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Jim-Me, can you elaborate. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I would say that they are more different in degree than in kind. Both are forms of discovery, though I can definitely see where the former might give a greater sense of accomplishment than the latter, but even that is a subjective judgement. Right?
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The student is being led down a path and has an expected result. If they don't duplicate it, the assumption is that they performed the experiment incorrectly.... to the point that they probably get a bad grade on their lab if they don't produce the desired result (as I did more than once). The scientist performing the initial experiment *should* be approaching it with a completely open mind. His first thought on achieving an un-sought result shouldn't be "well, I just did it wrong... we know the right answer" but rather "huh... I wonder why *that* happened."
I don't even think it's so much a difference in degree as in mindset going in.
Note: I am not saying that there is anything wrong with how science is taught at any of the levels I have experienced it (up through undergraduate).
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Thanks Jim-Me. I agree with that for the most part. I think we were looking at the comparison from different levels, though. I would now say that there are both similarities and differences in the two experiences, depending on what, specifically, you are comparing about them.
quote:Yeah, the classroom learner exercises faith in the teacher and in the discoverer. The discoverer exercises faith in his senses, and in the instruments and tools at his disposal and in a set of standard methods and practices. Sounds a bit like religion to me.
Skillery, I think this underscores how the mutable definition of "religion" in these discussions serves more to muddy the waters than to clarify much. I can "agree" that it sounds "a bit like religion", but that doesn't mean that it is anything like "religion" as it is used in most other contexts on this forum.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Considering how much I absolutely hate the "now" and have hated it from my teenage days, recognition of something more than "now" is the only thing that saved my life. If I wasn't "eternal spiritual" then I would be a nihilist. For those who find happiness in living, I either find them delusional or materialistic.
This does not have anything to do with what's true. And in any case, if you really can't manage to stand on your own two feet and enjoy life without a Big Brother in the sky to help you, I have absolutely zero sympathy for you. Get some Prozac.
quote:Assuming you and TL are addressing me, of course it makes sense. If we have no common ground, no common, arbitrary dogma such as "reason is valid" we can't argue and we're back to stabbing swords "as far as they will go", again.
Nothing arbitrary about it. The society that believes in reason and experiment has better guns than the ones that don't.
quote:However, I made a mistake in my response. I took your statement more generally that it may have been intended. I thought you were making a blanket statement about life in general, not merely restricted to the realm of science. My apologies.
Nope, I intended it to apply everywhere, because it works. Or do you believe in Russell's Teapot and the IPU? Because that's where you end up. As for Einstein, to whatever extent people held GR as more than a tentative hypothesis before experimental evidence came along, they were wrong.
quote:I believe:
That Science answers How That Religion answers Why
Religion does nothing of the kind; it delegates the answer to Big Brother. That's not an answer, it's a cop-out. And science answers both: 'Why' is whatever you make of it.
quote:Problem: Evolution is not completely 100% proven. There is a whole ton of very authoritative data on the issue, but there will always be holes where certain things either don't make sense, or the data is just missing.
Can we please stop having to deal with this sophomoric non-issue every time evolution (or for that matter god) is mentioned? This little factoid that nothing can be 100% proven is totally without interest outside of philosophy courses, because nobody actually lives like that, nor should they. At some point you have to say "This is as proven as something gets" and actually make a damn decision. You can't go around acting on the possibility that we all live in the Matrix, even though it's possible in principle; that way madness lies.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: At some point you have to say "This is as proven as something gets" and actually make a damn decision. You can't go around acting on the possibility that we all live in the Matrix, even though it's possible in principle; that way madness lies.
I completely agree. And that choice is an absolutely dogmatic, arbitrary and unprovable one.
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No, because your method for deciding what is proven can be tested empirically. Science works: It does in fact allow you to kill your enemies, live without backbreaking work, and generally have a better life than our ancestors.
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quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: I think that is a very shallow view of religion. I can point out instances where Catholic dogma was challenged, refined, and eventually changed.... and that is one of the most insistently correct and authority-rich religions around.
That tends to be the exception though, wouldn't you agree?
I suppose that a large portion of the discussion centers around what people find important.
I personally feel that cooperation, mutual understanding, working for the betterment of all humanity, among other things, are highly valuable. I believe that to a large extent, many organized religions work against these things. They operate in a worldview in which their group is the most important, some even going so far as to say that those who are not their group are of less worth, and may even be the enemy.
Organized religion is very good at separating US from THEM. And that is a foundation upon which I do not believe humanity can prosper.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: At some point you have to say "This is as proven as something gets" and actually make a damn decision. You can't go around acting on the possibility that we all live in the Matrix, even though it's possible in principle; that way madness lies.
I completely agree. And that choice is an absolutely dogmatic, arbitrary and unprovable one.
I don't think that's the case, at least not in the same way that believing Jesus was the Son of God is dogmatic, arbitrary, and unprovable. When you get right down to it, when a scientist says we "know" something, he's mostly including the implied "as far as we can tell from present demonstrable knowledge." There is rarely such an implied concession to inherent doubt when talking about religious "truths" people hold.
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"Advantageous" is not "right". You appear to be conflating "better in combat" with provably correct. While that goes for, say, my kung fu style, it means absolutely nothing when getting down to factual assertions. It's still and arbitrary and dogmatic stance.
Besides, religion offers advantages, too. Most notably high troop morale and a general spirit of cooperation.
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"This does not have anything to do with what's true. And in any case, if you really can't manage to stand on your own two feet and enjoy life without a Big Brother in the sky to help you, I have absolutely zero sympathy for you. Get some Prozac"
You know, the irony is this is the attitude of other people that proved to me at a young age exactly how worthless life was. It isn't about "standing on my own" as much as "zero sympathy for you" that created my views of living. Now it is true that there was more than human relationships that helped shape my ideas, but it was a factor.
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You should please note that there is an 'if' in that sentence, which is up to you. To assume the if is true when you are arguing in favour of is circular reasoning. In any case, your depression or lack of it is utterly irrelevant to what's true.
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...and if our God happens to be a scientist, and if our objective as religious devotees to that God is to believe everything that God believes and know everything that God knows and do everything that God does, then isn't God's science necessarily a part of that religion?
If our definition of religion puts limits on the knowing and doing part, then I'll side with the scientists.
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Well then. Since you apparently cannot exist without some kind of outside affirmation of your worth, even by an imaginary being, fine. Go to your nihilism, then, and good riddance. But that's a side issue. You will still not have said anything about what is actually true.
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Its not about "outside affirmation of your worth," but about the worth of ANYTHING - even Truth as you define it. Believe me, if I went into nihilism, I would be taking you metaphorically, if not really, with me.
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What of it? I'm getting tired of saying this, but your inability to value things for their own sake does not say anything about truth.
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Yes it does. I'm sure you are going to come up with some nonstandard definition of 'truth' which it can reasonably be said that science doesn't address, but I won't play word games. If you're going there, I will not follow.
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No; truth is always practical, and therefore the test of practicality is a way to truth. Knowledge is power, if you like; but only if it's true knowledge. There's no power in memorising the names of nonexistent demons. Hence, if a given bit of knowledge gives you power, it is true.
Edit : In any case, the distinction doesn't matter. A truth that can't be found by empirical testing may exist, but then so may the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Who cares? If your 'truth' cannot be separated from the FSM, then it is of absolutely zero value.
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quote:Its not about "outside affirmation of your worth," but about the worth of ANYTHING...
What do you mean by "worth" in this context? Is it not, in its simplest form, just an attribute you choose to recognize?
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Hence, if a given bit of knowledge gives you power, it is true.
Edit : In any case, the distinction doesn't matter. A truth that can't be found by empirical testing may exist, but then so may the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Who cares? If your 'truth' cannot be separated from the FSM, then it is of absolutely zero value.
by that standard, most religions are definitely true... hell, even the FSM empowers a lot of people-- humor is a very powerful tool.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No; truth is always practical, and therefore the test of practicality is a way to truth. Knowledge is power, if you like; but only if it's true knowledge. There's no power in memorising the names of nonexistent demons. Hence, if a given bit of knowledge gives you power, it is true.
Edit : In any case, the distinction doesn't matter. A truth that can't be found by empirical testing may exist, but then so may the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Who cares? If your 'truth' cannot be separated from the FSM, then it is of absolutely zero value.
I just want to further point out the extent to which many segments of engineering/science in fact find your "truth" to be next to useless in that even when we theoretically know the full equation governing something we often can't use it because of computing power limitations and the like. So in essence all of our planes fly on extrapolated experimental data, which in fact deviates from our theoretical "truth" of what fundamental physics says should happen.
I used evolution as the extreme example, but there's plenty of other areas where things aren't as clear cut as there, where "science" is a lot more faith than most people realize, etc.
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quote:Is it not, in its simplest form, just an attribute you choose to recognize?
Then what is "worth?" Are you asserting that there is an empirical and universal standard of "worth" out there?
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quote:Are you asserting that there is an empirical and universal standard of "worth" out there?
I don't think there's an empirical standard of worth, but I think there is a universal one for some non-trivial definition of universal.
The reason for the last clause is that I believe this universal standard contains room for different individuals to find different worth in different things. However, there are things that universally do not have worth, even if some people prefer them, and there are certain rankings of worth (not linear or 1-dimensional rankings) that are universally true even if not universally recognized.
It's the reason we speak of "values" when we speak of morality - due esteem, and all that.
I think the implication that lack if empiricism renders something an "attribute you choose to recognize" is problematic. At the very least, such premise isn't empirically supported.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: You think religious people don't see their religion working?
Again I refer you to the cancer cure.
Not really a fair comparison. Where does science explain the meaning of life? Science would tell you there isn't any, except to survive and procreate, but that isn't good enough for many of us. But science can't go any further than that, God can. Science doesn't have the answer for everything, neither does religion. Sometimes there's overlap.
I won't bother getting into remote prayer Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Not really a fair comparison. Where does science explain the meaning of life? Science would tell you there isn't any, except to survive and procreate, but that isn't good enough for many of us.
Well, that's just too damn bad, isn't it? Again: Just because you don't like the answer, doesn't mean you are allowed to make up your own. If you aren't prepared to accept the answer honestly, don't ask the question. In any case, you are putting up a strawman version of what science (more accurately, atheist philosophies) actually says about meaning, which might be better summarised as "Find your own".
In any case, come to think of it, I've seen a lot of 'meaning of life' stuff bandied about here, but nobody seems to actually put anything into it. Just how does religion give a meaning to life? What is the answer you lot are shouting about science not giving?
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quote:However, there are things that universally do not have worth, even if some people prefer them...
Like...?
quote:Science would tell you there isn't any, except to survive and procreate, but that isn't good enough for many of us.
Ironically, I was just having this exact same discussion on Ornery last week.
And no, materialism does not mean "there is no meaning to life;" it means that materialists simply recognize that "meaning," as a personal value, has to be identified by the person in question and not imposed by an outside arbiter.
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quote:Not really a fair comparison. Where does science explain the meaning of life? Science would tell you there isn't any, except to survive and procreate, but that isn't good enough for many of us.
Well, that's just too damn bad, isn't it? Again: Just because you don't like the answer, doesn't mean you are allowed to make up your own. If you aren't prepared to accept the answer honestly, don't ask the question. In any case, you are putting up a strawman version of what science (more accurately, atheist philosophies) actually says about meaning, which might be better summarised as "Find your own".
In any case, come to think of it, I've seen a lot of 'meaning of life' stuff bandied about here, but nobody seems to actually put anything into it. Just how does religion give a meaning to life? What is the answer you lot are shouting about science not giving?
Well, alright then. Explain how "find your own" and religion AREN'T related. Religion for many, hell, I'd say almost for everyone is a quest for meaning in their lives, whether they are actively looking for it, or it is thrust upon them. If science's answer to "what is the meaning of life?" is "What are you asking me for? Figure it out yourself," and if we accept that religion IS a pathway to finding that answer, then I wonder how you can deny that religion really is the "Why" in the questions of the universe.
"Too damned bad" isn't really an acceptable answer. If I can't accept the answer that science gives me because it isn't complete enough, who are you to tell me that as a human being I have to accept that, and I can't search for more? Even now we're arguing philosophy and not science. Science can't explain this stuff. Science, at least thus far, can't identify the gene in my genome that explains why I want to know more than science can tell me.
Religion hasn't given me the meaning of life, you'll have to ask people much more religious than I for an answer to that. You're talking about a grey area of science, and stating things as fact that I don't think most people accept as fact.
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I'm happy if religion can answer someone's question about what the meaning of their life is, so long as it doesn't try to dictate what the meaning of my life is, and so long as it doesn't tell them that the meaning of their life is to cause trouble for everyone else.
I think "figure it out" is a lot better answer than "rid the world of those who disagree with you."
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quote:Where does science explain the meaning of life? Science would tell you there isn't any, except to survive and procreate, but that isn't good enough for many of us. But science can't go any further than that, God can.
Umm, first, as others have said, "Science" doesn't even address the "meaning of life", so please stop misrepresenting science by saying that it does and falls short. Beyond that, sure, "God" can give you a thousand answers, (quite apparently he does, with little regard to their compatibility), but that doesn't mean any of those answers is rational, supportable, or other than pulled out of some human philospher's hind-quarters. Now I'm not saying none of them is, but anything that comes down to "God says so" as its basis for truth cannot be said to be a universal truth because God answers nothing universally. Therefore, religious "answers" are extremely subjective answers at best, and pipe-dreams at worst. And yes, I know you can point to a hundred million Catholics or a billion Christians who will agree with you on some specifics but sheer numbers don't make a shared delusion any more than that.
Note also that I make a distinction between what is "spiritual" and what is "religious". I'd agree that "Spirituality" tries to answer the "why". All religion does, in terms of a quest for truth, is to help people reinforce their commitment to one possible answer among many equally valid answers.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sorry, I should have specified: Power over the physical universe. Opium dreams do not count.
The Crusades, The Inquisition, the preservation (and hoarding) of Greek knowledge throughout the dark ages, establishing the human trinity of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as the basis for Western thought, Publishing Copernicus, Condemning Galileo, the Spanish influence in America, (especially Polish) Resistance against the Soviet Union... and that's *just* Catholicism.
I'd say that's remarkable power over the physical universe.
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And you're arguing that this power came from Catholicism and not from science and technology? I'll grant that the abuse of this power came from religion, though.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: Umm, first, as others have said, "Science" doesn't even address the "meaning of life", so please stop misrepresenting science by saying that it does and falls short.
I think the issue is that KoM refuses to acknowledge that this is the valid realm of Religion and that, for the vast majority of people, Religion answers this question powerfully.
As for KoM's question about the meaning of life... my religion says that meaning is "Love" and that fact alone, to me, makes it more inherently powerful than all the scientific understanding in the world.
But I'm admittedly a romantic.
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quote:that, for the vast majority of people, Religion answers this question powerfully.
I would assert that religion answers this question for almost no one, but that the people who think it does have simply incorrectly identified the source of the answers they think they have.
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That Science answers How That Religion answers Why --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Religion does nothing of the kind; it delegates the answer to Big Brother. That's not an answer, it's a cop-out. And science answers both: 'Why' is whatever you make of it.
Wrong.
Why are we? Science does not answer that question. Science in its purest form offers no reason why we exist. It states how we came to be in our present form, but does not say anything about the why of it, because that is something beyond the realm of research and provability.
Science can not prove the non-existance of God, nor can it prove the existance of God. However, to say the evolution leads one to the conclusion that we are here just by chance, by pure physics and natural reactions alone, so there is no reason for our existance--that is a philosophy. Philosophy, like religion, answers the big Why questions.
So if you wish to debate the existance of God, using your philosophy versus others people's faith, and using science as the jumping off point for that debate, good.
If, however, you wish to point out that science has proven there is no God at all, please don't sully Science with that bad philosopy.
Remember the last part of my original quote? Something about people who use science to answer Why looking foolish.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: And you're arguing that this power came from Catholicism and not from science and technology? I'll grant that the abuse of this power came from religion, though.
You want to blame the bad actions on it without giving it credit for enabling the actions? that's rather trying to have it both ways, isn't it?
I mean, if you (collective "you") aren't willing to acknowledge the power of attitude, morale, and motivation -- things nearly all religions provide in droves-- then I can't really argue the point, but I'd say that you are the ones missing out.
quote:I would assert that religion answers this question for almost no one, but that the people who think it does have simply incorrectly identified the source of the answers they think they have.
From what I know of you, Tom, I think you are saying, essentially, that "it's all in their heads." You may be right. But, you yourself have worried publically at our ability to produce the intangibles I speak of once all religion has been actually proven false. Whether the power of these intangibles is really from within them or from an actual entity somewhere (and as has already been pointed out, some religions don't even have a "god" figure... just a spiritual "way") is irrelevant to the efficacy of that power.
I wouldn't ordinarily make simple, practical efficiency the test of "truth", but KoM has and, by that standard, I find that all religions have an abundance of truth... if only in the power of uniting their followers to a common cause.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: I'd agree that "Spirituality" tries to answer the "why".
As does a great deal of human philosophy.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: "Too damned bad" isn't really an acceptable answer.
And "I don't like it" isn't a refutation. The universe is what it is, created or otherwise, regardless of your feelings on the subject.
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Well, kmb, it is only because God did help me learn how to live more abundantly that I care about life. He basically told me: Don't worry, this isn't all there is.
Honey, there is a world of difference between knowing that there is more than this and absolutely hating the now. There is a purpose in this life, too. Again, if you want to chat about this more, please feel free to e-mail me.
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quote:And "I don't like it" isn't a refutation. The universe is what it is, created or otherwise, regardless of your feelings on the subject.
That wasn't what I was saying. "Too damned bad" and "figure it out yourself" aren't answers, they're signposts. Claiming that I don't like an answer that isn't really an answer isn't much of an accusation. Furthermore, I never had anything to say about the universe at large, just my place in it. And I challenge you to point out where it says what I'm suppose to do in the universe that is what it is.
quote:Umm, first, as others have said, "Science" doesn't even address the "meaning of life", so please stop misrepresenting science by saying that it does and falls short. Beyond that, sure, "God" can give you a thousand answers, (quite apparently he does, with little regard to their compatibility), but that doesn't mean any of those answers is rational, supportable, or other than pulled out of some human philospher's hind-quarters. Now I'm not saying none of them is, but anything that comes down to "God says so" as its basis for truth cannot be said to be a universal truth because God answers nothing universally. Therefore, religious "answers" are extremely subjective answers at best, and pipe-dreams at worst. And yes, I know you can point to a hundred million Catholics or a billion Christians who will agree with you on some specifics but sheer numbers don't make a shared delusion any more than that.
Note also that I make a distinction between what is "spiritual" and what is "religious". I'd agree that "Spirituality" tries to answer the "why". All religion does, in terms of a quest for truth, is to help people reinforce their commitment to one possible answer among many equally valid answers.
I think from a purely biological point of view, we're hardwired to survive and procreate. I don't think it's a leap to say our biological purpose in life is to do just that.
So far as answers go, you're out of the realm of what is measurable. Of course everything is subjective, because it's entirely possible that there are six billion answers to the question. Your purpose or meaning in life might not be mine, or it might be. Or it might be that we get it wrong entirely and make up our own meaning of life. I never claimed otherwise.
What is the "shared delusion?"
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