Is Theism down for the count?
 

I am a strong Atheist and Scientist, and would like Theism to be eliminated. I wanted to get peoples thoughts on the position of the so-called Science vs Religion debate.

It seems that science now has enough evidence to win the war but Theism still persists. What is is about Theism that allows it to survive in an age where Science has disproved (a debate topic on its own) all of it's claims? By rights Theism should no longer exist, it no longer offers anything to the world or society. It simply does more damage than good.

I would like to hear peoples thoughts on this subject. I am inclined to think that Theism persists in those who haven't had their consciousness raised to consider what it is they are truly doing, in those who are too undereducated to know better or in those who persist in the face of this adversity because they have been taught since birth that blind faith is a virtue and are in too much of a child like mindset (or trapped in their societal upbringing) to consider reason.

What do you think?

In my experience, those who reach a certain level of consciousness no longer feel the need to eliminate theist practices, as they usually understand the dynamics behind faith, and the place it has in spiritual growth. Everyone takes a different path, and religion is a large part of it for many.

I don't think that science will ever "disprove" theism, since proof- in any sort of absolute sense- isn't something science is really capable of. More generally, i don't think science can be the catalyst for any sort of obsolescence when it comes to theism- the two can essentially occupy mutually exclusive areas. The pursuit of scientific knowledge and the pursuit of spiritual knowledge don't necessarily take someone to the same places, and it could be argued that they can't.

Also, i don't think that it's is necessarily accurate to claim that theists are only theists because they simply haven't thought about it. On its face it betrays a lack of knowledge of how theist beliefs are created.

Science is a useful tool, but that is all it is. It says nothing absolutely definitively about anything.

To borrow my own post from the other thread
I take a humbler approach to the 'evidence'. We don't actually know much about the fundamental nature of the universe beyond our models for the behavior of matter and energy. I don't believe there is any evidence specifically precluding the existence of a 'supreme being' or other religious concepts even if it doesn't fit with traditional views of 'God'. But there are many such views, and it doesn't mean that the current crop of believers in any given faith are correct. But the bottom line to me is belief is just as (un)supported as disbelief. I see both views as a matter of faith, an entirely separate concept from science. Science is based in reason and logic, but faith cannot be as we simply lack the base of evidence on which to support any argument.

Truly a lot of harm has been done in the name of God. But harm has been done in the name of science as well. Neither is intrinsically good or bad but it's what we do with it. I would say theism still has plenty of good to offer humanity, just maybe not in many of its currently popular (particularly radical and fundamentalist) forms.

I've often said in these forums that the accusation that theists must be stuck in some sort of childish mindset is, at best, rude and bigoted. I'm not the stupidest person in the world, and very well educated, and I'm still a theist. I've met people far smarter than I am who are also theists. We could be wrong, but we're not wrong merely out of childishness or parochialism, and to accuse us of that simply reveals your own ignorance.

This is an important point, though I don't necessarily agree that it is childishness that leads one to this view.

Also, where do we draw the line between theism and religion? (Not all religions are theistic at their core; consider Buddhism.) To suggest something like theism needs to be eliminated smacks of thought control and/or oppression. This position is also unnecessarily confrontational and militant. To suggest that the only problems in the world are caused by theists is also a false view. Some great problems have arisen out of godlessness--sometimes under the facade of godliness.

But in direct response to the OP, I find it hard to accept a position suggesting that science has proven all of its claims. This can be a dangerous view, as science is not as concrete as people would like it to be. Alchemy was once a science, as was social Darwinism and eugenics.

If anything, we should try to look at the bigger picture and instead see how science interacts with theism. (They do on many levels.) Theism is not a denial of science, and science does not abhor theism. No. It takes individuals to do these things. Some of the greatest minds in history weren't only devout followers of God, some were also polytheists. If anything, theism should be regarded as philosophy. I would be wary of atheistic scientists who would do away with philosophy altogether. This would require erasing history and human knowledge.

Why attempt to get rid of that which you personally don't believe?

"Ban the tooth fairy! Science has proven that parents leave the cash!"

The most scientific approach would be to leave all option open for everyone.

No, theism won't ever be gone unless we somehow evolve away from the instincts which cause us to seek intent behind all actions.

Looking for intent is good for survival but allows us to believe some really stupid things.

It's an interesting point, yet I personally believe that there is a link between ignorance and religion. That's not to say that I believe that all religious individuals are "stupid", but believing in a mythical creature proscribed by a book means that either (a) the person does not understand critical thinking, or (b) choses not to exercise it in respect to one or two things.

Some of the most "book smart" people I know are religious. I believe religion and intelligence co-existing in a brain only happens in one condition; b. In the case of b, they're well-educated individuals who understand how to think critically, and choose not to (for whatever reason).

At some point in all sets of ideas critical thought breaks down- everyone chooses not to exercise it with respect to one or two things.

I'm not sure about that.

I am undoubtedly wrong about things, at least one or two, yet I never put my metaphorical hands on my metaphorical ears and do the intellectual equivalent of nah nah nah nah I don't hear you.

I may weigh some evidence higher than others, but I have logical reasons for it. If the evidence turns out to be wrong, its wrong, but its not for lack of critical thinking.

One doesn't need to put their metaphorical hands on their metaphorical ears to believe in the existence of god- for that to be necessary there would need to be some sort of proof that there did not exist a god- and that probably isn't possible.

Also, there are perfectly logical reasons to believe in the existence of a god- the concept of logic only speaks to an argument's consistency, not it's ability to withstand scientific scrutiny.

Faith in gods existence is by definition is taking off your critical thinking hat.

If you are an intelligent person, and believe in god, at least a god in anything beyond the most basic, no matter what your reasons, you took off your critical thinking hat and said 'it is because it is'.

...

How is logic any different than religion, again? I'm confused.

Although I'm about as religious as a Britney Spears' underwear drawer, I see religion as a way to deal with logic other than "shit happens."

No.

From what I've seen, I'm fairly sure that the tendency to be religious is, at some level, based on physical structures in the brain. I am certain that my brain is not "wired" for religious belief, but I'm quite certain that others (like my mother) are. I don't think that denying scientific evidence based on religious faith is rational, but on the other hand, I don't think that someone who accepts science and still believes in God is harming anyone, even himself.

It is only so if you define it as such, in which case, i would be interested in reading your strict definition.

It is possible to use critical thinking to come to conclusions unsupportable by objective evidence. Everyone does it all the time, including scientists- string theory is a good example.

One might use their critical thinking abilities to come to the conclusion that the humanity's ultimate potential will come to fruition through some sort of libertarian utopia. Another person might use their critical thinking abilities to come to the exact opposite conclusion. Neither conclusion is really all that testable, but that doesn't mean that critical thought must have been lacking in their formulation.

I think that the answer is probably no. For one I know plenty of intelligent people, that is people who have some natural talent in their ability to think, that are religious and sometimes very much so. On that front at least anecdotally I would say that being intelligent does not necessarily preclude one from being religious.

However, I think more convincing is the argument that religion is a living type of thought. One that evolves and some ways resembles an organism; this idea is directly related to the very popular(well at least among some circles) concept coined by Richard Dawkins called a meme. Just by the sheer number of people that believe in religion, it should be clear that only an ideological revolutionary event comparable to a 10km wide asteroid hitting the earth could wipe out religion. The truth is the scientific revolution has had it’s chance to completely wipe out religion but the best it could do was carve a niche out and coincide with it. As an aside France is a really interesting case for this; see the French revolution and the policies associated with religion and look how a couple of hundred years later the religion meme makes it’s way back in the different form of Muslim immigrants. There is a really interesting discussion of what this entails by Daniel Dennett(I believe I’ve already advertised him back in one of the threads about atheism). Anyway I don’t recall how much he discusses religion as an evolving phenomena in this video, but he does try to introduce discussion on how religion could be shaped(from an evolutionary standpoint) just like a farm animal to meet our needs. It's long and I think he builds up to the things that are relevant to the discussion. IMO, it's worth the look, plus, I think he has a really interesting point to make about skyhooks(idk if it’s a term he coined) which is somewhat tangentially related to this:

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An author that has my respect and has been generally acknowledged for his intelligence and great breadth of knowledge chooses to identify himself as a Christian. He spoke recently that our concept of a god is likely to be so much smaller than what may be the truth. He posed the proposition that "god" is *all* that there is. As difficult as that concept may be to comprehend, I think there is much for the "intelligent" person to consider.

I think that there is something far larger than our current conceptions of a god. The theists may sense that "something" and will not willingly throw their beliefs aside if they become a minority. For myself, I attempt to be respectful of all beliefs.

The reason why religion still exists is because humans generally tend to follow their traditions. Therefore when a great deal of people are religious and have been for thousands of years and their parents tell them to believe in their religion etc, there's a high probability that child will follow in line. Also I don't think countries have sufficient teaching in areas such as logic, reason and critical thinking. They generally just try to feed you information and promote memorizing things rather than teaching the concepts behind them so you can logically come to conclusions of your own.

Also another problem is it is impossible to prove if God exists or does not exist. Independent reality isn't available to us since everything is subjective to us because we are stuck with the limited sensory ability we have. Objects come to us purely from our senses we would have no knowledge of them without our ability to perceive them. Just as when we listen to our ipod, the music comes from our ipod, it isn't the actual music it's just reenacting the event that it recorded with it's limited capabilities. Thus the true nature and reality of everything we observe and experience will forever be hidden from us because we are a slave to our senses. In the empirical world scientific explanations are the highest truth we can achieve. They don't necessary entirely explain everything but they are the best thing we've got to work with. Imagine we are a baseball mitt and there are balls flying around everywhere, we don't catch them all, some pass by our grasp due to the fact that our mitt isn't infinitely large, there are certain things we cannot catch due to our limited capabilities to do so.

I'm afraid this is just trying to find a place for god while being able to ignore the entire concept.

God/Gods have always been attributed to do things like change the seasons, make the sun rise, bring fertility, and such.

Science comes along and says 'umm not so fast'.

This then supersedes science by saying well 'god is the gravity, god is the sun, god is the rain, god is the, well everything, so god is all.'

But once you remove any real actor part on god, god just 'is' you have really eliminated the need for god. The universe would not change if the 'all god' became a 'no god'.

In a more devout time someone with this theory of sorts would be lumped in with the atheists. An all god isn't a loving god, caring god, or even vengeful god, its a meaningless god.

There is no logic in theism, that is exactly the point. That is why it's called faith. They are two separate animals. I'm not so sure why people are so quick to assume that religious people are stupid, or unscientific or somehow inferior. Newton, Einstein, and countless other scientists were/are religious.

I don't think tradition is the answer either. My father is a top scientist in his field. Not one you would call stupid or dismiss. He converted to Catholicism even though no one else in the family was at the time. The other scientists in my family are Buddhist, Muslim, Christian (including Baptist, Evangelical, non-denominational) and yes, atheist as well.

Many of the doctors and lawyers, engineers and other 'intelligent" scientists I know are religious. Heck, my doctor and dentist are Jewish.

No, religion and science are not mutually exclusive.

Would you say there is no logic in ethics as well?

Logic just speaks to the consistency of an argument. That's it. This means that there is logic in theism. There is logic in everything. When someone says that there is no logic in theism, what they're really saying is they reject the bases for the theist position. It is somehow a lot more desirable to dress this disagreement up as the result of some sort of conflict between superior and inferior logical capacities- but that isn't its true nature.

Good question Baraka.

Cop out answer: I don't know.

Short answer: Yes, I believe there is some sort of logic to ethics.

Filth, I am a little confused by your response, I think you may have misunderstood me. You may have to dumb it down for me if you don't mind.

My basic argument is I feel there is a clear separation between Faith and Science. That they can co-exist.

It was more of a semantical quibble than anything. I agree with you on the relationship between faith and science.

First of all. Why? Not believing in something is no good reason to simply not want its existence why eliminate something that makes other people happy? That being said i am seeing a fine line that isn being recognized and that is the difference between Organized religion and theism. You can believe in a god without believing in a specific religion and everyone seems to be completely grouping those 2 things together. I agree that religion should be abolished but I also know that it never will. I feel it should be because since the begging of religion and civilization really religion has been the root cause for most of the wars in the history(not all). However, some people need to believe in something powerful and above them which is why religion will never die. Religion isnt all bad either it can teach some very good morals and lessons that can turn peoples lives around this why many help groups aer religiously based (AA and all such groups). So it wouldnt be best if atheism or thesim were eliminated the best option would be to have them in harmony with each other.

This discussion has really ventured into deism not theism.

A born again christian is a theist, as is someone who thinks god made the universe and left it on its own. A all theist is, is someone who believes in god a deist thinks of god as more of a force.

Deism is where worldly men (and for some reason its always men, I'm sure there are strictly deist women out there, but oddly I've never read anything about one) go rather than face atheism.

They are educated and intelligent enough to see the whole flowing robes vengeful yet loving, all knowing all doing god as the mythology it is, but its hard to completely give up what you were brought up as, and the concept that something has to be the cause of existence.

Personally I think its pretty weak, just pull the trigger, and quit trusting your 'gut' that wants to believe and go with what you are afraid is true.

That is what i was trying to say about the fine line being crossed great example though and a much better way of expressing it.

Some Replies
 

Hello all,
It seems i have opened a can of worms here and I would like to make some comments on quite a few of your posts however I will make them to you guys generally instead. So lets start at the beginning shall we?

filtherton

You mention the non-overlapping magisteria (that science and religion can occupy separate areas). Science deals with what exists based on evidence. If one then suggests that a God or Gods exist than that places the claim within the realms of science.

In regard to a later post, give me one logical reason or argument that can show that god exists.

Also: string theory is a theory that is highly debated in science and is mostly kept to the outskirts. String theory does sometimes seem illogical and that is why i dislike it. Because some scientists think this way with a lack of proof does not show that non-critical thinking can lead to truth.

Again: Theism is not consistent and its claims are indeed illogical.

n0nsensical

You seem to talk of belief and unbelief as both areas of faith. Faith relies on belief, science is based on logic, evidence and reasoning, there is nothing faithful about it.

Baraka_Guru

I must apologize that i said that science has proven all of it’s claims, mistake by me in the writing of my first point. I was trying to say that science, through the presentation of evidence, can show an alternate hypothesis to be so unlikely that it is essentially (though not) 0. I do accept that one can neither definitively prove nor disprove anything, however through evidence we can be pretty darn sure. I would not like philosophy to be done away with however philosophy and theism are completely different things. Theism makes claims that, see non-overlapping magisteria above, are within scientific realms. To me that is not philosophy. For your comment on Buddhism i would like to say this. Buddhists do not believe in a personal god but they believe in a god nonetheless and i would like therefore to include it in the category of theism. I realize that it has another name however i cannot think of it at the moment.

Crompsin

It is not about getting rid of it because i don't believe in it. My problem is that religion is taught as fact, unarguable fact. While the child eventually can discover the truth of the tooth fairy most children never discover the truth of theism.
In regard to a later post, logic involves thinking and reasoning, one plus one equals two, while religion involves the lack thereof, two plus two equals five if big brother says so.

Ustwo

You are a highly intelligent person and reading through these posts i can only congratulate you on your thinking and knowledge, well done.:thumbsup:

MrSelfDestruct

How can someones religious belief that is only moderate harm someone? When someone is taught that unquestioning faith is the highest virtue than extremist activities are one of the only eventual conclusions. As for physical structures in the brain, how does that explain ‘conversions’ from faith to faithlessness.

Elphaba

Do we really need god if he is everything and impersonal, would that not be the same as having no god at all?

Tiger777

Brilliant.

jorgelito

You are misconceived to think that Newton and Einstein were religious however you are right to comment that logic and faith are quite different. Faith cannot exist to someone who has had their consciousness raised and if it does they choose it to be that way.

cheetahtank2

You are an optimist and not a realist. When people say, there must be something more to life they are grasping to irrational hope. Morals can be shown to be a Darwinian trait and do not come from religion, if you think they do you should read the old testament closely and find that the Abrahamic God is one of the cruelest characters of fiction ever conceived.
Reading on i found the word i was looking for in regards to Buddhism, deist or deism. Thank you Ustwo. Deism is a hypothesis that is pointless. If i were to say that (random example) beyond our planet there was another world on which lived a race of creatures that controlled our lives and made themselves invisible to us i would be making a pointless hypothesis. It has no evidence and creates more questions than it answers. The same is true with an impersonal god.

I hope these will get people thinking. Sorry if i have misread a post and made a comment based upon such a misconception. If i have been unclear please tell me and i will elaborate.

Look forward to reading more

Sedecrem

There is nothing scientific about unbelief. Lack of evidence for God != evidence for lack of God.

Surely it follows that you are placing faith in logic. What if logic has some flaw that we are simply too limited (as humans) to realise? For the purposes of this argument, you have faith that logic is the only way to truth.

We all exercise faith at some point. When you sit on a chair, you don't think about it - you simply have faith that it will support you. Of course, logic is involved too. It is a chair, from my experience other chairs have supported me in the past, it follows that this chair is likely to support me. Etc.

Can you scientifically prove that your significant other loves you? Sure, you may look for evidence, but to some extent you have to trust that they do. That involves faith. Or would you argue that love is a construct and due to its intangibility does not exist?

It seems to me that you are viewing the world through the eyes of logic the same way a theist might view the world through the eyes of faith. He/she thinks that you are missing the point by only seeing things through logic and not with faith, and you think he/she is missing the point by only seeing things through faith and not through logic.

Humans thoughts are at their core based upon logic and reasoning. logic is in turn based on evidence, mountains upon mountains of evidence. faith does not enter into it.

As for the chair, i am not putting faith in it as i have evidence to provoke logical conclusions. i think you are maybe confusing faith, decision making without evidence or against evidence, and your chair faith, looking at the evidence, not being sure about the outcome but deciding on the best possible alternative based on the evidence. your chair faith is essentially logic.

I do however agree on your last sentence regarding the sum up of the debate, quite well done. it then comes to evidence supported logic vs non-evidential faith.

I could care less whether theism lives or dies, so long as those who are believers don't try to force me to adhere to, or pay for, their religious beliefs. IF they can learn to live and let live, without interference in my life or choices, I can live with them.

That's only if you accept the proposition that science is capable of explaining everything, i.e. that the realms of science are infinite, a proposition which has just as much a basis in science as a belief in god.

Axiom: The machinations of the universe are too complex to have come about on their own

Logical Conclusion: There must exist some creating diety

I'm not saying it's compelling, but it is logical.

String theory is exceedingly logical. It's all math. I think if you are going to frame your argument from a scientific perspective you'd benefit from refining your word choices. The word logical has a specific meaning and that meaning isn't "someone who comes to the same conclusions about the nature of existence as me". Logic concerns itself with the relationships between a series of statements and has nothing to do with whether the underlying assumptions of those statements are scientifically valid.

Furthermore, if you are going to allude to the concept of "critical thought" you should define it precisely, otherwise you aren't really making a "scientific" argument. I asked ustwo to do this above, but he apparently got too busy.

Only if you use your own definitions of the words theism, consistent and logic.

They clearly have a lot of faith in their definitions. :lol:

Atheism is logical because it is and it makes sense because it does. Just look at all the evidence.

I would appreciate more definition in their definitions.

Faith is not necessarily without evidence. Many devoted theists will readily tell you about how God (or their idea of God) has saved them, brought them through situations where they feel they would otherwise be able to cope, or their faith came out as a result of some other experience. Sure, you could argue that they are deluding themselves, but as far as THEY are concerned (whether you agree or not), there has been evidence to support their faith.

(I'm not necessarily taking sides here, I just love debate and discussion)

By the way, does anyone else find it ironic that we are debating logic vs faith in a logic-based format? ;)

This has been a great thread, thank you starting it/


Can you clarify please where I am misconceived in regards to Newton and Einstein's religious belief?

Newton was very religious as well as Einstein (he was also Jewish, a religion)

Do more research before you start name dropping. Clearly if Einstein believed in some type of supernatural power it wasn't any God in any religion I've ever seen. It's clear many people misunderstand what Einstein is meaning when he uses the oh so loaded word God. He appears to use it to try to encompass the seemingly intelligent properties of the universe, the order and various universal laws that allow for life on earth to prosper.

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts."

'The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. … The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events. … A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him … .'

'During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image. … The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. … In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God … .'

'Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza).'

And this came from a Christian site I think, so there! As for Newton you're correct he was religious.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/crea...1/einstein.asp

Yea I was going to post it but no need to be that harsh. Religious groups have been trying to tie in Einstein into this sort of things for years, perhaps the worst example I read was in a work of fiction by Frederik Pohl where a computer Einstein personality went temporarily insane when he discovered that the universe was pretty much standard science fiction like with no apparent need/place for God. Apparently even Pohl bought into the concept that Einstein was some kind of strong believer, when while he was alive Einstein was often criticized by religious groups for his apparent lack of faith.

So its understandable that a lot of people assume Einstein was somehow religious, I think its been a conscious goal of some groups to try to tie into the one scientist/genius everyone knows of. Its also dishonest of course.

Being the genius that he was, it is difficult to pigeonhole Einstein's mind into one classification. He thought a lot about God, religion, and science and how they all interacted in the universe. Whether he believed in a figure that we could call God is irrelevant. He was keen on viewing the universe and how it worked. To say Einstein was non-religious would be false. To say he believed in a personal god would also be false. He criticized indoctrination of the church, but saw the value of pursing the "laws of God." He criticized both religious institutions and atheists:

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indocrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

—W. Hermanns, Einstein and the Poet—In Search of the Cosmic Man (Branden Press, Brookline Village, Mass., 1983), p.132, quoted in Jammer, p.123.

I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.

— Einstein to an unidentified adressee, Aug.7, 1941. Einstein Archive, reel 54-927, quoted in Jammer, p. 97

How does this apply to this thread? Well, this thread is about theism. I suppose it depends on how you apply it. Is it the theism of church dogma, or is it the theism of religious truth as applied to the pursuit of scientific truth?

I think it's disingenuous at best to equate theism with organized religion dogma.

It's a convenient way to frame an argument against theism. You can point at people like pat robertson, and though folks of his ilk in no way represent theism in its general sense, you can pretend that he epitomizes theist thought. Then, in your most intellectually elite voice you can chuckle and shake your head at the whole lot of them.

I think most arguments against theism could be avoided if every instance of the word "theist" was replaced with the word "douchebag". The problem with pat robertson wasn't that he was a theist, it was that he was a douchebag.

There has been very little of this kind of argument in any of the atheism threads here. So while there is a segment of the population much like you described, they are not the ones posting here.

There is one and only one way for theism to die: human kind becomes extinct.

Even if a whole new generation of children is born and only has one adult to lead them and that adult is an atheist, theism would find it's way back in. It's in some people's natures.

'tis true.

REALLY? Well, I guess we all learn something new every day.

I think a lot of people deep down have their doubts but don't want to blow their chances of getting into heaven in the event that it's real. I mean it really does sound awesome, right? If there's even a miniscule chance that it's real, wouldn't you do everything you could to make sure you would get to go there?

I'm a good person because I respect and fear this world... not the next one.

Filtherton

It has quite a larger basis than what you think. Everything that science attempts to explain and indeed does explain is based on evidence. As for the realms of science, science deals with all of reality which is essentially everything.

True. IF you make the very large and completely unfounded assumption that the universe is too complex to come around by its own. Show me how this could possibly be so.

What do you truly know of string theory? Quantum theory is all maths however for string theory to work one often has to introduce extra spacial dimensions. Furthermore string theory’s claims are un-testable and therefore have no accompanying proof.

Let’s see... Consistency is when claims or indeed evidence agree with each other. If you have read scripture you will find that the amount of contradictions is extremely numerous. Theism is inconsistent. I take theism to include, for the sake of this argument, both theism and deism as both are opposed to atheism. Logic really only has one meaning and according to Oxford it is reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. I do not use my own definitions. I do not know where you are getting yours from.
When has an atheist here made the claim that because one theist acts in one way all theists are bad? We can leave those kinds of claims to the theists (‘Stalin was atheist so there!’). Atheists do not judge groups by actions of individuals however you seem to think that we do, though you are right that it is indeed an ineffective way to argue.

allaboutmusic

I believe that either they are deluding themselves or they have been tricked by someone or by natural events and they really do believe. This puts them out of any realm of an argument because they know that God is real and nothing we could possibly say will tell them different. This is where the childhood thought comes into it. In any other field bar theism such attitudes would not be tolerated however theism teaches that unquestionable faith is a virtue and as a result these people become almost idolised.

My comment in relation to Newton and Einstein was not worded too well and as a result it reads as though I thought Newton was unreligious, my mistake.

Baraka_Guru, I think that church dogma as you call it follows almost explicitly from theist beliefs so that is how it fits into this thread.

Willravel makes a good point however this would be very hard to show in practice or even in theory.

Lasereth

You are talking of Pascal’s wager. He thought the same things that you do however there are some things inherently wrong with his argument.

God allegedly rewards belief however he rewards true belief and not ‘I’m just pretending to believe in you because I want to get into heaven’, wouldn’t go down too well. You cannot simply decide to believe one day, you can decide to act as a believer but you cannot decide to believe.

God is also allegedly omniscient so you have no hope tricking him into getting into heaven either. There are further arguments against this however I think what I have said here is enough to show its fallacy.

Sedecrem

God = entropy?

It has a much more refined, specific basis than you think. Science only deals with the things it is capable of dealing with. A simple thought experiment: is there anything that science can't deal with?

Case 1: Yes.

How can you tell?

Case 2: No

How can you tell?

Either way, there is no evidence that science is capable of providing a useful and/or relevant understanding of all, or even most, of reality.

It doesn't matter if it is so. I was just pointing out that it is logical. Whether it is so shall forever remain a mystery.

From my understanding, string theory is all math- very little physics is involved. Logic is the fundamental building block of math. It is easy (if you know calculus) to show, using mathematical logic (is there any other kind of logic?) that it is possible to have an infinite area, which when revolved around a certain axis gives a finite volume. This has no physical meaning, but it can be shown mathematically to be true. I make no claims on the validity of string theory, just that it has a logical base and is completely unprovable. That doesn't mean anything more than it means.


Well, if you have read science, you will find that it says nothing that necessarily contradicts scripture or the notion of an all powerful god. The consistency of belief in an essentially all powerful god is inherent- any perceived inconsistencies can be written off as evidence of god's power. It's really that simple. I'm not saying its compelling, just that its consistent.

In any case, theism and scripture aren't the same thing. There's more than one way to believe in god.

Don't settle for the dictionary definition- dictionary definitions don't really do a lot of things justice. If you're in school, or have access, take or read up on the first required math class after calculus, those usually focus on logic and proof.

Logic just defines the relationship between statements. If A, then B. If B, then C. If A is true, then C must also be true. What A, B, and C are isn't necessarily important. A is often an axiom, something which is often taken to be self evident, and which cannot be proven.

Furthermore, "strict principals of validity" doesn't necessarily refer to science or whether a statement meets some certain external criteria, it more likely refers to agreed upon meanings for different statements, i.e. what does A implies B mean formally, as opposed to A and B or A but not B. Like any sort of mathematics, you can't get very far if you don't agree on the ground rules.

I'm still waiting for some sort of working definition of critical thought.

I know that viewpoint is redundant and basically bullshit. I said many people, not myself. :thumbsup: You do have to take into account that MANY "Christians" or otherwise religious people believe in it for that sole reason. They believe because they don't want to blow their chances. Yes that's not how religion works, but true religion requires an unwavering, blinded faith in something that can't be proven. Not many people have this even if they say they do...so they just say outloud and to others that they believe.

True religion?

Hmm, seems kinda... like something we shouldn't be measuring. I was under the impression that religion works because you can't measure faith.

Although I tend to agree with you... not many people are really religious.

We have too many things in our lives pulling us in other directions.

Money, the TeeVee, and a really great blowjob before bed.

uh...no. that's not the problem with pascal's wager.
pascal was smarter than that....

the problem is more that everyone is in a position of having to play at all. the wager only works if you accept the argument that you have to play.

within that, there is a question about faith, obviously--but pascal deals with that....when at the end of the probabilities section, the voice of the bettor says basically "i have been convinced to wager, but am so constituted that i still cannot believe. what do i do?"

the response is to act as though you believe--perform the rituals, etc.--and you discipline your body with the result that eventually you will become stupid (literally you will become like an animal) and will forget that you don't believe.

so in general (now backing out of the wager section a bit) for pascal there are two ways to reach faith: either you simply jump into it, or you condition yourself physically into it.

the reason for this situation follows directly from pascal's nominalist assumptions. so there's strictly speaking no way--NO way--to know
anything about this god character, and it's a matter of definition: human understanding is finite, god infinite and that's all there is to it.



strangely these options dovetail with the thread as a whole: once you believe, once you perform your own belief, you see reinforcement for it everywhere. this because you enter into a circular relation between the frame/premises that shape your worldview and the information that is organized by that worldview (in shorthand). but this is not particular to believers--such a circular relation always obtains in the ordering of/performance of the ordering of infotainment about the world. what varies are degrees of open-endedness, which may or may not translate into falsifiability.

for many believers, the objects of belief function as a priori.
and there is no way for anyone from an outside perspective to disrupt the circuit.

most theists (the-ist? those who believer in the article "the"?) are not nominalists as pascal was--most operate with a much looser understanding. you could explain this by reading pascal---the pensees are scary, there is nothing reassuring about them---you dont pull the world down around you like a sweater, you dont feel more like there is control in the world and that you benefit somehow from that divine control---nope--you float about an infinite space on a tiny rock from one viewpoint, and you twitch about like a reed over the infinite spaces of the small/microscopic. you are nothing, lodged nowhere. on the other hand, if more theists were nominalist, epistemology questions (which are actually ontological questions because they are not about knowledge of the world, but about what conditions knowledge of the world) would be simpler to sort out because agency of a radically unknowable god couldnt be integrated into data sets as an a priori.

but most theists prefer the nice, teddybear god who is close, comprehensible, like dad but bigger and dressed in white robes, who tinkers with things in the world directly. but even this is not problematic in itself.

the problem really is a naive faith in "science" or scientific method, which sits on an even more naive theory of what situation obtains when you map an embodied subject onto a general social space and try to generate an account of that mapping. most of the defenses of "science" here seem to sit on such a naive theory: that the world is an accumulation of objects, that these objects are complete within themselves and so are stable and so are therefore knowable, that scientific investigation involves a kind of unconditioned subject, a pure observer who uses mechanical devices to extend the pure gaze over a world of things. this relation extends to descriptions of phenomena via formal languages (mathematics) to the extent that the statements are understood as topological (descriptions of surfaces or features). what makes it naive is that questions of the "constructedness" of the observed are displaced from the relation of observer to what is observed onto the object itself, its situation (say, its scale...) what this means is that the arguments/images that are the basis for these constructions (in other words, which function as templates that are projected onto fields of infotainment and which order those fields) are not themselves problems----if "science" knows the world, then philosophy is simply ancillary. if "science" knows something of the world but that something is mediated in the strongest possible sense by the nature and quality of the arguments that enframe that knowing, then philosophy can operate as a recursion mechanism.

seems to me that the naive faith in "science" generates an image of the "scientist" as littlegod. and the quaint professions of faith in "science" are basically no different from those quaint professions of faith in the big-god.

...and from here we can determine the reasonable positions of atheist scientists with strong moral cores, or theologists who believe in and support theistic evolution.

The misleading path of this thread is one that focuses on the question of whether God really exists. This isn't the main concern of faith because it is a given; the religious do not doubt God's existence, so instead they focus on how to live under His laws, or, at least, they should. But what of the atheist scientist? Well, he or she should not be concerned with whether He exists either, because it doesn't matter. What matters is scientific truth. Both theologists and scientists are concerned with truth. Whether they seek truth of the same kind is what we should be focusing on here.

but if truth is simply a matter of correspondence, then the search for it necessarily involves you in a loop---you find what you are looking for--and this bypasses the atheist/theist divide and cuts more to the question of what "scientific knowledge" is--btw i think there are only regions of scientific knowledge and no Scientific Knowledge in general--this rests on the same claim about truth as correspondence.

you see the notion of truth as correspondence in the design of any experiment.

By truth as correspondence, do you mean the connection of knowledge to power? If so, who, or what, determines what is true? Does this power shift? Is this how we see truths revealed has half-truths or falsehoods? May we have some examples, roachboy?

i have some other stuff to do, so for the moment will just direct you to heidegger's being and time section 44 for the best explanation.
i know, i know: it's pretentious.
but hey, there it is.

the example of an experiment works too, though: experimental procedures are such that the anticipated outcomes are built into the design. if you map this design as a set of expectation as to outcomes, you can derive the notion of correspondence.

gotta go.

next day--truth as correspondence would be truth more in the sense that you'd use to refer to a statement generated via a proof that is valid or true (its production doesn't violate any rules)...

if i remember correctly, heidegger talks about correspondence between a signifier and its putative referent as an example--so correspondence is also about expectations and whether they are met or not.

the organization of information involves both patterns of realtime phenomena and secondary patterns (maybe--not sure if they'd be separate, and dont know how you'd know whether they were, but they seem secondary) of expectations concerning what is to follow.

expectations or projections are important in the reduction of complexity, which is a basic perceptual task. projections are the space where different registers of organization get intertwined, confused, conflated and so are the space in which, say, assumptions about how Things Are Organized in the Biggest Possible Sense get superimposed on more local phenomena---

this is probably going too far afield, but anyway since i've been working with this stuff it is jammed into my brain so here goes: edmund husserl talks about internal time consciousness as being comprised of a sequence of operations: retention, protension and modalization. time consciousness is a way of modelling thinking (which is not embodied for husserl) as temporal--as unfolding in time, as unfolding time---but a temporal process that generates a perceptual field (a visual field) that is relative stable, like what you see when you look around, or what you see as you read this...the sentences remain stable as perceptual data even as time ticks ticks ticks--the processes that enable you to read this are not processes that you experience directly, but they have to be in place and operative if you are reading this. so time consciousness is a way to model the transition from a temporal flux into organizable perceptual data. so it's about pattern generation--retention is a way of talking about how instantaneous visual data is coalated at a slight lag--husserl talks about types of edge recognition as the basis for patterning the contents of the field generated around this instantaneous visual data--so retention is a variant of memory that fixes elements abstracted from a temporal flux and renders them organizable---protension is the projection forward in time of expectations which are rooted in the fashioning of an object from temporal data---modalization is the adjustment of expectations to fit variation or change in perceptual data.

now there are problems with this model, most of which have to do with the way time is itself modelled...and that, if you think about it, if this operation was geared in fact around the production of objects in isolation, it'd be terribly slow. on the second point, i think that for husserl it follows from his desire to relegate language to a second-order operation, which gets introduced into the game of perception at the level of judgments about organized data, which is not implicit in the organization itself. anyway, i might be digressing (this shit has infested my brain)...

so to go back to the idea of experiment, you can see a structure of expectations built into an experiment's design.
these expectations are hedged round by any number of frames--the history of other such experiments, the accepted definitions of the phenomena being investigated, the collection of descriptions that enables results to be anticipated, etc.
so correspondence operates.
once established as valid or true, an experimental result can then be inserted into broader images of the world as coherent, as true or valid--these broader conceptions are not subjected to anything like the analysis that the experimental data is, but nonetheless, in a strange way, the inserting of experimental data into a "set" ordered around these other, unexamined signifiers (like god) functions to validate them.
this seems inevitable---if anything about husserl's time consciousness idea is correct, we mostly live in networks of expectations which are either met or not as we move through particular perceptual regions or fields.
it is not easy to separate different registers of expectation...and those who engage in scientific work are no more equipped to do it than anyone else necessarily--personally, i think this a consequence of the separation of scientific investigation and philosophical investigation, which to my mind should be talking to each other, but which in 3-d tend not to, particularly not in the states (as a function of the separation of disciplines)....

i wonder if this makes any sense at all.
meh--------posting it anyway.

I'll rudely interrupt here and put my 2¢, without reading much else, and am probably reading it all wrong.

The debate, to me, is just, "I see religious people doing a lot of bad things." Religion itself isn't the problem, lack of tolerance and understanding is.

What evidence, where? Don't answer this, I really don't care to argue it, as I am sure I will encounter it again somewhere. While can I imagine many mysteries of the Bible have somewhere been disproved or shown to have been coincidence... how do you disprove something that cannot yet be observed?

Personally: engineering student, and all around fact finder. Love the debate. Yeah, religion does it's fare share of damage to people and culture, but that isn't the problem. The problem is people take belief so far and forget that there are basic rules we ought to follow outside of what the book says (I am recalling the thoughts of Kant at this point).

I prefer a mystery, and that is why I don't call it God. I've expressed this many times before, I thought here, and I am doing so again. We can't know anything. We observe.

The stuff that you wrote preceding this in #61 needed a referent for us, and here it is. A bit too conceptual at first, Husserl's ideas take form in your application of them to the idea of experiments. What I find interesting is that this seems to me to tie into my original reference to power/knowledge as conceived by Michel Foucault in that what we deem as knowledge (or truth) is that which has been accepted and "verified" by those with the authority to do so. The problem with this (even so within the context of internal time consciousness) is that knowledge is invariably effected (perhaps corrupted) of the ideological desires of those very authorities who empower it.

Take research, for example. The problem with research reports is that the data can be manipulated and presented in such a way to reflect the bias of those responsible for it. One can essentially have their answer before the question is even asked. "Knowledge" can be engineered by scientists out of the materials of what philosophers would call "truth." What, then, can we do to fill this void between "knowledge" and "truth"? What, then, can we do to undermine or circumvent the authoritative powers that not only create this knowledge but also apply it in great factors throughout society?

The problem with this thread is that it encourages people to fall into the easy trap of blindly criticizing "religious truth" as dangerous while doing so out of the more so affecting "scientific truth" that surrounds us in practice. We have removed much of the Church from our governments and schools, but we have done so at the cost of further empowering the power/knowledge problem.

Does this in anyway tie into what you're haunted by, roachboy? Or is it a misleading tangent? The only shift I can see is that I've pointed out the impact of accepted results, whereas you've focused on expectations.

I haven't read Heidegger. I haven't read Husserl.

well, in a way its a tweak of what filtherton's been saying in these threads too.


i focussed on expectations in time consciousness because if you think about it you can see how basic a role they play in the reduction of complexity, which enables us to generate a stable perceptual field...so the problem operates at a very intimate level, one that skims beneath the surface of interpellation involving subject positions generated by Institutions (in the big, straight sense) and points to how it is that we are ourselves institutions (the I is an institution) in a smaller sense--there are rules and we perform ourselves in contexts shaped by those rules (this is way too simple, but for the sake of being able to actually end this post...)

i went here because i think this is an interesting way of thinking about perception in general, how it is fashioned, what might be the parameters (at the biosystem level, say) that shape its production. and what i've posted really is only the barest of outlines, not even cliffnotes stuff.

anyway, if anything about the above is accurate, then we live mostly in ways shaped by protension, by expectation, which is a way of referring to modalities whereby we stabilize phenomena that we encounter in time (you know, from a particular side, from a particular angle, etc.)

and i dont think husserl was right in separating language from time consciousness and its operations...[[steps should be here but aren't]]
so i think that ideological propositions (implicit propostions) are repeated or performed in the most basic perceptual activities. we internalize and perform ideological positions. and many of these committments or positions are not rational at all--think for example about capitalism and the greatest mystery about it, that it has not exploded


anyway, it makes no sense at all to imagine that one type of knowledge production will eliminate this space held together by projection and another will not. science doesnt get rid of that. religion doesn't. so neither alters the central space of projection/expectation...so it's not like one is True and the other False in itself.

this isn't to say their equivalent, though.
scientific procedures do not falsify religious committments held by those who undertake them--they're simply integrated at a different level of symbolic interaction. nor does science-like activity explain the atheism of those who are. nothing is proven or disproven necessarily.

this also does not mean that there are not arguments for or against beliefs and that some are more persuasive than others.

it's all only to say that it is naive to imagine that "science" provides anything like a procedure that would lead anyone to either a religious commitment or to a lack of a religious commitment.
it's also naive to imagine that anyone is consistent in their ideological commitments--when you get down to it, people seem to value a sense of locatedness from which they are able to derive a sense of self as stable and/or coherent--so there's a bit of the conservative in everyone.

btw, i think god is just a word.

This reminds me of a discussion in the Atheism's sudden rise thread, where "faith" in the models was required to accept them. You are talking about dirty science. We all know the clique, "ends justifying the means," however here I say dirty science, "the ends must justify the spending." Yes science can be biased, because (aside from unscrupulous reasons) we are not ready to know the next step. The model may require new means of measurement, or new basic models to begin with. The real essence of the universe is there, we haven't the minds to understand it fully, yet. In science when you, viz your model, are proven "wrong," it usually means that the model breaks down as things get larger, smaller, faster, colder, etc. It wasn't precisely wrong, just not correct in all cases. This doesn't mean that the model can no longer be used.

The reason "religious truths" often are criticized, from my observations, is because many "truths" are not open to interpretation, there is no room for observation. When religion makes the headlines it is because some shit has hit the fan. This occurs when people strictly adhere to beliefs, instead of taking from their books the good that is to be taught.


Nor have I.

I agree with roach, that science is no means of justifying or renouncing religious beliefs.

I think you're argument fails on this point. While I am most assuredly agnostic, the whole point of God is that it can neither be proved nor disproved. It's defined that way. If science could demonstrate the absence of a deity, then it wouldn't BE a deity.

For a really entertaining read and eye opening take on this that would probably jibe nicely with your Atheistic beliefs, and yet help you to understand the inevitable persistence of Theism, go to the library, take out George RR Martin's Dreamsongs, and read "The Dragon and George."

But look, it's not Theism that bothers you, it's people telling you what you ought to believe...

...Like Atheists are wont to do.

Agnosticism is the only 100% logical response, but no human is 100% logical, and 100% logical is no fun - even Spock figured that one out by the 6th movie.

Dude, relax a bit, this is not a pissing contest. I have done plenty of research thank you. I really don't see the disagreement. Your own source (one that I've read) if you continue the whole quote (See Baraka's post) clearly states that Einstein was a very religious man. No problem there. I share his belief as well (as well as Spinoza's).

Again, the point is that religion and science are two very different things but not mutually exclusive. Plenty of scientists are religious and plenty of religious people believe in science. I really don't understand the antagonism and hatred directed at religious folk.

It's ok Ustwo, I didn't think it was harsh but thank you.

I disagree that it is dishonest to claim Einstein as a religious man. He says so himself. Just because he is religious does not diminish his scientific achievements. The reason I chose Einstein as a an example was to illustrate that religion and science are not incompatible or mutually exclusive. I think it is dishonest to claim otherwise.

Very well written Baraka, thank you.

Augi

You talk about how the problem with religion is that people take things too literally and bypass the Good of the Good Book, if i understand you correctly. Would you wish the moral stories of scripture, ones that we can take meaning from to be taught and the ones that cause hatred intolerance etc. to not be taught?

(Apologies if i have misunderstood you)

Tophat
I tend to agree and disagree with you at the same time so this will be interesting.
I agree, as a scientist, whole heartedly that one cannot prove that God does not exist. We have no definitive proof that God does not exist and as some others have said we can never do. We can speculate on the existence of God as a probability though. To be an Agnostic i would think you either a) do not bother yourself with such though at all or b) think the chance of a deity existing to be more or less equal with the chance of it not existing.

Considering that if you were 'a' you probably would not be posting in this thread you would most likely think that God has equal chances at either way of existence. One must base probability on the evidence we have. Yes the evidence against God is not condemning but it does not need to be to shift from Agnosticism. (If you are aware with Hypothesis Testing in Mathematics then you will know what i am talking about)

The existence of God is just as likely as the existence of fairies and neither can be 100% scientifically disproved. However simply because something cannot be completely proved nor completely disproved does not mean the likelihood is 0.5 (50%).

I hope i have understood your position, if not please clarify me.

Sedecrem

I would prefer people learn as much about each religion as they can to make up their own minds. You can let the hatred be taught, but as far as I am concerned, the hatred is just inflated by the modern times. Big example: Muslims and Jews, originally just a difference between which son was to get the promises of God. Now it is a modern conflict because the UN gave [promised] land away to Jews from the Palestinians. How much of that hate was originally instilled in the original texts of the Koran and mow much is just inflated by modern passions?

I myself think, "God promized... give me a break," only because of my own beliefs. So, yes, you would be correct. Personally, I would rather see the hatred not taught.

You can't really frame the existence of god as a matter of probability in any sort of technical sense. Doing so implies that you have some sort of data, i.e. you've studied a number of universes and a certain portion had a god, or that you have enough knowledge of the innate workings of the universe so as to come up with some numbers for the probability of the existence of god. Neither of these is true. You haven't studied other universes to determine whether there exists a god in any of them, and assuming that ours is the only universe the idea of "probability of god" is completely meaningless. And, you can't possibly have enough information to make any sort of meaningful claim on the probability of a god's existence- if you do i'd like to hear about it. The existence of god is just as likely as the existence of fairies, which is just as likely as new zealand acquiring nuclear weapons; which is to say that they all have a probability of x, where x is some number less than one.

Probability comes up in discussions of god's existence only as a means of trying to lend scientific sounding validity to matters of pure speculation. It's a scientific sounding way of saying, "Well, i've thought about it and my gut says probably not." It's not science in any sort of meaningful sense.

QED. Science is testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. Saying something like "the chance of God existing is 50%" is a fancy mathematical disguise for an unprovable (and non-scientific) premise.

"Truths" not open to interpretation? No room for observation? Well, that isn't what they're meant for. "Truths" are meant to be the tools used to interpret the world through observation. It's supposed to be the other way around. However, you might be referring to dogma as opposed to the "truth," the latter which is often confirmed by observation and experience. Dogma is meant to teach, but it is also easily corruptible, which makes it open to criticism when it is used as a source of power to exploit others. This is the danger of religion; this is religion's delusion.

Would this be akin to using the scientific method to gauge good and evil?

but the fact that, if you like, we operate within different genres of thinking---that we can engage in scientific activities in one quadrant of our lives, and in another be quite religious---means that the only result of the above is that certain types of premises are ruled out of certain games. but that this is the case doesn't falsify them in general--it only excludes them from that particular game. this is one of the things i was trying to get at above...why the appeal to some abstract notion of "science" doesn't speak to the multiplicity of genre-frames that all of us operate with as we move through our experience, nor does it say anything about the hierarchies or arrangements that folk can fashion for themselves between or among these frames.

Yes, dogma, that is what I meant.

Good and evil are human concepts we use to describe behavior conductive or antagonistic to society. Without certain morals and social laws, society could not function efficiently. In a sense, the scientific method could be used to gage good and evil demonstrating that without such X then Y of P you could not acheive Z, but as far as I see it, they are human concepts.

Good and evil aren't just human concepts, they are human problems. I'm not sure we could pin the concepts of good and evil to any other animals within the kingdom, but that doesn't make them any less real to us.

Part of my acceptance of atheism is the understanding that there's no such thing as good and evil. There's destructive and creative. There's negative and positive. There's no good and evil, though. They're absolutist constructs intended to misrepresent what is really going on by painting an easier to understand black and white picture.

I think that it could be argued that there's no such thing as destructive or creative or negative or positive- at least not in any objective sense. The differences between destructive and creative or positive and negative depend on perspective.

That I have to agree with filtheron on that.

But I do think the concepts of good and evil are in fact valid even though I don't believe in any higher power.

Good and evil are human terms for moral/immoral actions. Our morals are part of our genetics as a social animal and it is our morals which we mirror in our religions (not the other way around). Even when a society appears to be 'evil' it tends to be evil to out groups and moral to its own. This too is part of our genetically influenced behavior.

So while evil wouldn't be the work of the devil it would be recognized as extremely selfish behavior non-compatible with harmonious social living.

Sounds like hippie-talk to me. ;)

Actually, I think Karl Marx wrote that. :D

Not quite. One thing I've learned is that most hippie types try to deny human nature. Harmonious social behavior doesn't mean necessarily working together for a common good. It can mean working for yourself for your own good in ways which don't cross that moral line in your group.

Group selection would be more of a hippie thing and thats been long rejected by evolutionary biologists.

The concept of evolution has also evolved, has it not?

Theism will exist for as long as we do, since it's more plastic, being an idea.

Evolution however, evolves due to new data creating further growth of the theory, Theist doctrine does not evolve, it is re- interpreted as culture changes.

One theory depends on science, and discovery....the other requires nothing but human imagination.

see, i dont know about that opposition, tec.
and i'm not a believer at all in this whole god business.
but if you look at how various christian denominations change over time, they are continually adapting to and being adapted to changing circumstances--the meanings ascribed to the main signifiers that order the tradition are continually being reworked--so a mainline old-school catholic's understanding of this god character would be very different from a charismatic's understanding, if only because of the relative importance of the notion of the holy spirit, what it does and where it does it. this is a pretty big torsion and has only developed since the early 1970s...go figure.

a seemingly unrelated example---i am still struck by walking over the pnt d'alma a bunch of times during the last year i was living in paris and seeing this huge, odd shrine to diana spenser (whatever) develop--lots of little pieces of paper were attached to it, many of which had notes written on them that effectively treated diana as already a saint and asked for her intercession with the god-guy on their behalf.

i think this kind of stuff happens all the time at the local level...differentially as a function of the particular context--but still. so for example in alot of southern hemisphere contexts you have a far more dynamic type of catholicism--particularly at the level of saint-creation--than you have in the north--and FAR more dynamic that the vatican's official understanding of the church to be.

so i'm not sure that the distinction helps separate what scientific knowledge might produce from what "religious" knowledge might produce, nor do i see it designating a helpful general description of the social space occupied by science as over against that occupied by "religion"...what i do see is an index of different political constructions of the two areas--first on your part, tec--and secondly as a reflection of aspects of the internal ideologies of these respective zones of activity (this is a compressed restatement of what i was arguing above--hope it makes sense)....but neither is a description of how either space operates.

you can see a ton of conservatism within scientific communities, particularly if you see them in terms of longer-term history.
you can also see a ton of dynamism in religious organizations/movements.
you can see these areas as engaged in quite similar dependencies on central orthodoxies at some periods and as engaged in accelerated rethinking or overthrowing of them in others.

seems to me that the distinction lay more in the types of claims generated.

Excellent points...but I will focus on this one, as I am in the midst of a whiskey tasting.

While the claims do indeed make the evolution of both possible ( nothing changes without new data), Scientific disciplines tend to use physical information found by means of sampling the reality we know, and touch regularly. This may be the unseen (quanta/micro) or the macro world we deal with daily. Theist reality falls back to scripture by default, as there is nothing other than the ancient writings to rely upon. The Gods no longer speak to us....unless you follow the Falwell doctrines. Science speaks every day.

I think that maybe atheism is down for the count. At least as far as this thread is concerned.

:orly:

When did that happen?

Like any religion, atheism will continue long past the point rational people have concluded that it requires an unwaranted leap of faith.

Nevertheless, so long as someone suggests that there may be something out there that cannot be measured and has some impact upon humanity, there will be an atheist there to say, "Be serious."

On the plus side, I have never had an atheist knock on my door while I was in the tub and try to hand me a copy of the latest Dawkins essay, so they have that going for them.

/ Now watch the atheists fulminate that I called it a religion, and note the dead certainty, the fiery rhetoric, and the affronted air of Pat Robertson on a Vegas "fact-finding" mission.

Can't we all just agree that whether or not there is a God, it's just not going to matter to some people, and will consume the entire life and being of others, and that's just the way the human psyche is?

And just who would be doing this fulminating? Calling atheism a religion is rather wrong, I suppose for some its a cause, for me its just what I think. I'm not part of any organization, I don't have a creed, I don't give any money, I don't have a shrine, I don't say prayers, I don't focus on being one with nothing, and I don't have a picture of no-god on black velvet in my living room. There really isn't anything to tie it accept to say that it requires 'faith' to say there is no god because we can't know, but even I as an atheist admit I am not 100% sure, I just see it as very highly unlikely. It is the theist who has the 100% certainty.


The problem isn't people who believe in a God, the problem is the stupid things they try to do to each other and me in the name of this God, which is why I can't say I mind a growing atheist movement.

It's not fulminating, it's really us just shaking out heads. Are gentiles a type of jew? Are civilians a type of military officer? Are women a type of man? Of course not.

Look up "religion". That way you're not incorrect in the future concerning what "atheism" really is.

It happened when the atheists stopped responding to any of the points i was making.

I thought the answer was going to be that most studies show a downward trend in the number of people who consider themselves atheists since (Approximately) the 1970's. My mistake.

And on the subject of atheism as religion, i think that there is more than one way to be an atheist. There are many who have essentially deified the scientific process- whose comfort with the world very much requires both the existence of some sort sort of innate order (a faith based position) and a mechanism capable of making absolute sense of this order (the means for humanity's salvation)- and in this sense, i think it could be argued that such folk are essentially religious. Such religiousness isn't the result of atheism, though. It more seems like a simple transposition of the common motivations for religious belief into a different framework: science.

The winner of a debate isn't the last one talking :thumbsup:

It also isn't the one who gets "too busy to respond" to every post.

This makes much sense. I like this. The important difference, however, is that there is a lack of focus on the supernatural or what cannot be seen. Science focuses on what could be and then seeks to validate it. It's as though the predominantly scientific-minded (via, to some degree, atheism) picked up the torch of knowledge (and, therefore, the authority to postulate it as well) from the predominantly religious-minded. What each were seeking is essentially the same, it's just that the latter have been "blessed" with the tools to better see and discover this knowledge, and, moreover, to record and archive it.

I think a movement toward atheism is a natural and necessary process that the mind needs to undergo in order to continue making sense of the universe. And I think you've described atheism wonderfully, filtherton.

Since the OP is awol, what questions did you feel were neglected that weren't answered in the other thread?

Well, i did ask you to clarify and sedecrem to offer your definitions of the phrase "critical thinking". It seems like something that should be obvious, but despite having a pretty plain definition the word "logic" constantly gets abused in these discussions.

Using all available information based on observation to answer a question as best we can.

I can get more formal if you think it will help.

Science should focus on what could be and its validation, but science only really enters into the picture when validation is somehow a possibility. I think that speaking strictly from a scientific perspective, there is no such thing as "the supernatural" because everything is natural. Even if there existed such a class of phenomena, the unverifiability of an idea doesn't necessarily mean it lies in the realm of the supernatural, if that were the case we'd be talking about theoretical physicists with the same level of reverence that we reserve for ghost hunters (no doubt that some folks do). If god, or ghosts exist, then it would only mean that our understanding of the natural laws as they are currently formulated are deficient.

This being the case, science and theology aren't necessarily at odds, provided the theology in question is adaptable to advancements in scientific knowledge. This also means that atheism isn't necessarily some sort of advanced process, just another way of looking at things.

Thank you.:)

This definition doesn't necessarily preclude using critical thought as a means of coming to the conclusion that god exists.