The Dids theory of human [censored]-upery.

[dylan's alias]

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But science, and scientifically inclinded folk are far more comfortable with an end result of "dunno" than most.

Obviously a drive for exploration is great. It's when that bricks out that I see mistakes being made. Obviously religion is the best example. (warning, crude, inartful example follows) We cannot rationalize how we got here, etc, so some folks made up a Unicorn in the sky to help them get through the day.

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IMO, if science and scientfically minded people, start getting comfortable with an end result of "dunno" when things start to brick out, I think humans as a whole, are going to start to suffer. I personally believe that science has progressed due to the simple fact that there are certain people who refuse to accept the "dunno".

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That's not the point. Science can accept "dunno". It is critical to the process that there be an unknown or an unsatisfying answer to a question. This may drive them to probe the question further, think more deeply about it, and try to test their new concepts. Science does not allow unproven or unprovable concepts to become truth.

[CrayZee]

Psychologists have known for quite some time that people are often driven by emotions more than reason. You can easily wrap around "reason" to any unprovable conclusion you want, given enough motivation to do so.

I guess some would call this an "emotional bias" in human behavior/decision making.

"I don't know" doesn't "feel good," so it's easy to want to answer the question as yes or no regardless of facts, or lack thereof.

[Paluka]

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You know, it's not that simple. Being an atheist is not an act of faith.

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You know, it actually is that simple.

One can no more disprove the existence of God as prove His existance. Taking either position is an act of faith, to think otherwise is misguided. However, it is much more reassuring to convince oneself that one's own position is based on the logical and rational examination of the 'facts' while other positions are based on faith.

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I just can't believe this is really your position. You think that if something cannot be proven or disproven, then either opinion you have on it is based on "faith". I can't prove that all my high school teachers weren't androids that were secretly spying for a race of intergalactic warlords, but I do not believe that they were. I suppose some people would describe my belief in this scenario as having "faith" in my own understanding of the world, but I don't think anyone would categorize this faith as being similar to the faith that Christians claim to have in the belief in God. So even if you choose to describe all unprovable beliefs as being based on faith, these faiths are clearly not all equal in the eyes of most people.

[Aloysius]

Paluka:

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but I don't think anyone would categorize this faith as being similar to the faith that Christians claim to have in the belief in God.

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Why not? Because you can't see or touch it, or there isn't as much empirical evidence?

I'm not sure if you have alot of Christian friends - I do (I'm Korean haha). And I've spoken in-depth with Christian friends and done study on Christian tradition, read the Bible a decent amount etc. etc. I also feel like I have a pretty good sense of what Christians believe, and what their "faith" is.

The fact that Christians truly believe that God is working in their lives everyday, guiding them, that God and Christ are a very *real* part of their day-to-day... puts their faith on par with yours, no?

Simply because you can't get inside a Christian's head, and understand their faith, or their experience, doesn't make it any less valid or make your bio-chemical empirical view any more valid (if that's what you're implying).

-Al

[Paluka]

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Paluka:

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but I don't think anyone would categorize this faith as being similar to the faith that Christians claim to have in the belief in God.

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Why not? Because you can't see or touch it, or there isn't as much empirical evidence?

I'm not sure if you have alot of Christian friends - I do (I'm Korean haha). And I've spoken in-depth with Christian friends and done study on Christian tradition, read the Bible a decent amount etc. etc. I also feel like I have a pretty good sense of what Christians believe, and what their "faith" is.

The fact that Christians truly believe that God is working in their lives everyday, guiding them, that God and Christ are a very *real* part of their day-to-day... puts their faith on par with yours, no?

Simply because you can't get inside a Christian's head, and understand their faith, or their experience, doesn't make it any less valid or make your bio-chemical empirical view any more valid (if that's what you're implying).

-Al

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It isn't a question of validity. It is a question of how they came upon their belief. I really don't think that I have come upon any of my beliefs by the same process that Christians have used faith to come to the decision that they believe in God. To me, a believe based on faith implies that something beyond logic and rationality and facts were used to make this choice. Isn't this what most people mean when they say it is a faith based belief?

[Aloysius]

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I really don't think that I have come upon any of my beliefs by the same process that Christians have used faith to come to the decision that they believe in God.

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I would argue that there are many things we accept as "fact" along the course of our lives that we build upon to come to "logical" conclusions... but haha yes, without being ridiculously reductive... I understand your point, and it's a very good one.

I think what Razor was getting at, that what non-religious people accept as "fact" is founded upon faith that the institutions, learnings, whatever, are conclusive findings - an empirical truth. That many of these empirical learnings are easily tested and proven to be true over many trials, helps establish a sense of reality.

In my view, how comprehensive this take on reality is depends alot on whether you believe in a metaphysical state or not. If you don't feel some visceral sense of a greater being / purpose whatever, this is prolly proof enough for you that this is the world - biochemical. Whatever it is inside people that needs assuaging about the world, and your place in it - atheists are OK.

If you are "agnostic" or something, there's more to it than that and people who believe in the metaphysical are not satisified, for whatever reason, with the current answers available to them.

So likely, I would guess because you're comfortable in your world view, you've never *needed* to come to a belief outside that which is founded in biochemical, empirical truths as we understand them. So you haven't.

I guess my main point is that faith is a very powerful thing - for the hard-core Christians I know - once they have the faith, their reality is "spiritual based", and God over repeated trials confirms to them a truth they believe in as much as non-religious folk believe in basic scientific principles.

-Al

[guids]

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But science, and scientifically inclinded folk are far more comfortable with an end result of "dunno" than most.

Obviously a drive for exploration is great. It's when that bricks out that I see mistakes being made. Obviously religion is the best example. (warning, crude, inartful example follows) We cannot rationalize how we got here, etc, so some folks made up a Unicorn in the sky to help them get through the day.

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IMO, if science and scientfically minded people, start getting comfortable with an end result of "dunno" when things start to brick out, I think humans as a whole, are going to start to suffer. I personally believe that science has progressed due to the simple fact that there are certain people who refuse to accept the "dunno".

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That's not the point. Science can accept "dunno". It is critical to the process that there be an unknown or an unsatisfying answer to a question. This may drive them to probe the question further, think more deeply about it, and try to test their new concepts. Science does not allow unproven or unprovable concepts to become truth.

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By definition if you accept an end result of "dunno", there should be no more drive to probe the question further. I think what you guys are trying to say is that scientists can accept that they are wrong sometimes, or dont know the methods to find the answer yet, but the search will continue.

[7ontheline]

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But I believe also, that this is what Razor is getting at, that what non-religious people accept as "fact" is founded upon faith that the institutions, learnings, whatever, are conclusive findings - an empirical truth. The fact that many of these empirical learnings are easily tested and proven to be true over many trials, helps establish a sense of reality.

Faith is a very powerful thing - for the hard-core Christians I know - once they have the faith, their reality is "spiritual based", and God over repeated trials confirms to them a truth they believe in as much as non-religious folk believe in basic scientific principles.

-Al

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I understand your point Al, but I still can't see the rational view as equivalent to the faith-based religious view. You say both their belief systems are validated by experiences. However, the scientific process should result in reproducible, predictable results that confirm the theories in question to anyone approaching an experiment in a similar way. However, the "spiritually-based" reality is pretty unlikely to produce predictable results to convince an objective observer. Certainly, a religious person may feel unequivocally that an experience in their life was influenced by some sort of spiritual or divine process, but how do they convince someone else?

This sort of gets at a question I have - I often (in this thread, and elsewhere) see religious folks claiming that their view is equivalent and just as valid as atheists/rationalists. Why do this? It almost feels to me like an inferiority complex - most people (outside of the truly nutty religious types) accept the basic tenets of science. Faith and religion do not stand up to the same kind of rigorous examination; they are much harder to prove. They are clearly different. This does not necessarrily mean that they are inferior, but to claim that they are the same appears to my eyes to be trying to claim a similar legitimacy without the same burden of proof. It seems to me that by definition faith should provide its own legitimacy - why look to outside sources for it? This leads to the nutjobs in Kansas trying to ban evolution and so forth.

Sorry if I didn't make my point well - I'm not very articulate, so if you are insulted by my post anywhere, it's probably not meant that way.

[Aloysius]

7ontheline - somewhat edited my post above, maybe it is clearer. FWIW I am not a particularly religious person at all.

-Al

[fluffpop62]

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And the only reason anyone believes there is no God is because they haven't been properly trained. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] God!


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