The Faith & Religion mega Thread

You categorize various forms of evidence from an old earth/universe POV, completely discard validity of some forms of evidence, and claim a zero God probability. My POV is young earth, with probability of God 100%. There's no way to reconcile such diametrically opposite POVs.

Therefore: "so be it." Let there now be debate as each of you sees fit. "11,521 posts and counting ..."

Originally Posted by mrmazda To me what you consider very high for the first 5, I consider zero.

It's not just what I consider very high probability, it is the consensus of experts in many fields that study these subjects for hundreds of years or more. If you need to have heart surgery you would consult an expert in that field, would you not? I doubt you'd hire a plumber or a primitive native tribesman from the Amazon, or 10 year old altar boy, right?

Originally Posted by mrmazda You categorize various forms of evidence from an old earth/universe POV, completely discard validity of some forms of evidence, and claim a zero God probability. My POV is young earth, with probability of God 100%. There's no way to reconcile such diametrically opposite POVs.

Yes indeed. There is a reason that just courts of law do not allow hearsay as evidence. Numerous forms of It's unreliable and very often tainted by whether or not the witness likes or hates the defendant.

Here are some examples of the different kinds of accepted evidence for critical concerns since scrutiny is essential or we would still solve legal disputes by Trial by Combat or shamanistic "visions".

https://www.britannica.com/topic/evidence-law

If one accepts an explanation as actual evidence just because we agree with it without any scrutiny, IOW on Faith, that's called "Confirmation Bias". If one disregards objective, repeatable and fully falsifiable evidence just because we disagree with it, that's called "Blind Agenda" and a host of other derogatory terms involving willful denial and enforced ignorance..

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs And, as I've said many times before here: "science, religion, and philosophy" are three distinct(!) avenues for "the gain of human knowledge." It is pointless to try to "judge" one against the other. Each one of the three provides insights that the others cannot offer.

I wouldn't call it pointless exactly. If you will please allow me to substitute the inexactness of religion and philosophy for Art, also an inexact and sometimes dubious process. I am an odd blend of both just as my degree is named, in Arts and Sciences. I apologize in advance for using an example that many might not recall or relate to but it's the best one I know.

When the first CD players were invented and released, originally by Phillips and later by many, they employed audio integrated circuits to shrink down the electronics to fir in the small packages. By all current measurements they exhibited better specifications than any preceding technology. However audiophiles and critical listeners, including me, claimed we heard harshness in the high frequencies. The debate raged on with techies claiming the "artists" were just Luddites and imagining things and this went on passionately for a few years.

Then measuring instruments were substantially improved in response time, being able to measure much more fleeting phenomena and finally we had a picture of extremely fast distortion well above the human hearing range that rippled through the human range and what had been simply termed "Intermodulation Distortion" had to now include "Transient" as a category of concern. This caused a new design imperative in integrated circuits called "Slew Rate" which had to be made much faster to avoid TID and CDs became reasonable facsimiles of live music.

Now anyone can view this as a failing of Science and Technology because many scientists and engineers without trained ears couldn't perceive the issue and concluded it didn't exist just because it didn't exist for them in their perception. They were locked in to their current abilities to measure.

However I view this as a testament to the value of Science because until objective, repeatable evidence could be documented no advances could be made. That some scientists increased the resolution of measuring devices that finally gave irrefutable evidence that TID did indeed exist, no action was possible. It remained a passionate debate. Once it became understood, through Science, the understanding improved so the technology could be improved.

This is how progress happens. It does take all of human powers, including the inexact methodology that depends on perception and instinct, but nothing can rightly be done about for the whole of Humanity until it can be measured and either falsified or verified according to current standards with the caveat that measurement will improve and conclusions must be adjusted and refined.

For a doubting scientist to continue to deny that initial integrated circuit design was flawed in the face of objective evidence would have been not only wrong, but a disservice to human progress and their own credibility as a scientist.

There is a parallel previously discussed here and I'm hoping this one is easier to relate to than Fred Hoyle and Nucleosynthesis, and it has reared it's ugly head here again by claims that higher elements don't evolve from hydrogen. I see it as fitting and poignantly instructive the one of the men most responsible for proving hydrogen fuses into higher elements was himself victim to such closed mindedness causing him to deny Big Bang even after we had photographs of it among other objective evidence. This ruined an otherwise stellar carrer (pun intended )

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs In the case of science, "this is by design." Science will not accept anything that it thinks that it cannot "prove." So be it. But, to me, this does not discredit either of the other two approaches. Let each one of them stand beside the others as peers.

This is not accurate, sundialsvcs. Science simply cannot discuss in scientific terms what cannot (yet) be measured. Science does not deal in proof, only probabilities. Science is not aloof and unaware of it's limitations, only scientists sometimes are. We all suffer from such limitations, each and everyone of us.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs I suggest that the most important thing that we must realize about this "strange and wonderful world" which we get to inhabit for a far-too-brief time is that we will never "understand it." Therefore, when someone else around you is pursuing an entirely different pathway, don't run up to this person and tell him or her that they are "wrong." Instead, listen carefully to what they have to say. Then you can freely decide whether or not to agree with it. To me, each one of these three diametrically-opposing points of view are equally valid, although they can never be reconciled.

There is a matter of degree here that begs for caution. In the above cases of IC design or nucleosynthesis, yes, it was premature and sometimes obnoxious for techies to claim artists were wrong and imagining things BUT it did lead to resolution and a new standard of what was right and wrong evolved.

If nobody every confronted another with "You're wrong" while that might seem conciliatory and pleasant, it is also stagnation. Once again allow me to quote an old Sicilian proverb

Originally Posted by proverb Only a true friend will tell you when your face is dirty

This is not mean. This assumes respect that your friend will want to know this so they can "wash up". The parallels are manifold.

Originally Posted by enorbet I point this out because this is exactly the problem I see afflicting Humanity where Organized religion is involved. The tendency is to devolve into Us vs/ Them and with "Them" being fit for not only extermination, but Torture Everlasting. Does that really make sense to you?

I don't intend to get involved here, but that is not my belief and the Bible doesn't teach an immortal 'soul' (whatever 'soul' is supposed to mean in that context) or eternal torment. I realize I am at variance with most religions here, but that's fine by me, and if anything, a sign that I'm going the right way. Torturing individuals forever is the exact opposite of what a God of Love would do.

The false doctrines of immortality & hellfire or eternal punishment may have originated in paganism as far back as the Tower of Babel. The foundations of that Tower of Babel have been found, and several papers written. Pertinent search terms are 'e-sangil' and 'e-teman-anki' and the author A.R. George. The fact that "Hellfire" is an article of faith today is a testament to how far mainstream "Christianity" and other faith have drifted from the Truth.

@business_kid: I know that a lot of this "eternal damnation" stuff originates from the Book of Revelation, the validity of which I do not personally accept. This book, in its second half, describes a God who is a sadist, ruthlessly using his superior power to destroy humans so that "human blood flows as high as a horse's bridle, in a river 180 miles long." (At "five pints of blood per human," you do the math ...) He burns his enemies forever in a lake of fire and sulfur, then places "angels and the Lamb" as observers!

Nope. The protagonist in this wretched story is nothing that I will ever accept as "canon."

I was frankly shocked to witness the commercial success of the so-called "Left Behind Series™," by author Tim LaHaye, which actively promoted these same ideas. (At the time, many church denominations 'helpfully' provided their pastors with supporting "sermon notes.") Inevitably, in their stories, enlightened 'you' (of course ...) were not 'left behind,' therefore you got a celestial grandstand seat from which to observe what happened next to the 'poor schlebs who were.' That was the point of all of it. LaHeye spared no details, in his multi-volume(!) account, of what was going to happen to "the damned" while you watched the show from a very safe distance.

And he obviously made a crapload of money for his efforts, for a great many years.

However, so-called "apocalyptic literature" was actually quite common, and it has a very long political history. We probably have more surviving examples of this sort of "ancient text" than any other. It would seem that, when you were getting your ass kicked, it was very popular to read stories where [God] is going to come down from somewhere and kick their asses for you. But I think that "The Revelation of St. John" goes far beyond the bounds of probity. I don't know why the committee included it. I never will.

"The Book of Daniel" is the only other "apocalyptic" text in the accepted canon. (Which was written in two different languages, strongly implying that it is in fact a compilation of two disjoint texts.) This book, while certainly also violent [only ...] in its latter half, does not generally focus on humans. Instead, it speaks of "[celestial ...] kingdoms." It certainly does not directly describe the sadistic mass slaughter of humans on battlefields where they are hopelessly outmatched and outgunned.

However, I would also observe that some of the other "apocalyptic texts" that we now have are actually even more violent and explicit than "Revelation." I can only guess what wanton violence the intended recipients might have been personally experiencing, that they would embrace such wanton violence in the books that they enjoyed and apparently solicited.

Originally Posted by enorbet 5. Macro-Evolution: changing from one kind of life to another The first 5 most definitely do not qualify as "faith" or "religion" since confidence is "very high" ie: 4 sigma or better (read 99.99% or better).

Nonsense. No such evidence has ever been found.

In one of two books I read in recent weeks, either ISBN 9780310259183 or ISBN 9781886653146, it was stated that the odds against spontaneous creation of DNA (not at the hands of any creator) were a number larger than the number of [atoms?,protons?,bosons?] in the "known" universe.

The first problem I see here is the biblical sense of the word "kind". Back then it was apparently a generic term that assumed if you had eyes you knew what a "kind" was. They had not yet developed taxonomic categories like species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain to differentiate on truly basic differences and not just on how things appear to the naked eye. They can't be blamed. They didn't know any better. They assumed many things odd to us now like the seat of intelligence and character being in the heart.

We have fossilized skeletons of Whales verifying macro evolution and a once common ancestor with Hippopatamus. If you'd care to consider peruse this - https://evolution.berkeley.edu/what-...ion-of-whales/

The 2nd definition problem is the word "spontaneous" as if (Shazam!) by magic one day some living thing just popped into existence. Of course that didn't happen. That was an excruciatingly slow process over many millions of years, which you conveniently avoid despite the massive amount of objective, repeatable evidence, by insisting the Earth was created a few thousand years ago.

Speaking of the alleged 100% truth in scripture where are those references to atoms, protons, bosons, or galaxies?... the things that require telescopes and microscopes to be able to examine or even be aware they exist? On the flip side, where is this "firmament", this crystal dome separating "the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth"?

Kind means dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats, hippos produce hippos, etc. Apes didn't evolve into humans. Bananas didn't evolve into monkeys. Mollusks didn't evolve into fish. Asexual reproducers didn't produce sexual reproducers. Evolutionists only know what they think they know based on faulty world view interpretations of the fossil record.

The upper firmament layer expired during Noah's flood, producing a vast increase in damaging solar radiation reaching the ground on earth.

Evolutionary trees among species are pure human supposition. Every fork has a blank period ahead of it, complete lack of evidence of link.

Originally Posted by mrmazda Kind means dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats, hippos produce hippos, etc. Apes didn't evolve into humans. Bananas didn't evolve into monkeys. Mollusks didn't evolve into fish. Asexual reproducers didn't produce sexual reproducers. Evolutionists only know what they think they know based on faulty world view interpretations of the fossil record.

Right from the start mrmazda please attempt to get your terminology dictionary correct when speaking/writing in public. There is no such term or person as an "Evolutionist". Understanding and accepting the overwhelming evidence for Evolution is not a belief system, but an common attempt by some religious fundamentalists to try to put scripture on an even playing field with Science and Logic. It isn't. Accepting Evolution as a basic understanding of how Life progresses is simply accepting the terms of Critical Thinking and the research and progress of a hundreds of years and countless man/hours of deep study. The discovery of DNA could have annihilated Darwin but it didn't. Darwin couldn't have imagined DNA in his wildest fever dreams since microscopes were all merely optical and even the precision grinding of lenses was still quite primitive, let alone the understanding of the role at the cellular level.

Charles Darwin was dead by 1809. Do you have any concept of how much technology and knowledge has advanced since then? In the 21st Century in just a few years the quantity and quality of Human Knowledge has exceed everything that has EVER been known in the entirety of Human History, yet Darwin's Theory has not been falsified, only expanded. Do you deny that progress even occurs? Are you so expert in the field of Genealogy and Biology, to name a few, that you actually imagine your conclusions are better than hundreds of years of many thousands if not millions of man/hours by actual experts in the field?

I'm sorry but "dogs beget dogs" isn't exact enough for experts. It's exactly why I listed a portion of the dozens of layers of classification required for actual understanding of the relationship between earthly lifeforms.

Originally Posted by mrmazda The upper firmament layer expired during Noah's flood, producing a vast increase in damaging solar radiation reaching the ground on earth.

Ummm OK so what happened to all the water in the sea above? and what caused the firmament to expire? and how about Corpus Dilecti? Also what evidence is there of this "vast increase in damaging solar radiation reaching the ground"?

Originally Posted by mrmazda Evolutionary trees among species are pure human supposition. Every fork has a blank period ahead of it, complete lack of evidence of link.

Supposition? Seriously? That's how you think Science and Progress works? Does supposition keep your food fresh for months? light and heat your home? drive you to work? reduce the rate of death in childbirth and from simple infection a thousandfold? allow us to even have this conversation and literally have The Library of Congress at your fingertips? I think you lack understanding of how Science works and how much your daily existence owes to our hard-working ancestors.

It seems to me that in your desire to have it all laid out for you in absolute binary form, "this is true that is false, once and for all time" in one single 2000+ year old book, that knows and tells everything and in a manner that despite time and translations, is the only book worth reading (and perhaps, all the others should be burned) has led you down a path of willful ignorance of just how lucky you are and how much we all owe to the shoulders of the giants before us.

Originally Posted by enorbet Ummm OK so what happened to all the water in the sea above? and what caused the firmament to expire? and how about Corpus Dilecti? Also what evidence is there of this "vast increase in damaging solar radiation reaching the ground"?

Walt Brown provides a better explanation than any other I've seen about what happened in, on and above the earth before men were recording such observations.

Heh. Here's a review of Walt Brown's explanation by paleontologist Glen Kuban:

Originally Posted by http://www.paleo.cc/ce/wbrown.htm Walter Brown, a young-earth creationist and retired mechanical engineer, has developed a "Flood model" which he believes accounts for virtually all geologic evidence on earth, as well as a variety of astronomical phenomena. His central thesis is that only a few thousand years ago the Earth's entire crust consisted of a granite slab 20 to 60 miles thick (until recently, claimed to be 10 mi thick), suspended over a large reservoir of highly pressurized water. According to Brown, due to centuries of "tidal pumping" from the Moon's gravity, the crust suddenly cracked and burst open, violently releasing the subterranean water and flooding the entire earth (Fig. 1). He argues that large masses of rock and water were ejected into outer space during this massive eruption, creating all the asteroids, comets, and meteoroids in our solar system. He further claims that the immense slabs of broken crust, which he calls "hydroplates," undulated, heaved and slid thousands of miles in a matter of months or less, and then crashed into each other to form mountains within hours. Brown presented early versions of the model during the 1980's (Brown, 1986), and subsequently revised and expanded it into a more comprehensive model of earth history, which he described in a book entitled In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, now in its 8th edition (Brown, 2008). He provides updates and excerpts of large portions of his book at his Creationscience.com website, where major portions of the upcoming 9th edition can be found. Brown indicates that he is "Director of the Center for Scientific Creation" in Arizona, which apparently consists of two people (he and his wife). Brown's Flood model and associated claims are overwhelmingly rejected by conventional scientists, since they strongly conflict with many lines of evidence that the Earth and solar system have had a long and complex history, and that the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old (Hazen, 2013; Strahler, 1987). Detailed critiques of Brown's Flood model (based on earlier editions of his book) have been made by Lippard (1989a, 1989b, 1990) and Jellison (2009a, 2009b), while one or more his specific claims have been refuted by others (Bahcall, 2004; Fleming, 2012; Kuban, 1997; Matson, 1995a,b; Morton, 2003a; Sharp, 2005; Van Till, 1986). A point-by-point refutation of many of Brown's claims is found on RationalWiki (2018). Although Brown's Flood model has garnered considerable popularity among lay creationists, many YEC authors and major groups such as AIG and CMI have rejected or strongly questioned it, and refuted many of his specific arguments (Oard, 2013; Faulkner, 2014). In the wake of such criticisms, Brown removed a few glaring errors from his 2018 book, such as those regarding the "shrinking sun," "missing neutrinos, and a "Japanese plesiosaur" (Kuban, 1997). However, he continues to promote many other dubious and unfounded claims in the draft 9th edition of his book, featured at his website, where he continues to sell the 8th edition (without qualifications), despite a number of contradictions with the 9th edition draft. This review expands on past critiques, and addresses recent updates to Brown's book and web site. Unless otherwise stated, any references to page numbers applies to the 8th edition of his book.

That's just the introduction - the rest of the page describes how various claims by Walt are incomplete, based on misunderstandings, and/or demonstrably false.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

–C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

I'm not here to cross swords with Mrmazda even though we disagree. But there's a fundamental difference in philosophy here I want to point out.

The majority here paradoxically are atheist/agnostic. For them, science is king and everything that science says should be accepted, because it's been proved to some standard or deduced, inferred, measured to some standard or whatever. Now periodically, some new data will refute what has been accepted, and folks should at once switch to the new version and believe that. But not even scientists do that.

The minority believe in a God who ACTUALLY DESIGNED & MADE ALL THIS. So when he tells us something about the place we believe what he said because he knows. And we look askance at scientists who think they are the fountains of knowledge. If we have to choose between the opinion of a mere human which he/she formed with the aid of this century's machines, and a Divine statement, it's no contest.

BTW, I make no apologies for guys trying to coin $$$ by selling books stating things that later have to be retracted.

My point is that you're wasting space lining up to flame any believer with scientific data and expecting him to be impressed. There ought to be space for faith & religion on a faith & religion thread. You are welcome to disagree, but without being disagreeable. I'm sure Mrmazda has heard the scientific view before. It didn't convince him. So what do you hope to achieve now? Or is it that you just like reading your own posts?

There is no paradox, this thread was explicitly started for everyone - whether they believe in a creator god, a non-creator god, something else, nothing at all, are undecided, or have some other status.

Nobody is required to share their views - those that make the choice to do so are (by that act) putting those views up for discussion.

To clarify what this thread is/isn't about, a few quotes from the person who started it...

Originally Posted by oskar I'm just curious about the gross distribution of faith or non-faith on a forum like this. I wasn't quite sure how to divide the list. This could easily grow out of proportion, so I decided to put the 'firm believer' on top. Whether it's Polytheism, Monotheism, or some kind of New Age thing. I know some of you don't like to be mashed together, but it is more about the state of mind than the actual religion that I'm interested in. My thread, my rules

Originally Posted by oskar ... I also don't think you have to treat peoples faith like chinese porcelain. --- But Jeebiz, you pointed out that at least the non-Theists don't wake you up at 10 in the morning and try to convert you. But why not! I would love to put on a suit, clamp a copy of 'The Origin of Life' under my arm and walk from door to door... Preferrably in some suburban area that the mormons or Jehovas witnesses took over earlier with their blood sweat and tears. "We were wonderng if you had a couple of minutes to talk about thermodynamics and macroevolution."

Originally Posted by oskar I am not going to challenge anyones believe in this thread, because it's rather pointless. But I don't think you have to treat people of faith any different. Especially if they become elitist. When someone starts to base his reasoning on a holy and unchallengeable doctrine, I think you have the obligation to object if you think differently. And I think even religious people can agree with me on that. They realize like everyone else when faith becomes harmful, because they see it in other religions, or in extremist forms of their own religion, even though they might have a significant blind spot when it comes to the teachings they themselves live by.

It should be quite clear from those quotes that the recent discussions in this thread are not at odds with the thread's original topic; the author did not start it with the narrow constraints claimed.

People are of course free to believe whatever they want to believe, but that doesn't mean not discussing subjects when they have been put forward for the purpose of doing so.

Anyone who dislikes the unrestricted scope of this thread can start their own thread (or social group) and request that participants limit discussions there in whatever fashion they desire, but this thread has no such embargo.

Originally Posted by business_kid The majority here paradoxically are atheist/agnostic. For them, science is king and everything that science says should be accepted, because it's been proved to some standard or deduced, inferred, measured to some standard or whatever. Now periodically, some new data will refute what has been accepted, and folks should at once switch to the new version and believe that. But not even scientists do that.

The above is not at all accurate though, business_kid. Science is not king insofar as an absolute monarch type king or a figurehead is. Science, or more specifically, The Scientific Method. is simply recognized to be the most powerful set of rules for understanding new things mankind has ever devised exactly because it is based in Logic and Critical Thinking. That it is head and shoulders "taller" than emotional reaction or "by guess and by golly" has a few thousand years of history behind it. The tally sheet has the scientific method on top and nothing else is even close. It's not the only avenue but whenever possible, it is the most direct and efficient.

Nobody in Science expects theory to just "be accepted". Science not only expects and welcomes, but DEMANDS falsification as part of the process of real and proper discovery. By some time roughly mid 19th Century, once the Periodic Table of Elements was filled in for the majority of earthly elements, completely refuted theories that came before, like Phlogiston, became quite rare. After that most evolving theories, like Newton and Einstein, only added to, better defined, and refined, not scrapped nor switched.

Originally Posted by business_kid The minority believe in a God who ACTUALLY DESIGNED & MADE ALL THIS. So when he tells us something about the place we believe what he said because he knows. And we look askance at scientists who think they are the fountains of knowledge. If we have to choose between the opinion of a mere human which he/she formed with the aid of this century's machines, and a Divine statement, it's no contest.

It was mere humans who wrote scripture and in the context of human civilization when people believed in humors, bad airs, evil spirits, demonic possession and all manner of magic. Just saying the right word could move mountains or make a person wither like a burning matchstick. You have literally ZERO evidence that scripture was The Word of God, just somebody's say so and those somebodies were primitive and, though just as intelligent on the whole as we today, massively ignorant of Nature by comparison because of progress and that largely due to the scientific method.

So why not ask yourself why you would trust in a plumbing handbook circa 10 AD, let alone a textbook on fundamental electronics from the same era?... because someone said a higher authority spoke to him in a dream and revealed it all? Seriously?

Originally Posted by business_kid My point is that you're wasting space lining up to flame any believer with scientific data and expecting him to be impressed. There ought to be space for faith & religion on a faith & religion thread. You are welcome to disagree, but without being disagreeable. I'm sure Mrmazda has heard the scientific view before. It didn't convince him. So what do you hope to achieve now? Or is it that you just like reading your own posts?

I seriously doubt anyone like you or mrmazda can ever be convinced of anything you and he don't already believe. You fellows don't seem to subscribe to the value of questioning your own positions. Falsification is not part of your methodology. I can't speak for anyone else, but I write here regularly for those in search, on the fence, and lurkers who find this thread but never voice their views.

In the spirit of full disclosure I should add that I hang around here also to witness how sundialsvcs will dance when mankind once again lands on the Moon. I strongly suspect that will be fascinating.