Can science and religion be mutually relevant?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

ughaibu wrote:
Is it the case that there is something in the world that can be pointed to by any person and it be accepted by all healthy people that that thing is god? The answer is "no".
I can imagine an elephant, but elephants are not imaginary.

If you have nothing sensible to say, kindly restrain yourself. Nonsense is uninteresting.

1 Reply

The idea that maybe we should allow for both is mental gymnastics. Many humans want to make room for a god, so they look for anywhere to put them.

It's bargaining, and it's desperate.

If everyone on earth said tomorrow: "We're done with science!" and subscribed sincerely to supernatural beliefs, guess what? Nature would continue as normal and despite our denial, it would still behave as it always has. Humans cannot change nature. Science is a language to help understand nature. Religion is as language to understand nature as well, only it doesn't work.

A
R
T

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
Is it the case that there is something in the world that can be pointed to by any person and it be accepted by all healthy people that that thing is god? The answer is "no".
I can imagine an elephant, but elephants are not imaginary.
If you have nothing sensible to say, kindly restrain yourself. Nonsense is uninteresting.

Abuse is not an argument. It does not follow from the fact that I can imagine something, that that something does not exist. And for you to argue that it does is fallacious. No amount of insult can save you from that.

Is it the case that something can be pointed to by any person, and accepted by all healthy people, and that thing is a neutrino? The answer is no. Is it the case that something can be pointed to by any person, and accepted by all healthy people , and that thing is my headache? The answer is, no. There are tons of things that exist that cannot be pointed to.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

It does not follow from the fact that I can imagine something, that that something does not exist. And for you to argue that it does is fallacious.

As I haven't argued that, your string of posts is irrelevant. You've known me for about four years, that you can still think that I would present an argument of the form the existence of A can not be proved, therefore A does not exist, is ridiculous. It should be obvious to you that if you think that was my argument then you haven't understood what I've written.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
It does not follow from the fact that I can imagine something, that that something does not exist. And for you to argue that it does is fallacious.
As I haven't argued that, your string of posts is irrelevant. You've known me for about four years, that you can still think that I would present an argument of the form the existence of A can not be proved, therefore A does not exist, is ridiculous. It should be obvious to you that if you think that was my argument then you haven't understood what I've written.

That is what you argued. If you would like to change your argument to something more plausible, then by all means do so. Although I am highly talented, I am not a mind-reader.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

ughaibu wrote:
that you can still think that I would present an argument of the form the existence of A can not be proved, therefore A does not exist, is ridiculous.
That is what you argued.

Rubbish. Quote the posts.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
that you can still think that I would present an argument of the form the existence of A can not be proved, therefore A does not exist, is ridiculous.
That is what you argued.
Rubbish. Quote the posts.

Unless that is what you were arguing in post, # 4,189,169, I don't know what you were arguing. There is the problem, of course, that your arguments are put so obscurely that it is easy to misunderstand them. You really should try, at least, to semi-formalize them. Now, I suppose that you allow that something can be both imagined and also be real. Therefore, it follows that just because God is imagined, that does not mean that God is not real. So now, what is your further point? I have already noted that there are a great many things we cannot point to for which we, nevertheless, have a lot of reason to think exist, so the fact that we cannot point to God is not a good reason for thinking that God does not exist.

Your turn.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

post, # 4,189,169,

If you can find the post number then you can quote the post!

kennethamy wrote:

is not a good reason for thinking that God does not exist.

Who gives a ****?

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
post, # 4,189,169,
If you can find the post number then you can quote the post!
kennethamy wrote:
is not a good reason for thinking that God does not exist.
Who gives a ****?

You do, since that is what you argued.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

jeeprs wrote:
how is that question to be adjudicated? To whom shall we turn for definitive judgment?
We ourselves can answer the question by observation. Is it the case that gods are imagined, by atheists and theists alike? The answer is "yes".
Is it the case that there is something in the world that can be pointed to by any person and it be accepted by all healthy people that that thing is god? The answer is "no".
Therefore gods are imaginary.

It does not follow from the premise that X is imagined, that X is imaginary. I can imagine an elephant, but elephants are not imaginary.

You are missing his point. Or perhaps he is not being explicit enough in explaining it.

Yes, you can imagine an elephant. Yes, your mental conception of the elephant can be reliable. However, that reliable conception can be then compared to material phenomena outside the confines of your brain. Thus your conception can also be rendered valid as well as reliable by a capacity to reference it to that real world phenomenon.

Yes, you can imagine a god. Yes, your mental conception of the god can be reliable. However, that reliable conception can be then compared to material phenomena outside the confines of your brain. Thus your conception can also be rendered invalid despite its reliability by a lack of capacity to reference it to a real world phenomenon.

Basically, what ughaibu is getting at is that just because you can imagine something does not render it real merely as a function of the imagining. You need to be able to reference it to the material world other wise it has no more claim to be valid than my imagining that the world was created by a Spaghetti Monster (peace be upon His Great Noodlyness).

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@stevecook172001,

You do make a very good point. I have studied religion more than any other subject as I was trying to find the truth.
I studied greek and hebrew language tring to make sense of things. I used a exhaustive concordace, I prayed and tried extremely hard to be a believer but after studying for a long time, what I have concluded is that religions will tell you how things are and they do not want you to do any extensive research out side of thier teachings.
From historical writings I have concluded that my christian teachings began well before 20 BC [I would say a few hundred years] as you can find groups of people with the same behavior as the early christians.
Is what I am saying a absolute truth? No it is my observation my hypothesis.
Is what I am saying an absolute false? I doubt it and if anyone knows other wise prove it please. Thank you. Reasong Self Logic

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@stevecook172001,

Quote:

Basically, what ughaibu is getting at is that just because you can imagine something does not render it real merely as a function of the imagining.

And if you study the history and anthropology of religion, there is abundant evidence of what we can call 'the numinous realm'. This is not an evangelical sales pitch: I am not saying 'believe and be saved'. I don't care what you believe. It is an appeal to the evidence of spiritual phenomena throughout history. Now you will probably say 'there is no such evidence, these things can't be real' but that is a belief system talking. If you're a basic secular materialist, which is the default position for the average person, then you can in no way imagine such a realm or the kinds of realities that might exist in it. But just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it does not exist.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Quote:
Basically, what ughaibu is getting at is that just because you can imagine something does not render it real merely as a function of the imagining.

And if you study the history and anthropology of religion, there is abundant evidence of what we can call 'the numinous realm'. This is not an evangelical sales pitch: I am not saying 'believe and be saved'. I don't care what you believe. It is an appeal to the evidence of spiritual phenomena throughout history. Now you will probably say 'there is no such evidence, these things can't be real' but that is a belief system talking. If you're a basic secular materialist, which is the default position for the average person, then you can in no way imagine such a realm or the kinds of realities that might exist in it. But just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it does not exist.

I would have thought that it is somewhat difficult to get evidence for a numinous realm, as contrasted, of course, with evidence that some people believe that there is a numinous realm. I do not doubt that there is a scad of evidence for the latter. The question would be, however, whether there is any evidence for the former.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Quote:
Basically, what ughaibu is getting at is that just because you can imagine something does not render it real merely as a function of the imagining.

And if you study the history and anthropology of religion, there is abundant evidence of what we can call 'the numinous realm'. This is not an evangelical sales pitch: I am not saying 'believe and be saved'. I don't care what you believe. It is an appeal to the evidence of spiritual phenomena throughout history. Now you will probably say 'there is no such evidence, these things can't be real' but that is a belief system talking. If you're a basic secular materialist, which is the default position for the average person, then you can in no way imagine such a realm or the kinds of realities that might exist in it. But just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it does not exist.

Bollocks.

This is not belief talking. It is emphirical evidence (or, rather, a singular lack of it in the case of your religious imagningings) that is doing the talking.

There may well be evidence of people reporting having an internally reliable psycholoigical experience they have interpreted as being a numinous experience. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of such numinous experiences being externally validated by the real world outside of the confines of the brains of those people doing the imagining.

You are absolutely, completely and utterly missing the point here Jeepers. Given the level of your vocabulary as being an indirect index of your intelligence, I am forced to the conclusion that your missing of the point is quite deliberate and therefore suspect.

To reiterate for the umpteenth time, the imagining of something, no matter how "real" it "feels” to the imaginer, does not render that thing real unless it can be independently compared to material phenomena in the real world such that it can be rendered valid as well as internally psychologically reliable. You don't seem to understand the first principles of the logical distinction between reliability and validity.

If you can't point to a real world phenomenon that matches your imagining, then it is no more valid than my imagining that the universe was created by a spaghetti monster.

Can you point to such a real world validator? In which case, I am all ears.

If you can’t, then any and every piece of rhetoric in the world that you conjure up is irrelevant in terms of the veracity of your imagined god. And it is equally irrelevant to come out with rubbish such as “you could only see how real if was if you truly believed it”. This assertion suffers from exactly the same problem as the initial imagining

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I am not sure that evidence is required to be spiritual, I would think that all that is needed is faith and it is quite amazing the many things that people can have faith in.
I could be mistaken but it seems that even intelligent people can do some very odd things when their faith in god is strong.
It reminds me of a couple of very smart men one an engineer and the other an architect flying jumbo jets into sky scrapers. I wonder if they knew by faith that there woud be 72 virgins on the other side?
This does not suggest that all people will have the same type of faith but one would have to admit that faith can be very odd at times.

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

well, sure, people will believe anything. Some major churches were founded by preachers convinced that the world was due to end, or Jesus was going to come back. And they're still around, and still saying it. The desire to believe is strong in many people, and many people are prepared to believe, and argue for, the most amazing things. That is simply human nature.

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@jeeprs,

We agree imagine that and its not our imagination at work, or is it? lol

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

well, sure, people will believe anything. Some major churches were founded by preachers convinced that the world was due to end, or Jesus was going to come back. And they're still around, and still saying it. The desire to believe is strong in many people, and many people are prepared to believe, and argue for, the most amazing things. That is simply human nature.

On the above point (in bold) we can at least agree. Though I strongly suspect we will not agree at all on the reason for that nature.

Given the above, what gives you any logical reason to assert that your particular faith-based belief is any more valid than the ones you choose to disparage?

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@reasoning logic,

but I think if you study the subject or religion and spirituality widely and deeply, you will find many elements that cannot be simply explained away as 'figments of the imagination'. In a secular society, this is a very convenient way of dealing with all such things. It is basically denial - you simply deny that any such things are real.But that becomes another belief system.

There are ways of being rational about spirituality and religion. This approach could be described as 'philosophical spirituality'. It is very well represented in both Western and Eastern philosophy.

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@stevecook172001,

I am not espousing a particular faith-based system. I am a student of comparative religion, philosophy, etc, within which there are many different beliefs, ideas, practices and so on. And on the basis of what I have learned, I challenge the model of 'scientific materialism' which is the default position of the secular outlook. I don't think it stands up; it has holes in it.

1 Reply

Can science and religion be mutually relevant?

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