h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly, you want to know

"How many religions have any kind of divine description of how the world *is* that is remotely non-obvious yet correct"

All of them, by definition. The world *is* watched over by god/gods, life is fundamentally goverend by rules of right and wrong.

"or how the world came to be that is actually even credible?"
As an example, Hinduism. Many mainstream forms believe there was *no* creation, as there can be *no* creation without destruction, and so the universe has *always* existed in some form. A completley creadible theory.


"I wasn't arguing for 'fundamental correctness'" then why would an alien lifeform reach the same conclusions as us? Why do you believe they must believe in an "atomic nature of matter" if you don't hold this as being fundametally correct.

"I guess you'll easily disprove it then"

oK, I live in Euroupe. I make a number of observations, then create a theory to explain these observations, then make more observations to test my theory. my theory works.
My observations are that all mammals give birth to live young and not eggs. I make thousands of observations, all confirm my theory, so it is a fundamental law that 'mammals are viviparous'
You are an alien. You live in Australasia. One of your observations is that the duck-billed platypus lays eggs. Your fundamental law is 'Mammals may lay eggs, or they may not."


"I could say that Harry Potter has been generally beneficial up to this point"

Fine, we'll use your word. Religion useful so far, science useful so far, HP not.


"I am quite happy to consider that other people likely *do* exist, with a sensory system similar to my own, and that combining our experiences can generally enable us to improve the combined accuracy of our analysis"

Firstly, I believe other people exist/have minds, I never said I didn't.

Secondly, *everybody*, as far as I can know, has Secondary Properties misrepresented to them.

Thirdly, the question 'how do we know others experience things in the same way' is relevant (see below)

"We talk to them?"
I was adressing the issues related to Qualia. I call something red, you call the same thing red. In my mind I see the redness red. How can I know you're not seeing the greenness of red? You just happen to call things that express greeness to you red.

Blub-blub

Or maybe, being an alien, you come up with your own system of classification?

In fact the distinguishing feature of those animals that we call mammals is non-obvious. It is the location of the small bones in the inneer ear (in reptiles the same bones function as a hinge for the lower jaw.

Qualia are actually irrelevant. Other people's qualia being inaccessible to us, we have to make judgements about them that are essentially behavioural.

"Secondary properties" are no more misrepresented than properties of size, location etc. They are all simply the way *we* represent certain stimuli to ourselves.

Noggin

"we have to make judgements about them that are essentially behavioural"

I noticed in your (very good) article on the Biological basis for Belief you also seemed to suggest the behavioural view we have on others. Yet behaviourism betrays itself. We don't behave as though we believe in behaviourism, we treat people in commas, for example, as though still alive despite their behaviour (or lack of).

A joke I came across (hopefully made sutible for h2g2).
Two behaviourists become intimate. After one says to the other, that was great for you, how was it for me?
This highlights the problems caused by not acknowledging people's qualia.

""Secondary properties" are no more misrepresented than properties of size, location etc. They are all simply the way *we* represent certain stimuli to ourselves."

Kind of what I was saying, it is our senses that misrepresent Secondary Properties to us.
Btw, I hear that in Lost (not seen it, so this is hearsay) that there's a character called John Locke. Is there some underlying philosophical message to this programme?

Blub-blub

>>"All of them, by definition. The world *is* watched over by god/gods, life is fundamentally goverend by rules of right and wrong."

And you say religion and science are the same kinds of entity when one merely *defines* assertions as definitive unargyuable truths, and the other seeks to examine reality as objectively as possible.

>>"As an example, Hinduism. Many mainstream forms believe there was *no* creation, as there can be *no* creation without destruction, and so the universe has *always* existed in some form. A completley creadible theory."

A 'universe always existing in some form' isn't much of a description of how the world came to be. Granted, it's hard to prove wrong, though as *you* describe it, that's possibly because it's also stuggingly vague.
Does it say anything about the age of the Earth and Sun? Is it actually right

Do I take your comments to indicate that some (possibly even many) religions have creation tales which are *correct* yet *non-credible*?

>>"then why would an alien lifeform reach the same conclusions as us? Why do you believe they must believe in an "atomic nature of matter" if you don't hold this as being fundametally correct.

I'm not saying they must *believe* in an atomic theory of matter, more that they are likely to find something like our ideas of the atomic theory of matter useful for dealing with the universe at certain scales becuase it works pretty well. Philosophical musings about whether it is 'fundamentally correct' aren't exactly science.
The pragmatic person may think that something *probably is* correct, and simply leave it at that, since there seems nothing practical to be gained by an emotional investment in the certainty of something being correct if one already thinks it probably is and acts accordingly until proven otherwise.
As I said, 'fundamental correctness' in some philosophical sense is less important than correspondence with reality.

Technically, seeing matter (for example) as simply made from atoms composed of indivisible particles *isn't* at all correct at smaller scales, or when considering high energies or radioactivity, etc, but is still undeniably useful for thought at certain physical scales - no sane chamist would lose sleep because they worried they were using a 'fundamanetally incorrect' system throughout much of their working life, since it's clearly good enough to explain reality very well at the level they work at.

>>"oK, I live in Euroupe. I make a number of observations, then create a theory to explain these observations, then make more observations to test my theory. my theory works.
My observations are that all mammals give birth to live young and not eggs. I make thousands of observations, all confirm my theory, so it is a fundamental law that 'mammals are viviparous'
You are an alien. You live in Australasia. One of your observations is that the duck-billed platypus lays eggs. Your fundamental law is 'Mammals may lay eggs, or they may not.""

What complete rubbish - It's blindingly obvious that details of lifeforms vary over the Earth, at any number of regional scales, and also possibly througout the universe so science based on categorisation of variable lifeforms isn't tranferable, nor do scientists expect it to be transferrable.
If that is really the best you can do, it would seem you've given up.


>>"I was adressing the issues related to Qualia. I call something red, you call the same thing red. In my mind I see the redness red. How can I know you're not seeing the greenness of red? You just happen to call things that express greeness to you red."

As I said:
>> >>"Just because some experiences will remain unavoidably personal doesn't mean that communication can't be a means to realise that there are people out there who have a *similar enough* experience of the world to our own to be make a meeting of minds worthwhile."

Which seems to me to be an adequate addressal of potential differences in qualia. The existence of potentially quite personal qualia simply doesn't affect the fact that interaction with other people can lead us to have increased confidence in many particular aspects of our sensory experience of reality.
As long as I am confident that your internal experience of colours isn't likely to lead to you arguing puzzlingly with me about what colour objects are, why on earth should I *care* whether your internal experience of colour is different to mine in a way that seems likely to remain forever unknowable, or your internal sensation of 'sour' is different to mine.
Personally, 'similar enough' seems to be what other people's experiences of the world generally are, and that's good enough for me.
That's why I said things like:
"Also, we have communication with other people who also experience reality, seemingly along very similar lines to ourselves"
"with a sensory system similar to mine"
"My senses give me a great deal of information about the world which is actually pretty accurate in the light of future revelations"

I'm not interested in some mythical absolute accuracy - all sensation involves some approximation, and the possibility of mistaken interpretation, but a continuous interaction with the physical world can give an immense amount of feedback which helps one to get soem idea how accurayte earlier impressions were. As a tool to avoid future nasty surprises, (which seems to be one of their prime functions) my senses do work very well

Regarding futher questions, I refer you to post 80.

Actually, I'm still wondering what your answer might be to my earlier [repeated] question:

I'd reiterate my request - please define what you think a blind believer in science actually *believes*, ie what the 'fundamentals' actually *are*.
If possible, explain how *you* challenge the scientific method, and what you think gain from such a challenge, since that may not be obvious to other people.

Potholer,

Firstly, science = technological advance? not the case, you are confusing the two. Fire was devloped without the aid of science, and (as far as I know) superstring theory has not given rise to any important inventions. The two are linked, but different.

A blind beliver in science will not accept non-scientific arguments (ie those not based in science, such as religious arguments) as not holding much/any weight. They will hold science as true. They will make statements like;

"Does it say anything about the age of the Earth and Sun? Is it actually right"

Presumably you mean that to be 'right' means to 'agree with science', as religiously (within Hinduism ) of course it is 'right'.
The 'blind beliver' only accepts things if proven in a scientific manner.

"I'm not saying they must *believe* in an atomic theory of matter, more that they are likely to find something like our ideas of the atomic theory of matter useful for dealing with the universe at certain scales becuase it works pretty well"
It works "pretty well"? So there are no other theories that might also work "pretty well"? What does "it works", 'it is useful' even mean? Religion is "pretty" useful for many in helping them live their lives. It does this "pretty well" in alot of cases.

"something *probably is* correct"

My point entirley. We have alot of scientific theories, and if these are probably correct, due to the laws of probability, some are WRONG.


"It's blindingly obvious that details of lifeforms vary over the Earth" - is it? to someone who has *no* knowledge of what is beyond Europe, how can they know this? In the same way how can we know about the nature of other galaxies we have no knowledge of?

"*similar enough* experience" We can't know that other people have similair qualia, the same qualia, anything like this.


"why on earth should I *care* whether your internal experience of colour is different to mine in a way that seems likely to remain forever unknowable, or your internal sensation of 'sour' is different to mine" - Secondary Properties and Primary Properties are an arbitary human divide. You should care because it can't be taken for granted that any two humans see any property in the same way.

blub-blub

>>"Firstly, science = technological advance? not the case, you are confusing the two."

Where am I confusing the two? Maybe there's some misunderstanding to clear up.

I don't recall saying science was the *same thing* as technological advance, though if technology advanced by experimentation and an attempt to interpret the results of such experiments in some non-supernatural way, it is the case that the advancers of technology would be pursuing a course that was partly scientific in nature, whether they had any training in science, or even knew that 'Science' existed.
I presume you're not claiming that none of the methods of science were used by people before someone decided to call a particular area of study 'Science'?

I'm not sure how many techologies were developed by *ignoring* reality, logical reasoning, the results of previous attempts at doing things, and an assumption that events were not repeatable, and relying on supernatural inspiration. Possibly you could enlighten me?

It seems you see religious statements as correct *by definition*, and yet you see science as fundamentally similar to religion, despite science looking to reality for support for its conclusions, rather than the authority of one or other handed-down religious texts?


>>"A blind beliver in science will not accept non-scientific arguments (ie those not based in science, such as religious arguments) as not holding much/any weight. They will hold science as true. They will make statements like; "Does it say anything about the age of the Earth and Sun? Is it actually right"

Actually, that was a *question*, not a *statement*.
It seems you weren't keen on providing any answers to it, for whatever reason. Ho hum.
And you *still* haven't explained what you think a 'believer' in science actually 'believes' (what the fundamentals actually are), nor how you 'challenge the scientific method'.
I suppose asking yet again would be as futile as the previous times?

Anyway, what is a 'religious argument', beyond:
"I say [God says} it is true"?
Unless there is some other supporting [nonreligious?] argument, or some other 'religious argument' that doesn't simply rely on divine authority, *that* kind of argument seems pretty weak.
It is clear that between religions, many believers honestly hold powerful yet mutually conflicting beliefs about reality, so unless one concludes that there is no conflict between conflicting beliefs, without needing to conclude which believers are wrong, one can conclude that religions can cause people to believe things that aren't actually correct.
It is also clear that this view is also shared by many religious believers, with the subtle difference that they generally beleive it's the *other* believers who are wrong, and that their own 'religious arguments' are perfectly sound, so it's not just me being an awkward nonbeliever.


>>"It works "pretty well"? So there are no other theories that might also work "pretty well"? What does "it works", 'it is useful' even mean?"

Well, we're pretty confident that we have a good description of how matter behaves at the atomic scale, which *means* that we can use our theories to work out how to do useful things. I think a chemist would say that our ideas of atoms are useful to them, which is good enough for me.
Atomic Force Microsopes (one of those numerous machines for extending human senses) have effectively *seen* atoms.
Maybe there are theories that work almost as well, or even better - one can't be *sure* there aren't, but basically, if someone (human or alien) did come up with an alternative theory, the test of how good it was would be to compare its predictions with reality, and work out which theory seemed to be the better one, not to say:
'Oooh - *all* these theories must be true by definition', and leave it at that, which seems to be your approach to religion.
That's one reason why science is fundamentally different from religion.


>>" Religion is "pretty" useful for many in helping them live their lives. It does this "pretty well" in alot of cases."

Religions may well work as some social system of rules, but I do wonder whether (and why) we still need the baggage of competing divinities to make rules like "Be good to people" possible for people to follow.
Are many people really inherently too evil or childish to respond to reason and the exercise of secular state authority in their own lifetimes?

Despite potential benefits, it is also true that their reliance of authority and tradition can also make religions slow to advance, causing them to drag thweir heels when it comes to social issues such as sexual equality.

In any case, the issue of whether religions do or don't work for most people is an issue for debate when considering the social value of religions - it doesn't affect how similar religions are to science, however much you may wish it did.


>>"My point entirley. We have alot of scientific theories, and if these are probably correct, due to the laws of probability, some are WRONG."

I guess your understanding of probability may be letting you down - possibly you acquired it from the same leaflet as your understanding of science in general?
The best one could conclude from having a set of theories that were *probably correct* would be that there is the possibility that one or more may be wrong.
If one could quantify the probabilities of correctness of the various theories on a particular list, one may be able to conclude that there is *probably* one or more wrong theories in the list, but nothing more.
To be *sure* that at least one theory was wrong, one would have to actually show it to be wrong.

Even then, one faces the issue of *how* wrong a theory is, and in which circumstances - people (like pragmatic scientists) who don't wet their pants at the first hint that a theory may not be utterly correct would first ask "How *much* should I alter my view of the universe", and the answer may often be "Not much, for the things *you* deal with". If a theory has shown good correspondence to reality over time, it is *extraordinarily* unlikely to be shown to be completely wrong - if it had only been shown to have some tentative experimental support, few people would have put much trust in it.

In any case, scientists aren't actually worried by the possibility that some theories may be wrong, because they are aware of a history of advancing knowledge, either modifying or overturning previous ideas, and generally speaking, they don't give a &^%$ for 'absolute truth', but are more interested in the best available theory at the time. Many of them welcome changes in accepted wisdom and recognise a successful challenge to a theory as an indication that the sum of human knowledge has increased. Maybe the least welcoming of challenge may be those in the more tenuous areas where there isn't actually much support from reality for their ideas, but those areas are the ones where even other ecisntists may be skeptical about tose ideas in the first place.

In contrast, between world religions, there are numerous contradictions, which *does* logically mean that some of them *are* wrong, but many believers would be extraordinarily upset (possibly to the extent of serious violence) were one to suggest that maybe *their* religion had got something wrong, which doesn't seem to be something likely to happen in science. For some reason.


>> >>"It's blindingly obvious that details of lifeforms vary over the Earth"

>>"is it? to someone who has *no* knowledge of what is beyond Europe, how can they know this? In the same way how can we know about the nature of other galaxies we have no knowledge of?"

Since my original statement made reference to scientists coming to conclusions about *the same phenomena*, it seems that your argument about mammal classification was dubious at best, since biologists in different places clearly wouldn't be basing their conclusions on the same information.
Regarding other galaxies, we can at least glean some information from here about how chemistry and physics might operate there, which was *possibly* why I was talking about physics and chemistry in later expansions of my point.

>>"Secondary Properties and Primary Properties are an arbitary human divide. You should care because it can't be taken for granted that any two humans see any property in the same way."

Oh, for &*^%'s sake - I have correlation over time and between senses that allows me worthwhile feedback which enables me to make some quite useful judgements about my sensory accuracy.
Personally, I really *don't* care where you or anyone else draws the line between Primary or Secondary.
I can appreciate that other people may have their own odd ways of looking at the world that diverge from mine at some point along the sensory-processing path, yet I'm for some reason *still* more concerned about not tripping up when running downstairs than where someone else might draw some particular philosophical line were they made to do so. Silly me.

Similarly, I honestly don't care whether someone sees something the *same* way as me, since it's both an unanswerable and also a practically pointless question, AND I'm sufficiently confident that people see things in a *similar enough* way that I really don't lose sleep over any unavoidably unknowable fine details of other people's perceptions.
Call me an unfeeling b@$!@rd, but I really *don't* fret about whether someone actually experiences the same colour qualia as I do. Nor do I consider it likely to ever be an issue of the remotest importance for the vast majority of humanity. Under *any* conceivable circumstances.
Somehow, my potential sensory differences don't stop me being able to come to a meeting of minds with other people over even subtle issues of perception.

Assuming I'm not so insecure that I demand Certainty, could I actually do any better than I'm already doing in terms of evidence that there is a world out there, and I do see it with decent accuracy?

OK,
I'll just address a few topics for now (we can return to the others later)
just as we seem to be branching into various different debates.

<<>>"A blind beliver in science will not accept non-scientific arguments (ie those not based in science, such as religious arguments) as not holding much/any weight. They will hold science as true. They will make statements like; "Does it say anything about the age of the Earth and Sun? Is it actually right">>

<>

Actually, you did state your beliefs. You implied, through your question, a statement about the age of the sun and Earth. You implied in the question "Is it actually right" that you think we can measure its correctness against the actual 'right' answer. What is this? If you say aprox 4.5 billion years, then you are giving the scientific answer, and assuming it to be correct.


"It seems you weren't keen on providing any answers to it, for whatever reason. Ho hum."

Two reasons;
1) Firstly, it is irrelevant, as you would probably argue it is wrong just because it isn't the same as science's answer, which your (seemingly) unshakeable faith in leads you to disregard other, non-scientific answers without (much) consideration.
2) Hinduism, as the world's largest and oldest religion, is varied. Not like the seemingly superficial diffrences between christian denominations, actually, genuinley varied in its beliefs. Different versions of Hinduism believe in one-god/one-god in many different perspectives/lots of distinct gods/no god. Therefore, there is no individual answer.


"nor how you 'challenge the scientific method'" - scientific method. A process of observations and theories and more observations. First major problem - its based in a method of induction, (not in a process of "logical reasoning", thats deduction), the assumption that a particular pattern is universal and always going to continue. Second problem, different explanations can be given which are equally good at explaining the same observations. And don't tell me that science progresses by a process of falsification because it just dosn't, this view does not fit with the history of scientific development.


"possibly you acquired it from the same leaflet as your understanding of science in general" - how have I not understood science? Don't just insult me - tell me.

"one may be able to conclude that there is *probably* one or more wrong theories in the list, but nothing more.
To be *sure* that at least one theory was wrong, one would have to actually show it to be wrong." - I never said I was sure (I've been arguing against the concept of 'certainty'). All I said was what you said in the first half of the above quote, it is very *probable* that some are wrong.


"In contrast, between world religions, there are numerous contradictions, which *does* logically mean that some of them *are* wrong"

So, we can never say a scietific theory is wrong, only that it is open to modification, but a religious theory is wrong, and not open to modification? What a very open-minded, balanced, just view you have there.



You *believe* in science (you assume theories are true), and you don't care for absolute truth (as apparantley you think an accurate knowledge of reality, the mind, life etc. is useless, whereas a set of rules that may not be accurate, to be useful).

blub-blub

<>

I think you've misunderstood, blub-blub.
It is of course important to have a knowledge of reality, the mind, life etc. The best knowledge we have is encapsulated in various rules, that are useful, and so far not proven to be false in the areas where they apply.

The objection to absolute truth is not that it would not be a good thing to have, but that it is a chimera, something unacheivable. We therefore just have to do the best we can, and acknowledge our limits.

Noggin

You still haven't said what a blind believer in science believes -
Do they believe induction leads to faultless conclusions?
Do they believe experimental results are always 100% accurate?
Do they believe that once developed, theories are never shown to be flawed or incomplete?

I'd say it's perfectly valid to ask what a particular religion says about issues where there has been scientific theorising and there exist defensible scientific conclusions.
If different parts of a particular religion actually come to a *range* of conclusions on one specific point, 'ie there is no individual answer', one must wonder whether any of the answers are supposed to be divinely inspired truths, or just unimportant [nonreligious] explanations. If the latter, one has at least the right to ask which bits of a religion are actually alleged to be true, rather than being more like off-the-cuff human explanations, and how one is supposed to be able to tell the difference.

Certainly, if religions don't make statements about the origins and nature of the world which they claim are supposed to be True through inspiration, then it *isn't* important if such statements as they do make happen to conflict with reality, since they can't be taken as an indication of the likely truth of the non-worldly parts of the religion, even if one may still wonder where the ideas actually came from.
In the case of science/religion conflict, if the religion isn't claiming that their ideas about the world are actually correct and backed up by divine truth, but are just part of some attached folklore, it doesn't really matter to them or to scientists if science says otherwise.

>>""nor how you 'challenge the scientific method'" - scientific method. A process of observations and theories and more observations. First major problem - its based in a method of induction, (not in a process of "logical reasoning", thats deduction), the assumption that a particular pattern is universal and always going to continue. Second problem, different explanations can be given which are equally good at explaining the same observations. And don't tell me that science progresses by a process of falsification because it just dosn't, this view does not fit with the history of scientific development."

Surely induction is still a form of "logical reasoning"?, albeit one which can't give certain conclusions, but one which can at least give some degree of confidence in its conclusions?
If two different theories adequately explain reality within the limits of experimental results, and make the same predictions, then for practical purposes, we could consider either one to be good enough. There is no 'problem' there.
If two theories made *precisely* the same predictions under any imaginable circumstances, then it would seem likely that they are actually the *same* theory, expressed two different ways. That's no problem either.
However, if the theories made different predictions, once those predictions could be checked out, if one theory was found to correspond to reality and the other didn't, we could discard the one that didn't fit with reality - that would be scientific, and yet again, *not* a problem.

Science certainly progresses by people finding things they can't explain, and trying to find non-convoluted naturalistic explanations for them. When new findings are made in completely new fields, then the progress isn't by falsification as such, since there may be nothing explicit to falsify, and where a new field opens up, people may be naturally reluctant to jump to conclusions that may be wrong, so a period of cautious theorising may result. Possibly the first bright person to cover an area may come up (like Newton) with a simple explanation that is good enough not to be subsequently falsified, or at least, with an explanation which is shown to be useful in most circumstances even if not entirely correct.

There may be cases where a convoluted old theory is more superceded than proved wrong (arguably the case for Phlogiston, where the surounding logic may have been resistant to *proof* of failure), but there are certainly cases where someone can show that an old idea is incorrect, or a new ideas is better, and people change their views without much fuss.

I'd wonder how you think science does progress?

How do *you* 'challenge the scientific method (ie induction) apart from saying "The conclusions may not always be correct", which people actually already know?

>>"I never said I was sure (I've been arguing against the concept of 'certainty'). All I said was what you said in the first half of the above quote, it is very *probable* that some are wrong."

No, what you said was:
"We have alot of scientific theories, and if these are probably correct, due to the laws of probability, some are WRONG"

That is, you stated that some ARE wrong, not that some are *probably* wrong.
In any case, even if you'd said:
'due to the laws of probability some are *probably* WRONG'
or
'due to the laws of probability, it is probable that at least one is wrong'
You'd still have been, er, wrong.
To have confidence that it was more likely than not that at least one of a set of 'probably correct' theories was wrong, you'd have to quantify your confidence in enough of the theories to come up with a total level of doubt above 0.5. If you couldn't somehow get a meaningful value for accepted confidence in the theories, you simply wouldn't be able to put a value on the likelihood of at least one of them being wrong.
The best one could conclude without some idea of the actual probabilities is that "A set of theories are considered probably correct, which logically means that any number of them could be wrong", which doesn't actually advance us a great deal.

In any case, you'd have to define what you meant when you said a scientific theory was 'wrong'.
Wrong as in 'bearing no relation to reality' (in which case it would seem unlikely to have been much of a theory in the first place).
Wrong as in making predictions which, although consistent with reality up to some point, fails at more extreme scales, or with more precise measurement.
Wrong in some other way.


>>"So, we can never say a scietific theory is wrong, only that it is open to modification, but a religious theory is wrong, and not open to modification? What a very open-minded, balanced, just view you have there."

Lovely bit of deliberate twisting of words there. Congratulations.
I *never* said that it is not possible to say that a scientific theory is wrong, merely that the specific conclusion *you* drew (that having multiple probably true theories must mean that at least one was wrong) was not supported by logic. Which it isn't. So I was correct.
To prove an individual theory wrong (or less universal in scope than previously thought), it is merely necessary to show that there are situations in which the theory falls down. That does happen in science, and people adopt new theories, if they are necessary for their particular work.
Regarding *mutually incompatible* descriptions of the world, it is quite defensible to say that at least one must be wrong, though it may not be clear which one *is* actually wrong. It's just as true in science as religion, and that's why in science when there are competing incompatible hypotheses, (or odd new theories that extend/modify old ones) people hold off putting their confidence in things being likely correct until reality can be used to provide some objective pointers to which may or may not be right.

Of course, with incompatible religions, it may not be clear that there is any way to prove which of them is actually wrong. About all one could conclude with confidence is that at least one is incorrect, and if two or more incompatible religions claim divine inspiration as their source, then if any one of them is wrong, claims of divine inspiration should logically be looked at in future with a degree of caution, or even dismissed entirely when judging the likely validity of a 'religious argument'.

Potholer,
"divinely inspired truths" - actually, of the many Hindu texts, only one, the Vedas, are claimed to be "divinely inspired". However, as their name (literally 'that which is heard') suggests, Hindus accept that due to its beginings, being passed down through spoken word rather than text, that most aspects of it are myths, containing important truths, not spelling them out.

You also seem to only be able to think of god in a very specific way, as some external, physical, definite object. (Many forms of) Hinduism believe that god is everything, a fundamental 'Supreme Universal Spirit'. (Many forms of) Buddhism sees god as personal and internal.

"with incompatible religions" - a rather simplistic way of viewing religion, really. Why is it neccesery for one to be, at its most basic level, incompatible with any other. If we look at the three major forms religion takes, those of Jewish origin, those of Hindu origin, and polytheistic and pagan religions mainly shaped by a countries culture (eg Shinto), they all believe in god/gods in some form, and all attribute the quality of omnipotence to them.

So, to summarise your views (correct me if I'm wrong) Science is:
-The best model we have of how everything works.
-Not nesseccerily true or accurate, but with the knowledge we have seems very probable.
-An theoretical explanation for what we observe.
-A predictor of future events.
-A catalyst for devlopment in other areas (technology for example).

And this role in society is different to religions historical role in society how?

blub-blub

Well, the accepted *mythical* aspects of religion can be treated as nothing more than stories containing grains of possible truth which have to be verified elsewhere, since they obviously aren't things which you or anyone would conclude are 'correct by definition' from a 'religious argument', and wouldn't be things covered by the situation I asked about in my question:

Me:
>> >>"How many religions have any kind of divine description of how the world *is* that is remotely non-obvious yet correct"

You:
>>"All of them, by definition. The world *is* watched over by god/gods, life is fundamentally goverend by rules of right and wrong."

Likewise, anything religions *do* say about how humans should interact, what things people may find it useful to bear in mind, etc which aren't supported by a 'religious argument' don't seem much different to ground that a secular philosophy might cover, and so the connection with any divinity seems unnecessary when considering their usefulness.

Indeed, if a religion doesn't make *any* divinely-inspired claims that some particular thing is correct on the say-so of one or more external deities, and has nonsupernatural arguments to support its conclusions about society, then one could debate whether 'religion' really is the best word for it, or if some other classification (or at least, a qualification like non-divine religion?) is more appropriate.

In any case, in such a situation there would be no need for religious faith, since one could follow through sensible arguments for each point such a 'religion' made, and changing things as society advanced wouldn't be any threat to the religion, since it would be based on sound and debatable reasoning rather than divine authority, and people would presumably be free to make up their own minds about elements of the religion as they saw fit.

The thing is, *that* kind of 'religion' isn't the one that tends to concern most rational people. It's the ones with an strong element of claimed divinity, where supporters are encouraged to use faith even at the expense of reason which make other people wary.

>>"Why is it neccesery for one to be, at its most basic level, incompatible with any other."
It isn't *necessary*, and indeed it is puzzling they would disgree on things if they were divinely inspired, but is seems that there is indeed a great variation in what people believe on faith (without natural evidence).

>>"So, to summarise your views (correct me if I'm wrong) Science is:"

>>-The best model we have of how everything works.

Science seems to be the best method for obtaining explanations relating to how the physical world operates, and making predictions about the same.
There are things science doesn't address (like morality) - though it could give information about possible outcomes of certain choices, it doesn't say which is best, since that's a subjective issue.
Similarly, there are disciplines where science can blur into things which are not completely (or even mainly) science - one could move through neuroscience to psychology or psychiatry and find one isn't engaged with simple science any more.
There may be areas where "How much Science does X contain?" is a better question than "Is X scientific?"

>>-Not nesseccerily true or accurate, but with the knowledge we have seems very probable.

Science is a system of methods and knowledge which doesn't depend on absolute truth (which seems to be a goal one could not attain with surety). It's not a question of whether 'science is true', but whether particular explanations are judged well-founded enough to be relied upon, whether predictions can be trusted with adequate confidence, and whether in areas where there *is* uncertainty, we have some kind of handle on how much uncertainty there may be. Also, there needs to be a known tree of reasoning and/or experimentation linking ideas together which can be examined to look for potential weak spots.

>>"-An theoretical explanation for what we observe.
Science tries to generate explanations which are simple, non-vague, and consistent.

>>"-A predictor of future events.
Not just that, but a predictor which will be closely examined in the case of incorrect predictions to find out where errors laid, and where a good understanding of those errors and any corrections would be needed before people would return to having confidence in it, (rather than just making a selection from one or more preprepared excuses).

>>"-A catalyst for devlopment in other areas (technology for example).

'Catalyst' covers a range of sins, as it was presumably intended to.

Considering technology in particular, the methods of science (trying to gain a rational understanding of the world) are implicitly interwoven with technological development, though clearly there are also other factors - does someone see money to be made in a particular area, is there a perceived need for a particular product, etc.
The boring repeatability of physical phenomena is clearly of overriding importance in technological development - a technology which couldn't be replicated would be of no practical use.

Many things may be related to development elsewhere by one means or another, but that doesn't make them necessarily similar to science.
You do have to follow the chain of hows and whys to try an understand the causal connections and dependencies.
Renaissance organisations and people who collected wealth were able to afford to finance the construction of artistic luxuries. With religious pieces, some may have done so to glorify God, or done so because they thought doing so was a shortcut to heaven, or to keep up with social rivals. Artists may have painted from religious devotion, in competition with other artists, because they liked painting, or just to make a living, etc.
Still, few of them would have worked for free, and if it hadn't been for *technological* advances (moving from egg tempera to oil painting, etc), many masterpieces simply wouldn't have been possible however devout a painter may have been.

>>"And this role in society is different to religions historical role in society how?"

What have religions predicted that has actually happened?

Have religions *ever* been shown to have *special* insight beyond what a secular philosophy could achieve?

How does one explain the numerous religious predictions claiming divine inspiration that simply don't come true (except by concluding that claims of divine inspiration must be treated with extreme caution, if not simply ignored)?

Surely one major historic influence of religions is the political one, functioning as a large part of the state apparatus, if not the entire apparatus?
Science simply can't do that - it can provide information, but not the subjective human factors needed for decision-making in social politics. Some people may claim to be following a 'scientific method' in politics, but you'd have to ask how many actual scientists would agree with them before concluding they were correct in their claim.

"Indeed, if a religion doesn't make *any* divinely-inspired claims that some particular thing is correct on the say-so of one or more external deities, and has nonsupernatural arguments to support its conclusions about society, then one could debate whether 'religion' really is the best word for it, or if some other classification (or at least, a qualification like non-divine religion?) is more appropriate."

1) You seem to be trying to build up a purposefully weak definition of religion to attack. Now you seem to be saying that unless a religon is based entirley on knowledge coming directly from your very specific and limiting description of god then it is not a religon.

A major aspect of a religion is how it copes with the nature of god. This wouldn't need defining if all religions percieved god in the same way.
Also, it is possible to believe in god yet not be religiousReligion is a philosophical belief about the nature of god, combined with organised practice or worship.

2) The messages contained in the myths are the important parts, the aspects that it is most important to communicate, and these are those parts believed to be "divinely-inspired", beliefs such as those in Karma, for example. Facts such as the age of the Earth arn't important (to the people of the society in the past). These unimportant bits are those most likely to be lost when being passed down by word-of-mouth.


"The thing is, *that* kind of 'religion' isn't the one that tends to concern most rational people. It's the ones with an strong element of claimed divinity, where supporters are encouraged to use faith even at the expense of reason which make other people wary."

"*That* kind of religion" - such as Hinduism, the oldest and most widely believed of any religion in the world. I'm glad you are now starting to accept that really mainstream religion is a perfectly reasonable, respectable set of beliefs. Its always nice to open up the eyes of those who refused to see religion as it really is.





"Have religions *ever* been shown to have *special* insight beyond what a secular philosophy could achieve?" - (using Hinduism still, as an example of religion) The nature of god, the existence of Karma, the correct moral code to live your life by etc...
Religion *is* a form of philosophy combined with a degree of practice.

"How does one explain the numerous religious predictions claiming divine inspiration that simply don't come true"
Just as you would in science, when scientific predictions arn't accurate:
1) Check the reliability of both the person (witness of god or scientist) and the reliability of the evidence.
2) Modify the prediction (if needs be alter the theory)

"Surely one major historic influence of religions is the political one, functioning as a large part of the state apparatus, if not the entire apparatus?
Science simply can't do that"

Yes it can.Of course science exerts political pressure. Otherwise why are billions being spent on CERN, for example.

"Some people may claim to be following a 'scientific method' in politics, but you'd have to ask how many actual scientists would agree with them before concluding they were correct in their claim."


In the same way, some 'may claim to be following a religious approach in politics, but you'd have to ask how many actual gurus would agree with them before concluding they were correct in their claim.'

"What have religions predicted that has actually happened?"

Alot of religious beliefs lead its believers to expect what may happen in the future. For example, bad things will happen to people who do bad things. There will only ever be destruction if there is creation.

You didn't seem to actually rebut my definition of science in my previous post, so I assume you agree.
Then how is science's modern role in society different to religions historical role? This is the key issue.

blub-blub

If so, then you may wish to clarify, in the case of science *and* of religion, whether you refer to their teachings, or to them as they are practiced by us humans. A trivial example: some terrorists act in a way they claim is encouraged, even required, by their religions; the published teachings of these same religions seem to disagree.

Both science and religion can be applied inappropriately. This cannot do other than muddy your waters, I suspect.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Pattern-chaser,

As said before, I believe both fulfil the following criteria:
-The best model we have of how everything works.
-Not nesseccerily true or accurate, but with the knowledge we have seems very probable.
-A theoretical explanation for what we observe.
-A predictor of future events.
-A catalyst for devlopment in other areas (technology for example).

In this conversation thread at this time I believe, if we are looking at religon and focusing on its role in social history, that a combanation, both the first-hand text and teaching, and the way it was interpreted and acted upon is nessecery.

In general I believe it can be dangerous to pplace too much importance on either. Religion is composed of three major parts: Its philosophy on the nature of reality, its ethical and moral philosophy, and its culture (including texts, rituals etc.) and these are what should, in everyday, present life be focused on.

Science adapts and changes to changing knowledge, interpretations, purposes, times etc. Religion is capable of doing the same.

blub-blub

>>" You seem to be trying to build up a purposefully weak definition of religion to attack. Now you seem to be saying that unless a religon is based entirley on knowledge coming directly from your very specific and limiting description of god then it is not a religon."

You seriously misread me.
I'm saying that *if* a religion doesn't base anything of what it says on some divinely-inspired 'religious argument' ultimately stemming from external deities, it would possibly be too different in nature from religions based on external deites to be usefully described by the same single word. 'Philosophy' or 'personal spirituality' might be better terms.
Still in terms of the basic 'science=religion' argument, even personal spiritualities don't seem much like science.

>>"2) The messages contained in the myths are the important parts, the aspects that it is most important to communicate, and these are those parts believed to be "divinely-inspired", beliefs such as those in Karma, for example."

But if a story *is* considered to be a human-and-time-distorted myth, when working out what is correct within it must rely on either:
a) the appeal to external evidence and skeptical reasoning, which seems to make religious attributions unnecessary, and which could be undertaken by a complete non-believer.
b) direct divine inspiration
c) the authority of someone who claims to know what the story *really* means as a result of some combination of a) or b)
d) some emotional response to elements of the story
e) some combination of the above.

In cases b) through e), ('religious arguments?') the conclusion of correctness/usefulness would be quite different to how science would go about trying to analyse a situation, and in a pure a) situation, a religious person would presumably do no better than anyone else in picking the useful bits from the story.


>>"Facts such as the age of the Earth arn't important (to the people of the society in the past). These unimportant bits are those most likely to be lost when being passed down by word-of-mouth."

So religions *don't* seriously deal with the kinds of areas of knowledge that science deals with?
Somehow I suspect that the 'unimportant bits' would no doubt be considered as supremely important if they happened to conicide with what science concluded was probably the case?

>>"A major aspect of a religion is how it copes with the nature of god. This wouldn't need defining if all religions percieved god in the same way."

It would seem that religions were either confused or misled from the start about the nature of god[s], or they considered the *nature of god[s]* to be as unimportant as more mundane issues, with their confusion growing over time. That does seem odd unless they are purely human inventions.

>>"*That* kind of religion" - such as Hinduism, the oldest and most widely believed of any religion in the world. I'm glad you are now starting to accept that really mainstream religion is a perfectly reasonable, respectable set of beliefs. Its always nice to open up the eyes of those who refused to see religion as it really is."

I *think* you'll find that I started off talking about religions which claim divine inspiration, and asking why such inspiration needed to be claimed in the support of ideas which could be otherwise justified, and I carried on talking about the *kind* of deity which could choose to give or withhold evidence of its existence.
Indeed, you started replying in the same vein - giving the "I refuse to prove I exist" argument which could only apply to some specific supernatural being but not to some principle of nature, so it does seem pretty clear what kind of religion we were *both* talking about - one where there are God[s] who can do stuff.
Also, we weren't talking about how reasonable or respectable mainstream religions were or were not as practical personal philosophies - the topic of the thread is one of how a deity (by implication a triple-O one, or very similar) could prove its existence.

*You* presumably knew what everyone was talking about, so a failure on anyone's part to continually clarify the precise targets of discussion doesn't seem a particular problem to me.
Maybe you [thought you'd] widened the discussion to be one of any conceivable religion, deistic or otherwise, but if so, it would have been useful to let other people know what you [thought you] were doing, since it *would* be rather going off-topic in a thread about God[s] proving their existence.

Personally, with all due respect, I'd prefer not to be criticised for being closed-minded without justification, or have anyone smugly pretend they had opened my eyes when they had done nothing of the sort.


>> >>"Have religions *ever* been shown to have *special* insight beyond what a secular philosophy could achieve?"

>>"The nature of god, the existence of Karma, the correct moral code to live your life by etc... Religion *is* a form of philosophy combined with a degree of practice."

Morality & society - things which science doesn't deal with.

What *practical* use is a definition of the nature of an alleged god, or some alleged supernatural pattern of fate, etc? That's not *insight*, that's simple *definition*.

If there *isn't* a God of the form claimed by a particular gog-claiming religion, it's clear that any useful insight is human-derived, and there seems to be no reason to suppose that any of it couldn't have been developed without the need for a supernatural overlay. Much was probably sucked from outside in any case, or was already fairly obvious, in which case religion would be a tool used by society to codify and maintain knowledge of social matters.

Indeed, the more similarities there are between the social/moral codes of various religions, then whether one actually agrees with a particular code or not, the more one might conclude that such codes either:
i) predate the invention of the religion
ii) are easy to come by

>> >>"How does one explain the numerous religious predictions claiming divine inspiration that simply don't come true"
>>Just as you would in science, when scientific predictions arn't accurate:
>>1) Check the reliability of both the person (witness of god or scientist) and the reliability of the evidence.
>>2) Modify the prediction (if needs be alter the theory)

Anyway, if the basic theory (the 'religious argument'?) is always fundamentally "This prediction will happen because God told me so", then religions *can't* 'alter the theory' at all - the best they can do is try and guess in advance whether someone was or wasn't spoken to by God. If a prediction does or doesn't come true, they may make some conclusion about whther they had guessed correctly, though clearly they can't be sure even then.

After millenia of trial and error, has the reliability of religious prediction actually shown some systematic improvement?
Or do religions sensibly try and avoid making predictions these days?


>>"Yes it can.Of course science exerts political pressure. Otherwise why are billions being spent on CERN, for example."
I didn't say scientists can't ask for money, simply that science doesn't provide rules about how society should be organised, and how humans should behave.
In any case, I think you'll find that where there are big projects, there are *politicians* doing most of the politicing - just look at what happened with the fuss over the next fusion reactor research site. Much of the fuss was whether countries thought they'd get some fair return on their financial input, or gain politicalally from job creation.
Many scientists had a *personal* opinion on where they wanted the site to be, but I doubt that many would have thought the science itself would be different if Japan were chosen over France.
'Science' as a field of study didn't have any opinion on where the site should be placed.


>>"In the same way, some 'may claim to be following a religious approach in politics, but you'd have to ask how many actual gurus would agree with them before concluding they were correct in their claim.'"

Quite - but possibly I was being a bit too subtle. In practice, if someone said that a particular social/moral policy was a 'scientific' one, I don't think you would get many scientists agreeing with them about the scientific nature of their claim, even if as people they agreed with the actual decision itself, unless sound reasoning behind the policy could be traced back to what looked like reliable evidence.
In contrast, I suspect that someone claiming religious support for a particular social/moral policy would seem rather more likely to have religious people who agreed with the goal on a personal level almost automatically consider that the goal *was* religiously supported or supportable.

In a case where there were two opposing conclusions in *any* area of thought (even outside the conventional realm of science) both claiming science as a justification, it should be possible to trace the reasoning to the evidence and assumptions see if either of them was actually justified. If bothe seemed justified but there was still honest disagreement it would show there was an area where some more work may be needed.

The fact that people within even a particular sub-religion with opposing views on particular issues can proffer religious arguments for their personal positions, and that there is no obvious way to decide between such arguments would seem to indicate that if someone *does* personally agree with a position, it is not hard for them to quite honestly come to the point where they consider their position as religiously justified.

>>"Alot of religious beliefs lead its believers to expect what may happen in the future. For example, bad things will happen to people who do bad things. There will only ever be destruction if there is creation."

Rephrasing your last prediction to be less vague - "Things which don't exist can't be destroyed", it does seem *kind* of obvious.

In any case, bad things don't necessarily always happen to people who do bad things (whether via 'divine vengeance', human enforcement, or any other means), and bad things also happen to people who do good things (via the 'mysterious will of God?'). Effectively, the prediction is better written as:
"Bad things might happen to people who do bad things, or to people who don't"
Wow - that's a pretty deep one. I bet a nonbeliever could *never* match insight on that level. I stand humbly corrected.

>>"You didn't seem to actually rebut my definition of science in my previous post, so I assume you agree."

It should be clear even to you that I considered your definition (or what you claimed was *my* definition) to be far from accurate, and to be deliberately vague in certain areas, presumably for the purposes of furthering your so-called argument of science and religion being fundamentally similar.
Particularly,

A) I didn't agree that science was the best model of how *everything* works, since there are clear areas science doesn't deal with.

B) I went rather deeper into the area of truth, accuracy and uncertainty than you did, and pointed out the need for a chain of logical reasoning from defensible starting points.

C) I pointed out the *kind* of explanations that science considers meaningful - ones specific enough to be able to make worthwhile predictions, not ones so vague they could retrospectively cover any eventuality, and ones which are also as simple as possible, without layers of explanation or potential excuse hovering around them.

D) Your 'catalyst for development' definition is clearly so all-encompassing that it deserves no place in a sensible argument, since practically anything could fit under such a definition.
Trade is a catalyst for development in other areas, such as transport, navigation, mathematics, industry, science.
Ambition is a catalyst for development in almost any area.
However, commerce and ambition are neither science nor religion.

But apart from *those points...

>>"Then how is science's modern role in society different to religions historical role? This is the key issue."

Well,
Science doesn't make pronouncements on how people should behave.
Science might help quantify some of the effects of various choices, but cannot *make* those choices.
Science can explain its reasoning down to a very simple level.
Given a scientific disagreement, it is usually possible to work out who is correct and get sensible people to change their minds. Science doesn't pretend that both sides are 'correct by definition'.
Science at its core is about fundamental physical reality.
Science teaches that reality is more important than authority or tradition.
Science continues to go hand-in-hand with technology, just as it did when the church was more involved in politics.
Science teaches that even great minds can be as wrong on some issues as they were right on others.
Science is expanding the number of areas about which we know things with some confidence.

Now, science *may* help satisfy an innate human desire for knowledge, and that may help explain some of the decline of religion, as education has become universal in many countries, as less people look to religion to try and explain the world. However, that doesn't make science a religion simply because religion was a main prior means of satisfying the need of some people for answers to particular questions about the world.
It may even be that the fact that science *can* satisfy that need is one of the real reasons behind the vehemence and dishonesty in the ID movement in the USA - they see an alternative way of looking at the world as as much a threat to future recruitment as an affront to what [they have personally decided] about where 'truth' lies in biblical 'myths'.
It would be kind of interesting to see which kinds of religion fade most rapidly as education becomes more universal. Possibly the more personal-philosophy-type-religions are less threatened than the dogmatic ones?

>>"Religion is composed of three major parts: Its philosophy on the nature of reality, its ethical and moral philosophy, and its culture (including texts, rituals etc.) and these are what should, in everyday, present life be focused on."

Surely the defining characteristic of a *deistic* religion is an unproven assertion that there are one or more supernatural gods, and that they want us to act in certain ways, but not in others.
Since the opinion of the god[s] in such kinds of religion are what underlies much of the non-obvious fraction of ethics and morals, which are the parts over which disputes seem most likely, it would seem that the nature of the gods, not reality, is possibly the crucial factor in a religion.

It's fairly obvious that a religion that disagreed with reality over what *results* to expect from nature (the prime area science that deals with) would have to adapt or lose face - a religion claiming that it never rained on Wednesdays would likely have to change sharpish or face looking daft, but it is much easier to get away with statements on the acceptability of certain human behaviours, since it's rather harder to show that an invisible god *isn't* sexist, homophobic, or a beef-hater.

Particularly if the less-obvious (more arguable) ethical/moral issues are those where divine will is most likely to be applied in defence of the official position, the divine aspect of a religion may amount to little more than a source of social inertia. Whether that is good or bad will depend on one's personal view of the ethical/moral issue.


Whatever, the fundamental issue seems to boil down to the *assertion* of the existence of deities potentially being used to put some important issues beyond the pale of human debate.
If humans are allowed to decide how to act on *any* issue, then the gods are effectively killed for all but ceremonial purposes, and the religion transforms (progresses?) into a straight moral philosophy, possibly with a bit of fancy dress on the side.
If humans are forbidden from challenging teaching on some issues considered as sacred cows, the religion is supressing ethical debate by making an unproven assertion of divinities happening to exist with a particular set of opinions, which many people might view as not the *best* or most stable basis for morality.

If deities really do feel strongly on a moral issue, one would wonder why they don't make it clear by demonstrating their existence or raining a series of thunderbolts out of clear skies on dissenters, etc.
A repeated lack of demonstration would tend to indicate that deities don't exist, or they don't care, which is actually a potential problem for philosophies based on the claims that deities do exist and do care, since people may be tempted to throw out the baby with the bathwater and discard some even independently justifiable ethical positions, if those positions are seen as being straight 'religious' stances, rather than being otherwise explicable.

Way to go, Potholer!

"But if a story *is* considered to be a human-and-time-distorted myth, when working out what is correct within it must rely on either:
a) the appeal to external evidence and skeptical reasoning, which seems to make religious attributions unnecessary, and which could be undertaken by a complete non-believer.
b) direct divine inspiration
c) the authority of someone who claims to know what the story *really* means as a result of some combination of a) or b)
d) some emotional response to elements of the story
e) some combination of the above.

In cases b) through e), ('religious arguments?') the conclusion of correctness/usefulness would be quite different to how science would go about trying to analyse a situation, and in a pure a) situation, a religious person would presumably do no better than anyone else in picking the useful bits from the story."

i) Your a) could and is used to work out what is correct. Newton, for example, as someone who believed in science looked at evidence external to the bible to try and judge its accuracy. He concluded that god existed.
ii) You missed out f). They could compare and contrast stories with others, and find what was common to both.

"It would seem that religions were either confused or misled from the start about the nature of god[s]"
i) Or prehaps culture and language constraints affected views in different parts of the world.
ii) You seem to suggest that there is something doing the confusing or misleading. I've already argued not all religions rely on divine inspiration.

"[gods may be] purely human inventions."
i) I personally believe god/s are human creations. See my article God as a Creation of Mankind.

"I *think* you'll find that I started off talking about religions which claim divine inspiration"
i) And I *think* you'll find that I've been talking about religion in a general sense for a while now.
ii) I *think* you'll find I've been specifically addressing Hinduism recently (chosen as an example as it is the biggest world religion.)
iii) I *think* you'll find that I already addressed the issue of divine inspiration.

"Indeed, you started replying in the same vein - giving the "I refuse to prove I exist" argument which could only apply to some specific supernatural being but not to some principle of nature, so it does seem pretty clear what kind of religion we were *both* talking about - one where there are God[s] who can do stuff."
i) If you remove the actual act of talking you'll see that god/s don't have to be need to be a supernatural being, or neccesserily active.

"Also, we weren't talking about how reasonable or respectable mainstream religions were or were not as practical personal philosophies - the topic of the thread is one of how a deity (by implication a triple-O one, or very similar) could prove its existence."
i) There's this very common phenomena on h2g2 known as topic drift.
ii) Since the I had already made clear my argument; "science is the new religion" (post 49) before you joined the thread, I thought you would understand what the debate you were joining had become about.
iii) This seemed more likely when your first post on this thread (50) dealt exclusivley with the topics of science, and religions as organisations, and didn't address proof for god at all.

"Morality & society - things which science doesn't deal with."
i) This is not an exhaustive list of what religion deals with, as the nature of reality is an important compotent part of any religion, one which shapes the views on morality and society. The nature of reality is also what science deals with.

"If there *isn't* a God of the form claimed by a particular gog[d?]-claiming religion, it's clear that any useful insight is human-derived"
i) I pressume the form of god you are addressing is the only one you seem to accept; external, physical, definite. Again, you're being very limiting.
ii) There is no reason that a god must be of this form to provide inspiration.

"there seems to be no reason to suppose that any of it couldn't have been developed without the need for a supernatural overlay."
i) The Upanishads, Smirti and Bhagavad Gita are all of human origin. However, they would not have come into existence without belief in god. This is one example of religion acting as a catalyst.

"Indeed, the more similarities there are between the social/moral codes of various religions, then whether one actually agrees with a particular code or not, the more one might conclude that such codes either:
i) predate the invention of the religion
ii) are easy to come by"
iii) Or that all religions are different perspectives of the same truth.(but I expected you to ignore that one)

"if the basic theory (the 'religious argument'?) is always fundamentally "This prediction will happen because God told me so""
i) Why is this the basic 'religious argument'? A religious person could say 'Reality behaves in a certain way due to its basic governing principles, so I expect this to happen'. Alot like a scientist might actually...
ii) As I've already (repeatedly) said not all religion is based on direct contact with a deity. You just seem to blinkerdly ignore this.
"religions *can't* 'alter the theory' "
i) Why not? Why *can't* they alter their theory on the nature of god?

"though clearly they can't be sure even then."
i) Just as a scientist can't be sure of what s/he believes.

"Many scientists had a *personal* opinion on where they wanted the site to be, but I doubt that many would have thought the science itself would be different if Japan were chosen over France.
'Science' as a field of study didn't have any opinion on where the site should be placed."
i) Similairly, if a great religous monument was being built: 'Many religious people may have a *personal* opinion on where they wanted the site to be...
A god/gos would't have any opinion on where the site should be placed.'

"Rephrasing your last prediction to be less vague - "Things which don't exist can't be destroyed", it does seem *kind* of obvious"
i) Do you mean 'rephrasing to completley change the meaning to make the argument appear weaker so it is easy for me to attack' by any chance?
ii) I meant what I said; 'there will be no creation without destruction' (and also that 'there will be no destruction without creation') How is that *kind* of obvious, science didn't arrive at a law for conservation of mass/energy until 1748.

""Bad things might happen to people who do bad things, or to people who don't""
i) I actually don't think you're deliberatley changing the meaning here, it may well just be an accident caused by your insufficient knowledge of the principles of Karma.
ii) Again, I meant what I said - bad things *will* happen to bad people, over a timespan that may be longer than the individual's life.
iii) In the same way, good things *will* happen to good people. Most importantly they will be nearer to attaining Moksha.

On your definition of science: None of A)B)C)D) seem to show how you think science is different to religion.
"Science might help quantify some of the effects of various choices, but cannot *make* those choices.
Science can explain its reasoning down to a very simple level.
Science at its core is about fundamental physical reality.
Science teaches that reality is more important than authority or tradition.
Science continues to go hand-in-hand with technology, just as it did when the church was more involved in politics.
Science teaches that even great minds can be as wrong on some issues as they were right on others.
Science is expanding the number of areas about which we know things with some confidence."
These are all attributes religion had in the past.

"Science doesn't make pronouncements on how people should behave."
Ok, I'll modify my statement. 'Science plays the same role as some of the roles religion played in the past, however it isn't as extensive'. Is that better?

"Given a scientific disagreement, it is usually possible to work out who is correct and get sensible people to change their minds. Science doesn't pretend that both sides are 'correct by definition'."
i) When did I say that the details of religions are "correct by definition"?
ii) This dosn't show sciene to be playing a different role, merely going about things in a different way.

"It would be kind of interesting to see which kinds of religion fade most rapidly as education becomes more universal. Possibly the more personal-philosophy-type-religions are less threatened than the dogmatic ones?"
i) Yes, it would be intresting.
ii) If science is replacing religion, then this suggests both fulfil the same purpose.

"Surely the defining characteristic of a *deistic* religion is an unproven assertion that there are one or more supernatural gods"
i) Why do you continually feel the need to limit the scope of the conversation and disenfranchise many world religions?

"and that they want us to act in certain ways, but not in others."
i) There is no logical reason this must follow.

"It's fairly obvious that a religion that disagreed with reality over what *results* to expect from nature (the prime area science that deals with) would have to adapt or lose face"
i) Why is it a problem that religion should need to adapt? It has historically. Just as science does.

"the fundamental issue seems to boil down to the *assertion* of the existence of deities"
i) No, religions find evidence for their beliefs, not conclusive proof, but then, neither is science's.

"If humans are forbidden from challenging teaching on some issues considered as sacred cows, the religion is supressing ethical debate by making an unproven assertion of divinities happening to exist with a particular set of opinions, which many people might view as not the *best* or most stable basis for morality."
i) Again, what's your problem with religions being forced to adapt.
ii) Ethical debate exists in religion, it is not banned, different Hindus debate the ethics of abortion and knowing gender before birth, the results being the former was legalised and the latter banned in India.

"If deities really do feel strongly on a moral issue, one would wonder why they don't make it clear by demonstrating their existence or raining a series of thunderbolts out of clear skies on dissenters, etc."
i) Again, your eroneous belief that a god must be physical, distinct, external.

"A repeated lack of demonstration would tend to indicate that deities don't exist"
And now you seem to be saying a god *must* be imminent in the world as well. Why do you keep making sweeping generalisations about religious views?

Science has the same purpose as a major part of religion, to learn more about the nature of reality, this is why much scientific experiment used to be conducted by religious organisations?
Blub-blub

>>"i) Your a) could and is used to work out what is correct. Newton, for example, as someone who believed in science looked at evidence external to the bible to try and judge its accuracy. He concluded that god existed."

When looking at things without appealing to diveine authority, the reliability of conclusions does rather depend what alternatives someone considers, and how well-formulated such alternatives are.
Standing on the shoulders of Darwin and Huxley, we may be able to see possibilities that even Newton could not.

>>"ii) You missed out f). They could compare and contrast stories with others, and find what was common to both."

So if uncertain about what may be divine (or at least, *original*) and what is due to later human agency, another story is a potentially good guide, even if it has been through the same process of change via human agency?
If we see similarities, we can conclude that they must be down to either the 'original' content, or later human alteration, which gets us precisely where?

>>"I've already argued not all religions rely on divine inspiration."

I didn't say they *all* did. I'm talking about deistic religions, in line with the topic of the thread.

>>"i) I personally believe god/s are human creations."

>>"i) And I *think* you'll find that I've been talking about religion in a general sense for a while now.
ii) I *think* you'll find I've been specifically addressing Hinduism recently (chosen as an example as it is the biggest world religion.)
iii) I *think* you'll find that I already addressed the issue of divine inspiration.

i) Well, if you want to change the subject of a thread from what it obviously was, and which *you* seemed happy with given the kinds of things we were all talking about, it would kind of make sense to say something like
"But what about religions in general? - is what you say applicable to religion/philosophy X"
rather than to smugly criticise someone for comments made in an earlier context after you decided to change the context. It really doesn't make you look big *or* clever.

ii) I think *you'll* find that Hinduism is not the biggest world religion. Not even nearly. It ranks 3rd (or possibly 4th, if various kinds of secularism are counted as a single religion, and depending on precise estimates).

iii) I think you'll find that *claimed* divine inspiration is a fundamental issue if used to bolster any kind of argument for a particular ethical or moral code, since its effect, if not its primary intention, is to deny reasonable debate.

>>"i) If you remove the actual act of talking you'll see that god/s don't have to be need to be a supernatural being, or neccesserily active."

??? In the context of people considering why Gods which are alleged to exist don't prove they exist, how could a god actually meaningfully *exist* as anything other than an active supernatural being.
If a god was purely a human-invented concept, it would 'exist' to no greater extent than Father Christmas exists.

>>"i) There's this very common phenomena on h2g2 known as topic drift."

Yes, but it *is* at least polite to let people know when you think you've caused a drift.

>>"ii) Since the I had already made clear my argument; "science is the new religion" (post 49) before you joined the thread, I thought you would understand what the debate you were joining had become about."

I looked at the thread title, and at the thread (48) you were replying to. Silly me for not realising everything had changed via a single posting.

>>"iii) This seemed more likely when your first post on this thread (50) dealt exclusivley with the topics of science, and religions as organisations, AND DIDN'T ADDRESS PROOF FOR GOD AT ALL." (my emphasis)

So, when I said (post 50)
"One deals with the natural world as it is (or at least, as it relentlessly appears to be, which is practically the same thing), the other deals with some aspects of human interaction, placing partial reliance on the existence of one or more supernatural entities which seem reluctant to demonstrate their existence despite their supposed abilities being sufficient to do so if they wished."

I *wasn't* maming it clear what kind of religion I was talking about, and I wasn't addressing anything to do with the proof of any god's existence?

>>"i) This is not an exhaustive list of what religion deals with, as the nature of reality is an important compotent part of any religion, one which shapes the views on morality and society. The nature of reality is also what science deals with."

You are deliberately using a definition of 'reality' which is wide enough to encompass almost anything, in an attempt to justify your 'science=religion' argument, but I'm not going to fall for that.
You know perfectly well what elements of 'reality' science deals with and religions deal with, and you know how different they are on both coverage and angle (ie 'how' vs. 'why'). To pretend otherwise is simply dishonesty.

>>"i) The Upanishads, Smirti and Bhagavad Gita are all of human origin. However, they would not have come into existence without belief in god. This is one example of religion acting as a catalyst."

Religion acting as a catalyst... for religious texts. Wow. Who'd've thunk it?

>>"iii) Or that all religions are different perspectives of the same truth.(but I expected you to ignore that one)"

I specifically didn't cover the 'truth' of moral codes, but considered some reasons why different religions might end up sharing an idea. For someone who considers religions as human inventions, the logical conclusions are that a common idea has either a common source (predating a religion, or being borrowed from someone else's religion or secular philosophy), or was independently invented (which would tend to suggest it wasn't a *horribly* difficult idea to invent).

>>"i) Why is this the basic 'religious argument'? A religious person could say 'Reality behaves in a certain way due to its basic governing principles, so I expect this to happen'. Alot like a scientist might actually..."

Because if a person (religious or otherwise) uses a non-religious argument, it isn't a religious argument. If the 'governing principles' were ones that someone didn't need to be a believer to accept, the argument seems to lose its necessarily religious character.

Effectively, arguments seem best described by an appropriate level of detail.
For example:
If a Catholic says "I'm going to wear a napkin to avoid getting food on my clothes", that doesn't make it a Catholic argument, or even a religious or Christian argument but an argument based on reality.
If a Catholic says "I think religions do good because they can get people to think about issues they might otherwise ignore", that's not a Catholic or Christian argument, but an arguably religious one.
If a Catholic says "I think Jesus died for our sins", that's best described as a Christian argument.
If a Catholic said "The pope is the supreme authority on Christian doctrine", that would be a Catholic argument.

>>"Why not? Why *can't* they alter their theory on the nature of god?"

In the particular case I was talking about ('religious' predictions based on claimed divine inspiration), the theory I described ("This prediction will happen because God told me so") is not amenable to much modification apart from adding a judicious 'probably' or 'possibly', with seemingly not much obvious methodology which could give confidence when to consider a prediction worth betting on.

If religions made a prediction based on *non-divine* (fully human) reasoning and information, it would be interesting to see how they would differ from what any other people might predict.
Were a chain of reasoning to be independent of religious claims to truth, how much sense would it make to call the prediction 'religious'?

>>"i) Similairly, if a great religous monument was being built: 'Many religious people may have a *personal* opinion on where they wanted the site to be...
A god/gos would't have any opinion on where the site should be placed.'"

But *you* were the one claiming that science was somehow in the political (moral/ethical?) driving seat, (CERN, etc) rather than just being a possible investment and/or pork-barrel opportunity for politicians when it comes to international collaborations.
So far, you seem to have failed to support your allegation.

>> >> "Rephrasing your last prediction to be less vague - "Things which don't exist can't be destroyed", it does seem *kind* of obvious"

>>"i) Do you mean 'rephrasing to completley change the meaning to make the argument appear weaker so it is easy for me to attack' by any chance?"

No, I don't. Looking at what you wrote "There will be no destruction without creation", it could be interpreted as:

"Without prior creation, there could be no destruction"
"Any destruction will be followed by [some unspecified amount of] creation"
Either is equally meaningless without more information.

>>"ii) I meant what I said; 'there will be no creation without destruction' (and also that 'there will be no destruction without creation') How is that *kind* of obvious, science didn't arrive at a law for conservation of mass/energy until 1748."

Yawn. You never said that creation and destruction must balance *equally*. That's kind of my point about vague statements - science doesn't work with Nostradamus-like statements, and statements vague enough to only have an obvious meaning *after* science finds things out are somewhat less than useful.

>>(me) >>"Bad things might happen to people who do bad things, or to people who don't""

>>"i) I actually don't think you're deliberatley changing the meaning here, it may well just be an accident caused by your insufficient knowledge of the principles of Karma."
>>"ii) Again, I meant what I said - bad things *will* happen to bad people, over a timespan that may be longer than the individual's life."
>>"iii) In the same way, good things *will* happen to good people. Most importantly they will be nearer to attaining Moksha."

Actually it's got jack-%%%% to do with my knowledge of Karma. I *did* actually ask "What have religions predicted THAT HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED?", not "What do religions allege will happen, for which evidence is currently seemingly lacking?", since an answer to the latter question wouldn't really advance us one step futher on the topic of the reliability of 'religious arguments'.


>>"On your definition of science: None of A)B)C)D) seem to show how you think science is different to religion."

Your failure to acknowledge any of the points I made is disapointingly unsurprising. You've obviously entirely made up your mind, and are not capable of seeing how your vague criteria, once clarified, do not apply to religion, unless a particular religion, shorn of its divine baggage, actually has managed to become similar to science, (and so ceased to be a religion).

>>"These are all attributes religion had in the past."

Have you been a comedian for a long time?

>>"If science is replacing religion, then this suggests both fulfil the same purpose."

No, it doesn't. It suggests that that fully naturalistic explanations may be becoming considered as making more sense than supernatural or otherwise vague spiritual ones, and being an alternative to one thing religion used to do.
Science certainly *isn't* replacing religion as a social/ethical/moral guide, which is possibly one of the things that disturbs some people, and not necessarily without cause.
However, it's not the fault of *science* that it isn't a replacement for religion as far as ethics are concerned - it's up to parents/schools/wider society to find a suitable way of teaching secular ethics if a previous system fails to convince people any more.
One could argue that football, or shopping, or lying-in on a Sunday are now replacing the role religion used to have in some people's lives, but that doesn't necessarily make football, shopping, or being asleep 'similar to' religion in any significant way.
Having a house infested with wasps or being arrested may 'get one out of the house' but that doesn't they are the same thing as going to church, or even similar.

>>"i) Why do you continually feel the need to limit the scope of the conversation and disenfranchise many world religions?"

I'm not disenfrachising anyone - I'm simply talking about a particular kind of religion - one where people claim a powerful deity but can't/won't explain why the deity seems to be shy of publicity.


>>"i) Why is it a problem that religion should need to adapt? It has historically. Just as science does."

I'm not saying it *is* a problem. The point I was clearly making was that *claims* of divine will can only be long-term sustainable where they can't be contradicted by reality, and that will tend to happen on issues of ethics and morality, leading to potential entrenchment of views which may not have any obvious logical support beyond reasoning at the level of "Women are inferior", "God hates gays", "The Bible ays so", etc.

>>"i) Again, what's your problem with religions being forced to adapt.

I don't have a problem with it. I just feel that deistic claims will tend to make religions less adaptable. Please tell me how I am wrong

>>"ii) Ethical debate exists in religion, it is not banned, different Hindus debate the ethics of abortion and knowing gender before birth, the results being the former was legalised and the latter banned in India."

Good for them. Maybe their religion has advanced to the point of being less deistic and more humanistic, like some religions elsewhere.
Also, I understand they don't run around trying to convert other people, which seems to deserve another merit badge. Has the caste system been effectively killed off yet?

However, maybe you will eventually realise that if I make comments about a blindingly obvious and pretty well-defined *subset* of religions, I'm not talking about ones *not* in that subset, however much you may think I am, or might be, or could be, or should be.

Thank you, and goodnight.