religion = invention

[Liberal]

@Lissa

My initial post was about the roots and origin of religion in general. Modern religions are quite different-- they have evolved into faiths which are sometimes quite different than the one from which they sprang.

Let me say that I do appreciate your points, and I do appreciate the exemplary manner in which you express them. You are focused and cogent, which relieves the discussion of much unnecessary laboriousness. And I agree with you that religions have evolved. But it is important to examine that statement for possible equivocation. Both the terms “religion” and “evolution” are ambiguous absent a proper context. We have to differentiate some religions from others since they range from the extremes of deeply metaphysical to merely superstitious. Likewise, it is important to understand that the mechanism of biological evolution (natural selection) does not apply necessarily to all evolution. Otherwise, we end up with such blights as Social Darwinism, in which the elimination of people with inferior genes is justified by a broad philosophical interpretation. Not everything that evolves does so because it is the fittest to survive, and in fact, you would be hard pressed to make the argument that defying Rome and making yourself into food for lions was a plan for success. Indeed, it was an accident of happenstance (Constantine’s In hoc signo vinces) that catipulted Christianity to prominence practically fiat ex nihilo. I have no problem conceding that religion may evolve, so long as you are willing to concede that the statement does not necessarily apply to all religion, nor does it necessarily describe a process akin to biological evolution. Besides, it just makes logical sense. For those religions for which the key epistemology is revelation, serendipity is something we would reasonably expect.

I make no claim to be an expert in modern religions. (Hell, I’m not much of an expert in anything, to tell you the truth.) However, I have studied human behavior patterns and history, and I based my initial post on what I have learned about humankind and its weaknesses.

I do understand that, and as you know from your studies, Jesus understood it as well, differentiating, as He did, between those who paid mere lip-service to faith and those who actually practiced faith. There are those who go to church or synogogue or mosque or what-have-you for no purpose other than politics. Some people see religion as an opportunity to socialize or make business contacts. And in fact, for purposes of your list, you may add these sorts of human needs. But your list needs to be qualified as applying only to certain kinds of religion that have formed in certain ways. It seemed to me that it was presented as a one-size-fits-all explanation of how things evolved from the awe and reverence of cavemen admiring a fire to the promise of salvation and eternal life.

It’s difficult to phrase this next comment in a way which you won’t find insulting. Believe me, that is not my intention, because I respect the amount of reflection and thought you seem to have put into examining your faith. Few religious people have such well-thought-out views. I may not agree with them, but I certainly can appreciate that you’re an intelligent individual who does not simply follow a religion’s dictates blindly.

I appreciate that very much. Thank you.

However, it has always seemed mind-boggling to me that intelligent people can believe in a god. Occam’s Razor comes to mind here. Which is more likely: that there’s an invisible deity who has left us no evidence of his existance, or that man invented God to calm his fears, and enforce social order? I believe that it’s the latter.

Due respect, but that is yet another false dilemma. William of Ockham wrote: “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum.” Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. The popular (and rather modern) paraphrase that the simplest explanation is usually the best is a gross malformation and misinterpretation of Ockham’s Razor. The simplest explanation is often wrong. Earth, fire, air, and water is a lot simpler than quantum physics, but falls far short of the entities required. I reject the dichotomy that either God left no evidence or else man created God; they are not even mutually exclusive, and therefore fail even the test of excluded middle. God may be invisible, but that’s rather to be expected of a Being Who is metaphysical in nature. Besides, lots of things are invisible but real. I reject also that He left no evidence (both the verb and the object). Regarding the notion that is mind-boggling to you, once again, God is not concerned with intelligence, but with character. Goodness has nothing to do with how smart a person is. Some of history’s most terrible villains have been brilliant people. God is not knocking on your skull, but on the door to your heart.

There are many reasons for man to invent God, but few reasons for God to invent man.

Only one is necessary. If indeed He values goodness above all other aesthetics, and if indeed love is the facilitation of goodness, then the creation of free moral agents like Himself to be co-facilitators is the perfect solution.

[SentientMeat]

You are handling the theist argument as capably as ever, Lib, so I’ll just pop in solely to try and make physicalism a little less mysterious.

Stars become men and men become stars again.

This is mysterious how?

Entropy reverses

locally

and working energy is restored by physical means not yet known.

By “working energy” you mean Gibbs free energy?

The universe (or multiverse, or du-jour-verse) emerged from a magical singularity

Contains a singularity: our region of the universe “emerges” from a singularity only insofar as a triangle emerges from a point.

despite that there is no observed or logical mechanism by which something definable may emerge from something undefined.

A star can become a black hole, agreed? Within a black hole’s event horizon, a singularity is the only furture, agreed?

It is possible that that which is necessary does not exist.

If physicalism is true, the metaphysical does not exist and ontology is a bunch of words. It is possible that physicalism is false.

you have observed nothing with respect to M-theory and its predictions because there aren’t any.

Yet. Just as it took time for the observable predictions of relativity to be proposed even though the mathematical basis was in place, so it is currently with M Theory. You may be right - it may be that there aren’t any observable consequences which allow its falsification, but I would hold off on that judgement for a while. (Say, a few centuries).

It isn’t predictive, but descriptive in nature. Its purpose is to tie together existing theories into a unified whole.

As was relativity when Einstein first conceived it. It happened to make predictions also, eventually. Give it…err…time.

[Liberal]

@Voyager

A major difference between science and religion is the reaction when a tenet is falsified. Given sufficient confirmation, science scraps the falsified theory or hypothesis and moves on. Religion tends to accrete a protective shell around the irritation, which is what the old natural philosophers did to some extent - think epicycles.

Think hasty generalization. You aren’t even comparing science and religion; you’re comparing the scientific method to what you perceive as a tendency. Your observation about the old naturalists, however, is spot on. Modern atheism did indeed arise from the incapacity of philosophers like Leibnitz to reconcile their objections to Papal interpretations of the universe with their own interpretations of Aristotle’s entelecheia.

As an example, Christianity is based to a large extent on Adam’s sin, since that provides a reason for our sinful nature that does not involve god prewiring us to be sinful. How has mainstream Christianity handled the revelation that Adam never existed? Has there been an upheaval similar to that in early 20th Century physics? I’m not singling out Christianity, Judaism hasn’t reacted any better to the revelation that there was no Exodus, but I don’t think this is quite as deeply engrained.

I have always found the whole notion of original sin and mankind’s fall vicariously through Adam to be frankly just… bizarre. But even more bizarre is the rather neolithic picture you’ve painted of these two Borg collectives that have failed to comprehend the notion of metaphor. Incidentally, if you’re going to decapitalize the name of the deity, you might as well decapitalize such terms as “Exodus”, and save your pinky muscles for other duty.

For creationists, by their own admission, they begin with the faith that the Bible is inerrant, and any evidence to the contrary is mistaken.

As a man who advocates so strongly for science and reason, you can be incredibly imprecise. The point (and the point I’ve been making) is that they find no evidence to the contrary. That is the whole nature of pseudoscience. See this exerpt from Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations. They do not declare evidence to be mistaken; they merely rationalize how the evidence fits into their model. It’s just like a Freudian psychologist. He will not deny that your lip is twitching; he will merely say that it is twitching because you didn’t suck your mother’s teat enough. Or, if you prove him wrong, you sucked it too much!

What I don’t think you’re getting is that I’m not saying that superstitions arise out of faith, but rather they are preserved out of faith.

Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes, they’re preserved out of expedience, or tradition, or even mental deficiency. Suppose you are walking down the street with a man with whom you are about to close a multi-million dollar business deal. He stops abruptly and moves consciously around a ladder to avoid walking under it. Only the most skull-scarred salesman will grab him by the arm and exclaim, “You fool! You are preserving superstition!” The savvy salesman will stop as well, move noticeably away from the ladder, wipe his brow and exclaim, “Whew! That was close. Thanks for the heads up.” Some people buy talismans with the same vagueness of affirmation that they would a rabbit’s foot. And of course, any Las Vegas casino is filled to the brim with expressions of superstition. I don’t think any of these are matters of faith in the same way that a man is willing to walk to his death, believing that he is in the hands of God.

You said that Lissa’s claim that religion was invented to explain things was not true, and that that form of religion was based on induction of supernatural events… It is a bit hard to distinguish between what you are claiming and what you say Lissa is claiming.

I think Lissa understands it just fine. My claim was that her claim was ambiguous and equivocal.

MOP? I was referring to your love theology. which I don’t think anyone has found any consistency in or justification for.

Then you are mistaken. “I respect the amount of reflection and thought you seem to have put into examining your faith. Few religious people have such well-thought-out views. I may not agree with them, but I certainly can appreciate that you’re an intelligent individual who does not simply follow a religion’s dictates blindly.” — Lissa to me

[Liberal]

Sentient, out of respect to you, I will allow you the final word on your philosophy, particularly since it is tangential to the topic and I had used it as a matter of convencience to make a point. I will, however, answer your direct question as to whether I meant Gibbs free energy. And the answer is that I actually meant Helmholtz free energy, derived by A = U - TS = H - PV - TS = G - PV. Even Hawking himself has struggled with reconciling temporal assymetry with a symmetric theory of physics. See this paper, particularly:

Hawking tells us how initially he thought that this proposal favoured the former horn of the above dilemma: I thought at first that the no boundary condition did indeed imply that disorder would decrease in the contracting phase.' He changed his mind, however, in response to objections from two colleagues: I realized that I had made a mistake: the no boundary condition implied that disorder would in fact continue to increase during the contraction. The thermodynamic and psychological arrows of time would not reverse when the universe begins to contract or inside black holes.’

This change of mind enables Hawking to avoid the apparent difficulties associated with reversing the thermodynamic arrow of time. What is not clear is how he avoids the alternative difficulties associated with not reversing the thermodynamic arrow of time. That is, Hawking does not explain how his proposal can imply that entropy is low near the Big Bang, without equally implying that it is low near the Big Crunch. The problem is to get a temporally asymmetric consequence from a symmetric physical theory. Hawking suggests that he has done it, but doesn’t explain how. Readers are entitled to feel a little dissatisfied. As it stands, Hawking’s account reads a bit like a suicide verdict on a man who has been stabbed in the back: not an impossible feat, perhaps, but we’d like to know how it was done!

[SentientMeat]

Ah, you’re speaking in terms of a cosmological scale, or in the vicinity of singularities.

In that case, I’ll happily admit that there are all kinds of mysteries still to solve. Indeed, I rejoice that the stardust congregated as “me” at this precise point in time and space, when so many mysteries have been solved but so many remain to blow our offally little minds in future. How dull, to be born when it has all been figured out!

How joyous, also, to find that theists such as yourself can find these new developments as exciting as I.

[Voyager]

@Liberal

Think hasty generalization. You aren’t even comparing science and religion; you’re comparing the scientific method to what you perceive as a tendency.

I was imprecise in use of the term science, I’ll admit. I’m not quite sure how to define it, but this purpose it is more than just the scientific method, which is a good high level description of what goes on, but does not explain the details. Ideally when a scientist finds a hypothesis to be falsified, he/she will immediately abandon it. In practice what falsification means is sometimes not clear in detail, and many scientists wish that one more tweak of a hypothesis will make it work. They’ll agree that falsified hypotheses should be abandoned, just not that their’s is falsified yet.

I have always found the whole notion of original sin and mankind’s fall vicariously through Adam to be frankly just… bizarre. But even more bizarre is the rather neolithic picture you’ve painted of these two Borg collectives that have failed to comprehend the notion of metaphor.

Why bizarre? Because a deity wouldn’t do that? As for the second part, I am not saying that all of Christianity doesn’t get it as a metaphor. From what I have read of the Catholic view of evolution, they do see the story as a metaphor, but have assigned the fall to some point in the evolution of man. I admit I don’t quite get where they have put it. The point is that once you have identified it as a metaphor, its power as motivation for the state of humanity is gone - it becomes descriptive, not prescriptive. Some Christian religions don’t accept it as a metaphor yet.

The reason I chose another example for Judaism is that, in my education at least, the Adam and Eve story was presented as an explanation for the unhappy state of man - having to work, having pain in childbirth, having snakes bite our feet. I don’t remember any part of the Yom Kippur service where I atoned for Adam’s sin - I atoned for my own. The realization that the Fall never happened, and childbirth is painful for evolutionary reasons, doesn’t affect the core of Judaism at all. However eliminating the choice that made us all sinners, and thus required a savior, seems to strike more fundamentally at the core of Christianity. I added the other example so no one would think I was singling out Christianity. I suspect most religions have similar beliefs which have been falsified without changing core dogma.

As a man who advocates so strongly for science and reason, you can be incredibly imprecise. The point (and the point I’ve been making) is that they find no evidence to the contrary. That is the whole nature of pseudoscience. See this exerpt from Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations. They do not declare evidence to be mistaken; they merely rationalize how the evidence fits into their model. It’s just like a Freudian psychologist. He will not deny that your lip is twitching; he will merely say that it is twitching because you didn’t suck your mother’s teat enough. Or, if you prove him wrong, you sucked it too much!

I totally agree with you (and Popper) about Freud. We’ve gotten to discussing the psychological processes of creationists now. We need to explain why they twist some evidence to meet their model and consider other evidence (like dating ) to be mistaken. (Or at least an almost universally accepted interpretation of evidence.) They might be insane, or they might be stupid, but I don’t think that is where the evidence points. They have agreed ahead of time, in writing, what the answer is. I can’t prove this, and I would bet a creationist will not admit it, but that’s the way I’m betting.

I don’t think any of these are matters of faith in the same way that a man is willing to walk to his death, believing that he is in the hands of God.

The set of superstitions we were discussing were those invented to explain the inexplicable, and which are preserved when the inexplicable gets explained. I agree that the ones you mention are not preserved out of faith, but by cultural habit, and possibly by selective memory of cases where violating the superstition led to problems.

[Liberal]

@Voyager

I was imprecise in use of the term science, I’ll admit. I’m not quite sure how to define it, but this purpose it is more than just the scientific method, which is a good high level description of what goes on, but does not explain the details.

Speaking for myself, it helps to understand it by examining Popper’s own differentiation between science and pseudoscience. The scientific method arises as a means to answer Popper’s key question: is there any way to prove this hypothesis false? A science will have a way; a pseudoscience will not. Thus, Einstein’s claim can be proved false by constructing an experiment to see whether light bends around a distant star. But Marx’s claim cannot be proved false. Suppose there are two men who are polar opposites — a Marxist and a capitalist — both reading the same newspaper story about a company that has gone bankrupt. The Marxist declares that the event fits his hypothesis that capitalism is unable to sustain an economy, but the capitalist declares that the event fits his hypothesis that a free-market will seek to eliminate economic disequilibria. It’s a wigwam. It’s a teepee. It’s too tense. Everything fits or can be made to fit. The idea is that science does not attempt to find what fits, but rather what does not fit. When a (good) scientist conducts an experiment, he is not seeking to prove that he is right, but that he is wrong.

I realize that some people might, given some of what I’ve said out of context, believe that I hold science in contempt. And I can understand that, since I’m always pointing out that it is not superior to other epistemologies. But that is not a condemnation; it is an affirmation. Science (i.e., the scientific method) is no good only when it is used as an inappropriate tool for truth-seeking. But when used appropriately, it is the best possible tool. That does not denegrate science, but merely recognizes it for what it is. No epistemology is all good all the time. Deductive logic, for example, is woefully inadequate if you want to decide how to invest your disposable income. That’s because free economies behave irratically based on human whim. I hear people dance all around what impresses me about science, but seldom hear the very thing itself.

What’s so beautiful about science is that it doesn’t prove anything true; it only proves things false! Even if an hypothesis is tested a hundred times, and a hundred times the results come out as expected, nothing has been proved true. E=mc[sup]2[/sup], from special relativity, is not true because of findings from scientific experiments; it is true because of mathematical syllogisms. The scientific method is a form of induction — it reasons from the particular to the general. Math is the opposite. It is a form of deduction, reasoning from the general to the particular. General relativity is true, not because of anything science has found, but because calculus works. Even examining every star in the universe, you could not prove Einstein’s general relativity true because all you know is that the results always fit. In other words, you’ve proved only that his hypothesis holds for all stars you have observed. You have proved nothing about the ontology of stars — in other words, it is still possible that a star might come to exist sometime in the future, or existed in the past, or even exists now but was “misbehaving” during your observation, that violates your hypothesis. But as a scientist, you are not interested in what fits; you’re interested in what doesn’t fit.

Some religions might believe the earth is balanced on the back of a turtle. So what? All it means is that those portions of their religion fall under the category of superstition, and that is the point I was making to Lissa. I often hear that eventually, science will render God irrelevant, if not outright nonexistent. By examining the physical universe, the argument goes, we will eventually know how everything works and will have no need for God. But this betrays not only a Neanderthal understanding of religion, but of science as well. Religion is not science, and ought not to claim to be. But the converse holds as well. Science is the wrong tool for examining religion. Therefore, it is a logical fallacy to proscribe to religion what applies to science. In other words, no matter what science discovers, religion can adapt. You found out how gravity works? Well, isn’t it a glory to God that He constructed such a beautiful and coherent law! You found out how the universe emerged from a singularity? My, what a wise God! Man evolved? Great plan! We can make life in a test tube? Indeed He made us in His image, having all His powers!

Creationism is ridiculous because it attempts to make religion into a science — the converse of what (poor) scientists do when they examine religion. It works just like Adlerism, Freudism, or Marxism. Sharply defined strata in the Grand Canyon? This is what you would expect from a world-wide deluge of mile-high tsunamis! Taxanomic similarity among species? God was efficient in constructing His patterns! You’ve seen a galaxy a million lightyears away? Of course! God made the trail of photons from there to here! There is nothting you can say, nothing you can do, no data that you can offer that they cannot fit into their hypotheses. That’s because they’re not trying to prove anything false. They’re trying to prove things true. That makes them a pseudoscience.

[Voyager]

@Liberal

Speaking for myself, it helps to understand it by examining Popper’s own differentiation between science and pseudoscience. The scientific method arises as a means to answer Popper’s key question: is there any way to prove this hypothesis false? A science will have a way; a pseudoscience will not. Thus, Einstein’s claim can be proved false by constructing an experiment to see whether light bends around a distant star. But Marx’s claim cannot be proved false. Suppose there are two men who are polar opposites — a Marxist and a capitalist — both reading the same newspaper story about a company that has gone bankrupt. The Marxist declares that the event fits his hypothesis that capitalism is unable to sustain an economy, but the capitalist declares that the event fits his hypothesis that a free-market will seek to eliminate economic disequilibria. It’s a wigwam. It’s a teepee. It’s too tense. Everything fits or can be made to fit. The idea is that science does not attempt to find what fits, but rather what does not fit. When a (good) scientist conducts an experiment, he is not seeking to prove that he is right, but that he is wrong.

<snip by Voyager>
Creationism is ridiculous because it attempts to make religion into a science — the converse of what (poor) scientists do when they examine religion. It works just like Adlerism, Freudism, or Marxism. Sharply defined strata in the Grand Canyon? This is what you would expect from a world-wide deluge of mile-high tsunamis! Taxanomic similarity among species? God was efficient in constructing His patterns! You’ve seen a galaxy a million lightyears away? Of course! God made the trail of photons from there to here! There is nothting you can say, nothing you can do, no data that you can offer that they cannot fit into their hypotheses. That’s because they’re not trying to prove anything false. They’re trying to prove things true. That makes them a pseudoscience.

I snipped the middle of your post because I agree with it 100%. But the problem with creationism is this - how do you distinguish between a hypothesis that is pseudoscience because it is unfalsifiable, and one which is pseudoscience because its adherents do a Mary Queen of Scots bit and refuse to admit that they are dead? Religious creationism is the former. An acceptable answer to all contrary evidence is that God did it that way - whether creating starlight in flight, hiding bones, or whatever. Scientific creationism, the kind they try to teach in schools as being a valid scientific hypothesis, can’t pull miracles out of its hat like this. It is falsifiable, and I’m sure we all agree that it has been falsified over and over. So why don’t creationists admit it? Unless you say they are stupid or insane (I wouldn’t) the only answer is that they really believe in the first, unfalsifiable, hypothesis, but pretend to be pushing the second, scientific, one in order to get around the Constitution. That’s why I say that faith, not honest disagreement about evidence, is driving them.

So how does real science get around the problem of people adjusting a hypothesis to the data? You can plot a curve of high enough order to any set of points! The answer is that your hypothesis must predict something. That’s what the experiment you refer to is doing - it’s checking if a specific prediction made by the hypothis is true. Theory of Experiments teaches you that you need to reduce the number of variables to make what is being tested clear. The relativity example you gave is one of a specific prediction.

I’d say that all macroeconomics suffers in a greater or lesser degree from the problem you identified in Marxism. (Behavioral economicists seem to be doing real experiments, so I wouldn’t accuse all economics of this sin.) There are so many uncontrolled variables that you cannot disprove anything. Consider the hypothesis that cutting taxes improves the economy more than raising taxes. We’ve conducted this experiment, since Clinton raised them and Bush lowered them. Obviously no one is convinced by the results of this experiment, because there are so many uncontrolled variable that can explain the results rather than having to reject a dearly held hypothesis. It could be the internet, the Reagan tax cuts, 9/11. Is this any different from blaming the failure of the Communist five year plans on forty years of abnormally bad weather?

[Liberal]

We’re so close to agreement, Voyager, that any further argument on my part would be nothing more than minor nitpicking. I think I believe I understand what you’re saying about the differentiation between religious Creationism and so-called scientific Creationism. And I couldn’t agree more with what you said about macroeconomics, which is the main reason that I am an Austrian. I’m glad we worked out our differences.

[Liberal]

Wow, that was strange. My post #28 actually followed Voyager’s post #29. The server change apparently messed up the time stamps. Let’s see where this one ends up.

[Liberal]

Far out.

[Voyager]

@Liberal

Wow, that was strange. My post #28 actually followed Voyager’s post #29. The server change apparently messed up the time stamps. Let’s see where this one ends up.

Hmm. The post I’m responding to here is #29 for me, and mine was #31.

Glad we agree. And now that the SDMB has shown that causality can be violated, I’m off to work on my faster than light spaceship.

[Voyager]

@Voyager

Hmm. The post I’m responding to here is #29 for me, and mine was #31.

Glad we agree. And now that the SDMB has shown that causality can be violated, I’m off to work on my faster than light spaceship.

I see. My post has been posted 1 hour 30 minutes from now - in the future.

Admins - now Mickey’s big hand is on the …

[MikeCollins]

@Voyager

I see. My post has been posted 1 hour 30 minutes from now - in the future.

Admins - now Mickey’s big hand is on the …

My hands are right here young man. Right by my pockets. In the future. Or so a little birdy tells me.

[MikeCollins]

Of course if this is ever straightened out (assuming it is), some of us are gonna look really crazy.

[Lissa]

@Liberal

Not everything that evolves does so because it is the fittest to survive, and in fact, you would be hard pressed to make the argument that defying Rome and making yourself into food for lions was a plan for success.

Perhaps, but it’s a peculiar irony that martyrs tend to attract converts-- witness modern suicide bombers. Some scholars have speculated that part of Christianity’s rise can be attributed to the bravery and attitudes of the Christians when facing death.

Indeed, it was an accident of happenstance (Constantine’s In hoc signo vinces) that catipulted Christianity to prominence practically fiat ex nihilo. I have no problem conceding that religion may evolve, so long as you are willing to concede that the statement does not necessarily apply to all religion, nor does it necessarily describe a process akin to biological evolution. Besides, it just makes logical sense. For those religions for which the key epistemology is revelation, serendipity is something we would reasonably expect.

Perhaps I should have worded it differently. Religions change over time, branching off into new faiths, and adapting to fit new circumstances. Not all of these changes are positive (in an evolutionary sense).

No matter how much they have changed, they still serve much the same purposes in our society. Religion does not exist just as a means of worship of dieties, but to fulfil a social need.

Due respect, but that is yet another false dilemma. William of Ockham wrote: “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum.” Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. The popular (and rather modern) paraphrase that the simplest explanation is usually the best is a gross malformation and misinterpretation of Ockham’s Razor. The simplest explanation is often wrong. Earth, fire, air, and water is a lot simpler than quantum physics, but falls far short of the entities required.

I apologize. I tend to oversimplify when I’m posting here, and I often get hit for it. Realize though, that in my real life, most people I talk to would think that Ockham’s Razor is a new shaving product.

I reject the dichotomy that either God left no evidence or else man created God; they are not even mutually exclusive, and therefore fail even the test of excluded middle.

I have seen no evidence for a god despite years of earnest searching. (Once upon a time I yearned to be able to believe.)

The two conclusions may not flow into one another logically, but I do believe that both are correct.

God may be invisible, but that’s rather to be expected of a Being Who is metaphysical in nature.

But why? Surely if He’s all-powerful, he could be visible. Why play games with humanity?

Besides, lots of things are invisible but real.

But generally detectable. I can’t see the air, but I can feel it if I wave my hand quickly. I can’t see distant planets, but scientists can detect their presence through their gravitational pull on nearby stars. I might not be able to see a clear glass window, but I can touch it. The presence of a deity is not detectable by any known means.

Regarding the notion that is mind-boggling to you, once again, God is not concerned with intelligence, but with character. Goodness has nothing to do with how smart a person is. Some of history’s most terrible villains have been brilliant people.

It seems to me that the tests of faith for religious belief were specifically designed to weed out the intelligent. While I’m not saying all believers are stupid, it is much easier for a person of low intelligence to believe than for a smart one. Smart ones simply have too many questions for which there are no satisfactory answers.

Some faiths require, for example, that the Bible be taken literally. I simply cannot fathom how anyone of even average intelligence could do so without intentionally silencing their minds.

God is not knocking on your skull, but on the door to your heart.

He won’t get very far that way. I do not make decisions based on emotion alone. As much as something may appeal to my heart, my head must be satisfied first.

Only one is necessary. If indeed He values goodness above all other aesthetics, and if indeed love is the facilitation of goodness, then the creation of free moral agents like Himself to be co-facilitators is the perfect solution.

How so? If God wanted man to be good, then the last thing He should have granted to us was free will. Humans are cruel, selfish, greedy, self-absorbed, and violent. Some people strive to make themselves better, valuing the concepts of altruism, generosity and kindness, but while most folks would say that they’re good people, few really are.

[Liberal]

@Lissa

Perhaps, but it’s a peculiar irony that martyrs tend to attract converts-- witness modern suicide bombers. Some scholars have speculated that part of Christianity’s rise can be attributed to the bravery and attitudes of the Christians when facing death.

I won’t even ask for a cite for that, since there are so many scholars with so many different opinions about Christ and Christianity. My own opinion on that matter is that Emperor Diocletian’s famously cruel treatment of Christians, bordering on obsession, and culminating in a failed all-out War on Christianity with the bizarre result that his own wife and children converted, certainly was his undoing. But then again, he was merely the last in a long line of nutjob Roman dictators. Constantine immediately followed him, and his conversion was as likely for political expediency as anything else. I mean, the symbolism alone was compelling: One God, one emperor. That sort of thing. Plus, the Christian values of duty, humility, and deference to earthly powers were eminently useful to his purposes.

Perhaps I should have worded it differently. Religions change over time, branching off into new faiths, and adapting to fit new circumstances. Not all of these changes are positive (in an evolutionary sense).

Yeah, but perceptions in general change over time. There’s no real ammunition in it for you. There’s no reason that God’s salvation of man cannot be a process begun by some event. He is, after all, eternal. Whether it takes one minute or a billion trillion years going through manifold mutations is quite irrelevant. From His eternal perspective, all of space-time has simultaneously not yet begun, is ongoing, and is finished — all at once.

No matter how much they have changed, they still serve much the same purposes in our society. Religion does not exist just as a means of worship of dieties, but to fulfil a social need.

Actually, that’s part of what I was saying to you. The topic of religion is like the topic of philosophy. It’s so broad that it is important to avoid equivocation where possible. My own religion, for example, garners me no social advantage whatsoever. I seldom attend church, and when I share my faith here, I’m often seen as a lunatic and renegade, despite your own generous assessment.

I apologize. I tend to oversimplify when I’m posting here, and I often get hit for it. Realize though, that in my real life, most people I talk to would think that Ockham’s Razor is a new shaving product.

No problem.

I have seen no evidence for a god despite years of earnest searching. (Once upon a time I yearned to be able to believe.)

I understand completely. Been there. Done that.

The two conclusions may not flow into one another logically, but I do believe that both are correct.

The problem is that there are other possibilities. For example, what you said was the equivalent of “the ice-cream is either chocolate or melted.”

But why? Surely if He’s all-powerful, he could be visible. Why play games with humanity?

It’s a game in that sense only if visibility is important. But if, as I assert, God is all about the faciliation of goodness, what is there to look at? As Jesus teaches, a tree is known by its fruit. A thing is morally good if it is edifying. Goodness creates and builds up; evil destroys and decays.

But generally detectable. I can’t see the air, but I can feel it if I wave my hand quickly. I can’t see distant planets, but scientists can detect their presence through their gravitational pull on nearby stars. I might not be able to see a clear glass window, but I can touch it. The presence of a deity is not detectable by any known means.

It is to me. I detect Him in the bloodshot eyes of a beggar, in the heart of a loving atheist, and in the innocence of a crying infant. Jesus teaches that we all are God. The technical way to put it in logic is that God is a tautology. Every statement proves a tautology true. And God says that the whole of creation is a testament to Him.

It seems to me that the tests of faith for religious belief were specifically designed to weed out the intelligent. While I’m not saying all believers are stupid, it is much easier for a person of low intelligence to believe than for a smart one. Smart ones simply have too many questions for which there are no satisfactory answers.

I’d say that depends on what it is they believe in. Sometimes, even smart people just don’t ask the right questions. And sometimes, as is the case with morality, intelligence is simply not relevant. Since you seem fond of either-or scenarios, let me present you one. Which would you prefer as a roommate if your choice was between only two: a rather dull-witted man who is honest and kind, or a brilliant academian who steals your jewelry and tortures your cat?

Some faiths require, for example, that the Bible be taken literally. I simply cannot fathom how anyone of even average intelligence could do so without intentionally silencing their minds.

Yeah, but you’re pretty smart. At least, you seem so to me. Let me ask you why, if what matters is morality, of what significance is the position of someone on an intelligence scale? How smart do you have to be to hand out food to the poor, visit people in hospitals or prisons, or express some kindness to a stranger on a bus?

He won’t get very far that way. I do not make decisions based on emotion alone. As much as something may appeal to my heart, my head must be satisfied first.

If you had looked at the definitions I linked you to, you would have seen that I did not include those that had to do with emotion. Morality is not an emotional issue, but a spiritual one.

How so? If God wanted man to be good, then the last thing He should have granted to us was free will. Humans are cruel, selfish, greedy, self-absorbed, and violent. Some people strive to make themselves better, valuing the concepts of altruism, generosity and kindness, but while most folks would say that they’re good people, few really are.

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” — Jesus

[Lissa]

@Liberal

Yeah, but perceptions in general change over time. There’s no real ammunition in it for you. There’s no reason that God’s salvation of man cannot be a process begun by some event. He is, after all, eternal. Whether it takes one minute or a billion trillion years going through manifold mutations is quite irrelevant. From His eternal perspective, all of space-time has simultaneously not yet begun, is ongoing, and is finished — all at once.

And this is where we arrive at a fundamental difference of opinion. I do not see religion’s changes as part of some overriding master plan, but merely as adaptions within a social ritual to try to keep it relevant.

The problem is that there are other possibilities. For example, what you said was the equivalent of “the ice-cream is either chocolate or melted.”

I see my error in this.

It’s a game in that sense only if visibility is important.

It’s important for many reasons. Would a god care whether or not people believe in him? If yes, then why “hide” from humanity? Wouldn’t humanity recieve immense benefits from being able to know for sure that there really is a god?

If the answer to why He choses to remain invisible is that He wants to “test” whether or not His people will believe despite a lack of evidence, then the test seems hard-wired to weed out the intelligent and skeptical-- his crem de la crem.

Is believing in Him a requisite for salvation? If so, such a cruel trick to play on those who have skeptical minds but golden hearts!

It is to me. I detect Him in the bloodshot eyes of a beggar, in the heart of a loving atheist, and in the innocence of a crying infant. Jesus teaches that we all are God. The technical way to put it in logic is that God is a tautology. Every statement proves a tautology true. And God says that the whole of creation is a testament to Him.

But I’m sure you can see how my reaction to this would be, “But that’s not good enough!”

Right before we moved from our old house, something happened to me. All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by an incredible sense of fear. I had to squeeze my eyes shut because I was incredibly afraid of what I’d see if I opened them. I’ve seen this described in books and TLC documentaries of dubious nature as an experience with a ghost.

My emotional senses would heartily agree that I must have been in some kind of malevolent presence. My brain tells me that it was a panic attack. I cannot use my experience as evidence for ghosts’ existance despite having an intense emotional reaction.

Since you seem fond of either-or scenarios, let me present you one. Which would you prefer as a roommate if your choice was between only two: a rather dull-witted man who is honest and kind, or a brilliant academian who steals your jewelry and tortures your cat?

My first choice would be neither, but forced to chose, I’d pick the dull-witted, kind person.

Yeah, but you’re pretty smart. At least, you seem so to me.

Boy, do I have you fooled!

Let me ask you why, if what matters is morality, of what significance is the position of someone on an intelligence scale? How smart do you have to be to hand out food to the poor, visit people in hospitals or prisons, or express some kindness to a stranger on a bus?

Actually, I do think that intelligence plays a major role in morality, but I’ll admit that this opinon stems from mainly antectdotal evidence. What I have seen is that intelligent people tend to see a larger picture and realize the greater impact of their actions. Less intelligent people tend to think mainly of their immediate circumstances.

Not to get onto politics, but the intelligent people that I have known tend to be more liberal in their thinking. In the instance of giving to the poor, many of them see it that charity not only helps the poor have a better life, but also keeps them from needing to resort to crime in order to survive.

Intelligent people can be less succeptible to impulse. Many crimes and cruel actions are done because the person didn’t stop to think of the implications or consequences. Bright people are mor likely to take time to think about the possibilities before acting (and sometimes get accused of taking too long to decide.)

So, yes, I do think intelligence and morality are intertwined. Not that dull-witted people can’t be good, of course. Probably, dim folks are good because they never thought to be bad!

[quote]
Morality is not an emotional issue, but a spiritual one.

I don’t necessarily agree with this. I am one of the least spiritual people you’d ever meet, but I try my damndest to be a better person every day-- to the point where it sometimes gets annoying to others, actually.

I’m not trying to collect spiritual Brownie Points, nor even to get temporal rewards. I do it because of my belief in integrity and honor.

[Liberal]

@Lissa

And this is where we arrive at a fundamental difference of opinion. I do not see religion’s changes as [A\ part of some overriding master plan, but merely as ** adaptions within a social ritual to try to keep it relevant.

As I keep pointing out, it’s the “merely” that’s a problem. You will not allow for options other than an arbitrary few. Note that I’ve annotated your quote with markers in order to highlight what I see as the fundamental difference between us. You allow only for B. But I allow for the possibility of B, and of A as well. You have defined religion so narrowly (and so contrary to the ordinary definition cited previously) that you may as well just call what you’re talking about “sociology”. You have disregarded the theological aspects of religion altogether, the objectively analytical string mentioned earilier that ties them all together. It is understandable that, as an atheist, you might tend to do so. To you, it all might look like superstition; I know it did to me. But even atheist philosophers, like Suber, understand that religions range from the deeply metaphysical to the merely superstitious. You are blocking out all but a small part of the spectrum. It is like writing up a list of commonalities about particle radiation by describing only visible light, while ignoring everything from gamma rays to ultraviolet.

Would a god care whether or not people believe in him? If yes, then why “hide” from humanity? Wouldn’t humanity recieve immense benefits from being able to know for sure that there really is a god?

Are X-Rays “hiding” from you? Even the strictest empricists do not rely solely on sight. If they did, they would be fooled by all sorts of optical illusions. Visibility is not a necessary entity for existence, and you yourself have cited Ockham’s Razor. If you intend to invoke it, then apply it uniformly.

If the answer to why He choses to remain invisible is that He wants to “test” whether or not His people will believe despite a lack of evidence, then the test seems hard-wired to weed out the intelligent and skeptical-- his crem de la crem.

You have yet to show why a metaphysical entity ought to be visible. It is almost as if you are incapable of conceiving the God I have described to you, and instead are fixated on the notion of a wizard behind the curtain who ought to step out and be seen.

Is believing in Him a requisite for salvation? If so, such a cruel trick to play on those who have skeptical minds but golden hearts!

I’m going to ask you to search my recent posts for the answer to that. Search for this: “An atheist who loves is close to God, while a theist who does not is far away from Him.”

My first choice would be neither, but forced to chose, I’d pick the dull-witted, kind person.

Of course you would. In certain matters, character is more important than intellect, which is the point I’ve been making each time.

Actually, I do think that intelligence plays a major role in morality, but I’ll admit that this opinon stems from mainly antectdotal evidence. What I have seen is that intelligent people tend to see a larger picture and realize the greater impact of their actions. Less intelligent people tend to think mainly of their immediate circumstances.

My own anectdotal evidence tells me that intelligent people tend to rationalize a larger picture. They tend to judge themselves by their own intentions, but others by their behavior.

Not to get onto politics, but the intelligent people that I have known tend to be more liberal in their thinking. In the instance of giving to the poor, many of them see it that charity not only helps the poor have a better life, but also keeps them from needing to resort to crime in order to survive.

There is nothing morally wrong with resorting to crime “in order to survive”. People can’t help having an amygdala. Intelligent people resort to crime in order to be richer, more powerful, or even smarter. They will steal, murder, and manipulate just like everyone else. But you have drawn another false dichotomy, tying intelligence together with poverty and crime. The prisons are not 80% black and Latino because of intelligence, but because of powerlessness. Please consider that agriculture is now a science, and smart people already know how to feed every hungry person on earth. It isn’t their intelligence that is stopping them.

Intelligent people can be less succeptible to impulse. Many crimes and cruel actions are done because the person didn’t stop to think of the implications or consequences. Bright people are mor likely to take time to think about the possibilities before acting (and sometimes get accused of taking too long to decide.)

Quite honestly, you sound a lot like this guy.

I’m not trying to collect spiritual Brownie Points, nor even to get temporal rewards. I do it because of my belief in integrity and honor.

But isn’t that what I’ve been explaining in some detail? God holds goodness to be an aesthetic above all others, worthy of adoration in its own right, and so do those who follow Him. Once again, whether one accepts or rejects God in his mind is irrelevant. What matters is what is in the heart, and God discerns the difference: “'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” — Jesus (Matthew 15:9)

[Lissa]

@Liberal

To you, it all might look like superstition; I know it did to me. But even atheist philosophers, like Suber, understand that religions range from the deeply metaphysical to the merely superstitious. You are blocking out all but a small part of the spectrum. It is like writing up a list of commonalities about particle radiation by describing only visible light, while ignoring everything from gamma rays to ultraviolet.

It does all seem the same to me, I’ll admit. It seems no more ridiculous to believe that all of creation came from a cosmic egg than to believe there’s an invisible man in the sky.

It matters very little to me how complex a religion is-- it all boils down to a belief in the supernatural. Believing in a god is no different, in my opinion, than beieving in ghosts or ESP or leprechauns. It may have a more noble purpose, but in the end, it’s believing in something that isn’t there.

Are X-Rays “hiding” from you?

No, because I can hold a piece of film in front of them and see their results. I may not be able to see x-rays with my eyes, but I can use a scientific test to show their existance. God has eluded all tests.

Even the strictest empricists do not rely solely on sight. If they did, they would be fooled by all sorts of optical illusions. Visibility is not a necessary entity for existence, and you yourself have cited Ockham’s Razor. If you intend to invoke it, then apply it uniformly.

I did not say that visibility was the end-all-be-all of proof of something’s existance. That’s why I mentioned distant planets which can only be detected by measuring their gravitational pull on nearby bodies.

There are a myriad of methods of detecting that which cannot be seen by the eye. God has eluded all of them. He doesn’t have to.

You have yet to show why a metaphysical entity ought to be visible. It is almost as if you are incapable of conceiving the God I have described to you, and instead are fixated on the notion of a wizard behind the curtain who ought to step out and be seen.

Not necessarily be seen but simply to be shown to exist. If He prefers invisibility, so be it, but there ought to be some way of being able to detect His presence. He seems to defy all the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

My own anectdotal evidence tells me that intelligent people tend to rationalize a larger picture. They tend to judge themselves by their own intentions, but others by their behavior.

Quite so. And we all know with what the road to hell is paved. Howver, I do believe intelligent people put more thought into moral questions. People have always criticized liberals for failing to come up with a single point of view towards social issues. I tend to think that this is actually a good thing-- though progress is slowed, it’s best to debate and argue an issue to examine all possible aspects before action is taken.

But you have drawn another false dichotomy, tying intelligence together with poverty and crime. The prisons are not 80% black and Latino because of intelligence, but because of powerlessness.

I did not mean to imply that criminals are of lower intelligence. My husband works in the correctional system, and I know that the reasons that people resort to crime can be endlessly varied. My point was that intelligent people tend to be less succeptible to impulse crime.

Please consider that agriculture is now a science, and smart people already know how to feed every hungry person on earth. It isn’t their intelligence that is stopping them.

Greed is what is stopping them. I can’t explain it, because the concept of knowingly allowing people to starve when it is within your power to feed them, but refraining because you want to make another million is incredibly foreign to me.