Can a discussion of science and religion with intelligence from both sides change your opinion?

Science does not have beliefs.

Can a discussion of science and astrology with intelligence from both sides change your opinion?

— fixed the sentence for you
in other words, religion is completely irrational , just like voodoo or astrology or a bigfoot hunt

… but scientists do. Research using equipment that shows the subject’s brain activity on a screen in front of them demonstrates to the subject that their understanding of complex data is influenced by belief-orientated thinking.

Please show this research.

So your answer to the question posed initially is “No. I’ve made up my mind and I know I’m right”. Well, that’s a data point, anyway.

No.

A debate could change my mind, but as I have pointed out before, such a debate never has and (probably) never will take place. Science is the product of rigorous formal debate about data, and any premise forwarded by science may be challenged by more data and more debate. But, given the data, only certain conclusions will remain valid.

A ‘discussion’ between science and religion can’t be a debate. Religion doesn’t bring any evidence to the ‘debate’, and doesn’t engage in debate, no matter how intelligent the proponent or how much it appears to be a debate. Religion is defended via apologia, which can continue forever past the point when a formal debate would have been settled in the eyes of an honest observer.

I said such a debate will probably never take place. I don’t know everything. If God suddenly started providing all kinds of compelling evidence for His existence, why then we would have the foundation for a real debate. But why bother? At that point science would co-opt religion and conclude that there was a God, and here’s what we know about it from the evidence uncovered so far, yada yada.

I agree it’s a mistake to assume that only fools are religious, but that doesn’t mean that belief in God isn’t in itself foolish. Plenty of intelligent people do some otherwise foolish things. Smoking, overeating, and so on.

I know a guy who’s a chemist and engineer who thinks they should teach intelligent design in school. He’s not a dingbat, but a stupid, foolish idea got under his armor where he can’t assess it intelligently.

Now personally, I base my dismissal of God on the fact that there is no evidence for Him. When I ask people for that evidence, they mewl about, “you haven’t felt what I felt!” or come up with some nonsense about how Jesus fulfilled every single OT prophecy, so He must be God. If actual evidence existed, I’d certainly be amenable to being convinced.

Yes. So what does that tell you?

I’ve read so many of these threads, and it always seems that the atheists jump from “Belief in a god is illogical and irrational” to “religion is illogical and irrational”.

Yet every human culture ever recorded has some form of religious belief and ritual practice. The forms of these religions vary - though not infinitely - but it seems that almost all humans need a name to yell when they stub their toes getting up in the middle of the night to answer a wrong number. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s almost as if the belief in the supernatural is somehow hard-wired in our primate brains.

So what conclusion might a hard-nosed atheistic scientist, committed to empirical evidence, rationality, and the scientific method, draw from this?

Perhaps she muses to herself, “Hey, this religion thing is panspecific, and has been for as long as we have any records of our species. Maybe it arises from a cognitive module that evolved to determine agency and intentionality in other beings, kinda the way a module evolved to recognize human faces! And since in both cases, a false positive has a much lower cost than a false negative, maybe humans see intentionality in random events, the same way we see faces in clouds or Jesus on a piece of toast.”

“So,” she continues to herself, “religion then is just a side effect of our agency-detecting brains? But on the other hand, a common religion is a great way to foster in-group bonds! As well as aggression to out-groups! After all, it’s easy to rationalize stealing from or killing those heathen bastards over the hill if you think they’re condemned by God. Religion can also promote reciprocal altruism, compassion, and alleviate the fear of death and the pain of loss. Hmm, as a rational scientist, I know that there is no valid evidence of a god, gods, or the supernatural. But I can see that as a social structure, a religion offers enough evolutionary benefit to appeal to most people, even intelligent, scientifically literate ones. Scientology is still bullshit, though.”

Last weekend I drove from Pennsylvania to Georgia listening to a series of lectures on evolutionary psychology, so this is all still fresh in my mind. Point is, religion is not just foolishness - there’s a rational, nonsupernatural reason why so many people are adherents.

Well, that’s why I capitalized ‘COULD’ there. However, there is nothing short of supernatural that could regenerate an entire human limb as specified (i.e. overnight), regardless of what we do or don’t understand about biology, so it would be an indication of something interesting going on, assuming it could be confirmed.

Honestly not seeing it. If we were talking about belief in magic, then it would be a good point, but all it would show to a theist, playing devils advocate (:p) is that God or the gods listened to prayers but made their own choices for their own inscrutable reasons. Expecting God or the gods to answer prayers 70% or some other arbitrary percentage seems pretty silly, and really this only addresses people who are convinced that prayer works, not the basic question of whether or not God or the gods exist.

If there is a nonsupernatural reason people are religious why does it follow it is rational?

Nitpick. Science requires assumptions that are essentially equivalent to beliefs, such as the assumption that there is an objective reality.

Science requires fewer beliefs than just about anything other than solipsism, and the beliefs are justified because it works.

Religious people also claim that their beliefs “work,” but I say that for me, they don’t.

No argument.

Fair point. Okay, there’s an evolutionarily advantageous, nonsupernatural reason people follow religions. The religion itself is not rational, but the adherence is. Or at least, comprehensible, given how we naked plains apes think.

No, actually, it’s more like:

every religious claim I’ve ever heard of is unsupported by fact and the majority of them are nonsensical or illogical

Both Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins came off as rather cowardly. Neither took a firm stand for reason and science, but seemed to cautiously avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. Dawkins only hinted at being an atheist, and Tyson didn’t voice the obvious objections to the Jesuit’s statements. Because of this, the Jesuit’s statements went unchallenged, and he seems to have “won.” The whole thing was rather disappointing.

Well sure, religion is a effective social binder. I don’t think that concept is fresh or controversial at all.

Fair enough and well presented. I’ll note though that you have not ruled out a philosophic discussion. It is my understanding that the existence of God is still a matter for serious debate. Philosophers have by and large moved on from the proof of God song and dance: instead they debate whether it’s reasonable to believe in a God, a contention that requires a lower burden of proof.

Cite: I think it was this book, but I’m not sure.

M4M: Sure, a philosophic discussion is always on the table, but ITSM the nature of those is to define some kind of inconsistency with the accepted way of viewing things- or an inconsistency with seemingly every way of viewing things- without coming to any solid conclusions.

But maybe I just need you to expand on what you’re saying. If the question is “Is it reasonable to believe in a god?”, I can see big problems with that right from the start. For example, what is reasonable depends on one’s circumstances, no? If you are being tortured to death, it may seem reasonable to confess to a crime you didn’t commit. If you are born a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness or one of many varieties of evangelical, you will be shunned or even tossed out of your family/community if you question the script, which can make believing/toeing the line seem reasonable, without at all addressing the core questions.

Did you know that prisoners are more than 30x more likely to be religious believers than non-prisoners? Locked up in solitary for life without parole, it may be reasonable to seek a perfect, all-powerful imaginary friend. But what does that really say about reality?

Philosophers do debate these questions, yes. But, sans conclusions, what’s the point (if you are an undergraduate, yes, take all the philosophy you can, don’t get me wrong)?

Well, I’ve found my copy of the book: it turns out my cite was accurate. Rah rah. Chapter 3. Though frankly I may have overstated matters somewhat.

The argument given didn’t touch upon circumstance: it was epistemological in nature. And epistemology is a legitimate empirical and non-empirical subject for investigation. So yeah, I think the discussion is worthwhile, if only to shed light on the nature of knowing something or not. It’s also mostly over my head: I am not a philosopher.

Maybe not. But it seems to me that in these discussions, the default position for nonbelievers is “Religion is just irrational nonsense”. Which casually dismisses a complex and universal human phenomenon. You don’t have to believe in God, or think religion is a good thing, to recognize that it is a significant part of human society. And thus worthy of discussion and even scientific analysis.