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Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
When one openly attacks a religion, they are deemed impolite, rude, and gets attacked back for venturing into enemy territories. however, i think any idea should be subjected to the same amount of scrutiny given the chance to. every scientific theory undergoes a huge amount of scrutiny/peer reviewing/trying to prove it wrong before it is even published to the public.
the theory of evolution undergoes an exception amount of scrutiny (not only by the religious community but more so the scientific peer reviewers), in fact that's one of the reasons why it's one of the most solid theories in present time. religion is also an idea, however, they undergo little scrutiny and those doesn't really affect it at all. attacks against religions are big no-no's. isn't this unfair? one of the best flow charts i've seen: Removed. If the OP wants to salvage a single strand of legitimacy from this thread, he won't mind. If not, I'll gladly lock the thread for lack of an interest in discourse. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
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What happens when religious ideas undergo scientific scrutiny or vice versa? Absolutely nothing. They are entirely separate domains governed by very different rules. By definition, science CANNOT scrutinize constructs, and religion is inherently based on a construct. --Guido http://andy.mikee385.com |
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OP, attacks against religion happen all the time. look at cases where parents sue schools for religious conduct, look at what happened on the openings of the scientologist churches, look at the creationism museum (which coincidentally is less than an hour away from where i live.) look at the videos on youtube criticizing religion. if you're going to talk about religion you should just not bring in science all together and vice-versa. |
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btw i got that flow chart from either tass or synth i believe while browsing this forum. |
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Here, a site: http://www.physics.smu.edu/~scalise/P3333fa05/SciMeth/ The lecture on the scientific method itself from a class which teaches how the scientific method works. Don't take my word for it, if you don't want to. Quote:
Do you understand what you're asking, though? You want a system to measure an idea's value based on testable, provable facts. That is set up entirely in the realm of science. That's like saying you'd bet on the Dallas Cowboys in a football game versus the New York Yankees. If you come away from this thread learning only one thing, please let it be this: Religion and Science CANNOT tread on each other's toes. They can neither prove nor disprove each other. God, as a scientific construct who is capable of disobeying all of science's rules, cannot be described (or his existence proven) in scientific terms. Quote:
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--Guido http://andy.mikee385.com |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
EDIT: Comment retracted due to this
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also, i'm sure you know the burden of proof lies with the claim. it is impossible to disprove god, just as it is impossible to disprove the sphaghetti monster. the lack of proof FOR god isn't not proof against god, but certainly is evidence that He does not exist. also, as mentioned, unfalsifiable claims/things are of no value (factually speaking, not morality). Quote:
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ps. Guido please i don't see why you're coming across so hot. Quote:
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That is, you stated that when religion is attacked, people become defensive, rude, etc., and that most certainly doesn't happen all the time. Not only are such generalizations dishonest and therefore not critical thinking, it was your first sentence, and so it made a very poor first impression. Quote:
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Tell a group of philosophers, theologians, and metaphysicists to prove the existence of God and they'll get hard to work, mounting piles upon piles of (religious) evidence for and against it. Tell a group of scientists to prove the existence of God and they'll sit on their hands. That's how it should be, too. As soon as you attempt to falsify or verify a construct, you have left the realm of science. Quote:
And yes, proponents who would have ID taught in science classes (do note that distinction; there's nothing wrong with teaching ID in school, so long as it's taught in some sort of religious studies class and not in a science class) are making the same grave error as those who somehow think that science and evolution can disprove the Bible. Those are both disgusting claims that have absolutely no intellectual merit. I'll also point out that your example of the ID-in-school has no bearing on my statement that it addressed. Just because some religious people don't understand science and thus claim that they do interfere with each other doesn't mean that they actually do. Quote:
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Ask a Christian how the universe actually came into existence. The likely response? "God created it." Ask a scientist the same question, and his first words should be, "I don't know." That should, however, be followed by, "But the evidence suggests that..." Science cannot tell you what actually happened; all it can do is show you what all the evidence suggests. Hypotheses are formed, refuted, revamped, and supported as more facts and evidence are presented. This can lead to a veritable MOUNTAIN of evidence that points to one extremely likely outcome, but can science ever be 100% sure? No. It can be so sure that you'd be a fool to not believe the evidence, but it cannot be certain. Religion, on the other hand, claims to know the truth. It DOES make those claims of 100% certainty. Which is right? Nobody knows. It is due to that uncertainty that many people can logically justify a belief in a Genesis-like creation. They would, however, be at a significant disadvantage if they tried to justify their claim in a scientific environment. Faith versus evidence. Believe what you want, but you can't justify that you're certainly right. Quote:
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Given the very strict requirements of the Critical Thinking forum, it was entirely inappropriate for an OP. Quote:
Just don't take it personally, okay? =) --Guido http://andy.mikee385.com |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Douglas Adams wrote a terrific piece about this later included in "The Salmon of Doubt".
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Intelligent religious people never suggest that their views are scientific, or should stand up to scientific rigor.
Intelligent scientific people never suggest that their views are religious, or should stand up to religious constructivism (constructionism?). All kinds of religious and scientific people try to cross those lines all the time. You'll notice the lack of extra adjective in the preceding statement. Anybody who says religion should stand up to scientific rigor or be discarded simply doesn't understand or doesn't -want- to understand religion and how religion works. You're asking us to compare Terminator 2 and Stardust. They're both movies, lots of people like one or the other, sometimes both, sometimes neither. Just because they are both movies doesn't mean they should necessarily stand up to the exact same criteria of evaluation, nor should they. If you're evaluating them based on gunfights and explosions, T2 comes out the clear winner. If you're evaluating them on gay pirates and swordfights, Stardust is the clear winner. The whole point is that neither one is trying to do anything the other one is doing, and trying to force them to compete in the same arena is just foolish. Edit: The flowchart (which I didn't see, but I'm 99.99% certain I know what it was) was posted by me somewhere on the forum, rather than, I suspect, Synth or Tass. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I think when something decides that it's the ultimate truth to not criticize it and examine it to see if it's actually TRUE is pretty dumb.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Well, it's unfortunate that you think it is dumb. But "I think it is dumb" isn't very good CT.
Here's the thing though, explicit in the whole concept of faith is that it does not need to be questioned. Having faith in a construct requires that you be prepared to accept it without subjecting it to scientific scrutiny. Anybody who tells you that religion -does- stand up to scientific scruitny is just as idiotic as someone who says it -should- |
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And you're going back to the whole "If something is taken on faith having proof for it would negate it having to be taken on faith" argument. Sorry when something claims it's a universal truth and correct in every way and then says you can't criticize it because it relies on faith I see that as a terribly flawed system. It may be the reality of the situation but that doesn't make it correct by any leap of logic. |
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Flaws in the church aren't the same as flaws in the faith. This seems to be where your confusion is coming from. And I am not going back to that argument, because I'm not going down the "proof denies faith" road, I'm going down the "Faith requires no proof" road which is a very different flavour.
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differentiate "god did it" with "it's magic"? and i'm not talking bout moral values here, as that is a totally differnet debate. |
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Let me reiterate: You are holding something to a standard it has never claimed to meet, and then denigrating that something for its failure to meet a standard that, again, it has never claimed to meet. Taking the opinion statement of fanatics or fundamentalists as being indicative of the whole group is an incredible generalization. If you asked most religious people to prove their belief they would say "I (Note the use of I in that statement) don't need proof." You clearly do need proof, and that is clearly why you are not a religious person. If you were religious and true to your beliefs, you would simply believe them. That's all there is to it. "For people who like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing those people will like" |
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When one openly attacks a religion, they're thought of as rude? You joking? People BLATANTLY DESPISE religion, specifically Christianity, in this country, and religion is under copius amounts of scrutiny.
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quick question about faith in regards to debate:
If I were trying to tell people that guns should be allowed in schools, could I tell them that I had faith that nothing bad would happen? Because I do. I have faith that if teachers were allowed to have guns in school, that them having them would not cause any trouble. I am an atheist, but I have faith in that ideal. With my faith, that means I'm "right" and since it's "faith", it can't be questioned, right? ... In OTHER WORDS, faith cannot possibly be admissible in intelligent discussion because it's fundamentally broken. You can believe whatever you like, but you can't use your unfounded beliefs to support (or even to denounce) arguments in a discussion. If unfounded beliefs were admissible in debates, it'd be a volley with people throwing ridiculous **** back and fourth with no regard to logic, deduction, or, to be frank, intelligence. This is why we have the rule of no religion discussion here. What happened? Why are these things allowed now? |
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I see the faith argument as a weak excuse to escape all criticism and nothing more.
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You deleted my post, didn't you :( But really, there is no debate to the concept of it. It's simple. You can't debate it because it's beliefs rather than fact. You can't debate with religion on the grounds that it is unprovable by its own nature. Not only that, but due to the nature of serious debate, unfounded beliefs aren't admissible on the grounds that they are not empirical. You could mention beliefs and such, but they cannot be used as support or as a means to denounce the opposition. If I have a belief that the death penalty is wrong, I can't walk into a debate and say "my beliefs say this is wrong" and walk out the winner of the argument. |
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Afro, the thread is not about whether religion is true or not, but whether religion is scrutinized as much as it should be, and how it should be scrutinized. I'm not sure what you don't understand about that.
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That's the problem. You can't scientifically test religion, because if you try, your returned result is that it's not scientifically true. But a person's faith can be contrary to empirically proven truth, and as far as this topic is concerned, that's where it lies. Thus, this scrutiny that some would suggest is tandamount to frankly stating "gods don't exist and all religions are wrong and/or lies." I personally am in favor of people taking that stance on the subject, but as far as this forum is concerned, I know it can't work. Too many people have their beliefs and they are at odds with the function of this forum. Thus, the best solution is to simply avoid such discussion, not to put a big sticker on it saying "god isn't real". |
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The idea that religion and science are two non-overlapping realms is not true. Religion makes various claims about the world, as does science. A universe with a god will look very different from a universe without one. Science is concerned with explaining what exists, so the truth claims of religion are directly in conflict with empirical science.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
what about this? science usually doesn't tell religion to stop doing something because it's wrong. religion has been telling science to shut up for centuries, now they go all out for contraceptives, genetics, and such. latest thing they've done is saying you can't check the genes of your embryons to see if there will be malformations/genetic diseases. THEY WANT BROKEN HUMANS TO BE BORN BECAUSE,THEY SAY, THE DIFFERENT SHOULDNT BE AVOIDED. yet they burned dissentors and "witches" in the past, and even nowadays people are exorcized. people who most likely need a psichiatric help, not a purification ritual. the amount of contradictions in the religious matters is huge and just cannot be ignored. this alone should keep people far from any religion, but it seems most people still need a sweet lie to feel reassured.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I'd say religion isn't under as much scrutiny is because religion is unprovable and science can be disprovable, so if you're going to criticize something you're more likely to go for the one you can actually disprove. It's hard to criticize religion because religious people believe in what is set forth in a book, and so any argument relies on whether or not you take that book as valid.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
You guys have this argument all screwed up. We all know you can't put the same level of scientific testing to religion because of one simple reason previously stated.
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We can put CERTAIN elements of bible events to scientific recreation, but that doesn't prove most current contexts, especially modern miracles. (Many of which are well documented. The Catholic church has few dubious miracles. For a religion that still has exorcisms, they do a damn good job of investigating "legit" miracles.) But again to my main point, you guys are completely wrong in this discussion. You shouldn't be thinking about testing religion on scientific standards, as it's impossible. Now, if you used philosophical standards... *wink wink* |
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#1: Can we observe him? #2: Can we observe his actions? #3: Can we observe any effects of his actions? #4: Is there any actual evidence to suggest that he exists? Going after a hypothesis is secondary to answering those questions. If something isn't even observable in any way, it does not exist in the empirical sense. Extradimensional existence that has no effect on our World is irrelevant. You'd be just as right to be arguing that Mister Mxyzptlk exists in the 5th dimension and we just can't see him. |
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Listen, its very easy. There is one term that brings it all together; "moot point."
Its like many have said, it will not work to hold that kind of concept to a scientific standard because it is just that, a concept. No one said, "I believe that noahs arc existed so therefore it is a scientific fact." Even in a previous question about allowing guns in schools. You can believe it, but to claim it as scientific fact does not coincide because it was not tested through those means. If you really want to know why it doesnt receive the same kind of scrutiny then do an 'experiment'. Go up to as many religion geared individuals and you can and try to 'scientifically' prove to them that God doesn't exist just to see what their reaction will be. To 'prove' my point ill go along with something that was said earlier about being able to "insert God here." You could go all day trying to prove evolution to me but you will get nowhere because of one simple bit of logic. Say, "evolution happened through mutations in genes" and ill say "God made those mutations happen", can you scientifically prove that God did not do that? The answer is no, you cannot and until you can then i will not change my opinion. Moot point. |
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the "you can't prove or disprove it" argument is just a weak excuse to believe in something that makes you feel better. it has no relevance, no sense, and no reason to exist. anything i can imagine, going down this road, has the same legitimacy as a god from any religion with millions of faithful followers, then. good point.
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Just because you elect to not follow their belief system doesn't make their belief system irellevant, nonsensical and pointless, just irellevant, nonsensical and pointless TO YOU. Quote:
I'm not actually sure why this thread got revived or why this angle on the discussion is still going on. I thought this sort of thing was put to rest back when I pointed out Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I think it's a gross oversimplification to just make the argument that science and religion should stay out of each other's faces because they are distinct realms of thought. Yes, religion at its core is a construct, and as such it is impossible to scientifically determine the legitimacy of religion at the most fundamental level. However, this does not mean that the two things are really distinct. Religious ideals usually lead to religious assertions about the how the natural world is structured, and when this line is crossed, science definitely has the right to get involved.
Assertions pertaining to such things as the age of the universe, or the existence of intelligent design, definitely fall within the scientific method to test. And, should these things be scientifically shown to be most likely false (which they pretty much have been), then this still says a lot about the religion itself as a construct. Logically, if natural observations result from religious concepts, and those natural observations are false, then it's an easy logical jump to conclude that there's something wrong with that construct of religion in the first place. Of course, this falls far from actually proving the existence or non-existence of a God, but it does suggest that the particular treatment of such a God that a particular religious construct has used is somewhat flawed. The major problem, though, is not that science should not be allowed to test certain aspects of religion, but it is more that science is inherently flawed. Testing and repeated testing only yields statistics - we can only say that things are most likely true, but we can never really show that anything is definitely the case. After all, 99.9999999% is still not 100%. And, for this, science can never really show that a certain religion is definitely flawed, but only that a flaw most likely exists. So, yes, the existence of God or gods is definitely not really something that science can ever say anything about, but there is something to be said about what certain religions say that the existence of such a God translates to in terms of our world. And, there are plenty of intelligent scientists who use this concept to talk about certain aspects of religion. There are also a considerable number of intelligent religious people who argue for religion in the context of science. I've seen and read books that argue for religion in scientific terms, and while I personally didn't find many of the arguments satisfying, there was still an impressive amount of scientific detail. The point is, I reiterate, that at their most basic levels, science and religion are separate, but as we look past this basic level, then there is a noticeable overlap. So I think it's just being lazy (and, to a degree, politically correct, which to me is even worse than being lazy) to just nonchalantly throw this argument away as "irrelevant." |
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Ironically, this is the case with science. Many theories still hold significant weight just because they are widely accepted as true, but not proven factual. E.G. gravity. You need to disprove them completely, or at least enough so to make it seem outstandingly unlikely, to disprove them. It's not the strongest argument, but when your best argument against a point contrived on the concept of belief and opinion is "thats stupid" then you don't have much sway, do you? Quote:
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Otherwise, you're straw manning the religious claim by misrepresenting it as "Scientific claims we can expose the flaws in" when it has never suggest that is what it is. This has nothing to do with political correctness, this has to do with apples and oranges. I'll direct you, once more, to the claim I quoted above, especially in regards to the "intelligent religious people" versus "religious people" distinction I drew. When you say that you've seen all these cases of religious people trying to use science to prove their beliefs, well yes, I've seen them too, I've read several books on christian apologetics, and looked into several "scientific" proofs for ID and so forth. The reason you find these things not very compelling is that they aren't very compelling. They tend to either try to justify after the fact, or just stretch credulity much further than the broadest extrapolation. As regards your specific examples of "the age of the universe, or the existence of intelligent design" I'd suggest that for one, most realistic proponants and opponents of ID differ primarily in their conception of whether "Things just happened" or "Things were made to happen" actually represents the proper application of Occam's Razor, rather than any more formal disagreementm and for two, the only religious people who disagree over the actual age of the universe are, in my opinion, idiots. |
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While religious claims are not scientific claims, whenever you make any remark about an observable phenomenon, there is implicit scientific content in your statement. As was repeated ad nauseum throughout this thread - many religious ideologies escape the realm of testability, but this by no means means that some of the specifics of what such ideologies claim manages to do the same. Anything really that relates to concrete ideas in our natural world is subject (rightfully) to scientific scrutiny. It's not like comparing apples with oranges, it's like comparing vanilla ice cream with a chocolate/vanilla twist ice cream and remarking "hm, I don't know about the chocolate in this, but the vanilla smells a bit strange."
Of course, this falls down to whether or not you believe in science as an ideology - but then again, science is founded upon the simplest set of assumptions we can come up with, and is also founded upon observable, repeatable experiments, so Occam's Razor really doesn't favor religion or ID at all... I'm actually not quite sure what you were getting at in the last paragraph, Devonin... I think you missed a punctuation mark or something because I couldn't really understand what the structure of the sentence was (the one with Occam's Razor) <.<... and most religious supporters (Christians especially) disagree wholeheartedly with the scientific perspective on how old the Universe is (it comes with the territory), so I'm not sure where you are getting that from. |
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My statement goes like this: People who support ID intelligently tend to claim that the unliklihood of the universe existing by pure chance means that a creator is the simplest explanation. People who oppose ID intelligently tend to claim that the characteristics implicit in a creator are too complex and advanced, and that random chance is the simplest explanation.
They both think they are correctly applying Occam's razor to the question of the creation of the universe. Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
unless you consider the Bible from a purely literalistic standpoint, which a larger portion of Christians than you seem to believe -do-, in which case you are by necessity making claims that can be put to scientific test and scrutiny (ex: noah's flood, literal creationist theory--which is what i was taught -in science class- to be a scientific truth for much of high school).
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As has been stated many times before, but seemingly ignored, religion and science are mutually exclusive and have no reason to overlap at all. Science deals with the realm of testable things; as religion, by definition, requires faith in something that is untestable, there's no way that science can attempt to do anything regarding religion. Science deals with facts, not faith.
By the same token, religion shouldn't try to interfere with science. Having ID taught as science in schools is ridiculous. Science is something that is proven with a reasonably degree of certainty, and continues to reinvent itself with the addition of new evidence. Religion assumes, and nothing further can be done about it. There's nothing wrong with having ID in schools; it should just never be discussed in a science class, because ID is not true science. It's merely a cover for creationism. Now, to clear some things up. Someone earlier used the incredibly weak example (by their own admission) of gravity being something that is likely, but not 100% certain. Gravity is accepted fact; once something has been tested again and again and stands up to the rigor of every applicable test, it's safe to say that it is the truth. In fact, gravity is governed by a set of laws that cannot be broken. A law is a simple statement/description of what is happening; gravity is gravity, and that's that. It's worth noting that the word "theory" as used in scientific circles means something incredibly different from its usage in common parlance. A scientific theory consists of an assertion that is backed up by a large body of evidence and is generally accepted as an accurate explanation of a natural phenomenon. "Theory" in common usage means a hypothesis...basically a guess. This confusion has resulted in ID proponents trying to put ID on the same lavel as evolution, with the rationale that both are just "theories." Basically, by definition, science and religion should have nothing to do with each other, and indeed one should not attempt to try and examine one with the other. Doing so leads to nowhere. If both sides left each other alone, the world would be much better off. One last thing, to address the original question. Religion cannot be subject to scrutiny beyond what is present in scripture (obviously there can be various interpretations of different statements, etc.); on the other hand, science should be subject to heavy scrutiny (and indeed thrives on it). The only way for science to be science is if there is continuous testing and attempts to discover more. |
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Yeah, faith, I know, but why place faith in that? Why not place faith in the stories of Oddyseus or Heracles? Peter Parker or Clark Kent? What makes that particular ancient religious texts worthy of being taken seriously while other ancient literature is scoffed as entirely fictional? Quote:
Are you saying that people who believe in God are more likely to be right than those who believe in Russel's Teapot? Do you honestly think this is true? All are equally (un)likely due to the lack of any sort of evidence in either camp. Quote:
Just to make things clear, I'm not wholly against believing in a divine presence. I just can't stand it when people try to act like it's rational or logical to believe in these things; it's not, that's why it's FAITH. I also can't stand organized religion, and frankly, if there is a god of any kind, I can assure you with great confidence that he is unlike any god in any religion or that anyone has ever thought of. This Great Creator everyone likes to talk of so much is defined as being outside the realm of human understanding, so why would you venture to think that you or anyone else on this planet could know what they're talking about when referring to him? Quote:
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It's like, throughout the entire Universe, we're here to observe what we have. We wouldn't even be here to think of questioning how small the chance is unless the small chance goes through. I just don't understand how people can think like that. How can it matter how small a chance there is of you physically existing if there is actually a chance and given potentially infinite time and chance? And it's not random either. The first spark of microbial life was random chance, but evolution, mutation, and survival of the fittest took us the rest of the way to what we are. That's why the watch example is a poor one. We didn't start out as a watch. We started out as a microscopic living cog, and that cog met other mutated cogs and the cogs worked together in a way that helped them survive and procreate and millions of years later, they were a timepiece. Quote:
Science says: we evolved from apes Religion says: Jesus was crucified, died, then rose from the dead. Science says: It is not possible to be dead for that long of a time, then miraculously revive for "no reason". Religions attempt to define the physicial world in one way or another. That's where it overlaps with science. |
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why was my post deleted?
people nowadays need proof for everything, mostly atheists towards creationism and god. The old testament was written by a king so that he could control his kingdom better by telling them he was a representative of god. What actually happened over 2000 years ago was probably entirely different from what was written. Maybe Jesus did in fact exist, but perhaps he wasn't as miraculous as people believed him to be. |
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The whole point of having -faith- in the existance of God is that you are only claiming to believe it, you are not claiming that you know for a fact it is true. if you claimed to know for a fact it was true, you woudln't be demonstrating faith. Quote:
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Which is actually the Occam's Razor brand simplest explanation for someone winning the lottery 10 weeks consecutively? Is it "What a lucky stiff" or "He has inside info" What if he wins 20 seperate lotteries consecutively? At some point the sheer unlikihood of the accomplishment lends credence to the idea that an outside agent is at work. Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Around which time would this old testament be written?
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Hi, this one is a little long. Contained herein are comments and replies to Devonin's recent similar response to a previous post of mine, and a cut-em-up response to Synexi-XI's much shorter post. You kiddies out there might just want to skip it, but for those adventurous enough to dig in, I suggest you make a bathroom break before getting into it. For those with weak constitutions, I'll give you a brief summary of the essential points I'm trying to make: why have faith in one piece of ancient writing and scoff at another? Why believe in ancient writing with no other evidence of proof? Why believe that any person- yourself or myself included- could ever come close to identifying the core identity of this divine creator that is so heavily worshiped across the world? Why attempt to claim that your beliefs are based in logic or reason when they are in fact merely you taking faith in the words of long dead anonymous writers and nothing more?
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After all, I don't believe that there was actually a man named Orpheus who ventured into the Underworld to reclaim his fallen love from Hades. But it's still a worthwhile story to know of. Quote:
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Personally, I don't know how anyone could take it as fact. For me, it'd be like looking at the recent Tim Burton flick about Sweeney Todd and thinking that's how it really was. AND NOW FOR THE FUN STUFF YEE HAWWWWWW Quote:
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Oh, and by the way, before you try it, I've decided not to show my telekinesis to anyone. A little trick I learned from God-- see, it'd be a gross display of my power to show actual evidence of it. Quote:
Negative proof, the fallacy of appealing to lack of proof of the negative, is a logical fallacy of the following form: "X is true because there is no proof that X is false." Just because something cannot be proven false does not mean that it's any more reasonable to believe in it regardless. There are plenty of things which can never be proven false, but do you see people going around believing in such silly things? Can you prove that no one on the Earth has telekinesis? No...? Then I guess there must be someone, RIGHT? Quote:
Essentially, I'm saying that "truth in your mind" and "truth" (as defined by your subjective perception) are the same. But again, this is just spinning words to avoid the real situation- That it is a fallacy to use lack of evidence as evidence. All the lack of evidence proves is that it's possible, but we already knew it was "possible" based on the very simple ideal of "God works in mysterious ways"; God not providing evidence of his existence is just a test of our faith. Quote:
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They cannot. Any reason any intelligent person could put forward as a reason to believe can be spat back at them as a logical fallacy. "it feels right" "it's not proven wrong" "look at this banana HOLY **** MY HAND FITS IT PERFECTLY LOL" Quote:
The point of it is to point out how illogical it is to believe in something without proof. The point is to show that just because something hasn't been proven false, does not mean that it is MORE worthy of being believed in. Yes, that's right, it hasn't been proven that God does not exist, BUT YOU CANNOT USE THAT AS A LOGICAL FOUNDATION FOR FAITH. I mean, I guess you could, but you'd be relying on a logical fallacy to claim your beliefs to be based in reason rather than faith. If you're going to have faith in this ****, just have faith in it. Don't try to bull**** everyone and say that there is logic or reason to it. Quote:
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All of the evidence in this situation would be one man saying what he'd done and nothing else. It would be his word against NOTHING. Why would you say that Occam's Razor would implicate an outside agent when there is no actual evidence to support such a claim (and yet, there is evidence of the contrary in the one man's eyewitness)? Quote:
It's the New Testament that people believe that bugs me. These miracles in the parables; this man rising from the dead. AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN THESE. It's not like with Genesis where a reasonable person goes "oh, well, it's just a metaphor, see?" They actually believe that this Jewish son of a carpenter was crucified, died, then came back to life a few days later. Quote:
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What makes these writings worthy of worship, of faith, of belief? I really want to know, because I think it is absurd that you think it's a good idea to believe in this, yet would laugh in the face of someone who worshiped Zeus and believed the stories of his Sons of that God. That's what I don't get about this organized religion stuff; why is it that one ancient book is regarded as Holy and True while another is simply fictional literature to be studied by high school students. Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I feel as if the motivation of this thread isn't substantial enough to have anyone use it for any particular reason other than to debate about a debate which leads to the debate itself, then you get confused and that would be the whole purpose of making this thread of reverse psychology, just to self-gratify yourself rather than ask the question out of literal curiosity...
If not, then I just prefer not to get into this myself... I also didn't read even half of what people have been saying in this, but it's not something worth reading in my opinion... but I still believe getting worked up about this thread isn't worth it, lol. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
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I believe in a god (not in the Christian sense) because I think that it is arrogant for humans to assume that they are the highest form of consciousness when, by the very fabric of their higher being, something greater than us would not be observable to us. I'm not saying, however, that there is a god or any specific definition of god, just that there is something out there bigger than us who probably doesn't affect our trivial daily lives but probably has affected our development as a society and species. By saying that, I am not saying that "There is a god," I'm saying that "There is a god in my conception of the world." Shown evidence otherwise, sure, I'll change my view to not include a god. But when the very fabric of the being you're trying to debate is (presumably) beyond our observation, you can't suggest that people who believe in said being are trying to propose their ideas as truth. PS I know that many Christians try to propose their ideas as truth but that is because they accept the Bible as truth in an almost scientific way. And I think they're wrong. I'm merely defending religion and spirituality as a whole because it's possible to be religious and not be a part of a major/organized religion. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
debating about religion is a debate that can never be ended. this thread could go on for pages upon pages.
and as far as proof is concerned of the events during jesus' era, there were far more specific details about hundreds of events besides jesus' story. We have historical facts about things far older than jesus yet this is one story that has almost no decisive proof at all. |
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The whole reason there's a disagrement between people over whether the universe just happened, or whether it was caused to happen is because there is no proof either way. So no, the fact that we exist does not PROVE that the random chance occured. it just proves that the necessary alignment FOR WHATEVER AS YET UNPROVEN REASON happened. Quote:
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They are looking at the circumstances, and making what I consider a logical claim to say "You know, there's at least a basis for considering the idea that a God is responsible for creating the universe, and pending further evidence or investigation, I'm going to decide that I personally think this version is more likely" Quote:
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I mean, there's a continuous sequence of people who knew each other for reals here. The contemporaries of Christ himself are the ones who first put down the stories in the new testament, from their own firsthand accounts, and passed those along to other people who came after, who added their own stories, who passed them along to other people who came after etc etc etc. nobody FOUND the bible and went "Hey, let's treat this like sacred fact and build a religion around it!" The faith traces back to Jesus and people who knew him in person. That's the difference between the bible and the AfroBible. Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Double post for great justice. And also so people who aren't Afrobean can just skip our back and forth longposts.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
i meant religion in general. this discussion includes the belief of religion.
i'd like to see where they got these proofs since records of such is complete news to me. i would much like to be proven wrong on this since i've been reading up on lots of history during that era. |
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I feel that it is difficult to talk about religions simply because there are so many and each one believes so many things. No common religion just says "God exists" and ends at that; if that was the case, then yes, I do agree that religion and science would not overlap.
But that isn't the case, and (from personal experience) it seems that many people have beliefs which imply testable predictions in the real world. devonin has repeatedly said that intelligent religious people would never follow a belief that predicts testable (and scientifically false) things, but the simple fact is that not everyone is intelligent, and people really do believe things that can be scientifically tested. Unfortunately, when religion and science actually conflict on a testable proposition, and they do, religion sometimes ends up winning. Back in the time of Galileo the prevailing belief in Europe was that the Sun orbited the Earth, a belief which was backed by scripture, and when Galileo came into the scene with evidence that it was the other way around, he ended up being forced to recant his beliefs and put under house arrest! You can say only idiots would do this to him, and I agree, but stupidity happens. Perhaps the best we can say is this: if a certain belief directly implies a testable prediction about the real world, and experiment shows that that prediction is false, then the belief is false. This is just logic, nothing more. And although many beliefs, like the "God exists" belief, do not overlap with science/logic and cannot be proved or disproved, not all beliefs are like this. Look at prayer: some Christians believe that if you pray for something it will be answered, a significant amount of the time. You can actually test this. Say you do a scientific experiment with a large number of people in the same situation (with cancer, say), some of whom pray and some of whom do not. Look at the recovery rate in the two groups. This has been done and I believe the result was that prayer had no effect. In this case, whether you believe in God or not, you would have to conclude that the belief that prayers are granted a significant portion of the time is at best flawed. |
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Bull****, citation needed. As far as I know there is no proof that Jesus existed except for documents written decades after his death. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I don't have some texts laying around to give you some quotes, but every historian of that period or of christianity that I've ever spoken with tells me that there is plenty of evidence that the man actually existed.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
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If you're CT mod you should know you can't randomly state claims with no proof because "I SPOEK WIFF SOME HISTORIANZ AN THEY TOLD ME SO HURR" gtfo my house son, no one can out religious fact grandi |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Pretty sure that "I've spoken with people whose field this is, and they've made these claims" is a slightly stronger claim than "Some guy told me so" I direct your attention to the testimony of expert witnesses in courts. Yes, "It MUST be true because someone with authority said so" is a fallacious claim, but "From my personal experience, this claim has been made by several people educated in the field" is perfectly legitimate for the informal discussion format of this forum.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
jesus was also a carpenter, or so ive heard. He was a real person, but what we don't know is if he was our savior. The basis for religion is faith, get some or get out. honestly people are debating something that cannot be proven. Our believing in god(s) is also like believing in the theory of relativity. So far we accept it because no one has proved it wrong, but there may be grounds further ahead in life that can prove it wrong.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Oh i'm sorry i thought unsubstantiated claims in debate was oh, i don't know. One of the biggest taboos in the field. And you saying "I talked to professionals and they said he exists" is about as substantiated as the Bible itself.
Especially when it took 2 seconds of google to make the "experts" you supposedly talked to liars. Get on your game Devonin. If you want an "informal" discussion then go talk to buddies so they won't yell at you for saying crazy untrue ****. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Stop trolling in my forum. Make your points without the attitude.
Every historical claim about any era or aspect of history is hearsay unless there are physical pieces of evidence that survived to this day, and even then, still hearsay. How would a book called "My life as a carpenter" by Jesus of Nazareth that is 2000 years old be any more "convincing" to your standards, than Paul writing about his personal experiences with Jesus 40 years after the fact? Anybody could have written that book, anybody could have slapped a made up name on it, and yet this is what you're insisting is necessary to support his existance? It will be far more likely in 2000 years, that people analyzing the historical record from our day will think Mickey Mouse existed, than will think Grandiagod existed, and you really do exist. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Okay. Your claim that conclusive evidence of Jesus' existence is incredibly untrue and you have no facts to prove it whatsoever. While I linked facts that prove your unsubstantiated assertions incorrect; you will not refute me because you claim to have no evidence on hand.
In short, either retract your assertion or give some proof. EDIT, your edit didn't bring any proof whatsoever. Sorry you're beating around the subject. There is no secular proof that Jesus existed. If there was then i'd believe it. I still wouldn't believe in his divinity. Come up with proof please. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
haha dev couldn't fight him. well ill give it a shot
your source says that no books were written when he was alive, but none of the sources he used where written in the time he was alive. so where does his proof leads us, absolutely no where. His defense is that book s written about him were not written while he was alive, but nothing was written in his time period saying he wasn't alive. His argument is moot. something i googled didn't read it yet, but its "proof" http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/jesusexisthub.html |
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So apparently you talked with 2000 year old scholars. It's not that I don't believe you... wait no never mind no i dont believe you. http://www.culturalresources.com/Jesus.html Quote:
if devonin has actual Roman citations that can confirm this, I would really like to see them =) |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Given that I already described my evidence as being the statements made to me by several professors of history, you will either decide to call their knowledge into question, or not.
Regardless, I should never have suggested that there was 100% factual evidence to support -anything- historical, simply because all history, even history that is archaelogy, is pretty much hearsay. So I retract my claim that the existance of a historical jesus is FACT, but I still deny that you've somehow proven he DIDN'T exist, all you've proven is that there is cause to doubt. But there's cause to doubt all of history. |
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I wasn't trying to prove he didn't exist. I was just saying that there's no conclusive evidence he existed. He could have existed but there's nothing to definitely say so. And it's not a point you put up for debate.
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
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When I linked that page from Google, I figured if the Romans kept proper records, it would help solidify the argument that a Jesus of Nazareth did indeed exist at one point in time. ps im not good at debating |
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Notice also that believing things such as Einstein's theory of relatively are firmly rooted in logic and science. To believe in the principles behind relativity is to believe a fundamental principle of physics that has not only logic behind it, but also tested evidence. Religion has neither. Religion forgoes logic and instead appeals to feelings. It isn't logical to believe in God, but it certainly can feel right. ps grandia, I'm sure you know the site you linked to is mere propaganda. Jesus certainly did live back then. His parables may be fictional, but they're based on a real person. Seriously... "all claims of Jesus derive from hearsay accounts". Does that mean that nothing is real unless I see it with my own eyes? I've never been to New York City, so does that mean it's a fictional city? All I have as reason to believe it exists is what I've learned from others. Bro, this is a subjective reality, and sometimes we have to trust "hearsay accounts" as fact, PARTICULARLY as far as history is concerned. Quote:
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
there's proof of many things that happened centuries before jesus. Jesus however is not. I have nothing against people believing the religion, but it's tiring to see everyone saying "if god doesn't exist, prove it" when really it would make sense to prove the contrary.
People have faith and a reason to live when they follow religions, this is a good thing. but proving their god exists because they have faith isn't solid proof. |
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No Does the air exist ? Yes Same for spirit and gods. He dont need to see something to believe it. Do you think blind peoples are bored of the life? No. This help them a lot for the rest of their sense. So tell me Kommisar... Do you need to see the Santa to believe in it? If yes, you must have a problem. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Air itself isn't immediately visible to the naked eye, but it is empirically measurable; we can definitively identify its physical existence using proven scientific principles.
The same cannot be said of "spirit and gods". Don't bring your "omg u cant see air just lik u cnt see GOD" ideas 'round these parts. ps granadia, you still suck for seeming to make the argument that nothing is worthy of being "true" unless we hear it from the source. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
Ok, what happen when you put paper in fire.
He came in sender. But the paper always exist in a sense, but in sender. Take this example on the spirit of a human. What happen after the spirit of a human die. Nothing? << Rien ne se pert, Rien ne se cree, mais TOUT se transforme>> Think at this. |
Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
I'm sorry, I don't comprehend?
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Re: Why religion isn't under the same amount of scrutiny?
look, one other example:
Music : music don't really exist, but what made rap? Its jazz and blues: mean, nothing its lose, but all upgrade. Same with spirit. |
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