Fear of Death Makes People Into Believers (of Science)

sciencehabit writes "Nothing, some say, turns an atheist into a believer like the fear of death. 'There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes. But a new study suggests that people in stressful situations don't always turn to a higher power. Sometimes, they turn to science. Both athletes preparing for a big race and students asked to write about their own death showed a 15% stronger belief in science than those under less stressful situations (abstract). 'In stressful situations people are likely to turn to whatever worldviews and beliefs are most meaningful to them,' says study co-author, Anna-Kaisa Newheiser, a psychologist at Yale University. And many people find the scientific worldview more compatible with their own."

Comments

Science works

[MrEricSir]

There's nothing to "believe" in when it comes to science (it works either way) but if the fear of death makes people interested, that's great.

After all, science has brought us not only longer lives, but more fulfilling, healthier lives with less suffering. If you're worried about death it's just sensible to turn to science.

Re:Science works

[mk2mark]

That's not true. I choose to believe what a scientist or a doctor tells me. The choice is important, as history teaches. It means more rigour in science, healthy skepticism and less people burning on stakes.

Re:Science works

[iggymanz]

Science doesn't always work; since it is a product of the human mind it can be wrong, and it is also not comprehensive but limited.

People have died and been maimed because of science that was incorrect or incomplete. Castle Bravo was to be a 4 to 6 megaton weapon test that hurt no one.

Funny thing happened, we learned that day that the "inert" lithium 7 in the 6/7 mix could absorb a neutron, and then besides releasing that neutron again also alpha decay into tritium which is of course a lovely thermonuclear fuel. Moreover those released neutrons bombarded the uranium tamper of the bomb and caused extra fission. oops. the yield was 15 megatons, people were killed and others maimed for life by radiation.

Re:Science works

[Daetrin]

That's not true either. I could honestly believe there was an intelligent being who created our current universe and simultaneously believe in the process of science. Believing in one does not generally require disbelieving in the other. There are some specific religions that are antithetical to science in their details, but that is a different issue.

Re:Science works

[Obfuscant]

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion),

Despite the common misconception, these are not mutually exclusive beliefs.

Science is great up to a point; it can tell us what happened and how it happened.

Science can tells us how it might have happened, but cannot tell us for a fact that it did happen that way.

Re:Science works

[Black Parrot]

I don't think that's strictly true.

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion), one needs to believe that the elements needed to create the big bang came into existence of their own accord and that the laws of physics decided to invent themselves.

Science is great up to a point; it can tell us what happened and how it happened. But when you go back far enough, it does requires the belief that everything which set off the chain of events somehow came into being without an intelligent creator.

Why should I have any more trouble believing in an uncaused universe than in an uncaused divinity?

Actually, the atheist assumes less, because s/he merely assumes the universe. The theist has to assume a god that can speak the universe into being. (Plus heaven, hell, souls, etc.)

Ockham says, cut out the middle man.

Re:Science works

[PRMan]

And my mom chose to believe what she felt God was telling her instead of what the doctor was telling her. In numerous cases, her intuition was right and he was wrong. And he was considered the world's foremost expert on her condition. She lived longer than all his other patients, double over the next highest person. And he changed his treatment methods after her success even though it didn't make logical sense, because it had the best results. (Incidentally, that's HOW he became the world's foremost expert on her condition.)

Re:Science works

[MrEricSir]

But when you go back far enough, it does requires the belief that everything which set off the chain of events somehow came into being without an intelligent creator.

Preconceived notions about how the universe came into being have nothing to do with science. Furthermore, you don't need to know all the details about how things came into being to practice science.

Re:Science works

[bentcd]

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion),

Science isn't something you believe in, it's something you use. If I use a hammer to nail a picture up on the wall, does this mean I believe in hammer or does it just mean I used a hammer to achieve some desired result?

A scientific result is something you may choose to believe or not believe, depending on the level of confidence you have in the team behind it and the rigour of their methods. To believe in a scientific result on the other hand sounds to me more of a fanatical position than a rational one.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

When god was talking to her why didn't he let her know about those woman how were prisoner for years?

Re:Science works

[Trepidity]

If you want to phrase it differently not using the word "believe": you need to trust that the scientific community is generally following a reliable method for gaining and improving knowledge.

I don't think it's equivalent to religious faith, but I also don't think it's quite true that no degree of belief is necessary, because it is simply not possible for you, personally, to verify every bit of information you rely on when making use of scientific conclusions. Therefore you need to be able to trust that the results of a certain system of knowledge-acquisition are reasonably accurate, despite not being able to personally verify them.

Re:Science works

[FrangoAssado]

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion), one needs to believe that the elements needed to create the big bang came into existence of their own accord and that the laws of physics decided to invent themselves.

Actually, to "believe" in science, the only thing that's strictly required is that you believe that the universe is knowable. Even the ways you use to know more stuff (the "scientific method") are not "a priori", that is, if you can think of a better way to discover stuff about the universe, then it will become part of the scientific method.

Science doesn't a priori reject the possibility of a creator (God), just as it doesn't a priori require that the universe came into existence of its own accord. The Big Bang theory is just the best answer we have so far when asking questions about the start of the universe. Science doesn't give definitive answers, since it's always possible that you'll find out later that you didn't know everything there was to know about something.

Re:Science works

[The1stImmortal]

Doctors are human and there are still big holes in our knowledge of disease and of human biology, so yeah it's entirely possible that a given doctor's advice may not be the best way to actually go for a given persons' case/illness. Doctors give advice based on the best knowledge available at the time (to them. No one person can know all of modern medicine and still have time to consult!).
Changing techniques based on empirical evidence is very scientific.
I'd imagine that doctor was/is very interested in the mechanisms of how the alternate approach worked and investigated it (or wrote up the case to allow others to investigate)
So you've actually given a brilliant example of why science works.

And glad to hear she lasted longer than usual and sorry to hear that ended btw

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Engrish prease!

Re:Science works

[The1stImmortal]

One could argue however that thanks to nuclear weapons research (including this example) - we've not had a major worldwide conflict in nearly 70 years, after having two in 30 years. We also understand a lot more about fundamental physics thanks to the side benefits of weapons research and that helps medicine, the energy industry, and may help the space industry down the track...

Bad stuff happens. We move on and in some way usually learn from it. That's life

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion), one needs to believe that the elements needed to create the big bang came into existence of their own accord and that the laws of physics decided to invent themselves.

You can "believe in science" without believing anything about the big bang or the other nonsense you said. Everywhere around you are sophisticated products that were created on the basis of science - or, to be more precise, on the basis of science after it turned from theory to prototype to engineering and product design.

Re:Science works

[Sique]

Science can tells us how it might have happened, but cannot tell us for a fact that it did happen that way.

Religion claiming it could doesn't make it so. But as Charles S. Peirce already observed, nothing can tell us for a fact it happened that way.

Re:Science works

[blackraven14250]

And he was considered the world's foremost expert on her condition. She lived longer than all his other patients, double over the next highest person. And he changed his treatment methods after her success even though it didn't make logical sense, because it had the best results. (Incidentally, that's HOW he became the world's foremost expert on her condition.)

So, which is it - was the the world's foremost expert before or after? Methinks some shit you said may be made up.

Re:Science works

[wonkey_monkey]

And my mom chose to believe what she felt God was telling her instead of what the doctor was telling her.

Thousands of other people die doing exactly the same. Were they not good enough to be saved? Sometimes people get lucky, and for some reason some people just can't accept this and have to invent some driving force behind the supposed miracle to literally sing their praises to, and mumble at in a cold building once a week.

In numerous cases, her intuition was right and he was wrong.

Sorry, but when it comes to medical treatments, your mom does not count as "numerous cases." She is one case of many, and quite likely an outlier. How many other people have disregarded their doctor's advice, used their own intuition, and subsequently died horrible painful deaths? You wouldn't be here telling us the story if that had happened (as it sadly has to so many people).

Statistically speaking, you're an idiot if you play the lottery. Any mathematician will tell you not to do it. Yet somewhere out there, at least one person usually wins, and for that one person, it's a wonderful bit of luck that wouldn't have happened if they'd listen to the statisticians. But it's random chance.

Here's another one. If a thousand people around the world toss a coin ten times, statistically speaking it's likely that one of them will get ten heads. If that person came here and wrote a post like yours, proclaiming it a miracle and praise be to the FSM, can you see why we'd be right to dismiss it? If so, why shouldn't we dismiss your anecdote as evidence of nothing but random chance?

And he changed his treatment methods after her success even though it didn't make logical sense, because it had the best results.

If that's really true, I don't want him having anything to do with the treatment of me or my family members.

(Incidentally, that's HOW he became the world's foremost expert on her condition.)

Incidentally, that's why we have bullshit like homeopathy. It "worked" once or twice, by coincidence, and people seized on it with both hands and won't be disabused of the ridiculous notion despite all the subsequent scientifically gained evidence that it's rubbish.

Re:Science works

[snakeplissken]

Which is why the belief that the universe started with a big bang, for example, is faith-based.

only in the same sense that the belief that the universe existed before last tuesday is faith based :)

snake

Re:Science works

[The1stImmortal]

I don't think that's strictly true.

To believe in science (and to disbelieve in religion), one needs to believe that the elements needed to create the big bang came into existence of their own accord and that the laws of physics decided to invent themselves.

Science is great up to a point; it can tell us what happened and how it happened. But when you go back far enough, it does requires the belief that everything which set off the chain of events somehow came into being without an intelligent creator.

I don't believe in scientific results. I believe in science as a process (in the same way that I can say I believe in Democracy as a process [for better or for worse!])

I would hope many scientists would hold a similar view, but I cannot speak for them.

In terms of cosmology - science attempts to unravel the chain of causality that resulted in the world we see today. To do this, it is assumed the universe works today much like it always has (and tries to determine the edge conditions that define that). It is also assumed that there is a point beyond which causality can no longer be followed (or that it loops back on itself or whatever. That there is a beginning, anyway - that' it's not just "turtles all the way down"). Now admittedly they're big assumptions but they seem to hold up so far, and without those assumtions the questions become meaningless in the first place.

So what happens then is that you work backwards, until a point is found for which there are multiple possible explanations. Then evidence is gathered based on experimentation and observation about which of the options seems most likely. As part of this process new options might get introduced.

What you end up with is the most likely set of explanations for the way the universe came to be the way it is, based on what we know today and what we can observe today.

It's not a presented as fact, but rather what is termed a "theory" for science, based on probability. Note that in this case the word "Theory" avoids presenting something as absolute fact whilst providing the implication of a comprehensive and somewhat tested framework, and still leaving the door open for testing and even disproving. It doesn't mean "Guess".

As for "believing" that " the elements needed to create the big bang came into existence of their own accord and that the laws of physics decided to invent themselves." - this isn't a belief per se, but part of the assumption that the chain of causality ends somewhere. If something "caused" the big bang (er - other than the big bang itself), then by definition the big bang wasn't the start of the universe, but we have to go back further. So if you assume it started somewhere then you have to assume that "before" that was unknowable, as it cannot be traced back.

In this regard - if there was a "creator" - it is/was either one that can interact with/affect the observable universe or not. If it is, then we can push the start of the universe back to be the "start" of the creator. But if not then the issue is meaningless from a scientific standpoint.

Re:Science works

[stms]

There's an element of faith to science. It's not quite the same as religion but it's still there. Vsauce did a great video on "how do you know" just this week check it out.

Re:Science works

[artor3]

Singularity, anyone? Some people absolutely treat science like a religion, complete with its own Rapture, in order to cope with fear of death.

Re:Science works

[CayceeDee]

She lived longer than all his other patients, double over the next highest person.

Ummm. The fact that she lived longer than other patients just means that she lived longer than other patients. I am sure that some patients lived a lot less than other patients. It had nothing to do with god. It had to do with the fact that people react to diseases and treatments differently. Some people live longer than some people who live longer than some people.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Science and belief in God may not be incompatible. However, science and, belief in, say, the Christian God is incompatible. Religious beliefs sometimes require belief in things that are obviously cannot be correct. This is against the spirit of science, in which everything is evidence based. Religious people lot of time believe in things that are evidently wrong.

Re:Science works

[BergZ]

As a layman I say that "I believe in science".
By saying that I do not mean to belittle science.
By saying that I do not mean to create a false equivalency between the epistemologies of 'empiricism' and 'divine revelation'.
When I say that "I believe in science" it is only because I am not familiar enough with the details of scientific theories nor the volumes of evidence to make the claim that I "know" it.

To be clear:
I would not argue if a Biologist said "I know the theory of Evolution", but I only feel comfortable saying that "I believe the theory of Evolution".
I would not argue if a Physicist said "I know the theory of Relativity", but I would only feel comfortable saying that "I believe the theory of Relativity".
I would not argue if a Climatologist said "I know the theory of Climate Change", but I would only feel comfortable saying that "I believe the theory of Climate Change".

Re:Science works

[Black Parrot]

Which is why the belief that the universe started with a big bang, for example, is faith-based.

People who aren't trying to bring science down to the level of their own superstitions would call it evidence-based.

Or when you look in the oven and see that your biscuits are brown, do you consider your conclusion that they're done to be a faith-based belief?

Or any of thousands of other evidence-based conclusions that you readily accept because they don't conflict with your religious beliefs.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but science is a process that encourages people to improve their understanding of the problems they are quantifying.. but just like religion, it is up to the person to "do it properly."

Re:Science works

[Black Parrot]

When god was talking to her why didn't he let her know about those woman how were prisoner for years?

He was too busy answering other people's prayers for a win in the big game, or for fine weather for the picnic, or to get laid.

Re: Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

bingo. you don't need all the details to practice Christianity.
And for the love of God I whish people on both sides would stop pretending they know all the details.

Re:Science works

[Black Parrot]

She lived longer than all his other patients, double over the next highest person.

Ummm. The fact that she lived longer than other patients just means that she lived longer than other patients. I am sure that some patients lived a lot less than other patients. It had nothing to do with god. It had to do with the fact that people react to diseases and treatments differently. Some people live longer than some people who live longer than some people.

IMO the common conceit that "God healed/rescued me/Granny", while letting all the others suffer and die, is the very pinnacle of arrogance.

Re:Science works

[Black Parrot]

Also, if his Mom had died we'd be reading about it being God's inscrutable will rather than that God healed her.

Re: Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Religions all mandate corporeal death. Science sells you the myth that people are living longer and if we just had another bite from the tree of knowledge, we could beat the system.
Tell me who is the kook.

Re:Science works

[bzipitidoo]

Ahh, such simple minded thinking.

In science, there is no believing. Science is not about belief and faith. Science is not a religion. Science is facts, evidence, and logical deductions. The Big Bang is a theory that fits the facts we have. Is it right or wrong? Likely it is more subtle than that, and is correct as far as it goes, but is not anywhere close to a complete explanation. It certainly has difficult problems. There is no faith involved in that.

As to the idea that our observations may not be reliable, that what we see, hear, and measure may not reflect reality, and pretending otherwise is just acting on faith, this is an old problem in philosophy. How do we know anything we sense is real? We don't know. Is it faith to act as if what we sense is real? No! We accept that what we sense is reality, not out of faith, but because it doesn't make sense to follow any other line of reasoning. Imperfect though our understanding of reality is, and perhaps must be, we can still work with it, and we have. We would never have been able to make integrated circuits, radios, and all the other marvels of modern techonolgy if we didn't have some understanding of apparent reality.

What if we go with a hypothesis that we aren't sensing reality, that there is a deeper reality that we can't sense? Assuming it exists, what could the nature of this deeper reality be? If it is a supernatural reality, then that ends the scientific inquiry right there. Science is only about the natural, not the supernatural. Soon as the supernatural is invoked, it's all chaos. Anything at all might be true of a supernatural reality.

If you claim there is a deeper reality and it is natural, but that it cannot be observed, that makes things difficult, but hardly insurmountable. How can we know it even exists, if there is no way to observe it? Without any way to sense it, perform experiments on it, or extrapolate its effects to things we can observe, we can only speculate wildly. First, anyone making such a claim ought to have some sort of rationale for it. We do speculate, with ideas like that our universe is only a part of a multiverse, or that our reality is actually not 4 dimensions, but 10 or 26, with the extra dimensions being so small that we can't perceive them. This is not reaching for faith, this is simply speculation. Even if we can't sort this out now, we may be able to in the future.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

I think first you must prove the universe was created. That's going to be a nigh impossible task.

Re:Science works

[Mycroft_VIII]

Science requires no such thing.
Sounds like you're hinting at the god of the gaps fallacy.

Mycroft.

Re:Science works

[Mycroft_VIII]

Blind faith is the antithesis of science, and recent studies (with actual brain scans) show indoctrinating children with it actually damages the cognitive functions related to critical and logical function.

Mycroft

Re:Science works

[Mycroft_VIII]

It's not faith to agree that the mostly likely explanation based on the evidence is the most likely explanation.

Mycroft

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true either. I could honestly believe there was an intelligent being who created our current universe and simultaneously believe in the process of science. Believing in one does not generally require disbelieving in the other. There are some specific religions that are antithetical to science in their details, but that is a different issue.

This is no different from saying you believe that there is only a finite number of prime numbers, and simultaneously believe the process of mathematical proof.

If the latter is true, then you are still believing in the former only because you have not yet worked through how the process of the latter disproved the former.

The idea that some higher being worked on the world only through scientifically undetectable means will logically, eventually, lead to the complete irrelevance of the said higher being.

Re:Science works

[collet]

[citation needed]

Re:Science works

[morcego]

But when you go back far enough, it does requires the belief that everything which set off the chain of events somehow came into being without an intelligent creator.

No, it doesn't. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer, without having to attribute it to a god, faeries, gnomes or the flying spaghetti monster.

"I don't know, so there must be a god" is without any fundament, and leads to what is known as "god of the gaps".

(Also, whoever modded parent "flamebait", you are being unfair. He is stating his views in a very polite way, and obviously ready to discuss the subject. Praise him for it, since it is so rare among religious people.)

Re:Science works

[iggymanz]

Science is great, but we only get to try to do it better; perhaps never arriving at "properly" if that means without error or having comprehensive knowledge. It could be the fundamental workings of the universe are beyond the energies or distance/time humans can reach. We should try, of course.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

Science and religion are not intrinsically opposed to one another, but answer different questions with very little overlap from one to the other.

I contend that science and religion have 100% overlap in their intended usage. Both science and religion are used to give us the answer to "why?". Nothing more; nothing less.

When you talk about finding purpose and meaning you are really talking about the human tendency to anthropomorphize just about everything. There is meaning and purpose behind our actions, or at least we have that perception (depending on whether free will exists). That is what incorrectly causes us to project meaning and purpose into all aspects of life. It is a very useful trait, and our very ability to do this is part what separates us from other animals. But it is also a big flaw in our brain's ability to reason properly, along with plenty of other natural biases that adversely affect our ability to make good decisions. Honestly it is a miracle that we are able to think the way we do at all, so it is reasonable that our capacity for thought has many problems.

Science does currently have an answer to the question of purpose and meaning. It is that our primitive brains made those concepts up. Luckily a well trained mind is sometimes able to identify biases such as these and rule them out during decision making.

Re:Science works

[iggymanz]

Actually, I think we would have the same benefits without the weapons. the particle accelerators and detectors and mathematics have pushed the understanding of fundamental particles, not bomb research. Anything done in a bomb from nuclear chemistry point of view has been done and studied more in fission reactors and particle accelerators.

Re:Science works

[mcgrew]

Thousands of other people die doing exactly the same. Were they not good enough to be saved?

Everybody dies. Everybody. Being good won't keep you alive, and being evil won't kill you. "It rains on the just and the unjust." There's no such thing as Earl Hickey's version of karma.

Sorry, but when it comes to medical treatments, your mom does not count as "numerous cases."

I think he meant numerous times when it came to her. Statistics don't apply to outliers; only the median.

How many other people have disregarded their doctor's advice, used their own intuition, and subsequently died horrible painful deaths?

Most deaths are horribly painful, and in the case of cancer, the treatments are almost as bad as the disease.

Here's another anecdote about a statistical outlier: my grandmother, whose doctor told her when she was 70 if she didn't get her cholesterol down she'd die. Well, the doctor died. The next doctor told her the same thing. He died, too. Three more dead doctors later she did die, when she fell and broke her hip at age 99.

If all four of your grandparents died of heart disease before age 50, no matter what you eat or how much you exercise, you're not likely to make it past 60. If all your grandparents made it to their upper nineties, you're probably going to outlive most people you know even if you eat McDonalds every day with lots of salt, get no exercise, and smoke. Of course, you're likely to live longer if you don't do those things but you'll still probably make it to your seventies.

If something has been shown to not work, like homeopathy, it doesn't work.

As to folks gaining a greater faith in science when faced with a terminal illness makes sense. Religion (most of them, anyway) see this existence as a temporary phase that continues after death -- but few people want to die. It's basic psychology. The cancer patient, no matter how devout, can't count on God to save them; everyone dies, but the science might keep you alive longer.

Re:Science works

[tnk1]

The problem is, even if you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we made up the idea of a creator, all that means is that you disproved the notion of a creator *as developed by humans*. The fact that humans invented a creator, does not mean there is no creator.

A well trained mind would understand the limitations of science. Science works with falsifiable theories. The existence of a creator is not falsifiable. Hence, even the best trained scientific mind would merely state that the notion of a creator is merely not useful as a predictor of natural events. And indeed, while any potential deities refuse to come forward and prove to a huge audience their power, this is true.

The nice thing is... you don't need to disbelieve to be a good scientist, you just have to accept that the supernatural is not useful in a discussion of natural processes. If God can create miracles, those miracles are, effectively, outside of science and thus useless to study as science. The antagonism between science and religion is the result of people on both sides with the lack of imagination to understand that there is essentially no real argument, and that maybe they should both just relax. If there is a creator, then he/she/it created those processes and so those processes are the actual proof of creation, albeit a proof we will never be able to understand as part of creation. If there is no creator, then everything looks the same, there is just another reason for it. Neither really helps us discover a theory of quantum gravity.

Re: Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

the fact that this got flame bait just shows the FUD on slashdot

Re:Science works

[bill_mcgonigle]

I think first you must prove the universe was created. That's going to be a nigh impossible task.

Actually, it's not and there's some data from gravity wave experiments to indicate that our universe cheats below the atomic scale but way before the Plank length, which may indicate that it's a simulation. The shape of that noise closely matches a simulated universe model where 3d space is a projection from a quantized spherical shell.

The first question I always ask theists is if their God must be omnipotent in every universe. Our universe could be run by a pimply-faced youth in a high school science class, and he may be omnipotent in our universe but a 98-pound weakling in his. Adolescence may adequately explain his questionable behavior as recorded in the Old Testament.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not true, the big bang explains the physicists universe which is the space and time we occupy, thats why physicists can talk about multiverses. It doesn't explain why there are laws of physics that allow for a big bang. The philosophers universe of absolute everything can not be explained because you can not explain something without starting from something else. Religion doesn't explain the philosophers universe because it removes god from the universe to explain its creation and so doesn't answer its own question of why is there something instead of nothing it just says there was always something. Further science only explains up to millionths of a second after the big bang, to understand earlier than that would require a physics that unifies gravity with the forces of quantum physics which we do not have yet, disbelieving in religion doesn't mean you then have to have a belief in something else to explain what religion is supposed to explain, you can just say I don't know, which is the scientific position when it comes millionth of a second after the big bang. An intelligent creator, does not answer anything about the big questions, of why is there something instead of nothing, where did order come from etc, it just stick all of that into a black box and says let just assume we already have all of that.

Re:Science works

[cusco]

Well, at least someone's getting laid, then.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

The problem with using words like belief and faith is that they have ugly connotations. A belief is simply a state in which someone holds a premise to be true. Faith is simply having confidence in something. But unfortunately when most people talk about faith, they mean a belief that is not based on proof. They mean having a level of conviction high enough that no matter what evidence presents itself, they will still hold onto their beliefs. This is primarily why most scientifically minded people reject using the word Faith, even though they still have faith in many things based on most definitions of the word.

That depends on how you define "religion". True Religion is living the lifestyle necessary to prove your beliefs.

I am not sure where you got that definition. Every definition of religion I have ever seen relates a system of beliefs with a supernatural and spiritual component. You really need to bastardize the definition of religion to claim that science is a religion. If you are willing to rewrite the definitions of common words then you can probably "win" just about any argument you want to.

As soon as Science _dictates_ how a person can understand truth it has become a religion.

No, it becomes a religion when your beliefs have supernatural explanations. That is it.

I agree that there are ways to discover truth without the use of the scientific method. Early humans learned that plants need water to grow long before we formalized the use of hypothesis, experiments, and theories (although you could contend that we were informally doing that). Science does not claim that the scientific method is the only way to find truth, although it does claim it is the best method we have found so far.

Technically Science is NOT a system of acquiring truth but about removing ignorance. (A quite successful masculine path as everyone is aware of.

Um, ignorance means a lack of accurate knowledge. Truth means having accurate knowledge. So saying something is about remove ignorance is the exact same thing as saying something is about gaining truth.

The other system IS a way of acquiring truth. Since it is the feminine path it is no wonder most men chose to remain ignorant and blindly ignore it.

No, religion is about holding onto beliefs so you can be confident that you have found the truth. Just believing in something does not get you closer to the truth, it just increased your confidence. Accurate knowledge (truth) is a system of justified true propositions. Religion is about holding onto beliefs based on faith, not going out and discovering justifications for those beliefs.

That is why _mind_ NOT space is the final frontier. Space is finite. The Mind is infinite.

This is just silly. I honestly didn't even read this last sentence until after I started responding, and now realize that I probably shouldn't have even bothered.

Re:Science works

[__aaltlg1547]

Respectfully, I disagree. Religion and science are antithetical in nature. In religion, a thing is believed based on appeal to authority and tradition. In science, a thing is shown to be true (or true as best we can figure) based on demonstrable evidence. There is no room in science for accepting propositions based on appeals to authority or tradition. Nor is there any room in religion for the idea that basic assumptions can be tossed aside just because they conflict with evidence.

Re:Science works

[femtobyte]

If I use a hammer to nail a picture up on the wall, does this mean I believe in hammer

Yes, you believed the hammer would be suitable for fulfilling particular claims associated with hammers --- that it would quickly and easily drive the nail into the wall. There are probably reasons you chose to use a hammer to do this, rather than a rotten tomato or your eyeball. Likewise, people believe particular religions are suitable tools for producing claimed results --- from bringing rains to parched crops, to assuring eternal transcendent life. Often, this doesn't work out as reliably as the hammer (or it is exceedingly difficult to judge the outcome). Similarly, people believe in science to reliably produce claimed results (e.g. produce mathematical formulae that accurately model/predict physical events); and science has every bit as solid a track record of doing this as a hammer is reliable for pounding nails.

Re:Science works

[__aaltlg1547]

The problem is, even if you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we made up the idea of a creator, all that means is that you disproved the notion of a creator *as developed by humans*. The fact that humans invented a creator, does not mean there is no creator.

No, but it blows away any rationale for believing in a creator, because to believe in a different sort of creator, you must make one up.

Re:Science works

[femtobyte]

However, science and, belief in, say, the Christian God is incompatible.

Can you point to the specific points of fundamental incompatibility? As a scientist and a Christian, I sure would be interested to know if Slashdot Anonymous Coward has somehow found some point I've missed in my own ponderings on the topic. Certain shallow "American rightwing fundamentalist" conceptions of God are incompatible with science, but they do not hold a monopoly on defining/understanding "the Christian God."

Re:Science works

[davester666]

It can be both. Before, he was the leading expert, and after, he was even further in the lead.

That's the problem with learning from experience. Everybody wants to skip 'the 2nd best expert' for the best expert, who gets more experience with each consult, giving them more of an advantage over everybody else. All the rest of us can hope for is that hopefully they won't be a dick about it and will share their knowledge with other doctors.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

A well trained mind would understand the limitations of science

No, a well trained mind understands the limits of epistemology. Every limitation that you attribute to science is actually a limitation of our concepts of truth and knowledge.

Hence, even the best trained scientific mind would merely state that the notion of a creator is merely not useful as a predictor of natural events

It is more than that. Accepting something as a truth when you not only have no have no proof, but all available proof indicates the opposite, is a poor way to train your brain to reason properly. People who understand common biases are still very susceptible to them, so it is important to always be on the guard against them. Surrending to the many human biases that encourage people to have faith in religion is not harmless.

The nice thing is... you don't need to disbelieve to be a good scientist

That is true. It is the same thing as saying you can be 5'5" and still be a play in the NBA. It is very unlikely, but Muggsy Bogues was even shorter than that. A religious person lacks much of the reasoning ability that scientists require, just like Muggsy Bogues lacked much of the height that NBA players require. But it is not an insurmountable goal.

That is why in 1998 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences did not have belief in a personal God. Those 7% who are not atheist are still very good scientists, but it goes to show that it is very uncommon for someone who is capable of being religious to also have the intelligence to be one of the world's top scientists.

Re:Science works

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I said once that the best answer to the trap question "Do you believe in evolution?" is "I believe in evolution the same way I believe there is a city called Philadelphia." I've never been to Philadelphia; no, Mr. Ham, I wasn't there. But I've heard about Philadelphia, I've read about Philadelphia, I've seen pictures of Philadelphia, when driving in Baltimore I've seen road signs directing me to Philadelphia, and I've even known people who (claimed to have) lived in Philadelphia--all of which adds up to sufficient evidence for "I believe there is a city called Philadelphia" to be a reasonable statement.

Those who are devoted to proving in their own minds that Science Is Just Another Religion tend not to understand this distinction, of course.

Re:Science works

[auLucifer]

You most certainly should have responded and thank you for doing so, if I had mod points I'd definitely give +1

Re:Science works

[jandersen]

Religion and science are antithetical in nature

Not quite, I think; I would say complementary rather than antithetical. They cover different, completely disjoint sets of experience - science covers the things we can measure and test, roughly speaking, religion is about the things we can't (yet). The conflict arises not so much from science being anti-religion, but from the fact that as we learn more about reality, we are able to measure more and more things, thus pushing back the domain of religion.

Also, I think one has to distinguish between belief in one or more gods, and religion. Religion, to mind, is more like a framework that people construct around their lives, which can serve to protect against an overwhelming reality (and science can seem rather overwhelming), whereas belief in (or at least openness to the idea of) supernatural beings is not in itself anti-scientific.

I can understand why religion can so easily fill a scientifically minded person with disgust, because it is so often the worst and most obnoxiously stupid representatives for religion that are the loudest and make the most absurd demands on our time and efforts. However, there is a large majority that are really quite sensible and open-minded.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

This quote was taken without attribution from a larger article in Science Now. Please check out this article, it will give you a better idea of what the argument is> here is the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

Re:Science works

[Eivind]

No you don't. But you *do* need to believe that the world is regular, i.e. that there are rules which the world follows. If there are no rules, then obviously the quest to discover them is fruitless.

Re:Science works

[Eivind]

That's true mostly because religion retreats from those areas where science arrives. Because it cannot compete, seeing as science actually *works*.

Religion used to have opinions on lightning. (Thor, the god of thunder being angry blabla) But that's no longer sustainable now that science has a better explanation, one that makes sense and fits the observations. Science can quantify ligthning, they can predict it, they can shield you from it, they can even harness it.

The same is true for disease. Draught. Variations in the mechanical properties of iron. (it's brittle because of high carbon-content, not because you failed to sacrifice a hen while melting it...)

Today, religion is mostly stuck at "why", since there's very few areas left where religions answer to "how" aren't laughable.

Re:Science works

[Internetuser1248]

There's nothing to "believe" in when it comes to science (it works either way) but if the fear of death makes people interested, that's great.

"It always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us ... should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof" -Kant

Science is based on the faith that there is an objective universe. Can you prove the existence of this objective reality? If not, then there is something to believe when it comes to science.

Re:Science works

[narcc]

A religious person lacks much of the reasoning ability that scientists require

If Slashdot is any indication, most atheists lack that ability as well.

Even your post indicates that you, despite implications to the contrary, have very poor reasoning skills! It's pretty clear that the parent pointing out some very obvious facts that made you uncomfortable, and possibly a little angry. (Look at your first line, how ridiculous does it look to you now?)

Let's be honest here. You just want to feel superior to a majority class. Not only does it make you feel important, it provides you a wonderful excuse for why you're not more famous/successful/whatever: It's those darn religious people keeping superior beings like yourself down! We rationalists should rule over the ignorant masses! Things won't turn out like they did during French Revolution at all! (Those guys weren't true rationalists.)

Being an atheist obviously necessitates no additional qualities, though you irrationally refuse to accept that simple fact. You don't have a special brain, neither are you more rational or more intelligent simply because you're an atheist. Get over it and face reality.

Histories greatest scientists have been predominantly theists, you know. I'll bet you have an impressively twisted explanation to force that fact in to your comforting delusion.

Re:Science works

[DNS-and-BIND]

Funny, you advocate for science, and yet you merely make assertions without any evidence. Are you sure you know how science works? Should science really have people like you on its side?

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true. But by definition, science will (or promises it will) work, while faith won't. Faith doesn't promise you prolonged life in this world, maybe so do for the next. Which may or may not exist.
If i have to believe in something, Singularity is more believable.

Re:Science works

[craigminah]

I'd say the statement, "There are no atheists in the foxhole" is still true as the cited study discusses fear of death but it has people in situations where they're not in fear of dying. People in foxholes are in a definite fear of dying, something that can't be simulated in an experiment.


Problem with this article is the misleading title.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

With science, are you referring to the scientific method?
What do you mean by "religion"? How about spirituality?

The scientific method and spirituality go hand-in-hand. When they don't, either cynicism or dogma creates havoc as an end result.
If you don't "believe" me, simply keep on living and learning. This is how wisdom is attained, and you will come to similar conclusions as other experienced souls.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is: Do science give you the power of faith?

I agree with you, faith is not belief. Faith is a power.
Faith in oneself (can be abused, but also beneficial).
Faith in God / the Universe (can be abused, but also be beneficial).

Fact: Scientists lacking faith, never really accomplishes anything, but glorifies others' accomplishments.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus there is no real contradiction between faith and science.
Between beliefs, superstitions and science, yes.
However, science can never explain it all, thus always leaving room for the unexplainable (faith).
Wondering about the mystery is also naturally part of the human nature.

Re:Science works

[turgid]

To believe in science

There is nothing to believe in.

Science provides a reliable, repeatable, disinterested, transferable framework for the study of Nature (well, phenomena in general).

By "disinterested" I really mean disinterested: it has no favourites and makes no moral or ethical judgements. It just lets us measure things and to make reliable predictions based on past measurements (observations).

This is the killer feature of Science. Nothing else lets us do this.

Re:Science works

[turgid]

The other system IS a way of acquiring truth. Since it is the feminine path it is no wonder most men chose to remain ignorant and blindly ignore it.

This is funny (ha-ha), ignorant and bigoted all at once!

Re:Science works

[The Evil Atheist]

I can understand why religion can so easily fill a scientifically minded person with disgust, because it is so often the worst and most obnoxiously stupid representatives for religion that are the loudest and make the most absurd demands on our time and efforts. However, there is a large majority that are really quite sensible and open-minded.

If that were true, then scientifically minded people wouldn't dislike homeopaths so much. But we do, despite almost all homeopaths being generally nice people. Nice people can still do stupid things, and dangerously stupid things.

Your reasons about why they are complementary rather than antithetical is precisely the reason they are antithetical. The problem is you can't stop people from noticing "that's funny", which is the kind of thing Asimov says makes science work. When people can't stop noticing things, they can't stop studying things. They can't stop studying things that people don't want them to study. Religion, not just the extreme, but mainstream religion, has a list of things they preferred remain unstudied. That's why moderates always clamour for "non-overlapping magisteria" when they're under threat, but have no problem overlapping if they feel confident.

Re:Science works

[The Evil Atheist]

Same to you.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

I fear I must disagree with you, at least in part. While science generally can be validated, most people will not spend the time necessary to validate each individual theory or law they accept. Most scientific acceptance by the general population is based on an appeal to the authority of someone with a Ph.D. after their name. And I don't think any scientist would have time to validate every single principle that underlies their work, either

Re:Science works

[Sique]

And more, you can actually calculating the time of the Big Bang without believing in it. It's just a case of What-if?

Re:Science works

[Sique]

You can try a set of different tools, and maybe you will find out that the hammer works best. You don't need to believe in the Power Of The Hammer.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

If a creator of human people was witnessed simultaneously by many people, did these people make up their creator?

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

The existence of a creator is not falsifiable

It is, if you dare to define a the creator. The problem is, as science advances, religions blur the definition more and more. But yeah, a first century god is easily falsifiable.

Re:Science works

[turgid]

There's no such thing as Earl Hickey's version of karma.

How dare you! That's my favourite documentary show.

Re:Science works

[Rambo Tribble]

Science is based in a belief that scepticism will reveal fallacy, but that is an assumption that may be fallacious, in itself. The limits of human perception constrain all our knowledge and we would do well to remember that. Barring, of course, those of us with an intuitive feel for quantum mechanics.

Re:Science works

[darkfeline]

Now you're just twisting the definition of "believe" in this context. People don't "believe" science produces reliable results, they "know" because of the scientific method. That's the key difference between religion and science.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

I respectfully disagree. In my opinion, science is used to give us an answer to what is the universe and how does it work. It doesn't answer why it exists in the first place or why it works the way it does. At least not yet.

Re:Science works

[ultranova]

The other system IS a way of acquiring truth. Since it is the feminine path it is no wonder most men chose to remain ignorant and blindly ignore it.

What other system?

That is why _mind_ NOT space is the final frontier. Space is finite. The Mind is infinite.

When measuring what quality? And since you capitalized Mind, are we talking about some specific entity or minds (human minds?) in general?

Re:Science works

[artor3]

Science does currently have an answer to the question of purpose and meaning. It is that our primitive brains made those concepts up. Luckily a well trained mind is sometimes able to identify biases such as these and rule them out during decision making.

Science doesn't say that AT ALL. Atheists say that, and then try to hide behind science to make their viewpoint seem like it has some weight to it. There is no mathematical formula, no physical laws, that say life is without meaning. Just smarmy people who like to pretend that they're knowledgeable about science.

Re:Science works

[excelsior_gr]

Both science and religion are used to give us the answer to "why?". Nothing more; nothing less.

That's a fallacy, IMHO. The actual question that is answered by science is "how" not "why". You may phrase your question as in e.g. "why does pure water boil at a certain temperature?" but you will actually go on making a model about water coming in balance with its vapor at a certain temperature and pressure and you'll make equations and diagrams describing how water boils at different temperatures under different pressures and so on. If you really want to dig deeper into the actual "why" you'll proceed with describing how molecules move and bounce against each other and how that translates into temperature above a certain value of which the molecules move too much and are more widely spaced, And then you'll define this as "boiling". And if you then ask "why do molecules do that?" you'll go even deeper into the molecular and atomic structure with all the electrons spinning around and doing lots of things that make my head spin as well. And the next question "why do electrons, protons and neutrons do all these things and form such atoms and molecules that move and bounce and boil?" then you'll probably follow the thread all the way back to the big bang, but in this complete process you have actually only described the hows and not the whys although all your questions started with a "why".

"Why did the big bang happen?" That may be the next question that will be answered with a "how" in the course of science. If someone already thinks that he/she has an answer, as in "because there is a god that is good and almighty" that is absolutely fine by me. And if someone asks "OK, but how did god create the universe?" the answer will most probably be "well, he just did because he is god, you know?". Which is also fine by me. In my opinion there is pretty much zero overlap between science and religion. I really don't get what the whole fuss is all about...

Re:Science works

[voidphoenix]

The core of science is the scientific method, which is a set of mental tools and processes designed to help us figure out the truth and avoid our inherent biases and cognitive limitations. The part that's important to your question is this: extraordinary claims must require extraordinary evidence to be considered valid.

Not even considering the content and supposed provenance of the Christian Bible, just the claim that there is an entity with the qualities and attributes ascribed to the Christian God is an exceptionally extraordinary claim. There is absolutely no independently and empirically verifiable evidence to support that claim. Objectively, any acceptance of the truth of that claim is the same as acceptance of any of a number of similar extraordinary claims, most of which would fall under the categories of myths, legends, superstitions or pseudo-science: faeries, unicorns, elves, UFOs, ghosts, etc. There simply is no rigorously objective, intellectually honest juxtaposition between most major religions and the scientific method. Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot comes to mind.

Personally, I think if one considers oneself a scientist, one must apply the scientific method to all truth propositions, regardless of whether such happen to be in the lab or outside, or whether they fall under one's specialty or not. I suppose it's possible to draw a line somewhere and say "Here I'll apply the scientific method and there I won't." but given our inherent human fallibility, I think that's a recipe for disaster. Sooner or later, the line will blur and you end up with bad science.

Re:Science works

[srobert]

"After all, science has brought us not only longer lives, but more fulfilling, healthier lives with less suffering."

Well, that depends on to whom you are referring when you say "us".

Re:Science works

[srobert]

I live in Las Vegas. I think more prayers are uttered on the casino floor every hour than are spoken in all the churches in the world over a year. The vast majority of those who say these prayers are losers. They don't say much about their results. The few who are winners recount to anyone who will listen how they were blessed by their deity.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion is simply the best science available in downtown Jerusalem/Calcutta/Bejing at the time of first writing.

Re:Science works

[azcoyote]

I generally agree with what you are saying, but some clarification can also show why the two discourses (science and religion) cannot *completely* overlap in their theoretical aims. The question of "why" is a question of causes, but there are proximate and remote causes. Science is better fit in general to discover the proximate causes of events within the world, inasmuch as empirical study can determine why one treatment worked and another failed, why a person is driven to act in such a way, etc. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that much of science today has a specifically technological aim. Not everyone studies science simply for the "why," but also to determine ways in which such knowledge can have practical applications for bettering lives (or making money). Hence the proximate causes are only intermediate goals for much scientific research.

Religion does discuss proximate causes and can overlap with science, sometimes overstepping boundaries of assertion. However, religion also makes an attempt to understand the ultimate remote cause(s) of things within the world, which stands beyond the capability of science. Now a person is entitled to argue that religion is not capable of understanding an ultimate remote cause either, but at least here in intention religion differs from science properly. For science functions within a world that is already given in its objective quality as a world: a world with physical laws that are conserved in one way or another and evidenced through empirical observations. But if science asks why such and such laws exist and not others, either it cannot provide an answer based on empirical evidence (because its object of investigation falls beyond the empirical), or it discovers yet another cause, but also another question. It can only discover something 'beyond' that is not really beyond, but only more difficult to observe. Hence science can give the Big Bang as an answer for the proximate "why" of the universe, but it cannot provide a "why" for the Big Bang, unless it reverts merely to yet another prior physical state. In other words, it cannot provide any definitive *meaning* for the origin of the universe, although it can provide clear explanations for its mechanisms. Science might be availed of argue that the meaning that people assert is concocted in the brain and therefore non-real, but demythologizing such posited meanings is not the same as providing an ultimate meaning of its own accord. An argument from silence can claim that everything is ultimately groundless, meaningless, but this has as much *scientific* value as a "God-of-the-gaps"-type argument.

I actually do agree that humans inject meaning into the world, but religion can argue that there is a real capacity for mediating the in-breaking of meaning within the human person (involving, of course, the use of the brain). In other words, meaning is revealed. Of course, if the positivistic notion is accepted that something that cannot be disproven is necessarily false, then the claim of revelation is invalidated--but such a notion is not held by religion, and it is not really proper to science as a simply empirical study, because it makes a truth-claim that itself is unsubstantiated by observation.

The role of belief in science is poorly understood because of positivistic assumptions, but in postmodern society more and more people are becoming aware of how everything that we think or do is involved with preconceptions. Science, in fact, cannot operate without some prior material to begin with, inasmuch as it must begin on some level with a hypothesis. For example: a problematic situation is discovered, so a scientist makes a hypothesis about what causes it in order to solve it. This hypothesis helps to form a test. The test tries the hypothesis, and may find it false or true, or may discover that the entire angle of investigation is insufficient, and may have to begin again with a new hypothesis. Sometimes, then, exceptional scientific skill can be a mere matter of imaginative creativity, b

Re:Science works

[RespekMyAthorati]

That aint science. Not even close.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

No, religion is about holding onto beliefs so you can be confident that you have found the truth. Just believing in something does not get you closer to the truth, it just increased your confidence. Accurate knowledge (truth) is a system of justified true propositions. Religion is about holding onto beliefs based on faith, not going out and discovering justifications for those beliefs.

Stop trying to characterize something you know nothing about. The life of a person serious about their religion is nothing like this, nor is that attitude in the least justified by the defining documents of any religion. "Trials" both experiential and intellectual are core part-and-parcel of every religion. Because you say we merely "hold onto our beliefs", because you say so, is simply insultingly simplistic (though, to be fair, more insulting to you in making the claim, by presenting your absurdly weak understanding of the subject you purport to describe).

I, and many others, can and do analyze critically our beliefs, often to the degree that if we chose to "play atheist", we would thoroughly embarrass you in presentation of how poor your understanding of philosophy, religion, and yes atheism per se is.

Re:Science works

[RespekMyAthorati]

Science is based in a belief that scepticism will reveal a fallacy,

Wrong.
Science is based on the fact that scepticism is the only way of revealing a fallacy.
The fact that you are even considering that there may be a fallacy present, automatically makes you a skeptic.


Scepticism, in its essence is nothing more than the consistent use of the phrase "No, I won't take your word for it".

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Good answer, but I would contend that Science asks "How?" while Religion asks "Why?". Science is not concerned with the philosophical reasoning for things, it just seeks to understand the process.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

I respectfully disagree. In my opinion, science is used to give us an answer to what is the universe and how does it work. It doesn't answer why it exists in the first place or why it works the way it does. At least not yet.

Science does answer why the universe exists in the first place and why it works the way it does. It is just that its answer is not very appealing to most people.

The answer, as I pointed out in my post, is that concepts like intent are human created ideas, and that inanimate objects do not have meanings behind their actions. There is just cause and effect. The desire to find some form of meaning behind why actions occur is anthropomorphism, just like if primitive men thought that the sun was angry with them if it hid behind clouds.

Re:Science works

[Rambo Tribble]

You are restricting everything to the rather black-and-white constraints of the human imagination. Of course, I guess we can't expect much more, from a human.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

I gave a scientific answer for "Why did the big bang happen?" I am not saying that it is 100% accurate, but then again science never says that. Stating that a question is irrelevant is an answer even if it isn't what you are looking for. If you ask me what is 2 + Tree, I would give you an answer about why you need to take care of your units of measurement. If you ask me what the intent behind a natural phenomenom is, I will tell you that you need to stop anthropomorphizing.

The universe has no intent. When the sun rises in the morning, it is not because it has decided to do so because it finds some existential meaning behind it. Trying to find a reason behind it such as "It is hungry" or "It enjoys rising" is projecting human purpose on something that has no purpose.

Re:Science works

[grantspassalan]

The thing is that for most humans, the "why" questions are more important than the "how" questions. Most people when they get a gift, say of a technological device, are not interested nearly as much how the thing works and when it was made, rather than why it was given and who the giver is. The Bible tells us this about the gift of life and what happens after death. Most complex devices come with an instruction book from the manufacturer so that those who obtain the gadget, can get the most out of it. The manufacturer of life, also has given an instruction book to go with it, called the Bible. No matter who the manufacturer is, many people ignore the instruction book included with the product.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

Science does currently have an answer to the question of purpose and meaning. It is that our primitive brains made those concepts up. Luckily a well trained mind is sometimes able to identify biases such as these and rule them out during decision making.

Science doesn't say that AT ALL. Atheists say that, and then try to hide behind science to make their viewpoint seem like it has some weight to it. There is no mathematical formula, no physical laws, that say life is without meaning. Just smarmy people who like to pretend that they're knowledgeable about science.

It is to be expected that most arguments in this area are just going to be semantic in nature. Of course "Science" doesn't say anything, it is individual scientists that do. And no one is claiming that because some scientists, or even the vast majority of scientists, say something that this means their conjecture is 100% accurate.

But the human mind's propensity for anthropomorphism is a well founded concept in psychology and probably many other fields of science. Even most religious people would agree that when primitive men thought the sun was a living being they were just giving human qualities to an inanimate object.

It is almost impossible for someone without religious convictions to think that life has meaning. Even if life has meaning to some being more powerful than us (aka God), what is the meaning behind his existance? You can always play the game of "Why?" as long as you want to, even 2 year olds are very good at this. But as soon as you can stop wishful thinking it becomes very obvious that continuing to find existential meaning behind natural occurances is a pointless venture.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

Let's be honest here. You just want to feel superior to a majority class. Not only does it make you feel important, it provides you a wonderful excuse for why you're not more famous/successful/whatever: It's those darn religious people keeping superior beings like yourself down

Talk about a straw man argument. How is finding some entertainment discussing topics like religion on Slashdot give me an inferiority complex? Truth be told, even though there are a lot of silly arguments made on Slashdot, it is still a much better forum for such debate than most places. Most of my friends are atheist so it is not very fun to discuss religion with them. And it is not easy to find a religious person who has put as much thought into their beliefs as the average person with the courage to post religious convictions in a place like Slashdot. It usually makes for very interesting discussions.

Being an atheist obviously necessitates no additional qualities, though you irrationally refuse to accept that simple fact.

When did I ever say that being an atheist necessitates additional qualities? I don't even say that being a scientist necessitates additional qualities. I do contend that having a rational mind assists in being a scientist, although I doubt even many religious scientists would argue with that (they may argue that being religious isn't irrational though). I explicitely state that I feel being religious is something that can be overcome to be even a great scientist. Some scientist may even be better because of their religious convictions if their faith helps motivate them.

You don't have a special brain, neither are you more rational or more intelligent simply because you're an atheist. Get over it and face reality

It is usally the opinion of atheists that we do not have special brains. This is why we question even our own deeply held beliefs. Some studies have shown that people with strong grasps on human biases are even more susceptible to them because their training allows them to form better arguments even when they are wrong. I find it far more humbling to accept that any opinion I have has to be carefully scrutinized because I understand my brain is not very good at being rational.

Histories greatest scientists have been predominantly theists, you know. I'll bet you have an impressively twisted explanation to force that fact in to your comforting delusion.

That is such a silly statement. It is like saying the greatest scientists (or at least most popular) since the industrial revolution are mostly white, so they must be better scientists. Could it be that the predominately caucasion countries have been more developed over the past few hundred years than more Asian / African / etc. countries? No, it must be that we are smarter. [heavy sarcasm intented]

It is a humbling thing to know that in 200 years even many of the dimmest people will seem like geniuses compared to me. I may be well above average in my field right now, but the technology I am researching right now will seem childishly basic in only a few generations. It is similar to how almost all of Newton's knowledge can now be taught in an undergraduate level to today's engineers and scientists. And Netwon is arguably on of the smartest men to have ever existed. Newton's religious beliefs do not detract from his brilliance any more than being a slave owner would have detracted from his morality. It is just a sign of his times.

We are not more capable than those who lived hundreds of years ago because we are superior, it is because we are standing on their shoulders. I did not come to my own form of personal enlightenment based purely on my own, it was with the assistance of great thinkers throughout history. Most of the ideas of men such as Aristotle may seem infantile to me now, but that in no way warps my perception of how intelligent they must have been.

Re:Science works

[narcc]

When did I ever say that being an atheist necessitates additional qualities?

You wrote:

A religious person lacks much of the reasoning ability that scientists require

Which implies that non-religious people do not lack those abilities. But it looks like you got over it, as you contradict that here:

Netwon is arguably on of the smartest men to have ever existed. Newton's religious beliefs do not detract from his brilliance

any opinion I have has to be carefully scrutinized because I understand my brain is not very good at being rational.

I can't argue with that.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, that's why we have bullshit like homeopathy.

No the reason why we have it is well documented and has a name "placebo effect". It only gets problematic once the quaks blow it out of proportion and claim it cures cancer. Often believe alone realy heals.

Re:Science works

[blackraven14250]

Not the way it was written. "Becoming" by definition requires not being in the end state before the act of becoming.

Re:Science works

[UnknownSoldier]

> The problem with using words like belief and faith is that they have ugly connotations.
I'm sorry you are unable to read and understand a dictionary. You might want to try it sometime.

> A belief is simply a state in which someone holds a premise to be true.
No wonder you are confused: Belief != State.

You DO realize that many people hold inconstant beliefs at the same time, right?

> Every definition of religion I have ever seen relates a system of beliefs with a supernatural and spiritual component.
I was NOT talking about pseudo-religion.

If you really don't understand the purpose and reason _why_ religion exists in the first place then stop pretending that you do based on a sample size of 1. If you think it is "only about a system of supernatural" then you really need to get out and study & interact more with those that _practice_ that religion. You might actually _learn_ something instead of pretending that you "already know."

> Um, ignorance means a lack of accurate knowledge.
That is only ONE definition and it is pretty _incomplete_ one. You could STILL have accurate knowledge and still be ignorant. i.e. Scientists "know" gravity exists but are STILL ignorant as to its cause, its speed, etc.

The SECOND definition is: Ignorance: a state of NOT KNOWING, as in "without knowledge".
i.e.
Science is completely ignorant about After-Death and a many great other things. Science places hard boundaries on the DOMAIN of Truth. There are some things it will NEVER know. i.e. What was the state of the existence of the universe BEFORE the Big Bang. What happens after this Universe is gone? etc.

> Religion is about holding onto beliefs based on faith, not going out and discovering justifications for those beliefs.
Like I said, you really are ignorant about understand the purpose of True Religion. We already discussed pseudo-religion.

If you don't DO anything with your beliefs they are just that: beliefs.

Faith is the principle in which you are motived to LIVE BY your beliefs.

If you never _prove_ your beliefs then what was the _purpose_ of having them in the first place again?? You're simply a sheeple blinding believing what everybody else tells you without actually stopping to THINK _why_ you have/need them in the first place. As in, apply some critical thinking to the ultimate truth: "Know Thyself". Are you able to comprehend?

Lastly, to bring this back on topic, you still have not shown how it is possible to have Truth With Belief(s). The OP originally " Science is not about belief and faith" which is total nonsense. Nothing you have said demonstrates otherwise.

>> That is why _mind_ NOT space is the final frontier. Space is finite. The Mind is infinite.
> This is just silly.
There is a term for someone who brushing something off simply because they don't understand it: An Idiot.

If you are unable to grasp such basics no wonder you're ignorant about religion. I would recommend you take up lucid dreaming and/or meditation and discover just how much, much more you really are then simply assuming reality is only about time-space.

i.e.
You are in for a rude awakening after you dead and realize the truth that your Mind is not constrained by time nor space. I could only hope you are given the opportunity/experience of an NDE to see how closed-mind you are but I seriously doubt an ignorant atheist would understand the first thing about consciousness.

Re:Science works

[UnknownSoldier]

I never knew you being ignorant about Intuition was so funny.

One more person who doesn't understand their wife. :-(

Re: Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

cience is just a different form of religion: science begs for money just like any other religion, science has its' places of worship, science recognizes some dead individuals in ways similar to that of religion recognizing a prophet (Newton, Einstein, ...), and lastly science has its' converts and evangelists (Morgan Freeman, etc...).

However, none of this makes science the correct religion for a person. Science is lacking in areas that other religions are not - especially in social value and laws.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to the original ScienceNow article that the paragraph was taken from without attribution. Check it out!

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

Re:Science works

[ranton]

Way to cut and paste parts of my post in such a way that it makes it sound like I said things I didn't.

Okay, maybe I should have said "A religious person born in the past generation lacks much of the reasoning ability that scientists require, unless he was born into such a abnormally (using average in the US as a basepoint) strong religious environment that his reasoning skills are just too overpowered by indoctrination." That would have made it easier to understand for people trying hard to poke irrelevent holes in my statements.

And BTW, I find it hard to believe that you didn't understand I meant that Newton's religious beliefs do not detract from his brilliance because of the age in which he lived, not because it is rational to have religious beliefs. Personally I think you were just being an ass.

Re:Science works

[excelsior_gr]

I gave a scientific answer for "Why did the big bang happen?"

Do you have any citation that a humble engineer like myself has a remote chance of understanding? This is no trollish [citation needed] post, I'm actually interested.

Re:Science works

[arth1]

A religious person lacks much of the reasoning ability that scientists require

Which implies that non-religious people do not lack those abilities

I have to defend your opponent here. No, it does not imply that at all. That's not even a logical fallacy, it's poppycock, balderdash and inventive thinking.

A religious person has shown an ability to accept and embrace personal bias. That's not necessarily a hinder, if it is under control, but it likely does skew the odds. That, however, does not say anything whatsoever of those who have not shown that ability.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

I was NOT talking about pseudo-religion.

Like I said, you really are ignorant about understand the purpose of True Religion. We already discussed pseudo-religion.

You really need to stop making up definitions for things. Perhaps you read the term "True Religion" in some obscure book, but other than the name of a Jeans company both I and Google are not sure what you mean.

And pseudo-religion is a negative term for religious movements that are non-mainstream. It is used to paint the movement as not really being religious in nature but instead just an attempt to use religious concepts for another goal. It is used to describe groups such as Scientologists or the Nation of Islam. You seem to use it to describe all religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

I personally do not agree with using pejorative terms such as psuedo-religion because it is merely an attempt to cast some religious beliefs as valid and others as invalid. Considering I find all religious beliefs to be invalid, I see no reason to rank the authenticity of any religion. I like to think of myself as equally accepting of all gods, from Yahweh and Zeus to Thor and Osiris. It is usually only religious people who criticize one religion more than another. (I do admit to criticizing different belief systems more than others though)

If you really don't understand the purpose and reason _why_ religion exists in the first place then stop pretending that you do based on a sample size of 1. If you think it is "only about a system of supernatural" then you really need to get out and study & interact more with those that _practice_ that religion. You might actually _learn_ something instead of pretending that you "already know."

Don't confuse the reason why people use religion and the actual method of fulfilling those needs. Religion and science are used for very similar things; it is the method that they provide their benefits that are different. Religion is the use of the supernatural to explain questions such as Why, What, Where (mostly Why), and science is the use of reason based on observations to explain the same questions. You may disagree with these definitions, just like I disagree with the most common definitions of the word atheist, but your opinion does not change what they mean.

That is only ONE definition and it is pretty _incomplete_ one. You could STILL have accurate knowledge and still be ignorant. i.e. Scientists "know" gravity exists but are STILL ignorant as to its cause, its speed, etc.

Once you have gained accurate knowledge you are less ignorant about only the specific thing you have gained knowledge of. Of course you are still going to be ignorant of other things. That doesn't alter the definition of knowledge or ignorance.

Lastly, to bring this back on topic, you still have not shown how it is possible to have Truth With Belief(s). The OP originally " Science is not about belief and faith" which is total nonsense. Nothing you have said demonstrates otherwise.

I never said otherwise because I did not agree with the OP. Science is very much about belief and faith. I do believe that I agree with what the OP meant behind is poorly chosen words, and I was trying to point out why he should have used different nomenclature.

-------

I am not going to specifically respond to the negative comments at the end of your post, other than to say you really need to grow up.

Re:Science works

[ranton]

Good answer, but I would contend that Science asks "How?" while Religion asks "Why?". Science is not concerned with the philosophical reasoning for things, it just seeks to understand the process.

Science is most certainly concerned with the philosophical reasoning for things. Science itself sprung up from the field of philosophy. But it is not concerned with inventing existential reasons for the actions of inanimate objects which have no intent. Science is very concerned with why humans feel the need to anthropomorphize things such as the beginning of the universe, the rising sun, or any number of natural phenomenons. Just because science doesn't invent answers when the real answers (to the best of our understanding) are uncomfortable does not mean it is unconcerned with those topics.

Re:Science works

[__aaltlg1547]

My argument has nothing to do with the CONTENT of religion. All religion is all about doing the thing that is to be done because that is the accepted thing and believing what is to be believed because that is the accepted idea. It is all about following authority and tradition, except in the instance where somebody makes up something new and declares himself (or rarely herself) to be the new authority whom followers are now expected to believe and obey.

That whole approach is the reverse of science. In science, we observe and measure and hypothesize about what may be the cause of what we have observed and measured and try to form theories to predict what will happen if we measure again a different way.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistically speaking, you're an idiot if you play the lottery. Any mathematician will tell you not to do it

Source? I play the lottery in ONE circumstance and I doubt it can be refuted... based on my motivations. On the big, big jackpots where many coworkers pool their money and buy tickets, I always join in. NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT because my odds of winning are any more. Rather, I'm trying to avoid the worse-case scenario where by all the people that used to work for/with me can now buy and sell the company and *I* can't. If I win, I'll be in a much better position to share in their happiness. As for the $20 it may cost in a year (for as rare as it happens), I spend much much MUCH more in goodwill purchases of girl scout cookies and other stuff they enagage in (walks, other charity buy things). I don't care that I can buy that crap at a third of the price. I care about supporting their endeavors since they work the asses off.

What the fuck would "any mathematician" say about that? You won't know because you're so stupid.

Also, your "any mathematician" is such total fucking STUPID bullshit.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/07/how-mit-students-scammed-the-massachusetts-lottery-for-8-million/

Re:Science works

[Eivind]

True. But the kicker is that there's zero evidence that the "why" answers of religion are in any way better than anyone elses random guesses. And in a few ways they're distinctly WORSE.

The purpose of your life is to please a "loving" God who will nevertheless send you straight to HELL if you fail to unquestionably do as he says ?

Re:Science works

[turgid]

Intuition is just subconscious thinking. It's the sum-total of life experience being used to evaluate current situations. It's not divine and it's not perfect.

Re:Science works

[Luveno]

^^ THIS ^^

Another thing I do not "get" - even if one was to believe in a "creator" (in particular, the Judo-Christian one), why would you worship it? Epicurus said it best:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Re:Science works

[ranton]

One research paper that I have read on the subject (because it didn't require a subscription to a pschology journal) can be found here. It is more of a survey paper than it is original research, so there are over 200 references in this 17 page paper if you want to read more. I just browsed through it again just now, and there is plenty of material on why humans anthropromorphize:

While attempting to gain this familiarity and competence, children attribute intentions and causal agency widely to the simplest and most abstract of onhuman stimuli. Because ascribing these mental characteristics aids children’s attempts to make sense of a wide variety of stimuli, those who have not yet attained a full sense of competence with their environment should be particularly likely to activate anthropomorphic representations and less likely to subsequently correct or adjust those representations. Anthropomorphism should therefore be especially helpful in these early stages of life as a means of reducing uncertainty. -- (Epley, Waytz & Cacioppo, 2007)

Sadly there are many examples that deal mostly with children, but that is the easiest way to deal with the topic without overtly criticising beliefs that even adults still hold onto. It is much better to discuss why believing that a ball has feelings is silly than talk about why thinking the existence of the universe has existential meaning exists is silly.

You can also find numerous books written on the subject. Just look for any book trying to investigate why humans have a need for religion and it will almost certainly bring up this topic.

Re:Science works

[grantspassalan]

When you tell somebody that you don't believe him/her, that is just another way of calling such a person a liar. Most people, especially if they're truthful, object to such a label. Why should the God of truth, who cannot lie, not be upset when you called him a liar and want to have nothing to do with you, unless you are willing to change your mind about that accusation by believing.

Re:Science works

[azhitsky]

Any scientist has got to believe in measuring boundary conditions, math axioms, deduction and the law of large numbers. However, there are other successful systems of belief. Those are not anywhere near to Science in explaining how the world works, but they may succeed better than Science in keeping one at peace with the world and with the unavoidably terminal presence of individual in it.

I regret that Science has a considerable amount of arrogance towards the issue of individual’s purpose in the Universe. Yet, the scientific way of dealing with the reality is the best we have got, IMHO.

Re:Science works

[Eivind]

I'm not terribly concerned with somehow insulting a person who doesn't exist.

Re:Science works

[strikethree]

After all, science has brought us not only longer lives, but more fulfilling, healthier lives with less suffering. If you're worried about death it's just sensible to turn to science.

Someone should have told Steve Jobs about that...

What? Too soon?

Re:Science works

[strikethree]

I contend that science and religion have 100% overlap in their intended usage. Both science and religion are used to give us the answer to "why?". Nothing more; nothing less.

Absolutely not. Science tells us what, not why. Logic tells us why.

Re:Science works

[Anonymous Coward]

Very well put.

Re:Science works

[hazah]

The word "believe" is troubling. Why not "understand"? Perhaps a bit picky... but would this not be much more accurate?

Re:Science works

[Quirkz]

Maybe the casino has a secret room in back where they always keep at least one more person praying for the casino than is on the floor praying for themselves? Assuming a mathematical equivalence in prayers, the casino should win most of the time. :)

Re:Science works

[hazah]

Hologram, not simulation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

GW

[riverat1]

Hmm... I guess that means we just haven't been alarmist enough about global warming to bring the deniers over to the science side yet.

Re:GW

[PRMan]

What does "deniers" mean? Hasn't the pro side already "denied" global warming enough to rename it "climate change"? And people just deny that burning fossil fuels is the major contributor to this change (because it's been seen historically unrelated to the industrial age) and that the earth can't recover (since it has recovered from worse historically). Nobody denies that the readings are actually changing.

Re:GW

[CayceeDee]

What part of cause and symptoms don't you people get? Global warming is the cause and the symptoms are climate change. It isn't a matter of one or the other. It's a matter of cause and effect. Then again, that is science and not wishful thinking which is what global warming>>climate change denial is all about. It might do you good to start paying attention to scientist and not economist. politicians and lawyers.

Re:GW

[TapeCutter]

Hasn't the pro side already "denied" global warming enough to rename it "climate change"?

Actually the only evidence that anyone did any renaming comes from a memo from Frank Luntz to GW Bush (Page 142, point 1), the two terms have different meanings and scientists had been using them for decades before Luntz deliberately conflated them.

What does "deniers" mean?

The memo also serves as a great example of what it means to be a denier, ie: denying reality for fun and profit.

Re:GW

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change, global warming, they are just names and have nothing to do with the science, they could call it slatybatfast and it would make not difference to the science. Climate change has happened in the past for many reasons, what is so special about people that they can't be a reason. The very air we breath is the product of plants getting energy from the sun, plants have had a massive effect on the earth, so why can't the most energy intensive creature every to exist have a effect. Also you are deliberately ignore time spans for these changes. Absolutely nobody has said the earth can't recover. If you are so rational about the science of global warming, why do you raise points that you know are completely irrelevant, false. You need to take a good look at your motivations because you arguments are completely disingenuous.

Re:GW

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that.

Re:GW

[riverat1]

Of course I meant it to be a flippant remark but I'll reply to you seriously.

Hasn't the pro side already "denied" global warming enough to rename it "climate change"?

It was climate change before it was global warming. For instance this paper [PDF] published in October 1970 by George Benton titled "Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change".

Don't just assume that the causes of climate change now has to be the same as historical causes. According to paleoclimatologists what we're seeing now doesn't match up very well with what happened in the past. The closest is probably the PETM 55 million years ago but the rise in carbon and temperature were much slower (~20,000 years) than now (probably less than 300 years if we don't do something).

The Earth and life will certainly recover and keep going until the Sun gets too hot. The question is how much of human civilization will survive?

flying and turbulence

[Anonymous Coward]

I do this when I fly. I hate turbulence. As a professional scientist, when the plane starts bouncing, I think of 777 stress tests--how wings are flexed 30 feet at the end before they break, and how turbulence is jiggling us up and down on the 10ft level, when we're going forward hundreds of feet every second. There's a 747 cross-section/cutout in the British Transportation Museum that shows no metal stress after 30 years of service. Thinking of hard core science and its successes almost always calms me down.

Re:flying and turbulence

[Black Parrot]

I hate turbulence too. But I remind myself of how many flights leave my airport every day and reach their destination safely.

Re:flying and turbulence

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I find that weird. People seem to be often fond of adrenaline sports, and many adrenaline sports are more risky than flying in a turbulence. Why not simply lay back and enjoy it?

Re:flying and turbulence

[Anonymous Coward]

I do.

Re:flying and turbulence

[GoogleShill]

It's the psychological effect of feeling helpless. As a passenger, you have absolutely no control over what happens and can't even see what's in front of you. You're just at the mercy of the plane, mechanics and pilot. For the most part, participants in adrenaline sports are completely in control of what happens.

I was on a flight last year and during take-off with a gusty crosswind our plane skidded to the side probably 20 feet. All of the passengers were bouncing around, and people were grabbing on to their armrests, freaking out. The lady sitting next to me was visibly scared, so I attempted to lighten the mood by putting my arms in the air and saying "wheeeeee!", as if I were on a roller coaster. She did not like that one bit.

Re:flying and turbulence

[Black Parrot]

I find that weird. People seem to be often fond of adrenaline sports, and many adrenaline sports are more risky than flying in a turbulence. Why not simply lay back and enjoy it?

When it's really mild, you can close your eyes and imagine that you're on a train. Or think back to when you were a kid and slept on the back seat while Dad drove down that not-quite-perfect highway on the family vacation.

Re:flying and turbulence

[__aaltlg1547]

People (some of them) enjoy the adrenaline rush when they believe they are in control. When they are not in control, there is just the fear.

Re:flying and turbulence

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I have faith I will experience what I should experience. I see no reason to overthink or get stressed out, when inevitably I am going to die someday anyway.
Might as well enjoy the ride and make the most out of it.

Of course, it is reassuring flight has become so reliable it has today. It has not always been so of course.

However, my real enjoyment is in helping other's if I can. There is no moment in my life I cannot enjoy it, even when stressed out or angry. There's no contradiction because emotions pass so quickly and everything is temporary and changing. Knowledge and faith has the power to turn everything around. However, you do have to have or learn the capacity to go beyond your logical mind. Otherwise it's just mind-games, and counter-productive. Most religions and traditions fall into that trap. If you go to the roots though, they all are based on good ideas, just taken too much to one extreme, misunderstood and dogmatically misapplied over time.

Re:flying and turbulence

[RespekMyAthorati]

I remind myself that I am in a thin-walled aluminum tube hurtling through the air 10,000 meters above the ground. Then I get drunk.

Re:flying and turbulence

[Agent0013]

People (some of them) enjoy the adrenaline rush when they believe they are in control. When they are not in control, there is just the fear.

So why do people like roller coasters then? I just enjoy the butterflies in the stomach feeling as if I am on a really bumpy roller coaster.

Re:flying and turbulence

[__aaltlg1547]

People (some of them) enjoy the adrenaline rush when they believe they are in control. When they are not in control, there is just the fear.

So why do people like roller coasters then? I just enjoy the butterflies in the stomach feeling as if I am on a really bumpy roller coaster.

They know the danger is an illusion.

It would be interesting, if tricky...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd be interested to see(though am at a loss for how one could...ethically...arrange such a test) whether you see the same thing in mortality-salience scenarios where it is explicitly clear that science won't help here, or whether that leads to a sharp jump in enthusiasm for something else.

Given the sheer scale of applied science's obvious successes(and, where applicable, the equally dramatic and unmistakable nature of its fuckups) it isn't a huge surprise that people would find some degree of belief in it almost inevitable. To do otherwise would be like trying to make it through a dinner party with the Hellenic pantheon without recourse to polytheism.

However, there are plenty of things that(while fundamentally amenable to scientific investigation) the answers available so far are incomplete and/or very bad news. I'm inclined to wonder if, in the face of this sort of 'failure' by science, people would skew in some other direction. Anecdotally, the steady trickle of terminal cancer cases and other incurables to the wacky and sometimes gruesome world of alt-med suggests yes; but anecdotes are more emotionally compelling than actually informative.

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[sconeu]

I'd be interested to see(though am at a loss for how one could...ethically...arrange such a test) whether you see the same thing in mortality-salience scenarios where it is explicitly clear that science won't help here

You might be able to do so ethically with terminally ill patients.

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[Anonymous Coward]

We are already doing this test. Haven't you noticed that the older people get and the closer to death, the more likely they are to turn to God?

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[Black Parrot]

We are already doing this test. Haven't you noticed that the older people get and the closer to death, the more likely they are to turn to God?

Several years ago I was deathly ill and the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. For several weeks no one knew whether I was going to live or die.

God never crossed my mind. I can't begin to imagine how you think I would find it comforting to suddenly pin my hopes on your god, Marduk, the FSM, an IPU, Russell's Teapot, or anything else I don't actually believe in.

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

We are already doing this test. Haven't you noticed that the older people get and the closer to death, the more likely they are to turn to God?

Old people have a couple of inconvenient confounding variables:

By virtue of being old people, they tend to exhibit a definite demographic skew toward being old. Since religious activity has drifted in various ways over time, you run the risk of looking at 'attitudes of people who grew up ~60-70 years ago' rather than anything death specific. You'd want some controls among atypically healthy people of a similar age, if available, and people from other demographics who are atypically close to death.

You'd also want to control for dementia and other serious cognitive disruptions common in old people. Luckily, awareness of that is greater than it used to be, and cognitive screening more common, so it would probably be doable(if not convenient) to get a properly controlled sample to ensure that you aren't just looking at 'effects of memory loss and mental degradation on religiosity'(an interesting question in itself; but not the one you were looking to answer).

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You might be able to do so ethically with terminally ill patients.

That does sound a good deal more ethical than my 'banal questionnaires and harrowing mock-executions' strategy...

Re:It would be interesting, if tricky...

[sconeu]

I can give you an equal counter data point. My wife had ALS. She certainly did NOT turn to God.

And as someone else mentioned in this thread, "older people" is not a statistically random sample. There's a HUGE cultural bias in that group.

"Terminally ill", on the other hand includes a cross section of society -- young, old, etc...

Belief in science?

[c0lo]

WTF? The base of science is doubting everything - if you can't falsify a hypothesis, that hypothesis is outside the area of science.

Is this some insidious way to push towards the position that science and religion are both a matter of belief?

Re:Belief in science?

[ari_j]

Maybe the underlying point is that people, on average, rush to believe in something that they don't understand when they are under stress. For people who have rejected religious belief but do not understand science, it is natural that they would rush to "believe" in science. This is a well-understood phenomenon.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

WTF? The base of science is doubting everything

Not doubting everything; there are a few assumptions held --- though they may seem so "obvious" that you don't even realize making them. For example, the assumption that the universe is somewhat "repeatable" and amenable to mathematical and logical description: if an experiment about one thing in one circumstance can't tell you anything about other things in other circumstances, then science is entirely useless.

Re:Belief in science?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

WTF? The base of science is doubting everything - if you can't falsify a hypothesis, that hypothesis is outside the area of science.

Is this some insidious way to push towards the position that science and religion are both a matter of belief?

'Science' as a method and body of accrued knowledge isn't a matter of belief(which is why it has a long history of getting shit done while lesser epistemology waves its hands at uncertainty or contentedly chews its own cud); but an individual's relation to that body of knowledge is, necessarily, largely a belief test:

Even a practicing scientist will have personally tested only a tiny area of the world, and read in any detail only a slightly larger one(at which point they are already trusting their colleagues to, on average, have neither fucked up nor falsified their figures). Outside that, they pretty much depend on others to do the work and hand them the results.

This is not to say that all flavors of belief are identical: believing in some result because you've been told that it was obtained by scientific means is a different thing than believing in some result because you've been told that a magical pixie delivered it directly in a vision; but nobody has even close to enough time to actually do empiricism on more than a tiny sliver of the world. At best, we can do our best to seek out information that is highly likely to be the result of other people doing empiricism, properly, and accept that until further notice.

Re:Belief in science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are talking evolution in which case... it must be the 'Truth', can't be falsified. Find remains of hut in a region previously believed to never have been inhabited and they use it as proof that there must have been a previous inhabitant that they didn't know about... find a new species and they jump though hoops trying to explain how some complex series of completely random mutations lead to its existence. I suspect the odds of many early structures occurring naturally is a lot more likely than the odds of our being created purely by random mutations ( and the related 'natural selection' ), but rather than even considering any design and creator, they mock those that don't believe in our existence being pure chance.

Re:Belief in science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people like to pretend that the 'faith' one must have in order to function well in the real world is just as bad as the faith one must have in order to believe in superstitious nonsense. And by "some people," I was referring to imbeciles. So don't be too surprised if you encounter such people in this very article.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

'Science' as a method and body of accrued knowledge isn't a matter of belief(which is why it has a long history of getting shit done while lesser epistemology waves its hands at uncertainty or contentedly chews its own cud);

The scientific method and accrued body of evidence do rely on some belief that the universe is reasonably repeatable/predictable; that it's worth some effort to, e.g., measure the orbits of planets and come up with mathematical laws describing them, because the planets won't suddenly switch from elliptical to square orbits, then turn into dancing giraffes, just to spite you. This belief continues to be born out by an ever-widening body of evidence, but technically it's still just a belief (with an impressive track record).

Re:Belief in science?

[Aguazul2]

Unless you are willing to re-do all the important scientific experiments ever done yourself, then you have to trust that other people did them correctly and reported them correctly, and also if their reasoning is beyond you, that their reasoning was valid. So from a personal perspective, it requires trust and belief in the work of others. Actually, it is this same trust and belief which means that average scientists generally won't discover new things in unexpected places (unless by accident), because scientists throughout the ages have assumed that certain areas of science were 'explained' and didn't re-examine their assumptions (and how would they know which ones to re-examine, anyway?). That's why it often takes a maverick or genius or other unreasonable person to make a breakthrough. If there was no belief involved in science, then everybody would spend all day repeating known experiments to validate all the elements of science to themselves, but we know in practice that doesn't happen -- people build on the work of others without rigorously re-testing everything from first principles. However, if you consider all scientists as a kind of Borg mind, then there is no belief involved, because the Borg mind has proved everything to itself to its satisfaction. Perhaps you are talking about this level of abstraction.

Re:Belief in science?

[Daetrin]

People can believe in anything, whether it's true or not. I believe if i drop something it will fall. I believe if i go to the local store i will be able to trade money for goods. I believe that the scientific method when followed with rigor produces reasonably accurate and occasionally very useful results.

Some people may believe in science on more of a "faith" basis, not understanding the process but accepting it based on results. Some people believe in religion because of faith. Some people believe in religion because of things they perceive as being caused by supernatural powers (things which scientists would generally credit to selection bias and other fallacies.) Some people believe in superstitions, and sometimes those people are otherwise effectively non-religious.

And some people believe that the moon is larger than the sun or other entirely incorrect facts, not because of any issue of faith, but because they're just uninformed.

Re:Belief in science?

[c0lo]

WTF? The base of science is doubting everything

For example, the assumption that the universe is somewhat "repeatable" and amenable to mathematical and logical description: if an experiment about one thing in one circumstance can't tell you anything about other things in other circumstances, then science is entirely useless.

Quite a strong position. Here's some food for thought:

G[eneral]R[elativity] predicts that gravitational waves travel at the speed of light. Many alternatives to GR say that gravitational waves travel faster than light. If true, this could result in failure of causality.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

Note that I didn't specifically say "causality," only "repeatability." Causality is a particular method for embedding repeatability and logical order in the universe, that so far seems to hold up awfully well. Scientifically contemplating the potential for non-causal structures doesn't mean discarding the notion that, whatever these post-GR theories are, they still produce testable/repeatable behavior in the universe.

Re:Belief in science?

[Black Parrot]

If I insisted that there were three invisible planets orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Saturn, most people would think I was a crackpot.

If I insisted that there was an invisible being that spoke the whole universe into being, plus a lot of other invisible stuff like Heaven and souls, most people would think I knew what I was talking about.

Go figure...

Re:Belief in science?

[Black Parrot]

There is little proof that the dinosaurs died 65 (66?) million years ago

No proof, but piles of evidence.

Let us know if you find a more reliable path to reality than evidence.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

People would ask how you could tell, but no-one else could, that the planets were there. The "Invisible Guy" hypothesis is supported by testimony from a large number of people, who consider themselves to have personally seen/felt/experienced/trusted Invisible Guy's actions. You may not believe a single word of that testimony --- and consider it a massive collective delusion --- but that does offer an explanation of why one stance (supported by testimony from a single person) is considered "crackpot," while another (supported by testimony from billions) is sometimes considered credible (especially by others who claim similar personal testimony).

Re:Belief in science?

[c0lo]

Agreed. +1 insightful for detecting/setting into evidence the relevant difference. Thanks.

Re:Belief in science?

[c0lo]

Unless you are willing to re-do all the important scientific experiments ever done yourself, then you have to trust that other people did them correctly and reported them correctly, and also if their reasoning is beyond you, that their reasoning was valid. So from a personal perspective, it requires trust and belief in the work of others.

It requires trust, it does not require belief - there are two different things.

E.g. - you won't believe in your government, but you may trust it if the rules of the game are lowering the probability for it to cheat, without repeating the whole exercise of government yourself

Re:Belief in science?

[Black Parrot]

But curiously, those same people reject like testimony from the followers of competing religions out of hand.

I think you haven't stumbled upon the explanation.

Re: Belief in science?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, well none of those people is buying your 3 planets idea. So to reject your position as an expert on theology is more rational.
As a matter of fact your kind of reasoning is common amongst simple minded folk.

Re:Belief in science?

[narcc]

This belief continues to be born out by an ever-widening body of evidence, but technically it's still just a belief (with an impressive track record).

It looks like you're justifying the uniformity of nature inductively, even though induction depends on the uniformity of nature.

You've clearly read Hume, so you know this already -- and should know better!

Re:Belief in science?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Unless you are willing to re-do all the important scientific experiments ever done yourself, then you have to trust that other people did them correctly and reported them correctly, and also if their reasoning is beyond you, that their reasoning was valid. So from a personal perspective, it requires trust and belief in the work of others.

It requires trust, it does not require belief - there are two different things.

I think you're looking for a distinction that isn't as strong in practical terms as you'd like to claim. In certain places (like on Slashdot), the word "belief" only tends to be associated with religious belief or other wacko ideas that couldn't possibly be true. But that's just not how we use the word "belief" in normal everyday language.

Take a look at Merriam-Webster's definitions for "belief":

• (1) a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
• (2) something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
• (3) conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

Each of these definitions seem to work fine with the idea of "scientific belief": the trust and confidence in the scientific method, the aspect of a (scientific) community which has a shared set of commonly accepted ideas, and the idea that "truth" as far as it exists requires supporting evidence.

From a practical standpoint, a scientist needs to assume on an everyday basis that the underlying research in his/her field is an accurate representation of reality. (I'll avoid the word "truth," since I know everyone's wary of it, but that's also a practical assumption, even if philosophically, we always say we're just talking about "theories.")

Trying to claim that you somehow have trust in the scientific method but don't believe in its results is sophistry. What does that mean? "I trust what my priest/minister/rabbi/sage/witchdoctor says, but I don't believe it." What would that mean? "I trust what physicists say about general relativity, but I don't believe it." Same question.

The only time you'd ever utter a statement like that is if you actually didn't really trust the authority -- you thought the physicists were well-intentioned, perhaps honest and hard workers with integrity, but ultimately idiots who very likely could have messed something up.

Even if you don't believe dictionary definitions, belief is simply a manifestation of trust in a set of ideas. The history of science also clearly has cases where this trust/belief was misplaced, and very intelligent scientists found it very hard to doubt established theories even in the case of contrary evidence. Sometimes they were bull-headed, but often they were just human...

Humans who couldn't actually carry out further research and make scientific progress unless they believed in the likely accuracy (and even "truth"?) of research that came before them.

P.S. I'm NOT at all saying there is no difference between science and religion. There clearly is. But this particular vocabulary fight is ridiculous and doesn't accord with the actual everyday use of the word "belief."

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

Many of the early scientists, who discovered the basic principles by which our world operates, believed in the rational God of the Bible and that this God, the Creator of all, created a rational universe with consistent laws that could be explored by observation and experimentation.There is no conflict between scientific facts and the Bible.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

But curiously, those same people reject like testimony from the followers of competing religions out of hand.

That's quite variable --- there are plenty of people who will take a "that's cool, dude, whatever works for you" approach. For those with more constrained beliefs of their own --- of course they'll prefer to believe what they already believe, and reject things to the contrary. Many people with "Invisible Guy" beliefs will gladly band together with others on broad shared principles (e.g. extremely vague notions of an "intelligent creator"), even while vehemently damning their "compatriots" over particular specifics. I'm not arguing that the "lots of people believe it" rationale is a good, rational reason for adhering to a belief; only that it is a common part of human (ir)rationality, compared to general rejection of "lone crackpot" propositions.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

I'm not justifying this "circular" reasoning, just pointing out that it's a core component of "beliefs" for science. Since there's no way to prove any belief system from first principles, I'm not in the habit of trying to provide "foolproof" self-contained arguments. Rather than logically justifying the scientific system, the best I can do is say "Science: it works, bitches!," pointing to the past success of scientific predictions (which provide no ultimate proof of future performance). I can't know for certain that the universe isn't about to utterly break its habitual uncertainty --- but I know which side of that uncertainty I'd place a beer-money bet on.

Re:Belief in science?

[femtobyte]

I agree. I am a Christian myself --- it's not just "early" scientists who find no conflict between their religious beliefs and a "scientifically predictable" universe. Note, however, that current scientific understanding does place more stringent constraints on what variety of scriptural hermeneutics extract accurate "facts of the Bible" --- for example, ultra-simplistic 19th-century "literal 6-days creation" readings are utterly out of the question.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

How is this so different from so-called "scientists" who insist that 96% of the universe is made of dark matter or energy and there are these things called black holes. None of these have ever been discovered to exist in fact, but are only fictional constructs, to bolster current theories of how some people think the universe works.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

How can you trust someone if you think they are lying? I think trust and belief are two sides of the same coin.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

To be accurately able to say how long ago something place, you have to have a clock that is reliable over the period of time you want to measure. All dating of long-ago ages is based on the assumption (belief) that the clocks we we use today have ticked at today's observable rates for that entire time. There is no way to check out whether this assumption is true.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

There is little proof that the dinosaurs died 65 (66?) million years ago

No proof, but piles of evidence.

Let us know if you find a more reliable path to reality than evidence.

Would you please cite some of that evidence?

Re:Belief in science?

[WoodGuard]

It is the belief that science can solve their problems, or save their live.

Re:Belief in science?

[cusco]

You're at least 25 years out of date with your comment about black holes. Their gravity has been observed at the center of many, many galaxies (maybe most?). The reason that astrophysicists are pretty sure they're black holes is because there is nothing else possible to exist with that much mass in that small an area of space. If any other structure with that much mass existed in that volume of space it would very quickly collapse into a black hole. There really isn't any alternative explanation for the observed conditions.

Re:Belief in science?

[narcc]

I'm not justifying this "circular" reasoning, just pointing out that it's a core component of "beliefs" for science

Then why make the argument at all? After all, it completely undermines your point!

Why not simply explain that science is necessarily built on a set of assumptions? If you needed to, for your example, you could explain the limits of induction.

This whole thing makes it look like you personally need to justify your acceptance of the principle of the uniformity of nature (though science requires no such justification) even if that means accepting what you presumably know is faulty reasoning. (Why else would you repeat it?)

Assuming that you're perfectly sane, is it that you're just trying to avoid drawing negative attention from the scientifically illiterate "defenders of science"?

Re:Belief in science?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, when you're doing science, you must drop the religion.

Praying that the test tube is cleaned of all demons will not be of any use.

Using the scence knowledge of hygine and cleaning the test tube with a disinfectant and removing all traces of that disinfectant will.

Dr Roy Spencer uses his science to determine how to build his satellite instruments, not his faith. However, he thinks that the Old Testament is a MORE RELIABLE account of the paleohistory of the planet. Therefore if he were making a living as a paleontologist, he would be worse than useless.

NOTE: It doesn't have to be religious faith, it can be political one. Spencer's free market fundamentalism means that, though he uses science to design his instruments, he uses his political faith to interpret the results and, if he gets a result that is accommodating to that faith, he stops. Then others, using the science rather than their beliefs, point out that he's not calibrating for orbital decay. Which he *eventually* adjusts for, getting an answer his ideology isn't happy with. Then they point out that he's forgetting that the sensor ages and changes response. And so on and so on. Eventually getting an answer very different from the one he was happy with and close to that of other scientists measurements.

He himself could could have done all this, but his FAITH in his ideology meant he didn't think or want to look for errors.

And that's where he isn't a scientist: he isn't applying the scientific method and skepticism to his own work. So he's not a scientist.

Because of his non-relgious (though maybe enabled by his sect of christianity) faith.

Re:Belief in science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science becomes a belief-system when people claiming to be scientists dismiss possibilities because of taking science too seriously.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

I agree. I am a Christian myself --- it's not just "early" scientists who find no conflict between their religious beliefs and a "scientifically predictable" universe. Note, however, that current scientific understanding does place more stringent constraints on what variety of scriptural hermeneutics extract accurate "facts of the Bible" --- for example, ultra-simplistic 19th-century "literal 6-days creation" readings are utterly out of the question.

All dating of what occurred ages ago is based on the fundamental assumption, namely that the clocks used have never in all that time ticked differently than they do today. From quantized red shift data as observed by Mr. Tifft, it can be shown that some fundamental constants of the universe have not been constant throughout time. One of these is Planck's constant which is involved in atomic processes, including radioactive decay and the emission of light from excited atoms. Clocks based on gravity, such as orbits of heavenly bodies in the solar system do not contain any terms in their equations that have time-dependent "constants" in them. Mankind has always measured time by these clocks rather than atomic clocks, which are rather recent invention. From this red shift data it is possible to map the approximately 3×10^8 nonlinearity decay curve of the atomic clock to the equivalent gravity time. This dramatic change in the relevant atomic constants is caused by the change in the properties of space itself, as the universe expanded from the very beginning of time.

Scientists today tell us that dinosaurs became extinct about 60 million years ago. That number, when correlated with gravity time, comes out to about the time in history when Job lived. He gives a very good description of creatures we now call dinosaurs, but were usually called dragons or other names in ancient times. There are other extinction events that scientists tell us happened millions of years ago, that can be correlated to the time of Noah and the flood. There is no difference in the chronology of the scientists and the chronology given in the Bible, except that the clock that scientists use ran much much faster when the universe was young.

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

What makes you so sure and other scientists as well, that gravity is the only force that acts in certain places of the universe. Most of the universe as a matter of fact is not nicely electrically neutral, like in our backyard, the solar system, but consists of electrically charged plasma. These plasmas are subject to a force that is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity, namely the electric force. It is not only possible, but fairly certain that the motion of objects in the center of the galaxy is subject to an overwhelmingly greater electrical force, wherein gravity is essentially for all practical purposes nonexistent. If the cosmologists would include the electrical force in their computer models, no fictional constructs such as black holes, dark energy and other made-up stuff would be needed. One problem is that any models that are based on the electric force would be at least twice as complicated as present-day simplistic attempts to model the motion of the galaxies, because the electric force can also repel as well as attract. If gravity needs to be taken into account as well, it gets even more complicated.

Re:Belief in science?

[Black Parrot]

I'm not arguing that the "lots of people believe it" rationale is a good, rational reason for adhering to a belief; only that it is a common part of human (ir)rationality, compared to general rejection of "lone crackpot" propositions.

Though it kind of implies that the first followers of any religion are the followers of a lone crackpot...

But you're right: religion is a very social phenomenon. I've wondered whether autistic types are less likely to buy in to it.

Re:Belief in science?

[Black Parrot]

How does the saying go... "They hide the information you're looking for in books."

Re:Belief in science?

[grantspassalan]

How does the saying go... "They hide the information you're looking for in books."

Anybody can put anything down on paper. The question really is, do you trust the person, the author of the book? That is much more important than the actual content. The Bible is a collection of 66 books written down by 40 writers over a period of about 1500 years, all of whom claim to have received what they have written from a single author, namely God. God tells you that you may disbelieve him, but he also tells you what the consequences of that unbelief will be.

Terror Managment Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Textbook terror management theory results. It's a fairly interesting umbrella theory that has been found to encompass a good deal of human behavior. I don't know if there has been any empirical done through primates though.

http://www.tmt.missouri.edu/

social evolution

[wjcofkc]

Slowly but surely we slump along towards real progress with the human condition...

Although as a skeptic I do not take leaps of faith, and would like to see more than one study done. This is not an announcement of a fact, it is an announcement of the findings of a study.

"science"==religion

[Anonymous Coward]

"Science" (not science) is the new religion.

All you need to do is SAY something is science and people will blindly follow.

Re:"science"==religion

[gl4ss]

"Science" (not science) is the new religion.

All you need to do is SAY something is science and people will blindly follow.

Ok. Send me money and you'll be happy. It's science.

Re:"science"==religion

[Dionysus]

That's OK, because American "Christians" have been pushing the idea that Christianity is not a religion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PH09hgb7DQ) for some strange reason

Re:"science"==religion

[PRMan]

They want to separate going through the motions from actually having a relationship with God where you talk to him. But it's overused to death and frankly gets annoying.

Atheism isn't for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

I usually phrase it more diplomatically, but often people assume atheism is some sort of conscious cop-out to avoid all the hard morality that supposedly stems from religion. If the opening for discussion presents itself, I always soft-sell atheism on a negative note. Atheism offers shit for consolation on the issue of death. Friends, loved ones, family, parents, children, all of them are just gonna die and turn to dirt. That is a real shit sandwich atheism gives you right there, and there's a lot more where that came from. In this way I can steer the conversation in the direction of "People aren't atheists because they prefer not having to deal with religion, but just because they think it's the truth."

Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday. But, frankly, it ISN'T even remotely plausible, which is why I'm an atheist. Clearly some of the people in this article made the jump. Good for them. They get some consolation in their time of grief. Being right is overrated.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday. But, frankly, it ISN'T even remotely plausible, which is why I'm an atheist. Clearly some of the people in this article made the jump. Good for them. They get some consolation in their time of grief. Being right is overrated.

Why is it not plausible? The universe is essentially infinite, or at least who the hell knows what is outside of our observable universe, we simply can't comprehend the concepts involved. Quantum mechanics offers up many things we can not explain. Including the possibility of multiple universes where we're all gods that can shoot lightening out of our fingers.

The only reason you think it's not plausible is because you're arrogant and think you know everything when in fact you know very little.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[narcc]

Atheism offers shit for consolation on the issue of death. Friends, loved ones, family, parents, children, all of them are just gonna die and turn to dirt. That is a real shit sandwich atheism gives you right there

Atheism gives you no such thing! Though that's what many atheists happen to believe, the simple belief that no gods exist implies nothing about life after death.

Piling on dogmas like that is a sure-fire way to turn atheism in to a religion in its own right.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

Atheism offers shit for consolation on the issue of death. Friends, loved ones, family, parents, children, all of them are just gonna die and turn to dirt. That is a real shit sandwich atheism gives you right there

Atheism gives you no such thing! Though that's what many atheists happen to believe, the simple belief that no gods exist implies nothing about life after death.

Piling on dogmas like that is a sure-fire way to turn atheism in to a religion in its own right.

The article was about "scientific worldview", so yes, I was talking about modern western scientific "skeptic" atheism. You are correct that there are religions with no gods but other nonscientific beliefs. But frankly the two groups are pretty completely unrelated, and the former group is clearly the topic at hand. It's hardly dogma to accurately describe one group's beliefs and not mention another.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an Atheist and my late sister dying of cancer managed to get herself baptized as catholic. She was scared as hell of her impending death. I spent her last month visiting her everyday.

About a week before her death, I was about 1 feet away from being hit by a kid in a car who didn't (know to) slow down as he came out of 100 feet away when I was in the middle of crossing (now on 2nd lane from right to left side of the road). I managed to jump about a feet away from the left side of his car to safety. I wasn't even scared and my heart rate didn't even went up afterward.

So 1 near death and 1 family member's death within a week's time didn't change my view on death.

Thinking back that I managed to handle/put out a fire calmly about 15 years ago that could have killed me. No smoke alarm in rented basement and woke up early enough to deal with fire/smoke at exit in the middle of the night. Also put out a couple of small fires year before that.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[stanIyb]

Why is it not plausible?

It's about as plausible as a flying spaghetti monster.

The only reason you think it's not plausible is because you're arrogant and think you know everything when in fact you know very little.

I suppose you think it's arrogant to say that Santa Claus doesn't exist, too.

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[KeensMustard]

I usually phrase it more diplomatically, but often people assume atheism is some sort of conscious cop-out to avoid all the hard morality that supposedly stems from religion.

You might be mishearing what people are saying - which is that there is no distinction between atheism and other forms of belief.

Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday.

Convert to what? Who believes in a magical sky fairy?

Re:Atheism isn't for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly if I thought the idea of a sky-fairy running a magical kingdom keeping us all immortal forever was even remotely plausible, I'd convert yesterday. But, frankly, it ISN'T even remotely plausible, which is why I'm an atheist. Clearly some of the people in this article made the jump. Good for them. They get some consolation in their time of grief. Being right is overrated.

That bolded part is probably why people who believe in a higher power don't like talking to you. If you believe that is all there is to religion, and by that I mean the concept of a God figure consciously bending our world to his whims, then it would seem likely you have not put more thought into religion than "Caricatured Christianity sounds dumb, I'm doing something else."

Re:Bible: word of God

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and everything will suddenly make sense

That sounds like the experience of a recently inflicted paranoid schizophrenic.

No atheists in foxholes?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if the entire world embraced atheism, there would be no war? Sounds like match point to me.

Re:No atheists in foxholes?

[peawormsworth]

Its certainly worth a try. It definately would remove one of the causes... or at least would remove one of the excuses for war.

One of the worst mechanism of manipulation of faith, is to use it to defend a moral injustice. Removing the ability to justify war in the name of religion would at least require citizens and soldiers to find a more rational justification for their motivations and actions.

"Scientific Worldview"

[Anonymous Coward]

What on earth is the "scientific worldview"? The best I can come up with is that the world is as we observe it to be. This is not fixed in stone though, as we are constantly able to observe more and our conclusions change.

Thus, I'm not sure I understand how there can be a scientific worldview in the same sense as a worldview derived from religious dogma.

Re:"Scientific Worldview"

[Black Parrot]

If I said it, I would mean "a world view based on evidence", as opposed to tradition, arbitrary assumptions, etc.

foxholes

[Black Parrot]

There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes.

And it's a fucking stupid thing to say: The mere fact that they're in a foxhole shows that they're putting their faith in boring old non-supernatural dirt to save them, not in their god(s).

Re:foxholes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a fucking stupid thing to say that every theist believes that they have a predestined time to go and that they have no choice in the matter.
 
But you know... atheists understand everything the theists think and feel. Or so they try to shove their ideas on the matter down our throats.
 
Just another reason that fence sitters hate atheists just as much as theists. Neither one can keep their fucking mouths shut if God is mentioned, both of them will bore you to tears with their thoughts on the matter and both of them will hate you if you don't share their point of view.
 
Meh.

Re:foxholes

[Waffle Iron]

I always thought that was a stupid analogy anyway. There are also no unsoiled underpants in foxholes. But very few people think that means we should all go around shitting our pants on a regular basis.

Living by what your brain spews out under severe overstress doesn't make much sense. It's like using results from your computer that it calculated while you were zapping the motherboard with a Tesla coil.

Re:foxholes

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to know who you won't find in a foxhole? A chaplain.

Re:foxholes

[mcgrew]

There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes.

And it's a fucking stupid thing to say: The mere fact that they're in a foxhole shows that they're putting their faith in boring old non-supernatural dirt to save them, not in their god(s).

A man was in his house as the floodwaters reached his porch, and a rowboat came to give him a ride to safety. "God will save me," he said.

As the water reached the second floor, another rowboat came by his window. "God will save me," he says confidently.

As he's sitting on his roof a helicopter comes, and again he refuses the ride. "God will save me."

The man drowns, and when he meets his maker says "God! Why did you let me die?"

God responds "I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?"

Luke 4:12 - "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." That's why they're in the foxholes; they're not stupid.

Re:foxholes

[Anonymous Coward]

That's some fancy apologism there, Lou.

Re:foxholes

[WoodGuard]

That is a very atheist thing to say.

Re:foxholes

[kanweg]

Exactly, phrased differently: When they have to face the enemy and they have to choose between a rifle and the book of the deity of their choice, what would they put faith in?

Bert

Re:foxholes

[Black Parrot]

Exactly, phrased differently: When they have to face the enemy and they have to choose between a rifle and the book of the deity of their choice, what would they put faith in?

Bert

I think in the majority of cases the enemy is praying to the same deity, so maybe choosing the rifle is the smart choice.

Think only when needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

When forced, people think. Thats what this study shows. I find it disappointing that apparently lots of people don't have a working understanding of the world until they are required to have one by a situation.

This isn't a "turn to science", or "turn to religion" kind of thing. This is a "have a view about reality" kind of thing. Lots of people simply don't bother to maintain a self consistent view of reality, so they have to create on when needed, via science, religion, of what ever other excuse is convenient at the time. This has the benefit that they can make a different reality every time they need one.

Ever notice how many people claim to hold a view point that, when taken to its logical extremes makes no sense, and if confronted, suddenly they have different views? Thats how they do it. They exploit peoples tolerance of others views to have multiple conflicting views as convenient for them. They randomly force it on others (including their children) too.

People are very good at this. The people who weren't got killed off (or at least had extra problems) as various religions moves through their areas. Not only are the religions self inconsistent, but the many religions are also inconsistent with each-other, and actual reality. Interacting with people in these situations requires being able to understand their views. Yep, evolutionary selection for being able to harbor multiple conflicting view points.

So now we are left with this problem: a bunch of lazy people invent inconsistent realities on demand to answer all kinds of moral or otherwise challenging questions. This is really bad. People don't take time to think: you must put in a lot of work to build a self consistent model of reality on which to base your opinions. "Turning" to something when under pressure is a clear sign you don't have anything solid worked out.

So do you really want to first introspect your world view during a challenging time, or do you want to be ready, with a clear understanding when the challenge comes? Don't be one of those assholes who picks up religion so they can have easy answers for their kids: that is child abuse as far as I'm concerned, and it has long term downsides. Don't panic and turn to science or God because you might die. That is pathetic. If you are going to view the world a particular way, don't do it because of one pressing issue.

Re:Think only when needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't do it because of one pressing issue.

Whatever the latest crisis is, is all the space most of us have in our brains.

Who fears death?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I always wondered when I watched one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies why they had Davy Jones (the wet one, not the Monkey) ask, "Do you fear death?". I mean, why the heck would I fear death? That just isn't something I would worry about. Now, I greatly fear suffering, paralysis, and things like that. Enough that I don't want to engage in dangerous things like base jumping. Not because I fear ceasing to exist. Because I fear I would still exist, but be paralyzed or in great pain for the rest of my life.

Death? Nothing to fear there.

Another false dichotomy

[roca]

The abstract and the commentary imply the canard that faith in science and faith in religion must be at odds. This isn't the case in theory or practice. There is no philosophical incompatibility in believing that science and God both work, or even that God works through science. And in practice, most religious believers exhibit plenty of faith that science works and are comfortable with it.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Khomar]

Absolutely. Actually, I believe that science works through God in that it is God who established and maintains the physical laws that we see. After all, where did they come from, and what keeps them running? So my faith in science is rooted in my faith in God and His faithfulness to keep the natural world around me running just like He did yesterday and the day before, etc. Science is therefore the study of God's faithfulness. He is so reliable that we can create formulas based upon it.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[loneDreamer]

It depends. Theism in general is not incompatible, but plenty of particulars from this religion or the other are not compatible with scientific knowledge and/or logic. So they are not complete opposites, but they are not orthogonal either. Hence much of the confusion.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

True. The only thing you lose is "miracles" - resurrections, staffs into snakes, that sort of thing. If you take the Bible to be a record of the stories a people told about themselves, then there is no real contradiction. If you take the Bible to be Revealed Text, then you've got a real problem with a scientific approach, and should probably abandon it.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Jorgensen]

He is so reliable that we can create formulas based upon it

The formulas do not demonstrate the presense of any deities. They show the relationship between cause and effect; not a sign of a divine intelligence, love, hate, desire to be worshipped or any other attributes generally associated with deities. Basing a belief in a deity upon the laws of the universe as we understand them is non-sensical. So you need some other basis for bringing a deity into the picture.

If you argue that a deity created the universe to perfectly fit human believers then you fall foul of the Anthropic principle. Even more so if any the multiverse theories are true.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[venicebeach]

The reality is that they are at odds in practice, especially in the United States. Otherwise we would not be in a circumstance where the majority of Americans disbelieve in one the of central scientific theories of our day.This state of affairs is directly attributable to the dominant religion and the anti-scientific mindset it must engender in order to survive in its current form.

But your comment has a troubling confusion embedded which might explain why you don't see the conflict. Religious believers need not exercise "faith" that science works, because there is evidence that science works. The mindset of faith is to encourage belief regardless of evidence. That is why faith-based belief systems are indeed in conflict with science -- they are impervious to evidentiary challenges.

It's true that science is not inherently incompatible with any specific truth-claim (e.g. the existence of a god), but it is incompatible with faith-based thinking. That is the point of this article -- the only reason someone "in a foxhole" would change their belief about the nature of the world is because they are influenced by the emotions of the circumstance. It's not like some new information about the existence of god suddently becomes evident because one's life is in danger.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[grantspassalan]

Science is also the study of God's splendor and majesty. Science is the effort of men thinking God's thoughts after him. Thousands of years ago, David Psalmist writes how the heavens declare the glory of God. From creation, David goes on to the power and wisdom of the word of God, as written down by many different people over large periods of time. At one time, science was the pursuit of truth, but nowadays it has become corrupted into the pursuit of fame and fortune.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[grantspassalan]

So where do these precise relationships between cause and effect come from? Why do the laws of nature work consistently over time? Why are they not random, varying from day to day or year to year? Why are people no matter where they live on earth incurably religious? What answers can science give us, what if anything, happens after we die?

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Khomar]

Amen.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Phroggy]

True. The only thing you lose is "miracles" - resurrections, staffs into snakes, that sort of thing.

You lose some of the miracles, but not all of them. Sometimes a "miracle" is just a totally naturally occurring phenomenon, which God set in motion from the time of Creation just so that it would happen at a specific place and time so that it would have a special meaning in the context of what was going on.

If you take the Bible to be a record of the stories a people told about themselves, then there is no real contradiction. If you take the Bible to be Revealed Text, then you've got a real problem with a scientific approach, and should probably abandon it.

If you use the Bible as the foundation upon which to build your hypothesis, then you can use real science to test it, and when you've disproven your hypothesis you go back to the Bible to seek out a better interpretation and form a new hypothesis you can test. That sounds crazy to some, but it's totally consistent with the scientific method.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[stanIyb]

After all, where did they come from, and what keeps them running?

Ah, a classic. I love this type of argument, because one can use it to 'prove' the existence of all sorts of crazy things. To answer your question? The flying spaghetti monster. Why? Because my own ignorance is evidence of the flying spaghetti monster's existence.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[stanIyb]

What answers can science give us

Sometimes it gives you nothing, but what's the problem with that? Would you rather be filling in the answers with whatever nonsense that you can dream up? Why is it so bad to simply admit that something is unknown?

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Legion303]

"At one time, science was the pursuit of truth, but nowadays it has become corrupted into the pursuit of fame and fortune."

Yes, because when I see that famous blonde in the Ferrari, I know she must be a particle physicist. Lousy rich scientists with their swag.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are at odds. If religious claims were evaluated as scientific claims then everyone would be atheist. What you have to do to be a theist scientist is to create two great silos in your mind, one for religion and one for science. As long as you remember not to open the religious silo while doing science and vice versa, then you will succeed in being a scientists and a theist. That this sort of mental gymnastics is possible is a far cry from showing that religion and science are compatible. It's just that if you ignore the ways in which they are not compatible and don't let that bother you, then yes, you can be both.

The scientific issue is not that it would be impossible for there to exist a god - of course it would be possible. The issue is that there is no credible evidence for the God position, or even any compelling reason to further explore the idea, so taking on that position cannot be part of a scientific world view.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, where did they come from, and what keeps them running?

So because we don't know where physical laws come from, it is reasonable to conclude that they must come from God? Are you sure that's a reasonable way of reasoning about the world? An alternative position would be that we don't know where physicals laws come from and that just means that we don't know.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Empiric]

Religious believers need not exercise "faith" that science works, because there is evidence that science works.

For extremely-vague values of "works", which can be legitimized no further than that, and not even to the degree that you hope people will allow you to non-sequitur "leaving the impression of" rather than justifying. Tell me, why did Luminiferous Ether not "work"? By what means, ever, do you know that a current model of science is fully correct? "Kicking the can down the road" to "oh, it will correct itself" in no way demonstrates it is or ever will be -true-, -ever-, or even can be. That is an article of faith.

Which brings us to the next point...

The mindset of faith is to encourage belief regardless of evidence.

No, only in your directly-false statement of what "faith" is (you're just parroting Dawkins and Hitchens in that, understood, though). It is a confidence based on -limited- information. Christians are -directly required- to be able to give a justification for their belief (1 Peter 3:15). If you haven't met any that can, that would be their issue--that is, assuming you've even asked any, rather than just going with a personal history you've made-up to fit your argument.

You are conflating and excluding epistemological domains here to an absurd level. We haven't even touched upon axiomatic statements and their superior claim to being "truth" over scientific processes (as you describe them, not so much "science" as Logical Positivism, which ran aground a few decades ago), or the limits of knowledge of science. Or their habitual overstatement into domains such as politics, invalidly, though I've yet to find a person with your premises who isn't just as happy with "sciency-sounding" as "science" in their automatic assent... but these are wider topics well beyond your apparent capacity at the moment. Another day, then.

For now, just be aware that some of us are fully aware you are pounding square pegs into round holes to support a dubious conclusion you've decided a priori.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[grantspassalan]

What answers can science give us

Sometimes it gives you nothing, but what's the problem with that? Would you rather be filling in the answers with whatever nonsense that you can dream up? Why is it so bad to simply admit that something is unknown?

People fear the unknown, especially what lies behind the curtain of death. Those who believe what Jesus Christ said, need not fear death or what lies beyond, because Jesus told us what we need to know about it. You don't have to believe what he said, but then that's your problem.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[grantspassalan]

I had big science funded by governments and corporations in mind, where any new ideas outside of the mainstream are systematically stifled.

Re:Another false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

On the surface, philosophical incompatibility may be difficult to see. At some point however, one may find themselves at a stalemate between their religious beliefs and scientific evidence, and they will have to make a choice. Hopefully people tend to make the correct choice, but if that were the case there would be a lot less churches around :(

And if science can't help...

[Chewbacon]

Then they'll go with a higher power. Seen it happen a lot in my job. They go with whatever is working best for them.

I've said it before

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll point it out again. Watch how any believer reacts to the death of another believer. Do you see how happy they are that their loved one gets to enjoy heaven? Do they just shrug it off with a "No big deal, I'll be seeing them again soon."? Of course not. Show a believer a little death and watch all their beliefs fly out the window. They'll cry and mourn because they know their faith is false. If there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no believers at funerals.

Re:I've said it before

[wonkey_monkey]

What, you've never been sad to see a friend leave, even though you know you're going to see them again at an indefinite future time?

They'll cry and mourn because they know their faith is false.

You're assuming humans are purely rational - worse, you're assuming they're purely rational when it comes to handling emotions. They're not.

PS Atheist here.

Re:I've said it before

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you've never been sad to see a friend leave, even though you know you're going to see them again at an indefinite future time?

Yes, I remember being a child.

Re:Questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

The latter does not exist.

Everything.

No.

Yes, it would.

Re:Bible: word of God

[Black Parrot]

and everything will suddenly make sense

That sounds like the experience of a recently inflicted paranoid schizophrenic.

Huh? I thought it was just a bog-standard troll.

WTF is "belief in science"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So there is this process we use to help make predictions. Its called "science". It helps us form predictions that correlate with reality. Some people "believe" in it, I just use it. When I need to hammer in a nail, I use a tool: a hammer. When I need to make a prediction which I would like to correlate with reality, I use a tool: science.

Science is a tool: it helps you do specific kinds of things. It is useful.

This reminds me of my "creationism is useless" argument. Evolution helps you make predictions which correlate with reality. Its part of the science tool, and its very useful. Creationism does not help you make predictions that correlate with reality. Thus, its not useful in the scientific respect. Even if its true, its not science, so it should be taught in the department that covers that kind of thing (history) it you teach it at all. On the other side, evolution, even if incorrect, is useful science, and thus belongs in science classes.

We didn't stop teaching Newtonian mechanics because relative proved it wrong. They still make useful predictions that correlate with reality. Its still science, and we should still teach it, even-though we know its wrong.

Why does no one make that point? Maybe because they don't know what science is? (It would really suck to not to have science in my toolbox!)

Re:WTF is "belief in science"?

[wonkey_monkey]

(It would really suck to not to have science in my toolbox!)

I leant my science to my brother when he needed to fix his supercollider. Jerk still hasn't given it back.

Re:WTF is "belief in science"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So there is this process we use to help make predictions. Its called "science". It helps us form predictions that correlate with reality. Some people "believe" in it, I just use it. When I need to hammer in a nail, I use a tool: a hammer. When I need to make a prediction which I would like to correlate with reality, I use a tool: science.

Science is a tool: it helps you do specific kinds of things. It is useful.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic" (sorry, I forgot who said it or the exact quote). The corollary is, when people see something works but don't understand how, then that thing works like magic to them. And we see this all the time in IT. Most business people don't understand how computers and software work, and you see this magical thinking all the time in their decision regarding IT.

And sadly, most people (especially the average Americans) are so scientifically illiterate, that anything "science" works like magic to them. Thus, "belief in science".

Re:WTF is "belief in science"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic" (sorry, I forgot who said it or the exact quote). The corollary is, when people see something works but don't understand how, then that thing works like magic to them. And we see this all the time in IT. Most business people don't understand how computers and software work, and you see this magical thinking all the time in their decision regarding IT.

And sadly, most people (especially the average Americans) are so scientifically illiterate, that anything "science" works like magic to them. Thus, "belief in science".

Thats a good point. People confuse engineering and technology with science. They are very different! As an engineer, perhaps I should be a bit offended by people confusing me with one of my tools.

Computer scientists come up with cool theory for me to use, then as a computer engineer, I make it do stuff. Simple!

Maybe we should teach people what science is, and I don't mean this bullshit scientific method 5 step script I had to learn (teach to the test, in this case WASL). That would clear a lot of stuff up.

Re:WTF is "belief in science"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This quote was taken out of context from a larger article in Science Now. Please check out this article, it will give you a better idea of what the argument is> here is the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

Re:WTF is "belief in science"?

[Empiric]

Creationism does not help you make predictions that correlate with reality.

I'd like to predict the upper-bound lifespan of man for the next 2000 years.

Genesis has been correct (i.e. "correlating with reality"), for over 2000 years now and counting, over billions of future data points.

Next.

Re:Bible: word of God

[dicobalt]

I just want to rule over someone. Can I do that if I join your gang?

Evolution anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

After having been indoctrinated with the theory of evolution all throughout school, what do you expect!

Re:Bible: word of God

[aristotle-dude]

and everything will suddenly make sense

That sounds like the experience of a recently inflicted paranoid schizophrenic.

No, it is more like listening to someone talking on the phone and only hearing one side of the conversation. Time and time I again, I have seen people like you parrot select quotes from the bible and taking them completely out of context. If you read them within the context, they make more sense even to someone like you but if you don't understand or know the author, it can be difficult seeing how everything fits together. You are missing the back story because you don't know god.

Once you accept god as your savior, you start to see the connections between the old and new testament. You cannot see that the old testament is talking about what will happen in the new testament and the new testament is talking about what has been fulfilled from the old testament.

One guy in the old testament who really "got it" was King David. He could see what was to come. He foresaw how man and god would be united once again in the spirit.

Science vs religion: Prepare for boredom!!

[drrilll]

Seriously. I believe I have heard every single argument from either side about a thousand times, and that was just this morning. Agree to disagree already. Maybe find another hobby that isn't a complete waste of time. If I did happen to have an interest in someone's belief one way or the other, I would ask about it.

Re:Science vs religion: Prepare for boredom!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, leave the atheists out of this.

Now, as an anti-theist, I'll be the one to take issue with the religious folks: Just because a "religion" is a cult with public/government recognition does not make it not a cult. Religions are exploiting and corrupting the population. The prevent people from thinking for themselves. If you can't justify your morals without an arbitrary moral authority you only believe is right because you already believe it is right, you have a problem. If you also then spread this to other people, like your children, you are exploiting them. If you vote based on your religion/cult, you are hurting the country, and the world. If you fight for it, you are killing people, isn't that bad (or maybe its not, but at least think about it please).

I don't care if your religions are right or not, I care that they are making the world a worse place for the people I care about. Stop justifying actions via positive feedback belief loops. Its destructive.

If everyone got an unbiased opportunity to join or not, it would be better, but they don't. Its exploitation and entrapment. They are cults.

If you have a religion, you are a victim of the religion/cult. Because of this, you get some sympathy from me. I try to avoid targeting the victims, but still, if you are also in a moderately free country with access to education and still in a religion, you are a also a coward for not facing reality. If you help spread your religion, you are a plague. It may not be your fault, but its a problem for us all.

Re:Science vs religion: Prepare for boredom!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a "religion" is a cult with public/government recognition does not make it not a cult.

And just because you find it more comforting to call it a cult does not make it one.

That word has a meaning, one that objectively does NOT apply to the overwhelming majority of religious beliefs. And you know it.

And this is coming from an atheist.

Re:Bible: word of God

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, to quote the holy bible: "I am your anus, to bring vengeance and peace and all that shit upon you, etc."

Wait... what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone writing a paper about death or an athlete preparing for a big race are on par with a guy in an active combat zone?
 
Am I missing something here? Or is this article trying to claim that given time to prepare that people suddenly become atheists because they embrace common sense science? And it's not that I'm honestly confused but I am baffled by how people think that the average Joe swings heavily to one side of the debate or the other.

Re:Bible: word of God

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I have seen people like you parrot select quotes from the bible and taking them completely out of context.

I don't select them to take them completely out of context - I select them because they are hilariously funny! Research in psychology shows that humor is important for a person's well-being, so I guess that cracking oneself up is one of the ways in which the Bible can vastly improve a person's life.

If you read them within the context, they make more sense even to someone like you

That is extremely unlikely. For example, it eludes me how "context" could give any more sense to the claim that a transcendental being that supposedly created a universe with five hundred billion galaxies, each with more than a hundren million stars on average, takes great interest in whether or not a bronze age tribe of Semitic goat herders eats lobsters.

Once you accept god as your savior, you start to see the connections between the old and new testament.

A person with even an average sense for logical reasoning would rather have it the other way round: after demonstrating (perhaps through the logic of a convicing text that could be (but isn't) a part of the Bible) why particular claims to the supernatural should be preferred to alternative hypotheses and the null hypothesis, it is reasonable to accept the postulated savior. I don't see how doing it the other way round could possibly lead to a non-circular chain of reasoning.

Silly study is silly

[TangledTubes]

- Sample population is "students and staff at a large university". Always the gold standard for representing everyone.
- Sample size for first experiment and the "significant" increase is 15%. The measurement method is a survey, of course. Confidence values? P-values? What are those?
- Study ignores an obvious bias in their selected group - they picked rowers preparing for a race! There's a lot of science involved (both fluid and human-physiological) in rowing efficiently. Of course they're biased towards science while prepping for a race.
- Second group "ponders death" by writing an essay. Unless a bad grade on the essay results in immediate execution (professor's fantasy), I don't think this counts as facing death.

Conclusion: Ironically, study glorifying science as a belief does a really poor job of controlling their variables scientifically or analyzing their data scientifically. Maybe it's not ironic since I kind of expect a study with a hypothesis this ridiculous to be done badly.

In seriousness: D'uh. "Believing" in science gets easier as the stacks of knowledge grow faster than our ability to consume it (and our lifespans aren't getting THAT much longer). When it's getting harder and harder to comprehend all of the new advances at once, "sufficiently advanced technology becomes indistinguishable from magic". Of course science as a belief is possible. Just look at Portal :D

Re:Silly study is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at who performed this study... that's right, Yale University.

Guess what Yale sells to the public? That's right, SCIENCE!

I think there's a clear conflict of interest here with a major university that has a SCIENCE department promoting faith in science!

Well DUH...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it turns them into atheists...

What kind of rational person, with a human-centered concept of morality, wants to live their life with the feeling that they are going to be eternally accountable for everything that they do or even think?

It's far more comforting to live in blissful ignorance of anything that might lie in the hereafter than it is to be prepared for eternal accountability therein that we are ill equipped to explain or even comprehend.

God is real

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting ac because I don't want to deal with the replies, just gonna put my experience out there, deride at your leisure.

God exists. You, me, us, all life, this planet/ galaxy/ universe (plus) is not an accidental smashup of mud and ice. A mix of Intelligent design and evolution, done by a 'master designer' who works in 'God time', not just billions of years.

Proof may not come in this life, though it might for certain individuals. God likes to be 'looked for'. (S)He is like a Dean of the highest college of learning, and we are here to learn, mostly how to love one another as God does us. And rarely see the Dean of a college, too busy handling the big stuff and lets underlings mostly run the show. But once in a while the Dean may show some special interest in a promising pupil who needs extra guidance, or can be 'used' by God to further the plan. Pay attention to any special dreams you have, that's one form of communication God and the spirits use to help us.

This life is like Kindergarden. If you live your life without hurting others, share your blocks, play nice with each other, you get to graduate to the '1st grade', whatever that is. There is a life after our mortal life here, live your life accordingly.

Peace. :)

Re:God is real

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're capitalizing "God", I'll assume you're speaking of the Judeo-Christian YHWH; if not, then you should do better at clarifying your position, as this is a pretty common assumption in the modern world.

Most of what you've said herein does not line up with the accepted values/principles of YHWH, as set forth in the various texts attributed to Him. You seem intelligent enough to figure out why on your own, presuming that this isn't copypasta -- too lazy to check.

Re:God is real

[Anonymous Coward]

I capatalize God because God rates a capitalized letter in his/her name. Not anything to do with any man-made religion.

Re:Bible: word of God

[The1stImmortal]

I'm feeding a troll I'm sure - but I'm in a weird mood. So stuff it.

I love the circular reasoning in "The bible is the proven word of God. You really don't need any more proof than that." - so it's proven by the fact that it is proven. Hm. Rightio then.

Then there's a no-true-scotsman fallacy of if you've read it and don't believe it, then you've not really read it. Hm. Rightio then.

I'd love to understand why Bible believers think that, for non-believers, the Bible in particular is special?
Seriously - for someone who already doesn't believe in god(s), what would make them believe the Bible over the Torah, the Qur'an, the I Ching, the Guru Granth Sahib, the Principia Discordia or "There and Back Again" as a text of divine inspiration?

Finally - I have read the Bible several times. Fascinating read really (till you get to all the post-gospel stuff near the end to the new testament - I really don't care about early christians' "How are you doing over there then?" letters for example...)
But enlightenment did not come. Instead, the more I read the Bible the more I find it's just a curious collection of old folk tales and legends (old testament) combined with a dogma assembled by committee (new testament).
And Christians rarely live their lives strictly according to scripture btw. The average christian violates an awful lot of it whilst handwaving huge chunks as being "irrelevant" in the modern church (!). Which is fine if you accept that you're not living strictly according to the book. But don't pretend you are.

Finally - frankly, if it were written today the Bible would have a very rough time with censors. It's seriously lurid in parts. Incest, rape, slavery (both labour-based and sexual), extremely graphic violence, inciting racial hatreds... Much of which is presented as a good thing! It would probably be banned these days. I certainly will consider carefully when my son will be ready to understand the adult themes in the Bible for sure. I don't want to give him nightmares.

Irony

[Roger W Moore]

So what you are suggesting is that we make unscientific alarmist claims in order to scare people into believing in the actual, less alarmist science of global warming. Apart from the irony once people get interested in science they will learn that your original claims were unscientifically alarmist and the result will likely be far more scepticism about global warming science than before.

Re:Irony

[grantspassalan]

It is a scientific fact that can be measured and verified, that the earth is getting warmer. It is in the interpretation of that fact that many people have trouble. There is no way to prove that human activity has any effect one way or the other. There have been warmer and there have been cooler periods of time. It is uniformly assumed that global warming is bad, but is that necessarily so? Most lifeforms do better when it is warm than when it is freezing cold. Rising ocean levels, even if that would happen, is not much of a problem, if it happens over many human generations. I think overall, warm is better than cold.

Re:Irony

[riverat1]

I wasn't being serious, I was just carrying they logic of the post to an absurd extreme for comic reasons.

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no way to prove that human activity has any effect one way or the other."

Yes there is.

This planet that is warming is warming for a reason. And we're doing something that we can PROVE will warm the planet by trapping energy in the system.

Or is the thing we're doing not evidence of the thing we're doing to idiot deniers?

Re:Irony

[grantspassalan]

Even if it could be proven, which it can't, that the warming is human caused, so what? For most life forms, like I said before, warm is better than freezing cold. Let's make the earth a little warmer, so the frozen wastes in the Arctic become habitable for humans and other living things. I say bring it on!

Here we go again.

[Ultracrepidarian]

While you guys argue over this, would you hand me the flak vest?

Re: Questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

depends. u plan on being imortal?

Observation:

[fyngyrz]

'There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes

This is not a flaw with atheists, or in atheism. This is a problem with foxholes, and any other situation where you become so stressed that you can no longer think clearly.

Re:Observation:

[DigiShaman]

Sodium Pentothal. No inhabitions, no fear. Stress becomes water off a ducks back.

Re:Observation:

[cusco]

My dad had a customer who had been a paratrooper in Normandy. My brother made some dumb remark about 'no atheists in foxholes', and Dick snapped back at him, "More atheists are made in foxholes than anywhere else, because no god worth worshiping would allow something like that to go on!"

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

But but! Geezus allows bad things to happen so we'll toughen up for the Afterlife, so that when we goto Heaven, we'll have a strong enough character to resit...um...

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

"no god worth worshiping would allow something like that to go on"

It's people's choices that put them there... God might allow it, but people still choose to fight. Don't blame God for shit that is caused just because people don't know how to maturely get along with other people. It's only because some have the authority to dictate what other people do that puts unwilling soldiers in foxholes. God might allow it, but humans *cause* it. For God to disallow it would be to interfere with the the freely made choices that created that situation, invalidating the very purpose of giving us free will in the first place.

If God were to just turn around and stop us every time we make a wrong choice, then what on earth would the point be of giving us a free will?

Re:Observation:

[Joce640k]

It's almost like he *wants* a decent percentage of us to go to Hell, right?

Re:Observation:

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

In most uses of it, there's also no consciousness, which hopefully would also mean no inhibitions, fear, or concern about stress.

Re:Observation:

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

Exactly my reaction after staying in hospitals too often as a kid -- religious adults would tell me that I'd survived/recovered because their god was there lovingly protecting me, but by adulthood I could only think that I didn't want to believe in (let alone worship) a deity that allows or causes the kind of horrible things I witnessed/experienced.

Re:Observation:

[KeensMustard]

Somebody should probably have mentioned to Dick that he was engaging in a fairly obvious logical fallacy - i.e. the fact that humans do stupid things is orthogonal to the question of whether or not there is a deity or deities.

Re:Observation:

[professionalfurryele]

But not orthogonal to the question of if there are benevolent deities.

Re:Observation:

[fyngyrz]

...and *particularly* not benevolent, omnipresent, omniscient deities.

Foxholes aside, as a poster above observes, birth defects, infections, cancers, natural disasters, etc., quite often aren't the result of "our choices", and yet clearly this imaginary omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent deity is perfectly happy to let them go on regardless, though ameliorating them would not interfere in the least with our "free will."

It's so obvious that the characterization typical of the major religions cannot be the character of any actual god with those three characteristics it's almost pitiful. Therefore, the major religions are wrong, no matter if there is a god or gods, or not.

Christianity, Islam and Judaism are bunk. Pure, unadulterated bunk. Either there is no god, or gods, or it/they are the very worst kind of turdpockets playing with toys for which they have no concern. And again I find myself in agreement with the poster above who remarked (paraphrasing), "fuck them." But then I relax a bit, as there is absolutely no evidence of any kind that there are, or were, a god or gods of any stripe. One must not mistake the clamoring of a group of the deluded as evidence for anything. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not simply an increase in the loudness of protests.

Re:Observation:

[KeensMustard]

Which doesn't help Dick at all, because for the fox hole dwellers to be acting rationally, their experience would need to disprove all deities, not just benevolent ones.

And even the disproof of the theoretical benevolent deity is a bit doubtful. Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans? Is this benevolence?

Re:Observation:

[Tagged_84]

Hmm, last I checked no one had confirmed the existence of free will. I tend to favour the theory of Howard Bloom that free will is only likely if electrons and photons have it, and the world of science is only just starting to delve into the new theory of quantum communication afaik.

Re:Observation:

[Tagged_84]

I like to say that the greatest trick the devil ever played wouldn't be convincing the world they didn't exist, but rather convincing the world they were god. I mean god is a nasty motherf&cker with an appitite for destruction and death.

Plus everyone knows stories are better with killer plot twists, just ask M. Night Shyamalan

Re:Observation:

[flyneye]

Never read The Bible did he? YHVH conducted some brutal battles and carnage of "Biblical" proportions not seen even at Normandy. Imagine the city of Jericho wiped out.Sodom, Gomorrah , wiped out violently( if not literally, it was certainly historically reflective of some sort of carnage.).All manner of usual and unusual bloodshed throughout the book, Normandy may've hearkened back to some, but various God worship thrived amongst our ancestors who certainly conducted major bloodshed without any sissypants Geneva Convention never lost faith, if they did, they just picked up someones more" successful" God when theirs failed. Not much word of Atheists. Maybe Titus sacking Jerusalem made a few.

Re:Observation:

[professionalfurryele]

Depends, Dick could be an expert philosopher who has supporting arguments for why any creator deity is likely to be benevolent. Most natural theologians will provide you with such arguments to back up their particular deity. You are judging his argument without knowing it in detail. It could be the case that he is making an error by conflating deities with benevolent deities, or it could be that he has an argument for why any deity would by definition be good (if you want an example consider the Christian conception of ethics as being a reflection of gods nature, making god good by definition).

"Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans?" - Doesn't need to. Just has to fail to do it once when it would be desirable for them to do so and possible for them to do so. Dick judges that he has encountered one such incidence which is sufficient to rule out those deities. You might argue he has put his line in the sand as to what constitutes too much suffering and evil in a poor place, but I don't suggest making that argument to veterans faces unless you yourself have watched comrades slowly bleed to death while you pick bits of shrapnel out your legs.

Re:Observation:

[flyneye]

Several times God commanded it, endorsed rulers who practiced violence , wiped out worshipers of other "Gods" and let's not forget the Plagues that predated chemical warfare by many centuries.
Atheists aren't made in foxholes, they're made in church pews. The fault lies in the milktoast politically correct,historically incorrect, censored, edited, watered down, council of Trent approved garbage preached by modern organized religion. It doesn't make sense, often misinterpreted for the sake reflecting "feel good" dogma practiced by the money hungry corporate entities. Who believes that garbage anyway? They just go and sit through it to appear morally superior to anyone bothered to notice.Besides that, I know at least one Atheist made in seminary and can imagine more would occur.

Re:Observation:

[flyneye]

Where is this benevolent diety in the Bible?
I've read it cover to cover, many versions, Apocrypha, early writings, studied relevant history and still can't find this protector of the poor, sick and innocent.
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Who said that? Genghis Khan? Lex Luthor? Darth Vader? Nope, Jesus Christ said it.
No one promised a benevolent diety, but some pastor with their offering plate in your face. You been had.

Re:Observation:

[professionalfurryele]

If you think I think YHWH is benevolent then you have inferred a lot from a very short statement. YHWH is by most accounts one of the worst entities in fiction responsible for genocide, torture and poor taste in sea food.

Re:Observation:

[KeensMustard]

Depends, Dick could be an expert philosopher who has supporting arguments for why any creator deity is likely to be benevolent. Most natural theologians will provide you with such arguments to back up their particular deity. You are judging his argument without knowing it in detail.

Yes, it could be that Dick has some hidden or secret teaching that has yet to be revealed. I can only judge his stance on what the OP has said, presumably in good faith that the argument was philosophically sound - we seem to agree that it is not.

Is Dick taking his cues from these 'natural theologians'? This seems like the same basic error as before.

It could be the case that he is making an error by conflating deities with benevolent deities,

This, I think, is the most likely scenario.

or it could be that he has an argument for why any deity would by definition be [benevolent] (if you want an example consider the Christian conception of ethics as being a reflection of gods nature, making god good by definition).

The Christian Deity is not benevolent, at least that is what Christians say. Perhaps Dick misunderstood 'benevolent' to mean 'good'.

"Would a benevolent deity unfailingly override the poor decisions made by humans?" - Doesn't need to. Just has to fail to do it once when it would be desirable for them to do so and possible for them to do so.

Is this your arguments or DIcks? If it is your argument, you might want to describe it in more detail. I see a few flaws with it. Firstly, I consider myself generous - to a point. I'm generally inclined to be generous, but don't feel the need to give to every cause. My generosity is my choice. Perhaps the benevolence of your theroetical deity works in the same way. Thus examples of (apparent) non-benevolence would not mean the deity is not, in general, benevolent.

Secondly there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between our stupidity in fighting wars for no reason and this theoretical benevolence on the part of someone else.

You might argue he has put his line in the sand as to what constitutes too much suffering and evil in a poor place, but I don't suggest making that argument to veterans faces unless you yourself have watched comrades slowly bleed to death while you pick bits of shrapnel out your legs.

And yet I once met a man in the slums of Johannesburg who had no legs at all (mining accident). He had no problems in trusting his deity, despite his desperate circumstances. Perhaps what Dick thinks of as a disproof of all deities is merely a difference in the way that people react to bad circumstances.

Re:Observation:

[drsmithy]

If God were to just turn around and stop us every time we make a wrong choice, then what on earth would the point be of giving us a free will?
From your logic can we conclude you are opposed to all laws, as well ?

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws are practical and useful from a societal standpoint... and enable maximum productivity. There are things which are against the law which are not against god's designs, and there are things against God's designs against which there is no law (in some cultures).

AQlso, it was god who gave us free will, not the lawmakers, for a would-be lawmaker to presume that making laws somehow invalidates god giving us free will would be to assume that he was somehow equal to God.

Re:Observation:

[flyneye]

On the other hand, by some etymology accounts, he is a pretty good cannabis/hashish god who at least tolerates prostitution, wine and a good steak.

Re:Observation:

[mark-t]

It has long been established in logic that there are things which are true which cannot be proven. Free will may be an example of one of those things.

Nonetheless, until science can show conclusively otherwise, we may as well presume that free will exists, since based on what we *do* know, we appear to behave as though we have it, even though we can't specifically explain it.

Re:Observation:

[RicktheBrick]

For the sake of argument lets assume there is a god. Why would we treat ourselves better than our so called creator? In the past mankind saw a horrific time where a lot of humans were savagely killed by weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, communicable diseases, carnivorous animals and by other humans. At first these humans relied mostly on instinct since humans did not even have language to express ideas like morality or love for one another. Throw someone into a swamp filled with creatures trying to kill that person and see if they come out with a loving attitude. It took humans many thousands of years to come up with a system to control our natural anger toward each other. Humans invented the golden rule and we do not have any reason to be thankful to any deity since that deity did nothing in the past just like that deity is doing nothing in the present. Any deity capable of creating a universe would be capable and willing to communicate with humans.

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

'There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes

This is not a flaw with atheists, or in atheism. This is a problem with foxholes, and any other situation where you become so stressed that you can no longer think clearly.

I have come very close to dying a few times. I thought to myself, "oh shit! this could be it!" Not for even the slightest fraction of a second did the thought of any god pop into my mind.

Re:Observation:

[professionalfurryele]

Because all actions are equally trivial for a deity and they are the root cause of all actions there is no distinction between action and inaction. A benevolent deity has virtually no choice in their actions because they can only pick from the set of maximally good actions (because the only way to make benevolence make sense in this context is as I suggested before making benevolence a property of the deities nature, and any violation of this nature is a grave indiscretion). There is no difference between a deity failing to prevent genocide and a deity failing to blow the wind so the smallest number of people experience an eggy fart. As a result all that is necessary to show such a deity does not exist is to find a preventable instance of suffering, it helps to find an extreme case because it prevents the 'greater good' rebuff, but frankly the time I stubbed my toe with no purpose does the job.
This is precisely the problem with deities, because they dabble in the infinite they end up with a whole bunch of properties which are extreme on one axis or another.

Re:Observation:

[peawormsworth]

Fear is a great manipulation tool. Used by almost every ruling class. Telling young children that they will be tortured forever after death if they dont believe a tale you just told them, is probably the most common way young minds are set.

Re: Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it so difficult for technical minds to believe that a supreme being could have created us? Is it not possible that given our current pace of discovery that we could become advanced enough to create biological life at some point far in the future?

Is it not possible that our creator is similar to us but advanced by hundreds of thousands of years? Some have little trouble believing that a being from another planet could be advanced enough to travel in ways and across distances that we have difficulty grasping - that same being may understand the principles of eternal life and creation. God could be an alien, that simply interferes with our lives only when he or she find it absolutely necessary based on his perspective.

Much of Christianity may simply not understand what God actually is. Maybe God really is something between the views of Erich von Daniken and the Islamic view of God.

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxholes aside, as a poster above observes, birth defects, infections, cancers, natural disasters, etc., quite often aren't the result of "our choices", and yet clearly this imaginary omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent deity is perfectly happy to let them go on regardless, though ameliorating them would not interfere in the least with our "free will."

Elaborate a bit on the hypothetical reality where all these are eliminated. I could with mild effort track back all of your examples, and show quite clearly with an effort to think more than one cause-and-effect step back, how the effects of all of the above are largely attributable to human irresponsibility.

But that shouldn't be necessary. A mere paragraph's worth of required description of your "alternative" existence God "should" enforce should suffice to show your premise highly implausible.

A world in which nothing "bad" happens, unless humans caused it. One paragraph worth of overall description, or of a day of a life of someone living in it. Go.

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame God for shit

God has an excellent alibi: He doesn't exist.

Re:Observation:

[RockDoctor]

Sodium Pentothal. No inhabitions, no fear. Stress becomes water off a ducks back.

... and reaction times go to shit.

Looking back on some of the "fox hole" experiences of my life, so far (being attacked by gangs in bars ; equipment failures while diving in overhead environments ; helicopter engines dripping oil into the passenger cabin while miles out to sea ; just the usual joys of life), reduced reaction time (and slower thinking) is not generally conducive to survival.

But hey, your mileage may vary ; I've been asked to submit my CV for work onshore in Somalia ; would you want to join up too ; your technical qualifications are unimportant as long as I can either out-run you, or leave you looking for a (flash-)light while I crawl away through a cess pit.

Re:Observation:

[RockDoctor]

It's almost like She *wants* an in-decent percentage of us to go to Hell, right?

FTFY Remember, God is a she, and She hasn't come for several millennia, so you can guess what Her mood will be when She arrives.

(And as an Ordained Minister of the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, I shall greet Her with a rolled spliff, a lighter, and a selection of "ripped" studs ; we're more considerate that way than most Tree-Nailees and Clit-Cutters. Volunteers are invited.)

One of these days, I'm going to provoke a Femen activist to make a joke on there being a "member" in "re:member". More productive than arguing with God-Squaddies.

Re:Observation:

[drsmithy]

Enforcing laws constrains free will. Thus, by the same logic cited above, what is the point of having them when constraining free will is implicitly negative ?

Re:Observation:

[fyngyrz]

If you're a parent, we expect you to protect your progeny from the effects of issues beyond their control. This is quite reasonable; an example is, if you let your kids play in heavy traffic, we take your kids from you and put them somewhere we think is safer. This is because in the role of parent, or more to the point, guardian, we consider the lack of such care to be a clear indication of the lack of love, benevolence, what have you. And rightly so.

An omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent God that cannot be bothered to, for instance, settle down a Tsunami incoming on an island full of technologically unsophisticated natives, or arrange for a more gentle introduction to radioactivity than death by exposure, or protect you from the consequences of a bad engineering decision taken by someone else (eg, you're on a bridge, and the bridge fails), or prevent you from being born with birth defects, or from being stupid, or from being killed by, for example, leukemia, isn't taking very good care of its progeny; that shoots down the whole idea without any doubt whatsoever.

The idea that such a God would entirely recuse itself from affecting *anything* just so people could make choices... that's a non-starter, just as the idea of a parent that would let its kids play in heavy traffic so the kid could "make choices" is a non-starter. Either the benevolent God of the major religious traditions is not paying attention at all, off doing something more interesting perhaps, or it isn't omnipotent, or it isn't benevolent, or it isn't omnipresent, or it simply doesn't exist.

A world in which nothing "bad" happens, unless humans caused it. One paragraph worth of overall description, or of a day of a life of someone living in it. Go.

I'm not sure why you think I should draw your imaginary world for you, but: That'd be the world in which a benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent God was watching out for its progeny. Where you'd be responsible for your own actions to yourself and to this God, and you'd be protected from the evil intent of others, for which they would be duly taken to task by said God. Which we are not in. Hence, no such God at all.

If your putative God is benevolent and omnipotent, then it isn't omnipresent. If it is omnipresent and omnipotent, it is not benevolent. If it is benevolent and omnipresent, then it isn't omnipotent. No matter what, the ludicrous portrayal of the God in the major religions is faulty.

See, here's the thing. First, the mythology is inconsistent and fails to demonstrate the reality that it claims is extant; second, consensuality and repeatability have never been demonstrated in regard to the claims of these traditions, despite millennia of opportunity; third, the reality that we *do* have has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated one claim after another from all of the major traditions, and their spokespersons, to be false. As science provides us with increasingly usable metaphors to examine our reality, more and more of religion's blind suppositions and assertions are shown to be false (for example, what objects orbit other objects in our solar system, exorcisms, prayer, etc.) This is known as the squeezing out of the "God of the gaps", or in other words, the unknowns that religious chicanery thrives on are continually being reduced, hence the gaps in our knowledge where concepts of imaginary friends can live are less and less habitable for those ideas.

Susceptibility to religion is much higher among the scientifically illiterate than it is among those who are better educated. There are exceptions on both ends, but the stats are pretty clear; the very things that make people gullible, degrade their ability for critical thinking, and reduce the amount of information they have are some of the very things that bring about favorable mental states for buying into the whole imaginary friend scam. There are other factors as well: fear of death, the inability to look at a question and realize "we don't have an answer

Re:Observation:

[RockDoctor]

a horrific time where a lot of humans were savagely killed by weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, communicable diseases, carnivorous animals and by other humans.

The concept of "savage-ness" can only apply to the last two of your list. The others have no volition (or in the "communicable disease" threat category, no known method of communicating anything like "volition" from one victim to a contemporaneous victim [within one victim, chemical communication between members of the same plague species is not incredible, if not {clearly} demonstrated]), and so volitional terms are not appropriate.

Yes, I do get pissed off with descriptions of "treacherous storms" too. Heavy weather with 20+m waves is within my job description. It's no surprise to me. It's not a violation of any previous contract, treaty or "compact" ; I expect it from "weather", on the basis of snow storms, hypothermia, and near-death experiences. Natural forces will do what they are going to do, with no input from humans living on the surface like a skin disease. (Yes ; I do know about fluid-injection related earthquakes and mud volcanoes ; these are thoughtless (literally, not figuratively) responses to human actions, like planes falling out of the sky if they lose their engines as gravity "maliciously" continues to operate in the same way it did the preceding decade.)

Please, don't impute "agency" to forces that act without intellect or thought. They're events, or possibly responses. It's an open debate if a tiger eating a zoo-keeper is an act of volition or a response to instinct ; it's not a matter of (rational) debate if someone gets killed by an impacting meteorite (or has a bent car) "because" of the malevolent intent of the lump of interplanetary rock.

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

An omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent God that cannot be bothered to, for instance, settle down a Tsunami incoming on an island full of technologically unsophisticated natives...

Why would anyone become "technologically sophisticated" if that was God's standard response to all threats to particular humans? You propose a world that retains all its "good" attributes while eliminating its "bad" ones. That is ludicrous, as will be apparent as soon as you start your paragraph describing what you are proposing as the preferable alternative God "should" do. You are myopically focusing on the immediate effects, while wholly ignoring the secondary, tertiary, etc., effects--which I propose is impossible for you fully incorporate, but since you seem to feel otherwise, I'll let you describe that world as a precondition to your stance having any validity at all.

Where you'd be responsible for your own actions to yourself and to this God, and you'd be protected from the evil intent of others, for which they would be duly taken to task by said God. Which we are not in.

Which, in fact, we -are- in, as I know first-hand by direct experience. And conveniently in evaluating your position, it is actually impossible for you to be making a claim otherwise as a statement you could possibly know, other than as a claim by you to universal psychic powers to review the experiences and lives of all -other- people on Earth. At best, you can say with certainty that God does not -always- help believers. True enough. There are a multitude of plausible reasons for that in a given case, including the fact that the -net- good from doing so would not result in positive.

If your putative God is benevolent and omnipotent, then it isn't omnipresent. If it is omnipresent and omnipotent, it is not benevolent.

Though, in fact, it is -not- necessary for, say, a scripture-based Christian to believe God is these 3 derived abstractions, this also presumes you are the final arbiter of what "benevolent" is. Leaving aside that you don't know the final outcome for any given individual, by your own admission (e.g. what happens in the afterlife is -essential- to evaluating an outcome as "good" or "bad", and you have zero knowledge of that), you have yourself shown not even the slightest capability to describe a "universally good existence", much less place yourself as the final objective arbiter.

First, the mythology is inconsistent and fails to demonstrate the reality that it claims is extant; second, consensuality and repeatability have never been demonstrated in regard to the claims of these traditions, despite millennia of opportunity

Nope. Google "prophecy fulfillment" and you'll find endless examples of evidence of those claims, some by Ph.D.'s who will provide broad quantification of "by chance" probability. Some of those proposed are open to arguments of modification, vagueness, or intentional fulfillment. Not enough of them for your claim to hold. Massive historical evidence successively supporting claims has occurred, and continues to occur for individuals up to the present day--you just don't happen to be among those people. Your psychic claims otherwise do not qualify as a scientific rebuttal to this. Further, peer-reviewed papers on NDE phenomena are available also at your googling leisure. They also constitute evidence of the type you are claiming does not exist, and the inevitable red-herring of reframing your expectation to "proof" will not alter that.

Susceptibility to religion is much higher among the scientifically illiterate than it is among those who are better educated.

Ludicrous and obviously intellectually-dishonest rhetorical framing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science

You can start with Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Newton, Bayes, Linnaeus, Boole, Faraday, Babbage, Maxwell,

Re:Observation:

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said constraining free will was negative, I suggested that removing the bad consequences of bad choices negates the purpose of being able to make that choice in the first place.

God himself has created laws that he expects man to obey too... the point of those laws is not to invalidate our free will, it's to give clear demarcation to what the expected boundaries for behavior are. If you violate those boundaries, then you should reasonably expect to be punished. But none of that impacts free will... we are still free to chose to obey, or not... we just might have a clearer picture of what the outcome will be than we otherwise would.

Re:Observation:

[ooshna]

It's people's choices that put them there...

I'll make sure to tell that to the veterans that got drafted and were forced to fight for a war they wanted no part of. Sorry gramps you should have jumped the boarder when you had the chance.

Re:Observation:

[xhawkx]

Tell the 124,000 parents babies which die in the first 4 weeks of birth about this god of yours, what, these babies did not get along with each other when they popped out? All you believers are weak and foolish,talking to something ,whatever it is and then thinking this fantasy entity of yours, hears you, is very funny. With today's society, your jesus would come back and some freakin' cop would arrest him for trespassing, go before a judge and he would "Baker Act" him. You are all hypocrats and hypoians.

Re:Observation:

[KeensMustard]

Because all actions are equally trivial for a deity and they are the root cause of all actions there is no distinction between action and inaction.

Who says that that all actions are equally trivial to a deity?

A benevolent deity has virtually no choice in their actions because they can only pick from the set of maximally good actions (because the only way to make benevolence make sense in this context is as I suggested before making benevolence a property of the deities nature, and any violation of this nature is a grave indiscretion).

Once again, experience belies this. I can be generous without being obliged to be equally generous to everybody. If I'm willing to ascribe this property to myself in my context of limited freedom, why would a deity, with no apparent obligations, be obliged to step in and correct our every mistake?

And this still doesn't address the issue of what is benevolence in the instance of wars between humans

It seems to me that you (or perhaps Dick) have constructed a strawman deity whose choices are limited to those set for the deity by humans. Example: I come home and find my wife is cheating on me - in a rage, I decide to kill her. According to your theory:

1. My wife and the other party both have the freedom to choose the actions that led to this incident

2. I chose the circumstances that led to me coming home early

3. I chose, in a rage, to kill my wife

4. The deity, however, is bound to a singular course of action, predetermined by myself, my wife, and the other party.

This is a strawman. For one thing (as above) character doesn't imply obligation. For another, more fundamentally, free will in humans and in deities is/are not mutually exclusive.

Re:Observation:

[professionalfurryele]

All actions are equally trivial for a deity because they are supremely powerful. The only thing a deity cannot do is the logically impossible. Since typically a deity is also the creator that makes them responsible for every single event that occurs. That is what being a deity means, to be able to do anything short of create rocks they cant lift or destroy themselves.

"Once again, experience belies this."

You are not a deity, you are not supremely powerful. You can therefore be benevolent within the bounds of what you are able to do. No logical contradiction is implied if you don't do the absolute maximal amount of good.

Further you can be benevolent some of the time and not benevolent at other time, your benevolence can change through time. A deity is a timeless entity, a single instance of lacking in benevolence means the deity is not benevolent because a deities actions cannot be thought of as temporally localised.

You cannot take examples of what is possible and impossible for you and apply it to a deity, it just does not work. If you want to claim a benevolent deity exists you have to show it is reasonable such a concept is not self contradictory working from the definition itself, not from your experiences because you are a very different entity from that deity. You could punch someone in the mouth for no reason (or even for fun and profit), a benevolent deity cannot because it implies a logical contradiction.

It isn't that the deity has an obligation. It is that it is logically contradictory for a benevolent deity to act in an evil manner or fail to act in a good one. A benevolent deity isn't obliged to do good, it is logically contradictory for them to fail to.

"The deity, however, is bound to a singular course of action, predetermined by myself, my wife, and the other party."

Yes exactly. But they are not bound by moral obligation, they are bound by the requirement that their own nature be internally consistent. The only way around this is to argue that gods notion of benevolence is so alien to our own that rape, torture, death and genocide somehow working for the greater good can be considered benevolence.

Free will is a self contradictory concept whoever it is applied to but in this case that has precisely zero impact. A benevolent deity can only chose between the maximally good actions (or inactions) available to it, not because it lacks free will (however you define it), and not because it experiences a moral obligation, but for the same reason it cannot create square circles. You cant choose to be a married bachelor and a benevolent deity cant choose to fail to do good or to do evil.

Re:Observation:

[drsmithy]

I never said constraining free will was negative, I suggested that removing the bad consequences of bad choices negates the purpose of being able to make that choice in the first place.
A somewhat reasonable position to take for people whose bad choices impact only them.
Your implicit argument, however, is that there's no such thing as an innocent victim. This position is untenable.
I hold a person who has the ability to save someone from harm but refuses to do so in the highest contempt. I fail to see why a god should be held to a lower one.

Re:Observation:

[buybuydandavis]

God created people for one of two purposes - worshiping him, or being tortured forever.

Sounds exactly like what an all powerful psychopath would do.

Re:Observation:

[fyngyrz]

Why would anyone become "technologically sophisticated" if that was God's standard response to all threats to particular humans?

Ok, that's just... I'm sorry, it's outright stupid. Do you think the iPad was a response to a natural disaster? Radio? the Leyden jar? The transistor? The wheel? Pythagorean theorem? Realdoll? Do you really believe, that without natural disasters, we would just sit around with our fingers up our noses, drooling? I don't think I've run into as silly an assertion as yours in weeks now. That's some kind of accomplishment, fella.

Like most discussions with the purportedly religious (not all -- I've had discussions with extremely clever and slippery religious types, but this isn't one of them), this has devolved into you saying incredibly ridiculous things to try to bolster an incredibly weak position. I'm done; so are you, if you could only see it. Cheers.

Editors are trolling again

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I imagine a time when Slashdot was above this?

I think there's a more plausible conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

It says: 'In stressful situations people are likely to turn to whatever worldviews and beliefs are most meaningful to them,'
But I think it's much more likely that people turn to whatever they believe is most likely to get them out of the mess they're in.

Re:I think there's a more plausible conclusion

[Deadstick]

...or childhood-conditioned behavior asserts itself under massive stress.

Creation vs Reality

[fyngyrz]

But when you go back far enough, it does requires(sic) the belief that everything which set off the chain of events somehow came into being without an intelligent creator.

Which is certainly better than religion, which requires one to believe that an intelligent creator existed before anything existed at all.

And of course there's the obvious on the science side: Nothing ever "came into being", because it has always been around in one or more forms. This provides the basis for everything we see (although it's worth noting we don't see God or any gods.) It does not, however, in any way explain the ludicrous idea that "a creator" was here before anything else was, because a creator has to be made of something.

Religion is faulty thinking, that's all.

Re:Creation vs Reality

[mcgrew]

Religion is faulty thinking, that's all.

If you experience a thing, you know it exists. Faulty thinking is being absolutely certain that a thing exists or doesn't exist based on faith. Some of us have experienced God, yet you're absolutely sure that all those people are insane.

I illustrated this in the most recent version of the last chapter of Nobots (not the whole chapter, and SPOILER ALERT)

"But I don't understand" interrupted Gorn. "That seems perfectly logical."
"Yes,â said Ragwell, "and that's the trap. We can't live without the nobots; they're inside us, millions of them, keeping our biological machinery healthy and in working order. Without them our lifespans would only be maybe a century, and I don't think there's a human Experimental alive that young. We're trapped in an array of cubes. Everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell is controlled by the nobots. You see, we can't know what's real and what's not.
"And the nobots aren't sentient, although they certainly can seem to be. They're just microscopically tiny computerized machines that are all networked together into a collective.
"They can be programmed, but they can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until they are dead!
"And the principles are so deeply imbedded in their operating systems they can't be removed without a complete redesign, which would take centuries.
"We're safe in our cubes, but we really aren't free. There's been little real scientific or technological progress in we're not sure how long. For all I know, this whole thing could be fiction. For all I know, you don't really exist."
A horrified look crossed Gorn's face. "How... oh, no. Nobots were here! They'll construct a matrix and imprison us!"
No,â said Ragwell. "Our species diverged millions of years ago. To the nobots, you're not human."
Gorn looked even more alarmed. "They'll wipe us out as a threat to you!"
"No,â Ragwell said. âoeA respect... not exactly an accurate word, by the way, since they're machines and can't feel respect; I'm anthropomorphizing here... a 'respect' for all living things has been programmed into them. They wouldn't harm you even if you were a grave danger to us.
"Look at the Venusians, they wanted to kill everybody on Earth and Mars, but not a single Venusian died. At least, not from anything except other Venusians, the gamma ray burst, and the ones headed for Earth that you fellows killed. The nobots didn't harm a single one."
"What about the Venusians? Are they really no longer a threat?â
Ragwell laughed. "They never really were. Not to us, anyway, although I guess they might have been to you. But they're no threat to you anymore. The Venusians don't know it yet, but their weapons no longer function; nobots have disabled them all. They're stuck on their own planet now and can beat on each other with sticks and stones as long as they want to stay stupid.
"I shudder to think what would have happened had they developed nobotics first, no way would they have developed the three principles. But that's another reason you shouldn't have nobots; if you stagnate, the Venusians may some day catch up to you, and that would be the end of Earth and Mars."
"What about the Amish? Did the nobots assimilate them, too?"
"No, of course not. Changing them with technology would destroy their culture, which would run afoul of the first principle. They would not be themselves without their culture. The nobots actually perform '

Re:Creation vs Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, you claim that some people have experienced God (are you stating that you have? That's different). Secondly (and assuming you personally believe this), how in the world could you possibly distinguish between a God that believed it was a God, but was actually being deceived by a true, more powerful God? How can you "know" that it's God, and not just something very powerful? When you make assertions like this, you sound unsophisticated in your consideration of reality; it makes reasonable people doubt the veracity of your accounts. You don't sound skeptical of your extraordinary claims, nor do you really back them up with any kind of concrete evidence. It sounds like you're crazy, so we're inclined to take the simpler path: assume that you just aren't a very astute student of reality.

Re:Creation vs Reality

[fyngyrz]

If you experience a thing, you know it exists.

Absolutely untrue. Artificially: I point at LSD. Involuntarily: I point at dreams. Voluntarily: I point at imagination. "Experience" is a mental state. It's not in any way an assurance that you're perceiving reality. That requires quite a bit more, starting with the basics: consensuality, repeatability, and so forth. Things notably lacking in the realm of superstition.

Some of us have experienced God, yet you're absolutely sure that all those people are insane.

No. Not insane. Are those who dream insane? Are those who alter reality with drugs insane? Are gamers insane? Book readers? Theatergoers? I'm just sure claims of this particular class -- those of a god or gods -- arise from something along the lines of these issues. That doesn't address the class of falsely superstitious people who are engaged in defrauding and otherwise taking advantage of the susceptible; those people are simply despicable, a much simpler and easier to understand proposition.

Re:Creation vs Reality

[mcgrew]

Artificially: I point at LSD.

Have you ever taken LSD? It's an experience that cannot be described to someone who has not; there is no frame of reference. Trying to describe an LSD trip is like trying to describe what the color red looks like to a man blind since birth. It's called a hallucinogen but you don't really hallucinate, rather you misinterpret your senses, which completely overload your brain. A normal brain filters the senses, LSD removes its ability to do that. When you come down you can't really remember exactly what it was like; your brain is not the same.

I point at dreams.

I believe it was Confucius who said "last night I dreamed I was a butterfly. But was I a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"

Are those who dream insane?

Insanity is a synonym for mental illness. It obviously has some evolutionary usefulness, since mammals all have REM sleep. AFAIK it hasn't been demonstrated what that purpose is but logically there must be one. I rarely remember my dreams, I only remember them when I'm awakened in the middle of one. Since nightmares can be pretty intense and have a powerful and negative effect for a short while, I'd say yes, remembering them is a short term illness.

Are gamers insane? Book readers? Theatergoers?

Of course not, unless they believe that the experience is real. Reading may possibly be a form of insanity for some; when I'm reading a novel by a particularly good writer I don't see the words, I'm there. I had to give up reading Michael Crichton, he writes too well and the effects of his books on me are too powerful. I don't believe my brain is normal; when I was in the second grade one rainy recess period I was reading a book I'd taken off the shelf and a teacher said "you can't read that!" I asked why not. "That's a sixth grade reading level!" I said "so?" She said "ok, read some out loud." So I did, completely freaking the poor woman out, who ran to find another teacher to show the weird kid to.

Of course, abnormal doesn't mean diseased; Albert Einstein's brain was obviously abnormal, but he was certainly not insane. It could even be said that he was sane and the rest of us are mentally ill, since he had a better grasp of reality than most.

I can't agree with your diagram at all; I have no fear of the unknown, I'm fascinated by the unknown. My job involves strong critical thinking skills; I take things that take three weeks for someone to do and distill it so it takes ten minutes (I guess that makes me part of the unemployment problem). Ignorance? I read all 28 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica when I was 12, learning has been one of my passions all my life. Gullibility? Well, when it come to women, yes. And the fact that half of all scientists worldwide practice some sort of religion debunks your chart as well.

That doesn't address the class of falsely superstitious people who are engaged in defrauding and otherwise taking advantage of the susceptible; those people are simply despicable

I agree completely. It is unfortunate that there are people who prey on those who pray.

Re:Creation vs Reality

[fyngyrz]

Have you ever taken LSD? It's an experience that cannot be described to someone who has not; there is no frame of reference. Trying to describe an LSD trip is like trying to describe what the color red looks like to a man blind since birth. It's called a hallucinogen but you don't really hallucinate, rather you misinterpret your senses, which completely overload your brain. A normal brain filters the senses, LSD removes its ability to do that. When you come down you can't really remember exactly what it was like; your brain is not the same.

Yes. Many times. I even spent a year and a half incarcerated in my teens for my LSD adventures. You need to keep in mind that your description is your take on your experience. You didn't have my experience, or anyone else's for that matter. No consensuality. No repeatability. I might have seen flaming leaves; you might have smelled polka dots. I might have found the experience discomfiting; you might have found it revelatory. Or infinite variations of a similar disjoint nature.

Of course not, unless they believe that the experience is real.

I think you're selling the theater of the mind quite short. Again, your experience is not my experience. A well written book will can transport me (and let me admit here that I own a literary agency, and am the son of one of the golden age SF writers, a hugo, and other, award winner... I know at least a little bit about well written books.) For that matter, you're selling theater short. Take a horror movie. Why do people scream when watching them? It's just a movie, and underneath that, it's a complete fiction, and they absolutely know that going in. Yet they scream. What's that about, other than accepting the experience as what's actually happening? I mean, either that, or they're faking like a bunch of fools pretending to speak in tongues. Which -- quite frankly -- I don't buy. Screams and other reactions are too common and too well aligned with what's going on on-screen or on-stage to be that kind of fakery.

I can't agree with your diagram at all

That's fine. You're entitled to your own opinion; you just aren't entitled to mine. Looking at the rest of what you said there, particularly your idea of how many scientists are religious... I'm also compelled to remind you that the real world disagrees with your perception. You might want to look into that.

Re:Creation vs Reality

[mcgrew]

A well written book will can transport me (and let me admit here that I own a literary agency, and am the son of one of the golden age SF writers, a hugo, and other, award winner... I know at least a little bit about well written books.)

Yes, when I'm reading a well written story I'm transported to a different place as well. I feel sorry for those who don't read.

I'm also compelled to remind you that the real world disagrees with your perception.

Perception can never match reality, it's far too complex and we're far too simple.

I should send you a copy of Nobots when it's done (what's online is a crappy error-filled first rough draft).

! Religion != Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is not the opposite of religion. One is about what you can prove and one is about faith.

Granted, they often conflict these days, but they don't have to be.

Re:! Religion != Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Close.

One is about what you can prove. The other is about truth.

Actually they DO indeed turn to a higher power

[Anonymous Coward]

They believe that the power of science, collectively, will be higher than their own power at preventing death.

And yes, you do actually have to believe in science, as in "yes, the scientifically supported assertion is not something you have to believe in, but that you will actually be able to benefit from it in real life IS something you have to believe in". Just discovering a medicine won't cure you, you have to believe that some company will be able to bring it to the market and you'll be able to use it.

Bullshit.

[khasim]

If you read what I wrote carefully, you'll see that I was talking about the inability of science to do something, not religion's ability to do things.

That part is okay. It's accurate.

Which is why the belief that the universe started with a big bang, for example, is faith-based.

Bullshit. That's wrong.

Science is falsifiable.
Faith is NOT falsifiable.

The CURRENT model says that the "Big Bang" was the origin of this universe. But that model is based upon specific, identified observations and experiments and PREDICTIONS.

Now that model may be incorrect. But whatever new model replaces it will still have to account for all the specific, identified observations and experiments and PREDICTIONS that formed the basis for the "Big Bang" model.

Re:Bullshit.

[femtobyte]

Science is falsifiable.

One clarification: particular scientific theories (e.g. particular cosmological origin models) are falsifiable. However, "science" as the overall framework/method is not falsifiable in the same sense. What type of experimental evidence would convince you that "science doesn't work," rather than "this particular scientific theory doesn't work, and needs to be exchanged for another"? Science has a great track record of producing theories that are easily falsifiable but end up not being easily falsified; but "Science" itself is outside the realm of scientific scrutiny.

Re:Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the scientific method proved unable to find out how reality works, then the scientific method would be falsified.

However, the various forms of "scientific method" that have previously been tried (E.g. Plato's Pure Thought method) has been tested and falsified.

Therefore either you're saying that you cannot find the truth at all (i.e. everything MUST be falsified) therefore this current version of scientific method is awaiting falsification, OR that we've now found the right method and therefore this version will not be falsified because it is the correct one.

In the latter case, you cannot claim that the scientific method we have must be false because we cannot falsify it.

If you can falsify a true statement, your method of falsification is wrong, not the true statement is wrong.

Magnets and other miracles.

[TapeCutter]

Furthermore, you don't need to know all the details about how things came into being to practice science

Good point. Feynman called the fundamental forces the "lowest layer of the onion", a point where our explanatory power stops and you are forced to accept that something exists without an explanation. I like to call these things "miracles". Perhaps we will explain these miracles one day and replace them with an even more fundamental set of miracles. Thing is, believing in the miracle of gravity does not require blind faith, nor does it require you to know how it came into being. I think consciousness is in the same category and the best "explanation" comes from Sagan (paraphrase): "Life is how the universe observes itself".

Science is a belief system

[Sivaraj]

We are just gradually exchanging one belief system to another. Most of what we have as science is belief and trust. Instead of trusting any religious holy book, now we trust text books. Instead of gods and priests, it is scientists and theorems. There are good number of fallacies, misdirections, and bogus research in science as in religion.

In the past it was religion because human mind had been conditioned from childhood in believing in a supernatural power which can solve all our problems. But in today's world more and more children are conditioned into believing *science* can solve all their problems.

Bottomline is, humans have to believe in something. Lack of belief will do *bad* things to human mind. This is especially true in highly stressful situations, where we feel we don't have full control ourselves. Our mind tries to find assurance in other things which can have a influence. Those with weak reliegious beliefs as in the above study, in other words, those who already have a stronger belief in science will show a higher tendency to believe in science during stressful situations.

Now my question is, why should a belief in science better than belief in religion? If believing in something is essential for human mind, religion is anyday a stronger one than science, since it emphasises on absolute belief. So believing in religion might be better than believing in science as far as mental health is concerned... at least until the scientific belief system grows as strong as religion.

Re:Science is a belief system

[Anonymous Coward]

We are just gradually exchanging one belief system to another. Most of what we have as science is belief and trust. Instead of trusting any religious holy book, now we trust text books. Instead of gods and priests, it is scientists and theorems. There are good number of fallacies, misdirections, and bogus research in science as in religion.

If you really believed this, that means you never have had any real understanding of any science. Your science teacher must be the kind that "teaches science" by having you memorize a whole bunch of trivia, such as "Name all the planets in the Solar System", without teaching any understanding.

Do you know Pythagoras Theorem? Do you need to "trust" or "have faith" that the Pythagoras Theorem is correct? Not if you have seen a proof of it and understood it.

If you got pass that step, then apply the same process to ALL other scientific knowledge you have ever learned. Now, you will find there are gaps in your knowledge, and there are many gaps in the "proofs" as many physical sciences cannot be "proved" as it could be in mathematics, however, there will be logical thought that leads from observation to theory. And most importantly, ALL science could be disproved or falsified by observations (simply observing or observing how an experiment turns out).

If you are the kind of people that are uncomfortable with these gaps in your knowledge, you will seek to learn more, and eventually, you will reach the "edge" of our scientific understanding, where most scientist are also pondering day and night. BUT, if you reached that far, you would also see that what most scientists believe to be generally true, i.e. what you state simply as a "belief system" of what is in the text books, have all withstood tremendous effort from many people in many years to try to falsify, and yet remained standing.

If a theory told you that, doing this, this and that, and you can shoot a bullet from the Earth to the Moon and hit a target the size of a pinhead, each time, every time, for a million shots. AND you tried it, and it worked as advertised. Then a sane person would believe that theory works, and would not put that belief in the same level of "trust" as trusting a religious holy book as you did in your post.

Re:Science is a belief system

[grantspassalan]

The problem is that science does not address the deepest needs of human beings, especially when our mortality is demonstrated by someone at death, which is something that all of us will face. There is something about human beings that always refused to believe that death is the end of their existence. The pyramids and other monuments are stark evidence of that. Most religions have some kind of teaching that tries to give comfort to those who are left behind when someone dies. All founders of all religions, with one glaring exception, are dead. Not even the claim of their return from death is made. Jesus Christ is the only one who came back from death and is physically alive today in another dimension beyond our own. Just because of this, I would give more credence to what Jesus has to say about death and the world beyond, than any scientist or other religious leader.

Re:Science is a belief system

[Sivaraj]

I am not talking about the philosophical aspect of science above. Neither am I questioning the validity of scientific method. This is about psychology. This is what the original article is asserting. There are of course some fundamental scientific truths or apparent truths. But at the same time, every "scientific" article or assertion coming out of our research centers can't and shouldn't be believed as it is. For scientists and scientifically oriented people this is not a problem. However it is problematic for journalists and general public. People tend to believe a good amount of what they read in newspapers and wikipedia - just like they believe the preachers and gurus. So from a psychological perspective science is gradually replacing religion.

Now I have a question about psychology... is it really a pure science?

Re:Science is a belief system

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that science does not address the deepest needs of human beings, especially when our mortality is demonstrated by someone at death, which is something that all of us will face.

*You* think that mortality is the "deepest need of human beings". Well, I don't. Living a good, moral and useful life is my deepest need, regardless of how long or short my life will be, though I do hope I will leave in a painless way. See, without science (statistics and surveys to show what is the "deepest needs of human beings"), we can't even begin to have a rational discussion. That's the problem with religion, it leaves no room for discussion.

There is something about human beings that always refused to believe that death is the end of their existence.

Again, that's just your assumption, and wrong at that. Confucian teachings, which was embraced as the state teaching by Chinese emperors for the past ~2000 years, explicitly said there is no point exploring after-life. Dying heroically to leave your name in history is the aspiration of ancient Chinese heroes, not "die as hero and you will live in heaven forever!", it is THE END once you are dead was quite the normal way of thinking. While there are still many ghost stories, and other legends about after life/re-incarnation/etc, it in very far-fetched to conclude it being the "deepest needs" simply because such stories are common.

Re:Science is a belief system

[Yosho]

The problem with this is that there is no proof for it; believing it makes you feel good, but just because believing something makes you feel good does not mean it is true. There are many different religions all over the world that all have completely different postulations about what happens after you die: Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, Judaism... all of them are completely different, and all of them offer the same amount of proof.

I prefer to reject all of the baseless conjecture and accept that I simply do not know what happens to human consciousness after death.

Re:Science is a belief system

[grantspassalan]

You forgot to take note of that little phrase "most religions". There are some religions, including atheism that as an article of faith proclaim that death is the end of existence of people. Even science contradicts that idea. Nothing ever goes out of existence, but only changes form. What makes you think that your spirit, soul, consciousness or whatever you want to call your immaterial self, ceases to exist just because your flesh and blood body no longer operates properly? Is the house that people live in and the people themselves not distinct?

The two chief human activities are preventing death and causing death. Most human energy and effort is expended in trying to avert death and immediately after that comes the effort to produce death. Those two activities affect every human being on this planet while they are still alive. I would therefore say that those are among the deepest needs of humans. We have vast governmental laws and regulations that try to keep people "safe and healthy" and conversely we expend billions each year to systematically kill people. Whether you like it or not, DEATH governs all of life.

Re:Science is a belief system

[grantspassalan]

Evidence from human history and today's human activity abundantly shows that you are in the minority. Also, you may change your mind when you are actually faced with death. Many people who believe like you very much think about it when death actually is imminent.

Re:Science is a belief system

[Yosho]

Fortunately, popular opinion does not decide what the truth is. What am I in the minority of in human history, anyway? If we're looking at all humans who have ever lived, no religion can claim to be a majority. Even within large, organized religions that rally together under a single label, there is considerable disagreement over what happens to a person after death. There has never been a majority consensus on the subject.

Also, you may change your mind when you are actually faced with death. Many people who believe like you very much think about it when death actually is imminent.

No, that's unlikely and also not true.
Here's some reading material.
I'll give you the short version: facing death typically only reinforces somebody's existing beliefs. Also, even if somebody does change their beliefs when they are scared and irrational, that does not mean their previous beliefs are wrong -- people frequently make poor decisions when scared and irrational. Also, you're really just reiterating the old "no atheists in foxholes" statement, which is insulting, condescending, and false.

Re:Science is a belief system

[grantspassalan]

"Fortunately, popular opinion does not decide what the truth is."

You are definitely correct about that one. Long ago, a Roman governor named Pilate asked a Jewish prisoner this question: "What is truth?" Earlier, this now a prisoner about to be condemned to a painful death, named Jesus said this, ...I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; ...(John 14:6)

A man who makes such an utterance about himself is either 1) unbelievably arrogant, 2) crazy, self deceived or monstrously evil, 3) speaking an incredible truth.

Millions of people and I have chosen to believe that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be and was proclaimed by others to be, namely God come to earth in human form. He is the ultimate personification of all truth. The witness of what He said and did, as written down in the Bible, has endured throughout the centuries since then. When someone floating down a river is warned that there is a 300 foot waterfall up ahead and he/she chooses to ignore such a warning, whose fault is it when such a person is finally swept away? It is your prerogative to now make the choice to ignore and disbelieve numerous warnings in the Bible that there is something called hell for all eternity, but when you are going over the waterfall of physical death, it is too late to avoid your eternal doom.

Re:Science is a belief system

[Yosho]

So, let me make sure I have this right. You agree that popular opinion does not decide what truth is, and then you go on with:

Millions of people and I have chosen to believe that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be and was proclaimed by others to be, namely God come to earth in human form.

Didn't we just agree that just because something is popular doesn't mean it's true? Don't say, "Millions of people" as though it lends any strength to your arugments, especially when there are billions more who disagree with you.

Anyway, I'm going to go with option 2, self-deceived. The fact that things are written in a book that is thousands of years old does not make them true. The Pyramid Texts, the Theogony, the Vedic scriptures, the Tao Te Ching, and the Kojiki are all ancient religious texts that still exist today, and several of them are older than the Christian Bible -- what reason is there to believe that they are wrong and the Bible is not just a collection of folk tales? Note that quoting from the Bible does not prove anything to somebody who does not already believe it.

Re:Science is a belief system

[grantspassalan]

There is no absolute proof which one of our beliefs is correct, but in 100 years or less we both will have that information. At that time however it will be too late for you to change your mind.

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Science, Damn You!

Misunderstanding science

[manu0601]

I understand stressful situations make one want answers and not questions. Religion and science are proposed as alternatives for supplying answers, but this is misunderstanding what science is. As Miguel de Unamuno said:

La verdadera ciencia enseña, por encima de todo, a dudar y a ser ignorante.

(True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.)

I bet we touch the difference here between being a scientist and being a science believer

You're not doing it right.

[Anonymous Coward]

One problem is that you very obviously do not understand the Big Bang theory in its present form. Another is that you aren't willing to admit that religion is solely and entirely based on face -- hence "religious belief" -- whereas science is not.

And an aside: two years ago I contracted a severe case of pneumonia, and, as a result of complications, "died on the table" in hospital, until the staff were able to revive me. There was no bright light, no heavenly chorus of angels singing me to my rest. Everything just went "black" (kind of) and faded out, until I later awoke.

So, unhappy news for the Life After Death advocates, but good news for basically everyone else, since I have to say that my final thought at the time was, "Well, this isn't so bad." Because it actually wasn't, although I do prefer life. But at least I now know that the alternative is nothing to fear.

Re:Questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

The latter does not exist.

That is Illogical. Denying consciousness requires consciousness for its denial.

FFS.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Faith," not "Face."

My bad, and I promise to do better.

Re: Questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It's a worthy goal.

Conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

people know what FACTS mean.

Why seperate

[Anonymous Coward]

The belief in a higher power does not exclude scientific knowledge. Our scientific knowledge is far from complete. Just becaue we can't explain something doesn't mean there is no scientific explanation. I fail to understand why people have to constantly place a barrier between science and religion...it makes no sense.

Re:Why seperate

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because we can't explain something doesn't mean there is no scientific explanation.

And just because there's a scientific explanation doesn't mean that a higher power didn't make it happen... we only perceive what we may consider a scientific explanation for things in the first place because that's just how we view the universe around us, being part of that system ourselves.

mmm, what I believe..

[houbou]

is that, in this universe, nothing is lost, nothing is gained, all is transformed. this is the type of universe we live in, and as such, i believe that somehow, when we die, something about whatever it is that drives us, survives.

It could be that we are actually just one huge life form in this universe and that every living thing is merely an aspect. it would explain a lot about sentience and perspective.

I'm not a big fan of religions, even though, it had its uses in helping us shape our moral core, it also shed some unrealistic expectations about what to believe and what to question or not question.

Many atrocities have been and are still committed in the name of religion, because those who commit these acts believe that it is just, and as such, do not question the nature of the actions they performed. Blind faith makes people do stupid and cruel things.

I believe that one of humanity's greatest obstacle to overcome, is the fear of the unknown, which means that to overcome this, we must stop blindly believing in any form of religion and we must instead have faith in ourselves.

Good and Evil are state of mind and of actions.

Nothing is inherently either.

Killing to defend oneself is not evil.

Life is sacred, not because it is divine, but because we should have the moral conviction that it is.

That being said, if someone goes out of there way and kill someone in an heinous crime, then their life should have no meaning and/or value.

Anyways, I think that as humans, we will only survive and move forward when we start accepting that our challenge in life is to master who we are in every possible way. Whatever our potentials are, we shouldn't stop progressing because of dogma and religion. We should take every step possible in ensuring our survival. It could be that in the end, our key to immortality lies within ourselves to be discovered and we keep coming back as new iterations to continue the journey.

Well, that's my opinion here! :)

You Can't "Believe" in Science

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an absolutely dreadful article. How can you "believe" in science? You can't - at best, you can acknowledge its truth or choose to stick your head in the sand. I'm actually quite religious, and it irritates the piss out of me when people make the implication that science and religion are incompatible. They're not. If your religion contradicts science, your religion is wrong. On the other hand, there are some things science will never be able to explain, and probably can't even attempt to explain. Quit trying to force people into thinking science and religion mutually exclusive.

Re:Questions:

[smittyoneeach]

Furthermore, irrespective of all this theoretical panty-bunching: You. Behave. As. Though. Conscious. And. Possessing. Free. Will.
All of you hyper-materialistic piles of atoms should back up your nonsense by evenly distribute your time between barking, shrieking, silence, and speaking, since you are so busily claiming that it's all meaningless, and therefore all equivalent.
Lord have mercy on you knobs.

Or more accurately...

[Livius]

Fear of death makes people fall back on their dominant belief system. People genuinely religious turn to religious, the others weren't honestly religious to begin with.

Atheism is typically the belief that religion is inherently metaphorical or outright superfluous. The scientific method achieves demonstrable practical results but it is still a belief system, as are religion, patriotism, economics, or technology fads.

Do endermen believe in Mojang?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe in miracles (the laws of physics are inviolable). However, when you look at the laws of physics themselves, you can't help but wonder how that weird set of rules produces the degrees of freedom necessary for chemistry and biology. Look at Minecraft to see what a human "intelligent designer" could cook up for a universe: crude, large cubes with some redstone hacking. IRL, there are stars, peptids and bacteria—makes you lean deistic.

Umm.. Parent was a bit more right..

[gQuigs]

"The word cult in current popular usage is a pejorative term for a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre by the larger society"

Basically, it's just bashing new religions at this point (and a lot of the time coming from the older religions). Pretty good show on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MJP3hWevEE

Also, coming from an Atheist..

When My Wife Was Fighting Cancer

[Slashdot Parent]

When my wife was fighting cancer, it got to the point that we were told by her doctors that she would die of it. Not an unreasonable conclusion, as she had a very aggressive cancer, and we had tried all of the standard treatments.

Faced with that situation, we found that we placed more faith both in science and religion, simultaneously. We went all over the country to see the best experts in her particular cancer, and we also accepted prayers from all religions, all denominations. Obviously we focused the lion's share of our energies on her treatment (science), but we did not neglect the spiritual.

A funny thing happened. We traveled to see a one expert, a delightful old fellow who happened to be of our same religion. He took a particular interest in her case, and wound up unearthing a many-decades-old study that showed success in treating women in a similar position to my wife. Ultimately, it did wind up working for my wife, and she survived.

So, in summary, we threw our faith at anything we could find, science and religion. Was there some intervention that placed the idea in this doctor's head to search such old studies? Well, how the hell should I know? All I know is that she alive in the next room instead of dead in a cemetery, so I'm happy. I wouldn't change a thing.

Re:When My Wife Was Fighting Cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

When my mom was dying of cancer, we took her to every specialist we could find for treatment. Some treatments were more effective than others, but her cancer had reached a terminal stage.

We threw our faith and science at the problem, and she still died. You got extremely lucky with your wife, and you should be thankful. If you attribute it to some divine intervention, remember that you are basically stating a big "fuck you" to everyone who has lost a family member to cancer, because you are indirectly claiming that God chose your wife to survive over my mother.

Many religious people do not grasp this concept, and then wonder why they offend so many people.

Re:When My Wife Was Fighting Cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

It's wonderful that your wife's cancer went into remission, and I thought about cases like that as well: No matter how religious you are, when you get a diagnosis like that, you turn to Western, scientific medicine. There are many more atheists in foxholes than there are science deniers whose spouse has aggressive cancer. But this does not mean that cancer (or other existential stress) makes people more rational. Often, the opposite is true. You had the good judgment to choose a doctor who is not only ideologically aligned with you, but is also a legitimate expert in the oncology literature. Not everyone in your position makes that judgment. Too many otherwise reasonable people freak out under the stress of the situation and lose their good judgment in their desperation. Many are waiting to pray on these people with "coffee enema" treatments and similar quackery. "Throwing your faith in anything you could find" is understandable, but it's the sort of thing that can be taken too far if it's not guided by good judgment. Given the other things you said about the case, I don't think that's what you really were doing. Maybe a better way to put it is that you placed your hope in any old thing, but you placed your destiny in the hands of the most competent expert in oncology that you could find.

Re:When My Wife Was Fighting Cancer

[Slashdot Parent]

I don't normally respond to ACs, but I'll respond here anyway.

I'm deeply sorry that you lost your mother. It sounds like you did everything that you could have done.

I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that I was not in any way implying that "God chose [my] wife to survive over [your] mother." One of the questions that the various religions of the world have grappled with, but have never come up with a satisfying answer for, is: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Re: Questions:

[mark-t]

... or die trying?

Recursion

[bussdriver]

If one defines evil as a hack on the human brain to get it to act antisocially rather than some former 'pagan' god, PAN (see roots of devil.) Definitions along this line would be similar to conspiracy; a conspiracy being conscious planning for nefarious deed(s) by 1+ people, evil would not require any planning or external motive.

Therefore, killing to defend oneself is arguably one of the most evil beliefs:

Once "kill to defend" belief is accepted you can conclude a seemingly never ending list of defensive actions... including preemptive defensive actions... AKA an offense; however, it seems that believers in the "justified defense" can extend their definition of defense to it's exact antonym, so it is still "defense".

A simple precept so easily iterated with the same process from one person's issue or scaling up to whole societies.

Given a slight rewording and the above:

"Killing to defend oneself against evil," becomes recursive.

Similar thinking is the basis for many religious originated philosophies. The only way to win, is not to play at all. Obviously, religions do not study the meanings of their own scriptures because they fail to apply the philosophy, which is the only valuable aspect to them (this is especially sad for the major ones which contain little actual philosophy for them to fuck up.) If survival is your highest value then risking one's existence by taking the higher ground seems foolish.

Just felt like touching on just 1 of the popular assertions that go on blindly accepted no differently than many religious superstitions.

Re:Recursion

[houbou]

If life is sacred and someone willfully tries to kill you, then defending yourself isn't evil. and if you had to be forced to kill to defend yourself then that isn't evil either.

Re:Recursion

[bussdriver]

Did you read my post you replied to? Why did you feel the need to reply when you were going to say absolutely nothing?

That was pathetic:
life can be sacred and defending yourself can be evil. your statement lacks any logic; it's just a premise. It's like arguing religion where the other person just quotes GOD no matter what you say.

me: Plants need water
you: Brawndo has what plants crave.

No surprise

[Evtim]

When the going gets difficult, it is not a time for nonsense. That is not surprising at all.

From "Plato and platypus walk into a bar" - One day a man fell into a well. While falling he managed to grasp a root and hanged precariously over the abyss. "Is there anybody out there" - shouts the man desperately. No reply for a while and suddenly a big voice booms from above "It is me, the Lord. Let go of the root and I will save you". The man thinks a little and shouts "Is there anyone else out there?".

From "Miracle in the Andes" (the famous true story, also shown in the movie "Alive") - in the beginning of the ordeal, the captain of the team (one of the most devoted believers, although all of them were in principle believers, or they were supposed to be) shows real leadership and courage. However, he firmly believes that God will save them and does with such conviction that once they hear on the radio that the search for them is cancelled suddenly the man collapsed completely. 3 people from the team are described as being shaky in their believes. One dies (fascinating conversations with this man can be found in the book) and the other two (one is the author of the book, Nando Parado) save them all. The two least believers did not loose the desire to try something and at the end they found a way to save them all. Read the whole thing - I am not good enough to describe it to you.

Third example - there is a countryman of mine, who is almost 40 years in the space and aviation industry of USA. He has a collection of 200+ stories on social , economic and military themes he experienced (just a few) or collected (the rest) from other people. Alas, all is in my native tongue which is perhaps understood by ca. 100 /. readers at best. Anyhow, he has a fascinating story about a Vietnam veteran who was serving on a medical helicopter. When he was recruited for this specific job towards the end of the training, the major who was looking for people to do this job told him that he always looked for cynical, realistic people, preferably non-believers. Everyone else cracks on the job. Because it is such a horrific a job and more dangerous than being active soldier people who held any kind of delusions would not survive it. Reading the rest of the story shows that the recruiting major has nailed it in the center...

Do humans cause birth defects and disease as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do humans cause birth defects and disease as well?

How about you shut the fuck up and go work full-time with the sick and the poor.

Fuck you and fuck your gods, all of them.

Incompatible ways of thinking

[amaurea]

The most reduced forms of religion, where gods exist but do almost nothing, may be compatible with our scientific knowledge of the world because we can't rule them out, so in that sense science and religion are compatible.

But there is an important way in which I think they are incompatible, and that is as approaches to getting knowledge about the world. The scientific approach is to form hypotheses that you become more or less confident in depending on how well they match with observations. This naturally results in a body of hypotheses that becomes better and better at predicting future observations as more data is collected.

The religious approach also uses hypotheses, such as "there are gods", "I will live on after death", "the space reptiles love me and have a purpose for me", but the confidence given to these is completely disproportionate to any evidence. In the religious approach, belief beyond evidence is seen as a virtue, and doubt is a failing.

So clearly, for any given hypothesis about the world, these two approaches proscribe incompatible rules for the confidence you should have in that hypothesis. If you want to be both scientific and religious at the same time, you have to compartmentalize your mind, and choose some ideas you will think scientifically about, and some you will think religiously about.

For example, for a hypothesis like "there is an afterlife", the scientific approach would be to to have extremely low confidence for this idea because of the lack of evidence in favor of it, and because it does not follow from other hypotheses that are supported by observations. The religious approach would be to assign a strong confidence for or against this idea (the choice is "for" for all religions I know of, for obvious reasons), with no regards to evidence. The point here is that for any idea about the world, science and religion both give a recipie for how confident you should be in it, and these recipies are incompatible.

Re:Incompatible ways of thinking

[Borg453b]

Insightful. I wish I could mod you up.

I'll just quote you instead:
'In the religious approach, belief beyond evidence is seen as a virtue, and doubt is a failing.'

Re:fp

[solidraven]

You sir win the argument!

Re:Questions:

[professionalfurryele]

Your request is obviously daft. Collections of atoms behaving as though they have free will is exactly what we would expect if the materialists are right. That is the point, a universe with conciousness and free will looks no bloody different to one without. That is precisely why they are spurious concepts. As far as us to "evenly distribute [our] time between barking, shrieking, silence, and speaking", asking someone without free will to exercise free will to prove their point is just absurd.

Check out the original article

[Anonymous Coward]

This short quote was taken without attribution from a larger article in Science Now. Please check out this article, it will give you a better idea of what the argument is> here is the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

Read the full article

[Anonymous Coward]

This excerpt was taken without attribution from a larger article in Science Now. Please check out this article, it will give you a better idea of what the argument is>: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

And you believe that to be true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the Rapturists believe their faith is true.

You believe that some people absolutely tread science like a religion, complete with your own rapture, in order to cope with the fear you may be wrong.

What question has religion answered?

[Anonymous Coward]

Becuse it hasn't answered a single one posed of it.

"How does the lightning work?" Religion answered that one, but got it wrong.
"How do you get sick?" Religion answered that one, but got it wrong.

So what questions do religions answer other than "What do people believe in a religious context?".

It doesn't answer "How do you live to be a better person" or "What caused the universe to exist" or "What happens when I die" except tautologically by saying "Because of this religion's say-so", which isn't an answer at all.

Science may not be able to answer those questions, but there's absolutely no evidence to suggest religion can either.

Why is it that if science doesn't do X, then religious idiots claim that religion MUST fill that gap? Science can't answer "What's the difference between a duck's legs", but nobody is going to claim religion can. So you need to prove that religion can answer a question before you can claim that religion answers questions that science can't.

Re:What question has religion answered?

[Anonymous Coward]

"How does the lightning work?" Religion answered that one, but got it wrong. "How do you get sick?" Religion answered that one, but got it wrong.

Wrong, and wrong. On your part, not religion's.

Cite.

The reality is there is no difference in what people 2000 years ago saw as "natural", and what would be "supernatural", as one would today.

Lightning, not miraculous then, not miraculous now. Getting sick, not miraculous then, not miraculous now.

Destroying walls with a horn, miraculous then, miraculous now. Curing someone of extensive disease merely by touching them, miraculous then, miraculous now.

Note that this fact of history does not require you to actually believe in miracles in any way. We may have more details on the specific processes behind events, but that there was a "natural order" to things and people 2000 years ago had no difficulty classifying these cases exactly the same as we would now, is clear simply by reading the texts. This favorite pillar of the "atheist narrative" of how science came in and "fixed primitive religious perceptions" is simply a false rendering of history.

Re:Questions:

[smittyoneeach]

You caught me red-commented. I was using absurdity to make a point, and you re-stated it admirably.

WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oklo natural reactor shows that these radiological clocks ticked at the same rate here on earth for many millions of years.

The absorbption spectra of stars in distant galaxies show that the fundamental processes that time those clocks have been the same for at least 13 billion years.

Do not extend YOUR ignorance to that of others who will have a different skill set than you, unless you're insisting that you know everything that everyone else knows.

Which is rather arrogant of you to do, isn't it...

Re:WRONG

[grantspassalan]

It turns out that all the equations governing atomic activity, including radioactivity, have "constants" in them, specifically Planck's constant that have changed dramatically since the birth of the universe. There is evidence from ancient starlight, namely the red shift, but this is true. The man named William Tift also determined that this light was quantized. That means that the usual interpretation of the red shift's cause as motion is bogus. This change in some of these constants is caused by the nature of space itself, as the universe expanded outward. Maybe after you do some Google research into this, you may change your mind and also become "arrogant" by learning the truth.

Science?...maybe; proven tactics, definitely!

[rts008]

'There are no atheists in foxholes,' ...

A hopeful delusion for the stupid sheep, nothing more...
The 'grasping at straws' tactic is most likely hardwired as a survival trait in our species, and that is fine and dandy as a beneficial trait, but to carry it further than that is just idiocy and self delusion.

My personal reaction to facing what seemed certain death was to 'boost into survival mode', not give up and pray.
Observation and experience has taught me that while religion can be an effective spiritual and morale boost for those susceptible, it is a pale candle to pragmatic survival tactics and action.

I personally loved when we had to fight those that subscribed to some version of 'It's God's will'[1] for the outcome of the fight.

[1] In my case it was 'The State', not a god, but who knows about the Stasi of E. Germany, past....

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[flyneye]

Who keeps spreading this garbage about God supposed to make life all soft and safe for the innocent and believers?
I never did get that argument. Usually trotted out by atheist converts to counter "feel good" dogma propagated by corporate churches and popular sects.
Now me, I like an atheist who has read the Bible, Apocrypha and early Christian writings, has some history, archaeology, etymology or other supporting science under their belt and has done some rigor for their lack of faith. They would never make such a gaffe.

          In addition, it would be much more profitable for a young ,dumb atheist , to point out that Christ commanded the church to work with the sick and poor. But then you'd have to be well read enough to support the mocking of todays elaborate churches with their P.A. systems, projectors, modern architecture and "programs" for attendees and members with only occasional "canned good drives" to rationalize their part in "helping the poor".

          This is Slashdot, be something more than an atheist equivalent of Beavis or you'll get thrown to the Christians for our entertainment.

Re:Questions:

[professionalfurryele]

In which case I clearly need to woosh myself...

Science "kinda" works

[TaoPhoenix]

"There's nothing to "believe" in when it comes to science (it works either way)"

I *strongly* disagree!

Science "sorta" works. What you have to decide to believe at any particular moment is whether the "sciencey" stuff presented to you in fact is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". An immensely important example is the case of two overlapping diagnoses coupled with compound problems, plus "local" hygiene problems at that particular hospital.

So you the patient go in sick, complaining of a stomach ache, a fever, body aches, and a busted leg cut from a game of barbecue-football. You also just happen to have allergies to nuts and shellfish. So in a comedy of mash-science, the doctor gets all confused and scrambles the three separate correct diagnoses needed, gives you a ham sandwich on "12 grain bread" (that happens to contain little bits of nuts" made on the same table as a tuna sandwich for the next patient, and then was too tired to wash his hands properly and you get complication from your already infected leg.

Or you could just sit at home and "pray for a miracle to get better".

Equivalent Meanings

[CayceeDee]

I think a major problem when discussing science versus religion is that people allow synonymous words to become equivalent words. There is a lot of difference in meaning between acceptance, admission, assent, assumption, assurance, avowal, axiom, certainty, conclusion, confidence, conjecture, conviction, credence, credit, deduction, divination, expectation, faith, fancy, feeling, guess, hope, hypothesis, idea, impression, intuition, judgment, knowledge, mind, mindset, notion, opinion, persuasion, position, postulation, presumption, presupposition, profession, reliance, supposition, surmise, suspicion, theorem, theory, thesis, thinking, trust, understanding and view which are all synonyms for belief. However, religious people want to make them absolutely equivalent. I have confidence, conviction, reliance, trust and understanding in the mechanisms and results of science, but that doesn't mean I believe in them. It also doesn't mean that my belief in science, if you want to use the term, is the same as a religious followers belief in their imaginary mechanisms and motivators. Not even in the same ball park with regards to evidence.

Re:Questions:

[smittyoneeach]

There you go again with that wooshful thinking.

False dichotomy.

[jacekm]

Science doesn't exclude religion.

Re:False dichotomy.

[PPH]

Religion excludes science.

PS

[mcgrew]

When I finish and publish Nobots, if it ever becomes widely known (which I doubt), Christians will want to burn it (one seventy year old woman at Felbers, when I was working on it there, said "I'd burn that book" when I described the chapter with the necrophilia) and Muslims will want to murder me. But hell, you have to die from something. Being shot in the head surely is a better death than cancer, COPD, AIDS, Alzheimer's, or any of the "natural causes". As I'm 61, I only have a few short decades left at most anyway (my parents are both in their eighties).

But He doesn't like cooperation

[TrekkieGod]

Don't blame God for shit that is caused just because people don't know how to maturely get along with other people.

Have you read the Bible? Because if you believe what's written there, people were getting along just fine, learning technology and how to make bricks instead of using stones. Building a city and within that city a tower taller than any ever built before, as a monument to what they could accomplish together. "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:5-9)

So yeah, His response to people maturely getting along with other people was to scatter them all over the Earth, and making them speak different languages to make cooperation more difficult.

For God to disallow it would be to interfere with the the freely made choices that created that situation, invalidating the very purpose of giving us free will in the first place. If God were to just turn around and stop us every time we make a wrong choice, then what on earth would the point be of giving us a free will?

Unless we're freely making making the right choices, right? Then He gets to interfere, and it somehow doesn't invalidate free will.

Look pal, I don't have a problem with people who believe in God, or have any religion whatsoever. As long as religion isn't brought into science classrooms, or used to make government policy, I'm fine with it. I do, however, hate this tendency of religious people to praise God for everything that turns out well, without giving credit to the work humans put into it (You walked way from that horrible car accident: clearly God saved you. The engineers designing the crumple zone and mercilessly doing crash tests obviously had nothing to do with it), while simultaneously blaming humans and leaving God blameless for everything that's bad (God didn't put you in foxholes, people's decisions did it). You can't do that. Either you believe He interferes with the world, in which case He has to take part of the blame for our suffering, or you believe He doesn't interfere with the world, in which case He doesn't get part of the credit for our successes.

Re:But He doesn't like cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

So yeah, His response to people maturely getting along with other people was to scatter them all over the Earth, and making them speak different languages to make cooperation more difficult.

Right, except we have a model of what people do when there is a universal monoculture, and a nice example just last century within the USSR. The "top" ends up slaughtering the middle, like the 50 million dead of its own citizens in that case. God doesn't give a fuck "personally" if people build a big tower, he's hardly going to be intimidated. Rallying around symbols of "national prestige" (and if one reads the context you dropped and misrepresented, it was being done -specifically for- the supposed "godlike glory" of the leaders), though, has a well-documented history of results of slaughter for humans. Now imagine having no other competing nations to escape to as a last-resort.

Re:But He doesn't like cooperation

[TrekkieGod]

Right, except we have a model of what people do when there is a universal monoculture, and a nice example just last century within the USSR. The "top" ends up slaughtering the middle, like the 50 million dead of its own citizens in that case.

Oh no, you don't. That passage includes God's justification, and it doesn't even imply anything near what you're saying here. Read it again: "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." He's saying if they were allowed to continue, no accomplishment would be beyond their grasp, and this is why they had to be stopped.

God doesn't give a fuck "personally" if people build a big tower, he's hardly going to be intimidated.

Won't he? It wasn't the first time he was afraid of what humans could become. After Adam and Eve ate of the apple: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." (Genesis 3:22) God went, "uh oh, now they're like me, and if they eat from the tree of life, they're also going to be immortal. Can't let that happen."

It's funny too, when you compare that sentence God uttered to what the serpent told Adam and Eve: "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5). It's exactly the same thing God says after. Turns out the serpent didn't lie.

Re:But He doesn't like cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, to clarify, you stopped -precisely where- you could do the most egregious example of "taking out of context" possible. In the very previous verse:

"4 Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

This is precisely the same rationale as every dictator in history's rationale for make a Big Useless Glorious Thing. That is was both of these is made clear both by the fact that the people thought they could build something "into the heavens", and what they thought the prestige of that would be.

"It wasn't the first time he was afraid of what humans could become."

This doesn't apply either, as it should take me to explain to you, as you knew it doesn't in your own mind at the very moment you were typing at. You think, if there is a God, we can now threaten such an entity? No. It's a bad thing from the standpoint that given people's current nature (as it unquestionably is, whether or not you think it was due to eating a forbidden fruit) having everyone live forever would be an unmitigated disaster. Leaving aside such questions as overpopulation, how do you think the average person would fare if every historical emperor, dictator, and criminal lived -forever-?

And... who has said "the serpent" lied here? No Christian I know, much less any of them who can parse this sequence properly, which has the precondition of knowing a couple orders of magnitude more about the religion than you do.

Re:But He doesn't like cooperation

[TrekkieGod]

Okay, to clarify, you stopped -precisely where- you could do the most egregious example of "taking out of context" possible. In the very previous verse: "4 Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

I think I covered that when I described they were "Building a city and within that city a tower taller than any ever built before, as a monument to what they could accomplish together." I'm not sure exactly what you see wrong with building something awesome to make a name for yourself. That is one of the greatest human virtues: that drive to do something just because you can.

This is precisely the same rationale as every dictator in history's rationale for make a Big Useless Glorious Thing. That is was both of these is made clear both by the fact that the people thought they could build something "into the heavens", and what they thought the prestige of that would be.

That's your interpretation of what they could maybe be aspiring towards, and you have no evidence to back it up. What is written is that they wanted to make a name for themselves for accomplishing something no group of people had been able to accomplish before. Their statement and goal is remarkably like Kennedy's announcing our intention to go to the moon and the subsequent landing: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." Was he a dictator? Did the moon landing transform the United States into a dictatorship where millions of people were subjugated and murdered by those at the top? Does God's statement for his reasoning imply he was trying to save people? How do you account for what is specifically said was His fear, that people will be able to accomplish whatever they set their mind to?

This doesn't apply either, as it should take me to explain to you, as you knew it doesn't in your own mind at the very moment you were typing at. You think, if there is a God, we can now threaten such an entity?

No, but I believe that those verses imply God was afraid we could one day become something that could threaten him, and takes active steps to prevent it from happening.

No. It's a bad thing from the standpoint that given people's current nature (as it unquestionably is, whether or not you think it was due to eating a forbidden fruit) having everyone live forever would be an unmitigated disaster. Leaving aside such questions as overpopulation, how do you think the average person would fare if every historical emperor, dictator, and criminal lived -forever-?

How would emperors, dictators, and criminals be a threat if they couldn't kill anyone? The existence of death is what gives them power. Not to mention, of course, that we go back to the original discussion: why does God allow evil people to reign? Because of free will, you answer. But then, why does God sometimes interfere? Why were the people building the tower of Babel not allowed the natural consequences of their free will, whatever they may be, but all your evil dictators and criminals would be?

Why is overpopulation a problem for a deity that can create universes? In fact, he stuck us all in a pretty small grain of sand next to the whole of creation. He shouldn't have made it the universe so damn hard to get around in, there'd be plenty of space for us to expand. In fact, even if He wanted us here, he could have stopped the whole be fruitful and multiply thing once the Earth was fully populated to a good size. If you're neve

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[Anonymous Coward]

Such things are only a consequence of being separated from God

Being separated from God is, in fact, a consequence of some decisions that were made by humans a long time ago... so yes, humans did cause that. Invalidating the consequences would be to invalidate the purpose of giving them free will as well, even if we want to argue that in hindsight it was apparently a stupid thing to have ever given them a choice that could have such repercussions even after so much time had passed. Nonetheless, those people are still held accountable for having made such choices. The suffering today we have for choices that we did not make is temporary... theirs is eternal.

Now precisely by what mechanism a decision to disobey God could actually cause such things to happen in the first place isn't necessarily something we need to know... it might give us some closure, but that's about it. God isn't particularly interested in catering to the human need for closure, however, or else God would have communicated such information to us already.

Amused

[giveen1]

I am amused by all the "atheist" who are actually " anti organized religion". If you are truly an atheist, you would be saying "I don't have proof either way, and I don't care how you live your life as long as you don't bother me, so I won't bother arguing about your world view because it would be bothering you".

Re:Amused

[Yosho]

No, the only thing you need to be a "true" atheist is lack of belief in deities. I'm not sure why you think there's some other qualifier on that.

Of course, you have to consider that most of the atheists you see on the internet live in a society that is controlled almost entirely by adherents of one particular religion, and many of them are doing their best to create laws that enforce their religious beliefs. When atheists try to stop them from doing that, they get branded as "anti-religion," but I think it's fairly understandable that they don't want to be bound to one particular religion's beliefs.

Stop labelling everyone

[peawormsworth]

'There are no atheists in foxholes'

Why is it that religious people like to label everyone under a religion or define them as 'atheist' or 'agnostic'? As if everyone in the world is forced to listen to this and make a decision on it. Should we start labelling everyone in the world according to their opinions on whether aliens exist or whether UFO's have visited earth? Its ridiculous to assume everyone in the world has to have an opinion on something which they may not find worthy of the time to consider. Religion is one topic in the world that apparently everyone has to consider... while in reality, it may not be as significant as you find it and want it to be.

I think you may find by scratching under the surface that most people do not really believe anything. And only think about it because the idea was forced apon them by others and at an early age. They simply state their religion as the one they were told that they were as a child in order to fit into their societal norms. Its not like people go around stating their religion when they first meet you, but will answer it when forced by others into defining themselves as a class.

If you want to "know" what religion someone is, you can get it right 90% of the time by simply asking what country they are from. Do you really think this is an informed choice or desire to search for a real belief?

Re:Stop labelling everyone

[RockDoctor]

Its ridiculous to assume everyone in the world has to have an opinion on something which they may not find worthy of the time to consider.

I think that you're looking at the polytomy (multi-way : "cutting" = "-tomy") from the wrong end of the telescope. To you, *their* (God-Squaddies, etc) opinion is one of conflicting opinions, and *they* need to work for *your* attention ; but to *them*, *your* opinion (not agreeing with them, to the level of your children's sexual availability to senior church members) is an indication that *you* are already dead beyond redemption, and that *you* need to agree with *them* better to be worthy of attention and possible redemption (and taxation).

Now that you've got that, you see why your opinion is unimportant compared to theirs.

(I may be doing an injustice to some "God-Squaddies" of your acquaintance ; some of them may not be baby-buggerers. But I doubt that I'm significantly wrong.)

Re:Bible: word of God

[Anonymous Coward]

It's seriously lurid in parts. Incest, rape, slavery (both labour-based and sexual), extremely graphic violence, inciting racial hatreds... Much of which is presented as a good thing!

And...?

You say this like you have some Darwin-based objection, rather than the only things you can object with being the assimilated norms of the same religion. Well... you don't have any.

Science doesn't care about you

[PPH]

In stressful situations people are likely to turn to whatever worldviews and beliefs are most meaningful to them

It gives one the tools to deal with the situation. But using them and pulling your own ass out of the fire is up to you. Or you could just sit there, bobbing your head in prayer and hope that the invisible guy up in the sky gives a shit about you and is willing to help. And isn't just a bed-time story after all.

Re:Science doesn't care about you

[RockDoctor]

It gives one the tools to deal with the situation.

[...]

Have gnu, will travel.

I just bet that you've got better shoes to-hand than I have. (I left home expecting a day in aeroplanes and airports, followed by a hotel, and then back to the air travel ; which is why I left home in slippers. My rational expectations have been broken.)

What sort of a saddle do you use for your gnu? Or "wildebeest", if you want the Afrikaans name. Or is it one of those "rope-over-the-horns hang-on-like-grim-death long-whip-for-poor steering" sort of "travel"?

Sorry : alternative model : long stick, string, carrot and much more gentle, "ambling" style of travel?

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[RockDoctor]

Are you promoting a Church-based 10% income tax (otherwise known as a "tithe") on top of what the State takes, with similar controls on the management of the tithing churches as apply to the State's representatives?

You know, while I consider churches in general to be a bad idea, that's one of the better ideas for reforming the existing ones that I've heard. I wish you well in your short remaining life, before being torn to shreds by people whose corruption you've threatened. Carry cyanide pills!

Original article!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to the original article that the original ScienceNow article that the paragraph was taken from without attribution. Check it out!

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/fear-of-death-makes-people-into-.html?ref=hp

God?

[Anonymous Coward]

If no one understands God,
what the hell are you all talking about?

Erect a straw God and knock it down. Good for you.

If you understand "God" well enough to declare that it doesn't exist.
its not the same God as mine.

I don't understand my God, otherwise it wouldn't be a God.

Now, I do understand science, to an extent. How? By the grace of God. I understand using my faculties of cognition, which are faculties of matter, which are faculties of the universe, which are by my definition, faculties of God. You cannot knock down my God unless you understand it, and you cannot understand my God. My God is what I don't understand. I cannot know if i control God or not, because I don't understand.

Whenever anyone says "God" they mean something different, even from day to day. Where is WVO Quine when you need him.

What do you think you are really arguing about?

I am here to get attention because I forgot about my God long enough to write all this.

Re:God?

[peawormsworth]

If you understand "God" well enough to declare that it doesn't exist. its not the same God as mine.

You have absolutely no idea what you believe in.

You only know that whatever could ever be possibly known is not your god. Sounds like you dont know your god very well.

Sounds to me like a shadow god. He exists in the shadows where we havent looked yet. As soon as we look and see he isnt there... then you know that he was never in that shadow begin with. Oh yes, this is a useful god. He will always exist for you and no one can take that away from you.

Re:So basically...

[peawormsworth]

Exactly. Religion is less interesting then the common human need to ask the questions that cannot be answered. And often they will fancy a more rediculous and outrageous tale then logic would naturally dictate. The historical need for man to fill in the blanks with fantasy is more interesting then the current flavors of organised religion that happen to be popular in this age.

I believe that all people are mentally ill. Obsessing about what cannot be known... like what happens after your brain dies and you can no longer think. Seems fairly obvious that according to occam's razor, that it is complete and permanent lack of conciousness... ie: nothing. Yet we cannot except this. In a foxhole, the mental illness is probably rampant where the threat of death is constant and the visual impact of dead bodies and other parts tests the limits of sanity. Of course, the mind will seek to escape reality and search for a calm and rational thought. Naturally, the mind will go to thoughts that have been repeated to you to think about in times of stress, even if you know that these thoughts have no logical basis and do not reflect your true beliefs about reality.

Many things in religious practice appear beneficial to the user. For example, prayer is simply a mechanism of visualization often used by non religious sports athletes. Public prayer is a means to express to those in attendance what you wish to say but may be more embarrassing to say directly. Although I never heard the voice of god guiding me... I can tell you that I do have a conscience. .. and I speculate it is the same thing.

My point is, I believe all people are slightly mentally ill. Religion is a good way to allow us to deal with it. But a better way is to just accept this and not worry about creating a fantasy to rationalize it.

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[flyneye]

Tithing needs no promotion. It's a Christian thing, it's advocated in the church. They're supposed to be using it according to instruction. If not, I suppose that opens them to ridicule and mocking from the public in general. I wonder that the homeless, destitute , ill and infirm aren't on the church lawns on Sunday to shame the Christians into shelling out for their care instead of that " mens retreat" or foyer wallpaper or Sunday school bus or other objects du jour churches pad their amenities with to attract "tithers".
It's really all a matter of "Do they do as YHVH commands or do they run a profitable carnival?" There's not much acceptable as excuses in-between. I'd threaten their tax-free status if they weren't coughing up 100% after Church overhead and maintenance for one of their "prime directives".
I'm sure it's all just a matter of focus, once everyone gets on the same page.

Re:Questions:

[fustakrakich]

Look, if you want to find out who your father is, take it up with Maury...

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[buybuydandavis]

Are you promoting a Church-based 10% income tax (otherwise known as a "tithe") on top of what the State takes,

The State is the Church, at least here in the US. Tithing much higher than 10%, with tens of thousands of pages of commandments in the Federal Register alone.

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[buybuydandavis]

Being separated from God is, in fact, a consequence of some decisions that were made by humans a long time ago... so yes, humans did cause that.

There's that good old fashioned justice of Yahweh - punish the children for the sins of the parnets, to the umpteenth generation.

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[RockDoctor]

It's really all a matter of "Do they do as YHVH commands or do they run a profitable carnival?

"Profitable carnival," of course. Which is why threatening that profit will get you into serious trouble.

The indigent-on-the-front-lawn idea won't last much longer than the first few bullets from the Police. Of course, the marks in the profitable carnival will be protected from witnessing such potentially disturbing sights.

Re:Questions:

[smittyoneeach]

I've no ambiguities about my lineage.

Re:Do humans cause birth defects and disease as we

[flyneye]

I don't think there'll be many bullets at a congressional inquiry over tax status.

I turned to mathematics and logic...

[John Allsup]

Science, especially those quasi-sciences that aren't physics or chemistry, generally just have massive walls of volumes of vague writings and no conclusive answers to anything.  Until non-physical sciences (i.e. those other than physics and chemistry) are put on a solid mathematical footing as strong as physics, at the very least, I shan't be turning to them for solace.  As a rule, if there are notions of statistics, something is lacking.  Defining a precise metaphysical foundational framework and explaining rigorously from that framework why physics, including relativity and quantum mechanics, must be the way they are, is a necessary step before anyone can talk of science going further than the old spiritual traditions.  Getting the final conclusive answers whittled down so that they fit within a small number of volumes (say eight, of no more than 1200 pages each) and making them approachable to more than a handful of hardcore intellectuals is another important stage.  Unfortunately too many people these days worship The Shiny Thing that The Boffin says Answers Everything.  Personally, I'm not convinced the scientific method and its philosophy actually have much application beyond physics and systems simple enough to preclude life.

Both Together

[Anonymous Coward]

Why all the separation between science and religion? I believe in both together. that i believe is true. My religion believes in science working with the religion. Look into it.