Fundamentalism and science

cthia wrote:

Daryl wrote:Throughout mankind's tenure both by oral tradition and later by the written word there have been thousands of deities postulated, and venerated. Even now there are many major religions, most of which have schisms and cults.
How does a religious person know that their particular version is the real deal? Not quite so simple as to say that there are many paths to the truth, as many flatly contradict each other.

Your two answers.

1) Faith. My faith is also in the Bible. The main difference of many religions, as far as I am concerned, is the acceptance and belief in Jesus Christ. Many religions do not accept that Jesus is the Son of God. But my religion says:

John 14:16 wrote:Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Which is why when many Christians pray, they close it with "In Jesus name. Amen."

Armed with that knowledge you should be able to understand why religions which do not believe Jesus is the Son of God is a deal breaker for me.

I can certainly understand why a God who sent his only begotten Son to die and suffer for our sins wouldn't want anything to do with someone who doesn't accept the Son.

After all, it is the Holy Trinity ...
The Father. The Son. And the Holy Spirit.

2) Rituals. Some religions still practice rituals which are found in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is for learning. The New Testament is for following.

Jesus marked the beginning of a new age and therefore a New Testament. Or New Covenant. In the Old Testament, before Christ, man always had an excuse. We were able to blame our weaknesses on the flesh. God sent his Son, which is God in the flesh, to live as we do. And to show us that man can keep God's covenants even in the flesh. Jesus is our example. God also says:

Ezekiel 36:27
I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

All of this was necessary because man was plagued with The Original Sin. We were all descendants of Adam, who had lost the original holiness and justice.

Man is no longer descendant from Adam. But from Jesus.

cthia, you realized that you were asked how you are supposed to know your religion is the correct religion and you gave an answer that boiled down *entirely* to "because my religion says so."

An answer any member of any other religion could just as easily have given. For instance, a Muslim could just as easily say:

"The main difference of many religions, as far as I am concerned, is the acceptance and belief in Muhammed. Many religions do not accept that Muhammed was God's Prophet. But my religion says: "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah"

That is the exact same thing as your argument. Just change one religious figure for a different one without altering the 'logic' of it in any way and it's just as valid as evidence that that religion is the correct religion.

(Meaning... not at all valid)

gcomeau wrote:
I'm curious. As atheism is defined only by a single proposition... not possessing the belief a deity exists... and it has no doctrines or teachings... how exactly does one adopt "fundamentalist" atheism?

Relax wrote:Ah, but Atheism does have doctrines and teachings. Atheists just deny that they do.

gcomeau wrote:So to be clear... you know better than atheists what atheists believe. And since you know better you're going to tell us what we believe. And when we inform you you're wrong you're just going to insist we don't know the content of our own thoughts but YOU do?

I stated below in my post WHY you as an Atheist deny Atheism has dogma and will deny doing so with your dying breath. I stated the CONSEQUENCES of your religious dogma which you refuse to accept. You did not like it. AKA basis for Morality/Society.

Which is just another way of saying Religion in Practice. One can then backtrack to dogma as their is no designated institution or Atheist Bible, other than 51%

You have to have a basis for why Murder is wrong. This is part of Atheist dogma just as it is Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Confucian, Hindu, etc dogma.

The E wrote:

Relax wrote:Definition of big bang... everything from nothing which has no mathematical model, but since most Aethists simply refuse to say, universe exists, even they see order, guess you don't. It is a hilarious doctrine by Atheists. Evidence for it? Objects accelerating away from us at light speed, in some cases above light speed, assuming red shift physics outside of near reference works. Background radiation tells us otherwise regarding big bang as one it is far warmer and 2 utterly random.

Please try posting again, I love me some good gibberish.
I asked you to show the evidence that led you to make the statement "Atheists believe everything came from nothing"; "The Hubble constant!" is not even an attempt at an answer, it's a meaningless non sequitur.

Evidence of an imponderable. It is all there in several posts.

If "everything" did not come from nothing, then where did it come from? Oh right, it is supposed to come from a big "bang" which has no origin... You may as well have just said God created

Gets back to Title: Fundamentalism and science

Atheists fundamentally believe God does not exist, but the Universe does, and it came from... nothing(oh right a big bang that has no basis in reality).

This above is just fundamentalism... By definition. If certain principles in a religion were not fundamental TO SAID religion, it would be a different Religion. You would not believe said religion to begin with. Everyone screams at others trying to slander others by saying, "you are a fundamentalist!!!" Of course I am, and so are you, otherwise you would not believe the fundamentals of said religion.

Ah the hypocrisy. Trying to slander others for being a fundamentalist when you are that name yourself.

Relax wrote:If "everything" did not come from nothing, then where did it come from? Oh right, it is supposed to come from a big "bang" which has no origin... You may as well have just said God created

Interesting, I didn't know that all the cosmologist have agreed upon your view on how the universe came to be. Where did you publish your paper? It should be an entertaining read.

Relax wrote:Atheists fundamentally believe God does not exist, but the Universe does, and it came from... nothing(oh right a big bang that has no basis in reality).

"We don't know what happened prior to the big bang" is not the same statement as "the big bang came from nothing", but I guess that's just too nuanced for you?

Also, "[the big bang] has no basis in reality"? How do you figure that? I must admit to not having kept up with the whole early universe physics research for some time, but I am pretty certain that a huge shift in scientific understanding like that would have made some waves...

n7axw wrote:I am going to emphasize for everyone's benefit on both sides of this discussion that religion is not a discussion of scientific facts but a confession of faith. Faith by its very nature is not scientificly provable, but is what I call the reality of the heart. One can be very confident of one's faith, but there is nothing that we can present as evidence to convince the skeptic.

joat42 wrote:Which actually has bearing on the original post. At it's root, science is all about taking a hypothesis/theory and prove it true through verifiable and repeatable tests to gain new knowledge. Faith on the other hand, means you believe something is true even if there is no tests to prove it is so.

It was the same way with many tenets of science as well. Some of Einstein's theories were not proved until long after the fact. As it was with a lot of science, and that truth still remains today.

n7axw wrote:On the other hand to say that there is no God is as much of a confession of faith as to say I believe in God. All of us make a wager as to which of these assertions is true. Furthermore, everyone is entitled to their own wager and that right should be respected by all.

joat42 wrote:Not really in my opinion. I don't have faith in that there is no god, I just say that until someone can prove that something exists I consider it to be nonexistent. Just like if someone say Santa is real, I will need verifiable proof that he really does and until that time I consider him to be nonexistent.

Unfortunately, whether or not you believe that God is real or not has no effect on the actual truth, any more than my belief that God exists has any effect on the truth of whether God actually does exist.

The HUGE difference is that IF GOD EXISTS then you indeed have placed your faith in your belief that he doesn't, because God says if you do not officially acknowledge him and do certain things then your vote has been cast against him. You are either for or against God, as God himself has stated. If indeed God exists. As a Christian it is my duty to inform you that anyone straddling the fence is actually standing on the side against God. Just be aware of that.

n7axw wrote:As for election and predestination, I'm not getting into that thicket on a public forum. I will say that predestination was at the root of one of the nastiest controversies in the 19th century North American Lutheran Church. At any rate, I'm not going there.

Don

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joat42 wrote:And I understand why, since predestination opens up a whole vista of interesting conclusions that can be "somewhat" contentious.

Discussing faith, God and religion and trying to apply logic on those beliefs is kind of a stupid way to spend your time anyway since those topics doesn't lend themselves well to be logically evaluated, although the philosophical questions that arise can be interesting.

Science isn't simply about evaluation. Science isn't simply about equations. It encompasses the entire spectrum of reflection, intuition, epiphanies, eurekas, clues, etc. If a scientist can gain insight about "absolute truth" by considering something to be true - even if it rubs him the wrong way, even if he believes it to be a dead end, even if he believes it is unlikely - then isn't that scientist failing himself, his discipline and Truth, if he hasn't considered ALL possibilities? It makes him a hypocrite.

n7axw wrote:Agree, mostly. However within the realm of faith, logic can be applied.

Absolutely! It is an area which a lot of scientists dismiss offhand. Scientists seem unable to say, "Well, IF X (God exists) then Y.

n7axw wrote:The difference really hasn't to with logic or illogic. It has to do with the premises. If one presupposes, for example, that science and it's methods are an exclusive avenue for discovering truth, you will arrive at one set of conclusions. If you start out with God as the premise, your conclusions will be different.

Don

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Exactly. It appears to be the Holy Grail of scientists. Unbeknownst to scientists. Which is hypocritical of scientists not to investigate all avenues for truth.

Shouldn't scientists have some version of a "hippocratic oath?"

cthia wrote:The HUGE difference is that IF GOD EXISTS then you indeed have placed your faith in your belief that he doesn't, because God says if you do not officially acknowledge him and do certain things then your vote has been cast against him. You are either for or against God, as God himself has stated. If indeed God exists. As a Christian it is my duty to inform you that anyone straddling the fence is actually standing on the side against God. Just be aware of that.

Oh hey, it's Pascal's Wager again.

Except, as a non-christian, the correct choice is to continue not believing in the christian god, as the chances of christianity getting it right and every other religion getting it wrong are kinda small.

Science isn't simply about evaluation. Science isn't simply about equations. It encompasses the entire spectrum of reflection, intuition, epiphanies, eurekas, clues, etc. If a scientist can gain insight about "absolute truth" by considering something to be true - even if it rubs him the wrong way, even if he believes it to be a dead end, even if he believes it is unlikely - then isn't that scientist failing himself, his discipline and Truth, if he hasn't considered ALL possibilities? It makes him a hypocrite.

Science is about evaluation though. If a scientific insight cannot be confirmed through objective means, then it is invalid.

Absolutely! It is an area which a lot of scientists dismiss offhand. Scientists seem unable to say, "Well, IF X (God exists) then Y.

Because god is a non-factor in Science. If a god exists, then that god has chosen to validate the scientific method by not interfering with experiments. If no god exists, then the scientific method works and is slowly discovering the ground truth of our universe.

See, gods can't be a factor in experiments. If a god as imagined by christians exists, then that god is an at best unreliable participant in experiments: it cannot be subject to experimentation; it's not possible to design an experiment that can test for the absence or presence of god.

Exactly. It appears to be the Holy Grail of scientists. Unbeknownst to scientists. Which is hypocritical of scientists not to investigate all avenues for truth.

Shouldn't scientists have some version of a "hippocratic oath?"

They do. It's called the scientific method.

Cthia, I'm curious: How would you design an experiment to check whether or not a god (any god, really) exists?

The E wrote:Except, as a non-christian, the correct choice is to continue not believing in the christian god, as the chances of christianity getting it right and every other religion getting it wrong are kinda small.

Statistically speaking?

On the other hand, the probability of all of the religions combined getting it wrong is also quite small. You seem to be unaware that ALL religions, with the exception of Buddhism believe that there is a God. And of course Hinduism believes that there are many Gods. But at the center of all religions - again, with the exception of Buddhism - God exists. All religions simply differ in the essentials. It was once thought that all religions are simply spokes in a wheel with God at the center. That isn't quite true. But the gist of it is the almost undisputed belief that God exists.

Statistically speaking.

cthia wrote:On the other hand, the probability of all of the religions combined getting it wrong are also quite small. You seem to be unaware that ALL religions, with the exception of Buddhism believe that there is a God. And of course Hinduism believes that there are many Gods. But at the center of all religions - again, with the exception of Buddhism - God exists. All religions simply differ in the essentials. It was once thought that all religions are simply spokes in a wheel with God at the center. That isn't quite true. But the gist of it is the almost undisputed belief that God exists.

Statistically speaking.

And yet, you insist that you got the right version, that you have a moral imperative to proselytize because doing otherwise would court divine punishment on people not following your particular brand of god.

Also, if the prevalence of belief in divinity tells us anything it's that divinity is an emergent story in human cultures, not that there is a real god at the core - because humanity has come up with so many different interpretations of the divine that are mutually exclusive.

If what you say is true and there is a true core of divinity underneath all the layers of interpretations that we've come up with over the millennia, if all these different religions are just humans looking at the same thing from different angles, then it logically follows that every method of worship is valid and functionally equivalent - including NOT worshipping the divine in any way.

I'm not sure that's what you wanted to imply in your post, but it's certainly one interpretation that is at least as logically consistent as your belief in your god.

Cthia you say,
"The HUGE difference is that IF GOD EXISTS then you indeed have placed your faith in your belief that he doesn't, because God says if you do not officially acknowledge him and do certain things then your vote has been cast against him. You are either for or against God, as God himself has stated. If indeed God exists. As a Christian it is my duty to inform you that anyone straddling the fence is actually standing on the side against God. Just be aware of that."
Fair enough that's what you have been told, and what you believe. A recent court case here decided that Pastafarium (ie; worshipping The Magic Flying Spaghetti Monster) was not a valid religion, so adherents couldn't claim the same tax breaks as all the rest. Are those judges going to hell then? You see, that to me this religion (depicted by a colander strainer worn on the head), is no less logical than Christianity. Neither have managed to present a logical argument to me, that they are a valid representation of a fundamental truth.