BBC standing up to scientology

[Arcade Fire]

try this one.

Haha, very nice.

Seriously, though, people should read Dolph's posts carefully before trying to make any claim that science has provided evidence that God does not exist - or even that it's tried to do such a thing.

 

[mosfet]

Can you point me to any of these scientific experiments which have tested for the existence of deities?

Every scientific experiment that contradicts faith. From the fossil record to space flight.

There can be no test (and hence no counter-proof) directly on the existance of a traditional theistic god because there is no scientific hypothesis that states one exists. Scientific discoveries over the past few thousand years have indirectly contradicted articles of faith and religious claims.

 

[John_V85]

I love it when people criticise Scientology for being crazy yet would defend to their death the religious stories of Christianity and other faiths. After all, a man born to a virgin and someone who can turn water into wine and perform many other miracles is far more believable than aliens populating the planet (or whatever else Scientology suggests).

When will people understand that both have no connection to reality.

 

[bam0]

I love it when people criticise Scientology for being crazy yet would defend to their death the religious stories of Christianity and other faiths. After all, a man born to a virgin and someone who can turn water into wine and perform many other miracles is far more believable than aliens populating the planet (or whatever else Scientology suggests).

When will people understand that both have no connection to reality.

I think most people care less about their beliefs and more about their nefarious practices.

 

[Shackley]

The Catholic church can't be all bad:

Pope Benedict XVI has criticised "authoritarian governments" in Latin America as he opened a major bishops' conference in the region.

He also condemned the growing gap between rich and poor in the region.

The conference will discuss ways to extend the Church's reach in Latin America, which has lost millions of faithful to evangelical churches. BBC Link

I wonder what these "evangelical churches" are that the Pope is so worried about

 

[Mattus]

The main difference between Scientology and other religions is that you don't have to pay £100,000 to get a copy of the Bible or Qu'ran. I don't see how anyone can take Scientology seriously when it hides its core beliefs until you've paid to reveal them.

 

[Christo]

Something you have totally failed to prove. Are you arguing that belief in logical positivism and the scientific method is anything other than blind faith for many atheists? What rational basis are they asserting their belief in those stances on?

Only if you take logical positivism to be true. In the absence of any evidence either way, the only truely rational stance is that the answer is unknown. It's back to the unopenable box analogy again. Is it rational to assume it's empty simply because you don't know if it is or not?

Utter rubbish, like I have said many times, saying that atheists 'blindly believe' is obviously a paradoxical statement.

I repeat, I have never mentioned science/scientific method in my argument. Simply, very simply there is no need for a 'belief' to say that God does not exist. You continue to imply that 'belief' is required in order to say that God doesnt exist which is patently not necessary.

Indeed the rational agrument is that it is not known whether or not God exists. However it is squarely the onus of 'believers' to convince 'non believers' that God exists. (To fit your example - you have to convince me that there is something in the box - I am implying nothing with regards to what is or isnt in the box)

Haha, very nice.

Seriously, though, people should read Dolph's posts carefully before trying to make any claim that science has provided evidence that God does not exist - or even that it's tried to do such a thing.

That is only true is people try to prove that God doesnt exist via a scientific point of view. But.. as I said above why should anyone need to use science to prove that God doesnt exist? It is squarely the onus of people who believe in God to convince non believers that 'God' exists not the other way around.

 

[Christo]

The main difference between Scientology and other religions is that you don't have to pay £100,000 to get a copy of the Bible or Qu'ran. I don't see how anyone can take Scientology seriously when it hides its core beliefs until you've paid to reveal them.

That and the 'Church' of Scientology threatening you if you try to leave the church, being followed, harassed, arrested etc if you say anything bad about the church.

 

[Sleepy]

That and the 'Church' of Scientology threatening you if you try to leave the church, being followed, harassed, arrested etc if you say anything bad about the church.

They are not unique in that. Many religions treat heretics, apostates etc badly

 

[Hellsmk2]

Scientology is a rather interesting and scary subject. What really terrifies me is just how powerful they are. They have their own massively capable secret service (which has actually been estimated to be as large as the FBI in the past) and are slowly buying up entire towns - Clearwater in the US is completely run by Scientologists, - The police, the judiciary, politicians, etc etc. They're planning on doing this in other countries, including hte UK (somewhere in London though I forget which district). Mix in with that the deaths and the family disconnects and you have a really terrifying and dangerous cult on your hands.

If you want to waste many hours of your life then go search for operation clambake - It's a great way to pass a few days - Has many shocking documentaries and first hand stories of peoples struggle with this "church."

Also, the wiki article on Xenu always cracks me up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

I love the "artists impression of one of Xenu's space planes."

 

[Johnnytoxic]

I am sure I read somewhere that L ron Hubbard said "The best way to make money is to create your own religion".

 

[Beansprout]

I wonder what these "evangelical churches" are that the Pope is so worried about

Full of nutters, trust me

 

[magick]

Technically, religion has been around in one form or another since the beginning (of mankind that is..) and as a result perhaps is intertwined within us.

Not quite. If you read genesis metaphoricaly, as it's meant to be read, religion came about after the fall in Eden and seperation from God. When you'r in unity with the divine there's no need for religion but after the 'fall' man was no longer at one with God and so religion, ritual, commandments and scripture appeared as means to which he could, at least in theory, reunite with the divine.

 

[Dolph]

You are incorrect. Atheism is not a viewpoint, it's a lack of one.

Just because the majority of atheist people chose to science as a way of explaining the world around us does not mean that atheism equates to a scientific faith.

Views that a specific god or gods do not or can not exist are not based on any faith in science, because science cannot disprove what is not a testable, falsifiable hypothesis.

In the absence of evidence for or against then, how can disbelief (or non-belief if you prefer) be anything other than faith based?

It would be irrational to assume any position, but if a person or group of people decide, based on no evidence or deduction that the box is full of a particular object and other people claim it to be another object, again without evidence, yet thousands of years of scientific testing of the box find no evidence for either position, it is rational to state that it is likely the box is either empty or filled with something else.

No, it isn't. It's only rational to say that we don't know what's in the box. If you have faith in logical positivism, then you could say it's rational to say the box is empty (absence of evidence = evidence of absence), however, it's only rational when taken with the starting ideas unique to that view.

Take Father Christmas, for instance. There is no proof that he doesn't exist, nor can we disprove him. There are thousands of sighting of him all over the world every December which are disputed by skeptics, and there are billions of believers. But because we know that it's highly unlikely that a jolly fat man with a flying sled is capable of travelling at several times the speed of light to cover every house in the world in a single night, it's rational to assume the position that either he doesn't exist, or he exists differently to how anyone has claimed.

You forgot the most fundamental reason for disproving Father Christmas, his acts are directly attributable to something else (the parents). If presents were truely randomly appearing on Christmas eve, then it would be a different issue.

 

[Dolph]

Every scientific experiment that contradicts faith. From the fossil record to space flight.

None of which has any bearing on religious faith, apart from certain, specific religions in specific tests.

There can be no test (and hence no counter-proof) directly on the existance of a traditional theistic god because there is no scientific hypothesis that states one exists. Scientific discoveries over the past few thousand years have indirectly contradicted articles of faith and religious claims.

But those contradictions only apply to the specific religion in question. There is more to faith than christianity, for example.

 

[Dolph]

Utter rubbish, like I have said many times, saying that atheists 'blindly believe' is obviously a paradoxical statement.

I repeat, I have never mentioned science/scientific method in my argument. Simply, very simply there is no need for a 'belief' to say that God does not exist. You continue to imply that 'belief' is required in order to say that God doesnt exist which is patently not necessary.

Are you stating that disbelief should be the instant approach to any hypothesis? That's the only way such a view makes sense. Rational people view a hypothesis as unknown until they've evaluated evidence. When you start evaluating evidence, then you can take a position, unless you're biased.

Indeed the rational agrument is that it is not known whether or not God exists. However it is squarely the onus of 'believers' to convince 'non believers' that God exists. (To fit your example - you have to convince me that there is something in the box - I am implying nothing with regards to what is or isnt in the box)

Actually, non-belief that the box contains something translates directly as belief that the box is empty, there is no third way in that regard. You have chosen to take a default position, based on assumptions and ideas you believe to be true. Criticism of those assumptions and ideas is allowed you know

If you are trying to say that the contents of the box is unknown, then you wouldn't be an atheist (apart from under the new trendy definitions that try to encompass as many people as possible, rather like recruiting). You'd be agnostic.

That is only true is people try to prove that God doesnt exist via a scientific point of view. But.. as I said above why should anyone need to use science to prove that God doesnt exist? It is squarely the onus of people who believe in God to convince non believers that 'God' exists not the other way around.

See above. It seems you're confusing agonisticism with atheism and arguing cross points to prove it. If you are saying that in the absence of evidence, the hypothesis is untested, and therefore you make no judgement on it, you are agnostic.

If, on the other hand, you say that in the absence of evidence, the hypothesis is false (disbelief), that would make you atheist, but it would also mean faith is going in from your side to make that view, and it's not rational, it's solely based on faith.

What exactly do you mean by non-belief? Do you mean the hypothesis is untested or should be considered false?

 

[J.T]

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"
Albert Einstein

Scientology = Fools tbh!

 

[Shackley]

In the absence of evidence for or against then, how can disbelief (or non-belief if you prefer) be anything other than faith based?

Can one (sensibly) say that not believing something is "faith based"? I don't believe that there is life on Mars, is that faith based? I don't believe that a chicken could kill a tiger, is that faith based?

I would suggest that without some sort of evidence to "prove" the existence of something, not believing in its existence has nothing to do with faith, it is just common sense.

 

[Dolph]

Can one (sensibly) say that not believing something is "faith based"? I don't believe that there is life on Mars, is that faith based? I don't believe that a chicken could kill a tiger, is that faith based?

I would suggest that without some sort of evidence to "prove" the existence of something, not believing in its existence has nothing to do with faith, it is just common sense.

Rationally, you should say it's unknown in the absence of any evidence at all. You can't start assessing the validity of a hypothesis until you have at least some evidence to go by.

The examples you've given both have evidence to suggest the hypotheses were false, they are easily testable, and therefore verifable.

If something is untestable by current methods, then we have no means of producing useful evidence either for or against the hypothesis. To take a stance on such a situation is therefore done based on what you believe. Many people believe, or if you like, put faith in, the idea of logical positivism. The idea that you should assume absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but there is nothing to say this belief is any more valid than any other. It's not testable as such, it's an assumption, a commonly used one, but still an assumption. Unfortunately proper application of it requires that evidence can be gathered should the hypothesis be true. If you aren't sure you can gather evidence, then using the idea is purely based on faith, not common sense. If you're using the wrong evidence gathering tool, and fail to gather evidence, have you proved the hypothesis false?

 

[Shackley]

Rationally, you should say it's unknown in the absence of any evidence at all. You can't start assessing the validity of a hypothesis until you have at least some evidence to go by.

The examples you've given both have evidence to suggest the hypotheses were false, they are easily testable, and therefore verifiable.

If something is untestable by current methods, then we have no means of producing useful evidence either for or against the hypothesis. To take a stance on such a situation is therefore done based on what you believe. Many people believe, or if you like, put faith in, the idea of logical positivism. The idea that you should assume absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but there is nothing to say this belief is any more valid than any other. It's not testable as such, it's an assumption, a commonly used one, but still an assumption. Unfortunately proper application of it requires that evidence can be gathered should the hypothesis be true. If you aren't sure you can gather evidence, then using the idea is purely based on faith, not common sense. If you're using the wrong evidence gathering tool, and fail to gather evidence, have you proved the hypothesis false?

Fair comment. On behalf of the chicken, I will submit without the need for extensive testing. I'm not quite sure how one would any more "easily test" for the existence or absence of life on Mars than one could for the existence or absence of a "Superior being" (God) - both hypotheses are "untestable by current methods".

I guess that this is why I would describe myself as an agnostic rather than an atheist - I would still hesitate however to describe my lack of belief in the existence of a God as an act of faith.