Science VS. Faith

[CatsAndDogs]

Science must deal with values. In fact, this fact is part of what I join you in critizing about reductionist philosphical materialism. If he really believes that only matter and energy are really real, the flatlander would have to rule out his own values from existence including such scientific values as honestly reporting results and valuing simpler explanations over more complex ones and valuing explanations that cover a broad range of experience over ones that only cover a narrow range of experience. That is why I call this flatlander a strawman. No one really thinks that values aren’t real.

Science qua science deals only with utilitarian values. It doesn’t deal with “truth” values, which are utterly binary (true or untrue), but only with “use” values, which are utterly scalar (a continuum of usefulness).

Now, scientists certainly DO deal with truth, as they are persons, and persons must in all cases of “dealing with” deal with both truth values and utilitarian values.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s the atheist who isn’t overly skilled at separating behavior from person? That has always surprised me, because atheists claim to be so “wedded” to the scientific method, while failing to make this (nearly) most simple and rudimentary separation of terms!

If experience is the only reality we can ever know, then reality is nothing but value, and love quite literally makes the word go 'round.

The Catholic view is that reality is real, whether we “experience” it or not. We do not “create” reality by experiencing it.

Reality is not “nothing but value”, but is the place to try to be most fully human, which is to use what we’ve been given (creation, the great machine we are to use) to find the “why’s” behind the “how’s”.

The “why’s” are the truths behind the “how’s” which are the “workings”.

So I do think that science studies values, what else is there to study? I just don’t think we need to postulate a God to know that values and morals are real.

Don’t confuse the tool with the craftsman.

Scientists (real ones) study both “workings” and “truth”. They do this because persons can’t help but do that.

Science (qua science) is the study of only “workings”.

Religion (qua religion) is the study of only “truth”.

God is not a postulate. It is an inherent axiom present in all humans (and all other persons).

The atheist’s basic error is that “God was created by man for some purpose”, thus imposing “scientific” reasoning in the realm of religion so as to identify an “enginerable” item (God) which is the “used” thing used for “human manipulation”.

After committing this basal error, there is then a need generated to come up with a “substitute human manipulator”, a “tool”, to base “morality” (what behavior is right/good and bad/evil) on.

The base created is, “If it works for 'those who are SMART” it is “true-enough” (which violates that binary nature of truth by replacing it with the scalar nature of “workings”) and a “good enough” (relativistic, scalar, provisional) base.

That is the best that the atheist can do, a “rule by benevolent dictatorship” (the elite).

There is no convincing the atheist that that is sub-optimal, because they refuse to see what “God” means, and without “God qua God” (and not “god” qua “thor or one of his cronies”) their view IS optimal!

That is why they resist so very hard any understanding of God qua God, and actively fight against others being “seduced” by such an idea.

If God is a engineered product to manipulate humanity against using their own relativistic utilitarian reasoning (scientific) to find “true enough” bases for morality, then God is to be fought tooth and nail.

I would in fact agree with that 100%!

But that’s not what God is.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Everyone here seems to think that either someone believes in God or they believe in some other dogma.

I could be said to subscribe to empricism and pragmatism, but I don’t think I have any dogmatic beliefs.

Do you have a dogmatic belief that dogmatic beliefs are “bad to have”?

 

[Leela]

Hi Cats,

You’re quite right! Believers accept the morality they do for very good reasons.

And it’s rather obvious that God would have “good reasons” for making some things right and some things wrong, doesn’t it, considering what “God” means?
…
Well, you, as an atheist, are proposing not that we cut out the “middle man” but rather that we cut out the “originator”.

Either way, belief in God seems to me to be irrelevant to true morality?

No. What will make us more moral (in action) is to develop a taste for truly understanding why revealed morality is the most wise way to act, and until we more fully understand why it is most wise we act as God (qua God) has suggested we do so.

I don’t know what “revealed morality” means to you or what God means to you. Can you explain?

Once again, show me (us) an item of (your?) morality which is immoral according to the Church, and I’ll explain why it’s immoral, and you can explain why it’s not immoral, and we can see precisely why it is that “competing non-God-based reasoning” results in chaos.

I gave you four examples and for each of them you said that the problem is that I don’t know what God means. I remain unconcinced that balsphemy, idolatry, homosexuality, or stem cell research results in chaos. I’ll add birth control to the list. I don’t think that we would find too much more than those to disagree on about morality.

You want my reasoning about why something is not immoral. I don’t think anything is immoral unless there is good reason to think so. It’s not a matter of reasoning why something is not immoral for me. It’s just a lack of a convincing argument about why something is immoral.

Morality is not about human so-called happiness, by which atheists actually mean “wanted impulse fulfillment”, at the expense of correct human interaction within society and within the individual, but about the actual happiness just specified.

I wish you would start arguing with me instead of with “atheists” or “scientific materialists.” I didn’t mean “pleasure” when I said “happiness.” These don’t equate any more than pain is the same thing as suffering.

Atheistic “morality” is all about elitist-controlled libertinism. It is all about testing the bounds of allowable human interaction which don’t violate the “sensibilities” of some elite group with the power to “temporally punish” (to coercionally govern).

There is nothing about atheistic “morality” which is not relativistic. Just as nothing but relativism is an acceptable “philosophy” to the atheist.

( And yes, I DO understand that “relativism” isn’t a “bad word” to atheists! )

I think the most you can say about atheists in general is that they are unconvinced by the evidence for gods.

Relativism is pretty much a straw man, though I often hear it argued that it was good for God to give permission to keep slaves in the OT but bad today. Is that what you mean by relativism?

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Do you have a dogmatic belief that dogmatic beliefs are “bad to have”?

Hi Cats,

No, my belief that it is bad to hold beliefs dogmatically is based on evidence and can be revised in light of new evidence or arguments.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi Cats,

Science qua science deals only with utilitarian values. It doesn’t deal with “truth” values, which are utterly binary (true or untrue), but only with “use” values, which are utterly scalar (a continuum of usefulness).

I don’t buy your distinction between “truth” values and “use” values, but that may be a way of saying that I don’t find it useful? I see “truth” as a very specific value that is not an essence that can be talked about outside of what it is that is said to be true. “True” is a property that a sentence may have. It is a word we use for “good” when we are talking about beliefs.

Though truth is what is good to believe, I wouldn’t define “good” as “useful.” It is simply intellectual value. I’d rather not define words like “good” or “value” because I think you lose something in the process (like trying to define God puts limits on God), and everyone knows what they mean, anyway.

I find it useful to break down values as follows:
inorganic value patterns (order out of chaos, time, causality, the laws of physics)
biological value patterns (pleasure, pain, might makes right, the law of the jungle)
social value patterns (celebrity, status, patriotism, ritual, conformity)
intellectual value patterns (truth, parsimony, human rights)

Isn’t it interesting that it’s the atheist who isn’t overly skilled at separating behavior from person? That has always surprised me, because atheists claim to be so “wedded” to the scientific method, while failing to make this (nearly) most simple and rudimentary separation of terms!

I’m not sure what you mean. I see a difference between a person and a person’s actions, but I don’t think there is a difference between a person and a person’s values.

The Catholic view is that reality is real, whether we “experience” it or not. We do not “create” reality by experiencing it.

I agree, but belief in that statement itself comes from experience, so experience is still primary.

Reality is not “nothing but value”, but is the place to try to be most fully human, which is to use what we’ve been given (creation, the great machine we are to use) to find the “why’s” behind the “how’s”.
…
God is not a postulate. It is an inherent axiom present in all humans (and all other persons).

Can you explain the difference between a postulate and an axiom? I get the feeling that whatever I say God is, you’ll say, I’m wrong, so I’ve never tried to say what God is.

That is the best that the atheist can do, a “rule by benevolent dictatorship” (the elite).

Personally, I’d prefer representative democracy.

There is no convincing the atheist that that is sub-optimal, because they refuse to see what “God” means, and without “God qua God” (and not “god” qua “thor or one of his cronies”) their view IS optimal!

Are you suggesting some form of government?

Best,
Leela

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
You’re quite right! Believers accept the morality they do for very good reasons.

And it’s rather obvious that God would have “good reasons” for making some things right and some things wrong, doesn’t it, considering what “God” means?
…
Well, you, as an atheist, are proposing not that we cut out the “middle man” but rather that we cut out the “originator”.

Either way, belief in God seems to me to be irrelevant to true morality?

Your use of the question mark is “interesting”?

If that was a question, my answer to it would be that to not know what “God” means, which simply means to not know what the word “God” connotes as used by a Catholic (which you quite obviously don’t, which is likely not your fault), is to not know what “true morality”, or simply “morality” means, because there is no stable standard with which to distinguish good morals from bad morals.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
No. What will make us more moral (in action) is to develop a taste for truly understanding why revealed morality is the most wise way to act, and until we more fully understand why it is most wise we act as God (qua God) has suggested we do so.

I don’t know what “revealed morality” means to you or what God means to you. Can you explain?

“Revealed morality” is morality as given us by God via His Church (which I grant you makes me sound utterly silly to you ).

“God” means the creator of all things who is all-powerful, all-truth, and all-love, as well as as described by the Church (Catholic). (( also: God ))

The consequences of God qua God as He actually is (as I’ve somewhat lamely described above) should be obvious, although it is most often very easy to not consider the consequences of said definition as it relates to the “why’s” of our relationship to “such a thing” as God, but quite often aren’t because of the work we’d have to do to reconcile ourselves with our understanding of Him.

:shamrock2:

 

[edwest2]

Science is observation and deduction. Applied science is taking those observations and deductions and using them for some end.

Stability is necessary for international, local and interpersonal relationships. This requires a shared sense of right and wrong at the international and interpersonal level.

To make it up as you go along or to imagine you are treading in unexplored areas requires certain fundamental concepts from which to proceed. Without these foundational concepts, anarchy is the result; i.e. everyone off in their own direction.

Those who believe in no absolultes believe that absolutely. So it is dogmatic.

Back to science. If those in charge of scientific research have a no absolutes foundational basis, then they can invent justifications for anything. All that is needed is the following:

Sufficient experts + documentation + interpretation + a court of law = agreement.

Once agreement is reached, however, new experts arise that often contradict the findings of the previous experts. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States, convinced by scientific arguments, ordered the forced sterilization of imbeciles and others which were regarded as being detrimental to the gene pool. Is anyone here for forced sterilization?

In Nazi Germany, the Racial Laws were based on science. Certain physical features, it was claimed, identified so-called inferior men and women.

And so it continues. If God is cut out as the ‘middle-man’ other middle-men will arise, and, in fact, are with us today. And not all are scientists. Psychic fairs are common, as are psychic readers, palmistry, and those selling crystals or other objects with a quasi-scientific sales pitch.

In the end, if all religious belief disappeared tomorrow, imperfect men will be leading imperfect men. If the Technocracy is created, based on the worship of science and the mind of man, it will be manipulative. Those with more sophisticated arguments will subvert the less convincing, and the data will be juggled around a bit for the greater good of one group or another. Plans and counterplans will be proposed. Perhaps the “tyranny of the majority” will be replaced by the we-can’t-get-anything-done-quickly due to the tyranny of the minority.

The bottom line is this: there is every evidence God is real. It has been experienced to greater or lesser degrees by all civilizations. In the end, the choice is simple: worship the mind of man and bow to the endless stream of experts and middle-men or worship God, fully informed by Him through divine revelation and untainted, unbiased knowledge.

Peace,
Ed

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Once again, show me (us) an item of (your?) morality which is immoral according to the Church, and I’ll explain why it’s immoral, and you can explain why it’s not immoral, and we can see precisely why it is that “competing non-God-based reasoning” results in chaos.

I gave you four examples and for each of them you said that the problem is that I don’t know what God means. I remain unconcinced that balsphemy, idolatry, homosexuality, or stem cell research results in chaos. I’ll add birth control to the list.

Because you don’t know that, or why, God created man as a person, and not as a machine (a non-person creation), you can’t very well know what a “person” is.

Now, since you don’t know what a person is, and why they are important, as well as what is best for them to “operate like”, you are “allowed” to not see the “operational errors” of homosexual-sex-acts, post-conceptional (!?) stem-cell research (mutilation), and so-called “birth control” (contraception and abortion).

Blasphemy and idolatry are seen for the evil that they are more by simple reference to the meaning of “God” than the meaning of “person”.

I suggest you check out the meanings of “God”, “person”, “homosexual”, “conception”, “contraception”, and “abortion” in the catechism for further clarification.

Though, I don’t ind blithering on about such things in my own childishly limited way.

I don’t think that we would find too much more than those to disagree on about morality.

That’s probably not true, but I do actually think that you follow a generally good “borrowed” set of morals (which means they originally came from the Church [Catholic]) which you don’t see as borrowed due to your enculturation.

You want my reasoning about why something is not immoral. I don’t think anything is immoral unless there is good reason to think so. It’s not a matter of reasoning why something is not immoral for me. It’s just a lack of a convincing argument about why something is immoral.

So, you’re saying you have no morals per se, but rather that you have reasons for thinking that some act is immoral.

On what basis do you decide whether something is immoral to you? And why should anyone agree with you that said act is immoral?

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Reality is not “nothing but value”, but is the place to try to be most fully human, which is to use what we’ve been given (creation, the great machine we are to use) to find the “why’s” behind the “how’s”.
…
God is not a postulate. It is an inherent axiom present in all humans (and all other persons).

Can you explain the difference between a postulate and an axiom? I get the feeling that whatever I say God is, you’ll say, I’m wrong, so I’ve never tried to say what God is.

They DO seem to be very nearly synonyms of each other, don’t they!? <chuckle, chuckle, chuckle!>

What I meant was that if God is “proposed” as a reality (accent on the “proposed” part), then God is a “postulate”, while in fact God is not a thing proposed but presupposed, or axiomatically “pre-proposed” as a reality whose (pre-) existence is not in question.

Simply to describe God as all-powerful (which includes all-knowing), all-truth, and all-love covers a huge area of the implications of such a “thing”.

:shamrock2:

 

[buffalo]

Hi Buffalo,

I think that what is really true about us right now, must be discoverable right now.

Best,
Leela

How can you know the difference?

 

[buffalo]

Leela,

Why didn’t the first atheist murder the second atheist?

 

[Leela]

…
In the end, if all religious belief disappeared tomorrow, imperfect men will be leading imperfect men.
…

Hi Ed, Buffalo,

I think this is the situation we have been in since the beginning of history. Isn’t it?

Sam Harris took your thought experiment a step further…
“What if all our knowledge of the world were suddenly to disappear? Our books and computers are still here, but we can’t make heads or tails of their contents. We have even forgotten how to drive our cars and brush our teeth. What knowledge would we want to reclaim first? Well, there’s that business about growing food and building shelter that we would want to get reacquainted with. We would want to relearn how to use and repair many of our machines. Learning to understand spoken and written language would also be a top priority. When in this process of reclaiming our humanity will it be important to know that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or that he was resurrected? And how would we relearn these ‘truths’, if they are indeed true? By reading the Bible? Our tour of the shelves will deliver similar pearls from antiquity… Whom shall we give top billing in our resurrected world? Yahweh or Shiva?… And what will we think of those curious people who being proclaiming that one of our books is distinct from all others in that it was actually written by the Creator?… The point is most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday. Surely, if we could create the world anew, the practice of organizing our lives around untestable propositions found in ancient literature – to say nothing of killing and dying for them – would be impossible to justify. What stops us from finding it impossible now?”

Buffalo, the above is what I mean by “I think that what is really true about us right now, must be discoverable right now.” You asked, “how can you know the difference?” I don’t know what you mean. The difference between what?

Best,
Leela

 

[buffalo]

Hi Ed, Buffalo,

I think this is the situation we have been in since the beginning of history. Isn’t it?

Sam Harris took your thought experiment a step further…
“What if all our knowledge of the world were suddenly to disappear? Our books and computers are still here, but we can’t make heads or tails of their contents. We have even forgotten how to drive our cars and brush our teeth. What knowledge would we want to reclaim first? Well, there’s that business about growing food and building shelter that we would want to get reacquainted with. We would want to relearn how to use and repair many of our machines. Learning to understand spoken and written language would also be a top priority. When in this process of reclaiming our humanity will it be important to know that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or that he was resurrected? And how would we relearn these ‘truths’, if they are indeed true? By reading the Bible? Our tour of the shelves will deliver similar pearls from antiquity… Whom shall we give top billing in our resurrected world? Yahweh or Shiva?… And what will we think of those curious people who being proclaiming that one of our books is distinct from all others in that it was actually written by the Creator?… The point is most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday. Surely, if we could create the world anew, the practice of organizing our lives around untestable propositions found in ancient literature – to say nothing of killing and dying for them – would be impossible to justify. What stops us from finding it impossible now?”

Buffalo, the above is what I mean by “I think that what is really true about us right now, must be discoverable right now.” You asked, “how can you know the difference?” I don’t know what you mean. The difference between what?

Best,
Leela

How could we know what is true today without yesterday’s reference point?

 

[Leela]

Leela,

Why didn’t the first atheist murder the second atheist?

Hi Buffalo,

What a strange question. Maybe because they didn’t have any religious dogma to fight over?

Consider world history. Consider the recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews v Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v Hindus), Sudan (Muslims v Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims v Christians)and Iran and Iraq (Shia v Sunni). These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of millions of deaths in the past decade alone.

Best,
Leela

 

[buffalo]

Hi Buffalo,

What a strange question. Maybe because they didn’t have any religious dogma to fight over?

Consider world history. Consider the recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews v Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v Hindus), Sudan (Muslims v Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims v Christians)and Iran and Iraq (Shia v Sunni). These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of millions of deaths in the past decade alone.

Best,
Leela

Did you get to the coffee read? It completely destroys the claim that religion is the cause of wars.

The question stated very clearly stands - please answer the question as asked.

Why didn’t the first atheist murder the second?

 

[junior247]

let me get something straight … christians believe all men and women came from adam and eve … correct?

 

[Leela]

Did you get to the coffee read? It completely destroys the claim that religion is the cause of wars.

The question stated very clearly stands - please answer the question as asked.

Why didn’t the first atheist murder the second?

Hi Buffalo,

Thanks for link. I downloaded it but haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet.

People certainly have other things to fight for besides religion, but whether or not you believe that religion is a cause of those conflicts, you have to admit that believing in God is no cure for violence.

As to your question, I can’t imagine why the first atheist would want to murder the second or vice versa? Is this some sort of riddle? Just because according to the Bible, Adams first son murdered the second doesn’t mean that the first of anything else should murder the second? What am I missing here?

It sounds like you want a straight answer like “they had no reason to?” or “they didn’t know each other?” or “they were too busy inventing the wheel or discovering fire?” I don’t know that it is easy to imagine what the first humans were like or how we would draw a clear line between proto-humans and the very first humans.

Best,
Leela

 

[CatsAndDogs]

I think this is the situation we have been in since the beginning of history. Isn’t it?

Sam Harris took your thought experiment a step further…

"What if all our knowledge of the world were suddenly to disappear? … When in this process of reclaiming our humanity will it be important to know that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or that he was resurrected? And how would we relearn these ‘truths’, if they are indeed true? By reading the Bible? Our tour of the shelves will deliver similar pearls from antiquity…

Whom shall we give top billing in our resurrected world? Yahweh or Shiva?…

The point is most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday."

This is the favorite atheist “fantasy” of recreating creation to suit themselves.

It’s the same “argument” as, “If God were good then He would have created a perfect world, without suffering, but since this world includes suffering, being an imperfect world, then God is either evil or nonexistent, and since I can’t believe in omnipotence then I’d prefer that He be nonexistent, and His being actually evil will have to be proven to me!”

Your “Sam Harris”, atheistic prophet (apparently), lives, just like most atheists, in an undiscovered “Matrix World” version of reality (in their own minds), where history is “conjectural” and reality is an annoying “hypothesis” which we accidentally happen to be “stuck in” and could magically be “freed from” if all the “Matrix World Prophets and Sub-prophets” could just click their heels together in sync!

Reality is reality, and even if all of humanity were reduced to two small children (of opposite sexes) who hadn’t been taught a language nor any item of “culture”, humanity would grow again into a world-culture which would (eventually) develop a preponderantly monotheistic (“ruling” and “ruled”) population which would have revealed to them the Holy Trinity with all the implications therefrom.

Why? Because that’s the way reality (the subject and object of religious reasoning, aka TRUTH) works (the subject and object of scientific reasoning).

Note the order: Reality (correctly [truth valuation]) works, not Works (make [engineering activity]) reality.

• The atheist’s religion is to create “heaven” on earth by force (coercion).
• The Catholic’s religion is to create “earth” in heaven by persuasion (anti-coercion).

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

let me get something straight … christians believe all men and women came from adam and eve … correct?

Welcome to the Forum!

All human persons have Adam and Eve as their first parents.

Next question? Or, pithy retort…

:shamrock2:

 

[edwest2]

I can’t believe the nonsense of forgetting everything and then suddenly “knowing,” as if by magic, what to do and in what order. This is just a rephrasing of the Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) quote from the National Catholic Register: If we knew then what we now know, would we have ever become religious?

Knowing is not a self-generated process.

Imagine you have been placed on an alien world. You are surrounded by jungle and hear noises you’ve never heard before and things you’ve never seen before. Some are monstrous, some are beautiful, but you know nothing about them. You see strange shapes growing on trees and bushes that look like fruit. Are any of them edible? Can you afford to find out the hard way? Then you are approached by a four foot tall, octopus-like creature that begins making unintelligible sounds in your direction. Is it talking? Is it going to eat you? You have no way of knowing.

With no reference points, you are A) Going to die of starvation, B) Get eaten by that thing over there or C) Take a bite of something that turns out to be poisonous. Somehow, the first humans managed to survive long enough to produce millions, then billions of people.

The goal of this nonsensical experiment is to say: we don’t need god, and never did. Let’s just toss the whole mess on the trash heap and see what we come up with on our own.

There’s a reason the wisdom of the ages is called the wisdom of the ages.

Meanwhile, some have forgotten Joe Stalin and the Atheist U.S.S.R. The Workers’ Paradise didn’t last too long, millions died, and I spent the 1960s waiting for multi-megaton ICBMs to fall in my general vicinity.

The recent Wall Street meltdown, led by giants of the financial industry, was not caused by religion. But apparently, it’s better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.

I would counsel accepting the truth about Jesus Christ.

Peace,
Ed