And congrats on the promotion.
Hopefully you’ll be better than that despot tomndebb.
Is religion the only thing, though? Going back to the question in the title and attempting to wrench this away from it’s IMHO-ness…what about other areas in which our loved ones (or we ourselves!) are ignorant?
How much arguing to I want to go through to try and convince my father-in-law that Barack Obama is not a Muslim? Or my mother-in-law that starting the turkey at a really high heat and then turning it down produces a juicier bird with a crisper skin? Or my sister-in-law that the song “Ring Around the Rosie” isn’t about the Plague?
At the end of the day, none of these things really matter. No one is being hurt by them. My father-in-law won’t vote for Obama anyway, even if he were to join his Catholic Church in a ceremony attended by my father-in-law and the Pope. My mother in law will resent me for being right even if she is convinced to try cooking it “my way”. My sister in law will lose her fun story to tell when the kiddies are playing, and I’ll look like an arrogant know-it-all jerk.
I don’t think, in this particular instance, religion gets any sort of a special pass.
When the land from Nile to the Euphrates all belongs to the Jews, when they number as numerous as the stars (more than 15 million would be a start), and the kingdoms of all the world bow down before them, I’ll see your point (I’m willing to forget all the inane prophesies which have already become contradicted by the big guy himself or impossible to fulfill).
You do have a point there though, it sounds ridiculous even to me that a kid would be so worried about a grown woman’s personal decisions–but there you go, when you really care, you can’t help but fret and think. Thinking about it was as much a venting of frustration as a serious consideration.
Seems religion-ey to me: the suspension of reason and logic to settle for the comforting answer. Confidence in the nonexistence of god need not be (and imho isnt) beyond reason–just reasonable enough to be convincing to you. It either is and you are convinced, or it isnt and you aren’t, unless you’re being “religionist” and put “faith” in it just to feel better.
I’m sorry I spoke too soon. 
Finally something that didn’t fly miles over my head. You’ve helped more than you know (or maybe you do? :dubious: ). and I’m sorry to all about the ambiguous placement thing, I reckon was just browsing GD with this on my mind.
Huh? I’ve never seen an atheist treat science as a religion. Maybe you’re dealing with a different definition of “religion” than I am.
There are two definitions of “faith” - one is trust, based on a history of performance. That’s the kind of faith Dawkins has in science. The other definition of faith is “belief without evidence,” and that’s the one people use when they talk about their religion (when religious people are pushed about their beliefs, they invariably fall back on “you just have to have faith”).
I think you’re equivocating by using the two definitions of the same word as if they are the same meaning. They’re different.
You’re welcome! And welcome to the Dope - I hope you stick around.
And don’t stress over the placement. We all do it. In general, though, IMHO is more for “here’s my particular situation and what do you think I should do about it” and GD more for debating larger issues in a way that can apply to many situations. This one really could have gone either way, depending on the responses more than the OP itself. It’s remained ambiguous, with some “Dear Abby” type responses and some debate about larger issues. If I (or anyone else) really thought it was out of place, we’d just report it to a Moderator to see if s/he thought it would get better responses somewhere else. No harm, no foul. They only get annoyed if posting in the wrong forum becomes a willful jerkish thing, not for honest mistakes.
never mind.
Um, nope, I don’t get this question. What do you mean by methods?
This has been an interesting thread, and I’ve enjoyed it so far. But as far as the OP, I think I will add this: if there is a 17 year old in the world who doesn’t think his mother is an ignorant old fool, I’d be surprised. Mojo Pin’s mother’s specific field of** ignorance** happens to be that she is a Christian. She might instead, as someone pointed out above, cook a turkey “the wrong way”. A lot of 17 year olds think they have all the answers and often think it is their duty to straighten everyone out. This wonderful certainty sometimes marches in lockstep with monumental insecurity, so an easy target is needed and who is easier than Mum? Mums are often the sort of people who would cut off their hands for the sake of their kids, anyway. Should Mojo Pin decide that it is his duty to sort the old lady out, he’s going to cause her more than one kind of pain. For what? To reduce the amount of ignorance among the human population? insert rolling eyes emotion here
Being a Christian is not demonstrating “ignorance”, anyway. It’s a choice some people make, for reasons that have nothing to do with ignorance or the lack of it. I don’t think Christians are “ignorant”, merely “mistaken”.
Double huh?
Every time a person ascribes to science an opinion that it has to be, by necessity, silent about, (and is silent about) you’re practicing something more akin to religion than science.
Further, when one overstates the [objective] accomplishments of science, or uses known objective knowledge to impute objectivity to what is a subjective belief (which may have it’s roots in objectivity. more on that just below) he is practicing something akin to religion.
In other words, a religionist sees the [objective, observable] sunset and says, “Look, clear evidence that God exists.” When pressed for objective proof, the religionist must retreat to “faith.”
More times than I can count, atheists right here at SDMB have overstated the case for atheism by assigning known observable, objective “truths” to the inferences drawn from them. I’m OK with that. But call a spade a spade.
Science can only say about sunsets, “I’ve figured them out, and they present no empirical evidence for the conclusive evidence of God.” When the atheist says, “I’ve figured them out and it shows no God exists”, he’s not just dishonoring science, but acting like a religionist.
On the one hand I’m more than encouraged to hear an atheist (correct me if you’re not) state that Richard Dawkins ----the current it girl of atheism----employs a ‘performance based faith.’ That’s progress.
But I feel compelled to disabuse you of the notion that only religionists make use of “blind faith.” Both atheists and theists often come to their subjective beliefs through caprice or message board intellectualism.
But how they get there doesn’t matter to me. I am (in this thread anyway) a defender of science and intellectual honesty. It seems to me that an atheist wouldn’t want to undermine science by pressing it into a role it isn’t designed to serve.
If you (or Richard Dawkins, for example) wish to earn our enduring praise and admiration (or sell lots of books) by showing that your subjective beliefs are rooted in objective science, I’m with you. The moment you assign objectivity to subjectivity you’re practicing religion.
Or…you have some agenda. In Dawkins case, either conclusion is unflattering.
Me thinks no. Feel free to try me, though.
Excellent post.
Would you concede that it is possible that perhaps you are the one that is “mistaken”?
Wow the loops you theists like to jump through to avoid logical conclusions.
So now the fact that Jews have been scape goats and targets of extermination are EVIDENCE for the belief in an all powerful, all merciful god who call sthem their “chosen people”?
We still have a lot of native Americans too and they’ve gone though their share of shit as well, does that mean the the great bear spirit also exists?
I wonder what your post would have looked like if Jews did not get so much crap from others through out history, I’m guessing you would use that as evidence for Yahweh as well, right? Gotta love that type of evidence, where it prooves your point no matter what.
Sure, I’ll concede that it’s possible. Anything’s possible!
I’ve never believed in a god. Is there a god? I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think there is. It doesn’t matter to me, one way or the other.
It doesn’t seem reasonable to me that there is a god, but of course, I could be wrong. And if other people believe differently, as I said above, it’s their business as long as they leave me alone.
>To rephrase, when a person is holding a benevolent but nonetheless ignorant (and possibly emotionally damaging later on) belief, should you leave them be? What is the best thing I can do for my mom?
Mojo Pin, I think your beliefs are more accurate than those of your mother, who may be simply ignorant, or may be indulging in wishful thinking, or may be trying to please others including her own ancestors by being the person she understands they would wish her to be, or may have other reasons.
I don’t think religious belief is typically benevolent. Because incorrect information is less reliable for making good decisions than correct information is, I think religious belief is more typically harmful. Also, it’s typical of a religion that it holds some entity someplace to be more important than all of humanity, and it’s possible in the extreme for that kind of mindset to do more horrible damage than any athiest mindset could justify. It can be hard to pin down, though, either way.
Maybe you should leave her be, or maybe not. Trying to convince somebody who has been religious for a long time to stop believing is a difficult project usually with a poor liklihood of working, an uncertain reward if it does work, and uncertain hazards if it doesn’t. Many of us allow ourselves to think things we don’t really think - I mean, we allow ourselves to pretend - for reasons like avoiding discomfort. To stop doing so can require more than just getting the facts laid out. Maybe it requires getting kinds of support that we don’t know how to get, for instance. Sometimes pretending can allow us to have a fairly pleasant and useful life, and we don’t actually know what would happen if we stop pretending.
Now, then - what is the best thing you can do for your mom? You mean, is it better to try to change her religiosity or not to? Or do you literally mean what is the best thing, no holds barred? I think many mothers would like to have children that eventually have nice and respectful and respectable spouses and several healthy and well behaved children of their own, and good, reliable, safe, esteemed jobs, and that live nearby and visit frequently and really seem to enjoy the visits, and who integrate their parents into their lives in ways that are pleasant for the parent but only have a little bit of onerous liability. You could organize your life around themes like these. I would guess this is the best thing you could do for your mom.
But you’re not supposed to spend your life on that. You should organize your life around other themes, typically in ways that are best for the rest of the world, or for some of the people around you (especially those who need help the most), or, often, around your own children (whenver that may happen).
I have an awful feeling I’m being led down a path, but yes, I think I agree with that position. Do you agree that “there are no Big Foots” is not the same as “there is no evidence for Big Foot”?
>Huh? I’ve never seen an atheist treat science as a religion. Maybe you’re dealing with a different definition of “religion” than I am.
CurtC, maybe you’re meeting one right this second. I’ve been an athiest for 40 to 45 years out of my 50 so far, and (I think) a careful and thoughtful one. I don’t mean an agnostic, I mean an athiest. Or, what I think Dawkins calls a 6.99999 (or something like that), meaning that as a logical proposition I have to agree that the nonexistence of God really couldn’t be strictly proven because of its many untestable refuges, but it’s such a ridiculous idea that we quickly commit ourselves to that nonexistence even on pain of eternal hellfire if we get it wrong. I have to agree that the two giant green lobsters Esmerelda and Keith are a much more plausible God than the one in the Bible. So, I take my athiesm seriously.
And I’m a professional scientist, a physicist with now 35 years experience in industry. I take my science very seriously, too.
The thing is, I realize I can’t claim to be perfectly openminded about the supernatural. Whether this counts as treating science as religion depends on just how we mean the phrase, but it is at least somewhat true that I believe science works and I have faith in it, and in fact my faith in science will keep going for a while when science seems to be trying to prove itself wrong.
Take an example. Suppose I met somebody who claimed they could communicate with my dead grandparents. Suppose they kept saying things that are eerily correct and specific and seemingly impossible to know otherwise. Maybe they’d start doing that quiet whistling sound Grandmother made, whistling Santa Lucia. Maybe they’d say Grandfather remembers lying there on the sofa in the livingroom while Grandmother was preparing dinner, and we were discussing lighting the huge glass kerosene lamp on the table. How far would this somebody have to go to prove to me that they were really talking with my ancestors? I’m not sure. I’m not sure I could ever be convinced. 50 years of experiences have reinforced my core belief that there is no supernatural. I don’t have time to accumulate another 50 years in the other direction, now. And I don’t know if that would be enough.
Take another example. Way back in the mid 70s when the recreational drug PCP had a brief vogue, and before it got a reputation for being dangerous, I tried some. I was at my friend’s house, and he had a Chicago record album playing, and it got to be so very strange, all these grown men sort of jumping around and making noises by hitting or plucking things, for no reason at all. So I went outdoors. I was by this time only two feet tall, not my usual 5 feet eight inches. But I wasn’t any smaller in the other dimensions, so I had feet that were exactly half as long as I was tall, which meant that I could lean way over forward and touch the ground with my fingers in front of me, just by flexing at the ankles, keeping the rest of my body straight. And I could do the same thing backwards. The point is, I saw this with my own two eyes, and witnessed it with my entire body. I did this for a couple of hours, just because it was so amazing. But I don’t really think that I actually was two feet tall that night. I can’t imagine any way in which being two feet tall could have seemed more real, but still I did not accept it as the truth. I had, well, a faith in my already long held belief that I was of normal height.
So, some of us athiests would have to admit that we might not be able to imagine how much it would take for us to start to accept as real parts of what we now think is just the supernatural. Is that taking science as a religion? I don’t know, maybe.
Accurate, eh? Well, for all we know, Mojo Pin might hold a great many utterly inaccurate beliefs that are not connected to god or religion in any way. Mojo Pin might (I don’t say DOES) believe that he is destined to be supreme ruler of the Universe. He might believe that George Lucas makes good movies. It is not my duty, nor the duty of anyone else, to correct his inaccurate beliefs, to thereby reduce the total sum of human ignorance.
See, I don’t think that being religious means you’re “ignorant”. Ignorant of what, exactly? Unless you are using the word to mean “ignoring”, rather than “ignorant OF” scientific knowledge? Maybe Mojo Pin’s Ma is a physicist herself, rather than only a stupid housewife. As for “wishful thinking”? Who is this wishful thinking hurting? Maybe it is wishful thinking, but her mind is surely her own, and what she does with it is surely her business. Is she a fool? Mojo Pin might think so, but then, maybe she thinks he is.
As a long-time mother, I can see this from a mother’s point of view. It may be that Mojo Pin’s ma wants to please her own ancestors. This does not seem like an automatically bad thing - although being a Christian does she, in fact, carry on with ancestor worship? She may have many wishes regarding her son’s future: mothers do that. She might even know that he thinks he’s destined to be the supreme ruler of the Universe and she might think that’s “cute” and might also secretly think he’s probably right.
I think Mojo Pin should stop and think this over really carefully. To attack his mother on this ground (because it would be an attack, I’m pretty sure of that, in her mind) would be unfilial. He owes his mother something, and what that something is, is a son’s respect. Is she nagging and bitching at him to act like a Christian? To go to church and pray and believe? If she is, he is indeed entitled to say, “Ma, I am not a believer any more so please leave me alone”. If she won’t leave him alone, then he should leave home and live his life as he wishes.
eta: I bolded the word “accurate” in quoting Napier, of course.
Absolutely!
I sense a problem.
What if one’s definition of Bigfoot includes that it leaves clear evidence? “There are no Bigfoots” and “There is no evidence for Bigfoot” are still quite different sentences, but they’re no longer seperate. One does not equal the other, but they do affect each other.
I would certainly agree that they should affect each other.
However, it’s been my experience that many people come to firmly held beliefs without investigating the evidence at all. (whatever that may be) I guess we’d commonly call this “blind” faith---------but faith nonetheless.
The question of whether God exists or not—and whether one should be an atheist or theist-----deals not just with the “evidence” (whatever that is) but also how one interprets it,…and…what “methodology” people are willing to accept as valid.
It seems absolutely elementary to me that if a Supernatural God exists, he would be, by design, outside of our methods and ability to either observe or prove his existence [or non-existence].
In other words, I cannot use the natural world (and the tools in it) to observe a supernatural being.
So if a person insists that only objective, observable methods can be used to settle this issue, than agnosticism can be the only rational result.
The fact is, scientific method can only be silent on the existence of the Capital G God.
Unlike the agnostic (perhaps) both the atheist and theist alike have progressed to the point where objective certainty ends and have felt the need to move toward another type of certainty; essentially more certainty. This is due, of course, to sentience—the unique ability that humans have to reason and a desire to make sense of their environment.
Religionists call this sojourn outside of objective certainty towards what they may call moral certainty “faith.” Whatever it is, it is subjective in nature.
The atheist, however, must employ similar methods. He must (or, rather, should) investigate the objective evidence and then reason on the data. Whatever you want to call this process, it too is subjective.
My issue is with those who refuse to acknowledge that there is a subjective component to their atheism. Recently, someone shut me up with the simple statement, “It’s common sense.” The atheist who takes the position—implicitly or explicitly----that there is an objective answer to the existence of God (and therefore must use the sciences; the only natural tool we have) sets himself for an argument he cannot win.
ETA. That might lead us to investigate the evidence. Who has the more compelling interpretation of the observable evidence?
But let’s be clear however. We are then debating each other’s faith.