I agree, but it ain't that black and white unfortunately.
The god delusion... Religious debate
- Thread starter rexehuk
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I agree, but it ain't that black and white unfortunately.
Absolutely agree with you for most cases, but we still want to know the best possible truth about these events to prevent them for the future. There is no way that religion and it's problems (and joys and benefits) should have any status different to any other academic area.
The truth about what?
What is truth? Truth cannot come from science, because that is not the purpose for which man designed science...
It does of course have a philosophical bearing, but if not from science and the best approximated solution to a problem, one either ends up as religious or relativist/nihilist.
Sounds like you'd make great buddies with magick!
How are any of those positions worse than universalism or objectivism, or indeed the scientific realism subset, all require faith in things that cannot be demonstrated to be true in a non-recursive fashion
Soldato
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They would be labelled as either (or both) not knowing or not caring. So that's within the realms of agnosticism. Neither claiming faith, or non-faith.
That would depend what their developed spiritual beliefs were, but I would say none of the above, both agnosticism and atheism require knowledge of the idea of a deity before you can take a stance (either that it is unknown or a position of disbelief/denial respectively).
You could possibly classify them as agnostic under the irrelevant definition, but more accurate general terms would be etiher nontheist or irreligious, assuming they had not developed spiritual beliefs sponateously (which is somewhat hard to suggest would be the case given human history)
If the thought has never entered their head how could any presumption be made about what their beliefs are or would be on the subject?
I think there are times when a label can't be placed and surely this is one of them?
Funny, really, resorting to ad hominem instead of attacking my argument. Yes he's an administrator, he's the head of the HGP. I gave you reasons why he's a bad scientist and all you have to say is "Lols"?
Oh and I know quite well how academic science works, thanks.
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Man of Honour
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When I was a lad I remember reading that there were over 200,000 religions and 2,000,000 Gods
As you can probably see i'm clearly a universalist
It depends on the field i guess, in natural sciences the Popper interpretation of truth and falsification is perfect, because the natural sciences do not have an immediate and clear effect on the connections between humans and their fellow earthlings. In terms of social sciences and any action with the aim of improving human life, there is in my way of thinking definitely a need to have a clear guideline for the respect for and appreciation of human life. I definitely do believe that the basic tenets of human rights and liberalism(understood as human freedom disregarding the enconomical implications) are as relevant and true today as they were when they were wrote down and perfected. This does not require any extraordinary acts of faith though, and that is my main point. Utilitarianism of course offers a very effective way of arguing for human rights, but it still seems too cynical to be applied to most clear decisions and ideologies.
Had Jesus demonstrated a clear understanding of 21st and onwards human ethics and social structures i would have no problem being a fan of the man, but religion almost always ends up in some loop of infinite regression towards a divine explanation, which clearly contributes nothing to the cause of improving our race's lives on this planet. I believe it's Hitchens who uses Ockham's Razor quite a lot in his book, and it really is a quite good way of looking at the problem.
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Associate
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This is beginning to sound like a Terry Pratchet story
LOL
So true......
As for me, I'm a Satanist, have been for 4 years and it's something that suits my way of life.
So the bi-monthly religion thread rears its ugly head once again.
My stance is firmly "Christian"-ish. I find many of the theological doctrines very appealing and even come close on occasion to experiencing God on a personal level. That said, I have a few reservations about some aspects of the religion.
As far as I'm concerned Dawkins is a condescending tit who obviously appeals to quite a few people who are ignorant of the relationship (or lack of) between religion and science. I also find it quite frustrating that people with very little knowledge of the history of science and the scientific method hold science up to be something it's not.
There's faith everywhere, and that's fine. But the current trend of ridiculing anyone who recognises their own faith is pretty disturbing.
My stance is firmly "Christian"-ish. I find many of the theological doctrines very appealing and even come close on occasion to experiencing God on a personal level. That said, I have a few reservations about some aspects of the religion.
As far as I'm concerned Dawkins is a condescending tit who obviously appeals to quite a few people who are ignorant of the relationship (or lack of) between religion and science. I also find it quite frustrating that people with very little knowledge of the history of science and the scientific method hold science up to be something it's not.
There's faith everywhere, and that's fine. But the current trend of ridiculing anyone who recognises their own faith is pretty disturbing.
I really don't think that anyone with a true understanding of scientific method would do that, that is half the point of methods and the reason why high schools here are now teaching a lot of method utilization in all faculties from day 1.