Science, Religion,Reason & Survival

[W2ILP]

There is a very good debate quoted on an Internet site. It touches on subjects that we on QRZ have touched upon in many threads.
I have given my Atheistic Humanistic opinions many times...but I admit that I am not as capable of debating my reasonable beliefs as well as the debaters of the site I will link you to. Please read what they have to say if you remain interested in these subjects.

Go to:
http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html

w2ilp (I Like Peace)

[KA8DKT]

Thanks for the link to some interesting and thought provoking reading. #One thing stands out: #This is civil discourse with no name-calling, even where there is serious disagreement. # Name calling is, of course, the refuge of those who have no sound argument.

While he made some good points, I was not sure that I could entirely agree with all of Atran's remarks. #While I was thinking about why, I read Sam Harris' refutation. #He expressed some of my thoughts quite nicely.

I also thought Harris quite eloquently described the frustration that those who seek truth have with those who live with faith in the supernatural:
Quote[/b] ] ...The point is not that all religious people are bad; it is not that all bad things are done in the name of religion; and it is not that scientists are never bad, or wrong, or self-deceived. The point is this: intellectual honesty is better (more enlightened, more useful, less dangerous, more in touch with reality, etc. ) than dogmatism. The degree to which science is committed to the former, and religion to the latter remains one of the most salient and appalling disparities to be found in human discourse. Scientists spend an extraordinary amount of time worrying about being wrong and take great pains to prove others so. In fact, science is the one area of discourse in which a person can win considerable prestige by proving himself wrong.
Of course, individual scientists may or may not be privately honest or personally deluded. But the scientific method, with its institutionalized process of peer review, double blind trials and repetition of experiments, is beautifully designed to minimize the public effects of personal bias and self-deception. Consequently, science has become the preeminent sphere for the demonstration of intellectual honesty. Pretending to know things you do not know is a great liability in science; and yet, it is the sine qua non of faith-based religion.
Of course, the above quote also indicates why religion and science cannot easily coexist: #The science requires proof, proof again, and proof yet again. #Religion requires only faith in an otherwise unsupported belief and so much so that it virtually always ignores available facts.

Quote[/b] ]The terrible truth is that millions (probably hundreds of millions, if not billions) of religious people read scripture as though it were an infallible guide to understanding reality and how to live within it. This is a problem: because on matters that remain absolutely central to our collective well-being, the doctrines of the Bible and the Koran are by turns vapid, anachronistic, barbarous, and wrong.
# # #[My emphasis]

Hard words, but if one is to truly face reality, they bear serious consideration.

Thanks again for an interesting link!

-gary

[AE6IP]

The universe is not rational, and there is nothing but hubris in the concept that the human mind is so constructed as to be able to eventually understand it all.

Science may tell us how the universe operates, but not what we should do with it.

We are all poly-atheists; there are many gods we do not believe in. The wisest among us recognzie that all gods are the same and believe in none of them, nor do we make science a replacement for religion.

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

[al2i]

Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Nov. 29 2006,19:59)]Science may tell us how the universe operates, but not what we should do with it.
Metaphysics -- What exists?
Epistemology -- How do we know?
Ethics -- So what?

The three pillars of philosophy.

[al2i]

Something that has always bugged me is the huge number of people who have an objective and rational epistemology and metaphysics, but who then tell me that their ethics is based on a "feeling". Bah!

[AE6IP]

Quote[/b] (al2i @ Nov. 29 2006,20:35)]Something that has always bugged me is the huge number of people who have an objective and rational epistemology and metaphysics, but who then tell me that their ethics is based on a "feeling". Bah!
A friend of mine who is ordained likes to point out that his religion has fewer articles of faith than my mathematics does.

Unless it's turtles all the way down, eventually, it stops at "because I said so", as any parent of a 2 year old can tell you.

The only rational thing to do is accept that and move on.

[n2ize]

Quote[/b] ]
The universe is not rational, and there is nothing but hubris in the concept that the human mind is so constructed as to be able to eventually understand it all.

We can understand it all because we are God. We just don;t realize it yet.

Quote[/b] ]
Science may tell us how the universe operates, but not what we should do with it.


When we truly understand it we'll know what to do with it. We may chose to destroy it and make new universes. We'll know what to do with it then and we'll say, "now we know what to do with universes".

Quote[/b] ]
We are all poly-atheists; there are many gods we do not believe in. The wisest among us recognzie that all gods are the same and believe in none of them, nor do we make science a replacement for religion.


We are not shills. We're children of ptomaine with too many Gods on parade. Denying our own way.

[G8ADD]

Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Nov. 29 2006,20:59)]The universe is not rational, and there is nothing but hubris in the concept that the human mind is so constructed as to be able to eventually understand it all.
An interesting opinion, can you offer a proof?

73

Brian G8ADD

[al2i]

Quote[/b] (G8ADD @ Nov. 30 2006,00:49)]Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Nov. 29 2006,20:59)]The universe is not rational, and there is nothing but hubris in the concept that the human mind is so constructed as to be able to eventually understand it all.
An interesting opinion, can you offer a proof?

73

Brian G8ADD
The existence of a "proof" would require that logic is possible, and that something about the U can be grokked by our puny human minds..

[AE6IP]

Quote[/b] (G8ADD @ Nov. 30 2006,00:49)]Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Nov. 29 2006,20:59)]The universe is not rational, and there is nothing but hubris in the concept that the human mind is so constructed as to be able to eventually understand it all.
An interesting opinion, can you offer a proof?

73

Brian G8ADD
I offer only the last digit of pi in support, accompanied with the godel number that computers it.

Did you know that the one of the most fundamental principles of science has no mathematical validity?

Perhaps it really is turtles all the way down.

[n2ize]

Well, you guys have sailed way over my head with all this infinity and logic and stuff. I'll stick to tangible stuff that I can see, feel, hear,touch, and count. I'll save this esoteric stuff for a time when my mind is at a pH of less than 7.0

[w3bny]

I can describe life and theology in one simple word..



DESU

Thankyouverymuch

[W2ILP]

I admit that religions can not be scientifically investigated and science can not be religiously investigated...BUT...
Unfortunately they ultimately interact as initial givens is in the minds of most men (and women).
It is unfortunate that nations and large mobs can take on their own stampeding decisions to motivate wars and violence...but there are usually individual leaders whose job it is to propel them into action. There leaders may be puppets for unseen power brokers who believe that wars are favorable to their own selfish interests...or the leaders may be acting from their own limited unbalanced viewpoints...and often ignorant of the probability of the future escalating consequences.

The Soviet submarine commander who is believed to have prevented a world war by refusing to fire a nuclear missile during the Cuban crisis is in my opinion as good an example of a humanist as we may find. He, in my opinion, did not act as he did because of his strong belief in any God. I know that many Russians might be somewhat religious...but I would venture a guess that a Commander in the USSR's Navy at that time had no formal religious training at all, because organized religions were not permitted in the USSR at that time. A submarine commander probably was however (just as an astronaut) required to have studied the sciences to a great extent. Thus I would like to belief that the guy did not fire the missile because he was religious. He acted as he did because he was a HUMANIST. That is ...he valued human lives more than any religious commandments from God or political military orders from the USSR. I can believe that such a person can exist just as easily as we can know that suicide bombers exist. It is hard to separate the motives of the suicide bombers from what may be religious certitude, political patriotism...or the misplaced humanism of a vengeful desperate ethnic group, which has no other weapon that does not involve sacrificing ones own life for the cause.

Just today I read that the whale at the San Diego Aqua-show seriously injured his keeper. So much for believing that an intelligent animal can be consistently depended on to be tame. Can man's violent tendencies ever be consistently depended upon to be humanistic?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif I don't think so myself. I don't want to blame either religions or sciences when men agree to kill their fellow men. This is because both can be partly to blame. Violent instincts may be present in the chemical and physical complex biology that both men and animals are made of.

You may say that unlike religions the sciences are benign. You may say that they are not motivations in themselves to kill. You may be right about that...BUT it is science that has given man the ability to make tools of mass destruction...or as they are now called WMDs.
We can not easily change the so called evil side of the human psycho...but for world survival we must. We can neither blame or depend on religions or on sciences. We must use logical ethical reason....and in my opinion...that is what real humanism means.

The link has helped me to get a better look at what others may believe. They may understand human sociology much better than I do....BUT I try...and I thank those of you who have taken the time to read the entire linked debate. Perhaps the next time relative debates start on QRZ we can begin with a better understanding.

w2ilp (I Like Peace)

[W1GUH]

Quote[/b] ]The Soviet submarine commander who is believed to have prevented a world war by refusing to fire a nuclear missile during the Cuban crisis....


HUH? #This is the first I've heard of this. #Where can I read more?

[W2ILP]

w1guh

The Soviet commander was Vassily Arkhipov. #If you had read the entire linked debate, you would have read about him in Scott Atran's speech. #I believe that Atran disproved his own side of the debate by mentioning Vassily, because he was trying to refer to anecdotes that show the benefits of religious faith...and as I said... I don't believe that Arkhipov was very religious. # I could be wrong and I leave that up to your own opinion.

w2ilp (I Like People)...If there be an "evil" side that lurks in the minds of men...I can optimistically believe that there is also a softer and kinder side as well that limits man's inhumanity to man. #I believe that both instincts exist because man, as a human animal could not survive without them.

[W1GUH]

Quote[/b] (W2ILP @ Nov. 29 2006,11:00)]w2guh

The Soviet commander was Vassily Arkhipov. #If you had read the entire linked debate, you would have read about him in Scott Atran's speech. #I believe that Atran disproved his own side of the debate by mentioning Vassily, because he was trying to refer to anecdotes that show the benefits of religious faith...and as I said... I don't believe that Arkhipov was very religious. # I could be wrong and I leave that up to your own opinion.

w2ilp (I Like People)...If there be an "evil" side that lurks in the minds of men...I can optimistically believe that there is also a softer and kinder side as well that limits man's inhumanity to man. #I believe that both instincts exist because man, as a human animal could not survive without them.
OK, so I read it....

Quote[/b] ](Indeed, it was only the unsung heroism of Vassily Arkhipov, one of three officers on a Soviet submarine who refused to go along with the other two in giving the order to launch a nuclear missile strike on the United States when his boat came under attack during the Cuban Missile Crisis, thereby truly saving civilization and humanity as we know it. )

In all the documentaries about the Cuban missile crisis, I don't recall hearing about this before. #Maybe I did, but if so, it wasn't treated as being of much significance, otherwise I'd probably remember it.

Well,...here goes another google search.

[W1GUH]

Just read the account...well, I'll be. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Learned something.

[W1GUH]

Quote[/b] ]Of course, individual scientists may or may not be privately honest or personally deluded. But the scientific method, with its institutionalized process of peer review, double blind trials and repetition of experiments, is beautifully designed to minimize the public effects of personal bias and self-deception.

There's one thing about the scien-terrific-method that was brought up in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig (1974).

Let's see....the steps are...(loosely)

1) State the question

2) Research the topic

3) Form a hypothesis

4)Test that hypothesis

5) Analize results

etc.

Persig focused on 3) Form a hypothesis. #What he said was that OK, the scientific method will show that one plausible, testable, observable and repeatable hypothesis fits with what's observed.

But, he said, it doesn't show that it's the only hypothesis that will work. #

And as far as I know, there's no "step" in the scien-terrific method that says...

N) Once one workable conclusion is found, go back and find another one.

Comments?

[WB2WIK]

"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

-Writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1949
who later founded the Church of Scientology

[W2ILP]

w1guh et all...

The steps to scientific proofs can lead one to cold facts of nature, the way things work, and how to make things...but they can not be depended on to make ethical decisions. #Human nature is not always scientifically predictable. #Psychologists can't always predict what an individual may do...nor can sociologists predict what a nation may support in terms of its government's politics...
or its rebels armed protestation.
Religions have been proven to not always offer the best solutions to global problems involving differing religious codes.

Let us just look at the start of the pledge of the Boy Scouts of America...
It starts..
On my honor I will do my best for God and my country...
To help "other people" at all times....

Which other people?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif # ALL other people?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

Nowhere does the pledge ask one to be logically humanistic or to work to maintain world peace or to be considerate of ALL human life. # Maybe that is not being reverent or patriotic or macho enough in the minds of all too many people...who just don't get it... that wars must be considered obsolete in this age of WMDs and we must all strive to avoid instigating them at all costs. #We can only try to educate others in this way. #I think that the Catholic Pope, who believes in the sanctity of life, understands this better than the president and the congress of the USA . #I can't say that all religions are so primitive that they do not strive for peace. #The Quakers have always been anti-war for example. #
The problems in the middle east arose however because of the creation of the state of Israel as a religious retreat for Europe's Jews. #Now the Israelis will fight the Muslims to keep Israel and sing..."This land is mine GOD GAVE THIS LAND TO ME." #Actually HS Truman, Winston Churchill and Stalin did that in my opinion. # The conflict thus leads to a RELIGIOUS war with the Palestinian Muslims who have been dispossessed...based on a religious claim of a religion that does not worship Allah. #There can be no humanistic solution to trump the religious humans on both sides....even those who are conservatively religious but have become strongly nationalistic. # Any compromise is considered unholy and can not be blessed by either God or politician. #As my friend Stanley Milgram's dad told us, the creation of the state of Israel could only lead to a world war some day. # And in that case we need to blame and fear religious extremism far more than scientific advancement. # The problems can only be settled by abandoning Bibles as a source of property possession deeds and adopting diplomacy based not on the needs of any one religion or any one nation but on the necessities of world humanism.

w2ilp (I Like Peace)

[AE6IP]

Quote[/b] (W1GUH @ Nov. 30 2006,09:34)]Quote[/b] ]Of course, individual scientists may or may not be privately honest or personally deluded. But the scientific method, with its institutionalized process of peer review, double blind trials and repetition of experiments, is beautifully designed to minimize the public effects of personal bias and self-deception.

There's one thing about the scien-terrific-method that was brought up in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig (1974).

Let's see....the steps are...(loosely)

1) State the question

2) Research the topic

3) Form a hypothesis

4)Test that hypothesis

5) Analize results

etc.

Persig focused on 3) Form a hypothesis. What he said was that OK, the scientific method will show that one plausible, testable, observable and repeatable hypothesis fits with what's observed.

But, he said, it doesn't show that it's the only hypothesis that will work.

And as far as I know, there's no "step" in the scien-terrific method that says...

N) Once one workable conclusion is found, go back and find another one.

Comments?
There is no "scientific method". What you describe is a myth we make up to introduce students to the idea of rigor as it applies to science, but it's not even remotely how science really operates.

However, your N is covered by the presences of competing schools of thought in scientific communities. Take, for example, the ongoing "battle" between string theorists and classical quantum theory, or the more approachable discussion now being fought out in Science magazine about whether recent fossils represent a new species or merely a deformed human skeleton.

This vigorous debate is what makes science interesting.

[ka5s]

Quote[/b] (W2ILP @ Nov. 30 2006,13:00)]The Soviet commander was Vassily Arkhipov. If you had read the entire linked debate, you would have read about him in Scott Atran's speech. I believe that Atran disproved his own
IIRC, in the book October Fury, Peter Huchthausen writes that a Soviet skipper, perhaps Arkhipov (I can't find my copy), had ordered the one special torpedo issued his submarine (three Foxtrot class diesel subs were sent) to be loaded and then removed from the torpedo tube. Whether it would in fact have been fired is one of those interesting questions.

I spent the Missile Crisis sitting next to a radio van on a boxcar in Kansas, waiting to be told the invasion was on. A close thing! One might argue that the price we paid for not having a nuclear exchange at that time was Vietnam. Or maybe not. But I daresay Vietnam and its aftermath -- which IMO includes Iraq -- was worth not trying the nukes back then.

Back to the thread. Religion and science are IMO both efforts to deal with the universe we find ourselves in, and each caters to different human skills. To say one is valid and the other is not is to ignore the differences between them; we have as yet not gone beyond religion to emotional sciences that correspond to the physical ones. Some day another Newton will invent an emotional calculus and we may begin to understand ourselves.



Cortland
KA5S

[W2ILP]

ka5s

My point is that neither religion nor science can be depended upon to prevent a nuclear war. #Only humans can do that by applying diplomacy and consideration for all the humans on Earth...because all the world would suffer greatly in the event of a nuclear war.

You can Google up Vassily Arkhipov and read various accounts about what he did.
Most people don't know that the terms of the peace agreement involving the USSR and the US. They were not the only terms ...because Red China was also an ally of Castro's Cuba.

The US and USSR agreed that if the USSR removed the missiles from Cuba the U.S. would not attack Cuba and would remove its missiles from Turkey.
The US and Red China agreed that if the US would not attack Castro's Cuba Red China would not attack the islands of Qumoi and Matsu, which belong to Nationalist China (Formosa).

It took a long time for the full terms of the agreement between the US and USSR which ended the Cuban Missile Chrisis to be made public....and a longer time for the US and Red China agreement to be publicized. # Politicians don't like to admit that they had to give up plans for the use of military survailance or force...but as it turns out the development of satellites and ICBMs made short range missiles and U-2s obsolete. #Cuba ironically is considered in a stale mate condition. #Castro is no threat to the USA. #There is still an embargo on US trade with Cuba...but Cuba has survived by trade with Canada, Mexico, South America and Europe, although it no longer gets much aid from Russia or China.

I wish that the troubles in the middle east could be resolved as well as the Cuban Chrisis was...but because a RELIGIOUS WAR is involved in the middle east...that now seems to be impossible.

Communisim can be eradicated with Capitalistic money...but there is nothing to combat religious differences.

w2ilp (I Like Peace)

[KB9YCO]

Interesting link, and interesting time for me to see this thread. I recently ran across a book in an antique store entitled "SCIENCE, TRUTH, RELIGION AND ETHICS, AS FOUNDATIONS OF A RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE" by a Professor Harry Mann Gordin. It is an obviously atheistic attempt at refuting religion but is interesting in its usage of scientific examples as a method of comparing and contrasting the two.

The best example I thought he used was the concept of pondering infinity. Basically what he said is that it is impossible, and pointless, to comprehend infinity since we can only think of something infinite in terms of finite limits and therefore can never really have a mental concept of infinity. (To put in context with this writing he was comparing infinite space with the concept of an infinite being.) According to the professor the same example applies in terms of numbers since there is no number, no matter how long, that you can't add another number to, thusly showing that a finite example cannot show or prove an infinite result. Makes logical sense to me, but then again who ever said that religion was based on human-reasoned logic, or that science and religion can prove one another?

Personally I don't put much stock in religion beyond the moral fable aspect of it, which I do believe can be useful if not practiced in a literalist and extremist fashion, but I don't know that either science or religion can ever explain one another. I also think it is the peak of human arrogance to assume that one philosophy, be it science or religion, can explain everything since there just may be some things that aren't explainable within human terms and concepts. That being said I would personally err much more on the tangible evidences of science than I would on the faith based aspects of religion that require belief over proof. Something provable and with obvious cause and effect results seem much more believable and sensical to me than something that is based solely on staunch belief that deny any other possibilities, not that all religions are that way, but most are and are even more so when practiced in their extreme forms (something that is all too popular these days).

Either way, interesting link and at least for me it's always an interesting debate when people can discuss it in a civil way. Thanks for the thread.