Different Kinds of Reasoning - Scientific Method vs Faith

[Malintent]

Eh, show some sympathy for Remez. People he trusts told him he will be tortured for eternity if he doesn't accept certain conclusions. Don't you think you would do strange things to cling to a conclusion under that circumstance?

Eh, some like yourself have been told things by others...

"Being told" is not how scientific knowledge spreads. You learn by retracing the steps that led to the discovery. Test, retest, verify, etc..
So, that is you first error in comparing the two means for determining truth.. .the scriptural "just believe what is written (or else)", versus the scientific method of observation.... and all the steps that lead to knowledge

... and are afraid of the light.

Yet another falsehood... Atheists do not believe in the existence of god.. .there is no "light" to be afraid of. Are you afraid of the boogyman that lives under your bed?
You, on the other hand, if you believe in a jealous and vengeful god, as written, should very well be completely terrified of so much as thinking about calling BS.. that boogyman that you believe exists will certainly 'get you', according to you.

... So I understand that you will strangely cling to irrational conclusions like those under those circumstances.

I wasn't following what the irrational bit is supposed to be... feel free to spell it out, if you want.. is it that there can only be science if the universe had a beginning? I don't want to put words in your mouth if not..

Now did that get us anywhere?

of course not. your attempt at Mirroring was unsuccessful because you created a false comparison of two completely opposite approaches to knowledge.

 

[another1]

Malintent I do not understand much of what has been said here but I think you should take my philosophy and smell it for a moment because it is somewhat relevant.

On this planet, gods are an electric fence and science is a never ending staircase to nowhere. They play on each other and intersect too often in my opinion. In the end, if there is an end and please God let it be soon, I think science will be useless other than in improving shoes and curing a few diseases. I think we're being played with. Like the creep in the park with a dollar bill attached to a fishing lure. Kids walk by and grab the dollar and shoom the guy reels it in and laughs. I don't know who holds the fishing pole but they are more advanced than us. They throw us a bread crumb to keep us wandering for the next morsel but the loaf is just nowhere to be found, ever.

Religion is just as stupid but in a different way. Scientists are like those crazy religious dudes with cool hats who bang their heads against the wall. I was going to say Jews but that may have sounded inappropriate, so I didn't dare. They rock back and forth and think that they are moving toward some great thing but they are just standing in one spot looking dumb. Same goes with science. That is exactly what science people are doing. They are rocking back and forth and essentially doing nothing. The world is a whimpering dog shivering in a puddle of piss and science people want to understand how a butterfly poops or whatever. Priorities are out of whack right now and always.

Religion keeps stupid people from burning down my house and science is essentially devising new ways to generate fire. Science doesn't want to burn my things but it can and probably will. The world is too dumb to handle deeper truths and discoveries, and something is working against the discovery of both. The illusion of scientific progress and the threat of damnation are a decent formula to keep people believing there is hope, but unless there is some outside intervention, there simply is no hope. Though fragmented and possibly unintelligible, this is a genuine free thought for you to do with as you wish. Thank you for your time and your threads.

 

[Juma]

I do not understand much of what has been said here but I think you should take my philosophy and smell it for a moment because it is somewhat relevant.

No. It isnt.

 

[another1]

Dang juma I thought we was cool. I'm still going to assume it was relevant despite your three words, k?

 

[another1]

Juma you need to say something before I feel alienated. Comparing science to Judaism isn't so terrible, is it? Think of how terrible it feels when everyone exits the city bus at the same stop after you "explain reality" to them. Same goes with making people feel too nauseated to continue typing on threads. In the spirit of human kindness I implore you to speak on it like it is yours.

 

[Malintent]

Malintent I do not understand much of what has been said here but I think you should take my philosophy and smell it for a moment because it is somewhat relevant.

On this planet, gods are an electric fence and science is a never ending staircase to nowhere.

To nowhere? Need we discuss what science has gotten us, where it has taken us, how it has changed us (as we discuss this at the speed of light, across thousands of miles, instantaneously... as governments fall and rise through this instantaneous free exchange of ideas... need we discuss the life expectancy differences that medicine... I mean.. NOWHERE? really?

They play on each other and intersect too often in my opinion. In the end, if there is an end and please God let it be soon, I think science will be useless other than in improving shoes and curing a few diseases. I think we're being played with. Like the creep in the park with a dollar bill attached to a fishing lure. Kids walk by and grab the dollar and shoom the guy reels it in and laughs. I don't know who holds the fishing pole but they are more advanced than us. They throw us a bread crumb to keep us wandering for the next morsel but the loaf is just nowhere to be found, ever.

This view belays a poor appreciation for how things used to be as compared with how things are now. It also seems to imply that a partial answer to a question is completely without value.. .that the idea that more information means less knowledge because two smaller gaps is worse than 1 big gap somehow is valid...

Religion is just as stupid but in a different way. Scientists are like those crazy religious dudes with cool hats who bang their heads against the wall. I was going to say Jews but that may have sounded inappropriate, so I didn't dare. They rock back and forth and think that they are moving toward some great thing but they are just standing in one spot looking dumb. Same goes with science. That is exactly what science people are doing. They are rocking back and forth and essentially doing nothing. The world is a whimpering dog shivering in a puddle of piss and science people want to understand how a butterfly poops or whatever. Priorities are out of whack right now and always.

I disagree. I observe (first hand in some cases), great progress in knowledge and technology. "ignorant" is not an insult.. I am ignorant of many things. However I think you are forming an opinion out of a severe case of ignorance in the value of scientific knowledge.

You want cavemen rocking back and forth, sitting in the rain, afraid of the thunder? that is what the world would look like WITHOUT scientific investigation, not with. Your view seems completely backwards to me.

Religion keeps stupid people from burning down my house...

No, it gives stupid people JUSTIFUCATION for burning down your house, if they want to burn down your house. This scripture or that, or this revelation, or hwater says to burn down your house. We all voted, god wants you dead, so we kill you. done.

...and science is essentially devising new ways to generate fire.

yes. Lets work together to prevent the religious from misusing the tools, rather than throwing all the tools away because we all want to act like children and make up the rules as we go along

Science doesn't want to burn my things but it can and probably will. The world is too dumb to handle deeper truths and discoveries, and something is working against the discovery of both. The illusion of scientific progress and the threat of damnation are a decent formula to keep people believing there is hope, but unless there is some outside intervention, there simply is no hope. Though fragmented and possibly unintelligible, this is a genuine free thought for you to do with as you wish. Thank you for your time and your threads.

Some people are too dumb to appreciate a good set of tools. they just want to bang pots and pans together and drool all over themselves.... Therefore what?

 

[another1]

There is little chance I will understand that but it looks like you're disagreeing so I'll object. I don't cut and paste but you'll figure this out with some extra eye movement.

LIGHT - What is it? I don't actually see it. My supposed visual cortex mutilates whatever it is supposed to be so my primitive mind can assume it is what it is, which isn't. Light does not exist, Malintent. Light is a non issue in my opinion. If that is the case, this conversation is pointless because it was sent to us through optical wires, but I'll go on.

POOR APPRECIATION OF HOW THINGS USED TO BE - Maybe

COMPLETELY BACKWARDS - I don't know what you mean by that

CAVEMEN - We're building, house, shanty and cardboard box men and women and unlike cavemen we don't destroy our environment, so cavemen have one up on us. That isn't an answer but not intended to be thought-terminating cliché.

HOUSE BURNING - In my culture which is southern USA, there are less Christians willing to risk hell for arson. Call them stupid because they are but I'm glad for it. I don't like cultures that are not my own and luckily I'm shielded from even knowing most of them exist due to my local educational systems and media efforts. I'm happy about that.

RULES - Yeah maybe

BANGING POTS AND PANS - What you responded to doesn't seem to be what I said there. I simply said that science is a lie, Religion is a necessary evil, there is no hope and then I thanked you for your time. "Therefore what" made sense to me and that is a pretty wise set of words. I don't know what, what is, but this probably isn't it. If you'd like a fractal conversation about how awesome known knowledge (oxymoron in more ways than one) is, I'm not that dude.

I'm not being 100% serious so no need to bring a brick to a pillow fight. Words are stupid and too limited. I'm not buying in to much said to me. Your response is valued and considered. Have a good one.

 

[Malintent]

There is little chance I will understand that but it looks like you're disagreeing so I'll object. I don't cut and paste but you'll figure this out with some extra eye movement.

LIGHT - What is it? I don't actually see it. My supposed visual cortex mutilates whatever it is supposed to be so my primitive mind can assume it is what it is, which isn't. Light does not exist, Malintent. Light is a non issue in my opinion. If that is the case, this conversation is pointless because it was sent to us through optical wires, but I'll go on.

Light exists.. it even has mass. it can be manipulated with strong gravitational fields. this is why black holes are black. I agree that the PERCEPTION of light is a virtual reality our brains create... but light exists, objectively. "fearing the light", however, I took to mean, "fearing god", in the context of my response. perhaps I misunderstood what I was responding to.

COMPLETELY BACKWARDS - I don't know what you mean by that

What I mean is that science adds knowledge, although you appear to be saying the opposite.. thus, you have it backwards.

CAVEMEN - We're building, house, shanty and cardboard box men and women and unlike cavemen we don't destroy our environment, so cavemen have one up on us. That isn't an answer but not intended to be thought-terminating cliché.

if how impactful we are to our surrounding environment were the ONLY measure of anything.. then cavemen have something "on us".

HOUSE BURNING - In my culture which is southern USA, there are less Christians willing to risk hell for arson. Call them stupid because they are but I'm glad for it.

what I am saying is that no one has ever been stopped from burning a house down because they were like, "oh wait.. god might get me for this, let me reconsider". instead, countless people have literally burned down peoples homes, burned actual people directly (um Salem!!??! hello!) exactly because they believed it to be the will of god".

I don't like cultures that are not my own and luckily I'm shielded from even knowing most of them exist due to my local educational systems and media efforts. I'm happy about that.

You are a good Christian then. The above quoted statement from you is basically what, in my opinion, is evil about your religion, and what is horribly wrong with America. burry your head in the sand and keep burning those different people. oh, and make sure you teach everyone around you that science and knowledge is bad somehow (like lie about what it is and how it works and what it has provided.. because lying for jesus is very Christian)/ Science threatens the churches' monopoly on 'knowledge' so teach it is wrong. simple. If I taught my children to burn Christians because Christians believe it is good to rape and steal and hurt people, and especially to lie all the time about everything, then my children would hate you and anything you say would just be dismissed as a lie... it's called Demonizing, and it is what every religion does to survive... they Demonize the competition.

 

[Underseer]

Faith is accepting conclusions without evidence (or with insufficient evidence).

That is not a path to the truth. It simply isn't.

Conclusions arrived at through faith could be right, could be wrong, but since it was accepted without a good reason, the person arriving at that conclusion is going to accept it as true and not know if it is really right or wrong.

That one bad conclusion then becomes the premise for other bad conclusions, so if you happen to get a really bad one, you can end up with a cascade of increasingly bad conclusions.

The people who burned all those witches to death were not bad people. They were not immoral. They simply accepted one bad conclusion, and that bad conclusion led to other bad conclusions. They accepted that witchcraft is real. That's it. That's the one bad thing they did. Once you accept that witchcraft is real, how do you identify a witch? How do you protect yourself from witchcraft? Since witchcraft isn't actually real, then any conclusions you draw from those follow up questions will also be wrong.

Play a little game with yourself. Start with the conclusion that witchcraft is real, then see how easy it is to produce a series of other bad conclusions based on that one bad conclusion that leads to exactly the kind of hysteria and cruelty we see in our history books regarding the witch trials. You will find that it is shockingly easy, and once you realize how easy it is for otherwise rational and good people to decide that doing those things is a good idea, the whole idea becomes very frightening.

It's not that faith automatically leads to horrifyingly bad conclusions, nor am I saying that it is impossible to make bad conclusions without faith. The problem with faith is that you lack the self-correcting mechanisms for finding out that you're wrong. You simply bumble along assuming that your truth claims are in fact true. If you are using evidence-based conclusions, then at least you have the chance of finding out that you are wrong about something, but once faith tells you something is true, how can evidence convince you that you are wrong?

As we speak, African evangelicals are setting children on fire for witchcraft. An estimated thousand children have died so far. The evangelicals who are killing those children genuinely believe that they are doing something good. They genuinely believe that they are making the world a better place. Unfortunately, because faith told them that witchcraft is real, it will be almost impossible for evidence to convince them that witchcraft isn't real.

As we speak, some Muslim somewhere is contemplating a suicide bombing against civilians. Faith told him that doing this would be a good thing, and so evidence can't convince him that it is wrong.

As we speak, Christians in state legislatures all over America are trying to pass laws making it legal to discriminate against homosexuals. Faith told them that this is a good thing to do, and so evidence can't convince them that it is wrong.

Somewhere, a Christian is contemplating shooting a doctor or bombing a clinic. Faith told him this is a good thing, and so evidence can't convince him that it would be wrong.

Faith is not an equally valid path to the truth because it is sorely lacking in any kind of self-correction mechanism. Evidence-based paths to the truth have very, very good means of self-correction. The massive changes in society over the past few centuries are a testament to this.

 

[Malintent]

Underseer is demonstrating the notion of hating the sin, not the sinner.

Why is it that non-believers are always the ones demonstrating the constructive parts of religious teaching, and the believers are the ones demonstrating the destructive ones?

If I may sum up what we have learned in this thread...

If "knowledge' means "being confident of having the answer to something, regardless of the accuracy of the answer", then simply being told what to think by scripture is the quickest way to this kind of knowledge. Unfortunately, that kind of knowledge can only serve the purpose of making the claim, "I know". It has no utility to anyone other than the small child (or the small mind) that is terrified of the dark (of their own imagination). knowing things that are simply not objectively true serves no useful, non-selfish, purpose.

If "knowledge" means having an understanding of the mechanisms of a process and the causes of effects, then the only possible way to achieve knowledge is though the process of scientific investigation. Objective truth can only be found though a consistent process that utilizes objective means to test ideas and filter incorrect notions from correct notions.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I was surprised to see this thread has taken off as it has. Then I saw the post modernist bullshit...ugh.