Where's the bias in an experiment that proves you can enrich uranium?
A political bias towards nuclear warfare.
Where's the bias in the engineering and physics that got us to the moon?
Nationalism- and very dangerous nationalism at that, just ask the crew of Apollo 13.
Both are heavily rooted in pure math.
No, both of those are heavily rooted in pure politics, and the math is chosen to support the predetermined conclusion.
How can you say (without being a troll) that you doubt the math?
I don't doubt the math one bit- whenever you choose your data to support a predetermined conclusion, the math should bear you out. If it doesn't, your data hasn't been chosen carefully enough, and you need to redefine your personal meaning of "objective".
You throw around 'the system' quite a bit, yet you never define it or identify problems with it other than you think its bias. How can you doubt the results of experiments that are repeatable by any other person, and that often are repeated because taking the experiment out of the lab and applying it will make someone a lot of money?
Interesting how you use the corrupting influence of the religion of mammon to try to prove a lack of bias. This either shows you don't understand how personal interest works in the human psyche, or that you don't understand the meaning of the word bias. I'm not sure which.
Fine, name the 'systems.'
I have, a couple. The Bali Water Worshipers, Buddhists, Scientists, The Tao- each of these is a system of thought created to describe, and sometimes change, the world around us. The normative word is "religions".
The key difference between scientific method and the rest of the bunch is that the former has experimentally been proven to work so far.
Has it? I've seen science fail enough in my life that I can't say the scientific method has experimentally been proven to work in all instances and for all purposes.
I will say that it is remarkably good for what it was designed to do, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I certainly can't say that applying the scientific method and ignoring the water temples did the rice farmers of Bali any good, for instance.
That's why I choose to stick to it, not because I have some faith in it.
How do you know that the scientific method has been proven to work so far? That in and of itself is a statement of FAITH.
It's more than just a troll to me- I seriously care about the idea of all ideas being treated EQUALLY, of all religions having their say, including science. I dislike censorship in any form.
Sounds good- except for one problem- I can't prove that Descartes could think either. So it may be a rationalization, but it's one based on an assumption that can't be proven.
Look at your own definition: The imaginative projection into another's feelings, which makes empathy a myth, no different than any other myth. To somebody like me, who is autistic, it's even more of a myth- I know you don't know what I feel, so don't pretend that you do. Vicarious experience is really about what you feel, not what the other person is really feeling.
That's a mistake of the manufacturer. Of course, if the manufacturer was really smart (note the overreliance on Windows as an operating system!?!?!?) they'd simply turn on "user must change password at next login" before shipping the system.
Religion requires that you accept a bunch of stories from a book or storyteller to be true. You have to believe that ra drags the sun across the sky with a chariot every day. Science requires that you accept that humans can observe the world with our 5 senses and humans can communicate with each other. The true difference is the affect of the basic tenets being wrong. If the earth orbits around the sun instead of following ra's chariot, is simply means you don't have to sacrifice goats or whatever if you want your crops to grow.
Interesting pair of examples- to somebody like be, both are equally mythical, the difference is one is somebody else's myth. I don't mess with other people's myths- the Bali Rice Crop incident taught me that sometimes you DO have to sacrifice rats and goats to get your crops to grow. The best way to tell fact from fiction is the test of time, not the test of somebody's idea of what evidence is.
Science is just another religion- because both are serious attempts to understand the world around us. Until you understand that religion is just as serious as science- you're right, we won't have any common ground.
Religion is equally based on "fact" as science is- because humans are incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction. I'm relatively sure an objective reality exists someplace- but I'm not at all sure that I have the capability of knowing what that objective reality looks like, and I've seen enough failues of science to know that nobody else has any better clue either. So why pretend that we know when we don't?
Again, if you doubt logic, I don't really know what to tell you. I personally have never seen anything just fly in the air without any other force acting on it, but if you want to think that can happen, feel free.
Oddly enough, you've got me pegged wrong. I don't "doubt logic", I doubt the bias-free application of that logic- as well as the idea that any one logical system is so perfect as to be exclusionary.
I think you miss the point he was making; yes, you can doubt everything, but that's not very useful, is it? If you want to doubt everything, please go ahead, and lock yourself in a room and try to figure out what is really real. Meanwhile the rest of us will go on to learn more about the system in which we live.
We live in more than one system- unless you're willing to learn about them all, you'll end up nothing other than just another bigot.
Empathy is the ability to acknowledge that another person is real.
Now that's a different definition yet. How do you know the other person is real? I don't even know that I am real. At least, not measured objectively and without faith. "I think therefore I am" is a statement of faith, because there is no way to prove that I can think.
Wrong, it is possible for humans to seperate themselves from bias and think objectively otherwise the world would still be flat and the center of the universe, but that is beside the point. If "objective ideology" is not objective due to bias then its not "objective ideology" is it. You can argue that objectiveness is an impossibility and there would be some fine debating points but proposing to define "objective ideology" as religious because of inherent falliablity in human character is idiocy and attempting do so only creats an oxymoron because of the definition of two words.
And yet, you've shown yourself to be incapable of separating yourself from your biases in this very statement. Why should I believe any human to be capable of separating themselves from bias when every time the subject comes up, the supposedly unbiased suddenly become *very* biased? It's as good as Islam killing nuns to prove themselves to be the religion of peace; and instead of being oxymoronic, it's merely moronic.
WTF? What do job applications have to do with seperation of church and state?
Well, in the case of this 527, they want, in part, to make sure that only believers in their ideology hold certain posts in the federal government.
I absolutely agree with your statement but I don't see the relationship to the originial intent of speration between church and state in the United States government and the religious fervor trying to turn the USA and its schools into a religious state. There is freedom to practice religion in the United States but it is illegal to use the government of the United States to create a state religion to be forced upon all its citizens, try reading the works of Thomas Jefferson.
You might try reading those words yourself- expression isn't establishment. Establishment, as we can see by example in the middle east, is coming to your house at night with a weapon and telling you to convert or you will be executed. Both expression, and establishment, are supposed to be protected from being enshrined in law in the United States. This 527 seeks to establish science as a new religion.
All epistemologies are not equal. Some assumptions are better grounded than others. The type of assumptions labeled "religious faith" are not epistemologically equivalent to the type of assumptions labelled "axioms of scientific methodology".
Thus showing an ideology- and an exclusive one at that. Thank you for proving my point that this 527 is discriminatory and political, and filled to the brim with ideology.
Basically, there is no such thing as reason in your book, since nothing can be known for sure to truly objective standards.
Almost. To me, reason only needs a standard of evidence. Objective standards is one possible standard of evidence; theology has different standards; both are reasonable. What is non-reason are the illogical religions, such as Islamic Fundamentalists who explain away bombing civilians (which is completely forbidden in their scripture) because "Allah Changed his mind". The best science, the best religion, is a mixture of faith and reason- always. Faith alone, Reason alone, does not work.
Maybe I don't get it after all then.
You are close. I may not be a believer in objective evidence (or any other system of limited evidence) but I can recognize it as being VALID within it's own bias. The important thing to remember is that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. (Given a 12 hour clock). EVERYTHING has a bias and an ideology- you can either run from that, and become a total skeptic not even beliving in yourself, or you can use it as a launching pad towards reasonable debate and dialogue. I choose to do the later.
Don't confuse the political process with the scientific method.
True, the two are separate. That doesn't mean that some people don't raise the status of the scientific method to an ideology though.
The scientific method is a standard set of steps that analyze and explain. This group is not using analytical tools (well, I guess telephone polls are analytical) and they SURE aren't following the seven (or was that six?) sequential steps of the scientific method when they run a pro-evolution advertisement in Kansas.
True enough. Have they? I failed to notice that on their website. I suppose they could- but in so doing, they're no different than a Southern Baptist takeing out billboards with John 3:16 on them- or should that be John 16:3?:-)
Instead, they intend to use the political process, including political fundraising and advertising, to change the world.
Yes, but their method of changing the world is to enshrine the scientific method as a litmus test, a scripture if you will- non believers need not apply.
Objectivism and religion may both be subsets of "specific sects of philosophy", but that doesn't mean that there is no difference between objectivism and religion, or that objectivism is a subset of religion.
It's all the same- based on faith and no real reason to discriminate one from the other.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of your original statement to which I was objecting. You called the scientific method is an ideology of the "religion" of objectivism; I pointed out that the scientific method is independent of objectivism. Don't change the subject.
And I showed that lots of religious traditions are independant of the religion in which they are practiced. You're the one changing the subject away from the irony of a 527 trying to say that science isn't an ideology.
So is anybody who believes that Faith does not need to exist, merely because of a bias taken in Faith!
-I said "more likely" to help me. Not guaranteed. I've been cheated many times. I've also had a lot of support and opportunity dropped in my lap. It would be illogical to assume that being nice to people in NO WAY affects their behaviour towards me, wouldn't it?
Actually, from what I've seen, support and opportunity come from those who *believe* that being nice to people affects their behavior towards them. In other words, it's a self-fullfilling prophecy; not that different from any other religious act.
-What's really great is compassion results in generally better results for me personally.
True compassion results in generally better results for everybody- and worse results for the individual. Sometimes deadly results.
So I would argue that there is no difference between "enlightened selfishness" and "compassion". We are hard wired to feel compassion because it's a useful trait that has generated useful results for millions of years. I don't know where you are getting your very arbitrary definition of "compassion" from. In my book, it's simply treating people with respect and caring. You might be MORE compassionate if you give your last crust of bread to a starving child and tighten your belt another notch, but that doesn't mean that it's not compassionate to give the child half of the bread and to keep half of it for yourself.
All definitions, being human generated, also have biases. What I'm talking about is the difference between selfish pretense to compassion and empathy, and sacrifice.
-If you're calling hunger "illusory", then I doubt we really have much more to discuss. You're so far into a semantical playground this isn't going to go anywhere even remotely interesting. You go ahead and ignore that hungry feeling, and let me know how illusory the message it's trying to send you is. If you don't eat, you'll die. Are you arguing that survival is not a "real", or "rational" enough of a motivation for you?
Some religions have such a tradition, but that in no way logically implies that the scientific method is a religious tradition. Particularly because religion is not a prerequisite for theorizing, studying, or testing. (Religions have also been historically weak on "testing" in their scholarly traditions, compared to science.)
That's funny- what do you think a university degree is at the doctorate level anyway, if not "indoctrination" in a religion?
Of course it is. The "evidence" and "observation" involved bears little resemblance to that which is used in scientific reasoning.
They look a lot alike to me, the only difference is that scientific reasoning believes in "objective" evidence, but it's just another way of limiting the evidence down and censoring certain heretical voices.
That is a ridiculously unsupported assertion, even for a Biblical apologist.
Not at all. It's just how you pick your assumptions.
In other words, for those theists who ignore the possibility of capricious will of a deity, and assume a non-interventionist deist-type god: i.e., one operationally indistinguishable from natural law.
"within natural law" doesn't neccessaily mean "non interventionist", it could also mean "omniscient without needing to be omnipotent". In other words, Rational.
You are confused about the difference between religion and philosophy, or an epistemological position.
No, you're confused about what I'm saying. I'm saying there is, essentially, no difference between ideology and specific sects of philosophy; of which religions are merely a subset.
That the validity of the scientific method has nothing to do one's stance on Objectivism.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of a 527 wanting to remove ideology from the scientific method.
You apparently do need faith to achieve any measure of understanding, then.
Well, yes- but so does every other human being on the planet, for we are creatures of faith and reason.
Co-operative living is a survival trait. In a more subjective level, it makes me feel good to help people, but on a more objective level, it also makes them more likely to help me should I need it.
Spoken like somebody who has never been cheated.
As long as I do not give more than I can afford to lose, I can easily consider that an investment in my future.. like any other investment, it may pay off, or it may not. So don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
These days it's hard to live without investing everything. But that's not compassion, that's enlightened selfishness. Compassion is sacrificing for others- investing what you can't afford to use, to your own detriment. THAT requires Faith in the other person- Faith that they will do the same for you.
Luckily, since it makes me feel good to help someone, I can invest quite a bit without really hurting myself. There is nothing detrimental about it. Never mind the fact that my emotional well being does have a direct, real, observable impact on my health (stress kills, remember?), as well as a more indirect impact on my quality of life (or more to point, how I perceive my quality of life.. better, when I feel better). So as long as I am not giving away my food until I starve, my money till I go broke, or my time until I lose my job, my wife, or what have, what is so detrimental about it again? Once I've met my survival standards, the rest is gravy. At some point X, more resources, power, or money don't help my standard of life increase any more. Wouldn't then the pursuit of maximum profit, power, etc, then start being detrimental to me? What then, should I do with all that extra time any energy? Post on slashdot?;)
A great statement of Faith- one could almost call it a creed. But what's your objective evidence for it?
I don't know what you're talking about claiming there is no proof of their existence... the chemical reactions involved are getting better defined every day. Understanding that we have not fully solved the puzzle of life yet is not faith. That's truth. Realizing we have emotions, whether we know EXACTLY what they are or not, is not faith.. that's obvious.
I see no proof that the chemical reactions are what the peer reviewed journals say they are- it's all just conjecture. But then again- if I was to be truly objective- I've got a problem beliving in peer review journals as well.
You can play semantics if you want, but Faith in the context we have been discussing in this thread involves belief in religious systems, and there is nothing faith based or even particularly illogical about accepting emotions as a part of your existence as a human being, and a necessary one at that. Fear has, historically, been a pretty freaking important survival trait, after all.
But just because something is a survival trait, does not make it any less illusionary than hunger, which is also a survival trait. It's the meaning that is illusionary.
It may not always obey the laws of reason. That, however, is a good thing. Reason is limited too. That is why using both, and being a slave to neither, results in optimal responses to the most number of situations. Ah, but that's faith, right, because a study hasn't been done. Oh well.
Now you're begining to see what I've been asserting all along- we are beings of *both* reason and faith, and removing one from the other is nonsensical at best.
Congratulations. You've managed to get reality exactly wrong. The assumption that the laws of physics will stay the same is the result of years of observing, theorizing, studying and testing.
And isn't obsessing over theorizing, studying, and testing in and of itself an example of a religious tradition?
The interlocking evidence that has been observed repeatedly across different disciplines and over centuries leads sober, reasonable and intelligent people to conclude that certain phenonomena are governed by "laws" that appear to be unchanging.
And this is different from say, Vatican I being convinced of the Immaculate Conception of Mary due to the previous 1500 years of debate, evidence, and observation across several different orders of Roman Catholicism? Sorry, you fail to make your point right off the bat.
If, on the other hand, you're a theist who believes that the laws of physics are set by an ominipotent god, then you believe he can suspend the laws of physics at will.
Actually, that's the difference between Rational Theism (Roman Catholicism) and
There's no reason to believe he hasn't in the past and will do so in the future at any time. Indeed, the Bible asserts that god has indeed suspended the laws of the universe on numerous occasions.
Really? Where? All the so-called "miracles" have scientific explainations. Rare phenomena + fortuneate coincidence != suspending the laws of the universe. Those who do believe so, have a tendency to be fundamentalists- the very group the Pope spoke AGAINST recently, if you read the full speech that made the Islamic world so mad (not just the quote from the Byzantine Emperor), you'll see an appeal to a vision of a God who doesn't change his mind.
Rational people have every reason to believe the sun will rise and set on schedule tomorrow. Christians and Jews can't be so sure.
Interesting example- but also a completely false one for those who understand gravity and rotational dynamics.
HEHE might as well call your membership to the local YMCA as a religion then.
It is the "Young Men's CHRISTIAN Association", after all. But more important than that- I'm asserting that mankind is a religious creature- he can no more divorce himself from bias and ideology than he can survive having his head cut off.
used marriam webster m-w.com, I guess this must be like a politically biased liberal web log, i dont know, I always thought it was pretty definitive.
Actually, both Marriam and Webster's original dictionaries were written with very specific political biases in mind (IIRC, Webster's first dictionary defined a Tory as "An idiot with a lot of money", or something of the sort). I see no reason to believe that they've changed that much.
But remember the next time you enter your local town hall meeting to remind them that they are all following a codified set of rules of which violation will mean you are expelled and that it is a religion.
Yep- Robert's Rules of Order. But everybody knows that Democracy is a Religion- it's even got idolatrous statues. I haven't seen any statues of Lady Objective recently- but I might be missing something.
Science is a club, and these people are specifically zealous club members that dont want to lose the entire point of the club by making it worthless from a point of persuing knowledge.
Which is fine- as long as they admit it's an exclusive club and extremely biased.
Note that an ideology sets out to both explain and CHANGE the world. The scientists use the scientific method to explain it.
And the engineers and atheists use the scientific method to change the world. It's used for both, no problem there. Of course, the entire intent of this 527 group though is to use the scientific method politically- to change the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Where's the bias in an experiment that proves you can enrich uranium?
A political bias towards nuclear warfare.
Where's the bias in the engineering and physics that got us to the moon?
Nationalism- and very dangerous nationalism at that, just ask the crew of Apollo 13.
Both are heavily rooted in pure math.
No, both of those are heavily rooted in pure politics, and the math is chosen to support the predetermined conclusion.
How can you say (without being a troll) that you doubt the math?
I don't doubt the math one bit- whenever you choose your data to support a predetermined conclusion, the math should bear you out. If it doesn't, your data hasn't been chosen carefully enough, and you need to redefine your personal meaning of "objective".
You throw around 'the system' quite a bit, yet you never define it or identify problems with it other than you think its bias. How can you doubt the results of experiments that are repeatable by any other person, and that often are repeated because taking the experiment out of the lab and applying it will make someone a lot of money?
Interesting how you use the corrupting influence of the religion of mammon to try to prove a lack of bias. This either shows you don't understand how personal interest works in the human psyche, or that you don't understand the meaning of the word bias. I'm not sure which.
Fine, name the 'systems.'
I have, a couple. The Bali Water Worshipers, Buddhists, Scientists, The Tao- each of these is a system of thought created to describe, and sometimes change, the world around us. The normative word is "religions".
The key difference between scientific method and the rest of the bunch is that the former has experimentally been proven to work so far.
Has it? I've seen science fail enough in my life that I can't say the scientific method has experimentally been proven to work in all instances and for all purposes.
I will say that it is remarkably good for what it was designed to do, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I certainly can't say that applying the scientific method and ignoring the water temples did the rice farmers of Bali any good, for instance.
That's why I choose to stick to it, not because I have some faith in it.
How do you know that the scientific method has been proven to work so far? That in and of itself is a statement of FAITH.
It's more than just a troll to me- I seriously care about the idea of all ideas being treated EQUALLY, of all religions having their say, including science. I dislike censorship in any form.
Sounds good- except for one problem- I can't prove that Descartes could think either. So it may be a rationalization, but it's one based on an assumption that can't be proven.
Look at your own definition: The imaginative projection into another's feelings, which makes empathy a myth, no different than any other myth. To somebody like me, who is autistic, it's even more of a myth- I know you don't know what I feel, so don't pretend that you do. Vicarious experience is really about what you feel, not what the other person is really feeling.
That's a mistake of the manufacturer. Of course, if the manufacturer was really smart (note the overreliance on Windows as an operating system!?!?!?) they'd simply turn on "user must change password at next login" before shipping the system.
Religion requires that you accept a bunch of stories from a book or storyteller to be true. You have to believe that ra drags the sun across the sky with a chariot every day. Science requires that you accept that humans can observe the world with our 5 senses and humans can communicate with each other. The true difference is the affect of the basic tenets being wrong. If the earth orbits around the sun instead of following ra's chariot, is simply means you don't have to sacrifice goats or whatever if you want your crops to grow.
Interesting pair of examples- to somebody like be, both are equally mythical, the difference is one is somebody else's myth. I don't mess with other people's myths- the Bali Rice Crop incident taught me that sometimes you DO have to sacrifice rats and goats to get your crops to grow. The best way to tell fact from fiction is the test of time, not the test of somebody's idea of what evidence is.
Science is just another religion- because both are serious attempts to understand the world around us. Until you understand that religion is just as serious as science- you're right, we won't have any common ground.
Religion is equally based on "fact" as science is- because humans are incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction. I'm relatively sure an objective reality exists someplace- but I'm not at all sure that I have the capability of knowing what that objective reality looks like, and I've seen enough failues of science to know that nobody else has any better clue either. So why pretend that we know when we don't?
Again, if you doubt logic, I don't really know what to tell you. I personally have never seen anything just fly in the air without any other force acting on it, but if you want to think that can happen, feel free.
Oddly enough, you've got me pegged wrong. I don't "doubt logic", I doubt the bias-free application of that logic- as well as the idea that any one logical system is so perfect as to be exclusionary.
I think you miss the point he was making; yes, you can doubt everything, but that's not very useful, is it? If you want to doubt everything, please go ahead, and lock yourself in a room and try to figure out what is really real. Meanwhile the rest of us will go on to learn more about the system in which we live.
We live in more than one system- unless you're willing to learn about them all, you'll end up nothing other than just another bigot.
Empathy is the ability to acknowledge that another person is real.
Now that's a different definition yet. How do you know the other person is real? I don't even know that I am real. At least, not measured objectively and without faith. "I think therefore I am" is a statement of faith, because there is no way to prove that I can think.
Wrong, it is possible for humans to seperate themselves from bias and think objectively otherwise the world would still be flat and the center of the universe, but that is beside the point. If "objective ideology" is not objective due to bias then its not "objective ideology" is it. You can argue that objectiveness is an impossibility and there would be some fine debating points but proposing to define "objective ideology" as religious because of inherent falliablity in human character is idiocy and attempting do so only creats an oxymoron because of the definition of two words.
And yet, you've shown yourself to be incapable of separating yourself from your biases in this very statement. Why should I believe any human to be capable of separating themselves from bias when every time the subject comes up, the supposedly unbiased suddenly become *very* biased? It's as good as Islam killing nuns to prove themselves to be the religion of peace; and instead of being oxymoronic, it's merely moronic.
WTF? What do job applications have to do with seperation of church and state?
Well, in the case of this 527, they want, in part, to make sure that only believers in their ideology hold certain posts in the federal government.
I absolutely agree with your statement but I don't see the relationship to the originial intent of speration between church and state in the United States government and the religious fervor trying to turn the USA and its schools into a religious state. There is freedom to practice religion in the United States but it is illegal to use the government of the United States to create a state religion to be forced upon all its citizens, try reading the works of Thomas Jefferson.
You might try reading those words yourself- expression isn't establishment. Establishment, as we can see by example in the middle east, is coming to your house at night with a weapon and telling you to convert or you will be executed. Both expression, and establishment, are supposed to be protected from being enshrined in law in the United States. This 527 seeks to establish science as a new religion.
All epistemologies are not equal. Some assumptions are better grounded than others. The type of assumptions labeled "religious faith" are not epistemologically equivalent to the type of assumptions labelled "axioms of scientific methodology".
Thus showing an ideology- and an exclusive one at that. Thank you for proving my point that this 527 is discriminatory and political, and filled to the brim with ideology.
Basically, there is no such thing as reason in your book, since nothing can be known for sure to truly objective standards.
Almost. To me, reason only needs a standard of evidence. Objective standards is one possible standard of evidence; theology has different standards; both are reasonable. What is non-reason are the illogical religions, such as Islamic Fundamentalists who explain away bombing civilians (which is completely forbidden in their scripture) because "Allah Changed his mind". The best science, the best religion, is a mixture of faith and reason- always. Faith alone, Reason alone, does not work.
Maybe I don't get it after all then.
You are close. I may not be a believer in objective evidence (or any other system of limited evidence) but I can recognize it as being VALID within it's own bias. The important thing to remember is that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. (Given a 12 hour clock). EVERYTHING has a bias and an ideology- you can either run from that, and become a total skeptic not even beliving in yourself, or you can use it as a launching pad towards reasonable debate and dialogue. I choose to do the later.
Don't confuse the political process with the scientific method.
:-)
True, the two are separate. That doesn't mean that some people don't raise the status of the scientific method to an ideology though.
The scientific method is a standard set of steps that analyze and explain. This group is not using analytical tools (well, I guess telephone polls are analytical) and they SURE aren't following the seven (or was that six?) sequential steps of the scientific method when they run a pro-evolution advertisement in Kansas.
True enough. Have they? I failed to notice that on their website. I suppose they could- but in so doing, they're no different than a Southern Baptist takeing out billboards with John 3:16 on them- or should that be John 16:3?
Instead, they intend to use the political process, including political fundraising and advertising, to change the world.
Yes, but their method of changing the world is to enshrine the scientific method as a litmus test, a scripture if you will- non believers need not apply.
Objectivism and religion may both be subsets of "specific sects of philosophy", but that doesn't mean that there is no difference between objectivism and religion, or that objectivism is a subset of religion.
It's all the same- based on faith and no real reason to discriminate one from the other.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of your original statement to which I was objecting. You called the scientific method is an ideology of the "religion" of objectivism; I pointed out that the scientific method is independent of objectivism. Don't change the subject.
And I showed that lots of religious traditions are independant of the religion in which they are practiced. You're the one changing the subject away from the irony of a 527 trying to say that science isn't an ideology.
You're doing nothing but playing semantics.
So is anybody who believes that Faith does not need to exist, merely because of a bias taken in Faith!
-I said "more likely" to help me. Not guaranteed. I've been cheated many times. I've also had a lot of support and opportunity dropped in my lap. It would be illogical to assume that being nice to people in NO WAY affects their behaviour towards me, wouldn't it?
Actually, from what I've seen, support and opportunity come from those who *believe* that being nice to people affects their behavior towards them. In other words, it's a self-fullfilling prophecy; not that different from any other religious act.
-What's really great is compassion results in generally better results for me personally.
True compassion results in generally better results for everybody- and worse results for the individual. Sometimes deadly results.
So I would argue that there is no difference between "enlightened selfishness" and "compassion". We are hard wired to feel compassion because it's a useful trait that has generated useful results for millions of years. I don't know where you are getting your very arbitrary definition of "compassion" from. In my book, it's simply treating people with respect and caring. You might be MORE compassionate if you give your last crust of bread to a starving child and tighten your belt another notch, but that doesn't mean that it's not compassionate to give the child half of the bread and to keep half of it for yourself.
All definitions, being human generated, also have biases. What I'm talking about is the difference between selfish pretense to compassion and empathy, and sacrifice.
-If you're calling hunger "illusory", then I doubt we really have much more to discuss. You're so far into a semantical playground this isn't going to go anywhere even remotely interesting. You go ahead and ignore that hungry feeling, and let me know how illusory the message it's trying to send you is. If you don't eat, you'll die. Are you arguing that survival is not a "real", or "rational" enough of a motivation for you?
No, I'm merely saying that it isn't objective.
Some religions have such a tradition, but that in no way logically implies that the scientific method is a religious tradition. Particularly because religion is not a prerequisite for theorizing, studying, or testing. (Religions have also been historically weak on "testing" in their scholarly traditions, compared to science.)
That's funny- what do you think a university degree is at the doctorate level anyway, if not "indoctrination" in a religion?
Of course it is. The "evidence" and "observation" involved bears little resemblance to that which is used in scientific reasoning.
They look a lot alike to me, the only difference is that scientific reasoning believes in "objective" evidence, but it's just another way of limiting the evidence down and censoring certain heretical voices.
That is a ridiculously unsupported assertion, even for a Biblical apologist.
Not at all. It's just how you pick your assumptions.
In other words, for those theists who ignore the possibility of capricious will of a deity, and assume a non-interventionist deist-type god: i.e., one operationally indistinguishable from natural law.
"within natural law" doesn't neccessaily mean "non interventionist", it could also mean "omniscient without needing to be omnipotent". In other words, Rational.
Lone wolves tend not to breed as well. Take care of your tribe and your tribe will do better == reason enough.
Yes, but human beings aren't neccessarily wolves- and "reason enough" is not objective, which is "reason alone".
No they aren't. It's called valuing life and having empathy. If you have no empathy, you're a sociopath.
And the fact sociopaths exist proves that empathy is SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. Subjective things are in the realm of FAITH, not REASON.
You are confused about the difference between religion and philosophy, or an epistemological position.
No, you're confused about what I'm saying. I'm saying there is, essentially, no difference between ideology and specific sects of philosophy; of which religions are merely a subset.
That the validity of the scientific method has nothing to do one's stance on Objectivism.
Interesting, but totally beside the point of a 527 wanting to remove ideology from the scientific method.
No- but you're close. Didn't we already have this discussion a while back though?
You apparently do need faith to achieve any measure of understanding, then.
;)
Well, yes- but so does every other human being on the planet, for we are creatures of faith and reason.
Co-operative living is a survival trait. In a more subjective level, it makes me feel good to help people, but on a more objective level, it also makes them more likely to help me should I need it.
Spoken like somebody who has never been cheated.
As long as I do not give more than I can afford to lose, I can easily consider that an investment in my future.. like any other investment, it may pay off, or it may not. So don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
These days it's hard to live without investing everything. But that's not compassion, that's enlightened selfishness. Compassion is sacrificing for others- investing what you can't afford to use, to your own detriment. THAT requires Faith in the other person- Faith that they will do the same for you.
Luckily, since it makes me feel good to help someone, I can invest quite a bit without really hurting myself. There is nothing detrimental about it. Never mind the fact that my emotional well being does have a direct, real, observable impact on my health (stress kills, remember?), as well as a more indirect impact on my quality of life (or more to point, how I perceive my quality of life.. better, when I feel better). So as long as I am not giving away my food until I starve, my money till I go broke, or my time until I lose my job, my wife, or what have, what is so detrimental about it again? Once I've met my survival standards, the rest is gravy. At some point X, more resources, power, or money don't help my standard of life increase any more. Wouldn't then the pursuit of maximum profit, power, etc, then start being detrimental to me? What then, should I do with all that extra time any energy? Post on slashdot?
A great statement of Faith- one could almost call it a creed. But what's your objective evidence for it?
I don't know what you're talking about claiming there is no proof of their existence... the chemical reactions involved are getting better defined every day. Understanding that we have not fully solved the puzzle of life yet is not faith. That's truth. Realizing we have emotions, whether we know EXACTLY what they are or not, is not faith.. that's obvious.
I see no proof that the chemical reactions are what the peer reviewed journals say they are- it's all just conjecture. But then again- if I was to be truly objective- I've got a problem beliving in peer review journals as well.
You can play semantics if you want, but Faith in the context we have been discussing in this thread involves belief in religious systems, and there is nothing faith based or even particularly illogical about accepting emotions as a part of your existence as a human being, and a necessary one at that. Fear has, historically, been a pretty freaking important survival trait, after all.
But just because something is a survival trait, does not make it any less illusionary than hunger, which is also a survival trait. It's the meaning that is illusionary.
It may not always obey the laws of reason. That, however, is a good thing. Reason is limited too. That is why using both, and being a slave to neither, results in optimal responses to the most number of situations. Ah, but that's faith, right, because a study hasn't been done. Oh well.
Now you're begining to see what I've been asserting all along- we are beings of *both* reason and faith, and removing one from the other is nonsensical at best.
Congratulations. You've managed to get reality exactly wrong. The assumption that the laws of physics will stay the same is the result of years of observing, theorizing, studying and testing.
And isn't obsessing over theorizing, studying, and testing in and of itself an example of a religious tradition?
The interlocking evidence that has been observed repeatedly across different disciplines and over centuries leads sober, reasonable and intelligent people to conclude that certain phenonomena are governed by "laws" that appear to be unchanging.
And this is different from say, Vatican I being convinced of the Immaculate Conception of Mary due to the previous 1500 years of debate, evidence, and observation across several different orders of Roman Catholicism? Sorry, you fail to make your point right off the bat.
If, on the other hand, you're a theist who believes that the laws of physics are set by an ominipotent god, then you believe he can suspend the laws of physics at will.
Actually, that's the difference between Rational Theism (Roman Catholicism) and
There's no reason to believe he hasn't in the past and will do so in the future at any time. Indeed, the Bible asserts that god has indeed suspended the laws of the universe on numerous occasions.
Really? Where? All the so-called "miracles" have scientific explainations. Rare phenomena + fortuneate coincidence != suspending the laws of the universe. Those who do believe so, have a tendency to be fundamentalists- the very group the Pope spoke AGAINST recently, if you read the full speech that made the Islamic world so mad (not just the quote from the Byzantine Emperor), you'll see an appeal to a vision of a God who doesn't change his mind.
Rational people have every reason to believe the sun will rise and set on schedule tomorrow. Christians and Jews can't be so sure.
Interesting example- but also a completely false one for those who understand gravity and rotational dynamics.
HEHE might as well call your membership to the local YMCA as a religion then.
It is the "Young Men's CHRISTIAN Association", after all. But more important than that- I'm asserting that mankind is a religious creature- he can no more divorce himself from bias and ideology than he can survive having his head cut off.
used marriam webster m-w.com, I guess this must be like a politically biased liberal web log, i dont know, I always thought it was pretty definitive.
Actually, both Marriam and Webster's original dictionaries were written with very specific political biases in mind (IIRC, Webster's first dictionary defined a Tory as "An idiot with a lot of money", or something of the sort). I see no reason to believe that they've changed that much.
But remember the next time you enter your local town hall meeting to remind them that they are all following a codified set of rules of which violation will mean you are expelled and that it is a religion.
Yep- Robert's Rules of Order. But everybody knows that Democracy is a Religion- it's even got idolatrous statues. I haven't seen any statues of Lady Objective recently- but I might be missing something.
Science is a club, and these people are specifically zealous club members that dont want to lose the entire point of the club by making it worthless from a point of persuing knowledge.
Which is fine- as long as they admit it's an exclusive club and extremely biased.
Note that an ideology sets out to both explain and CHANGE the world. The scientists use the scientific method to explain it.
And the engineers and atheists use the scientific method to change the world. It's used for both, no problem there. Of course, the entire intent of this 527 group though is to use the scientific method politically- to change the world.
Exactly right- thus one who is claiming that one can separate ideology from science understands neither.