[Cold Iron]

Agraba said:

Just telling yourself that God doesn't exist is not a valid interference of proven scientific ideas like evolution and big bang, so making such a conclusion is still taken on faith and lacks its own evidence, and thus, is the same thing as taking religious theology on faith (without all the rituals). Therefore you can not call it a scientific conclusion that God doesn't exist, or else your hypothetical "science" isn't actually a science, but it's just as good as a religion (if not technically so, since it doesn't involve rituals and the like).

Thanks for the help, Agraba, but this isn't really what I meant, and D Man was right when he said that he wasn't offering a scientific substitute to God, and in the interest of clarity, may I say that's not what I thought he was doing.

potsherds aka god lover said:

I'll say again, you are operating on the assumption that 'some' of us pesky science folks are advocating that people replace religion with science. I've never said that and neither has D Man. What we both agree on is that western science and western religion both operate by two vastly different dichotomies, and to simultaneously accept the tenants of science and the scientific method, and also blindly accept a religion with a personal god, is...puzzling, to say the least.

I don't remember you saying this before? Either way, I didn't assume this. I was responding to a comment by Agraba that evolution can explain how life can come about by chance. My point was that people who don't know a lot about it, assume that science explains all, which we can all agree that it doesn't. In the process of making this point, I compared this assumption to treating science as a religion by putting unwarranted, unconfirmable and unscientificfaith in it. This comparison cause you and D Man to jump on me because (sorry) you have allowed your predisposition or bias to enter the discussion. This is made clear by the following comments:

D Man said:

it (science) lacks the imposition of purpose on natural events and the behavioural manipulation. These strike me as crucial to religion.

potsherds said:

Can you more clearly explain the extent of 'consideration' you think we should give outdated ideas?

Now, sherly, to answer your q, how much consideration you give alternatives to science depends entirely on you. If you are completely convinced there is no question you could ask that science can't answer, then give no consideration at all. I said what I think of that position in my last post.

Quote

We have very different views of 'virtually'. I dont think weekly service attendance for a few hours, sending your kids to sunday school, bell-ringing, hymn singing and tea with the vicar are virtually not rituals, nor is reincarnation virtually not supernatural and theten levels, causes and methods to enhancment thereof not dogmatic.

Plenty of protestants don't do any of those things, reincarnation is dogma and does not involve any supernatural beings or entities, and theten levels, causes and methods to enhancement thereof are ritualistic personal enhancement rites.

Quote

Para 3 depends very much on your definition of faith. Is it faith that when I click 'post quick reply' my typing will be stored on ME forum servers? Or that I'm not going to fly off into space due to a sudden local gravity failure?

That's an absurd response and frankly shows nothing other than you not taking my argument seriously. Putting faith in personal experience is entirely different from faith in explanations of ultimate unknowns.

Quote

And I dont think bronze age social teachings, theologies or mythologies are all that much good these days. Some still have merit (edit: social stuff and a little mythology: people dont change all that much, but my oh my is society different!), but I for one am glad that poeple arent killed for wearing garments of mixed fabric, for example.

We have these mythologies now precisely because people were so stupid then: someone said some shit, no one knew better so lots of people belived it. Nowadays, as Sam Harris says, we persist with these insane ideas of divine observers that created the universe and filled our home with stuff that kills us, but love us, guide our lives, that we talk to (!!!!) but only meet when we die (how convenient) because "There is sanity in numbers".

This is the exact position I was referring to when I said juvenile, naive and detrimental. I'm sorry but in my opinion those comments put you basically on the same level (albeit on the opposing side) as people who believe in the literal translation of the bible. You clearly haven't given any sincere consideration as to what, exactly, has so many people, some of them far more intelligent than you or I, convinced that religion is worthwhile. I know this because even in the short time I have been considering this, I have already come to realise that what you have said here is just plain wrong.

Not to mention how surprising it is that the person who said this also enjoys fantasy. Do you have any concept of symbology, allegory and metaphor at all or do you just read SE for the fun battle scenes?
:Erm:

[Cause]

Agraba;159494 said:

Just telling yourself that God doesn't exist is not a valid interference of proven scientific ideas like evolution and big bang, so making such a conclusion is still taken on faith and lacks its own evidence, and thus, is the same thing as taking religious theology on faith (without all the rituals). Therefore you can not call it a scientific conclusion that God doesn't exist, or else your hypothetical "science" isn't actually a science, but it's just as good as a religion (if not technically so, since it doesn't involve rituals and the like).

I would disagree with this. Whenever their is no proof for something its statuc is assigned to be false. To be consistent we must do this for god as well. Not being able to prove something or disporve it does not lend equal value to its existance as its non existance.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Agraba;159494 said:

@DM: Thank you for that page. But have you heard of the free lunch theory? It's just a theory, but it seems to be popular among scientists. It doesn't contradict known facts about the Big Bang, it's just a theory that's generally liked, if not accepted.

I hadn't heard of the "free lunch" theory, so I looked it up. It's not actually the "free lunch" theory, it's the inflationary model of the early expansion of the universe as proposed by Alan Guth. The phrase "ultimate free lunch" has been used to describe this model, but it is not the "free lunch" model.

The inflationary theory is a bit strange - it provides an explanation for the observed expansion of the universe in mathematical terms, but it is clearly not the whole story. People accept it because it works, but it does not provide all the answers. It's a bit of maths that describes an observed phenomena well, not a physical explanation that explains why that phenomena happens.

Inflation is an accepted part of the Big Bang model, not just generally liked. Of course it still has some problems - there's an interesting article on that here, which I think is reliable:

http://www.discover.com/issues/jun-95/depa...timatefreel529/

[D Man]

CI, as I said there are some parts of old teachings which have merit, but most of it is clearly wrong, insofar as its inaplicable and alien to modern society. I think its you that hasnt looked into it if you dont see that to be the case.

[Cold Iron]

potsherds;159542 said:

Fix that. My name is not 'sherly' and the 'l' is nowhere near the 'd'.

Oh but Shirly is such a sweet name... its like a farm couple, Rusty and Shirly

Quote

To be clearer, I have no problem teaching western mythologies, along with their parables, moral stories, and cute little proverbs. But they belong right next to the Roman and Norse in the mythology section of school textbooks. 'Nuff said.

I agree with this.

Quote

To think that currently popular religions somehow are more valuable to our societies just because they happen to have survived so long is short-sighted. For one thing, all three western religions were influence by religions before them, influenced each other, and survived primarily due to history playing out the right way. I don't want to call it luck, because it's not. But history is much more responsible for the religious make-up we have now, than some inherent value that they have over all those religions that have died out.

But I disagree with this. Whether it is luck, fate, divine providence or accident of history doesn't change the fact that the world we live in has been shaped by certain religions over others. Everything is affected. Our system of governance, law, culture, families, even our cities and towns. As an American and an Australian we live in a strange situation in that we are separated from the location of a large chunk of our history. Every single city from the largest capitals to the smallest hamlets in Europe are built around a church. Of course I'm not claiming any legitimacy to christianity due to this, but upon seeing this, it really made me reevaluate the impact of religion on my history and who I am today due to this. Thus the "popular" religions deserve a much bigger chunk of the text book than less popular ones.

Quote

Do they have value? Well, I think we've argued this plenty before Rusty. The value I see in outdated western religions is the few gems of good sense and basic morality that they espouse, and as I've said before, I don't think that those things are inherent to the religion, but are formed as a basis for people to co-exist in large populations relatively peacefully.

You don't think studying religion has anthropological or historical value? Understanding what your ancestors believed, why, and how it shaped who they are, their culture and hence who you are seems much more important to me than the good sense and basic morality that, as you say, don't require religion. Don't you want to know why people have believed (not to mention dedicated their lives and died to defend) or do you just think its because they were stupid or were forced to or they were unaware of alternatives? I say this is juvenile because its akin to stamping your foot and petulantly declaring "my generation knows so much more than all the others". I say it's naive because it's not based on a foundation of thought or research into the topic before making up your mind, and I say its detrimental to future generations because they will have to struggle to inherit the wisdom of countless generations because of our post-war, new world arrogance.

Quote

Yeah. I think we fundamentally disagree on this point.

And yet you raise no arguments as to why you disagree, or ask me any questions to explain my position better for your consideration.

potsherds aka i-kneel-before-the-master-spiritually-and-physically said:

Btw, you a.k.a. one of my quotes, and totally pass up the opportunity of the other. Why???

No reason

[D Man]

Cold Iron;159736 said:

And yet you raise no arguments as to why you disagree, or ask me any questions to explain my position better for your consideration.

Allow me

http://www.nobeliefs.../darkbible5.htm

[Cold Iron]

Quote

Your previous statements sounded like you were defending religion because it's religion, and not because it's an important construct in humanity’s past.

I should be offended by that, but I know how easy it is to jump to conclusions and judge people wrongly.

Quote

This shows the allegorical intent of Genesis rather than a factual account.

Thanks, D Man, even your evidence helps me. If your page is right, and Genesis is allegorical, not factual, (we're all shocked there) then there is no reason to pit evolution and creation against each other. I'm all for calling anyone who believes in the literal interpretation of the bible stupid, but I also think that anyone who, upon realising that the bible is allegorical and not literal, decides there is nothing of value in religion, is equally as stupid.

[D Man]

No no no, you missed the thrust of that one. I kinda hoped that the creation errors and what have you in that would be ignored. We were after all talking about the wisdom of the teachings in a more general social and moral sense. This has some nice examples of ancient wisdom that we should be forgetting, ASAP.

[Cold Iron]

Sure, of course it's not all good. But its more that just the social and moral aspects that are worthwhile looking into. Religious beliefs reveal a lot about the human psyche and the nature of our emotions and subconsious.

[D Man]

For that psychology >>>>> religion.

Edit: dumb fingers cant spell.

[Cold Iron]

Psychology reveals only what, not how or why.

Also religion provides a tracable history of psychology, not just psychology today.

[D Man]

While there has always been a degree of analysis and documentation of human nature:

A: Religion manipulates behaviour far more than than reveals its cause. Religious explantions for human nature are cartoonish nonsense.

B: Psychology as a field of legitimate study has only existed for about 100 hundred years. Explain how religion has been a part of it please.

Unless youre suggesting, for example, that we are in fact morally dubious at times because satan convinced eve to eat from the tree of knowledge??? And before you yell 'myth' and 'allegory', think about how unhelpfull and one dimensional explanation of human flaws and suffering that one is.

[Cold Iron]

D Man;159867 said:

While there has always been a degree of analysis and documentation of human nature:

A: Religion manipulates behaviour far more than than reveals its cause. Religious explantions for human nature are cartoonish nonsense.

Not true but far beyond the scope of what we can discuss on this board. Me and shirly have already spent hours on msn and have bearly scratched the surface.

Quote

B: Psychology as a field of legitimate study has only existed for about 100 hundred years. Explain how religion has been a part of it please.

I was talking about the psychology of the human species, not the field of study. Religious history reveals how people thought, what people were prepared to believe, how the human phyche has evolved.

Quote

Unless youre suggesting, for example, that we are in fact morally dubious at times because satan convinced eve to eat from the tree of knowledge??? And before you yell 'myth' and 'allegory', think about how unhelpfull and one dimensional explanation of human flaws and suffering that one is.

Unhelpfull? Not so. It successfully removes the blame for our flawed nature and puts it on our ultimate ancestors, easing ones guilt for perceived mistakes. It also shows us that we are all flawed and thus we can find support and forgiveness from others... And it need not be believed literally to provide this meaning, that is the nature of allegory.

One dimensional? Not so. Almost every aspect of this story is image upon image. There are subtle metaphors that both mean different things to different people, and reveal the thoughts and life experience of someone based on how they interpret them.

[D Man]

Cold Iron;159879 said:

Not true but far beyond the scope of what we can discuss on this board. Me and shirly have already spent hours on msn and have bearly scratched the surface.


I was talking about the psychology of the human species, not the field of study. Religious history reveals how people thought, what people were prepared to believe, how the human phyche has evolved.



Unhelpfull? Not so. It successfully removes the blame for our flawed nature and puts it on our ultimate ancestors, easing ones guilt for perceived mistakes. It also shows us that we are all flawed and thus we can find support and forgiveness from others... And it need not be believed literally to provide this meaning, that is the nature of allegory.

One dimensional? Not so. Almost every aspect of this story is image upon image. There are subtle metaphors that both mean different things to different people, and reveal the thoughts and life experience of someone based on how they interpret them.

I'd like to see how religion has done more to reveal the causes of our behaviour than it has change it. I really would.

I agree that religion provides a usefull insight into human nature to an outside observer. But then its a part of human nature and to understand human nature you have to consider all things that humans do. I dont think that internal teachings of religion elucidate much at all. Budhism isnt too bad, but other than that its 1D cartoon hogwash.

The fall is extremely unhelpfull. If anyone is to overcome any failings they have (as defined by the society they live in, which isnt the bronze age middle-east!) they have to take responsibility for them and accept them as their own. What youre talking about is placation: 'its ok, its not your fault'. The exact oppostite of what a psychologist will tell you is helpfull.

There is nothing of forgivness in the story of the fall: we ate from the tree of knowledge and God punished us, every generation since. That also means there is nothing of ancestors taking the brunt of blame for our failings: we in fact are punished for theirs.

In addition it sweeps the entirety of human suffering, death and moral failings (whatever they are percieved to be in whatever time and place) under a carpet of "Because we dissobeyed God". Thats a vast and callous over-simplification of the human condition and of no use to anyone seeking to explore the hows and whys of it in teh real world. And I can see no flexibility in that it was dissobedience to God: it happened because we investigated what God didnt want us to. This implies that independant investigation is wrong and that authority is always right and should be obeyed, even if, possibly especially if your bliss stems from ignorance. Thats not just unhelpfull, thats dangerous.

I really dont think you've thought this through. Religion is an interesting phenomenon psychologicall but the teachings of religion are certainly not a one-stop source for moral and behavioural guidance. There is a very long list of attrocities commited in various gods names if you dont believe me.

[Cold Iron]

D Man;159886 said:

I'd like to see how religion has done more to reveal the causes of our behaviour than it has change it. I really would.

Good, then you are more open minded than you seem. If you meant that, then go look into it.

Quote

I agree that religion provides a usefull insight into human nature to an outside observer. But then its a part of human nature and to understand human nature you have to consider all things that humans do. I dont think that internal teachings of religion elucidate much at all. Budhism isnt too bad, but other than that its 1D cartoon hogwash.

Since you said it again, I'll say that I disagree again.

Quote

The fall is extremely unhelpfull. If anyone is to overcome any failings they have (as defined by the society they live in, which isnt the bronze age middle-east!) they have to take responsibility for them and accept them as their own. What youre talking about is placation: 'its ok, its not your fault'. The exact oppostite of what a psychologist will tell you is helpfull.

Individual failings can be overcome, but they are always replaced, regardless of whether you take responsibility or not, and I'm not suggesting you don't. What I'm saying the story suggests we are not personally at fault for is our inability to ever be free from failings.

Quote

There is nothing of forgivness in the story of the fall: we ate from the tree of knowledge and God punished us, every generation since. That also means there is nothing of ancestors taking the brunt of blame for our failings: we in fact are punished for theirs.

I was talking about forgiveness from others because they are also flawed and so know not to hold your failings against you. As a result of us all inheriting the curse.

Quote

In addition it sweeps the entirety of human suffering, death and moral failings (whatever they are percieved to be in whatever time and place) under a carpet of "Because we dissobeyed God". Thats a vast and callous over-simplification of the human condition and of no use to anyone seeking to explore the hows and whys of it in teh real world. And I can see no flexibility in that it was dissobedience to God: it happened because we investigated what God didnt want us to. This implies that independant investigation is wrong and that authority is always right and should be obeyed, even if, possibly especially if your bliss stems from ignorance. Thats not just unhelpfull, thats dangerous.

This is a great point. It can be resolved if there is flaw in the current standard perception of god. If god is viewed (in part) as kind of inner self/subconsciousness (over-simplification of a complex idea), then the implications of dissobeying god take on a different meaning. If obeying god is comparable to following your gut instinct, doing what you know to be right despite temptation etc, it can be seen as a valid, albeit vast, simplification of the human condition which does have real world implications and applications. But as I've said before, this is not in the scope of this thread and I'd rather you not pull me up on this point because it takes a long time to rationalise.

Quote

I really dont think you've thought this through. Religion is an interesting phenomenon psychologicall but the teachings of religion are certainly not a one-stop source for moral and behavioural guidance. There is a very long list of attrocities commited in various gods names if you dont believe me.

The mere act of posting these moster posts should indicate to you that i have thought this through. In no way am I claiming or would I ever claim that "the teachings of religion are a one-stop source for moral and behavioural guidance" or anything remotely like this. Also the attrocities committed in a gods name can usually be traced to political, rather than theological motivations, but thats a discussion for another thread.