Science-Religion. Which wins?

[DwightEisenhower]

<p>

It is perfectly valid to make such assertions when staying within a reasonable definitional parameter. I asserted a basic definition of religion in one of my posts above and is the framework on which I have based my statements.

</p>

<p>Either you need to specify your framework to include only a small minority, or a large percentage of statements thus far are just objectively false. Pick.</p>

[Baelor]

<p>Out of curiosity, are there any college or college-bound students here not attending HYP? O.o</p>

[mulberrypie]

<p>^plenty -_- look up the thread with the list of where seniors are going this year</p>

<p>yeayyyyy science wins.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

look up the thread with the list of where seniors are going this year

</p>

<p>I believe “here” referred to this thread.</p>

[mulberrypie]

<p>no u .</p>

[Baelor]

<p>Yeah, it feels like all the posters still posting who are not seniors/in college are. Whatever.</p>

[Adenine]

<p>mifune: <em>standing ovation and much applause</em></p>

<p>baelor: Go ahead and call me a 7th grader, ignorant, and whatever else. Keep that religious morality going.</p>

[ksarmand]

<p>

Thus, it has no fundamental basis in acting as an irrational substitute for empirically derived conclusions.

</p>

<p>It has already been said that religion does not. Why you are beating this straw man is beyond me.</p>

<p>

I could, for one, by the very seat of my pants, create a religion with 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, or 5,000 gods, declare my bible to be The Three Little Pigs and it would still hold the same degree of authority as any other system of belief.

</p>

<p>Not so.</p>

<p>Qualitive reasoning will not produce quantitive results and quantitve reasoning will not explain the qualitive realm. </p>

<p>

You previously expressed the discourtesy in ad hominem, yet you resort to one yourself.

</p>

<p>1 Corinthians 15:33 - “Bad company ruins good morals.”</p>

<p>

you do not have evidence to substantiate your claims for a creationist design and a subsequent evolutionary acquisition or a sporadic material inheritance.

</p>

<p>Another straw man. I am not a creationist.</p>

<p>

If you wish to convince individuals of religious validity in the belief of some omnipotent instrument, you ought to provide the proper empirical evidence for its existence

</p>

<p>Not so; the realm of God can be appreciated only through qualitative, not quantitative, means, in which quantitative modes of evaluation will not operate properly.</p>

<p>

In the absence and, of course, unobtainable nature of any confirmation, the rational individual must wholly reject the belief in favor of the scientific evidence that it verified, knowable, and objectively observable and reproducible.

</p>

<p>Again, you are assuming here that the realm of the supernatural is beholden to empiricism and quantifying: it is not.</p>

<p>

You deliberately misconstrued my statements.

</p>

<p>As you have been doing throughout this entire discussion.<br>
Matthew 7:12 - “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”</p>

<p>

Religion attempts to exert its influence into “finding” empirical reality although that is not the basis on which it is intrinsically formulated.

</p>

<p>You are attacking a view of religion I do not ascribe to nor hold as true. Next.</p>

<p>

I did not use that argument to invalidate faith *per se <a href=“that%20is%20left%20to%20my%20aforementioned%20assertions%20stated%20above”>/I</a>, but rather recognizes the danger of the fanatical nature of religion.

</p>

<p>Religion is not the only fount of fanaticism, and to solely ascribe such madness to it is incorrect. Anything that fosters extremism is dangerous; religion is simply one of many doctrines capable of being badly warped.</p>

<p>

This process of “fulfillment” is something to which I have consistently alluded so I am not quite certain where your “incapable of understanding” charge is derived.

</p>

<p>You, sir, are simply blindsided to the type of fulfillment individuals may receive from religious pursuits, as it is an activity you have abstained from.</p>

<p>

First of all, atheism, is not a belief or a faith or whatever one may construe it to be. It is the absence of one.

</p>

<p>You clearly believe in the infallibility of science; that serves as your belief.</p>

<p>

I have the full right to discuss whatever portion of this topic that I please and in what way are my arguments misrepresentative of the actions and dogged beliefs that are explicitly articulated by the religious followers in this thread?

</p>

<p>You’ve referred to me as a creationist. That’s just one of your many exaggerated depictions on this thread.</p>

<p>

By using the Christian bible and assuming its assertions to stand as truths.

</p>

<p>My belief in the veracity of the Bible’s claims stems from faith. I need no quantitative proof to have it.</p>

<p>

You use a book that is not any more justifiably accurate than any other piece of fiction.

</p>

<p>Again, through qualitative justification and faith, the Bible is justifiable for anyone who wishes to do so.</p>

<p>

Curiously, faith operates on a non-empirical, non-rational basis, yet it attempts to dabble in “explaining” empirical phenomena when it has absolutely no validity to do so.

</p>

<p>Name one empirical phenomenon whose machinations the Bible dictates without room for interpretation to include a variety of possible means for the occurrence of such an event.</p>

<p>

Contradictions across the entire superset of religious foundation, which are supremely numerous, inevitably do deny logical coexistence.

</p>

<p>Mindless blathering at its best. So two religions can’t both be right. What an earth-shattering truth.</p>

<p>

Repeat this process across the entire religious spectrum for every system of belief that has ever existed, for every religious assertion, for every foundational basis and you will demonstrate the dubiousness and the high degree of falsity inherent in the entire theological perspective.

</p>

<p>Those who extrapolate and tergiversate the original intent in the seminal texts of any religion - take Sufism in Islam, for instance - generally stray quite some distance away from the original intent of the religion.</p>

<p>

I could, for one, by the very seat of my pants, create a religion with 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, or 5,000 gods, declare my bible to be The Three Little Pigs and it would still hold the same degree of authority as any other system of belief.

</p>

<p>Only to you. And furthermore, religious texts are generally written by the founder and his or her followers, not taken from stories written by Joel Chandler Harris/Andrew Lang/James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps/Joseph Jacobs, for that would be plagiarism.</p>

<p>

Mathematically, considering that there is inevitably an infinite number of possibilities for faith-based belief, there is essentially zero probability that one is correct, particularly when each is evaluated on a comparative basis for the sheer search of contradiction, while still completely disregarding where these assertions were initially derived or who originally dreamt them up.

</p>

<p>There is far more overlap between religions than contradiction.</p>

<p>

Even if one wishes to cling to this slight probability, one must recognize that the “evidence” for one religion is vastly superseded by the evidence from other beliefs since the number of adherents to one particular religion are supremely outnumbered by the number of adherents across all other beliefs.

</p>

<p>Your above assertion makes no sense whatsoever. Simply because of the large number of religions and belief systems, we must discount the reasons we have for choosing a particular religion because a multiplicity of ideas makes ours false? Rubbish.</p>

<p>

Thus, one must conclude that the possibility for one religion to be uniformly correct across all assertions is boundlessly overrode by the chance of its falsity.

</p>

<p>Unless one:</p>

<ol>
<li>Considers the fact that significant overlap exists,</li>
<li>Finds significant proof for belief in one’s choice of a qualitative realm that supersedes the importance of any possible contradictions, and</li>
<li>Goes into IDGAF mode when discussing such matters.</li>
</ol>

<p>

By the Humean paradigm, whatever is different (particularly in regard to systems purported as absolute, unquestionable basis of fact), is contrary.

</p>

<p>

Moreover, by religion’s very diversity, “evidence” for one must inevitably serve the effect as evidence against another, which is, in turn, reciprocated.

</p>

<p>Name-dropping in no way enhances your argument, or lack thereof. Hume’s position on a variety of religious issues and venomous attitude towards religion in general makes him an extremely biased authority, thus significantly weakening your appeal to his, much like your usage of Dawkins. In some instances, the Humean paradigm may hold true, but not in all. Just look at the Shinto and Christian versions of creation.</p>

<p>There is a significant degree of overlap in the Abrahamic religions. In the contrast between, say, Shintoism and Christianity, the foundations for belief in divinely inspired creation are also quite similar. Take [url=<a href=“http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT1.HTM]this[/url”>http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT1.HTM]this[/url</a>] as an example, then contrast it with [url=<a href=“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:6-10&version=NIV;KJV]this[/url”>http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:6-10&version=NIV;KJV]this[/url</a>]. There is a startling lack of salient disparities between the two. Evidence for one does not directly contradict with or undercut evidence for another.</p>

<p>

Do you mean the Tuskegee experiment?

</p>

<p>Thank you for indicating that spelling error; I usually proofread my posts, but evidently, this escaped my attention.</p>

<p>

That was primarily motivated out of racist and ideological tendencies and indeed, an ulterior faith in an inherent sociological dichotomy.

</p>

<p>Not only that, but it was an instance where science had been subverted to satisfy the already-ingrained belief in the superiority of Caucasians in general, much like religion can be used to justify beliefs totally at odds with its precepts.</p>

<p>

Faith is perniciously indoctrinated as a virtue, when in essence it breeds a complacency in our thought because it is taught in such a fashion so that it does not require justification and the mention of any counterargument, dissent, or protestation is thought as a mortal sin.

</p>

<p>The Bible mentions no where in its contents that disagreement with what is being propounded is a mortal sin. More straw men.</p>

<p>

I have never participated in a church environment

</p>

<p>And there is the lack of immersion.</p>

<p>

was taught during the first years of my life, that the “God” concept “explains” things.

</p>

<p>As a good deal of children are; this does not in any way, shape, or form, qualify as immersion.</p>

<p>

You state that you understand the concept of a progressive, stepwise procedure that increases the biological complexity – and state that you fully agree with it – yet you state that you do not believe it. Instead, you resort back to the fill-the-gap belief.

</p>

<p>Let me break it down for you, because you still don’t get it.</p>

<p>I understand the process of evolution as it contributes to the increasing complexity of organisms.
I do not fully agree with every single aspect of evolutionary theory.
I do not substitute God for missing links in the chain of scientific evidence. Rather, I feel that God is present in every new scientific discovery. </p>

<p>

I did mention the hard evidence provided by colonial theory, but it is not safe to assume that it is incontrovertibly true.

</p>

<p>And so I shall not.</p>

<p>

“God did it. Problem solved! We don’t need to work on anything – we already know.”

</p>

<p>What - or who - on earth are you quoting?</p>

[ksarmand]

<p>

@Adenine

baelor: Go ahead and call me a 7th grader, ignorant, and whatever else. Keep that religious morality going.

</p>

<p>Please, Adenine. Baelor’s behavior does not stem from any “religious morality.” Stop ascribing everything negative outgrowth of a person’s personality that you see to religion, which you have indicated you hardly understand anyway.</p>

<p>

@Baelor

Out of curiosity, are there any college or college-bound students here not attending HYP?

</p>

<p>A good deal of the individuals posting excessively long responses here are going to HYP, I think.</p>

[xrCalico23]

<p>Some day, I’m going to find the time, the patience, and the motivation to read through this entire thread…</p>

[ksarmand]

<p>^Haha, you know you love it. :)</p>

[CelaPlusAimaple]

<p>^^ each post itself is a challenge. This makes Moodrets look trollish and succinct in its droll protractedness, which I find remarkable for a thread founded on the completely illogical assumption that religion nixes the influence of science in someone’s train of thought and vice versa</p>

[ksarmand]

<p>

This makes Moodrets look laconic and succinct

</p>

<p>Agreed. Mifune dwarfs Sir Humphrey Appleby’s speech considerably.</p>

[CelaPlusAimaple]

<p>I find it quite amusing. It’s as though Yosef and Francis Bacon were combined into one syntax</p>

[Baelor]

<p>

baelor: Go ahead and call me a 7th grader, ignorant, and whatever else. Keep that religious morality going.

</p>

<p>I’m not perfect But why again is this relevant?</p>

[Millancad]

<p>

@Baelor

Out of curiosity, are there any college or college-bound students here not attending HYP? O.o

@Baelor

Yeah, it feels like all the posters still posting who are not seniors/in college are. Whatever.

I post more than I should say, and I’m not going to HYP.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>^ MIT’s not too shabby. :)</p>

[Millancad]

<p>^Yeah, but I would never think to say any of the things all these Crimsons have been writing. I would also probably start crying if I got involved in this discussion :(.</p>

[MIThopeful16]

<p>I doubt I’ll go to HYP, unless they can guarantee I won’t pay more than 15,000 a year IF I was admitted.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>^ Are you anticipating merit aid elsewhere? HYPS have the most generous need-based financial aid in the country.</p>