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All humans are believers

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Nope. Religion and science are Non Overlapping MAgisteria. The first only begins where the second ends.


That’s a useful perspective in many cases; but given that Einstein, Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, Stephen Hawking etc all frequently referred to God in their musings, it seems overlap is inevitable.

Depends, really, on what we want from science. If the aim of science is simply to observe and predict the workings of the natural world, no philosophical or theological diversions are required. But if we are looking for understanding, if we want science to offer a full description of the workings of natural phenomena, an ontology is required; physics requires a metaphysics, and will therefore inevitably borrow from religion, even if only as metaphor.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
This thread is about the nature and purpose of belief. I've excerpted All humans are believers There are several points that appealed to me. One is that the nature and importance to people I find accurate. the second is the statement about "absence of proof is not proof of absence". The third and to me most important is that it describes how I see science - as the way of seeing the beauty and magnificence of the universe. (I've only excerpted a bit, for those that are inclined to click on links, the rest was interesting to me as well).

TLDR (aka Key Takeaways):
  • Belief is an essential need for all humans. It is not just about God or ghosts.
  • Science extends its reach into all aspects of the world, but its reach is not unlimited. We have to choose how to deal with what we cannot know.
  • This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose.
The meaning of “supernatural”
Even if you are a vocal atheist, you still believe in your creed that there is no god. Given that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, to say that the lack of evidence for a supernatural being is enough to rule out its existence in some definitive sense is, well, an act of faith. It is belief in non-belief.
...
More to the point, they claim that the more they understand the world through their science, the more they admire God. To them, science is a form of religious devotion.
...
In reality, religion and science do overlap. They intersect in people’s minds, in their life choices, and in the difficult moral challenges society faces. To strictly deny the power of religion in the world, with billions following a diversity of faiths while they seek a sense of identity and purpose in difficult lives, is terribly naive, and frankly, cruel.

The difficult question that needs to be asked is why so many people across every culture need to believe. What is religion providing that so many need to embrace?

When Einstein invoked his “cosmic religious feeling” to describe his unorthodox spiritual connection to Nature, he was trying to express this elusive feeling of the mysterious, of our human attraction to the unknown. Perhaps surprisingly to many — especially to those who do not understand what drives people into science — the engagement through science with unknown aspects of Nature is deeply spiritual.


Science is a flirt with the unknown, as is religion. The difference is that science uses tools to expand the domain of the known, while religion is sustained by faith. This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose. Even the secularist scientist, using research to probe beyond the known, is practicing this creed, fulfilling our deep need to understand our origins and make sense of the world, and to extend our grasp of a reality we can never fully comprehend.
"Deep down in every man, women and child is the fundamental idea of God." Bill Wilson
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
I feel less than certain that the need of belief is entirely real as opposed to taught.

It is possible to accept uncertainty as a real thing and work with it. It is really rather sad that so many people are taught to nurture a fear of it.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
I can also see why you chose not to answer my question. I'll wait ...

Rather than play a game of "you first, no you first": I believe in Divinity, angels, unicorns and other non-material beings. Note I'm using "believe" in the sense I provided in this thread not in any other sense. But I'll go further because I've had experiences which take non-material beings out of the category of simple belief although sadly not of unicorns and angels which leaves them in the category of belief.

Your turn: do you believe in angels?
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
This thread is about the nature and purpose of belief. I've excerpted All humans are believers There are several points that appealed to me. One is that the nature and importance to people I find accurate. the second is the statement about "absence of proof is not proof of absence". The third and to me most important is that it describes how I see science - as the way of seeing the beauty and magnificence of the universe. (I've only excerpted a bit, for those that are inclined to click on links, the rest was interesting to me as well).

TLDR (aka Key Takeaways):
  • Belief is an essential need for all humans. It is not just about God or ghosts.
  • Science extends its reach into all aspects of the world, but its reach is not unlimited. We have to choose how to deal with what we cannot know.
  • This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose.
The meaning of “supernatural”
Even if you are a vocal atheist, you still believe in your creed that there is no god. Given that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, to say that the lack of evidence for a supernatural being is enough to rule out its existence in some definitive sense is, well, an act of faith. It is belief in non-belief.
...
More to the point, they claim that the more they understand the world through their science, the more they admire God. To them, science is a form of religious devotion.
...
In reality, religion and science do overlap. They intersect in people’s minds, in their life choices, and in the difficult moral challenges society faces. To strictly deny the power of religion in the world, with billions following a diversity of faiths while they seek a sense of identity and purpose in difficult lives, is terribly naive, and frankly, cruel.

The difficult question that needs to be asked is why so many people across every culture need to believe. What is religion providing that so many need to embrace?

When Einstein invoked his “cosmic religious feeling” to describe his unorthodox spiritual connection to Nature, he was trying to express this elusive feeling of the mysterious, of our human attraction to the unknown. Perhaps surprisingly to many — especially to those who do not understand what drives people into science — the engagement through science with unknown aspects of Nature is deeply spiritual.


Science is a flirt with the unknown, as is religion. The difference is that science uses tools to expand the domain of the known, while religion is sustained by faith. This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose. Even the secularist scientist, using research to probe beyond the known, is practicing this creed, fulfilling our deep need to understand our origins and make sense of the world, and to extend our grasp of a reality we can never fully comprehend.
I think the article sells religions short. At the core of the religions are people who have had experiences of the "divine" in some way that are felt to be more fundamental and more real than experiences of the world. Just as one believes in the world because one experiences the world, one believes in the divine because one experiences it. Now one can go on arguing whether these experiences are actually pointing to something that is truly there or not...but such arguments may be made about the physical world as well. Thus saying that religions are based on human beings need to believe in some sort of mysterious and non rational aspects that are part of human experience is incorrect. Human beings can have emotive non rational and aesthetic connections with the physical existence (spiritualism in science as mentioned, romanticism about nature ), with other humans (love and all the poetic ways, theatre etc) and with the transcendent (hymns to the divine, mystic literature etc)....but that does not mean that these things are not equally real and equally susceptible to rational understanding as well.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Rather than play a game of "you first, no you first": I believe in Divinity, angels, unicorns and other non-material beings. Note I'm using "believe" in the sense I provided in this thread not in any other sense. But I'll go further because I've had experiences which take non-material beings out of the category of simple belief although sadly not of unicorns and angels which leaves them in the category of belief.

Your turn: do you believe in angels?
No.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Placebo effect, hypnotism, hysterical blindness, propaganda, etc, etc, etc.

It is not always obvious we are a product of our beliefs but every experiment ever done shows it. Our bodies, mind, and souls are one and are controlled solely by what we believe to be true. I have discovered this is an artefact of abstract language. Other life perceives very little of reality because they are a product of what they know. We each perceive everything because our beliefs apply to everything.

There is no "faith" in the terms most people think of religion or belief in God. It is merely a set of beliefs that differ from those who believe in "natural law" and that reality can be expressed mathematically. It matters not that some believe this because we don't have the equation(s). It is a belief that the equations exist; it is faith and since theory and technology are spun off from this faith most practitioners believe it is superior or that any other faith is superstition. There will never be an equation to quantify a beautiful sunset or the birth of a child. None of the important things in life like prediction and the ability to achieve good outcomes will ever be set to mathematics. We will never arrest criminals before the crime or turn the next baby Adolf Hitler in baby Albert Schweitzer. We will each always watch reality unfold but we'll each see it not as our neighbor or someone in China but strictly in terms of our beliefs. We'll each always experience a separate reality that is mostly unique to ourselves. Understanding this allows us to glimpse other realities but mostly allows us to change our own. It allows us to see anomalies.

Beliefs are a dime a dozen. Everyone has many of them but they can't be bought, sold, or traded (see first paragraph) and they can only be adopted. We have little real choice in which beliefs we engage because we adopt only the beliefs we want. I tell children to be very careful what beliefs they accept because they become their beliefs.

Yes, we are believers. I call us "homo omnisciencis" because we each see and experience everything in terms of the reality we have unwittingly chosen. There are no gaps in our knowledge and almost no anomalies in our experience.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member
This thread is about the nature and purpose of belief. I've excerpted All humans are believers

When Einstein invoked his “cosmic religious feeling” to describe his unorthodox spiritual connection to Nature, he was trying to express this elusive feeling of the mysterious, of our human attraction to the unknown.
True, for sure, all humans are believers

WHETHER
they believe it
OR
they believe it not

@stvdvRF
 

stevecanuck

Well-Known Member
^ sloppy hogwash: given by whom?

The absence of evidence of pink and purple striped buzzards, is not evidence of absence. The inference that pink and purple striped buzzards do not exist is, however, the most reasonable inference by far.

On the other hand, the absence of evidence of pink and purple striped Sauropods in my bedroom can be deemed excellent evidence of absence.

Good one. Knowing whether one is talking about a closed environment (your bedroom), or the universe at large where it would be impossible to determine the existence or non-existence of anything, is necessary in accepting that statement or not.
 

stevecanuck

Well-Known Member
Why is it many theists seem fundamentally incapable of trying to make atheism into a belief and a faith?

I have a theory about that. It's all got to do with their comfort zone. They will happily argue all day long with other theists about specifics because they all agree with the underpinning belief of the existence of a deity (higher force, etc.). They're only beef with each other is in the details. Not so with atheists. We are on the outside of that communal box with the unique perspective that no deity (higher force) exists. If they can rebrand unbelief as just another form of belief, then they're back where they started comfortably arguing elements of belief.

In short, theists are fine with arguing which god exists and what it wants of us, but not if god exists. Relabeling atheism a belief takes the 'if' question off the table.
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
This thread is about the nature and purpose of belief. I've excerpted All humans are believers T

Science is a flirt with the unknown, as is religion. The difference is that science uses tools to expand the domain of the known, while religion is sustained by faith. This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose.
The author is mistaken, prolonged serious religious practice also expands the domain of the known. When something is known, understanding replaces the prior held belief regarding the particular aspect in question. Religion for me is about a journey of discovery as to what and who one really is in the context of universal existence. Real experiences along this journey have allowed an unfolding process of realization that is beyond all concepts of the human mind. It can never be conveyed to another as it is a reality beyond any belief/thought process.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Science is a flirt with the unknown, as is religion. The difference is that science uses tools to expand the domain of the known, while religion is sustained by faith. This is where belief comes in. It fills the space of the unknown so that we can sustain our sense of purpose. Even the secularist scientist, using research to probe beyond the known, is practicing this creed, fulfilling our deep need to understand our origins and make sense of the world, and to extend our grasp of a reality we can never fully comprehend.

Creed is defined a system of religious beliefs...creed is a doctrine of religions. And religions required faith-based beliefs.

Science isn’t a religion.

Sciences attempt to explain any physical or natural phenomena, and such explanation required testings, to verify or refute the explanation.

These testings, are either observed evidence or observations obtained from experiments...or from both of these results.

As I said, the tests will either refute or verify the model.

A failed hypothesis, is still “falsifiable”, because it is testable, it just mean the evidence or experiments demonstrably show the hypothesis to be improbable: the hypothesis has been refuted.

What’s even worse than failed falsifiable hypothesis, is a “untestable” concept, a concept that have zero evidence to support the concept.

An untestable idea, is one that unfalsifiable, meaning it cannot even “qualify” as being a “hypothesis”.

The problems with creationism and Intelligent Design, they required invisible, all-powerful agents (be it called God, Creator, Allah, or Designer, etc), that are untestable and untested - hence there are no evidence whatsoever...this make Creationism and Intelligent Design, UNFALSIFIABLE and UNSCIENTIFIC.

The Creator and the Designer are themselves unfalsifiable.

Creationism, religions and Intelligent Design differed from a falsifiable hypothesis or falsifiable theory, because “you can test” hypothesis or theory, even if all the evidence demonstrate negatively against the hypothesis or theory. You cannot test creationism and ID, because they are unfalsifiable.

The differences between sciences and religions, is that a science attempt to explain WHAT the phenomena and how the phenomena work.

While a religion only require a acceptance of belief (eg faith), faith in something or someone that “defy the laws of nature” - something or someone “supernatural”, “magical”, “divine”, etc.

Anyway, creeds belong to religions, not to sciences. Sciences don’t use creeds.

That you think science involved in creeds, only demonstrate you don’t actually know what creed is.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Creed is defined a system of religious beliefs...creed is a doctrine of religions. And religions required faith-based beliefs.

Science isn’t a religion.

Sciences attempt to explain any physical or natural phenomena, and such explanation required testings, to verify or refute the explanation.

These testings, are either observed evidence or observations obtained from experiments...or from both of these results.

As I said, the tests will either refute or verify the model.

A failed hypothesis, is still “falsifiable”, because it is testable, it just mean the evidence or experiments demonstrably show the hypothesis to be improbable: the hypothesis has been refuted.

What’s even worse than failed falsifiable hypothesis, is a “untestable” concept, a concept that have zero evidence to support the concept.

An untestable idea, is one that unfalsifiable, meaning it cannot even “qualify” as being a “hypothesis”.

The problems with creationism and Intelligent Design, they required invisible, all-powerful agents (be it called God, Creator, Allah, or Designer, etc), that are untestable and untested - hence there are no evidence whatsoever...this make Creationism and Intelligent Design, UNFALSIFIABLE and UNSCIENTIFIC.

The Creator and the Designer are themselves unfalsifiable.

Creationism, religions and Intelligent Design differed from a falsifiable hypothesis or falsifiable theory, because “you can test” hypothesis or theory, even if all the evidence demonstrate negatively against the hypothesis or theory. You cannot test creationism and ID, because they are unfalsifiable.

The differences between sciences and religions, is that a science attempt to explain WHAT the phenomena and how the phenomena work.

While a religion only require a acceptance of belief (eg faith), faith in something or someone that “defy the laws of nature” - something or someone “supernatural”, “magical”, “divine”, etc.

Anyway, creeds belong to religions, not to sciences. Sciences don’t use creeds.

That you think science involved in creeds, only demonstrate you don’t actually know what creed is.
To do science (or any other formal collection of knowledge), you have to make some assumptions, things you can't prove within the system.
You have to assume that you can know what is out there, i.e. that reality is knowable.
You have to assume that what you learn today will still be valid tomorrow and also valid in the next town, i.e. that reality is orderly.
You have to assume that you are not just a brain in a vat, fed with sensory input, i.e. that reality is real.
We don't call it a creed but functionally it is. It is what we believe in order to do science.
The only differences are that the scientists beliefs are more parsimonious than those of the religious and they have never been observed to contradict logic or our observations.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
To do science (or any other formal collection of knowledge), you have to make some assumptions, things you can't prove within the system.
You have to assume that you can know what is out there, i.e. that reality is knowable.
You have to assume that what you learn today will still be valid tomorrow and also valid in the next town, i.e. that reality is orderly.
You have to assume that you are not just a brain in a vat, fed with sensory input, i.e. that reality is real.
We don't call it a creed but functionally it is. It is what we believe in order to do science.
The only differences are that the scientists beliefs are more parsimonious than those of the religious and they have never been observed to contradict logic or our observations.

But the assumptions (in sciences) are not made with religious contexts.

What is “creed”?

A creed is a collection (or a system) of “religious beliefs”.

For instance, a “religious belief” is a “statement of faith”. And a creed is a system of all those beliefs and faiths.

And what is “religion”?

In theistic religions, religions are beliefs and worships of a deity or deities (if the religions are polytheistic ones, eg beliefs in ancient Egyptian religion, or those from ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, etc).

Of course, there are some religions that are non-theistic, like some sects of Buddhism, or that of Hinduism, deism, etc, but these are much more complex, and I don’t want to overcomplicate the word “religion”.

A creed is closely related to religion(s), and Natural Sciences (eg physics, chemistry, biology (or life sciences), Earth sciences and astronomy) are not collections of “religious beliefs”.

You seems to be assuming that the word “assumption” are all “religious”. You seems to be conflating all assumptions to be religious.

Sure, I can assume that the moon is made of cheese, but do think this assumption to be “religious” in context?

No, it is isn’t. I am not making religious assumption, because my assumption, right or wrong this assumption of mine may be, my assumption of cheesy moon, don’t have anything to do with believing and worshiping any deity.

My points that NOT ALL ASSUMPTIONS are “RELIGIOUS” in nature.

A creed is connected to a religion or to religions.

So what is a definition of creed? And what is a definition of religion? And then find out how creed is related to religion.
 
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Heyo

Veteran Member
But the assumptions (in sciences) are not made with religious contexts.

What is “creed”?

A creed is a collection (or a system) of “religious beliefs”.

For instance, a “religious belief” is a “statement of faith”. And a creed is a system of all those beliefs and faiths.

And what is “religion”?

In theistic religions, religions are beliefs and worships of a deity or deities (if the religions are polytheistic ones, eg beliefs in ancient Egyptian religion, or those from ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, etc).

Of course, there are some religions that are non-theistic, like some sects of Buddhism, or that of Hinduism, deism, etc, but these are much more complex, and I don’t want to overcomplicate the word “religion”.

A creed is closely related to religion(s), and Natural Sciences (eg physics, chemistry, biology (or life sciences), Earth sciences and astronomy) are not collections of “religious beliefs”.

You seems to be assuming that the word “assumption” are all “religious”. You seems to be conflating all assumptions to be religious.

Sure, I can make assume that the moon is made of cheese, but do you think this assumption to be “religious” in context?

No, it is isn’t. I am not making religious assumption, because my assumption, right or wrong this assumption of mine may be, my assumption of cheesy moon, don’t have anything to do with believing and worshiping any deity.

My points that NOT ALL ASSUMPTIONS are “RELIGIOUS” in nature.

A creed is connected to a religion or to religions.

So what is a definition of creed? And what is a definition of religion? And then find out how creed is related to religion.
We agree more than we don't. As I said, we usually don't call the axioms of science a "creed" but it is OK to do so in figurative speech.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
But if we are looking for understanding, if we want science to offer a full description of the workings of natural phenomena, an ontology is required; physics requires a metaphysics, and will therefore inevitably borrow from religion, even if only as metaphor.

Why?

My question is relate to what I had highlighted in bold.

Physics can use metaphysics or it can leave out metaphysics altogether.

Metaphysics isn’t a essential requirement, whether you use or not in physics.

Metaphysics is a philosophical position that are concerned with the existence of reality, and then applying some “first principle” to this so-called “position”.

Physics don’t necessarily deal with the “first principle” badge.

In physics, you would attempt to explain what the observed phenomena is and how this phenomena work. Then you would test this explanation with observations of the evidence.

Then there are two possible outcomes and conclusions you can reach, once you have examined and analyzed all the evidence and data from such tests:
  1. ...the evidence have tested the hypothesis (explanations) and found the explanations to be improbable, false/wrong...which would mean you would throw out the “refuted” hypothesis;
  2. ...the evidence have tested the hypothesis, and found the explanations to be probable, true/correct...which would mean you have “verified” the hypothesis, and the hypothesis could be a candidate as a future “scientific theory”.
Metaphysics don’t require testing, don’t require physical evidence to be considered the first principle to be “true”. Metaphysics require only reasoning alone, to reach a conclusion.

This is why metaphysics is a philosophy, not a science, because metaphysics don’t follow the requirements of science, where the explanations required -
  1. to be “falsifiable” and
  2. to be tested in the second stage of “Scientific Method”.
Metaphysics don’t even require to meet the first requirement, Falsifiability of the hypothesis.

In physics, as it is with all other branches of Natural Sciences, every theories - and every explanations and every predictions within that theories - are all provisional.

Meaning, existing scientific theory can be corrected, modified, updated, or even replaced by tested better alternative theory, as long as you have evidence and data to support these changes.

With Metaphysics, as long as you have formulated the first principle, it either don’t require change or it cannot be changed...that is a complete antithesis to Natural Sciences.

And another “why” question to you: why must Metaphysics leads to “religion” - you wrote:

“...and will therefore inevitably borrow from religion...”

Why must physics and metaphysics “inevitably borrow from religion”?

Not everything is about religion...not even with metaphysics.

Religion have to with belief and worship of some sorts of supernatural being, which some would refer to as deity or spirit.

There is a branch of Metaphysics, called Metaphysical Naturalism. This type of Naturalism, disregards all forms of the supernaturals.

Anyway, physics (not talking about metaphysics), don’t require religion or religious belief, and it certainly don’t require to borrow anything from religion.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
We agree more than we don't. As I said, we usually don't call the axioms of science a "creed" but it is OK to do so in figurative speech.

I understood your original points, but the word creed have very specific meanings, meaning relating to religion, which have nothing to do with how science “do things”.

I also don’t think assumptions are all “religious” in nature.

Lots of assumptions made can be non-religious.

I just thought you might be equating assumption made in science with “religious assumption”. If I misunderstood your post, I’m sorry.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
The meaning of “supernatural”
Even if you are a vocal atheist, you still believe in your creed that there is no god. Given that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, to say that the lack of evidence for a supernatural being is enough to rule out its existence in some definitive sense is, well, an act of faith. It is belief in non-belief.
...
More to the point, they claim that the more they understand the world through their science, the more they admire God. To them, science is a form of religious devotion.

I find that both paragraphs to be nothing more than sophistry.

Even if one was to think, “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, and some people might think it still shouldn’t be rule out anything or anyone “supernatural” despite the lack of evidence, it is just another round-about way of accepting “supernatural” to be “true by-default”, regardless of zero evidence.

It is just a similar form to circular reasoning.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
You seems to be assuming that the word “assumption” are all “religious”. You seems to be conflating all assumptions to be religious.

You might do better to read philosophy.

All beliefs have underlying assumptions and just because your assumptions make sense to you hardly means they are correct.

Why must physics and metaphysics “inevitably borrow from religion”?

Nobody can function at all without beliefs and religion came first. Even the inventors of science had religion.

It is just a similar form to circular reasoning.

All reasoning is dependent on definitions and assumptions/ beliefs therefore all reasoning is circular. Why do you think science keeps getting itself in trouble? Spoiler alert; it's circular reasoning.
 
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