Science must destroy religion

[uther]

Thanks for the kind words, LogisticsBranch, but let me clarify a couple things on this.

1. I’m not saying God killed the child, and I also believe cancer killed the child. From the brief conversations I had with the father (it’s a work relationship so there are practical limits to how far the exchange on this can go), they do not think anything like that either – all agree cancer was the cause of death and no one suspects God of intervening in any way to cause the death of the child.
2. The cruelty, the indictment of God, then, comes from two conflicts:
   a. Why was this beautiful young boy refused a supernatural intervention when Aunt Martha’s goiter got miraculous healed or, (to use a case officially recognized by the RCC) Gemma di Giorgi’s eyes were miraculously fixed up?
   b. On the response (which is ubiquitous and inevitable) that “we just don’t know the reasons”, God’s silence and removal on this question is ITSELF an immanent form of cruelty, a manifestation of evil. That is, this is the role a trixter demon would act: heh, watch this, we’re gonna fix Aunt Martha’s goiter, and then we will SERIOUSLY screw with the heads of this kid and his parents. Why not him? Why not heal this boy? Hahaha – it’s bad enough he succumbed and died for the parents, but now they get the lifelong additional suffering of wondering why I demurred in his when I granted a miraculous favor to Aunt Martha. And I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.

None of this has anything to do with causing the cancer itself, or blaming God for instigating the cancer, or the young man’s agonizing, pathetic death. The accusations against God comes from God’s capricious use of life saving miracles elsewhere, combined with the cruel silence he inflicts on the victims and those who care about the ones suffering as to the particular rationale (or lack of any rationale) that went into the decision.

I appreciate the compassion in you message. It saddens me to see such a noble disposition kneeling in front of God such as you imagine. It’s not a miracle to have family, parents and friends come together in crises like this: this is as basic a feature of human nature as can be found. There is nothing less miraculous than that, and well it should be that way.

-TS

I fully understand the circumstance. I have a brother-in-law right now dying of PSP, a very slow and torturous way to go, losing bits and pieces of physical abilty until finally all that is left is the consciousness trapped in the useless body and eventually something like pneumonia ends it all. Every time I visit he is perceptably worse, still able to communicate but dreading the time when that will be gone too. He is too young to die as well. I have prayed for divine intervention, a miracle if you will. So far, no sign of it.

With all due respect, I think that perhaps your view of God is somewhat truncated, as well as your understanding of what a miracle actually is. As an atheist you are saying there is no God. Therefore, miracles cannot exist by definition. Every event of a miraculous nature must have a physical, material explanation, even though we may not yet know what that is. That however is a very practical definition of faith is it not? And is it not comparible to the response that we do not know why God intervenes in one case and not in another?

As a matter of fact, the standard for the Church in officially recognizing a miracle is precisely that there is no possible known physical or material or medical explanation. If such an explanation is demonstrable, then no miracle has occurred. So, in that case, we must have faith either way; either in the supernatural source of the event, or in the necessary but unknown material explanation. By saying there is no God you are saying first that there is no miracle in any case you have cited, and that you have faith.

As to the rationale you have posited, ie., that God must be a monster, capricious at the very least, a trickster at best, because he did not conform to your view of right, good and fair (and the view of many others, I might add) then if so, he does not exist. You are an atheist or at least have indicated that you are.

It is possible to believe in a capricious God. That is to say, atheism does not necessarily follow from that conclusion. In fact, much of Islam holds that view, that God is not bound by the very reason that he gave to mankind.

But to return to the Christian view of God, which it seems you are rejecting, I would begin by pointing out that we, at least, have gone into this with our eyes wide open. When Jesus was physically on earth in his human body he performed many miracles in his ministry. Was there ever any question about his not healing everyone? It is one question that I don’t recall ever running across in the New Testament from any of his followers or Apostles, at least specifically.

I don’t have an explanation for suffering in this world that would satisfy you, focussed as you no doubt are, as an atheist, strictly on the material world around you. For you to find that explanation in the material world is entirely up to you, or perhaps you are content with the non-explanation of the difference between the “seemingly” miraculous recovery of one and not the other, so long as God is not involved, although it seems you are no further ahead either way.

But I think that the existence of God is demonstrable totally independent of whether you consider him good or evil. However, once thus demonstrated, the implications are such that it is not possible to be at once rational and believe God is evil, by the very nature of the demonstration that reason has given. To do so requires you to superimpose your own limited (mine too) moral judgment from particular circumstance, onto the being that reason has demonstrated to be the author of existence itself. At that level moral judgment is all his, not ours, with respect to his actions or inactions.

The short hand here, unsatisfying to you, is that God has his own reasons. But if you reject specifically the Christian God you must be aware of the entirety of what Christians understand God to be, not just one part of that, the part that seems most inconsistent with your experience of the world.

 

[epan]

Atheism is becoming quite a fad these days so I guess it is their herd instinct, not rationality, at work.

If Catholicism were growing in popularity, would you discount the reasons so glibly, and call it “herd instinct”?

 

[Touchstone]

I fully understand the circumstance. I have a brother-in-law right now dying of PSP, a very slow and torturous way to go, losing bits and pieces of physical abilty until finally all that is left is the consciousness trapped in the useless body and eventually something like pneumonia ends it all. Every time I visit he is perceptably worse, still able to communicate but dreading the time when that will be gone too. He is too young to die as well. I have prayed for divine intervention, a miracle if you will. So far, no sign of it.

I’m sorry to hear that, and do understand the pain and distress and despair situations like that can cause.

With all due respect, I think that perhaps your view of God is somewhat truncated, as well as your understanding of what a miracle actually is.

I’m an atheist, but was a Christian for the first forty or so years of my life, all but the last year or so of that devout, fully believing and faithful. I do not believe any God or god exists, but in a forum like this, it’s just exceedingly tiresome for both me and anyone reading me to constantly point out that when I’m talking about God, it’s a provisional comment that assumes for the sake of argument the reality of God, even though I do not think such an entity exists. So when I post as I have above, I’m not saying “God is cruel because he’s imaginary”. Rather, I’m saying “accepting for the moment that God is who Christians believe he is, he’s cruel”. Being actual is what would really make God a terrible monster. Being imaginary, he’s a construct that has some nasty side effects – people gin up miracles as anodyne and well-intentioned skyhooks for their hopes, and do not realize until later, if they realize it at all, that those well intentioned beliefs in crass and trivial miracles are ideas that serve as instruments of cruelty for the millions of others in the world who merit miraculous relief far more than Aunt Martha’s goiter does, or Tim Tebow needs supernatural assistance to make that game winning touchdown.

In any case, all of the comments on this subject here assume, arguendo, that God exists in the respects and attributes that Christians generally, and Catholics specifically (in the case of the miracle healings of Padre Pio, for example) embrace. ON THOSE TERMS, accepting Christian premises, God is cruel and capricious in his dealings with man on the subject of miracles and supernatural relief of suffering.

As an atheist you are saying there is no God. Therefore, miracles cannot exist by definition.

That’s one way to look at it, and I’m sure some atheists do. I’d say miracles do not exist, as best we can tell, and based on a mind-breakingly large amount of evidence and garnered knowledge about the world around us. Given that, intuitions about the existence of God tend to be undermined. Rather than “No God => no miracles”, I think “No miracles => no miracle making God” better captures my judgment on this. There are other arguments that support the conclusion that no God or gods exist, but in terms of miracles, that’s the relationship I understand between evidence and conclusion.

Every event of a miraculous nature must have a physical, material explanation, even though we may not yet know what that is. That however is a very practical definition of faith is it not?

No. Non-miraculous events do not necessarily have a physical, material explanation. Quantum indeterminacy and probabilistic events are examples of “explanation-less” events. So that’s not a requirement. You’ve framed it in religious, dogmatic terms, which is understandable, but not what I’d endorse. We build models of nature, and now have a wealth of evidence and working models that undermine the plausible of various miracle claims. But even so, I don’t require or expect an explanation for each and every event, and have good reason to think that a some levels of description, not only are such explanations lacking, but the are problematic in principle, or to say it another way, lacking as part of the integrated model.

And is it not comparible to the response that we do not know why God intervenes in one case and not in another?

No. Both are positions of ignorance, but in the case of “explanation-less” events, there’s no dogma to apply, either that no explanation is possible, or that an explanation MUST obtain somehow. In the case of religious superstitions about God’s intervention, the conclusion is fundamentally different: we don’t know, but GOD MUST HAVE HIS REASONS. That’s precisely the kind of commitment an empirical, non-dogmatic epistemology eschews.

As a matter of fact, the standard for the Church in officially recognizing a miracle is precisely that there is no possible known physical or material or medical explanation. If such an explanation is demonstrable, then no miracle has occurred.

Right. That has been my understanding all along.

So, in that case, we must have faith either way; either in the supernatural source of the event, or in the necessary but unknown material explanation.

But it’s not necessary, or to be even more precise, if it’s necessary we don’t have a way to know that it is. These are epistemic stances that could not be further apart. For the materialist – me, it’s simply unknown, and “unknowable” or “explanation is impossible in principle” remains a live option. That does not take faith. It just takes inventory of the phase space of possibilities and acknowledges the unknown AS unknown.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

uther:

By saying there is no God you are saying first that there is no miracle in any case you have cited, and that you have faith.

No faith needed. We do not say any miracles, anywhere. Not even one, ever. That does not and cannot mean they can’t happen – that’s a negative that is impossible to establish in principle with any certainty. But it does mean we have a reasonable basis for believing they don’t occur, or at least have not occurred.

As to the rationale you have posited, ie., that God must be a monster, capricious at the very least, a trickster at best, because he did not conform to your view of right, good and fair (and the view of many others, I might add) then if so, he does not exist. You are an atheist or at least have indicated that you are.

God’s non-existence (which is my view) is not implicated in my statements here. For the purposes of this discussion, I have been assuming the existence of the Christian God, as Christians understand God to exist. If this God does exist, then he is a capricious and cruel agent in the world on the question of miracles and supernatural intervention in the relief or prevention of suffering.

It is possible to believe in a capricious God.

Sure. I don’t believe any good basis exists for believing in the Christian God, but it can’t be ruled out as a logical possibility. If the Christian God obtains, then his cruel nature has no bearing on the fact of his existence. If God exists, then he is what is, regardless of value judgments we might render on his priorities of conduct.

That is to say, atheism does not necessarily follow from that conclusion. In fact, much of Islam holds that view, that God is not bound by the very reason that he gave to mankind.

Right. That would be a non-sequitur of the most conspicuous sort. I’ve not made that claim, and understand well that God being different than the Christian understanding of God does not mean that that different god does not or cannot exist.

On being bound by reason, the prose on the subject is quite different from Christian theologians, but the concepts are the same, at least from classical theologians. Reason is incoherent conceptually as an attribute of God, as it is necessarily predicated on finite, imperfect knowledge and fallible, incomplete heuristics. To mash idea up with a Betty Friedan quote, “God needs reason like a fish needs a bicycle”. Reason is a tool for the ignorant and knowledge-poor.

But to return to the Christian view of God, which it seems you are rejecting, I would begin by pointing out that we, at least, have gone into this with our eyes wide open.

I don’t dispute that Christians embrace God/Jesus voluntarily, but it’s the rare Christian I encounter who grasps the power of this problem the Christian who does NOT offer the trite reflex: “we just don’t know God’s reasons but know that they are good and he has them”.

As a Christian, I believed fully in miracles, in the Bible, but also as a part of our ongoing participation in a relationship with God, day to day. My eyes were not “open” until well into my late 20s when I started to look honestly at the problem of all those who DID NOT GET A MIRACLE juxtaposed with those who I believed did.

I do encounter Christians who understand the scope of this dilemma, but they are few and far between.

When Jesus was physically on earth in his human body he performed many miracles in his ministry. Was there ever any question about his not healing everyone? It is one question that I don’t recall ever running across in the New Testament from any of his followers or Apostles, at least specifically.

Yes, that’s conspicuously absent in the narrative. A strong thinker would challenge Jesus: why this woman and not that? I can only think Jesus would have to just brush that aside with an appeal to his authority, similar to his dismissal of questions about the salaries in the Parable of the Workers in the Field. Jesus responds: Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my money? It’s an appeal to voluntarism: an om(name removed by moderator)otent God has the “right”, as a function of might, to do whatever he wills.

But if God has the “money” to do what he pleases, if he has the power to heal whom he chooses whenever and however he chooses, then yes, we have every right and duty to render judgment on how God spends that money, on who and how God heals.

I don’t have an explanation for suffering in this world that would satisfy you, focussed as you no doubt are, as an atheist, strictly on the material world around you.

That is not so much a problem. The problem is that God himself has offered you (or anyone) no such explanation. That reticence is itself a cruel disposition, as you should well understand in the unfortunate position you are in regarding your brother-in-law.

For you to find that explanation in the material world is entirely up to you, or perhaps you are content with the non-explanation of the difference between the “seemingly” miraculous recovery of one and not the other, so long as God is not involved, although it seems you are no further ahead either way.

I wouldn’t say I’d be content, but I do note that if God were “hands off”, paradoxically, he’d be less evil on the matter of matter of miracles than he is with the caprice manifest in the way God is understood to actually interact by Christians.

But I think that the existence of God is demonstrable totally independent of whether you consider him good or evil.

Agree.

However, once thus demonstrated, the implications are such that it is not possible to be at once rational and believe God is evil, by the very nature of the demonstration that reason has given. To do so requires you to superimpose your own limited (mine too) moral judgment from particular circumstance, onto the being that reason has demonstrated to be the author of existence itself. At that level moral judgment is all his, not ours, with respect to his actions or inactions.

Yes, but that itself is an immoral disposition, immoral at least with respect to human value and human interests. Making “all moral judgment his” surrenders our own moral judgment, abdicates our duties to think and reason toward values as humans, humans living in community with other humans.

If all judgment is taken away from us, and you’ve just taken it away from us, then there is no “good” or “evil” apart from might. If God demanded child sacrifice or cannabalism of the young, or old, or [insert the most heinous moral acts you can imagine here] as moral goods, you’re now bound to agree. A vicious demon god that delights in suffering is just as “good” and “holy” as any other imagination of God, given this position.

Rather than surrender our reasoning and moral judgment, we apply it, and when we do, when we are not distracted or bullied into backing away from the question, and we look with a sober gaze at what God does, and why (or why not, or without any communication or rationale provided), God comes off as a capricious and cruel tyrant, a moral monster.

The short hand here, unsatisfying to you, is that God has his own reasons. But if you reject specifically the Christian God you must be aware of the entirety of what Christians understand God to be, not just one part of that, the part that seems most inconsistent with your experience of the world.

My point has gotten lost in this, reading this last paragraph. Even on granting Christians the reality of the Christian God, you have a severe epistemic problem in claiming “God has his own reasons”. This is analogous to “knowing” that quantum events really do have more fundamental causes, or that they do not. It’s an unwarranted conclusion, even (especially) given Christian God’s existence. If you are telling me that I must grant Christians’ unwarranted conclusions about God on top of his reality (i.e. that he “has his reasons”), then I must throw my arms up in surrender: anything is “knowledge” and all propositions are true and false or either, all the time, and simultaneously. The epistemology has completely broken down at that point.

But that isn’t advanced as such. As a Christian, I believed God had his reasons for expedient reasons of my own. If that wasn’t the case, all manner of severe and disabling problems arose for my faith. As that was not desirable at the time, it simply was necessary to believe that God had his reasons. Not because that idea could stand on its own, but because it was too disturbing to develop the implications if it wasn’t true.

-TS

 

[DeepBlueSea]

If Catholicism were growing in popularity, would you discount the reasons so glibly, and call it “herd instinct”?

During the time when Constantine became the emperor, yes, nobility converted to Christianity to garner royal favor, yup, that was a movement of herd instinct. But post-Christ crucifixion, it wasn’t. Post-Reformation persecution, it wasn’t. Post-modernism hostility, it isn’t.

 

[tonyrey]

In referring to rationality, you are confusing here the concepts of ‘physically determined’ (based on cause and effect) and ‘logically determined’ (based on ground and consequent). They are not necessarily the same.

As C.S. Lewis writes:

“But unfortunately the two systems [ground and consequent, cause and effect] are wholly distinct. To be caused is not to be proved. Wishful thinkings, prejudices, and the delusions of madness, are all caused, but they are ungrounded. Indeed to be caused is so different from being proved that we behave in disputation as if they were mutually exclusive. The mere existence of causes for a belief is popularly treated as raising a presumption that it is groundless, and the most popular way of discrediting a person’s opinions is to explain them causally – ‘You say that because (Cause and Effect) you are a capitalist, or a hypochondriac, or a mere man, or only a woman’. The implication is that if causes fully account for a belief, then, since causes work inevitably, the belief would have had to arise whether it had grounds or not. We need not, it is felt, consider grounds for something which can be fully explained without them.”

Link:
philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/Intro/csl3.html

How often we come across that fallacy on this forum! No wonder CS has had such a far-reaching impact.

 

[NeedImprovement]

. . . If we could talk to the ghosts of Hiroshima, I wonder who they would tell us to fear more: Priests or scientists?

Well, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki tell us that the Rosary , ergo Our Blessed Mother’s protection is infinitely more powerful than the most devastating weapon in terms of destruction that man has ever created using science . . . LESSON FROM HIROSHIMA: WITH THE ROSARY THERE IS A PROTECTION AGAINST ANYTHING - and this puzzles the **** out of scientists.

. . . kind of makes one inclined to believe Daniel really was thrown into the fiery furnace and not only wasn’t burned alive,but did actually walk about in the flames singing to God, emerging from it all totally unscathed at the end. [Daniel 3]

 

[NeedImprovement]

Without question, it’s religion (specifically Islam, and to a lesser extent, Christianity) that represents the more dangerous threat to the future of the human race. Science may have given us dangerous weapons with no practical use, but Islam and Christianity both prophesize the end of the world and expect us to rejoice in its coming.

Perhaps because the poster doesn’t share our faith , we have received a skewed presentation of the Catholic perspective above.

We look forward to our Blessed Lord’s return, if it coincides with the consummation, that isn’t our doing.

The analogy would be a mother about to give birth to her child. Logically, we would be looking forward in great hope to the child’s birth, but the poster would seem to say, “you expect us to rejoice in the mother’s labour pains.”

Without question, it’s religion (specifically Islam, and to a lesser extent, Christianity) that represents the more dangerous threat to the future of the human race. . .

Does this part even need a rebuttal ? A little reality check would reveal that between 42 million and 46 million children are being slain in the wombs of their mothers every year through abortion - the equivalent of the populations of entire countries - combined !! . . . annually. Nothing focalizes man’s potential for his ultimate indignity - self-anihilation, more than abortion does . . . these are little innocent defenseless human beings, and this poster is worried about Catholics/Christians who try to defend them . . .??? uch:
GMAB

Let’s see, how many people did Catholics kill this year . . . ?

We can already estimate, barring divine intervention how many abortionists will kill next year .

. . . Christianity both prophesize the end of the world and. . .

. . . Like talking about Christian prophecies ? . . .Here’s one :

Luke 23:26-31 [NAB]

**As they led him away they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country; and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind Jesus.

A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him.

Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children,

for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’

At that time people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’

for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?" **

 

[Candide_West]

1. Free will implies that we choose what to think or do.

Ok.

1. If what we think or do is due to physical causes we may occasionally be lucky and choose what is due to physical causes but there is no reason why our choices should always - or even usually - correspond to the choices due to physical causes.

Incorrect, the error you made here is that you have separated out “our choices” and “the choices due to physical causes” they are the same thing. “our choices” ARE “choices due to physical choices”. So yes they will always correspond.

It isn’t surprising that you made this error given that you are starting from a presumption of dualism, but the problem vanishes once you shed that position.

“You have provided no reasoning or justification whatsoever. If you expect people to believe you then you need to do better.” (I add those two assertions to demonstrate they do nothing whatsoever to further the discussion. In addition to being useless they are discourteous.)

Ahhh, school playground tactics of repeating something someone said to you. I’m afraid I stopped responding to such japes when I was a teenager, but thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

Science doesn’t say anything about morality!

Incorrect, science has told us huge amounts about morality. As you would expect it is an observable phenomena so it has been studied extensively across many species, including our own.

1. Physical events are amoral.

Incorrect, lets pick an example – lets say you pick up a rock and bash your neighbours head in with it. This is unquestionably a physical event, it is also immoral.

1. If all our activities have physical causes they are amoral.

Incorrect, the moral status of our behaviour attaches due to our status as moral agents. It is not due to the physical cause of our behaviour.

“Where do you get these things from?”

1. According to science all our activities have physical causes.

Not quite, it would be more accurate to say that “no non-physical causes have ever been detected”.

1. Since no two persons have exactly the same physical makeup or the same physical background no two persons have exactly the same beliefs or non-beliefs.

No, you see if two people had exactly the same makeup and exactly the same physical background then those two people would be the same person. You are talking about a level of similarity far beyond what could possibly be created, even taking identical twins and exposing them to precisely the same events at the same time would be insufficient, you’d have to directly control the internal events in their brains.

But this is of course nothing to do with your conclusion that everyone holds contradictory views. People can be different to each other and yet still share common views, they just won’t hold exactly the same views on ALL subjects.

1. The assertion that everyone without exception holds contradictory views is clearly contrary to observation because it simply isn’t true that all our activities have physical causes.

Incorrect and does not follow either. The fact that people share some views and the similarity of their views is roughly proportional to their similarity of background is what we would expect if activities have physical causes. It is also what we observe in the real world.

I have pointed out that without religion there is no rational basis for morality because the universe is amoral.

And in that you are incorrect because while the universe is amoral people are not and I and plenty of others have provided a rational basis for morality without religion.

Why do axioms apply to everyone?

Because they are axioms. Or if you prefer, because they come from the definitions of those terms, which are themselves axiomatic.

If one person’s happiness depends on another person’s suffering which person has priority?

In general suffering is the more intense experience, so prevention of suffering is more heavily weighted.

Do you accept or reject those assertions?

I’d reject the first two because they both assert things which in themselves are likely to cause suffering but not the last because killing people causes suffering.

If a fundamental belief - like the principle of inequality - is false and makes some persons happy it causes much suffering to others.

In that case the belief has failed on the terms I provided, this bit “and causes no suffering to anybody”

Materialism, hedonism, egoism and scepticism have an extremely long history of causing harm - not as a result of fortune but logic.

Disagree, I can’t recall any wars being undertaken in the name of hedonism, or genocide being undertaken in the name of skepticism.

In any case the argument you are making here is one of relativism “sure people have done terrible things in the name of religion but they’ve done terrible things for other reasons too”. My answer to that would be “so what?”. Are you saying that just because some systems of thought cause problems we should accept any other systems of thought which also cause problems? If so then again I must disagree with you.

1. Religion has always been a universal phenomenon.

Nope, granted it’s relatively common in recent human history but that is a long way from universal.

1. Belief in the spiritual world has existed since the dawn of history whereas materialism is a rare occurrence.

So what you are saying is that belief in a spiritual world is a phenomena which has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of a single species on one planet. And religion is of course a subset of that. Given what you have written in 1. This would appear to mean that you have a very myopic idea of “universal”.

1. Western society has been based on Christian values for the last two thousand years.
2. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity originated in the teaching of Jesus.

Nope, they didn’t originate with Jesus. Indeed the principles such as the golden rule were in circulation in a number of ancient cultures hundreds, if not thousands of years BCE.

Until that assertion is justified with evidence it is gratuitous.

Fortunately though it IS supported with evidence, piles of it in fact. If you wish to satisfy yourself of this just go and speak to some atheists out there in the real world. Or speak to those of us who come on this website. You’ll find that we are all in posession of working moral systems.

On what rational basis do you select your moral values and principles from that medley of sources?

What are your criteria of true moral values and principles?

As I said I compare propositions against axioms to test out their moral status.

 

[Candide_West]

In referring to rationality, you are confusing here the concepts of ‘physically determined’ (based on cause and effect) and ‘logically determined’ (based on ground and consequent). They are not necessarily the same.

But that is not the point. The point is that if there is a relationship between the (name removed by moderator)ut to the “soul” (accepting for the moment that such a thing exists) and the response it produces then it’s response is deterministic and as such not truly free. If there is no relationship between (name removed by moderator)ut and response then it’s response is random (thus not willed).

Those are the two options - there either is a relationship or there is not. The only way out of this to end up with rational free will housed in the soul is to accept that there IS a relationship between the (name removed by moderator)ut and the response (thus it is deterministic) but that relationship IS your free will.

However, if we make that argument regarding the relationship of (name removed by moderator)ut and response of the soul, then we can make exactly the same argument with regards to the relationship of (name removed by moderator)ut and response of the brain. Essentially the problem either exists in both cases or neither.

 

[Al_Moritz]

But that is not the point.

False, that is the point.

I would suggest you carefully study the link that I posted. It may take some time to fully understand it all in detail (it certainly took me a while before it all sank in), and I have seen attempts at rebuttal of it on the web that did not at all understand what they aimed to refute, and completely missed the point. – Lewis’s ponderings of quantum mechanics at the beginning of his article can be safely ignored, he does not use them in his argument anyway.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Science may have given us dangerous weapons with no practical use, but Islam and Christianity both prophesize the end of the world and expect us to rejoice in its coming.

And here I was thinking only the over-religious dolts believe in a literal Revelations.

We ‘prophesize’? Sorry, but not all of us are end-times nutsos. Quit hanging around threads like that if it’s causing you to have this skewed version of our religion. I’ve seen more Catholics here chastise and argue against such behavior.

I guess I should thank you. Views like yours are proof that we need to step up in setting our loons straight.

Finally, may I just say that, prophesy or not, our world is ruled by the laws of your precious science. It’s why it’s so boring (like the classes I took in high school and was glad to be rid of when went to, plus finished, college). I personally wish our world would end with archfiends rising out of brimstone cracks in the earth or nether rifts in space.

But no, we really are more likely to blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons that science helped devise… or maybe we’ll just die from an exploding sun or an incoming meteor. No matter how much I dream, I know that’s more likely the only real way the world is going to end.

 

[Candide_West]

Agree.

Wasn’t conflating but merely pointing out the irrationality of Sam Harris and the kind of ideals he was brandishing in that particular article and how so many atheists eagerly jump on that bandwagon. Isn’t that this whole thread is about a.k.a the irrationality of Sam Harris? Besides, whether Mr. Harris’ scientific approach, as demonstrated in the paucity of his published works, does not quite rise up to the scientific rigor. Nobody claimed that his view is representative of the scientific community.

Fair enough then.

Though to be fair I haven’t found many atheists agreeing with him. Looking over this thread, myself and Atheistgirl openly disagreed. ASimon I don’t think expressed an opinion of the article as a whole but is in agreement the zero sum element at least and I think Touchstone implied a similar view to ASimon but I don’t think ever commented directly on the article as such. I think that’s all of us, so I don’t think there’s been much bandwagon jumping by atheists on this thread.

As I said, I myself disagree with him, and to be fair a lot of the effort in my writing on this thread has been to try to discuss what he actually wrote as opposed to the array of other things he was accused of having written but actually never mentioned in the article.

 

[Crescentinus]

And here I was thinking only the over-religious dolts believe in a literal Revelations.

We ‘prophesize’? Sorry, but not all of us are end-times nutsos. Quit hanging around threads like that if it’s causing you to have this skewed version of our religion. I’ve seen more Catholics here chastise and argue against such behavior.

I guess I should thank you. Views like yours are proof that we need to step up in setting our loons straight.

Finally, may I just say that, prophesy or not, our world is ruled by the laws of your precious science. It’s why it’s so boring (like the classes I took in high school and was glad to be rid of when went to, plus finished, college). I personally wish our world would end with archfiends rising out of brimstone cracks in the earth or nether rifts in space.

But no, we really are more likely to blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons that science helped devise… or maybe we’ll just die from an exploding sun or an incoming meteor. No matter how much I dream, I know that’s more likely the only real way the world is going to end.

Let me add to this.
A lot of the people whom you described as “end-times nutsos” believe in things such as man-made climate change or other weirder things.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Let me add to this.
A lot of the people whom you described as “end-times nutsos” believe in things such as man-made climate change or other weirder things.

Actually, even if that were true, such a phenomenon is still within the limitations set out by oh-so-wonderful science. It’s why climate disasters usually operate at a much slower pace compared to… oh I don’t know… a titan attack?

 

[Candide_West]

False, that is the point.

I would suggest you carefully study the link that I posted. It may take some time to fully understand it all in detail (it certainly took me a while before it all sank in), and I have seen attempts at rebuttal of it on the web that did not at all understand what they aimed to refute, and completely missed the point. – Lewis’s ponderings of quantum mechanics at the beginning of his article can be safely ignored, he does not use them in his argument anyway.

Well the options I presented are respectively

a). there is a relationship
b). there is not a relationship

As far as I can tell those are the only two options and represent an exclusive dichotomy.

It matters not to my argument what different classifications of relationship there might be. If there is a relationship then there is a relationship, it might be an extremely complex relationship with millions of different dependences, but that is only a problem of extent, not one of type.

The argument you presented from C.S. Lewis as far as I can tell is talking about different types of relationship (ground and consequent, cause and effect) this makes absolutely no difference to my argument as they are both types of relationship thus both fall under a).

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Fair enough then.

Though to be fair I haven’t found many atheists agreeing with him. Looking over this thread, myself and Atheistgirl openly disagreed. ASimon I don’t think expressed an opinion of the article as a whole but is in agreement the zero sum element at least and I think Touchstone implied a similar view to ASimon but I don’t think ever commented directly on the article as such.

Adding myself to that list. I don’t agree with Harris either. However, that is not to say that I don’t think that there are some ideas that are propagated and inspired by some religions that tend to be harmful. I listed a few of them in an earlier response. (ex:Female genital mutilation).

 

[ThinkingSapien]

And here I was thinking only the over-religious dolts believe in a literal Revelations.

We ‘prophesize’? Sorry, but not all of us are end-times nutsos. Quit hanging around threads like that if it’s causing you to have this skewed version of our religion. I’ve seen more Catholics here chastise and argue against such behavior.

I thought the thread was about “Science destroying religion” and not specifically “Science destroying Catholicism.” If we are talking about religions collectively then there do exists those that share their interpretation of a prophetic end times (If you come to the 200 block of Peachtree St in Atlanta you can find people dress in purple on the street doing this daily at lunch time).

I also get the feeling that Sam Harris isn’t targeting all religions (or all religious ideologies). He speaks positively about aspects of some religions like Jainism.

 

[Candide_West]

Adding myself to that list. I don’t agree with Harris either. However, that is not to say that I don’t think that there are some ideas that are propagated and inspired by some religions that tend to be harmful. I listed a few of them in an earlier response. (ex:Female genital mutilation).

And I would definately be with you on that one.

Apologies for missing you out by the way.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I thought the thread was about “Science destroying religion” and not specifically “Science destroying Catholicism.” If we are talking about religions collectively then there do exists those that share their interpretation of a prophetic end times (If you come to the 200 block of Peachtree St in Atlanta you can find people dress in purple on the street doing this daily at lunch time).

Uh-huh and there are some forms of atheism which advocate genocide for all religions. That doesn’t mean I can lump you all with them right?

Again, the existence of dolts don’t make the case against all those who share their faith.

I also get the feeling that Sam Harris isn’t targeting all religions (or all religious ideologies). He speaks positively about aspects of some religions like Jainism.

Oh yes, so I’ve heard. Any religion that’s not one of the dreaded Abrahamic Trinity (Judaism-Islam-Christianity) isn’t up for free passes because they’re soooo nice and soooo all about peace dude.

Sorry, couldn’t help it. Seriously. I’m afraid I really can’t help but notice this trend among secularists and atheists to lambast the three I mentioned but everything else that’s all New Age-y and whatnot is treated with warm regards.