Not responding to every point and question. That gets socially overwhelming. I tried to pick the points most relevant to the topic at hand, and respond to those. (Also, just saying, it took me THREE HOURS to make this post.)
But can you honestly state that these were necessarily the result of the religious belief, or that these were simply developments that were made by religious communities.
...
But that's irrelevant when you actually look at the methods used to reach these conclusions and make these breakthroughs, and the method is precisely what science is.
Yes, these things as we know them today not only owed their existences to religious beliefs, but the specific religious beliefs of their day. Whatever other form they might have taken under different overcultures would have naturally looked very, very different, and with that difference of overculture, there's no guarantee they would have led to the modern scientific method.
If it's irrelevant because the sciences invovle
the method, and since religions are not inherently based in methodology for understanding but in cultural expression and shared community, then comparing the "benefits" of the scientific method vs. the benefits of religions is like comparing the benefits of apples vs boxes. Meaning this entire line of questioning has no purpose except to illustrate a certain, not entirely unfounded, discomfort with religion. In other words...
I'm fairly certain I am being as objective as I can about this, and unless you can demonstrate some bias that I am showing, I'm not sure you can accuse me of such.
I was talking about your argument, not you specifically, but this works, too. Your bias is from your clear love of the sciences, well-deserved and shared by me (just watched the new Crash Course Asronomy episode on Dark Energy
), together with a clear discomfort with religion that's only shared by me in the case of certain ones.
It's not meant as an accusation. This isn't a courtroom. Contrary to what the culture of intellectual elitism would have us believe, bias is just an inherent part of being ... alive. For individuals, it's inescapable. We CAN'T be wholly objective as individuals, or even get very close. Even your clear discomfort with my suggestion to the contrary points to that. It's not because you're unintelligent, but because you, me, and every other human, approach these matters with a certain set of expectations informed by the paradigms we live in. To have a discussion while putting aside those expectations and paradigms is like trying to have a discussion while not speaking a language. It's just not gonna happen.
So your religion simply examines labels?
?...no...?
...I don't think you understood what I was getting at, and I'm not sure what you mean by the question so I don't know how to clarify.
It might illustrate something though: you CAN'T approach polytheist religions with the same expectations you'd approach monotheist ones with. Contrary to what a lot of high fantasy depicts, they're two completely different paradigms.
Are you claiming Judaism, Hinduism, Scientology, Rastafarianism and Paganism don't make any objective claims?
First off, I don't personally count Scientology or similar organizations as legitimate religions, so they're not part of the discussion on my end. If you must count them because the US law does, fine, count them all up and add them to my list. There are still fewer of them than the hundreds of thousands of religions there have ever been, and most of these newer organizations probably won't stand the Test of Time. (Remember, most religions are only loosely organized, if organized at all).
Second of all, on the whole, yup. Judaism is largely an ethnic religion, which means its teachings partain to people who are Jewish, not us gentiles; Paganism and Hinduism aren't even single religions, but generlized umbrella terms for several religions, so you really can't make accurate generalized statements about them other than their general cultural and geographic associations. (I admit to virtually no knowledge of Rastafarianism other than its existence, so if it does this, that's one more, but still leaves all the others). Like I said, there are exceptions; i.e., there are some
sects of some religions within the umbrellas of Hinduism and Paganism that do this, but that's all they are: exceptions.
And that's not even considering the number of
closed religions there are; that is, religions that actively reject "converts", sometimes with rare exceptions, for various reasons. As I understand it, you can add pretty much every single indigenous religion from North America to
that list.
Also, for the record, many religions tell their followers to exercise rationality (or at least do not consider themselves exempt from it) - but that doesn't change the fact that they still make claims.
Not typically ones involving exclusivity with "Truth", contrary to "every other ones' falsehood". There's a big difference between:
"I believe THIS to be true; other people believe different things, and while I consider some of those things misinformed, it's generally okay."
and
"I believe THIS to be true; anyone who believes otherwise is STUPID and WRONG and need to stop believing their stupidly wrong things!"
The former fosters exchange, dialogue, and understanding. The latter fosters imperialism, elitism, and erasure.[/quote]
