Phylosophy

[Daystar]

Daystar, you really aren't convincing anybody anymore. Drop the act. You are a religious man, you have religious beliefs. You love religion. You are devoted to your religion.

I hate religion! I hate it, I tell you! I hate religion, already!

I hate religion because it distorts the original teachings which confuses any possible meaning there might have been, and I hate religion becuase of the destruction it has caused. If you think about these reasons it is apparent that the religion itself is not the problem with me. Much like the Bible actually says that the love of money rather than money itself is the root of all evil.

Religion, like money and love and governments, are manipulated and abused, but for me the problem is that it is human nature to not pay too much attention to what is actually going on. The monsters that have abused and manipulated governments, love, money, science, and religion would not have been possible if people would pay attention to what is going on and be accountable to that.

PURPLE RABBIT!?! DID YOU HEAR THAT?!

That is why I get bent out of shape when militant Atheists are equally ignorant as Xians are. And why a similar sort of blind devotion to science frightens me.

[Edwardo Piet]

what exactly is your definition of a 'blind devotion to science'.
And if you believe in the bible how do you know what is right and what is wrong? It may seem obvious to you but its not consistent. Many interpret it different to you. And how exactly do you interpret stoning children, homosexuals, sabbath breakers, to death, metaphorically and in a good way exactly? Doesn't that mean what it says it mean? If not please elaborate.

[Rob]

Ill share the vision of heaven I was given as a child.
Everything is made of clouds which look good enough to eat. When you eat the clouds it tastes like candy floss.
There's a grand river with streaming lemonade rather than water.
There's a tree on which grows all the best food you would ever want to eat.
You can play with all your friends all day and no one will make you come in to do homework.
Bed time doesn't exist and you can stay up all you want.

Looking back, this vision of Heaven seems somewhat hellish and a first class ticket to the dentist.

[Tiberius]

Daystar, you really aren't convincing anybody anymore. Drop the act. You are a religious man, you have religious beliefs. You love religion. You are devoted to your religion.

I hate religion! I hate it, I tell you! I hate religion, already!

And I say that by claiming this and yet continuing to have the narrow minded view of scripture, you have already created your own version of religion which is equally as destructive towards reason as all the others.

You may hate other religions, but you love your own.

[Daystar]

And I say that by claiming this and yet continuing to have the narrow minded view of scripture, you have already created your own version of religion which is equally as destructive towards reason as all the others.

You may hate other religions, but you love your own.

Well this is interesting. How, for example, would you say that my view of scripture is narrow minded - lets say - as far as hell goes, a subject which you recently posted my views on in your own blog?

Are you suggesting that my views are correct and narrow in that they are uncomromising in that capacity or that they just narrow in a derogatory way which simply means that my views don't fit with your views. Because I get the impression you mean the latter rather than the former.

Do I love my own religious beliefs? No more nor less than you love science. My own personal religion will never be anyone elses though. I will never allow it to be a destructive force in any ones lives for political or monetary gain.

Can you say that for your science? That it is your own or that it is never abused for those reasons?

[Edwardo Piet]

Science can be used for good. And it can be used for bad. Its the user not the tool.
Science can be abused but it can also be used brilliantly and beautifully.

[Tiberius]

Well this is interesting. How, for example, would you say that my view of scripture is narrow minded - lets say - as far as hell goes, a subject which you recently posted my views on in your own blog?

Are you suggesting that my views are correct and narrow in that they are uncomromising in that capacity or that they just narrow in a derogatory way which simply means that my views don't fit with your views. Because I get the impression you mean the latter rather than the former.

Your views on hell are all very well and good, but you have a narrow minded view overall if you are under the impression that the Bible is 100% accurate. As I have pointed out before, when you cannot possibly reconcile science with the Bible (as you have so elegantly done elsewhere) you simply deny the science is true. That is the narrow minded view I object to.

As for science being abused, of course it is. However it is the people who abuse science and not science itself. Science (as I have already explained) is not a living thing, it has no emotions. It is a process to tell us what constitutes reality. What we do with this knowledge is ultimately up to us as humans.

The difference between science being abused and religion being abused is that religion is often the root cause, the dogma stating we should kill homosexuals or non-believers for example, or people interpreting scriptures to mean horrendous things, and believing that God has given them a divine quest to do this.

Never has any scientist thought that "science" was telling them to go on a mass murdering rampage. It was always a human that came up with the idea. They simply used science to gain the knowledge of how to do it.

[lukec]

Well put, Adrien. Science and religion are abused in completely different ways. I view it as religion being the "why" and science the "how."

As in:
Why should we kill those guys? Because they are [insert religious descriptor here].
But how can we do it?! With these [insert technological advancement here]!

[Purple Rabbit]

Daystar, you really aren't convincing anybody anymore. Drop the act. You are a religious man, you have religious beliefs. You love religion. You are devoted to your religion.

I hate religion! I hate it, I tell you! I hate religion, already!

I hate religion because it distorts the original teachings which confuses any possible meaning there might have been, and I hate religion becuase of the destruction it has caused. If you think about these reasons it is apparent that the religion itself is not the problem with me. Much like the Bible actually says that the love of money rather than money itself is the root of all evil.

Religion, like money and love and governments, are manipulated and abused, but for me the problem is that it is human nature to not pay too much attention to what is actually going on. The monsters that have abused and manipulated governments, love, money, science, and religion would not have been possible if people would pay attention to what is going on and be accountable to that.

PURPLE RABBIT!?! DID YOU HEAR THAT?!

That is why I get bent out of shape when militant Atheists are equally ignorant as Xians are. And why a similar sort of blind devotion to science frightens me.

Well, when you start shouting, it's hard to miss, Daystar.

You say you hate religion. Your stance may not be clerical doctrine but it is utterly religious. Your point is that christian believers are all stupid and interpret the bible falsely. I say you have created your own religion. And that perfectly fits the current zeitgeist. Everybody can snack his way to his own personal religion nowadays. Nothing new here. It's the religious cafetaria model and very popular among believers and new agers in my home country. For some their religion is aliens from the stars, for others it is Deepak Chopra or whichcraft, reiki, voodoo, hand reading, hot reading, cold reading, spirits, leprachauns etcetera. What all these 'thought sytems' share is the absence of verifiability and falsifiability.

The thing is that science can be misused, you are right there. But a very big, huge, enormous difference between religion and science is that the latter is open to debate and new evidence. It can be verified, it can be falsified. Everybody can challenge science and think up ways to debunk Maxwell's equations, General Relativity or the Higgs Boson. In fact, that is the road to glory in the scientific scheme. They give Nobel prizes for that. And science is gaining by it. In Newton's days, he was the man. And then Einstein came along. Not discarding all Newtonian thought about gravity as some say, but refining it for situations of high speed and strong gravitational fields. Science is growing on scepticism. So, I am all for intelligent scepticism towards scientific claims. Look at intelligent design. They've pumped millions into the programs of the Discovery Institute and Templeton Foundation. And all it does is making evolution stronger. Every claim of irreducibility gets harpooned. Because the only thing that matters in science is to have a better explanation, more predictive power with less assumptions.

Blind devotion to science? Don't make me laugh, when you have something better that I can verify I'll be happy to use it. And many scientists who on a daily basis are plowing through tons of data and many frustrating hours of non results think the same about it. Science at the moment is simply the next best thing to truth. There is no easy way to understand the world.

[Edwardo Piet]

Awesome post PR!