Religion thread Zaku DL vs Ben Kenobi

[Ben Kenobi]

- Darwinism isn't the same as evolution (while Darwinists may be wrong, that does not imply there's somethng wrong with evoluton theory);

Yay, someone gets it. It's Darwinism I have a problem with. Most evolutionists are Darwinists, but not all. Evolution I am fine with, just so long as it is God-directed. This 'random, slow' process as favoured by Darwin, I cannot.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hmmm... this was actually quite an interesting religion thread (seriously - been thinking about things lately quite a bit, and I'm more of an agnostic now who is somewhat searching rather than the atheist I was a few months back, so it intrigued me)... but now...

[JEELEN]

Yay, someone gets it. It's Darwinism I have a problem with. Most evolutionists are Darwinists, but not all. Evolution I am fine with, just so long as it is God-directed. This 'random, slow' process as favoured by Darwin, I cannot.

Hm. But whereas evolution theory can be described as a scientific theory, God-directed evolution cannot, as it is neither verifiable or falsifiable (as I tried to exlain in that post you are quoting). Ofcourse you can believe in God-directed evolution, but evolution theory does not require belief. (I might add that evolution theory has developed since Darwin and that he wasn't the only one developing such a theory at the time. I would describe the attitude of - most notably Christian - religion in this case hardly as advocating science, as you claimed earlier.

[SlowwHand]

Hmmm... this was actually quite an interesting religion thread (seriously - been thinking about things lately quite a bit, and I'm more of an agnostic now who is somewhat searching rather than the atheist I was a few months back, so it intrigued me)... but now...

No doubt. It's just a matter of eternity. One shouldn't spend much time pondering the possibilities.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Maybe we can restart it, Sloww .

Enough talk about evolution (different religions and denominations believe different things on that matter and as Darwin said he considered it "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist"), back to questions about faith, religion, and spirtuality in general.

I can start... so, Sloww, what is in your heart?

[Lorizael]

Questions of spirit are not matters of the heart. Humans are fallible creatures with poor reasoning skills. To think that we can draw conclusions about the supernatural from sparse data on natural phenomena is ridiculous. If you want to know about the supernatural, you have to look outside the universe.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Quiet you

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ok, maybe I should expand. If one believes that the soul and sentience is something divinely given (let's not get into evolution, but say that animals evolve, but only a supernatural entity could create the ability to reason), then searching your soul may be a way to get into contact with a deity.

[Lorizael]

Sure, it might be, but you can't know that it will be.

The supernatural, by definition, supersedes logic, which means that you cannot construct logical proofs about it. What you discover may be true, but if it is so, it is only true by accident. And if you are accidentally correct (which you can't know, anyway), you have no ability to claim that other methods of evaluating the truth are not also capable of accidentally being correct.

As such, if I assert that penguins are the sole arbiter of moral truth, I can be correct in this assertion even if I have no proof, and you have no method of arguing with me because you also rely on a method of evaluating truth that does not rely on argumentation.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well yes. They call it faith for a reason, I guess . The question is, IMO, not about evaluating the truth of beliefs (because you really can't), and those who try to fight or argue over the truth of moral beliefs are misguided. Proper thing to do is to be tolerant of beliefs and not try to force any on anyone else.

Of course that is idealized and never really works (except for some folks here and there).

Spirituality is, by nature, and emotional connection. So trying to reason it out is somewhat strange.

[SlowwHand]

Maybe we can restart it, Sloww .

Enough talk about evolution (different religions and denominations believe different things on that matter and as Darwin said he considered it "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist"), back to questions about faith, religion, and spirtuality in general.

I can start... so, Sloww, what is in your heart?

I can understand questions about religion, and the possibility of doubt.
That's where faith makes its appearance. You either have faith or you don't.
It's not just religion that requires faith though, so I don't understand the limits some people put on the capacity of having faith.

[Lorizael]

Proper thing to do is to be tolerant of beliefs and not try to force any on anyone else.

Sure, I guess, but where does that leave you? Being tolerant is all well and good, but it's only a first step. And being tolerant is only useful if you value cooperation, which is likely only useful because you value humans and human civilization, which you likely only value because you're human, which isn't a proof of anything, and doesn't imply that there is any intrinsic value in being tolerant.

It's not just religion that requires faith though, so I don't understand the limits some people put on the capacity of having faith.

I have no faith in anything, only degrees of certainty.

[SlowwHand]

And then there is semantics.

[Imran Siddiqui]

doesn't imply that there is any intrinsic value in being tolerant.

Why does that matter? Tolerance is good as it allows humans to come to their own conclusions and beliefs about their existence after searching their emotions and coming to some ideals. Why should intrinsic value be worth any more than the value that we have given something?

[Imran Siddiqui]

That's where faith makes its appearance. You either have faith or you don't.

Yes, that is true. But does faith require a complete abandoning of proof at all, or is some proof (I'm speaking emotionally) required? I mean, for you particularly, but you can expand if you'd like.