Your response was fine. You ordered your thoughts and responded in an
easily followed manner. Welcome =-)
> Science isn't a religion, or an alternative to religion, but scientism
> is like a religion, and is an alternative to religion.
I think very little about scientism and, other than a few letters in
the names, they are not relevant to each other in my opinion. It is
similar in my mind to the difference between studying the sun and
worshipping Ra.
> I'm not a believer in any formal religion, yet I think I sometimes
> pray. Most often, I only pray in a silly way, when I am merely
> desperate for some unknown entity to step in and help me, but it's not
> always so silly. Sometimes I have some belief in something or Someone
> I am praying to.
My intended target was not you, but rather those fundies that
LITERALLY pray for god to fix a pipe, prayed for food to be delivered
(often mental illness, people who are afraid of certain foods), or
allow their children to die while they pray for a cure. It seems to me
that to believe in a god means that one should believe the cure to
possibly be delivered via doctor rather than Gabriel.
> What, then, does one do with a self or with feelings that have gone
> awry? Turn to science? To psychiatric medication, perhaps, because
> the brain at least is a tangible object for scientific enquiry? Is
> psychiatry scientific?
This is a topic of great debate actually. Since there is very little
structure in psychiatry and ufologists, past life regressers, and
other people are allowed to join the serious psychiatry associations,
many say no. I say that it could and probably should be considered
science, when the scientific method is applied. This is not what I
intended to say however. I was referring to people that need
emotionally cuddled by a concept "greater than themselves" that can
promise an end to pain or a reward for "enduring" reality. These are
the people that "feel small" without some personal connection to the
universe and world, all the while forgoing their true connection to
the universe and world.
> But delusion and failure are part of the human condition. Is there,
> then, no difference between truth and falsehood, in any of the ways of
> addressing our human limitations and failings? Is one religion, or
> one therapeutic fad, as good, or as bad, as any another? If science
> cannot address a question, then does that question have no answer, or
> will any old answer do as well as another?
Science does not, can not, and will not console a person for failing.
In science, failure is part and parcel of everything. Often people
compare success with truth or failure with falsity, this isn't how
science works. The studies that claim sweeteners cause cancer in rats
and therefore humans is a great example. The study was a success. It's
results showed it to be successful over and over. Yet the entire study
promotes a false concept. The "true" results of that study, and many
more, is that anything injected into an animal in large quantities
(sometimes as much as a 5th of the rats bodyweight) is likely to cause
cancer.
If a question cannot be addressed by science, either the person asking
needs help in devising better, or more relevant, tests, or it is an
inherently untestable concept like spirituality.
> Can you logically demonstrate their alleged self-defeating quality?
Free will existing if god created people knowing their decisions
beforehand, god being far beyond human understanding unless the human
is the one describing him and his need for your money, etc., there are
plenty but I've been asked not to offend people with opinions and
ideas that run contrary to them.
> I can be lost in wonder at the structure of the ribosome, or the
> Triangulum galaxy, or the set of zeros of the Riemann zeta function
> (but is mathematics a science?), and at the human mind(s) that can
> discover (or invent) such things, but there is much to wonder about
> that does not seem to form a subject for scientific enquiry, but is at
> least as important as anything in science, such as ethics. ("The
> starry heavens above, the moral law within.")
Ethics is an awesome example of using the scientific method to examine
concept rather than simple reality. The development of ethics has been
the subject of biologists, sociologists, palaeontologists,
archaeologists, etc., and ethics pre-date religion. Unless one tries
to argue that chimpanzees and dogs are religious, ethics is not even
a human concept. Burning for eternity for disobeying ethics is the
human invention.
Yes, mathematics is a science. It is testable and predictable.
For your final paragraphs, yes paranormal is generally that which is
not in the norm, therefore untestable.
I would never presume to tell you what to believe, but if you present
anything as evidence or try to convince me of it's truth, you allow me
to criticise it. This holds true with ghosts, gods, or ones. This is
the primary mistake that religion, paranormalists, and philosophers
make, they presents their own existence as evidence, books written by
people that profit from them as proof, and concepts that directly
contradict themselves as well as the idea that the concept was created
to injure. The idea that the universe couldn't have come from nothing
therefore a god came from nothing to create the universe is one.
On Jan 12, 10:03 am, Twirlip <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jan 12, 3:48 am, fiddler <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Why do so few people (otherwise intelligent for the most part) have
> > such a tweaked view of science? I'm so tired of hearing it described
> > as a religion (oh ya, well you worship science!), a dogma (ya but
> > since science says...then you have to believe it!), a choice (just
> > because you like science, doesn't mean I have to!), ETC...!!!!!
> > Science is a method of understanding the world around the person in
> > question. It is not an alternate to religion.
>
It's not hard
> to see that people sometimes confuse science with scientism (whether
> or not they believe in scientism), unless you deny that the word
> 'scientism' has any clear meaning. Do you?
>
> > Science is the direct examination of evidence. It is only useful when
> > contemplating something testable or checkable.
> > Have you ever had a leak and systematically checked for which pipe it
> > was? Welcome to science.
> > Have you ever had question and looked for an answer or asked someone
> > that has? welcome to science.
> > Have you ever altered a recipe because something sounded good or you
> > thought might work? welcome to science.
>
> Fair enough.
>
> > If you have ever prayed for your pipe to stop leaking, prayed for an
> > answer, or prayed for food to make itself, you aren't a scientist and
> > very likely will never have the capacity for science.
>
>
> > Science does not give a damn about you or your feelings
>
>
> > it is a concept and a method, not a consoler for delusion or failure.
>
>
> > Science does not care about oneness or deities. Since these are
> > generally self defeating logical concepts
>
> > and not concepts that appear
> > in the natural world, science COULD NOT speak on them and never does.
>
> Whereof science cannot speak, must all remain silent?
>
> > Science does not care about whether or not you are confused on some
> > philosophical concept. Science can however, allow you to explore and
> > investigate an amazing world surrounded by a complex solar system, in
> > a superbly beautiful galaxy.
>
>
> > Science can allow you to understand that simply existing is such a
> > beautiful and awesome concept, that no little metaphysical idea needs
> > be entertained if one wants to be amazed, confused, or challenged by
> > everything that they purport to search for.
>
> I can't see what you are saying here. You have some sense of beauty
> and awe (good, that speaks well of you), but you seem to be saying
> that you owe it all to science, in much the same pious way that
> religious people are often inclined modestly to attribute all good
> human qualities to God. Is this not somewhat religious of you? If
> not, then what exactly are you saying, in scientific terms?
>
> > -Personal note:-
> > It will take all of your energy and attention to understand even a
> > small amount of the knowledge that awaits you and is literally just
> > sitting there waiting for you to find it. Don't waste life on unproven
> > concepts reinforced with prophets and people that are proven to be
> > wrong and/or nonexistent.
>
> I can never get rid of my feeling of stupidity for not yet seeming to
> have seen this 'proof' that is supposed to be out there somewhere: a
> proof that all manner of things (never exactly specified, it seems) do
> not exist, and that belief in all manner of things is 'irrational'.
>
> To take a specific example of something in which I believe personally,
> which I think of as being 'paranormal', yet which I do not think of as
> being either 'supernatural' (breaking natural laws) or
> 'irrational' (contradicting itself, or contradicting other well-
> established beliefs which I hold): are you aware of some knock-down
> logical or empirical argument that C. G. Jung's concept of
> synchronicity is somehow a nonsensical idea, or a false theory? (It's
> certainly very bewildering and disorientating.)
>
> (I don't even know how to define 'paranormal', but I am amused to find
> this, in Wikipedia: "*Paranormal* is a general term that describes
> unusual experiences that lack a scientific explanation, or phenomena
> alleged to be outside of science's current ability to explain or
> measure [...] but the scientific community [...] maintains that
> scientific evidence does not support paranormal beliefs." No shit,
> Sherlock!)
>
> (Sorry if this is too long, or incoherent, or typographically or
> stylistically ill-formed - it's my first attempt to post to this
> forum, and therefore a bit of an experiment in many respects.)
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