Is your atheism predominately a science success or a theism fail?

[ceptimus]

I stopped believing the religion I'd been taught around the same age that I stopped believing that the magic and magical creatures in fairy stories were real things - I think around the age of eight or nine.

As regards explaining consciousness, scientists will say, "we don't have an explanation" or if they're more optimistic they'll say, "we don't have a full explanation yet." Theists will claim they have a complete explanation (God did it) - but when you look closely at their explanation you find it explains nothing, and worse, introduces more unexplained things than you had in the first place.

 

[Senex]

I kissed god's butt until I came across this little baby...

6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s

and I've never looked back.

 

[smartcooky]

As regards explaining consciousness, scientists will say, "we don't have an explanation" or if they're more optimistic they'll say, "we don't have a full explanation yet." Theists will claim they have a complete explanation (God did it) - but when you look closely at their explanation you find it explains nothing, and worse, introduces more unexplained things than you had in the first place.

'Goddidit' is a dead end. Its untestable and unverifiable.

I kissed god's butt until I came across this little baby...

6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s

and I've never looked back.

 

[Senex]

PI = 3 in Chronicles and Kings. I'm on a roll...

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

For me I'd say it was a combination of effects.

I was not brought up in a religious environment. We went to church maybe once or twice a year for my grandparents, but I was not indoctrinated from my youth.
So, like many here, I kinda put Jesus and his stories in the same category as Santa Claus etc. Fun, but just a story.

During high school we were introduced to literature (which I hated at the time, like most teenagers) and that included all the classical mythology, other religious texts and books written by both true believers and those with a grudge against the church(es). Combined with a good history teaching to me it showed that religions might be explained in many ways, but nothing stood out as particularly more truthful than any other social structure.
That probably put me into agnosticism.

My subsequent career in genetics dispelled any belief in an active creator. Looking into the (utterly fascinating) mess that is genetics for me made it clear that nothing intelligent every touched that.

Nowadays I intellectually know that there are people that believe the bible, quran, torah, book of mormon or any of the other myriad Holy, One True texts that are out there, but I cannot really grasp *why*. How can anyone with any form of education read those clearly made up stories and think "this is true!"?

 

[MikeG]

........How can anyone with any form of education read those clearly made up stories and think "this is true!"?

Which presumably is why the correlation between education achievements and rates of atheism is very high (the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be atheist), and why some religious fundamentalists start out by trying to remove everything but religious propoganda from education. Boko haram, for instance, translates as "books are banned/taboo".

 

[CORed]

PI = 3 in Chronicles and Kings. I'm on a roll...

Correct to one significant digit. Close enough for religious purposes.

 

[Hellbound]

You know, I get tired of the whole "you can't examine love with science!" argument. And I think many miss the obvious response to it.

It can absolutely be tested with science.

For that matter, so can belief. Without question.

To use the original example, you say you love your kids. That can be tested. Do you care for them? Sacrifice things for their betterment? Feed and cloth them? Offer emotional support? Teach them? The actions you take towards those you claim to love show whether you actually care for them or not. And, as with all science, the conclusions will change as additional evidence comes in.

Likewise with belief. Quite frankly, there are very, VERY few Christians in the world today, if by Christian you mean one who believes in the biblical god. I don't see many in America selling their riches to give to the poor, for example, as Jesus specifically recommends. Most modern Christians take a "pick-and-choose" approach to the Bible that leaves out large portions of it, in addition to adding their own ideas to it as if they were holy scripture. Not to mention that not even all Christian sects agree on what is Bible and what isn't; the Catholic church is the obvious example, with additional canon above and beyond the version used by most Protestants.

Frankly, the idea that science doesn't apply to beliefs is juvenile, and shows both a marked lack of understand of what science actually is and does (there are no absolute answers in science) as well as an irrational and unrealistic abstraction of belief into meaninglessness.

ETA: Quite frankly, it was a theism fail that first got me started towards atheism. The hypocrisy of what Christians did versus what they claimed to believe, and the comparisons to every other religion that also thought it was right (both modern and historical). The success of science and critical thinking simply strengthened that position.

ETA2: To simplify a bit, any belief is either going to have testable consequences or claims, or is meaningless. Religious beliefs make claims about fact (God exists, souls exist, etc.) for which evidence can be examined. Most also make testable predictors for action (a Christian should follow Christian values, for example). Non-religious beliefs likewise (a person with hope acts differently than one without; if you love someone you treat them differently than someone you don't love, etc.). If a belief has no testable consequences, then it makes no actual difference in reality. If it can (or is argued that is should, like various morality laws) affect reality, then there better damn well be evidence to support that.

 

[The Norseman]

Well said!

 

[Cheetah]

You know, I get tired of the whole "you can't examine love with science!" argument. And I think many miss the obvious response to it.

It can absolutely be tested with science.

For that matter, so can belief. Without question.
...

Yes, and if you had a high-resolution, real-time, non-invasive, souper-dooper brain scanner it would be easy to tell if someone was happy or in pain or pissed-off or craving country music.


For me it was a triumph of religion.
I was brought up going to church every Sunday, sometimes twice, as was the norm around there and then.
Never really met an atheist but there were rumors.
Had some real trouble with my confirmation, tried hard but god just wouldn't speak to me as he did to others. Had a heart to heart with the pastor who reassured me it was no problem so I was confirmed with the rest.
First year at University I was grabbed by Campus Crusade. They were a very enthusiastic and fun bunch and really got me reading my bible and thinking about it.
A few months later I was an atheist.
Took a hell of a long time, after 18 years of indoctrination, before I could get rid of the instinctual 'ducking from lightning' reflex every time a bad thought about god popped into my head.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You know, I get tired of the whole "you can't examine love with science!" argument. And I think many miss the obvious response to it.

It can absolutely be tested with science.

...

You can't do love in an objective manner. Love is not objective and not a part of this process - the scientific method consists of systematic observation, measurement, experiments, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Scientists can observe love as human behavior but they can't do love as scientists. They do love as humans.

 

[Cheetah]

You can't do love in an objective manner. Love is not objective and not a part of this process ...

Of course I can, using my souper-dooper brain scanner.

Everything you experience is a result of how the neurons in your brain are connected and firing and my souper-dooper brain scanner can read it and analyze it real-time.
What now?

 

[Dave Rogers]

I realised what the problem is with the question in the OP. Bear with me...

At the moment, Australia is busy thrashing the pants off England in the Ashes cricket series. Why is Australia beating England? Is it because Australia is succeeding, or because England is failing?
The answer is it's neither or it's both. The actual reason is that the current Australia team is better at playing cricket than the current England team. That doesn't say anything at all about the absolute quality of either; it simply speaks to one being better than the other, and the better one is winning.

So to the actual subject of the thread: Which is a better way of understanding, predicting and to come extent controlling the world we live in, scientific equiry or religious faith? If one finds that the former is better, that doesn't mean that one is particularly good or the other is particularly bad; it simply means that, on comparison, one is clearly superior to the other. And in fact that comparison can't even be done unless both are available for consideration.

So if atheism is arrived at rationally by comparison of the scientific and religious methods for understanding the world, then the question is, and must be, the wrong question to ask.

Dave

 

[JJM 777]

Is your atheism predominately a science success or a theism fail?

Science has not convinced me of how the university got into existence, or what happens after death. Religion has failed to explain these coherently too. My agnosticism is based on the failure of both science and religion to give trustworthy answers to the fundamental questions of existence and meaning of life.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Of course I can, using my souper-dooper brain scanner.

Everything you experience is a result of how the neurons in your brain are connected and firing and my souper-dooper brain scanner can read it and analyze it real-time.
What now?

You are not doing love. You are observing humans doing love. What you claim is that if you see a human driving a car, you ARE driving a car.

Try again.

 

[MikeG]

Science has not convinced me of how the university got into existence, or what happens after death.

Universe, presumably.

So what? What's that got to do with atheism?

....... My agnosticism is based on the failure of both science and religion to give trustworthy answers to the fundamental questions of existence and meaning of life.

Again, what has answers to these questions got to do with atheism?

Atheism is about the acceptance or otherwise of the existence of god/s.

 

[Hellbound]

You are not doing love. You are observing humans doing love. What you claim is that if you see a human driving a car, you ARE driving a car.

Try again.

It's a nonsense argument, shades of Plato's forms, that draws artificial distinctions between reality and some imagined and arbitrary ideal.

By your own argument, no one can see an object. You don't see it, you see the light reflected from it. So we're all blind.

It's a non-argument, containing no information, and providing nothing to act on nor any reason to change any part or piece of behavior or of our understanding of how the universe works.

As I said, it's a stance devoid of information when abstracted to the point you're attempting. It is a dead end. Even if true on some philosophical, esoteric, "but what if C-A-T really spelled dog" level, it's entirely useless.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

It's a nonsense argument, shades of Plato's forms, that draws artificial distinctions between reality and some imagined and arbitrary ideal.

By your own argument, no one can see an object. You don't see it, you see the light reflected from it. So we're all blind.

It's a non-argument, containing no information, and providing nothing to act on nor any reason to change any part or piece of behavior or of our understanding of how the universe works.

As I said, it's a stance devoid of information when abstracted to the point you're attempting. It is a dead end. Even if true on some philosophical, esoteric, "but what if C-A-T really spelled dog" level, it's entirely useless.

Here is science or rather a part of it - either an experiment or field observation, both can include instruments but don't have, but always include some sort of quantitative measurement. So you are now doing a field observation observing the behavior of car drivers. ...

Well, no. Here is what science is. Science is love. I love my wife. You love my wife.
How do I know that? Because according to you there is no difference between different kind of human behavior. Science is human behavior and love is human behavior. So it is a scientific fact that I love my wife and since that is objective and can be replicated by other scientists - then you love my wife. Everything is science, everything is love, there is no difference and love is science and science is love.

What are you, Hellbound???
Just because I can walk, doesn't mean that I can't do other human behaviors. Science is a human behavior, but it is a different human behavior that love.
You understand science, right?
Science is a certain human behavior, but not all human behaviors are not science. Love is a certain human behavior, but not all human behaviors are love. Morality and ethics are certain human behaviors, but not all human behaviors are morality and ethics.
You are aware that scientists are humans, right? And all human behavior is not science. Further there is no scientific theory of ethics.
Science is not everything.
Gravity is not everything.
Love is not everything.
You are not everything.
I am not everything.
Reality is the set of a lot interconnected cases of processes in time, space and so on, but everything is not gravity. Nor is all human behavior science.

So try again.

 

[Hellbound]

Okay, now you've gone into fantasy land. If you can make a coherent point, I'll respond. At this point, you're just spouting nonsense.

ETA: Or intentionally straw-manning. Either way, you're arguing against things I've never said, so I have no idea what point you're attempting to make.

Or, of course, your "thinking" could just be that muddled.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Okay, now you've gone into fantasy land. If you can make a coherent point, I'll respond. At this point, you're just spouting nonsense.

ETA: Or intentionally straw-manning. Either way, you're arguing against things I've never said, so I have no idea what point you're attempting to make.

Or, of course, your "thinking" could just be that muddled.

Can you try to understand this - I am typing right now. That is a fantasy to you, because it makes easier for you to dismiss what I am saying.

Typing is a human behavior, but not all human behavior is typing. Right now you are reading. But all human behavior is not reading. That is a fantasy to you, because it makes easier for you to dismiss what I am saying.

I am saying that science can make a model of love, but that model is not love. It is a scientific explanation of a type of human behavior, love, but in doing love, you can't do science. You have to be in love or love somebody. That is a fantasy to you, because it makes easier for you to dismiss what I am saying.

That I am using everyday examples, is that fantasy world I live in. I know, I am sitting before a computer and debating what science is and what it is not. That is a fantasy to you, because it makes easier for you to dismiss what I am saying.

Do you know that one sign of living in a fantasy, is to believe that everybody else is living in a fantasy than one self.
To recap - science is a limited but useful way of explaining and make predictions about reality, but it doesn't work on all aspects of the human condition. That you don't accept that, could mean that you live in a fantasy world, because it appears that you don't understand how science works, yet you claim so.

So what is science? Is science love or another human behavior?