[General Battuta]

but still alledgedly smart people deny the obviousness of it and still say shenanigan things like "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them.", or more subtle hints that the reality of god is more "mysterious" like "The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion,", which is the usual cop out, not coincidently also performed by chiropractists, acunpuncturists, herbal medicin preachers, magic tricksters, and all kinds of hucksters.

These people are clearly idiots.

Unfortunately nothing you're presenting is a good argument for a fundamental incompatibility between religion and science; you're still hammering on the point that because things do happen, they must happen. Religious creeds about the existence of a compassionate God who will recover the soul after death and judge it on its actions during life carry no inherent incompatibility with science because they are not falsifiable.  And your prototypes are showing more and more.

You've also got a weird habit of giving credence to religion and then using that to argue against religion - talking about the importance of disbelieving religion because if you don't think rationally your immortal soul will be in danger is a bit quixotic, don't you think? I'm still of the opinion that what you're expressing is a violent reaction to the religious environment you grew up in more than a rational look at the actual interplay between science and religion, which speaks to great difficulties but no fundamental incompatibilities.

So long as revelation contains information which falls outside the scope of falsifiable scientific inquiry, it is harmless to science. It may be harmful to social justice, but it needn't be that either.

[NGTM-1R]

A segway, but the ridiculous notion that we have the "tools" to search and not only search but falsify the hypothesis that there is a golden teapot orbiting between venus and mercury is mind-gobblingly ignorant. Hint, no no you haven't, and you won't have for another century, at least.

You underestimate the amount of resources that we could drop into it if we simply did nothing else. 200-inch optical telescopes scattered between the orbits conducting searches for transient objects by the million. That's doable. It'd be really goddamn ugly for the future of the race and the planet, but it's doable.

It is alledged by the christians.

No it's not. I just provided you a crash-course in theology to demonstrate.

The facts are stated and affirmed. There was a virgin birth (way to parse a mistranslation), there was a man who ascended to the heavens, there were a legion of ressurections (a banality in those times, it seems), there is a whole bunch of "things" that have alledgedly happened to be the work of a living god.

Which due to the cloudiness historical record, could or could not have happened. Pretending to have magic powers was pretty popular gig back then, lest we forget, so there is a non-zero possibility someone with actual magic power could fly under the radar.

The fact that these claims are believed to be true by the believers through faith is not something, that prima facie, should make you proud of, but traditionally and historically, this "characteristic" which would be painted as "gullibility" in any other area than religion, is now considered to be a religious virtue, a social fact that is astonishingly atrocious to me.

Irrelevant to the discussion of falsifiability at hand, though true.

What are you saying, that prayers cannot be externally controlled?

You propose an external control capable of accounting for the whims of an omnipotent being? Detail it.

[General Battuta]

(just for perspective on the non-religious cred here, ngtm1r wants to blow up God)

[Luis Dias]

Unfortunately nothing you're presenting is a good argument for a fundamental incompatibility between religion and science; you're still hammering on the point that because things do happen, they must happen.

Yeah, sorry for being blunt and telling like the empirical reality seems to be rather than your wet dream is about.

Sure, I'd like a world where religion wasn't an interference with good sense thinking.

I'd also like a world where I'd be a mega millionaire or alternatively, that communism worked perfectly fine.

But I'm not rich, and as far as I can tell, and despite all the people telling me that no country has actually developed "communism", I'd still consider it quite clearly falsified as a means to organize an economy.

So, your choice Battuta, either we are discussing reality, or we are discussing your own fantasies. I can't beat your own fantasies on your own game, so I think it's quite understandable if I refrain myself of indulging in that discussion.

Religious creeds about the existence of a compassionate God who will recover the soul after death and judge it on its actions during life carry no inherent incompatibility with science because they are not falsifiable.  And your prototypes are showing more and more.

So, if someone gets to you and states that if you don't kiss hank's ass you are completely incapable of rationally demolishing the problematic involved?

This is what you are implying, that we are incapable of judging the churche's (for instance) idea of, say, homossexuality practice leading you straight to hell, to be inane and completely unjustified and therefore we should not ignore it?

Your idea that religious practices are only about the "unseen", when they are clearly not, is ignorant. I've been telling you this, and you remain oblivious to obvious facts.

IS it so innefable to say that masturbation is a "sin"? Are you saying that we can't dismiss this as a totally childish teaching?

Basically, you are preaching an ideology of incompetence (and perhaps impotence).

You've also got a weird habit of giving credence to religion and then using that to argue against religion - talking about the importance of disbelieving religion because if you don't think rationally your immortal soul will be in danger is a bit quixotic, don't you think?

No, I don't. If someone says that my soul is in danger of going to hell, and this is the first time I hear about it, I'll be slightly scared, and will perhaps listen to what the fellow creature is saying about it. If someone tells me I have to believe in Jesus or else I'll burn in hell, I think these matters should not be resolved by hearsay. Perhaps you think that eternity is small change, minor detail, I beg to disagree.

I'm still of the opinion that what you're expressing is a violent reaction to the religious environment you grew up in more than a rational look at the actual interplay between science and religion, which speaks to great difficulties but no fundamental incompatibilities.

Yeah, you often express these kinds of silly pseudo-psychological garbage when you find yourself cornered with actual arguments. No, I've actually been treated rather well by the local church and fortunately I've had no issues with any priest when I was younger, ar ar ar. I was never forced into it (my parents are secular), nor against it. My problems with it are intellectual, not personal.

So long as revelation contains information which falls outside the scope of falsifiable scientific inquiry, it is harmless to science. It may be harmful to social justice, but it needn't be that either.

It doesn't. It preaches a world where if you make the right preparations and rites and give the money to X, Y and Z, something will actually happen to you after that state of affairs we call "death".

Do you actually believe that science doesn't have anything to say about conscience, human biology and eternal life?

Bollocks.

[Luis Dias]

A segway, but the ridiculous notion that we have the "tools" to search and not only search but falsify the hypothesis that there is a golden teapot orbiting between venus and mercury is mind-gobblingly ignorant. Hint, no no you haven't, and you won't have for another century, at least.

You underestimate the amount of resources that we could drop into it if we simply did nothing else. 200-inch optical telescopes scattered between the orbits conducting searches for transient objects by the million. That's doable. It'd be really goddamn ugly for the future of the race and the planet, but it's doable.

And I think you underestimate the size of space.

Space is big. Should I quote Douglas Adams?

It is alledged by the christians.

No it's not. I just provided you a crash-course in theology to demonstrate.

Where is this theology crash course? I see nothing but denial.

The facts are stated and affirmed. There was a virgin birth (way to parse a mistranslation), there was a man who ascended to the heavens, there were a legion of ressurections (a banality in those times, it seems), there is a whole bunch of "things" that have alledgedly happened to be the work of a living god.

Which due to the cloudiness historical record, could or could not have happened. Pretending to have magic powers was pretty popular gig back then, lest we forget, so there is a non-zero possibility someone with actual magic power could fly under the radar.

So are you saying that the church doesn't preach what it actually preaches because many similar stuff was happening at the same time?

In what universe does that make any sense as an answer to what I was saying?

You propose an external control capable of accounting for the whims of an omnipotent being? Detail it.

I don't have to. If your point is that an omnipotent being can always ignore my prayers, and if, furthermore, they are uniquely indistinguishable from sheer luck, then the null hypothesis has been rendered as the most likely reality.

We can always conjure up a conspiracy theory that always beats up any observation technique that we employ to watch reality.

But the end result of this is that religions tend to live within the realm of metaphysics, more and more so (the assymptote that Battuta already believes is the actual case right now), the realm of not only the unseen, but also the "unseable".

The unseable is entertainingly indistinguishable from the non-existent. As I said before, if the religious are willing to portray god as a being that is so far off in this way from the world, and that they cannot say anything about its whims, its criteria for judging people, etc., then we might just say "by by" to the church.

Until then, to pretend that this institution does not say that, for instance, AIDS is bad, but condoms is worse, and that this does not stem directly from its metaphysical shenanigans, is just swimming in an alternative reality. Well, ignorance is bliss, a traitor in some movie once told me.

[Turambar]

(just for perspective on the non-religious cred here, ngtm1r wants to blow up God)

That's my goal too.  Especially in Dungeons and Dragons.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, sorry for being blunt and telling like the empirical reality seems to be rather than your wet dream is about.

Well that rather clinches the earlier point that you're acting out your own religious belief, doesn't it?

If you want to make an argument that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, you have to prove there are no black swans. You can't argue that most swans are white (especially if you don't have any data to present on how many swans are white). You have to prove that all swans, everywhere, under every possible condition that appears in nature, are white.

Remember, I believe that an empirical, agnostic worldview has the greatest practical utility. Ranting about how religion has caused harm and has interfered with science is both irrelevant to me and irrelevant to the point we're debating.

So, if someone gets to you and states that if you don't kiss hank's ass you are completely incapable of rationally demolishing the problematic involved?

This is what you are implying, that we are incapable of judging the churche's (for instance) idea of, say, homossexuality practice leading you straight to hell, to be inane and completely unjustified and therefore we should not ignore it?

Your idea that religious practices are only about the "unseen", when they are clearly not, is ignorant. I've been telling you this, and you remain oblivious to obvious facts.

This is rather surreal in its disconnectedness from the content it's intended as a reply to. I'll take it as a non sequitur.

Do you actually believe that science doesn't have anything to say about conscience, human biology and eternal life?

I think you know the answer to that by now.

It's fascinating. Your entire argument about the irrelevance and incompatibility of religion is based on making a profound religious statement: that only certain classes of fundamentalist thought are 'true' religions. It's a beautiful orouboros.

I think what you mean to do be doing is attacking specific policies implemented by the Catholic church. That's an admirable project I could get behind. Unfortunately you seem to be going about this with a dogmatic, zealous approach that repeats the very mistakes you're condemning.

[General Battuta]

To expand, you're making a very loud, enthusiastic argument that religion has caused social and intellectual harm. Okay, that's nice, but it does not attack the point in contention, which is that this social and intellectual harm is a fundamental consequence of religious belief.

And you've not been able to locate any evidence for that. Your primary thrust in that direction is to define religion by harmful commandments located in the historical record - 'do not tolerate homosexuals' from a given Christian Church would be one of your picks, FGM would be one of mine. When I identify religious beliefs that are neither empirically falsifiable nor socially harmful - for example, belief in a loving God - you dismiss them as not real, not really characteristic of religion, which is itself a powerfully religious statement.

But these issues are no more a demonstration of a fundamental problem with religion than the Tuskegee Experiment was evidence of a fundamental problem with science. Even if you could demonstrate that these abuses of religion were a thousand times or ten thousand times as common (and frankly, I have no doubt they are), it would not be evidence for a fundamental incompatibility.

To be fundamental, an incompatibility must hold in 100% of all demonstrated cases. There must be an actual logical gulf. Many of the abuses you'd point to are polycausal - intolerance of homosexuality, for example, was more codified by religion than generated by it (though it is no less worth condemning).

Take the Congregational Church in the US. Its primary commandments are to love your neighbors regardless of color, age, sex, or orientation, cooperate in charity, pray to God for the well-being of the world, take joy in the glory of God's creation, undertake communion to free yourself of sin and bring the community together, do no harm, and generally be a decent person so that you will see your friends and family again in Heaven. Those who are not good people do not enter Heaven, but suffer no particular punishment.

I see no particular harm in these beliefs, nothing that would suffer scientific falsification, nothing that would interfere with clear empirical thought. Yet there were powerful believers in this church, who took great joy and comfort in the worship of God and the fellowship of the congregation, and then turned out to vote in favor of gay marriage and mail letters to their representatives asking for peace in the world and some more money for the schools - which, by the by, taught evolution.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, sorry for being blunt and telling like the empirical reality seems to be rather than your wet dream is about.

Well that rather clinches the earlier point that you're acting out your own religious belief, doesn't it?

Please enlighten me how the hell does the fact that I'm stating my opinions renders me as "acting out of [my] religious belief".

At the most, at the most, it is a reflection of the culture that is part of me, sure. Just like anything I or you say, so it cancels out beautifully.

If you want to make an argument that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, you have to prove there are no black swans. You can't argue that most swans are white (especially if you don't have any data to present on how many swans are white). You have to prove that all swans, everywhere, under every possible condition that appears in nature, are white.

Bad analogy. I'm not saying that "all people will have trouble associating religion with science". I'm saying that science has a fundamental problem, a fundamental schism with religion.

If people can manage that schism, good for them. You are insisting on a strawman.

Remember, I believe that an empirical, agnostic worldview has the greatest practical utility. Ranting about how religion has caused harm and has interfered with science is both irrelevant to me and irrelevant to the point we're debating.

Ok, but please entertain me here. Why would you think that an agnostic, dare I say truth relativistic positivistic, in the best sense possible, ala Hawking that once said:

Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes.

... to which I hope you agree with, why on earth would you consider this attitude to be better than, say, a metaphysical one, like a theistic one? I'll be honest with you, I really think that the reason why you deem it to be better will run parallel to the reason why I'm stating that religion is incompatible with science.

Otherwise you would state it wouldn't make a difference. I find it interesting that you chose not to say that.

This is rather surreal in its disconnectedness from the content it's intended as a reply to. I'll take it as a non sequitur.

Quite the contrary. Should I take you not answering the issue as a consession that you don't have any rational tools to disarm the argument behind "Kiss Hank's Ass"? And if you do have these tools, shouldn't that count as a concession that rationality is indeed able to disarm metaphysical (the unseen, remember?) arguments?

I know you won't answer it, ar ar ar.

I think you know the answer to that by now.

No, no I don't. Because I would find it extremely disappointing that a scientific person thinks that these issues aren't scientifically discussable. Of course they are. We all know what happens to the mind when we destroy parts of the brain, etc.

It's fascinating. Your entire argument about the irrelevance and incompatibility of religion is based on making a profound religious statement: that only certain classes of fundamentalist thought are 'true' religions. It's a beautiful orouboros.

Again strawmanning. You think that the only "true" believers are the new age types who are deists or something.

I think what you mean to do be doing is attacking specific policies implemented by the Catholic church. That's an admirable project I could get behind. Unfortunately you seem to be going about this with a dogmatic, zealous approach that repeats the very mistakes you're condemning.

Wrong. I'm stating examples. You could have a point if you stated that my particular issue regarding AIDS and condoms is a moral, not scientific one, but this paragraph of yours is just disappointing.

To expand, you're making a very loud, enthusiastic argument that religion has caused social and intellectual harm. Okay, that's nice, but it does not attack the point in contention, which is that this social and intellectual harm is a fundamental consequence of religious belief.

Better. No I actually think that the causes are plentiful, but the one relating to religion is taking things on faith and educating people in that manner, and that such a particular teaching runs counter the ethical attitude a scientist should have. It degrades skepticism, it promotes blind following. The more of that, the less scientific a society becomes.

And you've not been able to locate any evidence for that. Your primary thrust in that direction is to define religion by harmful commandments located in the historical record - 'do not tolerate homosexuals' from a given Christian Church would be one of your picks, FGM would be one of mine. When I identify religious beliefs that are neither empirically falsifiable nor socially harmful - for example, belief in a loving God - you dismiss them as not real, not really characteristic of religion, which is itself a powerfully religious statement.

Not at all. Religious practices are all over the place, for they aren't based on reality, but on metaphysical fictions. So of course you can have people that *luckily* live in a culture that doesn't practice FGM. My question is, do you think that a world where these activities are possible due to arbitrary religions commands is not a problem?

The point is precisely the lack of any justified criteria for these practices and its arbitrariness. I don't like arbitrary barbaric whims that are judged to be right because they were ordered by god himself (or herself). Perhaps you deem these things as "acceptable".

But this is no more a demonstration of a fundamental problem with religion than the Tuskegee Experiment was evidence of a fundamental problem with science. Even if you could demonstrate that these abuses of religion were a thousand times or ten thousand times as common (and frankly, I have no doubt they are), it would not be evidence for a fundamental incompatibility.

I disagree. I think that the problem with religion is a fundamental one, from which many bad symptoms arise, which is a clear difference from an activity from which many wrong things have been done (Science), but one could not look at the recent centuries and not see the sheer progress in human condition due to it.

It does not work, it is a false equivalence.

To be fundamental, an incompatibility must hold in 100% of all demonstrated cases. There must be an actual logical gulf. Many of the abuses you'd point to are polycausal - intolerance of homosexuality, for example, was more codified by religion than generated by it (though it is no less worth condemning).

No, it does not. We can have assymptotic cases where they do not.

For instance, take Einstein equations about velocity, and take Newton ones. They are hardly compatible with one another. Yet, we can use Newton's for small velocities. The incompatibility is also proportional to the level of metaphysical ... ahhh... bars one encloses himself to. So excuse me for using creationist examples, they are as useful to me as limit examples are for scientists. The lesser one indulges in metaphysics, the less it is incompatible with science. I hardly have a problem with feel-good deists.

Take the Congregational Church in the US. Its primary commandments are to love your neighbors regardless of color, age, sex, or orientation, cooperate in charity, pray to God for the well-being of the world, take joy in the glory of God's creation, undertake communion to free yourself of sin and bring the community together, do no harm, and generally be a decent person so that you will see your friends and family again in Heaven. Those who are not good people do not enter Heaven, but suffer no particular punishment.

So the lie that they will all be together after they are dead is "no harm", since they can't actually get to see that happening (and still one could always make the case that a mother of a bad son would suffer from thinking she wouldn't actually see him in heaven)?

So truth doesn't matter because it is painless or something. Patronizing bull****. I *do* think that it is evil to treat people as children and promising them the never land for grown ups, and I *do* think this will create a bad society that will *not* exactly instill scientific values unto their children.

I see no particular harm in these beliefs, nothing that would suffer scientific falsification, nothing that would interfere with clear empirical thought. Yet there were powerful believers in this church, who took great joy and comfort in the worship of God and the fellowship of the congregation, and then turned out to vote in favor of gay marriage and mail letters to their representatives asking for peace in the world and some more money for the schools - which, by the by, taught evolution.

So a church isn't entirely bad, therefore it isn't bad?

Imma let you finish, but I just wanted you to know that HAMAS also performs a hell of a charity towards the palestinians. Does that render it acceptable too?

[General Battuta]

Please enlighten me how the hell does the fact that I'm stating my opinions renders me as "acting out of [my] religious belief".

What level-headed rationalist makes a claim that they possess access to unfiltered reality and the other possesses access only to a constructed fantasy?

That kind of certainty only comes from one place.

Again strawmanning. You think that the only "true" believers are the new age types who are deists or something.

Not at all. You are making an argument about ALL religious people - you wish to define all believers. I am making an argument about SOME. I have a fundamental advantage there.

No, no I don't. Because I would find it extremely disappointing that a scientific person thinks that these issues aren't scientifically discussable. Of course they are. We all know what happens to the mind when we destroy parts of the brain, etc.

We have no idea what happens to the soul because the soul is an imaginary construct whose existence cannot be falsified; ergo any good positivist (which I am) has nothing to say about it at all beyond 'I have seen no evidence for its existence'. It is simply not of interest to empirical inquiry. We cannot rule out its existence; we cannot do anything at all to test its existence.

Science has everything to say about human biology, culture, thought, and morality. Religion has other things to say. This is why there is no incompatibility.

I don't like arbitrary barbaric whims that are judged to be right because they were ordered by god himself (or herself).

Neither do I. Again, though, you're failing to prove that no black swans exist. It's very clear to me by now that your argument is against bad things done in the name of religion rather than against religion.

So the lie that they will all be together after they are dead is "no harm", since they can't actually get to see that happening (and still one could always make the case that a mother of a bad son would suffer from thinking she wouldn't actually see him in heaven)?

Again, religious thinking. A positivist has no reason to call this a lie. It is simply an untestable proposition that is not of interest to science, and, therefore, falls safely and harmlessly into the realm of religion.

Better. No I actually think that the causes are plentiful, but the one relating to religion is taking things on faith and educating people in that manner, and that such a particular teaching runs counter the ethical attitude a scientist should have. It degrades skepticism, it promotes blind following. The more of that, the less scientific a society becomes.

At last you make a falsifiable claim. Test it. (You won't be able to.) Demonstrate that religious thought by necessity degrades skepticism when religious revelation can fall entirely into the real of the non-falsifiable. (You won't be able to).

Imagine a religion built on five pillars: the Prophet is the messenger of God, believers should go to a certain place to have their sins expunged, everyone should give money to help the poor, you should pray five times a day, and you should fast during a certain month of the year.

Not a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry. Indeed, apparently our entire scientific tradition derives from a culture built on those five pillars. Is it possible that a religious fanatic might come along and attack science? Of course it is. But for your point to stand, you must prove that it is INEVITABLE.

So a church isn't entirely bad, therefore it isn't bad?

By the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.

[General Battuta]

Imagine a notional closed society practicing the religion of Battutism. This religion dictates that the believers must constantly be prepared to fight invisible time ninjas. When an invisible time ninja is defeated by a Battutist, it is erased from time, and all consequences of its presence - including the battle itself - are removed. If the Battutist falls, however, the invisible time ninja visits the same fate on them, and it is as if they never existed. Invisible time ninjas are completely non-falsifiable, and no evidence of a battle with an invisible time ninja can ever be detected.

Battutists believe that the universe was created by God as an arena in which to battle invisible time ninjas. They will be rewarded after their deaths in accordance with their kill count. However, they know that it is impossible to track down an invisible time ninja; battles always occur in self-defense. Thus, they will never go out of their way to seek the invisible time ninja. Instead, they carry on with their lives, awaiting the inevitable attack.

The primary rituals of the Battutist, then, are physical and mental self-improvement, study, and discipline, so that they might be better prepared for their moment of battle. The beliefs of the Battutist demand keen observation of the natural world, fostering a strong tradition of naturalism which in turn gives rise to science. Even the most fervent Battutist recognizes the need to study evolution; surviving animal species are those which were not wiped out by the invisible time ninjas, and understanding their strength will assist the Battutists in their quest.

Because the actions of the invisible time ninjas never produce an empirically detectable result, they are of no consequence to Battutist science. However, the world represents a fascinating creation, packed with hidden knowledge left by God to assist in the struggle against the invisible time ninjas. In this way the empirical is perfectly compatible with Battutist belief, and a skeptical, scientific society may coexist with a zealous religion.

Scientifically, of course, the beliefs of the Battutist are of zero interest; there is no logical grounding for them, and they might as well be fabricated from whole cloth. Because they are not falsifiable, and because no evidence can be gathered to oppose them, they are of no interest whatsoever to science, and no fundamental incompatibility exists. A Battutist can be a good scientist; he may even turn his skepticism on his own beliefs, and find them unfalsifiable. I, personally, would laugh and laugh if I met a Battutist, thinking it all a hilarious fantasy, but I would be unable to identify a fundamental reason that they would make bad scientists.

Similarly, a society of - for example - Zen Buddhists may believe that the world was created, and that it contains mysteries which must be understood by rigorous investigation. Because their beliefs demand understanding of the natural world, and skepticism is a useful tool to achieve that understanding, their beliefs in fact foster skepticism.

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism may all achieve the same state, because each religion's central tenets are non-falsifiable (there is a God, Mohammed/Jesus/Abraham was the messenger of God, in one form or another) and they all view the world as God's creation. Passionate believers in these religions may still devote themselves to lives of skeptical inquiry in order to better know the mind of God and his creation, because in a positivist construction of science, no scientific evidence can ever speak to the existence of an omnipotent God; such an entity is not of interest to empirical investigation.

[Luis Dias]

Please enlighten me how the hell does the fact that I'm stating my opinions renders me as "acting out of [my] religious belief".

What level-headed rationalist makes a claim that they possess access to unfiltered reality and the other possesses access only to a constructed fantasy?

That kind of certainty only comes from one place.

Now you're just making **** up, again. Please quote me on such silliness and I'll apologize. I won't wait up of course, I never do with you.

Ahem, just to remind you, you are speaking about UNFILTERED reality. Do you really think I'm stupid enough to make that silly mistake?

Not at all. You are making an argument about ALL religious people - you wish to define all believers. I am making an argument about SOME. I have a fundamental advantage there.

Actually if you were paying attention (oh my bad) my argument isn't about people. We largely agree with people here. My argument is about religion.

No, no I don't. Because I would find it extremely disappointing that a scientific person thinks that these issues aren't scientifically discussable. Of course they are. We all know what happens to the mind when we destroy parts of the brain, etc.

We have no idea what happens to the soul because the soul is an imaginary construct whose existence cannot be falsified; ergo any good positivist (which I am) has nothing to say about it at all beyond 'I have seen no evidence for its existence'. It is simply not of interest to empirical inquiry. We cannot rule out its existence; we cannot do anything at all to test its existence.

Of course it can. Souls hypothetically define our consciousness and personality. All theologians agree with this basic definition. If we stick to this definition, and if we can scientifically produce a material construct of these traits of human minds, we have just falsified "souls".

Just like we did falsify the gods of thunder et al by discovering how lightning actually works.

It's like scooby doo. We live in a world of phantoms and ghosts until we find that the answers are quite prosaic and mundane. Only silly people will cling to the belief of souls once we master the science of the brain. Even right now, it hints at either stupidity or ignorance of biology.

Science has everything to say about human biology, culture, thought, and morality. Religion has other things to say. This is why there is no incompatibility.

"There are no tanks in bagdad".

Neither do I. Again, though, you're failing to prove that no black swans exist. It's very clear to me by now that your argument is against bad things done in the name of religion rather than against religion.

Missed the point. My point is that broken clocks are right twice a day. It doesn't render such clocks "usable" or "not problematic" because they happen to be right some of the times. It's purely coincidental that they are so. So what if they are right twice a day, or if black swans do exist? Should we say then that broken clocks aren't ****ty?

So the lie that they will all be together after they are dead is "no harm", since they can't actually get to see that happening (and still one could always make the case that a mother of a bad son would suffer from thinking she wouldn't actually see him in heaven)?

Again, religious thinking. A positivist has no reason to call this a lie. It is simply an untestable proposition that is not of interest to science, and, therefore, falls safely and harmlessly into the realm of religion.

You treat the word "religion" as if it's some kind of protection to silliness. "Oh wait, I know it's ****ing ridiculous statement about the universe, but it is religion therefore it's alright". What are you talking about? Positivism does away with metaphysics for good. It doesn't state that science for one, religious for the other, the only way that it separate waters is to say that some things are sayable while others are indistinguishable from white noise.

At last you make a falsifiable claim. Test it. (You won't be able to.) Demonstrate that religious thought by necessity degrades skepticism when religious revelation can fall entirely into the real of the non-falsifiable. (You won't be able to).

"You won't be able to" seems much more like a direct link to reality than anything I've said so far. I think it is a good challenge. Perhaps someone will create just the perfect test for this hypothesis.

Imagine a religion built on five pillars: the Prophet is the messenger of God, believers should go to a certain place to have their sins expunged, everyone should give money to help the poor, you should pray five times a day, and you should fast during a certain month of the year.

Yeah, so it's a religion that takes scapegoating as one of its fundamental tenets. Ok.

Not a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.

Unless you happen to believe that "scapegoating" is something that would, in fact, interfere with scientific inquiry, rather than, say, take responsiblity for your actions and, say, take responsibility for your own scientific blusters, lies, omissions and anything that you may have erred on the past.

Indeed, apparently our entire scientific tradition derives from a culture built on those five pillars. Is it possible that a religious fanatic might come along and attack science? Of course it is. But for your point to stand, you must prove that it is INEVITABLE.

Conceptually, I just did .

By the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.

Clearly, you have low expectations of the world.

[Bobboau]

in other news Luis Dias has conclusively proven that P != NP by establishing that absence of a current counter example necessarily implies that no counter example can ever be found or formulated.

don't forget to share that Nobel money with the forumites who helped you.

[Luis Dias]

I'll take note that you didn't talk about why you deem agnosticism + positivism a better mental tool than "batttutism" or any other metaphysical shenanigan in what concerns science.

There's a hint in here wrt battutism. It's that perhaps the focus of believers in nonsensical propositions about things to find out about the universe may times to times dwell in ninjae'd shenanigans, when these followers start thinking they can actually discover something profound about Batttutism within science.

And then they lose a lot of time dealing with nonsense, rather than performing science. Just ask Newton about it. He just wasted more than half of his lifetime on religious shenanigans. Isn't that interference?

[Luis Dias]

in other news Luis Dias has conclusively proven that P != NP by establishing that absence of a current counter example necessarily implies that no counter example can ever be found or formulated.

Empirical reality is not deductible. Nothing is (even this statement). We are still doomed to make conscious choices on what is a clear signal from reality and what is white noise.

White noise is also known as "bull**** until shown otherwise".

[General Battuta]

Actually if you were paying attention (oh my bad) my argument isn't about people. We largely agree with people here. My argument is about religion.

Religion does not exist without people. Religion is only interesting in how it is instrumentalized in the believer - in short, in the empirical consequences. I care nothing for religion or faith except inasmuch as there are empirical consequences.

Of course it can. Souls hypothetically define our consciousness and personality. All theologians agree with this basic definition. If we stick to this definition, and if we can scientifically produce a material construct of these traits of human minds, we have just falsified "souls".

Just like we did falsify the gods of thunder et al by discovering how lightning actually works.

A soul can just as easily mirror consciousness and personality, then remain after death. There is no way to falsify this. A thunder god can create the mechanism of thunder and set it in motion, and we would not be able to falsify it.

Missed the point. My point is that broken clocks are right twice a day. It doesn't render such clocks "usable" or "not problematic" because they happen to be right some of the times. It's purely coincidental that they are so. So what if they are right twice a day, or if black swans do exist? Should we say then that broken clocks aren't ****ty?

If we've got a perfectly good working clock over here, and that broken clock doesn't impact our working clock, who cares?

You treat the word "religion" as if it's some kind of protection to silliness. "Oh wait, I know it's ****ing ridiculous statement about the universe, but it is religion therefore it's alright". What are you talking about? Positivism does away with metaphysics for good. It doesn't state that science for one, religious for the other, the only way that it separate waters is to say that some things are sayable while others are indistinguishable from white noise.

Of course religion is silly. I think it's ridiculous, just like the Tooth Fairy. But it is nonfalsifiable. Science has nothing to say about it, it is simply disregarded. This is positivism. Of course, there are many brands of thought which fall under the term 'positivism'. I believe that if I can't test it empirically, I don't care about it - it is meaningless. There could be invisible time ninjas dancing on my head and I don't give a ****. If someone else gives a ****, I care only as much as it influences their behavior.

Personally I think that religion tends to cause trouble for scientific inquiry. I want religion to stay out of science. That's an empirical outcome. Where religion doesn't bother science, I don't care about it, people can think what they want.

Yeah, so it's a religion that takes scapegoating as one of its fundamental tenets. Ok.

Not a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.

Unless you happen to believe that "scapegoating" is something that would, in fact, interfere with scientific inquiry, rather than, say, take responsiblity for your actions and, say, take responsibility for your own scientific blusters, lies, omissions and anything that you may have erred on the past.

A lunge, a miss. Sins are a religious concept. Nothing in that doctrine states an absolution of responsibility for action.

By the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.

Clearly, you have low expectations of the world.

An institution which promotes social cooperation, the expansion of rights for all humans, and funding for scientific research and education at no apparent empirically demonstrable cost? Sounds like a win-win and a QED to me. There is no fundamental incompatibility between religion and any form of scientific inquiry, nor, apparently, with liberal society.

I'll take note that you didn't talk about why you deem agnosticism + positivism a better mental tool than "batttutism" or any other metaphysical shenanigan in what concerns science.

So long as the empirical social outcomes are the same - namely, unconstrained empiricism - agnosticism and positivism is no better than Battutism. All I care about are the quantifiable outcomes.

There's a hint in here wrt battutism. It's that perhaps the focus of believers in nonsensical propositions about things to find out about the universe may times to times dwell in ninjae'd shenanigans, when these followers start thinking they can actually discover something profound about Batttutism within science.

And then they lose a lot of time dealing with nonsense, rather than performing science. Just ask Newton about it. He just wasted more than half of his lifetime on religious shenanigans. Isn't that interference?

It would be a ****ty Battutist who wasted time on nonsense. The invisible time ninjas would be all over her, and her family would kick her right out of that that rut before they got to her. The only way to defeat the invisible time ninjas and please God, after all, is to have better science.

[Bobboau]

White noise is also known as "bull**** until shown otherwise".

your problem is that you are arguing that no religion could ever possibly be compatible with science, not that no religion has to date been compatible, you are the one who moved this out of the realm of the empirical and into the world of the theoretical.

[General Battuta]

It should be clarified for Luis Dias' benefit, in case he's working from one of the classic formulations of strong positivism, that those philosophies are as dead as they come. I'm working from something a bit more post-Popper here.

[Luis Dias]

Actually if you were paying attention (oh my bad) my argument isn't about people. We largely agree with people here. My argument is about religion.

Religion does not exist without people. Religion is only interesting in how it is instrumentalized in the believer - in short, in the empirical consequences. I care nothing for religion or faith except inasmuch as there are empirical consequences.

This is inconsistent with the academic example of Battutatism, which is conceptual. What I meant to say is that people strive in their lives *despite religion*.

But if you like to think that a science fiction writer can become a self-made prophet of a very succcessful religion, I think I don't need to name an example of exactly that which isn't exactly a heaven to "skepticism" and freedom overall.

Of course it can. Souls hypothetically define our consciousness and personality. All theologians agree with this basic definition. If we stick to this definition, and if we can scientifically produce a material construct of these traits of human minds, we have just falsified "souls".

Just like we did falsify the gods of thunder et al by discovering how lightning actually works.

A soul can just as easily mirror consciousness and personality, then remain after death. There is no way to falsify this. A thunder god can create the mechanism of thunder and set it in motion, and we would not be able to falsify it.

Of course, conceptually the never increasing tautology never ends, but in actuality, it does end. There is a point of diminishing returns where people simply stop believing in thunder god given the overwhelmingly better knowledge about weather that we ended up possessing.

In that sense, we have disproven thunder god, for we could explain everything without the need for that hypothesis.

I don't deal with absolutes, Battuta, nor do I need to.

Missed the point. My point is that broken clocks are right twice a day. It doesn't render such clocks "usable" or "not problematic" because they happen to be right some of the times. It's purely coincidental that they are so. So what if they are right twice a day, or if black swans do exist? Should we say then that broken clocks aren't ****ty?

If we've got a perfectly good working clock over here, and that broken clock doesn't impact our working clock, who cares?

I do.

You treat the word "religion" as if it's some kind of protection to silliness. "Oh wait, I know it's ****ing ridiculous statement about the universe, but it is religion therefore it's alright". What are you talking about? Positivism does away with metaphysics for good. It doesn't state that science for one, religious for the other, the only way that it separate waters is to say that some things are sayable while others are indistinguishable from white noise.

Of course religion is silly. I think it's ridiculous, just like the Tooth Fairy. But it is nonfalsifiable. Science has nothing to say about it, it is simply disregarded. This is positivism. Of course, there are many brands of thought which fall under the term 'positivism'. I believe that if I can't test it empirically, I don't care about it - it is meaningless. There could be invisible time ninjas dancing on my head and I don't give a ****. If someone else gives a ****, I care only as much as it influences their behavior.

Exactly. There. Thank you. It is *meaningless drivel*. So you see that science *can* talk about it, it can say it *is* meaningless drivel.

We finally agree.

Personally I think that religion tends to cause trouble for scientific inquiry. I want religion to stay out of science. That's an empirical outcome. Where religion doesn't bother science, I don't care about it, people can think what they want.

That's like saying that racism is damaging to human lives, but there are cases where it isn't (even creating societies around it), so let's not badmouth it .

Yeah, so it's a religion that takes scapegoating as one of its fundamental tenets. Ok.

Not a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.

Unless you happen to believe that "scapegoating" is something that would, in fact, interfere with scientific inquiry, rather than, say, take responsiblity for your actions and, say, take responsibility for your own scientific blusters, lies, omissions and anything that you may have erred on the past.

A lunge, a miss. Sins are a religious concept. Nothing in that doctrine states an absolution of responsibility for action.

You pile your sins over christ and eat his blood and flesh. Then you are rendered absolved of your sins. I see nothing here that is moral. Even CS Lewis agrees with me, ffs.

By the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.

Clearly, you have low expectations of the world.

An institution which promotes social cooperation, the expansion of rights for all humans, and funding for scientific research and education at no apparent empirically demonstrable cost? Sounds like a win-win and a QED to me. There is no fundamental incompatibility between religion and any form of scientific inquiry, nor, apparently, with liberal society.

The exp.... Wow. Really? You think that the church is a force for good?

Let me link you to this debate: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/catholic-church

It's only a snippet of what is to be said about that. But I hope it will open a *bit* of your kool-aided eyes.

I'll take note that you didn't talk about why you deem agnosticism + positivism a better mental tool than "batttutism" or any other metaphysical shenanigan in what concerns science.

So long as the empirical social outcomes are the same - namely, unconstrained empiricism - agnosticism and positivism is no better than Battutism. All I care about are the quantifiable outcomes.

There's a hint in here wrt battutism. It's that perhaps the focus of believers in nonsensical propositions about things to find out about the universe may times to times dwell in ninjae'd shenanigans, when these followers start thinking they can actually discover something profound about Batttutism within science.

And then they lose a lot of time dealing with nonsense, rather than performing science. Just ask Newton about it. He just wasted more than half of his lifetime on religious shenanigans. Isn't that interference?

It would be a ****ty Battutist who wasted time on nonsense. The invisible time ninjas would be all over her, and her family would kick her right out of that that rut before they got to her. The only way to defeat the invisible time ninjas and please God, after all, is to have better science.

There's a loophole in there. Can't you see it? It's when they, in all their science investigations, actually find out that you invented all the ninja ****. It's inevitable, since it is knowledge to be made, just like we know today the mish mash that the Bible actually is all about.

So what happens then? Will they accept the conclusions of their science and doom their religion as a fake? Or will they not accept it, "for the sake of science"? Either way, it's a lose lose for Battutism.

[General Battuta]

But if you like to think that a science fiction writer can become a self-made prophet of a very succcessful religion, I think I don't need to name an example of exactly that which isn't exactly a heaven to "skepticism" and freedom overall.

What does this have to do with the scenario proposed?

Of course, conceptually the never increasing tautology never ends, but in actuality, it does end. There is a point of diminishing returns where people simply stop believing in thunder god given the overwhelmingly better knowledge about weather that we ended up possessing.

How does this address the point at hand?

Exactly. There. Thank you. It is *meaningless drivel*. So you see that science *can* talk about it, it can say it *is* meaningless drivel.

We do not; try reading it again more carefully.

You pile your sins over christ and eat his blood and flesh. Then you are rendered absolved of your sins. I see nothing here that is moral. Even CS Lewis agrees with me, ffs.

Did you miss which religion we were discussing?

The exp.... Wow. Really? You think that the church is a force for good?

Did you miss which church we were discussing? It's a very bad sign if you begin to lose track of these things in favor of monolithic homogeneity.

There's a loophole in there. Can't you see it? It's when they, in all their science investigations, actually find out that you invented all the ninja ****. It's inevitable, since it is knowledge to be made, just like we know today the mish mash that the Bible actually is all about.

There was no such condition in the scenario; the religion arose socially in the distant past. Do you need additional clarification on the scenario?

Are there any other imprecisions I can help correct? I'm not getting paid any more so I'm just doing this for the benefit of the audience.