Is religion inferior to logic ?

[mikkel_the_dane]

When I was in the USA I was invited to attend
churches.

I'd thought they would be doing some sort of
challenging or thought provoking in matters of
ethics and morality. Things like that.

What a disappointment and waste of time it
always turned out to be.

How do you do the bold ones?

 

[MikeF]

Yeah, but that is not science as per objective observation and formal logic. That belongs to if you want to make it science sociology and psychology, and that can't be done only with your version of science.

It is science that shows us that there is no objective morality or ethics and no demonstrable external purpose to the Cosmos. Given this framework that science has established, it becomes abuntantly apparent that it is up to us to decide for ourselves what morals and ethics should be if we decide there should be morals and ethics. Further, science is necessary to understand ourselves, what forces are at play that make us who we are and behave in the ways that we do. That cannot be done without science. With that scientific understanding of ourselves, we can incorporate that understanding into any moral or ethical system we wish to create for ourselves.

So yes Mikkel, it can be done with my version of science.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is science that shows us that there is no objective morality or ethics and no demonstrable external purpose to the Cosmos. Given this framework that science has established, it becomes abuntantly apparent that it is up to us to decide for ourselves what morals and ethics should be if we decide there should be morals and ethics. Further, science is necessary to understand ourselves, what forces are at play that make us who we are and behave in the ways that we do. That cannot be done without science. With that scientific understanding of ourselves, we can incorporate that understanding into any moral or ethical system we wish to create for ourselves.

So yes Mikkel, it can be done with my version of science.

No, because you can't do norms doing science. You can describe different norms using science, but you can't make norms using science.
I tried to get you to find an example of using science to make norms and you didn't answer.
That is because of this:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

Science can describe norms, but it can't make norms.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Yeah, they turn into that. That is the main reason for backwardness of Muslim community in India - madarsas. Like homeopathy, that denies proper education to children.

Well, it should be regulated by govt.
I would imagine that lack of money is a big part of the problem, if
they struggle to get a good, broad education.

 

[MikeF]

No, because you can't do norms doing science. You can describe different norms using science, but you can't make norms using science.
I tried to get you to find an example of using science to make norms and you didn't answer.
That is because of this:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

Science can describe norms, but it can't make norms.

Who makes norms?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Who makes norms?

Different humans make different norms. That is sociology and has been observed since over 2000 years ago. In fact your trick is that you take your norms for granted for humanity, when you start using those as speaking as we. I then falsify and show the falsification by doing it as one of them. That is all.

You really have to move outside natural/hard science or you will keep claiming that you speak of a we, that is not there.
If you just observe and don't judge the norms, you can learn that there are different norms. Then you can learn that when you claim a norm, you are subjective like the rest of us. But that is something you have to learn. But that is in itself a norm, so that you have to learn it, is subjective.

 

[MikeF]

The most pithy explanation of why we won't be saved by reason is:

Bertie [Bertrand Russell] sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that human affairs are carried on in a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simple and easy, since all we had to do was carry them on rationally."

John Maynard Keynes

Perhaps it is time to address this Keynes quote directly. What this pithy remark fails to appreciate is the fact that irrationality was institutionalized at the society level in the almost complete ignorance of our ancient past. In addition to being institutionalized, institutional mechanisms were put in place to preserve and protect that irrationality to ensure its persistence in perpetuity. What can be institutionalized and be deinstitutionalized.

Keynes also makes no distinction between the affairs of the individual and the affairs of society as a whole. It is an important distinction. While it is true that one cannot make a semi-rational creature wholly rational, one *can* exert rationality upon the institutions that govern the interactions of semi-rational creatures. The pithy remark by Keynes seems to imply that rationality is even unavailable at the level of society as a whole.

If Russell's position refers expressly to the conduct of human affairs on the societal level, and such affairs can be conducted in a way other than completely irrationally, then I fail to see how his two positions qualify as “ludicrously incompatible”.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Perhaps it is time to address this Keynes quote directly. What this pithy remark fails to appreciate is the fact that irrationality was institutionalized at the society level in the almost complete ignorance of our ancient past. In addition to being institutionalized, institutional mechanisms were put in place to preserve and protect that irrationality to ensure its persistence in perpetuity. What can be institutionalized and be deinstitutionalized.

Keynes also makes no distinction between the affairs of the individual and the affairs of society as a whole. It is an important distinction. While it is true that one cannot make a semi-rational creature wholly rational, one *can* exert rationality upon the institutions that govern the interactions of semi-rational creatures. The pithy remark by Keynes seems to imply that rationality is even unavailable at the level of society as a whole.

If Russell's position refers expressly to the conduct of human affairs on the societal level, and such affairs can be conducted in a way other than completely irrationally, then I fail to see how his two positions qualify as “ludicrously incompatible”.

Yeah, if you in effect can do objective rationality and not just are taking your subjective version for granted. But you are not even close as long as you can't doubt that we can do it better with science.

 

[F1fan]

When I was in the USA I was invited to attend
churches.

I'd thought they would be doing some sort of
challenging or thought provoking in matters of
ethics and morality. Things like that.

What a disappointment and waste of time it
always turned out to be.

My first college specialized in engineering but it was associated with the Mennonite church, and once I was accepted it turned out it was required to attend the morning church service twice during the week. They didn't care if you were an atheist or a Hindu, you had to attend. They didn't care if students showed up in pajamas and wrapped in a blanket, and then fell asleep for the whole service, your *** had to be there. They were the usual boring church services, not interesting in the slightest. I couldn't believe it, and I only stayed one semester. The Mennonites were pretty cool people, but Jeeeez, it's college. I'm paying to have religion shoved down my throat? Some years later they ended the requirement due to complaints.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Well, it should be regulated by govt.
I would imagine that lack of money is a big part of the problem, if
they struggle to get a good, broad education.

In that case they will cry interference in their religious matters. But we are getting hold of the problem.
There is no dearth of government schools and the school education is free; but the religion, community and clerics pressurize parents.

 

[MikeF]

Yeah, if you in effect can do objective rationality and not just are taking your subjective version for granted. But you are not even close as long as you can't doubt that we can do it better with science.

Mikkel, Mikkel, Mikkel. Science is all about self skepticism. It is all about continually reevaluating positions and is always *required* in light of new information.

Nothing is taken for granted Mikkel. Proof is in the pudding.

 

[PureX]

This statement would be laughably naive if I felt you truly believed it. I would agree that, in considering the category of belief sets we label Religion, the requirement to prevent the learning of other ideas is not a necessary feature to qualify the belief set as a religious one. What is naive about your statement is that although such a feature is not a requirement for the class Religion, it is a dominant feature of those beliefs.

This is just flat out untrue.

I was raised Catholic, and went to Catholic schools through grade 9. And never once was I discouraged from investigating any non-Cathollc ideology. Never once did I hear any admonishment against doing so in Sunday service or see it in any church literature. I was taught about evolution in 6th grade biology class. I was taught nothing that would countermand the validity of the scientific process. I participated in class discussions with priests regarding the origins and function of religious mythology, as mythology. When I was a little older I became an avid reader and kept at it for many years. And at no time was I ever discouraged from doing so in favor of some religious dogma.

Catholicism represents a very big portion of a very big global religion. And I had Protestant and Methodist friends that grew up in very much the same way as I did. No one ever told them what ideas they could or could not pursue. And even if someone had wanted to, they had absolutely no way of enforcing it. I am no longer Catholic or affiliated with any other religion. So clearly no one was able to blind me to alternative ideologies.

Your above statement is nothing but a commonly held bias among people that for whatever reason have decided to make religion into some sort of giant boogeyman or scapegoat for mankind's irrational superstitions and willful ignorance. When in truth it is far more then that, and very often active in dispelling that.

Now, in considering societies obligations to its citizens, is it your position that society or government should subsidize and even promote the indoctrination of children into a narrow set of beliefs that has within the core tenets of those beliefs to both create an emotional dependency on the belief set, and to explicitly prohibit the consideration of beliefs outside of the belief set?

What? What I am saying is that religion is at least as significant a part of the human experience as science, art, and economics are. And it's the only one that tends to focus specifically on ethics based morality. So we should at least be teaching our kids a general overview of religion, and give them some means of comparing and evaluating them.

If you truly believed that we should encourage the widest array of beliefs as a means of enabling possibility, such self-perpetuating and isolating belief systems in one and only one belief set would seem antithetical to that goal, and anathema to you.

Yes, but the existence of this "self-perpetuating and isolating belief systems" ability to actually isolate anyone is just a bigot's myth. Every person's participation in any religion is voluntary. They all have access to other ideologies, and they all choose whether or not to investigate them. Human beings are free agents. Especially when it comes to their own mind.

You seem to hold to this strange idea that religions have the power to control people's minds. And that simply is not true. All any ideology can ever do is offer us intellectual possibilities. WE choose to either adopt them or not to.

We can expose them (children) to the meta-idea of political systems but we cannot expose them to the meta-idea of different religions?

When they are ready and able to understand and assess the options, we can, and should. I left Catholicism when I was about 16 years old. But I was not able to develop my own cohesive position on religion until I was about 20. And on theism much later. Dumping comparative religions, or comparative politics, or comparative philosophy on 10 year olds is just stupid. It's only going to confuse them. But as the intellect matures, it will become ready for such complexity and assessment. And they will then begin to seek it out, if they are so inclined. W should make it available to them, and give them a means of assessing them. After that, it will be up to them.

Plus you have made an excellent point for my side of the argument against indoctrinating children in dependency forming belief systems,

Sadly, you cannot seem to differentiate between most common expressions of religion and the "indoctrinating (people) in dependency forming belief systems". Your bigotry against religion as 'the big cultural boogeyman' is blinding you to the reality of it. And if you are not willing to try and see past this nonsense there is nowhere for this discussion to go.

Religion will still be taught at home and in the church so nothing is lost by eliminating religious schools in that regard. But in terms of public policy, it would seem in societies interest that *every* child gets a well rounded education.

A well rounded education would surely include an in depth overview of the world's religions and an effective means of comparing them.

 

[Jimmy]

Intuition is superior to religion and logic.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Mikkel, Mikkel, Mikkel. Science is all about self skepticism. It is all about continually reevaluating positions and is always *required* in light of new information.

Nothing is taken for granted Mikkel. Proof is in the pudding.

Or the lack of proof. If you think you can get positive proof for what you believe, then you are not a skeptic. So you have to be prepared that your version of science is wrong. Are you prepared for that?

 

[F1fan]

This is just flat out untrue.

I was raised Catholic, and went to Catholic schools through grade 9.

Raised Catholic. Given this influence how likely would it be that you strayed from Catholicism?

My 9 Catholic cousins remain Catholic, as it is a tight tribal social system. I remember how my cousins hated mass. On Christmas eve many of them would get together and go to midnight mass so they had all Christmas day free to relax. I think two of them have abandonded Catholicism since their parents died and well into their adulthood.

As a kid who was NOT directly raised in any religion I could see I had the freedom my cousins did not. Could any of them decided to stop being Catholic? In my mind, yes. But they did not think they had any actual choice, they were raised to be obligated to Catholicism. My other cousins were Southern Baptist, and they were raised to believe in creationism. Having witnessed my cousins being raised in religious circumstances I'm happy that I wasn't. I had influence by my grandmother and her presbyterian church, but I still had serious doubts about Christianity by watching my family struggle under religious belief. All this helped me question religion as truly free from indoctrination and family/social pressure.

 

[Audie]

Mikkel, Mikkel, Mikkel. Science is all about self skepticism. It is all about continually reevaluating positions and is always *required* in light of new information.

Nothing is taken for granted Mikkel. Proof is in the pudding.

When will they ever learn
Oh when will they
Ever learn

 

[MikeF]

When will they ever learn
Oh when will they
Ever learn

I'm quite certain he holds that same sentiment towards me.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

When will they ever learn
Oh when will they
Ever learn

Well, it is not about science. It is about morality. So dream on.
And as always, there is the Nobel prize for you, if you can do this using science, for what science can't do:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

undsci.berkeley.edu

 

[muhammad_isa]

In that case they will cry interference in their religious matters.

In the UK, any school for children has to include core subjects, and they are inspected by govt.
Govt. do not interfere with any religious syllabus, in single religion schools.

Obviously, if they have reports that they are teaching people to hate others or
preaching violence, they would be shut down.

As you know, historically the UK is a Christian country.
The King, crowned today, promotes religious belief and social cohesion.

 

[Audie]

My first college specialized in engineering but it was associated with the Mennonite church, and once I was accepted it turned out it was required to attend the morning church service twice during the week. They didn't care if you were an atheist or a Hindu, you had to attend. They didn't care if students showed up in pajamas and wrapped in a blanket, and then fell asleep for the whole service, your *** had to be there. They were the usual boring church services, not interesting in the slightest. I couldn't believe it, and I only stayed one semester. The Mennonites were pretty cool people, but Jeeeez, it's college. I'm paying to have religion shoved down my throat? Some years later they ended the requirement due to complaints.

I dont have much experience with Christianity.
It's small minority in HK mostly expat westerners.

The inpression I get of christianity from RF
is I hope not like what most christians are like-?