Do so.
No I haven’t. It is you who keeps repeating the same argument. I’ll simplify: You keep insisting that “converting” from Methodism to Presbyterianism counts as a conversion. That’s absurd in the context of this debate. It’s converting from Christianity to Christianity. Methodism is NOT, in and of itself, a religion. Presbyterianism is NOT a religion. They’re denominations of the Christian religion. You’re not renouncing your faith by switching from Baptism to Assembly of God. But you are if you switch from Baptism to Shi’a.
Re-stating your previous argument does not address what I’ve posted.
Of the more than 2 billion Christians, the overwhelming majority of which were raised in Christian households, 100 million is tiny by comparison. Plus, you can’t claim 100 million Chinese as converts because a huge number of those were raised in Christian homes after their parent or grandparents converted. The more we analyze the smaller your number of converts gets.
There’s nothing ambiguous about “vast majority” or “huge margin” when we’re talking about 90% or more.
Are you serious? Faith is absolutely THE defining tenet of religion, as DEFINED in the dictionary: The ritual observance of faith. Everything you practice in a religion is driven by your faith in the spiritual (creator, deity, reincarnation, etc.)
Actually, no it’s not. This thread (I know because I originated it) is about continuing to believe in a theory even after it’s been shown to be completely unsubstantiated or factually incorrect… that you will accept the theory as a matter of faith. I didn’t mention God anywhere in the OP. It’s immaterial any way because belief in God is ALSO a belief that is not based in truth.
You keep dancing around the basic facts presented in my argument, which are:
Religion has no basis in logic or critical thinking - Fact
Any religious claim is no more legitimate than the most preposterous flight of fancy I or anyone else can dream up - Undeniable
The VAST majority of religious adherents practice the same primary religion in which they were raised (i.e., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc) - The numbers are quite clear and you’re grasping to suggest otherwise
Fear has been a major motivating factor in the spread of religion:
Fear of damnation - It’s right there in the Bible
Fear of death - A seemingly endless list of religion spread through military conquest, persecution and murder of the unfaithful
Fear of economic persecution (I didn’t even get to the examples of tax and trading benefits extended to religeously like-minded merchants by the likes of Constantine and others.)
No such myth is required by every interpretation of every religion. There are plenty of religious believers who believe that, say, a deity is ultimately responsible in some kind of transcendent supernatural way for the existence of the universe, but who don’t think that that divine influence in ANY way contradicts or substitutes for any scientific material explanation of the origins of the universe that is now known or may be found in future.
That is not “suspending logic and critical thinking”, it’s merely allowing the existence of non-rational faith in PARALLEL with logic and critical thinking.
I agree with you that there are plenty of religious believers who do use supernatural explanations to contradict or substitute for rational ones sometimes, e.g., by saying “Since we don’t have a firm scientific explanation of the Big Bang then it must have been direct divine intervention.” But not all religious believers think this way, and religion doesn’t inherently and essentially require thinking this way.
Nope. This misapprehension seems to be at the core of your misunderstanding of the nature of religious belief. You are practicing a kind of “scientism” that assumes that logical rational materialism is a priori the only correct way to think about reality.
This leads you to conclude that ANY kind of non-rational, non-logical, non-materialist thought is somehow taking place at the expense of logic and critical thinking. But if you accept the (non-disprovable) possibility that there might be aspects of reality that are inherently inaccessible to logic and critical thinking, then having some non-rational ideas about those aspects of reality does not involve suspending logic.
As a concrete example, there are plenty of believers who will say “I accept all the currently established scientific theories about the nature of physical reality and I’m sure we’ll establish additional ones that explain things we currently don’t understand, possibly even up to a complete and well-supported theory of everything about the physical universe from its origin on up. However, I also happen to believe that there’s a divine being transcendently involved with reality in ways that scientific reasoning cannot determine or detect.”
Those believers are NOT suspending logic or critical thinking in any aspect of reality to which they apply. They are merely denying the a priori assumption that logic and critical thinking are the ONLY valid epistemological approach to reality.
To that extent, they’re using a less intellectually bigoted and close-minded worldview than you are.
Believing that “a deity is ultimately responsible in some kind of transcendent supernatural way for the existence of the universe” ABSOLUTELY requires a suspension of logic regardless of what else you believe. One doesn’t counteract the other. I may know that the half-life of uranium is more than 4 billion years but that doesn’t mean my belief that Gargamel lives undetectable at the center of the moon is any less irrational.
Religion by any reasonable definition requires belief in a supernatural phenomenon that is specific to that religion. That by itself is a suspension of logic. I certainly appreciate those who can separate their faith in a spiritual world from their knowledge of the proven physical world. If everybody practiced that discipline we’d have no problems. Unfortunately, there are too many people who don’t and, all too often, that behavior is accompanied by forced ignorance and even bloodshed.
This is a whole lot of dancing around a fairly simple concept. To be a Christian, Jew or Muslim you MUST believe in God. Period. That in and of itself is illogical. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad or that those who believe are stupid, but it’s illogical and requires a suspension in critical thinking. Critical thinking would tell you there’s no more reason to believe in a divine being than to believe we’ve floated forever in the ice tray of giant refrigerator. In the absence of any evidence, picking one over the other requires a lapse in logic. When asked who or what put us here the ONLY logical answer is “I don’t know.” Otherwise logical people who believe in God know their belief is illogical but they take comfort in believing anyway… and that’s cool with me.
Plus, there are relatively few religious folks whose faith ends with a belief in some ambiguous transcendent spiritual authority. Most have attached a whole host of specifics (God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, Jesus is the risen son of God, God doesn’t want us to eat lobster, we’ll be reincarnated, women should be completely covered in public, etc.)
I’ll say this one more time and then if necessary accept the fact that you just don’t get it, or just don’t accept it:
No, there is nothing illogical about believing in a God undetectable by science UNLESS you believe (arbitrarily and without factual or logical proof) that scientific thinking is the ONLY valid way of understanding reality.
It is not ILLogical or IRRational to think NON-logically or NON-rationally about an aspect of reality that is intrinsically not accessible to logic or rationality.
If you believe a priori that no such aspect of reality exists, that’s your choice and it doesn’t mean you’re stupid, but it is an unprovable assumption based ultimately on faith.
Screw having to prove that scientific thinking is the only valid way of understanding reality-Since we all pretty much agree that it a valid way to understand reality, it is now up to you to show that what you support is also a valid way to understand reality. In the poker game of reality, science has all it’s cards face up and it looks like a winning hand to all, while religion insists that the game ain’t over until all cards are shown…then insists that no one is allowed to see their cards.
We know how, when, where and why science works, and until you come up with an significant amount of evidence it’s the only one worth considering.
Show your cards, or step away from the table.
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Great analogy.
You’ve decided you want religious faith to be rational so you’re twisting and bending logic back on itself to make it fit. If you think it’s not irrational to think non-rationally, then you’re trying to redefine those words to fit your ends. We’re going to have to agree to disagree on the definitions of logic, reason and common sense.
Oh yeah, well who made the table‽ 
I notice that Damuri refuses to admit that he can’t prove your pixies don’t exist. And ITR refuses to admit that he actually has no factual evidence for his God existing. Or that he even has the necessary understanding of his perceived evidence to paraphrase it. Instead he will offer a list of books to read so you can understand his argument. Pathetic.
It really seems like the advocates for religion (at least in this thread) are unified in their desire to assert things then run away when asked for substantiation.
Religious dudes, if you can’t back up your assertions, don’t run away, face that fact, and realize that what you believe, might, just might, not be true.
Religious faith is obviously nonsense. Look at the assertions. The factual claims of religion are now, almost all assumed to be metaphor. That’s because they are (with the exception of things Bronze-Age men might know) wrong. And often hilariously so.
How can you even assert that religion is an accurate way to understand reality? I mean if accuracy isn’t necessary, you are free to understand reality via Harry Potter or LOTR. And you can declare until you’re blue in the face that Hogwarts is real or Gondor stands to protect us from the Orcs, but just have the dignity to admit to yourself that you’re wrong.
In what possible way does religion allow you to accurately model reality? Hate gays, oppress women, kill apostates, pi = 3, wrong cosmology, wrong Earth history, wrong description of the origin of life on Earth, slavery is okay, women marry their rapists, murder people that work on the weekend, don’t jerk off, yada yada yada.
Religion (specifically the Abrahamic ones) are utter drivel. You have to sift through them like a prospector to find anything that isn’t drop-dead insane or evil. “Don’t kill people.” Okay, that’s one, but it’s not a religious thought. How is a collection of the backwards nonsense that a bunch of stinking men with worms, lice and teeth cemented into a single plaque encrusted horror, supposed to give us, the heirs to 10 thousand years of civilization anything worthwhile?
Do you look two thousand years back for medical advice? Do you build your bridges using the technology of two thousand years ago? How about your shoes, three thousand year old technology? Are your knives bronze? Are your clothes rough-spun togas? Do you wipe your ass with your left hand and no paper?
Then why listen to their insane and ignorant ideas on how to live your life? If one of these stinking men came up to you and tried to tell you how to build your house, you’d pat him on his greasy head and send him on his way. But whoah, if that same smelly twat tells you how the universe was formed, well , that bears some serious thought. :rolleyes:
There is even some scientific theory that supports that this is true (something about a cat in a box that may have died). We determine reality.
I don’t assert it. I’m just pointing out that there’s no way to prove that there isn’t some aspect of reality which is accurately understood by religion and not by science.
You cannot use logic and rationality to rule out the possibility that there might be aspects of reality to which logic and rationality do not apply. You certainly don’t have to believe that any such aspects of reality do exist, but you can’t prove they don’t.
Sure, if I start from the premise that logical rational materialism is the only valid epistemological yardstick for measuring truth, then it naturally follows that all religious beliefs totally fail to meet its standard of validity and are obviously nothing but a load of made-up crap. But to assume that premise is begging the question.
I don’t know why this fairly self-evident bit of elementary epistemology seems to bother you and some other atheists like Czarcasm and Victor Charlie so much. I’m an atheist too, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest to admit that although I believe my rational-materialist viewpoint adequately explains all of reality without any need for religious revelation or faith, it is logically impossible for me to prove that it does.
[quote=“cmyk, post:23, topic:626376”]
So, seeing technology as an application of science, how can anybody really refute the effectiveness, and therefore the reliability and profound importance of the scientific method?
[quote]
It is not the effectiveness, which is actually very small but real, but it’s scope and application. It is just not that advanced that it is much more helpful to the individual then having a iPhone.
So you say, taking the word of others, in things you will never verify, on blind faith is not religions to you. This is why Jesus came =, to save the lost.
This may be true for a single religion, but this is also so for a mindset of science, they stubbornly hold on to false beliefs under evidence to the contrary till made to come kicking and screaming to admit they are wrong, Steven Hawkins with a black hole theory comes to mind on this, at least he lived long enough to admit his mistake.
Again I’m not saying science is useless, just very limited, and we need so much more then what it can provide. Science is something ordained by God as just a partial solution, It was never meant to take on the scope that many ascribe to it and because of that it will fail.
We all should know that when it comes to disease we should say to that person ‘in the name of Jesus be healed’ and the person would be. Though many don’t believe that, and some don’t even know about that. But as shown in the parable of the good Samaritan, that person didn’t know he could simply heal that person in distress in the name of Jesus, but still cared enough to provide a setting that one can recover, though slower then what we could do in the name of Jesus.
It is simply that motivation, a pure desire of one’s heart to have another recover, regardless of belief that is accepting of science and voodoo doctrine.
I admit this is a problem, though this also works with a scientific point of view, blurring the lines between science and religion.
If “logic and rationality do not apply” to something, then we can say nothing whatsoever meaningful about it; including whether it exists or not. You yourself are trying to apply logic to something that you claim logic doesn’t apply to.
Because virtually always it turns into an argument of the form “you can’t prove <insert religious belief> is wrong, therefore it’s right!” It’s also not a argument that is used seriously very often; it’s a rhetorical trick that is abandoned once the skeptic backs down, and the believer can start spouting all the things they “know” about what their god wants.
Schroedinger’s Cat has nothing to do with self-created reality.
Not by the standards of logic and rationality, certainly. That’s exactly my point. If there really is some kind of supernatural being somehow impacting reality in ways that logic and rationality can’t measure, then it is absolutely inaccessible to the cognitive tools of science.
You are perfectly within your rights to draw your own epistemological boundaries for argument that exclude such possibilities, of course. You can certainly say up front “I make and interpret statements only in terms of logical rational-materialist principles: I reject any claims or terminology that are meaningless or false when interpreted by those principles, because I believe that they are the only valid standard of truth.”
You’re free to make that choice, but it is a choice, not a logically demonstrable universal epistemological necessity.
Just because a lot of religious believers argue dishonestly is no reason for me to imitate them. If I believe something I can’t prove, I’m going to admit it.
It’s absolutely inaccessible, period. The processes of our brain right down to the neurons use logic; even the laws of physics are rational. You aren’t talking about any human religion; you are talking about Lovecraftian eldritch horror. If something is beyond logic then a religious person couldn’t understand it any more than I can.
Again; such arguments are without meaning because you claim that whatever-it-is is beyond logic and rationality. Therefore, you can’t talk about it using logic and reason like you are. Saying that you can’t prove or disprove that something beyond logic and reason exists using science or reason is in itself an attempt to use logic on something you say logic does not apply to.
Nope. The mere idea that there might be something outside the scope of reason is not per se irrational, although it would be irrational to attempt to use reason to determine the truth of statements about any such something.
In fact, some epistemologists argue that the idea of something existing outside the scope of reason is not only rational but necessary: that is, if you don’t rationally acknowledge that there may be something outside the scope of reason, you end up with an infinite regress.
Well, as I usually do, I’m going to answer the question without getting into anything you guys are getting into, because you are missing something.
There is no logical reason for someone, once convinced that curses cause illness, to disbelieve this concept based on current scientific thinking. The idea that curses cause illness is not falsifiable. The fact that germs or other causes have been discovered means nothing, because perhaps only the cursed have these causes. And if you try an actual scientific experiment where you curse some people and not others and see if one gets sick more often, you still have the problem that, as the belief usually goes, it is God or Satan or some other supernatural entity that curses or at least decides if a curse is valid.
Now, obviously, humans are not perfectly logical, and some will be convinced. And those will convince others. That’s why the belief is no longer held. But you guys are functioning under a false premise that God and disease curses are fundamentally any different. Both are outside the purview of science.
EDIT: Not outside rational/materialism, but outside of science. These are not the same thing. rationalism/materialism is not scientific either, as no test can prove them correct.