Why do you believe in YOUR religion

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

By your analogy the continuity of prayer should yield masses of evidence that it works. Where is it? It does not exist. Billions of prostrate and kneeling people every day and not 1 can show it to have worked.

Is there a name for a scientist who reports the results of other researchers without any relationship or even any discourse exchanged with each of the other researchers? Is there a name for a scientist who fabricates his data rather than collecting it? This looks like an Assertion, Tao. Does a good scientist assert his beliefs with falsified or fabricated data?

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Yes, and you're also expected to have faith in someone else's conclusions.

Having published quite a bit in a scientific field and having served on editorial boards for data-based scientific journals, I would say this:

1) Many scientists have incomplete and in some cases seriously flawed ideas on what it is they're doing. For example, they may design an experiment that doesn't actually address the research question. Or their conclusions may simply not be justified by the data. They may nevertheless consider themselves entitled to do some grandstanding and extensive speculation in the Discussion section of their research report just because they collected the data and ran some analyses. This partly explains why you see manuscript acceptance rates of less than 10% for many scientific journals.

2) Lack of clarity about sampling, experimental design and experimental procedure makes it virtually impossible to replicate many studies.

3) The bias toward publishing positive/confirmatory results in any given scientific field in effect tends to "sweep under the rug" many complexities that may be very relevant to progress in the field. The negative findings simply never get published and nobody is the wiser for it. The effect this bias has on research conclusions and design planning is unfathomable. Here's an analogy: How does one validate a measure of physiological response patterns when most people hooked up to the machine are flatliners? All the rejected manuscripts reporting negative findings that will never see the light of day are in the same category as the flatliners.

Applying your findings to religions or other social groups seems to reveal a similar nature... human nature.

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

How does science get me any closer to G-d? Answer: It doesn't. Can it? Probably not.

I'd say that a good scientist is closer to God, but that every child is a scientist. What is a good scientist? Honest, loving, inquisitive, thoughtful, faith in others, sharing, good communication skills...

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Oh, do you mean like being mocked in a hellishly fiery manner if you don't buy into the Big Bang Theory?

lol, I dont buy into the "big bang theory", but I do understand it is only a theory. Religions do not sell themselves as theory but as 'revealed truths'. They are nothing of the kind. So I am not selling BBT in a hellishly fiery manner, I am expressing my frustration that theists seem to completely miss the point. As you may, or may not see in my next post.

brimstone tao

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Is there a name for a scientist who reports the results of other researchers without any relationship or even any discourse exchanged with each of the other researchers? Is there a name for a scientist who fabricates his data rather than collecting it? This looks like an Assertion, Tao. Does a good scientist assert his beliefs with falsified or fabricated data?

I am sat here in front of a modern 22" LCD monitor which receives its input from a high tech device called a personal computer. This is linked via a fibre optic cable to a global network of other computers. On my desk there is also a mobile phone which can send and receive pictures, video and audio from just about any location on the planet. Outside my window I watch an orange liveried EasyJet make its final approach to the local airport and hear the electronic ignition of my neighbours car kick its engine into life. I relax back into my carbon fibre, leather upholstered chair while I eat the remains of last nights pasta dish, which I just reheated in the microwave oven.
So you see I do not need to carry out the experiments of what science can give us, really give us. Because I use its fruits every day. Or do you suggest that my perception and my assertion of that perception should first be run in point by point experimentation by myself? Again I assert: science delivers. No religion has ever even got off the starting block in the race with the sciences to explain reality and truth. Yet science does not claim truth, religion does. Religion as I have said so often now, does not have a shred of evidence to support it.

tao

[17th Angel]

Indeed there are many things that science have claimed and proven, and there are those that they have not.

I think that goes just the same for religion.

Both sides seem to have hits and misses.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Alex P

Indeed there are many things that science have claimed and proven, and there are those that they have not.

I think that goes just the same for religion.

Both sides seem to have hits and misses.

I could make a list that would stretch into 10s or even 100s of 1000s of science 'hits'.
I challenge you to make a list of even 5 provable religious 'hits'.


tao

[17th Angel]

lol you're funny. You challange me? lol k... Only 5?

1. Understanding of atoms.
2.World is round.
3. Mankind is the most advanced race on the planet earth.
4. Water cycles
5. Earths rotation.....

[wil]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Lmao Seattle, that is simply crass!! By your analogy the continuity of prayer should yield masses of evidence that it works. Where is it? It does not exist. Billions of prostrate and kneeling people every day and not 1 can show it to have worked.
And it is called "Big Bang Theory" not "Big Bang Truth and if you dont believe it you are an evil sinner who will burn in hell for eternity". This is what I meant, all these efforts to drag real enquiry into the realm of superstition that religions dwell in. You prove my point and then some.

tao

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

lol, I dont buy into the "big bang theory", but I do understand it is only a theory. Religions do not sell themselves as theory but as 'revealed truths'. They are nothing of the kind. So I am not selling BBT in a hellishly fiery manner, I am expressing my frustration that theists seem to completely miss the point. As you may, or may not see in my next post.

brimstone tao

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I am sat here in front of a modern 22" LCD monitor which receives its input from a high tech device called a personal computer. This is linked via a fibre optic cable to a global network of other computers. On my desk there is also a mobile phone which can send and receive pictures, video and audio from just about any location on the planet. Outside my window I watch an orange liveried EasyJet make its final approach to the local airport and hear the electronic ignition of my neighbours car kick its engine into life. I relax back into my carbon fibre, leather upholstered chair while I eat the remains of last nights pasta dish, which I just reheated in the microwave oven.
So you see I do not need to carry out the experiments of what science can give us, really give us. Because I use its fruits every day. Or do you suggest that my perception and my assertion of that perception should first be run in point by point experimentation by myself? Again I assert: science delivers. No religion has ever even got off the starting block in the race with the sciences to explain reality and truth. Yet science does not claim truth, religion does. Religion as I have said so often now, does not have a shred of evidence to support it.

tao

Interesting how you've proved Seattlegal correct!

In one thread the science fellows argue and insist that the Theory of Evolution is true, and the notion that Theory means unproven is false.

And then you say science delivers, yet you pick and choose, like all science and religion as to which 'truth' to believe and which to discount.

You've said numerous times there is no evidence of prayer, yet there have been plenty of studies which have concluded that prayer works, one only has to look and read in medical journals. Here is a quick little blurb

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Alex P

lol you're funny. You challange me? lol k... Only 5?

1. Understanding of atoms.
2.World is round.
3. Mankind is the most advanced race on the planet earth.
4. Water cycles
5. Earths rotation.....

lol...no you are the funny one 4 out of those 5 were not proven by religion at all, (if i am wrong demonstrate your proof), and the remaining one (No3) is like saying religion proved men have feet or water is wet, just plain stupid to claim it for religion.


tao

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Religions do not sell themselves as theory but as 'revealed truths'. They are nothing of the kind.

Some religions sell themselves as revealed truths.

Some religions don't.

I see you have not yet engaged the actual data and are still referring to what is obviously certain Western traditions as, broadly, "religion" while ignoring the actual diversity of religious thought.

As for turning my intellect to religion, I've done this time and again, taught classes on it, etc. I guess perhaps it's worth a thread somewhere. I always found it rather elementary, to be honest, and a lot less interesting than looking at say, art as a human behavior.

Religion is a social institution as much as any other social institution, with many of the same functions and the same interactions with individual human cognition, integrated with the rest of a society just as any aspect of culture is.

It isn't some unique phenomena, much as both the religious and the atheists would like to sometimes purport. It's just another aspect of being human, with all the same pitfalls, the same functions in maintaining social bonds and communicating information, the same glitches that accompany all social beliefs and practices. The power struggles, the stumbling over describing what is inexpressible in clumsy words, the group solidarity (and us vs. them thinking), the specialization, the titles, the symbols... it's human social behavior, folks. It's nothing that unique. It's just the same 'ole human stuff, but with a particular focus of inquiry.

Of particular note is that religious organization mirrors socio-political organization. As society becomes more differentiated and unequal, so too does religion. As people are alienated from the land, each other, and political power... so too are they alienated from the divine (however that is defined and understood). As people are governed more and more by an elite, their religion is governed more and more by an elite. The interconnectedness of religion and other aspects of culture is very clear when one actually studies the historical and cross-cultural data on it. Of more interest is the separation of science, magic, and religion (which were unified modes of inquiry in traditional societies).

If people are really interested, I could start a post and post some references and summarize some of the more complicated stuff. It's just work to dig them all out, so I don't want to bother unless people would actually read it and care.

[dauer]

I'd be interested in that.

-- Dauer

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by wil

Interesting how you've proved Seattlegal correct!

In one thread the science fellows argue and insist that the Theory of Evolution is true, and the notion that Theory means unproven is false.

I state that evolution can be demonstrated to happen in living organisms through the application of scientific study. And I also state that all the mechanisms of evolution are still not fully understood. I see no contradiction, you do. Is this because you are used to the narrow 'belief system' of religion and science does not work that way? Science is all meaningless junk till proven demonstrably to have foundation. religion is the opposite. The junk is accepted wholesale at the start and remains in place till it is just too embarrassing to continue with it.

And then you say science delivers, yet you pick and choose, like all science and religion as to which 'truth' to believe and which to discount.

Again you demonstrate your own prejudice toward thinking in a religious mindset. You show you fail to understand what science is. I do not pick and choose what science goes beyond theory and into practical application, that process is long and arduous. I am as sceptical of new science as you. Sure I might play around with it for a while and see how it fits into my layman's world-view, but that does not mean to say I accept it as "truth".

You've said numerous times there is no evidence of prayer, yet there have been plenty of studies which have concluded that prayer works, one only has to look and read in medical journals. Here is a quick little blurb

Largest ever study done into this:
Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds - Times Online



tao

[Tao_Equus]

Path,

I would too. I agree with much of what you say about religion in that last post. And it would be nice to end the hijack of this thread.


tao

[path_of_one]

Okie-dokie. I'll find and dig out my notes this week (haven't unpacked them since I moved, but I know which closet they are in... just not which box ) and will start up a nifty thread on society and religion. I may split the topics into a second thread on magic, science, and religion- that will be a longer summary.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I am sat here in front of a modern 22" LCD monitor which receives its input from a high tech device called a personal computer. This is linked via a fibre optic cable to a global network of other computers. On my desk there is also a mobile phone which can send and receive pictures, video and audio from just about any location on the planet. Outside my window I watch an orange liveried EasyJet make its final approach to the local airport and hear the electronic ignition of my neighbours car kick its engine into life. I relax back into my carbon fibre, leather upholstered chair while I eat the remains of last nights pasta dish, which I just reheated in the microwave oven.
So you see I do not need to carry out the experiments of what science can give us, really give us. Because I use its fruits every day. Or do you suggest that my perception and my assertion of that perception should first be run in point by point experimentation by myself? Again I assert: science delivers. No religion has ever even got off the starting block in the race with the sciences to explain reality and truth. Yet science does not claim truth, religion does. Religion as I have said so often now, does not have a shred of evidence to support it.

I think what you are saying is that Walmart or the store that you purchased some goods from delivered... unless you learned, studied, designed and built those things yourself. While you may not have prostrated and prayed for those things you still went to the store, asked, and submissively handed over some hard earned money.

So with your purchased technology, show us the detailed data list that contains the Billions of names of people you talked to who prostrated in prayer and could not report it to have worked.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

By your analogy the continuity of prayer should yield masses of evidence that it works. Where is it? It does not exist. Billions of prostrate and kneeling people every day and not 1 can show it to have worked.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Yet science does not claim truth, religion does.

No Tao, a person claims Truth. You claim Truth. Show me the data of the Billions that you referred to. Back up your assertion of Truth. That is... if you truly hold good science to be of any value.