Thought chatter and religion

This post was thumped by the Codfish in a Derby Hat

Kill all math nerds

@OP: My personal reasons for becoming atheist was because I overanalyzed what I was being taught. I don't think "thought chatter" is always correlated with abandoning religion though. My smartest friend is Christian actually.

"Without a fairy, you're not even a real man!" ~ Mido from Ocarina of Time

-thread hop-

@OP: I would suspect that the reason for "thought chatter" making conversion less likely has to do simply with the fact that it provides more opportunities to be deconverted/not converted.

If you throw ten baseballs at a window, you are more likely to break it than if you threw just one. (Assuming all things are equal.)

I've had times of doubt myself, but I've always spent hours thinking about it and simply solidified my beliefs further. I've read huge websites dedicated to deconverting Christians, and spent an enormous amount of time on the subject - and yet I remain.

However, to defend requires much more work than to attack. A 2 year old can attack something, but who is wise enough to defend? The idea that is on the line is most likely to be cast into the water, not the one who is doing the casting.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

• @Bobby G: There is evidence that dragons exist and Dragons do not exist are two mutually exclusive statements. Only one of them is true. Simple logic, really.

• The God is he? That's extremely sexist and not politically correct. Lets talk not about christian The God, but a god.
  • "A god" is eternal conscious being with ability to defy laws of physics. Details may vary.
  • By "god exists" I mean the same as by "anything else exists". You may tell me it is incorporeal(whatever that means) or exists in "another plane of existence"... Well, that's not important. What is important, that it can influence this plane of existence, this Universe, this World, us. If something has influence, it exists.

• If a god is omniscient, it now has a complete exact detailed "plan" about what will be happening during eternity ahead, which includes everything it will do, think, change, decide. Then it has not an ability to make a change or decision, which is not already "written" in his "plan" now. Then it already knows which desicions it will make, and results of them.

• Deductive reasoning is one of the two parts of logic. Second is inductive reasoning. Scientific method, if it is not synonymous with logic, uses it. For example, black holes: we cant observe them directly, we cant test them in experiment(for now, at least). But strange gravitational effects and bending of light were observed, and thus, using deductive reasoning, existence of black holes was discovered. Isnt it scientific?

• @Diamonnes:Logic is subjective? Well, then, I suppose, because sky is red hair and birds are watching tiny chair, I make a logical conclusion that you are Julius Caesar and my mother, so I am not talking to you anymore.

edited 25th Jan '11 5:58:13 AM 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?

• No, that's not simple logic at all; evidence can be misleading or confusing at first glance. Only one of the statements dragons exist and dragons do not exist is true, but which one is it? If dragons do not exist, but my experiences are limited and misleading, it may be most logical for me to believe that dragons exist, even if, objectively, I am wrong to believe this. If, for example, I belong to a tribe whose leader has always been right about everything in the past, and he says that dragons exist, and shows me some dinosaur bones as evidence, I would think it would be quite reasonable for me to believe him, if I lack any better source of information.
• Since when is it "extremely sexist and not politically correct" to call God "He"? It's been the traditional practice for centuries. I did so because I was referring specifically to the Judeo-Christian God, who is eternal, omnipotent and omniscient (many gods aren't), and who is always referred to by the male pronoun in the Bible. In any case, calling the Judeo-Christian God "it" would conventionally be considered disrespectful. I suppose next you'll be expecting me to call history "herstory".
  • Your definition of "god" is not mine, but I guess I can work with that.
  • Your definition of "exist" appears to encompass mine, though I am not sure.
    • So, with those two statements in mind: I can conceive of the concept of an eternal, conscious being who does not obey the laws of physics as they currently stand; therefore, this thought is my God. This thought can influence my behaviour in this world, therefore it exists. Therefore, using your definitions of the words, I say that God exists. QED.
• If God is omnipotent and omniscient (which does not apply to all gods, by the way, meaning that we're still basically dealing with the Judeo-Christian one, so I'll continue to capitalise His name and call Him a He) He already knows what decisions He will make and is always right (and therefore has no need to change His mind), so the situation where God predicts Himself doing something He doesn't intend will never, ever arise. He will always do precisely what He intends to do, and consequently He will always predict Himself doing it.
  • And if, for some reason, this is not acceptable to God, by many interpretations He's completely omnipotent, and can do even the paradoxical. In which case He's outside the realm of logic as we understand it, but oh well. That's hardly "all religion" or "all belief".
• That seems like scientific reasoning to me, but that does not mean that every logical argument exists within the realms of science. Philosophy, for example, or even mathematics, are generally considered distinct fields from science, yet both can contain logical systems.
• Logic is not subjective, but experiences - which are all we ever have to go on, as human beings - are.

And one more thing - even if I hadn't proven that a god, as you define the term, exists, as you define the term (and I think my reasoning there is sound, although knowing these forums I'm sure I won't get away with that if it isn't), you would still, if correct, only have demonstrated that belief in an "eternal conscious being with ability to defy laws of physics" that "can influence this universe" was illogical. That's not "all religion" or "all belief", not by a long shot.

edited 25th Jan '11 6:53:44 AM by BobbyG

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Seeing a lot of this.

Kill all math nerds

Well, what's the alternative, then? Why wouldn't scientific methods work, and what's the alternative, and why should I use that?

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I don't know nearly enough about the Bible, but isn't there both the independent and mutual-enrichment model of interaction between religion and science, and isn't the former followed by the head of the Human genome project? I mean, I don't think natural science can answer fucking everything.

Although what was amusing was a physicist telling me in a lecture way back when that if you strictly followed the rules of geometry, our world would be impossible. He had a specific example that blew my mind. I went back home and contemplated suicide but realized that physics had changed so that the gun was no longer functional. :V

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

Well, yes, geometry doesn't describe the real world. Math isn't science. It's oversimplified, because that makes it easier to work with. We can't know as much about the real world as we do about constructed worlds.

But seriously, if you're going to keep saying «I mean, I don't think natural science can answer fucking everything.», give me a reason! Think about it a little!

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Grey, it seems you need to do a bit of research and approach with a clearer head. It seems to me that you are extremely biased on the subject. I'm not making a personal attack, I'm merely suggesting that you do the research on every form of logic and every form of religion.

Myrmidon, You Are Not Alone. You'd think that in a website about bloody fiction that people would be governed a bit more by faith/imagination/hope et cetera.

Tzetze, quantum physics. That is all.

Half of it makes no sense at all whatsoever to the human brain.

edited 25th Jan '11 10:12:00 AM 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.

Yeah I can see that. I wish scientists wouldn't dismiss some things so readily.

I should probably clarify a bit, I believe that deductive logic is «superior» to inductive logic (scientific observation) in terms of preserving truth, but it doesn't usually work in the real world, and induction works almost as well  ^*

, so I generally go with that.

What about it?

edited 25th Jan '11 9:34:06 AM by Tzetze

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Doesn't this work that I make a point, and you have to make a counterpoint? I mean, I want a counterpoint as to why natural science CAN answer everything.

Or is this going to be like /v/ where my next response is obligated to be some variant of, "fuck you and people like you."

edited 25th Jan '11 9:35:36 AM 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.

Geometry doesn't describe the real world perfectly, but it's still entirely logical.

I don't think science can explain fucking everything. The methods and practices of science only make sense when you're dealing with the physical world and measurable data, and you have a decent sample size.

I am not sure whether quantum physics is the best example, but that does seem to be an area where science and philosophy blur together somewhat due to the lack of available data.

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"An immortal being which exerts some control over the universe."

Doesn't that apply to Dracula too? (Unless by immortal you mean 'can't be killed', in which case some Gods, such as Baldr, wouldn't meet that definition.)

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Well, we can conceive of Dracula, so he is a thought that we have, therefore by Grey's definition that thought is a god, and it's a thought that influences human behaviour, so Dracula exists.

QED.

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Well, it would be pretty complicated to explain. But let me take a shot at it.

Deductive logic, you probably already trust. That's stuff like «Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Socrates is a man». Not science. However, it relies on having premises, like «Socrates is a man» and «all men are mortal» in that example. You can't get these premises through deductive logic since deductive logic needs premises and you can't get anything without premises except that you exist, which isn't a very useful to know.

So instead you rely on your senses, e.g., you believe that what you observe is accurate, in that it corresponds to some reality not existent as part of your consciousness. There's technically no reason to believe this, and you're welcome to give it up, in which case have fun in an asylum I guess.

But the problem here is that individual observations aren't very generalizable. For example, if I see someone jumping off a building once, and thus concluded that everybody jumps off buildings, I'd be sorely disappointed the more I observed people not jumping off buildings. In fact, to use inductively gathered premises in deductive logic, you'd need an infinite number of observations to know that something is true. That is, in order to use the premise «everybody jumps off buildings» I'd have to observe everybody, ever, past, present, and future, jumping off a building. That's not possible. But you can deny the premise with the opposite, as in, «at least one person has never and will never jump off a building». That's plenty observable.

And that's what science is based off of, falsifiability. You can falsify premises, say, Newtonian mechanics, by observing something that doesn't follow them, say, some weirdness in Mercury's orbit, and come up with another theory (relativity) that will probably be falsified later. And like that you can asymptotically approach truth.

That's not as rigorous an explanation as I would like but hopefully it makes some sense. The idea here is that nothing observable is not analyzable with scientific methods.

Obviously with this framework we can't say much of anything about gods with confidence, because we don't have reliable evidence in their existence or nonexistence.

So we have to fall back on deduction. Hrm, I've been overstretching my assertions again, haven't I. Sorry.

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To cut it in the simplest, and hopefully accurate way, can I respond that the premise <<god exists>> cannot be verified OR falsified using scientific methods and instead rely on those methods related to the theological?

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

That's what I was trying to say, if by theological methods you mean deductive logic (like Aristotle's prime mover and ontological proofs and shit)

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Theological methods run the gambit, for awhile I know Catholicism only recognized Aristotle for its reasoning but now I don't know.

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

Run what gambit?

Also this is incredibly off-topic, and I only know what I'm talking about secondhand and am not terribly confident I'm scared mommy

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Gambit meaning, "a whole variety of reasons ranging in completeness, sensibleness, and how much it wasn't a thinly-veiled insult towards another method."

I will admit that I don't know much about Eastern Orthodoxy beyond its current stance that women who wear revealing clothing shouldn't complain if they are raped and that women are 25% less intelligent than men.

:V

edited 25th Jan '11 10:04:42 AM 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.

Gamut, maybe?

How did we even get here? I thought we were on topic before...

Edit: looks like we drifted round about the start of page 2.

edited 25th Jan '11 10:05:15 AM by BobbyInTheLibrary

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I don't know, man. I'm obviously thinking too much.

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The topic's close enough to the original to dodge the banhammer.

But seriously, scientism. It runs rampant, and is really not a good idea sometimes. I'd like you to find someone that successfully applies the scientific method to their love life and winds up in a decent position, or someone that can use science to cure severe depression.

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

...like SSRIs?

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