Does Science Support Atheism?

[Charlemagne_II]

We can’t say for sure, but can only go on what reason and our desires demand, in some combination or another.

How true! Some desire God. Some do not.

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone

The master has indeed become the slave!

And the new master is learning a new kind of tyranny.

Yes, the non-violent tyranny of performative knowledge. Science, in many areas, is a hard act to follow. Nothing like being shown up by performance.

Which is what I mean by ‘slave’, there. Catholicism, like other (western) religions, is inexorably being forced to accede to scientific epistemology. Not because scientists demand such, but because its own members do. You have a claim about a new medicine, a new drug? OK, well, put up or shut up! Show us the data from your battery of clinical trials. Hmmm, results ambiguous? Unanticipated side effects apparent in the trials? Back to the drawing board, sorry!

Lots of subjects in life aren’t amenable to performative demonstrations of knowledge, but many are. As someone who flies in a commercial jet 30 weeks a year, I appreciate the value of performative knowledge, and glad the aircraft I ride in are not designed by “authority” and “dogma”. As more and more of our daily routines get integrated into areas where performance is required, this puts more and more pressure on non-performative elements of religion, parts people suppose should perform, if the claims are true.

And thus is “authority” and “dogma” pulled in tow behind performance.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS

I think that part of what has been, or is being deposed is the pervasive concept of “worship”. That, as above, strikes me as another example of projection. Subscribers to science do not bow down, or prostrate themselves to science as some brute authority, as they have done for millenia before various gods. Science is not a personality, but a method, a tool. It certainly does carry a lot of brand equity in some aspects of life (medicine, for example), but it’s an open, accountable methodology, borne of skepticism and critique. I guess you might call skeptical critique and objective analysis “worship”, but really, isn’t just slapping the problems of supernaturalism on something very different – naturalism?

No, I’ll have to agree with Ed. I can envision a world (perhaps already upon us) in which theists will have to fight for their very lives against a demon-haunted science full of itself and out of control. Science, like the Church, is subject to corruption because it is made up of men who are corruptible. And I think that is why the Vatican is so interested at present in participating in scientific councils, hoping to halt the headstrong and arrogant
“demons” of science. And if anyone thinks science is exempt from demonology … consider the vast arsenal of nuclear weapons … idols of destruction.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

Lots of subjects in life aren’t amenable to performative demonstrations of knowledge, but many are. As someone who flies in a commercial jet 30 weeks a year, I appreciate the value of performative knowledge, and glad the aircraft I ride in are not designed by “authority” and “dogma”.

God forbid that your jet should nosedive to the earth, but will your last thought or the last words on your lips be, "Well, so much for ‘performative demonstrations of knowledge’ or “Oh, my God!”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS
*
As more and more of our daily routines get integrated into areas where performance is required, this puts more and more pressure on non-performative elements of religion, parts people suppose should perform, if the claims are true.*

Haven’t you got the horse behind the cart here?

Religion has long been concerned with performance, and it might be said that since religion has been around a lot longer than science, its experience in developing performance models is certainly to be respected.

Where does science ever tell us according to any natural law that is falsifiable or verifiable:

Love one another!

Without the “authority” of that “dogma,” what kind of performance might we expect?

If we think the world is so bad with religion, what might it be like without?

Follow the atheists and find out what kind of performance you are likely to get.

 

[Touchstone]

to be clear i am saying that the Christain faith is entirely an exercise in rational dissection of the evidence.

OK, well that is quite an ambitious claim! This begs for some exploration of what “rational dissection” means and entails.

thats very common, people want their faith to match up with there understanding. its like trying to do calculus on a old casio wristwatch calculator.

Maybe so, but it’s hard to see how religion doesn’t make that calculus much more difficult, replacing an old calculator in your wristwatch with a bottlecap and some twine.

Really, a better analogy would be that one is simply told the answer and asked to trust that the “authorities” have done all the math for them, no? You don’t need even a bottlecap, let alone a calculator, if you have someone you trust to be right on the maths available for any answer you might need.

but instead of questiong the capacity of their understanding, they throw out the math.

???

We apparently have far different understands of what “math” stands for in your analogy!

to me thats ridiculous, but people are raised with the idea that they can understand anything. belied as that is by our limited neuaral bandwidth.

They are? As people get older and more informed, the expression “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know” obtains. With training and expertise in fields of knowledge comes a deeper grasp of just how limited humans are, and how complext and hard-won real knowledge is.

yeah, everybody wants to eat at the cool kids table.

Yes, rationalism is wearing the halo for the time being. We’ll see how long this rationalism fad lasts, I guess.

unfortunately some people call their belief a faith when what they really have is a “what-i-tell-folks-i-believe-until-something-more-popular-comes-along.”

No doubt about that. You are right!

this is the part i don’t see, rationalism and faith march along hand in hand, as far as i can tell. atheism, seems to have a veneer of rationalism, that when stripped away exposes it as belief held by desire, more than by any rational idea.

Rationalism, like supernaturalism, is predicated on desire, no doubt about it. The difference is the object of desire for each. An atheist who tells you his worldview is not predicated on desire is lying to you, as is a theist. But not all desires are created equal, and the desires of one with a rationalist worldview are often radically different than one with a supernaturalist worldview.

Rationalism is something we can break down, reduce, and analyse to a good extent though. So, if we care, we can actually apply some rational analysis to claims of rationalism, and see what we come up with. In my experience many a theist will provide strongly rational stances and outlooks for the “top layers” of knowledge and outlook, and will admit spurious and unwarranted assumptions as starting points. Rationalism is only as strong as its weakest link, and that means that lots of systematic thought gets put in jeopardy by ideas like “I just start with the idea that there is a God” as a fundamental.

Atheists are no more immune to that than theists, but the kinds of shibboleths that are commonly used by theists to disguise their irrational commitments (“authority!”, “dogma”) are much more easily exposed in the atheist. Lacking the cover of supernaturalist shibboleths, atheists tend to be more accountable to rational analsysis of their own rationalism, in my experience.

of course, thats my opinion, maybe because i deal with so many discovery channel scientists, and youtube amatuers, my opinion may be tainted

that said, what makes you think rationalism is seperate from faith?

Nothing. Rationalism is based on a kind of faith – faith that the world around us is rational, intellgible. It might not be, and we have no a priori basis for expecting it to be. So that is a “leap” of a kind, no doubt about it.

But even so, rationalism, at least to some degree, is transcendentally necessary. Not only are we physiologically hardwired to deploy rationalism in service of our living, it’s imperative that we use it if we hope to survive. The deer that doesn’t think the charging lion running toward her, fangs bare, is real and an imminent threat demanding cogent action is just about to become lunch for the lion. Standing there until the lion struck its neck would be an entirely irrational response.

That deer makes the same “leap of faith”, that reality is reality that we do. We cannot avoid such a commitment lest we die, quickly and violently. It’s a kind of faith, then, but an non-optional kind, for an animal that wants to live.

Supernatural faith isn’t like that. The leap that requires isn’t necessary to avoid charging lions, or to remain on the correct side of the road while driving and avoid drifting into oncoming traffic. Supernatural faith is a kind of luxury we indulge in on top of our rationalized model of the world, for all sorts of reasons.

So, faith in all cases, yes. But faith of very different types, and in very different assumptions. I have faith that reality is real. I’ve also had, previously and for decades, faith that the Christian God is real. That’s faith, too, but of a very different sort.

-TS

 

[1holycatholic]

Thanks for spelling it out. Now I can see how you’ve misunderstood, so I can try to be more clear. You’ve taken these two sentences to be self-refuting:

“Science as a body of knowledge includes everything we have good reason to believe.”

“I’ve never claimed the scientistic view that there is any particular method for determining what is good to believe.”

You’ve read me to limit science to only that which can be proven with the scientific method, whereas I defined science as the body of knowledge that we have good reason to believe. Anything that we have good reason to believe is part of science whether ior not it can be demonstrated with the scientific method. For example, mathematics is part of our scientific understanding of the universe, but mathematics canot be proven with the scientific method. Also, as I’ve pointed out a couple times now, the sceintific method itself cannot be demonstarted to be true using the scientific method. The scientific method is a particular part of science that only has to do with verifying hypotheses, but it is not the whole of science. I would be guilty of scientism if I thought that the only things we have good reason to believe are those that have been proven with the scientific method.

I hope you now understand that when I say, “our scientific understanding of the universe” I do not refer to the subset of human knowledge that has been demonstrated with the scientific method, but rather everything we have good reason to believe. So again, if the First Cause argument is proof that God exists, then why is the existence of God not thought of as part of our scientific understanding of the universe? Why is the existence of God generally believed to be unprovable? If you prefer not to view science with the broad definition I’ve given, then why don’t philosophers agree that the First Cause argument is proof of the existence of God? Is the proof of the existence of God more difficult to comprehend than the theory of relativity? If not, why is the existence of God not a settled issue like relativity among those capable of understanding such ideas?

In this post you aren’t using the term “science” as it is commonly used, especially in this forum, even in this thread.

The dictionary application on my laptop returns this as a definition of science:

science |ˈsīəns|
noun
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment : the world of science and technology.
• a particular area of this : veterinary science | the agricultural sciences.
• a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject : the science of criminology.
• *archaic* knowledge of any kind.

The existence of God is provable. The fact that philosophers aren’t unanimous in accepting or rejecting the argument from causality has no bearing on the validity of the argument.

 

[1holycatholic]

We don’t. It’s an inference based on the uniformity and symmetry we find in the parts of the universe we can explore and test. Science is metaphysically committed to the idea that the universe is at least partly rational, intelligible. It might not be, but if it is, science has a methodology which should produce testable predictions, performative models and the like.

Science has no basis for this assertion.

I’m knowingly presupposing the intelligibility and rationality (at least to some degree) of the reality around us. To say that is a uniquely Judaeo-Christian idea is to make a bad hash of man’s history – ever hear of the Greeks, for example? Christianity certainly incorporates a measure of rationality and intelligibility in its view of nature (as a kind of manifestation of God’s character or essence), but it’s an idea that’s as old as rational thought itself, and is in fact the very basis for our concept of ‘rational’!

The Greeks held that God(s) was/were part of the universe.

As for Islam and occasionalism, that’s a good example of the invincible power of the hypothesis that cannot be falsified. Christian and atheist ideas alike fall powerless before it, so long as falsifiability isn’t required. Christianity is just an attenuated form of occasionalism, though, as if God was not needed directly as the agent of miracles, miracles would have efficient natural causes, and thus not be miracles (or at least miracles-as-works-of-God, anyway). To see the problematic nature of Christianity’s “occasionalism-lite”, looking at a full-blown case in Islam is instructive.

 

[Touchstone]

TS
*
As more and more of our daily routines get integrated into areas where performance is required, this puts more and more pressure on non-performative elements of religion, parts people suppose should perform, if the claims are true.*

Haven’t you got the horse behind the cart here?

Religion has long been concerned with performance, and it might be said that since religion has been around a lot longer than science, its experience in developing performance models is certainly to be respected.

There you go, appealing to authority again! Religion’s been around a lot longer, you know… The point of the performative model is that considerations like “seniority” or “ancientness” just don’t count. What counts is precise, novel predictions, robust explanations for mechanisms and processes, etc. New is fine, old is fine, doesn’t matter. What matters is nailing verifiable results.

That’s a real problem for religion. Most of 'em, anyway.

Where does science ever tell us according to any natural law that is falsifiable or verifiable:

Love one another!

Without the “authority” of that “dogma,” what kind of performance might we expect?

I suppose that depends on how you define “love”. In another discussion elsewhere, this came up, based on the idea that love was some kind of supernatural, magic thing. I suggested that maybe we could look at the attributes of love that we could verify, and start there: acts of sacrifice and self-denial, acts of affection, acts of mercy and forgiveness, seeking and believing the best of the other, defending the interests and goals of the other, acts of generosity toward the other, etc.

Things you might observe and assess between two, or more people. That seemed unsatisfying to party I was talking to, ostensibly because it was somehow reduced to actions that were self-sacrificial, generous, kind, affectionate, loyal, etc. but… non-magical.

Anyway, science can paint you a vivid picture of the importance of love to the human experience. We are social creatures, and emotionally complex. Loving relationships are one of the core goals and satisfactions for humans, as a matter of evolutionary biology. We are wired to love, and to desire to be loved. So, so far as science is concerned in studying humans, medically, psychologically and sociologically, I think the recommendation would be: LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

It’s good for humans, and good for human society, as a matter of science.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS
*
There you go, appealing to authority again! *

This is unworthy of you. I was not appealing to authority as such. You were appealing to the authority of science as if it had become the big brother of religion. I was reminding you that religion is the big brother because born earlier, and has its own history of performative standards which you seem to have summarily dismissed.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS

*Anyway, science can paint you a vivid picture of the importance of love to the human experience. We are social creatures, and emotionally complex. Loving relationships are one of the core goals and satisfactions for humans, as a matter of evolutionary biology. We are wired to love, and to desire to be loved. So, so far as science is concerned in studying humans, medically, psychologically and sociologically, I think the recommendation would be: LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

It’s good for humans, and good for human society, as a matter of science.*

Show me the science textbook on that subject. Religion got there first.

 

[Touchstone]

TS

*Anyway, science can paint you a vivid picture of the importance of love to the human experience. We are social creatures, and emotionally complex. Loving relationships are one of the core goals and satisfactions for humans, as a matter of evolutionary biology. We are wired to love, and to desire to be loved. So, so far as science is concerned in studying humans, medically, psychologically and sociologically, I think the recommendation would be: LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

It’s good for humans, and good for human society, as a matter of science.*

Show me the science textbook on that subject. Religion got there first.

OK, you’re clearly hung up on “seniority”, I see. If science and religion agree on this point, even if for different reasons, then what’s the problem? Science is addressing the issue on different terms, even if it’s conclusion is the same: here is a model that describes why and how “love” as an emotional and social phenomenon emerged in hominids… and here is a set of studies that test out different aspects of the model (childhood development of ‘loving connections’, altruism, connection to sexuality, etc.) experimentally…

Many religions advance the idea of love as a divine imperative, but that’s the thing: it’s a divine imperative with all the intractability and opaqueness that go along with it. That doesn’t make “love one another” wrong, but it does make the proposition impenetrable in terms of mechanisms and process, and natural origins, which is the plane on which science addresses it. Science provides a different kind of explanation, a different kind of why from, say the John 3:16 answer a Christian might give.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS

OK, you’re clearly hung up on “seniority”, I see. If science and religion agree on this point, even if for different reasons, then what’s the problem? Science is addressing the issue on different terms, even if it’s conclusion is the same: here is a model that describes why and how “love” as an emotional and social phenomenon emerged in hominids… and here is a set of studies that test out different aspects of the model (childhood development of ‘loving connections’, altruism, connection to sexuality, etc.) experimentally…

O.K., I see you’re hung up on science as the knower and solver of all things human. Good luck getting hundred of millions of young people to read your abstruse scientific studies and being much impressed or inspired.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

OK, well that is quite an ambitious claim! This begs for some exploration of what “rational dissection” means and entails.

the same as any other intellectual endeavor, you take the available evidence and apply rational analysis. nothing complicated.

Maybe so, but it’s hard to see how religion doesn’t make that calculus much more difficult, replacing an old calculator in your wristwatch with a bottlecap and some twine.

why? what about religion makes it more difficult?

Really, a better analogy would be that one is simply told the answer and asked to trust that the “authorities” have done all the math for them, no? You don’t need even a bottlecap, let alone a calculator, if you have someone you trust to be right on the maths available for any answer you might need.

what authorities are you refering to? for metaphysics, there are no authorities that can just hand you the answer.

theologically? common doctrine is transmitted by that structure.

They are? As people get older and more informed, the expression “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know” obtains. With training and expertise in fields of knowledge comes a deeper grasp of just how limited humans are, and how complext and hard-won real knowledge is.

yeah you aint kidding, by the time your old enough to have the requisite knowledge, your too darn old too enjoy it

Yes, rationalism is wearing the halo for the time being. We’ll see how long this rationalism fad lasts, I guess.

i assume you say this tongue in cheek, but its not so far fetched as you might think, rationalism is a couple centuries old, religion is tens of millenia.

Rationalism, like supernaturalism, is predicated on desire, no doubt about it.

i said atheism. not rationalism.

The difference is the object of desire for each. An atheist who tells you his worldview is not predicated on desire is lying to you, as is a theist. But not all desires are created equal, and the desires of one with a rationalist worldview are often radically different than one with a supernaturalist worldview.

what is this seperation you see between rationalism and supernaturalism,? (i assume you know the metaphysical meaning of supernatural, is simply non- physical)

i dont see that seperation.

Rationalism is something we can break down, reduce, and analyse to a good extent though. So, if we care, we can actually apply some rational analysis to claims of rationalism, and see what we come up with. In my experience many a theist will provide strongly rational stances and outlooks for the “top layers” of knowledge and outlook, and will admit spurious and unwarranted assumptions as starting points. Rationalism is only as strong as its weakest link, and that means that lots of systematic thought gets put in jeopardy by ideas like “I just start with the idea that there is a God” as a fundamental.

we dont start with spurious or unwarranted assumptions, we start with the empirical evidence we possess.

where did you get that idea? thats an assumption that needs a little support.

Atheists are no more immune to that than theists, but the kinds of shibboleths that are commonly used by theists to disguise their irrational commitments (“authority!”, “dogma”) are much more easily exposed in the atheist. Lacking the cover of supernaturalist shibboleths, atheists tend to be more accountable to rational analsysis of their own rationalism, in my experience.

i always found that rationalism is the best tool with which to handle atheiosts, its most definitely a double edged sword.

they assume that we arent rational. bad mistake.

Supernatural faith isn’t like that. The leap that requires isn’t necessary to avoid charging lions, or to remain on the correct side of the road while driving and avoid drifting into oncoming traffic. Supernatural faith is a kind of luxury we indulge in on top of our rationalized model of the world, for all sorts of reasons.

and yet, before we had fire, we had faith.

faith comes after the lion has eaten. in fact were we immortal, we would have no raeson to explore faith. it would be a non-issue.

that said, to the point, what specifically makes you think that theism is irrational.?

not epistomologically, but in practicality, what do you doubt that you did not doubt before?

 

[edwest2]

Yes, the non-violent tyranny of performative knowledge. Science, in many areas, is a hard act to follow. Nothing like being shown up by performance.

Which is what I mean by ‘slave’, there. Catholicism, like other (western) religions, is inexorably being forced to accede to scientific epistemology. Not because scientists demand such, but because its own members do. You have a claim about a new medicine, a new drug? OK, well, put up or shut up! Show us the data from your battery of clinical trials. Hmmm, results ambiguous? Unanticipated side effects apparent in the trials? Back to the drawing board, sorry!

Lots of subjects in life aren’t amenable to performative demonstrations of knowledge, but many are. As someone who flies in a commercial jet 30 weeks a year, I appreciate the value of performative knowledge, and glad the aircraft I ride in are not designed by “authority” and “dogma”. As more and more of our daily routines get integrated into areas where performance is required, this puts more and more pressure on non-performative elements of religion, parts people suppose should perform, if the claims are true.

And thus is “authority” and “dogma” pulled in tow behind performance.

-TS

“inexorably being forced” Tyranny with a padded fist.

No. I see, right now, all the trappings of the religious order upon the church of science. There are evangelists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet and Myers. Scientific, peer reviewed papers and the judgements of men, passing as dogma.

You underestimate the ability of a small group of men to undermine the people. There will be no independent verifications of scientific knowledge. Believe me, as a student of the history of technology, I’ve seen various eminently provable things simply shouted out of existence. Even among academics, there are wars over ego, over territory and status.

And while the people are engrossed over the latest misadventures of whatever celebrity happens to be the flavor of the month, the scientific elite can mpose their will, or try to.

Your support of atheism-science is strange. I never questioned it until I heard scientists confidently declare that “if the building blocks of life were found another world.” What 'building blocks."? And if this were true, why hasn’t life been created in the lab yet?

The unbounded faith that is being infused into some over the triumph of science is indeed a sort of faith - but not a reliable one. While a Humanist wrote about the dying carcass of Christianity and defined the role of the teacher in the public school classroom as the prostelytizer of a new faith, all he had to offer was a future “resplendant in its promise.” Resplendant? How? Sounds suspiciously vague to me.

So “science,” as discussed here, does support atheism.

The Technocracy is already showing its outlines. And it is doing so by going beyond the bounds of science and pontificating on the supernatural.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Touchstone]

the same as any other intellectual endeavor, you take the available evidence and apply rational analysis. nothing complicated.

Hmmm. OK. Maybe we’ll have to save that for another thread. Applying rational analysis to available evidence is exceedingly complicated, in my experience.

why? what about religion makes it more difficult?

Well, Christianity doesn’t provide a “feedback loop”, some objective way you can test your ideas and beliefs, to see if the comport with reality. In scientific inquiries, you devise an experiment to test your hypothesis, and you give it a go. Then you look at the results. Maybe you try again several times to reduce the risk of bad data, or execution problems. But you can see for yourself, or most importantly, bring in outside, disinterested third parties, and have them confirm the results for you, in support or rejection of your hypothesis.

With Christianity, you can develop the hypothesis (“man is saved by grace alone”), but you can’t falsify it, or test it. You can believe it or not, but you have no independent feedback to rely on. You can excommunitcate, or be excommunicate, splinter of into your own sect, or burn those who disagree at the stake. Or just do nothing at all. But you do not have the feedback loop that makes science so productive in building knowledge.

what authorities are you refering to? for metaphysics, there are no authorities that can just hand you the answer.

theologically? common doctrine is transmitted by that structure.

Sure there are, supposedly anyway. The Christian God is a transcendent deity who interacts with us via revelation, right?

Human organizations stand as proxies for such a God, delivering revealed Truth by virtue of the authority invested in them by God (keys, Matt 16:18, etc.)

yeah you aint kidding, by the time your old enough to have the requisite knowledge, your too darn old too enjoy it

Yes, alas!

i assume you say this tongue in cheek, but its not so far fetched as you might think, rationalism is a couple centuries old, religion is tens of millenia.

Understand. I think one’s position on that would turn on their view of rationalism, and the value and durability of “performative knowledge”.

i said atheism. not rationalism.

i dont see that seperation.

That would apply equally to atheism as well. People are atheist because the object of their desire is such that atheism obtains.

what is this seperation you see between rationalism and supernaturalism,? (i assume you know the metaphysical meaning of supernatural, is simply non- physical)

None in principle, but as a matter of practice, supernatural propositions fail as a matter of rational analysis. Maybe it helps to stress the “intellectual” emphasis of rationalism, as opposed to sensory/intuitive/emotional warrants, which are where the supernatural beliefs obtain (and I use ‘sensory’ here in a charitable way to include ‘mystical’ or ‘supernatural’ experiences, which I understand to be imaginative, but others see as veridical).

we dont start with spurious or unwarranted assumptions, we start with the empirical evidence we possess.

where did you get that idea? thats an assumption that needs a little support.

You do? Well, that’s good to hear. Where do we find empirical evidence for anything supernatural/non-physical. Just reading that back, it sounds a trick question, as “evidence” connotes physical, to my mind. But make of that what you will.

Here’s a common "start’: I just look around at the world around me and I see God, I know that something must have created that.

That’s a highly cynical take on “starting with empirical evidence”. Not saying this is how you start, but that’s an immediately recognizable opening for any Christian. Even reading Paul, one hears the same basic intuition at work.

i always found that rationalism is the best tool with which to handle atheiosts, its most definitely a double edged sword.

There you go. As a Christian, rationalism was sharp edge I could not deny or defeat. I’ve not heard your arguments, but a lot of what I wanted to call rationalism was more euphemism than actual rationalism, and the ‘rationalism’ of many of my Christian peers was more of a winking label than an apt description. Once one arrives at some basic principles of rationalism (and this can be difficult in hostile contexts, admittedly), the breakdown emerges as a matter of just applying the method.

they assume that we arent rational. bad mistake.

Well, I’m sure that happens. For me, I think I can say I don’t assume such, but having been a Christian trying to rectify my faith with rationalism, and engaging many other Christians in efforts to do the same, the conclusion (as opposed to my assumption) is that it’s a very difficult proposition. At some point, supernaturalism demands that rationalist requirements be suspended, ignored.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

continued…

and yet, before we had fire, we had faith.

No argument from me there, supernaturalism is an ancient, primordial inclination.

faith comes after the lion has eaten. in fact were we immortal, we would have no raeson to explore faith. it would be a non-issue.

You are saying you don’t have faith until you die?

that said, to the point, what specifically makes you think that theism is irrational.?

I think it admits both evidence that isn’t rationally counted as evidence (e.g. msytical experiences/revelation, or simple intuition), and it indulges in inferences and inductions that have no warrant (e.g. I can’t imagine there not being a God, so there must be one). But each theist is different, so it’s difficult to give a good answer across the board. Much better to look at the argument for beliefs from a specific supernaturalist, and go from there. That way, we avoid speaking in abstracts and stereotypes.

not epistomologically, but in practicality, what do you doubt that you did not doubt before?

Well, lots of things, but here’s an example. I used to believe, uncritically, that there was historical support for the Resurrection. Taking a good look at both the actual evidence, the nature of hearsay, and hearsay from a disillusioned band of apocalyptic-minded followers of a recently-executed Jesus, and the basic implausibility of a claim of resurrection in contrast to alternative explanations, I had to admit that my “rational belief in a historial Resurrection” was bure bunk, digested baloney from Christian apologists.

Of course, it matched what I wanted to believe, and sure felt I needed to believe, else I should take on the “scarlet letter” of “unbeliever”. That explains part of the disingenuous support I claimed for a historical Resurrection. Looking at other historical claims with similarly fantastic features and a similar poverty of objective evidence, and how quickly and efficiently I dispensed with those, I was confronted with my own pretense to rationalist approaches to the issue of the Resurrection.

You might think of it as coming to the honest realization that William Lane Craig is a complete con-artist, maybe.

That’s one where the more distance I put between me and the analysis emotionally, and the more I processed the question in terms that were fair and objective (less personal and subjective), the more stark became the problem, the *supernaturalism" masquerading as rationalism in my mind. I know there are people who don’t try to defend the Resurrection in historical/evidential terms, but that is something I did embrace on “rationalist” grounds. Whoops!

Live and learn.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

“inexorably being forced” Tyranny with a padded fist.

No. I see, right now, all the trappings of the religious order upon the church of science. There are evangelists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet and Myers. Scientific, peer reviewed papers and the judgements of men, passing as dogma.

You underestimate the ability of a small group of men to undermine the people. There will be no independent verifications of scientific knowledge. Believe me, as a student of the history of technology, I’ve seen various eminently provable things simply shouted out of existence. Even among academics, there are wars over ego, over territory and status.

That’s sort of self-refuting, isn’t it? If you are aware of these problems, these instances of such undermining, it seems the people have not been so undermined, after all! Copernicus’ ideas met with all kinds of resistance, as did Einstein’s, and Darwin’s ideas face the fury of well-funded, well-regimented fundamentalists all over.

But the data wins out, in the end, as a matter of history. Knowledge is hard to acquire, but also very hard to suppress. It’s extraordinarily difficult to shout provable things out of existence. Maybe you could give me just one example?

And while the people are engrossed over the latest misadventures of whatever celebrity happens to be the flavor of the month, the scientific elite can mpose their will, or try to.

Impose their will, huh? Like, we fudge the data, or, we conspire to get dissidents fired/harrassed/killed?

Your support of atheism-science is strange. I never questioned it until I heard scientists confidently declare that “if the building blocks of life were found another world.” What 'building blocks."? And if this were true, why hasn’t life been created in the lab yet?

It’s exceedingly complex. It’s astonishing we’ve made as progress as we have. I’m in software, an area used to ridiculous growth curves along the lines of Moore’s Law. But the progress of biology and biological engineering in the last 40 years is nothing short of breathtaking. I can only say that those who are thinking it should have been done already fail to appreciate the deep, deep, complexity we are dealing with in fundamental biology. It’s hard going, in part because it’s not intuitive, or “virtual”. It’s applied physics.

The unbounded faith that is being infused into some over the triumph of science is indeed a sort of faith - but not a reliable one. While a Humanist wrote about the dying carcass of Christianity and defined the role of the teacher in the public school classroom as the prostelytizer of a new faith, all he had to offer was a future “resplendant in its promise.” Resplendant? How? Sounds suspiciously vague to me.

Sounds suspiciously vague to me too. There’s no shortage of people who are quite interested in filling the “power void” that a receding Christianity will leave behind. And for all the vices and problems of Christianity, it’s no guarantee that what will replace it will be better, or at all “resplendant”.

So “science,” as discussed here, does support atheism.

I’m still kinda uncomfortable with that word. Science is cleanly compatible with atheism. Science is also compatible with many forms of theism/deism, as well, though. The “integration” between science and atheism is more robust and natural, in my experience, having been a Christian for decades, and now an atheist for several years.

The Technocracy is already showing its outlines. And it is doing so by going beyond the bounds of science and pontificating on the supernatural.

Peace,
Ed

I get such a kick out of the ironies of word choice on this forum. “Pontificating”? Can you cite me an example of science pontificating about the supernatural? I think you either must be taking some license with “pontificating”, or else you are confusing with the private opinions of scientist with the actual findings and conclusions of science. There are a lot of scientists who are also atheists, as you probably are aware, so it’s important to keep straight when a scientist speaks whether she is speaking “ex cathedra”, as it were.

-Touchstone

 

[edwest2]

Touchstone -

Please don’t be coy. I watched Richard Dawkins on television. Soft-spoken, English accent and all. “We no longer believe in the Greek and Roman gods, I’m simply adding one more.”

Now don’t put on your science hat and play “Simon says.” And then say, “Oh, Simon didn’t say.”

Scientists remove, whole, science from their laboratory-cathedrals, and then, using the entire weight of their titles and scientific standing, present it - packaged for public consumption, with the impramatur of scientific legitimacy. You are essentially doing the same.

Peace,
Ed

 

[1holycatholic]

But the data wins out, in the end, as a matter of history. Knowledge is hard to acquire, but also very hard to suppress. It’s extraordinarily difficult to shout provable things out of existence.

The existence of God is provable and has not been shouted out of existence. http://s3.amazonaws.com/advrider/deal.gif