Anti-religious question

[Social Distance Warrior]

However, the principles of Jesus are solid, so I try to live by them for the most part.
Philosophical Christian minus the religious/spiritual claptrap

Yeah, this is a solid way to approach life in the interim. Especially if you're still trying to figure things out in life, still attempting to discover meaning.

The Gospels = good standard of morality.

 

[SakuMemories]

Yeah, this is a solid way to approach life in the interim. Especially if you're still trying to figure things out in life, still attempting to discover meaning.

The Gospels = good standard of morality.

I hear this often and I honestly don't get it. To me, Jesus' morality seems shitty. Maybe you can elaborate?

 

[TheComebackKid]

I hear this often and I honestly don't get it. To me, Jesus' morality seems shitty. Maybe you can elaborate?

I think the onus should be on you to explain why its shitty. I for one am genuinely curious.

 

[anomynous]

Yes it still seems like that to you but it's not, and I explained why. I don't even believe that all mysteries will be solved.

Do you have a name or concept for those mysteries that will remain unresolved? If so, I'd like to ask what name or concept you have.

Yes supernatural beings/gods are, in my opinion, nonsense. You're telling me that I can't hold that view and engage in serious discussion of the subject.

I have never told you, nor would I, that you cannot consider the thing of your choice to be nonsense. I would, on the other hand, debate whether you can have a serious discussion about nonsense. No, I think the more likely outcome of that sort of discussion is foreknown and will not be serious: you will be trying to convince your interlocutors of the futility of valuing to the thing you consider nonsense. Engaging in rational discourse, on the other hand, involves exchanging ideas about the matter under discussion, whether those ideas are agreeable to your views or not. I'm saying that you wind up passing off one sort of dicsussion as the other, and may thus well be guilty of disingenuousness.

 

[Social Distance Warrior]

I hear this often and I honestly don't get it. To me, Jesus' morality seems shitty. Maybe you can elaborate?

Spreading love, compassion, empathy, is not "shitty. Especially in world full of such hate ...

Forgoing greed, and giving (literally the shirt off your back) to someone more in need is a good thing.

and this may sound lame and cheesy...

but no other text has "moved" me as much as the Gospels...

the autobiography of Malcolm X, the Alchemist, the Prophet all have as well.

I may come off as an a$$hole on this forum, but in real life...I try to follow the gospels.

 

[TheComebackKid]

Yes, I am sure there was shit tons of guess work when the Standard Model correctly predicted the existence of particles that led to experiments where they were subsequently discovered. I am sure everyone was just guessing when we put some people in a rocket and sent it to the moon.

I'm sure it was all guess work, faith, and assumptions which allowed Einstein to conclude that time moves at different rates depending upon the relative motion of the observer, something without which a lot of our current technology would not work.

The American educational system is obviously pretty shitty when it comes to science if you can't separate empirical evidence from the explanation for that evidence. So, since you and anon and the TS just don't get it, let me try to explain.

See, first you make some observations and then they suggest a hypothesis. Then you use that hypothesis to make predictions about future observations. If your predictions turn out to be correct, it strengthens your hypothesis and if other observations contradict your hypothesis, it just means you need a new one. To state that people think scientists deal in proven absolutes shows a total ignorance for the entire subject. The data is real, it's how it can be interpreted in different ways that is uncertain. That uncertainty is part of the fun. To this day, people strive to find new tests to check on the accuracy of General Relativity. It's because we accept the fluidity of our current understanding that science progresses, not because we're entrenched in dogma.

There is good science that is based on observation, demonstration, experimentation, and repetition. And then there is bad "science" that is based on imagination, assumption, and faith. I am forced to sigh and roll my eyes when you guys try and lump it all together. I am clearly talking about the latter.

 

[Thai Domi]

Anyone who believes in the big bang, spontaneous generation of life or macro evolution is religious.

 

[Winnie The Foo]

Anyone who believes in the big bang, spontaneous generation of life or macro evolution is religious.

Learn something new everyday. Please let me know all my religious beliefs so I can continue practicing my faith properly.

 

[anomynous]

You can have an intelligent discussion about "religion" and the "supernatural" and still conclude that its nonsense.

That sounds like a recipe for a trivial discussion to me. I engage in discussions to learn things. A meaningful discussion is, for me, one in which I seriously entertain my interlocutor's opinions. I may wind up disagreeing with that person's opinions or deciding that I can't subscribe to or apply them in my own life, but my aim is to give them a fair hearing. It seems there are plenty of people out there whose sole aim is to shout down their opposition or deride the views of those with whom they disagree. I chose not to enter such "discussions."

 

[klimt]

Anyone who believes in the big bang, spontaneous generation of life or macro evolution is religious.

Again- posts like this confuse (or abuse?) terminology to the point that I wonder what the motive is. There are countless though-provoking and stimulating books and lectures available to anyone that deal with exactly why this is a fallacious statement.

 

[Chinballs]

Again nobody is complaining here.

I can criticize myself for a lot of things, but I try to better myself(not that others don't but since it's directed at me). I am just burning time on a forum and asking a question that's pretty straight forward. But people are dancing around the question because they can't criticize their own beliefs. Ironic.

Hello, I thought it was a nugget of truth in what I quoted, it was not directed at you, sorry for messing that up.

 

[LilMountain]

Let me ask this, then: are there things about the universe that will always remain beyond the reach of human knowledge, whether we call that knowledge "science" or by some other name?

Don't know yet. Who's to say what technology we will discover that will open new horizons to us? Cosmically speaking we've gone from stone tools to computers in a blink of an eye, who's to say where we'll be in another 100 years, much less 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000?

 

[Winnie The Foo]

What is your philosophy on life? Can it be confirmed by science? If not, aren't you religious?

There was a time that I did not exist, I currently exist, there will probably be a time that I no longer exist. I think that can be confirmed by science, I don't see how that makes me religious. Please elaborate.

 

[anomynous]

TS bailed on this thread ages ago when the OP was shown to be silly and I'm doing the same. I made my point early on and now I am just repeating myself.

Too bad. Looks like there might have been some ground for fruitful dialog. I didn't read all posts in this thread, so maybe I missed some great profundity that you enunciated earlier. I kind of doubt it, since I think I've heard and considered about everything that's out there concerning this topic, but there's always a possibility I've missed something. So maybe I'll later look over earlier posts to confirm.

By the way, Newton was into all sorts of weird occult shit. It doesn't mean his scientific work was invalid. There is no need to account for it because it's irrelevant.

I wasn't saying Newton's work was invalidated. I was saying we need to look into the impact his beliefs had on his work. You, for whatever reason, see that as futile. I, as a good scientist, consider that we need to look into all apsects and background of a phenomenon in order to adequately explain it. Looks like we have as difference of opinion on that.

Again, you ask how science differs from philosophy/religion. Easy. If I say that the reason for the total lunar eclipse last month is due to the rotation of the Earth around the Sun combined with the motion of the moon around the Earth, you or anyone else can just go and check if I am right. You can use that information to predict future lunar eclipses. No faith required. If you tell me that any day now Jesus is going to descend from up above it will require faith since there is no empirical evidence to lead one to such a conclusion.

Your explanation would not provide a reason. Your explanation merely provides a description of the physical and currently observable processes involved in the phenomenon. There's a big difference between, for example, explaining the procedures I followed in painting my house and expounding the reason(s) why my house got painted. You're conflating those two things. Obviously, you want to maintain that no one need look any further than your description of how the process occurs physically. Others, clearly, will disagree and will want to look further into this. What seems to you a factor that should delimit further investigation might seem to others an arbitrary boundary that makes little sense and that aims at stifling human inquiry.

 

[LilMountain]

Au contraire. I did read carefully. And I do understand quite well how science works--though I may not understand well how you think it works. Or you, as a sort of self-appointed spokesman for the enterprise, may be making ad hoc arguments.

Let's consider your statement, namely that "new discoveries . . . don't make previous results invalid." Now, consider the phenomenon of phlogiston. It was held, in its day, as the most credible and rational explanation of combustion. There was even experimental support for the theory. After a century or so, someone proposed that a gas was necessary for combustion, and formulated a new theory that later began to predominate, the caloric theory. By this means the expeimental evidence supporting the phlogiston theory were invalidated, right? Which makes the statement that in science "new discoveries . . . don't make previous results invalid," simply wrong.

It made previous theories invalid, but not previous results. It was still reproducible, they just didnt realize they were missing a key reason why it was so.

 

[squeezewax]

*the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics.
[philosophy]

Its funny how so many people can't get their heads around someone else not having religion for every part of their life.
I don't need any writings by middle-aged, nomadic, desert-dwelling, jews to live a happy and caring life.
These people didn't even know where the sun went at night, they have no relavence.

I am passionately anti-god/religion, i fucking hate both!
Both are a throw back to the earlier days of mankind when humans needed stories in order to try and make sense of everything they experienced in life.
It's a shame that religion in the west will be making a big comeback thanks to millions of muslim migrants moving in to our countries. This will be a huge backward step.

Religious people are weak and unintelligent.

 

[anomynous]

It made previous theories invalid, but not previous results. It was still reproducible, they just didnt realize they were missing a key reason why it was so.

You have a point. It doesn't make the results invalid: what happens is that results which previously were used in support of the old theory, get re-interpreted in light of the new theory.

 

[Andy Capp]

Too bad. Looks like there might have been some ground for fruitful dialog. I didn't read all posts in this thread, so maybe I missed some great profundity that you enunciated earlier. I kind of doubt it, since I think I've heard and considered about everything that's out there concerning this topic, but there's always a possibility I've missed something. So maybe I'll later look over earlier posts to confirm.

I wasn't saying Newton's work was invalidated. I was saying we need to look into the impact his beliefs had on his work. You, for whatever reason, see that as futile. I, as a good scientist, consider that we need to look into all apsects and background of a phenomenon in order to adequately explain it. Looks like we have as difference of opinion on that.

Your explanation would not provide a reason. Your explanation merely provides a description of the physical and currently observable processes of the phenomenon. There's a big difference between, for example, explaining the procedures I followed in painting my house and expounding the reason(s) why my house got painted. You're conflating those two things. Obviously, you want to maintain that no one need look any further than your description of how the process occurs physically. Others, obviously, will disagree and will want to look further into this. What seems to you a factor that should delimit further investigation might seem to others an arbitrary boundary that makes little sense.

I think we have to agree to disagree because this post doesn't reflect what I have stated and that is not the first time ITT. So, unless you can start to consider what I actually said instead of such an inaccurate depiction the discussion is really a total waste of time whether I want it to be or not.

Let's take your example of the house. There is a house on my street. I notice one day cracks in the paint have begun to develop and grass is growing overly long to be presentable. Over time, paint starts peeling off and the path to the front door is completely overgrown. I conclude the property is abandoned. Then one day I come along and the grass has been cut and work has begun on painting the house. I conclude that someone has taken over the property from the former owner or the owner was away for an extended period and has returned. Based upon what I know so far, I cannot be sure either way but I can safely conclude it's one or the other unless something new and unexpected is observed (such as an urban renewal committee doing it just to keep the neighborhood looking decent). Further information would be required to establish what is actually the case, similar to how we would suggest the big bang is the best explanation we have now for the origin of the universe, but it's taken for granted a better explanation may come along if we can construct experiments to test the hypothesis.

There's no philosophy anywhere in there whatsoever. Just logic and observed facts. At first I assume the house must be abandoned but then I must modify that view when it is apparently inhabited even though it doesn't mean my initial assessment was totally wrong. It was just not fully correct. That's got fuck all to do with philosophy and that's the point of this whole thread.

 

[Andy Capp]

You have a point. It doesn't make the results invalid: what happens is that results which previously were used in support of the old theory, get re-interpreted in light of the new theory.

Exactly, but that does that have to do with the TS's assertion that belief in scientific inquiry equates with philosophy or religion?

Edit:

There is good science that is based on observation, demonstration, experimentation, and repetition. And then there is bad "science" that is based on imagination, assumption, and faith. I am forced to sigh and roll my eyes when you guys try and lump it all together. I am clearly talking about the latter.

The problem with that is what scientific endeavours fits in to your so-called bad science. I suspect it is only the ones that contradict your faith but I am open to hearing your examples. Sure, there is sometimes scientific inquiry that is executed poorly which may in turn lead to spurious results, but that's not as common as you make it out to be and again, it doesn't invalidate the results others have obtained via proper methodology. In fact it entirely backs up my point that science depends upon the reproduce-ability of a result.

Again, all I see ITT is a bunch of people trying to attach philosophy to science so they can call it religious without any understanding of the difference between the two. That isn't to say there isn't a place for philosophical inquiry on the back of scientific discovery, but the former has no dependence upon the latter whatsoever as evidenced by the very large number of scientists who are also religious and see no contradiction between the two, and who happily co-exist with atheists, working together toward a common (non-philosophical) goal.

Our scientific understanding is fluid, ever changing depending upon the result of empirical observation and logic. That doesn't mean it is shapeless, incoherent, guesswork. It means we need to be ready to adjust our understanding if a discovery comes along that contradicts what we expect. A good example of that would be light being bent by massive objects. According to Newton, this should not occur since light is massless. But Einstein predicted, and it was later shown to be true, that because gravity is a manifestation of the curvature of space-time, light rays should bend in the vicinity of a large mass. On the other hand, it is known also that we have no explanation for what is going on inside a singularity. That just means Einstein has taken us only so far and we will need a new paradigm to explain it. It doesn't mean our understanding of relativity theory is based upon faith or any other such claptrap. Just the opposite, in fact, since any scientist worth his salt knows something new could come along tomorrow that completely changes our understanding. And that is just fine because unlike religion, in science, it's ok to be wrong now and then since even that can sometimes stimulate new discovery.

 

[djacobox372]

I'm just asking if anyone has a philosophy on life that can be confirmed by science. The reason I ask is because people can be vehemently against religion or people and their faith yet they themselves are using faith in the unknown just as much as anyone else. I think it's pretty interesting.

Religion requires a belief in a supernatural being. It's not simply just "faith."

Faith is a belief without evidence, which could apply to the non-religious. Of course faith in spite of evidence and an unwillingness to throw out a "philosophy" when new evidence is presented is not typically found in the non-religious.