To think that some people conflate being “intellectual” with rejecting anything spiritual?

[BothAndNotEitherOr]

I’ve noticed a pattern, especially in online spaces like this one, where people seem to tie their sense of intellect or rationality to a total disbelief in anything spiritual. It’s like the idea of fate, intuition, synchronicity or even a loose belief in “something more” gets lumped in with being irrational or uneducated. I’m not talking about organised religion necessarily, more the subtle stuff people feel or notice but can’t always explain.

And to be honest, a lot of the responses I’ve seen on here reinforce that vibe. If you say anything even slightly beyond logic or science, there’s an instant eye-roll or a wall of statistics.

AIBU to think that some people over-identify with being hyper-logical and that rejecting anything spiritual has become a kind of intellectual performance?

Totally agree. I sometimes think ‘science’ is a religion of its own, and people believe science to offer more answers than it does.

There is absolutely no way of arguing with that. That’s why I talk about the people who believe in god or the paranormal being closed minded. Also it’s a very short step from that position to “atheists have no moral compass.” Which is tedious, obviously untrue, and likely to flip into being offensive.

Rene Descartes, the Father of Rationalism and analytic geometry, considered himself a devout Catholic.

He was politically savvy and needed to stay on the good side of the Church, but it seems to have gone far beyond that.

Descartes knew that Rationalism could be used to argue for atheism but personally rejected this interpretation.

Science offers answers to everything. We just haven’t discovered it yet. It’s absolutely fine to say “This is something we don’t yet know-we’re working on it”. No need to fill the gaps with god or pseudoscience.

I get your point. And you can add that to the question of natural evil - to which I will also say "I don't know". You're satisfied by the Big Bang. I'm not. That's not to say I know - I'm saying the evidence is insufficient in every direction. For me.

But how did life begin? How did that first life form start? You cannot answer that I think?

you can tell the narrative of evolution but cannot tell us how to create a living being scientifically - ie in any way other than reproduction

It doesn't offer answers to everything. It gives us the means to do things, but it cannot explain if that thing is worth doing, it's merely instrumental.

Offensive. Goodness.

Abiogenesis, and a lot of time.

Well, I find being told I have no moral compass pretty offensive! I’m sure you would too.

Wow, your post illustrates my point perfectly, thank you! Utter blind faith.

No, we can’t answer that. Yet.

I don’t understand…..

I agree and tbh I feel that way myself. Although I know that there are still some very intelligent people who believe in gods and woo stuff, I find it hard to get my head around that. With established religions I can understand it a bit more because they have mostly been brought up with those beliefs. But with other spiritual or superstitious beliefs I do think it's ridiculous to believe such total nonsense.

The tenet of your science ‘religion’ is ‘science answers everything, even though it doesn’t, it will’ - if I understand your previous comment correctly?

This is blind faith. There is no evidence that science will ‘answer everything’ (for what this even means?). It’s a belief system that you hold. It’s ok to hold of course, but there is no evidence for your belief, it’s faith. Indeed, even a lot of things people feel are ‘answered’ are more at the status of commonly accepted theory or supposition.

Why do you think science won’t eventually explain everything when it has explained so much already? And what are the things that people
think are answered that you think aren’t?

No human rights without god? Have you read the Old Testament?!!
For most of us, our ideas of right and wrong, our ideas of how others should be treated come not from god, but from the basic humanity and instincts we are born with.
If you need religion or a fear of burning in hell to stop you killing or hurting others, or even just teach you how to treat them then you’re a pretty dodgy person to start with.

SI units specify measurable amounts. The post you replied to says "everything can be measured". Given your attempted challenge, it might be well to highlight the "everything" part of that.

Justice is an abstract concept; it's universally recognised but the exact terms of its application vary by culture. It can only be "measured" in terms agreed by that culture.

The purpose of abstract nouns is to represent concepts. They are not "things", they're ideas. I realise you saw this as a logical trap and I'd quite enjoy answering it. But I haven't got all day, and this is nothing like explaining to a five-year-old!!

Going back to the point you were replying to, spirits can't be "things" because they can't be measured in any internationally accepted units. They are an abstract concept, with culture-specific meanings that, in some cultures, can be "measured" according to that culture's criteria.

The question of what "real" means when talking about concepts, or even about material things, is one of those academic rabbit holes that keeps philosophers busy with mutual intellectual onanism. I'm not interested. As I said earlier, I often hallucinate: I'm a bloody expert in what's real and what isn't!

I didn't, but you did say people who believe in God are close minded

I agree with you that being told one needs to be religious - and people often have a certain religion in mind - in order to have a moral compass is offensive.

But it is unclear at best whether science will offer answers to everything. We know that mathematics cannot: Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem proves that there is no set of axioms in which every true statement can be proved (and never will be)

So everything certainly cannot be proved theoretically. Experimentally? Usually we are guided to test what theory has led us to suspect, and to confirm theorems deduced from axioms.

Incidentally, Kurt Godel, who was the pre-eminent logician of the late 20th century and held a permanent chair at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, was also deeply religious. However he mainly studied the Bible in private, apparently

Research might one day allow us to understand that. For example, just last week they announced that sugars / ribos were found on an asteroid - very strong precursor materials for early primitive microbial life.

Given time, we will understand more and more about how it works.

What won’t happen is that we’ll discover some interdimensional god-man who is simultaneously all loving AND somehow invented cancer, AND who randomly impregnated a teenager without her consent, and who we have to “worship”.

You can claim not be interested in anything that doesn't exist materially. But pure materialism is impossible to sustain as a belief. Science can tell you how to do things, it cannot tell you why you should or shouldn't do anything. That's something else entirely and purely abstract... but it exists and you do it all the time. You can't think without it. And yet it isn't "real"?

But how did life begin? How did that first life form start? You cannot answer that I think?

This is my favourite doorstep Witness conversation 😆 I say I don't know how ... well, by that stage I've got to Big Bang, I don't know what started the BB, and perhaps mankind will never know. You say god, right? God created humans, or life, or the universe. And what created god?

It's the same question.

I'm on the side that can measure, trace, double-check and prove a chain of causal events all the way back from now to shortly after the Big Bang. I have reasonable confidence my side will be able to specify exactly what BB was and how it happened, if perhaps not what was before it.

The other side's only got an abstract concept that means different things to different people: "God". And nothing - not a thought or a guess, not even a question - on what God is, what it's made of or where it came from.

Cool.

You avoided answering my question, where would you insert your God.

Would it be fair for me to say that you spotted issues with how to answer that question ? I hate to put words into people's mouths and all that. And I totally subscribe to good faith debate.

The big bang was not really a bang. It was more of a rapid expansion. We worked back from the Hubble constant etc, It was actually a Catholic priest who came up with the term "big bang". Current thinking is that it's not objects flying apart, but that it's the space between them expanding. Makes my head spin.

But that does not really matter here, I think. What matters is where in the 14 billion years or so that we know the universe has existed, where do you slot your God into ?

I think that question is fascinating. Because it can't be everywhere, because how to explain the bad things that happen.
So the logical thing to do to make that model fit, is you have to invent evil, an anti God. And you mentioned evil in your post.

So now you have 2 Gods. A good one and a bad one. But how can a good God, the powerful one, allow the bad one to exist ?

I don't think the question of "where does your God fit ?", can casually be brushed off with deflections. I think it deserves an answer.

Do you agree with that ?

As an atheist , I don't belive in evil, by the way.

Thanks for your permission to claim not to be interested in anything that doesn't exist materially.

I am, obviously, interested in things that don't exist materially. Your permission was neither requested nor relevant.