Are religion and science competitive ideologies?

[spacer1]

It seems to me that even if science answers all the questions of reality, it would still fail to provide any answers to the question of what it is like to be a bat, or a human.

I get the feeling that in many debates between theists and atheists, both parties seem to talk past each other. This leads me to the question of whether religion and science have the same goals, or whether they are expressions of different aspects of our experiences.

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by spacer1
It seems to me that even if science answers all the questions of reality, it would still fail to provide any answers to the question of what it is like to be a bat, or a human.

Grrr... the old 'consciousness is a mystery' point again :rolleyes: I think the point would be better put as '...what it would be like to be a human looking through the eyes of a bat' - what we would think if we had an echolocation sense. The bat doesn't have a 'what it is like' because it can't ask that question. It can't give its experience that aspect, as we can.
Anyway, I think a better question for the religion/science as ideology debate is can science give our lives meaning and direction by itself, or do we need faith (of some form or another, NOT just religious...) for this purpose? And, even if science could do this, wouldn't we still be able to reject this 'given' meaning with our intellectual consciences intact? I see this space as the one necessarily left out by science, not some mystical consciousness pseudo-problem.

[CJD]

Good point, spacer1. I largely agree with you.

Science and theology are actually complimentary—not contradictory. This should not be construed as "harmony," either. Science and theology are not saying the same things about the same things (harmony), nor are they saying different things about different things (contradictory); they are saying different things about the same things (complimentary). Together, they make up a holistic view of the entire cosmos (empirically observed and beyond).

The goals in view, however, will be different depending on who you are talking to. For the theist, I suspect that the most common goal for both science and theology is to bring glory to God. I won't speak for the atheist.

The category that will receive the greatest challenge here will undoubtedly be the notion that theology and science are not contradictory. If it were otherwise, then the atheist would be giving too much ground. But consider the fact that science has never disproven anything regarding the supernatural. Why? Because it is not even concerned with the supernatural, just those things which are currently empirically observable (I say "currently" because history is not a science). If and when somone from a scientific point of view pretends to be disproving (or proving, for that matter) anything supernatural, you can call their bluff. Someone who holds a purely naturalistic view of the cosmos cannot by default say anything whatsoever about that which cannot be empircally observed. Anytime they say anything conslusive about, for example, what does not lie beyond their neat little naturalistic box we might as well be hearing: "Blah, blah, blah, plus tax." They are uttering word which by their own standards are meaingless. This is why both the harmony view and the contradictory view are found wanting when it comes to understanding what both science and theology attempt to teach us.

Regards,

CJD

Inductively, we see that everything is "useless, utterly useless. All is useless. . . . under the sun." But looking above the sun, we can deduce that we ought to "remember also our Creator . . . fear God and keep his commandments" (Eccl. 1:2–3; 12:1, 13).

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by CJD
...But consider the fact that science has never disproven anything regarding the supernatural...
I think I'll leave the job of refuting this worthless attempt at an argument to someone else, "But consider the fact that science has never disproven anything regarding the supernatural... including Santa Claus, the Big Pot of Gold Under the End of the Rainbow, the Invisible Pink Unicorn (see, even this board has its own supernatural entity!), the Tooth Fairy, the Cottingley fairies (oops, that's an Actual Disproving...)" I do wish you people would be aware of the consequences of your claims. Yours isn't the only supernatural claim, you know. I especially like the Harmony involved in believing in the Invisible Pink Unicorn (Peace be upon her holy Hooves)

ps. I hope whoever 'discovered' the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't mind me using Her in this post, it's just that She's become a minor celebrity round here... :)

[CJD]

I do wish you people would be aware of the consequences of your claims. Yours isn't the only supernatural claim, you know.

Your arrogance is alarming. I am not bothered by multiple claims at all. You presume too much. Are you aware that multiple claims do not equal multiple authenticity? Are you saying that the probability for each is equal? Are you prepared to defend such utter nonsense?

Wipe the shit off of your face,

CJD

[streamline]

Originally posted by CJD
Someone who holds a purely naturalistic view of the cosmos cannot by default say anything whatsoever about that which cannot be empircally observed. Anytime they say anything conslusive about, for example, what does not lie beyond their neat little naturalistic box we might as well be hearing: "Blah, blah, blah, plus tax." They are uttering word which by their own standards are meaingless. This is why both the harmony view and the contradictory view are found wanting when it comes to understanding what both science and theology attempt to teach us.

Regards,

CJD

Inductively, we see that everything is "useless, utterly useless. All is useless. . . . under the sun." But looking above the sun, we can deduce that we ought to "remember also our Creator . . . fear God and keep his commandments" (Eccl. 1:2–3; 12:1, 13).

What is exactly is that little bit of theology you spout above trying to teach me? Besides intimidation and willfull ignorance? I am not sure you have listened carefully to the words and ideas of Naturalists, because they don't just sum up in a "neat little box," nor are they as uniform as you seem to think (though, indeed, they are all united in the fact they have no use for supernatural explanations). In fact, it is typically the naturalist who declares literally meaningless any conjecture about what lies, er, "beyond" space and time. And the naturalist can say nothing "whatsoever" about things which cannot be empirically observed? Says who -- you? What are these things -- born of natural language, I presume -- that cannot be empirically observed, but about which supernaturalists can coherently wax on and on? You seem to be painting the naturalist with the same dishonest brush that theists use to smear atheists; that is, depicting the naturalist as one who is denying the existence of something or other, rather than lacking a belief in such a something or other (due to a lack of any compelling reason to believe). Reading your post, I am inclined to say you need to look in the mirror before calling out others for arrogance. Re-reading your post, I just see more and more blah, blah, blah (and it is taxing to read such ideas).

Stop hurling your shit at other's faces .. it stinks,

Streamline

[ex-xian]

I think that science and religion are, by definition, orthogonal. Science deals with the testable, the material. If supernatural considerations are allowed to enter into scientific inquiry, then, literally, anything is possible. Many ID'ers want to allow the supernatural be a legitimate cause of the universe or life, but when their cars run out of gas, they don't cast out the spirit of empty gas tanks...they buy gas. A perfectly natural explantation.

Religion, on the other hand, deals with the intangible and the untestable. How can you scientifically prove an intangible, invisible god?

Here is a quote by Martin Gardner regarding Stephen Jay Gould's views on this subject:
Science and religion, he contends, are examples of a principle he calls NOMA, or Non-Overlapping Magisteria. There is indeed a conflict between the two if religion is taken in the narrow sense of a creed that requires God's miraculous interventions in history, and refuses to accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution. Such superstitions, by entangling the two magisteria, generate mutual enmity. If, however, religion is taken in a broader sense, either as a philosophical theism free of superstitions, or as a secular humanism grounded on ethical norms, then Gould sees no conflict between the two magisteria. Not that they can be unified in a single conceptual scheme, but that they can flourish side by side like two independent nations at peace with one another.

I think that this a very sensible and reasonable position. Sadly, most theists would find this unacceptable.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by CJD
Science and theology are actually complimentary—not contradictory. This should not be construed as "harmony," either. Science and theology are not saying the same things about the same things (harmony), nor are they saying different things about different things (contradictory); they are saying different things about the same things (complimentary). Together, they make up a holistic view of the entire cosmos (empirically observed and beyond).

You meant to say that contradictory is different things about the same things, and complimentary is different things about different things, right?

The category that will receive the greatest challenge here will undoubtedly be the notion that theology and science are not contradictory. If it were otherwise, then the atheist would be giving too much ground. But consider the fact that science has never disproven anything regarding the supernatural.
This is just plain wrong. Every time a supernaturalist has made a testable claim, it has been disproved, or falsified. Every psychic, every faith healer, and every medium that has been scrutinized has been shown to be a fraud. Does this show that all of them are proved to be fake? No, as science isn't in the business of proof (it is, however, in the business of disproof); but it a strong inductive argument that all of them are fake

Someone who holds a purely naturalistic view of the cosmos cannot by default say anything whatsoever about that which cannot be empircally observed. Anytime they say anything conslusive about, for example, what does not lie beyond their neat little naturalistic box we might as well be hearing: "Blah, blah, blah, plus tax." They are uttering word which by their own standards are meaingless. This is why both the harmony view and the contradictory view are found wanting when it comes to understanding what both science and theology attempt to teach us.
But the question is what lies beyond naturalism. The materialist believes that nothing lies outside naturalism. That's why someone like Stephen Hawking can make tremendous strides toward a materialistic explanation for the origin of the universe.

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by spacer1
It seems to me that even if science answers all the questions of reality, it would still fail to provide any answers to the question of what it is like to be a bat, or a human.

I get the feeling that in many debates between theists and atheists, both parties seem to talk past each other. This leads me to the question of whether religion and science have the same goals, or whether they are expressions of different aspects of our experiences.

The problem with your question is that religion is not an ideology. Its just a certain type of human behavior.

DC

[CJD]

Ex-xian, if I understand you correctly we are not at odds. You might emmend your closing salutation to read: "Sadly, most [fundamentalist American] theists would find this unacceptable.

You meant to say that contradictory is different things about the same things, and complimentary is different things about different things, right?

Um, I don't think so. If, for example, the Genesis account of creation is making a modern scientific claim about how the earth was created, then it would be contradictory to science. If, however, the creation narrative speaks of the cosmos, but speaks of it theologically (not scientifically), then the two are found to be complimentary. That's about all I was trying to say.

Every time a supernaturalist has made a testable claim, it has been disproved, or falsified.

But I am not even speaking of the "testable claim." That's the whole point: one speaks about the testable claim, the other speaks of those things that are not empirically observable. The only thing science has disproven has been a number of fraudulent claims. If I were trying to get at God inductively, then of course the odds are against me. At best, I could show enough probability to satisfy only the theist. Pro eo, apologetics is a waste of time.

But the question is what lies beyond naturalism. The materialist believes that nothing lies outside naturalism.

But how can the naturalist say anything about that which may lie beyond naturalism without overstepping his or her bounds? It would seem, to use your example, that Hawking adopts my presuppositions in order to get at a better explanation for the origin of the universe. What's my presupposition? It's simple: Credo ut intelligam. I believe in order to understand. We all do. But only some of us are honest enough to admit it.

Regards,

CJD

[Autonemesis]

Originally posted by CJD
Someone who holds a purely naturalistic view of the cosmos cannot by default say anything whatsoever about that which cannot be empircally observed.

What about stating "It cannot be empirically observed." Can we say that much? It would seem that this statement of yours is self-refuting, self-evidently.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by CJD
Um, I don't think so. If, for example, the Genesis account of creation is making a modern scientific claim about how the earth was created, then it would be contradictory to science. If, however, the creation narrative speaks of the cosmos, but speaks of it theologically (not scientifically), then the two are found to be complimentary. That's about all I was trying to say.

Contradiction: x and not x.
Complimentation: x and y.

But I am not even speaking of the "testable claim." That's the whole point: one speaks about the testable claim, the other speaks of those things that are not empirically observable. The only thing science has disproven has been a number of fraudulent claims. If I were trying to get at God inductively, then of course the odds are against me. At best, I could show enough probability to satisfy only the theist. Pro eo, apologetics is a waste of time.
I see your point, but I don't think you see mine. From the perspective of the theist, your statement makes sense. But from the perspective of the atheist, it does not because the supernatural does not exist to not empircally observable. At best, they subsist, and the best we can do is make hypothetical logical arguments.

Also, a naturalist can make statements are that not empirically observable. Evolution, cosmology, history, to name a few.

But how can the naturalist say anything about that which may lie beyond naturalism without overstepping his or her bounds? It would seem, to use your example, that Hawking adopts my presuppositions in order to get at a better explanation for the origin of the universe. What's my presupposition? It's simple: Credo ut intelligam. I believe in order to understand. We all do. But only some of us are honest enough to admit it.

To the naturalist nothing is outside naturalism. To say that god doesn't exist is overstepping the bounds for the materialist because god doesn't exist. There are no bound to overstep.

Regarding you creed, I'm not sure I agree. I understood before I believed; virtually all atheists (I'm not one, BTW) understood certain principles before they rejected god. Perhaps I would restate it as I understand in order to believe, just as skeptics (I am one, BTW) restated Descartes and said, I am, therefore I think.

[CJD]

Originally posted by Streamline
What is exactly is that little bit of theology you spout above trying to teach me? Besides intimidation and willfull ignorance?

Simple. Life is absurd. Eat, drink, and be merry. What, then, is left? Faith. Sadly, this is inconsceivable for the one who lacks a belief in a God. Note also that "fear" in this passage is not to be equated with your modern notions. It connotes the notion that to fear God is to regard Him as permanent and thus worthwhile to give the highest esteem. Don't lay your feelings of intimidation and willful ignorance at my feet (which I can only assume per Freud that you have repressed infantile longings to be held by your father).

I am not sure you have listened carefully to the words and ideas of Naturalists, because they don't just sum up in a "neat little box," nor are they as uniform as you seem to think (though, indeed, they are all united in the fact they have no use for supernatural explanations).

Nevermind that that one point on which they are all united was the only point that I used as a stereotypical descriptor.

In fact, it is typically the naturalist who declares literally meaningless any conjecture about what lies, er, "beyond" space and time. And the naturalist can say nothing "whatsoever" about things which cannot be empirically observed? Says who -- you?

Of course not! The naturalist him/herself says so! Is this not an avowed position of the naturalist? Who do you make yourself out to be? The one and only naturalist who can stand outside all that empirically is, so that you can tell me that nothing is beyond all that empirically is?

What are these things -- born of natural language, I presume -- that cannot be empirically observed, but about which supernaturalists can coherently wax on and on?

Mums the word. Suffice to say that no one has come close to disproving the plausibility that language is analogical. Better yet, show me that all characteristics of language can be accounted for on the basis of stimulus and response. If you can do this, then your point about "natural language" will be justified. But right now it's just an empty assertion.

You seem to be painting the naturalist with the same dishonest brush that theists use to smear atheists; that is, depicting the naturalist as one who is denying the existence of something or other, rather than lacking a belief in such a something or other (due to a lack of any compelling reason to believe).

My apologies. This was not my intent at all (it was merely a call to folks like Mexicola to think a little harder and more thoroughly before they presume to post).

Regards,

CJD

[CJD]

Originally posted by Autonemesis
What about stating "It cannot be empirically observed." Can we say that much? It would seem that this statement of yours is self-refuting, self-evidently.

Insofar as I play by your epistemological rules, yes. But I decline.

Regards,

CJD

[CJD]

Originally posted by ex-xian
Contradiction: x and not x.
Complimentation: x and y.

Yes.

I see your point, but I don't think you see mine.

No, no, no. I do see your point, and I have thought about it for quite some time. My point is that I will not be playing by the atheist's epistemological assumptions today, tomorrow, and beyond.

At best, they subsist, and the best we can do is make hypothetical logical arguments.

I fully concur. But you won't see me wasting too much time on it. Ever wonder why at the end of an argument for God, the theists all agree and the atheists do not? How is it that we have come to two entirely different conclusions on this matter?

Also, a naturalist can make statements are that not empirically observable. Evolution, cosmology, history, to name a few.

But the statements themselves are not absolute statements. Saying that nothing exists beyond the natural world is, however, as absolute as one can get.

To the naturalist nothing is outside naturalism. To say that god doesn't exist is [not] overstepping the bounds for the materialist because god doesn't exist. There are no bound to overstep.

The opposite, and equally viable opinion, is found in theism: "To say that God does exist is not overstepping the bounds for the theist because God does exist. There are no bounds to overstep."

[quote]Regarding you creed, I'm not sure I agree. I understood before I believed; virtually all atheists (I'm not one, BTW) understood certain principles before they rejected god. Perhaps I would restate it as I understand in order to believe, just as skeptics (I am one, BTW) restated Descartes and said, I am, therefore I think.[/i]

If you do not agree, ex-xian, please offer a better reason than run-of-the-mill empiricism. I reject empiricism because there are at least some bits of human knowledge that do not arise from sense experience. By the way, #1 "I understand in order to believe" is not directly equivalent to #2 "I am, therefore I think."

Regards,

CJD

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by CJD
No, no, no. I do see your point, and I have thought about it for quite some time. My point is that I will not be playing by the atheist's epistemological assumptions today, tomorrow, and beyond.
I think that you and I probably have much in common regarding this issue. I'll explicity say what I believe and we can see. :)

I believe in god for purely emotive reasons; that is, the existence or non-existence of god is outside of reason or science. That's not to say that all conceptions of god are outside of reason. An omni-max god, for example, falls prey to self-contradiction and cannot exist. I only mean that some type of god-like being exists because I make a leap of faith.

I do not believe in a god that acts in history or interferes with the affairs of man. I don't necesarily believe that god was the agent or cause behind the universe, in fact, I tend to believe that the universe is a subset of god, and that god is best understood in terms of process theology.

I fully concur. But you won't see me wasting too much time on it. Ever wonder why at the end of an argument for God, the theists all agree and the atheists do not? How is it that we have come to two entirely different conclusions on this matter?
I do wonder. I think that the answer is that some choose to believe in god and some do not. Any given "proof" for god's existence will only serve to confirm the theist's position to the theist, and confirm the atheist's position to the atheist. However, I believe that the atheist has the stronger position. Every proof of god rests on emotional assumptions.

If you do not agree, ex-xian, please offer a better reason than run-of-the-mill empiricism. I reject empiricism because there are at least some bits of human knowledge that do not arise from sense experience. By the way, #1 "I understand in order to believe" is not directly equivalent to #2 "I am, therefore I think." [/B]
Ok, first I wasn't saying that the two were equivalent, only that I wanted to state the converse of your in the same way that skeptics have stated the converse of Descartes. That said, my belief in god has no impact on my understanding of the universe. If god exists, from my perspective, his relation to the universe is similiar (though not identical) to deism. So if god does not, in fact, exist, my understanding of the universe is in no way affected. I don't think this is what you're looking for in terms of a response though. Maybe you could restate it and I'll be able to grasp what you're looking for.

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by CJD
Your arrogance is alarming. I am not bothered by multiple claims at all. You presume too much. Are you aware that multiple claims do not equal multiple authenticity? Are you saying that the probability for each is equal? Are you prepared to defend such utter nonsense?

Wipe the shit off of your face,

CJD

Yes, no, and no. However it is precisely you who can't take this step (that of distinguishing authenticity). Perhaps you'd care to explain to us how you judge the 'authenticity' of claims, given that you regard claims about that which is "not empirically observable" as authentic? And no, adding 'currently' in the middle doesn't help - just because we will (presumably) discover new things in the future doesn't entitle us to say whatever we want now.
Similarly, your attempt to say that religion tries to say 'theological' things about the universe doesn't get anywhere, unless you're engaged in some form of 'Death of God' theology; in which case you may as well give up the 'theology'/'religion' label and accept that what you're doing has a merely historical relation to that which the rest of us call 'religion'. The temptation however with the 'theological language' route is for you to proceed to say that religion tells you about existent things (eg. God, Heaven, 'the supernatural', etc) which are not empirically observable, and hence to slip in claims which contradict science by the backdoor.
You could of course go ex-xian's route and say that you are religious for emotive reasons - fine. I might not respect you (as a person), but at least I can accept your reasoning. However this is not what you appear to be doing.
Just to add my perspective on this (and stop being the devil's advocate materialist-atheist, which I am not...): I agree with you that science cannot provide all the answers; we need faith (of a sort...) too. (Shock! Horror!) Consequently, I have no arguments to give you which 'disprove' religion; except where it does make claims which contradict science. If you (as ex-xian seems to do) believe in religion while being aware that you have no grounds for this belief (causes are not reasons...), then I can greet you happily and will have no argument with you. This however is precisely what you have not been doing in your discussion of how science leaves out 'supernatural' things, and how it has not disproved these - it has for the simple reason that these DO conflict with science.
This is the problem with your view. You claim your faith is complimentary with science yet it explicitly contradicts it. If you wish to claim religion has a valid complimentary role in ethics then I would still disagree, but only because I do not agree with its specific ethical code. Similarly if it has an aesthetic or meaning-giving role. Again I would disagree, but only because I have no taste for religion's creeds. If this is the sort of complimentary role you have in mind, then I agree with you on the general principle. But don't go claiming that this tells you 'things that science can't' about the supernatural, etc. It doesn't. It tells you how to live your life meaningfully - ie it compliments science.
This was not my intent at all (it was merely a call to folks like Mexicola to think a little harder and more thoroughly before they presume to post).I think that this really should apply to your own posts. Next time you claim religion compliments but doesn't contradict science consider whether this is what your religious claims actually do.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Mexicola
You could of course go ex-xian's route and say that you are religious for emotive reasons - fine. I might not respect you (as a person), but at least I can accept your reasoning.
I had to respond b/c this kind of felt like a side-ways face slap. Are you saying that you don't respect me? Could you elaborate why? Incidentally, my beliefs are similiar to those of Martin Gardner.

If you (as ex-xian seems to do) believe in religion while being aware that you have no grounds for this belief (causes are not reasons...), then I can greet you happily and will have no argument with you.
I also have a problem with term religious. I'm not a religious person, per se. I don't attend church, pray, or engage in other type of ritual. I hold to credo consolans, I believe b/c I find it comforting. I'll be the first to admit this may be a step on a journey to another belief system, as I left xianity only about a year ago. I believe in god, but I don't think I'm religious.

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by ex-xian
I had to respond b/c this kind of felt like a side-ways face slap. Are you saying that you don't respect me? Could you elaborate why? Incidentally, my beliefs are similiar to those of Martin Gardner.
Yeah, perhaps 'respect' was not the right word. What I mean is that I don't like people claiming that they 'don't have a choice' whether to believe or not; that they 'need' religion as a kind of emotional crutch to get through life. For me this seems a bit pathetic. It seems to me to be simply living up to the 19th century critique of religion (eg Marx' 'opiate', Nietzsche, etc) a bit too blatantly. If I felt that my religious beliefs stemmed from an emotional (natural..) source, my 'intellectual conscience' would make it very difficult for me to continue to believe; it would seem an artificial sham to me. That's all I meant.
I also have a problem with term religious. I'm not a religious person, per se. I don't attend church, pray, or engage in other type of ritual. I hold to credo consolans, I believe b/c I find it comforting. I'll be the first to admit this may be a step on a journey to another belief system, as I left xianity only about a year ago. I believe in god, but I don't think I'm religious.
Yeah, not being religious (Doh!) or coming from that background at all I never know what the best all-encompassing term is for... religious people! Believers? I don't know. Sorry. Feel free to enlighten me ;)

[streamline]

Originally posted by CJD
Don't lay your feelings of intimidation and willful ignorance at my feet (which I can only assume per Freud that you have repressed infantile longings to be held by your father).

That's pretty funny. I laughed, I really did. Of course, I laughed when I read your first post, as well, and I'm pretty sure you didn't think you were writing jokes then, huh? In fact, I was tempted to throw a few Freudian jabs about repressed urges back at you, but ultimately decided against it. As my life goes on, I am becoming resigned to the notion that the supernatural is indeed a "permanent" fixture in the human mind, if only there. I think I too will eat, drink and be merry, and please, don't feel sad for me if I do so without any faith in a god or gods. Those things just give me indigestion.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Mexicola
Yeah, perhaps 'respect' was not the right word. What I mean is that I don't like people claiming that they 'don't have a choice' whether to believe or not; that they 'need' religion as a kind of emotional crutch to get through life. For me this seems a bit pathetic. It seems to me to be simply living up to the 19th century critique of religion (eg Marx' 'opiate', Nietzsche, etc) a bit too blatantly. If I felt that my religious beliefs stemmed from an emotional (natural..) source, my 'intellectual conscience' would make it very difficult for me to continue to believe; it would seem an artificial sham to me. That's all I meant.

Yeah, not being religious (Doh!) or coming from that background at all I never know what the best all-encompassing term is for... religious people! Believers? I don't know. Sorry. Feel free to enlighten me ;)
Well, first, I don't claim to not have a choice. I freely say that I choose to believe in god. But my choice is based on purely emotive reasons. And it's not an issue of a crutch. The type of god that I believe offers no help or guidance or anything else that would fall under the category of "crutch."

When I examine the arguments for and against god, the against seem to have the better ones. However, since the god I believe in is totally outside of the realm of reason (in the sense that reason can obtain ontological knowledge of god, not that god isn't subject the laws of logic) and science, my intellectual conscience doesn't preclude this belief. Whether or not god exists doesn't affect my life or my behavior. You might ask, why believe at all? My answer would be something like this.

My philosophy is, practically speaking, atheistic. However, there is no logical or rational reason to not believe in god, so I choose to do so. That I say that this is a matter of faith should not be confused with the fundy definition of the word. By faith, I only mean that I believe by choice.

If someone could demonstrate to me an argument against the type of god I believe in, I would abandon my belief. Since I haven't seen that argument and since there is no a priori reason not to believe in god, I do believe.

Oh yeah, as far as terminology, this type of belief is called fideism. The type of god I believe in is panentheistic.

[Godless Wonder]

Originally posted by ex-xian
Well, first, I don't claim to not have a choice. I freely say that I choose to believe in god. But my choice is based on purely emotive reasons. And it's not an issue of a crutch. The type of god that I believe offers no help or guidance or anything else that would fall under the category of "crutch."

When I examine the arguments for and against god, the against seem to have the better ones. However, since the god I believe in is totally outside of the realm of reason (in the sense that reason can obtain ontological knowledge of god, not that god isn't subject the laws of logic) and science, my intellectual conscience doesn't preclude this belief. Whether or not god exists doesn't affect my life or my behavior. You might ask, why believe at all? My answer would be something like this.

My philosophy is, practically speaking, atheistic. However, there is no logical or rational reason to not believe in god, so I choose to do so. That I say that this is a matter of faith should not be confused with the fundy definition of the word. By faith, I only mean that I believe by choice.I'm interested in how people are able to choose what to believe. I've always felt like I had no choice in what I believe, in much the same way that I have no choice but to like the taste of chocolate ice cream, or dislike the taste of bile. I feel like I look at things, and what makes sense, what seems to be true to me, I deem to be likely, and what seems wrong, false, I deem to be unlikely. If something seems unknowable, then I still don't have the choice to believe or disbelieve, it is just unknowable. I can sometimes arrive at a kind of probability. When someone ascribes all sorts of detailed attributes to something I think to be unknowable, I assign their interpretation a low probability of being correct, since, as they cannot know, they are probably making stuff up, or regurgitating stuff which was made up. I don't feel like I have a choice of any old probability I might like to give it. I find out what I believe, and what food I like, I don't choose what I believe or what food I like, or so it seems to me. Well, I had trouble agreeing with Martin Gardner's way of arriving at his beliefs. He's a bright guy, no doubt, but I had no choice but to lose a bit of respect for him when I read his rationale for his beliefs. Oh well.

If someone could demonstrate to me an argument against the type of god I believe in, I would abandon my belief. Since I haven't seen that argument and since there is no a priori reason not to believe in god, I do believe.
You still didn't answer your own question, why bother believing? You say yourself that your god "offers no help or guidance or anything else that would fall under the category of 'crutch.'" So why bother choosing to believe vs. not believe? Having "no reason not to believe" is not the same as a "reason to believe." Are you saying "I don't knowif god exists and have no way of knowing, so I will just guess 'yes' ? "

[Mexicola]

ex-xian:

Hmm, that is quite a strange belief system, I'll grant you that! I don't see though what difference your belief in God makes to your life (you said it makes none). I don't really understand how you even know you believe in God. Does saying it make it true? I don't know.
I think though that you're being a bit strict when you say you'd need a good argument not to believe in God. It sounds to me as though you've got rid of your belief in your life but just retained the formal description 'I believe in God' because you don't have a good reason not to. And I don't think you will find such a good reason. There are good reasons why belief in God isn't necessary to explain things, but there is no disproving argument. The best reason available is just that we don't need God anymore. Historical studies of religion try to explain how belief in God might have arisen from needs in primitive man, and now that we (or rather, some of us) don't have these needs anymore, God is simply obsolete. This is Nietzsche's basic view - God died because we outgrew him; we no longer had need of his services.
This of course doesn't disprove God, but we can all invent entities which are not disprovable (eg Hick's 'invisible gardener') The problem with such entities is that it is hard to see what effects these have, both on the world, and on people's lives; why should we believe in any of them? Of course, if you're judging from the position of already believing then the emphasis is on 'why not?' - but then the problem recurs as 'why yours (and not someone else's, eg Hick's)?'

[Dubin]

Originally posted by ex-xian

If someone could demonstrate to me an argument against the type of god I believe in, I would abandon my belief. Since I haven't seen that argument and since there is no a priori reason not to believe in god, I do believe.

Except for the fact that there's no a priori reason to believe in such a god, so we're stuck trying to determine which is the negative condition:p(insofar as theists/deists/fideists/whatnot argue that the existence of god is the negative condition while atheists argue that the nonexistence of god is the negative condition, and neither will move from their respective positions for any arguments:D).

My own stance is that such belief in a god provides no effect whatsoever, observable in any way whatsoever; hence, the absence of belief in a god is the negative condition.
*receives the Captain Obvious award from II, to much fanfare*
Thank you, thank you all; you're too kind.:)

Originally posted by CJD

Simple. Life is absurd. Eat, drink, and be merry. What, then, is left? Faith. Sadly, this is inconsceivable for the one who lacks a belief in a God.

I ate, drank, and was merry, and had no belief in a god. Sensing something lacking in life, I searched and searched, and eventually discovered...rationalism! Or rather Zen Buddhism. Either way, I found plenty enough in life to live for without a god. I'm perfectly happy learning about the nature of life and truth without having to believe that there is a god somewhere that either does or doesn't care about what happens to me.

Before I move on, I'd like to point out a spelling mistake in this topic.:p Something complimentary says something positive about a subject. Something complementary is that which completes or makes perfect.

That being said, I'd like to move away from all this trivial and/or fruitless debate about the existence or nonexistence of a god or gods. Remember waaaaaay back when Mexicola stated...

Anyway, I think a better question for the religion/science as ideology debate is can science give our lives meaning and direction by itself, or do we need faith (of some form or another, NOT just religious...) for this purpose? And, even if science could do this, wouldn't we still be able to reject this 'given' meaning with our intellectual consciences intact? I see this space as the one necessarily left out by science, not some mystical consciousness pseudo-problem.

In the east(or at least Zen philosophy), we believe that religion is specifically meant to complement(watch that spelling!) science.:D Something certainly is needed to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world that science misses, and religion(or faith) appears to be the best choice, but how would we as humans decide what should fill this gap? By defnition of The Gap, we do not know anything beyond empirical investigation except that which we postulate, which in turn cannot be tested. Oh well. It's better that we arrive at such conclusions logically(i.e. for good reasons) than to just accept them without question from tradition, which means that we would be guessing *gasp* scientifically!

Damn. The more I learn about life, the more it seems that science is the method to use to investigate anything.

[Hawkingfan]

Science and theology are actually complimentary—not contradictory.
Which theology? The Judeo/Christian theology? Roman theology?
they are saying different things about the same things (complimentary). Together, they make up a holistic view of the entire cosmos (empirically observed and beyond).
So then, is Mayan theology complimentary with Judeo/Christian theology since they say different things about the same things? Which one is right? Is no theology right unless you combine it with another?
For the theist, I suspect that the most common goal for both science and theology is to bring glory to God.
Which god? And how does it bring glory to him/her? Can science and theology bring glory to Zeus?
The category that will receive the greatest challenge here will undoubtedly be the notion that theology and science are not contradictory.
What is your take on scientifically incorrect statements in the bible (even if they are made indirectly). Like for instance, the scientifically incorrect statement that a rabbit chews the cud. Is the bible being theological as in the scientifically incorrect statements in Genesis 1? If that were a theology (I don't see how it could be), wouldn't that contradict scientific fact?
But consider the fact that science has never disproven anything regarding the supernatural.
Since when has the supernatural been proven to begin with? Why would science need to disprove something which cannot be proven in the first place?
Someone who holds a purely naturalistic view of the cosmos cannot by default say anything whatsoever about that which cannot be empircally observed.
How do you know something exists that cannot be empirically observed? Are you supernatural or are you natural like the rest of us?
Anytime they say anything conslusive about, for example, what does not lie beyond their neat little naturalistic box we might as well be hearing: "Blah, blah, blah, plus tax." They are uttering word which by their own standards are meaingless.
How can you say something conclusive about what supposedly lies beyond the natural universe?

[pmurray]

Originally posted by ex-xian
However, there is no logical or rational reason to not believe in god, so I choose to do so. That I say that this is a matter of faith should not be confused with the fundy definition of the word. By faith, I only mean that I believe by choice.

Have you considered choosing to worship the Invisible Pink Unicorn? We know she is Pink by faith; and we know that she is invisible because we cannot see her. :p

There are several websites.

[spacer1]

Mexicola,
Grrr... the old 'consciousness is a mystery' point again..
I don't think I would consider it a mystery. We couldn't have this conversation unless we were both conscious. We each know what our own experience is like. What we cannot know (in the same way) is another person's conscious experience. Given the social nature of science, and that we use our consciousnesses to conduct science, we must resort to language to express our individual inner experiences. There is no way to have another's experience, for you could not verify that the experience was another's while simultaneously having the experience.
I think the point would be better put as '...what it would be like to be a human looking through the eyes of a bat' - what we would think if we had an echolocation sense.
Would being "a human looking through the eyes of a bat" be equivalent to the experience of an actual bat, though? It would be just the added filter of 'bat eyesight', laid over a human experience, rather than being the experience of a bat itself.
The bat doesn't have a 'what it is like' because it can't ask that question. It can't give its experience that aspect, as we can.
I think it is a stretch to suggest that a bat has no experience. There must be something driving it to eat and survive. I believe you are suggesting that a bat wouldn't have self-consciousness which doesn't allow it to be aware of its experiences, and I have no objection to this. However, I strongly object to the suggestion that "the bat doesn't have a 'what it is like'." I could not imagine that it has no inner experience whatsoever.
Anyway, I think a better question for the religion/science as ideology debate is can science give our lives meaning and direction by itself, or do we need faith (of some form or another, NOT just religious...) for this purpose?
Well, I think we have to choose to believe something. This choice, however, is made subjectively which, as I said at the beginning of this post, is precisely the area science cannot reach.
And, even if science could do this, wouldn't we still be able to reject this 'given' meaning with our intellectual consciences intact?
Only if you could provide a stronger argument.
I see this space as the one necessarily left out by science, not some mystical consciousness pseudo-problem.
I did not intend to suggest anything mystical about it. I am an atheist. However, why do you see it as being "necessarily" left out by science?

[spacer1]

Digital Chicken,
The problem with your question is that religion is not an ideology. Its just a certain type of human behavior.
Aren't all ideologies just certain types of human behaviour, in their own ways? Therefore, science is too.

i·de·ol·o·gy
__
1. The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.

2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system.

Definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ideology) found at Dictionary.com.

[spacer1]

CJD,
Good point, spacer1. I largely agree with you.
Which part did you agree with? I didn't make much in the way of assertions in my OP.
they are saying different things about the same things (complimentary). Together, they make up a holistic view of the entire cosmos (empirically observed and beyond).
You suggest they are complementary, but how do you see religion as differing from science? Is it in what is assumed by either to be "beyond" the observable (material?) realm?

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Godless Wonder
I'm interested in how people are able to choose what to believe. I've always felt like I had no choice in what I believe, in much the same way that I have no choice but to like the taste of chocolate ice cream, or dislike the taste of bile. I feel like I look at things, and what makes sense, what seems to be true to me, I deem to be likely, and what seems wrong, false, I deem to be unlikely. If something seems unknowable, then I still don't have the choice to believe or disbelieve, it is just unknowable. I can sometimes arrive at a kind of probability. When someone ascribes all sorts of detailed attributes to something I think to be unknowable, I assign their interpretation a low probability of being correct, since, as they cannot know, they are probably making stuff up, or regurgitating stuff which was made up. I don't feel like I have a choice of any old probability I might like to give it. I find out what I believe, and what food I like, I don't choose what I believe or what food I like, or so it seems to me. Well, I had trouble agreeing with Martin Gardner's way of arriving at his beliefs. He's a bright guy, no doubt, but I had no choice but to lose a bit of respect for him when I read his rationale for his beliefs. Oh well.
I believe in the ultimate freedom of man; I believe that choice can be made no matter the circumstances. When it comes to food, people have the ability to "acquire" tastes that previously seem repulsive. When it comes to belief systems, when someone asks me what I believe in, my first answer is "I believe in science." When pressed about a supernatural belief I will usually reply that I'm agnostic. If I'm feeling up to discussing it I will explain that I believe, ontologically, that god exists, but that epistemologically, his existance can never be truly proved or disproved.


You still didn't answer your own question, why bother believing? You say yourself that your god "offers no help or guidance or anything else that would fall under the category of 'crutch.'" So why bother choosing to believe vs. not believe? Having "no reason not to believe" is not the same as a "reason to believe." Are you saying "I don't knowif god exists and have no way of knowing, so I will just guess 'yes' ? "
I did answer the question. I believe because it is comforting to believe that some part of me may live past death. I believe because I find it comforting that this universe is part of god. Regarding you last question, I would not equate it with a guess. I would say, I don't know and cannot know if god exists. But I choose to believe in god for emotional reasons.

Originally posed by Mexicola
Hmm, that is quite a strange belief system, I'll grant you that! I don't see though what difference your belief in God makes to your life (you said it makes none). I don't really understand how you even know you believe in God. Does saying it make it true? I don't know.
I think though that you're being a bit strict when you say you'd need a good argument not to believe in God. It sounds to me as though you've got rid of your belief in your life but just retained the formal description 'I believe in God' because you don't have a good reason not to. And I don't think you will find such a good reason. There are good reasons why belief in God isn't necessary to explain things, but there is no disproving argument. The best reason available is just that we don't need God anymore. Historical studies of religion try to explain how belief in God might have arisen from needs in primitive man, and now that we (or rather, some of us) don't have these needs anymore, God is simply obsolete. This is Nietzsche's basic view - God died because we outgrew him; we no longer had need of his services.
This of course doesn't disprove God, but we can all invent entities which are not disprovable (eg Hick's 'invisible gardener') The problem with such entities is that it is hard to see what effects these have, both on the world, and on people's lives; why should we believe in any of them? Of course, if you're judging from the position of already believing then the emphasis is on 'why not?' - but then the problem recurs as 'why yours (and not someone else's, eg Hick's)?'
You may consider it strange, but it seems that all beliefs are strange. I heard a quote once, and can't remember the source. "Sometimes I believe in god, sometimes I don't. Either way, the thought staggers me." I'm not a solipsist, and I'm not a post-modernist, so my assertions have no influence upon truth. I don't, and cannot, know for certainty that god exists. As I said above, I believe that that knowledge is, ultimately unknowable.

Let me say it like this. I do know that god exists. I believe that he exists. Why mine and not someone elses? It's of no consequence to me as long at they aren't fundamentalist in nature. I'll glady engage in speculative philosophical debate, but when one becomes dogmatic, I'll delight is demonstrating why their concept of god cannot exist.

Practically, my philosophy is identical to atheism. Technically, I am a fideist, epistemologically, I'm an agnostic.

Originally posted by Dubin
Except for the fact that there's no a priori reason to believe in such a god, so we're stuck trying to determine which is the negative condition(insofar as theists/deists/fideists/whatnot argue that the existence of god is the negative condition while atheists argue that the nonexistence of god is the negative condition, and neither will move from their respective positions for any arguments).

My own stance is that such belief in a god provides no effect whatsoever, observable in any way whatsoever; hence, the absence of belief in a god is the negative condition.
*receives the Captain Obvious award from II, to much fanfare*
Thank you, thank you all; you're too kind.
I agree. There is no a priori reason to believe or to disbelieve in god. I do disagree that no one will move from their positions. II was been instrumental in causing me to abandon xianity and give up the concept of an omni-max god. I tend to hold with the idea that belief systems are fragile things. If science progressed to the point of verifying the existence of an infinitude of universes I would have drastically change my belief system, since I hold that this universe is a subset of a material god, similiar to Einstien's view.

Originally posted by pmurray
Have you considered choosing to worship the Invisible Pink Unicorn? We know she is Pink by faith; and we know that she is invisible because we cannot see her.
Oh, I'm familiar with her royal Hoofness, the IPU. I even considering get her symbol tattooed on my arm (I finally decided on pi). I don't think that my belief falls to the IPU fallacy (did I just coin that?), though. I don't know that god exists. I believe that that knowledge is unknowable. I believe he exists.

[Hedshaker]

Well, first, I don't claim to not have a choice. I freely say that I choose to believe in god. But my choice is based on purely emotive reasons. And it's not an issue of a crutch. The type of god that I believe offers no help or guidance or anything else that would fall under the category of "crutch."

When I examine the arguments for and against god, the against seem to have the better ones. However, since the god I believe in is totally outside of the realm of reason (in the sense that reason can obtain ontological knowledge of god, not that god isn't subject the laws of logic) and science, my intellectual conscience doesn't preclude this belief. Whether or not god exists doesn't affect my life or my behavior. You might ask, why believe at all? My answer would be something like this.

My philosophy is, practically speaking, atheistic. However, there is no logical or rational reason to not believe in god, so I choose to do so. That I say that this is a matter of faith should not be confused with the fundy definition of the word. By faith, I only mean that I believe by choice.

If someone could demonstrate to me an argument against the type of god I believe in, I would abandon my belief. Since I haven't seen that argument and since there is no a priori reason not to believe in god, I do believe.

Oh yeah, as far as terminology, this type of belief is called fideism. The type of god I believe in is panentheistic.

A the risk of teaching my granny to "suck eggs" the above seems to me that you should maybe consider embrasing "materialism"

If time/space/matter have always existed, which is the only thing for me that makes any sense at all, then it is eternal, like god. Of course, this doesn't imply that any form of cosmic consiouness is or was ever involved, only that one dispences with the notion of a "creator" or a beginning in time.

Try a google search on "materalism"

Good luck and sorry if I'm just reehashing old ground here. I am new so feel free to kick my butt!

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by bornyetagain
A the risk of teaching my granny to "suck eggs" the above seems to me that you should maybe consider embrasing "materialism"

If time/space/matter have always existed, which is the only thing for me that makes any sense at all, then it is eternal, like god. Of course, this doesn't imply that any form of cosmic consiouness is or was ever involved, only that one dispences with the notion of a "creator" or a beginning in time.

Try a google search on "materalism"

Good luck and sorry if I'm just reehashing old ground here. I am new so feel free to kick my butt!
No buttkicking necessary. :D I am a materialist. It's a common misconception that theism automatically entails some sort of dualistic or idealistic philosophy. If god exists, the universe is a subset of his existence. Of which the totality can be material.

[Hedshaker]

That's cool. Me thinks you are the sort of theist I can get along with.

It's funny, there's a character on the TOL boards called ex-fundy. Boy can this guy put up a good argument against the fundies. He quotes scripure back at them and turns them inside out.

But, alas, after 30 years in their clutches, when pressed he still cannot quite let go of the God consept.

I find it all so profoundly intriquing.

Good luck

bya

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by spacer1
Digital Chicken,

Aren't all ideologies just certain types of human behaviour, in their own ways? Therefore, science is too.

i·de·ol·o·gy
__
1. The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.

2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system.

Definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ideology) found at Dictionary.com.

The stated definition does does not support you. Definition 1 says "body of ideas" and definition 2 says "set of doctrines or beliefs". These do not imply behaviour.

Many religions have behaviour as a core factor and not so much belief.

To the extent that religion involves ideology, religions have disparate and skewed ideas when compared to each other. Thus, comparing "religion" to science on the basis of ideology is suspect at best and nonsense at worst.

DC

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by spacer1
I don't think I would consider it a mystery. We couldn't have this conversation unless we were both conscious. We each know what our own experience is like. What we cannot know (in the same way) is another person's conscious experience. Given the social nature of science, and that we use our consciousnesses to conduct science, we must resort to language to express our individual inner experiences. There is no way to have another's experience, for you could not verify that the experience was another's while simultaneously having the experience.This precisely begs the question against the point I was making - you assume the 'individual inner experiences' as a metaphysical domain of absolute certain knowledge. I think this is an illusion. The view of language as 'expressing' some 'inner experience' (prior to language) is the source of your problems, not a given.
Oh and I meant a mystery to science, not in general.
Would being "a human looking through the eyes of a bat" be equivalent to the experience of an actual bat, though? It would be just the added filter of 'bat eyesight', laid over a human experience, rather than being the experience of a bat itself.Yes, that's my point. In asking what it's like to be a bat you assume that bats have certain experiences which are structurally similar to our own - I deny this as a result of simplistic guesswork.
I think it is a stretch to suggest that a bat has no experience. There must be something driving it to eat and survive. I believe you are suggesting that a bat wouldn't have self-consciousness which doesn't allow it to be aware of its experiences, and I have no objection to this. However, I strongly object to the suggestion that "the bat doesn't have a 'what it is like'." I could not imagine that it has no inner experience whatsoever.Of course a bat has 'experience' - of the world, as do we. The fact that you can't imagine 'this' is a result of your having some methodological assumptions which make your 'this' impossible; namely that bats have an experience (in the human sense) which is there for us to imagine. I deny this; I claim that in the absence of 'awareness of its experiences' (which you seem to grant) the bat isn't aware of any experiences; ie it doesn't have any. Experience (subjectivity, if you like) is made up simply of appearance; without any self-consciousness to whom to appear, there aren't any appearances; no experience. Sure a bat 'experiences' its environment. But this doesn't mean it has 'experience' in a similar way to ours (minus the language). It doesn't have a 'what it is like' because it can't look to see what its experience is like.
Well, I think we have to choose to believe something. This choice, however, is made subjectively which, as I said at the beginning of this post, is precisely the area science cannot reach.I disagree with your characterisation of subjectivity as beyond science. But yes, we have to believe something (to give our lives meaning). This doesn't however mean that we are entitled to believe in whatever entities we want - some of these conflict with science. We can however believe whatever we want (well, not quite but...) concerning value (in the ethical/aesthetic sense)
I did not intend to suggest anything mystical about it. I am an atheist. However, why do you see it as being "necessarily" left out by science? Because I am an existentialist; the past can never justify future actions. There is no non-question-begging system available for justifying actions. No examination of 'the facts' will reveal the 'correct' answer to some question concerning what one should do in the future; there is no 'correct' answer. This is an elementary consequence of a non-theological world.

[CJD]

Dubin, thanks for the spelling correction. Quite embarrassing. :o

I ate, drank, and was merry, and had no belief in a god. Sensing something lacking in life, I searched and searched . . .

This is exactly what Ecclesiastes intended to say. Qoheleth (the Preacher) cunningly pits skepticism against faith throughout the book. Thinking people on this earth usually drift toward skepticism. Some of us, however, are 2-dimensional skeptics, never seeing the shifty ground upon which we stand. Skepticism is okay. But in the end, all we are left with is hebel (Hebrew= "utter uselessness" or "vanity of vanities", etc.). Faith brings us out of that predicament into warranted belief. My way there has been through historic orthodox Christianity (which, by the way, bears little resemblance to modern fundamentalism).

One challenge throughout this thread posed by others has been: "Show us how you decide which supernatural claims are more plausible than others." What good will this do? Will you presume to then challenge that? No, not today. Suffice to say that my beliefs are warranted for a number of reasons, and these reasons, I might add, merely confirm what by faith I already believe. This idea I summed up already in the phrase credo ut intelligam. Spacer1 concurred when he wrote: "Well, I think we have to choose to believe something. This choice, however, is made subjectively which, as I said at the beginning of this post, is precisely the area science cannot reach." Spacer1 has left 2-dimensional skepticism behind. Bravo.

Dubin also captures this well when he/she wrote:

In the east(or at least Zen philosophy), we believe that religion is specifically meant to complement(watch that spelling!) science. Something certainly is needed to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world that science misses, and religion(or faith) appears to be the best choice, but how would we as humans decide what should fill this gap? By defnition of The Gap, we do not know anything beyond empirical investigation except that which we postulate, which in turn cannot be tested. Oh well. It's better that we arrive at such conclusions logically (i.e. for good reasons) than to just accept them without question from tradition, which means that we would be guessing *gasp* scientifically!

The only thing I would add here is that arriving at conclusions logically and arriving at conclusions by accepting them based on tradition are two different sides of the same coin. What one thinks they have arrived at logically is just as socially constructed as the conclusion that comes via tradition. Both beliefs are warranted, and they work best together.


The reactions I have received regarding what I think the naturalist can and cannot say about the supernatural show me that many of you live unaware about the logical ramifications of your own naturalistic view of the cosmos. My ability to say something about what lies "above the sun" is entirely warranted because of my presuppositions. Language is analogical. In it there lies a touchstone with the divine. When I say something about God, I believe I am saying something meaningful. My view of the cosmos allows this, as does my epistemology. Naturalistic presuppositions, however, can say nothing to this effect. The best the naturalist can do is resign his or herself (with me) to the notion that neither one of us shall be moved—unless we begin to adopt the other's presuppositions. This I will not do. Until one begins to grapple with the fact that each of our realities are socially constructed, that one will remain a 2-dimensional skeptic, thinking arrogantly that his or her system is unassailable. Someone wrote a story once about an emperor and his clothes regarding this issue.


Spacer1wrote:
Which part did you agree with?

This part:

I get the feeling that in many debates between theists and atheists, both parties seem to talk past each other. This leads me to the question of whether religion and science have the same goals, or whether they are expressions of different aspects of our experiences.

I agreed that you are on to something.

Mexicola: What I mean by complementary is this: Science may tell me how the heavens go, but theology tells me how to go to heaven. Science may inform me about how the cosmos has formed, the creation narrative in Genesis tells me that YHWH is LORD of the cosmos. Science may teach me about the early stages of the origin of the universe, the creation narrative in Genesis tells me that God had his hand in it and desires us to enter into Sabbath rest with him (2:1). Etc., etc. Tell me again, what religious claims of mine contradict science?

Spacer1 wrote:
. . . but how do you see religion as differing from science? Is it in what is assumed by either to be "beyond" the observable (material?) realm?

Kind of. They differ in that the one (religion) speaks of the cosmos religously. It has no intent whatsoever to say anything "scientific" (in the modern sense). To continue with what I wrote to Mexicola, an ancient local flood, for example, is historically verifiable. We have many mythic recounts of the event. We have geological evidence with respect to a great Mediterranean flood, etc. Biblical theology tells me that that flood was tied up in covenants, man, and God. It gives me the full story. Why do I suppose that the biblical narrative carries greater weight that the epic of Gilgamesh? Faith. Sorry to have left you unappeased. It seems to me that the biblical account served as a clear polemic against the circulating pagan myths of the time. It is saying, "This. This is what God truly did on earth. Gods of stone and wood cannot do such things. But the God of the living did." Etc.

Finally, ex-xian. While I am largely panentheistic, it is more in the Moltmannian strain, as I find Process theology proper (Whitehead, et al.) to be found wanting—especially with regards to the very problem they tried to solve (i.e., evil). But I think you have captured their essence well. For them, and for you I supect, God is a mere ontological postulate. Not so for me. He is living, tangible, triune, wrestles with his people, and desires that all recognize his lordship. I think it might be called "personalism" by some folks.

Regards,

CJD

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by CJD
ex-xian. While I am largely panentheistic, it is more in the Moltmannian strain, as I find Process theology proper (Whitehead, et al.) to be found wanting—especially with regards to the very problem they tried to solve (i.e., evil). But I think you have captured their essence well. For them, and for you I supect, God is a mere ontological postulate. Not so for me. He is living, tangible, triune, wrestles with his people, and desires that all recognize his lordship. I think it might be called "personalism" by some folks.

Regards,

CJD [/B]
I'm not familiar with Moltmann, but I'll look into it. If you have any good links, let me know. I'd be interested in how you think the Whitehead and folks didn't solve the problem of evil. For me, a good that is involved in the world falls prey to the "omnipontent/omniscient/omnibenevolent, choose two of three" problem.

That said, I think you've summarized my position well.

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by CJD
What I mean by complementary is this: Science may tell me how the heavens go, but theology tells me how to go to heaven. Science may inform me about how the cosmos has formed, the creation narrative in Genesis tells me that YHWH is LORD of the cosmos. Science may teach me about the early stages of the origin of the universe, the creation narrative in Genesis tells me that God had his hand in it and desires us to enter into Sabbath rest with him (2:1). Etc., etc. Tell me again, what religious claims of mine contradict science?Well your claim that science has not disproven any supernatural claims was the one which prompted my original post. You've yet to explain why your claim is 'authentic' yet other, contradictory, religious claims are not. Perhaps you intended this in the above sense (the moral/aesthetic/meaning sense), in which case we both may have got the wrong end of the stick.
However even your above comments are problematic. The claim that 'God had his hand in' the origin of the universe surely contradicts science. Cosmology aims to show how the universe originated precisely without any divine assistance. If you claim he did 'help', you should be able to specify how; this is a testable claim. If you don't wish to do this, then your statement that he had a role to play looks...well, dogmatic and unfounded.
The claim that God is 'Lord' of the cosmos is different, as presumably you mean this in an entirely metaphysical, non-testable way. In which case it is, I grant, not refutable and does not contradict science. But then, as stated in this thread many times already, you face the problem of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, etc; why should your claim be regarded as significantly different to this?

[streamline]

Originally posted by CJD
The best the naturalist can do is resign his or herself (with me) to the notion that neither one of us shall be moved—unless we begin to adopt the other's presuppositions. This I will not do. Until one begins to grapple with the fact that each of our realities are socially constructed, that one will remain a 2-dimensional skeptic, thinking arrogantly that his or her system is unassailable. Someone wrote a story once about an emperor and his clothes regarding this issue.

Question, though... if the only way that you might be moved to consider a godless universe (or, rather, a universe without your particular version of a god in it) is to "adopt the other's presuppositions" -- and this you adamantly "will not do" -- doesn't this render YOUR system rather "unassailable"?

If your personally chosen presuppositions undergird your faith, and your faith in turn confirms for you the truth (and Truth) of your presuppositions (or do I have that backwards...your faith dictates the presuppositions you choose, and these presuppositions then validate your faith..?), isn't it all quite neatly settled for you before you ever bother to trade ideas with those who don't see it your way? What exactly, if anything, could, in theory, cause you to revise your thinking? That is, besides a brain injury. And, to that point, your brain, were it to unfortunately have a railroad spike shot through it, and you survived but suddenly were of different likes and dislikes, temperments and ideas, as is wont to happen in such calamities, and you were to suddenly jettison the current system of presuppositions to which you hold and adopt entirely new presuppositions (let's say, just for fun, you became a cranky 2-D Materialist who went around making derisive comments at any and all who talked of invisible gods and immaterial minds)... does this mean that your previous presuppositions were no more correct or incorrect, no more or less likely to be true, than your most recent presuppositions? In fact, does the very act of trying to answer such a question -- hell, to even bother asking it -- only make sense between parties who already share identical presuppositions? And if "each of our realities are socially constructed," how would a neurosurgeon go about trying to explain to your loved ones what happened to your personality, and consequently, your chosen presuppositions regarding reality, after the brain injury? Or would this task be futile unless the doctor and whomever he/she is addressing already share the same presuppositions? Come to think of it, when approaching surgery on your brain, what presuppositions regarding reality would be most efficacious in regards to the doctors' reaching a successful surgical outcome? Is it possible for a doctor to hold one set of presuppositions before being called on to be a scientist, and then, once his or her duty has been performed and an alternate set of presuppositions have served their purpose, switch back to the previous set of presuppositions, say, because they simply make him or her feel better and sleep easier at night..? Are these presuppositions all entirely arbitrary, chosen at will or on a whim? Are they fluid, ie, can one swim back and forth between them based on whatever is most helpful at the time in regards to negotiating reality?

Suffice it to say I am a bit confused by your post(s)...is it possible for you to offer up more in the way of explanations? :confused:

[spacer1]

Digital Chicken,
The stated definition does does not support you. Definition 1 says "body of ideas" and definition 2 says "set of doctrines or beliefs". These do not imply behaviour.
Firstly, I hope you will agree, beliefs, ideas and thoughts have a physical basis, so the thoughts themselves are a behaviour. Secondly, such ideas and beliefs leads one to act in certain ways, whether to pray or to think about the nature of light.
Many religions have behaviour as a core factor and not so much belief.
How can you say that belief is not a (how about "the"?) core factor for religion?? I disagree with your distinction here, since I see both religion and science as having the core factor of a set of beliefs, which lead to (act as guidelines for?) certain actions, in both.
To the extent that religion involves ideology, religions have disparate and skewed ideas when compared to each other.
Good point. I did bundle all religions under the all-encompassing "religion", and did so because I sense that religion is an expression of a certain aspect of our experience, which is perhaps not entirely superceded by, but also somehow different to that expressed by science. I have hinted that religion might refer more to our subjective experiences than to any supposed (meta)physical object(s) in the world. If my concept of religion is true, I think the difference between science and religion is highlighted by the fact that science deals with what we can share socially, in our experience of the world and concepts relating to it, via language. What we cannot share socially, however, is our own subjective experience, which is where I am proposing religion has a place, and is the commonality between religions.
Thus, comparing "religion" to science on the basis of ideology is suspect at best and nonsense at worst.
What does this say about any theist vs. atheist debate? Besides, I wasn't really comparing the two on the basis of ideology, but rather, asking whether religion(s) and science (which are ideologies) have the same goals.

[spacer1]

Mexicola,
This precisely begs the question against the point I was making - you assume the 'individual inner experiences' as a metaphysical domain of absolute certain knowledge. I think this is an illusion.
I do not assume subjective experience as being metaphysical at all. However, there is obviously a qualitative difference between experiencing a brain (and body) and looking at a brain (and body). Given that you can only experience via your own body, you cannot know any other experience than your own, in the same way that you know your own. You can make inferences about others' subjective experiences, but cannot know them in the same way. I see this as more of a fact than an illusion.
The view of language as 'expressing' some 'inner experience' (prior to language) is the source of your problems, not a given.
Don't you think about what you are going to say? Does written or spoken language just occur by itself, without thought? Language expresses thoughts. Thoughts are what are prior to language. Thoughts (and feelings) are the inner experience.
In asking what it's like to be a bat you assume that bats have certain experiences which are structurally similar to our own - I deny this as a result of simplistic guesswork.
I do not assume that bats have experiences structurally similar to our own. I just assume that bats have some sort of subjective experience, to which you seem to both agree and disagree.
Of course a bat has 'experience' - of the world, as do we. The fact that you can't imagine 'this' is a result of your having some methodological assumptions which make your 'this' impossible; namely that bats have an experience (in the human sense) which is there for us to imagine.
Again, no. I did not say that we could imagine that a bat has an experience in any way similar to our own. However, you do agree that a bat has experience. Other similarities between human and bat experiences might include our will to survive, our need to eat and sleep, a need to map the external world so as to maintain survival, a need to reproduce, etc. However, I can simply assert that a bat has an experience qualitatively different to our own, without having to assert what that experience may be like. As long as a bat has an experience, which you agree to, I am sure you would also agree that this experience would not be likely to be the same as our own, given the differing physiologies of bats and humans. Therefore, since a bat has experiences of the world, then there is a "what it is like" to be a bat, even though we may not know, or be able to imagine, what the "what it is like" is like.
I deny this; I claim that in the absence of 'awareness of its experiences' (which you seem to grant) the bat isn't aware of any experiences; ie it doesn't have any.
But you do agree that the bat has experiences, even though it may not be aware of them, right? Would you agree that bats experience hunger, fear, fatigue, and sexual desire?
I disagree with your characterisation of subjectivity as beyond science.
And how do you see science as being able to explain subjective experience? I remind you that I do not suggest anything metaphysical or mystical by this.
This doesn't however mean that we are entitled to believe in whatever entities we want - some of these conflict with science.
See my last response to Digital Chicken. At the risk of inventing my own meaning of "religion", I suggest it does not, in general, refer to (meta)physical entities, but more to our subjective experiences.
Because I am an existentialist; the past can never justify future actions. There is no non-question-begging system available for justifying actions. No examination of 'the facts' will reveal the 'correct' answer to some question concerning what one should do in the future; there is no 'correct' answer. This is an elementary consequence of a non-theological world.
I disagree. There may be no god(s) to answer to regarding one's actions, but there are still the other members of society to consider. Logically, there may be no correct or incorrect actions, but our natural inclinations lead the majority of us to value life, and to desire to maintain that life into the future. Obviously, such valuations are made at the subjective level.

[Mexicola]

Originally posted by spacer1
Mexicola,
I do not assume subjective experience as being metaphysical at all. However, there is obviously a qualitative difference between experiencing a brain (and body) and looking at a brain (and body). Given that you can only experience via your own body, you cannot know any other experience than your own, in the same way that you know your own. You can make inferences about others' subjective experiences, but cannot know them in the same way. I see this as more of a fact than an illusion.Obviously we can't tell exactly what someone else is experiencing just by looking at them. I never claimed we could. This doesn't however mean that subjectivity is 'beyond science'; that we can't tell what someone is experiencing by examining their brain, by observing their behaviour, by asking them, etc.
Don't you think about what you are going to say? Does written or spoken language just occur by itself, without thought? Language expresses thoughts. Thoughts are what are prior to language. Thoughts (and feelings) are the inner experience.Well, duh. Of course thoughts are prior to being spoken. But they're still thoughts in language. We think in words; in concepts; in ideas, just as we speak in them. There are arguably forms of thought which are not linguistic in form, ie spatial, auditory, visual, etc, but I could make an equally good case for these also being dependent on external, meaningful experience (indeed Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception is an attempt to do just that)
I do not assume that bats have experiences structurally similar to our own. I just assume that bats have some sort of subjective experience, to which you seem to both agree and disagree.By 'structurally similar to our own' I mean that they have what we have (experience) minus the ability to speak about it; this is what I deny. It rests on a picture of human consciousness as 'raw' perceptual data plus talking/thinking (linguistic) capacity. I think this picture is wrong. And no, I don't think bats have any subjective experience. They do however have 'experience' in the sense that we can say an artificially intelligent robot might have 'experience'; they are responsive to their environment. This is the only form of 'experience' I claim animals have, and it ain't 'subjective'.
...Other similarities between human and bat experiences might include our will to survive, our need to eat and sleep, a need to map the external world so as to maintain survival, a need to reproduce, etc.... Therefore, since a bat has experiences of the world, then there is a "what it is like" to be a bat, even though we may not know, or be able to imagine, what the "what it is like" is like.You seem to be confusing the fact that bats react to their environment, have biological drives, etc with the fact that they have a subjective experience. We can easily program a computer to react in a 'bat-like' way to its environment, we can program in drives, internal 'maps', etc - does this mean this computer would be conscious? I say 'No, not without some capacity to think about its 'experience' as an experience'. Without this capacity, it is simply an automaton. 'Experience' considered as 'being responsive to an environment' is not the same as 'experience' considered as subjective consciousness.
But you do agree that the bat has experiences, even though it may not be aware of them, right? Would you agree that bats experience hunger, fear, fatigue, and sexual desire?How do you mean? I don't agree that bats experience their hunger. I do however agree that they react to their hunger. There is however (in the bat's case) no intervening 'consciousness' or 'thought' in between the neurological 'hunger pangs' and the bat's reacting to these by searching for food; this is all 'automatic' - it never becomes 'conscious' like our hunger does.
And how do you see science as being able to explain subjective experience? I remind you that I do not suggest anything metaphysical or mystical by this.I don't think science can (yet) explain subjective experience. I do think however it can in principle do so. We know rather little about the brain as yet, I wouldn't rule out a priori science's chances... Oh and I shall stop saying 'metaphysical' as this leads to confusion. I just mean that your 'picture' of what science needs to explain is wrong (influenced by Cartesian ideas, plus a 'sensory data' picture of visual consciousness), which is why you think science won't ever be able to explain it. If you revise the picture (as Dennett does, while still accounting for the 'self-evidence' of consciousness) then you might not be quite so pessimistic about science's chances.
See my last response to Digital Chicken. At the risk of inventing my own meaning of "religion", I suggest it does not, in general, refer to (meta)physical entities, but more to our subjective experiences.Ok, but I disagree with this use too, as I don't think there's anything 'religious' (ie outside science) about subjectivity.
I disagree. There may be no god(s) to answer to regarding one's actions, but there are still the other members of society to consider. Logically, there may be no correct or incorrect actions, but our natural inclinations lead the majority of us to value life, and to desire to maintain that life into the future. Obviously, such valuations are made at the subjective level. Of course they are. But these are not justifications, they are causes. Similarly, a psychopath might say he was caused to kill by psychological problems. This may excuse his actions (ie he wasn't responsible for them) but it doesn't justify them. He had no reason for them. Now of course the question of reasons is irrelevant to such a person, but it isn't to the rest of us. We all have reasons for what we do. Even saying 'I'm going to go along with my 'natural inclinations'' is a reason. I was reading something very similar to this in the introduction to Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment today: The "natural man", the man of instinct and appetite, thinks he can reach the point at which evil turns into innocence, but what is possible for a stone or a tiger is not possible for a human being.(Richard Pevear)

[ftorresgamez]

Originally posted by spacer1
It seems to me that even if science answers all the questions of reality, it would still fail to provide any answers to the question of what it is like to be a bat, or a human.

I get the feeling that in many debates between theists and atheists, both parties seem to talk past each other. This leads me to the question of whether religion and science have the same goals, or whether they are expressions of different aspects of our experiences.

Science is not an idological stance, if that is what you're asking; it is just a method that helps you ask empirical questions - i.e. questions about Nature. Religion is a set of beliefs, pure and simply. For religion, the world and Universe are already expalined; there is no need to seek further into nature. So, Religion cannot share the same goals as science.

Your How does it feel to be a bat? question makes little sense. Since you are not a bat, and bats most likely do not ask how does it feel to be themselves, the question is meaningless.

BTW if you asked a person with ample religious culture these questions, you would not get an answer either - the questions are too broad.

[Bill Snedden]

Although we seem to have moved past it at this point, I'd like to take a moment to remind all posters to please refrain from uncivil behavior at all times, regardless of any perceived provocation. In the so-called "higher" fora we actively discourage insults and invective in an effort to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio.

Thanks and please continue your discussion!

Bill Snedden

[CJD]

ex-xian, if and when I get to a discussion of process theology, I will start a new thread with your user name in the title. Here are few links (http://www.counterbalance.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?search_group=Message&Room=Html&homepage=1&cmdline=0&action=Search&search_term=J¸rgen%20Moltmann) re: Moltmann. Here (http://www.geocities.com/newjoy4us/moltmann/moltmann_panentheism.htm) are a few more.

Mexicola wrote:
You've yet to explain why your claim is 'authentic' yet other, contradictory, religious claims are not. Perhaps you intended this in the above sense (the moral/aesthetic/meaning sense), in which case we both may have got the wrong end of the stick.

Yes, I have alluded to this already, but have not gone into a public defense of my own beliefs. I am not sure that it would be fruitful. That said, the moral/aesthetic/meaning sense is indeed part of the reason that I find Xianity in particular to be a warranted and justified belief system. But there is a sociological element that must not be overlooked. Almost every culture to have ever existed has exhibited some sort of religiosity. This 'oceanic' feeling (per Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents), or sense of boundlessness that many people of the earth intuitively possess is, I think, the key. Freud would have it reduced to some result of a finite, psychoanalytical cause. But even he honestly remarked that "The origin of the religious attitude can be traced back . . . to infantile helplessness. There may be something further behind that, but for the present it is wrapped in obscurity" (20–21). You see, he leaves the door open for doubt, for something beyond which the scientific method, for example, cannot get at.

Beyond this 'sense of eternity' that most people feel, I also see humankind's propensity for courage, laughter, hope, playfulness, order (to name a few), to point beyond the domain of natural reality. This, then, begs the question, "Is there not something transcendent? To be sure, we are at odds, and I fear that unless we give ground to each other's presuppositions, we will not be moving.

However even your above comments are problematic. The claim that 'God had his hand in' the origin of the universe surely contradicts science. Cosmology aims to show how the universe originated precisely without any divine assistance.

It seems to me that at best, scientific inquiry has gotten us to within milliseconds of something big happening in the distanst past. Whatever this disproves, it does not disprove divine assistance.

If you claim he did 'help', you should be able to specify how; this is a testable claim.

If it were a scientific claim, then you might be right. But it is purely theological in that I recognize God's hand in creation as recounted in a theological book. It tells us theologically about God's hand in creation—not pedantically scientific. What kind of 'proof' could you possibly be looking for? A giant boulder uncovered in a very deep strata next to the earth's core that has an etched message reading, "God did it"? In the end, if I were trying to convince you or force you to hold my views, then quite possibly this assertion could be deemed dogmatic and unfounded. But is my belief, and it is entirely warranted (whether or not I think you are wrong, or that your beliefs are unwarranted, is irrelevant at this point).

As an aside, the Pink Unicorn is not a real problem, if one grants that that-which-no-greater-thing-can-be-conceived is ontologically superior and therefore a more plausible alternative than that old Irish myth.

Streamline wrote:
Question, though... if the only way that you might be moved to consider a godless universe (or, rather, a universe without your particular version of a god in it) is to "adopt the other's presuppositions" -- and this you adamantly "will not do" -- doesn't this render YOUR system rather "unassailable"?

Certain points of our belief systems are unassailable. But not all. If I believed the earth to be flat, then in this modern age that view is assailable. As to adopting the atheist's presuppositions, how could I do this? How could you adopt mine? We would cease to be what we are in the process. I can do this for the sake of argument, but I would be lying in the end. I can see, for example, how a naturalistic view of the cosmos is plausible given atheistic assumptions, but what really does this accomplish? I can take a purely inductive and empirical (by bracketing the metaphyscial) approach to religion, but in the end, how will I avoid the accusation that it is all just wishful thinking?

What exactly, if anything, could, in theory, cause you to revise your thinking?

We call this in the Xian world "apostasy."

. . . once his or her duty has been performed and an alternate set of presuppositions have served their purpose, switch back to the previous set of presuppositions, say, because they simply make him or her feel better and sleep easier at night..?

People do it everyday.

Are these presuppositions all entirely arbitrary, chosen at will or on a whim?

If you mean by arbitrary, "capricious," then, no. But if you mean that they are things that do not enter us by osmosis, that is, that they are presups. that we work to change, yes. The xian will be working to change them toward one goal—conformity to the image of the risen Christ.

Are they fluid, ie, can one swim back and forth between them based on whatever is most helpful at the time in regards to negotiating reality?

Again, we do this everyday. But in matters of metaphysical vs. naturalism, our presuppositions are not so fluid. Some things we shift (inconsistently, no doubt) on daily. Consider the "Cone of Certainty": at the wide end of the cone are beliefs that we will not die for, things we hold loosely. At the narrow end of the cone are beliefs that our identities are wrapped-up in. These are things that we would die for. We are not binary codes. God is not a binary being. Things are far more complicated than all that.

As an aside, many here I gather conceive of the xian God as a wispy, ghost-like, vaporous it. Like the issue was ever over matterial/immaterial (maybe for the Gnostics it was). This is not historic orthodox Christian belief. God is a tangible reality. That which we cannot see could be seen, given his approval. The Scriptures speak of archetypal blueprints upon which everying observable is based. And this was way before Plato hit the scene. That is the essence of Christian materialism. God's being "invisible" is not equivalent to "nothingness."

Regards,

CJD

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by CJD
ex-xian, if and when I get to a discussion of process theology, I will start a new thread with your user name in the title. Here are few links (http://www.counterbalance.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?search_group=Message&Room=Html&homepage=1&cmdline=0&action=Search&search_term=J¸rgen%20Moltmann) re: Moltmann. Here (http://www.geocities.com/newjoy4us/moltmann/moltmann_panentheism.htm) are a few more.

I'll be sure to look at them. In the next few weeks, I won't be able to be post as much as I have been lately, so if you start the thread, PM me.

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by spacer1
Digital Chicken,

Firstly, I hope you will agree, beliefs, ideas and thoughts have a physical basis, so the thoughts themselves are a behaviour. Secondly, such ideas and beliefs leads one to act in certain ways, whether to pray or to think about the nature of light.

In the broadest sense of the term behaviour, believing in something is a behaviour but what I am talking about is behaviours that do not require the actor to have certain beliefs.

How can you say that belief is not a (how about "the"?) core factor for religion?? I disagree with your distinction here, since I see both religion and science as having the core factor of a set of beliefs, which lead to (act as guidelines for?) certain actions, in both.

You are simply making the error of treating all religions as uniform when they are simply not. They are quite disparate. One flavor of judaism, for example, says "You should believe in a god but after that its about doing the behaviours of judaism." However, Christianity in most forms is about what you believe and not so much doing specific things.

If we go on to Buddhism then it gets even more messy.

What does this say about any theist vs. atheist debate?

Nothing. I don't require science to be an atheist. I merely require a rejection of ideas that purport that god(s) exist.

I think it is a mistake that atheists frequently make to identify atheism with darwinism, science and other things. Yes atheists do believe that scientific explanations trump ancient tales but they are not required to be an atheist.

To go back to the original question, I think certain religions compete with science when a certain attitude is taken by the religionist. Otherwise they need not compete ideologically. There are many Christians who are scientists and have no trouble believing their theories and that the earth is billions of years old.

DC

[spacer1]

Mexicola,
Obviously we can't tell exactly what someone else is experiencing just by looking at them. I never claimed we could.
Neither did I attribute such a claim to you.
This doesn't however mean that subjectivity is 'beyond science'; that we can't tell what someone is experiencing by examining their brain, by observing their behaviour, by asking them, etc.
I agree to an extent. However, I feel we might be getting off topic with this line of discussion.
Well, duh. Of course thoughts are prior to being spoken. But they're still thoughts in language. We think in words; in concepts; in ideas, just as we speak in them.
You're contradicting yourself. Firstly, you say "thoughts are prior to being spoken. But they're still thoughts in language." Then, you say we "think in words; in concepts; in ideas, just as we speak in them." Concepts and ideas are not necessarily language-based, though. Words describe such concepts and ideas of thought. By your view, it seems, our thoughts originate in language - it's words all the way down.
There are arguably forms of thought which are not linguistic in form, ie spatial, auditory, visual, etc, but I could make an equally good case for these also being dependent on external, meaningful experience...
Whether or not non-linguistic forms of thought are "dependent on external, meaningful experience" is beside the point. In allowing for these other forms of thought, you are contradicting your earlier assertion that all thought is language-based.
By 'structurally similar to our own' I mean that they have what we have (experience) minus the ability to speak about it; this is what I deny. It rests on a picture of human consciousness as 'raw' perceptual data plus talking/thinking (linguistic) capacity. I think this picture is wrong.
Well, I also deny that "they have what we have minus the ability to speak about it," due to the differing physiologies, but this is not your point.
Could you describe how your picture of human consciousness is different to the one you depict here?
And no, I don't think bats have any subjective experience. They do however have 'experience' in the sense that we can say an artificially intelligent robot might have 'experience'; they are responsive to their environment.
A rock is also responsive to its environment. However, the responses of a bat and a rock are unlikely to be the same unless the bat is dead. Regardless of whether or not the AI robot has subjective experiences, what makes its responses "intelligent"? (Consider the responses of the robot both switched on and switched off.)
You seem to be confusing the fact that bats react to their environment, have biological drives, etc with the fact that they have a subjective experience. We can easily program a computer to react in a 'bat-like' way to its environment, we can program in drives, internal 'maps', etc - does this mean this computer would be conscious?
No, it means the computer has been made to react in (what is presumed to be) a bat-like way, and still fails to answer the question of whether the bat is (self-?)conscious. Additionally, I think that programming a computer to react like a bat would be far from easy.
I say 'No, not without some capacity to think about its 'experience' as an experience'. Without this capacity, it is simply an automaton.
Perhaps we have different definitions of "automaton", but I wouldn't describe any mammal as one.
'Experience' considered as 'being responsive to an environment' is not the same as 'experience' considered as subjective consciousness.
How does "'experience' considered as subjective consciousness" differ from "'experience' considered as 'being responsive to an environment'"? As I have said, even a rock is responsive to its environment, but rocks and bats don't respond in the same way. How do you account for this?
How do you mean? I don't agree that bats experience their hunger. I do however agree that they react to their hunger. There is however (in the bat's case) no intervening 'consciousness' or 'thought' in between the neurological 'hunger pangs' and the bat's reacting to these by searching for food; this is all 'automatic' - it never becomes 'conscious' like our hunger does.
Is the method that the bat uses to search for food 'automatic' too?
I don't think science can (yet) explain subjective experience. I do think however it can in principle do so.
Science may be able to provide answers to the why's and how's of subjectivity, but it cannot answer the question of "what it is like" to experience subjectivity. One can only know by having the experience.
Ok, but I disagree with this use too, as I don't think there's anything 'religious' (ie outside science) about subjectivity.
I think subjectivity may have been a misleading term. I think that religions, in general, have the goal of attaining a certain state of mind. Attaining personal happiness is possibly the goal of religion. Science, on the other hand, has the goal of attaining true descriptions of the world. However, this is just my own view, and I hope others will share their viewpoints, as well.

[spacer1]

DigitalChicken,
In the broadest sense of the term behaviour, believing in something is a behaviour but what I am talking about is behaviours that do not require the actor to have certain beliefs.
Such as?
You are simply making the error of treating all religions as uniform when they are simply not. They are quite disparate. One flavor of judaism, for example, says "You should believe in a god but after that its about doing the behaviours of judaism." However, Christianity in most forms is about what you believe and not so much doing specific things.

If we go on to Buddhism then it gets even more messy.
Obviously, different religions are different. However, there must be something which they each share for us to be able to describe them all using the single term "religion". As I suggested in my last post to Mexicola, I am currently of the opinion that such a commonality may be the engendering of a certain state of mind. It is an attempt to describe how one should live "the good life", as set out in the religious texts of a religion, and as attempted to be attained by the religion's adherents.
I think it is a mistake that atheists frequently make to identify atheism with darwinism, science and other things. Yes atheists do believe that scientific explanations trump ancient tales but they are not required to be an atheist.
Point well taken. I did indeed associate science with atheism.
To go back to the original question, I think certain religions compete with science when a certain attitude is taken by the religionist. Otherwise they need not compete ideologically. There are many Christians who are scientists and have no trouble believing their theories and that the earth is billions of years old.
This "certain attitude", I assume, is the one where science and one's religion do not conflict?

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by spacer1
DigitalChicken,

Such as?


such as the ones I mentioned in the post you quoted right below the comment you questioned.

DC

[spacer1]

DigitalChicken,

For those members who may have missed the start of our discussion, and to keep this sub-discussion in perspective in my own mind, I thought I would recap.

Firstly, you stated:
The problem with your question is that religion is not an ideology. Its just a certain type of human behavior.
After my offering a dictionary definition of "ideology", you remained unconvinced, complaining that (from the definition) ""body of ideas" and..."set of doctrines or beliefs"...do not imply behaviour."

You also made the claim that:
Many religions have behaviour as a core factor and not so much belief.
In response to your first concern, I responded that ideas and beliefs are physical processes, which themselves are behaviours.

In response to your second concern, I stated that science and religion are both based upon a set of beliefs which guides the behaviour of each. To which you responded:
what I am talking about is behaviours that do not require the actor to have certain beliefs.
I asked "Such as?" here because I presume that there is no action (performed by your average conscious human) that isn't based on some set of beliefs.

In response to my "Such as?", you indicated that the answer was already stated in your previous reply. I assume you are referring to the religions you stated. However, this is just a restatement of your earlier assertion. What I was hoping to achieve with such a question was to ask:

"How does religion not require an actor to hold certain beliefs, and simply act in some religious way?", which seems to be your position.

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by spacer1

"How does religion not require an actor to hold certain beliefs, and simply act in some religious way?", which seems to be your position.

Again you are making the same error.

All religions are not the same. I do not see why you cannot see that you are assigning general characteristics to something that can only be made to specific cases.

You are, by analogy, making a statement like "Football and soccer use a ball for play and thus sports involves the use of a ball." Clearly, this is not true generally. It is true specifically for certain sports but not for others.

I said CERTAIN religions do not require certain beliefs. I did not say, as implied by your question, "religion [does] not require an actor to hold certain beliefs" generally.

I gave the example of Judiasm where certain Rabbis say that following rituals or behaviours of this or that is more important in Judaism and less so or not at all what one believes. One for example can be considered Jewish if one's mother was Jewish. This has nothing to do with belief.

I gave a constrating example where beliefs are important: Christianity. Chrsitians generally say that one must believe in the divinity of Jesus, and so forth to be a Christian.

Thus, you cannot make a general claim that religion requires an ideology. You certainly cannot make a general claim that religion requires an ideology to the extent that it makes statements about the external world which might contrast with science. One can only make a claim about specfic religions in this regard.

Your original question was, "Are religion and science competing ideologies?" We have to first ask, "What is the ideology of each?"

Science could be said to have a single ideology but some philosophers of science might disagree. We could then say that if you follow one of a particular set of methodologies then you are practicing science. So with science we can at least narrow it down to a set of ideologies.

With religion we can do no such thing. With religion, one can practice and hold a certain specific religion without actually adhering to a clear cut ideology and even members of certain specific religions might have differing ideologies even though they perform the identical rituals and observances.

In some other religions this is not true. They might perform different observances while the identifying characteristic is what they believe. (example: Christianity)

Thus, you cannot make a comparison between religion and science ideologically because one cannot identify a single or common ideology amongst religions and some religions do not require specific ideologies in the sense that they are comparable to science.

DC

[spacer1]

Digital Chicken,

I think you spotted my error in this thread, and I thank you. My mistake was to associate science with atheism and religion with theism. Although I would still maintain that all religions must have something in common for them all to be referred to under one name, "religion", you are quite correct to point out that they do not all share a common ideology. Therefore, I'll leave this thread for the scrap pile and think about another tactic for demostrating my intended point on this thread. Thanks.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by spacer1
This leads me to the question of whether religion and science have the same goals, or whether they are expressions of different aspects of our experiences.

I would agree that religion and science do not have the same goals. The goals of science are fairly narrow, to explore and explain reality by using experiment and observation of reality. Many religions in comparison have many more goals, such as comfort, compassion, fellowship and so forth. Individual scientists may pursue science because they derive comfort or fellowship but that is not why science is funded and such sentiments do not direct its’ research programs. There are a few areas were the goals of religion and those of science do indeed overlap. For many of the religious they consider their teachings to be about reality and as such they make reality claims. Since the goal of science is to explore reality it is at this point that the two collide. When a religious person says “God answers prayers” that is a reality claim and as such is fair game for scientific inquiry. There are many such statements that the religious make all the time that are legitimate scientific questions. In all cases where such questions have been scientifically investigated the evidence did not support the religious claims, thus throwing the non-reality claims of the religious into question. Now I suppose the religious could fastidiously remove all reality claims from their religion but if they did so I do not think it would be as appealing to the masses. You see we are embedded in reality. Reality is the very fiber of our existence; to remove reality from religion would be to create something that few could relate with. So I fully expect religion to go on making reality claims that conflict with science until the day comes that people find reality more appealing than fantasy. For the vast majority of the unwashed masses I don't expect that day will ever come.

Starboy

[spacer1]

Starboy,

Thanks for the response. You stated:
The goals of science are fairly narrow, to explore and explain reality by using experiment and observation of reality. Many religions in comparison have many more goals, such as comfort, compassion, fellowship and so forth.
This is precisely what I was attempting to get at in this discussion. Religion offers a sense of meaning which I think science lacks. Perhaps areas such as psychology and ethics (game theory, etc.) might be able to fill this gap, somewhat, but being scientific disciplines, they only offer a third-person perspective, rather than the subjective perspective which religion offers. While I am atheist, I am not without a sense of religion, or perhaps a deference to a higher power, which is the natural world.

Also, I think that science is mostly antithetical to the "comfort, compassion and fellowship" you associated with religion, when we learn from science that there is no inherent meaning to life, that we are not special in any way, that we have little control over our decisions, etc.

Therefore, while I see science as a very worthwhile pursuit, I think it needs to be balanced against our subjective feelings of worth, and our desire to keep the whole shebang going. However, I am sure many will just suggest that I need to grow up and get used to the facts of life, but if those facts don't instil a subjective desire to maintain life, then what's the point?

[ComestibleVenom]

Originally posted by Starboy
I would agree that religion and science do not have the same goals.

I think you're quite wrong. The aim is ultimately to explain the nature, origin and to shape the destiny of man. Given this overlap, it is inevitable that there be conflict, and given the patent superiority of science and an explanatory system, it is inevitable that religion suffer as a consequence. (As we have seen in scientific societies such as the west.)

[Starboy]

Originally posted by spacer1
Therefore, while I see science as a very worthwhile pursuit, I think it needs to be balanced against our subjective feelings of worth, and our desire to keep the whole shebang going. However, I am sure many will just suggest that I need to grow up and get used to the facts of life, but if those facts don't instil a subjective desire to maintain life, then what's the point?

Hi spacer, I do not advocate that science replace religion. That would be silly. I do think that science can help us understand the role religion plays in our society and the lives of its members. Science is just a fancy word for knowledge. Knowledge is not guidance, but guidance with knowledge is a great deal more effective than guidance without knowledge. That people need guidance in their lives, there is no question. The primary failure of the major religions in the world today it that they are stuck in a world view informed by the knowledge of two thousand years ago and for the most part refuse to acknowledge that what we know and understand