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 A query to you religious people
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Subjectmatter
Skeptic Friend

173 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  07:40:49   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Subjectmatter a Private Message
An excellent answer; but it doesn't place religion in a particularly good light. You make it sound as though it is merely a means to the end of coping with reality. If what you say is true, then reasoned argument is not just something which for the purposes of religion people ignore, but is fundamentally irrelevant to the issue of religion.

What of philosophy then? You say that it is important to keep it entirely separate from science, and that is true, but it seems much harder to reconcile religion with the study of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics...

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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie

USA
4826 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  08:25:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Valiant Dancer's Homepage Send Valiant Dancer a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Subjectmatter

An excellent answer; but it doesn't place religion in a particularly good light. You make it sound as though it is merely a means to the end of coping with reality. If what you say is true, then reasoned argument is not just something which for the purposes of religion people ignore, but is fundamentally irrelevant to the issue of religion.

What of philosophy then? You say that it is important to keep it entirely separate from science, and that is true, but it seems much harder to reconcile religion with the study of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics...



Those philosophies which pertain to the working of the outside world (metaphysics, parapsychology, religion) should be held seperate from science, while ethics is more applicable to science. Not only should we ask if we can do a thing, we should ask if we should do a thing.


Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils

Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion
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markie
Skeptic Friend

Canada
356 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  09:16:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send markie a Private Message
Sure there is truth in what he says. Much of religion *is* infantile, because our species is still emerging out of our animal fear stage. Religion is confused today because it is so much an admixture of superstition, fears, selfishness, together with true glimpses of a higher reality.


Although we have very mixed intellectual concepts about God and what he/she/it is like, we can still share in the highest human experiences. That time when you chose to come to the rescue of a relative nobody at school who was being tormented by bullies, that consitutes a true religious experience. God breaking through the largely animal mind.

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Subjectmatter
Skeptic Friend

173 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  09:57:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Subjectmatter a Private Message
Here we disagree completely Valiant Dancer The study of science is a major part of metaphysics, it could even be said that science is a subset of metaphysics. And neither parapsychology nor religion are philosophy. And science has no bearing whatsoever on science except in the sense that it delineates what is right. No scientific discovery could ever prove or disprove a philosophical argument or position, and ethics is no exception.

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  10:12:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by ar

Anyway, supernatural is a superset of natural
Is there a "subnatural?"

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie

USA
4826 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  10:42:00   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Valiant Dancer's Homepage Send Valiant Dancer a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Subjectmatter

Here we disagree completely Valiant Dancer The study of science is a major part of metaphysics, it could even be said that science is a subset of metaphysics. And neither parapsychology nor religion are philosophy. And science has no bearing whatsoever on science except in the sense that it delineates what is right. No scientific discovery could ever prove or disprove a philosophical argument or position, and ethics is no exception.



But does the study of metaphysics have any basis in science? I think not. It has no causal relationships between the phenomenon and what they are doing. Now, by metaphysics, I am thinking of mind over matter type stuff. Willing an event to take place and through force of mind (unmeasurable) causing it to take place.

I mention ethics as science has no effect on it, but what is studied maybe should be directed by ethics. (Cure for cancer - good. Cure for cancer at the expense of another post partum human's life - Bad. Cloning individual organs - good. Cloning complete humans to use as spare parts - bad.)

Religion is most definately a subset of philosophy. It speaks about the manner and mode of human behavior which is acceptable in society. It conjectures concerning the afterlife (mode, method, and existance), the existance of a supreme being, and delineates ceremony which is acceptable to aforementioned diety.

Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils

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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  20:00:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by markie:

Sure there is truth in what he says. Much of religion *is* infantile, because our species is still emerging out of our animal fear stage. Religion is confused today because it is so much an admixture of superstition, fears, selfishness, together with true glimpses of a higher reality.




There is ample evidence of superstition, fears, and selfishniess. What evidence is there for a "higher reality"? What, exactly, is this "higher reality"? And how do you know this?


quote:
Although we have very mixed intellectual concepts about God and what he/she/it is like, we can still share in the highest human experiences. That time when you chose to come to the rescue of a relative nobody at school who was being tormented by bullies, that consitutes a true religious experience. God breaking through the largely animal mind.



What evidence do you have that there is a god and it has anything to do with any particular altruistic behavior? Is this the same god of the old testament that ordered and abetted mass killings? The same one that will sentence you and billions of others to eternal torture for not believing in it?

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Trish
SFN Addict

USA
2102 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2005 :  22:15:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Trish a Private Message
quote:
Although we have very mixed intellectual concepts about God and what he/she/it is like, we can still share in the highest human experiences. That time when you chose to come to the rescue of a relative nobody at school who was being tormented by bullies, that consitutes a true religious experience. God breaking through the largely animal mind.


markie, altruism of this nature is not necessarily altruistic. You have a bully, you know the only way to suppress the actions of a bully is to confront the bully, a situation presents itself in which you can stand up to said bully, you do so. This serves multiple purposes, it is good for the person who is the object of the bullies attack, yet it serves the person who stands up to the bully as well. If two stand up to one they are more likely to accomplish the goal of reducing incidences involving persecution by the bully. Mutually selfish actions that act in concordance with each other to appear altruistic in nature. It's game theory.

...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and vile!"
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines.
LtGen Thomas Holcomb, USMC
Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1943
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Subjectmatter
Skeptic Friend

173 Posts

Posted - 11/12/2005 :  02:47:17   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Subjectmatter a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer

quote:
Originally posted by Subjectmatter

Here we disagree completely Valiant Dancer The study of science is a major part of metaphysics, it could even be said that science is a subset of metaphysics. And neither parapsychology nor religion are philosophy. And science has no bearing whatsoever on science except in the sense that it delineates what is right. No scientific discovery could ever prove or disprove a philosophical argument or position, and ethics is no exception.



But does the study of metaphysics have any basis in science? I think not. It has no causal relationships between the phenomenon and what they are doing. Now, by metaphysics, I am thinking of mind over matter type stuff. Willing an event to take place and through force of mind (unmeasurable) causing it to take place.

I mention ethics as science has no effect on it, but what is studied maybe should be directed by ethics. (Cure for cancer - good. Cure for cancer at the expense of another post partum human's life - Bad. Cloning individual organs - good. Cloning complete humans to use as spare parts - bad.)

Religion is most definately a subset of philosophy. It speaks about the manner and mode of human behavior which is acceptable in society. It conjectures concerning the afterlife (mode, method, and existance), the existance of a supreme being, and delineates ceremony which is acceptable to aforementioned diety.


I see. I was talking about the study of metaphysics, that is to say, the study of being qua being, as Aristotle characterised it. Metaphysics in the philosophical sens is definately important to science, especially in the age of quantum physics where conceptual confusion is a major issue, but more importantly; science is important to metaphysics. Heh, the question is not whether metaphysics has any basis in science, but if science has any basis in metaphysics (some philosophers would say no - that science does not actually treat reality).
My point was that belief in a god - which resembles the god of the major religions - in incompatible with a reasoned study of reality - metaphysics.

As for religion being a subset of philosophy, this is demonstrably false. Although religion is a philosophy, as in it is a mode of looking at the world, but it is not part of philosphy in the sense of 'the systematic study of the world as a systematic whole'.

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