So this is causing a bit of a storm. When I read it though, I thought this is sociology of science 101. To the layman, and to all non-specialists, science is a belief system. We take certain things on trust - like the discovery of the Higgs. It doesn't mean that science is not based on empirical evidence.
I'm not sure I see the link between simplifying something so that a layman can understand it and appealing to magic or God to explain something away, or why having something simplified for you makes your acceptance of that fact an irrational act.
I think that what he is getting at is that you are taking it on faith that the logic is solid behind the theory. One of the things about science is that it is an observation about the reality that we can see.
I think religion is about the reality that we can't. It's not about explaining away something, but trying to put a boundary on what we do and don't understand. I think the biggest downfall of religion is when we (religious folks) try to make observations about the world with our feelings. That doesn't work. I can't feel a desk with my "heart" any more than I can feel radio waves with my hands.
I think what is irrational is that science feels that it can explain everything all the way, but I'm of the opinion that the further we dig the deeper it will go. We used to believe the proton, neutron, and electron were the smallest form of matter. What will be next? I have "faith" that something new will be discovered, which is where we step into an irrational realm.
Faith in anything is irrational. Succinctly, To believe in that which is outside of your own thoughts is irrational, but we do and we must to survive.
I think that what he is getting at is that you are taking it on faith that the logic is solid behind the theory.
If we believed that, how come we're constantly throwing away and modifying theories?
I think what is irrational is that science feels that it can explain everything all the way
Science is incapable of feeling. That some people believe that is inconsequential is not a failure of science.
We used to believe the proton, neutron, and electron were the smallest form of matter. What will be next? I have "faith" that something new will be discovered, which is where we step into an irrational realm.
That's a false equivalence. "Faith" as attributing a high degree of confidence in a event based on solid logical reasoning is not the same as religious faith. It's not even in the same ballpark.
This is one thing I don't understand. Do the modern day followers of various religions not realize that they were founded by borderline drunks and psychonauts?
These people don't just "talk to the gods" while completely sober; they're railed on a whole plethora of wonderful psychotropics. If any single follower of any religion wants to find out where it came from, eat a handful of mushrooms.
Several hundred years ago, nobody understands acceleration.
Several decades ago, nobody understands the theory of relativity.
Today, nobody understands the Standard Model.
In the time of Newton, there were numerous smart people trying to explain how gravity works. Newton's tremendous insight was that if he could develop a mathematical model that accurately predicted the movement of objects under the influence of gravity, it would not matter whether he could explain "how" gravity works. It was the original "shut up and calculate" moment, and the birth of our modern conception of mathematical physics.
Science describes and predicts. Ultimately it cannot tell us "why"--or "should". These will always be the realm of philosophy and religion.
Where religious dogma contradicts proven scientific understanding, the religious dogma must yield. But I worry that in our zeal to resolve that conflict, scientifically-inclined people also end up attacking the sense of emotional awe that is at the heart of the religious experience. That's a shame because it is also at the heart of why many kids decide to go into science in the first place. Carl Sagan addressed this a bit in his book "Contact", in which he calls that emotional experience "the numinous".
I am going to be provocative and say that there are scientists that actively try to expand into the other realm. After all philosophy and religion are products of the human brain activity, which is composed of cells, so why can't these functions be approached in a scientific way? To say that we will have to stop inquiring about it would be lazy
> philosophy and religion are products of the human brain activity, which is composed of cells, so why can't these functions be approached in a scientific way?
That's easy to answer -- because they aren't subject to potential falsification, by way of comparison with reality.
Scientific ideas, to merit the name, must be testable against reality, and if reality disagrees, the ideas must be discarded.
Philosophy and religion don't have this property -- they (a) don't need to pass a reality test, and (b) in most cases they cannot pass a reality test. This is by design, not by accident -- if religion and philosophy had to meet this standard, their purpose (freedom to speculate about untestable things) would be undermined.
> there are scientists that actively try to expand into the other realm.
Perhaps, but not as scientists, only as individuals not doing science. And because science rejects authority, a scientist who philosophizes is just another philosopher, no better or worse than any other.
We might, by studying the human brain, figure out that as it functions it starts philosophizing and asking "why", even generating religious ideas. To me that would be enough to demystify and explain them away in a scientific (and falsifiable) way. In this sense, philosophy, religion, and science itself is subject to empirical examination.
That's also what i meant by "expanding to the other realm", i mean using brain research to explain the biological basis behind major philosophical concepts such as free will [1].
We can certainly examine the physical factors that lead to the human brain expressing and experiencing awe, morality, religious fervor, etc. But, that doesn't mean we should deny the power of those feelings in our human experience. After all they are the product of billions of years of evolution, and isn't that awe-inspiring in its own way?
One often hears the argument that science never can give a why, and only religion/philosophy can give that. In my opinion, this is simply not true. In this case, the Higgs mechanism explains, in some sense, why particles have mass (N.B., most of the mass you interact with is not generated by the Higgs, but by the dynamic generation of mass inside the nuclei). Of course, the next question is: where does this field come from, etc. etc.
But the same you could do in religion. God created the universe. Fine. But where did God come from? And why? The only way religion can end this by postulating that these questions are "forbidden"/impossible.
The other thing I am always wondering about is the mental step from accepting the existence of god(s) to following their perceived wishes. Most of us prefer democracy over following a king. Still, many choose to follow the indirect words of their god.
One is based in the human psyche (God/philosophy) the other is based in our observations of the physical world.
Also, that statement that most of us prefer democracy is not backed by any facts here. Is there a study on this? It sounds like a guess. I'd guess that most people don't care otherwise we'd have democracy everywhere.
There are also two very different group of answers to the questions. However, the point is that the never ending chain of why exists in both religion and science. The claim that religion can provide more than science in this regard is wrong.
Regarding democracy: I actually meant to refer to the "western world". In general, democracy is certainly spreading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
There is a nice plot of the number of nations with "democracy" vs. time below the heading 20th and 21st centuries.
From the people I know, none of the those who believe in a God do not prefer democracy. That is certainly a biased group. And I think you have a point about "don't care", but if asked, I would say that most if not all of those friends would rather fight for democracy than their god.
I was just making a statement based on the opinion I saw in the statement you made.
I'm going to assume that most of your friends are Christian, and in modern Christianity fighting for your God is done with non-violence. Also many Christians today consider fighting for your country the same as fighting for God.
I have to say that Science doesn't prove anything. They predict. I agree that religion should not try to prove anything about the realm of the physical.
To say that God created the universe is to say that you believe in intelligent design. Some creature who put it all together. The why and how does not matter to the religious. They adapt their view TO science because it is immaterial. Look at Genesis. Honestly 7 days?
Religion isn't about the facts, or about arguing that there is an either out in space. It is about saying, hey there is always going to be something we can't explain and beyond that is God.
"But people raised to believe that physicists are more reliable than Hindu priests will prefer molasses to milk. For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith, not of rationality."
This reminds me of the episode of South Park where Cartman travels into the future to play Nintendo only to find a post-religious world mired in faith-based fighting.
If your quest for understanding takes you down the path of science or of religion or both, at some point you are going to have to take something on faith, and to succeed you will eventually have to defend that faith - usually against someone else's faith in something else.
Science doesn't require you to take anything on faith, for every theory and result it states it gives you the tools and methods to go away and verify it for yourself. It might be a stretch to expect someone to build another LHC, but if they don't trust the science coming out of there they could build it for themselves and see.
Faith is the belief in or of something in the absence of proof, science not only provides the proof it makes it possible to prove for yourself. Science only requires trust in the scientists who are providing the results used to prove the theories.
Agree 100%. Moreover, any scientific theory is an open challenge. If you can create a reproducible experiment that disproves a theory, then we must throw it away.
Science doesn't require you to take anything on faith
But it does, in a sense. See, for example, The Problem of Induction[1].
for every theory and result it states it gives you the tools and methods to go away and verify it for yourself.
The scientific method is certainly my preferred choice for developing new knowledge, and it appears to be better than any other system developed to date (certainly better than accepting weird folklore from ancient books). But, in a manner of speaking, there is a certain sort of "faith" involved with science as well.
Absolutely. Don't mistake my comments here as any sort of defense of religion. Just pointing out that science is not, maybe, as absolute as some people would suggest. "Black Swan" events do happen and previously accepted ideas are thrown out.
What makes science so much more compelling than religion, in my book, is the testability. What we think we know about the world, as a result of science, enables us to do things with tangible benefits... cars, computers, jet airplanes, Mars probes, mp3 players, etc. I don't see any way to test much of anything that religion tells us is true. And to the best of my knowledge, when people have tried to validate religious beliefs (like the power of prayer) the results have not come down solidly on the side of religious belief.
There are lots of things that might be true, that you can't prove. String theory, some math problems, the lady or the tiger, whether you can trust your own senses, etc. For any given fact, chances are you can't prove it so you will have to take it on faith or forgo belief.
...at some point you are going to have to take something on faith...
At some point you are going to have to believe that someone else is giving you accurate, verifiable information, and you're going to have to trust them because you don't have the time to actually verify it.
Belief is important in science. In science we only disprove a hypothesis (falsifiability). If we repeatedly fail to disprove it we begin to believe it true. Yet we can never rule out that one data the data may exist to disprove our strongly held hypothesis. We never prove it true we simply believe it true based on the continual failure of disproof.
I couldn't find anything to take away from this article (and now this guy can claim to be publishing in Nature? What a load of BS).
- Higgs was the goddamned particle, which was censored to 'god'. In any case it was just a joke
- In a sense scientists believe in science, because it has never failed them. As much as most would not admit it, i believe they see some metaphysical meaning in searching for nature's truths. Plus there is some (neuro-)science that deals with metaphysical/religious feelings itself.
- Just because certain places, thoughts and readings create certain chemical reactions in our brains that we perceive as deep mystical emotions doesn't mean they matter in themselves. I used to have a fear of locusts.
- a walk through the magnificent temples of Angkor offers a glimpse of the unknowable and the inexplicable beyond the world of our experience: Isn't it weakness to stop there and say "OMG"? What causes those feelings, what purpose do they serve, and why do they happen in that Temple? Why do we even have the word "unknowable"? I think that's why science is more fun
Science is constantly failing us. I remember when I was taught the basic structure of an atom and all I needed were protons, neutrons, and electrons. And while quarks can be chalked up as an expansion pack for an high school teacher so can many of the changes that religious people make.
How many scientific theories are proven not to be accurate models for the data? Is that not a failure? No, because it is just a failure on that particular scientist right? There is a perception that science does not fail. It does, frequently.
The problem is that science was BUILT to fail. It is BUILT to be expanded upon. Religion, according to many was not. That is the fundamental failure in Religion. They want to appear to be constant and unchanging while they are not.
Religion does adapt, and grow, and find failures. Much like science does. It takes a certain amount of faith to wake up every day and say that this world is the real one. It makes logical sense yes, but that doesn't mean it's the whole picture.
TLDR; To be staunchly of either belief and NOT have any doubt THAT is illogical.
So the failure of religion is... its inability to perfectly predict the future (i.e. after death)?
Yes, science is imperfect, there are no proofs. Only disproofs.
Would you consider a model that does not perfectly predict the future to be considered a failure ? If I want to send a message across the galaxy and I'm only using Netwon's Laws will it get to where I want it go? Would that be considered a failure? In a word, yes. But it is also a learning experience.
I think this model should apply to religion as well. It is not meant to be taken as a perfect prediction of Godhood, just a theory that we are currently wearing. Hopefully it isn't too far off, but so what if it is?
I really just want people to accept that we hold certain truths to be infallible and they are not. Not even scientific theories. The Standard Model is under constant change.
Science is not a failure because of that, for the simple reason that it was never supposed to be infallible. Imperfection is at its core, it's not a failure.
Sending a message across the galaxy with the assumption that science is perfect is a failure by the person sending the message, not science's.
I'd have to say that they are different sorts of food. Science is a food for your brain. It stimulates you and helps you to doubt everything.
Religion is a food for your "soul" or inner well being. It is meant to make you into a better person and to help you enjoy this life in a different way.
Our brain needs both types of stimulation. Some of us get stimulation by proving our theories.
The religous get stimulation by thinking about abstract concepts that have no solution. You can consider it like a game, the better you play the "happier" you will be.
I'll admit that religion does not work for everyone. For some it tastes like garbage and gives no nourishment, I can see why you'd view it as a pacifier in that way.
To others it helps them to cope with being on a rock, flying through space. It helps me in that way. In this case I say to each his own, I prefer to separate science and religion and get my nourishment from them both in equal parts.
Personally, i take the eliminativist view that soul is your brain. I do see some value in metaphysical contemplation (as a fun exercise) but I think if one accepts it seriously, it becomes an escape mechanism.
An escape mechanism for what? To escape the fact that you are a package of meat spinning on a rock, spinning about a ball of burning gas, spinning about....
It is an escape, a hope a dream that at the end of this day in day out life to wake up to something different rather than to cease existing. It is the most arrogant, self sustaining idea out there. That you as a person are important, that your opinion will matter, and that the concept of who you are will be carried forward by more than your sperm/eggs.
Faith is the concept of believing in something you can't prove. It is a thesis that is backed by our need as a species to propagate forward. The proof is in our minds (or spirits). It gives us something to latch on to. I just don't understand why it has to be considered a bad thing?
I have to also throw out there that philosophy has a great way of showing that doubt is at our core. I think some of these arguments are fanciful, but why is it not possible for there to be something more out there that we can't detect?
Religion (if that's what you describe) offers coping mechanisms that pacify the existential stress. While this is rewarding (and psychologically beneficial to most people) it also acts as an escape from the drive to discover the true nature of the world. Naturally, we may assume that there may be many entities outside this universe (but should they necessarily be undetectable?), as our imagination is boundless. That doesn't mean that these ideas should necessarily be considered valid by everyone. It's a personal choice to believe or not. The appeal of science is that it provides a universally applicable test (empiricism) to determine whether a belief is false or not.
Religion as an institution, or religion's effect on each person?
Separate the culture from the spirituality. Most people never do, and suffer greatly for it. I am almost certain you're arguing against the anti-intellectualism of American religious culture, and I find them to be a harmful, misguided force. But they do not constitute the whole of the religious experience; in fact, I believe they only partake in a truncated form of it because they exclude certain types of knowledge.
I ask you to consider the fact that there are counter examples to your assertion, even if they are harder to see. I wouldn't think you'd be happy with half-truths (especially those that seek to demonize).
This is a classic religious view of science. But science isn't a belief system or some kind of guarantee, it's simply a disciplined way to compare ideas to reality.
> The problem is that science was BUILT to fail.
That's true, but is is certainly not a problem. In science, ideas can only be falsified, never proven true once and for all, and that is by design. Every scientific theory awaits falsification through new evidence, and some resist falsification for very long periods. No scientific theory ever becomes true in a final sense.
That is what separates science and religion.
> Religion does adapt, and grow, and find failures.
This is false. Religion punishes dissent and doubt. Science encourages it. The most reliable way to earn a scientific reputation, a Nobel Prize, is to cast doubt on a theory and produce evidence to back up the doubt. In religion, that can only get you expelled or killed.
> How many scientific theories are proven not to be accurate models for the data? Is that not a failure?
No, that is a success, and an essential part of the scientific process. Falsifiability, the idea that any theory can be disproven by way of evidence, is the single most important thing to understand about science, and it's what separates scientific theories from all other kinds.
> There is a perception that science does not fail. It does, frequently.
The failure of a theory, by way of evidence, is a success for science.
OK so what I'm attempting to say here is that it is not possible to compare scientific discovery with that religion. Science grows from its failures. I understand that. While I'm not a scientist, I am an Engineer and I have a solid (albeit not exhaustive) background in science.
Science does not inherently deal with morality. Thus it can't truly be compared to religion. Honestly, the religious should stay away from explaining the natural world, but they don't so we get some crazy stories.
>This is false. Religion punishes dissent and doubt. Science encourages it. The most reliable way to earn a scientific reputation, a Nobel Prize, is to cast doubt on a theory and produce evidence to back up the doubt. In religion, that can only get you expelled or killed.
This is the only point on which I disagree with you. If you study religion, you will see that they grow and adapt naturally. An example would be Vatican II. Did you know that the early Catholic church did not believe that Mary was "Assumed" into heaven? Now it's as good as a "religious" fact. That change came about non-violently from inside the church.
Power is something people try to find anywhere. The atom bomb was a tool to be used against populations, and so is religion. Many people are dissilusioned by religion because they see historic bad behavior and want to stop it. Hence, lets get rid of religion. This is not the case. "Evil" or acts that you and I would deem in breech of basic human rights come from other people and they will use any tool they can.
Yes, many Catholics believe papal decrees to be infallible, they are idiots. A church should never be considered above it's own laws.
They are two different models for belief and inquiry. I think that much can be learned in religion from the scientific model, and that science needs to stay pure (i.e. away from religion).
That doesn't mean that we can throw moral standards aside and begin human testing, but it does mean that the religious should try to stop scientific exploration for fear of a loss of "faith". If their faith is so weak that it is centered around how the universe works, then they have a problem. I.E. Kill Galileo cuz he's going to ruin our plans.
That was a power move by a corrupt church, not a religious move where "God" said to the pope, "That dude is going to make all sorts of trouble for the Catholic church, we better of him.. oh yeah that one commandment I taught you, I'll ignore it."
This corruption is peppered anywhere there is power, even in science. I know some grad students are asked to falsify data... I don't constitute this as proof. It's really just to show that the notion isn't out in left field. http://ctscanhollywood.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/workplace-bu...
Does that mean that science is bad? No, it's the person wielding that power.
> If you study religion, you will see that they grow and adapt naturally.
Yes -- but only when everything else has failed. For example, when confronted by science, the Church began by burning all the heretics ("natural philosophers") they could lay their hands on, then imprisoning them, then negotiating with them, and finally, when the Church's survival was clearly at stake, embracing a kind of science that doesn't threaten dogma.
> An example would be Vatican II.
An example of the replacement of one dogma with another.
> Yes, many Catholics believe papal decrees to be infallible, they are idiots.
Yes -- religion's natural constituency.
> Does that mean that science is bad?
Science is not a moral arbiter and doesn't dictate behaviors as religion does. So individual misbehaviors don't reflect on science as they might in religion.
Conclusion? Science and religion aren't even comparable -- they serve different purposes.
> - Higgs was the goddamned particle, which was censored to 'god'. In any case it was just a joke
The article is not about that at all, but how the physics and mathematics surrounding it is so abstract that no one but a theoretical physicist can at all have any meaningful understanding of it.
For anyone else it's just a matter of faith.
Personally, I think there is a big difference between a myth passed down as tradition for thousands of years, and a discovery peer reviewed in the scientific community.
Quite. It's not faith. It's not even close. It's the temporary granting of a small amount of trust that the theoretical physicist hasn't cocked up somewhere.
Not really. Faith is what you have on things that cannot be proved. Like someone else pointed out, it's like saying believing in the existence of Moscow is a matter of faith for everyone who was never there. And, even for those who think they've been to Moscow, how can they be sure it was not other city cleverly disguised as Moscow?
I applaud this author for having an open mind on this topic.
I think often times in science there is an ego that we can and we will uncover all the secrets of the universe, but that in an of itself is something taken on faith.
It is actually something irrationally taken on faith, if experience and data counts for anything, then the only logical theory to this argument is that we can't and won't ever find an end to discovery. Why? Because as we uncover the mysteries of the universe an exponential number of mysteries open up to us.
We can detect Higgs boson in principle (and may have recently). Religion on the other hand remains ramblings of bronze age goat herders who "knew" the secrets of the universe because a burning bush revealed it to them. We now have ample evidence that theistic gods are man made inventions. For those of us who care about what is true, this is enough to discard religion as a pure lie, which is not even a force for the good in the world (child raping, crusades, inquisitions, suicide bombers, jihads, Armageddons and end of times. These people just can't wait to die or if they can't live forever, kill everyone else as well with them).
Science on the other hand is not a belief system. Evidence based reasoning doesn't work that way. It strikes me as odd that someone who is presumably a trained scientist hasn't even understood that basic charge theists put forward repeatedly (it boils down to "it takes equal amount of faith not to believe in god as it does to believe in god" applied to all kinds of things in this case science based on empirical evidence. As if there is even a trace of credible evidence for god. In fact when you start poking around various deities it gets incredibly uncomfortable for the religious because of how little evidence there is for historicity of say Jesus let alone his presumed divinity.).
Awe and amazement is not exclusive to religion you know. Just like how religion has hijacked morals and now boldly claims you can't be a moral person without some kind of delusion in sky god (it doesn't even have to be their brand of delusion, anything is better than atheism or secularism). These people fail to understand that morals like language are also products of our wills and minds and therefore also a technology. We can decide slavery is not a good idea (despite endorsement from Yahweh). We can decide that fairly applied laws, rather than nepotistic favoritism, is a good idea. We can outlaw certain punishments with treaties. We can encourage accountability with the invention of writing. We can consciously expand our circle of empathy. These are all inventions, products of our minds, as much as lightbulbs and telegraphs are. People who insist on absolute biblical morality are really insisting on using bronze age technology absolutely. Time and time again, religion is proving itself incapable of catching up with the achievements of secular society, which is not surprising really, religion is now a branch of human ignorance. It was our first approximation of science, first explanation for everything primitive mind feared but could not explain, but it failed to evolve and improve because of its insistence on supernatural and supernatural explanations, which simply are not supported by evidence.
And this brings me to a larger point, why do we even have religion today? Precisely because believing is lot easier than thinking. It takes time and effort to acquire knowledge but any fool can acquire faith instantly and effortlessly. If it took any effort most people would not bother with it. And the biggest problem with all of this is this love affair with ignorance is made into a virtue by religion.
You realize that much of what you have to say in this is based on a leap of faith. You've limited your view to what you can learn from only your 5 senses and that nothing else exists.
If anything science DENIES that as a truth with the discovery of the non-visual light spectrum. Much of science denies exactly what you claim.
Science is a model to explain data and experience, while predicting what can happen. There are many theories, many of which change. A thesis (or leap of faith) is examined and DISproven. They are never proven to be 100% true.
Math has proofs, not science.
So please understand that it is important to realize that there is ALWAYS another explanation for something. You are irrational in your defense of Science.
I do not know that there is a God. I think people who claim such things are fools as you said. I have faith that there is one. It is a thesis of mine and as of right now there is no disproof.
And this is why the article makes no sense. Religion cannot produce a testable hypothesis. It is, therefore, useless as a tool for explaining anything - it's as useful as a magnifying glass with a painting instead of a lens. The painting may be impressive and moving, but it's not about the bug you are examining.
There is always another explanation, but, unless that other explanation is as testable as what we currently assume to be closest to correctness, it should not be considered.
You are actually quite confused. Yes, science has theories (which is a highest pedestal a hypothesis can be placed upon) and only math has theorems (I'm a mathematician by the way so I know the distinction).
Scientific method is an approximation method. It converges on the "truth" but may never reach it. This is why Einstein famously said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, but a single experiment can prove me wrong." I quoted truth above because there is no such thing as truth really. We only have models.
And even more there is not such thing as model independent reality. When you start talking about things (e.g. light) without using a particular model of it you run into all sorts of problems rather quickly.
You are also working under the assumption that things you can't see directly can't be considered evidence. This is patently not true. We can never see electron with our own eyes directly, but we can detect it by other means.
What god do you believe exists? If you are referring to deistic god (the one that may perhaps have kicked off the universe, but does not interfere in it any more) then no one can in principle provide a proof it exists nor that it does not exist. At most we can say is such a hypothesis is no longer needed. It presupposes a lot more to assume an intelligent being capable of creating universes who either spontaneously came into being or always existed than to assume the same thing about the universe itself (i.e. dumb matter). This is why Occam's razor cuts such hypothesis as superfluous thing, because it does not explain anything new, but poses more questions.
Theism on the other hand is not simply belief in gods. Theism is belief in gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity etc.
This theistic concept of god is quite distinct from a deistic god who may perhaps have kicked off the universe and set its laws, but who does not interfere in it any more.
And it is this theistic god that we now know is a man made invention.
Wow, very well written. I have a lot of respect for you.
Scientific models are man made abstractions on a reality that we cannot prove. You obviously put a lot of faith into those man made abstractions.
To say that a theistic god is a man made invention is an assumption on who created it. That would be distinctly eliminating the possibility of alien life forms.
Also you misuse Occam's Razor. It can't disprove anything without empirical data.
The bible is a man-made invention. The stories in it are disseminated by men. That does not disprove that there is a God who can interact with the real world in some way or other. It just means that as scientific knowledge refines their theories so must religion.
Also a few points, I'm an Aerospace Engineer. I know that there are tools that expand what our senses can observe, but they still must display information in a way that we can observe.
I'm curious though, would you mind clarifying this statement.
>>It presupposes a lot more to assume an intelligent being capable of creating universes who either spontaneously came into being or always existed than to assume the same thing about the universe itself (i.e. dumb matter).
What about a hypothesis of a deistic God makes it no longer needed? If you move away from the physical sciences into those that study the human psyche, you'll see that much is left unexplained. It could be argued (albeit blindly) that any such hypothesis is no longer needed.
Natural sciences and behavioral sciences have no business explaining away each other. Religion is a behavioral science. You may deem behavioral science as superfluous, but it can't be cut away.
Occam's razor was never meant to prove anything. It is a principle of economy of assumptions or hypothesis. In essence it says don't assume more than you have to explain certain phenomena. This is what I mean. We now have a good idea how universe itself can come from nothing, we don't need the god hypothesis to explain that one last ultimate question (why is there something rather than nothing. There is something because something is more stable than nothing). Our ancestors certainly didn't have that knowledge and for them god seemed necessary to "explain" this. Even though such god did not really explain anything, it just shifted the question further to where did god come from. Did he spontaneously come from nothing? Did he always exist? And why can't we just forgo such hypothesis (this is where Occam's economy principle comes in) and just assume universe itself either always existed or come into being from nothing (which is what current physical theory suggests). Why posit an intelligent being capable of creating universes, which raises more questions about where did this intelligence itself come from, rather than assume the same thing about the dumb matter (i.e. universe) itself.
I hope this clarifies what I meant above.
This whole argument is shortened into "deistic god can neither be proved nor disproved, but we no longer need him to kick off the universe for us. We now know how that too can happen without god".
However, I have nothing against deistic god. People who want to believe in deistic god will not receive any objection from me. I'm primarily gnostic (I know there is no theistic god) anti-theist (I don't think religion is a force for good in the world). Religion is not about deistic god. Religion is about people who not only know there is a god, with certainty, but they know his mind, what he wants us to do. It is this argument from certainty (which all arguments from faith are), that can easily be disproved. Note that I have not actually offered proof in my posts, the time and space and the forum itself are not the right places to do this. But I can recommend a lot of literature on this subject that go into great depth if you care to look at the evidence we do have.
I'd love to get any references you have. I enjoy learning from anyone who can keep an open mind. I do have to say that your comment about sheep herders, while funny (and accurate) was a little over the top.
Deistic or Theistic, if someone doesn't suck at religion I think that they should be left alone. Especially if that leads them to give money to the poor, teach in developing nations, etc. While it can be argued that those things have negative effects I've also seen some of the good that comes from it first hand.
I love this comic. I believe it sums up most of what I think about religion. The only thing I would change is the one where the father is teaching his daughter. There does need to be room for a parent to "express" belief to his children and acceptance when the children differ from the parent.
Agnostic and atheistic beliefs can be added to the above comic as well. :-) That being said, if you see someone sucking at their religion please school them and tell them I'm asking them not to make the rest of us look bad.
Breaking the Spell - Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief
Darwin's Dangerous Idea Evolution and the Meanings of Life
Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark
Dossier Of Reason
Evil God Challenge
Forged
God - The Failed Hypothesis
God Is Not Great
Godless
History of God
Jesus Interrupted
Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ
Letter To A Christian Nation
Logic and Theism
Love Thy Neighbour - Evolution of In-group Morality
Lying
Misquoting Jesus
Superstition In All Ages
The Ascension of Yahweh_ The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism
The Christian Delusion
The Dialogues of Plato
The Early History of Heaven
The End of Faith
The Evolution of God
The God Delusion
The God Virus How Religion Infects Our Lives And Culture
The Moral Landscape
Who Wrote the Bible
Why I am not a Christian
These are just some of the books I have read on the subject, but there are others highly rated and recommended that I still want to go through. However, these are really good.
If this list seems daunting I would recommend a shorter list:
"Breaking the spell" by Daniel Dennett
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkings
"God is not great" by Christopher Hitchens
"End of Faith" by Sam Harris
But books by Steven Hawking "The Grand Design", "Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss and "Your Inner Fish - A Journey into the 3.5 billion year history of the human body" by Neil Shubin, are also great although somewhat more technical. All other books are softer read.
I failed to address your other main charge. Putting "faith" in man made abstractions and scientific models, that is so often put forward by the religious (and the guy writing the nature article as well).
Let's clarify beliefs first. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory. Put another way, if you destroyed all holy books they would never be re-created again in their present form by future generations. But destroy all scientific knowledge and it will be re-created again. Why? Precisely because science is based on testing your ideas and models. This is why science is often discovered and re-discovered by independent people, living in completely different cultures. This is why science in China, or India is the same as science in USA or Argentina.
It takes no faith to believe in Newton's laws. Who hasn't watched their physics professor use compressor to pump out air of two glass tubes and see feather and metal ball fall with equal speed, or seen the conservation of momentum demonstrated etc. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to test and devise experiments, but it is doable and many of us have done it for large sections of scientific knowledge. In fact, if it weren't possible to independently replicate an experiment and verify the results, then someone is doing poor science. It's simple as that.
Contrast that with faith based beliefs. It all really boils down to you putting faith in other people who say there is a god, and not only that, they also know his mind, what he wants us to do. And people never ask for ordinary evidence from them for their extraordinary claims, they just accept it. And what brand of delusion of this kind you get indoctrinated into is highly correlated with where you were born. And isn't it also amazing that what ever religion you get indoctrinated into feels like the right one? :D.
In fact, all discussions with the religious people always boil down to "evidence or shut up". The rest of discussion degenerates into psychology and dealing with fears of leaving various delusions.
> You've limited your view to what you can learn from only your 5 senses and that nothing else exists.
Not quite. The most basic description of science is that it deals exclusively with testable ideas, ideas that can be compared to reality. And if reality disagrees, the idea is abandoned.
So it's not that "nothing else exists" but that untestable, unfalsifiable ideas aren't a matter of interest to a scientist.
> It is a thesis of mine and as of right now there is no disproof. [emphasis added]
There's another important distinction between science and non-science -- in science, an idea without supporting evidence is assumed to be false (the null hypothesis). To a non-scientist, ideas that haven't been disproven are assumed to be true (as in your example above). That's a big difference -- it's why nonscientists accept so many unsupported ideas.
Because of the null hypothesis, scientists are described as skeptical of ideas unaccompanied by evidence. This posture is sometimes looked on as a handicap -- until a jury is empaneled, at which point a variant form of the null hypothesis is explained to the jurors (innocent until proven guilty).
It all depends on how important the outcome is. If it's just a philosophical debate with no practical consequences, then believing anything does no harm. But when our lives or our health depend on the result, the null hypothesis has it all over the undisciplined approach.
As per the senses, yes you are correct testable. But in order to verify those tests we have to be able to sense in some way shape or form the results. The natural sciences are limited in that nature. I can't feel, I'm using the abstract idea of feel not that of the sensation we get through our skin, the results of an experiment.
The point that I'm making here is that religion needs to stay where it belongs. In the realm of behavioral side of the argument. I'd argue that anyone who said, "God created the universe" means that they are uninterested in the science behind it and that it is immaterial to their belief in God.
I'd argue that most religious don't associate God with controlling the atoms of the universe and setting it to begin. Sure they get comfortable with this explanation if it is presented long enough (2k years or so), but it doesn't matter to the abstract idea of God.
The "proof" of God comes not from what we can prove through observation (using our 5 senses + any tools we can create), but rather through a sense, a feel, a concept that there is a sixth sense in our minds. There is something we cannot touch.
In that case there should never be a proof for or against God. It's an abstract idea coming from feelings that we have of a spiritual core.
Also, philosophical debates have a great deal of practical consequences. If someone takes a philosophy to heart they can do a lot of damage. I know that many people argue that religion has caused harm, but it isn't the religion, but the institution that harms people. I think people can use anything to justify their behavior, God or no. It is when people objectify others and treat them as such that we have a problem.
So I'd suggest that we could look at the different disconnected cultures in the world that have "religion" as a set of evidence that there is something in us that wants to believe in an external being.
My theory is that there is a God, and anyone is free to disagree.
That is at the core of religion. The only truth I hold is that the later part of that statement is the most important.
Also, I realize that a hypothesis like that above is subjective and not capable of being dis-proven, thus most scientists worth their salt should and would never waste the energy to create an instrument to test it.
But that doesn't mean that it isn't possible or a valid explanation.
I freaking love this topic :-) P.S. Thanks for the post, I love reminders of things long since forgotten, I've been working in the industry way to long and most religious people aren't interested in this kind of discussion.
> In that case there should never be a proof for or against God.
More to the point, there can never be a proof for or against god. It's not possible -- one can always argue that god lives in a parallel universe, pulling puppet strings in this universe. Maybe true, maybe false, but quite untestable.
This is why scientists (for the most part) try to avoid addressing religion at all.
"Precisely because believing is lot easier than thinking"
It took me 20+ years of being a skeptic to realize this. I remember on a SGU podcast there was a politician who refused to believe in evolution and was trying to get creationism back into schools. When he was asked why he didn't believe in evolution his response was "I just don't understand it. Creationism makes sense". It dawned on me it had nothing to do with any rational argument this guy put together, he just didn't like feeling there was a topic he didn't understand. While he understood creationism just fine, evolution came along with a heavy array of questions that he was not ready to deal with. I've had a discussion with someone who after a death in the family responded to the question of "Why do you believe in an afterlife" with the answer of "I'm not ready to deal with the fact it doesn't". People like easy answers, not going to the moon makes a hell of a lot more sense than we did. The fact that 'natural' or 'organic' are words that do not simply mean 'good' but also come with a heavy array of questions are just things some people can't be bothered dealing with.
I'm downvoting you, not because of what you're saying, but primarily for your incendiary tone.
Content-wise, your musings on religion seemingly fail to take into account the existence of other religions outside of Christianity (or at the very least, outside of the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, & Islam). There are many non-biblical, non-revealed religions. There are many non-theistic ones as well. I don't feel the need to list them off here. Feel free to research.
Back to your tone, I kindly request that you be respectful of those who do not necessarily agree with you and do not assume you are preaching to the choir, otherwise you do nothing but hurt your own cause. If you reduce the entire concept of religion to nothing but "the ramblings of bronze age goat herders," do you honestly expect anyone who adheres to one of those religions (or to any other non-"goat herder" religion for that matter) to listen to what you have to say?
For the record, I agree with a lot of what you said, especially about awe and amazement not being exclusive to religion. Likewise about how many people (not entire religions mind you, or religion itself, but individuals) claim a monopoly on morality. Again, my issue isn't so much with your content, but more so with how you're presenting it. Just some food for thought.
Why should lies and delusions be respected? Something is either true or not. We now have evidence that all religions are man made inventions. Most people are either unwilling or unable to look at evidence or understand it. Willful or otherwise ignorance.
Respecting beliefs no matter how wild is exactly what got us into situation we are now, where politicians have to associate with some kind of brand of delusion before they can be elected, or when a senator of the most powerful country in the world is saying we don't need environmental policy because Jesus is going to return to earth within 50 years, so who cares what happens with the planet.
Moderate, respect religion view that you are advocating is exactly what gives platform and legitimacy to more wild and extreme fundamentalist beliefs.
Your points are correct for the most part, but still a little restricted by your implicit assertion that all religions are Abrahamic in nature. There is, for example, a tradition of atheism in Hinduism[1] - rejection of the "fact" that there is a guy in the sky who created everything. It deals mostly with human action - its nature and motivation. And fwiw, very few, educated, Hindus I know (anecdotal) are even aware of this. You are correct when you say advocating religious views can lead to encouraging extremists, but I think you might be also dismissing, with little study, the moral teachings and the focus on self without the need to resort to a god-figure that some religious traditions espouse. (I only know of this in Hinduism, there might be more.) I'd rather learn from that rather than dismiss it as irrelevant gibberish.
This is not to say that religion is some sort of magic cure-all, but that some traditions do exist - possibly out of our individual experience - which cannot be easily dismissed but which should be merged into our views as well. I treat religion as a conduit to self-improvement, not as a way to book my place in heaven, which is why your pretty angry,dismissive view of religion seems restrictive.
If you want to improve yourself you should look into what evidence based reasoning has to say about what you want to discover the answer for, and in particular what modern science has to say about it. Think of it this way. Think of any question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one.
Abandoning evidence based reasoning leads to error quickly. Arguing from absolute certainty, which is what faith is (it claims to posses the absolute truth, the words of the creator of the universe no less), is bound to lead to errors. Not testing your ideas does that to you.
Take for example animal rights and if it is right to kill animals. Judeo-Christian faiths are clean on this: god gave humans dominion over the earth, and in particular animals for food. End of story. Why should I give rights to my food?
But what is right follows from what is true. If animals are indeed sentient, if they are self-aware even, if they can suffer, are scientific questions. If scientific answers to these questions are positive, then some of us sufficiently evolved, aware humans can't ignore the fact, and we have no choice but to treat animals differently than what we do now. Some countries like Spain have gone so far as to give protection and right to life to higher primates, our closest cousin apes.
I see where you are going, but I fear this is getting way too meta for the thread :)
I never said that I blindly followed what was being taught to me; if it sounded like that, then its just poor phrasing on my part.
I do test what has been handed down to me by my elders. For the most part, because of the loss of most of the reasoning behind "religious teachings" - loss of books, extremists killing off opposing points of view, colonial trauma etc etc - it's very easy to dismiss religious traditions as random musings, because there is no textual evidence for ideas and thoughts. For eg. Hinduism is a little mixed about animal rights. I was specifically brought up as a vegetarian because of the tradition in our sub-sub-sub-branch of Hinduism that animals had rights. OTOH, there is some random garbage about women being second-class citizens which I never aim to follow, because it is patently unsound.
I guess my point is, I am not going to dismiss years of thought, just because they are years old, without putting some amount of thought into figuring out if it makes sense - in that sense I think we agree with each other. Religion tackles more things than we imagine when we learn to become atheists - its sole purpose need not be cataloging a list of dos and don'ts and it might end up provoking you to ask more questions about yourself.
My religious tradition has primarily been a bunch of ideas and thoughts and there is no real "book" which lays down the law. Maybe that is why I think from this perspective and why I cannot just dismiss these ideas without some introspection.
FWIW I didn't read any super-mario's posts as angry. Stripping religions of their gods and seeing what is leftover is an interesting thought experiment, it works particularly well with buddhist principles, but if you still seriously cleave to some sort of faith, either in gods or the authority of institutions and mortal peoples representing gods, then I can see how his posts could be seen as dismissive and confronting.
You have to take a hardline against the religious nutters - they imbibe everything with their craziness.
Understand that your position is one of naturalism, not one of science. Science does not presume to discuss what may or may not lie beyond the observable world.
Consider Carl Sagan:
"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed."
It is as much folly to advocate militant secularism as it is to advocate blind faith. You are caught red-handed. Consider your ways.
Really? Think of any question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one.
Also, we are working with different definitions of gods here. Sagan is talking about deistic god, which I spent some time addressing above. But when it comes to theistic gods (the ones that care about you, that break natural laws for their people, the ones that care what you eat and on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, ones that give themselves body so they may kill it to save their people, who take "our" side in the war etc), then we have plenty of scientific evidence these things are man made.
Besides it's really not up to me to provide evidence against some god. People who invoke him should. It's the classical celestial teapot argument. If I claim there is a tea pot circling Mars, why should you spent time and energy proving there isn't such a thing. I should provide evidence there is one.
If science has nothing to say about something what else does? Ramblings of religious people who just make stuff up and never provide any evidence for their claims? And which ones? Scientologists? Mormons? Muslims? Which one of these you will adhere to is highly correlated with where you were born and has nothing to do with the truthfulness of the particular religion. Sometimes these teach completely opposite things about god at the threat of hellfire and infinite torture. They can't all be true, but they can all be wrong.
And how do the religious know what lies beyond? Of course it comes down to "revealed" knowledge. God himself spoke to some people and told them things. And others are required to trust these people for their extraordinary claims without any evidence? Let alone the extraordinary evidence required to actually verify their claims.
And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made.
All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really. Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either).
But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Over the millennia people believed in all kinds of gods from Zeus to Athena to Thor. You are perfectly capable of dismissing them all as laughable, so you know what it is like to not believe in any of those as nonsense. Atheists just go one god further.
Your argument has departed from fact. You know, there may be times when one feels so right, so rational, but at the expense of a hint of aggression and anger. That's a good time to stop and think.
Your argument never had any facts. No argument that I have ever seen for religion ever does. What did I say that is a lie? I know how attack on your delusions can feel like aggression but there is never a polite way to tell someone that what they have based their entire life on is in fact a lie.
Hey now, religion isn't just sourced from bronze age goat herders! To name a few, there's 19th century con-men (Mormonism), 20th century shysters (Scientology), 21st century street magicians (Sathya Sai Baba).. we should be so lucky that religion had ceased fabrication 2000 years ago.
Science is our best effort attempt to describe the world around us. Science can't go beyond that.
All models are wrong but some models are more useful than others. It is unlikely that our models fit the data perfectly. Indeed we cannot know if we even have all the data in the first place. We should not mistake science for the real world, or the model for the data.
Naturalists would say that there's nothing beyond that, nothing beyond the world around us as described by science. They have no rational reason to assert such a position. They have no philosophical or scientific tools to make such a claim. Indeed the scientific method was never intended to be used towards that end. Philosophy is similarly ill-suited.
The mistake of naturalists is to conflate science with atheism and to confuse "faith" (conviction established by reason) with "blind faith" (unfounded conviction), two separate concepts. For example, "I have a degree of faith in you based on past performance" vs "I have a degree of faith in you based on whimsy".
On the other hand, the supernaturalist believes there's something beyond the world around us. Likewise, the supernaturalist has no tools (philosophy, science) to assert such a position. Both the naturalist (represented by atheism) and the supernaturalist (represented by blind faith) are indefensible positions.
Therefore there is no ground on which to outright reject or accept the possibility of miracles.
This leaves the middle ground (represented by agnosticism). Here the position is such that we can't reach out and describe the existence or non-existence of the supernatural, unless it were to reach out and describe itself to us in a way that would clearly be supernatural. This would mean that we could only ever confirm the existence of the supernatural but never deny it. For that task, we would need to look to history, using the tools of historical inquiry, if indeed there is anything supernatural yet to be found in history.
The claim of Christ, of the life and death and resurrection of Christ in history would be one such claim to examine:
"I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church." - Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians
I think I understand what point he is trying to get at, in a very round-a-bout, incorrect premise type way (ha, God particle). Do I know we went to the moon? No, but I can do enough research that shows there is more evidence we did than didn't. Do I know that the LHC actually works? No, but I could do the research to find more evidence that they did than they didn't. Do I have time to do that research? No. Does that mean I've put 'faith' in scientists that it does exist? Hell no, I've given them the benefit of the doubt. In my mind that is two WILDLY different statements. 'Faith' that the higgs exists suggests I've done give up trying to find answers and will simply take the word of others as fact. Benefit of the doubt means the people in charge have built up enough credibility that I'm willing to believe them for now, but I'm never going to stop reading every bit of information on the topic I can until I can form a proper opinion. Faith in the sun rising tomorrow means I won’t stick my head out the window and look. Benefit of the doubt means I'll have a good night’s sleep, but I'll sure as hell be looking out that window in the morning.
Leon Lederman did not want to call it 'The God Particle', just the opposite 'Goddamn Particle'.
"the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Univer...
Far more comments than upvotes. An article like this, fervent discussion is to be expected. Let me join in on the fun!
"Science is supposed to challenge this type of quasi-mystical subjective experience, to provide an antidote to it."
That is where the author lost me. Science is supposed to challenge beliefs, not personal experience. It's the difference between "I feel great today" and "four people complimented my new haircut today". Science still allows you to revel in beauty when looking at a temple, even while there may be a sound explanation for why you're having these feelings.
"The Higgs, of course, has been labelled the ‘god particle’ because it accounts for the existence of mass in the Universe."
No, it is called the "God Particle" because Leon Lederman called it the "Goddamned Particle" since he had so much trouble defining what it was and how it behaved, and his publisher shortened it to "The God Particle" because it had a snappier name.
It appears to me that most commenters missed the point of the article, which (to me) is more on the lines of Arthur C. Clarke's third law: " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Replace magic by religion.)
We have all these scientists trying to explain how sub-atomic particles have mass, and in course of that explanation, talk about the spin of a particle, color charge, Higgs field, et al. Thing is, I can really understand their explanation only if I know what these terms mean. And for me to know what those terms really mean, I might have to spend years (or maybe decades, depending on my mental capacity) studying theoretical physics. But I believe them because science if all about repeatable experiments. While I'm ill-equipped to check the results, I guess other domain-experts can.
Now, let's take a look at Hindu spirituality. A yogi might try to explain, say, why we exist, and in course of doing that, talk about Brahman, karma, cosmic cycle, et al. To really understand what he means, I would need to really understand what the terms mean, and doing that might take years or decades.
See the parallels? That's what the article is trying to emphasize.
The domain the author speaks of does not fall within the remit of science. Further, it cannot since spirituality is subjective.
It would be like saying the an accurate and extendible description of a thing is like actually standing next to the thing. Like reading of the Grand Canyon is the same as being at the Grand Canyon...
Also, the title of the article is critically misnamed. He is almost entirely describing spirituality not religious experience.
Non-religious people, including atheists, accept that it is possible to have spirituality, i.e. to form a deeper connection with others and yourself, including via science. It is the means by how that is achieved that is the source of friction outside of science.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadI think religion is about the reality that we can't. It's not about explaining away something, but trying to put a boundary on what we do and don't understand. I think the biggest downfall of religion is when we (religious folks) try to make observations about the world with our feelings. That doesn't work. I can't feel a desk with my "heart" any more than I can feel radio waves with my hands.
I think what is irrational is that science feels that it can explain everything all the way, but I'm of the opinion that the further we dig the deeper it will go. We used to believe the proton, neutron, and electron were the smallest form of matter. What will be next? I have "faith" that something new will be discovered, which is where we step into an irrational realm.
Faith in anything is irrational. Succinctly, To believe in that which is outside of your own thoughts is irrational, but we do and we must to survive.
If we believed that, how come we're constantly throwing away and modifying theories?
I think what is irrational is that science feels that it can explain everything all the way
Science is incapable of feeling. That some people believe that is inconsequential is not a failure of science.
We used to believe the proton, neutron, and electron were the smallest form of matter. What will be next? I have "faith" that something new will be discovered, which is where we step into an irrational realm.
That's a false equivalence. "Faith" as attributing a high degree of confidence in a event based on solid logical reasoning is not the same as religious faith. It's not even in the same ballpark.
Somebody really needs to drop acid.
These people don't just "talk to the gods" while completely sober; they're railed on a whole plethora of wonderful psychotropics. If any single follower of any religion wants to find out where it came from, eat a handful of mushrooms.
And they all submit to religion!
this kind of trolling for pageviews i expect from the dailymail or the guardian, not from one of the foremost and most respected publishes in Science.
Science describes and predicts. Ultimately it cannot tell us "why"--or "should". These will always be the realm of philosophy and religion.
Where religious dogma contradicts proven scientific understanding, the religious dogma must yield. But I worry that in our zeal to resolve that conflict, scientifically-inclined people also end up attacking the sense of emotional awe that is at the heart of the religious experience. That's a shame because it is also at the heart of why many kids decide to go into science in the first place. Carl Sagan addressed this a bit in his book "Contact", in which he calls that emotional experience "the numinous".
That's easy to answer -- because they aren't subject to potential falsification, by way of comparison with reality.
Scientific ideas, to merit the name, must be testable against reality, and if reality disagrees, the ideas must be discarded.
Philosophy and religion don't have this property -- they (a) don't need to pass a reality test, and (b) in most cases they cannot pass a reality test. This is by design, not by accident -- if religion and philosophy had to meet this standard, their purpose (freedom to speculate about untestable things) would be undermined.
> there are scientists that actively try to expand into the other realm.
Perhaps, but not as scientists, only as individuals not doing science. And because science rejects authority, a scientist who philosophizes is just another philosopher, no better or worse than any other.
That's also what i meant by "expanding to the other realm", i mean using brain research to explain the biological basis behind major philosophical concepts such as free will [1].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will
But the same you could do in religion. God created the universe. Fine. But where did God come from? And why? The only way religion can end this by postulating that these questions are "forbidden"/impossible.
The other thing I am always wondering about is the mental step from accepting the existence of god(s) to following their perceived wishes. Most of us prefer democracy over following a king. Still, many choose to follow the indirect words of their god.
One is based in the human psyche (God/philosophy) the other is based in our observations of the physical world.
Also, that statement that most of us prefer democracy is not backed by any facts here. Is there a study on this? It sounds like a guess. I'd guess that most people don't care otherwise we'd have democracy everywhere.
Regarding democracy: I actually meant to refer to the "western world". In general, democracy is certainly spreading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy There is a nice plot of the number of nations with "democracy" vs. time below the heading 20th and 21st centuries.
From the people I know, none of the those who believe in a God do not prefer democracy. That is certainly a biased group. And I think you have a point about "don't care", but if asked, I would say that most if not all of those friends would rather fight for democracy than their god.
I'm going to assume that most of your friends are Christian, and in modern Christianity fighting for your God is done with non-violence. Also many Christians today consider fighting for your country the same as fighting for God.
I have to say that Science doesn't prove anything. They predict. I agree that religion should not try to prove anything about the realm of the physical.
To say that God created the universe is to say that you believe in intelligent design. Some creature who put it all together. The why and how does not matter to the religious. They adapt their view TO science because it is immaterial. Look at Genesis. Honestly 7 days?
Religion isn't about the facts, or about arguing that there is an either out in space. It is about saying, hey there is always going to be something we can't explain and beyond that is God.
This reminds me of the episode of South Park where Cartman travels into the future to play Nintendo only to find a post-religious world mired in faith-based fighting.
If your quest for understanding takes you down the path of science or of religion or both, at some point you are going to have to take something on faith, and to succeed you will eventually have to defend that faith - usually against someone else's faith in something else.
We all have our cross to bear.
But it does, in a sense. See, for example, The Problem of Induction[1].
for every theory and result it states it gives you the tools and methods to go away and verify it for yourself.
The scientific method is certainly my preferred choice for developing new knowledge, and it appears to be better than any other system developed to date (certainly better than accepting weird folklore from ancient books). But, in a manner of speaking, there is a certain sort of "faith" involved with science as well.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
Religion says "You can't know this. You can't ever know this. You just have to trust me on this."
What makes science so much more compelling than religion, in my book, is the testability. What we think we know about the world, as a result of science, enables us to do things with tangible benefits... cars, computers, jet airplanes, Mars probes, mp3 players, etc. I don't see any way to test much of anything that religion tells us is true. And to the best of my knowledge, when people have tried to validate religious beliefs (like the power of prayer) the results have not come down solidly on the side of religious belief.
At some point you are going to have to believe that someone else is giving you accurate, verifiable information, and you're going to have to trust them because you don't have the time to actually verify it.
- Higgs was the goddamned particle, which was censored to 'god'. In any case it was just a joke
- In a sense scientists believe in science, because it has never failed them. As much as most would not admit it, i believe they see some metaphysical meaning in searching for nature's truths. Plus there is some (neuro-)science that deals with metaphysical/religious feelings itself.
- Just because certain places, thoughts and readings create certain chemical reactions in our brains that we perceive as deep mystical emotions doesn't mean they matter in themselves. I used to have a fear of locusts.
- a walk through the magnificent temples of Angkor offers a glimpse of the unknowable and the inexplicable beyond the world of our experience: Isn't it weakness to stop there and say "OMG"? What causes those feelings, what purpose do they serve, and why do they happen in that Temple? Why do we even have the word "unknowable"? I think that's why science is more fun
This guy needs to come out to himself as a theist
How many scientific theories are proven not to be accurate models for the data? Is that not a failure? No, because it is just a failure on that particular scientist right? There is a perception that science does not fail. It does, frequently.
The problem is that science was BUILT to fail. It is BUILT to be expanded upon. Religion, according to many was not. That is the fundamental failure in Religion. They want to appear to be constant and unchanging while they are not.
Religion does adapt, and grow, and find failures. Much like science does. It takes a certain amount of faith to wake up every day and say that this world is the real one. It makes logical sense yes, but that doesn't mean it's the whole picture.
TLDR; To be staunchly of either belief and NOT have any doubt THAT is illogical.
Yes, science is imperfect, there are no proofs. Only disproofs.
Would you consider a model that does not perfectly predict the future to be considered a failure ? If I want to send a message across the galaxy and I'm only using Netwon's Laws will it get to where I want it go? Would that be considered a failure? In a word, yes. But it is also a learning experience.
I think this model should apply to religion as well. It is not meant to be taken as a perfect prediction of Godhood, just a theory that we are currently wearing. Hopefully it isn't too far off, but so what if it is?
I really just want people to accept that we hold certain truths to be infallible and they are not. Not even scientific theories. The Standard Model is under constant change.
Sending a message across the galaxy with the assumption that science is perfect is a failure by the person sending the message, not science's.
Also, it is not a failure at all, it is a datum to be added to the experience that we base our observations on.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4417531
Religion is a food for your "soul" or inner well being. It is meant to make you into a better person and to help you enjoy this life in a different way.
Our brain needs both types of stimulation. Some of us get stimulation by proving our theories.
The religous get stimulation by thinking about abstract concepts that have no solution. You can consider it like a game, the better you play the "happier" you will be.
I'll admit that religion does not work for everyone. For some it tastes like garbage and gives no nourishment, I can see why you'd view it as a pacifier in that way.
To others it helps them to cope with being on a rock, flying through space. It helps me in that way. In this case I say to each his own, I prefer to separate science and religion and get my nourishment from them both in equal parts.
It is an escape, a hope a dream that at the end of this day in day out life to wake up to something different rather than to cease existing. It is the most arrogant, self sustaining idea out there. That you as a person are important, that your opinion will matter, and that the concept of who you are will be carried forward by more than your sperm/eggs.
Faith is the concept of believing in something you can't prove. It is a thesis that is backed by our need as a species to propagate forward. The proof is in our minds (or spirits). It gives us something to latch on to. I just don't understand why it has to be considered a bad thing?
I have to also throw out there that philosophy has a great way of showing that doubt is at our core. I think some of these arguments are fanciful, but why is it not possible for there to be something more out there that we can't detect?
Separate the culture from the spirituality. Most people never do, and suffer greatly for it. I am almost certain you're arguing against the anti-intellectualism of American religious culture, and I find them to be a harmful, misguided force. But they do not constitute the whole of the religious experience; in fact, I believe they only partake in a truncated form of it because they exclude certain types of knowledge.
I ask you to consider the fact that there are counter examples to your assertion, even if they are harder to see. I wouldn't think you'd be happy with half-truths (especially those that seek to demonize).
This is a classic religious view of science. But science isn't a belief system or some kind of guarantee, it's simply a disciplined way to compare ideas to reality.
> The problem is that science was BUILT to fail.
That's true, but is is certainly not a problem. In science, ideas can only be falsified, never proven true once and for all, and that is by design. Every scientific theory awaits falsification through new evidence, and some resist falsification for very long periods. No scientific theory ever becomes true in a final sense.
That is what separates science and religion.
> Religion does adapt, and grow, and find failures.
This is false. Religion punishes dissent and doubt. Science encourages it. The most reliable way to earn a scientific reputation, a Nobel Prize, is to cast doubt on a theory and produce evidence to back up the doubt. In religion, that can only get you expelled or killed.
> How many scientific theories are proven not to be accurate models for the data? Is that not a failure?
No, that is a success, and an essential part of the scientific process. Falsifiability, the idea that any theory can be disproven by way of evidence, is the single most important thing to understand about science, and it's what separates scientific theories from all other kinds.
> There is a perception that science does not fail. It does, frequently.
The failure of a theory, by way of evidence, is a success for science.
Science does not inherently deal with morality. Thus it can't truly be compared to religion. Honestly, the religious should stay away from explaining the natural world, but they don't so we get some crazy stories.
>This is false. Religion punishes dissent and doubt. Science encourages it. The most reliable way to earn a scientific reputation, a Nobel Prize, is to cast doubt on a theory and produce evidence to back up the doubt. In religion, that can only get you expelled or killed.
This is the only point on which I disagree with you. If you study religion, you will see that they grow and adapt naturally. An example would be Vatican II. Did you know that the early Catholic church did not believe that Mary was "Assumed" into heaven? Now it's as good as a "religious" fact. That change came about non-violently from inside the church.
Power is something people try to find anywhere. The atom bomb was a tool to be used against populations, and so is religion. Many people are dissilusioned by religion because they see historic bad behavior and want to stop it. Hence, lets get rid of religion. This is not the case. "Evil" or acts that you and I would deem in breech of basic human rights come from other people and they will use any tool they can.
Yes, many Catholics believe papal decrees to be infallible, they are idiots. A church should never be considered above it's own laws.
They are two different models for belief and inquiry. I think that much can be learned in religion from the scientific model, and that science needs to stay pure (i.e. away from religion).
That doesn't mean that we can throw moral standards aside and begin human testing, but it does mean that the religious should try to stop scientific exploration for fear of a loss of "faith". If their faith is so weak that it is centered around how the universe works, then they have a problem. I.E. Kill Galileo cuz he's going to ruin our plans.
That was a power move by a corrupt church, not a religious move where "God" said to the pope, "That dude is going to make all sorts of trouble for the Catholic church, we better of him.. oh yeah that one commandment I taught you, I'll ignore it."
This corruption is peppered anywhere there is power, even in science. I know some grad students are asked to falsify data... I don't constitute this as proof. It's really just to show that the notion isn't out in left field. http://ctscanhollywood.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/workplace-bu...
Does that mean that science is bad? No, it's the person wielding that power.
Yes -- but only when everything else has failed. For example, when confronted by science, the Church began by burning all the heretics ("natural philosophers") they could lay their hands on, then imprisoning them, then negotiating with them, and finally, when the Church's survival was clearly at stake, embracing a kind of science that doesn't threaten dogma.
> An example would be Vatican II.
An example of the replacement of one dogma with another.
> Yes, many Catholics believe papal decrees to be infallible, they are idiots.
Yes -- religion's natural constituency.
> Does that mean that science is bad?
Science is not a moral arbiter and doesn't dictate behaviors as religion does. So individual misbehaviors don't reflect on science as they might in religion.
Conclusion? Science and religion aren't even comparable -- they serve different purposes.
The article is not about that at all, but how the physics and mathematics surrounding it is so abstract that no one but a theoretical physicist can at all have any meaningful understanding of it.
For anyone else it's just a matter of faith.
Personally, I think there is a big difference between a myth passed down as tradition for thousands of years, and a discovery peer reviewed in the scientific community.
Not really. Faith is what you have on things that cannot be proved. Like someone else pointed out, it's like saying believing in the existence of Moscow is a matter of faith for everyone who was never there. And, even for those who think they've been to Moscow, how can they be sure it was not other city cleverly disguised as Moscow?
The guy has his doubts about science explaining everything, and he's now a 'them?' Is that how this works?
I think "the unknown" is a euphemism for God in this article.
In any case i would never discriminate against my deist brothers.
I think often times in science there is an ego that we can and we will uncover all the secrets of the universe, but that in an of itself is something taken on faith.
It is actually something irrationally taken on faith, if experience and data counts for anything, then the only logical theory to this argument is that we can't and won't ever find an end to discovery. Why? Because as we uncover the mysteries of the universe an exponential number of mysteries open up to us.
But then again, I'm taking that all on faith :-)
Science on the other hand is not a belief system. Evidence based reasoning doesn't work that way. It strikes me as odd that someone who is presumably a trained scientist hasn't even understood that basic charge theists put forward repeatedly (it boils down to "it takes equal amount of faith not to believe in god as it does to believe in god" applied to all kinds of things in this case science based on empirical evidence. As if there is even a trace of credible evidence for god. In fact when you start poking around various deities it gets incredibly uncomfortable for the religious because of how little evidence there is for historicity of say Jesus let alone his presumed divinity.).
Awe and amazement is not exclusive to religion you know. Just like how religion has hijacked morals and now boldly claims you can't be a moral person without some kind of delusion in sky god (it doesn't even have to be their brand of delusion, anything is better than atheism or secularism). These people fail to understand that morals like language are also products of our wills and minds and therefore also a technology. We can decide slavery is not a good idea (despite endorsement from Yahweh). We can decide that fairly applied laws, rather than nepotistic favoritism, is a good idea. We can outlaw certain punishments with treaties. We can encourage accountability with the invention of writing. We can consciously expand our circle of empathy. These are all inventions, products of our minds, as much as lightbulbs and telegraphs are. People who insist on absolute biblical morality are really insisting on using bronze age technology absolutely. Time and time again, religion is proving itself incapable of catching up with the achievements of secular society, which is not surprising really, religion is now a branch of human ignorance. It was our first approximation of science, first explanation for everything primitive mind feared but could not explain, but it failed to evolve and improve because of its insistence on supernatural and supernatural explanations, which simply are not supported by evidence.
And this brings me to a larger point, why do we even have religion today? Precisely because believing is lot easier than thinking. It takes time and effort to acquire knowledge but any fool can acquire faith instantly and effortlessly. If it took any effort most people would not bother with it. And the biggest problem with all of this is this love affair with ignorance is made into a virtue by religion.
If anything science DENIES that as a truth with the discovery of the non-visual light spectrum. Much of science denies exactly what you claim.
Science is a model to explain data and experience, while predicting what can happen. There are many theories, many of which change. A thesis (or leap of faith) is examined and DISproven. They are never proven to be 100% true.
Math has proofs, not science.
So please understand that it is important to realize that there is ALWAYS another explanation for something. You are irrational in your defense of Science.
I do not know that there is a God. I think people who claim such things are fools as you said. I have faith that there is one. It is a thesis of mine and as of right now there is no disproof.
To have doubt is to be logical :-)
And this is why the article makes no sense. Religion cannot produce a testable hypothesis. It is, therefore, useless as a tool for explaining anything - it's as useful as a magnifying glass with a painting instead of a lens. The painting may be impressive and moving, but it's not about the bug you are examining.
There is always another explanation, but, unless that other explanation is as testable as what we currently assume to be closest to correctness, it should not be considered.
Scientific method is an approximation method. It converges on the "truth" but may never reach it. This is why Einstein famously said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, but a single experiment can prove me wrong." I quoted truth above because there is no such thing as truth really. We only have models.
And even more there is not such thing as model independent reality. When you start talking about things (e.g. light) without using a particular model of it you run into all sorts of problems rather quickly.
You are also working under the assumption that things you can't see directly can't be considered evidence. This is patently not true. We can never see electron with our own eyes directly, but we can detect it by other means.
What god do you believe exists? If you are referring to deistic god (the one that may perhaps have kicked off the universe, but does not interfere in it any more) then no one can in principle provide a proof it exists nor that it does not exist. At most we can say is such a hypothesis is no longer needed. It presupposes a lot more to assume an intelligent being capable of creating universes who either spontaneously came into being or always existed than to assume the same thing about the universe itself (i.e. dumb matter). This is why Occam's razor cuts such hypothesis as superfluous thing, because it does not explain anything new, but poses more questions.
Theism on the other hand is not simply belief in gods. Theism is belief in gods that care about human beings, that interfere in their lives, that tell you what you should do, what you should eat, on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, gods who break the known laws of nature for their people, a god that gives itself body so it can kill it to save the humanity etc.
This theistic concept of god is quite distinct from a deistic god who may perhaps have kicked off the universe and set its laws, but who does not interfere in it any more.
And it is this theistic god that we now know is a man made invention.
Scientific models are man made abstractions on a reality that we cannot prove. You obviously put a lot of faith into those man made abstractions.
To say that a theistic god is a man made invention is an assumption on who created it. That would be distinctly eliminating the possibility of alien life forms.
Also you misuse Occam's Razor. It can't disprove anything without empirical data.
The bible is a man-made invention. The stories in it are disseminated by men. That does not disprove that there is a God who can interact with the real world in some way or other. It just means that as scientific knowledge refines their theories so must religion.
Also a few points, I'm an Aerospace Engineer. I know that there are tools that expand what our senses can observe, but they still must display information in a way that we can observe.
I'm curious though, would you mind clarifying this statement. >>It presupposes a lot more to assume an intelligent being capable of creating universes who either spontaneously came into being or always existed than to assume the same thing about the universe itself (i.e. dumb matter).
What about a hypothesis of a deistic God makes it no longer needed? If you move away from the physical sciences into those that study the human psyche, you'll see that much is left unexplained. It could be argued (albeit blindly) that any such hypothesis is no longer needed.
Natural sciences and behavioral sciences have no business explaining away each other. Religion is a behavioral science. You may deem behavioral science as superfluous, but it can't be cut away.
At least not yet.
I hope this clarifies what I meant above.
This whole argument is shortened into "deistic god can neither be proved nor disproved, but we no longer need him to kick off the universe for us. We now know how that too can happen without god".
However, I have nothing against deistic god. People who want to believe in deistic god will not receive any objection from me. I'm primarily gnostic (I know there is no theistic god) anti-theist (I don't think religion is a force for good in the world). Religion is not about deistic god. Religion is about people who not only know there is a god, with certainty, but they know his mind, what he wants us to do. It is this argument from certainty (which all arguments from faith are), that can easily be disproved. Note that I have not actually offered proof in my posts, the time and space and the forum itself are not the right places to do this. But I can recommend a lot of literature on this subject that go into great depth if you care to look at the evidence we do have.
Deistic or Theistic, if someone doesn't suck at religion I think that they should be left alone. Especially if that leads them to give money to the poor, teach in developing nations, etc. While it can be argued that those things have negative effects I've also seen some of the good that comes from it first hand.
I love this comic. I believe it sums up most of what I think about religion. The only thing I would change is the one where the father is teaching his daughter. There does need to be room for a parent to "express" belief to his children and acceptance when the children differ from the parent.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion
Agnostic and atheistic beliefs can be added to the above comic as well. :-) That being said, if you see someone sucking at their religion please school them and tell them I'm asking them not to make the rest of us look bad.
A Devil's Chaplain
Are You Living in a Computer Simulation
Arguing About Gods
Atheism - The Case Against God
Atheist Manifest - In Defense of Atheism
Atheist Universe
Biblical Cosmology
Breaking the Spell - Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief
Darwin's Dangerous Idea Evolution and the Meanings of Life
Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark
Dossier Of Reason
Evil God Challenge
Forged
God - The Failed Hypothesis
God Is Not Great
Godless
History of God
Jesus Interrupted
Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ
Letter To A Christian Nation
Logic and Theism
Love Thy Neighbour - Evolution of In-group Morality
Lying
Misquoting Jesus
Superstition In All Ages
The Ascension of Yahweh_ The Origins and Development of Israelite Monotheism
The Christian Delusion
The Dialogues of Plato
The Early History of Heaven
The End of Faith
The Evolution of God
The God Delusion
The God Virus How Religion Infects Our Lives And Culture
The Moral Landscape
Who Wrote the Bible
Why I am not a Christian
These are just some of the books I have read on the subject, but there are others highly rated and recommended that I still want to go through. However, these are really good.
If this list seems daunting I would recommend a shorter list:
"Breaking the spell" by Daniel Dennett "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkings "God is not great" by Christopher Hitchens "End of Faith" by Sam Harris
But books by Steven Hawking "The Grand Design", "Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss and "Your Inner Fish - A Journey into the 3.5 billion year history of the human body" by Neil Shubin, are also great although somewhat more technical. All other books are softer read.
Let's clarify beliefs first. There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, logic, reason, testable repeatable experiments. Rational mind has no option but to accept their truthfulness (sometimes after laborious examination of evidence or step by step verification of logical deduction). You could go on and deny obvious truth, but that leads to cognitive dissonance and is rather mentally taxing. The other belief is opposite, it is not based on any evidence at all and it is called faith. You are believing things without having sufficient or any evidence for it. Note also that all religions are faith based. If they were based on evidence, religion would be a branch of science, it would be a scientific theory. Put another way, if you destroyed all holy books they would never be re-created again in their present form by future generations. But destroy all scientific knowledge and it will be re-created again. Why? Precisely because science is based on testing your ideas and models. This is why science is often discovered and re-discovered by independent people, living in completely different cultures. This is why science in China, or India is the same as science in USA or Argentina.
It takes no faith to believe in Newton's laws. Who hasn't watched their physics professor use compressor to pump out air of two glass tubes and see feather and metal ball fall with equal speed, or seen the conservation of momentum demonstrated etc. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to test and devise experiments, but it is doable and many of us have done it for large sections of scientific knowledge. In fact, if it weren't possible to independently replicate an experiment and verify the results, then someone is doing poor science. It's simple as that.
Contrast that with faith based beliefs. It all really boils down to you putting faith in other people who say there is a god, and not only that, they also know his mind, what he wants us to do. And people never ask for ordinary evidence from them for their extraordinary claims, they just accept it. And what brand of delusion of this kind you get indoctrinated into is highly correlated with where you were born. And isn't it also amazing that what ever religion you get indoctrinated into feels like the right one? :D.
In fact, all discussions with the religious people always boil down to "evidence or shut up". The rest of discussion degenerates into psychology and dealing with fears of leaving various delusions.
Not quite. The most basic description of science is that it deals exclusively with testable ideas, ideas that can be compared to reality. And if reality disagrees, the idea is abandoned.
So it's not that "nothing else exists" but that untestable, unfalsifiable ideas aren't a matter of interest to a scientist.
> It is a thesis of mine and as of right now there is no disproof. [emphasis added]
There's another important distinction between science and non-science -- in science, an idea without supporting evidence is assumed to be false (the null hypothesis). To a non-scientist, ideas that haven't been disproven are assumed to be true (as in your example above). That's a big difference -- it's why nonscientists accept so many unsupported ideas.
Because of the null hypothesis, scientists are described as skeptical of ideas unaccompanied by evidence. This posture is sometimes looked on as a handicap -- until a jury is empaneled, at which point a variant form of the null hypothesis is explained to the jurors (innocent until proven guilty).
It all depends on how important the outcome is. If it's just a philosophical debate with no practical consequences, then believing anything does no harm. But when our lives or our health depend on the result, the null hypothesis has it all over the undisciplined approach.
The point that I'm making here is that religion needs to stay where it belongs. In the realm of behavioral side of the argument. I'd argue that anyone who said, "God created the universe" means that they are uninterested in the science behind it and that it is immaterial to their belief in God.
I'd argue that most religious don't associate God with controlling the atoms of the universe and setting it to begin. Sure they get comfortable with this explanation if it is presented long enough (2k years or so), but it doesn't matter to the abstract idea of God.
The "proof" of God comes not from what we can prove through observation (using our 5 senses + any tools we can create), but rather through a sense, a feel, a concept that there is a sixth sense in our minds. There is something we cannot touch.
In that case there should never be a proof for or against God. It's an abstract idea coming from feelings that we have of a spiritual core.
Also, philosophical debates have a great deal of practical consequences. If someone takes a philosophy to heart they can do a lot of damage. I know that many people argue that religion has caused harm, but it isn't the religion, but the institution that harms people. I think people can use anything to justify their behavior, God or no. It is when people objectify others and treat them as such that we have a problem.
So I'd suggest that we could look at the different disconnected cultures in the world that have "religion" as a set of evidence that there is something in us that wants to believe in an external being.
My theory is that there is a God, and anyone is free to disagree.
That is at the core of religion. The only truth I hold is that the later part of that statement is the most important.
Also, I realize that a hypothesis like that above is subjective and not capable of being dis-proven, thus most scientists worth their salt should and would never waste the energy to create an instrument to test it.
But that doesn't mean that it isn't possible or a valid explanation.
I freaking love this topic :-) P.S. Thanks for the post, I love reminders of things long since forgotten, I've been working in the industry way to long and most religious people aren't interested in this kind of discussion.
More to the point, there can never be a proof for or against god. It's not possible -- one can always argue that god lives in a parallel universe, pulling puppet strings in this universe. Maybe true, maybe false, but quite untestable.
This is why scientists (for the most part) try to avoid addressing religion at all.
It took me 20+ years of being a skeptic to realize this. I remember on a SGU podcast there was a politician who refused to believe in evolution and was trying to get creationism back into schools. When he was asked why he didn't believe in evolution his response was "I just don't understand it. Creationism makes sense". It dawned on me it had nothing to do with any rational argument this guy put together, he just didn't like feeling there was a topic he didn't understand. While he understood creationism just fine, evolution came along with a heavy array of questions that he was not ready to deal with. I've had a discussion with someone who after a death in the family responded to the question of "Why do you believe in an afterlife" with the answer of "I'm not ready to deal with the fact it doesn't". People like easy answers, not going to the moon makes a hell of a lot more sense than we did. The fact that 'natural' or 'organic' are words that do not simply mean 'good' but also come with a heavy array of questions are just things some people can't be bothered dealing with.
Content-wise, your musings on religion seemingly fail to take into account the existence of other religions outside of Christianity (or at the very least, outside of the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, & Islam). There are many non-biblical, non-revealed religions. There are many non-theistic ones as well. I don't feel the need to list them off here. Feel free to research.
Back to your tone, I kindly request that you be respectful of those who do not necessarily agree with you and do not assume you are preaching to the choir, otherwise you do nothing but hurt your own cause. If you reduce the entire concept of religion to nothing but "the ramblings of bronze age goat herders," do you honestly expect anyone who adheres to one of those religions (or to any other non-"goat herder" religion for that matter) to listen to what you have to say?
For the record, I agree with a lot of what you said, especially about awe and amazement not being exclusive to religion. Likewise about how many people (not entire religions mind you, or religion itself, but individuals) claim a monopoly on morality. Again, my issue isn't so much with your content, but more so with how you're presenting it. Just some food for thought.
Respecting beliefs no matter how wild is exactly what got us into situation we are now, where politicians have to associate with some kind of brand of delusion before they can be elected, or when a senator of the most powerful country in the world is saying we don't need environmental policy because Jesus is going to return to earth within 50 years, so who cares what happens with the planet.
Moderate, respect religion view that you are advocating is exactly what gives platform and legitimacy to more wild and extreme fundamentalist beliefs.
This is not to say that religion is some sort of magic cure-all, but that some traditions do exist - possibly out of our individual experience - which cannot be easily dismissed but which should be merged into our views as well. I treat religion as a conduit to self-improvement, not as a way to book my place in heaven, which is why your pretty angry,dismissive view of religion seems restrictive.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism
Edit: added wikipedia entry
Abandoning evidence based reasoning leads to error quickly. Arguing from absolute certainty, which is what faith is (it claims to posses the absolute truth, the words of the creator of the universe no less), is bound to lead to errors. Not testing your ideas does that to you.
Take for example animal rights and if it is right to kill animals. Judeo-Christian faiths are clean on this: god gave humans dominion over the earth, and in particular animals for food. End of story. Why should I give rights to my food?
But what is right follows from what is true. If animals are indeed sentient, if they are self-aware even, if they can suffer, are scientific questions. If scientific answers to these questions are positive, then some of us sufficiently evolved, aware humans can't ignore the fact, and we have no choice but to treat animals differently than what we do now. Some countries like Spain have gone so far as to give protection and right to life to higher primates, our closest cousin apes.
I never said that I blindly followed what was being taught to me; if it sounded like that, then its just poor phrasing on my part.
I do test what has been handed down to me by my elders. For the most part, because of the loss of most of the reasoning behind "religious teachings" - loss of books, extremists killing off opposing points of view, colonial trauma etc etc - it's very easy to dismiss religious traditions as random musings, because there is no textual evidence for ideas and thoughts. For eg. Hinduism is a little mixed about animal rights. I was specifically brought up as a vegetarian because of the tradition in our sub-sub-sub-branch of Hinduism that animals had rights. OTOH, there is some random garbage about women being second-class citizens which I never aim to follow, because it is patently unsound.
I guess my point is, I am not going to dismiss years of thought, just because they are years old, without putting some amount of thought into figuring out if it makes sense - in that sense I think we agree with each other. Religion tackles more things than we imagine when we learn to become atheists - its sole purpose need not be cataloging a list of dos and don'ts and it might end up provoking you to ask more questions about yourself.
My religious tradition has primarily been a bunch of ideas and thoughts and there is no real "book" which lays down the law. Maybe that is why I think from this perspective and why I cannot just dismiss these ideas without some introspection.
http://artofmanliness.com/2012/09/01/heading-out-on-your-own...
FWIW I didn't read any super-mario's posts as angry. Stripping religions of their gods and seeing what is leftover is an interesting thought experiment, it works particularly well with buddhist principles, but if you still seriously cleave to some sort of faith, either in gods or the authority of institutions and mortal peoples representing gods, then I can see how his posts could be seen as dismissive and confronting.
You have to take a hardline against the religious nutters - they imbibe everything with their craziness.
Consider Carl Sagan:
"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed."
It is as much folly to advocate militant secularism as it is to advocate blind faith. You are caught red-handed. Consider your ways.
"Come now, let us reason together" - Isaiah 1:18
Also, we are working with different definitions of gods here. Sagan is talking about deistic god, which I spent some time addressing above. But when it comes to theistic gods (the ones that care about you, that break natural laws for their people, the ones that care what you eat and on what days, who you may sleep with and in what position, ones that give themselves body so they may kill it to save their people, who take "our" side in the war etc), then we have plenty of scientific evidence these things are man made.
Besides it's really not up to me to provide evidence against some god. People who invoke him should. It's the classical celestial teapot argument. If I claim there is a tea pot circling Mars, why should you spent time and energy proving there isn't such a thing. I should provide evidence there is one.
If science has nothing to say about something what else does? Ramblings of religious people who just make stuff up and never provide any evidence for their claims? And which ones? Scientologists? Mormons? Muslims? Which one of these you will adhere to is highly correlated with where you were born and has nothing to do with the truthfulness of the particular religion. Sometimes these teach completely opposite things about god at the threat of hellfire and infinite torture. They can't all be true, but they can all be wrong.
And how do the religious know what lies beyond? Of course it comes down to "revealed" knowledge. God himself spoke to some people and told them things. And others are required to trust these people for their extraordinary claims without any evidence? Let alone the extraordinary evidence required to actually verify their claims.
And isn't it incredibly stupid of a supreme, intelligent, omnipotent, omnipresent being to demand belief in him without evidence? God would presumably know that people would invent scientific method as the only sure way to discover truth. Yet he leaves such important things as if you will be damned for eternity to belief without evidence leading to three desert dogmas that teach completely opposite things about him. Yahweh himself besides being stupid is rather evil god. Look how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age that invented him to behave (he orders genocide of neighboring tribes that worship other gods, enslavement of women and children etc, just read random book of old testament). By the way he was never meant to be god of all, he was meant to be a god of a single tribe (otherwise a lot of stuff god says and orders makes no sense). Evolution of competing religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made.
All metaphysical claims and especially all physical claims made by religion were proved to be wrong. And would you expect it any other way really. Religion was our first approximation of cosmology, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be completely wrong. Jesus casts out demons to heal people, he heals lepers instead of healing leprosy, no germs ever mentioned in the Bible (naturally no germ theory of disease either).
But now we know better. We know how solar systems are formed, we know how planets are formed, we know how life evolves, we even know how a universe can come from nothing. We really don't need god to kick off any of these things any more. Over the millennia people believed in all kinds of gods from Zeus to Athena to Thor. You are perfectly capable of dismissing them all as laughable, so you know what it is like to not believe in any of those as nonsense. Atheists just go one god further.
All models are wrong but some models are more useful than others. It is unlikely that our models fit the data perfectly. Indeed we cannot know if we even have all the data in the first place. We should not mistake science for the real world, or the model for the data.
Naturalists would say that there's nothing beyond that, nothing beyond the world around us as described by science. They have no rational reason to assert such a position. They have no philosophical or scientific tools to make such a claim. Indeed the scientific method was never intended to be used towards that end. Philosophy is similarly ill-suited.
The mistake of naturalists is to conflate science with atheism and to confuse "faith" (conviction established by reason) with "blind faith" (unfounded conviction), two separate concepts. For example, "I have a degree of faith in you based on past performance" vs "I have a degree of faith in you based on whimsy".
On the other hand, the supernaturalist believes there's something beyond the world around us. Likewise, the supernaturalist has no tools (philosophy, science) to assert such a position. Both the naturalist (represented by atheism) and the supernaturalist (represented by blind faith) are indefensible positions.
Therefore there is no ground on which to outright reject or accept the possibility of miracles.
This leaves the middle ground (represented by agnosticism). Here the position is such that we can't reach out and describe the existence or non-existence of the supernatural, unless it were to reach out and describe itself to us in a way that would clearly be supernatural. This would mean that we could only ever confirm the existence of the supernatural but never deny it. For that task, we would need to look to history, using the tools of historical inquiry, if indeed there is anything supernatural yet to be found in history.
The claim of Christ, of the life and death and resurrection of Christ in history would be one such claim to examine:
"I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church." - Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians
"Science is supposed to challenge this type of quasi-mystical subjective experience, to provide an antidote to it."
That is where the author lost me. Science is supposed to challenge beliefs, not personal experience. It's the difference between "I feel great today" and "four people complimented my new haircut today". Science still allows you to revel in beauty when looking at a temple, even while there may be a sound explanation for why you're having these feelings.
"The Higgs, of course, has been labelled the ‘god particle’ because it accounts for the existence of mass in the Universe."
No, it is called the "God Particle" because Leon Lederman called it the "Goddamned Particle" since he had so much trouble defining what it was and how it behaved, and his publisher shortened it to "The God Particle" because it had a snappier name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs#Political_and_relig...
Here is, I think, Feynman explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM
It seems to also apply to explaining through religion.
We have all these scientists trying to explain how sub-atomic particles have mass, and in course of that explanation, talk about the spin of a particle, color charge, Higgs field, et al. Thing is, I can really understand their explanation only if I know what these terms mean. And for me to know what those terms really mean, I might have to spend years (or maybe decades, depending on my mental capacity) studying theoretical physics. But I believe them because science if all about repeatable experiments. While I'm ill-equipped to check the results, I guess other domain-experts can.
Now, let's take a look at Hindu spirituality. A yogi might try to explain, say, why we exist, and in course of doing that, talk about Brahman, karma, cosmic cycle, et al. To really understand what he means, I would need to really understand what the terms mean, and doing that might take years or decades.
See the parallels? That's what the article is trying to emphasize.
The domain the author speaks of does not fall within the remit of science. Further, it cannot since spirituality is subjective.
It would be like saying the an accurate and extendible description of a thing is like actually standing next to the thing. Like reading of the Grand Canyon is the same as being at the Grand Canyon...
Also, the title of the article is critically misnamed. He is almost entirely describing spirituality not religious experience.
Non-religious people, including atheists, accept that it is possible to have spirituality, i.e. to form a deeper connection with others and yourself, including via science. It is the means by how that is achieved that is the source of friction outside of science.