A conversation with Robvalue about religion.

[LadyForCamus]

Alright, here we go. I'll stick to one argument. I don't need to concern myself specifically with Islam to make the point.

It is sensible to only believe things for which there is credible evidence. Having an internal model of reality that is as accurate as possible means that you are able to make the best decisions. The more extraordinary the claim, the more evidence we should require before believing it. The same goes for how important the claim is.

I made some videos on the important of scepticism before which go into more detail:

http://youtu.be/cX7mdUh9yUE

http://youtu.be/lOrP9nb-yrk

The only "evidence" ever presented for religions is:

1) Religious texts
2) Fallacious or irrelevant philosophical arguments

1) All of these books are exactly what one would expect to see from primitive societies trying to make sense of the world around them. Even if they happen to contain some things that are true, and even if those things are impressive by the standards of the time, that in no way validates the truth of the rest of the book. It also doesn't validate claims about where those truths came from, and certainly doesn't give the author free reign to write a load of magic stuff and expect us to just believe it. If you get to the point where you will believe whatever someone writes based on what they have already written, you are literally prepared to believe anything. I don't consider that a good position to ever be in.

They are just books. They are surrounded by oral myths, and without these myths, they would be viewed as a mixture of vague historical record and fiction. This is further evidenced by the very high correlation between the religion someone is "raised" in (indoctrinated) and the religion they "believe".

2) Abstract arguments are never evidence about reality on their own. They require producing a model of reality, and then manipulating that model. When manipulated correctly, all we have are conclusions that are as true as the initial assumptions of the model. They would be true in a reality that followed this idealised model exactly. But inevitably, our models are simplified. The only way to be sure that our abstract, idealised reality bears any resemblance to how reality actually works is to go back to reality and study the results. Otherwise, we can never be sure that we haven't gone wildly off target, and are considering a fictional reality that is in line with what we want it to be, or what we can understand.

Generally, these arguments make huge simplifications, reducing the whole of physics and the study of space-time to a single, simple sentence. The idea that these arguments can produce results that the whole of science cannot is ludicrous. And further, every religion uses the same arguments to try and establish some sort of entirely abstract "God", without any evidence to check it's actually anything real, and then makes the huge non-sequitur jump of assuming "their God" is the real God.

If there is a "God", then we currently have no way to learn anything about it with any accuracy. Not only are there multiple religions all claiming to be true while contradicting each other, not even a single religion can agree with itself what the truths are.

If there is a "God", until such time as some credible evidence about it is presented, it is irrelevant. To try and follow the whims of an undemonstrated being, based on the say-so of fallible humans touting magical stories is foolhardy. Even if it wishes us to act a certain way, we have no duty to do so. If it wants us to do anything other than what we feel is right, for objectively good reasons, it's not a being worthy of our attention.

Just saw this video, Rob.

"If religion actually worked; if faith worked and it was actually a reliable way of finding information, than religion would be a science."

That's it, right there. Perfectly described.

[Mystic]

We actually call various knowledge of it science.

For example, look at the prayer here: http://www.duas.org/sajjadiya/s17.htm

O God, include in that everyone who witnesses to Thee as Lord, أللَّهُمَّ وَاعْمُمْ بِذلِكَ مَنْ شَهِدَ لَكَ بِالرُّبُوبِيَّةِ، 36
37 devotes himself sincerely to Thy Unity, وَأَخْلَصَ لَكَ بِالْوَحْدَانِيَّةِ، 37
38 shows enmity toward him (Satan) through the reality of servanthood, وَعَادَاهُ لَكَ بِحَقِيقَةِ الْعُبُودِيَّة، 38
39 and seeks help from Thee against him (Satan) through knowledge of the divine sciences! وَاسْتَظْهَرَ بِكَ عَلَيْهِ فِي مَعْرِفَةِ الْعُلُومِ الرَّبَّانِيَّةِ.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet another miracle of the quran.  

[robvalue]

Camus: Many thanks! I'm glad you liked the video

[Brian37]

We actually call various knowledge of it science.

For example, look at the prayer here: http://www.duas.org/sajjadiya/s17.htm

O God, include in that everyone who witnesses to Thee as Lord, أللَّهُمَّ وَاعْمُمْ بِذلِكَ مَنْ شَهِدَ لَكَ بِالرُّبُوبِيَّةِ، 36
37 devotes himself sincerely to Thy Unity, وَأَخْلَصَ لَكَ بِالْوَحْدَانِيَّةِ، 37
38 shows enmity toward him (Satan) through the reality of servanthood, وَعَادَاهُ لَكَ بِحَقِيقَةِ الْعُبُودِيَّة، 38
39 and seeks help from Thee against him (Satan) through knowledge of the divine sciences! وَاسْتَظْهَرَ بِكَ عَلَيْهِ فِي مَعْرِفَةِ الْعُلُومِ الرَّبَّانِيَّةِ.

MK please understand Muslims are not the only ones who quote their holy book to prove their holy book, Christians and Jews do that too. That is called circular reasoning and it doesn't work when anyone tries it.

And Christians and Jews also, when they cant debunk science, also point to their holy books to claim their brand of God created science. I'd suggest you spend some time debating Christians and Jews as well.

[The Grand Nudger]

All ridiculous claims.  The pagan gods of Greece created science.  The muslims very literally stole that science, at the tip of a spear, and wrote it into their fairy tale.  

As we all know...the only way those exceprts of the quran could have been known was as a miracle of god (this is the claim, which I accept)....and since those excerpts ultimately come to us from ancient Greece..the quran is clear proof of the truth of Hellenic Paganism. Praise Allah!

[Mystic]

We actually call various knowledge of it science.

For example, look at the prayer here: http://www.duas.org/sajjadiya/s17.htm

O God, include in that everyone who witnesses to Thee as Lord, أللَّهُمَّ وَاعْمُمْ بِذلِكَ مَنْ شَهِدَ لَكَ بِالرُّبُوبِيَّةِ، 36
37 devotes himself sincerely to Thy Unity, وَأَخْلَصَ لَكَ بِالْوَحْدَانِيَّةِ، 37
38 shows enmity toward him (Satan) through the reality of servanthood, وَعَادَاهُ لَكَ بِحَقِيقَةِ الْعُبُودِيَّة، 38
39 and seeks help from Thee against him (Satan) through knowledge of the divine sciences! وَاسْتَظْهَرَ بِكَ عَلَيْهِ فِي مَعْرِفَةِ الْعُلُومِ الرَّبَّانِيَّةِ.

MK please understand Muslims are not the only ones who quote their holy book to prove their holy book, Christians and Jews do that too. That is called circular reasoning and it doesn't work when anyone tries it.

And Christians and Jews also, when they cant debunk science, also point to their holy books to claim their brand of God created science. I'd suggest you spend some time debating Christians and Jews as well.

First I do discuss with Christians and Jews on other religious forums. Second, I never seen anyone as of yet in my experience use the argument "the holy book claims this is true therefore it is true" to anyone outside it's faith. Rather, they may use it to say, for those who believe to be true, this is what it says, so therefore if you believe to be true, you should also acknowledge this to be true if you are going to be consistent.

That said, I didn't say I've proven there are divine sciences, the remark of Robvalue was that if religion was true, it would be a science. I am assuming rhetorically he is implying it's not.

I'm showing we don't take that for granted and in our language, there are "divine sciences".

So of course, if you want to reject that, you can. But it seems quite circular as far as this conversation goes because it hasn't been proven there are no divine sciences. Of course I'm not saying this proves there are, but simply, that it's not an agreed upon issue that religion doesn't contain divine sciences.

[The Grand Nudger]

There you go again, insisting that people prove something wrong as though that were more than noise. Do you realize how ridiculous taking either position on "divine sciences" is...it's a non-issue. Rejecting "divine sciences" is not circular, no one has any responsibility to prove that "divine sciences" do not exist, and it doesn't matter whether you nutballs have agreed regarding the issue of "divine sciences" within your little club. You have a common compulsion, the need to vomit up a verse from the quran whenever someone says something that sounds, to you, remotely similar. You neither understood nor responded to the comment to which you are refferring. You heard the word science, and remembered that you saw it in the quran somewhere.

That's it, that's all.

[Brian37]

All ridiculous claims.  The pagan gods of Greece created science.  The muslims very literally stole that science, at the tip of a spear, and wrote it into their fairy tale.  

As we all know...the only way those exceprts of the quran could have been known was as a miracle of god (this is the claim, which I accept)....and since those excerpts ultimately come to us from ancient Greece..the quran is clear proof of the truth of Hellenic Paganism.  Praise Allah!

No they didn't, I understand the argument you are trying to make. Discovery is part of our evolution, you can find videos online of chimps using sticks to get at ants for food. It is true the Greeks came up with thoughts that seem to work, but they also got things wrong as well. Dawkins, and I think rightfully so, in the opening of his book "The Greatest Show On Earth" puts blame on Plato for his idea of "essence" in that if you simply thought about the core of something you could get to that ideal or perfect thing. While the Greeks did foster early methods, one thing Plato did not have or could have known was the value of control groups or peer review, not in the modern scientific sense. Unfortunately that idea went on to infect politics in religion, it is why ideology ends up being pushed by politics and religion in a futile strive for a utopia.

And it is also true that Arabs contributed to science too. What is not true, is that any group of humans owns a patent on our species ability to make discoveries. Newton got physics right but his attempt at Alchemy was wrong.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson in the Cosmos series attributes discovery to all parts of human history, but points out that we must not fall for the "gatekeeper" fallacy, but in that humans evolved to be curious and figure things out.

The ancient Greek use of the word "atom" did not mean the scientific word we use today. It merely meant that which cannot be divided. CERN today certainly does divide particles. The Greeks had no way of knowing what an electron or proton or neutron or quark or Higgs/Bosson particle were. The word back then just meant "really really really tiny"

All major developed societies of antiquity worldwide made discoveries, but that does not make the god/s they believe in real, monotheistic or polytheistic, not even today. I was writing this for the theists, not so much you.

[Mystic]

Why do people act if Theists don't know humans made up a lot of myth, made up stuff about religion without knowledge, lead their people in falsehood.

We know this. Part of my belief as to why God would send Prophets and Messengers, is because people are lead astray by leaders making shit up and having the cloak of power/authority.

It's to counter that with right guidance and proofs of the right way, and establish an authority based on truth, in which society can form an axis around.