Do We Need Faith?

Dao Hao Now said:

So would you agree, like I said that many religions (possibly not yours; which is why I didn’t say all) do make claims that fall within the “domain of physical reality”, and that many of their adherents make claims of miracles etc. that directly contradict known physical science?

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Yes, I agree. Christianity is famous for making such claims. Baha'is believe that any religious belief that contradicts science is necessarily false.

Dao Hao Now said:

So, would you agree with me that:
“The concept that there is no God because the planet rotates revealing the sun every morning is far less supportable than the concept that God makes the sun come up in the morning.”
Is a false claim?

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Yes, I'd agree that is a false claim.

Dao Hao Now said:

My apologies, I’m not very familiar with the Baha’i Faith. I’ve never personally met anyone (at least that I’m aware of) that was a Baha’i.

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No need to apologize. The Baha'i Faith is all over the internet but there would be no reason for you to look for it unless someone told you about it first. The Baha'is are responsible for spreading the word but not all are as talkative as me.

Dao Hao Now said:

That is wise.
May I enquire then what that belief is based on?

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My belief is based upon evidence, not proof. Evidence is not the same as proof.
Evidence is information that indicates that something is true and causes you to believe it is true.
Evidence helps to establish if something is the truth but it does not establish it as a fact.
Proof is what establishes evidence as a fact.

Verifiable evidence is proof but not all evidence is verifiable.

Dao Hao Now said:

Would you say that since that time (when was this?), the conception of either system has become adequate?
Would it be one, the other, both or neither, and in what way?

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The time that is being referred to in the quote is the time before the modern age of science, the ages that preceded the new age we are living in. I think the quote is saying that in the previous ages people believed that there was an inherent conflict between science and religion, but in those ages religion and science were far from adequate.

sun rise said:

Without getting into semantic hair-splitting, what I mean here is that it feels meaningful to you. I could not believe you were an extreme nothing has any meaning pleasure seeking nihilist.



To the atheist - no meaning. To me, the universe is God manifest.But there's zero sense in trying to convince you that my belief is correct. The only important thing as far as I can see is that we're both trying to do the best we can.

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Pleasure seeking is good and is meaningful.

I there is zero chance of convincing you that your belief is wrong but ao long as it suits you...

cladking said:

Yes. And surprisingly enough it often works.

Frequently though it diminishes humanity or is simply wrong. Also since it is for sale to the highest bidder it serves the needs of very few and is harmful to many. The new global warming bill foresees more increase in CO2 production in China and the rest of the world than the decrease in North America and Europe. We end up with more CO2 and the jobs going to China where CO2 is an asset. We shoot ourselves in both feet and for an encore we do ourselves real damage.

What is called "science" today is not science at all and very often untrue, counterproductive, and/ or suicidal.



Well said, but this doesn't apply tp all religious people.

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The main problem with science is that although the scientism cultists think science is the pursuit of truth, it is not. Science is the pursuit of knowledge of physical functionality. And although increased physical function makes we human feel safe, and powerful, and in control of our own destiny, it's a false sense of well being. Because increased functionality without increased wisdom is a recipe for disaster. And science does nothing to increase our collective wisdom. In fact, as the scientism cult seeks to denigrate and dismiss religion and philosophy, two human endeavors that actually can increase our collective human wisdom, it is actively making humanity more willfully ignorant, while it also makes us more and more functionally effective. And this course will not end well for us.

Truthseeker said:

The communist state in the Soviet Union killed millions of people under Stalin, and through all it's history unjustly incarcerated people for political reasons. They had the principle of atheism, and not having the principle derived from Christianity the desie to please God in the path of serving the best interests of men for the sake of God.

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I'm not willing to keep going with this discussion untill we address the bigotry and chauvinism in this sentence.

Read over what you wrote again; can you understand why it's offensive?

If you say in Russia religion had become a tool for the Czar, you would be largely right, that's how Christianity had degenerated in that country.

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I didn't bring Russia up at all; you did.

PureX said:

Science is limited to the study of the physical realm. Religion is more about studying the metaphysical realm; the realm of meaning and purpose. But both pursuits are motivated, I think, by the same desire to understand (and therefor gain some control of) existence as we experience it.

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No, religion isn't about understanding.

Religion is all about belief and acceptance (faith); understanding isn't a requirement for believing in what he or she will, whether the belief is about god(s), spirit, miracles or some form of afterlife, all of which are the supernatural...

...and the "supernatural" don't exist except in imagination, in religion, in superstition and in fiction.

Supernatural don't exist in reality.

Truthseeker said:

They had the principle of atheism,

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Not so, the principal was nationalism.

Stalin himself was a Christian and did a great deal to reatore the church following the abuses of the czars.
In fact it is largely stalin who began the growth to make Russia among the most Christian countries in the world again after dismantling the hold of the czars

Truthseeker said:

not having the principle derived from Christianity

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Rubbish. Atheists were also purged in the USSR, as was anyone who met in groups of more than 6 people, anyone who spoke against the state or anyone considered a threat to nationalism

However Christianity, being the biggest group were hardest hit.

Truthseeker said:

that's how Christianity had degenerated in that country.

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Actually Christianity was very strong in pre revolutionary russia with the czars prompted to demigodhood. This abuse of the christian church was one of the reasons for the revolution

gnostic said:

No, religion isn't about understanding.

Religion is all about belief and acceptance (faith); understanding isn't a requirement for believing in what he or she will, whether the belief is about god(s), spirit, miracles or some form of afterlife, all of which are the supernatural...

...and the "supernatural" don't exist except in imagination, in religion, in superstition and in fiction.

Supernatural don't exist in reality.

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... Sure, like all dark skinned people are lazy, shiftless, an no-count.

That's quite the bias you have there.

PureX said:

... Sure, like all dark skinned people are lazy, shiftless, an no-count.

That's quite the bias you have there.

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Excuses me, scriptures are just narratives, are fabricated stories of supposed gods, spirits, cultural heroes, the afterlife eternal life or immortality, or or life being endlessly recycled (reincarnation), and so on.

Scriptures are largely hearsay. And what say of the supernatural, cannot be verified.

gnostic said:

Excuses me, scriptures are just narratives, are fabricated stories of supposed gods, spirits, cultural heroes, the afterlife eternal life or immortality, or or life being endlessly recycled (reincarnation), and so on.

Scriptures are largely hearsay. And what say of the supernatural, cannot be verified.

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Just narratives?

Nearly all of our stories involve ethics and morality and our ideas of justice and honor and wisdom come from these stories. And particularly from religious stories. Many of which are designed to make us think in terms of our collective and individual well being and the pursuit of wisdom rather than mere selfish functionality. Something science does not do. And something that humanity sorely needs to do. Especially as science keeps increasing our ability to destroy ourselves and each other.

Dao Hao Now said:

Guess you missed:
“The Center also maintains the Scout system that continually monitors brand-new potential near-Earth object detections, even before they have been confirmed as new discoveries, to see whether any of these generally very small asteroids might pose a threat of short-term (possibly imminent) impact.

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OK, I skimmed the entire site this time. Still they didn't say that they (Scout) finds all these known threats and imply they find most of them. It makes sense that since we've been able to actually access some of these objects that we have a reason to look for them.

Dao Hao Now said:

Obviously science isn’t involved in any of this nonsense.
I’m sorry you just can’t understand that.

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In one breath you say we should act on science and in the next you suggest it's OK to do the opposite if anyone can make obscene profit.

Dao Hao Now said:

This reads like the prologue to a fantasy novel.

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Thank you.

I suspect this is the nature of reality. While reality is manifested logic its complexity assures that there is always a perspective that looks like fantasy and science fiction.

Dao Hao Now said:

Could you let me know which post #s you would like me to reconsider?

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I would start with #148 and read at least through #194.

You twice implied everything is known except the origin of life (homo omnisciencis) even after I challenged the assertion.

We know nothing at all. We don't even know the basis of life or how it works because we don't even have a working definition for "consciousness". Anyone who believes we know everything about cosmology or any other subject simply is remarkably wrong. If we know anything we could make predictions and experts would agree on events.

Dao Hao Now said:

Remember when you said you understand how science works?……

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If I said such a thing I misspoke. It's more likely you simply took the wrong meaning. It's far more accurate to simply repeat the definition of metaphysics again, "the basis of science including its definitions, axioms, and experiments". I believe there are no laws of physics (or anything) and that reality is logic manifest while science is a method to study it. We know almost nothing because science might be up to the task of the job but it hasn't been around long enough to accomplish a thorough understanding.

But everyone should understand that science is only based on experiment. More accurately all theory derives from experiment as interpreted through a specific paradigm.

Sometimes we all use a shorthand for communication that gets misinterpreted.

Do you really expect me to go back and find what you said and what you overlooked?

We disagree. Why not talk about these disagreement in the here and now and concentrate on the reasons for the disagreement?

cladking said:

trusting a doctor to know everything about how to fix a nose or an Egyptologist about anything concerning pyramid construction is foolish.

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Your comment was, "if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable." I successfully rebutted that with many examples of where it was not just reasonable, but desirable to rely on the advice of experts. Now you've moved the goal post to explain why not every doctor can treat nose problems. Your claim is refuted, and your comment does not resuscitate it. You made an incorrect statement which was demonstrated to be such.

cladking said:

Faucci lost me when he said masks don't help.

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Not only isn't that credible, it's irrelevant. Given your feelings about experts in science, I'd say he lost you as soon as he was presented as that. Remember, your words were, "if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable."

I'm curious. If trusting experts is unreasonable, who did you go to instead for advice on the virus and the pandemic instead - Trump? He recommended bleach orally and I believe rectal illumination. Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owen were all willing to give you non-expert guidance.

cladking said:

The bottom line in all science is always experiment. Most everything else is Look and See science which is by definition a circular argument. All conclusions are always solely dependent on assumptions unless an experiment stands in the way. It is anomalies that point to reality because of the very nature of reductionistic science. You will not see the big picture by looking at ever tiny parts of it. Anomalies show the errors of reductionistic interpretations.

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Again, you failed to address the comment made to you, which was, "The bottom line is that we can know from experience that empiricism is not only a reliable method for determining what's true about the world, but that it's the only means to do that." You didn't rebut that. You merely disagreed and then wrote word that don't contradict mine. In order to rebut the claim that empiricism is the only known method for determining how the word is and works, you'd need to present another method that has done that.

You can't. Why? Because the statement is correct, and correct statements cannot be successfully rebutted. Do you understand that when you fail to rebut comments, you are implicitly saying that you can't, and that this means that you were incorrect? What are the other possibilities? That you COULD defend your rebutted claim, but just didn't feel like it, or that you are correct but don't know how to demonstrate that? That's not credible.

Truth in love said:

The only difference between the above and matter of religion is that you are more likely to accept rocks than a spiritual experience. I've had both and the latter is no less real.

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The differences between knowledge gained through empiricism and the claims made by faith are many. Empirical truth, but not faith-based beliefs, are demonstrably correct. Empirical truth, but not faith-based beliefs, can be used to anticipate outcomes and facilitate desired ones. Empirical truth, but not faith-based beliefs, are based in correctly interpreting experience.

I am a humanist and am very familiar with spiritual experiences. Where we part ways is that you are willing to project them onto reality. They are mental states generated endogenously by neurological circuits and delivered to consciousness as apprehensions like the sense of beauty. When you experience beauty, you are not experiencing anything outside of your mind, just it's appraisal of that which is experienced as beautiful - personal and subjective, not objective or "out there."

Likewise with the spiritual. The spiritual experience is the mind generating a sense of awe, mystery, connection and gratitude in connection with sensory experiences, such as a moving passage of music, often fortified with learning, such as when being inspired by the night sky, and understanding one's connection to stars despite unfathomable distances. The mistake in my estimation is going beyond that and reading that feeling as experiencing a deity out there in the world somewhere rather than being an idea found only in human heads. That's projection, by the way - mistaking a part of ones own mind as if one were sensing external reality. You know, when somebody considers most other people liars, you're likely dealing with a liar projecting himself onto others.

Empiricism is an act of faith. Of faith in the assumption that seeing validates believing. An assumption that we all know is mistaken, fairly often.

Faith is how we humans deal with our lack of knowledge, and uncertainty. And we are ALWAYS lacking knowledge, which leads to our inevitable uncertainty. (Unless we decide to lie to ourselves and assume that we possess all pertinent knowledge and can therefor feign certainty.)

Faith is the charisma behind all innovation. It is connected to a living spirit. The seedling today will be a tree in the future; living spirit, but as a seedling there is not enough hard data; cast in stone, to show a tree, except by faith in the future.

Trust and faith are not exactly the same thing. Trust is built upon observing a pattern of behavior that makes people and things predictable, relative to the range of your needs.

We may trust a doctor, because we know their education is tough and only the best of the best get into medical school. We may also read reviews and talk with them and sense they are a good person who is doing their best, so we trust them. This is all hard data and not about the unknown future.

Faith is different in that it may not have the same external sensory confirmation data, as trust. If you have a new idea that has never been done before, the environment can be harsh on you, because your proof is lacking. You may not trust that others will ever help you, until the work is done.

Faith still drives you, because you had a glimpse of the future and not just deductions from the past and present like trust. Innovation starts out of phase with the past and the present, but it may be part of the future, that others cannot yet see. Once the prototype is made and others can see it in the present, then trust can build. But faith was there before the trust.

Innovators like Edison were trusted due to a pattern of innovation and business posturing. Edison also had trust in himself, since his faith led to tangible results that could build the trust of others, for the positive feedback about his future ideas, in the present; investors.

Trust is like plotting the data from past and present and then drawing the curve you want, instead of the curve that is. If the data is close to your ideal curve specs, you will have trust. People trust for different reasons.

Faith includes data from the future that has not yet become hard data; living and not stone. This data appears to imply a future curve that others cannot yet see, until that future becomes the present. Then it can be plotted near their trust curve.

It Aint Necessarily So said:

Your comment was, "if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable." I successfully rebutted that with many examples of where it was not just reasonable, but desirable to rely on the advice of experts. Now you've moved the goal post to explain why not every doctor can treat nose problems. Your claim is refuted, and your comment does not resuscitate it. You made an incorrect statement which was demonstrated to be such.

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I moved NO goalposts.

I merely suggested that 34experts don't know everything (homo omnisciencis). If you live in a savage and ignorant culture and a shaman is your only hope to survive a snake bite then it's better to submit to his tender ministrations than to run screaming into the night. I never said, suggested, or implied that experts know nothing and should be ignored. I am merely stating flat out that experts have far more in common with shamans than they do with omnipotent beings. If you need treatment for arthritis or want to know how pyramids are built you might be better off with witch doctors and shamans. Otherwise you get pain killers and chants (they mustta used ramps).

Belief in science is very very dangerous because all homo omnisciencis act solely on belief. If you believe in science then you take expert opinion as gospel and as the last word on all things. You might end up even believing the less fit should be murdered and "greed" is all the morals anyone needs to navigate government or the business world.

The mess that is the modern world has been created by the belief in science and the belief that bought and paid for "science" is actually science. These beliefs are leading toward the extinction of humans.

It Aint Necessarily So said:

Not only isn't that credible, it's irrelevant.

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How can that be irrelevant. There are only two possibilities; he is either remarkably stupid or he lied. It seems improbable he is that stupid. While "intelligence" doesn't exist 'stupid" certainly does.

It Aint Necessarily So said:

I'm curious. If trusting experts is unreasonable, who did you go to instead for advice on the virus and the pandemic instead - Trump?

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Common sense says that the first duty of every individual is to protect children and the young. Common sense says this disease affected only a small percentage of the population. Common sense says this was just Swine Flu 2.0 on steroids. The entire thing was botched and it will be years before we know the full extent of the damage to children, pregnant women, the impoverished, and the economy. It looks like we already have one war doesn't it?

It Aint Necessarily So said:

"The bottom line is that we can know from experience that empiricism is not only a reliable method for determining what's true about the world, but that it's the only means to do that."

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No. I've rebutted this many times (in a virtually every post) but people aren't trying to make sense of what I say. If I repeated everything every post would be 25,000 words and no one would read that OR try to understand that either. Science, reason, and logic are the only means known to understand (predict) reality. "Evidence" means nothing outside of experiments and the paradigm to interpret that "evidence". Evidence means nothing because ALL homo omnisciencis can see only what they already believe all the time. Even anomalies tend to be invisible or we would walk around in a state of steady confusion. We must model reality in terms of our beliefs to filter out the noise and our own thoughts.

cladking said:

Evidence means nothing because ALL homo omnisciencis can see only what they already believe all the time. Even anomalies tend to be invisible or we would walk around in a state of steady confusion. We must model reality in terms of our beliefs to filter out the noise and our own thoughts.

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Every other species on earth and possibly the entire cosmos models not their beliefs but reality itself.

They are successful (when they are successful) not because they are fitter than other individuals but because modeling reality requires less knowledge and no thought at all. It is more effective at understanding reality and responding to it with almost no knowledge than is our science. A bird needs little knowledge to be a bird because bird science is far more powerful than our science. But we humans have not always been this way. We once had a highly developed science that was similar to the science of every other species but far more advanced because of a more highly complex language. This was way back when humans were homo sapien. This science made humans a force of nature; a very powerful and wise force of nature.

Now we have science and we have religion derived from ancient science. They each have their place in a species whose ONLY common denominator is that we can interbreed and we each know everything (homo omnisciencis). We are each very very different. Where other species don't think at all we each think differently. There might be no "right" way to think but there are many wrong ways. But the biggest problem with "thinking" is merely that it limits our ability to see what exists directly.

cladking said:

(homo omnisciencis)

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Perhaps a better name for modern humans would be "homo circulus ratiocinatiocis" (circularly reasoning man).

I've come up with many of these but like all words none truly captures the essence of the referent.

I like "homo omnisciencis" because it rolls off the tongue.

PureX said:

Just narratives?

Nearly all of our stories involve ethics and morality and our ideas of justice and honor and wisdom come from these stories. And particularly from religious stories.

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But you were one making comparison between science and religion, and stating that it is okay to think of science as another religion.

The thing is people don't worship science, because there are no gods in sciences, there are no disciples, prophets, messengers, messiahs, spirits, angels, demons or gods, there are no scriptures.

Now Social Sciences may deal with ethics and morality, but most of branches of Social Sciences (eg branches like psychology, sociology, ethics and law, economics, political sciences, etc) don't have to follow the requirements of new hypotheses or existing theories - like being "Falsifiable" or the "Scientific Method".

For that reasons, many of the fields in Social Science, are referred to as "soft science".

Physical Sciences and Natural Sciences do have to meet these requirements.

Anyway, Natural Sciences & Physical Sciences don’t deal with ethics and morality, because it is neither “natural”, nor “physical”. What I mean by this, ethics and morality are man-made constructs, they don’t exist in “nature”.

cladking said:

I merely suggested that 34experts don't know everything

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No, you stated, "if you believe in science you start trusting experts which is unreasonable," Which is very different from what you're claiming now. I don't disagree with your revised claim, just the original one. Your example using noses and doctors actually contradicts your claim, as you are acknowledging that not every physician is a nose specialist, which implies that one ought to seek experts in nose health for nose problems.

cladking said:

Belief in science is very very dangerous because all homo omnisciencis act solely on belief

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I find that belief in insufficiently evidenced ideas is where the danger lies. Incidentally, where you use the word science, I use the word empiricism. Most of my beliefs come from the interpretation of the evidence of my senses, not laboratories or observatories, nor peer reviewed articles.

cladking said:

If you believe in science then you take expert opinion as gospel and as the last word on all things

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Critical thinkers don't take anything as gospel. If you intend to diminish the power and value of empiricism by limiting it to professional science and claiming a religious-like relationship to empiricism, then you are tilting at a straw man. That is not the humanist's position. That's not the empiricist's position.

cladking said:

You might end up even believing the less fit should be murdered and "greed" is all the morals anyone needs to navigate government or the business world.

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Well, that's also covered in humanism, in its rational ethics. Humanists are the ones arguing against such ideas. Those aren't my values, nor those of anybody I know. I only see ideas like that from the fascistic elements of society, and from theists blaming Darwin for such fascistic types like Hitler, who was also not a humanist, misappropriating his ideas.

cladking said:

The mess that is the modern world has been created by the belief in science

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Disagree again. Science tells man how nature works, not how to use that information. Science teaches man how to make plastic, not to fill the lakes and oceans with it. And when the warnings of science aren't heeded, you get messes like a pandemic out of control and global warming. The latter is the greatest existential threat to life on earth today, not science. Science will provide the solutions, although it may have difficulty getting them past industry and its government enablers.