Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[epeos76]

Philip K Dick's slogan is just that - a slogan. There are plenty of explanations and arguments spread throughout this thread if you are genuinely interested, but unfortunately I think this particular thread has done it's dash. Feel free to start a new thread on any topic you want to discuss further, and I'll be glad to have a discussion.

This might make a good thread topic, later on. It's certainly a very nice slogan.

 

[epeos76]

Which post has PkD's slogan question, who is PkD and while you said you would say more about the god of the gaps stuff, I don't think you did. I could be wrong.

My question to you, epeos, was, why do you need god as an answer to anything? You had said something about not having this or that answer in quantum physics or whatever. And I said so what? Why do you need the god answer as opposed to the 'we don't know yet' answer?

Thanks for clarifying. I think we can leave the merits of Philip K. Dick for a later thread.

You're question is, why do we need the god answer to fill the gaps as opposed to saying "we don't know"?

[quibble] As a reminder, I'm not saying we can't do without the God answer. I'm saying it's useful. {/quibble].

My Answer: We need to make lots of important decisions that fall in the gap areas. If there is any method to help us get better than an arbitrary result, it is valuable.

How do you build a useful model without knowing anything about the validity of the pieces? It's possible you can evolve one, by trial and error. Whether beliefs acknowledged to have evolved are *really* true or not is unavoidably a philosophical question.

It does not require delusion, desperation or drug use to suggest that we may need something more than an intuitive definition for what it means for something to be true. Science, as far as I understand, depends on a highly specialized definition justified primarily by its utility.

Frankly, I think it's worth having the god answer around just to remind people to say "we don't know". Otherwise it's too tempting to reason ahead of the evidence (because we NEED answers). At least for many people. Possibly not gimlet-eyed skeptics.

You're a nurse, I think? I'll bet you have worked with with older colleagues who counseled young mothers to bottle feed their babies. It was a public health initiative, for a while, related to discovering something about the mechanics of nutrition.

We now know breast milk passes on antibodies. In fact, we have evidence that babies fed on formula have something like a 33% greater chance of contracting leukemia than breast feed babies.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
My Answer: We need to make lots of important decisions that fall in the gap areas. If there is any method to help us get better than an arbitrary result, it is valuable.

How do you build a useful model without knowing anything about the validity of the pieces? It's possible you can evolve one, by trial and error. Whether beliefs acknowledged to have evolved are *really* true or not is unavoidably a philosophical question.

It does not require delusion, desperation or drug use to suggest that we may need something more than an intuitive definition for what it means for something to be true. Science, as far as I understand, depends on a highly specialized definition justified primarily by its utility.

Frankly, I think it's worth having the god answer around just to remind people to say "we don't know". Otherwise it's too tempting to reason ahead of the evidence (because we NEED answers). At least for many people. Possibly not gimlet-eyed skeptics.

You're a nurse, I think? I'll bet you have worked with with older colleagues who counseled young mothers to bottle feed their babies. It was a public health initiative, for a while, related to discovering something about the mechanics of nutrition.

We now know breast milk passes on antibodies. In fact, we have evidence that babies fed on formula have something like a 33% greater chance of contracting leukemia than breast feed babies.

Actually, I have never seen bottle feeding recommended by a colleague, but no matter.

Your arguments are a non sequitur for your usefulness of god beliefs. How would believing in gods have made non-evidence based medicine any better?

Why you view the things science does not yet know as so significant in your day to day life is beyond me. But be that as it may, you have yet to make a case for why a god belief is useful at all for anything.

As for the science of medicine, the real science is only a century or so old. We've come a long way in that 100 years. I see no reason god beliefs would improve on evidence based medicine. In fact, god beliefs are currently hindering evidence based medicine with those who believe medical advances such as stem cell research are sins.

 

[Complexity]

Belief in the supernatural is wrong, woo, and delusional.

Religious beliefs are wrong, woo, and delusional.

People who have religious beliefs are not being skeptical about a large part of their worldview. If they were skeptical regarding these beliefs, they could not hold them for long.

Shed your superstitions.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Belief in the supernatural is wrong, woo, and delusional.

Religious beliefs are wrong, woo, and delusional.

People who have religious beliefs are not being skeptical about a large part of their worldview. If they were skeptical regarding these beliefs, they could not hold them for long.

Shed your superstitions.

But isn’t it useful to examine what religious beliefs in their essence are, how people use them in constructing a world view, and why people have them? Just sweeping religious beliefs under the rug as being wrong, woo and delusional could mean that we loose some valuable knowledge about human behaviour. I tend to agree with Durkheim in the sense that religion is true on the most basic level, namely as a social fact – a sui generis if you like, hence should be studied as such. Knowing perfectly well that what some religious beliefs denote to have no empirical justification, their connotations remain (perhaps as a justification for their existence).

 

[Spock Jenkins]

In an answer to the OP:

I grew up Protestent and converted to Catholicism. Both Christian religions. No. There is no proof. Only faith.

I do question my own faith quite often. I think of it this way:

If I truely believed that everyone who wasn't "saved" would suffer eternal seperation from God in hell being tortured by Satan and his demons - would I be this casual about it? If I honestly believed the message in the Bible - wouldn't I be like John the Baptist sacrificing all personal gain to just get the message out? I mean - what's the point of this brief stay on earth if the message is true? Just get that message out. Be that crazy guy on the street with the two sided billboard screaming, "REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND!!!"

If I knew a terrorist was coming to bomb a stadium - I'd be running through that place like a freak trying to get everyone out of there and heading in the right direction without regard to my own reputation and safety. Even if I knew the attack would be cancelled* and I'd be punished and ridiculed for yelling "fire" in a crowded building. At least I saved all those people.

So if I really believe - why am I not a crazy person trying to "save" as many souls as I can? The only logical conclusion I can arrive at is that I don't believe as much as I would like to think. At some point I may even get over my life long indoctrinization and feel that it's okay not to believe. I'm not there yet and don't know if I ever will be.

*Attack aborted because I was successful and the terrorists have no message in bombing the empty stadium - making me look crazier - in this scenario

 

[Faithkills]

Wrong in detail, or wrong generally?

DR

If it's wrong in one.. why not both?

 

[Faithkills]

Well, it's certainly not proof, but yes, I think it qualifies as evidence. If a couple billion people draw the same unscientific conclusion that a particular color is what we call 'red', I think that qualifies as evidence for the existance of that color even if not everyone can distinguish it, even though we can't be certain that everyone experiences it the same and even though different cultures have different names for it.

But if another couple billion people draw a different and opposed unscientific conclusion, and another couple billion draw yet another different and opposed unscientific conclusion, why do you assume yours is correct? Isn't it more reasonable to assume that the common factor is that people were parentally and culturally programmed to believe the contradictory beliefs?

 

[epeos76]

Actually, I have never seen bottle feeding recommended by a colleague, but no matter.

Your arguments are a non sequitur for your usefulness of god beliefs. How would believing in gods have made non-evidence based medicine any better?

Why you view the things science does not yet know as so significant in your day to day life is beyond me. But be that as it may, you have yet to make a case for why a god belief is useful at all for anything.

As for the science of medicine, the real science is only a century or so old. We've come a long way in that 100 years. I see no reason god beliefs would improve on evidence based medicine. In fact, god beliefs are currently hindering evidence based medicine with those who believe medical advances such as stem cell research are sins.

The formula / breast milk thing matters to me. Whether you, personally have seen someone recommend bottle feeding is only relevant if you, personally were practicing in the fifties. Otherwise, you'll need to ask around before you dismiss that particular tidbit.

In any case I stand by it's relevance. It is an example of the risk of assuming that empirical knowledge in one area (basic insights into nutrition) is a good basis for a decision in a poorly understood area that seems similar (feeding babies). Such speculation can certainly be a fruitful beginning for further inquiry, but it's a poor basis for decision, and professionals have a long track record of blurring the distinction.

I don't know how much more I can say about why I think the gaps are a general human concern as opposed to a matter of personal, emotional frailty, except that I think most of our lives take place in areas we don't understand well yet. For example, what is a marriage? Should we even have the institution? Who, when and why should someone marry? "We know know don't yet" is accurate on one level, but it's not a satisfactory answer.

On the other hand, even though I have only ever encountered rudimentary sketches about what a marriage is (do all marriages even belong to the same class?) we generally have a lot of unsystematic, personal, conflicting observational evidence about what marriage means, how to do it etc. This example is hardly unique. Specific issues arise faster than the philosophers can draft seminars.

I think god beliefs can be useful in these areas. Why? God beliefs are generally one piece of a whole mishmash of behaviors, relationships, ideas and undocumented oddments that make up a religion. I have personally, unsystematically, observed certain people use at least one type of god belief to tackle issues they were unprepared for in every other respect. Not only did they invent answers that I now think are self-evidently the right ones, they did it in spite of being otherwise steeped in the elements of bigotry.

What do you do with an actual human being who belongs to a class you've always been taught is dangerous? In the interests of simplicity, I suppose you could say the people I observed applied a particular mental model based on god beliefs. It is something like, "act as though we are all the children of a loving god who has asked us to forgive our enmities and help each other, even if that seems unreasonable."

Of course, this hallmark version is largely content free. I can only say that in practice, the content is specific, even though it emerges from the general mishmash indirectly. In fact, if I could specify all the elements in advance, I likely wouldn't need religion.

So, why do I think it's useful? (1) some personal observational data that it does something I have never seen explained (but yes, potentially explainable) that helps people deal with moral improvisation, and (2) my guess that is the result of self-selected people honing time tested practices.

 

[epeos76]

Belief in the supernatural is wrong, woo, and delusional.

Religious beliefs are wrong, woo, and delusional.

People who have religious beliefs are not being skeptical about a large part of their worldview. If they were skeptical regarding these beliefs, they could not hold them for long.

Shed your superstitions.

Not to take away from the immense respect you are entitled to as a man who uses lots of short, declarative sentences, but I think you're resting a little heavily on your dignitas here.

Truly, I have no idea what to do with this credo, except perhaps to engrave it on a stone tabulet and send it to Articullet. She can use it to bop any secret creationists she unmasks.

 

[articulett]

Complexity is entitled to respect for a lot more than that commentary... but you wouldn't be expected to know what to do with it... because you are too busy trying to convince yourself that your woo is true even as you know most woo is ridiculous, and most believers believe things that you don't believe... yet they believe it just as strongly and for just as "valid" reasons. Your words are to keep you from have to acknowledge the fact that there is no good skeptical reason to believe in your religion than there is to believe in Scientology or Astrology... and yet you believe.

 

[epeos76]

Complexity is entitled to respect for a lot more than that commentary...

I know. I respect his efforts with BAGO for example. I don't think this puts him beyond criticism.

I'm only poking fun at this particular post because it appears he is relying solely on his magisterial tone (and, I suppose, his local reputation). I'd like to hear him enter the discussion.

but you wouldn't be expected to know what to do with it...

You're wrong + I really mean it does not equal an argument. You have to engage the opposing position.

From my admittedly limited survey I think your position is this: not only do you believe there is no evidence for the existence of god, you believe you know what religion is and why its supporters subscribe to it. I don't think you do.

None of the claims I've seen you make -religion is a soporific, a group hug, a security blanket, a tool of the oppressor etc. - is new. Those claims were revolutionary when Voltaire & Co. made them. Responsible people incorporated those cautionary observations in the intervening centuries. I acknowledge (and value) the fact that most of that progress is the result of a skeptical examination of religion.

because you are too busy trying to convince yourself that your woo is true even as you know most woo is ridiculous, and most believers believe things that you don't believe... yet they believe it just as strongly and for just as "valid" reasons.

Let me adopt your terms for a moment. Assume the world is divided into "science" and "woo". Much earlier I suggested that there might be a method to discriminate between woo beliefs, and that some might be reasonable, in spite of falling outside of "science".

Some faiths: (1) appear to do something useful, (2) recognize the supremacy of science, where science has answers,and (3) do not set themselves above independent moral criticism. Some faiths don't. It's reasonable to draw a distinction between the two.

It's true that incompatible beliefs may pass the test I suggested. It is not true that all woo ideas do. Xenu, faith healers, and police psychics all fail.

You seem deeply convinced that I need to maintain my god beliefs. I know I don't. I've tried on a wide variety of mental hardware over the years, including polite atheism.

Before you get back on message, let me assure you that I assume your atheism is a source of unadulterated joy to you, and that you are not secretly troubled in any way. I also not claiming my experience is relevant to the question of god's existence. What is relevant is the specific problem I encountered when I declaimed atheist beliefs.

I could never forget, you see, that people I knew intimately consistently used religion to achieve a moral perspective I admire. Moreover, I met and read about others, including adherents of some competing faiths who had the same quality. In simplest form, that's what drew me back to belief in God.

I would be thrilled if someone could provide an comprehensive, analytical account of these peoples' experiences,even if it revealed god beliefs to be irrelvant. It would allow me to throw out the elements that are redundant, harmful, and boring. As far as I know, no one has done this. At best, people provide ideology tinged guesses.

Your words are to keep you from have to acknowledge the fact that there is no good skeptical reason to believe in your religion than there is to believe in Scientology or Astrology... and yet you believe.

Before you respond I think you should consider the possiblity that my words are actually "to" attempt to communicate an observation / personal theory that I think is important. Here it is: there is still a lot of undescribed value in some religions, including mine.

What about the incompatible beliefs that fall safely within the realm of reason as I describe it? Much earlier I mentioned that it could be hard to judge what another religion actually does, without spending some time with its practioners. Let's assume I can anyway.

I'm comfortable with the fact that my religious beliefs are contingent. They may be proven false. I may still not understand what the essentials are. Alternatively, there may be a way of understanding them in which they are not incompatible.

I'm comfortable with this observation, because I trust my empirical observations about what my god beliefs do. If any of the above were proven true, it would provide a better method for achieving the benefits I'm concerned about.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The formula / breast milk thing matters to me. Whether you, personally have seen someone recommend bottle feeding is only relevant if you, personally were practicing in the fifties. Otherwise, you'll need to ask around before you dismiss that particular tidbit.

Getting a tad condescending there, fella. Where did I dismiss the importance of it? I dismissed your assumption I was practicing nursing in the 50s. If I were old enough in the 50s to be practicing nursing I'd have to be between 70 and 80 years old now, unlikely to be currently practicing.

In any case I stand by it's relevance. It is an example of the risk of assuming that empirical knowledge in one area (basic insights into nutrition) is a good basis for a decision in a poorly understood area that seems similar (feeding babies). Such speculation can certainly be a fruitful beginning for further inquiry, but it's a poor basis for decision, and professionals have a long track record of blurring the distinction.

You are missing the entire question I asked you. I asked you how would filling in the gaps with god beliefs change the outcome of an unsound medical practice based on bad evidence gathering and/or bad logic analyzing the evidence?

I don't know how much more I can say about why I think the gaps are a general human concern as opposed to a matter of personal, emotional frailty, except that I think most of our lives take place in areas we don't understand well yet. For example, what is a marriage? Should we even have the institution? Who, when and why should someone marry? "We know know don't yet" is accurate on one level, but it's not a satisfactory answer. On the other hand, even though I have only ever encountered rudimentary sketches about what a marriage is (do all marriages even belong to the same class?) we generally have a lot of unsystematic, personal, conflicting observational evidence about what marriage means, how to do it etc. This example is hardly unique. Specific issues arise faster than the philosophers can draft seminars.

I think god beliefs can be useful in these areas. Why? God beliefs are generally one piece of a whole mishmash of behaviors, relationships, ideas and undocumented oddments that make up a religion. I have personally, unsystematically, observed certain people use at least one type of god belief to tackle issues they were unprepared for in every other respect. Not only did they invent answers that I now think are self-evidently the right ones, they did it in spite of being otherwise steeped in the elements of bigotry.

What do you do with an actual human being who belongs to a class you've always been taught is dangerous? In the interests of simplicity, I suppose you could say the people I observed applied a particular mental model based on god beliefs. It is something like, "act as though we are all the children of a loving god who has asked us to forgive our enmities and help each other, even if that seems unreasonable."

Of course, this hallmark version is largely content free. I can only say that in practice, the content is specific, even though it emerges from the general mishmash indirectly. In fact, if I could specify all the elements in advance, I likely wouldn't need religion.

So, why do I think it's useful? (1) some personal observational data that it does something I have never seen explained (but yes, potentially explainable) that helps people deal with moral improvisation, and (2) my guess that is the result of self-selected people honing time tested practices.

Now you are getting away from science and into the morals arguments. The evidence is very clear, one does not need god beliefs to determine moral decisions. Atheists are just as moral and immoral as are theists.

In the example you are using here, marriage decisions, I'd have to say the dogmatic approach, God said this or that, gay marriage is a sin. yadda yadda, actually inhibits an evaluation of all the aspects of the matter and proclaims society should never change. But we know from history, such an approach is entirely futile. Societies do change. Trying to apply ancient rules to modern people is not the best approach. It is in fact, an ignorant approach that only leads to strife.

 

[articulett]

Epeos76-- I don't really care whether religion has value. I care about what is true-- what is true for everybody. All religions claim to have divine truths, but there is no evidence of divine truths nor that faith is a means of accessing any verifiable knowledge-- but it's great for thinking you have "higher truths" while deluding yourself as all the religions you wooish illustrate.

I am quite convinced there is one reality that is independent of human belief. I think that reality can best be understood via facts and evidence... the way we understand gravity and the age of our universe and DNA etc. I think it promotes sloppy, divisive, and illogical thinking to tell trusting people that faith is a means to higher truths and the very best thing you can give the invisible creator of the universe--he demands it; punishes if you don't have it... or so it's said over and over and so many things are said...

all of these things are promoted as truth... and yet there is nothing to suggest that one version is more true than any other and lots of evidence to suggest that, while people believe, this things and spread them-- there is no basis for any of it in reality. Your god is no more likely to be real than my neighbor child is likely to be possessed. All supernatural claims are far more likely to be delusions, misperceptions, or tricks like Randi does than they are to be what their believers believe they are. Voices in your head are infinitely more likely to be a delusion than they are to be a god or devil or ghost or your grandma who died last month... even if you really, really, really, feel and believe otherwise with all your being.

Big deal... you think god beliefs are useful but you can't really give any kind of evidence to show why we should take your god belief more seriously than a Scientologists belief or a Muslims belief. You cannot show how your truth is more likely to be true than Mormon beliefs or reincarnation beliefs. And so you spin and assert and fling ad homs and invoke tangents. What else is new. What else is woo to do when they can't provide evidence and there is no good answer to the question. The truth is that you think you have accessed some "higher truth"--but all those that believe differently are deluded-- all those "other" supernatural beliefs are "woo". You have a different criteria you have for judging your beliefs over others. Subjectivity is useful for finding objective truth only when it's your personal subjectivity apparently. All those other people willing to die for their faith mean nothing--they can still be deluded. But you can't imagine that you might be delude, because... why? How would you find out if you were as mistaken as them? Do you care if you are or would rather just go on assuming you aren't?

 

[cyborg]

The real problem with a statement such as "religion has value" is that it is almost never qualified to say, "religion has value if you say it does," which is the whole point of contention - it is possible to synthesise such a "value" such that it does not have a "natural value". That is to say there is no value beyond the system in which it was constructed to have a value.

If you remove a system and natural values still remain we say those values are useful irregardless of that system.

We call the system that collects these collective natural values "science".

 

[epeos76]

The real problem with a statement such as "religion has value" is that it is almost never qualified to say, "religion has value if you say it does," which is the whole point of contention - it is possible to synthesise such a "value" such that it does not have a "natural value". That is to say there is no value beyond the system in which it was constructed to have a value.

If you remove a system and natural values still remain we say those values are useful irregardless of that system.

We call the system that collects these collective natural values "science".

In general, I agree with your very neatly stated analysis. I am arguing that some religions have a natural value. I think it could be collected and analysized, scientifically. I don't think it has been, and I'm not sure we have even developed the right tools yet.

Whether or not some religions have natural value is the central issue for me. I can easily believe that I'm mistaken about why it works. I will grudgingly consider that I am mistakenly attributing effects to the group that are simply the result of self-selection, although this requires dismissing the only explanation advanced by the actual practioners. I am much more certain, on the basis of empirical, but unsystematic observation, both that it is correlated with some positive things, and that those things fall into areas that are important, but largely unexplained at the moment.

 

[epeos76]

Epeos76-- I don't really care whether religion has value. I care about what is true-- what is true for everybody. All religions claim to have divine truths, but there is no evidence of divine truths nor that faith is a means of accessing any verifiable knowledge-- but it's great for thinking you have "higher truths" while deluding yourself as all the religions you wooish illustrate.

I am quite convinced there is one reality that is independent of human belief. I think that reality can best be understood via facts and evidence... the way we understand gravity and the age of our universe and DNA etc. I think it promotes sloppy, divisive, and illogical thinking to tell trusting people that faith is a means to higher truths and the very best thing you can give the invisible creator of the universe--he demands it; punishes if you don't have it... or so it's said over and over and so many things are said...

all of these things are promoted as truth... and yet there is nothing to suggest that one version is more true than any other and lots of evidence to suggest that, while people believe, this things and spread them-- there is no basis for any of it in reality. Your god is no more likely to be real than my neighbor child is likely to be possessed. All supernatural claims are far more likely to be delusions, misperceptions, or tricks like Randi does than they are to be what their believers believe they are. Voices in your head are infinitely more likely to be a delusion than they are to be a god or devil or ghost or your grandma who died last month... even if you really, really, really, feel and believe otherwise with all your being.

Big deal... you think god beliefs are useful but you can't really give any kind of evidence to show why we should take your god belief more seriously than a Scientologists belief or a Muslims belief. You cannot show how your truth is more likely to be true than Mormon beliefs or reincarnation beliefs. And so you spin and assert and fling ad homs and invoke tangents. What else is new. What else is woo to do when they can't provide evidence and there is no good answer to the question. The truth is that you think you have accessed some "higher truth"--but all those that believe differently are deluded-- all those "other" supernatural beliefs are "woo". You have a different criteria you have for judging your beliefs over others. Subjectivity is useful for finding objective truth only when it's your personal subjectivity apparently. All those other people willing to die for their faith mean nothing--they can still be deluded. But you can't imagine that you might be delude, because... why? How would you find out if you were as mistaken as them? Do you care if you are or would rather just go on assuming you aren't?

I think there is some evidence that my god beliefs should be taken more seriously than the claims of Scientology. First, because I know mine defer to other types of evaluation, and second because I have observed mine do something valuable: practioner's have used it to pioneer a moral perspective, create relationships, and do other things even more difficult to articulate. At the moment, the fruits of religious practice have to be evaluated as a matter of judgment. One day, hopefully, science will be able to explain the mechanisms and help us assay the results.

You say you care about the truth. I think you dodge and weave around the fact that scientific models don't claim to have a monopoly on the one true description of the universe. Here are some questions I'd like to hear you answer.

Is there any particular reason to believe that the universe / reality is self-consistent?
Did Niel Bohrs' model of the atom describe its true inner nature?
Does relativity accurately describe the underlying nature of the universe?


In my view, so far undisputed, science provides us with a provable best guess about particular facets of reality. That's not the same as a glimpse of the one true nature of the universe.

Without getting into the really wild stuff (because I have only a superficial grasp on it), a number of the most shop worn observations from quantum physics challenge my intutive ideas about self-consistency. I would have said that if it a single particle "really" traveled through gate A, that disposed of the claim that it traveled through gate B or whatever at the same time.

It simply isn't sufficient to rest on our intuitive sense about what it means for something to be true. Science doesn't.

Likewise, the technical definition used in science need not be the only one we use. Especially since (1) it's justified by its utility and (2) historically, it's been under-inclusive. It's even possible to imagine a system with more values than true and false. I can't believe this is news to you. Useful? that's the question.

 

[articulett]

I think there is some evidence that my god beliefs should be taken more seriously than the claims of Scientology. First, because I know mine defer to other types of evaluation, and second because I have observed mine do something valuable: practioner's have used it to pioneer a moral perspective, create relationships, and do other things even more difficult to articulate. At the moment, the fruits of religious practice have to be evaluated as a matter of judgment. One day, hopefully, science will be able to explain the mechanisms and help us assay the results. .

I think a Scientologist and many people who believe things you find "wooish" could say the exact same thing about their beliefs in support of why their beliefs should be taken more seriously. That is why skeptics tend not to take them more seriously.

You say you care about the truth. I think you dodge and weave around the fact that scientific models don't claim to have a monopoly on the one true description of the universe. Here are some questions I'd like to hear you answer..

Correct. No dodging and weaving from me. I onlyl point out that nothing else has verifiable claims on any true description of the universe. The facts, so far, that have been verifiable... have all come from science and measurable evidence.

Is there any particular reason to believe that the universe / reality is self-consistent?

Everythng we've achieved to advance our understanding has been because we use that understanding. Of what use would it be to posit an inconsistent reality that changes willy nilly. And if we were to posit it, what who would we get the information about this willy-nilly ness from. How could we tell them from the sham people with matrix theories and so forth?

Did Niel Bohrs' model of the atom describe its true inner nature

Better than anyone else... and in a way that has allowed us to refine understanding.

Does relativity accurately describe the underlying nature of the universe?

It is the best explanation for the facts observed and the only one being used to refine and learn more... and not by woo, either.

In my view, so far undisputed, science provides us with a provable best guess about particular facets of reality. That's not the same as a glimpse of the one true nature of the universe.

I don't know what the "one true nature of the universe" means. It sounds like woo. I just know that everything useful, true, and verifiable about the universe has come from science and nothing but spin and semantics and murky implications of "higher truths" seem to come from woo.

Without getting into the really wild stuff (because I have only a superficial grasp on it), a number of the most shop worn observations from quantum physics challenge my intutive ideas about self-consistency. I would have said that if it a single particle "really" traveled through gate A, that disposed of the claim that it traveled through gate B or whatever at the same time.

It simply isn't sufficient to rest on our intuitive sense about what it means for something to be true. Science doesn't.

Right... we use evidence, replication, corroboration , knowledge of human logic errors, testing the null hypothesis, and build each bit of understanding on the most complete data available--we don't insert supernatural entities into the parts we don't understand yet... or magic or god or "synchronicity" or "bad vibes" or karma or souls etc.

Likewise, the technical definition used in science need not be the only one we use. Especially since (1) it's justified by its utility and (2) historically, it's been under-inclusive. It's even possible to imagine a system with more values than true and false. I can't believe this is news to you. Useful? that's the question.

Moral values like opinions are not part of the true false spectrum... but when making moral decisions it helps to use facts and not imaginary desires, wants, etc. that we are told will please some invisible guy who killed his kid for us or whatever...

How does my dog manage to be loyal, not kill the cats, show guilt, aim to please and show more moral character than many very religious humans? Why does brain damage to a specific area of the brain affect moral decision making? I think these kinds of things show that you have bought into the theistic meme that morals come from god or that people would be immoral without god or religion... but there is no evidence to support that claim and lots of evidence to show that morality evolves in organisms in which cooperation enhances the survival of their genes and those who share them....

 

[epeos76]

Articullet, I think 838 is actually pretty fair, at least within the tolerances of such an passion inspiring topic. I hope you'll stick around for my reply. Things are getting busy again here, and I anticipate not being able to get back to it until saturday evening, at the earliest.

 

[volatile]

The real problem with a statement such as "religion has value" is that it is almost never qualified to say, "religion has value if you say it does," which is the whole point of contention - it is possible to synthesise such a "value" such that it does not have a "natural value". That is to say there is no value beyond the system in which it was constructed to have a value.

If you remove a system and natural values still remain we say those values are useful irregardless of that system.

We call the system that collects these collective natural values "science".

Well, not really. We call them "philosophy" or "ethics", if you're using the word "value" in the way I read it... I agree with the basic point you're making, of course - just being pedantic.