Discussion あ

Seems you missed my point. I am neither religious nor purely scientific, as I think both are necessary and good for the human experience. So I will do you the courtesy you didn't do me and go point by point (though I won't deny the last post came across very confrontational. There are very few things that anger me and that was one of them.

First, I didn't deny human science as real science. It is possible (albeit more difficult) for the liberal arts to become scientific. The only qualification is an impartial viewpoint without any biases. The reason I brought that up is the claim that science has studied moral values, which it has not done except from heavily biased viewpoints. It is very difficult to study something like morality or values without running into that problem.

Second is my fault for poor phrasing. Intention was to convey the fact the morality and religion claim to provide absolute truths, and thus are unscientific. As the argument I was attacking premised the following:

The argument was meant to prove that both morals and religion would not be considered "objective verifiable information(sic)" and thus would be removed from the happy new world.

For the third point please read my entire post. I do not believe in such simple solutions as just race or just class, but science does tend to provide more evidence for simple conclusions (heard of Occam's Razor) and thus simple conclusions can be used to scientifically justify horrible things. And my race is my own business, please. It shouldn't matter in the slightest (on the other hand I'll take the compliment).

For source: everybody has a religion; actual text was most of humanity has a religion. Let's see... This work? http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. 84% in 2010, I doubt it's gone down much. Or you could just google it, you know.

Religious and emotional thought on the same level: refer back to premise I was attacking. Pretty sure neither of those qualities as "objective verifiable information(sic)." Thus, yes, for this they are on the same level.

Finally, I didn't say the problem was religions. In fact I think religion is part of the solution (just not in its current form). I agree with the everything is about money part, though. A very sad thing...

Oh, and do you understand TL;DR? Just skipping to that part would have worked.

 

And another kitten dead

Occam's razor does not support simple conclusions.
Occam's razor can be stated as follows

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected​

Religion is never the answer, it is, in fact often used as the final solution.

The problem is that i don't actually think you have a background in sociology and psychology so it's easier to go with the pop culture views of what those fields are. The fields are incredibly complicated and almost never produce a grand overarching "simple solution" what they do provide are things like this. with dozens of papers and studies on an aspect of morality positive and negative effects in multiple situations with quantifiable results and testable hypothesis. While religion says "god said do it"

the presence or existence of a supernatural policeman with a magic beard is irrelevant to human morality, and holding on the unprovable concepts are damaging to the development of society, until we lay claim to responsibility for our own actions and grow up as a species and stop blaming thor for earthquakes and zeus for lightning and Priapus for the gays, its not going to get much better.

 

Thanks for the well thought out reply. I respect that a lot more than the previous. I'd prefer to do a point by point response but I'm a bit weak with the code right now, so give me some time.

I personally agree, but I've met and talked to too many people who are both religious and not to think that answer satsifies everyone. Curiosity is a defining trait of humanity, and so is deceit (though I could consider the possibility that removing illogical actions will remove lying, I would like to point out this falls victim to 'until proven otherwise' as well). Therefore, people will always want answers, and there will be people willing to give them those answers no matter how terrible they are. Personally, I prefer the sky father over the alternatives (Cthulhu, perhaps?).

Same answer as above, except with the added point of human supremacy and arrogance also playing in. Very few people like believing that they have no purpose or no reason for existence (including myself) or have the capability to understand how minuscule they are in the universe. And Why was used intentionally just for that purpose: people tend to comprehend intelligent motives better than natural processes, and thus often ask why instead of how.

Oh, and yes. Yes it does.

That is completely correct, and completely my point. Science always considers the possibility (I gave numbers, it doesn't have to be within that range) it is wrong. Religion, along with morality, ethics, and many forms of philosophy, do not. For the second part about scientific verification, the question this begs is how strong of tests and verification are needed before something becomes undeniably true, or perhaps just manages to satisfy your qualification for retained knowledge. Would history count? It's neither reproducible or testable, so what then? How about literature? Art? All these other things that aren't verifiable under any circumstances? What do we do with those.

It is indeed, but unfortunately we have seen plenty of people murdering because the invisible sky man told them to. Again, I dislike religion intensely for that reason among many others. However, what enforces those morals that you (or science) has determined are beneficial? And can you give me any agency which does that more effectively than religion?

Seems pretty bad to me: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/
From a rational, scientific standpoint at least.

I thought you were eliminating emotional/irrational arguments from your new world order. Or do you mean the harm from cutting off the nicotine supply (or other addictive substance)? Anyway, I don't follow what the purpose of this argument is. Yes, smoking in public is harmful and yes, we have banned it. That's not a moral, but a legal decision. I'm sorry, I completely didn't follow this part.

Why is that my eugenics program? I was simply pointing out that it is possible, perhaps even easy, to rationally and scientifically justify the elimination over the defense of the weak. It is also possible to justify their support and protection, but not from a scientific viewpoint. Therefore, even if we don't eliminate them it is difficult to justify providing for them and their children, which reverses natural selection and creates a system where the least fit reproduce the most. So not Humes law, but the literal meaning of natural selection: survive without help or perish.

Thank you for the term, I couldn't find it. Yes, I am saying that value theory is the rationalist method for determining a persons worth, though expected monetary earnings may not be the only way to quantify it. And then I say that the rationalist method is wrong, which is what you argued for (removing all non-verifiable information, i.e. A pure rationalist society). Oh, and about the elimination of the under 100K: as intelligence and success is strongly linked to genetic heritage (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014...your-iq-they-determine-how-well-you-do-school and http://www.education.com/reference/article/effects-heredity-environment-intelligence/) over environment (second page is a study comparing identical and fraternal twins raised in the same and different households, finding that identical twins performed far more similarly than fraternal twins even if raised in different environments) it is far more likely for a genius to be in top 1% than in any other percentile group. So... We don't, really.

Thank you for acknowledging my point. I disagree with your approach as I value freedom and diversity, but if you find that acceptable I won't stop you.

I wish humanity were so easy. I really do. But the evidence shows humans like to believe in fairy tales over rational facts every day of the week, so... We are hoist on our own petard.


And I took too long, so I'll add the reply to the next:

You are right that I misstated Occam's razor, but the idea that it prefers simpler explanations is not entirely false. Also, the context I used it in was one of those where it does support simpler conclusions.

My background is in hard sciences (physics and math) so you're absolutely right. On the other hand I try not to use the pop culture views of sociology but a middle ground between those and the actual articles. I think it's a fair method (unless you are actually a social scientist, in which case you should have a more nuanced view as well) and so tend to use it on the Internet as opposed to more in depth research (which as can be seen from the delay in posting would take me way too long to have a meaningful conversation).

I agree that religion is not, and will never be, the rational best answer. However, I also acknowledge that the majority of humans are far more susceptible to it than I am and that it is necessary for them (I don't know why). Therefore, I cannot dismiss it as entirely evil, because then I would have to dismiss humanity as evil and I am not yet willing to do that to myself (again). So I try to find the benefits and upsides of religion and base my opinion on the positives and negatives of both it and science.

I need to figure out how to make shorter arguments... I can't even TL;DR this.

 

Religion is no different than science in it's ability to be harmful. The difference is science doesn't require blind faith (actually denouncing it) where most religions press for it. The issue isn't believing in something, scientist can be said to believe in science. The issue is being fanatical or having blind faith in your beliefs. However, was science not responsible for Hiroshima, and Chernobyl just as much as religion was for the Inquisition. It all comes down to how the people use it. Religion is the belief that there is more to life than just flesh and blood, and when done right there is nothing wrong with that belief. However, people use that belief to justify horrible acts toward one another. But can you honestly say that people can't use science to do the same? I mean as horrible and twisted as it is, didn't Hitlers people practice science to some degree or another on the Jewish people. They did so spurred on by the belief that other people were inferior. I mean how do you answer to that? You separate them from your own views on life by considering them different from you because of other beliefs, because one or several of their theories was wrong. Yet you still lump all religious people together? Hypocrite much? How do you answer for the creation of the gun? It's just a tool it's up to people how to use it. Religion is the same, it's a tool, to cope with the uncertainty of our purpose in life. How it's used and what it's used to do isn't the fault of everyone who believes in that religion.

 

Here is may belief, is that these strong atheist supporters are no different to the fundamental devout religious people, and it's in the way they conduit themselves. Atheism has become a religion to them without them noticing, with them go god this, religion that, and how bad and wrong it is to the mortality of the social landscape, just pushing the atheism view is no different to the religious man pushing his religion onto others.

As we are advancing our understanding in how the world and universe work, we are slowly removing concepts of natural phenomena that where placed in the realm of gods. This shift has it be as a organic as possible, you can't just push and the harder this push is, people well dig in deeper or fight the push itself and make their belief stronger.

Quite frankly people are tired of being dictated to, be it government, social groups, companies, and etc. We live in a age where we can do our own research fairly easily and we can look up information about topics at a click of a button, we are no longer held to what teachers or the media has to say about the world and whats is going on.

 

Just be careful on what kind of information source you used... There is so many weird, crank idea, frankly wrong, self-proclaimed genius in the internetsphere that claim themselves to know something that other didn't know... So you got pseudoscience, pseudohistory, conspiracy theory (some conspiracy theory might be true - who know? but most is batman's shit insane), bla-bla-bla, etc...
Even in using reliable source don't forget to examine the veracity of the truth... Like if some paper proclaim "Coffee Shrink Your Testicle Size!", you don't just believe it just because the paper say "the expert said so". Find the original paper, read the whole document (although you might be confused by the scientific jargon, it's okay. You can search it in dictionary or google and you can learn something interesting) and try to find other scientific paper that refute, support or just commenting on this founding (believe me when I say, scientific community just loveeeeee to do this).
Also try to read materials from both side, like in abortion debate read both materials or main argumentation from pro-life and pro-choice side before you make your own view about this. Or read both Democratic and Republican tirades (I think both of them is "right" with Republican "far right", but this is just a comment from someone from outside American Political Systems). Just making decisions without seeing both side arguments is like judge (or a panel of jury) decide a verdict without hearing both the plaintiff and the defendant side.
Just because I am Keynesian believer, don't means that I didn't see what Monetarist concern about microeconomics, although I still believe their whole theory is hogwash and should be blame to cause Great Recessions...

 

"If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position."
Bill Maher

I like how you try to trivialize the concept of no supernatural beings as the exact same as a deceptive implementation of a demonstrably false premise

 

Pretty much this.