Sciences vs. Religion

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

I however would like to ask: What theists claim is that there is a God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?

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I assume you were referencing my previous post.

A theist would get enough evidence for assuming there are gods or other conscious agents able to make choices from the evidence that human consciousness exists and that humans can make choices. Using the mediocrity principle we can assume there is nothing special or unique about our consciousness.

This existence of consciousness and choice is a challenge for atheists and illustrates the conceptual box they have put science in. It is not science as such that requires this conceptual box. It is atheism that requires it. Science looks for patterns in repeatable events. It does not have to be deterministic nor unconscious.

Determinism was one way to remove choice. When that failed early in the 20th century, chance was relied on as a way out. When it was found that chance didn't have enough time because the universe was too young, random multiverse ideas were proposed. These are not agnostic scientific conjectures, but atheistic conjectures boxing science into its atheology.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I suppose it could be a purple dragon. Wouldn't you like to know if it is or not?

I see atheism as boxing in science with an assumption that there is nothing conscious out there besides ourselves and that any evidence from our own consciousness should be dismissed. The same thing goes for determinism. Science is still in a conceptual box that assumes determinism in spite of the fact that this has been discredited.

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What evidence from our own consciousness? Look, I endure Christians endlessly cherry picking passages from the Bible to substantiate their arguments and negating ones which cannot withhold scrutiny and now you say that atheists box in science. Perhaps you're suggesting that both camps are guilty of the same practice to suit their own ends. Does that make us fallible humans with a single common denominator or are you going to stick to your 'right to bear arms' guns and say no?

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

How do you know there aren't tooth fairies or unicorns? I don't see any gods around here, just as I don't see other mythical figures striding down the streets. I don't know absolutely for sure that they don't exists, they might all be living together in Oz, which for some reason is hidden from me. But until I am given a Ryan air flight to Oz I'll continue being an atheist.

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I don't see any evidence for "many worlds" either. Since the many worlds idea cannot derive the Born probabilities, why is it even discussed as an interpretation for quantum mechanics?

I don't think you support many worlds based on previous posts, but I am bringing this up to compare the many worlds idea with the tooth fairy. They are at the same level of explanation. Why is one considered more reasonable for "scientists" to discuss?

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

None of these observations make it any more likely that Santa exists. Electromagnetic & quantum fields are useful models, by using them we can predict how material objects will interact. This has enabled us to develop many useful objects, like the computer you are using at this moment. The god concept has not allowed us to develop anything useful.

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The various god concepts, used by theistic religions, have built communities of believers who love their god. Even if one does not believe in any gods that is very useful. Just look at state atheisms to see the mess that godless ideologies have made. What is useless is atheism.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Hardly. The number of declared atheists in Scotland has risen from 27% to 37% in the last decade, and remember that Scotland used to be a stronghold for extreme protestantism. To get an idea about what Scottish religion was like in the 18th century try reading "The View from Castle Rock" by the new Nobel prize winner Alice Munro. From that situation to 37% atheist... it gives me hope that places like USA might get to 37% in the not too distant future.

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I don't think the tendency you are viewing is really a growth of atheism so much as a growth of people who don't care about religion one way or the other. Depending on the question I might be placed in that category, but I don't think you would call me an "atheist".

What atheists need to be worried about is that very group they think is on their side. It could very easily turn against them and become anti-atheists, although not specific believers in any named God.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

It's easy to understand, scientists require evidence. Why does atheism require determinism? It's simply a disbelief in gods. The world can be as indeterministic as you like and still not require any gods. All the leading quantum physicists were atheists, so atheism was hardly a drag on the development of quantum theory!

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The determinism is required to remove choice. Choice requires some sort of consciousness. That consciousness leads to these gods.

Based on modern science, given that quantum physics has establish indeterminism, what is your justification that no God could possibly exist? I am not talking about satirizing other religious groups. I am asking for a justification why atheism has even a chance of being true in a universe in which consciousness exists.

In the 19th century, Draper and White, who created the science vs religion conflict could rely on determinism and the hope that science would create a deterministic theory that did not need superhuman agents. That determinism is gone. What do atheists rely on now?

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Originally Posted by Delta40

What evidence from our own consciousness? Look, I endure Christians endlessly cherry picking passages from the Bible to substantiate their arguments and negating ones which cannot withhold scrutiny and now you say that atheists box in science. Perhaps you're suggesting that both camps are guilty of the same practice to suit their own ends. Does that make us fallible humans with a single common denominator or are you going to stick to your 'right to bear arms' guns and say no?

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I don't have a religion to defend. I am concerned with civil liberties and science. Were it Christians who were boxing in science insisting that we find some God to their liking, I would be equally annoyed.

Yes, we are fallible.

I'm still not seeing a good reason why religion and science aren't compatible (in general).

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I don't think the tendency you are viewing is really a growth of atheism so much as a growth of people who don't care about religion one way or the other. Depending on the question I might be placed in that category, but I don't think you would call me an "atheist".

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The box ticked by 37% in the 2011 British Survey was "non-religious". They ticked the box, so they cared! If you ticked that box I'd call you an atheist as only religions posit Gods.

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Originally Posted by Volya

I'm still not seeing a good reason why religion and science aren't compatible (in general).

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They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

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Be careful what you wish for. Remember that during those "dark ages" - from the Council at Constantinople in 719, until the Council at Paris in 1212 - nearly five decades - that the only thing which saved the written word from extinction was the decree that harming books carried with it the Church's anathema.

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Originally Posted by Eman Resu

Be careful what you wish for. Remember that during those "dark ages" - from the Council at Constantinople in 719, until the Council at Paris in 1212 - nearly five decades - that the only thing which saved the written word from extinction was the decree that harming books carried with it the Church's anathema.

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Saving their own dark books from extinction. Big deal. They had already driven the written words of the ancients almost to extinction, and banned non-Christian works. Fortunately the Arabs were more enlightened about keeping alive ancient works.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Saving their own dark books from extinction. Big deal. They had already driven the written words of the ancients almost to extinction, and banned non-Christian works. Fortunately the Arabs were more enlightened about keeping alive ancient works.

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Far be it from me to trot out John William Draper's assertions that the "Arabs" burned the Library at Alexandria. That notwithstanding, vast numbers of classical texts in history and the sciences were copied out at monasteries throughout Europe in those "Dark Ages," and the works which ended up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum did so after the Middle Ages had ceased to be - at the hands of Pope Paul IV and the Council (the Pauline Index itself was 1559) . Truth be told, if you can read this, thank a thirteenth century Carthusian scribe.

The Christians got nasty in Alexandria as well, murdering Hypatia, for instance. A female intellectual! That really wound them up. Drapers views are questionable, I thought the consensus, now, was that there wasn't one burning of the library but several, and it's uncertain what actually happened (reports are hard to come by!) If it wasn't for the dark ages I might be reading this by the light of Arcturus. Anyway, all this is beside the point, *today's* religion is irrational and not compatible with science. Liberal secular humanists, like Dawkins or Stephen Fry, are not going to be burning any books or Christians.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

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This is just incredibly offensive and narrow-minded. I am an agnostic-atheist myself but to dismiss other peoples beliefs as 'mental incoherence' is just plain wrong. I have friends who are Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, and we all agree that the Big Bang, evolution, gravity, any kind of generally accepted science, is all perfectly okay by each of our own religious beliefs.

Also, I daresay Richard Dawkins wouldn't be averse to burning Christians or the Bible. He is not a very nice man.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

The Christians got nasty in Alexandria as well, murdering Hypatia, for instance. A female intellectual! That really wound them up. Drapers views are questionable,

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Indeed they are; it was offered tongue-in-cheek.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I thought the consensus, now, was that there wasn't one burning of the library but several, and it's uncertain what actually happened (reports are hard to come by!)

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Yep - that is the current view; studies have discovered several separate foundations, in fact.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

If it wasn't for the dark ages I might be reading this by the light of Arcturus. Anyway, all this is beside the point, *today's* religion is irrational and not compatible with science. Liberal secular humanists, like Dawkins or Stephen Fry, are not going to be burning any books or Christians.

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Tomás de Torquemada really was the first (1480s) to actively encourage the destruction of scientific books in the name of Catholicism (and by that time, that old thief Gutenberg was already taking credit for the accomplishments of Johannes Füst and Peter Schöeffer, et al, and printed books were becoming far-flung as Mankind brushed away the last of the Middle Ages' dust and opened the way for the Renaissance), and really did so in the name of Ferdinand, who exerted considerable pressure upon Pope Julius II (and, in fact, Sixtus IV actually tried the put an end to the Inquisition only a few years beforehand, but was pressured into withdrawing his Bulla of 1477 at the behest of the Spanish Crown, who genuinely used the Inquisition to personal political advantage) to do so.

I can't say that I agree with your assessment of modern Catholicism as being any more "irrational" than increasing to 17 trillion dollars, the debt ceiling of a country whose GDP is 1.5 trillion dollars less than that, or becoming a martyr in the hope of attaining "sensual Paradise" [as in Sunan Ibn Majah] populated by seventy-two virgins (imagine, for a moment, the incredible expenditure of energy and patience required to "educate" 72 wholly inexperienced woman - dear God, that's not Paradise - that's a nightmare!), or any of a thousand other "irrational" elements of the modern secular world, but you've certainly as much right to your opinion as does anyone else. Some wag once said, "everyone believes in God on their deathbed;" why should believing any earlier be seen as "irrational?"

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Originally Posted by Volya

This is just incredibly offensive and narrow-minded. I am an agnostic-atheist myself but to dismiss other peoples beliefs as 'mental incoherence' is just plain wrong.

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Now you're suffering from mental incoherence.

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Also, I daresay Richard Dawkins wouldn't be averse to burning Christians or the Bible. He is not a very nice man.

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And I find that view very offensive, you have no reason to say that. But what can we expect from the incoherent?

I'd rather be incoherent than an arrogant jerk who has no respect for other peoples beliefs.