Real World Philospohy

[narf poit chez BOOM]

brain hurts. burp.

how do i know i'm not just hearing a crazy voice? well, crazy voices don't make sense.

[ November 07, 2003, 03:33: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Why did this thread degenerate into a religion thread? This is very frustrating people. God is not happy here

It often requires declared ground rules that people actually follow to keep a discussion of philosophy from turning into one of ethics, and to keep a discussion of ethics from turning into a discussion of religion. Such ground rules weren't present.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
Why did this thread degenerate into a religion thread? This is very frustrating people. God is not happy here

It often requires declared ground rules that people actually follow to keep a discussion of philosophy from turning into one of ethics, and to keep a discussion of ethics from turning into a discussion of religion. Such ground rules weren't present.

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... and a lot of people derive their world-philosphy from their religion...

[deccan]

Originally posted by Loser:
Real science deals only with what can be proven, and most importantly what can be proven repeatedly by different scientists. If an experiment does not get reproducible results the theory it 'proves' is not proven, and not part of Hard Science.

Since everyone is picking on Narf and that is so boring, let me play Devil's advocate and revisit a point Jack Simth, I.F. and I have tangled with before.

You state that science deals with only that which can be proven. That is not quite true. Some of the things that science relies on cannot be proven, such as for example, that the rules of logic that we employ (i.e. "classical logic") is "true", that solipsism is false or that there is no Cartesian "deceiving demon", that causality can ever be proven to be truly present as Locke questioned etc.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There is nothing arbitrary about my "declaration". You seem to have missed this post...

quote:

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Keep in mind that "religion" started with primitive man as a means to explain everything he could not understand (which was pretty much everything around him). The concept of "God" did not come along until 100,000s of years later. Before some people in ancient Babylon began claiming that there was only one God (the Jews), everyone believed in either multiple gods or some other belief in which everything (people, animals, rocks, etc.) was spiritual (with the occasional "other"). Of course, there were probably some minor pockets of monotheism before Judaism came along, but that is the one that got the whole notion of one God going strong (after quite some time, mind you).

This is how religions have evolved over the millennia. It does not take a rigorous study of every single religion to realize this. Also, it is rather difficult to ask anything of a fictional character. It is of course possible that there is some sort of supernatural force (not necessarily likely, but possible). In any case, it is certainly not "God", or the deity of any other religion. The possibility of one religion being right and the other 1000s of them that have existed over the years (and that still exist) being wrong is so absurdly small that it can safely be ignored. Even if you want to go by weight of numbers, Christianity would come out wrong, as some 2.5-3 billion people on this planet are either Buddhists or Hindis, with Christians coming in at a measly 500 or 600 million. So why does "God" not speak to all those people, just a few in the West?

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1) Lots of assertions here, little proof. What is the evidence that primitive man "invented" religion?

2) What is so absurd about one religon being true and all the others false? The Christian doctrine of human depravity (the idea that human nature has become corrupt and therefore hostile to the idea of God) is a rational explanation for the diversity of religions, from a monotheistic POV.

3) Truth is not determined by numbers of claimants, but whether a truth claim corresponds to reality.

4) The West has a decidedly atheistic bent nowadays. If your neighbor went around denying that you exist, would you be really that enthused to talk to him?

[deccan]

Originally posted by Erax:

Simply put, there is no need for conflict between science and religion bercause they address different questions.

Science exists to explain how.

Religion exists to explain why.

Using science to explain why or religion to explain how is apt to fail miserably (and often does).

Ah yes, the famous Gould evasion of the issue, "non-overlapping magisteria" was how he put it I believe.

Yet there are many good objections to this view. For example, if the view of science and physicalism is correct, then humans, including their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, emotions etc. are either physical or supervenient on the physical, and this cannot help but overlap into the whys.

On the other hand, organized religion justifies its "whys" based on its "hows". How many people would be willing to accept the "whys" taught by religion if its "hows" were acknowledged to be wrong?

[Atrocities]

New philosophy of mine. No matter how a topic begins, it will always end in a reglious discussion.