Is the Left Hostile to Religion?

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

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

This is dumb. Anyone who thinks actions are good is going to want more good actions and less other actions. People directly valuing good actions over other actions is a clearly more scalable mechanism over people valuing good actions only because they fear an outcome worse than performing the effort to do good actions. So people valuing good actions and spreading the value of valuing good actions is itself good. And that's without getting into whether having a bunch of people living under irrational fears is itself good regardless of whether it spurs them to perform good actions.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 19:48

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Patrick Spens posted:

Okay, but empirically religious people donate more of their time and money to charity than non-religious people, so religious belief in fact leads to more good actions.

This only follows if the charities spend the time and money to perform good actions as effectively as whatever charities non-religious people donate to, and the surplus in good actions outweighs whatever extra bad actions religious people perform, which isn't to say you're clearly wrong, you just haven't got the evidence you need to make that claim. Further "it is good for people to directly value good actions" isn't an argument against religion, just that religious people should be independently motivated to perform good actions regardless of whether they also believe there would be negative outcomes for not performing the good actions.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 20:26

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

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

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.

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 05:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

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.

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.

twodot fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 8, 2017

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 05:40

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Brainiac Five posted:

Are you going to argue for non-historical Jesus in this thread?

No. Are you going to argue "Jesus was definitely a historical figure" isn't an empirical claim?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 05:47

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

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.

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?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 05:53

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Brainiac Five posted:

Can you get to the point?

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 05:57

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

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.

Can you make up your mind?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:05

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

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

My primary point has been your language sucks, because I can't actually engage with an argument until it's phrased in non-sucky language. Given this, is the physical existence of a person named Jesus in a particular time and place a claim that Catholicism relies on and is that fact within the magisterium of the Catholic Church?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:14

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

yes

I'm not Catholic

So given that magisteriums don't overlap, science is totally incapable of showing a person named Jesus didn't exist in that time and place, regardless of what evidence science might produce?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:19

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Crowsbeak posted:

What evidence has it produced if you're so sure Jesus didn't exist because SCIENCE?

None, this has nothing to do with the question asked. Science can't answer questions like "Is feeding people good?", but it can answer questions like "Is the sky blue?" even if all available evidence says "Yes".

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:23

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

okay I'm having a hard time unpacking this

science is NOT capable of showing Jesus did NOT exist

regardless of evidence

It's generally agreed by historians that there was an itinerant Jewish priest by the name of Jesus.

Are you asking in the sense, science can't disprove God? Because yeah, that's correct.

Suppose someone invented a time machine and performed a census of that time and location, would you still think science couldn't show a person named Jesus didn't exist in that time and place?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:27

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Brainiac Five posted:

Suppose the moon was made out of green cheese, would you like a slice? Suppose you made points that were relevant instead of lovely efforts at indirect approach?

I don't like green cheese.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:29

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

Yes, if I went back in time and performed a census of everyone in the time and location of the Biblical Jesus, we would find an itinerant Jewish preacher named Jesus.

To get reductionist, you are venturing a prediction rather than a hypothesis. What is your underlying hypothesis?

Wait, you somehow know this to be absolutely certainly true? Like I agree it's likely, but I don't understand how you accrued such certainty over 2000 years of time.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

No, I'm not absolutely certainly true.

Nor am I absolutely certainly true the Earth revolves around the Sun, or that gravity accelerates everything downward. All the evidence points that way, but I'm not absolutely certain.

That is how science works.

Yes, I agree. This is how science works. This should mean the physical existence of a person named Jesus in a particular time and place is within the magisterium of science and not that of the Catholic Church, right?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:35

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pellisworth posted:

yeah sure

I think you don't really "get" the thesis of the article, maybe re-read it?

Pellisworth posted:

yes

I'm not Catholic

e: also, I don't mean to seem unduly harsh taking people to task on their wording or language. Keep in mind that Christianity exists within a two or three-thousand year old context and there are a lot of philosophical concepts which are simply assumed and take a bit of effort to translate.

So you are fine with overlapping magisteria? You've agreed the existence of Jesus is both the domain of science and the Catholic Church in this thread.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:39

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Main Paineframe posted:

The only religions that claim that evolution didn't happen are religions or denominations founded in the 19th and 20th centuries with the specific intention of lashing out against science. Many of the anti-science beliefs people traditionally ascribe to medieval religion, like flat-Eartherism or young-Earth creationism, are things that sprang up as part of modern fundamentalist movements. The idea that there has been a deep historical conflict between science and religion, while widespread, is largely a myth.

So what? Religions that claim evolution didn't happen still exist. Why do I care when or why a religion was founded? Religions, broadly speaking, both make empirical claims and reject any working mechanism to validate those claims, any such system is necessarily going to come into conflict with science eventually, even if historically religions have avoided making empirical claims current science can investigate. (Note: I disagree this is a recent thing, if someone could hand me a Bible with all the literal parts highlighted I'm pretty sure I could find a false claim.)

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 19:10

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Main Paineframe posted:

Biblical literalism and inerrancy is a recent thing. Historically, religious scholarship tended to be of the opinion that much of what was written in the Bible was metaphorical rather than literal, and there were many errors and contradictions in the holy texts. If proven science contradicted what was written in the Bible, the scientific interpretation was generally considered to be correct and the Biblical interpretation was recast as an analogy or metaphor.

The idea that the text of the Bible is literally true is mainly held by two groups of people: modern flavors of fundamentalist Protestantism, which reject existing religious authorities and understandings in favor of a back-to-basics approach easily understood by the common man without the need for a priest or scholar, and militant atheists, who don't care to educate themselves about religious history and scholarship and find it far simpler to just Google the text of the Bible and smugly demand scientific proof that snakes were once able to talk.

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

quote:

If proven science contradicted what was written in the Bible, the scientific interpretation was generally considered to be correct and the Biblical interpretation was recast as an analogy or metaphor.

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 20:47

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

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, ...).

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.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

Of course religion CAN BE in conflict with science, but it is not necessarily so. In these specifics about the Bible, while some people have taken parts literally, it does not follow that it is a document meant to be read so (nevermind the fact that the Bible isn't even a single document etc.)

My point here is that essentially all Christians take some portion of the Bible literally. I can't generally predict what parts those are, but when it happens to be the case that the parts they picked out as literal turn out to be right, that's just a coincidence.

quote:

Your claim is essentially saying that because some white people are Trumpists, then all white people are terrible. And while I concede that there are many terrible white people, you would be hard pressed to prove your logic.

No, I think basically all religions make some empirical claims, and that whether those claims turn out to be right is basically chance. When those claims are shown to be wrong, you either say "Whoops we were wrong, we will reason using actual evidence and logic" or you double down on the conflict. To the extent that conflict doesn't exist between science and religion, it's because science always wins.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:08

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Main Paineframe posted:

It would be utterly foolish for me to say "literally always every single time, no exceptions whatsoever" about any social assertion covering possibly tens of thousands of incidents in hundreds of human societies with dozens of religions over thousands of years. The simple enormity of that sample size makes it silly to categorically rule out any social happening or movement.

I agree it would be very silly for you to do it, which is why I also think it's silly to claim religion and science aren't in conflict, especially when there are active ongoing direct examples of that being the case.
edit:
"Where science and religion are in conflict, religious people are generally comfortable ignoring the conflict" works.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:12

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

Do you think they are "engaging in the conflict of science and religion" is a useful description of that pope?

No, it's not an actual battle that humans can take the field in.

quote:

You say secular societies can also be in conflict with science. But still, religion can't (not be)?

I mean it's certainly possible to have a religion that makes no falsifiable claims, but that seems kind of boring, I'm not sure if any exist in enough numbers to be worth talking about. 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. (When they're right we've got an interesting research opportunity)

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:23

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

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.

Cingulate posted:

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?
[...]
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.

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 21:52

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

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, it's the definition of both.

But to be fair delusions like that are not at all limited to the religious, I have known atheists who nevertheless believe in fate, good luck charms, ghosts, or yea, even aliens (as in actual visitors).

To my knowledge I've never described religious people as delusional, nor would I in general (there are of course some number of people who have religious delusions). Religious people can certainly be occasionally wrong about things, but that's not practically any different from people who are wrong about things for a variety of other reasons.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:00

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

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

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:16

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

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?

And therefore this person is wrong:

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

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.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 22:34

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Who What Now posted:

We're trying to explain to you the difference between believing something isn't real or true and claiming to know something it's real or true. One of those claims requires a lot more rigor to support; can you guess which one?

I think everyone understands the difference, the question is how much is "a lot more" contextually. Like the amount of rigor someone needs to believe Hogwarts isn't real versus claiming to know Hogwarts isn't real is basically identical to me. The amount of rigor someone needs to believe dark matter is WIMPs versus claiming to know dark matter is WIMPs would be very different.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 21:53

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Bolocko posted:

Depending on the proposed action of intercession we could test certain types of claims about God's activity, not God's existence.

You could test for existence given certain definitions of an intercessory God. Like if I say "I'm holding an intangible clock that makes audible beeping noises at noon", if there's no beeping at noon, we know there's no intangible clock that beeps at noon. Religious people aren't usually interested in constructing definitions that rigorous, but it's at least in principle possible.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 22:50

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Bolocko posted:

Well no, your beeping would only indicate a source. It's your assumptions that would tell you it's a clock (for example, it seems to occur at noon in accordance with standard clocks). If the thing is truly intangible you'd be unable to determine whether it's a clock or any other conceivable or inconceivable thing appears to beep once a day. And this isn't a rigorous example.

What? Did you miss the several times I said "no" in that post? If it's noon and I don't hear any beeping there for sure isn't a clock of any sort or any sort of other device that beeps at noon within hearing range. Obviously hearing beeping doesn't demonstrate the existence of anything other than a thing that beeps, but I'm specifically talking about the absence of beeping.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 00:07

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Shbobdb posted:

Enlighten me.

How are the Republicans not evil?

I think ignorance remains an explanation. Particularly in this thread, which is about people who think literal magic exists.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2017 06:15

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

BrandorKP posted:

Being hostile to religion is stupid. It's like being hostile to a language.

Hostile to a language or all languages? I can definitely imagine individual languages I would be hostile towards: Newspeak, et cetera. Being hostile towards all languages would be dumb but for reasons unrelated to religion.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2017 19:55

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

silence_kit posted:

Not really, since high school physics and chemistry don't really have a lot to say about how old the earth is. Whether the high school physics/chemistry teacher is a creationist or not is neither here nor there.

Did they not teach carbon dating in your high school chemistry class? (edit: Like believing "the universe is <10k years old" is just so fundamentally wrong, that it winds up mattering in a bunch of places)

# ¿ Apr 17, 2017 19:38

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

silence_kit posted:

You must have gone to a much more advanced high school than mine if you actually studied in detail the technique of carbon dating and as a chemist, actually learned how to apply it to things and interpret the results. What advanced high school chemistry elective was that?

It's really not advanced or complicated. It's in New York state's core curriculum, sorry you received a substandard education:

quote:

4.4 Explain the benefits and risks of radioactivity. i calculate the initial amount, the fraction remaining, or the halflife of a radioactive isotope, given two of the three variables ii compare and contrast fission and fusion reactions iii complete nuclear equations; predict missing particles from nuclear equations iv identify specific uses of some common radioisotopes, such as I-131 in diagnosing and treating thyroid disorders, C-14 to C-12 ratio in dating once-living organisms, U-238 to Pb-206 ratio in dating geological formations, and Co-60 in treating cancer

edit:
Bonus here's a book that covers dating in grade 11:
http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst/fhsstchem.pdf

twodot fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 17, 2017

# ¿ Apr 17, 2017 19:51

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

I personally think Chomskian linguistics is insane, but regardless of how it will eventually turn out, regardless of if I'm betting on the winning horse here, what should matter for me being qualified and allowed to teach is not what I believe to be true, but if I am able and willing to explain to a student Chomskian linguistics.

This is weird to me, because I can't imagine anything where I could believe both "thinking X is insane" and "we should teach students X". Like if I were an advanced 18th century scientist who figured out phlogiston is nonsense, even though the consensus was that phlogiston was awesome, I wouldn't be arguing "even though phlogiston is bullshit, what makes me a qualified scientist is my ability to convince students it isn't bullshit". If I ever took a teaching position where I was required to teach something I knew to be false, it would only ever be with intention of subverting the falsehoods as much as I possibly could. Maybe people will argue that just makes me a lovely teacher, but teaching known falsehoods as anything other than historic mistakes seems like the bigger crime.

# ¿ May 26, 2017 16:24

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

This puts you in the awkward spot you note: that I am perfectly convinced of X, but I know you are convinced of Y, and I do not think you're stupid or underinformed. So how do we deal with that?

I'm not trying to be dismissive of the rest of what you wrote, this is just the part that confuses me. If we ever encounter this situation, then at least one person has incorrectly evaluated their confidence. Which is what you seem to have been doing here:

Cingulate posted:

I personally think Chomskian linguistics is insane

is a lot more confident than:

Cingulate posted:

it's not perfectly obvious which side is right at this moment, and a reasonable person can sympathize with either side.

I'm familiar with some open questions is a variety of fields where reasonable people can come to different conclusions, but the nature of open questions is that there's no way to be particularly confident of any conclusion (otherwise the question would not be open). "Is the Earth 6000 years old?" is a closed question. A person perfectly convinced that the Earth is 6000 years old is either stupid, under/misinformed, lying, or engaged in some non-evidence based reasoning such that being informed is irrelevant to their conclusions.

# ¿ May 26, 2017 19:30

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

So just to get this clear, you are saying that in general, if I believe X and I see a person who believes not-X, then it is natural and the only reasonable response is to either stop believing in X, or assuming the other person is unreasonable, or something in between?

You seem really bad at estimating or communicating confidence levels in beliefs, "I believe X" shouldn't be a substitute for:

Cingulate posted:

I am perfectly convinced of X

# ¿ May 26, 2017 21:20

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Cingulate posted:

So just to get this clear, you are saying that in general, if I believe X and I see a person who believes not-X, then it is natural and the only reasonable response is to either stop believing in X, or assuming the other person is unreasonable, or something in between?

No I'm not saying this. This would be, in general, utterly absurd behavior. I would attempt to clarify for you, but at no point have I ever posted about or replied to anything about people who merely believe a thing, so I can't possibly imagine why you would even think to ask me this question.

# ¿ May 26, 2017 21:49

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