The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"

[mijopaalmc]

You do realize that the topic doesn't really tell you what their arguments are, right? I mean if you want to be obtuse by all means go ahead, but don't look stupid while you're doing it.

You DO realize that it is disingenuous to insist that the video is the topic of the thread when the title poses a different question than the video does?

 

[Lowpro]

You DO realize that it is disingenuous to insist that the video is the topic of the thread when the title poses a different question than the video does?

*reads title of video...reads title of thread*

Have you actually looked at the OP? hell, have you actually watched the video?

Lemme give you a summary of what happened. I'd try to give it to you in some other media than a post as your reading comprehension may not be up to par, but I've got to use what I've got. Humes fork posts a video, and titles the thread after the video, and pastes the summary from the video from the youtube page it was uploaded to. That is all that the OP has.

After that, we discussed the video, particularly the arguments and the arguers (I personally take great pride in tearing into Dinesh). At some point, we devolved into mayonnaise it was quite ridiculous. And we got there because someone got uppity about the Eucharist...

 

[mijopaalmc]

*reads title of video...reads title of thread*

Have you actually looked at the OP? hell, have you actually watched the video?

I read the OP; I don't have 2 hours of my life to waste so that I can watch a video that has already be roundly criticized by other posters.

The question of whether science has refuted religion is a much broader philosophical question than seems to be covered in the video and that is what you have decided to call "retarded".

 

[Lowpro]

I read the OP; I don't have 2 hours of my life to waste so that I can watch a video that has already be roundly criticized by other posters.

Wait wait, you mean to tell me you read the topic title which is the title of the video which the entire topic kinda is about, didn't watch the video and decided to post anyways based purely on the topic title alone, refusing to address anything argued here except for me referring to something as retarded (I'll cover that in a second), and that's just fiiiiiiine.

*headdesk*

The question of whether science has refuted religion is a much broader philosophical question than seems to be covered in the video and that is what you have decided to call "retarded".

Depends on what religion is. It's one thing to believe God just exists, it's another thing to claim that God exists and does ______ and uses magic and that you KNOW it. That's the entire crux of the debate video, that's the entire crux of what we WERE talking about before.

But then westprog decided to get cute on an aphorism and well, it snowballed from there. THAT is what I decidedly called "retarded" not the debate or the question, because the question actually isn't as superficial as you think. Maybe if you actually watched the video...

 

[mijopaalmc]

At some point, we devolved into mayonnaise it was quite ridiculous.

Because someone who claimed that science had refuted religion claimed that science was incompatible with religion just as oil and water don't mix. It was a poor analogy that they clung to even when the fallacy had been point

And we got there because someone got uppity about the Eucharist...

Again, this "uppitiness" has do with the fact that the poster who claimed that science had contradicted transubstantiation hadn't bothered to understand what the actual Catholic doctrine said.

 

[Lowpro]

And that whole exchange was retarded, but not representative of the debate either. I think it's what they call in the forum business a "derail" (it's what I call retarded)

 

[mijopaalmc]

Wait wait, you mean to tell me you read the topic title which is the title of the video which the entire topic kinda is about, didn't watch the video and decided to post anyways based purely on the topic title alone, refusing to address anything argued here except for me referring to something as retarded (I'll cover that in a second), and that's just fiiiiiiine.

*headdesk*

I read the text of the OP, and it was pretty standard boilerplate about the encroachment of science on religion, and, as the standard boilerplate does, it pretty much ignored the issues that NielC and and westporg were addressing.

 

[mijopaalmc]

And that whole exchange was retarded, but not representative of the debate either. I think it's what they call in the forum business a "derail" (it's what I call retarded)

It was perfectly on topic, because it addressed whether science had actually refuted a specific religious belief.

 

[Lowpro]

It was perfectly on topic, because it addressed whether science had actually refuted a specific religious belief.

As I recall the exchange took place because Punshhh said something that I actually agreed with, almost at least, where he said that science can refute the mythology of religion (as long as we aren't allowing magic, but I addressed that point when I was talking to NielC that by using magic you can no longer make claims to "know") but it can't refute just religion (particularly faith and belief, where they are basically a conclusion drawn without knowledge; the antithesis of science and in THIS case it is a bit of oil and water but that doesn't make it so for other arguments). It'd be like me refuting the Flying Spaghetti Monster's existence, which you can't do. But if you say the Flying Spaghetti Monster did _____ I can scientifically address that. If you say that the FSM did ____ and through magic covered it up, you can't even make that a tenable statement in the first place. Invoking magic is going nuclear, I had already mentioned this.

That's why I think the question "Can science refute religion" is a nonstarter, but the debate covers a lot, including the resurrection (because if you're going to argue religion, you might as well argue the one you're a part of in the case for Hutchinson) not the Eucharist/transubstantiation but that's more tradition than real, and people can go ape over stupid traditions. I think there's even a demotivational poster on it here

 

[punshhh]

As I recall the exchange took place because Punshhh said something that I actually agreed with, almost at least, where he said that science can refute the mythology of religion (as long as we aren't allowing magic, but I addressed that point when I was talking to NielC that by using magic you can no longer make claims to "know") but it can't refute just religion (particularly faith and belief, where they are basically a conclusion drawn without knowledge; the antithesis of science and in THIS case it is a bit of oil and water but that doesn't make it so for other arguments). It'd be like me refuting the Flying Spaghetti Monster's existence, which you can't do. But if you say the Flying Spaghetti Monster did _____ I can scientifically address that. If you say that the FSM did ____ and through magic covered it up, you can't even make that a tenable statement in the first place. Invoking magic is going nuclear, I had already mentioned this.

Yes I agree about going nuclear, I wouldn't attempt to justify assumptions made by religious people about God anyway. Or to suggest that God does or does not exist. However NielC wasn't either, he was adopting a philosophical stance on the nature of any actually existing God. Which is that we cannot say what such a God can or can't do or anything else, or if it exists or not, end of story.

What science may or may not be refuting is human notions about God, or religious practice. The former is the mythological aspect of religion, the later is a lifestyle choice.

 

[Donn]

Because someone who claimed that science had refuted religion claimed that science was incompatible with religion just as oil and water don't mix. It was a poor analogy

That was me. I think it's a good analogy. In my part of the world that's a saying which commonly means "they don't mix." The specific chemistry of oil and water don't enter into it.
I could have said "like cement and ice-cream" to mean the same thing, but I'll bet it would have been argued too. Anything to miss the point, it seems.

that they clung to even when the fallacy had been ..

I actually looked-into the transubsmumble thing and posted a retraction, which I thought was rather good of me. Sorry it was inadequate.

 

[Donn]

In toto, I ask because I don't know:
Is there some level of surety about knowledge (gained by science) that we can use to distinguish between refuted and proven?

I would have thought it's a probability statement. We (science) are xx% certain that religion* is under that line, i.e. it's refuted.

(*For all values of "religion.")

At some point the Dragon is acknowledged to not be in the garage, the yard or the universe. Else it's all word games like endless tennis matches.

 

[punshhh]

In toto, I ask because I don't know:
Is there some level of surety about knowledge (gained by science) that we can use to distinguish between refuted and proven?

Proven is difficult outside mathematics.

I would have thought it's a probability statement. We (science) are xx% certain that religion* is under that line, i.e. it's refuted.

Well with reference to the myths given us by religion the sciences of sociology and anthropology along with some biology have explained the origin of the subjects in the myths and their purpose.

At some point the Dragon is acknowledged to not be in the garage, the yard or the universe. Else it's all word games like endless tennis matches.

This is a different issue, if by dragon you refer to God*, well from where I'm standing its impossible to say whether it is there or not.


*my preliminary definition of God is;

God = the creator or origin of the known universe and all thats in it.

 

[NeilC]

Where I came into this was that when I thought about it, I could not answer the OP because there are so many religions that discussing whether "it" can be refuted was too complex. So in my mind I reduced it to the existence of a god, which, as I think we tend to agree cannot be refuted depending on how you define it (trying not to go too far down that path). One reason a god might not be able to be refuted was that it is magical and not subject to the laws of nature as we know them (this is a commonly held belief I think). Therefore it could follow that many claims of his acts could also not always be refuted too.

I clearly agree this is total cop out and, in my mind, certainly BS. However it seems to me that philosophically speaking, these sorts of beliefs cannot be refuted due to their magical nature. Having read some of the replies I'm not quite so sure of that but I'm still leaning that way.

I don't think it's a direct parallel with say homeopathy where you can make an empirical test of efficacy as well as mechanism. Whilst magic might explain the mechanism of homeopathy, it cannot explain why it simply doesn't work. I'm not sure how this is the same as say whether Jesus was the son of God who was resurrected after being crucifited. Where is the evidence that we can scientifically test in that claim? How can one disprove the existence of heaven scientifically?

I agree it's not necessary to explain the world and that we have much better hypotheses but actually refuting it, if I understand what that means, surely involves actually disproving it?

 

[Lowpro]

Where I came into this was that when I thought about it, I could not answer the OP because there are so many religions that discussing whether "it" can be refuted was too complex. So in my mind I reduced it to the existence of a god, which, as I think we tend to agree cannot be refuted. One reason a god might not be able to be refuted was that it is magical and not subject to the laws of nature as we know them. Therefore it could follow that his acts could also not always be refuted too.

I clearly agree this is total BS. However it seems to me that philosophically speaking, these sorts of beliefs cannot be refuted. Having read some of the replies I'm not quite so sure of that but I'm still leaning that way.

I don't think it's a direct parallel with say homeopathy where you can make an empirical test of efficacy. Whilst magic might explain the mechanism of homeopathy, it cannot explain why it simply doesn't work. I'm not sure how this is the same as whether Jesus was the son of God who was resurrected. Where is the evidence that we can test in that claim? How can one disprove the existence of heaven?

I agree it's not necessary to explain the world and that we have much better hypotheses but actually refuting it, if I understand what that means, surely involves actually disproving it?

Well let me give you a better example of what religion does. Let's make a more accurate parallel. God says homeopathy is true (prayers will be answered blah blah blah) I can test this empirically. The prayer hypothesis fails. This doesn't say much to God's existence, but it can be interpreted as to whether the claims that God does _____ is true, and it's found to be untenable. We can do this for MANY things. What we're doing, and what the entire debate came down to, is what God is. Does he exist as an entity/agent or does he not. The evidence shows that of the many attributions of his agency, they fail. If God exists, it's not the agent he's made out to be. People then use magic to explain away why the evidence doesn't support the God hypothesis but once you use magic, you're admitting failure because magic means that your side knows just as little to nothing as the side you're claiming magic prevents them from knowing. Using magic is admitting failure.

Another portion of the debate and my personal favorite focuses on the afterlife. The afterlife is nonsense because again it invokes magic, which people are captivated by. Everyone says "We don't know if there's an afterlife" but that's not putting either on an even balance either. Here's what I do know. If I ripped out pieces of your brain, your subjectivity is lost (I even have this in my signature) and what makes you "you" goes away. Death is the ultimate loss of brain function; there cannot possibly be any more loss than at death. So the expectancy to have brain function such as consciousness after death is nonsensical. If there's an afterlife, it won't include you as the brain. If there's a soul, it doesn't give a damn who you are. The only alternative is that there is a parallel thing that is sympathetic to your brain and lives on after your brain dies which again can only be made to exist through magic.

These were two strong points in the debate that the opposition could ONLY try to fight by invoking either magic or handwaving to try and reduce the playing field by "going nuclear" to lie and say science is a belief system (it is not, especially not the belief system like religion so the attempt to equate them is transparent and wrong) or to try and say " because science says it doesn't know, how can we accept that" where again, it is far more genuine to say "we don't know" usings truths than to say "we know" using lies.

 

[westprog]

And you have been here long enough to know damn well that the question may be a non starter, but their arguments have more content than just the question. These are things we've tried to discuss here before you decided to play dumb about an aphorism.

If the subject line includes a question, then I don't think it's off-topic to provide an answer to the question. I'm not objecting to any other discussion that might take place, but there's a very simple answer to the question which often gets lost in the confusion.

 

[westprog]

It was perfectly on topic, because it addressed whether science had actually refuted a specific religious belief.

It's quite a good example of the kind of "refutation" which is often claimed by proponents of the "science contradicts religion" idea. It makes up a position based on a misunderstanding of the original doctrine, and carries out a meaningless refutation of a belief that nobody actually holds. (I note that Donn posted a retraction, which is handsome of her. I don't want to chase people over views they no longer put forward.)

There have, of course, been religious beliefs that have been refuted by science. This is often taken as proving that all religious beliefs have been refuted by science, or that they will be at some stage. No, I don't think this is a derail, or retarded. The mayonnaise digression might have been. Analogies are not a great subject for debate.

 

[westprog]

Where I came into this was that when I thought about it, I could not answer the OP because there are so many religions that discussing whether "it" can be refuted was too complex. So in my mind I reduced it to the existence of a god, which, as I think we tend to agree cannot be refuted depending on how you define it (trying not to go too far down that path). One reason a god might not be able to be refuted was that it is magical and not subject to the laws of nature as we know them (this is a commonly held belief I think). Therefore it could follow that many claims of his acts could also not always be refuted too.

I clearly agree this is total cop out and, in my mind, certainly BS. However it seems to me that philosophically speaking, these sorts of beliefs cannot be refuted due to their magical nature. Having read some of the replies I'm not quite so sure of that but I'm still leaning that way.

I don't mind when people claim to have a philosophical reason for thinking that the existence of God has been disproved. There are plenty of such arguments floating around. I might not agree with them, but they are in the correct context. What they aren't are scientific arguments.

 

[NeilC]

Well let me give you a better example of what religion does. Let's make a more accurate parallel. God says homeopathy is true (prayers will be answered blah blah blah) I can test this empirically. The prayer hypothesis fails. This doesn't say much to God's existence, but it can be interpreted as to whether the claims that God does _____ is true, and it's found to be untenable. We can do this for MANY things. What we're doing, and what the entire debate came down to, is what God is. Does he exist as an entity/agent or does he not. The evidence shows that of the many attributions of his agency, they fail. If God exists, it's not the agent he's made out to be. People then use magic to explain away why the evidence doesn't support the God hypothesis but once you use magic, you're admitting failure because magic means that your side knows just as little to nothing as the side you're claiming magic prevents them from knowing. Using magic is admitting failure.

Another portion of the debate and my personal favorite focuses on the afterlife. The afterlife is nonsense because again it invokes magic, which people are captivated by. Everyone says "We don't know if there's an afterlife" but that's not putting either on an even balance either. Here's what I do know. If I ripped out pieces of your brain, your subjectivity is lost (I even have this in my signature) and what makes you "you" goes away. Death is the ultimate loss of brain function; there cannot possibly be any more loss than at death. So the expectancy to have brain function such as consciousness after death is nonsensical. If there's an afterlife, it won't include you as the brain. If there's a soul, it doesn't give a damn who you are. The only alternative is that there is a parallel thing that is sympathetic to your brain and lives on after your brain dies which again can only be made to exist through magic.

These were two strong points in the debate that the opposition could ONLY try to fight by invoking either magic or handwaving to try and reduce the playing field by "going nuclear" to lie and say science is a belief system (it is not, especially not the belief system like religion so the attempt to equate them is transparent and wrong) or to try and say " because science says it doesn't know, how can we accept that" where again, it is far more genuine to say "we don't know" usings truths than to say "we know" using lies.

Whilst I personally agree with most of that I still don't think it amounts to scientific refutation of the existence of god or religions based on him. You may refute some specific claims but not the basic idea. Yes you're left with a god of the gaps and a religion of the gaps but there they are all the same. Science has severely reduced the scope of religious claims but not all aspects of it. I can still believe Jesus is the son of god, that Mohammed was a prophet and that Buddha transcended suffering to reach Nirvana. You cannot prove, scientifically that any of these things are not true. You can make very, very convincing common sense and philosophical arguments (to me at least) that those claims are so unlikely as to be not worth considering but I don't see that these are science.

Science is a way of thinking that involves observation, hypothesis, predictions based on the hypothesis and the subsequent testing of those predictions. How can this process refute Jesus being the son of God? What prediction could you make 2000 years later that would withstand testing? What observable parameters could be measured?

The afterlife is a good example. You cannot scientifically refute the existence of it because it assumes a nebulous concept of "spirit" or "soul" which is not testable either. It's all very well saying these things are only possible if you invoke magic but the point is that they are supposed to BE magic. They are supernatural - beyond our understanding and therefore not testable by science which can only deal with that which can be empirically measured. Science can offer a much more convincing theory of death but that doesn't scientifically disprove supernature.

All we can say is that there is no good evidence tp support a belief in supernature. That is a basic tenet of skepticism. Without that good evidence there can be no good empirical testing. Without that testing there is no science.

I'm OK with that. I'm OK with not believing things that don't have sufficient evidence. I don't need science to directly disprove supernature I just discount it as an irelevancy. However that isn't scientific refutation I don't think.

 

[Lowpro]

Whilst I personally agree with most of that I still don't think it amounts to scientific refutation of the existence of god or religions based on him. You may refute some specific claims but not the basic idea. Yes you're left with a god of the gaps and a religion of the gaps but there they are all the same. Science has severely reduced the scope of religious claims but not all aspects of it. I can still believe Jesus is the son of god, that Mohammed was a prophet and that Buddha transcended suffering to reach Nirvana. You cannot prove, scientifically that any of these things are not true. You can make very, very convincing common sense and philosophical arguments (to me at least) that those claims are so unlikely as to be not worth considering but I don't see that these are science.

Science is a way of thinking that involves observation, hypothesis, predictions based on the hypothesis and the subsequent testing of those predictions. How can this process refute Jesus being the son of God? What prediction could you make 2000 years later that would withstand testing? What observable parameters could be measured?

The afterlife is a good example. You cannot scientifically refute the existence of it because it assumes a nebulous concept of "spirit" or "soul" which is not testable either. It's all very well saying these things are only possible if you invoke magic but the point is that they are supposed to BE magic. They are supernatural - beyond our understanding and therefore not testable by science which can only deal with that which can be empirically measured. Science can offer a much more convincing theory of death but that doesn't scientifically disprove supernature.

All we can say is that there is no good evidence tp support a belief in supernature. That is a basic tenet of skepticism. Without that good evidence there can be no good empirical testing. Without that testing there is no science.

I'm OK with that. I'm OK with not believing things that don't have sufficient evidence. I don't need science to directly disprove supernature I just discount it as an irelevancy. However that isn't scientific refutation I don't think.

Well then, how is it even religion? I mean what does the existence of God have to do with religion AT ALL? His existence? That's not religious. That's not even spiritual because the connection of God's existence and his meddling with us isn't established. What I challenge is that there IS no connection, and anyone who tries to make one cannot make a tenable argument WITHOUT magic. It is because of THAT FACT that I think science can refute religion. God's existence isn't religious, it's that connection between God and well...us. There is none, and if there isn't one, then religion is defunct.

If you have to use magic to make Jesus the son of God, use magic to make Buddha attain enlightenment, but there's no validity when you use magic. Magic is going nuclear, it's useless. And yes I do think science can investigate the claims, but when you've ONLY GOT a statement like "Jesus is the son of God" you've got very little to work with. If some guy with a Messiah complex walked through the door TODAY and said he was the son of God, science COULD answer why he feels this way (insanity). I can't remember the Indian guy's name; he was a guy who claimed to be divine and heal people spiritually blah de blah, and said he would never die...and then he died. Science COULD answer his claims to divinity, but sure it can't address whether he was divine itself because the idea is ONLY an idea. It's like if I said I was the son of God, you couldn't prove it one way or the other, but there's still an ability for science to investigate "I'm divine, here's why". I'd have to backtrack to ONLY the statement "I am divine" and that's useless.

As for the afterlife, you CAN investigate the claims of the afterlife too; the mythology if you will. There is no soul that's obvious. Doesn't mean there's no soul, but what we DO know reduces the soul to nonsense. If the soul existed, it most assuredly doesn't include your consciousness, which is what most people really really really really want their soul to have.

I mean you must agree with it, I see it in your paragraph regarding supernature. The problem though is that supernature itself is ridiculous. YOU CANNOT KNOW IT. To claim you do is fallacious. That's why the entirety of the debate for Hutchinson and Dinesh (yes I do want to bring it back to the debate, because it's what it distills to, though the presenters ignore it and I don't know why) is important is because THEY REFUSE to address it. The fact they don't is ingenuous.