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Where did you get that from?

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Because theories in science can be falsified. Theories (theology) in religion can't. It's two separate things.

Again, that's true for religion. In the spiritual (experiential) realm, theories that certain practices have known results are tested by following the practices and seeing the result. In other words, experiential theories are tested for predicted experiential results.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
How do scientists get much of their know knowledge before they are finished at University?
Do they not get examples and material from other scientists who studied the field before them?
Or do each scientist suddenly have their understanding of all the scientific material they need to understand what they see in front of them?
They study, they experiment. Post graduation, Doctoral all need intense research and experiments. They have to present their theses. When they are at it, they don't worry about food or their looks, or whether it is day or night. Yeah, they are helped by seniors and professors. Nothing comes suddenly, it requires hard work. It is not revealed by an angel.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Again, that's true for religion. In the spiritual (experiential) realm, theories that certain practices have known results are tested by following the practices and seeing the result. In other words, experiential theories are tested for predicted experiential results.

And here you go and claim that you can test subjectivity? I have tested it subjectively and it makes no sense, because only the objective is subjectively real to me. ;)
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
They study, they experiment. Post graduation, Doctoral all need intense research and experiments. They have to present their theses. When they are at it, they don't worry about food or their looks, or whether it is day or night. Yeah, they are helped by seniors and professors. Nothing comes suddenly, it requires hard work. It is not revealed by an angel.

Yeah, as long as they understand the demarcation between science and non-science.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Yes. If we take, for example, this "prediction" of Hafiz as rendered by Ladinsky, many can see their lives as living this out:

What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears


And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world


To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?


O the Beloved

Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions—


Like Hafiz.
Not sure I understand what you are saying???
Is that repeatable - could I do that and get the same results.
 

Orbit

I'm a planet
Again, that's true for religion. In the spiritual (experiential) realm, theories that certain practices have known results are tested by following the practices and seeing the result. In other words, experiential theories are tested for predicted experiential results.

The difference stands; experience can't be falsified. It lies outside of the scientific method.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Again, that's true for religion. In the spiritual (experiential) realm, theories that certain practices have known results are tested by following the practices and seeing the result. In other words, experiential theories are tested for predicted experiential results.
I'm not sure I follow.
How do you conduct a spiritual experiment with results discernible to someone other than yourself? How would you submit the experiment for peer review? Could people repeat the experiment and measure the results?
Finally, if spiritual truths could be discovered by experimentation, why has no common agreement been reached, after all these millennia?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It is wisdom that arise from practicing the teaching. It is not something you can touch or see.
Wisdom is based on skillful analysis and understanding of facts. Endlessly repeating "a teaching" may make it familiar and habitual, but I don't see how it confers wisdom or understanding.
 

Ella S.

Dispassionate Goth
Wisdom is based on skillful analysis and understanding of facts. Endlessly repeating "a teaching" may make it familiar and habitual, but I don't see how it confers wisdom or understanding.

In Gnosticism, we have Prunikos/Sophia, which is usually directly translated as Wisdom.

It generally refers more to the specific understanding that we are merely fragments of the One, and so Wisdom is seen as more akin to a sort of detached benevolence than ingenuity.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
This is a question i got in a religious discussion, and it made me think.

How do scientists get much of their know knowledge before they are finished at University?

Do they not get examples and material from other scientists who studied the field before them?
Or do each scientist suddenly have their understanding of all the scientific material they need to understand what they see in front of them?

Why is it different when a spiritual person say.

It is written in the scriptures or through my teacher i have gained this understanding.
How is it different than any scientist learing his/her field?

It is different in the sense that what the students learn at uni from the work from scientists that came before them, is not to be "just believed". All of it is independently verifiable. Every experiment repeatable. Every piece of evidence open to repeated study.

Also, science is progressive. Meaning that new knowledge is build upon already gathered knowledge from before.

For example... Newton came up with the laws of motion and a model to explain gravity. It worked well in context of medium speeds with medium gravity sources at the macroscopic level of physics.

Then, building further on that knowledge, we found out it no longer works when approaching light speed or with extreme gravity etc. Enter Einstein. He then comes up with relativity as a fix.

Then at a later time, some engineer takes relativity theory and figures out a way to build a GPS system - which needs to account for relativistic effects in order to accurately pinpoint locations on the planet (since the satelites orbit the earth at high speed, the flow of time relative to stationary objects on earth is different, so the internal clocks of those satellites need to be calibrated to account for that timeflow difference).

If relativity were inaccurate, then GPS wouldn't work.
Likewise, if you try and build GPS satellites without accounting for relativistic effects, then the system doesn't work.


In summary: it is different because it is very results based AND very independently verifiable.
 
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QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
This is a question i got in a religious discussion, and it made me think.

How do scientists get much of their know knowledge before they are finished at University?

Do they not get examples and material from other scientists who studied the field before them?
Or do each scientist suddenly have their understanding of all the scientific material they need to understand what they see in front of them?

Why is it different when a spiritual person say.

It is written in the scriptures or through my teacher i have gained this understanding.

How is it different than any scientist learing his/her field?
Science has a methodology that is universally used by all scientists and results are peer reviewed so there is universal agreement concerning the findings. Scriptures do not have a universal methodology for interpretation, thus every single reader of scriptures can come to a different conclusion and there is no universal method in place for determining who is correct.

It's the difference between reading the results of an MRI and determining the results of reading the message discerned in a pile of chicken entrails. Any trained doctor will see the same results on an MRI, whereas every spiritualist who reads chicken entrails can come up with a completely different answer.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Science builds on established facts. Religion not only doesn't establish facts, but doesn't build on any they might have. Each revelation is de novo.

Science builds on established facts? Not theories? I thought science attempts to explain facts observed in the natural world.

What are you calling a "fact" here? Give an example of a fact that science "builds on".

Thanks.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Science has a methodology that is universally used by all scientists and results are peer reviewed so there is universal agreement concerning the findings. Scriptures do not have a universal methodology for interpretation, thus every single reader of scriptures can come to a different conclusion and there is no universal method in place for determining who is correct.

True. Science does have a methodology. It is peer reviewed. But that does not mean it is universally agreed. Thats false.

There is a trend of scientism. So this worship is there and some people defend it die hard. Then they tend to forget reality and emerge in the transcendence of this religion.
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
True. Science does have a methodology. It is peer reviewed. But that does not mean it is universally agreed. Thats false.

There is a trend of scientism. So this worship is there and some people defend it die hard. Then they tend to forget reality and emerge in the transcendence of this religion.

Universal was a bit hyperbolic... but the concept remains the same.
 
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