... What facts are your religion based on?
Hoo, boy! This looks like a wonderful opportunity for semantic misunderstandings. It also presents me with a difficult choice of either ignoring your question, momentarily derailing this thread, or spinning this off into a thread about my religious beliefs. I don't like any of those, but I'm going to go with the second option. Before I can answer your question, though, I will need you to clarify the question.
While your question is interesting it does not follow directly from what I wrote earlier in this thread. What I asserted is that I have no special aversion to the use of facts, or logic, or reason. That holds in regard to claims of the normal (political claims for example), claims of the paranormal, and religious claims as well.
I believe that religious claims should be judged by the same standards as any other claims. I am offended by people who profit off religious scams as much as I am offended by people who profit off psychic scams. Miraculous claims -- whether religious or non-religious -- should be scrutinized and tested to see if a miracle has actually occurred.
The miracles I believe in may be difficult for you to test, but I believe they are real. I am amazed at the miracle of life, and at the ability of living things to love each other, to care for one another, to help each other in our times of need. I am amazed at the existence of physical things such as kittens, and I am amazed at the existence of metaphysical things such as cooperation. We could very easily live in a universe where the underlying mathematics made cooperation futile or impossible. But we don't. I find the existence of cooperation as fascinating and as amazing as the existence of stars and of planets and of elements which change from solid to liquid to gas.
I see science and religion as complementary disciplines. Science is
an organized way of understanding the physical world; religion is
an organized way of understanding the metaphysical world. The classic formulation is that science enables us to understand how to build an atom bomb, and religion enables us to understand why it may be wrong to use one.
Much of religion, over the centuries, has been nonsense -- but then, so has much of science. With each passing generation, we have learned more about how the physical universe operates. If you read medical journals from as little as a century ago, you will be amazed at how much people believed which just was not so. Slowly but surely, science has made progress in understanding the physical world better. In the last few centuries the rate at which our understanding has changed and grown has been remarkable.
Likewise, slowly but surely we are making progress in understanding the metaphysical world. In recent centuries we have come to realize that slavery is wrong. We have come to realize that massacring our enemies is wrong. We have come to realize that feudal and caste systems -- where some people are deemed more worthy, and others less worthy, depending on what family they were born into -- are wrong. We have come to realize that women are not simply property, and that sexual exploitation of children is wrong. We are still wrestling with many questions, but I expect that in the not-too-distant future it will be understood and recognized that love between people of the same sex is as real and as beautiful as love between people of opposite sexes.
I believe that just as there are physical truths to the universe, there are metaphysical truths as well. Gravity is not simply a social construct. It is real, regardless of what we might wish it to be or what we might decide it to be. It is something we are able to experience, and which through experiencing in our lives we are able to observe and come to understand better. That's an example of science. Likewise, love is not simply a social construct. It is real, regardless of what we might wish it to be and what we might decide it to be. It is something we are able to experience, and which through experiencing in our lives we are able to observe and come to understand better. That's an example of religion.
You ask me what facts my religion is based on, and I'm not sure how to answer. To me, religion is a way of looking at reality and coming to a better understanding of it, just as science is a way of looking at reality and coming to a better understanding of it. We use science and religion to
arrive at facts, but I'm as unclear what facts science is
based on as I am what facts religion is
based on. .
If science were based on certain facts, then those facts would be scientific dogma -- which to me is an oxymoron. Science (at least as I understand it) is based on
principles rather than on
facts. A key scientific principle, for example, is that we learn what is true through empirical observation. I wouldn't normally refer to a
principle as a
fact, but that's my best guess as to what you might be referring to. (My other guess is that you might be asking me to give examples of facts I derive from my religious beliefs.)
Are you asking me to outline the principles underlying my religion? Are you asking me for examples of facts which I derive from my religion? Or are you asking for something else entirely? I'm not trying to evade your question; I just don't understand what the question you are asking actually is.
If you will explain to me what facts you believe science is based on, that should make it clearer what you mean by facts my religion is based on. Once you clarify in that way what it is you are asking, I will be glad to try to answer your question with regard to my religious beliefs.
