(January 10, 2018 at 6:17 am)Agnosty Wrote: Sometimes birds that fly high look small, my friend

But are you a genuine high-flyer, or merely a low-flyer supported by occasional gusts of wind?

(January 10, 2018 at 7:30 am)Khemikal Wrote:

Yup, I don't fault you a bit.

(January 11, 2018 at 6:35 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Agnosty, I see there is a new champion that actually thinks instead of dead hearts and can very well prove God from multiple avenues.

I hope you can guide them through reasoning, I think they have become allergic to me so no matter how reasonable my words, it will fall on deaf ears.

I wish you luck.

Can't reason with the religious

(January 12, 2018 at 2:43 pm)Cyberman Wrote:

(January 10, 2018 at 6:17 am)Agnosty Wrote: Sometimes birds that fly high look small, my friend

But are you a genuine high-flyer, or merely a low-flyer supported by occasional gusts of wind?

Hard to say.  Can't I fly high while flying low? 

(December 11, 2017 at 5:53 pm)TheoneandonlytrueGod Wrote: Rational

I'm going to have a go at Rational.
 
Evolution tells us that species do not exist, just random drifts of genes interacting with each other subject to environmental changes. We must accept that the term 'species' is a collection of arbitrary divisions that humans use to help us manage genetic distinctions in neat packages, but, according to evolution, outside of the human imagination 'species' do not exist. The most scientifically accurate way to describe us would be as a 'system' of genes.
 
As with every other animal humans impact their environment and those changes feed back on us. This is the classic core concept of Complex Adaptive System Theory, part of what used to be called Chaos Theory. The two critical points in the life cycle of a system (and humans are a 'system') are the conditions under which the system is initiated and the point at which the system feeds back on itself, but these two critical points are the same for any system, the human system is not unique in this respect at all.
 
Yet, when we talk about scientific research and study we do so in the name of human progress. Scientifically speaking this is not a valid concept, there is no universal measure we can use as a yardstick to say 'this' is better than 'that', for every scientific change we make there is feedback on the system. While in the short term we may be living longer, more comfortably with less diseases, long term, - among many other things - we are depleting our resources and creating mega resistant bacteria that will bring infection and death to future generations (for example). We carry out scientific research to look for solutions to the problems we create for ourselves in the belief we will find them, but this is pure faith. We may find more short-term solutions, but the human ‘system’ will always be subject to system feedback and environmental change, and there is nothing we can do about that. Scientific study and research, to paraphrase Michael Stipe, is a simple prop to occupy our time, it cannot deliver the 'progress' it promises, there is no 'better future' because the ultimate evolutionary apex of any system is, and always will be, extinction. And we can never escape that.
 
Whatever country you live in, whatever language you speak, whatever colour your skin, whatever distraction you use we are all united in one thing, we will all ultimately die. There are many distractions from this inevitability, but it is inescapable. It makes no difference what we study, research, learn, change, develop or whatever else we believe will benefit the tribe, ultimately nothing will be remembered, and it will all burn away into the background of a universe that doesn't care about our ridiculous little human race.
 
But... we will persist because we have faith.
 
We will believe in science, god, enlightenment, fate or whatever else will bring us a better tomorrow, because it gives us hope. These constructs are our lifeboat in a sea of endless nothingness, they provide focus in the confusion, they comfort us in the long dark tea-time of the soul. These constructs embody a force that is irresistible, it is present in our imaginations, it is perpetual in our worlds, it is constant in our Universe. Whichever one we pick we put our ultimate faith in it, we believe in it because we must, it is our imperative.
 
Belief in science over any god or any other Universal force is just an exchange of prop. If you accept the primacy of science, then you also accept the primacy of every other prop because to reject them would be to deny the very force that drives us to create these structures. Which is why of all modern structures, Law, Politics, Sports, etc. only Science is held up to account against Religion...
 
because they are the same and just as faith gives us hope in a better tomorrow and drives scientific study, it also embodies god, they are as real as each other.

cor

(January 14, 2018 at 1:19 am)Conspiracy_of_reason Wrote: I'm going to have a go at Rational.

Beautifully stated. I expect you'll get some decent pushback, though. Be prepared!

(This could have been its own thread...)

(January 14, 2018 at 1:44 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(January 14, 2018 at 1:19 am)Conspiracy_of_reason Wrote: I'm going to have a go at Rational.

Beautifully stated. I expect you'll get some decent pushback, though. Be prepared!

(This could have been its own thread...)

Thank you.

Pushback is healthy.

I rather suspect the human drive is fueled more by a vast capacity for ignoring reality rather than any 'faith' in science.

Pure nonsense

Religion is what one uses a palm against reality . And is driven purely by emotionalism.

Science is a could calculated acceptance of the world as is . With no necessary  emotional attachments to it . 

To call science a matter of faith le alone one equivalent to religion is absurd . Even if religion had never been invented science would still drive progress forward . And even if we are to end in annihilation that takes nothing away from progress itself.

(January 14, 2018 at 7:28 am)Tizheruk Wrote: Pure nonsense

Religion is what one uses a palm against reality . And is driven purely by emotionalism.

Science is a could calculated acceptance of the world as is . With no necessary  emotional attachments to it . 

To call science a matter of faith le alone one equivalent to religion is absurd . Even if religion had never been invented science would still drive progress forward . And even if we are to end in annihilation that takes nothing away from progress itself.

If one believes in religion then that is one's reality. Your statement seems to allude to some 'alternative' reality other than what is actually real for people, and let's face it, whether you agree with it or not religion is very real for all of us otherwise we would not be talking about it.

Science is a human endeavour, there is no Universal imperative that requires us to persue scientific study so to suggest it is in any way 'with no emotional attachments' is simply not true. If scientific study was truly disinterested you might have a point, but it isn't and can never be because it exists solely to serve humanity, it is in its very nature biased toward humans.

Science can tell us what happened in the past, it can make very acurate and detailed observations of history which we then use to predict the future, but it provides no proof of future events. That is to say we can guess that gravity will work tomorrow because it has done every day since observations began, but that doesn't mean it will be the same tomorrow and any belief that it will be the same is pure faith. It doesn't matter how small the margin of error is, it is still there and to deny the existance of this margin of error is an emotional, human reaction not a 'calculated acceptance'.

Anyone who claims to have a scientific analytical mind cannot invoke the concept of 'progress' without brteaying that idea instantly. Progress against what? What is the empirical scientific measure of progress? There isn't one, its an emotional human concept (it's Victorian in origin, fashioned out of cast-off Christian concepts) that has no place in modern science.

The poroblem you have is your faith in science and your belief in its absolute authority is based on the idea of 'progress' which is unscientific and that science can provide proof of the future, which it cannot.

I can see you think its absurd, which is fair enough but you'll need to address my points and provide a convincing counter-arguement, so far you have only provided an arguement made up of unsupported contradiction which is not really going to work. It's easy to say something is wrong but you have to back that up with coherent ideas and thoughts that provide a convincing arguement.

cor

---

(January 14, 2018 at 6:20 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I rather suspect the human drive is fueled more by a vast capacity for ignoring reality rather than any 'faith' in science.

Even if you ignore reality that is, by definition, your reality.

Way to miss everything i just said 

(January 14, 2018 at 12:00 pm)Conspiracy_of_reason Wrote: If one believes in religion then that is one's reality.

We generally find it useful to separate unique internal realities from the common reality.  No one doubts that religion is real to the religious.  That doesn't change the troubling detail of how the devil doesn't come when he's called.  It's an interesting way to talk around a point of contention but it relies on a fundamental equivocation.  

Quote:Science can tell us what happened in the past, it can make very acurate and detailed observations of history which we then use to predict the future, but it provides no proof of future events. That is to say we can guess that gravity will work tomorrow because it has done every day since observations began, but that doesn't mean it will be the same tomorrow and any belief that it will be the same is pure faith. It doesn't matter how small the margin of error is, it is still there and to deny the existance of this margin of error is an emotional, human reaction not a 'calculated acceptance'.

Sure, maybe the sun won't rise tomorrow morning.  Science isn't in the proof business...it's in the evidence business.  It doesn't offer any proof that the sun will rise tomorrow......it just offers a crushing mound of evidence that it will.  

Quote:Anyone who claims to have a scientific analytical mind cannot invoke the concept of 'progress' without brteaying that idea instantly. Progress against what? What is the empirical scientific measure of progress? There isn't one, its an emotional human concept (it's Victorian in origin, fashioned out of cast-off Christian concepts) that has no place in modern science.

Lots of words derived their first use in the victorian era.  They had very colorful slang as well.  Nevertheless, you can refer to whatever specific standards a person is referring to when they refer to progress.  If we, for example..refer to progress in the context of increased life expectancy and food security then this presents a concrete metric for human progress, or for scientific progress.   This may not be what a victorian person would have seen as progress...but so what?