Not at all. If anyone can give me the extraordinary evidence required to overturn every piece of hard won scientific knowledge the human race has accumulated and back up their extraordinary religious claims, I would drop my conclusions in the trash can in a heartbeat. That's how honest rational understanding works. If my worldview seems 'solid', that's because it's based on the strongest, most time-proven observations we have right now. But that 'right now' is important. If that mass of evidence were somehow disproved tomorrow my conclusions would go out the window with it as personally painful as it might be to come to terms with that. Show me a religious person who can honestly say the same.
I believe in higher beings, weather or not they have anything to do with our creation is another question, which I cannot believe or disbelieve. I also somewhat believe in the idea that the universe is infinite, which would mean the we are bound to exist, as well as any imaginable or unimaginable life form physical or somehow not. I think we are all connected somehow, if the cells in our body were conscious, would they know they were all part of the same being? I don't know... Just some thoughts, I don't think you can really believe anything, if you do you limit your mind to certain possibilities, and anything is possible. The boundless dimensions of reality are denied to those who remain within the limitations of logic. This probably sounds like a load of bullshit haha ah well Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Lol! There's some truth in that Tryptamine, science never proved anything conclusively, that's not it's job. Science just eliminates the crap and puts a value on various pieces of evidence. If an experiment shows that 1000 out of 1000 times when you let go of a ball it falls to the ground, it doesn't 'prove' 100% that the next time you let it go the same thing will happen. That's where rational thought comes in - rational as in 'ratio'. We take the amassed evidence, evaluate the ratio of support that evidence provides for a conclusion, and go with the ratio. If the ratio shifts, we need to accept that. Logic is what frees us from our own preconceptions and personal investment in a subject and gives us the tools to appreciate reality. Take quantum mechanics for example - quantum systems are completely alien to we who live in the macro universe. They behave in totally unintuitive ways that make no sense in terms of cause and effect as we experience them. IRS only through the application of logic to careful observations that we've managed to learn anything of the quantum universe at all, including the existence of extra dimensions and the nature of dimensions themselves.
It's not very much like that, that's the problem. Real religion isn't an antithesis to science, it's a compliment. Religion and science can't be at odds. If they are, then it means it is not true science or religion. I believe the current pope is changing some interpretations of the Christian religion. I also speak more from the perspective of dharmic religions which don't make a point of opposing scientific discovery.
The idea of religion and science being non-overlapping magisterium is an old one and a very convenient way to attempt to reconcile the two, but it is obviously and basically flawed. Science is a set of methods for testing the veracity of claims made about the natural world. Every time a religion makes a claim about the nature of the universe, that claim can be subjected to the scrutiny of science and it's veracity tested. Throughout history when testable claims have been made by a religion, they have been tested and found wanting. Any attempt to avoid this result rapidly falls down a rabbit hole of special pleading, logical fallacies, and pre-suppositional circular nonsense that forms the core of religious apologetics. The only way to prevent this would be for a religion to avoid making any claims about the nature of the universe at all but then what would be the point? Who would worship a god who simply lurks somewhere in the background of existence doing absolutely nothing? Such a religion would have difficulty attracting new members I think! All religions, abrahamic, dharmic, or otherwise, try to get away with striking some balance between claiming to have value and back-pedaling furiously when those claims are examined. It tends to form cycles and the balance varies with time and place. The more ignorant and less educated the flock, the bolder the claims made by the religion. None of what the latest pope is saying is new, even within the catholic church, other popes before him have said it. He's just having to walk back some of the more ridiculous claims that his predecessor made before he scuttled off.
Put it this way, the pope says he accepts science, yet he believes in the transubstantiation - that bread and wine turn into the body parts of a 2000 year old dead guy when he waves his hand over them? That's a claim that can be tested, has been tested, and conclusively proven false. Does he now say it's just a metaphor? The catholic religion is a revealed religion. It's sole claim to spiritual authority is that the truth is revealed to them through the word of God. Is he saying that god lied? Just saying there's no conflict doesn't make it so.
I referred to the bible and christianity because it's the religion most people in this forum are likely to have heard of, not because I don't know of any other religions, all my grandparents are jewish and so are most of my close friends, I don't call myself jewish because I'm 100% atheist. I don't have a problem with the existence of god, because he doesn't exist, there's no evidence to support the idea of a god. Women are definitely not evidence, but rather a mechanism for reproduction developed by evolution (as well as men).
I'm sorry, I think you assume far too much and aren't very knowledgeable about religions. You either lack knowledge or fail to see through the neutral perspective. Many religions have no issue of stepping on the toes of science. The very word religion is confusing as it is applied equally to so many various systems that differ on countless basises. If you establish that an integral institution of human society is false in it's entirety, then it is like throwing out the baby with the bath water. From the start, you've made far too many generalising statements altogether. I can't say anything to something that is founded on a false premise.
Something that is clearly symbolic, you make out to be literal so it can be refuted. There's a name for such a fallacy but it escapes me at the moment.
Uh no, I addressed both possibilities - either it's literal, which has been proven false, or its a metaphor. You do understand what a metaphor is? I know which fallacy you're committing, it's a straw man fallacy. More to your point out is not 'clearly symbolic' as you claim. It was a solid foundational claim of the catholic church. People have been excommunicated, tortured and worse for disputing it. If the pope now disavows it, then that presents exactly the dilemma I described. Either god was lying to his adherents for centuries, in which case there would be no reason to trust anything he says, or the church interpreted it wrong for centuries, in which case their credibility as possessors of the revealed truth is gone and the church becomes worthless.
My characterisation of religion's fallacy is definitionally independent. You seem to be having trouble understanding. It doesn't matter what you chose to call a religion or what I call a religion, and at no point does my argument rely on one definition. It's the claims made that matter, and any claim that influences the natural world can be tested by science. You're attempts to use semantics to weasel around that won't lead anywhere. If I'm so wrong about what a religion is, and you think that makes a bit of difference to the nature of their claims or the testability of such claims, please do offer some corrections or at least some instances to back up your assessment.
And I'm showing you that true religion isn't what has happened in it's name. Any imposter can take another's identity and lay waste in their name. If you want the truth, you have to find it. Jesus said the path was narrow. You think human fallibility relates to the truth of religion? Why do you think religious people in the past, those who were the creators of religions, had such a great impact? Their thinking was enlightened. They saw great truths and revealed them in a language that easily transmitted them in their cultural context. There was tons of symbolism and metaphor used to relate these truths but time and human corruption overcomes even this. The lower human nature that is ego-centered is the destroyer of peace, harmony and truth. The true message of prophets of old is to be found under a great pile of filth. Some recent religions can shed a better light on the general message of religions. Such as what is now called Sikhism. If you're willing to learn, then make it known. If you know too much, then I have nothing to say.
Sikhism, Taoism, Hinduism and other spiritual traditions have no claims relying on false science. They don't oppose it. Whatever clai!s there are against what science have established, are not religious.
The pro-religion responses here seem to be rapidly falling into the tired old "you don't understand" defence and heading straight for the No True Scotsman fallacy so let's try another track... Some Chinese people believe that the spirits of their ancestors can be reborn as dogs. Here's a religious claim about the nature of the world that isn't tied to abrahamic bollocks or driven by the political agenda of a church. Can it be tested by science? Absolutely, if this spirit occupation in any way differentiates a particular dog from any others. If it doesn't, then who the fuck cares? Either the claim is wrong and it's just a dog, or its a dog with a spirit in it that is effectively no different to any other dog in the world. This is the trap that religion builds for itself - either it makes claims that can be tested, or it renders itself worthless. Nobody worships rocks just for existing and being rocks, no religion will attract adherents with a god that does nothing and influences nothing. Therefore religions have to make claims for the influence of their god, and as soon as they do, those claims can be tested. Of course religion can always take the cowards way out and claim influence over what happens to you after you die since those claims can't be verified, but if they can't be verified, then there's no reason to believe them in the first place and again the religion renders itself irrelevant.
That's simply not true. Their claims may not be as obviously fantastical or as well known as other religions but they do make claims that are testable by science and contradict scientific understanding. Everything from being able to divine the future, to meditating in order to live forever.
"The burden of proof lies on the believer" Arguing that god exists because it can't be disproved is an ad ignorantium fallacy (argument from ignorance or appeal to ignorance), which happens when "you assert that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false". That is not a valid reasoning.
If God, God's self, were to make God's presence known to human kind what would be the reward for belief if God showed it as fact?
That argument has no basis. I could use it to prove anything. I could even use that argument to "prove" any god that I choose to invent.