Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

botany posted:

I don't really have anything substantial to contribute to the discussion cause y'all talking past each other and misusing words, but I want to just point out that anybody who cites the solar eclipse 1919 and the Eddington expedition as an example for the scientific (hypothetico-deductive) method has very obviously never really looked into how that worked out in practice.

I've read Dyson, Eddington & Davidson 1920 (even re-ran the stats myself), I've read The Golem, I've not read Earman & Glymour 1980, I've read a bunch of other papers on the topic, and I think Eddington's and Popper's respective interpretations are entirely defensible.

botany posted:

The confirmation of general relativity is actually a really good example for the social nature of consensus building in science as opposed to the impact of cold, hard facts.

That is true I guess, although in the best Kuhnian sense - science is an effectively progressive enterprises even if it is a social, historical phenomenon.

CommieGIR posted:

... what's that picture telling us here?..

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 14:50

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Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

Its showing that the plates were well readable enough from the eclipse to be used against the reference plates taken in January and Febuary by Eddington.

I think the most contentious points is why some data points were excluded (the primary Sobral lens ones).
Eh, it's not important

Bates posted:

Well the answer is "No" in any case. For one thing a majority of leftists are religious

In the US.

What does it look like across nations? Globally, or at least within the west?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 15:39

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

botany posted:

Let me try to write something we can all agree on.

1. Eddington took measurements of a phenomenon which is, as far as we can say today, well explained by General Relativity, and better explained by it than by Newtonian mechanics.
2. At some stages in the analysis of the data, Eddington had to make a decision. The answer was not obviously, perfectly clear - not with mathematical certainty. He had to judge.
3. Eddington was a seemingly honest researcher, and did not intentionally falsify anything, and in the abovementioned judgement, he made a defensible call. As with any judgement, it was made by a human with his own convictions and motivations, which by necessity influence what we do. But this case does not look like fraud or lying.
4. It is possible other decisions would have been justifiable, and that had things been slightly different, he might have made another choice; these decisions could have led to more complicated, indecisive, perhaps even contradictory results.
5. That in this situation they did not is a matter of history - of specific instances of human action that may as well have happened otherwise, not of a universal law that scientists never err or whatever.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 15:55

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

No, and that's all I think most leftists (like me) want: Just Church/State barriers and barriers against Religious Bigotry being legalized as Free Speech in regards to Buisinessses and Law.
'

Well, but do we also hope for a generally more secular society? I think I do. This is not so much a matter of law - nobody here is gonna feel well proposing laws banning any religion, of course - but I think I hope that over time, the general trend of secularization in the West (excluding the US) continues. I'd be happy to see an atheist US president.
So while I can insist something should stay unencumbered by law, I can still hope for it to go away peacefully eventually, and if I do say that, that's more than just saying I want separation of state and church and free speech.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 17:19

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Danger posted:

Ironically enough, Harris�s definition of �science� necessarily includes things like astrology, phrenology, and even elements of religion for his tripe about morality to even be taken at face value

How?

CommieGIR posted:

We also cannot afford to burn bridges by attacking religious groups like Dawkins/Hitchens did. There are plenty of religious folk who long for a secular government. We need their support to.

Yeah, but if they ask you, you'd be honest what your long-term utopia is right?

I'm not really going anywhere with this.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 17:52

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Main Paineframe posted:

The misogyny of religion isn't driving the misogyny of society, it's driven by the misogyny of society.

Trivially, you can't separate this society from its religion. That is, this society is partially constituted by its religiosity. So I don't think you can so confidently make this claim.

I also don't like this idea many "benign atheists" (which I assume you are?) have that is more or less, and I fear exaggerating it, that religion is this blank slate with zero causal power to influence behavior, just a blank slate for your and your society's demons. This is totally the opposite of what religious people usually say. Actually religious people will tell you it is just their belief - their specific belief - that makes them moral, that makes them who you are. And many of them will say that yes, while they see some value in other religions, it is just their Islam, their Catholicism, that makes them moral - that it is not just random chance of birth that they are a muslim or a catholic, but that they are muslim because Islam is the best religion.
I think to take these people serious, as persons, as human beings, requires engaging with that, and to some extent accepting it.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 18:22

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Main Paineframe posted:

If you can't separate the religion from the society, then you can't reasonably blame the behaviors on the religion alone rather than the society it's part of.

I guess no, but why should I?

Main Paineframe posted:

By definition, though, the majority religion in a society is going to be the one whose teachings most of the society largely agrees with. If society's beliefs shift, religion will (eventually) shift as well.

Again, this is not how religious people experience this. Religious people will say things like: if society were to become more faithful, it would become more moral - the poor would be treated better, the crooks worse.
Now you can say you know better than religious people - that their religion is always the follower, just one of the arbitrary colors society dresses itself in. But without me even arguing that this may be factually false (I haven't even thought about it), do you see how that might be a bit arrogant?

Danger posted:

I'm meaning the way he construes science to plug his science of morality schtick. which completely ignores the whole is ought problem:

�Science simply represents our best effort to understand what is going on in the universe,�

Is that an extensional or an intensional definition? I don't think this means "whenever some individual pursues knowledge to their best ability, they're engaging in science". Without the context, I can only imagine it means something like "looking at the world, we see many attempts to understand it, of which science is by far the best, and religions are rather bad ones".

Danger posted:

"When you are adhering to the highest standards of logic and evidence, you are thinking scientifically." is also not a useful definition of science that would differentiate it from any number of pseudosciences (which includes his own)

I personally wouldn't say Sam Harris' work follows the highest standards of logic or evidence. But what pseudoscience that meets this standard are you thinking of ..?
Cause, like, I'm a relativist who likes his Kuhn and Feyerabend, but that sounds really relativistic.

Cingulate fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Mar 8, 2017

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 20:28

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Isn't being allowed to refuse a voluntary service you usually perform specifically because your religion tells you to discriminate against that group a negative right?
"I have the right to not serve pizza to anyone, for any reason/for religious reasons" sounds negative to me. "I have the right to pizza" sounds positive to me.

OwlFancier posted:

I think that's a rather nebulous line to draw and I would be unable to construct a justification for drawing it.

Refusing a general service for religious reasons vs. refusing something inherently religious for religious reasons?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 20:42

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

From the position of the end user a general service and a religious service may be of equivalent importance.

And the importance to the end user is the deciding criterion?.. Always? The only one?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 20:46

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

twodot posted:

You've completely failed to understand my point, and all of this is totally irrelevant, except here:

If you write this sentence, but you need to write "generally" instead of "literally always every single time, no exceptions whatsoever" then that presents a historic and ongoing conflict between science and religion. So long as the Bible contains any empirical claims, that's an opportunity for conflict between science and religion. It doesn't matter if someone think the whole Bible is literal or 50% literal or 1% literal. Any amount of literal claims are subject to scientific review. The young-earthers are just convenient in that they both exist and are definitely wrong, the fact that they are recent or few is irrelevant to fact that they show that religion and science can be/is in direct conflict. Other believers have wrong beliefs about reality, it's just much more difficult to demonstrate they're wrong, or, often, pin them down on what they actually believe.

How about a pope who spends fortunes on the sciences, leading to a lot of important discoveries in maths and chemistry, and promotes the hell out of that stuff, but once in a discussion with an astronomer he didn't really believe every single thing because there's an ambiguous sentence somewhere in 33th Samuel 33:ff? It seems you would have to say this "presents an ongoing conflict between science and religion", but it also seems a much milder conflict than between science and many secular societies (e.g. Lysenkoism, contemporary bioethics, ...).

OwlFancier posted:

As I said, the difference between positive and negative rights is entirely a matter of perspective

What definition of positive vs. negative are you using? I think Isaiah Berlin would vehemently disagree with you.

OwlFancier posted:

If the reason you're constructing the law is the welfare of the citizen then what is important to the citizen's wellbeing is kind of the significant factor.

What about laws which aim not to increase welfare, but to protect the rights of citizens, including immaterial rights?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 20:54

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

As I said I really don't understand the distinction. To use your earlier example, "I have a right to pizza" could be rephrased as "I have the right to not be refused pizza because that causes me harm"

I suggest reading up on the concepts before you continue using them.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/

I think it's pretty interesting stuff!

OwlFancier posted:

What's the point in protecting rights if not to increase welfare?

Is this a question or a claim? Are you telling me you have considered the various reasons people might give for insisting on rights over welfare, and you think they're all bad? Or are you asking me if I had heard of any because you can't think of any sensible ones?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:02

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

twodot posted:

Such a person sounds like a positive force for humanity's research institutions, but also like a person who doesn't believe in using the scientific method for their own purposes. Secular societies can also be in conflict with science.

Do you think they are "engaging in the conflict of science and religion" is a useful description of that pope?
You say secular societies can also be in conflict with science. But still, religion can't (not be)?

OwlFancier posted:

I'm suggesting that rights should be derived from increases in human welfare than that adhering to imagined rights for their own sake is silly because you're following rules without bothering to look at whether they're doing any good.

Okay, but can you imagine that some people have different views, many of them for smart, well-fleshed out reasons? E.g., https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/
I mean, ~70% of philosophers are consequentialists, but that still leaves us with 30% and a bunch of non-philosophers.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:15

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

I can imagine that people will start from premises that lead them to that conclusion yes but that doesn't mean I agree with them.

No, of course not, but you can't expect to convince everyone by building on a premise many don't accept.

You think the government should be allowed to kill me and freely distribute my heart, liver, both kidneys, and sexual organs to 5 people missing just these organs, about to die. I think the government doesn't. You say it maximizes welfare. I say I have a right not to have my organs harvested for the greater good. I say I have a right to be treated not merely as a means to an end. I say I am a human being, a person even. You don't respond, you just call the death squads. 5 people live happy lives with my organs. Well, 4, one of them is seriously short-changed. But so is life when your welfare is brutally maximized.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:25

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

twodot posted:

Any system that generates falsifiable claims is going to eventually generate claims that contradict science, if any of those claims are wrong, we've got a conflict.

Ok, that seems true by definition. So how are you going to cash this out? What does it mean that religions all conflict with science to the extent that they sometimes imply claims about the world which disagree with science?

OwlFancier posted:

I mean maybe I might argue that the inability to get people to buy into that society would probably cause more damage than the policy would avert and thus wouldn't actually maximize welfare.

Turns out you're wrong. (As this is my thought example, I get to decide.) There's no buy-in. To maximize welfare, there is only one society: we're all ruled by Killary Clinton and her army of Lizard Overlords. Globalism 3.0. And Killary did the math and turns out your welfare is indeed being maximized.

Danger posted:

Harris is broadening the term 'science' to include moral reasoning and philosophy so he can demonstrate how science can derive moral facts (instead of merely inform them):

“Some people maintain this view by defining “science” in exceedingly narrow terms, as though it were synonymous with mathematical modeling or immediate access to experimental data. However this is to mistake science for a few of its tools. Science simply represents our best effort to understand what is going on in this universe, and the boundary between it and the rest of rational thought cannot always be drawn." (from the beginning of Moral Animal)

He supports this by purporting we can use fMRI scans to decide what is a morally superior alternative by finding those that favor pleasure and avoid loss based on straightforward utilitarian ethics.

Sorry, you will have to explain to me how this 'definition of �science� necessarily includes things like astrology, phrenology, and even elements of religion' because I don't see it.

Main Paineframe posted:

So what? Science has conflicted with a lot of things at one time or another. To assert that science has never ever contradicted the theories, beliefs, or thoughts that previously existed would be a silly assertion to make, and to claim that that somehow results in some inherent and irreconcilable conflict between science and everything else is absurd.

I guess many would argue science has at times conflicted with human well-being, dignity, and even continued existence ...
But I would say I don't understand twodot's point still.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:37

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

Well, I mean, if we're going to play that game then I get a magic spell that creates eternal voluntryist communism forever and I cast it.

Then I'd probably say it was immoral to do that because you're ignoring people's right to self determination.

The game goes like this: you propose a scenario, and contingent on if I accept this scenario as inherently self contradictory or for some other reason impossible, we decide if your or my ethical system considers it just or not, and if that is a good classification. And if your system judges a repugnant scenario good, it won't convince me.

Avalerion posted:

Not sure how you can argue religion is not a delusion of sorts, belief in something without proof is the whole point of faith

I think to a lot of people, one of the more important points of faith is something like community.

twodot posted:

People try to claim religion and science don't conflict because it's religion's job to make spiritual claims and science's job to make empirical claims, but that is plainly false. Religions frequently make empirical claims. If this seems trivial, it's because it is, and my whole point is thinking there's no conflict is just dumb.

This seems very vague to me. Sure, sometimes religion and science stand in conflict. I don't see what important implication follows from this.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:04

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Danger posted:

Astrology or phrenology is an effort to understand what is going on in this universe; for some it is their best effort.

Again, I am not so sure what Harris means here is "whenever some individual pursues knowledge to their best ability, they're engaging in science". And even if, I think there might be a lot to be gotten out of "best effort" that excludes pseudosciences.

OwlFancier posted:

That doesn't really work when you're trying to appeal to realism.

Like you can't have a scenario that realistically leads to a reduction in welfare because of the obvious issues with mandatory organ reassignment and then claim that it actually improves welfare. You're being silly.

To be honest, we're one step too far already. I'm appalled the only reason you think the government should not distribute my organs amongst those in need is that you don't actually believe it maximizes the greater good. I think you should, at the very, very least, grant me the right to not be murdered.

twodot posted:

I don't know, ask the people who insist on there being no conflict and put in a bunch of effort to discredit religions where it's immediately obvious there is substantial conflict why they are doing that.

I think you're being imprecise. Surely nobody would argue there is never any tension. Surely nobody would argue there is always an extreme incompatibility. Maybe you're defending one, others are attacking the other.
So - you're saying, sometimes the two conflict. And?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:23

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

OwlFancier posted:

Why? I think the fact that there's very little reason why murdering you would actually achieve a positive outcome in the world is sufficient? In the event that you were such a malign force in the world that it would help things, why should you have that protection?

I think you are not standing on firm ground when arguing with anybody that their right to life should stand entirely on them not being a malign force - that if it was found that murdering them had net positive consequences, not only would their right to live have been overruled, but that they never had such a right in the first place.
"Why are you concerned about the NSA when you're not a terrorist?"

I hope I'm not coming across as saying you're wrong. I'm saying, I think you're not objectively, self-evidently right. I'm saying, many people will reasonably disagree with your first premises, and you'll be stuck at a point where neither has an argument that has any force on the other.

E.: I don't see any of this as indicating sociopathy either ...

twodot posted:

And therefore this person is wrong:

Well, not if they meant something like: "It is not true that science and religion are always in an existential conflict, a less-than-zero-sum-game where one has to destroy the other ASAP".

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:46

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

zh1 posted:

Why are non-religious people arguing for the religious? Could it be a part of the moronic and unfounded backlash against atheism?

I'm both defending Sam Harris and religion ITT. How blown is your mind right now!?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 00:34

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

NikkolasKing posted:

What I don't get is why or when the bromance of science, philosophy and religion ended. I've researched enough about religion and philosophy (science hurts my brain) to know that it was only a few short centuries ago when all of these things were bound together and got along just fine. The fascinating Scholastic tradition of Roman Catholicism for instance was built on the idea that humans can learn and understand everything, including God and metaphysical mater. Thomas Aquinas was not a gibbering Christian dope who said "The Lord knows and I'm free to be as ignorant as possible." He was a pretty smart dude and along with a lot of other deeply religious people he sincerely believed understanding of the world was perfectly in line with understanding God. At least, I think so. It has been a while.

But somewhere along the way, religion and science went their separate ways and the result is the discussion of the last several pages.

I think Darwin is a good candidate for marking a real caesura.

I'm not sure if there was something inherent about Darwinism that caused this - is Darwinism inherently incompatible with most christian churches and christian communities, or could the church have, in principle, accommodated him ("God creates via evolution, ok no biggie, humans are still special and holy even if they're related to apes, now let's get on with things that matter, like if altar wine is literally transubstantiation into the literal blood of christ?")? Maybe it's just a symbolic event for a larger conflict.

TomViolence posted:

To put another slant on things, the scientific worldview used to mean acknowledging all things are possible, these days it seems it's been appropriated towards whittling away the very idea of possibility itself, narrowing our imaginative horizons and banalising the world to promote a paralysing, pedantic sociocultural stasis.

I think you just made this up.

TomViolence posted:

For this reason the left should be more hostile to the turgid scientific (or, more properly, science-fetishist) chauvinism of the new atheists and more open to religion, because at least religion posits an alternative vision of the world beyond the stagnant, exhausted cultural landscape of the early 21st century.

I know it's popular to poo poo on 21st century liberal culture, but I think it's really, as they say, 'vibrant'! There's so much exciting culture going on. So much diversity, creativity, growth.
Religion still plays a major role, but I don't see how adding even more of it would make things better. Plenty of artists are religious. Many aren't.

TomViolence posted:

Religions are bodies of mythology. Myths are the foundational dogmas of human society, their historicity or factual, scientific basis is irrelevant to their symbolic power and consequent social significance. If the left wants to do away with religion it needs to make new, compelling myths of its own, think beyond reality and posit a vision of something better than this rudderless, meaningless poo poo.

Maybe what many on the left want is not so much removing religious myths because they're opposed to this particular kind of myth, but removing myths in general from certain situations.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 13:18

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy