Elton John: ban organised religion

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Dude, you aren't worth my time to reply to anymore on this subject.

That's a shame, I was really interested in your argument against Occam's Razor via modern physics.

[Jon Miller]

I was never arguing 'against' Occam's Razor. You have continued and continued and continued to misread, misunderstand, and totally fail at basic comprehension with regards to my posts.

My statment, which I have made over and over and over to you, is that Occam's Razor is not Science.

God failing Occam's Razor is subject to philosophical debate, and is entirely independent of science.

Any basic understanding of science, in the slightlest, will obviously show that application of Occam's Razor does not make something scientific. I refered to Modern Physics because it is what comes to mind the easiest for me.. but it is true of any other area of science as well.

Jon Miller

[Flip McWho]

Trancendental experiences are physical events and thus fall under the umbrella of stuff science is allowed to explore.

Depends on whether you accept miracles as possible. Which depends again on your belief in God. Miracles transcend physical events by their very nature. Science cannot explain miracles, if they happen. Of course science can just say that miracles are not scientifically possible full stop. Being a believer in God is not dependant on your view of miracles.

Religion, in my view, is an archiac knowledge system that should be supplanted by science.

Science is woefully incomplete to be used as an entire knowledge system. What about political/moral/economic situations? Religion does more than just state scientific claims about the world.

I just consider that science (and the philosophy of science) is the only discipline worth considering for epistimology.

Knowledge about the universe and the way the universe works sure. If you're talking about empiricism in general then that'll apply further, like to economics, politics. But science as a category of epistimology is rather short in scope, considering its limited to the study of matter/energy and its interactions.

Yes, intellectual honesty is a normative claim, but one I think has general acceptance and one we can build off of. If you think intellectual honesty is uneccesary my argument won't work (unless I can appeal to your values for you to reevaluate that). Of course, if you don't view that intellectual honesty is important, why are you debating the philosophy of science?

I don't see why belief in God is intellectually dishonest, belief in God can lead to a rationally consist worldview. Of course it does make untestable claims about the world, such as Gods existence and life after death, but that's why it takes faith.

Science can only explain/explore morality from an anthropological/nuerochemical/sociological/etc.. perspective. It can't make normative claim. This does not make my argument toast, it just limits it to those who value intellectual honesty.

Ok, in my opinion it just sounds that you're a hard empiricist whilst some of the others in here would be more rationalist/empiricalists.

You'd agree that the only useful knowledge is that taken from experience. Rationalism should be based on a posteriori knowledge?




RE: Occams razor.

That, and parsimony only advocate the least complex explanation.

So now that depends on what your opinion is on the 'miracle' of life. Which I'll bring it all back to:

don't think so. I think the pillar is aready gone as it's gonna be. There's always gonna be some figment of the big bang (results of stochastic processes, initial conditions, yada yada yada) that could be attributed to God.

That's an opinion you're expressing there. That opinion makes you an atheist. Untill science can explain significant chunks (and the amount that constitute these chunks is a subjective view) of the evolution of humanity and account for the why of the big bang then yes there will always be room for God. Because God as a being indepedant from any portrayal in a religion isn't a testable claim through science.

Knowledge about God can be said to be innate. If you think the only useful knowledge about the world/universe/humanity is empirical then that's fair enough. As I said earlier thats what makes you an atheist.

Some of the others here sit further along the line between empiricism and rationalism. Thats what makes them agnostic/deist/theist.

If you wanna debate the merits of empiricalism over rationalism, then feel free to start.

Well there are two different sorts of "because" statements, temporal and explanitory. For a valid scientific theory neither needs to be in place.

Temporal because statements (that happened because this caused it) aren't neccesary. Causality is not a garunteed property of the universe and there is a great amount of credence to the idea that physical laws at thier heart partially stochastic (based on random chance). This forces one to think of causeless effects (like an atomic nucleus decaying).

The other is explanitory. Laws don't have to explained further then they are laws. Certainly many times they connect to other laws or can be derived from them, but that is not always the case. Energy is conserved. We don't need to say why to say that the statement is correct and we don't need to delve further into the whys of this relation. It's possible that this has a deeper explination that unites more concepts, but it's also possible it does not. The fact that we don't know shouldn't lead to idle speculation involving spiritual beings.

I'm sorry but I can't fully understand that.

I agree that there are two parts to because, how and why.

How is possibly the closest I think to your temporal because statements. It describes the process by which something occurs. Relying on causality which is inherent to any scientific statement about the world. Though once you add Quantum mechanics into the mixture the universe takes on a random look, but there are some areas where quantum mechanics isn't applied yet, namely gravity, and the random idea to the origins of sentient life.

The why I'm guessing would be the same as your explanatory because? Asking why is innate to humanity. Where you think humanity should stop asking the question why is up to you. Some people like to ask why, and come up with answers, which is why we have theories such as string theory and claims such as the existence of God.

I'd like to draw my distinction between theories and claims. Theories are a collection of how and why claims. Scientific theories base these claims on empirical data, i.e. every apple thrown into the air will return to earth, there is a supermassive black hole in the centre of this galaxy. Religions comprise how and why claims as well. For example, how and why did the resurrection occur, because God exists and Jesus was divine. This 'theory' is based on two claims, gods existence and Christs divinity. Because (imo) one is untestable (gods existence) and the other is too considering the inherent lack of hard historical data, then these claims are reasonable. Whether you believe in these claims or not is a matter of opinion.

Quantum mechanics isn't entirely random, its based on probabilities. All you can do through science is gradually make the probability of Gods existence less likely.

[Elok]

Okay, I'll come right out and say it: what the hell do you base normative claims on as an Enlightened Post-Religious Man or whatever? Is your desire for intellectual honesty rational at all? I don't think you can base it on science.

What gives properties of rigor, verifiability, and utility to life in general, outside of the laboratory? If the burning bush speaks to you, are you going to ask it to hold on a moment while you fetch James Randi to try and debunk it? Or, to put it less dramatically, are you going to ask someone to have a transcendent experience for you while you stick electrodes on their head to measure? I'm aware of the "God Helmet" experiments, but those tell us about God to the same extent that jerking off helps us understand women.

The things that make science so valuable--repeated trials, double-blind selections, peer review--give it the ability to obtain certainty with unusual precision, but also limit its scope to things we have at least some degree of control over, or can be certain enough about to observe them. If you're going to scoff at anything that won't hold still long enough for you to stick a probe up its arse...geez. I only lived a short while on this earth before I learned that I couldn't ask time to back up and run stuff past me again.