The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Just FTR Jameson20000e, I don't see "agnostic" (basically just means "I don't know and don't wish to take a position") as scientific. It is true that we can't know anything about what happens outside or "out-time" our Universe, but we can't know if we could survive on the metallic hydrogen surface of Jupiter either, but that doesn't mean the position "I would die long before I got there" is invalid. The odds that some entity that we can even imagine, that could also communicate with us and who is capable of creating this Universe, in fact Time itself, is so many orders of magnitude less likely than we could talk to bacteria, is beyond absurd.

It is far more likely that unimaginably superstitious people who knew essentially nothing but Earth and Sky, who even thousands of years later still imagined our Earth was the center of our Universe, even could posses the unmitigated arrogance and hubris to imagine a Sky Father Figure and made up an entire backstory to shore up such ignorant fantasy. I'm saying "ignorant" regarding the ancients since they were unimaginably provincial and primitive. Religious people today must face a wall of tradition that has been built up for thousands of years. I can't view that as mere ignorance, so please make no mistake here. That's a difficult feat to overcome all that, and the benefits are real as well as imagined, not to mention incredibly seductive. Who wouldn't prefer "someone in charge with a Plan"?

There is no science which can prove God does not exist. Just agnostics, atheists employ science as main source of counterarguments. Mainly in creation, cosmology, human sciences. But science is being created by both believers and atheists. Scientific community is rather in neutral position. Just God existence is not a subject of scientific research. However scientific institutions governed by people of strong opinion can employ discrimination policies. On both sides,

It's a more scientific stance because once you know, you know tho somethings no. Can't Define a christian, atheist or an agnostic they all think differently and stereotypically, hypocritically, humans evolving...

There is no science which can prove God does not exist.

Back to Pascal's wager (who you said was wrong(?)) there is no science that can prove a big purple dinosaur isn't blowing bubbles...

Anything unknowable, is unknowable. That's why humans make stuff up to explain it (that could even become a fact if we get it right) and\or to pass the time.

You know something is made up when it's completely different than some other make believe.

Science is not interested in such things like proof of God existence or not. It was not created for that. Here was mentioned Inquisition. But how many people know that Ockham or Copernicus were clergymen? But Copernicus is known from first description of Solar system with Sun in the center. Planets - Earth too - rotating around. Ockham for his famous rule. This rule is at base of every modern science.

Science like religion can go in too many directions.

E.g: "The Theory of Everything" is as pointless as geneticists trying to make pigs fly...

That's why we need facts. If we put a dead end sign up before people start driving down the road, no need to waste time.

As we mentioned before, they don't let religion in actual School.

Good read: Homo Deus by Yuval Harari.

I see a valid place for religion, philosophy, and science alongside each other, as equally-valid forms of human inquiry. All three of them have a very-legitimate place, and each one is very different from the other. I find no conflict nor competition between them.

"Science" is really a process for applying our intellect rigorously to anything that we think we can observe. It is, however, entirely blind to any situation where our observations are either wrong or misinterpreted ... and we don't know it. It is nevertheless a fantastic tool, despite its inherent limits. ("Science" agreed with Newton until Einstein came along, and saw something that Newton didn't see ...) Sometimes we observe things that we can't yet explain, and that's when we begin to hypothesize and maybe theorize. The scientists who theorized that the Earth was at the center of the universe turned out to be wrong – but maybe it's just because they didn't correctly "observe" what Galileo did.

"The philosophy of science" is the next step – intended to serve us when we are talking about things that we cannot directly observe. Such as, for example, "the theory of evolution." We can observe this process, but only in very limited situations. Philosophy now gives us a way to extrapolate the things that we have observed into other things that we can't observe, and to examine those extrapolations to see how valuable they might be, using a very rigorous process. It cannot, however, tell us whether we are actually correct, which is "unknowable." (I believe that Darwin's statements were always meant to be understood as "philosophical.") A key strategy is to explore a chain of reasoning "as far as it might go," looking for "apparent contradictions." It is implicitly understood that "certainty is not an option – which is precisely why we're philosophizing." It's a great tool, as long as everybody understands the rules of the game.

"Religion," then, is based on – and serves – the most fundamentally human things: "wonder," "gut instincts," "feelings," "intuitions," "fear," "hope," "emotion," perhaps "worship," and so on. And it does this without apology. Nor does it ever need to apologize. If it didn't serve an apparently-eternal and universal human need, it wouldn't exist. Sometimes, you really do "hear a still, small voice." Maybe you should pay attention, and "lean not to your own understanding." Or, not. It's up to you and no one else.

All three of these things are fundamental parts of "the human condition." Each one, I believe, serves its purposes without any conflict with any of the others. None of them are "right" nor "wrong." Each of them takes an approach that is unlike the others – yet complementary. We have three very powerful tools with which to consider our world, and ourselves. Embrace and use them all.

Thank you leclerc78. Interesting man and ideas.

@sundialsvcs - welcome back to this thread old friend. I do agree with you that there is no inherent conflict between Philosophy, Religion and Science. However there has been one between some of the practitioners, especially the religious, throughout History to varying degrees. Initially since Religion championed knowledge and is largely responsible through the intense work of monk scribes at writing down and preserving a great deal of knowledge that would have been lost. Maybe they sought some redemption for the Library at Alexandria It is certainly worthy of note that the man most responsible for Big Bang Theory who met with and was able to convince the highly skeptical Einstein. was in the employ of the Vatican. It is also worthy of note that the then Pope tried to insert Religious doctrine into the Science essentially proposing it "proved a Creator" but LeMaitre essentially told him to "stick with your scriptures and stay out of Science". There was a truce between Science and Religion until they didn't like what was "revealed" and thousands suffered, dreadfully... perhaps the entire future of Mankind.

As a matter of a slightly smaller note, Einstein did not as many assume "prove Newton wrong". Newton's Laws got us to the moon and is still used for very important deep calculation. Einstein only showed Newton's Truth wasn't Universal that it has limitations based on limited understanding of the nature of Gravity. Given that locale, Newton is still dead on. His "Laws" just don't explain the orbit of Mercury or GPS to name a few. It is still a monumental achievement.

There was a time when Science was hindered by low technology that what was assumed to be "Laws" turned out to actually be bad theory and were utterly scrapped. Once technology hit a certain tipping point extremely few such blatant mistakes ever occurred again. Now actual Scientific Theories are only very rarely entirely scrapped. I'm afraid Victorians were a bit cavalier with the term "Laws". That mistake is no longer made.

enorbet, as we consider "actual human history," there's always going to be a million-pound elephant in the room: the pure-politics of human power.

Ugly. Illogical. Unscientific. Repugnant. Sometimes very bloody. Real.

Remember: "separation of Church and State" is an extremely-recent concept, which to this day does not hold true in a great many places. Emperor Constantine very-deliberately replaced "the state(!) religion" of Rome with "Christianity, as he saw it," thus permanently overthrowing what had been a completely-entrenched state power(!) structure.

Centuries later, even though his Empire is long gone, the power certainly remains. Today, there is a single City(!) which has embassies from nearly every nation. How this status came to be is now quite irrelevant: it is today's reality. In many countries today, "religious" figures have tremendous "state" power –*even "life and death."

This fact isn't subject to our debate. "Church," "State," and let's just go ahead and toss in "Science," are inextricably linked in our society. That is to say, "with the exercise of, and/or the justification of, power."

Always have been, always will be. "If I am 'right,' then I have Power." If I can say that you are 'wrong,' then you do not."

This factor is always going to be "an over-arching contextual ... yes, human ... concern that we can never ignore in any meaningful discussion of these interlocking subjects. It doesn't figure in the "technical" context of any of them, but it still weighs a million pounds and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

>> Even though I assert that these three different ways of viewing the world shouldn't be "in opposition," I think that "this is the human reality of exactly why they are" – and, let's face it ...

"Guess we're human, after all."

- - -
P.S: Yes, it would be better to say that "Einstein extended Newton." Scientific advances often do this – they provide clarity, often in "edge cases" that we didn't yet know existed until the theorist pointed them out.

Fast forward forward far enough and there's no place for religion or science, never heard think ahead? Oh: probably because they killed us, we're dead! Ether way?

If Madam Curie we're here I'd ask, put probs in my head,,, just for you all but st Paul don't want uploads to the brains; even if I and testees wrote off, making us more "insane..."

Who would wanna know right from wrong anyways?!

:Edit.

If Dragon would know where its child will be born it would there.

Originally Posted by igadoter If Dragon would know where its child will be born it would there.

How so? Where right and wrong could be if opinions of them weren't?

Very interesting posts, sundialsvcs.

I would agree Religion, Science & philosophy are all valid and meaningful forms of inquiry. But they have all sought political power, ever since Constantine. That's not good.

What's really interesting is what happened after Constantine died in 337AD. "Christianity" was not made the Roman State religion until 391AD. In the period 350-360, there was a fusing of (already Apostate) "Christianity" with the Roman state religion. Did you ever wonder why the 'Body of Christ' is to this day distributed in compressed round white disks? Think Sun Worship might have anything to do with it? Why the Roman Saturnalia became 'the birthday of Jesus' (aka Christmas)? I could rant on. It's safer imho to say that Christianity became Romanised than the other way around. Then when the Western Roman Empire was conquered, Rome's religion tried to convert the leaders of Europe, whereupon each leader would issue an edict telling their subject to believe "Christianity" henceforward.

In today's world, you find one or two places where philosophy influences power (e.g. India). More where religion exercises power, particularly Muslim countries. Science also influences power in the 1st world. The results of an unbalanced adherence to one form of inquiry have not been good.

I'm having some trouble applying "inquiry" to Philosophy (at least in Modern terms) and Religion (in any unqualified terms), Philosophy has always been thoughtfull observation but with a keen eye toward "what if?". At one time Religion was excited about and supportive of Science... but only because the clergy expected Science to prove ancient Myth and Prophesy. Once Science drew a line in the sand (as LeMaitre did for the Pope) Religion developed a double standard where they wanted to discredit Science on one hand but pay it lip service to lend it the authority of logic, testing and critical thought... just as long as it wasn't too critical.

Science is only concerned with "what IS". Yes there have been and are some scientists who instead of searching for "what IS" set out to prove a pet concept but there is still an entire community looking to tear it apart, so eventually it does work out pretty well. For my part, I prefer what actually is to what should be. We do need "what should be", high ideals to wish for and work toward, but not for assessing reality.

I think you're starting from the POV of Inquiry=truth=Science. While we differ on what truth might be or where it might be found, if we had meant truth, we'd hardly written inquiry, would we?