The Difference Between Atheism And Religion

[DLH]

How is reality a tool?

t would depend on what is meant by reality. If contextually you mean the universe, rock, gas, wood - we use for making things or if you mean existence which we manipulate to our advantage.

 

[DLH]

I was a fucking idiot when I was an atheist.

I see no evidence that this has changed, nor that it has anything to do with your atheism.

That was the point I was making.

Back on ignore you go. I wouldn't have engaged with you at all had I known you were a sock of RIS.

RIS joined in 2024, almost a decade after DLH joined in 2015. They were exactly the same except for in name.

 

[DBT]

How is reality a tool?

t would depend on what is meant by reality. If contextually you mean the universe, rock, gas, wood - we use for making things or if you mean existence which we manipulate to our advantage.

If we understand the physical properties of material we use. The properties of matter/energy being 'reality' - which is something that doesn't conform to our wishes, desires or unfounded beliefs as we set about designing and constructing our tools and machinery

 

[DLH]

If we understand the physical properties of material we use. The properties of matter/energy being 'reality' - which is something that doesn't conform to our wishes, desires or unfounded beliefs as we set about designing and constructing our tools and machinery

I don't understand exactly what your point is there, aside from the obvious. We make and use tools. Rocks, wood, hammers and chainsaws can be tools, and they can be weapons. A weapon is a tool. That's reality. Religion, money, government are tools. Things we create for good and for bad. They are used, abused, neglected, etc. The word cosmos comes from the Greek kosmos. It means order, arrangement, adornment. In secular and Biblical Greek, the term is used like that. The universe, adornment, the world, for example. The physical heavens (universe) are God's adornment, arrangement. The world is mankind's adornment, arrangement. The Earth will last forever, and the world will be destroyed.

We use nature (part of the universe) as we see fit, as we can, to make the world. Religion, governments, commerce, etc. That's reality.

Reality can vary according to a variety of factors. The "reality" of a wealthy person and a poor person living in the same society (world) isn't likely to be the same. More so of people living in different societies. Someone's reality from the USA isn't going to be the same as someone's reality from Burundi, Africa.

When we, generally speaking, thought the world was flat that might have affected our world, our reality to a greater or lesser extent, so a flat earth concept, though wrong, was our reality. Same with miasmatic school of medicine from the dark ages until germ theory of the late 1800s. We create our own reality, our own world. Reality is the tool we use and the way we use it.

 

[steve_bank]

How is reality a tool?

t would depend on what is meant by reality. If contextually you mean the universe, rock, gas, wood - we use for making things or if you mean existence which we manipulate to our advantage.

If we understand the physical properties of material we use. The properties of matter/energy being 'reality' - which is something that doesn't conform to our wishes, desires or unfounded beliefs as we set about designing and constructing our tools and machinery

Science deals with what can be observed, measured, and quantified.

Science can dispute and reject claims such as YEC, but can neither nor disprove claims of a god and the supernatural.

This is not exactly profound revelation, religion address the emotional reality of us humans.. The conflict occurs when the religious clam emotional reality is psychical reality.

From commentary in the Koran translation I read dating to early 1900s, relgion and science do ot conflict they address different things.

Or a Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides circa 12th century said when sculpture and science conflcitt interpretation of scriptre must change.

 

[DLH]

Science deals with what can be observed, measured, and quantified.

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Science can dispute and reject claims such as YEC, but can neither nor disprove claims of a god and the supernatural.

Nobody cares about that, though, really, do they. I mean sure science is used to make atheists think they're smart, but otherwise they don't really care about science.

This is not exactly profound revelation, religion address the emotional reality of us humans.. The conflict occurs when the religious clam emotional reality is psychical reality.

Emotional? You mean theological?

From commentary in the Koran translation I read dating to early 1900s, relgion and science do ot conflict they address different things.

Science and religion conflict just as religion and religion conflict. In fact, that is exactly what happens when science is misappropriated by atheistic non-scientists. That is, like religion, the stuff of ideologues. I hate religion and I hate misappropriated "science" for the same reason. They are designed, or more accurately, redesigned for destructive power. Lust. For power.

Or a Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides circa 12th century said when sculpture and science conflcitt interpretation of scriptre must change.

Wow. What a dumbass thing to say.

 

[steve_bank]

Science deals with what can be observed, measured, and quantified.

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Science can dispute and reject claims such as YEC, but can neither nor disprove claims of a god and the supernatural.

Nobody cares about that, though, really, do they. I mean sure science is used to make atheists think they're smart, but otherwise they don't really care about science.

This is not exactly profound revelation, religion address the emotional reality of us humans.. The conflict occurs when the religious clam emotional reality is psychical reality.

Emotional? You mean theological?

From commentary in the Koran translation I read dating to early 1900s, relgion and science do ot conflict they address different things.

Science and religion conflict just as religion and religion conflict. In fact, that is exactly what happens when science is misappropriated by atheistic non-scientists. That is, like religion, the stuff of ideologues. I hate religion and I hate misappropriated "science" for the same reason. They are designed, or more accurately, redesigned for destructive power. Lust. For power.

Or a Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides circa 12th century said when sculpture and science conflcitt interpretation of scriptre must change.

Wow. What a dumbass thing to say.

You don't seem to have anything to say. Ignore list it is.

As a retired engender I play around with math and science to keep mentally active, this kind of nonsense is mind numbing.

 

[TomC]

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Here's the big difference between science and theology. Science is based on a mechanism for identifying wrong beliefs. Theology has no such mechanism.

People doing science create a hypothesis (an educated guess). Then they accumulate data to support the belief or falsify it. Then they draw conclusions from the data and publish it so it can be further critiqued and investigated.

Religious people invent stuff and if it serves enough people's agenda it becomes a religious ideology.

That's why science is correct so much more often than religion.
Tom

 

[DLH]

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Here's the big difference between science and theology. Science is based on a mechanism for identifying wrong beliefs. Theology has no such mechanism.

People doing science create a hypothesis (an educated guess). Then they accumulate data to support the belief or falsify it. Then they draw conclusions from the data and publish it so it can be further critiqued and investigated.

Religious people invent stuff and if it serves enough people's agenda it becomes a religious ideology.

That's why science is correct so much more often than religion.
Tom

You haven't really thought this through, have you, science boy?

 

[TomC]

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Here's the big difference between science and theology. Science is based on a mechanism for identifying wrong beliefs. Theology has no such mechanism.

People doing science create a hypothesis (an educated guess). Then they accumulate data to support the belief or falsify it. Then they draw conclusions from the data and publish it so it can be further critiqued and investigated.

Religious people invent stuff and if it serves enough people's agenda it becomes a religious ideology.

That's why science is correct so much more often than religion.
Tom

You haven't really thought this through, have you, science boy?

How religious, Bible Believer.
Tom

 

[DLH]

Science is a weatherman. Often wrong. People were boiling water hundreds of years before science figured out how it works.

Here's the big difference between science and theology. Science is based on a mechanism for identifying wrong beliefs. Theology has no such mechanism.

People doing science create a hypothesis (an educated guess). Then they accumulate data to support the belief or falsify it. Then they draw conclusions from the data and publish it so it can be further critiqued and investigated.

Religious people invent stuff and if it serves enough people's agenda it becomes a religious ideology.

That's why science is correct so much more often than religion.
Tom

You haven't really thought this through, have you, science boy?

How religious, Bible Believer.

Everything is religious, Science Believer. Let's kick around your statement, see how it's wrong. Like science? That's your first mistake. Science is a method of investigation, not of any beliefs, subjectively right or wrong because, for one thing, science isn't SUPOSED to be subjective, it's supposed to be objective. AND self-correcting. That involves wrong beliefs only if you make them yours. Science, exactly like theology in this respect, is infallible and mostly wrong. That's okay because that's what we call learning. Science isn't your utopian solution to religion outside of your mind because you use it the same as a religious crutch. To justify your own ignorance in the name of science. Used in this way it's no more useful than religion. It is religion. The fake intellectual superiority of "science" is the same as the fake moral superiority of "religion." For the same reason.

Science is a kid who wonders why and how his radio works so he takes it apart and fucks it up. So he gets another one and does it till he either gets bored with it or finds the answer.

 

[steve_bank]

The forum has been and still is an education for me in religion, psychology, and human behavior.

The argument that science is religion so religious beliefs are as valid as science theory appears periodically o the forum, nothing new. I already worked through my respojnses.

Th difference between religion and science is simple. Science works regardless of your religious or philosophical views. Atheist or theist, when you turn on the lights they work according to science used to design them.

When a jet is on a takeoff roll I have faith it will fly. I know the theories and they are well tested. It is not like a religious faith in something that can not be proven, like a god or an afterlife in a heaven.

Science can not address religious beliefs, they are not subject to scientific test and observation.

Some say god does not exist. My view is there is no tangible evince to support religious claims of a god so I reject the claim. To be honest I have to say a god could exist, but then so could fairies, Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster, and ghosts.

 

[Crumb]

Can someone explain to me what TzimTzum and EinSof mean?

 

[steve_bank]

I took you off ignore BLH, go ahead and respond.

Science is not amoral. What we do with science comes under morality and ethics.

There is no m0ralityy to a knife, there ismrality when you stab someone.

 

[WAB]

Can someone explain to me what TzimTzum and EinSof mean?

TzimTzum is some kind of Chinese dish, isn't it?

 

[pood]

Can someone explain to me what TzimTzum and EinSof mean?

Some mystical argle-bargle from the Kabbalah. God, Ein Sof or the ineffable or infinite one, has to withdraw his infinite light to create space for him to make the world. That process is TzimTzum. They might just as easily have called it Rin Tin Tin or Dim Sum or whatever, for all it matters.

 

[pood]

WAB beat me to it.

 

[unapologetic]

Conservatives want to conserve and liberals want to destroy.

Except when it comes to things that people need. Like nature/environment. Then conservatives destroy and liberals want to conserve.

Yeah they do, it's all mostly about control.

Religion is only about control.

where did you pick up on that idea?

I was brought-up baptist.

One has to fear or respect nature or electricity.

I do NOT fear electricity. And I do not respect things or people that I fear.

Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump did.

So that is what, 1% of the public?

My definition is in line the Oxford, Wikipedia, Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, and every other god ever in recorded history.

It isn't that I've combined all gods into one blob, you have.

But you just said you did.
BUT ... Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, and every other god ever in recorded history, all disagree. So that is not 'in line'.

Everything is religious,

Everything is politics.

 

[Politesse]

For what it's worth, I always thought Tillich's "object of ultimate concern" summed up the Christian definition of God pretty well. It's a diagnostic definition to me. The particular attributes and names of the divine may vary, but if one is not discussing one's object of ultimate concern, one cannot be speaking of God as the monotheist conceives of God.

Confusing this sort of concept for the "theoi" of Hellenic polytheism was more a matter of political convenience than definitional precision, methinks. It seems very obvious that God and gods are not synonyms -- even if the Hebrew G-d was once a god among other gods, by the time Christians had entered the conversation, G-d had become a much more abstracted and philosophical concept, even for the common Jew and certainly for the philosopher.

 

[steve_bank]

After thousands of years of recorded human thought it is difficult to come up with a perspective or view that is entirely new.