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Deception · Daedalian Member

BraveHat: If we are going to compare the two passions (and we must, as you are arguing that they are, for the purposes of motive, the same) then I would tell you that there is tangible, physical evidence which shows that knowledge does good. It can be 100% proven fact that knowledge is what made this good, and that it is the direct cause.

With God, you will get no such thing as 100% proven fact on anything.

Extro I think you know why that argument is poor.

Jack_Ian · Big Endian

I thought loving your neighbour was banned in the Christian church. Or was that only for same sex? Wink

Scurra · Daedalian Member

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

I've been following this discussion as best I can, and I agree very much with what Scurra(?) said about talking on different planes. I wonder what would you say, Deception, if I stated Knowledge is your god? How would that affect a discussion about god?

I have another idea to present in a moment, one which I think is not often considered in discussions like this. I want to read more through this discussion's history before I throw it out there though.
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BraveHat · Last of the Daedalians

BraveHat · Last of the Daedalians

ralphmerridew · Daedalian Member

While I agree sane surety is an unreasonable standard of evidence for any claim, I think that biblical God should be able to provide some sort of evidence for himself.

BraveHat · Last of the Daedalians

ralphmerridew · Daedalian Member

BraveHat: As for evidence, Yahweh is described throughout the bible as interacting with the world pretty concretely (destroying Sodom & Gomorrah, killing the firstborns in Egypt, the resurrection of the saints), and yet he is extremely abstract whenever described in the modern world.

As for theistic explanation vs. naturalistic explanations, take lightning.

Theistic explanation: God's wrath

Naturalistic explanation: Electrical buildup

The naturalistic explanation predicts that lightning rods will protect an object from lightning strikes. The theistic explanation says they shouldn't make a difference.

And as for NDEs, they aren't as consistent across cultures as you claim:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html#differences

And what happens if somebody happens to gain wrong information from an NDE? Say, the person met childhood friend Sally Jenkins during the NDE, but later learns she's still alive and well. Wouldn't that be evidence that the NDE is just generated from within?

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

I would say something about people being more attuned to his presence in not the modern world. I have had missionary friends who have told stories about unexplainable things in, say Africa, where they have a predisposition to the spiritual rather than the rational.
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Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

(For the record, I admit to a great deal of ignorance on matters of science, rhetoric, logic, and religion/faith. I'm willing to hear correction.)

Here is the other idea which I want to throw out there: are things in science actually "proven" and "disproven"? I am under the impression (owing to some minor knowledge of quantum mechanics) that "supported" and "rejected" are better words because there are other possible outcomes. The specific situation which comes to mind is we believe gravity will continue to work because it has thus far, but that doesn't mean it always will. In some sense, it's a matter of faith...perhaps not far different from that which many place in a god.

In some sense, I wonder about the fruit of these discussions. To return to the planes analogy, I think we are operating from different starting points (and maybe even aiming at different end points). I wonder what the response is to the remark that one is operating from a scientific ideology while the other from a philosophical ideology. How much can these two truly dialogue? It's not to say that the one is rational and the other is irrational, but rather that they are simply concerned with different results. I think this is a major point Scurra has raised multiple times.

This draws me broadly to ponder how much the scientific mind can really gain from such a discussion. I think there must be some aspect of science which can be related to philosophy (and therefore aid understanding of the Christian belief system...maybe the above?), but if not, there may be little to be gained. I can only say that science really cannot speak in this realm because it is beyond that which is measurable. None here can answer the question of death and the beyond, so it would be futile to try.

(It is curious to me, however, that a mindset so focused on facts and evidence could be so obtuse to the idea of a god, when Aristotle himself posited a god of some sort. It must be because he was pre-Enlightenment.)
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Jack_Ian · Big Endian

The big difference with science is that you actively try to disprove your assumptions.
Nobody believes that their chosen model is "true". Rather, they believe it to be useful.

Zag · Tired of his old title

Scurra · Daedalian Member

Zag · Tired of his old title

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

A couple of observations are appropriate then.

1) Is science a matter of continually building on the principles which have been formerly established? Einstein's theories don't "debunk" Newton's, they just more accurately specify results for a different situation. Whatever comes next wouldn't necessarily negate what Einstein said, but it would build on his theories under different conditions. Is this correct?

2) I see another big problem with this discussion (and similar ones around the world) is we argue in broad brush strokes. The most common reaction seen by people on your side of the argument, Zag, is close-mindedness. This used to be seen more forcefully in the debate between Evolution and Creationism. I think there are a number of people who have since said the two are not mutually exclusive. (If not, then I will at least stand up as one.) Not that I agree with the Theory of Evolution in a wholesale fashion, but at the very least, I believe in survival of the fittest and changes in a species over time. So, I believe the antagonism expressed by people on your side (that scientists embrace new truth and religious people don't), while not unfounded regarding certain people and a large chunk of recent history, is a little out-dated and unfair as a general description.
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Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

Zag · Tired of his old title

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

We can agree on that. I don't think Science and Religion are really at odds with each other, at least not from my end.

I meant out-dated in that the scholarly people typically do not hold to those views any more. You don't judge the whole scientific community on a few people who still believe the sun revolves around the earth, do you? Paradigm shifts happen at the top. It takes a while for those new ways of thinking to filter down.
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Zag · Tired of his old title

It's true that scholarly people don't hold those beliefs (almost by definition). Sadly, however, politically powerful people do. They are the ones that get my dander up.

Scurra · Daedalian Member

ralphmerridew · Daedalian Member

Scurra: What exactly is if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them supposed to mean?

Catholocism at least has a head.

And why should it take so long for change to occur?

BraveHat · Last of the Daedalians

Scurra · Daedalian Member

Zag · Tired of his old title

Scurra · Daedalian Member

Well, up to a point, Zag. As in politics, often a party line is adopted which the majority of members disagree with, but which a highly vocal minority refuse to compromise on. The result is that those who are willing to compromise find themselves forced to "endorse" a position which they themselves do not necessarily agree with at all.
Gradually though, when it turns out that the world didn't end when something is adopted, the stupid position fades away. Women priests in the Anglican communion for instance; although my own denomination has had them for over a century, and they weren't uncommon in earlier small churches. It'll be another few decades for the Catholic church but it will happen.

But I do think it's also important to distinguish between what is actually the "party line", what is believed by the "heads" of Churches, what is believed by members of those churches and what is believed to be the "party line" by those who are not members of those churches. And the intersections of those may be smaller than you think... (I will add that I thought had already admitted to nit-picking in my original post; I just felt it was important to distinguish between the "party line" and the "heads" of those religions.)

As to an argument about whether a "party line" is generally intolerant and closed minded, I am not sure how the evidence stacks up. My feeling is that it may be a correlation fallacy; that because closed-minded intolerant people are drawn to the certainty of certain brands of religion, it is assumed that the religion itself is therefore closed-minded and intolerant. Again, I think that there is quite a lot of evidence that political parties and certain sorts of social groups have the same dilemma, which suggests that it may not be religion but human psychology that is more relevant.
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extro...* · Guest

Zag · Tired of his old title

Zag · Tired of his old title

extro...* · Guest

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

There is also the problem of what is actually hurtful. In some sense, most religions draw the line further away in order to better insure no harm is done. I believe that is similar to my point earlier. I mean, you tell your kids not to play in the street, but there are actually times when it's not going to be a problem/place them in danger.
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BraveHat · Last of the Daedalians

Continued from Post 705:

Zag · Tired of his old title

You acknowledge your own predisposition to give a divine interpretation, and I'll acknowledge my predisposition to look for a reason that is within the science we understand -- that doesn't contradict it. However, in my case, at least, it is not a prejudgment, only a "health skepticism." So, we have this evidence of people who experience these Near Death Experiences, and competing theses of why they occur: Divine vs. oxygen-deprived hallucinations combined with wishful thinking and expectations.

The next step, if you are interested in the pursuit of knowledge, is to try to construct an experiment or collect data that would indicate one way or another -- where the competing theories would produce different results. Of course, first-hand experiments, and double-blind experiments are out of the question, so we'll have to collect data.

The first step is to interview a lot of people who have had these NDE's. If there really is an external, divine cause for them, then one would expect the experiences to be very similar, even if the backgrounds of the people who experienced them were very different. The "wishful thinking" theory would suggest that people would tend to see what they expected, but the "divine" theory suggest that everyone would see the same thing, even though it differs from the cultural expectations of the person experiencing it.

The evidence that rm presented seems to suggest the "wishful thinking" theory, though I acknowledge that it is hardly conclusive. It is reasonable that the same deity would present himself to people according to their own expectations, so that could still be consistent with both theories.

I'll also say that people seeing Jesus as a bearded white guy is not really evidence either way, because memory and recognition are funny things. Even though you think you have visual image memories of important things that have happened in your life, they are really totems in your mind, and the visual memory is not necessarily of the event, but of your reconstruction of it from totems. If a person's totem image of Jesus is as a bearded white guy, then if he ever were to meet Jesus, know for certain that it is He, but not really get a good look at him, then that person's memory of the meeting would include Jesus looking just as he expected Him to look. (If you recall an important early memory of your mother, and try to visualize it, your image of her will probably be much older than she really was at the time.)

Anyway, my point is that the NDE analyses that I have seen other times seemed to me to be some evidence of an external reality to them, because they were all so similar. However, the analysis that rm linked to seems more like evidence of a non-Divine, non-external force, but I'll agree that it is hardly conclusive either way.

Scurra · Daedalian Member

Zag · Tired of his old title

extro...* · Guest

ralphmerridew · Daedalian Member

Zag · Tired of his old title