Elton John: ban organised religion

[Sandman]

Pseudoscience, like our fate being determined by the stars/etc, makes claims that can be tested by experimentation or observation. As such, yes, science can say something about it.

That is a pretty narrow definition of pseudoscience. Quite often, pseudoscience makes untestable claims, be it intangible energy fields or mystical psychic powers.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Sandman


That is a pretty narrow definition of pseudoscience. Quite often, pseudoscience makes untestable claims, be it intangible energy fields or mystical psychic powers.

I wasn't saying that was all of pseudoscience. At least be rational in your picks. All I did was give a single example, of what some consider pseudoscience.

Nowhere did I declare that was the definition. Please read my posts. If they are hard to understand, read them again.

JM

[Spec]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
EJ

Atheists

Religion

Spec.

[Jon Miller]

And there are areas of science (not as scientific as physics, but still science) that do experiments on 'mystical psychic powers' and they have all come up nil. Now you can discuss the experiments.. but the majority of 'psychic' phenomena has been scientifically discredited.

I don't know as much about these experiments, as it isn't my field.

'Intangible energy fields', on the otherhand, is related. And there is study that goes into them (physicists, at least, are interested in the existence of dark matter). Do far all experiments have come up with nil... Of course, if they are intangible, then there isn't much for people to interact with, so I am not sure why these people are interested in it, unless there is some sort of emergent phenomena (which would be biological, not physical).

There is a reason I favor physics, btw. Everything is much much easier.

Jon Miller

[lord of the mark]

"But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

Elton John should have been with me a week ago last Sunday, when I went around for a couple of hours with some 8th graders from my shul, chaperoning them as they put stickers over sewer grates informing people that they drained into some local streams, and so helping protect the local environment. Or when a bunch of us went to the save Darfur rally (which I dont recall Elton John attending) Or maybe he should have helped with the Yom Kippur food drive for the homeless. Or listened to the rabbi's sermons in favor of gay marriage.


But then when we did the sewer grate thing, everyone was confused, cause the email said we were to meet at 9:30, but the last flyer said 10 AM. I guess that would account for the above, since we're not an "organized religion" we're part of Conservative Judaism, and hence are "disorganized religion" Organized religion is for anglo-saxons, I suspect.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
It is not science without Observation and Experimentation.

I'd say you're mostly correct here, however I'd add one exception. That is in the case of claim that has no observable componant the scientific idea of parsimony allows us to dismiss it.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
If you cut those out, it is no longer science. That is my point, that you call your line of logic/philosophy 'scientific reasoning' when there is nothing that makes it more scientific than creationism.

I disagree. My reasoning generally works from the same philosphical ideas (empricism, parsimony, naturalism) that guide science. Creationism does not.

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I gave examples where science (experimentation and observation) was later applied to disprove them. But they were never scientific.. there was ideas (logic/philosophy) but never scientific observation and experimentation applied.

That's quite incorrect! There was numerous experiments done in these fields. Very meticulus and thought out experiments too. The problem was that they misinterpreted the results of the data. For example, racial intelligence gaps were repeatedly observed in numerous studies. This lent apparent credence to racist genetics, what later showed it to be incorrect was the demonstration that this was not due to genetics but due to nutrition, education, and cultural biases.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I wasn't saying that was all of pseudoscience. At least be rational in your picks. All I did was give a single example, of what some consider pseudoscience.

Nowhere did I declare that was the definition. Please read my posts. If they are hard to understand, read them again.

You declared that:

Pseudoscience, like our fate being determined by the stars/etc, makes claims that can be tested by experimentation or observation. As such, yes, science can say something about it.

[Whaleboy]

Originally posted by Darius871


Wouldn't it be more accurate to say agnosticism (conceding that there may or may not be a god, because positive experience and the scientific method cannot necessarily provide a definite answer in either direction) does not depend on faith?

I'm certainly no theist, but the bald-faced assertion that a god must not exist simply because it hasn't been observed certainly sounds like blind faith to me...

Not at all. You get two types of agnosticism, practical and principled. Practical agnosticism is the view that the weight of evidence is balanced... i.e., science is 50/50 about the existence of god. Principled agnosticism is the view that there cannot be any conclusive argument one way or the other. A refutation of Practical agnosticism will automatically reveal anyone who concurs with principled agnosticism to be either unknowingly mistaken, or have his agnosticism based upon faith.

I will take it as read that logic, reason* and scientific knowledge to date considers the probability of God to be far less than 50/50. While I'd put it on the same level as my left-buttock enjoying a spritzer on Saturn as we speak, (i.e., infinitesimally higher than infinitesimal), others would disagree, but regardless, once you move beyond 50/50, atheism becomes the more logical view if God is shown less likely to exist, theism the more logical view if God is shown more likely to exist.

*For the anti-philosophy zealots, I group science with philosophy since here as there isn't really a difference. I mean no offence to religious people who can sometimes be an awful lot more reasonable than non-religious people, and vice verse. This is a debate about religion, not personal conduct.

The only difference between good philosophy and science at this level is that the logic is valid. Add science, and the evidence becomes sound... but I digress.

This naturally leads on to my second point which is that as atheism is inherently a reason-based proposition, it doesn't depend on faith. Only a misguided atheist says that God "mustn't" exist, unless he presents falsifiable evidence for that. Of course, you can't use the word "must" when you base it on falsifiable evidence. You could look at atheism therefore as an assessment of probability.

Each argument that refutes God adds to the weight of evidence against that theists must refute, while objectively you reduce the probability of God, you reduce the measure of how "reasonable" it is to believe in God. The debate then becomes a case of "is it more reasonable to believe in God than it is to believe in the pimple on the nose of the giant pixie in the sky?"

"a-the-ism" imply belief in non-existence of god to a lot of people, and thus confound the debate.

I do agree that the word "atheism" means faith in non-God, but then, that's a common theist attack on atheists; that they rely on faith. Even some well meaning non-theists agree with that, which I think is mistaken.

The dictionary definition you posted uses "belief" in a confusing way. I read it as being interchangeable with "concurrence" or "agreement with the view", as opposed to "faith in". That's a deficiency on the part of the author of the definition imho.

I also agree that atheism just means "non God" but I don't see how this means no belief in God.

Atheism is not a faith, or a religon. It is a world view.

I disagree, for precisely the reasons I gave above. It's just a one-dimensional solution to a one-dimensional question; "is there a God?". It's impossible to base a worldview on it, unless you add, say, "humanism", "pacifism", "liberalism", "conservatism", etc etc etc to the mix.

It is interesting that the Bright's movement seeks to unite atheism with humanism and rationalism into a more heterogenous position, which itself reveals the flaw in calling "atheism" a belief system or a worldview in its own right.

Why wouldn't we be better off with assuming that he meant exactly what he said?

Because if he truly and honestly meant that we should ban organised religion, it's not a particularly useful thing to say. I'm going to assume (and realise I'm not exactly the bloke's biographer, I may know more about him than most, but certainly not a vast amount) that he meant this as you or I might say such a thing, that we think the world would be better if organised religion never existed, but the process of wiping it out would cause more harm that religion causes now (as I said in my first post, a debatable point but one I happen to agree with). I don't think it'd be useful as a point of argument, and while EJ's phrasing wasn't particularly wise because pedantic people might take it very literally, a more common-sense interpretation raises more interesting questions.

Strong atheism is a belief that there is no God. Those who claim there is no God are practicing this form of atheism. It is a statement of belief.

You're confusing colloquial "belief" with the correct usage of "belief". I "believe" there is a God implies faith. I "believe" the sky is blue, does not rely on faith (and few would argue that it does, and while Ben Kenobi might argue that it all goes down to a rationalist belief in empiricism, I think that misses the point).

[Pekka]

I don't think banning religions would amount to anything good.. except huge crowds of trigger happy law breakers.

This is again, attacking something because of stupid individuals and groups exists within those borders. Why don't we just ban humans, period. No human, no problem.

Focus should be on those who are fundamentalists and who actually do put an effort to start new wars based on their own beliefs. We should put a war on those people, including other religions, not just muslims.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Perfection
Well, I did oversimplify it let me rexplain.

An important part of science is the idea of parsimony, that is getting the most bang for your intellectual effort. If you can offer a simpler explination for the same system of observed phenomena then we adopt that view. This can be observed in the pre-Newtonian mechanics arguments between heliocentrism and geocentrism where models that at the time had about similar evidence. The heliocentric view got credence because it simplified the system and removed the need of epicycles. Similarly in modern science we see this in nomenclature changes such as the planetary redefinition or the disfavor of using relativistic mass. I draw on this notion of parsimony to dismiss God and psuedoscience (that is with no system of phenomena to explain the most parsimonious conclusion is a null explination).

Philosophy draws a heck of a lot from science, especially these days.

It's possible, but I don't work under the idea that if something is logically possible that we have to give it credence.

I don't think you know what you are talking about when you refer to philosophy either.

Once more, we return to my earlier point (which we will continue to return to until you learn it, or I get tired. And it seems like I might get tired first).

What is the simpler explanation is not neccesarily reality. 100 years ago, Quarks weren't part of any explanation, now they are and are likely reality. As such, what you suggest science does is not what science does.

Science does not say that more complicated explanations, or what have you, don't exist. Now it is true that Occam's Razor is sometimes used between explanations which all have equal evidence. But using Occam's Razor on something does not make it scientific. This is a fallacy that I see atheists repeating time and time again.

Once more, there is no experiments or observations about the existence of god(s). As such, science says nothing about it. The same is true of any 'pseudoscience' that makes claims of which experimentation/observation can not be undertaken to test. Lack of existence of experiments/observations does not mean experiments/observations giving a null result.

For example, we know a lot of 'places' the Axion is not. The same is not true of God, because while we have formulated experiments to look for Axions, we have not formulated experiments to look for God.

Jon Miller

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
And there are areas of science (not as scientific as physics, but still science) that do experiments on 'mystical psychic powers' and they have all come up nil. Now you can discuss the experiments.. but the majority of 'psychic' phenomena has been scientifically discredited.

I don't know as much about these experiments, as it isn't my field.

Pseudoscience is inevitably buttressed by ad hoc hypotheses i.e. the observers are giving off negative vibes interfering with the psychic powers, or Bigfoot can go invisible and teleport. With sufficient creativity, any theory can be rendered untestable.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Sandman


You declared that:

Most of it does. In fact, I don't know of any that doesn't. Both psychics and intangible energy fields have experimentation/observation used to study them, and have currently come up with null result.

Now you might say that those experiments and observations aren't conclusive. And I would probably agree with you (as any system more complicated than straight up physics is very complicated indeed).

But that still doesn't change the fact that there are a whole lot of parameter space where 'intangible energy fields' and 'psychics' do not exist.

JM

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Which is a fine statement, and not positioned on a false basis like Perfection's.

I actually find his argument to be remarkably similar. The only differences is a consider his notions to be a scientifically valid argument based off the principle of parsimony and that such an argument is strong enough to render God for all useful purposes nonexistant. I don't like getting caught up in annoying philosophical skepticsm.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Sandman


Pseudoscience is inevitably buttressed by ad hoc hypotheses i.e. the observers are giving off negative vibes interfering with the psychic powers, or Bigfoot can go invisible and teleport. With sufficient creativity, any theory can be rendered untestable.

Right, but there are a whole lot of Bigfoot theories that are testable, have been tested, and have been found lacking.

Experiments have been formulated, bounds have been set, science has worked. On the otherhand, the only modern religions that I think science has placed bounds on are scientologists and maybe mormons. (I only know of major religions or US popular ones)

Now some religious traditions can be experimented on, like the Shroud of Turin or all the peices of the cross (as catholics traditionally claim). But that is a different matter. We are talking about the existence of God here. (or god(s) if you prefer to be general)

Jon Miller

[Whaleboy]

I don't think you know what you are talking about when you refer to philosophy either.

Once more, we return to my earlier point (which we will continue to return to until you learn it, or I get tired. And it seems like I might get tired first).

Relax bro. He's asking reasonable questions, there's no need to get condescending when the only qualification you have over most other people here is a few percentile difference in the ability to do calculus. You once told me you're a bad teacher because you don't like being questioned... well there's no need to dislike being questioned!

But using Occam's Razor on something does not make it scientific. This is a fallacy that I see atheists repeating time and time again.

That's rather like saying that use of scientific method doesn't necessarily make it science. I'd agree to the extent that I agree with modern science, but I'd disagree because scientific method will inevitably tend to the best science, given the available evidence. We have quantum theory now, whereas we didn't 200 years ago, so the best scientific theory will include it.

Once more, there is no experiments or observations about the existence of god(s). As such, science says nothing about it.

Science need not concern strict observations, otherwise you relegate theoretical physics to being a branch of philosophy. The God hypothesis makes certain predictions which can be tested. Whether that is in a lab or a thought experiment is besides the point. If all scientists are like you, of course then they wouldn't like that because that would involve their judgements being questioned.

If there is a God, then I thank him because not all scientists are like you; most of them that I know are lovely people that love a good debate and enjoy being questioned .