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Author Topic: Religious Right Fighting Science Redux
DrConway
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posted 12 February 2005 12:24 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Continued from here.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
TemporalHominid
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posted 12 February 2005 12:48 AM      Profile for TemporalHominid   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by wage zombie:

Or for a different take--would natural selection have favoured the propagation of humans with religious impulses over those without over the hundreds of thousands of years of human prehistory?


I think this is very likely, but
I should have made myself more clear earlier. I doubt that humans have religious impulses. I accept we have sexual impulses, and other impulses that compel us to meet our needs. Therefore I would take this idea, if I may, and word it as:

Natural selection favoured the propagation of humans with efficient brains that: interprets information, seeks patterns, that orders/organises/prioritizes needs, categorizes dangers and pleasures, and develops solutions to meet the needs, over those individuals with less efficient/adept brains over the hundreds of thousands of years of human prehistory. Religion is not an impulse but a way to organise data to give meaning or correlation. Our ancestors passed on the genes that allowed them to successfuly solve the problems of meeting their needs.

Unfortunately the advantages of this evolved brain resulted in, for better or for worse, human beings that correlated unrelated data/observations (e.g. comets bring doom, bad crops and disease!). Our brains seek patterns, to interpret the meaning of say an animal's bared teeth, or a human's bared teeth ( threat or friendly?)
This same brain which serves us so well in so many variable ways, deceives us when we try and make sense of random events. We see patterns in stars in the sky, clouds in the sky, and on crab shells, and moth wings and our brains try to resolve the meaning in their percieved patterns and shapes. We project our humanness onto planets, inanimate objects and the universe itself.
The bared teeth of our family members have meaning, so therefore the universe has meaning. We develop relationships and develop rules so that resources are divided evenly and fairly and develop justice systems, and we project these human constructs of fairness and justice onto the universe. The universe has an agenda... It is ordered because we are ordered. It is fair because we are fair. It is just because our laws and guidelines are just.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]


From: Under a bridge, in Foot Muck | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
TemporalHominid
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posted 12 February 2005 01:21 AM      Profile for TemporalHominid   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
This book

Psych Today Book Review

is not valuable because it has many speculations, but because it has references to real work in neurobiology. The book does not disprove the existence of God (does God exist? is an untestable, unfalsifiable question). This book also does service in examening an old but interesting question: Did God create the human brain, or did the human brain create God?


This work rates right up there with

"Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosphical blockbusters: Where God went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?" If you can name the source of this quote without googling you are exempt from next week's pop quiz and urine-sample collection duty.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]


From: Under a bridge, in Foot Muck | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 12 February 2005 01:53 AM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sounds to me like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"We apologise for the Inconvenience"


From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 12 February 2005 02:15 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Religious people tell us that we are special. Made in God's image, stuff like that. A sense of things that actively encourages us to sit on our asses and be content.

You know, I do believe that humans are special. Not special in the trivial way religions would make us believe we're special. Special in the sense that we're probably unique. Even if the Universe is teeming with life, I would guess that there won't be anything resembling humans beings anywhere (evolution being contingent and all that).

In spite of all the odds, we have made it this far. We think we have learned a bit about the Universe. Probably not much. But I think that if we manage not to blow ourselves up, or poison ourselves, or if we don't fall back into superstition, we might learn quite a lot more. Why we could even amount to something! Anyway, that's what i hope for.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 12 February 2005 03:30 AM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
Religious people tell us that we are special. Made in God's image, stuff like that. A sense of things that actively encourages us to sit on our asses and be content.

You know, I do believe that humans are special. Not special in the trivial way religions would make us believe we're special.


"made in god's image" is not at all typical of religion.

It seems like you're making observations about Chri$tianity and generalizing to all other religions. This doesn't work very well. There are all kinds of religions across the world and the criticisms you're making of religion don't apply to all religion.


From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 12 February 2005 03:33 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by wage zombie:

"made in god's image" is not at all typical of religion.

It seems like you're making observations about Chri$tianity and generalizing to all other religions. This doesn't work very well. There are all kinds of religions across the world and the criticisms you're making of religion don't apply to all religion.


I said "stuff like that". It was an example. Considering the importance of monotheism in the West, it is inevitable that Christianity, Islam and Judaism (which say that man is made in god's image), will come up pretty often. I wouldn't be surprised if all religions attributed a special place or role to humans. But since I don't know much about non-monotheistic religions, I won't generalise that observation.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 20 February 2005 07:51 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Science and the Loss of Faith (I made up that title; the actual content pretty well reflects the made-up title though)

Refuting that idiotic "Watchmaker" argument.

Understanding Thermodynamics as Applied to Evolution.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 20 February 2005 07:58 PM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That Hard Truth article confuses two things: the scientist's work and the products of that work, and the scientists private life.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 20 February 2005 08:04 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Speaking as someone who does science daily, I'd say it's pretty well bang-on. The assumption that we can "believe" anything we like to just because, without trying to verify the physical consequences of that belief, has to go by the wayside when you study things using the scientific method.

I can believe in the existence of electrons, but I had better be prepared to demonstrate some consequence of the assumption they exist that can't be explained any other way. One example is the ionization of atoms using a laser beam; since the neutral atoms start to become influenced by electric and magnetic fields after whacking 'em with the laser, then there's something going on, and using the electron as the device to show why they do this is the best way to explain it. One could -try- to argue the case using proton (i.e. "nuclear ionization"), but a back of the envelope calculation will put that to rest once you work out the energy of the laser beam and nuclear binding energies.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 20 February 2005 08:14 PM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Then if there is a qualifier of "when one is doing scientific work" with scope over that entire essay, then of course I have to agree.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 20 February 2005 08:19 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
My opinion: What we are seeing in the science/religion debate is not so much about truth, but more about the power that flows from naming truth. Religious leaders and religious functionaries are reacting to their loss of authority in much the way that monarchs react when faced with democracy. In many cases it seems like the actual cosmology is secondary to the simple loss of influence.

Of course, the debate is largely pointless, and the recent rise of the ID faction demonstrates this. Ultimately religion requires a faith that is transcendent of any proofs. God cannot be a scientific phenomenon, because he would lose his arbitrary nature. This has been known for millenia, and I can't understand why anybody's still trying.

...actually, I suspect it's because Science is proving to be more persuasive. If praying for fire never works, and then Science hands you a box of matches, that puts faith to the test. I guess what I don't understand is how people can still believe in things that run counter to their own experience.


From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 20 February 2005 08:22 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by DrConway:
The assumption that we can "believe" anything we like to just because, without trying to verify the physical consequences of that belief, has to go by the wayside when you study things using the scientific method.

But Doc, I was praying that my Sister would break up with her boyfriend, and then it happened! Surely God's powers are a wonder to behold!

From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 20 February 2005 09:08 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by verbatim:

But Doc, I was praying that my Sister would break up with her boyfriend, and then it happened! Surely God's powers are a wonder to behold!

Yes, a failure to search or recognize the need to search randomity or identify the random and differentiate valid correlations from unrelated events, i.e. cause precedes effect.. Political economy gave emergence for the requirement of proof what is publically presentable as the cause for the effect. Probability-math demands more than 1 to 0 ratio of success to failure for prediction of presentation with identical conditions demanded.
But we have come along way since chronologically single chain cause and effect models for creating event descriptions.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch02.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch10.htm


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Surferosad
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posted 21 February 2005 12:05 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by LeftRight:

Yes, a failure to search or recognize the need to search randomity or identify the random and differentiate valid correlations from unrelated events, i.e. cause precedes effect.. Political economy gave emergence for the requirement of proof what is publically presentable as the cause for the effect. Probability-math demands more than 1 to 0 ratio of success to failure for prediction of presentation with identical conditions demanded.
But we have come along way since chronologically single chain cause and effect models for creating event descriptions.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch02.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch10.htm



Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 February 2005 12:44 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
So this is it ?. We're all there is in this endless vacuum ?. I feel so empty.

Heeeeey, if the earth is surrounded by space, doesn't that mean that *all life as we know it originated in space ?. ha ha


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Mandos
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posted 21 February 2005 12:55 AM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
In that all life as we know it originated in the universe that we know.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 21 February 2005 01:30 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Surferosad:
quote:
Religious people tell us that we are special. Made in God's image, stuff like that. A sense of things that actively encourages us to sit on our asses and be content.

There are sevaral things wrong with this statement. The fact that it doesn't cover all religion has been mentioned already.
The most important thing is that "religion" is not a single, monolithic system: it is a mixture of many complex phenomena.

First, seperate the spiritual impulse from the structure of organized religions. They're not at all the same.
The desire for order, meaning and purpose is universal, and has been with us for a long time. It prompted humans to question the universe, to look for clues about how things work and why... a questioning that led to both religion and science. (Remember that astronomy and astrology only parted ways a few hundred years ago. Alchemy and chemistry; augury and meteorology; medicine and ju-ju...) The quest for meaning and control branches off into various disciplines; some have dead ends, while other continue, but they all have the same roots.

The conviction of specialness is a given: all self-aware entities have egoes; are the stars of their own personal movie. Whatever meaning they perceive in the world, they must be at the center of it. The tree falling in the forest doesn't care whether anyone hears it; it only wonders about the ultimate purpose of its own falling.

The social organization around this impulse is also complex. It unifies a tribe, gives it courage and resolution. It does not encourage sitting one's ass, but rather striving toward altruism, justice, virtue, worthiness: the fulfilment of a potential.

The political organization of religion exploits the spiritual impulse, plus fear, plus the need to belong and be accepted. But it doesn't take a priest to do this: secular leaders call it patriotism and exploit that.

Religion is not, by its nature, inimical to science, learning, observation and questioning - indeed, some of the greatest scholars, even during Christian times, were priests and monks.
It's repressive political systems, whether wearing the cloak of religion or secular rule, that need to keep the population ignorant, frightened and angry.

This whole science vs religion thing is a mistake. It serves tyrants, rather than the population. We're kept busy arguing over the vocabulary of our shared values (both Humanists and Christians want social justice, individual dignity, tolerance, compassion, peace and amity) while they fleece and murder us.

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 21 February 2005 02:07 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I have always been fascinated at finding how many religions accord humans such a special place in this universe. It has to be the height of chutzpah to think that in the vastness of the universe we humans on a very unimportant ball revolving about a rather average star in a rather ordinary galaxy actually deserve attention from a higher plane of existence which, not surprisingly, nobody can reliably demonstrate any existence thereof.

I heard it argued, probably tongue in cheek, that God might well accord animals a place in heaven instead of humans in order to compensate for their lack of "specialness".


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 February 2005 02:25 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:

This whole science vs religion thing is a mistake. It serves tyrants, rather than the population. We're kept busy arguing over the vocabulary of our shared values (both Humanists and Christians want social justice, individual dignity, tolerance, compassion, peace and amity) while they fleece and murder us.

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


Hear-hear!. Organized religion has a lot to answer for. And true enough, the church's high priests were keepers of the written word through the dark ages. But far too many have been slain in the name of their god. Those Tibetan monks need to get off their hiny's and support themselves.

One thing I find fascinating about dozens of cultures the world over though is that they all describe similar myths about "a flood" that either serves the purpose to explain god's punishment or god's wrathful cleansing of an earth become too wicked to exist at some point, according to legends. The other striking mythical detail seems to be that gods lived among them during the pre-flood period in general.

The Mahabalipuram myths were recorded by British adventurer J. Goldingham, who visited a South Indian city in 1798. He described what sailors knew then as the legend of the Seven Pagodas. Six of them were supposed to have vanished under the sea during yet another localized legend known as the time of the "terrible flood" ordered up by the angry gods. The recent tsunami has uncovered and de-silted three statues that were buried in the sand and water, two metres in height near the altered shoreline there. Two are definitely lions and the other a horse. Archaeologists are exploring submerged sites about a km out to sea.

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 21 February 2005 02:09 PM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What nonesuch said. Especially this bit:
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:
...Religion is not, by its nature, inimical to science, learning, observation and questioning - indeed, some of the greatest scholars, even during Christian times, were priests and monks.
It's repressive political systems, whether wearing the cloak of religion or secular rule, that need to keep the population ignorant, frightened and angry...


Unscrupulous people will exploit and pervert any good impulse in order to gain power; love of God, love of country, love of humanity, love of family; and they will use and misuse whatever organisation is available for their own purposes. For example: journalism + Bush administration = Gannon

From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 21 February 2005 02:18 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Nonesuch,

Maybe I didn't make myself clear: I distinguish between religious institutions and individual religious belief. All my bitching against religion has been directed at religious institutions and at orthodox religious beliefs (the "official line", if you will).

Fortunately, individual religious beliefs vary, and they don't always follow religious dogma. But I believe that religious institutions almost always have been on the side of superstition and oppression. And I think this is not something that is restricted to monotheistic religions... "The political organisation of religion exploits the spiritual impulse, plus fear, plus the need to belong and be accepted." We are, I think, in agreement. Now, it is true that religion doesn't have the monopoly on these feelings. You pointed out patriotism being exploited in a similar way. Well, I talked about religion simply because the subject came up. I haven't yet had the opportunity to rant against the excesses of patriotism...

Now, it is true, I think, that religion and science come from, at their base, from a similar feeling. I said so myself on a number of occasions. It is also true that many scientists were, and are, religious. But it is also true that these scientists rarely had the official support of religious institutions, and that they were often considered heretics. Once again, the difference between individual belief and institutional belief appears... Same difference applies to, say, liberation theology...

Finally, there's a fundamental difference: religion is dogmatic and science isn't. A good scientist, even a religious one, will tend to follow his research wherever it may lead him, without regards for dogma. A scientist will say "there's some things we know, and a lot of things we don't know. But we're working on it". A lot of religious people will tell you "there are things that we shouldn't know, or that we can't know".

I remember that, a few years ago, the Pope wrote something about the catholic church accepting the Big Bang. All fine and dandy... But I also remember that, in the text, he had included something warning scientists about not extending their probing into the initial moment, the "ultimate mystery of creation" or something like that. This attitude represents the kind of religious thinking I detest, the stick-in-the-mud, don't-rock-the-boat complacency that official religion (and the personal beliefs of many religious people) tries to impose on ideas and thinking. And not only on scientific ideas. On all kinds of ideas!

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 21 February 2005 02:34 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Another thing that I don't accept is that religion and science are equivalent methods, parallel roads that you can follow if you wish to understand the universe. Not true. Religion and science don't even share destinations! Science only tries to understand how things work. Religions have all kinds of purposes, and the final purpose of one religion may even be in contradiction with the final purpose of another. Religion, I think, has nothing to say about how the Universe works, and it must get out of the way and simply accept its new place.

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 21 February 2005 03:16 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
...Religion, I think, has nothing to say about how the Universe works, and it must get out of the way and simply accept its new place.

Well, good luck on that one. You have all the world's fundamentalists to deal with first.

And really, no halfways-intelligent religious functionary is going to believe that they will have a guaranteed place in the scientific social order. It's clear that science can completely replace religion rather handily. There might be some space left for religion in the realm of ethics and morality for a while, but eventually science will reduce these things to biological phenomena too. Believers can certainly see the way things are developing, and this is why they are fighting science so vehemently.


From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 21 February 2005 06:59 PM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by DrConway:
I have always been fascinated at finding how many religions accord humans such a special place in this universe.

That's pretty interesting, I didn't know there were that many of them that do. Which religions did you find that were like that?


From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Rufus Polson
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posted 21 February 2005 07:14 PM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
All this is making me think of an experiment they did on some birds. It was a behaviourist thing, I don't like behaviourism but some of their experiments have been interesting. Basically, rather than setting up a particular behaviour to reinforce, they just gave food at random intermittent intervals. They found the birds often became "superstitious"--they would associate the reinforcement with *something* they happened to be doing when the food arrived a couple times, and would repeat the behaviour. Since they were repeating the behaviour a lot, there was a better chance that they'd be doing whatever it was next time the food came, which would reinforce the behaviour some more. They would apparently become convinced that their behaviour led to food arriving, even though it had nothing to do with it.

Now, an arbitrary superstition does not a religion make, but . . .


From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Rev. M
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posted 21 February 2005 07:37 PM      Profile for Rev. M     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Regarding supersitious behaviour....ever pushed that button on an elevator more than once? you know it won't come faster....why? It is all because of the reinforcement schedule....sometimes it actually comes!!!
From: canada | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 21 February 2005 07:47 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by verbatim:

Well, good luck on that one. You have all the world's fundamentalists to deal with first.

And really, no halfways-intelligent religious functionary is going to believe that they will have a guaranteed place in the scientific social order. It's clear that science can completely replace religion rather handily. There might be some space left for religion in the realm of ethics and morality for a while, but eventually science will reduce these things to biological phenomena too. Believers can certainly see the way things are developing, and this is why they are fighting science so vehemently.


I doubt that science can reduce ethics and morality to biological phenomena. It will probably be able to explain the evolutionary, genetic mechanisms that have produced ethics and morality in humans and some other animals. But I don't think that science can tell us much about what kind of ethics and morality we should choose, since there's a big cultural component to those kinds of choices. But I don't think that we should let religious beliefs dictate ethics and morality either.

[ 21 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 21 February 2005 08:31 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yes, I was being sloppy with my words: biology cannot strictly define morality and ethics, however biology and psychology will eventually provide us with accurate and precise models for human behaviour that predict our choices, based on our existing physical being. The notion of free will must suffer its greatest challenge at that time, I think.
From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 21 February 2005 08:36 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by wage zombie:
That's pretty interesting, I didn't know there were that many of them that do. Which religions did you find that were like that?

Buddhism, nirvana. Animals don't get nirvana.

Christianity and Islam, heaven. Haven't heard that animals or plants get the same free one-way ticket.

Shinto, ancestors are supposedly still around in some sort of weird spiritual connection with us, the living, and there's a heaven, although not elaborated very much in the theology. Haven't heard that animals get the same privilege.

Confucianism, the dead are supposedly still spiritually present in the willow branches brought to their funerals.

I think I've made my case that humans are clearly "supposedly" special in the world in several religions.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 21 February 2005 10:12 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:


Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell


Whatever that means. Is he supposed to correct my english grammar or something? Come to think of it, I'm not even sure what this topic title is supposed to mean "Relgious right to fight science redux"? "redux"? What's that?......I know Marx and Engels had a few harsh words:

"Judaism reaches its highest point with the perfection of civil society, but it is only in the Christian world that civil society attains perfection. Only under the dominance of Christianity, which makes all national, natural, moral, and theoretical conditions extrinsic to man, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of the state, sever all the species-ties of man, put egoism and selfish need in the place of these species-ties, and dissolve the human world into a world of atomistic individuals who are inimically opposed to one another. "

Engels in the dialect papers said Christianity of the middle ages had nothing to offer science.


From: Fraser Valley | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
verbatim
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posted 21 February 2005 10:28 PM      Profile for verbatim   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Redux.

Although these quotations from Marx and Engels are interesting, LeftRight, do you have anything to add yourself?


From: The People's Republic of Cook Street | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Policywonk
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posted 21 February 2005 10:59 PM      Profile for Policywonk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Engels in the dialect papers said Christianity of the middle ages had nothing to offer science.

Christianity of the middle ages offered us Roger Bacon.


From: Edmonton | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 21 February 2005 11:53 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by LeftRight:
Whatever that means. Is he supposed to correct my english grammar or something? Come to think of it, I'm not even sure what this topic title is supposed to mean "Relgious right to fight science redux"? "redux"? What's that?

For a guy who quotes a shitload of websites with fancy-ass language you sure have some odd gaps in your understanding of several $2 words in the English language. (The $5 words are the kind that read like "antidisestablishmentarianism")


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 22 February 2005 01:39 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
Nonesuch,

Maybe I didn't make myself clear: I distinguish between religious institutions and individual religious belief. All my bitching against religion has been directed at religious institutions and at orthodox religious beliefs (the "official line", if you will).



Individual religious belief is all the religion there is. Institutions are not religious but political. Orthodoxy is never about a soul's relationships to the universe but always about power. Until a few recent exceptions (currently on the wane), all organized religions have been state religions: the theocracy legitimizes the aristocracy; the aristocracy supports the thocracy; neither wants social, economic or philosophical change, but both make use of technology. Rulers are not down on science; they just want to own and control its product.
Have you ever heard of an ortodox ruler (king or pope) banning weapons research? Or rejecting an improved method of tax-collection?
The only ideas they prohibit are the ones that would undermine their own credibility.
quote:
Fortunately, individual religious beliefs vary, and they don't always follow religious dogma. But I believe that religious institutions almost always have been on the side of superstition and oppression.

Superstition is a contentious word: its content is usually nebulous, and always pejorative.
Oppression is clear enough, though not always identical in its application.
Institutions are institutions, whatever the CEO wears to work. Institutions have a place in society: they ensure the orderly administration of resources and populations - for good and ill.

quote:
We are, I think, in agreement.

In the main, yes. I have a problem with the blanket rejection of anything that humanity has relied on through the ages. I worry about sending the baby down drain wirth the bathwater. What would you replace it with? And how would a sudden break with tradition affect society? Banning religion didn't work all that well for the USSR: they replaced it with something just as bad.

quote:
Now, it is true that religion doesn't have the monopoly on these feelings. You pointed out patriotism being exploited in a similar way. Well, I talked about religion simply because the subject came up. I haven't yet had the opportunity to rant against the excesses of patriotism...

Ending patritotism would bring about a similar problem. Societies need a little time to evolve. When something doesn't work anymore, when it's been replaced by something that works better, it fades away naturally.

quote:
But it is also true that these scientists rarely had the official support of religious institutions, and that they were often considered heretics.

I've heard this a lot, but haven't encountered many factual examples. And please don't bring up the Galileo chestnut - that's akin to George Washington and the cherry tree.

quote:
Finally, there's a fundamental difference: religion is dogmatic and science isn't.

Here, i must respectfully disagree. If you read the biographies of radical scientists, you'll find that their major opposition came, not from the church but from the scientific establishment.
Any power-structure will defend its power.

quote:
A good scientist, even a religious one, will tend to follow his research wherever it may lead him, without regards for dogma.

What's a good scientist? One who will follow his research, even when it contradicts his most cherished beliefs. Are the majority of scientists good? I doubt it.
What's a good priest? One who will follow the tenets of his deepest faith, even when it puts him at odds with the established church. Are the majority of priests good? I doubt it.
Is it fair to pose only good scientists against only bad priests?

quote:
A scientist will say "there's some things we know, and a lot of things we don't know. But we're working on it". A lot of religious people will tell you "there are things that we shouldn't know, or that we can't know".

It's not knowing that causes catasrophe; it's tinkering with the partially or imperfectly known. "Working on it" can blow up the whole mudball... A little conservatism is not necessarily bad.
As for things that we can't know, of course there are things that we can't know. The human brain is big, but it's finite, just like every other brain. Humans have limited senses, capacity and experience, just like every other life form.
On the one hand, we say it's wrong to consider ourselves above and outside of Nature; on the other, we imagine ourselves capable of understanding everything - not merely made in God's image, but smarter than God!
So, let's toss away every impulse to caution, every self-doubt, and see where that gets us.
But not quite yet: i still have a few potentially good years.

[ 22 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


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Surferosad
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posted 22 February 2005 11:15 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I would never ban religion or patriotism. Those are things that can't be banned. But they can be discouraged through education. A superstition is an irrational belief usually involving the supernatural and a number of rituals. It is a word that describes quite accurately a lot of the orthodox beliefs of most religions.

I don't think religion has to be replaced by something equivalent... I am someone who's very sceptical of religion, and I don't feel like I am missing something. Have I replaced religion by something else? I don't know. I have never been religious in the first place. That's probably why "replacing" it doesn't make sense to me. But, for the sake of argument: I would replace religion with rational scepticism, and patriotism with an allegiance to the human race and the planet as a whole.

Besides Galileo: Kepler and Copernicus (a priest) were deeply religious. Kepler (a lutheran) was forced to change homes several times to avoid persecution and religious war, and his books were banned by catholic and protestant churches. His mother was accused of witchcraft by the Lutheran church. Copernicus main book was only published after his death, and it was immediately banned by the catholic church. Luther publicly mocked Copernicus' heliocentric theory. A couple of famous cases. There are others.

I think you might not be aware of how science works. Scientists are, on average, no better nor worse than other human beings. Radical views will be hotly contested. What do you expect? But, in general, scientific debates don't involve death menaces, torture, intentional lies, book burning and accusations of heresy. People bitch and moan and may on occasion call each other names, but if the radical views are supported by evidence, and if the evidence survive scrutiny, the radical views will be adopted. It is true that any power structure tends to defend its power. But in science, the quickest way to the top is to question the views of the establishment, to show them that they are wrong. That's how science works.

You say that a good scientist will follow his research, even when it contradicts his most cherished beliefs. You also say that a good priest will follow the tenets of his deepest faith, even when it puts him at odds with the established church. It seems to me that it is much easier to be a good scientist than to be a good priest. A good scientist can rely on something solid, and good evidence is half the battle won... A good scientist doesn't even need to be a good human being. He just has to be fairly honest when it comes to his research. To be a good scientist, you just need a bit of common sense and a bit of honesty. Easy enough virtues.

Where do you start, if you want to be a good priest? I, for one, don't know. The definition of what is good, in the case of religion, is pretty vague and very relative. And it seems to me that someone's "good priest" can easily become someone else's fanatic.

But it's silly to compare the two. Apples and oranges. A "good priest" is a kind of moral leader, a politician crossed with a shaman. A good scientist just has to care about his research, he deals with concrete things.

Smarter than god? Man, I don't even know if there is a god, so I don't worry too much about that.

[ 22 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 22 February 2005 09:29 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Besides Galileo: Kepler and Copernicus (a priest) were deeply religious. Kepler (a lutheran) was forced to change homes several times to avoid persecution and religious war, and his books were banned by catholic and protestant churches. His mother was accused of witchcraft by the Lutheran church. Copernicus main book was only published after his death, and it was immediately banned by the catholic church. Luther publicly mocked Copernicus' heliocentric theory. A couple of famous cases. There are others.

Wrong all over.
Copernicus was a canon (non-practising; just drew the stipend while pursuing his own studies) and he refused to publish until he was dying, even though everybody - scholars and priets - begged him to. The book was indexed 73 years after its publication - for only four years, and only because Galileo stirred up a lot shit over it - then released with a total of 14 sentences edited out of some 700 pages.

Kepler's problems were not with either Catholic or Protestant church (Good one, mixing Luther in with the pope!): the changes of rulership were political and had nothing at all to do with science. His mother's problems had nothing to do, either with science or with Kepler - in fact, he got the charges against her dropped.
Oh, yeah, and Galileo - who was a very big noise in those days - publicly and viciously mocked Kepler's elliptical orbit theory (which is correct), while teachig Copernican theory as if it were proven fact, epicycles and all (which was, of course, quite wrong). The idea of a heliocentric universe was not new; had been around for some 2000 years.

During the Inquisition, many thousands of old women, pagans, Jews and people whose neighbours didn't like them were put to death. Contrast this with two astronomers, zero chemists, zero physicists, zero engineers, zero mathematicians...
It just wasn't about science.

Of course i know how science works. Some scientists are honest; others falsify data. Some are brilliant; others, not so much. Some hit on a theory which turns out to be correct; others spend a lifetime trying to prove a crock of shit. Some struggle and get nowehere; others become fashionable and are lionezed.
Schools of thought catch on with the elite, establish control of the universities and don't let anyone with different ideas teach. Then the old ones die off; their successors are increasingly mediocre; eventually, another theory catches hold and its proponents take over.
Much like any other human endeavour.

I'm not against science or religion or patrotism. People will hear a little snippet of doctrine, fail to understand it, yet form very strong opinions about it. People will invent rituals around something (church, hockey games, bullfights, war - whatever; it will certainly involve chanting).
People are going to organize themselves around some cohesive force, whether i like it or not. The rulers are going to use that force to serve their own purpose. Nothing can be done.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
ronb
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posted 22 February 2005 10:09 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Nothing to be done then?

No, nothing to be done.


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Surferosad
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posted 23 February 2005 12:10 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I never said it was about science. Of course it wasn't about science! There was no such thing as science as an institution back then. Galileo's problems weren't about science either. But I'm sure as fuck they were about religion, which was the fundamental base of power back in those times!

Why did Copernicus (priest? canon? Hey, my memory ain't what it used to be: the point was he was very religious) wait so long to publish? Why, he was scared, of course! Maybe Kepler's books got burned because he was a lutheran, not because he was a scientists. But they did get burned. Giordano Bruno went up in an auto-da-fe... He wasn't exactly a scientist, but he was murdered because he had heretical opinions... That's my point: heresy! Religious persecutors back didn't care why you had an heretical opinion! They had no need to differentiate between a scientific argument and purely religious heresy, because there wasn't any difference between the two. If they contradicted dogma, they were both heresy! That's the problem! Did I make myself clear?

I think you have a prejudice against me, and you're misunderstanding and deforming what I have been saying to fit me into your own pre-formed opinions. Read again what I've wrote, it might make things clearer... If you read me again, you'll notice that I didn't mix Luther with the pope. But you thought I did. So slow down there, buddy! Unless, of course, you want to turn this into a flame war.

And no, you don't know how science works. You are parroting Kuhn. Kuhn was wrong. He gave too much attention to a few cases, and he thought they were how science normally works. There's no single way how science works. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes it goes slow. Sometimes there are so called paradigm shifts, sometimes change is progressive. And people change, and they don't have to be dead to adopt different ideas, fortunately. I know a couple of very old professors who accepted plate tectonics pretty fast, back in their days. And they had nothing to gain from it, they had tenure and good reputations. They just recognised that the evidence pointed towards plaque tectonics.

I smell a bit of bad faith on your part... Are you trying to prove that scientific endeavours are, what? At the same level as any other human activity? Is that it? I've never pretended that scientists were better than anyone else. But I'm pretty sure that their methods are the best tool we have to figure out the universe. Hell, they're the only tools we have!

[ 23 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 23 February 2005 12:21 AM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:
...During the Inquisition, many thousands of old women, pagans, Jews and people whose neighbours didn't like them were put to death. Contrast this with two astronomers, zero chemists, zero physicists, zero engineers, zero mathematicians...
It just wasn't about science...

Surerly there were some mathematicians, physicists, etc., whose neighbours didn't like them?

Seriously, I enjoy your sense of proportionality, like a man standing with his hand pushing against a kid's forehead, while the kid keeps swinging wildly and not connecting.


From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 23 February 2005 12:37 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:

I'm not against science or religion or patrotism. People will hear a little snippet of doctrine, fail to understand it, yet form very strong opinions about it. People will invent rituals around something (church, hockey games, bullfights, war - whatever; it will certainly involve chanting).
People are going to organize themselves around some cohesive force, whether i like it or not. The rulers are going to use that force to serve their own purpose. Nothing can be done.


Gee, thanks for that snippet of extreme cynicism. What's wrong with "organising"? Do you think that everything turns to shit once people get together and "organise"?


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 23 February 2005 03:08 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Not at all. It's just what people do; how people are. Some of it will turn to shit, of course - but, hey! the fields need manure - some of it will turn to gold. And most of it will be -mercifully or regrettably - lost.

No, i don't want a flame-war and have absolutely nothing against you personally - i don't even know you. I took exception to one statement on its own merits. (Sorry, i don't know Kuhn. Will look hem up if/when i have the energy.)
If you're happy with your world-view, i'm happy for you. Just wanted to stretch the scope a little bit; maybe point out areas of overlap, try to reconcile what i consider an unnecessary and unproductive conflict.
If it doesn't work out, that's all right.

For the record, i think the USian 'religious' right is a bunch of power-crazed, murderuous assholes, which is not unique in the annals of civilization, and that their moment of ascendency will be brief.... though possibly fatal.

[ 23 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 23 February 2005 01:37 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Okee dokee. I don't wanna flame war either! We probably agree on many things, there's no point in bashing each other over a few superficial disagreements.
From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 24 February 2005 09:51 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by verbatim:
Redux.

Although these quotations from Marx and Engels are interesting, LeftRight, do you have anything to add yourself?


Do I have anything to add myself? You mean like self-consciousness or apperception? haha Or perhaps a ticket... With philosophical progression happening for like 5000 years, do you really think I should consider my thought process's as originating or is it enough to be discerning of reason?


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LeftRight
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posted 24 February 2005 10:06 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Policywonk:

Christianity of the middle ages offered us Roger Bacon.


Perhaps the 13th century was not considered middle of the ages, or was Roger Bacon of an early period?


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LeftRight
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posted 24 February 2005 10:10 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by DrConway:

For a guy who quotes a shitload of websites with fancy-ass language you sure have some odd gaps in your understanding of several $2 words in the English language. (The $5 words are the kind that read like "antidisestablishmentarianism")


That's strange, there is nothing to indicate that I was being charged by the word. Perhaps it is because I use the cheaper synonym, like 'revival' and 'sell'.


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LeftRight
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posted 24 February 2005 10:25 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:
Individual religious belief is all the religion there is. Institutions are not religious but political.
[ 22 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ][/QB]

There was a time when the two, politic and religion, were not differentiated in thought. I believe that was before the invention of money.


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Policywonk
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posted 25 February 2005 06:51 PM      Profile for Policywonk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Perhaps the 13th century was not considered middle of the ages, or was Roger Bacon of an early period?

The middle ages is generally considered to be between C.E. 500 and C.E. 1450.

Roger Bacon died in 1292. Engels was exaggerating a little.


From: Edmonton | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 26 February 2005 12:09 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
There was a time when the two, politic and religion, were not differentiated in thought. I believe that was before the invention of money.

...and again, after Money became the focal point of both politics and religion.

There has never been any conflict between religion and science.
Some political regimes which invoked religion as their legitimizing authority have objected to some theories and practices of some particular branch of science at some particular time; censored and sensured some individual scientists and/or science teachers.
As far as i'm aware, no religion - through either duly ordained or self-appointed spokesmen - has ever opposed, rejected, condemned, excoriated or persecuted Science as a whole or scientists as a body or the proponents of science as a system of thought.

The reverse does not hold equally true.


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Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 01:57 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:

...and again, after Money became the focal point of both politics and religion.

There has never been any conflict between religion and science.
Some political regimes which invoked religion as their legitimizing authority have objected to some theories and practices of some particular branch of science at some particular time; censored and sensured some individual scientists and/or science teachers.
As far as i'm aware, no religion - through either duly ordained or self-appointed spokesmen - has ever opposed, rejected, condemned, excoriated or persecuted Science as a whole or scientists as a body or the proponents of science as a system of thought.

The reverse does not hold equally true.


You're oversimplifying something that I think is pretty complex! Although it is true that there never was an open conflict between science and religion, that's because scientists were part of the society they were living in, they knew what they could get away with and not. The few cases were there was open conflict (like in Galileo's case), it was because the scientists was too arrogant to keep down and shut up. The other scientists, those that didn't get in trouble, knew where they would stand in such a conflict, and since they were often dependent on the good will of rulers and religious leaders, they kept to themselves, studying stuff that no one but a few minority cared about. They were probably thought to be harmless! And occasionally useful.... Most of the time, religion and politics tried to use science in their favour. Not because religious and political leaders (often one and the same) had any love of it, for the most part, but because it was sometimes useful.

When scientific thought really became a thorn on the side of major western religions (in the mid XIX century, I would say, with Darwin), it was too late to do anything about it, since religious leaders had lost most of their political power, power by divine right had lost its legitimacy, people got used to open debates, and the educated classes, although still religious, had abandoned fundamentalist interpretations. A change that a new way of thinking, closely related to science, brought about, by the way! Institutions like the inquisition were abolished sooner in some countries than in others, for reasons that had more to do with politics than science. But where did scientific thinking flourished? Why, in those countries that abolished the inquisition.

Also, you are not considering that, for a long time, religion and politics were closely intertwined. Heretical thinking was a danger to the state, since the power of Kings was god given. Often, when politics opposed science, it was because they were the secular arm of religion. Religious institutions liked playing the good cop, while the state and the king were the bad cop.

It is true that particular aspects of science have been attacked more than others. One in particular comes to mind: evolution. Which is still being attacked by certain religious factions, usually amongst the most fundamentalist. And which is barely tolerated by the leaders of most major religions. Science is a tricky thing in their eyes. They like to enjoy its benefits, but they would love it to get it under control, so that they won't have to face the disquieting things it brings out.

Finally, can you please state cases in which science has persecuted religion? Like in, relly, persecuted, with bodily harm and stuff. I'm not interested in cases were some religious wacko was ridiculed for his fundamentalist views.

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 02:21 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
One last thing: scientists never had enough political power to really impose their views by force. Even today, they still don't have that power! The fight between science and religion never was a physical fight. If it had gone down that way, science would have been obliterated! It was a battle of ideas! And it still is!
From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 26 February 2005 05:03 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Okay, one more time around the dance-floor, but that's it!

quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
You're oversimplifying something that I think is pretty complex!

Simplifying - or distilling - because when i left it complex, it was misinterpreted.
quote:
Although it is true that there never was an open conflict between science and religion, that's because scientists were part of the society they were living in,

as was everyone else, including priests and peasants, just as they and we all are now
quote:
they knew what they could get away with and not.

and were also limited in their thinking by their own beliefs, prejudices, desires, assumptions and sources of information
quote:
The few cases were there was open conflict (like in Galileo's case), it was because the scientists was too arrogant to keep down and shut up.

Galileo was also too arrogant to realize that he was wrong. Not morally or religiously, but factually and scientifically. Any illiterate sailor could tell you that there are two tides a day, while Galileo insisted that there should be only one. He demanded that the Copernican system be adopted, even though he couldn't prove it (because it wasn't true) and insulted everybody in sight. When finally carpeted, he caved instantly: not only recanted, but offered to publish a paper refuting Copernican theory (nobody asked him to). His big martyrdom? House-arrest in total luxury, allowed to publish his last two books - Mechanica being the only one of real scientific merit. None of his writings were supressed, indexed or censored.

quote:
The other scientists, those that didn't get in trouble, knew where they would stand in such a conflict

I keep telling you: there was no conflict. The major scholars, even in Astronomy, which is the only issue of contention that you can cite, were Jesuits.
quote:
and since they were often dependent on the good will of rulers and religious leaders

Well, of course they would be! 'Rulers and religious leaders' pretty much includes every possible employer.
quote:
they kept to themselves

as long as they were independently wealthy.
If they were born poor, their only chance of an education was through a religious school, which happened quite a lot.
quote:
studying stuff that no one but a few minority cared about. They were probably thought to be harmless!

as, in fact, they were, and nobody bothered them
quote:
And occasionally useful....

No shit! Like building an atomic bomb?
quote:
Most of the time, religion and politics tried to use science in their favour.

I've heard this somewhere before.
quote:
When scientific thought really became a thorn on the side of major western religions (in the mid XIX century, I would say, with Darwin)

See, Darwin is one instance of one branch of one discipline. His work challanges a long-cherished notion of human identity. Mid 19th century, name two instances of a scientist in any other field being a thorn in the side of western religious institution.
quote:
it was too late to do anything about it, since religious leaders had lost most of their political power, power by divine right had lost its legitimacy

How had they lost it?
quote:
people got used to open debates

When? By what means? Through what process?
quote:
and the educated classes, although still religious, had abandoned fundamentalist interpretations.

Why? What had happened to influence them?
quote:
A change that a new way of thinking, closely related to science, brought about, by the way!

By the way? You're talking about a major shift in popular thought, and slide over it as 'by the way'? When and how did this happen? Who and/or what started it? How long did it take? What were the moving forces? What historical events made it possible?
quote:
Institutions like the inquisition

Were there other institutions like the Inquisition? Which?
quote:
were abolished sooner in some countries than in others, for reasons that had more to do with politics than science.

Really? And starting the Inquisition had more to do with.... what?
quote:
But where did scientific thinking flourished? Why, in those countries that abolished the inquisition.

Tell me more. Which countries, which years, which sciences? Which major innovations?
quote:
Also, you are not considering that, for a long time, religion and politics were closely intertwined.

In fact, i belive i mentioned this, early on and repeatedly.
quote:
Heretical thinking was a danger to the state, since the power of Kings was god given.

Indeed. But heretical thinking is certainly not the same as scientific thinking. In most cases, heretical thinking is religious - just as dumb as the dominant form, but with a minor twist.
quote:
Often, when politics opposed science, it was because they were the secular arm of religion.

Huh? Example, please.
quote:
Religious institutions liked playing the good cop, while the state and the king were the bad cop.

Double-huh? Which religious institution, in which time and country ever pretended to be more tolerant than the king of that country?
quote:
It is true that particular aspects of science have been attacked more than others. One in particular comes to mind: evolution.

What others come to mind?
I give you: Astronomy (which was, in fact, never attacked as a science, as a discipline or as an area of study), which deals with heavenly bodies, Heaven being the particualr realm of priests; evolution, which deals with the identity of Man, that being the particular realm of creationist ideaology; human reproduction, which might limit the number of potential soldiers and believers. Three areas of science which come into direct conflict with political power.
Name the other sciences that are, or have ever been, persecuted by a religious organization. Okay, name just one other science that's been persecuted by a religious organization.
quote:
Which is still being attacked by certain religious factions, usually amongst the most fundamentalist.

Ah, well, now, you're into the Bushistas. You may not believe me, but these people are not motivated by Christian precepts. In fact, i rather suspect that their major movers are not religious at all.

quote:
And which is barely tolerated by the leaders of most major religions.

Buddhists and Hindus have a problem with Darwin? First i've heard of that!
quote:
Science is a tricky thing in their eyes.

Whose eyes, exactly? Guess what! science is a tricky thig, period.
quote:
They like to enjoy its benefits, but they would love it to get it under control, so that they won't have to face the disquieting things it brings out.

Yeeesss... Who we talkin' 'bout again? Bushistas, i think. Not the Dalai Lama, right? Not Moses or Jesus or Siddharta?

quote:
Finally, can you please state cases in which science has persecuted religion? Like in, relly, persecuted, with bodily harm and stuff.

Have i said anyone did that? No, scientists don't generally indulge in persecuting people outside their own field - though they can be quite vicious to people inside their own field, like driving poor little Semmelweiss to suicide.
quote:
I'm not interested in cases were some religious wacko was ridiculed for his fundamentalist views.

No? I guess then you're neither a religious wacko nor a scientific radical. Lucky you!

quote:
One last thing: scientists never had enough political power to really impose their views by force. Even today, they still don't have that power! The fight between science and religion never was a physical fight. If it had gone down that way, science would have been obliterated! It was a battle of ideas! And it still is!

Scientists are not a cohesive group, not a philosphical, political, or economic entity. They aren't interested in power, or trying to run the world - they never have been. All they want is funding - lots of it! To this end, they generally (though not universally) try to please their patrons. A patron might ne a medieval duke or a modern president; makes no difference. Some scientists have personal scruples, and refuse to make certain weapons; some don't; most are involved in areas of research where the question doesn't arise. Physical force doesn't enter into it.

However, some people who are not scientists, but worship Science (self-appointed spokespersons), can get pretty nasty at anyone they percieve as being opposed to Science, regardless of whether that other person has done physical, mental, emotional, political, economic, moral or any other kind of harm to any scientists or any scientific idea.

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 26 February 2005 12:29 PM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
As for scientists doing harm to people: think Mengele, think how the "science" of eugenics culminated in horrible experiments by Nazi doctors, as well as providing an excuse for the Holocaust. Read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, about how science has been misused to oppress non-whites, women, poor people. Think about doctors in repressive regimes, telling torturers how much more abuse a prisoner can take before he dies on them. Think about all the scientists busy inventing new bombs; ah, cluster bomb! That was a good one... Should we then conclude that all Science(tm) is bad? Or that it is a way of thinking that can be used for evil by some people in some places.
From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 12:58 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Ok. These line by line refutations get tiresome pretty fast. Look, I'm not a "spokesperson" for science. I work in science. I'm starting a Ph. D. in Mineralogy. And as far as I can tell, I have avoided being nasty. I have a sincere dislike for fundamentalist religion, but that's all. Hell, I have a sincere dislike for anything that hampers free inquiry!

I just tried to give you my views on the whole science vs. religion thing, without having to go into the history of western thought (way beyond my qualifications, anyway). I thought my last post was pretty long, but, apparently, to satisfy you, I would have had to write a lot more on that subject. But I'm not going to do that.

If your main point is that there isn't an opposition between religious thought and science, then I think you're wrong. There is, and there always has been, a philosophical opposition. It wasn't clear at first, but it has increased progressively, with the increased divergence of scientific positions and religious dogma. It doesn't always manifest itself, sometimes the two fields of thought can peacefully coexist. But it is there nevertheless. And it is there most markedly because very religious people generally don't understand science or how it works. I'm even willing to bet you that there isn't more opposition to science because religious people don't know much about it in general! And I include most buddhists in this.

Once again, I'm left with the impression that you have not read what I've been saying... I'm not saying that there is, or was, a systematic persecution. I'm saying that there was, and is, a "war of ideas" between science and religion. Conflict has flared up in things like Astronomy, the age of the Earth, biology, genetics, and in general outlook regarding life, death and the universe. Often this conflict is not apparent, simply because, as you pointed out, scientists themselves are divided on the subject. I should point out that most working scientists don't think very hard about the philosophical, moral and religious implications of science, they just do research without considering those things. And that's unfortunate, I might add! But it's not something people in the two fields actively think about. Most of the time, they just ignore each other. But I should point out that most of the scientists in the upper echelons are non-believers, or have non-orthodox beliefs (I remember reading about it in a Scientific American article some years back, can't give you a ref.)

Also, science is mostly done in democratic countries. They're funded with gov. funds. The science scientists do often reflects the values of the society they live in. That's why so much money is spent on weapons research. Nevertheless, you might attack scientists in part or as a whole for this and other things all you want. Although science is done by scientists, what scientists find is quite independent from them and their beliefs. Newton might have been an asshole, but his theory of gravitation works quite nicely if you're sending a probe to Saturn.

I personally think it's sad that most people are quite willing to accept all the gadgets and comforts provided by science, but without adopting its methods and knowledge...

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 01:03 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Contrarian:
As for scientists doing harm to people: think Mengele, think how the "science" of eugenics culminated in horrible experiments by Nazi doctors, as well as providing an excuse for the Holocaust. Read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, about how science has been misused to oppress non-whites, women, poor people. Think about doctors in repressive regimes, telling torturers how much more abuse a prisoner can take before he dies on them. Think about all the scientists busy inventing new bombs; ah, cluster bomb! That was a good one... Should we then conclude that all Science(tm) is bad? Or that it is a way of thinking that can be used for evil by some people in some places.

That doesn't qualify as "persecution of religious people", since the reasons why those horrible things were done had nothing to do with religious belief. And it could be argued that they had very little little to do with science. Scientific knowledge is morally neutral. The same technology that can is used to build ICBMs and nukes allows us to explore the planets. But the methods of science are pretty good at making choices clear. They often allow us to identify what needs improvement and how to do it. They clarify what is often murky and complicated. Science gives us choices and alternatives. But it is up to us to decide what to do.

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Contrarian
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posted 26 February 2005 03:14 PM      Profile for Contrarian     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
That doesn't qualify as "persecution of religious people", since the reasons why those horrible things were done had nothing to do with religious belief.

Why should they? Why would you expect scientists to act out of religious belief?

On the other hand, would you argue that eugenics was pure science with no prejudice behind it? No beliefs based on bigotry?

And you complain about having to learn history; well you are correct, you DON'T know the history, you make all sorts of vague general statements which are not backed up and are not correct and you do not know what the hell you are talking about. And you seem to be unable to recognise or admit your ignorance. It's not enough to say Science(tm) good Religion(tm) bad.


From: pretty far west | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 03:40 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I don't expect scientists to act out of religious belief. That's my point. That's why scientists generally don't "persecute" people. Also, I would never argue that eugenics is "pure science". I have nothing but contempt for the ways how genetics got distorted to justify eugenics. But see, not being stuck in dogmatic thinking allows one to recognise mistakes and make changes. Very few, if any, geneticists today take eugenic thinking seriously...

I'm not complaining about learning history. I'm being modest, admitting that it's not my main domain of knowledge. But although I have stated my views in a vague way, for the sake of being short, I think that I know enough history to make sure that I'm not that way off. Now, do you know history in enough detail to clearly indicate where my interpretation is wrong?

Were did I say all religion bad, all science good? Didn't I just write that science is morally neutral?

Please, stop trying to caricature my views, it's annoying!

One thing that science does show is that fundamentalist religion is bunk. Scientific knowledge makes literal interpretations of sacred books impossible. And I'll stand by that statement!

And by the way, one funny thing that I have observed in religious people: many have this tendency to never actually reveal in what they believe in... So, in what do you exactly believe in?

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 26 February 2005 05:07 PM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
Ok. These line by line refutations get tiresome pretty fast. Look, I'm not a "spokesperson" for science. I work in science. I'm starting a Ph. D. in Mineralogy. And as far as I can tell, I have avoided being nasty. I have a sincere dislike for fundamentalist religion, but that's all. Hell, I have a sincere dislike for anything that hampers free inquiry!

There we go, the real question...do you think religion hampers free inquiry? Not religious fundamentalism, not religious dogma. What's left? People practising some spiritual discipline,

Now you've already said several times you're not talking about personal religious activity (I paraphrased). You're talking about the political institutions, or fundamentalism. You're talking about what the inquisition did to a living breathing person and saying that's something that "religion" did.

You've been taking the term "religion" to mean individual religions or the application of religion instead of religious practise. Imagine how wrong someone would be if they took science to mean individual sciences (like the copernican model, or any other model shown to be false) or the application of science (that shy little Ukrainian girl who was incinerated by Chernobyl while playing hopscotch) instead of the scientific method.

So maybe this is all pedantic. Maybe you were using religion to been cra;zy fundamentalist wingnutism because it was useful and expedient for the conversation. Other people, lie me, objected to that misrepresentation. IMO, this is a gross misrepresentation. It, and the way you've been speaking in general, have given me the mpression that you don't understand religion very well at all. While I admit that popular opinion on a message board is not a conclusive demonstration, it seems that other people are trying to communicate to you your lack of understanding of religion.

Of course it's your perogative to not be interested in religion. But if you're going to be interested in it enough to make claims about it in public, then IMO you have the epistemic responsibility to attempt to understand it better.

I also have a sincere dislike for religious fundamentalism. However I see religious fundmamentalism as just a subcollection of fundamentalism in general.

I also dislike fundamentalist materialism. Among other things, fundamentalist materialism looks down on religion. I believe that religious practise can be very rewarding, both personally and for society. IMO, a fundamentalist materialist would disagree with that. What do you think about that belief?

quote:

And it is there most markedly because very religious people generally don't understand science or how it works.

I agree. Do you think scientists generally understand religion or how it works?

Would you say you understand religion or how it works?

quote:

I'm even willing to bet you that there isn't more opposition to science because religious people don't know much about it in general! And I include most buddhists in this.

Are you saying that if most buddhists knew more about science that they'd be more opposed to it?

quote:

Once again, I'm left with the impression that you have not read what I've been saying... I'm not saying that there is, or was, a systematic persecution. I'm saying that there was, and is, a "war of ideas" between science and religion. Conflict has flared up in things like Astronomy, the age of the Earth, biology, genetics, and in general outlook regarding life, death and the universe.

Where does the war of ideas come from?

I see science and religion as having a similar goal: the improvement of the human condition through the prusiot of truth. Religion values religious truth while science values scientific truth. However I don't see the pursuits of these differeing truths (nor the truths themselves) as mutually exclusive.

Another similarity is both religion and science are often coopted for political gains.

quote:

Often this conflict is not apparent, simply because, as you pointed out, scientists themselves are divided on the subject. I should point out that most working scientists don't think very hard about the philosophical, moral and religious implications of science, they just do it without considering those things. And that's unfortunate, I might add!

Do you think that fact about scientists is a valid criticism of science itself? Do you think the use of the scietific method implcitly discrouages scietists to think about the impications of science?

quote:

I personally think it's sad that most people are quite willing to accept all the gadgets and comforts provided by science, but without adopting its methods and knowledge...

Hey, did you hear about that Christian missionary team that went to hmm, not sure where right now, but they went to a country affected by the tsunami. They went with relief supplies and to convert people. When the villagers said they weren't interested in embracing Christianity, they packed up the truck and moved on. There was a babble thread about it but I can't find it right now (searches don't seem to work for me).

Now what would you think if someone responded to that incident with the words:

I personally think it's sad that there people are quite willing to accept all the supplies and relief aid provided by Christinity, but without adopting its methods and knowledge...

Edited to fix quote markup tag

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: wage zombie ]


From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
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posted 26 February 2005 08:18 PM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Religion doesn't work unless, at some point, you turn off your brain. So of course it hampers free inquiry.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 26 February 2005 08:21 PM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
what about sleep? does sleep hamper free inquiry?
From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
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posted 26 February 2005 08:23 PM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No, because you can dream.

Being completely beside the point hampers free inquiry though.


From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 26 February 2005 08:47 PM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
you implied that religion requires turning the brain off, and that it therefore hampers free inquiry.

it seemed to me like sleep also required turning the brain off, and I thought your principle would imply that sleep, too, hampered free inquiry (which is clearly ridiculous).

However we're now at the point where being religion requires turning the brain off but sleep doesn't. I don't get it.


From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 26 February 2005 08:54 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Religion doesn't work unless, at some point, you turn off your brain. So of course it hampers free inquiry.

I feel for those who believe in fairy tales just as much as I do for our high priests of science who treat the subject of life in outer space with a giggle. They've calculated that life sustaining planets in other galaxies is less probable than previously thought. The SETI project scans radio frequencies emitted and absorbed by what's thought to be the most abundant element in the universe: hydrogen. And they assume that an alien civilisation should have announced their presence to us by now. The development of our own species on earth has been compared to a 24 hour clock and with our advanced evolution occurring in the last hundredths of second of the 24th hour.

What if an advanced type two or three civilisation had learned to communicate accross the universe with other type three civilisations in a similar way that our global telecommunications infrastructure works?. If the SETI people were scanning one broad frequency band of radio waves as a hacker might attempt to grab fragments of a message that has been packet switched and intended for reassembly at the receiver's end, then why wouldn't an advanced species try to do the same in an attempt to avoid destruction of the message by galactic phenomena such as quasars, black holes and other stellar events ?. Perhaps we've been in the path of such advanced transmissions all along.

Scientists have scoffed at speed of light travel to and from distant galaxies because of the vast distances involved, but what if a several million year old(from type zero which is where we are now in evolutionary terms) advanced civilisation has learned to harness the entire energy of it's central star and Planck energy ?. Perhaps they've learned to punch holes in time and space and slip into the eleventh dimension ?. This was pure science fiction a couple of decades ago, but now some physicists are believing in M theory and string theories and not in just one universe but multiverses and mega-verses.

At a news conference Carl Sagan predicted that man himself would be capable of interstellar flight at close to the speed of light "within a century or two."

Asked if he believed in flying saucers, he said: "I do believe there are objects which have hot be identified."


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bittersweet
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posted 26 February 2005 09:03 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Religion doesn't work unless, at some point, you turn off your brain. So of course it hampers free inquiry.
Hee. By that reasoning, Mr. Free Inquiry, you must be the Pope. You know nothing of religion, and you're a second-rate empiricist because you base your opinion of something you know nothing about on a completely bald prejudice--one you refuse to see. Waded in way over your head there. Funny!

From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 26 February 2005 09:27 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
I don't expect scientists to act out of religious belief. That's my point. That's why scientists generally don't "persecute" people. Also, I would never argue that eugenics is "pure science". I have nothing but contempt for the ways how genetics got distorted to justify eugenics. But see, not being stuck in dogmatic thinking allows one to recognise mistakes and make changes. Very few, if any, geneticists today take eugenic thinking seriously...

I'm not complaining about learning history. I'm being modest, admitting that it's not my main domain of knowledge. But although I have stated my views in a vague way, for the sake of being short, I think that I know enough history to make sure that I'm not that way off. Now, do you know history in enough detail to clearly indicate where my interpretation is wrong?

Were did I say all religion bad, all science good? Didn't I just write that science is morally neutral?

Please, stop trying to caricature my views, it's annoying!

One thing that science does show is that fundamentalist religion is bunk. Scientific knowledge makes literal interpretations of sacred books impossible. And I'll stand by that statement!

And by the way, one funny thing that I have observed in religious people: many have this tendency to never actually reveal in what they believe in... So, in what do you exactly believe in?

[ 26 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


I think I shall make a sweeping statement and ignore some possible exceptions to what I shall imply here: science is the property of the bourgeois. If you want examples of how science and scientists may be used and use science immorally, you may find examples in both the democratic capitalist and "communist" nations. One would think that both kinds of national ideology would practise scientific socialism, but more often than not they practise scientific anti-socialism. Unneccessary experimentation on animals, military experiments (which may be happening to day), the eugenist Edna Guest and the story of Velma (on CBC rescently)and the newly devulged practises in the xUSSR. We should not forget the pharmaceutical corporations and other chemical industries (Washington state and the Colombia river, 1 to 2 tons of mercury per year since 1949). Those scientists in so much of a rush to save humanity....they destroy it.

If you rather cleanse your conscience and write your definition of scientist to exclude immoral acts, fine, but you are trending on the mental condition of denial. Science is so far ahead of "religion" in damaging humanity that religion is finding it difficult to know which side is which, because all bourgeois (capitalist atheist and capitalist religious) are so heavily invested in it. Unfortunately this means that the social tension is more between science and religion than bourgeois and proletariat. This means again we shall mys the mark and head into a useless and socially damaging confrontation. The proletariat is again divided against itself.


From: Fraser Valley | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 26 February 2005 09:30 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by LeftRight:

I think I shall make a sweeping statement and ignore some possible exceptions to what I shall imply here: science is the property of the bourgeois. If you want examples of how science and scientists may be used and use science immorally, you may find examples in both the democratic capitalist and "communist" nations. One would think that both kinds of national ideology would practise scientific socialism, but more often than not they practise scientific anti-socialism. Unneccessary experimentation on animals, military experiments (which may be happening to day), the eugenist Edna Guest and the story of Velma (on CBC rescently)and the newly devulged practises in the xUSSR. We should not forget the pharmaceutical corporations and other chemical industries (Washington state and the Colombia river, 1 to 2 tons of mercury per year since 1949). Those scientists in so much of a rush to save humanity....they destroy it.

If you rather cleanse your conscience and write your definition of scientist to exclude immoral acts, fine, but you are trending on the mental condition of denial. Science is so far ahead of "religion" in damaging humanity that religion is finding it difficult to know which side is which, because all bourgeois (capitalist atheist and capitalist religious) are so heavily invested in it. Unfortunately this means that the social tension is more between science and religion than bourgeois and proletariat. This means again we shall mys the mark and head into a useless and socially damaging confrontation. The proletariat is again divided against itself.


That was not directed at you Surferosad; I generally agree with your points.


From: Fraser Valley | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 11:40 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oy veh!

Fidel, your post doesn't seem to have much to do with the thread. But anyway, here it goes... I don't think you'll find many scientists these days who will scoff at the idea that there is life elsewhere. It was the politicians that killed programs that searched for extraterrestrial life. They will scoff, however, at flying saucers and visitations for outer space because, to put it simply, there is not one piece of solid evidence backing those kinds of claims. See, I would love for it to be real, that we are being visited and all that, but that doesn't make it so. Gimme concrete evidence!

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 26 February 2005 11:47 PM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Leftright, as I said before, scientific knowledge (actually, any knowledge) is morally neutral. We either can blow ourselves up or not. It's up to us. And there's no such thing as bourgeois mathematics or physics. Or bourgeois biology. By the way, I find your marxist rhetoric a bit outdated and kind of wooden.

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 27 February 2005 12:08 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Religion doesn't work unless, at some point, you turn off your brain. So of course it hampers free inquiry.

You should have told Gregor Mendel. Too late now.

From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 27 February 2005 12:39 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Wage Zombie,

I think I have a fair understanding of religion and how it works. No, I don't have a profound knowledge of religious scripture and philosophy. And yeah, I don't believe in any of it. Is that required? Of course, you, and others, will say I don't understand religion because I don't have much sympathy for it. And, maybe, because I'm a non-beliver. But did it occur to you that, maybe, the reason why I don't like it much is because, well... I understand it? And that maybe, I understand it because I do not believe in it?

I do make a distinction between fundamentalist religion and more moderate beliefs. But, to tell you the truth, while I think that fundamentalist believe in very silly things, most of the time I think that moderates tend to believe in things that are only inoffensively silly... But I don't despise them for it, I'm sure I believe in silly things myself. The difference is, I know it and I don't hold on to them if I realise their silliness. Do you think I'm looking down on religious people when I say this? You know, usually I don't really care about religious beliefs. I don't ask people about it. I'm sure you don't either. I'll talk about it if the issue comes up. I avoid talking to fundamentalists (waste of time) but they have this habit of making a show of themselves, so they are easy to spot.

One complaint though: when I do talk about religion, I can never get a moderate believer (particularly christians) to clearly state in what exactly they believe! Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in god? Do you believe that he answers your prayers? Immortal souls? Reincarnation? What?

About the value of religious practice: look, I don't care from where good comes from. From the religious, from the non-religious, it's all the same to me. I don't care if people are decent for reasons that I personally find silly. As long as they are decent, it's ok with me. I don't judge. I do think that religious nuts are usually incapable of being decent though...

Finally... No, I don't think religion and science are equivalent ways of looking for the truth. Science relies on evidence. Religion relies on faith. Faith isn't much help when it comes to understanding the universe. Hindus believe on thing, christians another, muslims yet another thing. Which "religious truth" is right? Surely, they can't all be true! They often contradict each other! And some of their beliefs are clearly in contradiction with what we now know for a fact.

Why should I believe in something just because it's in some old book, or because some monk told me to? Why is your belief, your religious truth, more true than someone else's? I mean, that which you feel, that which tells you that some tenet of your faith is true, I don't feel it! Why should I take you seriously? I want solid evidence! Not faith!

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 27 February 2005 01:44 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I think I have a fair understanding of religion and how it works.

'Fair' is another one of those funny words with more than one definition. Up to 6 billion definitions.

I wonder whether anyone has ever been dissuaded of a prejudice by mere facts.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jimmy Brogan
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posted 27 February 2005 02:30 AM      Profile for Jimmy Brogan   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I wonder whether anyone has ever been dissuaded of a prejudice by mere facts.

Well certainly not you.


From: The right choice - Iggy Thumbscrews for Liberal leader | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 03:00 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
[QBThey will scoff, however, at flying saucers and visitations for outer space because, to put it simply, there is not one piece of solid evidence backing those kinds of claims. See, I would love for it to be real, that we are being visited and all that, but that doesn't make it so. Gimme concrete evidence!

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ][/QB]


What

As it is with religion, I can offer no absolute proof except that all life originates in space as far as we know. And there is no proof of string theory because it's still theoretical. But more and more scientists are becoming believers, just the same.

Who goes there ?.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 27 February 2005 04:31 AM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
Wage Zombie,
I think I have a fair understanding of religion and how it works. No, I don't have a profound knowledge of religious scripture and philosophy. And yeah, I don't believe in any of it. Is that required? Of course, you, and others, will say I don't understand religion because I don't have much sympathy for it. And, maybe, because I'm a non-beliver. But did it occur to you that, maybe, the reason why I don't like it much is because, well... I understand it? And that maybe, I understand it because I do not believe in it?

It occurred to me here or there, but you keep demonstrating over and over that you've got it all wrong.

Religion isn't about believing, it's about doing. Belief can come after the doing, or even not at all. Religion is about a process that produces certain mental states. This process can include rituals, meditation, physical exercise or all kinds of other tehniques. Indoctrination to some belief system can be useful in the production of certain mental states so it is a fixture in some religions.

I think it's important to stress here that there are religions that don't rely on dogma and don't even address the question of god. Again, religion is just a collection of techniques used to bring about mental changes. While dogma and the concept of an absolute authority may be useful in achieving some mental states, they can impede in reaching others (aside:and they can have more disastrous effects on society than some of the other techniques).

Is this too abstract?

Religion seeks to improve the human condition by relieving us of existential despair. The belief in an afterlife paradise can clearly be useful in helping someone cope with a fear of death. Zen Buddhism would take a different approach, and the student sees through the illusion of self to the point where fear of death isn't relevant (there's no one to die). There are many different kinds of existential despair I'm sure and diifferent religions adress them in different ways.

Religion is like many other things in that you get out what you put in. Going to church at christmas and easter is not a religious practise. Going to church once a week probably doesn't do too much on its own, especially in today's multimedia society as distraction. But I would imagine someone who prays as hour a day (and if you don't like prayer just sub in meditation) probably is getting somewhere.

Indoctrination to the idea of God as a supreme moral figure goes a long way towards dealing with fear of uncertainty. There are nasty side effects to this like being willing to engage in all kinds of hateful acts in the name of God. And beyond that, indoctrination is no longer an effective technique in a globalized, postmodern wired in world where people get exposed to diverse viewpoints (at least to some extent). Indoctrination is just a strategy, not some necessary component of religion, and not a very useful strategy for the near future (unless your religion happens to own the media).

Don't think of faith as believing in some proposition (ie the existence of God). Think of it as an openness to what comes next, whatever it ends up being. That's how I think of faith and that's the criteria I would use to judge whether I thought someone was religious (rather than just saying it).

quote:

I do make a distinction between fundamentalist religion and more moderate beliefs. But, to tell you the truth, while I think that fundamentalist believe in very silly things, most of the time I think that moderates tend to believe in things that are only inoffensively silly...

But a lot of the moderates don't really believe it. Take the virgin birth for example...I assume we can agree that it's one of those inoffensively silly things. But it's not really all that important to the faith, it's just one of those details. From an anthropological perspective, virgin births were common in religions at the time so it seems like more of an artifact than anything. Now sure, everyone stands up every week and says they believe it (at least in Catholic masses), but if you look around some people's lips are moving.

Remember too that there are many different reasons someone may be practising. Some people go to church every week for the structure of thinking about things a certain way, and the belief itself can be unnecessary. Some people start going once they have kids because they think it'll be good for the kids.

quote:

But I don't despise them for it, I'm sure I believe in silly things myself. The difference is, I know it and I don't hold on to them if I realise their silliness. Do you think I'm looking down on religious people when I say this?

I think more people might be aware of their own silliness than you think.

quote:

You know, usually I don't really care about religious beliefs. I don't ask people about it. I'm sure you don't either. I'll talk about it if the issue comes up. I avoid talking to fundamentalists (waste of time) but they have this habit of making a show of themselves, so they are easy to spot.

One complaint though: when I do talk about religion, I can never get a moderate believer (particularly christians) to clearly state in what exactly they believe!


That should be your first clue that belief isn't as important to religion as you think.

Q: Do you believe in God?
Moderate believer: I believe that there's something out there, I'm just not sure what it is.

I'm sure you've heard that.

When people look around for a church to go to, they don't compare the respective dogma to determine which one factually coincides best with science and history. They pick the one that feels best to them.

quote:

Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in god? Do you believe that he answers your prayers? Immortal souls? Reincarnation? What?

Uh, well...I don't really think of myself as a religious person. I've been focussing on other things lately. I've just paid off my student loan and I will be leaving my cubicle soon so I'm hoping to develop my practise a bit more.

For some context, I was raised Catholic and went to church every week until I went to high school. I wasn't a believer but I went to make my Mom happy. I remember being in sunday school when I was young and saying "But what if it's all a sham? What if there isn't really a God?" Once I went to university I stopped going to church. For a while I was somewhat anti-religion but I just needed to work through a few things.

The last time I had to fill in what my religion was, I put "absurdist" which just came to me at the time.

Defining what I believe is harder. I find belief problematic in itself and I could go on for a while about the problems with belief. But to simplify:

The idea of the Christian God (an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect self-aware being) doesn't really speak to me. However I should say that for an hour after a harrowing peak on four hits of acid this past October I believed I was having a conversation with this being. It doesn't really bother me, it was a useful conversation.

I don't think of there being an afterlife although really how would we know?

Reincarnation doesn't speak to me too much either, at least literally (but again, how would we know?). I believe it's a useful metaphorically though.

I'm not really into miracles either but I think there have been some things which have yet to be explained and I'm not making any judgements.

I'm open to the idea that the universe is sentient. I'm open to the idea that we're all parts of one organism experiencing each other.

I guess I believe "as above so below", that the macroscopic and the microscopic congruent. I try to avoid having beliefs about metaphysics though, so that's why it's coming out so vague.

quote:

About the value of religious practice: look, I don't care from where good comes from. From the religious, from the non-religious, it's all the same to me. I don't care if people are decent for reasons that I personally find silly. As long as they are decent, it's ok with me. I don't judge. I do think that religious nuts are usually incapable of being decent though...

godhatesfags.com is not religious. The people you're referring to as "religious nuts" are not religious.

quote:

Finally... No, I don't think religion and science are equivalent ways of looking for the truth. Science relies on evidence. Religion relies on faith. Faith isn't much help when it comes to understanding the universe. Hindus believe on thing, christians another, muslims yet another thing. Which "religious truth" is right? Surely, they can't all be true! They often contradict each other! And some of their beliefs are clearly in contradiction with what we now know for a fact.

Religious truth is of a different nature than scientific truth. You can't express religious truth as a statement. It's pure experience, a feeling. I never said religion and science were equivalent ways of looking for truth. I said they were different methods of finding different kinds of truth. Scientific truth is objective, religious truth is subjective.

The beliefs are a means to an end, and most eastern religions stress this. The belief system is something to be used and abandoned when it outlives its usefulness, as all systems do.

quote:

Why should I believe in something just because it's in some old book, or because some monk told me to? Why is your belief, your religious truth, more true than someone else's? I mean, that which you feel, that which tells you that some tenet of your faith is true, I don't feel it! Why should I take you seriously? I want solid evidence! Not faith!

Well, go on a meditation retreat and spend 14 days in silence. I guarantee you, you'll have your evidence.

Of course you shouldn't believe something just because it's in a book. You should go through the process described in the book and see for yourself if it works. You know, how science is supposed to work, if scientists bothered.

Science is dealing with objective phenomena, which means that the result is going to be the same for everybody. After the results have been shown to be repeatable, the experiment no longer needs to be performed again and again. But religious truth is subjective and can't be transferred so easily.

All of the results are repeatable, it's just that the experiments take a lot of time. Go live in a cave for eight years and you'll feel the religious truth. You haven't gotten anything out of it because you haven't put anything into it.

Edited for formatting

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: wage zombie ]


From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
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posted 27 February 2005 09:07 AM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Religion does not stand up to reasoned criticism. Therefore, to hold a religious idea in one's head, at some point, one must decide to block certain paths of inquiry.

Religion cannot exist without the willing suspension of disbelief.


From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 11:13 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Well that's a very smug thing to say, but this thread is becoming less scientific by the minute. Tommy, can you finally settle this whole religion thing and prove to us empirically that god doesn't exist ?.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
TemporalHominid
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posted 27 February 2005 12:12 PM      Profile for TemporalHominid   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Well that's a very smug thing to say, but this thread is becoming less scientific by the minute. Tommy, can you finally settle this whole religion thing and prove to us empirically that god doesn't exist ?.

If you have been following this thread and the origional thread, you may find your answer to this question. "God exists." or "God does not exist." are non-falsifiable statements. Not testable. Not observable. A scientific process will not be applied to non-falsifiable statements once it is determined a statement is non-falsifiable. Science does not seek to speculate on the implications of whether God exists or not, nor does it attempt to speculate about the value of whether god exists or not. Science suspends judgement on the questions re: existence or non-existence of God/gods/blue-winged fire breathing invisable unicorns on Mars.


From: Under a bridge, in Foot Muck | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
bittersweet
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posted 27 February 2005 01:29 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Religion does not stand up to reasoned criticism. Therefore, to hold a religious idea in one's head, at some point, one must decide to block certain paths of inquiry. Religion cannot exist without the willing suspension of disbelief.
Wading in deeper. The willing suspension of disbelief" refers to a cultural invention, which no one doubts has produced truth. Reasoned criticism alone cannot stand up to any cultural invention, and whenever anyone tries to use reason alone, their conclusions are at least irrelevant, if not laughable. Obviously the truth revealed in drama, poetry, fiction, painting, architecture, religion, dance, etc. is arrived at by suspending disbelief, and by blocking "certain paths of inquiry" such as pure reason. Again, you reveal a complete lack of understanding of the subject you so eagerly seek to criticize, and a narrow, inflexible approach to truth ironically close to that of fundamentalists.

From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 01:37 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by TemporalHominid:

If you have been following this thread and the origional thread, you may find your answer to this question. "God exists." or "God does not exist." are non-falsifiable statements. Not testable. Not observable. A scientific process will not be applied to non-falsifiable statements once it is determined a statement is non-falsifiable. Science does not seek to speculate on the implications of whether God exists or not, nor does it attempt to speculate about the value of whether god exists or not. Science suspends judgement on the questions re: existence or non-existence of God/gods/blue-winged fire breathing invisable unicorns on Mars.


Oh shit, I've taken a full year of discrete math ice ages ago. I don't need lecturing, I need proof!. ha ha


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
maestro
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posted 27 February 2005 05:50 PM      Profile for maestro     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
As a person who was raised by Christian parents, I think I can add a comment.

Christiantiy, at least, requires you to believe things that can never be proven. Once you accept that you must accept 'by faith alone', there is no limit on what you might believe.

Christians understand this, and thus spend a good deal of time trying to prevent people from accepting 'faith-based' ideas that conflict with their own.

Recently I listened to an evangelical Christian rail against belief in astrology. I didn't bother mentioning there's no more proof of God than there is that the position of the stars at your birth will determine your personality.

While it is true that 'fiction' can represent real things, it's also true fiction is the creation of the human mind. In other words, while we may not see the logical process of the fiction creator, that doesn't mean the logic doesn't exist.

When people experience fiction, whether it be a play or a picture or a song, they weigh what the fiction tells them against what they have experienced themselves. People don't simply accept fiction by faith.

Thus, even there, there is a logical process that takes place.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 27 February 2005 07:24 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
("I wonder whether anyone has ever been dissuaded of a prejudice by mere facts."
Note: i was not accusing, or stating an opinion about, anyone in particular.)
response:
quote:
Originally posted by JimmyBrogan:
Well certainly not you.

I'd be interested in seeing proof of this statement by The Scientific Method.
Name and define the prejudice under scrutiny, with verbatim examples (in context) from this or any other thread. Cite evidence of their factual inaccuracy. Cite factual (and intelligible) refutation(s) of my alleged prejudice. Show examples where i have ignored or such factual refutation(s) and/or responded to it/them with provably inaccurate arguments.

From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 27 February 2005 09:01 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
Leftright, as I said before, scientific knowledge (actually, any knowledge) is morally neutral. We either can blow ourselves up or not. It's up to us. And there's no such thing as bourgeois mathematics or physics. Or bourgeois biology. By the way, I find your marxist rhetoric a bit outdated and kind of wooden.

[ 27 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


As if the knowledge one has and the person one is has nothing to do with one another.......do you believe in magic..And there's no such thing as bourgeois either I suppose, and no power difference between the classes? So what you are saying is that there are *not* moral and immoral people but stupid people and smart people and stupid people win, is that it? Jean Piaget said that in our highly industrialized and advanced nations only 35% of the adult population acheive formal cognitive operability. Are you one of the 65%? ....My Marxist "rhetoric" is wooden as opposed to plastic or concrete?


From: Fraser Valley | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 09:26 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Marxist rhetoric?. At least we don't believe in invisible hands, eh LeftRight ?. ha ha
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
LeftRight
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posted 27 February 2005 09:26 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
We have the capitalist atheists (Ayn Rand followers) and socialist/communist atheists, we have religious bourgeois capitalists and religious socialists (in a moderate way). What number or ratio of those converts to a faith do you suppose are proletariat and which are established Ayn Rand followers? Are there more proletariats that are capitalist atheist than socialist atheist? My guess is that the largest group are the religious proletariat.

AthPro + AthBour + RelPro + RelBour+ AgnoPro + AgnoBour = total voting population. Assuming the 65% of cognitively under developed adults are religious, the remainder set is a composition of ProAth + ProAgno + BourAgno+ BourAth consisting 35% of the total population.

But I am assuming that an increase in cognitive ability would change their thinking.


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LeftRight
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posted 27 February 2005 09:37 PM      Profile for LeftRight   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Marxist rhetoric?. At least we don't believe in invisible hands, eh LeftRight ?. ha ha

Correct Fidel, but we do believe in hands made invisible to the public eye, yes?


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Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 10:08 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:

"There was nothing natural about laissez-faire[capitalism]; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. ... Laissez-faire itself was enforced by the state. ... Laissez-faire was planned; planning was not."
- Karl Polanyi

And as Chomsky says it:

"What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close cooperation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society."



From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 27 February 2005 10:15 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
As the thread blasts off into the Gamma Quadrant...
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 February 2005 10:24 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Cheap labour can only take an economy so far, right Oliver ?.
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Mandos
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posted 28 February 2005 12:00 AM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oliver...oh? To what do you say that, Oliver? Are you saying that laissez-faire just happened naturally?
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 28 February 2005 12:20 AM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
When a thread on science and on scientific method ends up regurgitating inpenetrable Marxist jargon, the only reasonable response is to laugh in disbelief.
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beluga2
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posted 28 February 2005 12:26 AM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Are you saying Chomsky is a "Marxist", OC? If so, then it's my turn to laugh in disbelief.
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'lance
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posted 28 February 2005 12:28 AM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
[never mind]

[ 28 February 2005: Message edited by: 'lance ]


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 28 February 2005 12:40 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Some "inpenetrable" Marxist jargon for OC:

quote:
There is, however, one difficulty we could not spare the reader: the use of certain terms in a sense different from what they have, not only in common life, but in ordinary Political Economy. But this was unavoidable. Every new aspect of a science involves a revolution in the technical terms of that science. This is best shown by chemistry, where the whole of the terminology in radically changed about once in twenty years, and where you will hardly find a single organic compound that has not gone through a whole series of different names. Political Economy has generally been content to take, just as they were, the terms of commercial and industrial life, and to operate with them, entirely failing to see that by so doing, it confined itself within the narrow circle of ideas expressed by those terms. ....[Engels gives a number of examples] It is, however, self-evident that a theory which views modern capitalist production as a mere passing stage in the economic history of mankind, must make use of terms different from those habitual to writers who look upon that form of production as imperishable and final.

Fred Engels wrote this in 1886 in the Preface to the English Edition of Capital .

What's "inpenetrable" is why people write about Marxism when they don't know the first thing about it.


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N.R.KISSED
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posted 28 February 2005 12:41 AM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
When a thread on science and on scientific method ends up regurgitating inpenetrable Marxist jargon, the only reasonable response is to laugh in disbelief.

when an economist starts talking about inpenetrable jargon I think we all need to take some kind of irony break.


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'lance
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posted 28 February 2005 12:52 AM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Could it be that the Lord Protector has just done a little trolling?
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 28 February 2005 01:47 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh boy... When I was finally getting somewhere with Wage Zombie, the thread turned to crap... Ok. Mr. Moderator, please kill it!

Oh, one last thing: I know how to induce "religious" experiences. I've done it to myself several times by fasting and... Uh... Experimentation with illicit substances... They were fun, but I just couldn't make the jump to "religion". They were hallucinations induced by messing up with my brain chemistry! They've only contributed to my scepticism towards religion. I mean, if I can induce these kinds of religious impressions on myself, what's so special about mystical experiences?


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Fidel
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posted 28 February 2005 01:50 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Polanyi criticized both Marxism and Smithian laissez-faire. Chomsky is a libertarian socialist.

The first article of faith for the cult of impotence says that the invisible hand god of Plutus intervenes on behalf of all rich boys and girls whose self-made wealth shall trickle down to even the most undeserving of bottom feeders... or something like that.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
wage zombie
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posted 28 February 2005 01:53 AM      Profile for wage zombie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
drugs are about getting high, religion's about being high.
From: sunshine coast BC | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 28 February 2005 02:35 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Further to the comment by bittersweet, before the economic stuff happened.

quote:
Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Religion does not stand up to reasoned criticism. Therefore, to hold a religious idea in one's head, at some point, one must decide to block certain paths of inquiry.
Religion cannot exist without the willing suspension of disbelief.

Let's assume that this is true.
Does it then follow that anyone who holds an unproven idea in his head cannot also hold ideas which are proven (at least to his own momentary satisfaction) nor follow lines of inquiry which do not (or have not yet) come into conflict with the first idea?

Further, does it necessarily follow that a person who enjoys going to the theater, or playing cards, or listening to music or writing poetry or painting or competing in a sport can't also study the planets or understand chemistry?
None of those activities stand up to reasoned criticism by someone who doesn't appreciate them. They fill an altogether different role in the life of the participant from that which is filled by science. Yet, some scientists have managed to indulge in one or more, without noticeable harm to their work, just as a number of priests and monks have done pretty decent science, without noticeable harm to their religious belief.
Is it not possible for a human being - even perhaps an intelligent one - to have more than one facet?

[ 28 February 2005: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 28 February 2005 02:41 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by wage zombie:
drugs are about getting high, religion's about being high.

Since I can be "high" with chemicals, fasting and sleep deprivation (there are probably other ways), how do I tell one "high" from the other?

[ 28 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Surferosad
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posted 28 February 2005 03:15 AM      Profile for Surferosad   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Since wage zombie had the kindness of explaining what he believed in, I will also briefly do so. You might point out that my beliefs could be interpreted to be "religious" in nature, since I can't positively prove everything I'm saying. I will reply that my beliefs aren't dogmatic. Also, my beliefs are coherent, they're compatible with what we know about the universe (at least, I think they are, hell, I hope they are).

The workings of the universe are now understood up to the first few fractions of a second after the big bang. In view of this, it appears to me that once the whole thing got started, the interference of some kind of entity (or entities) is not necessary. Our universe seems to be able to work on its own. The only place where some kind of entity might be needed is at the moment of the creation of the Universe. We don't yet know what happened at that moment. It stays inexplicable, at least for now. That is the only place were some kind of entity, agent, whatever, might have acted. Even there, there are ideas in physics that don't make it necessary. My point is, if this entity (let's call it god) exists, it doesn't act on the universe it created. The laws of nature, once the entire thing got moving, seem to be enough to explain what now exists. There are no such things as miracles (miracles being clear violations of the laws of nature). There's no point in praying. That is, there's no point to it if you do pray in the hopes of having your prayers answered, like so many people I know do.

In the context of typical monotheistic beliefs (I'm not considering other beliefs), the idea of an omniscient and all powerful god seems to me to be incompatible with how the world works. Why is there suffering? Why do innocents die? A simple "shit happens" seems to me to be a better explanation than "god wants it and the ways of the lord are mysterious". Besides, I would be unable to have any kind of mystical or spiritual beliefs for a god who can intervene but doesn't. I would just flip him the finger. Which takes us right to the next point...

I don't think there is an afterlife. You know, the one thing that is given to us as a justification for all the pain? Of course, I can't positively prove it, but there is something that makes me think that an after life is improbable. See, I can't conceive how an immaterial soul (or a soul made of something that we can't measure) can operate a material body. How can something that escapes nature's laws operate something that obeys nature's laws? Also, there are several recorded cases were someone's personality was completely altered when an accident damaged the person's brain. What is the soul? Isn't it what the person is? If what the person is can be altered by material means (drugs, injury) then the "soul", whatever that is, can't be made of something that is not ordinary matter. And if a soul is made of ordinary matter, it won't go anywhere after you're dead. It will die with you.

[ 28 February 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]


From: Montreal | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 28 February 2005 07:41 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Surferosad:
And if a soul is made of ordinary matter, it won't go anywhere after you're dead. It will die with you.

I'll take the afterlife for a thousand, Alex.

You can't create it, and you can't destroy it.

$ell your $oul Click here


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 28 February 2005 01:52 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
MOV AX,00
INT MODHATON

Must close this thread for length.

INT MODHATOFF

(If I've buggered up the x86 assembly someone will tell me, I am sure )


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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