Is religion inferior to logic ?

[ImmortalFlame]

How do you experience directly as the Universe that it is infantile? What do you mean by that? If I am using infantile thoughts is that then in the Universe?

I'm done.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm done.

How do you experience that directly as the Universe?

 

[MikeF]

No. Atheism actually DOES deny the claims made by theists. And not only are there good reasons to reject the claims, to reject an unsubstantiated claim is the logical default. If you claimed to be Santa Claus the logiocal default is doubt and rejecting your claim, until you can demonstrate you ARE Santa Claus.

I do not disagree, but whether or not the atheistic position is valid is immaterial to the definition, isn't it? Especially if one is an atheist through complete ignorance of theistic claims. No position is taken, no denial occurs in that case.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I do not disagree, but whether or not the atheistic position is valid is immaterial to the definition, isn't it? Especially if one is an atheist through complete ignorance of theistic claims. No position is taken, no denial occurs in that case.

Let me explain it as a former atheist. All atheists do is to state they lack positive beliefs in gods. They rest they say have nothing to do with them being atheists. So if they claim they make a rational argument, it is irrelevant if they are atheists or not. That has nothing to do with if they make a rational argument. Ignore that they are atheists for anything other than they state they are atheists. That is all it means. They lack positive beliefs in gods. The rest they claim are irrelevant to them being atheists.

 

[MikeF]

This is good question, since it bring to light the main difference between science and religion. God is a 3-D concept, since the concept of God covers all the bases of known and unknown reality, simultaneously, in time and space. God, as concept, may be nebulous but it has to integrate even opposites, which science leaves separate since this easier.

Science is more 2-D and differential; cause and affect. Like in calculus, Science is good at differentiating reality; slope at a point on a curve, while religion is more about integrating; area under the curve. This makes religion superior, since it is harder to integrate data, than it is to differentiate it. The latter only needs better tools; better telescopes, while the former needs more brain power; seeing data plus evolve theory toward 3-D. The new space telescope has given us picture of galaxies that formed earlier in the universe than was expected based on the current theory. Science is stuck perpetuating obsolete theory since it is easier to see than to synthesize.

Religion went through a stage growth from polytheism to monotheism. Science is still in its own rational polytheism stage. This throw back to polytheism, is connected to specialization and specialty theory that cannot transcend its own specialty niche. What does biology teach us about particle physics, since both are about what science calls hard reality. They cannot, in their current form, tell you anything about each other. One is the goddess of rain and other the god of fire. Religion advanced to one theory; God, that covers all the bases at a conceptual level; God is 3-D. Fire and rain are part of a whole, just like good and evil is part of a single coin. Science can only see one side of that coin, at a time; differential or 2-D.

Science cannot yet differentiate God; have proof or disproof, never mind integrate God with Science. Whereas, religion has concepts like an omniscience God. Religion has an extra, but intuitive fuzzy z-axis beyond cause; x, and affect; y. The z-axis requires one learn to use internal sensory systems when moving around data; mediation, prayer, intuition and faith.

I am able, as a trained scientist, to develop integral theories, by making use of 3-D thinking skills I learned from religion; right brain. I used science to help me differentiate, the brain's firmware and operating system data. I learned integral thinking by seeing how the inner self, placed these parts back in 3-D. I could break it down into parts but could not puts the piece back together; dissociated state of mind. The inner self helped to reorganize and I watched and helped fit it together.

Science is like going into the woods, and losing track of the forest because of the trees; so many firmware expression. It approaches reality based on the specialty data in front of your nose. The theories of Religion are more integral and 3-D and sees the forest from the top of the ridge, and therefore can see all the trees of the forest in terms of patterns and wholeness. However, it cannot see each tree in the same level of detail as science; the religious theory of creation lacks the details of theory of evolution. But science cannot fully see what other specialty areas of science are doing, so it can not design 3-D theory that can cross the boundaries of all specialties. How does the BB theory impact evolution of life leading to the rise of civilization ? This requires integrating physics, with biology and psychology, which are now like three different specialty gods in science, each with its own jargon and ways to worship.

Science has de-evolved over the past century due to too much dependency on casino math and science. As an example, when the weatherman says there is a 50% chance of rain, what does that mean? The god of the oracle has spoken. This casino science approach to weather is very subjective, and can mean what you want it to mean; half the day, half the hours, or we need to call the bookie and place a bet, thereby allowing any bad theory to appear rational. Coffee is good today but bad tomorrow based on who spins the wheel of fortune; statistical experience and whims of the gods.

The consensus of science is now based on politics and fads and not reason. Why did science allow this subjective dumb down? The answer is politics has the money for the gambling. Science needs to sober up; go to gamblers anonymous and return to 2-D science, instead of stay regressed at 1.5-D science; not fully rational but with emotional appeal, usually fear. They're a casino science bogeymen everywhere. Everything has finite odds own any given day. This may be the hottest season on record or the sun is acting funny so be on guard. This is lower than religion. Science needs to right the ship.

Not sure if you are interested in a contrasting opinion to the views expressed here. Let me know if you are.

If you were, I would first ask if you agree human beings can imagine non-existent thinks or things that are not possible. If so, how does one determine whether an idea is a non-existent abstract idea or is something that is impossible to exist or occur?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure if you are interested in a contrasting opinion to the views expressed here. Let me know if you are.

If you were, I would first ask if you agree human beings can imagine non-existent thinks or things that are not possible. If so, how does one determine whether an idea is a non-existent abstract idea or is something that is impossible to exist or occur?

Start with the Thomas theorem and learn to understand how that works in practice for all humans including you.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In contrast to you, it seems, my intent is certainly not to preach to the choir.

Is that how you understood me? You're in the choir, right - a fellow unbeliever on RF. Preaching is telling others how or what to think. I told you what I think and why for any possible benefit that might be to you or others, as when I explained that I don't consider faith-based thinkers reachable and am not trying to convince them of anything using evidenced argument for the reasons given. That's not me preaching to anybody, but some might find the comment thought-provoking even if they think otherwise, which I suspect is the case with you. You seem to think that you can teach something to people who decide what's true by faith, and maybe you're right, but that's to a goal for me if my potential student is resisting that.

Perhaps it is merely wishful thinking on my part, but anecdotally I have seen softening in the position of others or the sincere acknowledgment of a valid point that I have made. I see it as baby steps. But I also see where the discussion style and approach of others does nothing but entrench the other person in their position. Approaches that exacerbate confirmation bias rather than mitigate it.

OK, but as you know, I'm no longer willing to expend more than a minimal effort making reasoned arguments to people who have no expertise or interest there, and once I understand that I'm dealing with a faith-based confirmation bias, it's kind of like discovering that the other guy doesn't speak your language.

Anecdote: I live in Mexico and was stunned recently to have been served by a non-Spanish speaking waiter. I always order in Spanish both to be respectful and to practice Spanish (I'm not fluent and must sound terrible to a native speaker, but I'm understood). This guy's trying to understand me and is translating back to English as best he can. I eventually learn that he's a non-Spanish speaking (Mexican)-American who married a Mexican wife and immigrated to her home country like we did, where he now tries to make a living not knowing the native language.

Once I understood that, not another word of Spanish came from my mouth. And if I didn't know English, I would have stopped talking to him altogether and turned to pointing at pictures on the menu or pantomime like we used to do (my wife once let a vendor know that she wanted a chicken breast by lifting one of her own because she didn't know the Spanish word - I guess I should be grateful she didn't want it boned), because why bother when you don't speak the same language?

I see this exercise similarly. Once I realize that the other guy doesn't speak my language (I already know that I don't speak his), I find no value in continuing down that path.

“Thinking critically” does not guarantee the use of common sense, in my opinion.

You use the phrase common sense as if the average person is sensible.

 

[F1fan]

Once the ego is involved, it certainly won’t retreat in the face of full frontal assault from a perceived adversary.

Or even honest questions.

Best to walk away from ‘debates’ when they reach that point imo.

Is that how you approach the search for truth, to retreat and walk away? That's one way to defend bad faith.

Those who have a sincere interest in what's true have the courage to face any question and consider it.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Or even honest questions.

Is that how you approach the search for truth, to retreat and walk away? That's one way to defend bad faith.

Those who have a sincere interest in what's true have the courage to face any question and consider it.

Those who have a sincere interest in what is true tend to have open minds, and will seldom be found in entrenched positions.

 

[F1fan]

They are choosing to trust and act in hope of the positive outcome. That is quite logical when knowledge of the outcome is not available to us.

Not when it involves intervention by magical beings like gods, angels, etc.

If the atheist is also agnostic, then he has already agreed that he cannot gain the truth.

Arguably EVERYONE is agnostioc where it comes to any of the many gods. No one has any knowledge in regards to what theists believe. No one has any facts and data to rely on when considering god concepts. This is why theists rely on faith instead of reason, and why atheists rely on reason and can't conclude any gods exist.

So your whole "we love the truth" argument flies out the window. Leaving you with either faith as justification for your constant assertion that no one else's belief in God is valid, or with no justification at all.

Who cares what others believe when their belief isn't based on evidence?

 

[F1fan]

Those who have a sincere interest in what is true tend to have open minds, and will seldom be found in entrenched positions.

That's atheists. We are open to hearing valid arguments based on reason. Even theists will reject the faith claims of any theist that differs from their own beliefs, atheists just reject yours too. Why? Lack of evidence. How is faith reliable when there are so many different types of religious belief, and all justify their version of "truth" via the emotional experience they are tempted to use?

Open minded does not mean guilible. To have an open mind that functions as a relibale tool still requires using reason and being able to monitor emotions and temptation to believe. Why aren't believers open to considering their irrational beliefs are not credible?

 

[viole]

Those who have a sincere interest in what is true tend to have open minds, and will seldom be found in entrenched positions.

The atheist’s mind is like a window in summer. Open, but with good filters against bugs.

ciao

- viole

 

[MikeF]

Is that how you understood me? You're in the choir, right - a fellow unbeliever on RF. Preaching is telling others how or what to think. I told you what I think and why for any possible benefit that might be to you or others, as when I explained that I don't consider faith-based thinkers reachable and am not trying to convince them of anything using evidenced argument for the reasons given. That's not me preaching to anybody, but some might find the comment thought-provoking even if they think otherwise, which I suspect is the case with you. You seem to think that you can teach something to people who decide what's true by faith, and maybe you're right, but that's to a goal for me if my potential student is resisting that.

Yes, I'm in the choir.

Preaching to the choir is simply an expression to mean expressing your opinion to (or for) those who already share your opinions. The imagery came to me when you said, "I'm answering the believer in my replies, but writing for the other critical thinkers-". Which is fine. We understand where the other is coming from. Yes, like you, the hope is not to come across as preaching, rather, presenting a view that seems unique to the converstation in hopes that it is thought-provoking, or, as can be the case, prompts someone to show me what I may be missing and thus give me something to think about.

OK, but as you know, I'm no longer willing to expend more than a minimal effort making reasoned arguments to people who have no expertise or interest there, and once I understand that I'm dealing with a faith-based confirmation bias, it's kind of like discovering that the other guy doesn't speak your language.

Which is perfectly fine. Since my goals and strategies are not your own, disregard my suggestions as I'm sure was done immediately. Those who share my goals my consider my suggestions and experiment with them or reject them outright as they see fit.

Anecdote: I live in Mexico and was stunned recently to have been served by a non-Spanish speaking waiter. I always order in Spanish both to be respectful and to practice Spanish (I'm not fluent and must sound terrible to a native speaker, but I'm understood). This guy's trying to understand me and is translating back to English as best he can. I eventually learn that he's a non-Spanish speaking (Mexican)-American who married a Mexican wife and immigrated to her home country like we did, where he now tries to make a living not knowing the native language.

Once I understood that, not another word of Spanish came from my mouth. And if I didn't know English, I would have stopped talking to him altogether and turned to pointing at pictures on the menu or pantomime like we used to do (my wife once let a vendor know that she wanted a chicken breast by lifting one of her own because she didn't know the Spanish word - I guess I should be grateful she didn't want it boned), because why bother when you don't speak the same language?

I see this exercise similarly. Once I realize that the other guy doesn't speak my language (I already know that I don't speak his), I find no value in continuing down that path.

Got it. For me there is the intellectual challenge of attempting to bridge the language barrier, but it is not an interest shared by everyone.

You use the phrase common sense as if the average person is sensible.

That was not the intent. The intent was to suggest that smart people can sometimes do things that are contrary to their interest despite being smart.

 

[PureX]

No. They have come to a provisional position that the case for god(s) has not been made, so there is no good reason to accept it.

But that's not agnosticism.

We all live with the fact that there are true things that we don't know yet.

But that's not agnosticism.

That nobody to date has come up with a reason to take the various god-concepts seriously as true proposition is just a fact.

Actually, that's simply not true. Billions of people all over te world take the god-concept very seriously and consider it to be their truth. And the reason they do it is because it functions as true for them in their lives.

Do you think at all about what you're posting?

Again, this is not intellectually difficult. It's just what most people do with any other unevidenced claims.

But that's very clearly not what most people are doing with the theist claim, and they all have evidence to support their choice. While all you have is, "I'm not convinced". And yet as an agnostic you have already accepted that you can't know the existence or nature of God. So why are you even demnding to be convinced? It makes no sense.

 

[MikeF]

Actually, that's simply not true. Billions of people all over te world take the god-concept very seriously and consider it to be their truth. And the reason they do it is because it functions as true for them in their lives.

Do you think at all about what you're posting?

I enjoyed this comment. A placebo can have an objective, measurable effect.

 

[PureX]

Again, no. You're making very broad generalisations here. There are religious agnostic atheists.

Name three groups of "religious agnostic atheists" that involve even 100 people. Or name three of them that post on RF.

No. There are lots of non-theistic religions and lots of non-theistic spiritual beliefs. We're talking all beliefs in any form of afterlife, any belief in spirits in general, any beliefs that can remotely be described as religious. It's absurd to say there are "Only a handful" of such people.

Name two non-theistic religions besides Buddhism. (And even Buddhism could be considered a theology.)

They're atheists as long as they don't believe a God exists. They can still believe literally anything and everything else.

And they're still only a very small fraction of the atheist population, which it itself only a fraction of the whole population. Because the huge majority of humans are theists.

So I'm not over-generalizing at all, as it turns out.

You can still believe something without claiming to know with certainty, and you don't need faith for that.

Anyone can believe anything fo any reason they want to. Certainty is neither required nor expected.

Faith and trust are not quite the same thing. You can have a good reason to have trust in something, or you can deny trust for good reason. Faith doesn't necessarily require good reasons, but is belief in spite of a lack of reasons to believe or an abundance of reasons to not believe.

Faith is not belief, and belief is not faith. They share some common motives, but that does not make the the same things.

So, just wishful thinking, then?

"Just"?

Such is life as a human being.

 

[Augustus]

Atheism seems to be a religios term that contains the set of those who do not share a specific set of beliefs about reality. In this sense, to a Catholic priest, all Budhist, Hindu's, Muslims, and really, other Christian denomination that vary in the specific properties, expectations, and requirements of an entity would be atheists, those who do not believe in the specific set of claims about reality.

I see a non-believer in fictional religious claims about reality self-identifying as an atheist as legitimizing the framework and premesis of the religious. By arguing against theistic constructs in theistic terms, the non-bleiver creates a confirmation bias in the believer that there is really something there to argue about.

What would the "framework and premises of the religious" be though?

Religion is not really about belief, but the need for meaning, and rejecting all forms of theism and all traditional religions wouldn't change this as the search for meaning is intrinsic to the human condition. Even among Abrahamic monotheists, the idea that God 'exists' in the sense that the sun and moon exist, is far from universal.

There is far less difference between theistic and atheistic, and religious and irreligious ideologies than many people seem to think.

For example, if the response was, “No, I’m a non-fictionalist”, you have immediately created some cognitive dissonance between the reference frame the Christian began the exchange in and the one that has been shifted to by declaring one’s self a non-fictionalist and placing the Christians question under the framework of all that is imagined and non-existent.

"All that is imagined and non-existent" would include most sources of meaning that operate at the mass scale and make us feel part of something bigger than the self (ideologies, religions, etc.).

For example, humanism relies on a concept of Humanity as some kind of collective agent, rather than simply being individual animals with diverse values and interests that often are at odds with each other. A progressive view of history, be it utopian or melioristic, is the defining characteristic of humanistic belief systems.

The idea that atheism should simply be viewed as 'nothing' might be normatively desirable, but in a world shaped so much by theistic convention, is really just one part of a larger worldview that fulfils and individual's search for meaning and reflects the environment in which one exists.

 

[PureX]

I enjoyed this comment. A placebo can have an objective, measurable effect.

And it can do so when nothing else can. So why would we want or expect anyone not to engage it when they need what it can do for them?

 

[MikeF]

And it can do so when nothing else can. So why would we want or expect anyone not to engage it when they need what it can do for them?

It raises ethical questions. Is it ethical to indoctrinate children into a placebo belief system and engender emotional dependence on that placebo belief system before they have fully cognitively developed? Who is to say whether such a placebo was necessary for that individual but for the fact that they were indoctrinated into it? Who is to say for that child, which placebo is best among all that are out there (if one should be required in adulthood)?

And yes, there is ethical issue also in how to handle things once someone has been indoctrinated and the emotional dependency has formed.

Just because it is difficult to change a faulty system, does not mean a means should not be sought. Just as you might argue there is pain in changes necessary to combat climate change, the need to endure the pain prevents much worse pain and enables sustainability.

 

[PureX]

It raises ethical questions. Is it ethical to indoctrinate children into a placebo belief system and engender emotional dependence on that placebo belief system before they have fully cognitively developed?

First, we don't actually know, in this case, that it is a 'placebo'. We only know that it could be. Secondly, as animals born in ignorance, we are going to be "indoctrinated" one way or another by the people, places, and things that we are going to be living with for the rest of our lives.

Who is to say whether such a placebo was necessary for that individual but for the fact that they were indoctrinated into it?

We all decide to do as we will with the information that we've been given. There is no such thing as having total control or having total freedom from the control of others. Everyone plays the hand their dealt.

Who is to say for that child, which placebo is best among all that are out there (if one should be required in adulthood)?

The family and the community the child is born into decide until the child becomes an adult and can decide for himself. Ultimately, the responsibility falls on everyone, but to varying degrees.

And yes, there is ethical issue also in how to handle things once someone has been indoctrinated and the emotional dependency has formed.

Some emotional dependency is inevitable for all of us.

Just because it is difficult to change a faulty system, does not mean a means should not be sought. Just as you might argue there is pain in changes necessary to combat climate change, the need to endure the pain prevents much worse pain and enables sustainability.

The future of humanity is in it's own hands. And it is a collective responsibility. The more "individuaized" and selfish we become, the more likely it is that we will not survive it.