Randi tackles religion vs. science

Great Debates
141

I don’t think God fiddles around in the material universe, though I hold out the possibility that he might have done so or will do so on the rarest of occasions. God’s principal place of business is in the spiritual world. He deals with hearts and minds, not physical objects.

I do think God kicked off this whole grand party we call existence, though I’m not married to any particular method He might have used to do so. And I do believe he’s behind much of the design of the world. But I’m disinclined to believe that he actively micromanages the physical plane. **

Obviously, it does. Belief in something tangibly observable is not faith. **

I’m not sure why you have this hard-on for hating religion. You are apt to cite every bad act perpetrated by the church, but disinclined to accept anything the church has ever done as positive. Methinks you need a more balanced view of history.

142

Yes, and I responded to one aspect of the review in my first reply to Col. The review’s other basic complaint is that the book paints too happy a face on the Inquisition. Well, fine. No one in this thread has suggested the Inquisition was a shining moment in church history. And the crux of the matter is that nothing in the review challenges the basic facts laid out in this thread. If Col has a specific objection, he should make it. Otherwise his contribution to this thread is useless.

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BTW, for those of you who are interested, TVAA has started a separate thread on the whole Galileo thing.

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** So hearts and minds aren’t physical objects? Are they part of the material world or not?

If they are, then God does indeed “fiddle around” in the material universe. If they’re not, then how do our hearts and minds interact with our bodies, allowing us to speak of and discuss these concepts?

So faith involves belief without observation? And you want to know why science is incompatible with faith?

I don’t hate religion – I hate stupidity. Stupidity can sometimes bring about good things, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid.

The question at hand is whether faith and religion can be used as a guide for drawing meaningful conclusions about the nature of the world. What difference does it make whether faith and religion have done “good” things? How does that make them correct?

145

Exactly. We can’t see Neutrinos, but we can detect them indirectly when they impact with a water molecule and release a photon.

We can’t directly see planets around other distant stars, but we can detect the orbital wobble in that star, that indicates an unseen planetary mass is pulling on it.

For that matter, we can’t directly see air, or humidity or odors, but we can feel them, sense them, smell them.

So you’re saying that we have no scientific means to detect God, but we can “feel Him” anyway? He cannot be seen by radiotelescope, gamma-ray observatory, neutrino detector, geiger counter, RADAR or laser spectrography. There’s no trace of Him in the visible spectrum, or the UV, or the long-wave Infrared. He cannot be inferred by orbital wobble, wave motion, magnetic resonance, seismography, or DNA analysis.

Yet the human mind, which can directly detect very few of these things, can feel Him anyway.

-And what, exactly, is a “religious stirring”?

It’s an emotion, a feeling. We know that ‘feelings’ have to do with chemical interactions within the brain and body (and can likewise be altered with applied chemicals.) IE, “Love” is something like euphoria, endorphins that create a pleasant sensation, which the mind associates with a person, or place- not, for example, a tiny cherub with heart-tipped magic arrows.

The same can be said for ‘hate’ and ‘anger’, ‘happiness’ and so on.

What differentiates this “religious stirring”, and identifies it as an externally-created emotion, as opposed to an internally-created emotion like love or anger?

-So the belief in the supernatural, in magic and miracles, is the Truth?

That’s exactly the point Randi is trying to illustrate. You believe in God, or at least a Divine Presence? Then why don’t you believe in ESP, or psychokenesis, or dowsing? Spirit mediums? Palmistry, astrology, remote viewing or fortune telling?

How about the tinfoil-hat crowd, who can feel the CIA’s secret mind-controlling beam telling them to assassinate Che Guevara?

That’s not a joke- there’s a bunch of people literally wearing tinfoil hats to “block out” what they feel are mind-control rays, or mind-reading computers, or the demons in their TV set. Why is what they feel or sense any more ludicrous than what a theist feels or senses based upon what he’s read in a storybook? (And equally unsupported by fact.)

There’s no difference between “spiritual” and “psychological”- both deal with the thoughts and patterns within the mind. You’re just making the assumption that there’s some external, invisible, all-powerful force out there affecting and influencing those patterns.

And you know what? I agree: It’s called a story.

A great many readers of the Bible, or the Talmud, or the Koran, take it as the truth. Some feel it’s the inerrant, unvarnished Truth, others take it as heavily editorialized, largely metaphorical, but still the Truth at it’s base. (IE, God created the World, life and Salvation after death, etc.)

Those stories, those metaphors, have an enormous influence on your “spiritual” (more correctly, psychological) patterns. That is your God, and yes, can be said to be as real as a good movie (which can affect millions of people) or a good book (read and talked about by millions, influencing each in some degree.)

146

Now for something completely different:

The irony is that those who most fervently believe they’re worshipping the Truth are really only worshipping themselves. Instead of looking beyond themselves to see the Truth that’s right in front of them, they turn away from it and look inward, at what they feel, what they know.

‘Abomination’ is not a sufficiently strong term to describe this.

The world is the mind of God, and the systematic honesty we use to learn about God is called ‘science’. No human beliefs or ideas or ideologies make one jot of difference to the universe. Our understanding of the truth is dynamic and shifting, but the truths we study are timeless. Every tautology, every necessary principles takes us one step closer to comprehension, but the journey can never be complete.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

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Doc Nickel, please tell me how your epistemological argument differs from “Because everything real that I know of can be empirically detected/explained, everything that is real is empirically detectable/explainable.”

148

:rolleyes:

When the Bush administration speaks of winning “hearts and minds” in Iraq, do you think they literally mean the grey matter in Iraqi skulls and the muscle responsible for pumping blood in Iraqi chests? It’s a friggin’ metaphor. **

Faith is belief based on sensation and intuition rather than observation. John Wesley described it as having his heart “strangely warmed.” **

Define “incompatible.” Certainly even today many men of science are also religious. They reconcile their belief in the value of the scientific method with the notion that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Embracing the religious need not entail a rejection of the scientific. **

But you think people of faith are stupid for being people of faith. That sounds pretty close to hatred of religion to me.

It’s also fairly ridiculous. It means the Thomas Mores and Thomas Aquinases and Martin Luthers of this world are stupid. It means Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi are stupid. It means Albert “God does not play dice with the universe” Einstein was stupid. It means our own Polycarp is stupid. That’s a lot of formidible intellects to be calling stupid.**

It makes the same difference as whether faith and religion have done “bad” things. Randi brought it up. I’m just completing the picture.

149

** Yes, but the things they’re metaphors for: the hearts and minds (not that there should be a distinction between them), are they physical or not?

** People are very good at compartmentalizing their beliefs and practices. People are very good at being inconsistent.

Incompatible: definition

** Belief without reason is an abomination. If religion could justify itself, I’d have no problems with it.

Einstein’s beliefs about the Divine were beyond your comprehension. Don’t even bring him into this.

Isaac Newton was a fervent believer in alchemy and Christian mysticism. That was dumb, although he was a genius. MLK Jr. plagarized some of his thesis work. That was dumb, although he was a great man. Thoman Aquinas was a brilliant mind almost totally corrupted by his need to force his intelligence to conform to his faith.

I like Polycarp. I can respect his beliefs (despite knowing perfectly well that they’re not logically justifiable) because he also knows perfectly well that they’re not logically justifiable. He also has a better understanding of the nature of faith than you. He is an admirable opponent.

Randi’s point is that faith cannot be used to justify actions; if so, then we have to accept that those “wrong” actions must have been “right”.

150

I would characterize it as a stirring in the soul rather than the mind, but then you’ll just turn around and say there’s no such thing as a soul and it’s all in our heads anyway. So let me just cut to the chase: yup. **

Again, I say: my, what a cold, sterile world it is you live in.**

All of the latter things operate on the physical plane. They can be tested empirically. God does not (at least not normally), and thus cannot. FTR, I’m not terribly fond of claims of prophecy, spiritual healing, or other “God given” spiritual gifts that affect the material world. Like I said, I think God takes a pretty hands-off approach to man’s physical interactions with the world. **

That’s your assumption, based on the premise that only that which is detectable by physical means must be real. I disagree, but I can’t prove otherwise. I am not troubled by that fact.

Let me put it to you this way: I have never seen anyone talked into the existence of God. Every time I’ve seen an adult turn from non-faith to faith, including former skeptics, it’s been from a deep-seated spiritual experience that moved them in a very fundamental way. You can call that a function of a few synapses firing and various hormonal interactions if you wish, but that would be wholly inadequate for the person involved.

151

This thread is still going???
DCU:There is another important point you keep missing and I will try an illuminate it by stating my own case against religion below.
If there were NO religion in the world, it is safe to say that charitable, artistic, generous adn kind people would all still be so.There are no discernable benefits that religion provides which cannot be had without religion, unless you are opertaing under the unwarranted assumption that there is an afterlife(and a “soul”) during which one’s eternal spiritual existence is benefitted by religious affiliations held during one’s physical life.

Both atheists and theists contribute to charity and create works of art.Relions are also notorious for taking atheist donations adn tax dollars and such and funding construction of hospitals and the like for which they take sole credit adn promptly name after their favorite saint.
Now here is the meat of my argument:Many, many, many, many atrocities are and have been commited that were heavily if not exclusively motivated by religion/religious affiliation.
There have been many atrocities commited by non-religious also…HOWEVER, those atrocities were not motivated by “non-belief”.Stalin did not kill millions of people because they believed in God or because he did not.

Therefore, the net contribution of religion is a NEGATIVE one!

No benefits which cannot be had by non-religious + strong nmotivation and justification for atrocity = negative contribution.

152

** Does God interact with the rest of the things we generally consider to be the “physical world” or not? If not, then by definition God doesn’t exist, and if so, God can be empirically confirmed or rejected.

We place something on the “physical plane” based on its interactions, Dewey. You seem to have trouble grasping this simple fact. Is light physical? Theologians and “physicists” would once have said no. We know better now.

** No, you nitwit! That’s what the concept of ‘real’ means. Something that has no effects on the material world is by definition unreal: there are no consequences of assuming that it exists that are not also the result of assuming it does not exist. The two possibilities are equivalent.

What do you mean, ‘inadequate’? I’m sure the person involved wouldn’t “feel” that explanation was enough – but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? They’re former skeptics – they’ve left the world of rational evaluation and logic behind.

153

I believe man is greater than the sum of his body parts. “Hearts and minds” encompasses more than the firing of brain synapses. **

Then you will be left thinking it an abomination. As I’ve stated repeatedly, God cannot be proven. **

You miss the forest for the trees; I hadn’t intended to delve into the specific theology of every great thinker in the world (and indeed, I won’t for the others). I was making a larger point about calling religious faith “stupid.”

But since you elected to call my comprehension skills into question: Einstein did not believe in a personal God; he believed in a Spinoza-inspired deity that did not meddle in human affairs; he saw the hand of the divine in the ordered quality of the universe. One sentence won’t do him justice, but I think that’s a fair summary.**

I’m not sure how you can distinguish me from Poly in this area. I’ve stated repeatedly that God cannot be proven. I recognize that belief in the deity cannot be logically justified. On that particular ground, my position mimics his. Why is he so “admirable” but I’m not? **

This is simply not so. To say this is to discard centuries of philosophical discourse on God and ethics.

154

Therein lies the problem. You believe that existence is limited to the physical, and that if something isn’t physical, it doesn’t exist. I take a differing view. **

Straw man. I grasp that fact perfectly well. I haven’t placed God on the physical plane, and indeed, have specifically noted that God does not generally muck around with the physical world. **

This is not the Pit. **

I disagree that just because something is not found in the material world that it is necessarily “unreal.” And of course there are consequences depending on whether or not the spiritual exists or does not exist: the latter would mean the absence of spiritual experiences (yes, yes, I know, that’s just brain synapses firing; believe that if you must).

155

I’m going to need a cite for this. Religous hospitals and universities are for the most part private, built out of church coffers. Unless you’re going to count things like Pell grants and Medicare – which of course did not exist when most of the schools and hospitals were founded – I have a hard time seeing the case for them being anything other than fully private institutions. And the bottom line is this: many of those hospitals and universities would not exist but for the efforts of the church.

As for the rest, I’ve addressed it in my previous posts. If the church cannot fully claim the good works done in its name because of the existence of other motivations, then neither can its bad acts be full ascribed to them because other motivations (notably geopolitics and political power) were at play as well.

156

** Fine – whatever it does encompass, is it a physical phenomenon or not?

** Then why in the world should we care about your belief in Him or your claims about His nature?

** It is stupid, regardless of who holds it. Appeals to authority are futile.

** The ordered universe wasn’t a result of the hand of God. It was God. And he devoted most of his life to understanding that transcendent order – through science.

** In short, he neither demands nor expects that his beliefs be respected. He has that essential humility that you lack in spades.

It doesn’t matter who’s said or, or how it’s been said for; the position is incorrect, so it must be abandoned.

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** You just can’t seem to get this into your head: if this phenomenon cannot affect any of the things we consider to be “physical”, then we can’t think about it, discuss it, become aware of it, or interact with it in any way. If it does interact with something we recognize as physical, then it is necessarily physical by extension: that’s how we define physicality.

Discussion of these concepts requires that the “physical” world be affected by our minds. If this phenomenon can affect our minds, then it can affect the material world by extension. And since we define the physical, material world by interactions, this phenomenon is therefore physical.

** “Generally?” Does God interact with the physical world or not? The only straw here is packed between your ears.

We’re not going to get anywhere with this. You have the type of mentality that would demand proof that an immovable object could never meet an irresistable force. This problem is similar: the physical world cannot interact with another, non-physical world, because if it could, it wouldn’t be non-physical.

158

-So you admit that what people interpret as the “soul” or their “spirit” is the same as the “mind”, a psychological definition of the electrochemical processes we call cognition?

-My, what a tiny, little obfuscated mind you have.

“Only God can show you the Mystery and Majesty of the Universe.”

“Only those that submit to Christ can Truly See the Infinite Beauty of Creation”.

What irrepressible, unmitigated horseshit.

Tell me, what does God have to do with this? Or this? God did not paint this, he did not sketch this, he did not hand-machine this telescope.

No God made this grinder, or wrought this table or built this bridge.

He didn’t sketch this or this or this. He did not take this photograph, not did he compose this sonata.

Did God make these? Or these? Or this?

How sad and tiny your life must be to assume only some invisible magic entity can provide beauty or majesty.

-Then how can we know- or even guess- that he exists?

Let me cut to the chase: “We just feel he does in our hearts”, right?

-Then you, like many others against whom Randi rails, are being willfully ignorant. You cannot answer that question, therefore you will not contemplate it.

It’s not so much “religion” that irks Randi so, it’s the willful and intentional ignorance, the deliberate avoidance of certain facets of reality, when that reality contradicts deeply-held beliefs.

How can something that cannot be detected or inferred by any means, be said to exist at all? Without your book-god, would you, on your own, have assumed some all-powerful genie wished the Universe into existence?

-A car crash can be a “spiritual” experience. As can a doctor telling you you have liver cancer. That same doctor telling you you’re going to be a father. Winning a lottery. Seeing a close friend killed by a mugger. Having your house burn down but escaping safely. Watching a really nice sunset, maybe seeing a shooting star at the same time.

These things are spiritual because the person viewing them wants them to be spiritual. I see them as psychological, and we understand the two words to be synonyms.

Like the supporting character in Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang- everything from the coloration of pool balls to the placement of olives in the store is seen as evidence of racism to him. If you want to see God, you can find any number of things your mind will somehow manage to adequately explain as evidence for His existence.

But that doesn’t mean he exists, or even did exist.

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Doc Nickel, to repeat, how does your position differ from:

“I have never encountered anything that cannot be empirically measured or explained, therefore no such thing exists.”

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-Does it?