Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Well played, sir.

Mario wrote:
religions is about "why things are" (science can't explain that part).

There's quite a few problems with this way of thinking.
It presumes that religion can answer those questions. There's no evidence to suggest that religion can. There's no methodology, no consistency and most importantly no way of showing what answers it does provide to be false.

It also presumes those are valid questions. There's a possibility that those questions are less about how things are and more like a game of semantics. What if there are no answers yet religion presumes there are? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Finally, if those are valid questions why is there the presumption that science cannot answer them? Science has been told since its conception that there are things beyond its boundaries and yet science keeps expanding. The scientific method continues to provide answers to the most complex questions. We don't have all the answers yet but that's the joy of discovery.

Religions do not come close to answering the why questions and it is inappropriate to give them the undeserved respect that they might have answers.

I support the rest of your excellent post though.

Mario wrote:

amanita wrote:You are missing a point. The idea that science and religion must be at odds with each other is unsubstantiated.

Nobody's saying that religion and science must be at odds with each other. The point is the scientific method doesn't care about religion or what it postulates. But some religious interpretations are at odds with science because scientific explanation take away from the magic or the unexplainable of religions. Science is about "how things work" and religions is about "why things are" (science can't explain that part).

Why can not science be the revelation of a divine work?

If something is assumed to be divine work but is explainable via the scientific method then it's not divine anymore, it's regular and mundane. If divine/supernatural intervention actually existed it would make scientific work quite hard (or impossible) because it would create inconsistencies that are not compatible with the scientific method all over the place. We wouldn't have consistently measurable evidence but chaos.

This again is where you are having trouble. You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

 amanita wrote:

This again is where you are having trouble. You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

If a divine power is only able to work through physical laws, which we are also able to manipulate and use, then how is it divine?

 amanita wrote:
You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

You can't prove it 100% that the mundane can't be divine, but there is no reason to believe that it is divine. Your speculation here is about as relevant as talking about the possibility that Peregrine created all things and science is just the study of what Peregrine has given.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 amanita wrote:

This again is where you are having trouble. You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

If a divine power is only able to work through physical laws, which we are also able to manipulate and use, then how is it divine?

Through Karma?

The answer really is what is divine? And does one persons view assert its status or another negate it?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- A side note, I started this as a tumble weed and have only just noticed it starting to snowball! Am pleased to see people taking an interest.

Henry wrote:

Mario wrote:
religions is about "why things are" (science can't explain that part).

There's quite a few problems with this way of thinking.
It presumes that religion can answer those questions. There's no evidence to suggest that religion can. There's no methodology, no consistency and most importantly no way of showing what answers it does provide to be false.

It also presumes those are valid questions. There's a possibility that those questions are less about how things are and more like a game of semantics. What if there are no answers yet religion presumes there are? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Finally, if those are valid questions why is there the presumption that science cannot answer them? Science has been told since its conception that there are things beyond its boundaries and yet science keeps expanding. The scientific method continues to provide answers to the most complex questions. We don't have all the answers yet but that's the joy of discovery.

Religions do not come close to answering the why questions and it is inappropriate to give them the undeserved respect that they might have answers.

I support the rest of your excellent post though.

I was being generous to religion. For some people it's a motivation to live better and so on (the "why" like "why live?" ). Religion doesn't work for me but if it helps them with the "why" part of life then I'm okay with it (until they start pushing religious rules onto others or use religion to oppress people). When you fall in love you could get all science-y about it and go down the rabbit hole of psychology -> biology -> chemistry -> physics and so on but the "why" answer is because you like the person and want to be with them and that's usually a good enough answer for that question (otherwise you can end up with creepy PUA bs).

Some scientist may research attraction/companionship/cultural norms/who knows what but from a simply human "why did I fall in love with that person?" perspective science doesn't really provide a satisfying answer (it might be correct but that's another story). The same goes for religion. For some people it provides answers that science technically can (or cannot) provide but that wouldn't be sufficient anyways. My point was that science and religions are different topics. They may overlap in strange ways but they are used to address different types of questions.

amanita wrote:This again is where you are having trouble. You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

Like in the example with the invisible thieving pigs. The divine meta-element doesn't matter for the science part. Remember what groundskeeper Willie said. Science explores physical laws and if you go deep enough into string theory then that could be an explanation for how physical laws came into existence. The book The Elegant Universe (I think they also made a TV show about it) explains that nicely for people like me who are not physicist but are curious and want to read about it. Apparently some parts of string theory look promising, others need to be crowbarred into shape until they fit, and the whole is rather heavy on mathematics and lacking in physical evidence (a bit like religion ) but — from what I have read — if they find proof it would be a promising solution to a few tricky and fundamental problems in physics.

Falsifiability (another explanation) matters to science, divinity doesn't. Scientists just keep exploring until they hit a wall and if they are at the very edge of the explainable they usually keep crashing their head against that wall until they die (if they don't switch to something else).

Side note: There is a phenomenon of old/famous scientists holding back science because they can't adapt to new findings and keep betting on what made them famous and make it harder for new scientific ideas to gain traction (they are human after all):

Back to the divine: In the end as long as science can explore "stuff" it will be okay and keep growing and the god of the gaps will keep shrinking. If there is actually a god at the end of all these explorations and explanations then that god has always shifted a layer backwards when scientists worked out some problem. It's funny how it keeps happening each and every time. There might come a day in the future when some scientists find a message from god or some other being that could be perceived as being supernatural (like the Q) but we know that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and they will simply see it as the next challenge to confront. Why stop when it starts getting really interesting?

I just read your quote again (while previewing this post a few times) and I think you actually got it right without getting it's full essence with the "it only confirms it" part. Science explores, expands, and confirms what we know about the world around us and that's literary it. Science has neither a bigger nor a smaller ambition than that. It's hard enough work as it is.

 Peregrine wrote:

 amanita wrote:
You believe what appears to be mundane can't be divine. But if a divine power was the force behind the creation of physical laws in the first place, then how do you separate science from its originator? The study or understanding of those laws doesn't divide reality, it only confirms it.

You can't prove it 100% that the mundane can't be divine, but there is no reason to believe that it is divine. Your speculation here is about as relevant as talking about the possibility that Peregrine created all things and science is just the study of what Peregrine has given.

Not at all. 'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted. Just because something can't be proven 100% doesn't remove it from the discussion. Essentially what you are saying is that if one can't completely prove a thing, it has no value. Which happens to be most things.

Comparing any religion to pixie dust and invisible monkeys isn't particularly helpful either. It's a form of false equivalency. If a person doesn't believe in one thing it doesn't automatically make another thing in their perspective similar in nature equally untrue. It's like asking 'do you believe in conspiracy theories?' Yes? No? Which one or ones? I agree however if a religious perspective can be categorically be proven false, then it should be discarded as a source of truth.

 amanita wrote:
'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted.

Do it, then. I have a dozen different theories about how Peregrine created all things, I would love to see you try to refute them.
Let me give a few:
- Peregrine created all things 10 seconds ago but he created you with false memories of things that never actually happened.
- Peregrine created all things millions of years ago, but he just decided to stay hidden before.
- Peregrine programmed the matrix and created all things inside it, he like to visit sometime.
- Peregrine is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess that created all things.
How would you refute those?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 amanita wrote:
'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted.

Do it, then. I have a dozen different theories about how Peregrine created all things, I would love to see you try to refute them.
Let me give a few:
- Peregrine created all things 10 seconds ago but he created you with false memories of things that never actually happened.
- Peregrine created all things millions of years ago, but he just decided to stay hidden before.
- Peregrine programmed the matrix and created all things inside it, he like to visit sometime.
- Peregrine is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess that created all things.
How would you refute those?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 amanita wrote:
'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted.

Do it, then. I have a dozen different theories about how Peregrine created all things, I would love to see you try to refute them.
Let me give a few:
- Peregrine created all things 10 seconds ago but he created you with false memories of things that never actually happened.
- Peregrine created all things millions of years ago, but he just decided to stay hidden before.
- Peregrine programmed the matrix and created all things inside it, he like to visit sometime.
- Peregrine is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess that created all things.
How would you refute those?

The truth is I'm in a coma and everyone here is just a product of my imagination. None of you actually exist until I think of you, then you cease to exist again when I've moved on. So welcome to my dream world and I'll now allow you to post your denials about this truth, which will be further proof that I'm correct. You can't see that from your point of view, where as I've seen the rebuttals many times and they're always the same.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 amanita wrote:
'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted.

Do it, then. I have a dozen different theories about how Peregrine created all things, I would love to see you try to refute them.
Let me give a few:
- Peregrine created all things 10 seconds ago but he created you with false memories of things that never actually happened.
- Peregrine created all things millions of years ago, but he just decided to stay hidden before.
- Peregrine programmed the matrix and created all things inside it, he like to visit sometime.
- Peregrine is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess that created all things.
How would you refute those?

The truth is I'm in a coma and everyone here is just a product of my imagination. None of you actually exist until I think of you, then you cease to exist again when I've moved on. So welcome to my dream world and I'll now allow you to post your denials about this truth, which will be further proof that I'm correct. You can't see that from your point of view, where as I've seen the rebuttals many times and they're always the same.

But your imagination is just my hallucination from a huge dose of LSD

sirlynchmob wrote:
The truth is I'm in a coma and everyone here is just a product of my imagination.

Dude, you are not in a coma. You are in a perriod, period!

All of you are bit players in the movie of my life story.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 amanita wrote:
'Peregrine created all things' is easily refuted.

Do it, then. I have a dozen different theories about how Peregrine created all things, I would love to see you try to refute them.
Let me give a few:
- Peregrine created all things 10 seconds ago but he created you with false memories of things that never actually happened.
- Peregrine created all things millions of years ago, but he just decided to stay hidden before.
- Peregrine programmed the matrix and created all things inside it, he like to visit sometime.
- Peregrine is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess that created all things.
How would you refute those?

Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

 amanita wrote:

Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

I am going to ask for a bit of clarification.

Which, if any, of the following statements do you agree with;

1. We should believe a given proposition until it has been shown to be false

2. We should withhold belief until a given proposition is shown to be correct

?

 amanita wrote:

Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

I'd be more likely to believe a divine aspect to the origins of the universe if any of the creation stories matched the observable evidence. Surely God could have avoided the whole heliocentrism kerfuffle by just telling people that the sun was the centre of the solar system right at the beginning? Or giving an accurate timescale for the universe?

Also why the heck would God build this enormous universe, with hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, just for little old us? It'd be like having a pet ant and putting it in a terrarium the size of the solar system...

 amanita wrote:
Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

That which has no evidence to support it can be dismissed with no evidence.

And this is where the argument always falls apart. Science is playing Risk, and gods and goddesses are playing Monopoly. Somehow, no one can agree who is winning.

(Games were chosen at random, in no way were they intended to be metaphorical by the author)

The strongest evidence for gods and goddesses are miracles- events that break either the law of probabilities, or natural laws.

Science is affirmed by the predictable, and the dependable. Doing the same thing 1,000 times ought to get you the same result 999 times for it to be awesome science- or by god, you had better be able to explain the anomaly. (heh- that was intentional)

A scientist will not accept miraculous evidence. A theist, of most any persuasion, does not demand the evidence of their gods and goddesses to be scientifically sound.

 amanita wrote:
Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

What, less evidence? If anything, there is more evidence than Peregrine created all things rather than the Christian God created all things.
There's a great quote by everyone favorite racist science-fiction artist Howard Phillip Lovecraft that goes like this:
“All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. ”
Emphasis mine.
In other words, while I can't prove anything either way, if your claim is ridiculous, if I make it look ridiculous to you, that's how I'll convince you, and that's all I need.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
The strongest evidence for gods and goddesses are miracles- events that break either the law of probabilities, or natural laws.

And the evidence that such things happen at all is incredibly questionable, at best. If that's the strongest evidence for god(s) then it's safe to say that belief in them is not reasonable.

A scientist will not accept miraculous evidence. A theist, of most any persuasion, does not demand the evidence of their gods and goddesses to be scientifically sound.

That is why the scientist is reasonable, the theist is not. The scientist is open to evidence, including evidence of "miracles" if such evidence is ever provided (so far it hasn't been), but doesn't care about a bunch of believers saying "I really want this to be true". The theist decides what they're going to believe, and then stubbornly believes it whatever the evidence (or lack thereof) may be.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 amanita wrote:
Yet ironically, with less evidence you refute a divine aspect to reality.

What, less evidence? If anything, there is more evidence than Peregrine created all things rather than the Christian God created all things.
There's a great quote by everyone favorite racist science-fiction artist Howard Phillip Lovecraft that goes like this:
“All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist. ”
Emphasis mine.
In other words, while I can't prove anything either way, if your claim is ridiculous, if I make it look ridiculous to you, that's how I'll convince you, and that's all I need.

Why does every debate about religion involve Peregrine claiming to be God?

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Why does every debate about religion involve Peregrine claiming to be God?

Because I am? Though I prefer the lower-case 'g', I'm not that arrogant.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Why does every debate about religion involve Peregrine claiming to be God?

Because I am? Though I prefer the lower-case 'g', I'm not that arrogant.

[insert obligatory tirade on the likelihood of Peregrine's divinity]

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
[insert obligatory tirade on the likelihood of Peregrine's divinity]

[Apply the tirade equally well to the likelihood of any other god's divinity.]

 Peregrine wrote:




That is why the scientist is reasonable, the theist is not. The scientist is open to evidence, including evidence of "miracles" if such evidence is ever provided (so far it hasn't been), but doesn't care about a bunch of believers saying "I really want this to be true". The theist decides what they're going to believe, and then stubbornly believes it whatever the evidence (or lack thereof) may be.

I would only offer that unquestioning belief in either science or religion opens you up to being unreasonable. How many drug recalls are issued every year? How many scientific papers have been published proving that certain races are superior to others? Science is often wrong- and wrong about very large and serious things. It has been used to justify slavery and genocide, as well as nuke cities. After all, we have science, not religion, to thank for racism.

Dramatic disasters
http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/

Mostly fraud, with a bit of unintentional poisoning.
https://www.wired.com/2013/01/worst-science-misdeeds-2012/

Science is also, of course, responsible for driving measles to the brink of extinction- and then unleashing outbreaks of it because a scientist said vaccines caused autism. I realize that they've since been proven wrong, but for the people affected by those vaccines- the damage was done because of their parents unquestioning faith in science.


I'm not saying science is bad, but I do think unthinking belief in science will at best lead to unintended consequences, and at worst outright disasters that could have been avoided. There is plenty of evidence to consider scientific advances with a grain of salt. There are other sources of reasonable thought, and not all thought produced by science is reasonable.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Why does every debate about religion involve Peregrine claiming to be God?

If you haven't build him a shrine made out of miniatures then you are going to hell my friend. So for your own sake, please go and build one asap. Else eternal torture for eternity and no noodles for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
After all, we have science, not religion, to thank for racism.

Hum, what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:




That is why the scientist is reasonable, the theist is not. The scientist is open to evidence, including evidence of "miracles" if such evidence is ever provided (so far it hasn't been), but doesn't care about a bunch of believers saying "I really want this to be true". The theist decides what they're going to believe, and then stubbornly believes it whatever the evidence (or lack thereof) may be.

I would only offer that unquestioning belief in either science or religion opens you up to being unreasonable. How many drug recalls are issued every year? How many scientific papers have been published proving that certain races are superior to others? Science is often wrong- and wrong about very large and serious things. It has been used to justify slavery and genocide, as well as nuke cities. After all, we have science, not religion, to thank for racism.

That's not true, at all. Scientists can be wrong. Science as a whole cannot be as science is a method rather than a set of ideals or beliefs.

The "science" used to justify slavery and genocide was not science but rather the incorrect usage of science by non-scientists to justify their own ends and the scientists involved failed to follow the standards of scientific rigour. They wanted something to be true and so set about trying to twist things into supporting that hypothesis rather than actually test it. It is the same as the "science" that was used by tobacco companies to claim that smoking didn't cause cancer and that petroleum companies are currently using to claim that climate change is either not happening or not driven by human burning of fossil fuels. It is disinformation and propaganda masquerading as science for political power.

The fact that drugs are recalled supports the superiority of science. Find me a drug that took as long to be recalled after being found to be harmful and killing people than it took the Catholic Church to accept that condoms were more effective at stemming the spread of HIV in Africa than just telling people to not have sex (for the record that is close to thirty years).

Alcohol and tobacco?