Is religion inferior to logic ?

[mikkel_the_dane]

True, there's no absolute certainty about anything, but this "physicalism" is so extensively evidenced that doubting it would be bizarre. Evidence For Bibleism, on the other hand is sparse to nonexistent.

We 'physicalists' try to avoid faith. We want hard, demonstrable evidence. Science and reason are the closest we have to objective certainty. Religious faith isn't even a close second.
If we don't accept objective evidence there's no reason to accept anything.

First up, religion is not Bibleism.
Secondly your argument ends in that it doesn't make sense to you to understand the world differently.
How do I know that? Well, it is a technique in critical thinking and skepticism and was described by David Hume, a skeptic. For any text and that includes yours check it for first person subjective evaluations, that is without objective evidence in effect.
Now since you can do critical thinking and skepticism, you can check your own text and point out, when you are not objective and in effect make a subjective evaluation of how to make sense and how that matterrs.

In short, your faith, that there is only one kind of critical thinking and sketpicism, is false, because there are several versions of it.
And as a skeptic, I am just as skeptical of your thinking and feelings as I am skeptical of all claims of how the world works and what matters.
And yes, that includes my own world view.
Where as you are normal in that you doubt any other world view than your own.
So you are a sceintific skeptic and I am a general one. And you are as easy prey as anyone else, who don't doubt their own world view.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Mikkel is the hard one.
Shunyadragon is the strange one.
For me.

 

[shunyadragon]

You do not even know whether God exists or not or what properties does he have. How do you claim that the essence and nature God is unknowable and beyond human comprehension?

The properties and essence of God are reflected in the attributes of our physical existence. I acknowledge that belief in God is not supported by objective evidence, my present argument is addressing the problems of the many conflicting ancient beliefs in a 'hand's on' anthropomorphic Gods.

As to why I believe I have addressed this many times before with you in the past dialogues. Unlike other combative aggressive Theists I acknowledge the reasonableness of the atheist and agnostic perspective.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, in general it is a string of words that claim something is so.
Short: a statement or assertion that expresses a judgement or opinion.
Long: A proposition is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields, often characterized as the primary bearer of truth or falsity. Propositions are also often characterized as being the kind of thing that declarative sentences denote.

That connects to your version of evidence as a system, because evidence functions like true or false in regards to claims.
- The leaves on the tree are green.
- God is the creator of the universe.
- I am rational.
- Evidence is ... (insert claim of what it is).
- It is wrong to kill another human.
- The universe is physical.

The list goes on and we end in that even you use claims, which are not true according to your system of evidence. But that is not unique to you or even me. Nobody in recorded history have made a system, that works in the effect of only objective, true claims.
The everyday limit is this:

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

undsci.berkeley.edu

So if you claim good, useful and what matters, it is not true as per evidence. Your system is that a claim of sometihng be so is only relevant with evidence. But the problem is that it is relevant is without evidence.

Your excellent reference does not support your claims over the history of your posts. Yes it acknowledges the limits of science in real terms as not being able to falsify 'subjective' claims, but it still supports Methodological Naturalism based on 'objective verifiable evidence' concerning the physical nature of our existence. You would be better trying to cite Nihilist sources to support your argument.

The 'whole reference' 'Understanding Science 101 is relevant to the question of what is 'objective versus subjective' concerning the nature of our physical existence.

 

[Whateverist]

True, there's no absolute certainty about anything, but this "physicalism" is so extensively evidenced

I never try to doubt the physical but neither do I doubt that there is nothing about anything physical which can come to my notice except by way of our sensory/cognitive capacity. So what we know about what’s out there gets screened by our only capacity to know it at all. How our consciousness arises amid the physical is an interesting question.

Maybe part of the physical just emerges as life that evolves to include consciousness like ours. Then again maybe consciousness comes first existing in some phase form in everything, from inert matter to life forms. It is tempting to assume consciousness is just something brains emit once they reach some degree of complexity but even a single cell slime mold demonstrate purposeful behavior. So I lean toward consciousness and matter being co-basic.

Since we know so little about this arrangement i have serious doubts that these brains of ours have the capacity to grasp it all. That leaves me reluctant to opine about what all must be or could never be true. Epistemic humility is called for.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Your excellent reference does not support your claims over the history of your posts. Yes it acknowledges the limits of science in real terms, but it still supports Methodological Naturalism based on 'objective verifiable evidence' concerning the physical nature of our existence. You would be better trying to cite Nihilist sources to support your argument.

Well, we in effect don't agree on this:
"epistemology, the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge."
for the meaning of the bold one.
You draw the understanding of where the limit is differently than me. And my limit is to you nihilism.
Or if you want it with other words from within philosophy:
"Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into a conflict with the world. This conflict can be between rational man and an irrational universe, between intention and outcome, or between subjective assessment and objective worth. But the precise definition of the term is disputed. Absurdism claims that the world as a whole is absurd. It differs in this regard from the less global thesis that some particular situations, persons, or phases in life are absurd."

I do a varaint of that in that any version of trying to understand the whole of the human existence in the world including the world as such is not rational and meaningfull in a postive sense. Rather I get in a sense that it doesn't add up.
But I am not a believer in "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated."
Rather I am absurd in that I believe in values, though those are irrational and meaningless for the whole of the world, when tried to be grounded in the world as such.

Regards

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That’s absurd.

Can you have evidence that unicorns “don’t exist”?

How do you show evidence that pixies “don’t exist”?


You cannot show evidence for anything that “don’t exist”.

The lack of evidence demonstrated that “what you believe” is improbable.

In science. When you do have sufficient evidence (and sufficient data) for any model, whether it be “for” or “against”, you have not only demonstrated that the model is testable (and therefore falsifiable), but you can make determination or reach conclusion that such a model…:

• …have VERIFIED the model as being “true” & being “probable”,
• …have REFUTED the model, so the model is “false” and “improbable“.

While the second outcome (from the above illustration), you would have refuted either a weak or incorrect model, the refuted hypothesis is still falsifiable, because it is both testable and have been tested.

it is good that you can demonstrate that you can refute a concept, model, hypothesis or theory, because you would know that you have gone down the wrong track. Weeding out hypotheses that are incorrect or weak are the reasons for having Scientific Method in the first place, is to not accept any refuted and yet falsifiable hypothesis.

evidence are important to science, because it is independent to what a person like/dislike, or believe/disbelieve; evidence should mitigate bias from any personal biases one may have.

On the other hand, the lack of evidence or the absence of evidence, means the concept or claim is unfalsifiable, untestable and ultimately cannot be tested. Such concept or claim would be deemed not only as improbable but also impossible, unrealistic and unreasonable, but also pseudoscience, and from Scientific Method, the untestable concept/claim would disqualify it from even being called a “hypothesis“.

The concepts of theological creationism (eg OEC, YEC, etc), including the Intelligent Design (ID), because of the introduction of some sorts of god-like entity, eg God, Creator, Designer, etc, be the “causes” of creation or design.

If such “causes” exist, then there should be evidence for cause. As there are zero evidence for the Creator or for the Designer, then not only they are unfalsifiable, so are Creationism and Intelligent Design.

The problems with creationism and with ID with their reliance on faulty assumptions, reasoning with confirmation biases or cognitive biases, or with logical fallacies of one kind or another, eg argument from ignorance, circular reasoning, false equivalence (especially when they use analogies), appeal to authority, etc.

I often see you putting science in the same boat with religion, but they are not the same.

Well, science is another belief system than religion, but they both share that they have limits in pratice.
So in short - you can with science show that there is no evidence for God.
But you can't show that you shouldn't beliieve in God, becasue that is an ought and science can't do that.
So for how you know how you ought to live your live, science doesn't work. That is the epistemilogical limit of science.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, we in effect don't agree on this:
"epistemology, the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge."

I clearly acknowledge the limits as cited in the source 'Understanding Science 101,' but you apparently do not agree with the source you cited. This represents a contradiction on your view of the nature of our existence

for the meaning of the bold one.
You draw the understanding of where the limit is differently than me. And my limit is to you nihilism.
Or if you want it with other words from within philosophy:
"Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into a conflict with the world. This conflict can be between rational man and an irrational universe, between intention and outcome, or between subjective assessment and objective worth. But the precise definition of the term is disputed. Absurdism claims that the world as a whole is absurd. It differs in this regard from the less global thesis that some particular situations, persons, or phases in life are absurd."

I do a varaint of that in that any version of trying to understand the whole of the human existence in the world including the world as such is not rational and meaningfull in a postive sense. Rather I get in a sense that it doesn't add up.
But I am not a believer in "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated."
Rather I am absurd in that I believe in values, though those are irrational and meaningless for the whole of the world, when tried to be grounded in the world as such.

Regards

Previously when you rejected the 'objective' and stated everything is subjective' you are rejecting that science cannot communicate what can be known 'objectively' concerning to understand the physical nature of our existence. Science never tries to understand the whole of the human existence in the world including the world.

Yes, your view approaches the Nihilist view as to what can be known or communicated as the objective.A more complete definition of Nihilism as follows: Finding Purpose Through Nihilism | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson.

As a start, “nihilism” is commonly defined as “the belief that life is meaningless.” A fuller definition would further add that nihilism is the belief that life has no objective meaning. In other words, nihilists suppose that there is no single, factually-correct meaning to life that unites all of humanity.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, science is another belief system than religion, but they both share that they have limits in pratice.
So in short - you can with science show that there is no evidence for God.
But you can't show that you shouldn't beliieve in God, becasue that is an ought and science can't do that.
So for how you know how you ought to live your live, science doesn't work. That is the epistemilogical limit of science.

One of the problems is you consider science 'as another 'subjective belief system' and like the Nihilists reject the understanding of the objective nature of our existence as science., and yes acknowledging the limits of science as you cited.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I clearly acknowledge the limits as cited in the source 'Understanding Science 101,' but you apparently do not agree with the source you cited. This represents a contradiction on your view of the nature of our existence



Previously when you rejected the 'objective' and stated everything is subjective' you are rejecting that science cannot communicate what can be known 'objectively' concerning to understand the physical nature of our existence. Science never tries to understand the whole of the human existence in the world including the world.

Yes, your view approaches the Nihilist view as to what can be known or communicated as the objective.A more complete definition of Nihilism as follows: Finding Purpose Through Nihilism | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson.

As a start, “nihilism” is commonly defined as “the belief that life is meaningless.” A fuller definition would further add that nihilism is the belief that life has no objective meaning. In other words, nihilists suppose that there is no single, factually-correct meaning to life that unites all of humanity.

"nihilism is the belief that life has no objective meaning."
That is correct as far as I can tell.
As for everything is subjective, then no, but rather that objective has a limit. So if I claimed that everything is subjective. I was wrong.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

One of the problems is you consider science 'as another 'subjective belief system' and like the Nihilists reject the understanding of the objective nature of our existence as science., and yes acknowledging the limits of science as you cited.

Well, we end in nitpicking on what objective is. And what science is. But that is how that is.
You use a certain version of those 2 and I properly use another version.

 

[Windwalker]

True, there's no absolute certainty about anything, but this "physicalism" is so extensively evidenced that doubting it would be bizarre. Evidence For Bibleism, on the other hand is sparse to nonexistent.

I had this discussion with someone else recently, but to the mythic-literal believer, they see their view of the world as "extensively evidenced" as you do. To them, it is nonsense that someone cannot see their idea of God in everything, the evidence is everywhere to them. It is perfectly obvious to them, just as your view of reality is perfectly obvious to you.

And it sort of needs to be that way, because that is the perceptual framework of reality that you utilize to translate reality in order to navigate its terrain and make sense and order of it for you to function. The exact same thing is true for a materialist view of reality, as it is for a mythic view of reality, as it is for an animistic or magical view of reality, as it is for a holistic view of reality, etc.

Each person understands their philosophical overlay upon reality, as what reality actually is (except for those who recognize that is what they are all). Physicalism is not true objectivity. If it were, it could recognize itself as an overlay upon reality, and not reality itself.

A story I like to tell illustrates this point of how everyone believes that how they see things, how they think about reality, is how things really are. A friend of mine and I, both former fundamentalist who went to Bible college together, now calling ourselves atheists, were out to lunch together one day. He said to me, "I'm so glad we know the truth now!". I looked at him and smiled a little and said, "I remember you and I saying those same words to each other when we were students in Bible college together." He paused... then answered, "But the difference is, now I really DO have the truth".

Compare that with this, "this "physicalism" is so extensively evidenced that doubting it would be bizarre."

We 'physicalists' try to avoid faith.

Yet unavoidably and unwittingly embrace it.

We want hard, demonstrable evidence.

I consider that a philosophical shortcoming. Most of life doesn't offer that, so we need to learn to find peace with uncertainty, and learn to navigate life without it. I consider the insistence on firm fixed handles on reality one can grasp to for a sense of security, to be an illusion.

It's no different whatsoever in kind than the Biblicist who turns to the Bible for hard unshakable certainties. "God said it. I believe it. That settles it for me!". Same motivation with different objects of faith.

Science and reason are the closest we have to objective certainty.

Are they? "The difference is, now I really DO have the truth". Now I really have found the right way. Science is much closer to the Truth than the prophets were! It's still trying to do the same thing, with different systems of belief.

Religious faith isn't even a close second.

Approaching science the same way as one approached religion, is an exact parallel.

If we don't accept objective evidence there's no reason to accept anything.

I have no problem accepting objective truths, but calling physicalism objective reality is hardly that. I see this notion that only things that have hard evidence should be considered as true or valid, to be the very reason your system materialism fails completely. It doesn't fit reality at all. People can learn to live with uncertainty, and in fact it is imperative that they do.

The Unknown is ultimately what reality is, and all the rest is simply systems of language and symbols through which we attempt to translate this Uncertainty into functional frameworks of reality in order to navigate the worlds as we perceive them. And science and reason is one of those systems, as much as magic was, and as much as mythic reality was. It's simply a later system built upon the earlier systems, as much as the next systems beyond it are and will continue to be.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, we end in nitpicking on what objective is. And what science is. But that is how that is.
You use a certain version of those 2 and I properly use another version.

Not nitpicking at all and I consider the above avoiding the clear specific post I made. You previously stated that science is a 'belief system' therefore subjective as defined in the English language, which is in conflict with the reference you cited 'Understanding Science 101. You also previously posted that from the human perspective everything is subjective and denied objectivity from the human perspective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not nitpicking at all and I consider the above avoiding the clear specific post I made. You previously stated that science is a 'belief system' therefore subjective as defined in the English language. You also previously posted that from the human perspective everything is subjective and denied objectivity from the human perspective.

Well, yes, in the following limited sense. Not that everything is subjective, but rather that you can't elimate the "I" from I know something.
And that your version of knowledge is not the only version of doing epistemlogy.

In other words, objective can't be separated from subjective in the strong sense as having reality independent of the mind. But it is also not possible to reduce everything do to metaphysical solipsism, if you look closer.

 

[shunyadragon]

Well, yes, in the following limited sense. Not that everything is subjective, but rather that you can't elimate the "I" from I know something.
And that your version of knowledge is not the only version of doing epistemlogy.

In other words, objective can't be separated from subjective in the strong sense as having reality independent of the mind. But it is also not possible to reduce everything do to metaphysical solipsism, if you look closer.

The problem remains you called science a' belief system', and the statement 'objective can't be separated from subjective in the strong sense as having reality independent of the mind. But it is also not possible to reduce everything do to metaphysical solipsism,' perpetuates the problem and your previous negative statements concerning the objective in science.

 

[Whateverist]

I had this discussion with someone else recently, but to the mythic-literal believer, they see their view of the world as "extensively evidenced" as you do. To them, it is nonsense that someone cannot see their idea of God in everything, the evidence is everywhere to them. It is perfectly obvious to them, just as your view of reality is perfectly obvious to you.

And it sort of needs to be that way, because that is the perceptual framework of reality that you utilize to translate reality in order to navigate its terrain and make sense and order of it for you to function. The exact same thing is true for a materialist view of reality, as it is for a mythic view of reality, as it is for an animistic or magical view of reality, as it is for a holistic view of reality, etc.

Each person understands their philosophical overlay upon reality, as what reality actually is (except for those who recognize that is what they are all). Physicalism is not true objectivity. If it were, it could recognize itself as an overlay upon reality, and not reality itself.

A story I like to tell illustrates this point of how everyone believes that how they see things, how they think about reality, is how things really are. A friend of mine and I, both former fundamentalist who went to Bible college together, now calling ourselves atheists, were out to lunch together one day. He said to me, "I'm so glad we know the truth now!". I looked at him and smiled a little and said, "I remember you and I saying those same words to each other when we were students in Bible college together." He paused... then answered, "But the difference is, now I really DO have the truth".

Compare that with this, "this "physicalism" is so extensively evidenced that doubting it would be bizarre."

Yet unavoidably and unwittingly embrace it.

I consider that a philosophical shortcoming. Most of life doesn't offer that, so we need to learn to find peace with uncertainty, and learn to navigate life without it. I consider the insistence on firm fixed handles on reality one can grasp to for a sense of security, to be an illusion.

It's no different whatsoever in kind than the Biblicist who turns to the Bible for hard unshakable certainties. "God said it. I believe it. That settles it for me!". Same motivation with different objects of faith.

Are they? "The difference is, now I really DO have the truth". Now I really have found the right way. Science is much closer to the Truth than the prophets were! It's still trying to do the same thing, with different systems of belief.

Approaching science the same way as one approached religion, is an exact parallel.

I have no problem accepting objective truths, but calling physicalism objective reality is hardly that. I see this notion that only things that have hard evidence should be considered as true or valid, to be the very reason your system materialism fails completely. It doesn't fit reality at all. People can learn to live with uncertainty, and in fact it is imperative that they do.

The Unknown is ultimately what reality is, and all the rest is simply systems of language and symbols through which we attempt to translate this Uncertainty into functional frameworks of reality in order to navigate the worlds as we perceive them. And science and reason is one of those systems, as much as magic was, and as much as mythic reality was. It's simply a later system built upon the earlier systems, as much as the next systems beyond it are and will continue to be.

No idea what is going on with my formatting but I agree completely. It is easy and proper to assent to that for which there is clear evidence but to fancy one can walk through life with no reliance on anything one hasn’t found evidence for is just naive. It is the “nothing but” that causes fundamentalists of every stripe to go wrong.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The problem remains you called science a' belief system', and the statement 'objective can't be separated from subjective in the strong sense as having reality independent of the mind. But it is also not possible to reduce everything do to metaphysical solipsism,' perpetuates the problem and your previous negative statements concerning the objective in science.

Yeah, methodlogical naturalism is a belief system in the end.

 

[Windwalker]

No idea what is going on with my formatting but I agree completely. It is easy and proper to assent to that for which there is clear evidence but to fancy one can walk through life with no reliance on anything one hasn’t found evidence for is just naive. It is the “nothing but” that causes fundamentalists of every stripe to go wrong.

Wow, I just read your signature line,

"Belief .. is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes.​

Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be."​

​

- Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity​

​

That is precisely what I am talking about! We typically are blind to our own eyes, and assume we are simply see what is, but just interpret it better at the moment than others who don't see how we see things, or with our own selves in our own past. "I was so wrong back then", yet back then we were as self-assured we were as right as we think we are now.

It takes an extraordinary leap of awareness to pull back from our own beliefs and recognize how truth is perceived through the development of our own eyes, and it has more to do with how we hold what we believe as the truth, than what we perceive to be the truth itself. It's about a relationship with our own perceptions, taking them with a respectful grain of salt, rather than an "I know I'm right" attitude, which is the stuff of fundamentalist thought, or better called literalism.

This is fantastic essay I came across many years ago that I reference still as it so relevant to this very thing. Here's a few select paragraphs from it that I'll highlight what speaks to me the most. It captures what is behind fundamentalist, or black and white views of reality, for both the believer and non-believer or so-called 'skeptic'.

Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance – Religion Online

The literalist mentality does not manifest itself only in conservative churches, private-school enclaves, television programs of the evangelical right, and a considerable amount of Christian bookstore material; one often finds a literalist understanding of Bible and faith being assumed by those who have no religious inclinations, or who are avowedly anti-religious in sentiment. Even in educated circles the possibility of more sophisticated theologies of creation is easily obscured by burning straw effigies of biblical literalism.​

​

But the problem is even more deep-rooted. A literalist imagination -- or lack of imagination -- pervades contemporary culture. One of the more dubious successes of modern science -- and of its attendant spirits technology, historiography and mathematics -- is the suffusion of intellectual life with a prosaic and pedantic mind-set. One may observe this feature in almost any college classroom, not only in religious studies, but within the humanities in general. Students have difficulty in thinking, feeling and expressing themselves symbolically.​

​

The problem is, no doubt, further amplified by the obviousness and banality of most of the television programming on which the present generation has been weaned and reared. Not only is imagination a strain; even to imagine what a symbolic world is like is difficult. Poetry is turned into prose, truth into statistics, understanding into facts, education into note-taking, art into criticism, symbols into signs, faith into beliefs. That which cannot be listed, out-lined, dated, keypunched, reduced to a formula, fed into a computer, or sold through commercials cannot be thought or experienced.​

​

Our situation calls to mind a backstage interview with Anna Pavlova, the dancer. Following an illustrious and moving performance, she was asked the meaning of the dance. She replied, “If I could say it, do you think I should have danced it?” To give dance a literal meaning would be to reduce dancing to something else. It would lose its capacity to involve the whole person. And one would miss all the subtle nuances and delicate shadings and rich polyvalences of the dance itself.​

​

The remark has its parallel in religion. The early ethnologist R. R. Marett is noted for his dictum that “religion is not so much thought out as danced out.” But even when thought out, religion is focused in the verbal equivalent of the dance: myth, symbol and metaphor. To insist on assigning to it a literal, one-dimensional meaning is to shrink and stifle and distort the significance. In the words of E. H. W. Meyer- stein, “Myth is my tongue, which means not that I cheat, but stagger in a light too great to bear.” Religious expression trembles with a sense of inexpressible mystery, a mystery which nevertheless addresses us in the totality of our being.​

​

The literal imagination is univocal. Words mean one thing, and one thing only. They don’t bristle with meanings and possibilities; they are bald, clean-shaven. Literal clarity and simplicity, to be sure, offer a kind of security in a world (or Bible) where otherwise issues seem incorrigibly complex, ambiguous and muddy. But it is a false security, a temporary bastion, maintained by dogmatism and misguided loyalty. Literalism pays a high price for the hope of having firm and unbreakable handles attached to reality. The result is to move in the opposite direction from religious symbolism, emptying symbols of their amplitude of meaning and power, reducing the cosmic dance to a calibrated discussion.​

​

One of the ironies of biblical literalism is that it shares so largely in the reductionist and literalist spirit of the age. It is not nearly as conservative as it supposes. It is modernistic, and it sells its symbolic birthright for a mess of tangible pottage. Biblical materials and affirmations -- in this case the symbolism of Creator and creation – are treated as though of the same order and the same literary genre as scientific and historical writing. “I believe in God the Father Almighty” becomes a chronological issue, and “Maker of heaven and earth” a technological problem.​

 

[shunyadragon]

Yeah, methodlogical naturalism is a belief system in the end.

THis is the problem because 'belief systems' are by definition subjective. As you previously stated that negates the objectivity of science, and in your reality negates the objective.

There is no the end , , , in science.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

THis is the problem because 'belief systems' are by definition subjective. As you previously stated that negates the objectivity of science, and in your reality negates the objective.

There is no the end , , , in science.

Okay, what is objective as you understand it?