Summary of the Science/Religion Divide (ritual, Creator, salvation, beliefs)

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

If you want me to answer your questions, Stone, you should know better than to begin them with a petty and disrespectful lie.

So, does this mean you aren't going to answer the question? I didn't think so.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

So, does this mean you aren't going to answer the question? I didn't think so.

I don't play with people who insult me Stone.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

I don't play with people who insult me Stone.

hehe. I'm still trying to see where I lied. You did express approval of the sophestry, didn't you?

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Evaluating empirical evidence takes pale in the same place where the evaluation of religious experience takes place: within.

Form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Willamena

Form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form.

If the form is infinite, yes.

[Fluffy]

Originally Posted by popyesays

As in dark matter and dark energy?

I don't see how dark matter and energy indicate this but I know very little about them.

I feel it is more simple than that. If our senses did not appear to present to us an external reality, we should be able to give up that assumption easily. However, none of us are willing to go and lie down on a motorway. Therefore, it is very much evident that this is the way that reality is presented to us by our senses.

Originally Posted by Rolling Stone

True, but it nevertheless proceeds on the assumption that they are the same--its faith reinforced by external realities rather than internal.

What sort of assumption? Not an epistemological one. No scientist should make the claim that reality and perception are equivalent. If every scientist does make this assumption then science is a faulty discipline and should be replaced with one that is exactly equivalent except without this assumption.

On the other hand, if the assumption is purely motivational then I don't think this is a problem for science and still makes science and religion clearly distinct. If the most that I can justify is "If... then..." but in order to be motivated to make "If... then..." statements, I have to believe that they are in fact "It is a matter of fact that..." statements then so be it because whatever I discover as a "matter of fact" is equivalent in meaning to the conditional claim as long as I acknowledge that my assumption is not epistemologically valid.

The pool of assumptions in science are only needed to motivate scientists and not to justify their claims as their claims recognise the conditional nature of this knowledge. On the other hand, the pool of assumptions in religion are not recognised as assumptions at all leading believers to the claim that their truths are non-conditional.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

If the form is infinite, yes.

The form of infinite is infinite.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Fluffy

No scientist should make the claim that reality and perception are equivalent. If every scientist does make this assumption then science is a faulty discipline and should be replaced with one that is exactly equivalent except without this assumption.

But then it will stagnate.

On the other hand, if the assumption is purely motivational then I don't think this is a problem for science and still makes science and religion clearly distinct.

Science deals with facts; it task is to see what can be said about the world "out there." Religion deals with values and the world within. In this regard they are indeed different. I never said otherwise, or if I did, I misspoke. The way in which science and religion are the same is that both take place and are evaluated in the subjective mind. It is impossible to avoid or rationally deny any overlap.

If the most that I can justify is "If... then..." but in order to be motivated to make "If... then..." statements, I have to believe that they are in fact "It is a matter of fact that..." statements then so be it because whatever I discover as a "matter of fact" is equivalent in meaning to the conditional claim as long as I acknowledge that my assumption is not epistemologically valid.

I'm not sure I follow you here. But if scientific statements are validated by "If...then," so, too, are religious statements and beliefs validated if the language of the belief system is "as if" which is the case for me).

The pool of assumptions in science are only needed to motivate scientists and not to justify their claims as their claims recognise the conditional nature of this knowledge. On the other hand, the pool of assumptions in religion are not recognised as assumptions at all leading believers to the claim that their truths are non-conditional.

You are ignoring or dismissing the many time statements like "the map is not the territory" and "the finger is not the moon" have been used by religionists in RF and in the pulpits.