On July 14 2008 07:59 LuckyOne wrote: i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
You say "science" as if it's something to be grouped up the same way religion is.
To me religion is a naive approach to science. Basically there is a problem with no solution is in sight to which religion pulls an answer out of thing air. I.e earth is flat, sun revolves around the earth etc. Whereas science looks at the world and draws real conclusions based on what is actually going on. Yes there is still loads of problems with no solution in sight (Where did everything come from?). And of course religion works as a road block to science where people (especially in the US) are trying to ban evolution from the curriculum and where children are brought up to be religious and (well imo) wastes their time praying and such instead of reaching out and touching the real world.
On July 14 2008 07:59 LuckyOne wrote: "The Enemies of Reason" focuses on superstitious belief and it's negative ramifications on society. Dawkins attacks astrology, spiritual consulting and other such methods which conflict with science.
i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
Some people probably do...
But science and peer-review judges evidence and results. If Astrology or spirituality or religion can find a cure for cancer or create a formula that we don't know, I'm sure it would be widely explored. No scientist will ever get famous by "trying" to explore unique fields.
On July 14 2008 07:48 redmourn wrote: I think that to be honest all athiests are agnostic otherwise they are more dogmatic than christains. At least christaisn can claim to have expeirenced something that is clearly out of this world, while athiest cannot produce on a logical, physical or personal level any evidence because your claiming there's a lack of evidence.
In 1982 Isaac Asimov wrote: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
I love this movie and it sums up a lot of my feelings about God. "An atheist meets God"
Edit:
About questions like "Can God create a stone that he can't carry?" The problem is not with God, it's just that the question produces a paradox with the all-mighty in the discussion.
It's very easy to create questions like this and it proves nothing.
Edit2:
On July 14 2008 07:59 LuckyOne wrote: i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
There is nothing to explore about religion, you have a set of rules to follow and that's it no questions asked.
(Don't want to spam this thread with posts so im trying to bunch them up)
On July 14 2008 07:59 LuckyOne wrote: i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
Since isn't a set of dogmas. It's a method for making models that describe reality.
On July 14 2008 07:59 LuckyOne wrote: i dont get it whats wrong with exploring other ways than science. Maybe science will hit a wall at some point and seem useless. I guess they do get in conflicts but atm would science progress faster without astrology or spiritual consulting or religion?
Without stemcell research being banned and without creationism being taught in schools then yes science can progress faster.
Another example is the Islamic Golden Age. Between the 8th and the 13th century Islamic scholars were among the finest in the world.
Take a peek at this 3 minute video.
That's what happens when we lose faith in the scientific method.
I found all that talk about alternative medicine in part2 quite interesting. I recently saw a documentary where a Chinese had a heart surgery. Because he was not able to effort regular sedatives, acupuncture was used. He was awake and showed no pain. As far as I know science can't explain how acupuncture works. But you should not condemn it as superstition just because you don't understand how something works.
To start a new point of discussion: What annoys me the most with religion is also something Dawkins talks about a lot. And it's about the way some religious people assume that their children will have the same religion as themselves. Which in turn directly leads to indoctrination of the "family religion" to that child. And because of this combined with rules of apostasy in most religions (especially Christianity which I absolutely have no understanding for, dont you read the bible??) the children won't even dare to explore other alternatives.
And of course I can't stand christians in the US trying to enforce creationism onto the school curriculum, basically people trying to force other people to believe their own naive religion.
On July 14 2008 08:26 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: I found all that talk about alternative medicine in part2 quite interesting. I recently saw a documentary where a Chinese had a heart surgery. Because he was not able to effort regular sedatives, acupuncture was used. He was awake and showed no pain. As far as I know science can't explain how acupuncture works. But you should not condemn it as superstition just because you don't understand how something works.
You should also not be incredulous and assume something is 'supernatural' just because you do not yet understand how something works. There is an explanation out there for how acupuncture works, and science, not religion, will reveal it.
On July 14 2008 08:29 Bozali wrote: To start a new point of discussion: What annoys me the most with religion is also something Dawkins talks about a lot. And it's about the way some religious people assume that their children will have the same religion as themselves. Which in turn directly leads to indoctrination of the "family religion" to that child. And because of this combined with rules of apostasy in most religions (especially Christianity which I absolutely have no understanding for, dont you read the bible??) the children won't even dare to explore other alternatives.
And of course I can't stand christians in the US trying to enforce creationism onto the school curriculum, basically people trying to force other people to believe their own naive religion.
Yeh I agree Basically most of my Cristian friends' parents are Christians and they introduced them to children, forcing them to go to churches at a young age. I hope that some will be brave enough to discover the arguments of atheists one day.
Usually only people who are saddened will convert to Christianty, seeking comfort maybe...
Absolutely love Dawkins. I have all the time in the world for him. Thoroughly enjoyed 'The God Delusion' and would recommend any of Dawkins' works to anybody.
that black dude is always on that Universe show on the history channel :D very cool dude..
Anyway, Sam Harris is definitely an extremist "skeptic". the reason most find him less offensive than Dawkins is because his strategy is much more subtle and calculated. in the End of Faith, he attacks faith by attacking Islam with arguments that Christians love to agree with, then he turns it around and reformulates the same argument against Christianity--in the end creating a complete paradigm shift for most Christians that any reasonable being just can't deny. I love sam harris, he recently published an article through Dawkin's site (I believe) about the highly controversial dutch documentary Fitna which was just absolutely brilliant. And from those videos in the OP, he is very well spoken which is nice to see : )
On July 14 2008 08:26 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: I found all that talk about alternative medicine in part2 quite interesting. I recently saw a documentary where a Chinese had a heart surgery. Because he was not able to effort regular sedatives, acupuncture was used. He was awake and showed no pain. As far as I know science can't explain how acupuncture works. But you should not condemn it as superstition just because you don't understand how something works.
The point of the video was to tell people not to resort to alternate medicine, not because scientists are 100% sure that they don't work, but because they have not shown that they work as consistently as modern medicine. If anything, scientists will take acupuncture, explore it far further than any acupuncturist would ever be able to do and make sure that it lives up to the standard of modern medicine.
On July 14 2008 07:48 redmourn wrote: Now for the lvoely niave "can a god create a stone so heavy that he himself can't lift it?". I saulte you for trying but its completely void. Lets break the sentence down shall we: "can soemthing thats all powerfull and can lift any rock of any density create a rock of a density larger than it can lift." Well no, of course not, you have contradicted yourself. You start the sentence by using the noun god which implies an all-powerfull being and then you claim he isn't all powefull. You create an instance of soemthing more powerfull than him after saying he is the most powerfull, or something that breaks the previous statement.
He CAN create the stone. It's just that he can lift it too. Through being omnipotent, he is capable of creating ANY stone. Through being omnipotent, he is also capable of lifting ANY stone. There cannot exist stones which he cannot lift. In order to make such a stone, he would first have to nullify his own omnipotence, at least in the field of stone-lifting. The key here is that God being able to lift the rock (or not, as the case may be) is NOT a property of the rock, it is a property of God. Rocks do not carry any mystical 'can't-be-lifted-by-God-ness' in them, they simply are what they are and whether or not God can lift them depends on God's lifting ability (which, if he is omnipotent, is infinite).
Uh... that doesn't make any sense. :p And no it's not naive. It's blunt, but it proves that there can't ever be omnipotence. Of course, there might be incredible power which we can't measure, which might be enough power to be called a god, but it still means that there can't ever be a being who can do *everything*. Because it's impossible to fulfill both tasks. And if you can fulfill only one of the two, you're not almighty. Simple as that. What I wanted to say with this is that a god's power has its limits. This limit might be very high, but it's still there, so the "omnipotence" thing is a lie/exaggeration.
And then there are of course other questions which not even our typical religions can "answer", e.g. why god would exist at all, and why he should even care for such a pathetic species like us, except for comedy purposes.
As for myself my stance is that i'm open to everything. I was raised in in "christian family" which in Norway goes as far as being in church once a year for christmas and having church weddings. So i was pretty much just allowed to make up my own mind through education and experiences and i really can't decide on anything , i follow every scientific channel of information i know of and while science today really is fantastic. I'd actually say that beliving science will help us understand everything and dictate the path that humanity should take require more faith that any religious belief in these times. Science is fact but it's also what is known, and what is known ain't that much when it comes to life and death and all that.
I generally can't stand organized religion, but it's not the religious part that disgusts me, it's the human. But i also see it everywhere else. I really can't see how human problems orginate from some fucking religious belief. Actually if the world was ruled after whats jesus said and expressed through his actions i think the world would be a pretty damn fine place, so whatever it is the word of a absolute god or fairytales for grownups it does pretty much hit spot on at the core of what it teaches. what i can't stand is the manfiestation of human stupidity,greed, power hunger, etc the things that makes us all here bash the fucking joke that is modern politics and many other matters. Maybe in 50 years we found the essence of life through quantum physics but until then i'd rather bash people for being stupid and take religion with that little grain of salt that is free thinking and work to get it incorporated in e healthy scientific modern society.
On July 14 2008 09:10 Xan wrote: I generally can't stand organized religion, but it's not the religious part that disgusts me, it's the human. But i also see it everywhere else. I really can't see how human problems orginate from some fucking religious belief. Actually if the world was ruled after whats jesus said and expressed through his actions i think the world would be a pretty damn fine place, so whatever it is the word of a absolute god or fairytales for grownups it does pretty much hit spot on at the core of what it teaches. what i can't stand is the manfiestation of human stupidity,greed, power hunger, etc the things that makes us all here bash the fucking joke that is modern politics and many other matters. Maybe in 50 years we found the essence of life through quantum physics but until then i'd rather bash people for being stupid and take religion with that little grain of salt that is free thinking and work to get it incorporated in e healthy scientific modern society.
Yeah I wish Jesus' words could be taken just as secular moral advice from a wise man, like Gandhi. We don't need religion for morality/decency at all (e.g. see social contract theories of morality)
I don't think any scientific discovery will make people stop acting stupidly though... maybe some discoveries in neuroscience will help us find ways we can better understand and manage emotions like anger, etc., but I wouldn't hold out for some mega-discovery entirely changing human nature. It's pretty much an organizational and cultural problem.
EPT
