Did you try feeling it in your heart? Feeling his presence? You just have to believe.
You just have to believe.
This is what really kept me questioning as a kid. "You just have to start with the conclusion!" but what religion can't I believe if I just start with the conclusion?
Couldn't you do this with any diety you pleased?
Not if you don't want to go to the hell everyone is going to except for my religion
🎶🎶I need you Jesus, babyyyy🎶🎶
What the hell are these font choices?
Golden China Super Buffet IMPACT versus The A-Team Sans
You cannot compare religion and science. They are fundamentally different philosophies. Hence if someone tries to force one into the other they get garbeld garbage.
Science is the belief that what we observe with our five senses is reality. That's the belief system. It's based on a universal experience.
Remove that, and anything goes. Any religion has equal weight. With the exception that, for some reason, religious people believe the religion of their parents.
They often try to mold philosophy into their religion (what it means to be good) using some semblance of logic, but then inevitably tells you what happens in the afterlife.
Eh, science is more of a process than a belief system. You can use science to support or deny certain belief systems.
"I believe humans are fundamentally good"
Okay let's use psychology and philosophy to determine if that's true.
"I believe the earth is flat"
Okay let's use geology, astronomy, and physics to determine if that is true.
Also there are plenty of things that are part of reality which we can't observe with our "five senses", it's why we need to measure the effects and see the recordings instead.
We use 5 senses to measure and see the recording. The "process" of science is based completely around our observations (including measurement). Any evidence is defined a information gathered using our senses.
We reason and conclude based on those observations. Any fact or law is an observation using the senses.
But we have to first assume/believe that our observations are real and that we aren't plugged into a computer being used as batteries (Matrix trilogy is philosophy 101). Religion abandons that belief or supplements it with supernatural
Agh presump logic. Belief is not required prior to methodology, belief in the effectiveness of methodology stems from results.
When things evolved to swim they didn't have apriori knowledge that swimming would benefit them. You knew how to eat long before you even learned that eating got rid of stomach pains well before you took a nutrition class.
This whole idea that you need a metaphysics before you have a physics which you need before you have engineering which you have before any technical skill is a reversal of cause and effect. Put another way we didn't start with reasonable is rational, develop the big 3 of logic, spend decades developing set theory just so we could add, so we could develop the tensor equation for kinematics, which in turn led to Newton's laws, which branches into material science, and spend a century testing until the wheel came out.
I don't have to defeat Kant to know how to fry an egg.
That's not the point. The point is whether or not the fried egg is real. You eat because you're hungry because you choose to believe the sensation is real. Your senses.
So yes, senses existed before science, but science said "hey let's use these senses to reason"
You eat because you’re hungry because you choose to believe the sensation is real. Your senses.
Incorrect. The vast majority of life are single celled organisms and arguing that they have any sorta belief at all is very hard to do. Especially since they function perfectly fine without it. They find food, they eat it. No room for belief. To claim that humans don't work (action comes prior to belief) that way is just begging for me to ask at what point in evolution the sequence of events got reversed.
The fried egg is real. You should have vastly more confidence in the material world vs your thoughts about it. Which is more likely to be true?
A. Sticking your hand in fire will hurt you.
B. There is no largest prime number.
Everything went wrong with the early Greeks. They figured out your senses can be wrong sometimes. So instead of acknowledging this and moving on they demanded that it had to be right all of the time or wrong all of the time. No surprise this black and white thinking led them down to useless skepticism. It is so bizarre it is like noticing your speedometer isn't perfectly calibrated so the best idea is to go as fast as you feel like.
Stop reading Kant you are wasting your time.
You're making assumptions about what I'm saying.
We only find out our senses were wrong when we gather more information. More data. More observations. Stuff you acquire using your senses. You can't measure without senses. You can't question nature without observing it. Observe means father information. The only way to gather information is using senses.
That's the BASE. Yes, we then have to question and experiment and question more. But we can only do that with new information. The only new information we get is through senses.
A fact is only verifiable with observation. Observation, by definition, is information gathered using senses.
Again, I fully believe our experience is real. But science begins at the assumption that our senses are real.
I didn't know fuck all about Kant. This is just simple, basics of scientific inquiry.
But science begins at the assumption that our senses are real.
This is my point of contention. Assuming our senses --> science is not supported historically. What I say is results of science --> science --> assuming our senses. Because something works we choose to explain how it works, we don't start with the assumption that it works and get it do so.
Kant basically argued that we can't be justified in our empirical knowledge because even if our senses were always correct we have hidden assumptions about the world that clouds them. For example that things happen in sequences, cause before effect. That space between things is real instead of all the same thing churning. And thus having defeated both reason and observation he declared God to be the basis of all human knowledge. It really is just Plato but in German and somehow more confusing.
What I say is results of science --> science --> assuming our senses. Because something works we choose to explain how it works, we don't start with the assumption that it works and get it do so.
Make an observation of a something, then explain it, right? Observe it working. Observe using senses. That was step one?
Think of a mathematical proof. List the givens. So when you explain your results, you start with "given that senses are real and not a simulation..." I agree that questioning senses came later, but it doesn't change that we always assumed they were real.
I see the frustration with those philosophers. I assure you I'm not trying to discourage or discount science.
Fine let's think of math. Did you learn to add and subtract in first grade via proofs or by counting? This is not only true as an individual this is true as a species. Someone noticed a pattern and only later did someone else write a proof. And then in the late 19th to early 20th century when set theory became a thing, when there was an attempt to justify all of math via itself endlessly problems popped up. Pretty much all math, according to some, depends on consistency of arithmetic which we don't know is true in the formal sense. Maybe one day someone will break that and get 2 = 3 and it won't matter. Because addition will still work.
I think I understand you're saying senses existed before science. Science and philosophy helped us to get to a place where we can say "are senses real?"
Like "wow we were using our senses the entire time! That's how we observe! But how do we know senses are real? Oh we can't"
Starting with a given is required, otherwise, as others here have said, anything goes.
The difference is that religion starts with a given that is absolute. If conclusions are incorrect, the understanding must be questioned because the given is absolute.
Science, on the other hand, regularly questions the given. If conclusions are incorrect (e.g. Mercury in retrograde dilemma) then the given is questioned until we have a better understanding. For science, there is no final solution because the posibility that we were wrong and will understand better the more we observe is science.
I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me or the other guy...
as others here have said, anything goes.
I'm the one who said that
Science, on the other hand, regularly questions the given. If conclusions are incorrect (e.g. Mercury in retrograde dilemma) then the given is questioned until we have a better understanding.
But all of our understanding is through our senses. All measurements taken, all tests, all new "data" is gathered using our senses. The assumption of science is that our senses are real.
The assumption of science is that our senses are real.
You keep asserting this and I am not seeing you provide evidence for this. How did you look into the minds of anyone doing an experiment in history to see this?
You literally cannot make an observation without the senses. You can't DO an experiment without using your senses.
I'm really confused by the misunderstanding. I do assume the senses are real. I teach science. I'm not trying to disprove it.
Any steps or methodology includes facts and observations. Which you acquire through senses.
Right but that doesn't mean that you have a prior assumption. Your students aren't starting from philosophical first principles they are learning the methods of science long long before they will ever learn the philosophy that is used to justify it. And as a scientist/teacher you know historically this is exactly what happened. We observed and then we derived, not the other way around.
The problem with all the presup arguments is they can't accept that with very very few exceptions actions proceed thoughts. They depend an underlying basis for the universe and epistemology then not finding one they declare god and fuck off. And it goes all the way back to Plato.
I feel like you're going beyond anything I've said.
I had to look up this presup you keep saying. I think you're just defending science or something because you feel threatened by what I'm saying. Maybe you hated me using the word "assumption". I'm not a skeptic. I'm not trying to convince anyone that religions have the same weight as science or anything. I'm an atheist. Science is my living.
Science begins with an assumption that the senses are real. That's it.
Caveman and fire analogy? Yes, started with an observation using senses. Then the questions came. And seeking understanding of the observations. That's all well and good; great even. Science is the study of our natural world and that is only perceived through our senses. Even when our senses seem to be wrong, like water bending light. It was through further observation that we get new, better information. Cool that senses are used for other things as well. Even before science, and even by other living things.
As long as there exists some possibility that we're all in a computer simulation, our senses are an assumed reality. I'll repeat though, that doesn't make anything more or less likely, it just is what it is.
Yes, and if you keep going on that speculation, you arrive at two options.
Keep assuming our senses are real until there is a reason not to.
Assume our senses are not real and attempt to discover what reality is.
Either way, science doesn't care because it's not about being right, it's about figuring out what is. Put another way: Change theories to suit facts instead of facts to suit theories.
What speculation? I haven't speculated at all.
I have no reason to believe senses are fake. Science is the study of our observations. That's what it is. Ergo, we assume our observations are real. I'm not arguing at all that they don't exist. But science starts with the "understanding" that our senses are reality.
You're arguing with yourself.
Hope it's fun for you.
Shit, are you me?
No, this is Patrick?
bro physics/chem/bio ain't easy and straightforward this shit hard man
This isn't about the mechanism we use to understand the world, just how we do.
I’m firmly of the opinion that it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe that it had one.
BUT believing in a creator does not mean that you have to ignore scientific evidence of the way the universe functions
Ok that is your opinion. I wonder how you reached it and I also wonder if you started out neutral and came to that conclusion from what you learned or if you came from a religious tradition first.
And that's where it falls apart. Science isn't a belief system; it's provable and repeatable.
Science will look at the evidence and come to the most logical conclusion. Different people may well come to different conclusions. When more evidence comes to light, it will disprove some of those conclusions and we end up closer to the truth. There is no "faith" or "belief" involved.
Science sees no evidence of a creator, therefore it doesn't factor one in. The door is left open for people to prove that there is a creator, but so far there has been no such evidence.
It sounds like you’re describing science and religion like they’re completely separate things, but I don’t see it that way at all. I wouldn’t describe science as a religion, but there’s definitely faith involved in the current dominant scientific theories. Until theory has been tested to exhaustion and there are no more tests to run, the theory lives on as a theory because it hasn’t been disproven (either fully or partially) and there is an assumption that it will not be disproven. That assumption is faith.
They absolutely are completely separate things. Incompatible even.
You are confusing the colloquial use of the word theory in english and the definition of the word theory in scientific use. Which is one of the most infuriating things. I imagine you might even know better, but if you didn't, hopefully you learned something.
So how is theory defined in the scientific setting?
And I'm firmly of the opinion that it takes as much faith to believe that the universe has no unicorns that can fly as it does to believe it has none.
BUT believing in unicorns does not mean that you have to ignore scientific evidence of the way the universe functions.
See how proving a negative is silly?
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
It doesn't take faith to not believe in a creator. There is a huge difference between "I don't believe in a sentient creator" and "I believe there was no sentient creator," and I don't know of a lot of atheists who are firmly in the second category. The lack of evidence (or need for it) would make for a better case for not existing, though, and with that in mind, saying "I don't think there was a sentient creator" doesn't require anywhere near the faith that saying "I believe there was a sentient creator" does. Being able to say "if there was this, there should have been evidence of it here" and finding no evidence is, itself, helpful to an argument of something not existing that would require evidence to prove it exists.
Religious get into this weird binary thinking, where it's belief in their particular thing or an equal disbelief of that thing, when it's really that that particular thing, lacking any evidence, is equally as likely as any other improbable and unprovable thing. Belief in God or disbelief in God, where it's really not believing in God, vampires, reptile people controlling the government, magic, fairies, or anything else without evidence, and all of those, lacking evidence are equal until evidence is produced. And that's not disbelief, it is the lack of belief.
It requires no faith to not believe in a sentient creator of the universe.
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
Yup, that's my point. It takes faith to believe a creator does not exist.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator.
That's a good point. I hadn't considered agnosticism in this conversation. Refusing to accept something as true without evidence does not take faith. However, I maintain that it takes faith to assert that there is no god/creator since we do not have actual evidence of this.
Why? There is no evidence that a sentient creator exists or created the universe. So I have no reason to believe in one. Zero faith is required to have that opinion. Not knowing something doesn't mean I have to default to a god did it. A god is simply one of many possibilities, all with just as little evidence as the other.
Besides. Why can't there be multiple creators? Why does the creator have to be sentient? And who created the creator? Has the creator always existed? Seems to me that it takes more faith to believe a creator has always existed and then created the universe than it does to believe the universe itself has always existed. I'm not saying I believe any of that, but in this scenario either way something has always existed, yours just has one extra step.
We may one day find out what caused the beginning of the universe, or maybe we never will. Regardless, immediately attributing that which you do not understand to a god is no better than the people of ancient civilizations. Before we knew what caused lightning, we blamed Zeus. This is no different.
There is no evidence that a sentient creator exists or created the universe.
And there is no evidence that the universe appeared out of a void. I do not mean to say that it only makes sense to believe in a god/creator, I just meant to say that it makes as much sense to believe that there is a god as it does to believe that there is no god. I would argue it takes faith to do either, however it doesn't take faith to say you would not believe either without evidence.
Why can’t there be multiple creators? Why does the creator have to be sentient? And who created the creator? Has the creator always existed?
I have no answers for this question that don't involve what I personally believe on faith and not on evidence, and I cannot make any sensible effort to try to convince you of it so I won't.
either way something has always existed, yours just has one extra step.
I agree something has likely always existed, and whatever it is I would call it "the creator." I have my own personal beliefs about the creator being sentient but I have no proof of that.
Like I brought up in my last sentence or two, every other time we've blamed something on the supernatural, we have either found a natural explanation for it that precludes the supernatural (Zeus and lightning, for example) or have not found enough evidence for it to find it compelling (ghosts, for example). We've found no reliable evidence in favor of a supernatural being, be that ghost or god, despite our ability to do so being significantly better than that of ancient peoples. Imo, the more this happens, and the more the "god of the gaps" shrinks, the less likely a god is to be true simply on a statistical standpoint. Why should it be true this time, you know? If a horse loses a thousand races, are you still going to bet on it?
With that in mind, I don't believe it takes faith at all to actively believe there is no god. Just like it doesn't take any faith to believe a timeless unicorn didn't fart the universe into existence, or that there isn't a magical leprechaun in my closet right now that disappears when you open it. They all sound just as ridiculous to me. Now, I do agree that it takes faith to actively believe any positive claim without solid proof. If I said I believed the universe were timeless because I liked the sound of the theory, that would require at least some level of faith on my part. That's why I'm happy to admit I have no idea what caused it. It doesn't affect my life, so I can accept that it's one of the many, many things I'll likely never know.
I just meant to say that it makes as much sense to believe that there is a god as it does to believe that there is no god.
Now to wrap up my long-winded comment here, I want to say I agree with this completely. I personally do not believe in any god, but if you're willing to accept that a lot of your belief in one stems from faith, that's fine by me. I don't think you're stupid for it or anything. Religion itself and the belief in a god is not really a problem, though believers themselves do tend to be a mixed bag as many hateful views often stem from religion, such as anti-LGBT views.
Feel morally superior > make judgements against others > legislate your “beliefs”
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