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The fundamental assumption of religion is the 'leap of faith', i.e. the adoption of a non-parsimonious assumption in your knowledge base, because of 'divine revelation'. The fundamental assumption of science is universal skepticism and the application of parsimony to all beliefs (to state it more rigorously - minimize the total entropy of all beliefs). They're not equivalent, but you have to go beyond theories/knowledge into the process of deriving beliefs/knowledge to tell the difference. But it exists, and so for the purposes of this discussion, you can proceed from that assumption.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:02 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:41 |
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The "leap of faith" aspect seems to normalize a very Protestant view of religion. Tradition is a much bigger driving force behind religion. "Doing things the way they've always been done because that's how they've always been done" is reactionary as gently caress and why religion and leftism rarely get along.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:06 |
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I think that reading this thread has made me feel it's more likely that the left is hostile to religion.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:07 |
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rudatron posted:The fundamental assumption of religion is the 'leap of faith', i.e. the adoption of a non-parsimonious assumption in your knowledge base, because of 'divine revelation'. The fundamental assumption of science is universal skepticism and the application of parsimony to all beliefs (to state it more rigorously - minimize the total entropy of all beliefs). They're not equivalent, but you have to go beyond theories/knowledge into the process of deriving beliefs/knowledge to tell the difference. But it exists, and so for the purposes of this discussion, you can proceed from that assumption. Science is not universally skeptical or else it could not proceed. All knowledge ultimately must proceed on certain fundamental axioms, and the basic process of science as it is actually done relies on further, non-fundamental axioms which are nevertheless necessary to avoid producing a mindless glut of pointless data with every experiment or field observation. This definition is once again useless.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:10 |
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rudatron posted:The fundamental assumption of religion is the 'leap of faith', i.e. the adoption of a non-parsimonious assumption in your knowledge base, because of 'divine revelation'. The fundamental assumption of science is universal skepticism and the application of parsimony to all beliefs (to state it more rigorously - minimize the total entropy of all beliefs). They're not equivalent, but you have to go beyond theories/knowledge into the process of deriving beliefs/knowledge to tell the difference. But it exists, and so for the purposes of this discussion, you can proceed from that assumption. I would invite you and any other thread posters to read and consider the following before continuing (a famous essay by evolutionary biologist S. J. Gould): http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html Science and religion do not necessarily overlap or conflict. Science occupies the domain of empirical observations and testing, religion generally occupies the domain of moral, ethical, and philosophical reasoning.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:15 |
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These kind of threads are interesting, but repetitive, because they tend to attract the same kind of people with the same kind of 'chip on their shoulders' - religious apologists who feel they have to defend themselves from what they feel are unfair accusations (contextually important in the first world because of declining church membership/attendance), and atheists who want to make their objections about religiously dominated politics known. The problem with that is that threads on religion end up turning into the same kind of things over and over again, as those same insecurities get expressed in each time. In this case, religious apologists who are left-of-center want to be able to reconcile their religiosity with their politics, and so naturally latch onto any relationship, however tenuous, between progressive ideology and religions-as-a-whole, i.e. liberation theology or whatever. Ultimately though,, all religions function as arbitrary communities with an inherited culture, and that culture gets determined by people in positions of authority, and the authority structure of religions tend to lean towards highly hierarchical, because that's what all communities where like when these religions started. Ergo, they tend to excuse hierarchy, and tend to integrate well into societies with large disparities between classes/groups/whatever. Being arbitrary tribes, they also enculture tribalism, and all the other prejudices that follow from that (heretics & heathens). So, strictly speaking, you can believe almost any metaphysical structure you want, and have whatever politics you want, there's no real restrictions there. But practically speaking, religious communities will tend to lean right-of-center, support right wing politics, act as a recruiting base for right-wing paramilitaries, etc etc, and there's no real way that's changing in the near future, short of the total abolition of religion.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:16 |
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Religions are hierarchical? I guess all religions are just a branch of Catholicism then.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:18 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Science is not universally skeptical or else it could not proceed. All knowledge ultimately must proceed on certain fundamental axioms, and the basic process of science as it is actually done relies on further, non-fundamental axioms which are nevertheless necessary to avoid producing a mindless glut of pointless data with every experiment or field observation. This definition is once again useless.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:21 |
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rudatron posted:These kind of threads are interesting, but repetitive, because they tend to attract the same kind of people with the same kind of 'chip on their shoulders' - religious apologists who feel they have to defend themselves from what they feel are unfair accusations (contextually important in the first world because of declining church membership/attendance), and atheists who want to make their objections about religiously dominated politics known. you've used a lot of words to define your ignorance, do you have any specific questions about religion and leftist politics? specifically, Christianity, because that's all I'm able to talk about If you check out the A/T Christianity thread you will find it is absolutely one of the most progressive and tolerant Christian groups on the internet, we have pagan and atheist posters regularly contributing because it is a relaxed and chill place to exchange ideas rudatron posted:Correct, but the only fundamental axiom would be parsimony. All theories have a given mathematical complexity, you justify that complexity against the explanatory power of the theory vs. data. Even something like physicalism/materialism actually ends up falling out of that assumption of parsimony - the assumption of an unseen universe is an assumption with an incredible amount of complexity that, more often than not, offers no explanatory power. holy lol goddamn you use a lot of big words to communicate nothing at all, it's impressive
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:23 |
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But have you ever considered that maybe your car is actually run by goblins? Maybe the engine doesn't do anything at all but we just think it does because we have blind faith in physics and engineering. Even if we know engines and cars work, do you check your car everyday while it is running? Because if you don't, my "goblin hypothesis" is every bit as reasonable as your "engine hypothesis".
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:23 |
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rudatron posted:Correct, but the only fundamental axiom would be parsimony. All theories have a given mathematical complexity, you justify that complexity against the explanatory power of the theory vs. data. Even something like physicalism/materialism actually ends up falling out of that assumption of parsimony - the assumption of an unseen universe is an assumption with an incredible amount of complexity that, more often than not, offers no explanatory power. Wrong. You are relying at least on the axioms that you are capable of acquiring accurate data and interpreting that data correctly, and that that data is meaningful. You need to be able to trust the information you have in order to be parsimonious about it. I appreciate that you tried to bulldoze over the problem of induction without the slightest acknowledgement that it might exist, but unfortunately you're not competent to do so.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:25 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Wrong. You are relying at least on the axioms that you are capable of acquiring accurate data and interpreting that data correctly, and that that data is meaningful. You need to be able to trust the information you have in order to be parsimonious about it. I appreciate that you tried to bulldoze over the problem of induction without the slightest acknowledgement that it might exist, but unfortunately you're not competent to do so. please don't ask the thread to explain inductive vs. deductive reasoning most graduate students can't do that (a good post)
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:28 |
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Pellisworth posted:I would invite you and any other thread posters to read and consider the following before continuing (a famous essay by evolutionary biologist S. J. Gould): http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:31 |
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Induction also falls out of parsimony/assumption of minimal entropy. Do you have something that you want to say? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not challenging your's or other believer's 'progressive bondafides' on the account of your religious belief, I'm trying to talk about religious communities in general and the forces that act on them. I'm sure you're a very tolerant/nice person, but I'm not really talking about you specifically. Does that make sense?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:32 |
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twodot posted:The claim that religion and science don't conflict because Good Religions don't bother to make claims science can test, and we can just ignore Bad Religions that do make claims science has disprove because they're bad doesn't make any sense to me. That there exists religions that claim evolution didn't happen is just true. These religions are necessarily in conflict with science. Certainly, there are religious sects that violate Gould's NOMA principle. My point is that many/most denominations do not, it's only when religions attempt to make empirical claims or that empiricism attempts to make moral/ethical claims that they get in trouble. Young Earth Creationists get in trouble because they make falsifiable claims about the history of Earth and evolution. Similarly, "New Atheists" in the Dawkins mold get in trouble because they use science to make claims on religion and morality which lie outside the scope of scientific inquiry. rudatron posted:Induction also falls out of parsimony/assumption of minimal entropy. Please define inductive reasoning for me. This statement is gibberish. e: also, entropy INCREASES thermodynamically. What are you talking about.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:36 |
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I'm not using an obscure definition of induction, I mean the standard, philosophical idea of induction. Why does it sound like gibberish to you? edit: ah, just to be clear: 'entropy' here refers to the concept in information theory, not thermodynamics, though the two are closely related.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:39 |
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Pellisworth posted:Certainly, there are religious sects that violate Gould's NOMA principle. My point is that many/most denominations do not, it's only when religions attempt to make empirical claims or that empiricism attempts to make moral/ethical claims that they get in trouble. twodot fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 8, 2017 |
# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:40 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Wrong. You are relying at least on the axioms that you are capable of acquiring accurate data and interpreting that data correctly, and that that data is meaningful. You need to be able to trust the information you have in order to be parsimonious about it. I appreciate that you tried to bulldoze over the problem of induction without the slightest acknowledgement that it might exist, but unfortunately you're not competent to do so. I'll grant religious belief equal standing as an explanation for natural phenomena when it is falsifiable and testable. Otherwise, your 'but what if none of us are capable of accurate perception of anything at all, doesn't that mean <insert magic here> could be real?' argument is uselessly absurd.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:42 |
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rudatron posted:The fundamental assumption of religion is the 'leap of faith', i.e. the adoption of a non-parsimonious assumption in your knowledge base, because of 'divine revelation'. The fundamental assumption of science is universal skepticism and the application of parsimony to all beliefs (to state it more rigorously - minimize the total entropy of all beliefs). They're not equivalent, but you have to go beyond theories/knowledge into the process of deriving beliefs/knowledge to tell the difference. But it exists, and so for the purposes of this discussion, you can proceed from that assumption. Naomi Oreskes talks about this issue: https://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_oreskes_why_we_should_believe_in_science/transcript?language=en Leaps of Faith and consensus are very much part of science. And the false dichotomy continues to be harmful.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:43 |
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rudatron posted:I'm not using an obscure definition of induction, I mean the standard, philosophical idea of induction. Why does it sound like gibberish to you? Okay, what is the standard, philosophical definition? I've taught and mentored many students in the sciences. It sounds like gibberish to me because you're using a lot of big words while not actually demonstrating you understand the concept. Most college and many graduate-level students in STEM don't really understand the difference. So, I'll repeat, could you briefly distinguish for me between deductive and inductive reasoning? I'm happy to respond with my take, but I would appreciate you explaining in a few sentences. If you want to make an argument from a rational scientific or philosophy of science perspective, I expect it to be robust.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:43 |
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Liquid Communism posted:I'll grant religious belief equal standing as an explanation for natural phenomena when it is falsifiable and testable. Otherwise, your 'but what if none of us are capable of accurate perception of anything at all, doesn't that mean <insert magic here> could be real?' argument is uselessly absurd. That's not an argument for religion being true, motherfucker. I'm attacking rudatron's definition of what religion is. Can you avoid jumping to loving conclusions for one single thread about religion? twodot posted:What religion are you think of where many denominations don't make empirical claims? I think almost all Christian denominations claim Jesus actually physically existed. Are you going to argue for non-historical Jesus in this thread?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:44 |
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twerking on the railroad posted:I think that reading this thread has made me feel it's more likely that the left is hostile to religion. It's convinced me that Sandernista's should make wearing a fedora without a proper suit should make you liable for expulsion from the movement.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:45 |
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From reading this thread I've grown convinced the mediaeval church was entirely right and proper in persecuting atheists for so long.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:46 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Are you going to argue for non-historical Jesus in this thread?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:47 |
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twodot posted:No. Are you going to argue "Jesus was definitely a historical figure" isn't an empirical claim? If your argument against non-overlapping magisteria is a transparently tendentious argument that believing in the existence of historical figures of the religion is an empirical claim that violates the magisterium of the sciences, then you are just making the non-historical Jesus argument in sheep's clothing and there's not much point in further discussion, now is there?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:49 |
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twodot posted:No. Are you going to argue "Jesus was definitely a historical figure" isn't an empirical claim? It is falsfiable, yes. Most historians agree Jesus was a historical dude. Science is utterly incapable of saying whether he was actually the promised Messiah, died on the cross, rose again after three days, etc. That is not a thing science can do.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:50 |
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Pellisworth posted:It is falsfiable, yes. Most historians agree Jesus was a historical dude.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:53 |
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Like, I said, I'm not using any obscure definition of induction. You can refer to either the Wikipedia or Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy's definition as the one I'm using. But briefly: induction = reasoning in which data is given as evidence, but the truth value will always remain inconclusive deduction = logic following from presumably true axioms now that we have undergrad philosophy out of the way, perhaps you could clarify why my initial statement sounded like 'gibberish' to you? I'm happy to clarify, but I need to know what to clarify. rudatron fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Mar 8, 2017 |
# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:53 |
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twodot posted:So you are agreeing that basically all of Christianity makes at least one empirical claim, that a person named Jesus existed in a particular time and place? Can you get to the point?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:55 |
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twodot posted:So you are agreeing that basically all of Christianity makes at least one empirical claim, that a person named Jesus existed in a particular time and place? yeah sure by all means feel free to disprove the historicity of Jesus rudatron posted:Like, I said, I'm not using any obscure definition of induction. You can refer to either the Wikipedia or Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy's definition as the one I'm using. But briefly: your copy/pasting Wikipedia is cute inductive reasoning is HYPOTHESIS GENERATING, you consider existing data and construct explanations for observed patterns deductive reasoning is HYPOTHESIS TESTING, you consider competing hypotheses and evaluate their strength I called it gibberish because I have a PhD and a decade of teaching college science courses under my belt and your posts sound like a freshman trying to bullshit a midterm paper they didn't do the reading for.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:56 |
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Brainiac Five posted:Can you get to the point?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:57 |
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Pellisworth posted:I would invite you and any other thread posters to read and consider the following before continuing (a famous essay by evolutionary biologist S. J. Gould): http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html Say what you want about Sam Harris, but he (among others) picks this apart pretty well. For Gould's argument to hold, "religion" would need to be qualitatively different than it is today.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 05:59 |
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twodot posted:Pellisworth claims it's unusual for religions to make empirical claims, but this is trivially false. Don't butt into conversations you don't understand. Why does this disprove the central thesis of the argument for non-overlapping magisteria? You're assuming everyone has your deformed lawyer's brain and if you can offer trivia that contradicts a broad statement you have destroyed the statement, because you have a brain that is, so far as I can tell in reading hundreds of your posts in thread after thread, incapable of interpreting meanings beyond the denotative. That is, any religion will make trivial empirical claims but those are generally irrelevant to the content of the religion. The claim that a particular Shinto shrine exists does not make Shinto's claims about the ideal emotional state for human beings empirical ones.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:00 |
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twodot posted:Pellisworth claims it's unusual for religions to make empirical claims, but this is trivially false. Don't butt into conversations you don't understand. I did not say that, and on what basis do you blow off Brainiac Five as not understanding? I suggest you reread Gould's NOMA article. It is certainly true that many religious groups violate the NOMA principle. SO DO MANY ATHEISTS That's my overarching point-- many Christians, especially American Evangelical types, have very unscientific beliefs. So do most atheists. Science is incapable of reaching empirical conclusions about the domains religion mostly addresses: morality, ethics, mythology, spirituality, etc.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:01 |
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twodot posted:What religion are you thinking of where many denominations don't make empirical claims? I think almost all Christian denominations claim Jesus actually physically existed. Yeah Jesus Mysticism really makes you look like a bit of an idiot.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:02 |
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Pellisworth posted:Certainly, there are religious sects that violate Gould's NOMA principle. My point is that many/most denominations do not Pellisworth posted:It is certainly true that many religious groups violate the NOMA principle.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:05 |
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the trump tutelage posted:Say what you want about Sam Harris, but he (among others) picks this apart pretty well. For Gould's argument to hold, "religion" would need to be qualitatively different than it is today. Could you link an article? My initial reaction is that "religion" is extremely variable between denominations, regions, etc. To paint religion by any broad stroke is very reductive. I can only speak from personal experience, but most of mainstream, non-Evangelical Christianity is pretty cool with science.
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:05 |
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twodot posted:Can you make up your mind? There's no contradiction between "many do" and "most do not".
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:07 |
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Shbobdb posted:I think a logistical positivist could go either way, honestly. What the hell?
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:07 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:41 |
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twodot posted:Can you make up your mind? Do you have a point you wanted to make other than dissecting my language? Let me be more specific, American Evangelical / Right Wing groups tend to be much more anti-scientific and violate NOMA principles. Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism (Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, etc) are much more inclined to agree or compromise with NOMA principles. e: you needn't accept Gould's NOMA scheme, I just think it's a good starting point for consideration of a reconciliation between science and religion
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# ? Mar 8, 2017 06:08 |