Thought chatter and religion

@Grey: I could argue that you are just as irrational in your belief and say that it is not worth discussing it with you, despite how you are in other cases.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

"Scientific" is not synonymous with "logical", "thoughtful" or "conscious".

A good scientist is all of those things, of course, but science is not the exclusive domain of logic, thought and/or conscious choice.

edited 24th Jan '11 3:26:55 PM by BobbyG

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 "Science" is synonymous with "search for knowledge". I mean, that's the same thing. You cant gain knowledge by some "other method", because there is none. Science encompass all of them. "Scientific" is almost synonymous with "logical".

 The whole point of "belief", is that it is not based on some evidence, or logic, or arguments. It is just blind belief in some dogma. If some "belief" could be proven, it would be called "scientific theory", would be recognized by scientific community and included in school books.

 Sorry, I am not very good at english and have trouble picking up correct words, relevant to the situation, so I am a bit slow at replying.

edited 24th Jan '11 3:53:43 PM by GreyHuman

Is what is morally good commanded by god because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by god?

Yes you can.

And besides that there are plenty of other ways. I could start taking LSD and I'd learn many things. They might not be true, but I'd be learning them.

edited 24th Jan '11 3:54:59 PM by Tzetze

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@grey: Science and religion answer different questions, if you believe if they are independent.

I'd imagine you believe they conflict, and considering your stance is not too dissimilar to Dawkins, I'd say that you are at least consistent.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

But science isn't something that you can gain knowledge from, it's a method for obtaining knowledge, and I don't see any particular reason not to apply it to metaphysics.

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@Tzetze: Deductive reasoning is a part of logic. And by knowledge, people usually mean true knowledge. Or so I thought.

@saladofstones: Oh, I do think they are in conflict. Some religions are in conflict with common sense, actually. For example, god can not possibly be omniscient and omnipotent simultaneously. It is logically impossible.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:06:40 PM by GreyHuman

Is what is morally good commanded by god because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by god?

@Tzetze: it is something that searches for answers on specific questions, and can provide answers for those questions. It answers questions, or hypothesis.

@Grey: He can be because of the nature of God. I am not a theologian so I cannot state, with the certainty of other tropers, on what God is or isn't but I can tell you that you seem to not understand what religion is. But one element is that religion doesn't always involve a God, or if it does have a God, it isn't a being separate from the universe (in simple terms).

That said I've learned that if someone says something like "religion is in violation of common sense", it kills any discussion you can really have.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:09:07 PM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I don't follow. It seems to me that an omnipotent being would logically have to be omniscient, since the ability to do anything includes the ability to know anything.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:09:25 PM by silver2195

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

Not all religions feature an omnipotent being. That's mostly the Abrahamic ones.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

You said science.

I could very well learn some true facts by watching the crystals sing, or tarot, or anything else like that.

? «God exists» seems like a fine hypothesis to me, especially if you fill in the details of what the words mean.

Well, that's a definitional problem, but I could imagine some (contrived) situations in which it makes sense. Say, a first-person shooter, and with the console you can apply an arbitrary force at an arbitrary location in an arbitrary direction at any time, but your character is trapped in a box from which you can't see the rest of the map.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:19:16 PM by Tzetze

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Except it isn't a question science can answer. And you don't go to the Bible to know about the evolution of man for the same reason, since religion doesn't answer that question either.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:16:51 PM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Because?

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Because what? Look up the independence model, this is going to sidetrack this thread.

edited 24th Jan '11 4:22:06 PM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

@silver 2195: See, if a god is omniscient, it knows what exactly will happen in the future. But can it change future with his omnipotence? No, because if it had such ability, it would not know what exactly would happen.

@saladofstones: What questions religion(any religion?) does answer?

@Tzetze:

       ...

edited 24th Jan '11 4:25:37 PM by GreyHuman

Is what is morally good commanded by god because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by god?

I didn't say it would be a reliable way to learn them, but I could get some if only by chance, is my point. And it's [[quoteblock]].

Why can't you apply scientific reasoning to metaphysical assertions?

edited 24th Jan '11 4:22:59 PM by Tzetze

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I've never heard of scientific reasoning being applies in such situations but if you want to try, sure. But the point here is a separation between what religion accomplishes and science does and that mixing the two is useless since its, you know, against what both do.

Its like trying to use 2+2=4 to answer what color a car is and vice versa.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Trying to answer questions and gather evidence for or against hypotheses is perfectly scientific. I don't understand what you mean.

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Eh, I don't see it but okay.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

It also includes the ability to not know everything.

Observation and deduction do not always reveal the truth. If all the evidence in my life pointed to dragons existing, yet dragons did not exist, it would be quite logical of me to believe in dragons. A scientist, however, would most certainly disagree. This would not be a case of me being thoughtless, although I guess I would be being ignorant.

I disagree. If God is omniscient, He knows exactly what will happen in the future. If He changes that future, He will still know exactly what will happen in the future. And if God is omniscient, He knows everything which He intends to do, and since He is omnipotent, He will achieve everything which He intends to do, and since He is omniscient, He knows that He will achieve everything which He intends to do, and if He is also unchanging (and in most interpretations I have heard,  ^*

He is) then the situation where He does not know what He is going to do to change the future will simply never arise.

OK, let's drop the epistemology and the theology for now. We're not going to get anywhere here until we tackle the question of ontology, and we can't do that until we're speaking the same language. It's easy to say, "God exists" or "God does not exist". But when you say that, first you need to define "God" and then you need to define "exist", and if you're going to make such a claim in a debate, or indeed accuse an opposing claim of irrationality or illogic, you need to be pretty darn sure that the claim which you are opposing is using the words in the same way as you yourself are using them.

So, a question: Does God exist? And nevermind how you know that this is or is not the case, nor whether it is "scientific" or "logical" to believe this. Instead, if you please, tell me what you mean by the words God and exist.

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inb4 the definition of god is Judeo-Christian. I'd like to contribute a pagan definition:

God: An immortal being which exerts some control over the universe. Zeus is a god; he is immortal and controls electricity.

As far as 'exists', I'm not sure how to define that. I believe the Goddess exists, but I don't think she's made up of atoms, per se.

About science, deductive reasoning, logic, and religion:

First, science and deductive reasoning are two distinct methods.

• Science: Observe something, form a hypothesis, isolate a variable that can be tested, test the variable, record reslts and determine if the hypothesis was correct.
  • Observation: Diamonnes is found on the TV Tropes fora, which is made up almost exclusively of tropers.
  • Hypothesis: Diamonnes is a troper, meaning that he browses TV Tropes.
  • Variable: Frequency of visits to TV Tropes.
  • Experiment: Determine how often Diamonnes visits TV Tropes.
  • Data: Diamonnes browses TV Tropes for over an hour each day.
  • Conclusion: Diamonnes is a troper.

• Deductive reasoning: essentially, drawing conclusions from two known facts. For instance:
  • Those that browse TV Tropes are tropers.
  • Diamonnes browses TV Tropes frequently.
  • Therefore, Diamonnes is a troper.

As far as 'logical': Don't go waving that term around. It is EXTREMELY subjective, and saying something is logical is like saying something is delicious. Your delicious is not my delicious, and your logic is not my logic.

On the topic of 'religion': If you qualify 'religion' in your mind as something Christianish, bite me. There are literally millions of forms of religions, and science is in itself a religion.

EDIT: Down: You're right. I should qualify: Science as the method of finding things out isn't a religion, SCIENCE! of the Straw Atheist variety is a religion.

edited 24th Jan '11 6:33:25 PM by Diamonnes

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

That's going too far. Science can be turned into a religion, but that's not the same thing.

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

Yeah, science is in no way a religion.

Some people arguably treat it as one, but that's not the same thing as regular science at all.

See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

My definitions would say that a god only has to be worshipped as one, and may in fact be mortal.

And yeah, can something be said to "exist" outside of particle physics? I think so.

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I wouldn't say it is, but most people misuse the term more often than they use it.

E.g. they use it as «in agreement with me».

edited 24th Jan '11 6:40:33 PM by Tzetze

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