For my Christians Friends
- Thread starter nyxtrader
- Start date
Why get "science" in this? Do you use science to decide what music you want to listen to? Which woman to marry? Who your friends are? Why is our timid little scientific method so important in deciding what to believe in a religious sense? But if you have already decided that "science" is the main measuring stick for your life's many dimensions, then that's your religion, accepted through faith; and, imo, it's not a very good one.
Do you understand the nature of religion? Where it comes from, the mental and emotional faculties involved? They are not the same ones you use to add numbers or build a car or fix a chair. Imagine a simple Cartesian framework, just two axes, x and y, at right angles. Can you use any measurement on the x axis to tell you where you are on the y axis?
For me, religion is consistent with logic, but does not depend on it, nor does it get defined by it. Some others try to go the other way and define science in terms of religion and they fail miserably too. Put simply, the two are different, independent of each other, orthogonal dimensions of our lives.
What on earth do you mean by "science". By "science" do you mean science?
If so, I am not getting science involved in this. The scientific method itself is not science, it is a rational logical defining method of establishing observed fact and information.
It helps a great deal. The scientific method and /or science is/are the only approach ever known which can begin to explain the emotion I feel and why it would be there making me want to listen, and how I am not actually hallucinating the music sound so that I know it actually exists and how I can naturally appreciate it all the more.
Please Yannis, drop that sanctimonious tone with me unless all you intend to do is play to one side of the gallery.
The only way anyone could possibly understand (or should that be âunderstandâ
) the nature of religion would be to use the scientific method. That is not to necessarily use science.Using religious emotion to understand religious emotion is quite frankly obviously a non starter
The scientific method has proven to be the best devised so far for the confirmation of claims.
If one's religion is entirely internal (meaning no claims are made about its ability to work for others), I personally find no *need* for this method to be involved.
Once external claims of action are made, they are quite easily proved or disproved by this method and I find that extremely appropriate.
JB
From what I can tell, your religion is science, congratulations, that's what you believe in, for your personal reasons. I respect that, fine, I know many others who feel the same.
But, to tell me that the only way one could possibly understand whatever is to use the scientific method, is ludicrous. That's not what I know to be true. The scientific method is just one of the many tools we have at our disposal. I am a scientist and a businessman and a religious person, all at the same time. What I say is what I believe to be true.
And, please, drop that "sanctimonious" BS also.
Religion asserts that Supernatural beings interact in the natural world. Often those assertions are quite specific.
Yet none of them hold up to scrutiny.
For instance, the power of prayer. Indeed, there is enough evidence to suggest that for the sick, when prayed for in person or told they are being prayed for, often but not always fair better than those who are not prayed for.
Question is, is that supernaturally derived benefit or psychosomatic?
As a control, (known as placebo) a study was performed that suggests that those who are sick when surrounded by loved ones and/or encouraged to think positively and optimistically also tended to fair better than those who did not have this.
As Stu said, the scientific method is the method one would use to properly assess the truth or predictable likelihood of any scenario.
In fact you say religion and logic are not mutually exclusive. And that is true else how would one go about even beginning to understand the precepts and concepts of religion. There is, however, often a logical disconnect in the mind of those who prescribe to religion and who also live in the real world. There are things that must be overlooked because of religion's appeal to emotion such as fear and desire.
This is absolutely wrong, unless you qualify quite a bit qhat you mean by confirmation and by claims. How do you confirm that you have dreams? That you like music? That you experience love for your wife?
There's subjective truth and inter-subjective truth. What we call objective truth depends on the assumption that ALL people agree - but that's impossible, and so we are stuck with various levels and degrees of inter-subjective truth.
Then, why isn't the fact that most (at least, a huge % of) people in the world believe in God an objectively true, you may call it scientific, statement?
Ok got it, You did say. âExcept I know they mean relatively nothing and are based on my own arbitrariness and perception. in your same post.
Just that I'm not sure volente would grasp that subtly from an apparent expression of approval "Well said and well played".
But rather perversely assume some theistic brownie points had somehow been made
However thanks for the explain.
You must realize that the above is a bit silly. Well very silly. Science cannot be a religion. You use reason in order to comprehend and communicate on this forum. You use reason every day to form opinions and make decisions.
The scientific method is merely a formal methodology (or technqiue) concerning how to apply reason.
The scientific method works something like this:
1. Collect data by observation and/or experimentation.
2. Form a hypothesis about that.
3. Test it.
4. Predict.
5. See if your prediction pans out.
Sometimes what happens is that you confuse a correlation with the actual truth of a matter.
For instance, you happen to notice that during the month of July, whenever the ice cream man rolled through your block in the summer which occurred on random days, it rained later that night. That's the observation. If you stop there, you'd think the ice cream man is responsible for it raining. But if you try to predict based on that correlation, you'd most probably be disappointed with your conclusion. Once you find that it doesn't pan out in August, you'd either have to scrap your correlation or refine it until the predictability of the correlation holds true.
Is that such a wrong thing to do to arrive at a truth?
Well with religion, claims are being made all over the place. How are we to arrive at the validity of those claims? Through sheer belief?