And I went to a Catholic school and we were taught nothing but Christian philosophy. There, your point is refuted.
Since my first post in response to this was rather hasty, let me try again.
The first question I might ask is, what authority do you have to tell me what my church says? I go to my church. You don’t. You don’t even know what church I go to. How can you lecture me about what happens in my own church?
This might sound like me just being snarky, but it’s actually exactly my point. Here you are upbraiding me for not considering enough sources of information. Yet you’re also making a statement with no information at all. Your beliefs on this particular issue are not based on Confucius or John Locke, but rather on something you just made up.
So then the question needs to be asked, where’s your evidence for your claims? So you say that a Christian “trashes all of any of that which conflicts with something he told was absolutely true since he was a child.” I’m asking for some evidence to back up that claim. You also assume that a non-religious person happily exposes himself to “a lot of conflicting ideas”. I’m asking for some evidence to back up that as well.
When a Baptist Preacher like Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a persuasive essay he’d make reference to all kinds of sources, ranging from the Old Testament to the New Testament to medieval saints to Socrates to Buddhist mystics to half a dozen others. Contrast that to Daniel Dennett, who mainly quotes from his fellow academics. King lets all of humanity have its say, while Dennett only lets a tiny fraction of the human race speak.
Why? It’s entirely obviously. A materialist must believe that almost all people for almost all of history devoted their lives to absurd superstitions, and that most study until recently was spent on nonexistent things. Hence the very nature of the beliefs require that most of the human race get shut out. It is materialism that is absolute. Christianity allows for endless intellectual growth.
Hardly. First, “materialism” is RIGHT - the people of the past were grossly incorrect on any number of issues, not just religion. And, in fact, a willingness to admit that the past was wrong is an absolute requirement for significant intellectual growth; otherwise, you can’t get past their errors.
As for Christianity, it is fundamentally hostile to intellectual growth, and reason in general. Such things are inimical to it. It’s based on nothing but hearsay, contradicts observed reality, and makes little internal sense. It can’t support “endless intellectual growth”, because there’s nothing to grow on. It’s intellectually barren. Barren and poisoned.
Well, actually, I recommend a great series called Engineering an Empire about a wide variety of impressive building projects throughout history. Sure, the ancients bought into a lot of superstition, but they still knew how to build the aqueduct.
Since broad generalizations seem to really bother you perhaps you should resist the temptation to make them.
I agree Christianity and religion in general leaves plenty of room for intellectual growth. There are a lot of brilliant very keen minds among believers. Keep this in mind as well. Nothing about intellectual capacity, IQ, titles and degrees. scholastic accolades, adds one iota of evidence or credibility to an opinion that’s not founded in reason and factual evidence. Brilliant people from King to Dawkins have their own bias and preconceived notions. It’s always interesting to me to see highly educated and intelligent people display their less rational side while trying to defend or justify their opinions as if they’re facts.
Do all of those sources have the same intellectual value?
This is just more assertion without evidence.
First you assert that materialists shut out anything or anyone associated with belief. This is quite obviously wrong. It is the belief itself that is shunned, as even the slightest depth of knowledge of the history of science would tell you. Mendel’s genetic experiments come to mind. If you were right, then all of the knowledge gained by his experiments would be disallowed by materialists. It obviously isn’t.
Second you assert that Christianity, unlike materialism, allows for not just intellectual growth, but endless intellectual growth. This is an odd assertion, given that belief is about as close as you can get to the opposite of knowledge. In matters of god, there can be no growth of knowledge, because there is no knowledge in the first place. There can be knowledge of the history of a Christianity, but the beliefs of Christianity have produced no knowledge. Also, Christianity places emphasis on accepting god’s word and leaving it at that. The belief that the church/bible/god are correct and have the final word discourage further investigation and encourage intellectual laziness. Materialists do not hold that any one authority is right, and questioning until satisfaction is reached is not only encouraged, but built into the scientific method.
Don’t just say to me that I’m doing it wrong, explain to me how I’m doing it wrong. Or if there is no way to quantify benefiting humanity (i.e. I’m doing it wrong because it’s impossible) then, again, explain to me why you believe that be impossible.
I was taking what you said to be true and running with it. If your description of what your church preaches isn’t true well…what can I say?
In my understanding of your words, Christian doctrine and schools emphasize that you should learn as much as you can about things, and use prayer to consider all of this.
Now I assume that one is meant to learn and consider this information for a useful purpose like bettering the world we live in and ourselves. You never said that part, but that is my assumption. Is that assumption incorrect?
Otherwise, I don’t believe that I described anything that you didn’t say to me first. It’s entirely possible that I misunderstood your description, but if so feel free to correct me on it and I’ll try again.
And again, I’ve never upbraided Christianity or religion at all. I’ve taken the scientific method and Occam’s razor to look and see if:
- Human factors can explain the creation, spread, and persistence of religion
- Whether that seems likely
- Whether religions appear to have the effects that one would expect if the religion was valid. In my understanding, religions are supposed to provide worldly benefits, even Christianity. Perhaps my understanding is wrong, but if so you’ll be the first person I’ve seen to say so.
Like I said, I was proposing a hypothesis to explain why it seems like there’s a correlation between irreligiosity and affluence, health, and life satisfaction. I’m not saying this hypothesis is correct, I was just throwing it out as a possible explanation that seems likely.
I honestly don’t know who Mr. Dennett is (though I checked his Wikipedia article just now.)
But to speculate, it seems reasonable that when you’re interactive and semi-competitive environment, that you’re principally dealing with the current state of the subject, not its foundations. For instance, if I’m Richard Feynman and I’m working on quantum physics, I wouldn’t be surprised if I never include basic Newtonian calculations in my work. Certainly what I am doing is long-derived from the work that Newton has done and possibly does influence it, but it’s been advanced to a state that it no longer appears anything like the original.
Similarly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the work of modern philosophy are built on ideas that originated from Buddhism and Wockalaockajaockalism or what-have-you, there’s no particular reason to think that they’ll still be referred to using the same terminology or specifically linked to a particular origin.
Quite possibly. But given that humans invented religions, that shouldn’t be surprising.
What are any of those sources supposed to be valid cites for?
Ah, but by demanding that they be a valid cite, you are only letting “tiny fraction of the human race speak”. ITR champion appears to be arguing that it’s oppressive or arrogant or something for someone like Dennett to only quote people who know what they are talking about. Instead we should put just as much value in unproven, evidence free assertions by anyone who claims to have a revelation.
Yes, and humans invented science, government, and judicial systems, plus everything else we humans think about. So.
Intellectual value is a judgment call, but I’d hope there would be widespread agreement that they all have some intellectual value. Regrettably many people these days complete their education without ever being exposed to any of those sources.
And yet you accuse me of “assertion without evidence”.
You say that “in matters of God … there is no knowledge”. You’re wrong, obviously. I know a great deal about God, so therefore I have knowledge. If it’s knowledge that you don’t approve of, tough luck. Your argument is as strange as saying that music you don’t like can’t be music.
Next you claim that “Christianity places emphasis on accepting god’s word and leaving it at that”. Since you’re such a stickler for evidence, why don’t you offer some evidence to back up that claim? If you can’t do so, why should I believe such a claim.
As for “materialists do not hold that any one authority is right”, they do, far more than anyone else. Whenever I dare to suggest that it’s possible for a professor to be wrong, some of the resident materialists on this board get barking mad.
Lastly, “questioning until satisfaction is reached” basically means very little questioning. Satisfaction is generally a low bar and can be lowered further to meet any need. Christianity encourages questioning at all times.
Well, here’s a reminder of what you actually said.
“And yes, I’m sure that your church says that you should consider all information from all sources, but at the same time they’ll give a little wink wink nudge nudge that it’s a sin to use stem cells for research. That’s just being dishonest.”
Your description of what my church believes is wrong. I’m sorry if the actual facts intrude on what you want to believe, but that’s life.
Christianity has no problem with learning about all things, but the emphasis is on learning about oneself, other people, the relationships between people, and God. There is certainly nothing wrong with learning about material things, but it’s best to keep those in their proper perspective.
It is correct. The point you seem to be missing out on is that your definition of “bettering” is loaded with assumptions. You automatically assume that a person who achieves prosperity and health has achieved what was set out in life. Christianity doesn’t only involved different means from materialism, but also different ends. Saint Francis of Assisi lived his life in extreme poverty. He did not live particularly long. His most famous achievement was four wounds on his body. Yet was he a failure? By most standards he was phenomenal success, since he catalyzed considerable change in his own life and continues to have an effect almost a thousand years later.
Or consider Martin Luther King. He was never wealthy and he got himself shot and killed before age fifty. But did he not better the world?
Or what about John Newton? His initial career certainly brought him wealth, since there was money made in the slave trading business. But then God came along and told him to quit, so he spent the remainder of his life as an Anglican monastic, working for the abolition of slavery. During which part was he doing more to improve the world?
You know nothing about God. Because there’s nothing to know. You made things up about a fictional entity, or listened to things that other people made up - but you know nothing.
Also, how does this ‘knowledge’, which is exactly identical in type to my knowledge of Optimus Prime (being that it is knowledge of the supposed characteristics of a character that cannot be shown to exist outside of fictions written to contain it) - how does this sort of knowledge encourage growth of knowledge? The only way this sort of ‘knowledge’ expands is when people make more stuff up, which hardly counts as an expansion of knowledge to me.
What method do you use to identify “God’s word?”
“Agrees with ITR champion” is the standard I expect.
Actually, this, in combination with the fact that there are and have been hundreds or thousands of religions none of which is agreed upon even by a majority of the population, which to me constitutes the strongest evidence against any religion being correct.
The presence of multiple contradictory religions and sects proves that people can have incorrect religious beliefs - and the fact that there is no majority world religion proves that the tendency to believe in false religions is a widespread and pervasive part of the human condition.
So, we know that most people are wrong about their religion - which makes each individual case highly suspect. If some religion was bolstered by dramatically better evidence than other religions, then that would support their case, but no religion has better evidence than any other. Which leaves only predisposition and ego supporting any individual’s claim of correctness.
I didn’t say some didn’t have intellectual value, obviously they all have some. But the two people you named are trying to achieve completely different things. MLK was trying to persuade people, and was very emotional. He used things people can connect with emotionally, and was less interested in imparting facts or logic. Daniel Dennet on the other, is interested in imparting facts or logic, and he’s doing it mainly to other people like him. You’ve compared two completely different messages, and tried to claim that because one doesn’t use the techniques of the other, it is somehow faulty.
Really? No on in the history of mankind has been able to provide one single bit of evidence of so much as his existence, but you claim to have knowledge. Ok, then, let’s hear it. And of course, by knowledge I do not mean beliefs or opinions or things you take on faith, I mean knowledge, things you know. I mean, if you know things about god of course you can prove god exists, right?
This should be quite obvious to anyone who has experience with Christianity, as both of us have claimed. How many questions about Christianity get answered ‘You just have to believe’? How many questions about the world have been answered by Christianity with ‘God did it’? How many questions about morality have been answered by Christianity with ‘Because god said so’? Christianity’s doctrine is absolute. It is god’s word, and there is no questioning the word of god. How do you know you’re supposed to keep the Sabbath holy? God said it. How do you know that god created the universe? God said it. How do you know Jesus had to die for our sins? God said it. If god didn’t say it, and it was just a man, why consider it holy? If there is a reason to obey a rule besides ‘god said it’, why do we need god to tell us to obey the rule? Evidence of this claim is quite easy to come by, all you have to do is have a conversation with a Christian about their religion.
Are you honestly holding up a group of people on an internet forum and declaring that materialists are all like them? Please. :rolleyes: What the heck, gimmie a cite. I mean after all, if you can’t do so, why should I believe such a claim?
It might mean ‘little questioning’ for you or other religious people, but it doesn’t in science. Science is set up to provide as much questioning as necessary, with peer reviews, publication, presentations, and repeat experiments. This is definitely not so in Christianity.
Yeah, gonna need a cite. Show me some nice official church doctrine that is actually practiced by the faithful. Everything I’ve seen leads me to believe the opposite of this.