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

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

There is a demonstrable impact, but most often not of the physical kind - which of course invalidates it in the eyes of materialists!

And I'm v. comfortable say that I am religious, I do religion, and I believe in religion. I'm happy wit hthis because I don't buy into the dichotomy of 'eligion vs. revelation' or 'religion vs. relationship.' I believe you need religion to have revelation / relationship with God!

Capricious nature of Abrahamic God - I posted lots on this last week. Ummm...do you want a v. brief summary?

ElB - your line there about science being about the truth - it's a great idea, and it's important to say that it's a philosophical one, not a scientific one per se. I could just as easily say 'poetry is ultimately about truth' or 'history is ultimately about truth' etc. We've said lots already on this thread about 'meta-narratives' / master discourses / who gets to be Queen of the Sciences. What do you think of that?

Any thought or feeling that you have ever had, HOH is the result of a physical process. So if there is a demonstrable impact of religion it must be manifest here in the physical world otherwise it would have no effect and we could not know about it.
Science is special because it allows the objective testing of hypotheses - that makes it completely different from say History. Ideas are put into the public domain and anyone can dispute them or design experiments to disprove them. This is completely different to believing something because it is written or you feel that it is right.
What do I think of what?

Oh, also, about the varieties of faith groups you hung out with, Him - the insisence that each group is 'right' is partly what drives me mad about Christianity. I am honestly not that sectarian - I don't believe for one second that I am any more of a Christian than anyone else, whatever church they belong to. I have found a home in the C of E that suits me and that I love, but it's not for everyone. I have honestly got the utmost respect and sisterly love for Christians of all descriptions - I have no desire to get one up one anyone else doctrinally. For me, it's less about 'getting it right' and much mor about living after the pattern of Jesus in faith, hope and love...

I don't personally think science is about the "truth" in the way religious people understand it.

Rather it's about finding the explanation with the highest probability of being correct. There is always the possibility of being wrong.

Words like "truth" and "trust" are too loaded, and mean different things to the religious and non- religious.

"And I'm v. comfortable say that I am religious, I do religion, and I believe in religion. I'm happy wit hthis because I don't buy into the dichotomy of 'eligion vs. revelation' or 'religion vs. relationship.' I believe you need religion to have revelation / relationship with God!" The people in many of the churches I have been to would call you wrong. They would back that up with scripture and theology, just as you do your arguments. Why are you right?

ElB, I don't doubt that science is a great thing. I do doubt that it is everything. (THe qu was to do with metanarratives - you speak as though you've done some philosophy, so I thought you might have some interesting things to say about this....)

x-posted there - "I don't believe for one second that I am any more of a Christian than anyone else, whatever church they belong to."

That's not a statement of fact. You clearly do believe that you are a christian, and you are clearly convinced that your position is correct or you would not defend it so strongly!

By virtue of taking up the position you hold, you are denying the claims of others, since they contradict yours.

Saying that science is about truth does not mean that its the only thing which is. History should be about discovering the truth about the past, I can't imagine what else it is supposed to be. The difference there is that some knowledge about the past is irretrievably lost so we know it can only be partial truth and therefore there's more scope for interpretation

Poetry - well, no, that can be whatever the poet wants - not even that, people read meaning into poetry that the writer never intended. It may reveal truths about the human mind but can also lie.

No science isn't everything, I would be the first to accept that.
But it is the best framework that we as humans have for understanding the world because, when done well, it approaches questions from a position of neutrality. This approach is completely different to other belief systems that almost always pander to the vested interests of morality and ultimately power.

Grimma, as I said last week, the thing about meta-narratives / master discourses / Qu of the Scis is essenial if you are to understand what I'm saying.

Cruncy - eh? Of course it's not a statement of fact! Which is why this thing about meta-narratives / master discourses / Qu of the Scis is essential if you are to understand what I'm saying. Really, really essential. It won't make sense otherwise.

ElB, having just read the God Delusion which is surely the least neurtal thing I've read all year, I have to question your faith in the neutrality of science!

It goes back to what I've said quite a few times by now - the answer you get depends on the question you ask and the methodology you use. Which is why the meta-narrative thing is so important. Because that is the question and the methodology.

The God Delusion is opinion, informed opinion at that, but not science. I have read it too, but did not find it a great read.

The God Delusion isn't a science book or a book about science. It's one man's view of religion.

I know! It's an evangelistic pamphlet! And yet it was in the 'science' section of the bookshop - how odd...

Dawkins has written better books about Evolution, perhaps that is why it was in the science section. Because this book was misplaced by the vendor does not invalidate the point about science approaching things from a position of neutrality.

Well quite. Prof Dawkins is a professor of evolutionary biology. Not a philosopher or theologian. Scientists have no more reason to be neutral about those subjects than anyone else.

Holo

I don't think you really attempted to take your belief hat off when you read my last post.

It was probably valid to have philosophy on an equal footing as science 400 years ago, but philosophy is becoming pretty irelivent in a modern world (if it isn't already completely irrelevant!)

You keep saying that it all comes down to what question is asked - which implys that I (all atheists) are always asking the wrong question. So what IS the question? (please word it in straight language without any baking anologies, I am starving). I will try to answer it from my atheist perspective.

Technodad

ElB, do you accept that the question you ask and the method you use determine the possible range of answers you can get?

If so, it follows that science is as much determined by humans as religion is, and is therefore 'subjective' as all human life is.

I'm not saying this to say that science is wrong, or deficient, but I'm really not convinced by this myth of purity / pristine-ness / objectivity that surrounds science. I think that all communities / philosophy 'schools of thought' construct and maintain their identity with reference to certain myths, and this 'myth of objectivity' is utterly central to scientific materialism. If science is not 'objective', it cannot be authoritative...

But...I don't knw much about science, but I've had lots of experience of medicine from a patient's POV. I've had a long term illness for 20 years now and I know so well how subjective the methods used to control my illness are - depending on what the doctor values and thinks might work. Same with two other members of my family who have long term illnesses. I've moved to a different county and the approach in my new hospital is very different to my old one - I could see the discomfort on my new consultant's face as I was telling him how my old consultant chose to treat me...

Obviously both consultants' views are informed (I trust so, anyway!) - but they did not agree - so 'subjectivity' plays a big part here. I think it might be more accurate to say that science is a mixture of objective and subjective - trying things out (subjective) within a known paradigm (objective). This seems true of medicine, at least...

TechnoDad, can you take your atheist hat off? No, thought not!

Umm...I'm talking about methodology, not any specific question. Insert any question you like. Does that help?

Ah, the irrelevance of reliigion! Another favourite atheist myth! Go on, explain, convince me that this is so...

Anyway... 'meta-narratives' etc ... well, I'd managed to live over half a century without encountering the terms 'Queen of Sciences' or 'master discourse', and without thinking very much about meta-narratives... sorry, but I don't get why you think they're so important. They're just stories.

"ElB, do you accept that the question you ask and the method you use determine the possible range of answers you can get? "

Of course the question you ask will determine the range of answers - I don't think anyone would dispute that.

Re method - if you're talking about a science question (or something that science can be applied to), the only credible method to use IS the scientific method.

For example, if you wanted to test which of three shampoos made hair the cleanest, the only way to do this would be by testing them and objectively analysing how clean the hair was.

If you used a method such as 'well my mum always uses shampoo 2 so that must be the best one' then that might be a (non-scientific) method of choosing, but it wouldn't give you a credible answer from a factual point of view. Though I will concede that if someone said 'that's the one Angelina Jolie uses' then people might find that a credible enough reason to use it!

The truths about the world uncovered by science exist outside of science itself, I am sure we all agree on that and that is also why it is different. As I said before, your approach to this question is (the currently fashionable) relativist one which completely misunderstands what science is about. There are some entities that are not just belief constructs and are real and demonstrable, like gravity, electricity, oxygen etc.

I am sorry to hear of your condition and experiences with the medical profession. The consultants you have seen are not scientists and certainly in medicine, science has a role to play in understanding diseases, but there is much more at play than that (like experience, competance, incentives given by drug companies, the cost of treatment etc). In addition, our knowledge of all conditions is incomplete so consequently different doctors will behave differently. This observation does not say anything about the validity of the scientific method. If you really believed that science was just a belief system you would not bother to visit a doctor at all.

The current state of scientific knowledge certainly does depend on what questions have been asked thus far and what experimental methods have been used to elicit answers.

That doesn't mean that 'science is subjective'. It means we have partial objective knowledge.

If your main understanding of science is through medical practice - not suprising you're confused! . You're getting there when you say:

'I think it might be more accurate to say that science is a mixture of objective and subjective - trying things out (subjective) within a known paradigm (objective). This seems true of medicine, at least...'

• Clinicians aren't scientists, by and large; what they do is often not really scientific at all. We don't yet have the ability to scan someone's DNA, then add all the developmental and environmental factors which have affected their bodies, and then be able to confidently predict that a certain drug will be effective with no side-effects. This has nothing to do with the scientific method - its not theoretically impossible - just its way beyond what we can actually do at this point in time.

I said the irrelevance of philosophy not of religion.

But since religion falls out of philosophy then you probably have a point.

You response is a cop out in my view. You admit you know nothing about science but dismiss it, whereas we are all desperately trying to understand how to see things from a religious perspective.

The problem is, when you dismis a scientific statement that completely stands up to being tested by responding "ahhhh, but are you asking the right question?" and then when asked "what is the question then?" you respond by saying "there isn't one", it just goes to highlight the lack of intilectual effort you are applying to the discussion.

We come right back to the beginning again - there is no point in having the debate.

Grimma, your unfamiliarity with the idea of metanarratives is precisely why all science undergrads should be made to do at least a term on the philosophy of science! It's a bit like speaking with an accent - no-one realises that they speak with a certain accent until they meet someone eles with a different one. Of course, you can go your whole life thinking you don't speak with an accent, and many do...

In the humanities we are a bit obsessed with methodology! We think so hard about why we do what we do, the underlying implications behind choosing to situate this in the framework of that, whether this is the best way to do that, whether this is the best question to put to x, whether this set of data will help us understand y, whether the conclusions reached in another field will help us move towards a better understanding of z...

I think I'm more inclined to trust my DHs opinion of the value of the Philosophy of Science to undergrad scientists than yours TBH.

What part of the humanities obsession with methodology do you suppose scientists don't do, simply as a matter of course?