steal your underpants and kills kenny occasionally... I'm tired of everyone treating the science vs. god argument as if there's only one religion in the world. I think I'm going write to my congressman about making sure everyone knows that evolutions is BS and that the world is really a giant cow and that the trees are the hairs of that cow and the rivers the blood of that cow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology#The_beginning Treat all religion equally or don't put one religious theory above another rah damn it!!!

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please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.

Cover Religion as a meme or mythology by xtronics · 2008-01-05 08:01 · Score: 1

Science should just treat religion as a bronze age urban myth, meme, or mythology. As a academic history subject it lacks any validity.

The study of why people believe weird things is something that science can tackle.

Theodicy by mangu · 2008-01-05 08:04 · Score: 1

You do realize God is the Good One, right?

That is a disputed assertion. I knew someone whose son was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of eighteen months. That child underwent surgery that extirpated a large part of his brain, leaving him severely handicapped until his death at the age of four.

You may say we do not understand God enough to know why He let that happen, He might have had His reasons, but that's certainly not what I define by "good". Either He is not omnipotent or He is not good.

Re:Theodicy by mangu · 2008-01-05 14:17 · Score: 1

Why is he only blamed for bad and not praised for good?

Because if He were truly good and omnipotent, He wouldn't let bad things happen. Either He isn't good and therefore doesn't care, or He isn't omnipotent and cannot stop evil. How could something like a cancer in a child be blamed on man's "free will"? It may be Satan who caused it, but, if so, God is unable to stop it.

After my friend's son had his first surgery, his father had a thanksgiving mass (he's catholic) celebrated for his son's "recovery", so you cannot blame it on the father's lack of faith either.

The point is that everything that happens on this planet is a result of a material world and it is ruled by Satan basically.

If God is so powerful, why doesn't He defeat Satan? If He were truly omnipotent, He would be able to stop Satan right now. A perfectly good and omnipotent being would never let something totally random like child cancer make people suffer.

Re:Logic vs Faith by ProfessionalCookie · 2008-01-05 08:10 · Score: 1

Heehee- but monkeys are funnier to talk about that apes!

Cheers!

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by bechthros · 2008-01-05 08:21 · Score: 1

this thread keeps digressing. i'm not here to convert anybody and i don't wish to discuss the rightness or wrongness of religion (mostly because it always begs the question, "right for WHO?").

here's my points.

1) great historical scientists who believed in God were a statistical majority. current scientists who believe in God are a statistical majority. maybe they're onto something.

2) science and faith are utterly and equally non-applicable to each other. science deal with the natural world and provable facts. faith deals with the supernatural world and non-provable mysteries. believe in either, or both, or neither. but don't try to apply them to each other. you will fail.

2/3 of eminent modern scientists surveyed believe in God

botched the link by bechthros · 2008-01-05 08:24 · Score: 1

Re:Logic vs Faith by cHiphead · 2008-01-05 08:25 · Score: 1

Point taken, but I think we only have about 5,000 years worth of fairly documented killing.

Thinking about it, I doubt most of the killing was done due to the religion itself, it was due to the fear and greed of individuals that happened to be associated with a religion at a particular time.

Cheers.

--

This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Re:Logic vs Faith by ardle · 2008-01-05 08:42 · Score: 1

some religious groups feel that their beliefs about supernatural matters are on par or superior to knowledge about the physical world This is because so many members of these groups depend on these supernatural matters for their livelihood ;-)

Re:Logic vs Faith by mrjb · 2008-01-05 08:52 · Score: 1

One person now has the ability to push a button and wipe out millions. Some call that progress. I suppose it is, but not toward peace. Arguably, the goal of science is to create bigger explosions; At this point, the explosions are simply not yet big enough. But once we manage, I'm sure we'll have peace from that point on. By the way, kudos to whoever did that Big Bang thing.

--
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book

Re:Logic vs Faith by Hognoxious · 2008-01-05 08:57 · Score: 1

One person now has the ability to push a button and wipe out millions. Some call that progress. I suppose it is, but not toward peace.

Not so sure. In the event that anyone does drop the big one, I doubt there'll be much fighting for a considerable time afterwards.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Quote from David Hume. by anwyn · 2008-01-05 09:23 · Score: 1

I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies of the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human religion. Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means fitted to endure.

So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Speaking of creationism... by Slashboo · 2008-01-05 09:39 · Score: 1

The quote at the bottom of /. is "The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H.L. Mencken" How fitting...

--
Reality is the original Rorschach.

Re:Are NOT the limits of human knowledge! by uglyduckling · 2008-01-05 09:39 · Score: 1

Your experience isn't knowledge. Your experience isn't even necessarily real.

Well, all 'knowledge' is based on experience. How do I know that any datum within the body of accepted scientific knowledge is 'real', how do I know that the computer I'm sitting in front of is 'real'? All scientific experiment relies on the recorded experiences of human individuals - there is not such thing as true objectivity - so by your reasoning we could never debate anything and never draw a conclusion.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 09:45 · Score: 1

current scientists who believe in God are a statistical majority. maybe they're onto something.

I'm curious, do you have a source? (We must also be careful with the definitions issue, as with Einstein - scientists using "God" to mean "nature" may be onto something, but that doesn't mean billions of theists believing in a personal interventionist God are onto something.)

At least one source disputes this - http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html .

72.2% disbelieve in a personal God? Yes, I suspect they are onto something.

science and faith are utterly and equally non-applicable to each other. science deal with the natural world and provable facts. faith deals with the supernatural world and non-provable mysteries. believe in either, or both, or neither. but don't try to apply them to each other. you will fail.

I agree entirely - I would be happy if religion was kept out of science, out of science lessons, out of politics, and anywhere else that concerned the physical world and dealing with facts. Keep faith to personal beliefs and the philosophical debates on the supernatural world and other unprovable things, and that's fine by me.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Scudsucker · 2008-01-05 09:46 · Score: 1

Socialism - failure to recognize the power of individualism, subversion of an individual to the collective.

Society is made up of individuals - by ignoring society, Libertarianism ignores the individual.

Ok, I'll take the bait. by npboley · 2008-01-05 09:52 · Score: 1

1) The 'discovery' that there was a 'moment of creation' (aka big bang) by a Vatican astronomer.

2) The fact that a particle's state is indeterminate, and physics inability to precisely define what is an observation ( in the collapsing wave sense )

Not that you're not mostly correct, but it's tough to deny that the 20th century hasn't yielded surprises to the scientists that believed the universe was static and unchanging and was capable of being described, at least in principle, by a set of natural laws.

Science has not only failed to explain, but actually proven, that it is impossible for humans to perfectly model even the smallest subset of the universe. A theist could just as easily construe this as 'proof' of a god, as an atheist could say it shows the opposite.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Scudsucker · 2008-01-05 10:02 · Score: 1

It only took 37 minutes for one to hop in and respond your post with a pithy comment. I left him one in kind. :)

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Scudsucker · 2008-01-05 10:12 · Score: 1

Try googling it, if you don't mind...

Oh, I wouldn't deprive you of the pleasure of proving your points. Go ahead and list every atheist you can find that has converted to Christianity. The problem for you is that there are 20 to 30 million atheists in the U.S. - what is your percentage of converts going to be? And that's just in the states, not the rest of the world...and Lewis was from Ireland.

And as long as we're throwing stuff out, I bet the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity is insignificant to the number of people who started off as Christians only to become atheists.

It's a question of *certainty* by JavaRob · 2008-01-05 10:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

> The problem with the "public should be taught the limitations of science" model is that the limitations of science should be seen as the limitations of human knowledge.

Ridiculous. We know plenty of things we cannot hold to scientific rigor. Not that there aren't people like you trying to exclude them from being called "knowledge" by various means.

You're thinking of "science" in the most limited sense, results obtained through the simple scientific method. We can "know" an awful lot more than that still using a scientific approach, just with differing levels of certainty. Here, this may help:

science n.
1a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
1b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
1c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
2. Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
3. An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.

Note #4 in particular, which still does not admit any religion-based "knowledge".

I know that my mother loved me.

You know she acted in a way you'd expect from someone who loved you. So yeah, it's quite probable that she did. "Love" is a mushy thing to define, but it's one of those words that does have meaning even though it's very blurry at the edges.

I know that other minds exist.

Sure, though what "minds" means exactly is tough to say. We can more or less assume that our interior lives have their parallels in the other people we see around, anyway, though the exact experience is going to be different for everybody.

I know who gave me those shirts.

Was it God? No, seriously, "science" agrees that your memory of this kind of event is probably true, though you'd be surprised by the tricks memory will play on you.

I know a lot of things that will never be repeated and for which little if any evidence remains, putting them well outside the possibility of scientific rigor.

Your level of certainty on those things is thus far below where you might consider putting them in a textbook or publishing a scientific paper, but well above the level of certainty where you can take them mostly as "assumed" to go about your everyday life.

Even *you* are not placing that much certainty in them. Take one of those shirts. Wait a few years, then have a conversation with someone who says "Gift? No -- you're thinking of the one with gray stripes.. *that* was the birthday present. This shirt was one you already had that was similar." And you'll be uncertain, then they'll pull out the video you have from your party, and sure enough, it's a gray-striped shirt you're unwrapping. And you'll update this particular "fact", just like that.

Please quit with the "only science can produce true knowledge" bit. Otherwise, I'm going to have to ask how you know that, because I've yet to hear someone who doesn't beg the question when answering that. And yes, I really do mean "beg the question" because they work out complex ways to assume precisely what they're trying to prove in ways that would make baby Godel cry.

I'm not sure who you're arguing with, but how exactly are they defining "true knowledge"? Basically, there's pure science, where we state some things are as close to "true facts" as we can know because they've been tested in a million different ways, then there's an extremely long tail after that from laws to very-well-supported theories (plate tectonics, evolution and suchlike) to less-researched theories, up through various types of memories of perceived events and histories and interpretations of those... Area of

Re:Logic vs Faith by JavaRob · 2008-01-05 10:35 · Score: 1

That is incorrect. It should be
u = ++monkey; :D ...

That increments monkey.

Assuming we wrongly believe in goal-oriented evolution in the first place, you'd still need something like
u = monkey + 1;

Re:Logic vs Faith by alexgieg · 2008-01-05 10:37 · Score: 1

The fact that you and everyone else who joins in made your post on a computer through the internet shows implicit subscription to the philosophy of science.

Not really, or rather, it depends. There are basically two postures in philosophy of science. One is the so called "realist" position, which understands that unobservable conceptual entities (atoms, particles, DNA, space geometry, natural selection etc.) exist as stated by theory. At times when science is expanding in predictable ways and tons of news discoveries are being made and technologies built upon then, it's common for scientists to adopt it. On the other hand, there is also the so called "instrumentalist" position, which understand that these same unobservable conceptual entities, although in themselves useful because they aid research, are nevertheless pure tools, useful ways to describe real world phenomena, but whose actual existence we have no way to determine. This is an approach usually adopted by scientist themselves when lots of changes are happening too fast, and long established theories are going down fast while very strange alternatives are being simultaneously proposed.

A good argument in favor of realism is that usually theories lead to new discoveries that weren't predicted by them. The realist will argue like this: "See, if these things didn't exist, if they were merely an useful way to describe what we actually see, but not real in themselves, how would they lead to such new and unpredictable discoveries?" The instrumentalist will agree that it's really very nice when this happens, but he'll point that it nevertheless is a very rare event, so rare that it can be explained away by way of chance.

Myself, I think instrumentalism to be the most strictly rigorous way to look at science. The downside is that the "wow!" reaction we feel when reading about science comes from a realist approach to it, and thus, if you deny realism, you also end up denying this reaction.

Name one technological invention or innovation that has come about through the application of theology or faith?

Well, as far as technology goes, if you adopt instrumentalism you don't automatically link technological advancements to conceptual entities posed by scientific theories, taking both technology and science as independent fields, with science working "merely" as a very huge source of suggestions and insights upon which engineers can develop "actual" things. A realist, on the other hand, wouldn't accept this and say that, if technology works, and if it's based on some scientific theory, then that technology is an actual proof of the truth of that theory. To this an instrumentalist would answer that this isn't so, because many inventions in the past were based on wrong theories, and they nevertheless worked and kept working even as theories changed around them, with the new theories themselves having the trouble of taking into account the existing technology.

So, an instrumentalist would conclude, it's the other way around: technology comes first, then a scientific theories follows it, suggesting then new ways in which engineers should work, what leads to new technological discoveries, which in must be taken into account by new theories, and so on and so forth.

In regards to inventions or innovations brought about by theology or faith, if you're thinking about machines and the like, there aren't many, sure. But then, you won't find theology or faith much interested in material matters, so this isn't really a surprise. On the other hand, however, on the fields where theology and faith have practical as well as theoretical applications, such as social organization, interpersonal relations, techniques of discourse, pure mathematics, pure logics etc., then you'll find a very extensive list of innovations and even, yes, inventions. They're just on different fields than those where science operates. And in some case, such as the many Middle Age advances in logics, they are t

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-05 10:37 · Score: 1

.....I doubt there'll be much fighting for a considerable time afterwards.......

Wrong, unless there is only one person left. If there are two or more remaining, there will be disagreements than can and often do escalate into war.

--
All theory is gray

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by david_thornley · 2008-01-05 11:03 · Score: 1

Um, what scientific version of the bible myth? Personally, I think it would be a fairly good example of a knowledgeable being making a creation myth for uneducated people for the purpose of getting that out of the way so that the being could concentrate on other important things.

As far as getting information about the physical universe, I prefer to get it from science. Or maybe /.. Wherever; the bible seems like a remarkably poor choice.

There are things in the bible that are not subject to scientific inquiry, and the bible is much more useful on those things.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Re:Logic vs Faith by polar+red · 2008-01-05 11:35 · Score: 1

a very high % of those disagreements are about religion

--
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by bechthros · 2008-01-05 11:47 · Score: 1

rice university and, independentaly and simultaneously, the university of chicago.

the rice survey included social scientists as well as natural scientists, although even among natural scientists over 60% reported personal belief in God. the U of C study was given only to doctors. the 1914 leuba survey was limited to natural scientists only; presumably the 1997 reiteration followed suit.

it is unclear whether either the rice or U of C surveys used the phrase "personal God" (it seems a trifling distinction to me... given the disparity in results perhaps it is not). the rice survey asked 36 questions, which appears to have explored some variety of nuances of belief. the citation you have provided me regarding the original 1914 leuba survey and it's 1997 reiteration seems to give little detail into the content of the survey questions. if i read it correctly, the 1914 leuba survey and it's 1997 reiteration seem to have had only two. the 1914 leuba survey was sent only to those mentioned in a particular publication, while the 1997 reiteration was sent only to members of the NAS. might the publication and the NAS have similar axes to grind? might rice university and the university of chicago? who knows. the surveys were different and the results were different.

here's what's most interesting to me - the letter you cite makes mention of a booklet issued by the NAS encouraging the teaching of evolution in public schools. this booklet states, "Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral."

this has been my point all along.

"I would be happy if religion was kept out of science, out of science lessons, out of politics, and anywhere else that concerned the physical world and dealing with facts."

then we are in solid agreement. God is God and science is science and never the twain shall meet. until it's too late to make much difference. but to conflate science and faith weakens both.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Jeian · 2008-01-05 11:55 · Score: 1

That is one of the more impressively arrogant things I've read. "If you're not a mindless sheep incapable of critical thought, CLEARLY you will agree with my point of view!"

And, oddly, if I made that same claim from my (Catholic) side of the isle, I'd be downmodded "Overrated" and "Flamebait" before I could get back to the main thread.

Ah well, that's Slashdot these days.

You are part of a growing trend by Per+Abrahamsen · 2008-01-05 12:07 · Score: 1

Religious fanaticism is on the rise, in particular in North America and in the Islamic world, but also in the rest of the world. Theist of all faith are getting increasingly literal minded, unwilling to see or tolerate any truth but their own.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the same happens to "my" faction. I see many testaments like yours, from people who used to be able to see merits in other point of views than their own, but recently have come to the realization that theists are just stupid and evil, and deserve no respect at all.

Apparently the global trend is that Absolutism, in its most stupid form, is taking over from Relativism, in its most stupid form.

The few freethinkers of the world will have to get used to arguing with close minded bigots, rather than with fluffy minded relativists, for whom every point of view is equally valid.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Pseudonym · 2008-01-05 12:17 · Score: 1

Most amusing, Sire.

For the humour-impared, identifying a group as being "more likely to be cranks than not" is hardly the same as identifying "the problem". This, of course, does not invalidate any other reason why I might be a crank.

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by tgibbs · 2008-01-05 12:27 · Score: 1

And who is to say it is? If you make the claim that Einstein has some undefined form of religious belief, you can show the evidence.

Abundant in Einstein's writings

For example

every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe -- spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive. (1936)

Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by "science," they are likely to differ on the meaning of "religion." ...As regards religion, on the other hand, one is generally agreed that it deals with goals andevaluations and, in general, with the emotional foundation of human thinking and acting, as far as these are not predetermined by the inalterable hereditary disposition of the human species. Religion is concerned with man's attitude toward nature at large, with the establishing of ideals for the individual and communal life, and with mutual human relationship. (1948)

Re:Two Baskets, was going to mod, posting instead by ElBeano · 2008-01-05 12:29 · Score: 1

Those replying to you seem to be limiting themselves to critiquing Roman Catholic priests. I am a United Methodist pastor and my perspective on "professional" ministers is very direct and confirms the majority to be hard working and generous people. There are posers in every group of people, but making reckless generalizations, as slashdotters are prone to do, only produces heat without light. As an example of work done in my conference, visit http://www.missioncentral.com/

Many of us donate time to work at the linked mission. They even have a computer ministry that recycles used computers.

"No Conflict" Too Sweeping A Generalization by Tablizer · 2008-01-05 12:43 · Score: 1

it's "good" that they came out with a guide explaining there is no conflict between evolution and God,

That depends on the religion. It may conflict with some beliefs but not others. It's too sweeping of a statement. For example, if a religion has Prophet X that says/said evolution is "wrong", then saying there is no conflict would imply that Prophet X is wrong.

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Table-ized A.I.

Stallin' for Stalin by Tablizer · 2008-01-05 13:04 · Score: 1

nowadays religion brings nothing good it seems

Religions often point toward Stalin's mass murders when this is brought up. The bigger problem is zealots, not religion itself. Zealots can be atheistic zealots also. However, religion does seem to trigger more zealotry then atheism. But one could also argue that Stalin *did* believe in God. The difference is that HE was God (in his mind).

--
Table-ized A.I.

Huh? Atheist != Pessimist / Clinical Depression by vistic · 2008-01-05 13:35 · Score: 1

I object to your portrayal of an atheistic life as something so dismal and depressing.

I'm an atheist, and I feel I have a very full, rewarding, rich, enjoyable, and fulfilling life.

Re:Huh? Atheist != Pessimist / Clinical Depression by blahplusplus · 2008-01-05 18:14 · Score: 1

Would you be saying that if you were among the genetically unfit, had a very low IQ, were retarded, or had some kind of terrible disability?

I'm not saying atheists can't be happy, I'm saying that most people are forced into a 'competition to the death' over wealth and resources, and as new technologies come online the vast majority of the population will be left behind (not be able to afford them, etc, etc). Most people in the world today live in poverty, you're one of the lucky ones because you live in a place that is a good place to live.

Taking Ray Kurzweilian view: Any life before life extension is pretty shitty, since you were born in such backward and mediocre times.

I'd rather have been born in the far future personally then this extremely primitive time, since all men of this age are little more then barbarians.
Re:Huh? Atheist != Pessimist / Clinical Depression by vistic · 2008-01-06 09:33 · Score: 1

If I were in such a situation, I don't think believing in a God would make anything better, no. Life would still suck. And I don't think having someone to yell at would improve my life much.
Re:Huh? Atheist != Pessimist / Clinical Depression by blahplusplus · 2008-01-07 04:34 · Score: 1

"If I were in such a situation, I don't think believing in a God would make anything better, no. Life would still suck. And I don't think having someone to yell at would improve my life much."

Again we're talking about real evidence here, the evidence in america and human psychology shows us there are quite a substantial number of people who do need it. Whether this applies to us is quite irrelevant, we're talking about genetics and especially psyhicatric genetics.
Re:Huh? Atheist != Pessimist / Clinical Depression by vistic · 2008-01-09 13:32 · Score: 1

How do you see evidence that people need it?

If a large part of the population deals with stress by smoking, does that mean they need it, too?

'Need' must mean something different to you than it does to me.

Re:Logic vs Faith by Boronx · 2008-01-05 13:52 · Score: 1

You are confusing the arbitrariness of symbols with faith.

You can actually prove 1 + 1 = 2 empirically. All you have to do is look at two things and see that they are one thing and another thing.

This works for a particular concept of 1, +, =, and 2. Of course some there are other ways of thinking about those symbols that can make the statement unprovable or even false!

--
Play Command HQ online

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by mdwh2 · 2008-01-05 14:48 · Score: 1

Right, and the point is there's nothing about God in there. You can be religious and not believe in God.

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by JochenBedersdorfer · 2008-01-05 14:50 · Score: 1

I hope you are not really proposing that is how the world works. This theory is not testable at all and anything can happen in this world. So the predictive power of this theory would be exactly zero. We can do better than this.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by GoofyBoy · 2008-01-05 15:00 · Score: 1

Please post a scientifically valid test for the Everett-Wheeler interpretation.

--
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by gardyloo · 2008-01-05 15:13 · Score: 1

Please post a scientifically valid test for the Everett-Wheeler interpretation. (My emphasis added to "interpretation".)

I can't. Please post a reason why I should, given that MWI isn't at this point a testable hypothesis, nor is it needed to interpret the extremely detailed, extremely accurate predictions which quantum mechanics (which is what my other post addressed) makes.

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by mark-t · 2008-01-05 15:34 · Score: 1

Were I a person who believed in an eternal God, that is exactly how I would propose the world works. The explanation is not remotely inconsistent with any observable evidence, and places God well outside of any potentially successful attempts to explain his nature, which *IS* consistent with attributes that one could reasonably ascribe to an eternal and omnipotent God. It wouldn't mean, of course, that we aren't really real... because it would be meaningless to conclude that. What it actually means is that God would be something bigger or grander than that... that what we identify as reality is compared to something imaginary, God would thus be to us. "Superreal" could potentially be an adequate term, but language may lack the means of truly conveying the notion in a small number of words.

Re:Logic vs Faith by mrami · 2008-01-05 15:36 · Score: 1

Dinner got in the way of my reply, sorry.

First, when I say faith, I'm using the definition "belief that is not based on proof".

Now... The one thing and the other thing you see in your example above are constructs of your mind. Apples don't exist except as we apply the concept of "apple" to a collection of electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. So your proof above amounts to saying one mental construct in your head "1+1=2" agrees with another set of mental constructs in your head "apple apple == apple apple". You're self consistent. Woo hoo. "black == green && green != white therefore black != white" is self consistent, too.

Your example doesn't even touch the zero construct, which is hard to say is empirical since there doesn't appear to be a true void in this universe. What, zero seems obvious to you? It actually has a checkered history of acceptance (see Wikpiedia): "Records show that the ancient Greeks seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number: they asked themselves "How can nothing be something?", leading to philosophical and, by the Medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum."

How long did it take for imaginary numbers to become accepted because they seemed to have no touch with reality? (ans: approx. 200 years, but still better than zero's fate). I wouldn't say math is pioneering in taking things on faith, but the usefulness of math has always overridden empirical concerns.

Our concept of math is guided and informed by experience, but it is independent of it. We happen to live in a space that is pretty Euclidean locally. So when we measure a circle's circumference and its diameter and take the ratio, it comes pretty close to pi. If we lived in a highly curved space, that ratio would have a different value. Possibly much different. But that wouldn't affect the value of pi. Pi is completely independent, and no amount of empirical data will ever convince a mathematician to give it a different value. To a mathematician, pi is beyond material concerns. Sound kinda religious?

In closing, I'll just quote Albert Einstein: "How can it be that mathematics, being after all product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?" He didn't know the answer to that question, but he had faith (probably blind faith) that math would lead the way for him.

Re:Logic vs Faith by sentientbrendan · 2008-01-05 16:03 · Score: 1

I was being sloppy about "hundreds" of years having passed. There is more than 1 span of one hundred years having passed, but fewer than two, so it's ambiguous if that counts as a plural (to me).

As far as things being disproven, it is possible to falsify a premise of a valid argument if the conclusion can be shown to be false. Falsification works deductively, so in a specific sense you can disprove a theory, whereas you cannot prove a theory, since verification of theories works inductively.

However, this of course ignores that in the real world there is always more than one premise, and so what exactly has been shown to be false can be ambiguous. This leads to an underdetermination of science. There's always more than one way to explain the world, and we largely pick the explanation not on empirical grounds, but on which theory is simply, which one makes more predictions, which one is aesthetically nicer, and politics plays a part too.

Re:Logic vs Faith by sentientbrendan · 2008-01-05 16:29 · Score: 1

>>some religious groups feel that their beliefs about supernatural matters are on par or
>>superior to knowledge about the physical world
>This is because so many members of these groups depend on these supernatural
>matters for their livelihood ;-)

Church provides a social service to members. They are the centers of the community, and they both provide a support network and help to establish social norms. In japan, where most of the country has abandoned literal belief in the gods, the Shinto temples are still well patronized because of these services. I doubt that churches really need the supernatural to succeed, they just need ritual and authority within the community.

I suspect that the conflict you see between religion and science is a symptom of the deeper problem that most of society just doesn't understand science, and largely see it as a rival religion. That some sects see science as a religion is evident in their basic strategy with regards to science, e.g. take on the trappings and rituals of science in order to gain some of its power (christian scientists, intelligent design, etc), and try to come up with competing miracles (faith healing, speaking in tongues, etc) to overshadow science's numerous "miracles" (television, cars, electric lights, etc).

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-05 16:29 · Score: 1

No, because it makes no sense to kill others. Killing you does not profit me as much as having you alive. With two or more people, each of us can specialize and produce more than either one of us could alone. We can also look after each other when we are sick, or otherwise weak. Disagreements can only strengthen both of us, as we are forced to question our assumptions and come to stronger positions. Science and logic provide us with the means to arrive at that which is truly beneficial to us. Buddha and Lao Tzu were scientists, and founded philosophies that had the moral strengths of religion, without the weaknesses, because they both said, "Don't accept anything anyone, even me, says unless it agrees with your experience and common sense."

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-05 16:35 · Score: 1

I've trusted enough to accept Christ as my personal savior, back in the day. You know what I got? Jack shit. Absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing. I felt like a chump for believing such fairy tales. Then I found eastern philosophies and I got mystical experiences and peace of mind, all through practices anyone can try and verify for themselves. The existence, or lack thereof, of God, a personal soul, or an afterlife is utterly unimportant to me now. Those kind of questions are only important to someone who sees themselves as fundamentally separate from the world. I know that I am one with the unending chain of cause and effect. That is enough to provide me with total, utter, and complete peace of mind.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by tgibbs · 2008-01-05 17:04 · Score: 1

However, Einstein did speak of God, although it is clear that he did not believe in a personal God who answers prayer:

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indocrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. 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.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by GoofyBoy · 2008-01-05 17:10 · Score: 1

>given that MWI isn't at this point a testable hypothesis

Then why is it at the scientific tea party? How can you test MWI? Is there a scientifically valid test for MWI? And that testable/untestable part is what I was pointing out.

(Saying that its a "theory"/"hypothesis"/"interpretation" as part of the justification is just a play on words. (E.g. - If I label Religion = Reality Interpretation, is religion now an acceptable part of science?))

>nor is it needed to interpret the extremely detailed, extremely accurate predictions which quantum mechanics (which is what my other post addressed) makes.

But its part of quantum mechanics in the scientific community.

--
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.

The problem with Evolution is it has no Soul by OldSoldier · 2008-01-05 17:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak for the religious fundamentalists who profess to not believe in evolution.

I believe the problem these folks have with evolution has nothing to do with what they're complaining about. Religious people believe God created Man with a Soul. But when evolution came along it suddenly appeared that science contradicted that belief. Where in the chain of evolution did Man get his Soul? It is simply much easier for these religious fundamentalists to believe that God created Man whole-cloth and hence Soul came in there. Or that God directly tampered with evolution (ID) and Soul came in there. To believe that somewhere between Australopithecus and Homo Sapiens the soul jumped in is apparently too much for these people to believe.

Until these religious fundamentalists come clean with themselves and realize that THIS is the heart of their problem with evolution, this debate will unfortunately continue to rage on and on.

Re:The problem with Evolution is it has no Soul by amRadioHed · 2008-01-06 16:04 · Score: 1

You can fully believe all of the currently accepted science of evolution while still believing that god directed the course of evolution and gave humans a soul when he deemed it appropriate. Many Christians and Catholics do believe this and they have no need to invoke ID either. Pope John Paul II himself believed this.

Their is no reason for a conflict save for the fact that fundamentalists want conflict. One of the problems with fundamentalists is that they believe what they want free from the constraints of what is true.

--
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by gardyloo · 2008-01-05 17:57 · Score: 1

It's labeled an interpretation because it is an unproven -- and, at this point, a purely hypothetical -- postulation about reality, which brings nothing new to the table (yet). That is, you've surely gathered, why I chose to stress the "interpretation" part of the name. Once these paradigms gain some power of prediction, they are no longer labeled as "interpretations". For example, both Newton's F = ma and Lagrange's action extremezation procedures are equivalent, at least when things like "mass" and "force" can be readily interpreted. When the principle of least action was formulated, it could easily have been termed an interpretation, but it quickly proved itself to be of more general use and power than N's 2nd Law. Stressing "interpretation" is NOT just playing semantics games.

If I label Religion = Reality Interpretation, is religion now an acceptable part of science? Absolutely not.

But its part of quantum mechanics in the scientific community. Yes, but everyone recognizes the untestability (or at least the currently amazingly remote possibility) of showing the interpretation is correct, including the theory's leading proponents/authors. Quantum mechanics is remarkably effective and complete in its purview, without MWI. This is not to say that the thing is wrong, but given our current level of understanding, it doesn't help anyone at this point. That was all of my original point. Taking MWI (a very small corner of QM, which currently has no influence other than philosophical) to somehow invalidate all of QM is like taking the electric universe hypothesis (which contains some salient points, but is a complete mess logically) to invalidate Maxwell's equations.
I think that was your original point.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Copid · 2008-01-05 20:27 · Score: 1

By one calculation, that figure is 1 chance in 10^-282.

*Ahem*

GIGO.

--
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by Copid · 2008-01-05 20:38 · Score: 1

That would be a perfectly reasonable position except for one thing: The "who created god" question is usually asked of people who invoke gods as a solution to the "everything that exists needs a creator" problem. It goes like this:

1) Everything that exists needs a creator.
2) The universe exists. 3) I invoke a creator that violates rule (1) to explain (2).

Isn't it just easier to assume that rule (1) may not be true for everything--including the universe? It seems to me that proposing an exception to the rule isn't a particularly clever solution.

--
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"

Re:Sellouts by c6gunner · 2008-01-05 21:41 · Score: 1

While science can invent the atom bomb and describe its effects, it cannot say whether or not we should use it.

Neither can religion. In fact, science does a much better job of it than religion ever could - it lets us study statistics and probabilities, allowing us to make a logical choice about whether using or withholding the bomb would bring us closer to our aims. All religion can tell us is the opinion of some guy in a funny hat.

Consciousness? by Msdose · 2008-01-05 21:46 · Score: 1

If the religious mythologies (bibles, korans, torahs etc.) are the most important books, then they must answer the most important question: What is the nature of consciousness? If they don't, then the book that answers that will be more important than them. Therefore, they are only valuable to us if they can be interpreted in a way that answers the most important question. Obviously, the people who recognize the importance of these mythologies are unable to correctly interpret them, and religious administrations have taken advantage of their confusion to to give them a phony interpretation which justifies the power and profit the administration derives from their inability to correctly interpret these mythologies.

Re:Logic vs Faith by Lord+Kano · 2008-01-05 23:20 · Score: 1

One can reconcile them by recognizing that they're not competing interests.

Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence or actions of a supreme being.

Religion isn't about observation and experimentation, no thinking person would ever attempt to use religion as a replacement for science.

LK

--
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano

Re:Logic vs Faith by Boronx · 2008-01-06 00:44 · Score: 1

An apple is independent of my idea of an apple, and there's undoubtedly an objective definition that would distinguish one apple from another and the rest of the universe without assuming the concept of "apple", but if you like you can look for two objects that aren't aggregates.

Einstein said a lot of things that were stupid. Mathematics is not independent from experience, it began as a way of abstracting from experience, then people started applying logic to the abstractions.

Mathematics is just deduction from assumptions. Mathematical structures and proofs are logical. Does math conform to the universe? Well, no, not all the time! A mathematical construct only tells us anything about the universe if it's assumptions bare some relation to the universe. So what are we really saying when we remark how closely we can use math to describe the universe? We're just saying that the universe, in a close approximation, is logically consistent, that there are definable rules that seem to work almost all the time.

But is the universe really mathematical, or is math merely a pretty good method for looking at it? This gets to another stupid Einstein quote: "God does not play dice." (Einstein was smart and he laughed later at the stupid stuff he said)

Apparently, God plays dice. What does this mean for Math? When a waveform collapses there is no logical way to determine how it's going to collapse, or to explain after the fact why it collapsed that way. So for every event in the universe we have a nearly perfect mathematical theory about its probability, but no theory and no prospect of a theory about why or how that particular event happened the way it did.

Your example doesn't even touch the zero construct,

Zero is just another label. The ancients knew what 1 - 1 was, even if they didn't have a number for it. Part of the reason 0 has become popular is that it didn't break the old truth that 1 - 1 is nothing, it just made writing it down easier and led to more rigorous and expansive thinking.

they asked themselves "How can nothing be something?" This is just the Greeks conflating the idea for the thing (or in this case, the lack of a thing), a problem they seemed to have had a lot. I don't blame them. Back then, a person might master a fair fraction of society's knowledge in his lifetime, and those that did must have seemed to themselves like intellectual gods.

--
Play Command HQ online

Darwinism is dead! Long live Darwinism! by Per+Abrahamsen · 2008-01-06 01:47 · Score: 1

> To question Darwinism is to risk losing your job if you are a scientist.

No it doesn't, all biologist reject Darwinism as originally proposed in favor for more modern theories of evolution.

There is a huge difference between questioning the established theories, and promoting something like ID. The later would be like a geologist promoting Flat Earth.

> Ninety percent of NAS scientists are atheists.

Smart people almost always are.

> Teaching evolution teaches their philosophy.

Philosophy tend to fill very little in the minds of a scientist, for (most of) them, Science come first. Philosophy, like Politics, is mostly seen as an distraction. They may have opinions on the matter, but they are not important to them.

> Teaching ID would promote critical thinking, not blindly following the scientific
> overloads.

ID is the opposite of critical thinking, and your point of "scientific overlords" underscores my point of how uneducated people tend to see scientists as priest, because you don't understand how science works.

> How can evolution be science when it can not be falsifiable since it is the only acceptable theory?

Theories called "Evolution" has been falsified many times, and been replaced by better theories that have also been called "Evolution". There is a huge difference bet

> Evolution can't explain the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion, the creation of
> mankind, or the increase in the complexity of life.

There are zillions of things, including gravity and modern art, evolution can't explain. If you want explanations for everything, you are better of with Religion than with Science.

> Teaching science that has been proven by falsifiable testing would prohibit the teaching
> of evolution.

Technically, falsifiable testing can only disprove theories, not prove them, so by not having a clue you have been able to come up with a technically true (the best kind of true!) statement. Maybe there is a god!

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by GoofyBoy · 2008-01-06 02:06 · Score: 1

>Once these paradigms gain some power of prediction, they are no longer labeled as "interpretations".

But isn't that a slippery slope? It could be untestable but as long as it predicts something we can put it into science? Think about how much of religion falls into this (E.g. - I predict if I follow these laws then when I die I will go to heaven.)

>If I label Religion = Reality Interpretation, is religion now an acceptable part of science?
>Absolutely not.

Exactly why not? I'm honestly interested in your opinion.

>Quantum mechanics is remarkably effective and complete in its purview, without MWI.

Yes I agree. But scientifically, your statement should end with "so far" because things could change. (Isn't that the strength of the scientific method?)

>Taking MWI (a very small corner of QM, which currently has no influence other than philosophical) to somehow invalidate all of QM is like taking the electric universe hypothesis (which contains some salient points, but is a complete mess logically) to invalidate Maxwell's equations.

Yes but it is a valid method of logical deduction and application of Ocham's Razor to look at what QM leads to and think. (You need this to detect contradictions or to make adjustments in a theory.) MWI is pushing what is considered to be scientific.

The first, first post implied that religion is just to wild and crazy to be part of science. MWI is built on QM which is good science but MWI is also part of science (developed by, written about, talked about at conferences by scientists performing scientific work). Why MWI and not religion?

--
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.

*Why do we believe?* by Xodmoe · 2008-01-06 04:15 · Score: 1

"Yes. It is called mass delusion."

...and we know that you yourself are less deluded because...?

"You believe it because so many others believe it. After all, how can all these people be wrong, eh?

Everyone who is capable of thinking tries to make sense of the world as best they can. Not everyone has the same capacity for logical and critical thought. Also, not everyone has the same capacity to think things through for themselves. ...and they haven't all had the educational advantages that you've had.

"Use examples from the past. Greek gods and Roman gods would be one. Egyptian gods another. Also Japanese emperor is a god figure as well. No one believes any of these anymore, yet not so long ago, A LOT of people believed it and you would be killed for saying different. A LOT of people can't be wrong."

That's actually a very good point. At that stage of history, the line dividing religion and science was not well-defined at all. Logic and reason was still new to the world. In many respects, religion and science were very much the same. Come to think of it, religion and government were the same where tribal chiefs to kings were serving double-duty as priests. ...and even as living gods on earth.

So, it does at times bother me that history repeats itself

"All current religions are just a natural continuation of the past religions. As people outgrew their deities, we needed to create more powerful ones."

How many new deities can you name? ...and which of them have caught on since Jews, Christians and Muslims are supposed to worship the same god, even though they seem to have different ideas about Him.

"Why do we believe?"

"...we..."?

"People can't accept futility of their lives."

...and your own life is more meaningful because...?

"They think they are special and try to justify it with religion (eg. afterlife and "god's will")."

If only they could all see the world the way you do, O wise one.

"Finally, people do not just start to believe in a religion. 95%+ percent, they are indoctrinated into that religion from a little kid that can't think for themselves."

Do you have any kids, Gnuman?

"Then they stay in that religion mostly out of fear - leave and maybe get the wrath of god as preached by almost every religion so most don't want to take risk like that. This explains the lack of mobility from one religion to another."

...another good point. Religion as a matter of history, also serves a social purpose as well as a spiritual one.

Do your own children have the same ideas about the world that you do?

Do you think that they always will?

"Aside: Santa has a basis in historical events that are a lot closer than 2000 years yet look what happened to that. Santa now lives in the North Pole, sports a Coca Cola suit (yes, they made it red), and eats cookies and milk. Santa, from real facts to current myth seems to mimic the so called "religious historical facts" quite well."

On top of all that, some of the best schools and hospitals in the world were built and are owned and operated by religious organizations.

Granted that some really horrible crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of God, but faith-based groups have consistently fed, clothed, housed and educated more people than the richest and most powerful of governments.

So...

What did YOU get from Santa?

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by mark-t · 2008-01-06 04:16 · Score: 1

With that position, God isn't particularly an execption to the rule that everything that exists needs a creator, because God wouldn't "exist" in the same frame that we recognize everything else to exist (and don't offer the suggestion that what I just said would be just as correct with a period after the word "exist", it completely misses the point). So the notion of what we define as "real" is simply too narrow to fully encompass the nature of such a god. Metaphorically, it is not God who would be imaginary, but we who are the imaginary ones, pointlessly debating the existence of the being who thought of us in the first place.

Just a few things ... by jopet · 2008-01-06 04:34 · Score: 1

> Happiness does arise from living up to standards of right, and engaging with family, neighbor and stranger.
That might be true, but what is right is not what is in the bible or what the dogma of old men who call themselves "priests" says. On the contrary: this is often wrong, because it sets some silly tradition or what can be interpreted from a stone-old book over what compassion and human feeling would dictate.

> True religion
True religion? What is that supposed to be? I just see religion as it happens, as it exists in reality. And everything about true religion is incompatible with reason and enlightenment based on what is instead of what one wants to be.

Regarding your "God is the computer the universe is running on" argument: in the very basic sense this would just mean that what you call "God" is just another word for "laws of nature". This notion of God has nothing to do whatsoever with a God who created, who designed, who listens to prayers or whatever other things make the Gods of religions Gods. This God is so abstract that it is irrelevant.
And that brings us to the second point: if God cannot be seen and does not in any way interfere, if everything observable can be explained without god or be equally unexplainable, what then is the point of inventing the concept of some God in the first place? Sounds like a desperate attempt to not abandon something your grandparents told you about and that you are emotionally attached to.
There is an infinite number of things that can be imagined but would be unprovable. None of these things can be disproved, but what is the point of insisting on their existance? The great invisible Hubu in the center of the Mars is equally likely as the God of Christians. I could invent a whole story about her and you wouldn't be able to disprove it. Does it mean that the great invisible Hubu exists? Of course not you would say. It just doesnt make sense to assume that everything that cannot be disproven exists. And that applies to the Christian God as well as to all the thousands of other Gods and fairy-tale beings humankind invented.

> If you say that you have some right to make that choice for another person, ..
I never said that, on the contrary. Read again:
"Unlike atheists like me, the so-called christians and also the muslims, jews etc. have strong opinions not only about what they should or should not do, but what I should or should not be allowed to do.
I have no problem about Christians believing they will rot in hell if they have sex before marriage or sex with a condom, but I do not see why they should mess with what others do in that respect."

Its usually religious people who care strongly about the choices of other persons and it is religious fanatics who care about what others should be allowed to do or not fanatically. It is usually religious people who care in a way that ignores the pure compassion with other people and establishes some "higher principle" like the "will of god" or the "principles of islam". Where it is ok to stone a woman who has been raped or make the life of somebody miserable who loves another man.

Re:Evolution happens and God is real, Jesus is Lor by radarsat1 · 2008-01-06 05:21 · Score: 1

Interesting. What form of evolution doesn't involve natural selection?

To answer your first question, perhaps sexual selection?

So, sex isn't natural?

I believe that sexual selection is considered part of natural selection, though I guess I could be wrong.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Mateo_LeFou · 2008-01-06 05:40 · Score: 1

"It's not that I'm narrow minded, it's that every person I know who is religious doesn't seem to understand everyday events (easily explained by science)"

It sounds as though your sample size may be insufficient to support your generalization

--
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love

Re:Evolution happens and God is real, Jesus is Lor by darkhitman · 2008-01-06 05:48 · Score: 1

Natural selection and sexual selection were originally two different theories; natural selection focusing on traits beneficial to survival whilst sexual selection proposes that more attractive traits survive due to them being preferred - these traits may even hinder survival. Both theories were coined by Darwin, I dunno if they're still both separate or not.

--
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?

Re:The limits of science (mod parent up) by fzuccaro · 2008-01-06 06:25 · Score: 1

Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.
~ Michel de Montaigne

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by Copid · 2008-01-06 06:46 · Score: 1

With that position, God isn't particularly an execption to the rule that everything that exists needs a creator, because God wouldn't "exist" in the same frame that we recognize everything else to exist (and don't offer the suggestion that what I just said would be just as correct with a period after the word "exist", it completely misses the point).

As I read it, you're just explaining why God is an exception to the rule. That doesn't really make it smell any less like special pleading to me. At best, it's a case of fiddling with the word "exists" to define oneself into correctness. It seems to me that by using the "everything needs a creator" argument and then adding nuances until only their particular god will do, theists are simply building their conclusion into one of their axioms. That doesn't make the "everything needs a creator" axiom very palatable to the rest of us.

--
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"

True Democracy by pentalive · 2008-01-06 07:30 · Score: 1

Remember True democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on "what's for dinner".

Re:Logic vs Faith by mrami · 2008-01-06 07:46 · Score: 1

Heh. If you're just going to dismiss Einstein, then you obviously have no interest in trying to understand my argument. I quit. You win, dude.

Re:The question "who created god" misses the point by mark-t · 2008-01-06 07:58 · Score: 1

Consider that it's a *general* rule that the letter Q is almost always followed by a u, yet in languages other than English which still use the Roman alphabet, this otherwise quite ubiquitous rule simply does not exist. Words in other languages are not exceptions to the general rule, they are just examples of the fact that the rule was narrowly meant to apply to the English language only. Similarly, the rule that everything needs a creator to exist is thus not necessary still a completely valid axiom, as much as it necessarily is still confined to the notion of "existence" that we understand to be real.

Re:The limits of science (mod parent up) by sumdumass · 2008-01-06 08:02 · Score: 1

You cannot question religion in the class room of public schools. The problem is the first amendment. The same thing that keeps religion out keeps you from questioning it. And I think it is a little chicken hearted to want to question religion on a forum that religion can't be present in.

If by the class room you mean the private school or private college then by all means, go ahead. But the separation of church and state (which isn't actually in the constitution) says that you can't talk one way or the other about religion in schools. The first amendment says congress shall make no laws establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exorcise there of.

Now, this isn't toughing on whether this is a good idea or not. It is just that rights are rights regardless of who possesses them. The say right that keeps you free from religion in a public school is the same right that stops the government from denouncing someone's religion. You either accept it or deny it all, but don't take one and refuse to accepts others at your convenience.

Actually, the main article is a proposed solutions to end most of the conflict created by people like you. It is simply teaching science so it doesn't touch religion. Most all of the controversy will disappear when Science is taught in the classrooms without touching religion. ID, warning stickers, Emphasizing theory and so on are all attempts at stopping science from being taught in a way that disproves or negates religion. This is also why the problems crop up in small school districts and it isn't a nation wide problem. Most of the science taught in the schools across the country doesn't mention religion at all and that is how it should be.

Re:Logic vs Faith by __aailob1448 · 2008-01-06 09:11 · Score: 1

Interesting post. I agree with many of your points since I disapprove of religion needlessly curtailing a man's freedoms.

It's possible to not baptize your children now or what-ever, and not be effectively stoned to death or burned at the stake. How many thousands of years did that take? 5?

That is incorrect. There were always places where one could follow his own beliefs, provided he did not "disrupt" society doing so. This is no different than not being able to legally be a polygamist nowadays, or sacrifice cocks on the sidewalk.

Yes, the world could be free-er, but no, this isn't the first time people are "free from the shackles of organized religion", not by a long shot.

Personally I'm disgusted with the current state of Religion, so I (similar to Dawkins) have little value in 'respecting it'.

If, as you claim, religion is an invention of Man that has proven useful to his survival over generations, then what you are really disgusted with is human nature. Religion is simply a reflection of it, capable of great good and great evil. Maybe eliminating religion completely would not make the world a better place. Plenty of men do not need religion to tell them to have sex with 13 years old or beat up homosexuals and blacks. Discrimination will continue.

So, people suck, what's new?

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by SanityInAnarchy · 2008-01-06 09:48 · Score: 1

But the thing is, they converted. Compelling argument or not.

But what does that prove, if there's no argument?

Your original comment suggested that one might set out to disprove Christianity and arrive at the conclusion that it's all true, but I'm curious how. Certainly, if Christianity could be shown to be true, I'd want to believe. I mean, no matter how skeptical I might have been, I don't want to burn in Hell, right?

Besides, Pascal's Wager might not be logically sound, it is a simple statement intended to surmise how a person could come to a conclusion.

It's more than one statement. It's an attempt to define, logically, why one might believe, and why one should believe.

As for the the two possibilities you gave, remember these people converted to Christianity, thus the option being limited to the Judeo-Christian God.

Nope. See, if Pascal converted to Christianity because of his wager, then it is flawed. Why didn't he convert to, say, Satanism?

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

That's the Bible's fault by damncrackmonkey · 2008-01-06 09:49 · Score: 1

On the opening page, it says that it is the "word of God" and that it contains no errors. If the church that promotes (sells) it knows that to be false (ie requires interpretation), how can anyone trust them at all?

waste of ink by RockDoctor · 2008-01-06 09:53 · Score: 1

it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"

A complete waste of ink, brains, money and time. Just let the god-believers go back to living in caves, shitting into their water supplies, and dieing in their 40s if they didn't die in their first 3 years of life. That's the natural way that religious belief systems are designed to keep people inhabiting. If you want a better life style, show religion the inside of the shit can that it so richly deserves to inhabit.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

Re:*...flying spaghetti monsters* by Xodmoe · 2008-01-06 10:05 · Score: 1

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster."

...and I take heat for quoting other people out of context

There was more to it of course. My question was "How many new deities can you name? ...and which of them have caught on since Jews, Christians and Muslims are supposed to worship the same god, even though they seem to have different ideas about Him."

...my emphasis added, but then again it was my question, wasn't it?

...nice try, but thanks for playing.

Newton by damncrackmonkey · 2008-01-06 10:15 · Score: 1

You're like the 8th person to mention Newton or some other scientist from hundreds of years ago. That also makes you the 8th person to mention his religious beliefs while conveniently leaving out a discussion of religious tolerance in pre-enlightentment England. These famous 'religious' scientists didn't actually have a choice. We'll obviously never know, but I'd guess that they'd have drastically different views if somehow brought into the 21st century.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by Scudsucker · 2008-01-06 12:02 · Score: 1

Now even if your figures are correct, which I tend to doubt but lets say they are correct for the sake of argument, I see a minority group. The US population is over 300mil. That makes the number of Atheists at most not even 10% of the US population.

Oh, don't go changing the subject now. The issue is not the number of atheists - I am perfectly aware there are several times more Christians in the United States than atheists. The issue is the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity.

As for Lewis being from Ireland, what is your point with that statement exactly?

That 50% of your examples aren't from the U.S., and can't figure into the percentage for this country.

As for your bet. Give me something better than that to work with, that is an unfounded statement until you can give me some reference and then we can work from there.

I think it's fairly easy - name more atheists who converted to Christianity. If it happens "often" as you suggest, there surely must be some articles on the subject, maybe some organizations for such individuals, guestimations on the number of converts, etc.

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by nagora · 2008-01-06 12:03 · Score: 1

uh, whose ultimate goal would that be?

The goal of rational thought is obviously to abandon irrational thought - duh! - you don't understand that because you have embraced irrational superstitions as an explanation for experiences you don't understand - the classic "god of the gaps". Fortunately, such base and craven desires to bend the knee to bogymen is something that is dying out in the West as science gradually closes those gaps.

And, Newton was a guy who spent his later years trying to calculate the end of the world. He decided it would be 2020; I might not be Newton, but I'm pretty sure he was wrong.

TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-06 12:50 · Score: 1

....unless it agrees with your experience and common sense......

You know that you cannot live that way. You have to accept, to believe the experience and knowledge of others in almost every area of life. You get in that car or airplane the first time, because of the experience and common sense of others, not your own. You've had teachers, including Buddha and Lao Tzu whose experiences and precepts you accept because you simply BELIEVE them, not because you KNOW whether they are truthful or not.

(....Disagreements can only strengthen both of us.....)

This is true if it is done in love and respect, but not if done from selfish ambition. Does your belief give you a truly satisfying answer to the four questions, especially the last one?

Jesus promised: "Because I live, you shall also" and proved it by rising from the dead. Buddhism and Taoism don't even make the claim of the founders of those religion's being alive and promising this life to their followers also. All other religions have a founder still in the grave. Only the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty, because He alone is alive, today. That is why I believe in Jesus. He is different than all the others.

--
All theory is gray

Re:Logic vs Faith by maraist · 2008-01-06 15:54 · Score: 1

If, as you claim, religion is an invention of Man that has proven useful to his survival over generations, then what you are really disgusted with is human nature.

Yes and no. It's not that I'm disgusted with the worst in mankind, I have no problem with 'a few bad apples' who take action on their impulses - statistically this is an almost certainty. I have a problem with the endorsement, adoption, and the arrogance of self-riteousness for something that a person with not too much intellect and consideration can see right through.. I'm frustrated that so many DON'T see right through, and subsequently become indoctrinated.

Once they're indoctrinated, I no longer fault them. There have been several articles on slashdot about the human need to make their world-view true, no matter what the facts say.. To rationalize the short-comings of their world-view. To see their opposition as complete opponents that should never be given a break. Republican v.s. Democrat.. One religion v.s. another. So once you're in a religious circle, all the short-comings that upset me so greatly are only minor details, easy to wisk away.

But while I don't fault the inductee, I DO see right through many of the pastors and politicians who in all likelyhood are NOT indoctrinated, but are abusing the mindset of the flock for personal gain. This is just insult to injury to me. The tel-evangalist who solicits millions, in donations that go to their gold-plated bath-tubs. The politicians who pander to the cultists, yet don't act in any way that sounds religious (no humility, no reverence, no generosity, no forgiveness, no respect for members outside their mindset). Granted many politicians are genuinely religious (several were pastors or from a religious background).

I have no problem with a person being indoctrinated - maybe their life has been really miserable, and religion is the only thing that's ever given them hope. I don't want to take that away from people. But I do wish to fight in the public circle against political and public-school-system indoctrination. It's as if we were being forced to all play (and pay for) the lottery, so that the few that 'need the hope of a better tomorrow' can be placated.

The main delicate issue here is that a person that IS part of the indoctrinated circle doesn't want their child's mind 'perverted' with other mind-sets. A happy child is a naieve child (as I can personally attest to). So the four options that can appease everybody: Segregate the classes (religious-focused science classes/hard-core science classes), make religious people home school, make the atheists home-school, or don't teach the contentious topics, and say this is for your homework, take book A or book B home with you and work with your parents.
Finally we can do what we do now, which is fight to force one side or the other to compromise.

No really good solution, I would say.

--
-Michael

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by AndGodSed · 2008-01-06 16:01 · Score: 1

Oh, don't go changing the subject now. The issue is not the number of atheists - I am perfectly aware there are several times more Christians in the United States than atheists. The issue is the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity.

I wasn't trying to change the subject, it was merely an observation. As to the issue you noted, I think an accurate gauge would be to see a percentage comparison. A mere number comparison might not be as good a gauge. As for how many Christians became Atheist, from where I am standing they are not that many. Remember though that I am Christian, and a missionary. So not only is my Job to convince people that Jesus is Lord, I do not mingle with many Atheists socially, so my view is biased - from where you stand the reverse might be true (i.e. from your viewpoint)

That 50% of your examples aren't from the U.S., and can't figure into the percentage for this country.

What country my examples are from is not the point. I am not from the US, and I had no idea where you are from, so naturally my examples where not chosen from any geographical location.

I think it's fairly easy - name more atheists who converted to Christianity. If it happens "often" as you suggest, there surely must be some articles on the subject, maybe some organizations for such individuals, guestimations on the number of converts, etc.

1. I could name and you could name and what we really would need is a peer reviewed scientific study on the subject, no? I found nothing like that in a (admittedly quick) googling.
2. I found a few websites for ex atheists - check out www.ex-atheist.com
Now a quick disclaimer, it's the first time I checked out this site, and I found it a bit "in your face", having not browsed through it much I cannot ascribe to it's content or tone. It seems scarily a lot like more Hovindish Atheist bashing and offensive drivel, but for lack of anything better...

Here are a few names of Atheist convertees that you could look up, there seems to be quite a bit written about them online:

A.S.A Jones
G.Z. Jordan
Josh Mcdowell
Lee Strobel

An interesting case study would be Bill O-Hare, Madelyn Murray O-Hare's son. He converted to Christianity as an adult, his mom campaigned against prayer in schools.

--

Re:The limits of science (mod parent up) by sumdumass · 2008-01-06 16:37 · Score: 1

There are no attempts to stop science from being taught, although there are attempts to stop "voodoo science" from being taught, science that is unproven, wrong, and in opposition to what the Bible says.

reread what I wrote. The voodoo science among other techniques are ways of stopping science from being taught in a way that specifically counters religion. Science in and of itself doesn't necessarily do this, the ways it is being taught is. These are/were the answers to that.

If science is to be taught in schools, it should be testable and observable science, not based on theories that are based on speculations, that some "scientist" developed through guesswork.

I don't even have a problem with theories such as guess work. As long as it is presented properly and withing the scope of science.

Science and Religion are not in opposition. "Voodoo Science" (old earth theory) and the Bible are in opposition.
"Voodoo Science" is a religion in its own right, not science.

Well, this point is sort of mitigated if science is taught in the respect of science and doesn't touch religion at all. I mean simple by compartmentalizing the information is simple enough to avoid conflicts. Simple saying this is how science sees things and it is how it has built it's basis in the last few years is enough to compartmentalize the issues away from ID, Religion, The CFSM or anything else. It would seriously be no different the saying C:\ or / for the root of the drive depending on which OS you are dealing with. This might not be enough for some people, it might not be enough for you but I think it separates the core of the issues enough for them to coexist.

Re:Logic vs Faith by amRadioHed · 2008-01-06 16:51 · Score: 1

....For thousands of years, faith has not been very effective in keeping the peace.......

Neither has science. Irrelevant. Many religions claim to be a way to bring about peace and so we may judge them on their ability to do so. Science makes no such claim so while it would be nice if science did bring about world peace we can't be critical of it for not doing so.

--
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace

Creationism is the Opium of the Poor by igb · 2008-01-06 18:50 · Score: 1

The core of religious belief is that God created the heavens and the Earth.

Really? Really? Or is that just the American Protestants speaking? By religion to you mean religion in the large, or do you mean what's happening in the revival tent by the mall? Creation consumes about four pages in the Old and New Testaments. Although Genesis is canonical to Judaism as well creationism doesn't split Jews apart, and the only reason it's become an issue (in Europe at least) in Islam is that any sense of persecution the Christians can muster is attractive to the Muslims as well. There is no schism between `believers' in Evolution and others in Shinto, or Hinduism, or Buhdism, in any of the other major world religions.

There isn't really in Christianity: it's just that America dominates Anglophone discourse, and the tension between fancy intellectuals from the coasts who think they're no much smarter than the rest of us but aren't really on the one hand and stupid farmers from the flyover states on the other hand (to parody their mutual images) happens to have gone to Evolution this century. Last century the flyover states wanted the right to lynch niggers if they wanted to vote, next century who knows? This century, you justify the fact that your farm's gone bust, your son is dead in Iraq and your daughter can't read by telling yourself that them damn New Yorkers are going to go to hell by believing in evilution. Go girl: who needs a job and healthcare anyway?

Prediction: belief in creationism is 90% amongst Americans who live more than 100 miles from both the Atlantic and the Pacific, earn under $60K and have no post-18 education. Everyone else who pretends to believe in it just wants their votes or their money.

Re:Logic vs Faith by Boronx · 2008-01-06 19:11 · Score: 1

Read past my second statement I didn't just dismiss Einstein, I give my reasons for thinking his quote wasn't well thought out or well informed. I'm also personally tired of people taking it as given that, just because Einstein was the greatest genius ever known, he never said anything stupid (or they are fully aware of what he meant or the context in which he said them).

--
Play Command HQ online

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by AndGodSed · 2008-01-06 23:39 · Score: 1

As to your question HOW, I don't think there is one way that suit's all, if you catch my drift. I for one did not set out to disprove Christianity, but others did. I actually met a guy, and spent time with him, who is a physicist. He could not reconcile the Biblical view of the world with what he knew about physics and scientific discovery.

So he went so far as to and learn what we call "skykerskrif", uh I forget the correct english word but the word literally means "Nail Language" to read the actual original dead sea scrolls and other artefacts found that our Bible is based on.

Only after having gone that far did he satisfy himself that there is indeed a God, that it is the Judeo Christian God, and that the Biblical account of the world as we know it is accurate.

And no, he does not adhere to Young Earth Creationism, if you were wondering...

From my point of view the best place to start is with the study of the life of Jesus. Forget the other crap even Christian churches cannot agree on. And please dear lord do not - repeat not - pay any attention to anything remotely resembling Kent Hovind...

You may be interested in some of the works of Josh Mcdowell. He went out to disprove the Christian religion as based on myth and that journey ended with him converting.

He asks a very good question.

Was Jesus a "Good Moral Teacher"
Was Jesus a "Lunatic"
Was Jesus "God"

Suffice it to say, without flooding you with stuff, that Jesus could not have been a good moral teacher if he were not God, because that would have made him a LIAR. He claimed on several occasions to be God, and a moral man of sound mind would not do that and knowingly mislead thousands.

So that leaves Lunatic or Lord.

You decide.

--

Re:evolution doesn't require abandoning belief in by bechthros · 2008-01-07 01:20 · Score: 1

"The goal of rational thought is obviously to abandon irrational thought - duh!"

either stop telling me what my goals are, or else convince me that you're right about what my goals are. repeating yourself doesn't count as a valid argument anywhere outside of fox news. i don't tell you what your goals are.

"you don't understand that because you have embraced irrational superstitions as an explanation for experiences you don't understand - the classic "god of the gaps"."

i was unaware that you had proven the inexistence of God. remarkable indeed, that the first person ever to prove a universal negative spends a good deal of time posting on slashdot instead of reveling in their newfound celebrity.

any assertion that God definitively does not exist is just as much a statement of faith as any assertion that God definitively does. i'm not talking about religious faith, i am talking about any belief devoid of proof. now, personally, i have no problem making statements of faith. but you claim to operate strictly from reason. i therefore await your concession that the possibility exists that there is a God.

i do not envy you the ivory prison of your reason. reason has never written a poem or a song. reason has never fallen in love. please note that, once again, i am not denying the importance of reason, or of the many wonderful (and terrible) things reason has given us. i am simply observing that there are things which lie outside it.

i encourage you, in the spirit of both scientific inquiry and personal growth, to keep an open mind and open eyes. i continue to admit my fallibility as a human. i have yet to hear you do the same.

"Fortunately, such base and craven desires to bend the knee to bogymen is something that is dying out in the West as science gradually closes those gaps."

firstly, i hope you realize how pitiably immature, insecure and defensive your insults make you appear. as soon as you start throwing pistols it's pretty clear who's out of ammo.

secondly, if you think that science can, will, or should ever explain everything about the universe, humanity, and the soul then perhaps i was wrong... you appear to have a great deal of faith, indeed.

lastly, if you were as certain of the inexistence of God as you claim to be, you wouldn't still be reading this thread. you would simply shrug your shoulders, sigh with despair at the waste of time that is any confrontation with yet another zealot, and go about your day. i don't think you harbor any illusions of destroying my faith. and i think when you lash out at me, you're really lashing out at the part of you that secretly wonders if i'm right.

but then, like i said, i could always be wrong. could you?

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-07 03:28 · Score: 1

No, Jesus is not different from all the others. You haven't seen his tomb, you have no idea if he rose from the dead or not. And I can and will live that way. I don't accept Buddha's teachings out of faith, but out of direct experience. My experiences, not my belief, give me all the answers I'll ever need. I feel sorry for you that your logical faculties have been so eroded by the damaging teachings of your prophet that you can't even trust your own experience, you have to have blind faith. That's just sad, to see something as glorious as a human mind reduced to such a state.

--
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by SanityInAnarchy · 2008-01-07 05:20 · Score: 1

As to your question HOW, I don't think there is one way that suit's all, if you catch my drift.

Which tells me that whatever ways exist, they aren't logical. Were they logical, you could simply point me to a logical argument, and that would be the end of it.

Suffice it to say, without flooding you with stuff, that Jesus could not have been a good moral teacher if he were not God, because that would have made him a LIAR. He claimed on several occasions to be God, and a moral man of sound mind would not do that and knowingly mislead thousands.

People are not black and white, and lunatics are the least predictable.

Jesus taught people to love their neighbor, for one. Does that mean that if I believe in loving my neighbor, I must believe Jesus was God?

Let's not forget: Maybe it was a metaphor, and maybe Jesus even did his best to make it clear it was a metaphor. There's plenty of room for misinterpretation and downright revisionist history by the time the Gospels were actually written. Or maybe he was entirely sane, and made the claims he did because he was deliberately engineering a religion around himself -- not out of megalomania, but to make sure people didn't forget the lessons he taught.

But I suspect you know this, at least somewhat:

And no, he does not adhere to Young Earth Creationism, if you were wondering...

The Bible is either true, or it's not. You decide.

You see, it's possible for parts of it to be true, just as it's possible for parts of Jesus' life to be true, or even parts of Jesus' psyche to be sound.

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by AndGodSed · 2008-01-07 06:10 · Score: 1

First off. Did you use BBcode option to reply? It is rather nicely formatted, much nicer than the normal Italics stuff...

Hokay, back on topic:

As to your question HOW, I don't think there is one way that suit's all, if you catch my drift.

Which tells me that whatever ways exist, they aren't logical. Were they logical, you could simply point me to a logical argument, and that would be the end of it.

(Boldyness indicates my OP to avoid confusion)

Your original statement is not logical from where I stand. Do you say that there is only one approach to coming to a logical conclusion? There are four personality types (depending on who you ask, but there we could go on forever on another topic altogether) and each one of them approaches a set problem in a certain manner that is logical to that personality type.

I am Sanguine, for instance, with a lot of Phlegmatic thrown in for good measure. I think in pictures, and loose ideas. I find it hard to debate a subject with a person who thinks more, erm, "mathematically" if you catch my drift. My wife is Choleric/Melancholic, you get how my day is. She asks when something will be done, I say soon, she wants a set time. Oh some days...

If you excuse me to be so bold, but read some work of Josh Mcdowell. He approaches the subject with a logical framework. I am guessing that his manner of logic (I hope you understand what I mean by this) might resonate with you. Accept Jesus or not, the idea is not that you read his book and convert, you asked for an example of a logical argument, that is the best one I can refer you to.

People are not black and white, and lunatics are the least predictable.

Jesus taught people to love their neighbor, for one. Does that mean that if I believe in loving my neighbor, I must believe Jesus was God?

You are correct, people are not black and white. I touched on this above.

Yes Jesus taught people to love their neighbor. He also taught that God is the highest authority on earth. He also taught that Christians would be persecuted for their faith. He told the apostles that they would die for their faith.

The result? Eleven of the twelve where killed. They literally followed His teachings unto death, and inspired others to do so as well. Not good moral teachings in my book if He were not God.

Let's not forget: Maybe it was a metaphor, and maybe Jesus even did his best to make it clear it was a metaphor. There's plenty of room for misinterpretation and downright revisionist history by the time the Gospels were actually written.

The Bible has a lot of metaphor in it doesn't it. There are ways of determining what was metaphor, and what was not. As to revisionist history, there was not that much room for revisionist history, besides there is a lot written (from both Atheist and Christian sources) on the subject. I ascribe to the Christian view, you would not, I can however say that if you are basing your argument here on say the Davinci Code you should really find a better source. I won't go too far into that here, if you are interested in that you should go to http://godgab.org/ and check in the Christianity section. There are several sections where Atheists asked the same questions you did. Believe me it takes up pages and pages of to-ing and fro-ing to get ANYWHERE significant.

And don't worry, godgab is not a Christian forum, it was started by an Atheist, there is a vibrant Atheist group that frequent it.

Or maybe he was entirely sane, and made the claims he did because he was deliberately engineering a religion around himself -- not out of megalomania, but to make sure people didn't forget the lessons he taught.

But I suspect you know this, at least somewhat:

I know this in the sense that I have heard the argument before. It is a bit flawed though, because He made some promises that he would then not be able to keep. And the point again, people died because they foll

--

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-07 07:21 · Score: 1

.....No, Jesus is not different from all the others. You haven't seen his tomb, you have no idea if he rose from the dead or not.......

One difference is that Jesus claimed to be God come to Earth and rise from death. He claimed to be THE truth and the only way to come to God. Buddha made no such claims. If those claims of Jesus are false, He was the biggest deceiver or self deceived, most arrogant person that ever trod this planet. Yet this Jesus affected human history, art, architecture, music, governments and numerous other aspects of human life, more than all the other founders of religions put together. Every calendar testifies of the centrality of His appearing.

You have staked your life and destiny on Buddha, I have done the same upon Jesus. After we both die, each of us will find out who made the better choice. We will then know whether Buddha's or Jesus' teachings were according to reality. We may both go out of existence, according to Buddha or I will be in heaven with Jesus and you will be with Buddha, wherever he is, somewhere in the outer darkness. As I see it, you are taking the far greater gamble with your eternal destiny. Assuming (believing) that Jesus is right, rather than anyone else is a far safer approach.

Better take another careful look at the person of Jesus and His claims and teachings before you die. You have no guarantee of even waking up tomorrow, so you might do this today.

--
All theory is gray

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-07 07:51 · Score: 1

Seriously, I've looked into Jesus, his teachings, and the claims that others have made for him. Jesus wrote nothing himself, unlike Buddha who wrote tons himself and made sure his disciples understood him completely. All we have to go on in Jesus case is the imperfect human understanding of his followers.

Not every calendar testifies to the centrality of Jesus appearing, and they all get it wrong. He wasn't born when the calendar says he was born, all modern biblical scholars agree on that point: the calendar is off by about 3-5 years as to the year of his birth, and no one knows the month, although we know it wasn't December!

Given that I have seen plenty of arrogant fools make outrageous claims such as "I am God!" but I have never seen anyone rise from the dead, it seems logical to me that either Jesus was an arrogant fool, or (more likely) his followers badly misinterpreted his message, he got himself killed before he could make his message understood, and his followers went into his tomb and stole the body in order to impress the gullible.

If the story of Christianity is true, I would rather go to hell forever than be a part of it, thank you very much. The God of Christianity disgusts me to my very core. He is a liar, a killer, and a psychotic egotist. How could infinite punishment for a finite sin be reasonable? How can God be omnipotent and still allow evil? You can make up all kinds of excuses, but it boils down to the fact that God is either not omnipotent, or he wants evil to exist, and I want no part of anything like that. I don't give a rat's ass what his divine motivations might be, or his mysterious reasons. being omnipotent, he could have made a world where humans have free will, but there is no evil. If I can easily imagine how that could be done, an omniscient and omnipotent being could have too. Why would an omniscient being (who knows what we are going to choose, based on the circumstances of our life) choose to punish us for what he knows all along we are going to do? Why would an omnipotent being need us to beg for forgiveness?

I would have to give up my own sense of the world, of logic, and of morality in order to believe in Christianity. I would have to give up all that I am, for what? The slight chance that I will get into heaven to spend eternity with a being I neither like nor respect? No thanks.

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- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Pragmatism by ShakaUVM · 2008-01-07 13:05 · Score: 1

>>It does not necessarily have to be. It can be a form of pragmatism.

Once you dip into pragmatism, then belief in God is again a rational decision. As James pointed out, we should be free to rationally choose between two live options, when the issue is not closed. If the existence of God is a live issue for us, and the existence of God is not proven OR disproven, then we should not mock people for believing one way or the other.

Unfortunately, looking here at Slashdot, most people seem more than willing to claim that anyone that believes in religion must be a nut. Sorry, correct: a dangerous fundamentalist lunatic living in some backwater somewhere, burning biology textbooks on dates with a cousin on a Friday night.

>>Both the God theory and the non-God theory will fit the evidence. But that's not what we mean by plausible in ordinary language. I could construct a theory where a purple space goat is manipulating my brain in a way that no-one can detect

This is the sort of inflammatory statements that atheists make about religious people. One could counter that saying that when the option of believing in God is open, that choosing to believe an ultimately nihilistic and self-destructive philosophy (there's that Pragmatism again) is the height of lunacy. =)

Re:Logic vs Faith by smittyoneeach · 2008-01-08 00:03 · Score: 1

Fair enough.
I think I would have said "argued in relatively unambiguous terms compared to faith".

admit that you just strung together a bunch of long words to give yourself an air of authority

Well, I certainly can't stop you from casting aspersions on my motives, but if you look at the whole post, one hopes that you'll see the attempt to draw a contrast between two concepts.
The concepts themselves are overloaded to the point that you can't effectively communicate an idea in a concise way.
Or, as you note, the mod points may indicate that there was some success in the endeavor.

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Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear

Re:The limits of science (mod parent up) by sumdumass · 2008-01-08 03:16 · Score: 1

Religion only enters into the science classroom when scientific "facts" are pushed through the textbooks that brainwash students into thinking the earth magically appeared out of nothing, and that ultimately, life formed from a rock(which coincedentally appeared out of absolute nothingness).

The point is that science and religion can co exists withing their own respective fields. Science doesn't need to touch religion at all and when it is taught in the context of science, instead of world politics or whatever, it doesn't infringe or brainwash anything. the schools don't teach religion, at least not public schools, on a level that could lead to a proper understanding of the religion.

This idea isn't out of the ordinary. We often compartmentalize bits of knowledge in the pursuit of understanding different things.

These so-called scientific "facts" are simply propaganda that give people a deceptive alternative to believing they were created. It gives them a crutch to reject the Bible. Everyone is free to choose to reject it or accept it, but when science classes fool people into thinking there is no God using false scientific claims, that's the point when religion is brought into the science classroom.
At least with ID in the science classroom, it gives the students an alternative to the falsities being plugged down their ear-holes, and allows them to decide on which way they want to go.

Well, your making my point without wanting to I think. You see, If I was to tell you that all round object weighed 2 lbs and all square objects weighed 3.5 pounds You would probably look at me like I was crazy. You certainly have key rings and other objects I just described that weigh more or less then 2 or 2.5 pounds. SO when I say when working with this set of objects right here, all round object are 2 and all square objects are 2.5, then my meaning is better understood and you can use that to build off of in relation to that set of objects.

Well, it is the same in science. Especially when it is taught in schools. Science says X, you look around and don't automatically see X but it is what they are telling you. So when you know that X in the terms of science has a meaning specific to science, then you can build off of it within the respect of science. But when you have teachers saying that the bible is wrong, or any other explanation is wrong, this is the only true word-science, you end up with science attempting to tread onto religion and whatever else. So keeping things within the respect of their fields stops them from crossing into related fields and causing conflicts where there should be none.

I understand your sentiment that it all relates back to something magically happening. Either by intelligent design, God willing it to happen, or somehow matter appearing and an extraordinary set of circumstances following in a way that just happened to create life and the worlds as we know them. The problem is, there needs to be a way to build of all these scenarios to the extent that they will allow us progress. And when we use one of them, taking ideas or techniques from another doesn't always lead us to predictable results. You surely wouldn't take the procedures for making biscuits and implement the same procedures for making a gravy or sauce. It wouldn't produce what you wanted. So there is no reason why we cannot keep science, religion and anything else that attempts to explain the same areas separate and within their own context. Especially when in a scholarly environment and a good portion of the instructions will be based of the previous.

There is no reason at all that a public school system should be touching religion in any respect. This is a way of getting an education that allows the participation in sciences that do not deprive anyone from any other experience or religion. and when taught this way, it is no different then saying you spell something a certain way in this language and another way in that language.

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-08 07:55 · Score: 1

....and his followers went into his tomb and stole the body in order to impress the gullible......

It's obvious that you never read the resurrection accounts carefully. After Jesus was murdered His disciples scattered and were rightfully scared to show their faces. They were holed up behind locked doors. There was also a Roman guard placed at the tomb to prevent anyone from the outside removing the body. Until Jesus personally appeared to them, the disciples were a disheartened, scared bunch of men. At every meeting, after the resurrection, Jesus ate some food with them, to show that He was not some immaterial hallucination. He even made them a breakfast barbeque.

The fact remains that Jesus has had more impact on this planet than any other religious founder. The fact that He was born, not the exact date is what matters.

(....being omnipotent, he could have made a world where humans have free will, but there is no evil.......)

A lot of philosophers have wrestled with the question of why evil. I think that first evil must be defined. To me it's like darkness, which is simply where there is no light. Evil is a place where there is nothing good, or leave out an "o" there there is no God. A being who can truly choose, must be able to choose light or darkness. Right now, we live in a world where good and evil are inextricably intertwined. Everything has the light and dark side, the ying and yang, as some home put it.

Someday, these two will be separated. Those who now choose light, will remain in light and those who choose darkness now will remain there. We ALL have chosen darkness, in the sense that we want OUR will to be supreme, rather than submitting FREELY to the will of God. God could have left us all in the darkness we chose for ourselves. Being in darkness and death so long, we have gotten used to it. We now hate the light, and flee, similar to the creatures from an overturned rock scurry back into darkness. Jesus said He is the Light of the World.

God made a way in Jesus for anyone WILLING to surrender that free will to the supreme will of God. We are not ABLE to do this, apart from His grace, anymore than the creatures under the rock are able to be in the light. It takes a change in us, as it would in that crawly creature, that only the Creator can make.

There can be only one supreme will. Whenever there are two or more wills, the others must submit or else there is the likelihood of conflict and no possibility of love. We see this in marriage. One partner must submit in love to the other. If neither gives, then there is separation, divorce. Even though God has made us, He doesn't force us to love, trust and obey Him, but merely tells us what the consequences would be, if we choose our own will -- namely death, separation from Him, the source of life.

I think that if God would allow you to spend just a day in hell, the place where there is no good whatsoever, and then come back here, you might revise all your thinking.

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All theory is gray

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-08 08:30 · Score: 1

No, I would not change my thinking. I would rather suffer eternal torment than give in to a bully. To me, the God of Christianity is evil. The fundamental morality of Christianity is hopelessly perverted. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be an ass about this, but it is how I honestly feel. The thing is, most of what you say has value if you know how to correctly interpret it. You parrot back sayings like "We ALL have chosen darkness, in the sense that we want OUR will to be supreme, rather than submitting FREELY to the will of God," without, I think, understanding them. In one sense, that phrase is absolutely true, but it has nothing to do with the Christian concept of a personal creator/savior God. It is a psychological metaphor relating to a mental virus that nearly every human is infected with. It is made up of three parts, a Judge, a Victim, and the Book of Law. We place judgments on the universe, rather than using our free will to accept what is, and any time we or the universe fail to live up to what our personal Book of Law says should be, our Judge part punishes our victim part. We chose to let the virus in, and it is the virus that wants to remain supreme.

I've been to hell. I've also been to heaven. I don't need to dwell in either. When I die, I will simply go away. Eternity in heaven sounds boring as hell when you've seen what I've seen. I've seen everything, and been everyone, for all time, in all possible universes. You could do it too, anyone can. After that, one is pretty much content with 'game over' after one's physical body dies. I know you must think I'm full of shit, but I don't really care.

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- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Re:Logic vs Faith by arminw · 2008-01-08 10:35 · Score: 1

....I know you must think I'm full of shit.....

No, most definitely not so.

Nothing goes out of existence in this universe, only changes form. We all, including you, are indeed infected with a virus. The Bible calls it SIN and outlines the steps God has taken to eradicate it.

I hope, that before you die, you WILL meet the REAL Jesus, rather than some caricature you may have in your mind.

God knows who you are and I'll add you to my prayer list.

Thanks for the discussion.

Armin

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All theory is gray

Re:Logic vs Faith by spun · 2008-01-08 10:55 · Score: 1

Nothing goes out of existence, only changes form, eh? Okay, then self changes form into non self. All the matter, energy, and information that make up 'you' may still be there, but 'you' as a coherent pattern cease to exist when the conditions giving rise to that pattern change. As God created sin in the first place, I don't understand why God would then 'take steps' to eradicate it. Why would an omnipotent being 'take steps' anyway? They would just say, "there is no sin" and there would be none.

One can have free will without the possibility of sin. For instance, can you choose to fnargle a drimp? No, because those words are meaningless in our universe, even though they may have meaning in another. An omnipotent God could have created a universe where it was as impossible for you to choose to sin as it is for you to choose to fnargle a drimp.

As I've been nothing but confrontational, and you've been nothing but patient, I feel that I should add that although the inherent morality of Christianity sickens me, most of the Christians I've met have been very moral and compassionate people.

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- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton

Re:Logic vs Faith by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · 2008-01-08 11:51 · Score: 1

When you're using logic, you typically have propositions and you end up proving those propositions true or false. So logic is about deciding whether or not X is true or false.

How does your notion of faith work? Do you have faith in X where X is a proposition like "God exists". Or is X a state of affairs, or some kind of object, so you'd say something like "I have faith it'll work out in the end". Or is X something from a completely different class?

The reason I ask is this: there are times when people seem to have faith in X, but then scientists say X is false, and we end up with a conflict. This conflict doesn't come about because someone has decided to pit logic vs. faith. It comes about simply because two different groups say opposing things. So what I want to understand is what you do when you have "I have faith in X" and "X is false". Maybe this could never happen because faith doesn't apply to the things logic does. But I don't know, after all there are lots of people who seem to have faith in "Creation".

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Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.

Re:Logic vs Faith by smittyoneeach · 2008-01-08 13:14 · Score: 1

My personal opinion is that there is no conflict between Creation and the Bible.
Apparent conflicts arise when the interpretation of the truth of the Bible becomes excessively literal.
That said, I don't think Evolution is something in which you can have 'faith' in the same sense. It's a theory, and a moving target: if you don't like it, give it a month or two, and they'll be saying something else.
For me, the whole conversation is a bore. Evolutionary theories cannot be 'proven', either. Go in the lab with the periodic table of elements, and generate self-replicating life. Then I shall be quite impressed.

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Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by SanityInAnarchy · 2008-01-09 18:23 · Score: 1

First off. Did you use BBcode option to reply? It is rather nicely formatted, much nicer than the normal Italics stuff...

I used HTML. The style I use is <blockquote> for quoting and <p> tags for my own paragraphs.

Your original statement is not logical from where I stand. Do you say that there is only one approach to coming to a logical conclusion?

Depends what you mean by "approach". There are certainly often multiple, well-formed arguments which lead to the same conclusion. But a well-formed argument is not a logical one.

There are four personality types (depending on who you ask, but there we could go on forever on another topic altogether) and each one of them approaches a set problem in a certain manner that is logical to that personality type.

See, the thing about logic is that it's universal. There is no such thing as "is logical to that personality type" -- something is either logical or it isn't. It is the "mathematical" or "formal" approach, yes, but that is what "logical" is actually defined to mean.

Let me put it this way: Given the assumptions of basic algebra (and there are actually quite a lot of assumptions), 2+2=4. Given the assumptions of Euclidian geometry, the sum of the angles of a triangle are 180 degrees. These are theorums, which is to say that you cannot argue against them, because they are logical. Thus, the only way they are not true is if you change the assumptions -- in certain non-Euclidian geometry, for instance, the sum of the angles in a triangle can vary. (If that triangle is on the surface of a sphere, for instance.)

The reason I am interested in logical arguments is that I can actually make my own logical arguments against them, either by attacking their assumptions (implicit or not), or by showing a flaw in their reasoning. And furthermore, someone could actually convince me of God by making a logical argument, if they limit themselves to only assumptions I share.

She asks when something will be done, I say soon, she wants a set time. Oh some days...

See, I'm actually the same way, but that's more because I'm somewhat lazy, and I don't actually know how long things will take.

If you excuse me to be so bold, but read some work of Josh Mcdowell.

Any in particular you recommend? I'll try to find some...

Yes Jesus taught people to love their neighbor. He also taught that God is the highest authority on earth. He also taught that Christians would be persecuted for their faith. He told the apostles that they would die for their faith.

Even this could be disputed.

We know what he taught through people who wrote about it after his death, some hundreds of years after his death. That is what I mean by "revisionist history" -- even if you go back to the original Greek, there are some Gospels which are included, some which aren't; some don't agree with each other, even with the ones which were included; and as I said, some were written quite awhile after Christ's death.

The Bible has a lot of metaphor in it doesn't it. There are ways of determining what was metaphor, and what was not.

How so?

I ascribe to the Christian view, you would not, I can however say that if you are basing your argument here on say the Davinci Code you should really find a better source.

Nope. Haven't read it or seen the movie.

I'm actually basing this on somewhat vague memories of things like History Channel documentaries. I should check Wikipedia, but I'll let you do that if you want.

I won't go too far into that here, if you are interested in that you should go to http://godgab.org/ and check in the Christianity section.

Thanks. I've been

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Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:Logic vs Faith by MrResistor · 2008-01-10 09:23 · Score: 1

I would rather suffer eternal torment than give in to a bully.

Well put. I seriously wonder how people can go around spouting all this "God is great!" BS and then follow it up with descriptions of behavior I wouldn't tolerate from a toddler. If he's really the "one, true God", then what is he so jealous of? If doing my best to be a good person isn't enough for him, then he can kiss my ass.

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Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.

straw man, straw man! by pikine · 2008-01-11 13:13 · Score: 1

Err, I'm not talking about specieation, you dumb ass. Don't change the topic. Science cannot answer the question where the original specie, the one without the ancestor, came from.

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I once had a signature.

Re:Education is the Solution, Religion is the Prob by AndGodSed · 2008-01-13 09:24 · Score: 1

(I see you posted on my blog ;)) Sorry for taking a while to get back to ya, had a rough weekend...

And furthermore, someone could actually convince me of God by making a logical argument, if they limit themselves to only assumptions I share.

I have skipped to this point because I basically agree with you on most of your points on logic, except on the point that logic is necessarily universal. The universality of logic depends on the field of study, as in your example Mathematical logic is generally universal.

As to the above quote. Maybe it would help speed things along by listing your assumptions? Until then I will say this: Why should a person when using logic limit themselves to your assumptions only? Remember, that believing in God, or coming to that belief, opens up a whole can of new possible assumptions.

Then there is something else, and I have seen this happen, but I do not expect you to take only my word for it.

I have heard many times that the most logical arguments cannot convince someone of the existence of God, there I disagree slightly, but that the Holy Spirit convinces. Now as to why I disagree, I have seen and read about how logical arguments have convinced people of the existence of God. BUT I have also seen and read how a person through personal conviction have accepted the existence of God.

Now I assume from what you have written that you are more an Agnostic than an outright Atheist, or at least a soft Atheist, so you have not discounted the possibility of God existing.

Now a logical argument can convince you of the possibility of God existing, the apostle Paul did that many times as it is recorded in the Bible, but to accept Jesus as your Saviour takes the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and then a step of faith.

But let's backtrack a bit here.

I do not expect you to believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit, nor do I expect you to accept my arguments on how the step of faith things work, they were only thrown in for clarifying a few issues.

Now as to this point:

The reason I am interested in logical arguments is that I can actually make my own logical arguments against them, either by attacking their assumptions (implicit or not), or by showing a flaw in their reasoning.

Now that is an attractive position from any perspective. The attraction of logic is exactly as you say, logical arguments can be made for and against.

However, I posit (is that even the correct word?) that what is logical develops as we learn. Years ago is would seem illogical to say that a particle of matter could exist in two places at the same time, or that two particles of matter could occupy the same time and space simultaneously. Now through the wonderful science of physics it has been proven via experimentation to be a theoretical possibility.

Now one of the things that the Bible says is that God is/can be in more than one place at the same time. I think the term is omnipresent. Now that would seem an illogical thing to believe about God, it is simply not possible, is it? Well through scientific study it has been shown that it could be a theoretical possibility. So it is perfectly logical for me to say God is omnipresent. And you should add those assumptions then to your list, since it is a logical position to hold, science supports it.

Closing off on this point, what if someone knows what you don't, and makes a logical argument based on that knowledge? To you it would seem illogical, and flawed, and you would be perfectly justified in arguing from your base of knowledge, but the discussion would go nowhere if both parties are not at least willing to assume that there are limits to their own knowledge, and debate from that standpoint rather than from "If it is illogical to me therefore it must be flawed and therefore it must be false."

I am not alluding to so called "revealed knowledge", I find people who argue from that point and refu

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