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The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"

NeilC said:
Yes you can use the FSM instead. And that is why we use the FSM to ridicule religions -because it cannot be scientifically refuted. It is a way of saying "sure I cannot scientifically refute your hypothesis but there is no reason to believe it is true, look I can come up with a parallel that is plainly stupid but still not refutable".
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While I tend to agree with all you are saying, I am still puzzled by the highlighted bit.

If there is no reason to believe X, and this is a result of a long chain of evidence and Theory against the properties and suppositions* of X, then surely that is refutation?

When all that is left are words spoken in faith and cultural imitations of yore; when all that underpins these behaviours is magical thinking — is that not refutation?

* Where properties means the factors and statements. Accepted factlets; unquestioned and traditional. Where suppositions mean the further building upon them. The whole knotted and interwoven edifice of each notion in question; say "Catholic Belief".

And if it is not refutation, then why?
 
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Brainache said:
So where does this notion that there is no reason to believe absurd unfalsifiable ideas come from?

Is it a scientific idea?
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I imagine it predates science by 1000's of years to be honest. Either way, it does not amount to a scientific test. Science and skepticism may share similar traits but they are not identical.
 
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Donn said:
While I tend to agree with all you are saying, I am still puzzled by the highlighted bit.

If there is no reason to believe X, and this is a result of a long chain of evidence and Theory against the properties and suppositions* of X, then surely that is refutation?

When all that is left are words spoken in faith and cultural imitations of yore; when all that underpins these behaviours is magical thinking — is that not refutation?

* Where properties means the factors and statements. Accepted factlets; unquestioned and traditional. Where suppositions mean the further building upon them. The whole knotted and interwoven edifice of each notion in question; say "Catholic Belief".

And if it is not refutation, then why?
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Firstly because it's not saying there is positive proof it's not true and secondly we're talking about scientific refutation, which it isn't an example of. I'm not arguing that religion is right or that gods exist. I believe there are no gods and no supernature. I just don't see that science necessarily that refutes them
 
NeilC said:
Firstly because it's not saying there is positive proof it's not true and secondly we're talking about scientific refutation, which it isn't an example of. I'm not arguing that religion is right or that gods exist. I believe there are no gods and no supernature. I just don't see that science necessarily that refutes them
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I get the impression that to you science is labs and experiments and that's all. What about the conclusions, the Theories? Do the effects of them not circle around and illuminate the surrounds? Is the separating of fact from fiction not also a process included in Science?

If so, then by all it has discovered, for each iteration of every religion, there is refutation of, at least, the basis for them. This is then refutation, by science, of the whole lot.
 
Roboramma said:
So there's even less to go on than a feeling.
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I always find this massively amusing. It’s juuuuuuuust feelings. How about an update Roborama: Feelings are critical to accurately adjudicating the most important issues (and just about everything in between) of the entire lives of each and every one of us.

‘ Why did you get married?’….because of how I feel
‘ Why did you have kids?’ ….because of how I feel.
‘ Why did you choose that particular vocation?’….because of how I feel?
' Why are you friends with him?' ...because of how I feel.
' Why are you dating her?'...because of how I feel.
' Why do you spend so much time on that hobby?' ...because of how I feel
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

….but all of a sudden, when it comes to anything remotely related to religion / spirituality / ?....human feelings suddenly have absolutely zero legitimacy. What a load of unqualified crap.

Roboramma said:
Science offers valid explanations for everything that religion used to be necessary to explain.
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…except for everything that makes a human being a human being.. But how could any of that possibly matter??????????????????????
 
annnnoid said:
I always find this massively amusing. It’s juuuuuuuust feelings. How about an update Roborama: Feelings are critical to accurately adjudicating the most important issues (and just about everything in between) of the entire lives of each and every one of us.

‘ Why did you get married?’….because of how I feel
‘ Why did you have kids?’ ….because of how I feel.
‘ Why did you choose that particular vocation?’….because of how I feel?
' Why are you friends with him?' ...because of how I feel.
' Why are you dating her?'...because of how I feel.
' Why do you spend so much time on that hobby?' ...because of how I feel
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

….but all of a sudden, when it comes to anything remotely related to religion / spirituality / ?....human feelings suddenly have absolutely zero legitimacy. What a load of unqualified crap.




…except for everything that makes a human being a human being.. But how could any of that possibly matter??????????????????????
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There are plenty of differences between the examples that you have enumerated and religious claims. See if you can identify on or the other. It's not so hard.
 
dlorde said:
A statement about God that contradicts itself... how apt.
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If a human spouts a contradictory statement, god exists or not regardless. Indeed whatever anyone says or science discovers, gods will or will not exists regardless.

Remember I have defined my use of the word God in regard to this point I am making.
 
Roboramma said:
Because intelligence is complex. I suspect you're suggesting that maybe only intelligent things can create universes, but as you'd be happy to point out, we don't know that. We don't know much about what can or cannot create universes, and nothing that we do know suggests that intelligence is involved.
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My point is quite simply that we cannot assess the likelyhood of any kind of origin over any other.
Of all possible things that could exist, most are not intelligent. Given that there's no reason to believe that creation requires intelligence, it is therefore true that of all possible causes of the creation of our universe, most are not intelligent.
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This does not follow, it might only be in our locality that intelligence is a relatively rare phenomena. Again we cannot say anything about this issue.

Why? Because if the universe has some underlying cause, all we can say is that it has some underlying cause. We don't know anything more than that. Therefore any specific attributes you posit are unlikely.
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Well we can look at nature and look for clues about how the larger system works, but it can only ever be speculation.

Similarly any particular lottery ticket is not likely to win the lottery.
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My definition of God is more likely I would suggest than the FSM.
Actually, science can say something about whether this actually happened, in exactly the same way that it can say whether or not homeopathy is effective. If you deny the reasoning that leads to the conclusion that revelations are not mystical in origin, then you deny all of science.
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No science can only give a biological or psychological alternative explanation. Just like we can't say anything about God, we can't say anything about what such a God might do including delivering revelations to people.
 
Lowpro said:
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.
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You can only advise us that human claims relating to God can be refuted. No more than that because any God that might actually exist could have any attribute imaginable or unimaginable and we would be none the wiser.
 
NeilC said:
You're still arguing with my like I'm religious. I'm not arguing the case for religion. I'm arguing that it all cannot be refuted by the scientific method and most that is because of the evasive way it is defined. Yes you can refute it without science and you kind of are. But that's not what we're arguing. I'm asking if you can refute it USING science.

It's NeilC not NielC by the way!
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Whenever this discussion takes place, somebody says that there aren't valid scientific arguments against religion, and this is countered with a long string of unscientific arguments. In fact, exactly the same arguments tend to be trotted out as appear in all the other threads refuting religion.

It's a bit depressing that not only do so many people not know what constitutes a scientific argument, they don't seem to care any more than a Southern Baptist brandishing his King James.
 
Lord Emsworth said:
There are plenty of differences between the examples that you have enumerated and religious claims. See if you can identify on or the other. It's not so hard.
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No Emsworth, there isn’t. Not even remotely. See if you can understand why beyond simply parroting the company line. It’s not so hard. .
 
punshhh said:
My point is quite simply that we cannot assess the likelyhood of any kind of origin over any other.
This does not follow, it might only be in our locality that intelligence is a relatively rare phenomena. Again we cannot say anything about this issue.

Well we can look at nature and look for clues about how the larger system works, but it can only ever be speculation.

My definition of God is more likely I would suggest than the FSM.No science can only give a biological or psychological alternative explanation. Just like we can't say anything about God, we can't say anything about what such a God might do including delivering revelations to people.
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How can you define god if you can't say anything about god?


We can test those revelations against reality.
 
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