Current Poll (Religion)

[Frank]

A slight tangent to see if my brain is thinking at all reasonably yet. (Though, incidentally, I just snapped at my sister and dad for hurling all sorts of misinterpretations, misunderstandings and logical fallacies at me when discussing a news item after dinner. Perhaps religious philosophy shouldn't be my first port of call, but anger management? How do you tell when you need it?)

Anyhow, yes, the tangent.

Would it be reasonable to suggest that: Using the scientific method as a tentative guide to how to decide what things we take on board to 'think about' some more we should adopt an initially atheist point of view? E.g. that there is no supernatural phenomenon. From there, we could easily falsify this by actually discovering good indicators of God, Ghosts and Daemons by simply finding them and accounting for them. In this manner, should they exist and be findable, we would then construct our religion reasonably and scientifically (if it were to be constructed at all)?

In this sense, at least, then whilst agnosticism may be our actual belief on the matter, our yard-stick for actually analysing things would be an atheistic starting point.

To draw an example, if I remember its intent correctly, from some other Sciencey stuff I've done in my time: When constructing an experiment you want to have the experiment, the sortof-tangible 'dealing with facts and getting knowledge' part, to be easily disprovable. Thus your hypothesis is "There is no God" would be disproveable by simply detecting God, or useful by highlighting anomalous reasons. Of course, that allows for all sorts of goal-post-shifting, but hey...we're human after all.

Of course, using a more useful hyopthesis (and allowing then for the steady march of science) the atheistic viewpoint would far more sensibly yield conjectures like: "When we do X, Y happens. We cannot otherwise find a causal link between X and Y"

Finding a link between these would be a safe point, and thus steer us clear of any sort of God Hypothesis. Finding no link, however, would lead us to believe there's alot of mystery. If, after a good few dozens centuries (millenia even?) of this sort of process we'd then be able to start testing more obscure bits of supernatural phenomena?

Hmm, my ramble lost alot of coherency there. I should probably see a doctor about that clarity haemorrhaging all over the place...

Quoting oddly familiar from 13:14, 14th Aug 2007

Quoting Frank from 23:44, 13th Aug 2007
That is: Science, at present, seems to have alot more going for it than alot of other stuff. Perhaps this is extreme selfishness?

Well, science only has something over religion if you say that they are both attempting to explain what the world is like. As Novium said earlier, creationists have built their case on a foundation of sand, because they try and use religion to describe the universe, something which science is much better at. Science describes, religion explains. Unfortunately current religion (well, Abrahamic religions at least, I don't know enough about most of the other religions to comment) are up a creek because they have made assertions as to the state of the universe, statements which can be shown to be false.

Perhaps I should clarify that in my statement above, I'd be more keen to explore (today, at least!) the idea that science is a more useful worldview. That is, regardless of meaning or fact, alot more meaning and fact can be derived, deduced, implied or even speculated at using science as a foundation rather than religion?

That sort of harks back to what I said above, in that if religions have some merit, we should be able to build up to them, eventually, using science and an elimination process rather than simply taking them as given at present?

Quoting oddly familiar from 13:14, 14th Aug 2007
it would be more sensible to start again from scratch.

But then, to pose a question to everyone, what exactly would a religion be that is constructed in this manner? I imagine there's a bazillion books, essays and forums having discussed this is in the past, but I'm quite partial to the The Sinner and its characters. (PAUL, where are you!?)

Would this sort of 'religion' not simply be a morality, a philosophy? A metaphysical view that we pick simply because it is:
1- Consistent
2- Satisfying
and perhaps even just
3- Comforting?

Would that be bad, problematic or indeed worrying? Would God be justified in being angry at us doing that (if He exists at all, or even cares)?

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."

[novium]

Quoting Frank from 20:47, 14th Aug 2007
Perhaps I should clarify that in my statement above, I'd be more keen to explore (today, at least!) the idea that science is a more useful worldview. That is, regardless of meaning or fact, alot more meaning and fact can be derived, deduced, implied or even speculated at using science as a foundation rather than religion?

I don't think you can use science as a world view. And I don't think science can help you with metaphysics. It is, by definition, beyond things that can simply be tested. It is beyond fact... it's interpreatation.

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[novium]

Ooh, so angry. You can backpedal all you want, but my argument was simple:
correlation is not causation (thus the ice cream example... perfectly valid).
Let's recap, shall we? Someone else said:
"At this point, I'm going to raise the issue of the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence."

It was to this that I responded with the ice cream example, as a way of saying "correlation is not causation".

Then you started demanding evidence for the ice cream thing, which frankly, was pretty damn random. Ice cream was one of just many many many examples regularly brought up to show that correlation is not causation.

As to the issue of intelligence...I didn't bring that up. It was in the original comment that I was responding to.
Plus, what exactly do you think IQ stands for? What do you think it is attempting to measure?
Furthermore, did you or did you not say:
"I offered one simple connection." (for the intelligence and religiosity thing)
and this? :
"Its quite logical really to think that the higher an IQ the more one would consider religion the wrong path. If for no other reason than those with a low IQ will tend to follow whatever the norm is in a particular situation, and the norm is religion in most places."

So imagine me awaiting your humble apology.
Having finally seen the link... well, I don't think it's necessary to go through them one by one, but it seems fairly obvious that most of those wouldn't hold water at a scholarly level for the statements being made. It is way too easy for me, who took one statistics course in high school, to poke holes in them. Imagine what someone who actually can run the numbers could do with them.

Quoting munchingfoo from 19:46, 14th Aug 2007blahblahblah

On edit: the admin once again displays a rather shaky grasp on the legalities of a situation. Besides, who on earth would actually think I was suggesting he literally said, "blahblahblah"? It was just a way to show that I was responding to him without quoting the whole gigantic post.
[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[novium]

Ooh, so angry. You can backpedal all you want, but my argument was simple:
correlation is not causation (thus the ice cream example... perfectly valid).
Let's recap, shall we? Someone else said:
"At this point, I'm going to raise the issue of the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence."

It was to this that I responded with the ice cream example, as a way of saying "correlation is not causation".

Then you started demanding evidence for the ice cream thing, which frankly, was pretty damn random. Ice cream was one of just many many many examples regularly brought up to show that correlation is not causation.

As to the issue of intelligence...I didn't bring that up. It was in the original comment that I was responding to.
Plus, what exactly do you think IQ stands for? What do you think it is attempting to measure?
Furthermore, did you or did you not say:
"I offered one simple connection." (for the intelligence and religiosity thing)
and this? :
"Its quite logical really to think that the higher an IQ the more one would consider religion the wrong path. If for no other reason than those with a low IQ will tend to follow whatever the norm is in a particular situation, and the norm is religion in most places."

So imagine me awaiting your humble apology.
Having finally seen the link... well, I don't think it's necessary to go through them one by one, but it seems fairly obvious that most of those wouldn't hold water at a scholarly level for the statements being made. It is way too easy for me, who took one statistics course in high school, to poke holes in them. Imagine what someone who actually can run the numbers could do with them.

Quoting munchingfoo from 19:46, 14th Aug 2007blahblahblah

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[munchingfoo]

Imagine me hoping you'll hold your breath whilst you wait for an appology.


Your anger is clouding your limited ability to think.

Having finally seen the link... well, I don't think it's necessary to go through them one by one, but it seems fairly obvious that most of those wouldn't hold water at a scholarly level for the statements being made. It is way too easy for me, who took one statistics course in high school, to poke holes in them. Imagine what someone who actually can run the numbers could do with them.

I have no idea to what that excuse for a paragraph refers, do you?

What on earth are "those" and "them"?

[hr]

Tired Freudian references aside - your mother played my mighty skin flute like a surf crowned sea nymph trying to rouse Poseidon from his watery slumber!

[mhuzzell]

Quoting Haunted from 20:14, 14th Aug 2007

Quoting Gubbins from 19:44, 14th Aug 2007
I can only say that historical literary evidence points to a god's existence and the creation of the world, whereas archological, paleological and other scientific data are against a divine creation and are mute on the existence of God(s).

I'm glad you italicised those words. Such 'evidence' is hardly comparable to actual physical evidence. If I had written that the FSM had appeared to me in vision and told me how the universe was created, would you consider that as equally valid evidence?

Stop attacking straw men!

Gubbins' point was that there is hard evidence (albeit literary, though you seem to want to discount that) that the Easter Bunny, FSM, Santa Claus, etc, do not exist, because we have records of their creation.

There are no such records for the creation of Odin, Jove, the Abrahamic God, or any other deities that people actually believe(d) in. Therefore there is presently no evidence, physical or literary, to positively refute their existence. Furthermore, while there is no physical evidence in favour of such beings, there is plenty of literary and anecdotal evidence for them. One should never take anecdotal evidence as truth, of course, but neither should one dismiss it so universally.

...

As for Agnosticism being no more than a cowardly form of Atheism: no. Just no.

Some people may call themselves Agnostics when they are actually Atheists, but that doesn't mean that all Agnostics are really just Atheists who don't want to proclaim themselves as such.

You assume that the only reason one might hold on to a belief in God is as a sort of 'safety measure' for those pearly gates like in so many bad jokes. This reveals a very narrow idea of what a belief in God might entail, which I suppose explains a lot of your very strident battles with these religious straw men.

When I said that my belief in God, when it was more certain, was closer to Deism than religiosity, I'd meant to prevent such arguments from you, since obviously in a traditional Christian view a Deist is going straight to the fiery depths anyway. Instead of taking me on this point, you just ridiculed deism:

Deism is a bit of a strange position as well. whats the point in believing in a god that can't do anything and just exists as the philosophical construct of the 'first' cause?
There's no afterlife for you there.

The point, my dear, is simply that I believe in a God (yes, 'a' God, or multiple gods, I'm not really sure--I did say I was agnostic). I certainly don't believe in an old white-bearded man sitting on a cloud surrounded by angels with harps. That, to me, is just silly.

You assume that the only reason one might believe in God is in order to get to heaven. There are plenty of other reasons to believe, but I think ultimately it's just down to your subjective intuitions. A person who believes in God has the intuition that God exists; whereas a person who does not believe in God has the opposite intuition. The former may be Religious, Deist or Agnostic; the latter Atheist or Agnostic.

[hr]

I FOUND JESUS... he was behind the couch the whole time!

[Frank]

Quoting novium from 22:27, 14th Aug 2007

Quoting Frank from 20:47, 14th Aug 2007
Perhaps I should clarify that in my statement above, I'd be more keen to explore (today, at least!) the idea that science is a more useful worldview. That is, regardless of meaning or fact, alot more meaning and fact can be derived, deduced, implied or even speculated at using science as a foundation rather than religion?

I don't think you can use science as a world view.

Why not? I mean, so long as I'm not wanting meaning or explanation from my worldview, I'll simply take what it gives me, no? So, with science as the spectacles then it'd be reason and 'fact' that I'd see (with everything else being seen with 'those-tinted' [rather than rose-tinted] glasses). If I were to readopt Roman Catholocism as a worldview, then it'd be Truth, Jebus and the Nicene Creed that I'd be viewing (plus whatever I see with that superimposed).

Quoting novium from 22:27, 14th Aug 2007
And I don't think science can help you with metaphysics. It is, by definition, beyond things that can simply be tested. It is beyond fact... it's interpreatation.

That's sortof what I meant. That is: Science is the bedrock, and everything else is built upon the science and ultimately dependent upon science not moving into the metaphysical realm (ohmypseudosciencejargon!) by accident.



[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 20:14, 14th Aug 2007
I'm glad you italicised those words. Such 'evidence' is hardly comparable to actual physical evidence. If I had written that the FSM had appeared to me in vision and told me how the universe was created, would you consider that as equally valid evidence?

I would reply, but mhuzzell has done my arguing for me on this account.

(BTW, can you point me in the direction of that flowing water experiment, I'd like to read it. I also agree that finding water by those means shouldn't be proported to be supernatural, but its typical 'believers' are normally a little... strange, and the name has stuck.)

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[mhuzzell]

Quoting Gubbins from 23:28, 14th Aug 2007
(BTW, can you point me in the direction of that flowing water experiment, I'd like to read it. I also agree that finding water by those means shouldn't be proported to be supernatural, but its typical 'believers' are normally a little... strange, and the name has stuck.)

I've heard a lot about these water-finders, too. I suspect that it's something like chick-sexing: they can do it consistently, but they don't know how they do it, and thus attribute it to supernatural powers.

(I believe current thought on chick-sexers is that they are picking up some subtle smell, perhaps pheremones, given off by the baby chicks.)

[hr]

I FOUND JESUS... he was behind the couch the whole time!

[Haunted]

Quoting mhuzzell from 23:07, 14th Aug 2007
Stop attacking straw men!

Instead of FSM I could have used Odin or whatever. Don't avoid my point.

Gubbins' point was that there is hard evidence (albeit literary, though you seem to want to discount that) that the Easter Bunny, FSM, Santa Claus, etc, do not exist, because we have records of their creation.

Indeed there is. But you cannot prove a negative. FSM could've just placed all that evidence there to test us. Sound familiar?
Prove me wrong.

There are no such records for the creation of Odin, Jove, the Abrahamic God, or any other deities that people actually believe(d) in.

You will find weirdo's who truly believe in FSM and Xenu and all the well documented gods.

Therefore there is presently no evidence, physical or literary, to positively refute their existence.

Odin was born of a man named Bure, Odin then gave life to the first two humans Ask and Embla.
I would argue that this is literary evidence that acts against the possibility of Odin (since we now know the true origin of man).
Of course, it could all be metaphorical, that old chestnut.
And anyway, you can't prove a negative.

Furthermore, while there is no physical evidence in favour of such beings, there is plenty of literary and anecdotal evidence for them. One should never take anecdotal evidence as truth, of course, but neither should one dismiss it so universally.

If anecdotal evidence cannot be backed up by systematic scientific evaluation then it is perfectly reasonable (and, indeed, a very good idea) to discount it.

As for Agnosticism being no more than a cowardly form of Atheism: no. Just no.

Some people may call themselves Agnostics when they are actually Atheists, but that doesn't mean that all Agnostics are really just Atheists who don't want to proclaim themselves as such.

Why are people agnostic? You either believe or you don't surely?

You assume that the only reason one might hold on to a belief in God is as a sort of 'safety measure' for those pearly gates like in so many bad jokes. This reveals a very narrow idea of what a belief in God might entail, which I suppose explains a lot of your very strident battles with these religious straw men.

Why don't religions without rosey afterlives ever get picked up?

When I said that my belief in God, when it was more certain, was closer to Deism than religiosity, I'd meant to prevent such arguments from you, since obviously in a traditional Christian view a Deist is going straight to the fiery depths anyway. Instead of taking me on this point, you just ridiculed deism:

It was not attack, it was a question. One you didn't answer, why diesm?

The point, my dear, is simply that I believe in a God (yes, 'a' God, or multiple gods, I'm not really sure--I did say I was agnostic). I certainly don't believe in an old white-bearded man sitting on a cloud surrounded by angels with harps. That, to me, is just silly.

So you believe in something, which you doubt exists? Then, as I said, is that not just wishful thinking as opposed to belief?

You assume that the only reason one might believe in God is in order to get to heaven. There are plenty of other reasons to believe, but I think ultimately it's just down to your subjective intuitions.

Indeed there are. Fear of death, fear of eternal hellfire, longing to see loved ones again, etc. How many people do you think would follow catholicism if the Pope decreed that humans could no longer get into heaven and would all go to hell? (this is a hypothetical, not a straw man, yes its absurd, but the point is still there).

A person who believes in God has the intuition that God exists; whereas a person who does not believe in God has the opposite intuition. The former may be Religious, Deist or Agnostic; the latter Atheist or Agnostic.

Again, I think the situation is more black and white than you make out. I don't think you can truly believe in something which you doubt exits. Semantics?
If you believe in god, then you must believe god exists no?

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Haunted]

Quoting Gubbins from 23:28, 14th Aug 2007
(BTW, can you point me in the direction of that flowing water experiment, I'd like to read it. I also agree that finding water by those means shouldn't be proported to be supernatural, but its typical 'believers' are normally a little... strange, and the name has stuck.)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 69328/pg_1

Since we're agreed on it not being supernatural then do you not further agree that is wrong for such people to claim they are 'divinely inspired' (or whatever) and mislead some of the more gullible populace?

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 12:20, 15th Aug 2007

Gubbins' point was that there is hard evidence (albeit literary, though you seem to want to discount that) that the Easter Bunny, FSM, Santa Claus, etc, do not exist, because we have records of their creation.

Indeed there is. But you cannot prove a negative. FSM could've just placed all that evidence there to test us. Sound familiar?
Prove me wrong.

Of course, that's impossible. However, it's necessary to look at these things in context. It's impossible to prove anything conclusively, what we attribute truth to is based on varying degrees of doubt. It's a lot less likely that a FSM would exist as we have more substantial evidence for the creation of the FSM phenomena than we do for that of a God.

There are no such records for the creation of Odin, Jove, the Abrahamic God, or any other deities that people actually believe(d) in.

You will find weirdo's who truly believe in FSM and Xenu and all the well documented gods.

And you will find people who truly believe that they are God, but convention dictates that we ignore them for being crazy. On the other hand, it's difficult to class several billion people as being collectively crazy with the same delusion, much as you may want to.

Odin was born of a man named Bure, Odin then gave life to the first two humans Ask and Embla.
I would argue that this is literary evidence that acts against the possibility of Odin (since we now know the true origin of man).
Of course, it could all be metaphorical, that old chestnut.
And anyway, you can't prove a negative.

Do we know the true origin of man? All we are going on is the evidence we have. Only the other week results were published showing homo habilis and homo erectus co-evolved. How much else don't we know?

The point is that you are weighing evidence for the creation of man by Odin, which has a certain finite doubt to it, against the sum of anthropological data, which has a certain finite doubt to it. On the basis of the relative weight of the two doubts, you're drawing a conclusion. You can't say on the basis of that that the above is evidence against Odin.

Furthermore, while there is no physical evidence in favour of such beings, there is plenty of literary and anecdotal evidence for them. One should never take anecdotal evidence as truth, of course, but neither should one dismiss it so universally.

If anecdotal evidence cannot be backed up by systematic scientific evaluation then it is perfectly reasonable (and, indeed, a very good idea) to discount it.

I was once told by a St Andrean professor never to throw away a data point, just attach the right weighting to it. I believe this is relevant here.

Why are people agnostic? You either believe or you don't surely?

Not necessarily. Do you believe I had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning? I may have done. I may not have done. You don't have to believe either way.

Why don't religions without rosey afterlives ever get picked up?

You've got to admit, it is a good selling point.

You assume that the only reason one might believe in God is in order to get to heaven.

Indeed there are. Fear of death, fear of eternal hellfire, longing to see loved ones again, etc. [...]

Back to the bacon and eggs thing: if you did believe me, there's nothing in it for you. Some things people will just believe because they think it's true.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 12:25, 15th Aug 2007
Since we're agreed on it not being supernatural then do you not further agree that is wrong for such people to claim they are 'divinely inspired' (or whatever) and mislead some of the more gullible populace?

I do agree, although I never said it was right for them to claim that.

Thank you for the link, I'll read it when I have time. As a brief note, I can already pick holes. For example, if the subjects were electrically connected to the pipe (as in "real-life", where wet ground has a finite resistance), you may find different results. I'm not trying to be apologetic, just making a suggestion that it isn't absolutely watertight (no pun intended) and every physical phenomena hasn't been covered.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Haunted]

Quoting Gubbins from 12:45, 15th Aug 2007
Of course, that's impossible. However, it's necessary to look at these things in context. It's impossible to prove anything conclusively, what we attribute truth to is based on varying degrees of doubt. It's a lot less likely that a FSM would exist as we have more substantial evidence for the creation of the FSM phenomena than we do for that of a God.

I agree. FSM is unlikely to be real since we have a catalogue of its creation by man. My point was that you cannot rule our FSM completely.

And you will find people who truly believe that they are God, but convention dictates that we ignore them for being crazy. On the other hand, it's difficult to class several billion people as being collectively crazy with the same delusion, much as you may want to.

So if more people believe something that makes it more true? Where do you draw the line for convention?
25% of the UK believe in horoscopes, thats approximately 15 million individuals. Are you saying their wrong? But theres so many of them, how could they possibly be wrong?

Do we know the true origin of man? All we are going on is the evidence we have. Only the other week results were published showing homo habilis and homo erectus co-evolved. How much else don't we know?

That is just more proof that man evolved! the only thing the new research showed was that we got some dates slightly wrong.

The point is that you are weighing evidence for the creation of man by Odin, which has a certain finite doubt to it, against the sum of anthropological data, which has a certain finite doubt to it. On the basis of the relative weight of the two doubts, you're drawing a conclusion. You can't say on the basis of that that the above is evidence against Odin.

They both have statistical weights of being correct, I agree. However, as soon as you try to compare the weights you see that one falls significantly short of the other. So much so, you can discount it.

I was once told by a St Andrean professor never to throw away a data point, just attach the right weighting to it. I believe this is relevant here.

Technically this is correct. The wieght though would be ridiculously infinitesimal compared to the scientific library of evidence. Effectively, such evidence can be discounted.

Not necessarily. Do you believe I had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning? I may have done. I may not have done. You don't have to believe either way.

Here is an example of both answers being plausible given the evidence. However, if (for example) pigs had been extinct for 1,000,000 years then I would have strong evidence against your claim. Technically I cannot absolutely disprove your claim, but attaching the weights to it, I would find it ridiculous to be anything but an A-baconandeggist.
With the god debate there is such an analogous bias of evidence.

Back to the bacon and eggs thing: if you did believe me, there's nothing in it for you. Some things people will just believe because they think it's true.

I don't believe anyone can truly sit down, look at everything from an objective point of view and then conclude that a god(s) exists. If you attach strings like 'being able to survive your own death' then people will believe because they want to, not because they think its logically plausible (or so I would argue).

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Haunted]

Quoting Gubbins from 12:52, 15th Aug 2007
I do agree, although I never said it was right for them to claim that.

Just making sure

For example, if the subjects were electrically connected to the pipe (as in "real-life", where wet ground has a finite resistance)

How about air which has a finite electrical resistance?
Electroreception (which you seem to be suggesting) is, I will agree, entirely plausible for humans to have (we came from fish after all) but again, no results, no proof.

I'm not trying to be apologetic, just making a suggestion that it isn't absolutely watertight (no pun intended) and every physical phenomena hasn't been covered.

Again, proving negatives. No test will rule out 100% absolutely.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.[/quote]

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[novium]

A world view *is* meaning. Even if that meaning is "there is no meaning". ANother way of saying it is "putting an interpretation on the facts that have moral (or political, or social, or etc) implications. For example, gravity exists. Science can study gravity. You leave the realm of science, though, when you apply some sort of meaning to that. For example, when you take it and then apply it to life in general, eg: "what goes up must come down" (in a non-literal sense), to use a very silly example.
So a world view is all about interpretation that has implications. Sooo...you really can't have a "scientific" world view, because science doesn't do world views. You can take a materialist world view, and say "this is all there is. There is no more than what we can discover with science."
But this is *not* science. Science doesn't try to answer philosophy questions like, "what does it all mean, if anything at all?". It is an all too common mistake in this thread to assume that world view is something science can deal with. Since world views fundamentally are rooted in the perceptions of the believer (for lack of a better term), they aren't something that can be quantified, reproduced, measured, or tested. It's all subjective.
So, science is useless when it comes to deciding "which is the best world view". YOu can't use it to "prove" anything related to the world view thing, because they are completely seperate things, metaphysics and science, and never the twain shall meet. They answer *different* questions.

To use my another simple but absurd example, imagine two people in a car. The person representing the whole philosophical question asks, "why are we driving? " The person representing science asks, "how are we driving? What are the mechanics of driving?"
The philosophy person could turn to the science person and say, "we're driving because the car works"...which would be fine. But the science one will never do the same. "How" can't answer "why". The two people are not asking the same questions.
Thus science cannot be a world view. You can take the world view that science is all there is, but that's still a philosophical stance, and thus can only be debated on philosophy's terms.
Metaphysics is not pseudosciencejargon. It's philosophy...it deals with ontology and stuff like that. In common use, the term has been watered down and misused to refer to new-agey stuff.

One last note: but please, for the love of god, don't make me go through it again. I feel like conversations on this thread have gone like this:
Someone: Point A, thus point B.
Me: That is an invalid conclusion, because A is not subject to B, thus C.
Someone else: Point A? No, you're wrong about Point A. Because of Point B.
In other words, my actual argument is never addressed, we just get looped around to the beginning again.

Quoting Frank from 23:10, 14th Aug 2007

Quoting novium from 22:27, 14th Aug 2007

Quoting Frank from 20:47, 14th Aug 2007
Perhaps I should clarify that in my statement above, I'd be more keen to explore (today, at least!) the idea that science is a more useful worldview. That is, regardless of meaning or fact, alot more meaning and fact can be derived, deduced, implied or even speculated at using science as a foundation rather than religion?

I don't think you can use science as a world view.

Why not? I mean, so long as I'm not wanting meaning or explanation from my worldview, I'll simply take what it gives me, no? So, with science as the spectacles then it'd be reason and 'fact' that I'd see (with everything else being seen with 'those-tinted' [rather than rose-tinted] glasses). If I were to readopt Roman Catholocism as a worldview, then it'd be Truth, Jesus and the Nicene Creed that I'd be viewing (plus whatever I see with that superimposed).

Quoting novium from 22:27, 14th Aug 2007
And I don't think science can help you with metaphysics. It is, by definition, beyond things that can simply be tested. It is beyond fact... it's interpreatation.

That's sortof what I meant. That is: Science is the bedrock, and everything else is built upon the science and ultimately dependent upon science not moving into the metaphysical realm (ohmypseudosciencejargon!) by accident.



[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[novium]

Actually, I'm not angry. I'm amused by how easy it is to push your buttons. If that's all it took to make you fly off the handle...

I notice though, that you have absolutely no response to the rest of my post...you know, the bit that showed you to be quite mistaken...
You really do owe me an apology, you know.

It's not my ability to think that has been clouded...as evidenced, if by nothing else, by your last post.

Besides, I would have thought it was particularly obvious that "them" and "those" referred to the statistics in the link.

edited to remove a typo.

Quoting munchingfoo from 22:55, 14th Aug 2007
Imagine me hoping you'll hold your breath whilst you wait for an appology.


Your anger is clouding your limited ability to think.

Having finally seen the link... well, I don't think it's necessary to go through them one by one, but it seems fairly obvious that most of those wouldn't hold water at a scholarly level for the statements being made. It is way too easy for me, who took one statistics course in high school, to poke holes in them. Imagine what someone who actually can run the numbers could do with them.

I have no idea to what that excuse for a paragraph refers, do you?

What on earth are "those" and "them"?

[hr]

Tired Freudian references aside - your mother played my mighty skin flute like a surf crowned sea nymph trying to rouse Poseidon from his watery slumber!

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[Haunted]

Quoting novium from 14:33, 15th Aug 2007

I think you take it too far.
Somethings can have meaning subscribed to them via a scientific context.
e.g why do we cry/laugh/yawn etc?

Things like desire and fear can be attributed to evolutionary biology.

Metaphysics is not completely untouchable by science.
For example, Einstein showed us the true nature of space and time, and it was stranger and more incredible than any philosopher could've dreamed.


[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[novium]

"why do we cry/laugh/yawn"? is not a meaning question...at least not how you're suggesting it is. It's still a mechanics question.

The problem with the how/why comparison is that in english, those two have quite a lot of cross over. "why does the sun rise" is not asking "what does it all mean" (well, at least not usually), but rather "how do the mechanics of the universe work, that the sun rises?"

I would disagree with you about relativity, etc. It's still very hard to comprehend, but it still can't beat out philosophy when it comes to making your brain hurt. I would also say that it didn't have many philosophical consequences (other, than perhaps, inspiring new trains of thought, but that's different.)

Quoting Haunted from 14:56, 15th Aug 2007

Quoting novium from 14:33, 15th Aug 2007

I think you take it too far.
Somethings can have meaning subscribed to them via a scientific context.
e.g why do we cry/laugh/yawn etc?

Things like desire and fear can be attributed to evolutionary biology.

Metaphysics is not completely untouchable by science.
For example, Einstein showed us the true nature of space and time, and it was stranger and more incredible than any philosopher could've dreamed.


[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 13:14, 15th Aug 2007
So if more people believe something that makes it more true? Where do you draw the line for convention?
25% of the UK believe in horoscopes, thats approximately 15 million individuals. Are you saying their wrong? But theres so many of them, how could they possibly be wrong?

Truth by consensus is obviously not the best way forward (indeed this has been cited as one of the problems with Wikipedia) and it doesn't make things right (c.f. the Steady State theory of the universe).

However, if there is a continued belief in something, then there is usually some truth in it, even if it's not what we're expecting. Einstein's cosmological constant has been re-instated in the form of dark energy. Even astrology has some grain of truth in it (and this is coming from an astrophysicist): a recent study* has shown that people born at certain times of the year are pre-disposed to certain personality types. This is arguably more to do with climatic effects and annual cycles (including things like schooling) than the "influence of the stars", but it still exists. Perhaps we'll find there is some truth to religions after all, though it would likely be something very different to what we'd have imagined.

* I can't remember the reference to this. It was probably about 4 or 5 years ago.

Do we know the true origin of man? All we are going on is the evidence we have. Only the other week results were published showing homo habilis and homo erectus co-evolved. How much else don't we know?

That is just more proof that man evolved! the only thing the new research showed was that we got some dates slightly wrong.

It's more proof that man evolved, but it shows that we are still lacking a lot of information, so can we really claim to know the "truth"?

The point is that you are weighing evidence for the creation of man by Odin, ... against the sum of anthropological data, ...

They both have statistical weights of being correct, I agree. However, as soon as you try to compare the weights you see that one falls significantly short of the other. So much so, you can discount it.

Which is why few, if any, people believe in Odin any more. However, add to this the sum total of all evidence for all divinity and you have a small, but non-negligible amount.

The problem then comes with the fact that the weight one applies to the total of both sets of data (for and against (a) God(s)) is very difficult to quantify and is subject to personal biases of what we a priori personally believe to be true, though we haven't looked at the data ourselves, thus different people arrive at different conclusions.

As far as I'm concerned, the more I look at science, the more things I see that are uncertain or theoretical, yet are portrayed as solid fact. Not necessarily big things, but small things that have come to be accepted.

Only today, I was reviewing a paper for a reference in my own, when I noticed a discrepancy in the calculation of a constant. That paper presented this constant as fact, without showing their derivations, and the paper has since been referenced by 45 others, who have subsequently (presumably) drawn erronous results, who have then been referenced by others. A similar change has happened recently with elemental abundances in the Sun, throwing large sections of astrophysics into disarray. Science's facts aren't always as solid as they are portrayed to be. (That said, the important parts of the majority of science appear to be sound).

I don't believe anyone can truly sit down, look at everything from an objective point of view and then conclude that a god(s) exists. If you attach strings like 'being able to survive your own death' then people will believe because they want to, not because they think its logically plausible (or so I would argue).

The problem is that it is extraordinarily difficult to start with an objective viewpoint, as we have been influenced in our decisions by everything that has happened over our lives (this is particularly true of the God question). If you attach 20 years of being told "atheists are wrong and will burn in hell" or "religious people are delusional" and you will not have an objective viewpoint.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.