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Originally posted by Tasty Onions FUCK. Too much stupid to handle.

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Originally posted by woscar Indeed. This is precisely why I hate postmodernism with a passion: It can make rather intelligent people with degrees in Philosophy say some very stupid things while they are under the impression that they are uttering some of the wisest things ever conceived. Why this argument that science is "the new religion" succeeds so much amongst intelligent people really baffles me.

It's not post modern, its an epistemological concern. How do we know anything? I can't see much difference in how lay scientists (who don't perform any scientific experimentation, and don't know how scientific processes work (this would be, what 95% of people using scientific truths?)) and theists create/use their beliefs...

I'm willing to admit I'm stupid, but they both receive information from a source they choose to trust, and believe the information is true without ever encountering the truths for themselves. Beliefs are therefore both based only on faith in the validity of sources, and neither are therefore based on any direct involvement with the 'truth'... right??

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-Everything I Say is a Lie-

It's not about "trust." Of course atheists trust scientists -- just as the vast majority of religious believers do on most matters. Arguing about whether individual "believers" can ever have "knowledge by proxy" and using that as a metric to judge epistemic position is silly and rather pointless. If "not using trust" is your criterion, then nobody, not even "non-lay" scientists, has any knowledge outside the tiny domain of their own experiments, if that, because after all each individual scientist is just "trusting" the community of other scientists, not to mention the people who designed and made the instruments he uses. I guess you can go that way if you want to have a ball being a wacky ol' philosopher, but it strikes me as pretty asinine, at least.

If you want to talk epistemology, maybe we could discuss the relative merits of the methods by which the conclusions of science and religion are reached -- empirical testing versus...well, making shit up and writing it down.

Last edited by Tasty Onions on Aug-09-2011 at 14:09

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Originally posted by Tasty Onions It's not about "trust." Of course atheists trust scientists -- just as the vast majority of religious believers do on most matters. Arguing about whether individual "believers" can ever have "knowledge by proxy" and using that as a metric to judge epistemic position is silly and rather pointless. If "not using trust" is your criterion, then nobody, not even "non-lay" scientists, has any knowledge outside the tiny domain of their own experiments, if that, because after all each individual scientist is just "trusting" the community of other scientists, not to mention the people who designed and made the instruments he uses. I guess you can go that way if you want to have a ball being a wacky ol' philosopher, but it strikes me as pretty asinine, at least. If you want to talk epistemology, maybe we could discuss the relative merits of the methods by which the conclusions of science and religion are reached -- empirical testing versus...well, making shit up and writing it down.

exactly! I'm happy to go to the logical conclusion It depends what you're talking about... the word knowledge gets thrown about far too casually IMO, especially when it used to justify a lot...

the point was that lay scientists, like theists never encounter any facts, taking all their beliefs solely from analogical evidence. I wasn't criticizing scientists, but I do have issue with ignorant 'atheists' who have no idea whatsoever why theism is dumb, or science so great, yet roll around bagging religion and alternative beliefs. I don't see any difference between that type of ignorance and theism... In some ways its worse since you HAVE to have faith for theism, and its meant to be removed in science.

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-Everything I Say is a Lie-

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Originally posted by EgosXII the point was that lay scientists, like theists never encounter any facts, taking all their beliefs solely from analogical evidence. I wasn't criticizing scientists, but I do have issue with ignorant 'atheists' who have no idea whatsoever why theism is dumb, or science so great, yet roll around bagging religion and alternative beliefs. I don't see any difference between that type of ignorance and theism... In some ways its worse since you HAVE to have faith for theism, and its meant to be removed in science.

"Lay scientists" don't need to be expert in every scientific field in order to understand the scientific method and why those who dedicate their life to using it are justified with the conclusions they reach. A method that bases conclusions on evidence and reason is worthy of respect. The entire enterprise of science is dedicated to finding the truth through the most rigorous process ever devised. Remember, the largest awards and highest prestige in science are reserved for those who DISPROVE existing ideas..who overturn false "doctrines" and incorrect assumptions. Religious dogma is by definition unchanging..It is meant to be immune from attack or scrutiny, and doubt is one of the highest crimes in many religions. This is the polar opposite of science. Doubt and investigation are not encouraged in faith, but they are at the core of science. The peer review process in science is a brutal gauntlet where ideas are exposed to rabid criticism by other experts in an attempt to weed out the crap and allow only the finest (closest to reality) ideas through the filter. If you can't see the difference between accepting the conclusions of those who practice this method and accepting the conclusions of a bunch of old people making shit up, creating myths based on their emotions, and pretending to offer "answers" with no justification behind them, that is your problem.

But are billions the same without carl sagan??



Cant wait to see the result and get my answer

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LETS GO TO TOKYO!*CLICK*

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Originally posted by Capitalizt "Lay scientists" don't need to be expert in every scientific field in order to understand the scientific method and why those who dedicate their life to using it are justified with the conclusions they reach. A method that bases conclusions on evidence and reason is worthy of respect. The entire enterprise of science is dedicated to finding the truth through the most rigorous process ever devised. Remember, the largest awards and highest prestige in science are reserved for those who DISPROVE existing ideas..who overturn false "doctrines" and incorrect assumptions.

I have to agree with you on the premis; however, the concern I think whoever the other guy in this conversation is was expressing is that most people only pay attention to the conclusions and never actually read the whole study to examine whether or not the methodology was sound.

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Religious dogma is by definition unchanging..It is meant to be immune from attack or scrutiny, and doubt is one of the highest crimes in many religions.

I have to take issue with this one. You know full well that the major faiths have evolved over time with beliefs/doctrines/dogma being changed over time. Religion does change; however, the pace of change is undoubtedly slow... of course this does help to ensure stability, which is one of the principle benefits religion provides to it's adherents.

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This is the polar opposite of science. Doubt and investigation are not encouraged in faith, but they are at the core of science. The peer review process in science is a brutal gauntlet where ideas are exposed to rabid criticism by other experts in an attempt to weed out the crap and allow only the finest (closest to reality) ideas through the filter.

Hold on, let's compare apples to apples here. Doubt and investigation are encouraged in faith... hell, the vatican employes a sizable group of people who are tasked exclusively with the job of disproving reported mircals (both contemporary and historically). Seminaries are awash with researchers trying to locate and expose errors in scripture and critiqueing doctrines accordingly. Granted, a lot of adherents discourage other adherents from questioning things but those people cannot be said to be representative of their respective faiths as a whole. When you talk of science advocating investigation and faith you're talking the research fields, not the entire scientific community. Your statement that religions do not encourage doubt and investigation ignores a whole lot of work being done by theologians and scholars and is akin to someone entirely disregarding the research fields of science and focusing only on the practical application of existing knowlege. Is the level of activity in this regard on par between the two disaplines... absolutely not; however, saying it is absent or even not encouraged is simply a mischaracterization, no?

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If you can't see the difference between accepting the conclusions of those who practice this method and accepting the conclusions of a bunch of old people making shit up, creating myths based on their emotions, and pretending to offer "answers" with no justification behind them, that is your problem.

While I cannot agree with the whole "making shit up..." part I do have to agree that any reasonable person has to see that the conclusions reached through the scientific process are more credible then those reached by theological inquiry or other forms of non-testable deduction/reason. I don't think; however, that this changes Nietzche's point; that most people accept science on faith rather then from a position of actual knowledge.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

now that I got my defender of theism shit out of the way (we all have roles to play, no?)... I'm looking forward to this series!

edit... sorry for the unintentional rhyming... my daughter's really loving Dr. Seuss right now and that shit just seems to take over from time to time.

/fag

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard I have to agree with you on the premis; however, the concern I think whoever the other guy in this conversation is was expressing is that most people only pay attention to the conclusions and never actually read the whole study to examine whether or not the methodology was sound.

Generally, by the time scientific information trickles down to the layman, its been reviewed, dumbed down and condensed so much that theres really no need for everybody to check the metodology. Thats left for those of us who are actually really interested in the subject at hand that we read the whole study, check out the related articles which have links to more related artickles and before you know it, youve wasted two weeks studying some mildly interesting yet quite unimportant fenomenon in science when what you were supposed to be doing was focusing on work or studying the finer points of economics for your exam next tuesday or both usually in my case.

The other side doesnt go trough anything near as a rigorous process before it spreads its taless to the masses.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard I have to take issue with this one. You know full well that the major faiths have evolved over time with beliefs/doctrines/dogma being changed over time. Religion does change; however, the pace of change is undoubtedly slow...

They have, but kicking and screaming and trying their very hardest to resist having to change in the slightest until they had to just because they were getting embarrassaed by how retarted they look to the otside.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard ... of course this does help to ensure stability, which is one of the principle benefits religion provides to it's adherents.

Which is one of the things that infuriates everyone else. Some might be perfectly fine with the "stability" the few thousand year old world and scientific view provides, personally id rather have penicilin, or the next big thing.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard Hold on, let's compare apples to apples here. Doubt and investigation are encouraged in faith... hell, the vatican employes a sizable group of people who are tasked exclusively with the job of disproving reported mircals (both contemporary and historically).

Then they are clearly doing a poor job at it, since they rocognise some things as miracles. Something that would fail completerly under any scientific scrutiny.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard Seminaries are awash with researchers trying to locate and expose errors in scripture and critiqueing doctrines accordingly.

Thats a fancy way of saying that they are picking and choosing what they want to believe, so they are editing the texts to conform to their desires.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard Granted, a lot of adherents discourage other adherents from questioning things but those people cannot be said to be representative of their respective faiths as a whole.

No true scotsman

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard When you talk of science advocating investigation and faith you're talking the research fields, not the entire scientific community. Your statement that religions do not encourage doubt and investigation ignores a whole lot of work being done by theologians and scholars and is akin to someone entirely disregarding the research fields of science and focusing only on the practical application of existing knowlege. Is the level of activity in this regard on par between the two disaplines... absolutely not; however, saying it is absent or even not encouraged is simply a mischaracterization, no?

Ill grant you the point that there might be some research, but i have to question the quality of that research. You can spend your whole life doing "serious" research into pink unicors, and can come to many conclusion based on many texts you find, but at the end of the day you were researching pink unicorns. No matter how hard you tried, your research is worthless.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard While I cannot agree with the whole "making shit up..." part I do have to agree that any reasonable person has to see that the conclusions reached through the scientific process are more credible then those reached by theological inquiry or other forms of non-testable deduction/reason. I don't think; however, that this changes Nietzche's point; that most people accept science on faith rather then from a position of actual knowledge.

There is no gray areas of credibility here. Black and white, credible and not credible, and i dont have to say which one is which do i.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard now that I got my defender of theism shit out of the way (we all have roles to play, no?)... I'm looking forward to this series!

Now that my usual shit is out of the way, while youre waiting for this you might want to check out the shows by Brian Cox.

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard I have to take issue with this one. You know full well that the major faiths have evolved over time with beliefs/doctrines/dogma being changed over time. Religion does change; however, the pace of change is undoubtedly slow... of course this does help to ensure stability, which is one of the principle benefits religion provides to it's adherents.

I would say they have evolved, but out of necessity and not by choice. Religion on a whole has resisted change over the centuries and tried to suppress discoveries that contradicted church dogma. This is inevitable when you have something called "dogma" in the first place.. It is dragged into new eras, but only when the evidence becomes overwhelming to the point of being an embarrassment. The same has happened on social issues like slavery, equal rights for women, gays, etc. Churches are becoming more liberal on the whole, but they are not the vanguard of this movement. They are the caboose.

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Hold on, let's compare apples to apples here. Doubt and investigation are encouraged in faith... hell, the vatican employes a sizable group of people who are tasked exclusively with the job of disproving reported mircals (both contemporary and historically).

I would highly suggest they contact the professionals at the JREF. The church's method seem to be sorely lacking.

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Seminaries are awash with researchers trying to locate and expose errors in scripture and critiqueing doctrines accordingly. Granted, a lot of adherents discourage other adherents from questioning things but those people cannot be said to be representative of their respective faiths as a whole.

Faiths "as a whole" are made up of adherents..so I think it is fair to use a broad brush when talking about the vast majority of the church body who have no interest in learning about all the errors and authorship problems with the bible.

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While I cannot agree with the whole "making shit up..." part I do have to agree that any reasonable person has to see that the conclusions reached through the scientific process are more credible then those reached by theological inquiry or other forms of non-testable deduction/reason. I don't think; however, that this changes Nietzche's point; that most people accept science on faith rather then from a position of actual knowledge.

Sorry, I think you (and Nietzche) are really equivocating here on the term "faith" here. People can either believe things for good reasons or bad reasons. "Faith" as I see theists using it seems to be a copout..a placeholder they throw out when they don't want to examine or relay the *reasons* they have for believing the magical stuff they believe (usually because those reasons are very very bad). For those who appreciate the scientific method, there is no need to invoke the word faith at all..because the justifications for scientific beliefs are readily available and can be demonstrated. Faith is not based on any rational method of evidence-based inquiry. To the extent that you have evidence for your beliefs, you don't need faith. And to the extent that beliefs are not based on evidence and reason, we see no predictive power, no reliable results, and no conceivable means to prove that one faith-based assertion is more valid than any other.

Last edited by Capitalizt on Aug-09-2011 at 23:59

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Originally posted by Moongoose Generally, by the time scientific information trickles down to the layman, its been reviewed, dumbed down and condensed so much that theres really no need for everybody to check the metodology.

I have to disagree... scientific discoveries make headlines before being peer reviewed and/or duplicated all the time. For most people (going beyond those of us for whom education is a priority) this is how they consume their "scientific knowledge" through news reports and magazine articles. By the time the peer reviews are done or the initial study has been replicated the layperson has generally moved on and the general media doesn't bother much with follow up.

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The other side doesnt go trough anything near as a rigorous process before it spreads its taless to the masses.

I'll agree in that theological positions/arguments cannot be tested with measurable results; by the nature of these inquiries that is simply fact. That said, because there is no definitive tests does not mean that there is any less scrutiny paid; rather, it only means that the results are always arguable.

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They have, but kicking and screaming and trying their very hardest to resist having to change in the slightest until they had to just because they were getting embarrassaed by how retarted they look to the otside.

I think that your above statement exhibits a lack of knowledge of the history of the major faiths. Hinduism for one evolved it's chief beliefs over more then a thousand years. Christianity had not settled on some of the most important doctrines for several hundred years and even now is in a state of change and divergent opinon on many tennents. Furthermore, in many ways Christianity and Islam represent evolutions of Judiasm (especially if one concludes that neither the new testiment writers nor Mohammed were inspired by god). Additionally, very rarely have the major faiths changed anything through any process other then internal examination... if they did then that whole stability thing would have gone by the wayside.

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Which is one of the things that infuriates everyone else. Some might be perfectly fine with the "stability" the few thousand year old world and scientific view provides, personally id rather have penicilin, or the next big thing.

I'm not sure how stability in the theological positions of the major faiths negatively impacts scientific advancement, at least presently. Certainly, despite stability in theology science continues to advance.

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Then they are clearly doing a poor job at it, since they rocognise some things as miracles. Something that would fail completerly under any scientific scrutiny.

in fairness it is rather difficult to investigate things that happened hundreds to thousands of years ago, no? Of contemporary miracles the vatican only recognizes those that cannot be otherwise explained through scientific testing. To my knowledge only a handful have been accepted in the past hundred years.

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Thats a fancy way of saying that they are picking and choosing what they want to believe, so they are editing the texts to conform to their desires.

Not at all... most seminaries practice historical critical study of the bible and essentially rip the shit out of it without any regard for established doctrine.

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I'll grant you the point that there might be some research, but i have to question the quality of that research. You can spend your whole life doing "serious" research into pink unicors, and can come to many conclusion based on many texts you find, but at the end of the day you were researching pink unicorns. No matter how hard you tried, your research is worthless.

you're exibiting bias and ignorance as to what research is being done here.

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There is no gray areas of credibility here. Black and white, credible and not credible, and i dont have to say which one is which do i.

Credibility is always subjective. I agree with you as to which is more credible, as scientific inquiry is more verifiable and yeilds testable conclusions (for the most part); however, to say there is zero credibility to the work of legitimate scholars doing legitimate research and historical criticism is, IMO, folly. You can feel free to disagree with them all you like but to write it off as being entirely without merit is a little short sited, no?

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Capitalizt Faiths "as a whole" are made up of adherents..so I think it is fair to use a broad brush when talking about the vast majority of the church body who have no interest and no knowledge at all of the historical criticism done by scholars. Given that the seminarians who learn about the myriad errors and authorship problems with scripture tend not to pass this information on to their flocks, I think it's fair. I suppose they can't be blamed because the whole basis of the faith relies on certain documents being in some way the product of a perfect omnipotent/omniscient being. Try as they might to avoid it, that little preconception makes it impossible for most believers to be truly objective when investigating these things.

I don't have enough time to really continue the discussion; however, I think it's an overstatement to say that the faith of most adherents would be shaken by knowing Paul didn't write Timothy or Matthew did not write Matthew... simillarly, I doubt many would truely be shaken to realize that at least one of the Gospels fucked up on which day Jesus was executed (assuming he existed and was executed). It is probably more likely that pastors and priests tend to focus on what they view the meaning of the scriptures to be so they devote their time to that rather then breaking down the artistic licence John was taking in changing the day of the passion to draw parallels between Jesus' death and the salvation of the Jews during the exodus (or alternatively Matthew Mark and Luke changing the day to the day the passover lambs are slaughtered to link Jesus with the sacraficial offering).

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Sorry, I think you (and Nietzche) are really equivocating here on the term "faith" here. People can either believe things for good reasons or bad reasons. "Faith" as I see theists using it seems to be a copout..a placeholder they throw out when they don't want to examine or relay the *reasons* they have for believing the magical stuff they believe (usually because those reasons are very very bad). For those who appreciate the scientific method, there is no need to invoke the word faith at all..because the justifications for scientific beliefs are readily available and can be demonstrated. Faith is not based on any rational method of evidence-based inquiry. To the extent that you have evidence for your beliefs, you don't need faith. And to the extent that beliefs are not based on evidence and reason, we see no predictive power, no reliable results, and no conceivable means to prove that one faith-based assertion is more valid than any other.

You're making too much of my verbiage... Nietzche and I are both making the point that most people accept what they are told about scientific discovery rather then what they have first hand knowledge of.

Sorry for the topic drift on this one, guys.... your friendly neighbourhood religion apologist is leaving now.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down