The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by pompous ninja @hazel It is impossible to imagine what God thinks! "8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I suppose that seemed a reasonable statement 2000 years ago when the Universe was thought to be quite tiny but now it strikes me as nearly as understated as noting that a Gamma Ray Burster has somewhat more kinetic energy than the breath required to blow out your birthday candles.

Originally Posted by enorbet I suppose that seemed a reasonable statement 2000 years ago when the Universe was thought to be quite tiny but now it strikes me as nearly as understated as noting that a Gamma Ray Burster has somewhat more kinetic energy than the breath required to blow out your birthday candles.

I wanted tell that is impossible to imagine that you are God and omniscient.

I wanted tell that is impossible to imagine to be God and omniscient.

Ok, enorbet, guys?

Originally Posted by pompous ninja I wanted tell that is impossible to imagine that you are God and omniscient. I wanted tell that is impossible to imagine to be God and omniscient. Ok, enorbet, guys?

I take it that English is not your native language, and please understand that is something of a compliment since I am generally embarrassed by how little emphasis is put on other languages here in the US and appreciate people like yourself, pompous ninja, who know more than one language on any level of fluency. I've met people who learned English watching American cartoons and I seriously doubt more than a handful of American kids have the interest and attention span, let alone the self-discipline to do likewise. My "hat is off to you". So let me explain myself more clearly or at least I will make the attempt.

I was not disagreeing with your point. In fact it is my position that the degree of difference is very much greater than those that wrote the bible could possibly have imagined. I read somewhere as a cynical response to the question, "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" the counter condition that " ...Do you suppose the Admiral of the Aircraft Carrier has concern for the well-being of the rats onboard?" and if we substitute "microbes" for "rats" it is still many, many orders of magnitude shy of the actual relationship if a Creator of The Universe does indeed exist.

My position as an atheist is not from arrogance but from humility. I know I cannot possibly comprehend even the smallest detail of what a Creator actually implies and again by many orders of magnitude.

Originally Posted by enorbet I take it that English is not your native language, and please understand that is something of a compliment since I am generally embarrassed by how little emphasis is put on other languages here in the US and appreciate people like yourself, pompous ninja, who know more than one language on any level of fluency.

Originally Posted by enorbet I was not disagreeing with your point.

@enorbet

Ok!

Originally Posted by pompous ninja @hazel It is impossible to imagine what God thinks! "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." "how unsearchable are his (God) judgments, and his (God) ways past finding out!"

Technically correct! Yet the Scriptures themselves constantly encourage us to use this kind of metaphorical language about God. They show Him getting angry, being puzzled by human behaviour, even changing His mind on many occasions. This really bothers people like Enorbet, but I see it as a metaphorical language setting out guidelines for how God's people can actually think of Him in a way that allows them to relate to Him.

If we treat God as totally unknowable (which strictly speaking He is), then it becomes impossible to worship Him, let alone to love Him. And we Christians know that He wants us to do both. So if I think of God as being something like a human being, I'm doing no more than all the prophets did. What was good enough for Moses and Abraham is good enough for me.

Originally Posted by hazel And we Christians know that He wants us to do both.

I am firm believer, Christian. To be more specific, Presbyterian Calvinist .

There is something I'd like to post, it's a phrase said by Galileo. "The Bible teaches you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go". In academic parlance this is known as "non-overlapping magisteria" and while I don't agree with it, it's a system that argues religious faith and scientific inquiry can coexist mutually. Indeed there were many scientists with religious beliefs as well.

Sorry for the grandstanding, the evolution spat here kind of motivated me to post it.

That's not grandstanding, it's a very apt comment. The only cavil I would make is that "non-overlapping". It suggests that scientists who are also religious (and there are quite a lot of those!) somehow leave their religion behind at the lab door. In fact most of them see their scientific studies as a religious activity, serving God by exploring His works. What they find in turn affects what they do and think about in church. But it is important to separate out the religious and scientific dimensions of the enterprise and not confuse them. That would be like trying to superimpose the ground plan of a building on its elevation and then rubbing out elevation details because of supposed "conflicts".

You are lucky to be entering this discussion when it is in one of its more civilised phases. Some of the earlier stuff in this thread would probably have repelled you.

Originally Posted by hazel That's not grandstanding, it's a very apt comment. The only cavil I would make is that "non-overlapping". It suggests that scientists who are also religious (and there are quite a lot of those!) somehow leave their religion behind at the lab door. In fact most of them see their scientific studies as a religious activity, serving God by exploring His works. What they find in turn affects what they do and think about in church. But it is important to separate out the religious and scientific dimensions of the enterprise and not confuse them. That would be like trying to superimpose the ground plan of a building on its elevation and then rubbing out elevation details because of supposed "conflicts". You are lucky to be entering this discussion when it is in one of its more civilised phases. Some of the earlier stuff in this thread would probably have repelled you.

@hazel

If is not ask much, please quote examples of the earlier stuff in this thread that would probably have repelled me.

Look for posts by OregonJim and BWuserx.

Regarding the overlap between Religion and Science, I think it is important to know history and recognize that this overlap has changed, evolved, if you will. At one time, even though there were also periods of suppression (some note are still occurring) Religions of many kinds were if not the sole repositors of The Body of Knowledge that is the foundation of the Sciences, then certainly a major component. Much of this is simply due to literacy since illiteracy was the condition of the majority of people well into the 19th Century. Documentation was largely in the hands of scribes and monks for centuries. While the Library at Alexandria was burned for religious reasons on more than one occasion and a great deal of Art and Science forever lost, both Muslim and Christian scholars were also responsible for copying and protecting vast stores of knowledge.

I don't know much about Middle East religions beyond that they, too were affected by the literacy obstacle/advantage, and for example had knowledge in Mathematics and Medicine far beyond what early Christians had. This is true in Math and Astronomy in India compared to Europe as well and both Near and Middle accomplishments were less impeded by Religion than Christian Europe was and for purely religious reasons. One example is The Concept of Naught or Zero.

That issue is particularly important on several levels. Not only did lacking Zero hold back the growth of Mathematics to a major degree but it demonstrates that technology played an important role in that overlap issue. Before mankind began to develop instrumentation it was left to Scholars to discern the Nature of Everything completely with an agenda that any conclusions fit current dogma. Christian Scholars thought Zero was an impossible concept simp[ly because it was "a place where even God could not stand". One famous example of that is Galileo. These were not the raw beginnings but a major examples of when and how experimentation began to compete with religious philosophy and ultimately overcome and replace it..

As experimentation increased and knowledge grew, more and more did Science begin to carve out part of that overlap, that which had to do with the physical world, or "how the heavens go". In fact the very real idea that Heaven was somewhere up in the sky is now only held onto as metaphor when at one time it was meant to be literal, actual and real. While it was a Jesuit Scientist who first formally formulated and introduced the concept of The Cosmic Egg, derided as The Big Bang, that Jesuit Scientist, Georges Le Maitre, while in the employ of The Vatican, felt compelled to tell the Pope essentially to "stick to spiritual matters" regarding the implications of A Beginning. Obviously had Mr LeMaitre said such a thing in Galileo's time he very likely would have been lucky to escape burning at the stake for such heresy and disrespect, which means placing Science above Religion, that Religion needed to adapt to Science and not the other way around.

It seems to me that barring apocalypse, if we continue to thrive as a species, this overlap will only diminish with time. I have confidence that at some time in the future the only Religion that will manage to survive are those that stick to Spiritual Philosophy and leave Nature to scientists. Just as only idiots and nutcases seriously propose Centric Earth or Flat Earth, those that champion a ~6000 year old Earth and deny Evolution will be progressively driven to the fringes. To me it is shocking, and rather shameful, that anyone who can read holds such beliefs in the 21st Century but there can be no doubt that they are becoming mere footnotes and will one day have vanished entirely.

The Universe is under no obligation to conform to our notions of "what should be" and Science is only concerned with "what Is".

A point enorbet does not pursue is that neither India nor the Islamic middle east produced experimental science. We owe India two great mathematical innovations: the invention of zero and the so-called Arabic numbers. But India produced no science because Indian philosophy held this world to be illusory and therefore not worth investigating.

Islam gave us more mathematics (including the word "algorithm") and much useful astronomy and navigational instruments but no experimental science because Islam holds that everything that happens is due to the direct will of God and therefore there is no point in investigating secondary causes.

Science as we know it depends historically on having been cross-fertilized by a specific religious viewpoint, that of Biblical Christianity with its sacramental view of the material world and its law-making God.

Originally Posted by hazel Islam gave us more mathematics (including the word "algorithm") and much useful astronomy and navigational instruments but no experimental science because Islam holds that everything that happens is due to the direct will of God and therefore there is no point in investigating secondary causes.

Avicenna AKA "Ibn Sīnā"??? Or doesn't he count?
jdk

Was he in fact a scientist? I gather he was more of an aristotelian philosopher.

Originally Posted by hazel A point enorbet does not pursue is that neither India nor the Islamic middle east produced experimental science. We owe India two great mathematical innovations: the invention of zero and the so-called Arabic numbers. But India produced no science because Indian philosophy held this world to be illusory and therefore not worth investigating. Science as we know it depends historically on having been cross-fertilized by a specific religious viewpoint, that of Biblical Christianity with its sacramental view of the material world and its law-making God.

Partly true.

1. The zero was invented by Greek astronomers and popularised by the Indians.

2. Not all Indian philosophers have held the world to be illusory: Madhva didn't.

3. A lot of science was done in the Islamic world in the Middle Ages. There were two separate projects to measure the diameter of the earth and a lot of work on astronomy. Muhammad al-Biruni produced a textbook of mineralogy and the first ever one on pharmacognoscopy. Eventually, of course, fundamentalism killed it off.

4. Christianity did lead to a search for laws, but it's also had undesirable side-effects, such as the evangelical attitude that the earth is ours to do what we like with and, whatever we do, God will make sure that nothing bad will happen to us.