Why do some people find it hard to believe in God? Part 2

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

Holo - what a bummer, how frustrating for you Hope the pain goes soon.

I suppose it'd be a bit unsporting to carry on this debate one-sided.

Put a call out on one of the Christian threads for someone else to come and throw themselves to the lions debate with us?

Oh, and get well soon Holofernes. Must be frustrating for you.

I know, I was thinking that after my last post. Poor holo will just end up hurting herself in her frustration at wanting to put all us heathens right, lol.

Maybe god is working in a mysterious way... if there's no other takers we'll have to start arguing among ourselves.

Oh.. and I'm sure you can work out who the Dickens I am normally.

We can start arguing about..... Well, just about anything really.... Except the non existence of god, on which we all agree

How about the origins and propagation of religions? Has anyone read e.g. Dennett ? I am too lazy haven't had time.

No, not read Dennett. Have you read Sam Harris?

I started one of his once... DH has loads of books, and watches Ted and suchlike. Far to much of what I know is secondhand from him - edited highlights!

Here's a little clip we might all enjoy - .

It's encouraging to see there are some sane people in the US, after the 'Atheism in America' article I posted the other day.

Thanks for all the well-wishes! I am typing very slowly using my left hand only...

Maybe, in my incapacitated state, one of you could explain to me what it is about the scientic methodology that privileges it above other types knowledge and makes it final and authoritative? I haven't really had a compelling answer to that one yet. I was reading Barbour's book 'Science and Religion' which seems very sensible to me, and maybe later I'll post what he thinks 'the scientific method' is - it's really fascinating to see how different people have understood it. I was being flippant the other day but I can imagine that if we lived in a society that prized elegance, originality and beauty of expression, maybe poetic / literary truth would be seen as the truest truth (iyswim)- hence the Romantic movement. So why the scientific method as final, defining and authoritative?

oh, and btw Grimwig [wink - if you know anything about the apocrypha (and, let's face it, why should you?), you'll know that Holofernes' head is slain already.... (It's the book of Judith, a great, grissly read!)

"So why the scientific method as final, defining and authoritative?"

Off the top of my head, I'd say that it's the only method which is objective and not subjective.

Not that there's anything wrong with subjective opinions, but by definition, not everyone is going to agree with a subjective opinion, thereby begging the question of what is actually 'true'.

Not to say that the scientific method IS always perfectly objective or indeed, perfect in any way - but it's the best method that exists with regard to getting agreement between large numbers of people about what is true and what isn't.

I think there's also a tendency to see the 'scientific method' as being touted by rather aggressive (possibly atheist) scientists in labcoats, wielding test tubes! That's really not the case - it's just an ordered methodology and starting point to finding stuff out. It can be used by anyone and indeed we all use it to some extent, albeit informally and inperfectly, in our day to day life.

holo -

Glad you are back, we were going to have to start singing to ourselves.

I don't think it is that the scientific method is arbitrarily more valued than elegance, beauty, originality etc...it is that they do different things.

Scientific method is how we understand the world. As in it is made out of atoms and energy and other small confusing things I can't remember atoms build into molecules, molecules into cells, cells into organisms, organisms into ecosystems and societies etc... and you (and other people) can study all these things by looking at the evidence of what you can see and hear, measure, weigh, count etc...spot patterns, make connections, hypothesise causality, figure out ways to test it, put the findings out there for others to build on or dispute etc...

History, sociology, politics etc..are not 'different ways of knowing' a different truth, its a way of studying the same world made out of the same atoms and molecules on a different scale/timescale.

Literature is not a 'different way of knowing' it may be a different way of noticing patterns (e.g. about human behavior) but it doesn't stand or fall on whether it describes the physical world reliably.

Religion seems to waver between literary 'truth' (it feels good) and real 'truth' (it claims to describe something about the world). But there is no way of knowing whether something that is not bound by the laws of nature and therefore cannot be observed in any way is true or made up ('invisible unicorns' etc..).

Of course it could be that atoms and photons etc.. don't really act in the way they think they do, maybe they are only pretending to. Maybe light doesn't travel in straight lines but the photons just arrange themselves in front of you to give you an optical illusion of what you are looking at. Maybe when we leave the room the room disappears etc...But we have never caught them in the act, just like we've never caught god in the act of bending the laws of nature. So it seems sensible to assume that the universe does act in the way it appears to, not in some other mysterious way, and that science is our best attempt so far to describe it.

I think, outside of philosophical discussions, most people live their life like this (otherwise you would go crazy). Would you rather get on the plane that had been checked over by the engineer, or the one that had been deemed safe through meditation?

....now tell me about Jesus's DNA please, its bugging me!

"Glad you are back, we were going to have to start singing to ourselves."

How about Kum Ba Yah?

Himalaya and Bobbin, thank you for those answers.

Him, I'd never want to deny the goodness of what science does - yes, of course I'd want the plane checked by an engineer! But it's not an either-or choice in RL, is it? I take my meds, trusting in all the complex scientific processes which have brought them to me, and I pray, trusting God to help me live with a long-term, as-yet incurable illness. My meds can't help with the latter - well, they can insofar as they make me feel better, but they can't deal with all the complex non-physical aspects of illness. I know that scientifc methods like pyschotherapy etc could potentially help, but ultimately, I think that the deepest needs in me can only be met by God. I can't honestly see that an only scientific discourse (in its fullest sense, the sciences of body and mind) could give me everything I need to live well by. When I've been with people at funerals, understanding somehing about the scientific processes might give them a certain degree of comfort (e.g. 'at least she's not suffering any more') but there's a whole lot more that science can't say in those 'ultimate', liminal moments. I guess that's possibly partly why I think it's limited in its scope....

Holo - I don't think it's helpful really to think of science as 'good' or 'bad' - it's a tool that's great for finding out some things, but in some cases, as you say, it's largely irrelevant. For example your faith is exactly that, a faith, and the fact that it's hugely important and helpful to you doesn't have to be proved by science in order for it to work for you.

Or rather, the existence of God doesn't have to be proved by science in order for it to work for you.

But that doesn't mean that by extrapolation everyone should be expected to believe that god(s) exist, or that members of an organised religion should have 'special' rights in society.

No, I would never try to 'foist' faith on anyone - I don't even think that's possible, as faith is trust, which can never be demanded of anyone. OTOH I think it's valid for people of faith to bring their dc up within that faith - and most religions do agree on that. I think also it's a mistake to see religion / faith as a totally private affair - we are 'social animals' and what we believe (or don't believe) inevitably affects those around us. I'm not sure what I think about, say, the Establishment of the C of E, tbh - would the church be lesser if it were dis-established? I can't see how it could be so...

I'm still thinking about the whole subjective / objective thing. I think there's probably a bit more to it than that, but....hmmm....[wanders off, muttering.....]

I haven't read the whole 1200 posts, but felt compelled to put my point of view down.

At the end of the day, since religion is based upon "faith" and science is only based upon "facts", the discussion is pretty much pointless. No matter what factual evidence is presented, if your mind is "wired" so that it values faith over evidence it is impossible to have an intelligent and rational discussion about why god doesn't exist.

All religions can't be right, which means that most (all) are wrong. Therefore why are 5 year old children taught that "got created the world" in state financed schools?

I bet people would be bashing down the head teachers door if your kids were being taught that 2+2=7, but for some reason, a school can pick a religion and teach it as "fact". It is wholly unacceptable (irrespective of anyone's personal religious belief). America is one of the most religious countries in the world, and even their state education system has the intelligence to teach evolution and to ban creationism - why can't the UK!?

Have your say: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1617

By the way, if anyone wants to teach their kids science in a fun way, get the "Science is real" album by "They might be giants" - It is great!

Technodad

P.S. if you sign the petition, please pass it on to others via facebook etc so that the 100,000 target can be reached.

TechnoDad, hello!

My dc are at a faith school and they certainly aren't taught creationism 'as fact.' This is actually the 3rd state scool they've been in (first shut down , then we moved ) and at no point have they been taught creationism 'as fact.' I used to work at a faith school (RC) and the certainly didn't teach creationism 'as fact' there either. Is the petition based on any large-scale survey of science and RS curricula in primary and secondary schools? If so, from which year?

Hmmm....I'd also like to add that the whole facts vs. faith dichotomy is very attractive, but is it the most acurate way of talking about what religion and science are? Do you not think that 'paradigms' play as important a role in both?

Also, just to add that as conversations go, this one has been pretty intelligent and rational....

As an example the task: "go and colour in all the things on this picture that were made by God" is, without question an example of Creationist teaching in my DC's school. Saying grace at school is thanking God for what "he" has given, is supporting the Creationist myth.

I didn't intend to imply that people on this thread are not having a rational debate, more to emphasise the fact that you will find the vast majority of atheists who state that there is a 99% chance that there is no god, but they can't prove it as a fact (hence not 100%), but that you will find many religious people who are 100% convinced that there is a god. This is down to a fundamental difference between the way the two groups approach the evidence.

Techno.