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How good is science as a religion?

cladking

Well-Known Member
Peer review exists, because scientists aren't simply believed at face value.

And you persist in thinking of knowledge as something that is shared by many just as you persist in thinking of "rabbit" as being a single trait shared by all rabbits.

I repeat, Peers nor rabbits think. No knowledge is held by groups of people nor by the "species". All ideas, all knowledge, and all progress is by individuals. All life is individual. Every consciousness is individual except for those coming out of modern schools who often seem to share a single consciousness.

From your perspective of course it seems that Peer review determines reality, survival of the fittest is real, and individuals are a dime a dozen. It seems that if you want to know about reality you just ask a Peer to Look and See. You use bad definitions and inductive reasoning dependent on these bad definitions and erroneous assumptions and then can't even see arguments that don't agree with your kaleidoscopic perspective. Instead of seeing shards of broken glass you see spectra that you can color in. Instead of seeing and studying anomalies you see order in experiment that has been force fit with mathematics. Of course there's order in mathematics! It is merely quantified logic and experiment reveals bits of reality which is logic manifest. I see a concordance, you see truth and complete knowledge. You are blind to your own ignorance so there is nothing I can say that can ever highlight it.

"Peer review" is as irrelevant to reality as the silliest hypothesis ever was. Reality still exists exactly as it does whether only one person can see it or nobody at all. Reality is sacrosanct, not Science, and certainly not Peers.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Like most believers you have the remarkable ability to miss every argument that doesn't agree with your assumptions.

Blowing hot air and throwing around vague accusations at the mysterious group called "them", isn't what I would call "an argument".

I've defined this for you a dozen times including multiple times in the posts you actually quote. "Believers" take a fine and noble think like the scientific method and its results and subvert it into a belief system. Believers extrapolate and interpolate experimental results into omniscience. There are no gaps in knowledge to believers and no doubt about how and why reality exists. They are the holiest of all thous. And then AS ALREADY STATED IN THIS VERY POST, they can't even see arguments to the contrary.

And again with the abstract vague claims that deal with nothing specific.

I have no idea what you are talking about exactly, nor about who you are talking about.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
And you persist in thinking of knowledge as something that is shared by many just as you persist in thinking of "rabbit" as being a single trait shared by all rabbits.


I have no idea what you are trying to say.
I have no clue what you are referring to with this nonsense of "rabbit being a single trait".

It reads and sounds as nonsense.
Try leaving the abstract vagueries at home and speak clear language.

I repeat, Peers nor rabbits think. No knowledge is held by groups of people nor by the "species". All ideas, all knowledge, and all progress is by individuals. All life is individual. Every consciousness is individual except for those coming out of modern schools who often seem to share a single consciousness.

From your perspective of course it seems that Peer review determines reality, survival of the fittest is real, and individuals are a dime a dozen. It seems that if you want to know about reality you just ask a Peer to Look and See. You use bad definitions and inductive reasoning dependent on these bad definitions and erroneous assumptions and then can't even see arguments that don't agree with your kaleidoscopic perspective. Instead of seeing shards of broken glass you see spectra that you can color in. Instead of seeing and studying anomalies you see order in experiment that has been force fit with mathematics. Of course there's order in mathematics! It is merely quantified logic and experiment reveals bits of reality which is logic manifest. I see a concordance, you see truth and complete knowledge. You are blind to your own ignorance so there is nothing I can say that can ever highlight it.

"Peer review" is as irrelevant to reality as the silliest hypothesis ever was. Reality still exists exactly as it does whether only one person can see it or nobody at all. Reality is sacrosanct, not Science, and certainly not Peers.

None of this word salad seems to be dealing with the point I was making.

Unsurprisingly.

Again: just empty, meaningless, word salad rhetoric.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Blowing hot air and throwing around vague accusations at the mysterious group called "them", isn't what I would call "an argument".

Where did I use vague words like "them". Like most believers you are just crafting semantical arguments and creating strawmen. You have nothing but your own understanding of doctrine to support your beliefs coupled with the uncanny ability not to hear arguments to the contrary or to see anomalies.

And again with the abstract vague claims that deal with nothing specific.

I said you are blind to contrary arguments. This is no "vague assertion". Even in the sentence that you can't see what you don't believe, you can't see the subject. This is an artefact of knowing everything. Homo omnisciencis.

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

You can't understand 'all thought is individual"!

None of this word salad seems to be dealing with the point I was making.

The "point you were making" was that there is no science without 'peer" review.

You couldn't be more mistaken. Science is not and never has been a group activity. Again, All THOUGHT IS INDIVIDUAL and every bit of human progress for the last 40,000 years has been the product of an individual. This same thing applies to rabbit progress, bee progress, and beaver progress but you can't see this either. You see Peers and Doctrine. You see the Priests of Science who hand down natural laws and create Doctrine.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Listen! I am losing my patience with you now. The Christ myth theory is rejected as a fringe theory by virtually all scholars of antiquity, and mythicist views are criticized in terms of methodologies, conclusions, and outdated comparisons with mythology.

Please see what the scholars say about this: (I.e. that confirms what I tell you --- even scholars that you sometimes abuse to support your weird ideas.)

Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans p. 9;
Van Voorst is a theologian and Christian apologist.
Ehrman, Bart D. (April 25, 2012). "Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier". The Bart Ehrman Blog.
Ehrman is an ex-fundamentalist thologian who became an atheist after studying theology and reading scripture and commentary in original languages. He believes there was a historical Jesus, but found the scriptures full of contradictions and edits. So yes. a Jesus existed, but the mythology is the biblical account of him.

Burridge, Richard A.; Gould, Graham (2004). Jesus Now and Then. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Sounds interesting, but, again, authored by a priest and believer, so I'd question how much is a priori apologetics vs disinterested research.

Casey, Maurice (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?. Bloomsbury T & T Clark.
Believes in a historical Jesus, but not in his divinity or the biblical mythology surrounding him.
Ehrman, for example. He says, "the real problem with Jesus" is not the mythicist stance that he is "a myth invented by Christians", but that he was "far too historical", that is, a first-century Palestine Jew, who was not like the Jesus preached and proclaimed today. And also: "Jesus was a first-century Jew, and when we try to make him into a twenty-first-century American we distort everything he was and everything he stood for."

So, please stop abusing Ehrman
OK, but know he is not a believer, and does not support a divine Jesus or the biblical mythology about his life.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Sounds like you didn't comprehend a word I said.

I can only repeat myself....

Peer review exists, because scientists aren't simply believed at face value.

Let's illustrate because clearly you don't understand.

Say that I am a scientist and I study phenomenon X and try to explain it.
I do some research and I come up with a hypothesis. This hypothesis requires testing.
I establish the testable predictions of the hypothesis and set up an experiment to test those predictions.
I conduct the experiment, analyze the results and conclude that they support the hypothesis.
I write a paper about it, detailing the problem, the proposed hypothesis, the predictions it makes, the experiment design, the results thereof and end with my conclusion.

In your opinion, should my paper "just" be accepted as accurate and of good quality?
Or would it be better if other people who aren't affiliated with me or my team, and who have the proper qualifications, to review my paper in all aspects:
- does the hypothesis actually address the problem I'm tackling?
- do the predictions actually flow from the hypothesis?
- is the experiment design appropriate? Are there any issues which would impact the results?
- are the reported results in proper form? Can they be reproduced?
- is my proposed conclusion appropriate given the results of the experiment?


Which paper would YOU feel more comfortable with?
The one who was NOT reviewed by a bunch of other, unaffiliated, scientists?
Or the one that wasn't reviewed by anyone at all?

No. I trust the expertise of professionals and the scientific process.
The trust in both is justified by a very good track record.

When one deviates from that tried and tested process of inquiry, like for example papers that haven't been reviewed by anyone, is when my trust fades.

Yes.It is the reason why even you will feel more comfortable with papers that have been reviewed by a bunch of people with no stake in it as opposed to papers that haven't been reviewed by anyone.



Your experiment can be flawed.
This is why others review your work and try and repeat your results.
The more people that do this (ie: actively try to find holes in your experiment / model / paper) and fail, the more trustworthy your paper / model / experiment becomes.

You seem to be seriously confusing the process of science with the individual scientist.

Just why do you think that there is such a thing as the formalized scientific method?
Cladking doesn't seem to understand what peer review is. He seems to think it's some kind of orthodoxy screening by an editing committee of "peers," who dictate whether a research paper is acceptable for publication.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Like most believers you have the remarkable ability to miss every argument that doesn't agree with your assumptions.
What assumptions? It's religion that operates from assumptions. Science follows evidence.
I've defined this for you a dozen times including multiple times in the posts you actually quote. "Believers" take a fine and noble think like the scientific method and its results and subvert it into a belief system. Believers extrapolate and interpolate experimental results into omniscience. There are no gaps in knowledge to believers and no doubt about how and why reality exists. They are the holiest of all thous. And then AS ALREADY STATED IN THIS VERY POST, they can't even see arguments to the contrary.
How about religious belief being unsupported by actual evidence and accepted by faith?
Faith -- poorly supported belief -- does not rise to the level of knowledge.
You're projecting. Scientists aren't "believers." Scientists are skeptics.

Scientists don't claim omniscience. They use tested, empirical, facts, and propose explanations best fitting the facts.

"...no gaps or doubts in religious believers' knowledge" is precisely the problem. It's they who claim omniscience, and they support it with untested folklore.
Science isn't a belief system, it's a research method. Religion has nothing like it.
 
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cladking

Well-Known Member
Cladking doesn't seem to understand what peer review is. He seems to think it's some kind of orthodoxy screening by an editing committee of "peers," who dictate whether a research paper is acceptable for publication.

No!!!

Ideally it is a loose collections of individuals in a field working on state of the art research who can analyze and duplicate other research to be certain it is logically, mathematically, and scientifically sound. New research is to be compared to the existing and all other paradigms to the ability of each individual.

It is often exactly this in practice but other times the "Peers" themselves are so moribund and indoctrinated most of them couldn't tell a new idea from a wild guess or reality from the beliefs of et als.

The problem I've described to both of you many times has nothing to do with either scenario. The problem is with the believers in "peer review". The problem is believers can't tell the difference between doctrine and truth. The problem is the schools are turning out individuals who believe in committees and teamwork and believe only Peers have an inside track on truth. The problem is that many people believe that "peer review" is a necessary step that magically turns beliefs into reality.

If you can't understand this then you are probably part of the problem.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Where did I use vague words like "them". Like most believers you are just crafting semantical arguments and creating strawmen. You have nothing but your own understanding of doctrine to support your beliefs coupled with the uncanny ability not to hear arguments to the contrary or to see anomalies.

I said you are blind to contrary arguments. This is no "vague assertion". Even in the sentence that you can't see what you don't believe, you can't see the subject. This is an artefact of knowing everything. Homo omnisciencis.

You can't understand 'all thought is individual"!

The "point you were making" was that there is no science without 'peer" review.

You couldn't be more mistaken. Science is not and never has been a group activity. Again, All THOUGHT IS INDIVIDUAL and every bit of human progress for the last 40,000 years has been the product of an individual. This same thing applies to rabbit progress, bee progress, and beaver progress but you can't see this either. You see Peers and Doctrine. You see the Priests of Science who hand down natural laws and create Doctrine.
Peer review tests and criticizes. It seeks to weed out individual findings.
What progress have rabbits, bees and beavers made???

"Doctrine" is based on tested facts. Peers' job is to disprove proposed hypotheses. That's what peer review is. It's what makes science more reliable than religion, which actively discourages testing, or even questioning.

"Hand down natural laws?" Seriously?
Universal laws and constants exist. Science just investigates and tests them. It does not create them.

Religion believes whatever's written in ancient books of folklore, with no testing whatever.

Which approach is more epistemically robust? Which factual claims are more likely?
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
How about religious belief being unsupported by actual evidence and accepted by faith.

How about it!

Why do you think I'd support religious beliefs when I am opposed to "scientific" beliefs. I do not support any beliefs.

This being said experiment is a glimpse into reality and it is every reasonable persons job to try to see this reality. Through logic and reason we each can come to understand parts of reality; ie we can incorporate models to make accurate predictions about what will happen. This is the function of science. This is the function of reason. This is life itself as only homo omnisciencis can experience it.

Believers in science are adopting their estimation of its meaning as reality and truth and rejecting all other knowledge and all other logic as irrelevancies. They believe in science and they believe there is no basis for religion. But simple logic would suggest that religion is an outgrowth of something very human. I have found that religion is most probably founded in ancient science which worked through a different metaphysics than ours. But believers in science can't possibly understand how science works so any other kind of science is just "magic" to them. There is no such thing as "magic" and magic does not lie at the heart of any science. There is only reality and consciousness to model it. Where all life in the past modelled reality itself, homo omnisciencis models our beliefs. Other consciousness experiences reality in terms of its own nature, we experience in terms of what we believe.

Faith -- poorly supported belief -- does not rise to the level of knowledge.

No, all real knowledge is visceral, experiential. What you've learned in books is beliefs. Some individuals experience their understandings.

Scientists don't claim omniscience. They use tested, empirical, facts, and propose explanations best fitting the facts.

Believers in science know everything, by definition. If you don't believe in science and Peers then you might be doing it right.

Science isn't a belief system, it's a research method.

But you believe Peers and Peer review.

Religion has nothing like it.

Says you!

I believe you are most probably wrong because "religion" is probably the result of natural science as practiced by our ancestor species; homo sapiens.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
What progress have rabbits, bees and beavers made???

Two of the three practice agriculture. Bees have complex communication.

"Doctrine" is based on tested facts.

"Doctrine" by definition is a set of beliefs.

If you understood real science you'd know anything can be rewritten at any time. Have you never heard of Kuhn? If you'd read other peoples' posts you might know this stuff.

Universal laws and constants exist. Science just investigates and tests them. It does not create them.

Patterns exist. There is no evidence nature behaves "laws". We call the pattern that each mass seems to attract every other mass the "law of gravity" but we still don't know what gravity is or what causes it. We don't know it can't be turned on and off or that it can't change horses midstream. We don't know how it relates to other forces or if there is some minimal value to it. The invention of fudge factors and constants to make equations work is hardly indicative of robust theory.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Believers in science are adopting their estimation of its meaning as reality and truth and rejecting all other knowledge and all other logic as irrelevancies.
I disagree. "Other knowledge" is the same as scientific knowledge -- provided it's actual, evidence-based knowledge and not folklore. I accept evidenced other knowledge.
Other logic??? What would that be? Logic is like any other subdivision of mathematics. It is what it is.
They believe in science and they believe there is no basis for religion. But simple logic would suggest that religion is an outgrowth of something very human.
They believe in that which is well evidenced. Science is. Religion is not. This isn't to say religion isn't an important aspect of human social and cultural life. It just deals with different questions. Science and religion cover different magisteria.
I have found that religion is most probably founded in ancient science which worked through a different metaphysics than ours. But believers in science can't possibly understand how science works so any other kind of science is just "magic" to them.
?????? -- Ancient science? Examples, please. Most real science is a new thing. Please explain normal and different metaphysics. Please explain how believers in science don't understand how science works.
"'Other kinds' of science?" There are kinds of science? What alternate methodology would 'other science' use, and how would this relate to metaphysics?
Magic is magic. Science is science. Never the twain shall meet. They're completely different things.
There is no such thing as "magic" and magic does not lie at the heart of any science. There is only reality and consciousness to model it. Where all life in the past modelled reality itself, homo omnisciencis models our beliefs. Other consciousness experiences reality in terms of its own nature, we experience in terms of what we believe.
OK -- so how does this relate to science, logic, metaphysics or knowledge?
No, all real knowledge is visceral, experiential. What you've learned in books is beliefs. Some individuals experience their understandings.
Science is an investigational modality. Gut feelings are neither reliable nor scientific. Feeling-based beliefs are all over the board, and without evidentiary support and testing (scientific methodology), they're not reliable.
A "belief" can be anything. its source is irrelevant to the definition. It can be based in fact or fantasy; analysis or emotion, science or religion. All are belief.

Believers in science know everything, by definition. If you don't believe in science and Peers then you might be doing it right.
What definition? How are you defining 'definition', and 'science'? What does disbelief in peers mean? Peers are just fellow researchers. You don't believe there are multiple researchers of a subject?
"Might be doing what right? I'm not following.
But you believe Peers and Peer review.
Yes, I believe there is more than one biologist/ physicist/chemist/climatologist. You talk about peerage as if it were some kind of committee, college or formal body. Peers are just fellow scientists.

What's wrong with peer review? How is it not a good method of discovering errors in hypotheses or research findings? Without peer review, science would be no more reliable than religion, which is demonstrably all over the board.
I believe you are most probably wrong because "religion" is probably the result of natural science as practiced by our ancestor species; homo sapiens.
Again, you talk as if you don't understand what science is. It was not practiced by Neolithic cultures, nor is H. sapiens is not an ancestor species.
Religion is probably a neurological artifact of apophenia, which was invaluable in a hunting-gathering band.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Two of the three practice agriculture. Bees have complex communication.
But this isn't progress. They've been features of these species for a million years.
"Doctrine" by definition is a set of beliefs.
An "official," often religious or political set of beliefs.
If you understood real science you'd know anything can be rewritten at any time. Have you never heard of Kuhn? If you'd read other peoples' posts you might know this stuff.
I'm not following. Science describes fact-based reality. The facts don't get rewritten, and scientific knowledge is based on facts.
Kuhn? A paradigm shift is based on facts, just like any other scientific interpretation.
Wipe out all human knowledge and, in a thousand years, it would all be back; same beliefs and conclusions.
Patterns exist. There is no evidence nature behaves "laws". We call the pattern that each mass seems to attract every other mass the "law of gravity" but we still don't know what gravity is or what causes it.
So? What does incomplete knowledge of a subject have to do with anything?

Nature does behaves laws. It's predictable.
The laws are the source of the patterns.
Gravity was described by Einstein in 1915, and, of course, there is still much to be learned about it. So what? What we do know, we know.
We don't know it can't be turned on and off or that it can't change horses midstream. We don't know how it relates to other forces or if there is some minimal value to it. The invention of fudge factors and constants to make equations work is hardly indicative of robust theory.
Yet the theory does mirror reality. It works. It's productive and reliably predictive. How is it not robust? There is overwhelming evidence supporting it.
So what are you basing your objections on?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Where did I use vague words like "them". Like most believers you are just crafting semantical arguments and creating strawmen. You have nothing but your own understanding of doctrine to support your beliefs coupled with the uncanny ability not to hear arguments to the contrary or to see anomalies.

More vague accusations and nothing of substance.

"believers" = "them".


I said you are blind to contrary arguments.

Arguments "contrary" to what?

This is no "vague assertion".

It is, since you don't mention which arguments are contrary to which things.
It's just unspecific and thus vague.

Even in the sentence that you can't see what you don't believe, you can't see the subject. This is an artefact of knowing everything. Homo omnisciencis.

No idea what you are on about.

You can't understand 'all thought is individual"!

Derp. Yes, I can only think with my own brain. I can't borrow the brain of another to do my thinking.
What are you on about?

The "point you were making" was that there is no science without 'peer" review.

It certainly is an important part of the scientific process.
My point however, was about WHY that is important.

You have not responded to that at all.
I gave you a hypothetical scenario where I paint a picture of me coming up with a hypothesis to explain something and writing a paper about it.
I asked you when you would feel more comfortable with the paper: when it isn't reviewed by others or when it is.

You don't seem interested in answering.

That scenario illustrates why peer review is important and why it IS part of the scientific process.
Your silence speaks volumes.

You couldn't be more mistaken. Science is not and never has been a group activity.
Again, All THOUGHT IS INDIVIDUAL and every bit of human progress for the last 40,000 years has been the product of an individual. This same thing applies to rabbit progress, bee progress, and beaver progress but you can't see this either. You see Peers and Doctrine. You see the Priests of Science who hand down natural laws and create Doctrine.

Individuals (teams, actually, but individuals works for the sake of argument) do research and come up with ideas. The community reviews it and either recognizes the individual's success OR points out the errors the individual made.


Without review of the community, how would we find out if the individual is actually correct or wrong?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
No!!!

Ideally it is a loose collections of individuals in a field working on state of the art research who can analyze and duplicate other research to be certain it is logically, mathematically, and scientifically sound. New research is to be compared to the existing and all other paradigms to the ability of each individual.

It is often exactly this in practice but other times the "Peers" themselves are so moribund and indoctrinated most of them couldn't tell a new idea from a wild guess or reality from the beliefs of et als.

The problem I've described to both of you many times has nothing to do with either scenario. The problem is with the believers in "peer review". The problem is believers can't tell the difference between doctrine and truth. The problem is the schools are turning out individuals who believe in committees and teamwork and believe only Peers have an inside track on truth. The problem is that many people believe that "peer review" is a necessary step that magically turns beliefs into reality.

If you can't understand this then you are probably part of the problem.


I love how you first say "no" when accused of not understand what peer review is all about, only to then proceed in demonstrating that you still have no clue what peer review is all about............
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
The scientific method deals with phenomena that can be observed via our fives senses, and/or with tools that extend these five senses. This common set of five sensory organs, common too humans, allows for peer review.

The problem is there are phenomena that cannot be peer reviewed with only the five sensory systems, that the scientific method depends on. A simple example is a dream. Dreams, as a category of natural brain and human experience, are real, since we all have had them. But any unique dream cannot be peered reviewed with the five senses. Science has to stay behind a line.

Dreams are experienced through internal type sensory systems, where one can still see things even with your eyes closed, as you sleep. This is not hard to explain. When awake, signals come into our eyes, cross at the center of the brain; thalamus, and will terminate at the visual cortex. With dreams, the internal processing of data, goes right to the visual cortex, skipping the eyes. You get the same end result. Since dreams skip the eyes, peer review is difficult. using a pure scientific method; soft science.

There are many things connected to consciousness that are beyond the philosophy of science, since all the external sensory systems can be internally simulated, even with signals that are not found in sensory reality; future innovation. Science made a line in the sand, based on our external sensory system pathways. When it comes to the internal systems, science can draws irrational conclusions based on fear and philosophical prejudice. On the other side of the line is where religion comes in. When both sets of systems are working at the same time; projection, the line between science and religion is blurred. This is what religion warns science of.

Most of what we; layman, know about science is told to us by others and not a result of your own fives senses. I have never been in space orbiting the earth to see for myself. My faith is based on the prestige of those who have. This helps me believe through my internal senses; intuitions based on how the words of language arrange in my brain and the induced conviction stemming from our collectivism. I have not been involved in direct peer review; direct external sensory, to make my collective opinion fully scientific.

In the same token, science has things like dark matter and dark energy which violate the five senses, since nobody has seen these in the lab. There is no genuine peer review based on its own philosophy. They depend on their theory and language assemble in the brain so they can assume this is real. It is based on the same internal matrix as religion. Science will then make exceptions for itself, and then justify this, since they also know, there is more than just the five external senses that defines the line in the sand between science and religion; the future is not yet subject to the senses.

The philosophy of science is useful in that it helped humans separate out the internal from the external senses. This allowed for external improvements that led to a better standard of living for all. Religion remained since these internal systems also exist and are connected to the mainframe parts of the brain. They can inspect perception of what we think is real.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
The scientific method deals with phenomena that can be observed via our fives senses, and/or with tools that extend these five senses. This common set of five sensory organs, common too humans, allows for peer review.

The problem is there are phenomena that cannot be peer reviewed with only the five sensory systems, that the scientific method depends on. A simple example is a dream. Dreams, as a category of natural brain and human experience, are real, since we all have had them. But any unique dream cannot be peered reviewed with the five senses. Science has to stay behind a line.

Dreams are experienced through internal type sensory systems, where one can still see things even with your eyes closed, as you sleep. This is not hard to explain. When awake, signals come into our eyes, cross at the center of the brain; thalamus, and will terminate at the visual cortex. With dreams, the internal processing of data, goes right to the visual cortex, skipping the eyes. You get the same end result. Since dreams skip the eyes, peer review is difficult. using a pure scientific method; soft science.

There are many things connected to consciousness that are beyond the philosophy of science, since all the external sensory systems can be internally simulated, even with signals that are not found in sensory reality; future innovation. Science made a line in the sand, based on our external sensory system pathways. When it comes to the internal systems, science can draws irrational conclusions based on fear and philosophical prejudice. On the other side of the line is where religion comes in. When both sets of systems are working at the same time; projection, the line between science and religion is blurred. This is what religion warns science of.

Most of what we; layman, know about science is told to us by others and not a result of your own fives senses. I have never been in space orbiting the earth to see for myself. My faith is based on the prestige of those who have. This helps me believe through my internal senses; intuitions based on how the words of language arrange in my brain and the induced conviction stemming from our collectivism. I have not been involved in direct peer review; direct external sensory, to make my collective opinion fully scientific.

In the same token, science has things like dark matter and dark energy which violate the five senses, since nobody has seen these in the lab. There is no genuine peer review based on its own philosophy. They depend on their theory and language assemble in the brain so they can assume this is real. It is based on the same internal matrix as religion. Science will then make exceptions for itself, and then justify this, since they also know, there is more than just the five external senses that defines the line in the sand between science and religion; the future is not yet subject to the senses.

The philosophy of science is useful in that it helped humans separate out the internal from the external senses. This allowed for external improvements that led to a better standard of living for all. Religion remained since these internal systems also exist and are connected to the mainframe parts of the brain. They can inspect perception of what we think is real.

Yes, but we don't have the exact same brains, when we in effect do the meaning of life. So your brain is neither right or wrong, nor is mine. They are just different. That is the limit of religion.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Other logic??? What would that be? Logic is like any other subdivision of mathematics. It is what it is.

This isn't really true. It seems true to homo omnisciencis because we think in language unlike every other consciousness. The operations of our brains is driven by analog symbolic language operating through the speech center. A programmer might sometimes use representative "words" but most of us never really think logically because we are thinking in words without any clear cut definitions or meanings. This isn't as important to thinking correctly as it is to communicating intent but it still affects thinking. Logic is an aspect of nature which is why science and mathematics work but it not an aspect of our species. By the same token all true knowledge is experiential in our species and there are various types, degrees, and sorts of logic that can underlie any specific experiential knowledge. Teaching yourself any stupid human trick rarely requires any real understanding of physics, optics, chemistry, etc but it still constitutes knowledge.

Our consciousness still retains some of its natural tendency to be logical but it will always take a back seat to our beliefs, definitions, and axioms. It is our beliefs that push and pull our train of thought. We can believe anything at all we wat to believe so thought can be wholly illogical without our noticing.

They believe in that which is well evidenced.

This was in reference to those who believe in science rather than those who practice scientific detachment or understand science. Those who believe in science are doing it wrong.

OK -- so how does this relate to science, logic, metaphysics or knowledge?

At the root of our beliefs lie our assumptions and definitions. Our science is expressed in terms of these assumptions and definitions as affected by experimental results. Other science like bird science is based on logic. We reason in circles starting and ending with our assumptions.

Nature does behaves laws. It's predictable.

What's the weather this coming winter. I'm sure it's more global warming that will cause either unusual heat, unusual cold, or normal weather.

We can only predict the grossest events. And only when all the variables can be identified and quantified.

Wipe out all human knowledge and, in a thousand years, it would all be back; same beliefs and conclusions.

No.

A tool does a specific job and experimental science would produce essentially the same set of knowledge over time. But there are other kinds of science that would produce a different set of knowledge. These sets of knowledge are "identical" in as much they don't contradict one another but they can be wholly distinct in every other way.

So? What does incomplete knowledge of a subject have to do with anything?

Believers in science can not see what they don't know hence don't know what thy do know either.

Yet the theory does mirror reality. It works. It's productive and reliably predictive. How is it not robust? There is overwhelming evidence supporting it.
So what are you basing your objections on?

If we understood gravity perhaps we could affect it. We would know if a star in a distant galaxy is affecting the tide in Charleston. We might know its exact speed relative light.

Humans have always sought answers but now days most believers have all the answers and aren't even looking. Research is occurring only in areas that are sanctioned by a few or by rich people.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Certainly, there are some comparisons, such as the beliefs in heaven and hell, both of which do not show up in the Tanakh. But the ancient Greeks were polytheistic, and no serious student of theology would confuse that with the monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Actually besides the Harvard Professor I POSTED, all historians who do Biblical work explain the NT is all Greek/Persian theology mixed with Jewish theology.
So you are thinking of classical Greek religion. Hellenism was a late development, around 300 B.C.E. and came to Israel around 100 B.C.E.
here is an overview of the features of Hellenistic religion with comparisons to other religions including Christianity/Judaism. This movement spread all through the Middle East and effected most religions which changed them to the Mystery religions.

Christianity is a combination of Hellenism (pagan) and Judaism

Hellenistic religion


-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.


-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.


-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.


-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme



-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.


-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)


-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century


- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.


-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.


-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)


-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)


- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries



If you haven't noticed this accounts EXACTLY for all the changes from the OT to the NT minus a few Persian myths. Christianity is also a mystery religion and this can be demonstrated by passages in the gospels using mystery religion terminology.
 
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