I invite you to pick apart Christianity

[ajblaise]

It cannot determine metaphysical truths, which is the realm of religion and philosophy.

That assumes universalism if fact. However the more we learn about the world, the more relativism makes sense, instead.

 

[Totenkindly]

Science is a tool, based upon empirical observation and experimentation. It cannot determine metaphysical truths, which is the realm of religion and philosophy. The notion that science is the ultimate source of truth is called Scientism, which in the end is still a philosophical perspective about science.

Honestly, do you think that religion can determine metaphysical truths either?
Do you seriously BELIEVE that?

Religion can't be shown but to be someone's best guess and best opinion. It can only conjecture and propose and assert... but it cannot determine anything. That is because its assertions cannot be tested, and as soon as you are able to test/falsify something, you have moved from the realm of religion to science.

Empirical study and religious revealation are not necessarily opposites.

Religious revelation can drive the desire for empirical study, just as it drove the Renaissance scientists who believed there must be an inherent pattern within nature because the God they believed in was a God of order.

But above, you did just say this: "It cannot determine metaphysical truths, which is the realm of religion and philosophy."

So no, science really has nothing to do with religion. Religion as you describe it is just piggybacking on science, trying to use its results to justify its own claims... which as you said, can't really be done because religious truths are metaphysical ones and part of its OWN domain, not science's domain.

At best, you can show a potential correlation... but at this point, it is not science aligning with religion but religion aligning with science.

After all, the natural world is a creation of God - so the study of it can help us understand further the nature of God's work. This was certainly the perspective of many of the Medieval Scholastics, and according to scholars like Lynn White this theological perspective actually helped give birth to theoretical science altogether - since it involved smashed the old pagan conceptions of animism and demythologising the natural world.

Yup. Above.

You clearly misunderstand Bradley's point.

Well, clearly I misunderstand your understanding of Bradley's point. If you'd like to clarify so that my ignorance can be rectified, please feel free.

 

[onemoretime]

Science is a tool, based upon empirical observation and experimentation. It cannot determine metaphysical truths, which is the realm of religion and philosophy. The notion that science is the ultimate source of truth is called Scientism, which in the end is still a philosophical perspective about science.

Empirical study and religious revealation are not necessarily opposites. After all, the natural world is a creation of God - so the study of it can help us understand further the nature of God's work. This was certainly the perspective of many of the Medieval Scholastics, and according to scholars like Lynn White this theological perspective actually helped give birth to theoretical science altogether - since it involved smashing the old pagan conceptions of animism and demythologising the natural world.

This also leads into issues concerning Occasionalism, which I touched upon briefly earlier in the thread; namely that it's not advanced much within Christian circles.

Assuming the existence of a god, which is a big assumption.

The scientific method is more than just a tool - it's a way of defining one's relationship with the universe. To me, this is the biggest blow against the separate magisteria argument - both science and religion are means of looking at the world, and at heart attempts to explain little-understood phenomena. Where the separate magisteria argument often comes from is the separation of the "mythological" aspect of religion from the "mystical" aspect, but then, if there is a scientific explanation for mysticism in humans, they are no longer separate, are they?

 

[Sniffles]

Honestly, do you think that religion can determine metaphysical truths either?
Do you seriously BELIEVE that?

Yes actually I do.

Religion can't be shown but to be someone's best guess and best opinion. It can only conjecture and propose and assert... but it cannot determine anything. That is because its assertions cannot be tested, and as soon as you are able to test/falsify something, you have moved from the realm of religion to science.

This again is based upon the false assumption that empirical evidence is the only legitimate form of determining truth. Even within logic, there's the concept of an axiom - where an assertion is believed true without evidence. In fact in order to believe empirical evidence is truth you already have to operate on the axiom that is true.

How does one empirically prove the laws of Logic true? You can't. You place trust in their truths to begin with.

So no, science really has nothing to do with religion.

Actually it does. If I may cite Nietzsche:

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without presuppositions’…a ‘faith’ must always be there first of all, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method – a right to exist…It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science."

Science is a means to an end, and operates according to certain presuppositions. Those presuppositions are provided by philosophy and religion. The belief that science has nothing to do with religion is itself based off a philosophical presupposition - namely that of metaphysical naturalism.

I'll point out that Methodical Naturalism and Metaphysical Naturalism are not the same thing.

 

[Oberon]

What's to say that it's impossible? Hell, traveling to the moon was impossible 75 years ago - and people were only barely beginning to understand that it was workable. Why set these limits for yourself?

You think acknowledging that we don't know something amounts to "setting a limit"?

Look at it this way... You don't even know that the sum total of knowledge in the universe is finite. You don't even know if it's theoretically possible to know it all.

Talking about it happening is an inherently metaphysical exercise.

 

[Totenkindly]

This again is based upon the false assumption that empirical evidence is the only legitimate form of determining truth. Even within logic, there's the concept of an axiom - where an assertion is believed true without evidence. In fact in order to believe empirical evidence is truth you already have to operate on the axiom that is true.

How does one empirically prove the laws of Logic true? You can't. You place trust in their truths to begin with.

Sigh. I don't feel like I am being heard.

My point was that there is no basis for convincing someone of truth with religion. It makes this whole discussion a waste of energy.

Religion cannot DETERMINE truth, nor can it even NEGOTIATE truth except by using science or logic or some other more tangible method as an intermediary -- it can only ACCEPT truth and ASSERT truth, and if the other person has a different metaphysical understanding of truth, then there is no agreement possible.

Everything you are saying is in your head.
If you were to die in a moment, I would lose the ability to hear what was in your head.
Those ideas would be gone.

The sort of evidence I am describing (as more the purview of science) is a body of evidence that exists outside of the human mind. If I die in a moment, others can perceive exactly what I was perceiving and come to similar conclusions.

In fact, EXACTLY the same.
A degree is still a degree.
A millimeter is still a millimeter.
An 800Hz note is still an 800Hz note.

This is not the case with your beliefs.
Your beliefs might or might not be accepted and matched by another person.
They live in your head.

Beliefs -- religious perception -- lives inside everyone's heads separately.
Sometimes beliefs can coincide, but it's hard to tell how much of that is originating inside the person and how much is true on its own, especially when people communicate said truths to each other. It's all necessarily personal and subjective.

Actually it does.

I love how I was just taking your words and basically showing you an inherent contraction in how YOU stated things... regardless of whether your statement was rationally correct or not, it really didn't matter to me which it was, I was just critiquing the mistake you made in how you said things... and you just deny it.

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without presuppositions’…a ‘faith’ must always be there first of all, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method – a right to exist…It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science."

Sure. It's the same "faith" that leads me to think I can sit on a chair without it collapsing -- it's tried and experienced and tested.

This sort of "faith" is a far cry from any "faith" that you seem to be laying claim to, because as I stated a number of times, the faith you believe is a faith that cannot and does not hinge primarily on proof of any sort. It involves no replicable testing. It involves nothing related to life experience that can be observed by multiple people at once. It must either be accepted or declined.

You're in essence playing word games with the term "faith" here, to obfuscate the discussion. And then appealing to a non-authority (Nietzche, nonetheless!) to support your claim.

Science is a means to an end, and operates according to certain presuppositions. Those presuppositions are provided by philosophy and religion. The belief that science has nothing to do with religion is itself based off a philosophical presupposition - namely that of metaphysical naturalism.

Nice -- now you claim that science is owned by philosophy and religion, so that you can take ownership of the term and the process.

When you want to actually show, in a way that actually can be agreed upon via mutually acceptable evidence, that religion owns science, let me know.

The problem is that you can't.
It's an ASSERTION...
...that must either be ACCEPTED or REJECTED.

You either agree or you don't.
I don't agree, and I reject your ASSERTION
since you can't offer any third-party evidence to show me why your way of seeing is more accurate than mine.

So the conversation is done, logically, right?

 

[matmos]

Yes actually I do...

... If I may cite Nietzsche:

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without presuppositions’…a ‘faith’ must always be there first of all, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method – a right to exist…It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science."

To finish your selected quote...

"— But what if this belief is becoming more and more unbelievable, if nothing turns out to be divine any longer unless it be error, blindness, lies—if God himself turns out to be our longest lie?"

The Gay Science (section 344)

 

[onemoretime]

You think acknowledging that we don't know something amounts to "setting a limit"?

Look at it this way... You don't even know that the sum total of knowledge in the universe is finite. You don't even know if it's theoretically possible to know it all.

Talking about it happening is an inherently metaphysical exercise.

So if it's not possible, why even try? Of course, that's the death of the pursuit of knowledge.

The only way the sum total of knowledge in the universe would be infinite would be if the universe itself were infinite. We know that not to be the case. Therefore, it is completely within the realm of physical possibility to understand every piece of data, a we know there is a finite quantity of energy and matter in the universe.

The only way you descend into the metaphysical is if you propose that something exists outside the universe as we know it - and that's not what I'm talking about in the least bit.

 

[Feops]

What I find.. dissettling.. about religious "truths" is how fluid they are. Youths show strong coorelation with what they are taught to believe rather than what they themselves discover. People can convert faiths, ignore aspects of their faith, stress aspects of their faith, invent new aspects of their faith.

As such, I can only reject these truths as opinions. An opinion does have a perfectly good place in society. Pretty much anything related to ethics, behavior, or politics is a matter of opinion. You can't "prove" that which is ethically wrong, or right, or kind, or cruel, as each person has their own perspective of these bounds. It is no coincidence that faith attempts to codify these intangibles to a more concrete set of rules.

The truths of science however do not carry this interpretation. A 1lb brick is a 1lb brick, no matter how much you may wish it to be otherwise. It doesn't matter where you were born, or what you think about bricks, there is a brick there and it weighs one pound.

I suppose that one could argue that when a social group agrees on an opinion that, for them, it essentially becomes a truth as far as they are concerned, but that's a longer debate regarding self-supported assertions (eg. the bible is true because it's the bible).

 

[Owl]

So if it's not possible, why even try? Of course, that's the death of the pursuit of knowledge.

The only way the sum total of knowledge in the universe would be infinite would be if the universe itself were infinite. We know that not to be the case. Therefore, it is completely within the realm of physical possibility to understand every piece of data, a we know there is a finite quantity of energy and matter in the universe.

The only way you descend into the metaphysical is if you propose that something exists outside the universe as we know it - and that's not what I'm talking about in the least bit.

Physicalism, materialism, etc., are metaphysical claims.

How do you know there is any matter at all in "the universe as we know it"?

 

[Quinlan]

I don't understand the desire to have everything explained right now, it is clear that both science and religion are too limited to explain everything right now, yet it is only religion that is arrogant enough to claim that it explains everything. Science is the prudent option, unknowns are just that unknown, filling the gaps with supernatural beings and boogie men is reckless.

 

[onemoretime]

Physicalism, materialism, etc., are metaphysical claims.

How do you know there is any matter at all in "the universe as we know it"?

That mindset, pardon my rudeness, is completely useless. We work with what we have. If you can't rely on observation and measurement, then you might as well just lapse into solipsism... which means I'm real and you're not, so who cares what you say? And this is completely useless, as it means there is no meaningful universe outside of your own psyche... and once again, this is useless as far as living is concerned.

The claim that such things are metaphysical is simply an attempt to reconcile physical reality within a metaphysical framework. Does it say as much about the concepts themselves as much as it says about the person asserting such things? Yes, I can get very pomo if you want, and yes, that will make the entire argument even more useless. That's why I'm generally loath to do such things.

Voltaire had it right - cultivate your garden.

 

[Feops]

I don't understand the desire to have everything explained right now, it is clear that both science and religion are too limited to explain everything right now, yet it is only religion that is arrogant enough to claim that it explains everything. Science is the prudent option, unknowns are just that unknown, filling the gaps with supernatural beings and boogie men is reckless.

Claiming to know ethical truths requires an appeal to a higher authority than ourselves which can only be rationalized by understanding the nature of this authority and his/her/its influence upon the world or universe.

 

[onemoretime]

Claiming to know ethical truths requires an appeal to a higher authority than ourselves which can only be rationalized by understanding the nature of this authority and his/her/its influence upon the world or universe.

I'm not so sure about that. I'd say you could claim an ethical truth by appealing to the nature of our evolutionary selection - that altruism is "good" because that's what humans were selected for and ensures reproductive success.

 

[Oberon]

So if it's not possible, why even try? Of course, that's the death of the pursuit of knowledge.

The only way the sum total of knowledge in the universe would be infinite would be if the universe itself were infinite. We know that not to be the case. Therefore, it is completely within the realm of physical possibility to understand every piece of data, a we know there is a finite quantity of energy and matter in the universe.

The only way you descend into the metaphysical is if you propose that something exists outside the universe as we know it - and that's not what I'm talking about in the least bit.

Our worldviews are irreconcilable. Good luck with the self-worship bit.

 

[onemoretime]

Our worldviews are irreconcilable. Good luck with the self-worship bit.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Good luck in your pursuit of truth.

 

[stellar renegade]

onemoretime, this post was directed to you. Sorry for not specifying before:

With as busy as I am I don't know when I'll get to dissecting what you said earlier, but your speculations are honestly kind of nauseating to me. With as many conflicts as Paul had with the Romans, confronting them and finally being beheaded by them, I find anyone hard pressed to defend the idea that he was trying to soften Judaism toward the Roman empire.

I just wanted to address something you said to me which seemed to be brought up again - that Christianity was based on Mithraism. What evidence do you have that Mithraism looked anything like Christianity before Christianity arrived on the scene? I know about the movie Zeitgeist and all that but I've also heard that yes, these religions do look alot like Christianity but only because they adopted its themes and not vice versa, and that while they are older they didn't resemble it until after it arrived on the scene.

I haven't looked it up myself yet, but I was wondering with your expansive knowledge on the subject if you knew anything about this or not, and if you can bring some harder evidence to the table regarding it. And not something loosely put together, either.

 

[onemoretime]

onemoretime, this post was directed to you. Sorry for not specifying before:

What's so nauseating about Paul's intentions being less than pure? It would make him like practically every other human of historical note both before and after. Speaking of Paul's conflicts with the Romans - given our knowledge of the early Roman Empire and how they managed their provinces, their treatment of foreign religions could be seen as salutary neglect, and this policy didn't really change until the Jewish-Roman War, which was seen as religious as the Romans didn't identify an ethnic difference among the Palestinians, just a religious/tribal one.

Now, you have this Hellenized Jewish Roman citizen going around and causing unrest all across the eastern Empire. If you're the Roman governors, do you think he's doing it out of religious zeal (which could be the case), or do you think he's trying to start a political movement against Rome, being that he's wealthy and upper-class, and stands to gain much from an Eastern uprising against Roman control. This was a point where religious leaders weren't just executed for heresy - remember, Rome deferred to the local Jewish control on the Jesus question due to this policy. It made sense, because these sorts of actions, in a time when most religions were still tribal, could be very destabilizing.

So that raises a lot of questions - one, what did Peter and Paul do that was so alarming to the Romans that they felt was threatening enough to warrant arrest and execution, especially given the Roman disinclination to persecute religious leaders? Was it simply the context of the burgeoning Jewish-Roman Wars, and they just wanted to put down sources of unrest? Even if it was that, why would they do this, given that they specifically ignored religious leaders unless they became political? As you can see, it raises a lot of questions.

So there's my base from which I speculate, and yes, I fully admit it's mostly speculation. That being said, we don't have enough information from the primary sources, nor is the dogma trustworthy enough to form a fully historical picture of the era - since this was a provincial backwater not worth much accounting by Roman and Greek scholars.

Mithraism - demigod born of miraculous means in mid-December spreads wisdom and understanding through revelation of mysteries (which characterized early Christianity, and still informs much of Catholicism and Orthodoxy - that intercession is required because of the mysterious nature of God's will). Order was extremely hierarchical, with seven ranks - much like both older strands of Christianity (C: parishioner, deacon, priest, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, pope; O: parishioner, deacon, priest, bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, Christ). Emphasized the liberation from temporal authority through the revelation of mystery (much as the Eucharist liberates the believer from sin through its mystery of transubstantiation). Early polemicists (such as Justin) railed on Mithraism as being a perversion of Christianity, though it completely lacks any Jewish elements. Mithra died for three days and was reborn in early Spring (which many speculate comes from the sun's death for the three days surrounding the winter solstice, the day's lengthening beginning on Dec. 25, and it's victorious rebirth at the vernal equinox as the ruler of the night.)

Yes, most of that was pulled off of Wiki, but I'm too lazy to go find the primary sources right now.

 

[LostInNerSpace]

Irrelevant. You still have a null hypothesis - "there is no way of knowing one way or another whether there is a god, so its existence or non-existence has no bearing on understanding the situation". As such, the concept of a deity is entirely useless and unimportant to understanding the world.

You don't have a Null Hypothesis unless you can quantify the degree of certainty that you can reject the hypothesis and therefore not reject the null hypothesis. You can't actually accept the null hypothesis if I recall correctly.

Rev. Thomas Bayes tried to prove or disprove the existence of god with statistics. He did not manage to do that but he did manage to invent/discover Bayes' Theorem.

Why are you so sure that at some point, we won't be able to explain all natural phenomena? Why are you willing to give up so easy?

I said someday we might be able to explain the unknown. But there is a bigger chance the earth will get blown away by asteroid 1950 DA in 2880. Maximum probability of impact depending on the rotation of the asteroid is 0.33%.

Think we can move to Mars in 800 years?

 

[onemoretime]

You don't have a Null Hypothesis unless you can quantify the degree of certainty that you can reject the hypothesis and therefore accept the hypothesis.

Rev. Thomas Bayes tried to prove or disprove the existence of god with statistics. He did not manage to do that but he did manage to invent/discover Bayes' Theorem.

So religion DOES have a purpose!

I said someday we might be able to explain the unknown. But there is a bigger chance the earth will get blown away by asteroid 1950 DA in 2880. Maximum probability of impact depending on the rotation of the asteroid is 0.33%.

Think we can move to Mars in 800 years?

I don't see why not - did anyone have any clue of what humans would currently be capable of in 1209? It's possible with current technology - really expensive and really risky, but possible.

I guess I can't help but be optimistic about the pursuit and increase of human knowledge. Out of 250,000 years of our existence, we did the exact same thing for 243,000 of them. All of a sudden, a really big change happens, and over the next 7,000 years, the collection of human knowledge grows exponentially. 1.8% of human history is recorded, and look at all that has happened in that time!