cladking
Well-Known Member
No, It is reasonable to "trust" science. It is not reasonable to believe in science. Science is a method that depends on experiment and if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Do We Need Faith?
- Thread starter nPeace
- Start date
No, It is reasonable to "trust" science. It is not reasonable to believe in science. Science is a method that depends on experiment and if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable.
cladking
Well-Known Member
I said there is a correlation between trends. Everybody is different but as the belief in "religion" decreases the belief in "greed" increases. The belief in greed is equivalent to lacking a conscience. If you destroy and ruin lives for profit it is much easier with no conscience. This doesn't mean religion is good or science is bad in any way shape or form and NEVER have I said such a thing. It means some people would do better with religion or that everyone needs a conscience.
cladking
Well-Known Member
You are just repeating what I said; we know everything except how life began so the only "gap" is here. Homo omnisciencis.
What was the date or the discovery when it became justified to say everything is caused by natural law and there is no God? Or are we still waiting to show life originated in a pond?
cladking
Well-Known Member
You really should read what I write.
"As more observations are made, the accuracy of an object's orbit improves dramatically, and it becomes possible to predict where an object will be years or even decades into the future – and whether it could come close to Earth."
They are watching a significant number of known bodies that come or might in the future come near earth. The chances of them spotting an unknown body approaching the earth is very very low until it gets very very close. There are no professionals or large telescopes sweeping the sky searching for anomalous movements. Most such bodies are found by amateurs.
cladking
Well-Known Member
You suggested that everyone should do what scientists say and those who are paying for science are also paying for government and are destroying the planet. Where is the science that says refrigerators should last only a few years? Where is the science that says we should import things from China that cost more to transport than they are worth? Where is the science that says the US taxpayer should be forced to pay for the insurance of things built on the beach before rising sea levels? Where is the science that says we should use more energy to make gasahol than the energy contained in the finished product?
Where is the science that says the human race should be self destructive if it benefits the few?
Where is the science that shows greed is good and Peers are always right? What logic supports the idea that we finally know everything (except the origin of life)?
cladking
Well-Known Member
Once upon a time long long ago all science was based on experiment but many changes have happened since. Science was wrecked by Darwin and then its pieces assailed by Freud. Einstein tried to sweep up the pieces but might not have gotten everything put back together quite right and much of the damage was already done and spread like a cancer. Now days much of what is called "science" is more aptly named what I call "Look and See Science". This science holds that if you're well respected among Peers you can just look and see what's real, create computer models, or count the angels dancing on the heads of a pin.
Long before this science arose there was a more ancient science not based on experiment but on logic. No, not our logic because our logic is dependent on words and how they are parsed. It's impossible to make any statement that can't be parsed to be wrong AND to be right. Logic is inherent not only to consciousness but also to reality itself. Long before there was a homo omniscience to count to one if a bird landed in a tree the number of birds sitting in the tree went from zero to one. This logic is ALWAYS maintained in nature and is the only universal truth so far as our science can determine. But the bird's perspective or the homo sapiens watching it there was a natural logic that arose naturally from their consciousnesses. No bird in tree > a bird (me) in tree. This is the basis of all science other than our science. I call the human version of this science "ancient science" because it was far more advanced than all other consciousnesses not because humans are any more conscious or any more intelligent but because humans had a complex language which could be used to expand knowledge from generation to generation. It was complex language that created homo sapiens and its failure at the tower of babel that destroyed it.
This 40,000 years of scientific advancement was lost in its entirety but the shreds exist everywhere we look today. The most intact ancient science exists in religion which is essentially the results wrapped up into something recognizable to people. It is presented as a belief system because it is not known how it arose. Obviously it is no longer logical because nothing can be expressed logically in modern languages. But make no mistake there were no beliefs in ancient science. It was merely a description of reality based on human interests and expressed in a human perspective. It's no wonder it resonates with many people. The Ancient Language had no words for belief or thought and it broke Zipf's Law because this arises only from thought and they didn't think.
We have one. Our new car is a 2014 Toyota Prius plugin. The prior vehicle was a pickup truck that died when a repair was too costly. Actually we traded that truck to our massage therapist at the time for two massages.
You're being very secretive, which is fine. Your business is your business, and you have no duty to share just what you do or in what you are licensed. I was trying to understand how a guy who thinks he has expertise in psychology sufficient to be believed in that area based on unnamed credentials alone wouldn't know what projection is. So, I'll do what I always do in such matters, which is to decide what the likeliest explanation for that is. I'm guessing that you're a social worker and don't work in a clinical setting, possibly making home visits and doing what I am accustomed to what social workers do. The ones I knew were LCSWs working in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices. I don't recall them referring to patients as clients. Lawyers do that. Architects do that.
What I have said is that nobody has sufficient evidence to justify belief in metaphysical entities such as gods. They can only be believed in by faith. Just because you point to something and call it your evidence does not mean that that evidence supports your conclusion about it. You can provide no evidence that makes the existence of a god likelier than that there are no gods. If you could, you would have by now rather than repeatedly insisting that you have good evidence that justifies your beliefs.
Agreed. Evidence is the noun form of the adjective evident, which of course means evident to the senses. And, of course, evidence and evidence of are different ideas. Sure, it's evidence since it's evident to the senses, but what is it evidence of?
That's where the power of reason comes in interpreting evidence. My dog and I see the same evidence on the TV, but he interprets it as another dog being in the room. It's evidence to both of us, but evidence of what is the question.
Except that religion can give us no guidance in either of those areas, just its unsupported proclamations which have no practical value beyond comforting. In humanism, we deal with both issues without religion. My moral code does not come from any holy book or any other received wisdom from the past. It's the consequence of reason applied to my moral intuitions, namely that I ought to live by the Golden Rule, and that society ought to be structured to maximize freedom and opportunity for all. And so, unlike the church, I can find no moral failing in homosexuality, and unlike the church, the humanist supports reproductive freedom for women.
Regarding all metaphysical questions, the answer is the same - agnosticism. Are there gods? There's no way to decide at this time. Is there an afterlife? We can't know. Is their a supernatural realm? There is no reason to believe so.
I'd say that these are better approaches to both moral and metaphysical matters, and that religions actually get in the way when they divert people into irrational beliefs, often destructive. Spirituality in Christianity doesn't resemble the naturalistic view on the topic. and in my opinion, doesn't seem to understand what the word spiritual should refer to. Hint: it has nothing to do with spirits, nor unseen worlds. It's about one's relationship to his world.
Look at what Christianity does to that, attempting to divert attention, sense of connection, and gratitude from our actual reality to imagined realities. It's thanking a deity for the work of the immune system and expert doctors and nurses with effective therapies developed by humanity for humanity. That's the opposite of spiritual to me. It cheapens and demeans reality.
Why? I claimed that faith has given man no new knowledge as I defined the word - demonstrably correct ideas that can be used to effect outcomes favorably. A rebuttal would be a counterargument, not mere dissent. It is an argument that, if correct, makes the rebutted statement incorrect. You can only do that by providing examples of such knowledge, which you haven't done, and can't do. Why? Because one cannot successfully rebut a correct statement. What argument or evidence could one present to show that something correct is incorrect? None, because there is none. The idea is incoherent.
You also declined to comment on the distinction between knowledge and comforting words. Can we assume that you don't know the difference? I suppose we have to whenever our collocutor declines to participate in some part of the discussion.
Disagree. Trusting in experts in their area of expertise is a reasonable thing to do. Do you seek and heed the counsel of physicians and attorneys? Who do you call to fix your home's wiring problems? Your plumber? In fact, look at the mess that is the anti-vax movement, which is predicated on the idea that anybody with Internet access has equal expertise as the medical community.
Bad choice. Many of those people are dead now, many with long COVID who will never work again, many with permanent organ damage, and many that lost everything they owned because of a medical catastrophe they couldn't afford. If they couldn't evaluate the data directly, which was actually pretty easy - just look at the fraction with severe illness or death including those with major vaccine reactions who were unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated and, assuming that the vaccine isn't contraindicated in you, you know all you need to know to make the correct decision.
But if you can't do that, you need to identify those who can and trust them. You can trust Donald trump or the CDC. You can trust Rand Paul or Dr. Fauci. If you can't decipher the data, you need to be able to make this decision of who to trust intelligently. If you reject the experts, well, that's a double fail.
The bottom line is that we can know from experience that empiricism is not only a reliable method for determining what's true about the world, but that it's the only means to do that. Perhaps you don't know that, but you have some idiosyncratic and antiscientific views that you haven't been able to defend.
As does this atheist, but the theist is generally referring to the meaning and purpose of our lives according to a deity, not the meaning we find there ourselves. The theist often claims that we were made for somebody else's purpose. The atheist rejects that, but not the concept that life is meaningful and can be purposive. Even if I believed that a deity created me for the purpose of worshiping and praising it, that's not my purpose for my life, and far from giving it meaning, makes it seem meaningless to me. Likewise if the roles were reversed and it was the deity worshiping others. What meaning is there in that for them? Or the deity?
PureX
Veteran Member
Regarding the bold section ... I think this accurately describes science, today, for the most part. At it's core it's still just observation and extrapolation. We observe how various aspects of the world we live in interact with each other, physically, and we extrapolate the nature of the physical relationship between them. The objective of this quest is to try and figure out the nature of physical interaction so that we can gain some control of it and use that control to our own advantage. It's how we survive and thrive in a world where life forms eat each other to live. And where the environment can easily kill us if we aren't prepared for it.
For a lot of people religion does much the same thing as science, only not on a physical level. More on a circumstantial level. We observe the circumstantial interactions we find ourselves in and try to extrapolate the divine meaning, cause, or purpose behind them. So that we might gain some idea of how to control them, or control ourselves in relation to them, to our own advantage in the future.
gnostic
The Lost One
You do realize that the “ancient science” cladking is talking about, predated writings, as in 40,000 years ago?
It is a piece of fantasy fiction of his, based on some pictographic symbols of cave painting, that he presume to be metaphorical language, which untranslatable and unreadable.
How could cladking possibly know these symbols to be language of science, when these symbols cannot be translated into words, sentences, etc, and can be open to all sorts of interpretations, but he (cladking) will only accept his own interpretations of these cave-painted symbols.
It is illogical, considering the fact, that cladking can only read and speak only one language, English. A person who cannot read any of known ancient languages and yet pretend to be expert in understanding the language of these symbols, is a warning sign that hat he believed to be language and science, are just cladking’s pseudo-history, pseudo-language and pseudoscience wishful thinking.
He is like Immanuel Velikovsky, Erich von Daniken and Graham Hancock all rolled into one.
PureX
Veteran Member
That would make him a very interesting fellow.
But none of that means a thing, to me. My only interest was in the idea that science has morphed into something it was not, originally. and FROM something that was once "religious". I actually believe there is a little bit of truth in this, in that both science and religion come from the same root desire. And both are derived from the same root "observation/extrapolation" intellectual process. So that's all I was really commenting on.
The other stuff is just ... entertaining, ... and somewhat fascinating in it's weird irrationality.
gnostic
The Lost One
In sciences, and I am referring to mainly natural sciences, is trying to understand and to explain what (eg nature, or natural phenomena) being observed, and how it work (eg to understand and to explain the properties, mechanisms or natural processes).
The observations are the tests of the explanations, and as I said, observations of the evidence or of the natural phenomena.
There are no tests to be performed on god(s), because there are no evidence. And there are no explanations as to what god is or what gods are.
And “god did it” isn’t an explanation, nor there are any way to test “god doing it” (eg creation, miracles, etc).
So, no, I don’t see science and religion having the same root desire to understanding nature.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Actually I have only one running car right now, a 1999 Honda CRV. The other car, a 1986 Honda Prelude, was my husband's car but it was totaled because he hit a tree about six months ago. I bought it back from the insurance company for 120 dollars and hope that maybe I can find someone to fix the driver side door, which is off its hinges and sustained the major damage.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
My religion does give guidance in those areas but you can also get guidance without the need for religion, from humanism as you said. No, you do not need a holy book to know what is morally right, you just need your own intuition and conscience.
Agreed. What we are seeing is believers trying to find a need for their god and a value for religion and faith, but who cannot defend those claims when challenged to back them up. Are there any unanswered questions still? God did that (god of the gaps). What are the valuable insights this other magesterium has provided, the one that compliments science with spiritual truths? Crickets.
I wouldn't care except that it is always accomplished on the back of what it demeans - the humanist worldview. It points out what it calls shortcomings of science, but can't do better. It derides "materialism" and "scientism" falsely claiming that it purports to be able to answer all questions as if that were a fault or not an infinitely worse problem for faith-based systems. It depicts the empiricist as small-minded and short-sighted, but has nothing to offer using this alleged way of knowing and seeing further.
I think it's worthwhile pointing out that these claims are empty because they demean their competition while generating nothing like what empiricism and critical thought have given humanity. Look at how many enemies of science we find even in these threads. Who's motivated to send that message? Those who feel contradicted by it. And what are the consequences? Vaccine denial. Climate change denial. Bigotry against "elitist" universities and higher education. I feel like I have a duty to rebut all of these messages.
I used to ask what these other ways of knowing have revealed, but the question is always ignored - never answered - so now, I just make declarative statements: You have nothing to support those claims. One can try to rebut that if he disagrees, but guess what? They don't because they can't, and there are no loose ends, no need to keep asking the same questions that are repeatedly evaded.
I am fond of pointing out that one cannot rebut a correct statement. One can disagree, but he can't produce a rebuttal. If one says the sun will not rise in the morning, the statement is easily rebutted, as there is no known process that can prevent it. If one claims that the sun likely will appear in the morning, that statement cannot be successfully rebutted, because it is correct. This is one of two requirements to call a statement correct, the other being that it consistently and accurately anticipates outcomes in a way that incorrect ideas cannot.
I'm not sure you understand what ground I'm treading on.
I'm talking even about things like laws against Sunday liquor sales or giving special tax breaks to clergy, along with more critical issues like same-sex marriage bans.
What about them?
And I'm talking about how ethics can be justified.
If you're inspired by your religion to do good in the world, great.
... But if you try to pass laws that will impact others, you'll need to justify this restriction on liberty to the satisfaction of the people under those laws. If your justification depends on the principles of some religion that those people don't all believe, then it isn't a reasonable justification.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Indeed, if the Bible is interpreted literally, it does contradict what is actually known by science about the physical world. As a Baha'i, I do not interpret those things literally, I believe they are symbolic for spiritual truths. For example, the official Baha'i interpretation of the resurrection stories is as follows:
"Therefore, we say that the meaning of Christ’s resurrection is as follows: the disciples were troubled and agitated after the martyrdom of Christ. The Reality of Christ, which signifies His teachings, His bounties, His perfections and His spiritual power, was hidden and concealed for two or three days after His martyrdom, and was not resplendent and manifest. No, rather it was lost, for the believers were few in number and were troubled and agitated. The Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body; and when after three days the disciples became assured and steadfast, and began to serve the Cause of Christ, and resolved to spread the divine teachings, putting His counsels into practice, and arising to serve Him, the Reality of Christ became resplendent and His bounty appeared; His religion found life; His teachings and His admonitions became evident and visible. In other words, the Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body until the life and the bounty of the Holy Spirit surrounded it.
Such is the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, and this was a true resurrection. But as the clergy have neither understood the meaning of the Gospels nor comprehended the symbols, therefore, it has been said that religion is in contradiction to science, and science in opposition to religion, as, for example, this subject of the ascension of Christ with an elemental body to the visible heaven is contrary to the science of mathematics. But when the truth of this subject becomes clear, and the symbol is explained, science in no way contradicts it; but, on the contrary, science and the intelligence affirm it." Some Answered Questions, pp. 103-105
23: THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
Okay, thanks for the background of the conversation. Normally I would be reading through the posts to try to understand what people are discussing but I have had more pressing issues lately, so I just picked something that I read that jumped out at me to respond to.
BTW, I do not believe that God 'makes' the sun rise. The reason the sun rises is explained by science. This is all part of the physical creation God created but I don't believe God is intervening and 'doing stuff.'
There is no 'physical evidence' of the spiritual reality that lies 'beyond' the physical reality because the spiritual reality is not a physical reality.
Of course I do not expect an atheist to accept that, and it is not a claim, it is a belief. I do not make claims about things that cannot be proven.
Good question. Yes, I bolded the part about religion and science being necessary for humanity to progress since it is vital to my religious beliefs. Let's look at that quote again for context.
“Now, all questions of morality contained in the spiritual, immutable law of every religion are logically right. If religion were contrary to logical reason then it would cease to be a religion and be merely a tradition. Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism...” Paris Talks, p. 143
This principle stating that both science religion are necessary from humanity to progress is further explained in The Official Website of the Worldwide Baha'i Community:
Science and Religion | An Ever-Advancing Civilization | God and His Creation | What Bahá’ís Believe
“Bahá’ís reject the notion that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion, a notion that became prevalent in intellectual discourse at a time when the very conception of each system of knowledge was far from adequate. The harmony of science and religion is one of the fundamental principles of the Bahá’í Faith, which teaches that religion, without science, soon degenerates into superstition and fanaticism, while science without religion becomes merely the instrument of crude materialism.”
From: Science and Religion
PureX
Veteran Member
Science is limited to the study of the physical realm. Religion is more about studying the metaphysical realm; the realm of meaning and purpose. But both pursuits are motivated, I think, by the same desire to understand (and therefor gain some control of) existence as we experience it.
cladking
Well-Known Member
This could quickly turn into a semantical argument so I'll be out if it does. Obviously you don't call a plumber with a rotorooter if you have a broken nose. By the same token if you have a question about the pyramids you call an Egyptologist not an internet crank. But trusting a doctor to know everything about how to fix a nose or an Egyptologist about anything concerning pyramid construction is foolish.
There are tens of thousands of specialties so dependent on the nature of the question you go with expert opinion. Most of us don't even have the time to study enough to find out some specialists have no knowledge about some things or that expert opinion is often always wrong. Every surgeon in 1850 believed washing their hands before surgery was a waste of time. Their hands were always clean enough. You can ONLY trust experts to be up with the state of the art so some questions are NOT appropriate for some experts or even every expert. Being a Peer does not make someone's opinion gospel. You always roll the dice and take your chances just like in real life.
I normally trust the data and don't trust people who lie to me. Your mileage may vary. Faucci lost me when he said masks don't help.
NO. A million times no.
The bottom line in all science is always experiment. Most everything else is Look and See science which is by definition a circular argument. All conclusions are always solely dependent on assumptions unless an experiment stands in the way. It is anomalies that point to reality because of the very nature of reductionistic science. You will not see the big picture by looking at ever tiny parts of it. Anomalies show the errors of reductionistic interpretations.
These are simple concepts. Science is not the opinion of Peers. Science is the paradigmatical interpretation of experiment. It is only true within its metaphysics and modern science is dependent on experiment and NOT opinion.
Why don't people seem to understand this? Why are they just marching on waiting for the words of Peers to show me wrong? Where is their experiment that shows Peers are always right? Where is the experiment that shows faith is wrong and faith in a Creator is harmful? Where do the holiest of thou get off?
Sadly enough I've never needed to defend it because nobody has ever argued against it. They gainsay it and then they lecture me about the Infallibility of Peers.
I believe that anytime every Peer agrees about anything it is either axiomatic or they are wrong. Everyone else seems to believe Peers vote on reality and then hand down "Laws of Nature" engraved on stone tablets.
Last edited: