Can Science Explain Religion?

dealing with it wrote:

Sench wrote:That wasn't so hard, now was it?

The question of whether or not this question is so easy as to have been answered in 3 short lines depends, in this case, on whether or not those three short lines are both scientific and thorough.

I have considered the three main meanings the word "religion" could have and answered each with a simple summary based solely on facts. Granted, said facts may be incomplete, but I left nothing to assumption.

Can science explain religion, as in church? Yes. It is a social institute created to unite a like-minded group of people for the sake of kinship and, quite often, to abuse this unity for personal gain.

This sounds like an attempt at an anthropological definition. If it wasn't for your transparent bias "abuse this unity for personal gain", something like this might appear in the front of a first year textbook (Anthropology 101). Then the rest of the textbook will attempt to explain religion from a non-religious perspective, successfully or not, scientifically or not. So what you've done is pointed in the direction of anthropology and expected that we might believe some anthropological explanation of religion might be complete and accurate. While only saying the definition, not the explanation.

You're confusing the words "bias" and "fact". History is full to the brim with accounts of religious organizations getting involved in things that weren't any of their business and blatantly disregarding their own sacred texts. It's good that you have the qualification to belittle my statement by saying "this is elementary", but I fail to see how it or anthropology in general is incorrect. Of course I'm going to look at religion from a non-religious (rational) perspective, it's the only way I could hope to come to an objective conclusion. In case you forgot, religion is about faith and irrational thinking, which are subjective (or biased if you prefer) by definition, so you can't reach an objective answer by looking at religion from a religious perspective.

Can science explain religion, as in faith? Yes. People choose to believe in god for a vast number of psychological reasons and/or because they were taught to do so.

Again, with the finger pointing. Freud wrote "The Future of an Illusion" where he attempted to describe religion in psychological terms; I consider it to be an utter failure; it's barely science, and completely misunderstands religion. Could you please specify whose psychological account is scientific and accurate?

You are entitled to your opinion, of course. But you're implying that nobody is "scientific and accurate"; it's not a rational statement, it's the refusal to accept any rational statement you do not wish to accept as potentially true. If I am, in fact, accusing you wrongly, would you please explain how his work is unscientific and misunderstands religion, with actual quotes and your take on them? Mind you, psychology did not exist as the science we know today in his time. That said, I do not agree with a lot of what Freud says, but his reasoning is sound; the problem is the diversity of the human mind.

Can science explain religion, as in God? No. God defies explanation and cannot be defined by scientific terms and methods.

What about non-scientific terms? Can you define God without scientific terms and methods and hope for accuracy? Can religions explain themselves? What of science: can we use science to explain science?

Non-scientific terms cannot really explain anything. Every word that has a clearly defined meaning is a scientific term while every word that does not is a non-scientific term; this is a simplified explanation, of course. It's obvious you can't define something using words the meaning of which is not defined. Non-scientific terms also have a meaning, but two people may understand it differently. If you could explain God using specific terms, it wouldn't be God who created the universe we know so little about.

Can religions explain science?

Define the meaning of "religion" and "science" you're using here, please.

Sench,

In case you forgot, religion is about faith and irrational thinking, which are subjective (or biased if you prefer) by definition, so you can't reach an objective answer by looking at religion from a religious perspective.

Until you can see the rational in religion, you will have a very superficial perspective of the world. You haven't a monopoly over rationality. You are positively dripping with bias; it leaks from your every definition. The irony is you seem to think you're only dealing with "facts".

But you're implying that nobody is "scientific and accurate"; it's not a rational statement, it's the refusal to accept any rational statement you do not wish to accept as potentially true.

I'm being skeptical of your position. I think it's a perfectly natural question to ask someone who points to psychology to ask which psychological view, exactly, they are pointing at. Not Freud, certainly! Which psychological explanation of religion captures the whole phenomenon? It would be absurd for me to take "people [have a] vast number of psychological reasons" as a decent answer, don't you think? When you don't apply yourself, there is no difference between science and random ejaculations. Science becomes scientism, a pretentious list of half-comprehended beliefs, and not a method for gaining knowledge.

I've found that explanations of religion from outsiders tend to miss the point. Why do Buddhists value meditation? Is there something about meditation that only someone who meditates can appreciate? What about prayer? Maybe you don't have the faintest clue what is involved with prayer. Or, maybe you already pray, but don't have the context to know that that's what you're doing.

If I am, in fact, accusing you wrongly, would you please explain how his work is unscientific and misunderstands religion, with actual quotes and your take on them?

As you don't even believe in Freud, it's quite evident you just want me to waste my time. Why? I don't care about your motive. But I think I adequately showed that you accused me wrongly without going through all the trouble of quote-mining a book I haven't owned for a decade. It is you who has made the unsupported claim, who needs to provide evidence that psychology explains religion. I'm the skeptic here; you're the one who claimed certain knowledge that science does X without one lick of evidence. (Whether or not psychology is even a science is a follow-up question, but I'll leave that can of worms alone.)

Define the meaning of "religion" and "science" you're using here, please.

For the sake of this dicussion, "religion" can be replaced by the name of any major world religion, from Hinduism to paganism to Christianity. A potential candidate for a common feature is the idea of salvation: usually there's an indication of the best way to live one's life. Otherwise, religions are crucibles of hotly-contested beliefs, from morality to metaphysics.

By "science" I am specifically excluding both pseudoscience and scientism, since I don't give a shit about people who pretend to do science because they feel only the appearance of science makes their beliefs legitimate. Science is a highly skeptical activity which uses the hypothetico-deductive model of reasoning to invent and perform tests. I'd say that's the absolute minimum condition: if you aren't reasoning in that way, you probably aren't engaging in science. (Formerly, before Hume, inductive reasoning was also widely used.)

I tried to keep that to a third perspective: philosophical reasoning.

Religious people definitely make statements about science and scientists. Can their criticisms be valid without they themselves using science? Personally, I think it is the height of absurdity to believe that only scientists can think about science.

Until you can see the rational in religion, you will have a very superficial perspective of the world. You haven't a monopoly over rationality. You are positively dripping with bias; it leaks from your every definition. The irony is you seem to think you're only dealing with "facts".

What I said is not my own idea; it's a conclusion the great majority of philosophers throughout history came to.

I'm being skeptical of your position. I think it's a perfectly natural question to ask someone who points to psychology to ask which psychological view, exactly, they are pointing at. Not Freud, certainly! Which psychological explanation of religion captures the whole phenomenon? It would be absurd for me to take "people [have a] vast number of psychological reasons" as a decent answer, don't you think? When you don't apply yourself, there is no difference between science and random ejaculations. Science becomes scientism, a pretentious list of half-comprehended beliefs, and not a method for gaining knowledge.

I've found that explanations of religion from outsiders tend to miss the point. Why do Buddhists value meditation? Is there something about meditation that only someone who meditates can appreciate? What about prayer? Maybe you don't have the faintest clue what is involved with prayer. Or, maybe you already pray, but don't have the context to know that that's what you're doing.

I said psychology can explain faith, why people would choose to believe in something, which is a behavior, but you can find a uniform reason no more than everybody is the same. And you're asking to explain other sides of religion, something that is not even relevant to psychology. Also, the "point" of a religion is completely subjective, once again pretty much unique to every person.

As you don't even believe in Freud, it's quite evident you just want me to waste my time. Why? I don't care about your motive. But I think I adequately showed that you accused me wrongly without going through all the trouble of quote-mining a book I haven't owned for a decade. It is you who has made the unsupported claim, who needs to provide evidence that psychology explains religion. I'm the skeptic here; you're the one who claimed certain knowledge that science does X without one lick of evidence. (Whether or not psychology is even a science is a follow-up question, but I'll leave that can of worms alone.)

To start with, belief is a term inapplicable to a person and their works that factually exist (used to in case of Freud himself). I disagree with a lot of his points simply because I want to believe there is something more to the existence of the human mind.

For the sake of this dicussion, "religion" can be replaced by the name of any major world religion, from Hinduism to paganism to Christianity. A potential candidate for a common feature is the idea of salvation: usually there's an indication of the best way to live one's life. Otherwise, religions are crucibles of hotly-contested beliefs, from morality to metaphysics.

By "science" I am specifically excluding both pseudoscience and scientism, since I don't give a shit about people who pretend to do science because they feel only the appearance of science makes their beliefs legitimate. Science is a highly skeptical activity which uses the hypothetico-deductive model of reasoning to invent and perform tests. I'd say that's the absolute minimum condition: if you aren't reasoning in that way, you probably aren't engaging in science. (Formerly, before Hume, inductive reasoning was also widely used.)

I tried to keep that to a third perspective: philosophical reasoning.

Religious people definitely make statements about science and scientists. Can their criticisms be valid without they themselves using science? Personally, I think it is the height of absurdity to believe that only scientists can think about science.

So, do you mean the idea that you are supposed to follow some rules to earn some reward or face eternal damnation? Is that your idea which science can't hope to understand? If anything, it would be more interesting to try and understand why different cultures saw such different things as good and bad, but that can be explained by history.
Your definition of science is horrendous. Science is about studying the world (facts) and understanding it (reasoning), most often conducted through analyzing examples of a similar process under slightly varying conditions (tests).
Additionally, all sciences were derived from philosophy, which in itself is just conscious thought. So with a certain margin of error, it could be said that you are doing science whenever you think at all. But if we are talking about specialized sciences, for example quantum physics, then it is actually completely accurate to say that only quantum physicists can talk about quantum physics at any decent level.

Anyway, I thought maybe I was assuming before, but it's clear now. You are ignorant about the meaning of the majority of things you mentioned here, you made a personal attack on me and, of course, how could you not use the old "I have nothing to prove" argument? By the way, you did not "adequately show" anything; what you did is refuse to even attempt it on the grounds that you aren't obliged to.

You are not interested in a discussion at all. You are interested in stating your opinion as the only correct one and dismissing everyone else as incorrect (ignorant, biased or whatever other terms you prefer) using false reasoning and circular logic. Considering you never actually state anything as true, just present questions that are often fundamentally invalid and drop seemingly deep lines (also false ones at times), I'd say the whole topic is a means of self-gratification for you.

And with that, good day to you.

...it is never wise to be rude to a moderator.


A better question, "Can science explain bigotry and chauvinism?"


A chauvinist, taking the definition straight from the dictionary, is, "[...] a blindly devoted patriot." I suppose that the most pertinent questions of the moment are, "Can science and religion accrue chauvinistic support," and, "Related to science or religion, what is the difference between a chauvinist and a student?"

Sench wrote:What I said is not my own idea; it's a conclusion the great majority of philosophers throughout history came to.

Just as when you implied all of psychology is on your side, I'm going to need names. Here especially, because I know and have read easily as many religious philosophers as non-religious ones.

Please drop the smokescreen. As it stands your presence in this thread has only convinced me that you haven't yet understood the question.

Tea wrote: I suppose that the most pertinent questions of the moment are, "Can science and religion accrue chauvinistic support," and, "Related to science or religion, what is the difference between a chauvinist and a student?"

Indeed.

dealing with it wrote:As it stands your presence in this thread has only convinced me that you haven't yet understood the question.

I definitely don't understand the question -- what do you mean by "the phenomenon of religion, and for various religious/spiritual things that happen"? Examples?

solidmatterdrive25 wrote:

dealing with it wrote:As it stands your presence in this thread has only convinced me that you haven't yet understood the question.

I definitely don't understand the question -- what do you mean by "the phenomenon of religion, and for various religious/spiritual things that happen"? Examples?

When I wrote that line, I was specifically thinking of tulpas, voluntary hallucinations that Tibetan monks allegedly can create after years of meditation. All knowledge of tulpas is anecdotal. It's pure subjectivity. I don't believe that it would be even possible to study them scientifically. (Most of what I was saying was with Buddhism in mind: I wasn't thinking of God at all.)

That becomes a problem with a lot of other religious experiences, such as an answered prayer or an accurate Tarot reading. Such things simply can't be studied objectively.

But the important thing about my question is that I don't want to devalue these experiences because they are not scientific. That is the attitude that I am combating. I call that scientism. Just because science doesn't fit everything doesn't mean only scientific thought is worth anything. Even if science has nothing to say about religious experience, it does not follow that religious experience is without value.

On the other extreme, just because I find scientism a worthless attitude, does not mean I think scientific inquiry is worthless.

The question of the thread is a lead-in. It takes less than a minute to generate some answer to it, but that's not the point of asking it. Tea just posted something that shows down which road this train of thought leads.

That's about as explicit I can get; contrary to the claims of Sench, I have no desire to dominate or overpower this debate with my opinions. My opinions are only worth anything to me so long as they help others express their own opinions.

dealing with it wrote:When I wrote that line, I was specifically thinking of tulpas, voluntary hallucinations that Tibetan monks allegedly can create after years of meditation. All knowledge of tulpas is anecdotal. It's pure subjectivity. I don't believe that it would be even possible to study them scientifically. (Most of what I was saying was with Buddhism in mind: I wasn't thinking of God at all.)

Maybe not, but a scientific explanation is easy to provide for them -- considering how prone our mind is to 'seeing things' already, i don't doubt you could learn how to do it on purpose. And then use Occam's Razor.

That becomes a problem with a lot of other religious experiences, such as an answered prayer or an accurate Tarot reading. Such things simply can't be studied objectively.

Without mindreading i don't think you can scientifically study 'tulpas', but why not prayer or Tarot card readings? While you can always provide a reason as to why the studies are invalid, like 'God doesn't want to be scientifically proven', you could still study whether people's prayers can affect things greater than chance and whether people can accurately predict things with Tarot cards.

But the important thing about my question is that I don't want to devalue these experiences because they are not scientific.

To have something devalued, it needs to be shown to exist in the first place.

Just because science doesn't fit everything doesn't mean only scientific thought is worth anything.

True; but when you're talking about facts, not just philosophy or anything, i don't see what else could be better, or even anywhere close to as good, as science.

solidmatterdrive25 wrote:While you can always provide a reason as to why the studies are invalid, like 'God doesn't want to be scientifically proven', you could still study whether people's prayers can affect things greater than chance and whether people can accurately predict things with Tarot cards.

Many people, with prayer, interpret an answer received as when they get what they should have wanted, rather than what they explicitly wished for. They are comforted by the new wisdom they received. So it's not as simple as saying "you wished God would cure for your cancer and you were cured"; sometimes it's "you prayed for a cure for your cancer and instead learned how to cope with it." Both are answers.

This makes studying prayer difficult from the outside, in much the same way that studying tulpas is difficult. It's not that God doesn't want to be proven scientifically: that's not a complete picture of the situation, and I'd call any Christian who uses "God is hiding things from science" as a defense immature in their understanding of their own religion. The problem is that the answer received is subjective and often only meaningful to the beneficiary in a deeply personal way. It's not necessarily a weakness in the belief in God, nor a weakness in science. It's simply a limitation to be recognized, a point where we're forced to say that the theories of knowledge that underlie modern science have a domain, and that domain is finite. Neither atheist nor theist uses science legitimately when applying it to God. (I am an atheist, but not for scientific reasons.)

Same thing with Tarot cards. I'm pretty confident that the best Tarot readers know that the cards are completely random. It's a tool that helps express one's intuition about a situation, and readers respect Tarot cards as a tool. A study of Tarot cards would be a study of intuition, and that, too, is internal. When, out of curiousity, I had a Tarot reading a while ago, it was like the reader was talking to me with nudges and sly winks. It's possible to carry on a conversation at that level, and I often do (such as when children are in the room and I don't want to be understood by them). I won't consider that form of intuition scientifically explained until a computer can be programmed to simulate a conversation of that subtlety. It might have to wait until long after computers are writing decent novels for us. (Online Tarot readings don't even scratch the surface.)

(So you don't take this argument personally, I'm more Devil's Advocate than not, here. As I said, I'm an atheist. I'd also rather have an honest chat with someone than a Tarot reading. I'm just kind of tired of taking the same side every time.)

dealing with it wrote:Many people, with prayer, interpret an answer received as when they get what they should have wanted, rather than what they explicitly wished for. They are comforted by the new wisdom they received. So it's not as simple as saying "you wished God would cure for your cancer and you were cured"; sometimes it's "you prayed for a cure for your cancer and instead learned how to cope with it." Both are answers.

Yeah, but one is a copout. The idea of a personal god doesn't make any damn sense -- but that's besides the point.

This makes studying prayer difficult from the outside, in much the same way that studying tulpas is difficult. It's not that God doesn't want to be proven scientifically: that's not a complete picture of the situation, and I'd call any Christian who uses "God is hiding things from science" as a defense immature in their understanding of their own religion. The problem is that the answer received is subjective and often only meaningful to the beneficiary in a deeply personal way. It's not necessarily a weakness in the belief in God, nor a weakness in science. It's simply a limitation to be recognized, a point where we're forced to say that the theories of knowledge that underlie modern science have a domain, and that domain is finite. Neither atheist nor theist uses science legitimately when applying it to God. (I am an atheist, but not for scientific reasons.)

Maybe not in an entirely technical sense, but there are many religious claims that also deal with the physical world that science can investigate, and you can also use logic (such as Occam's Razor or reductios ad absurdums)[/i].

I don't see why claims should be given any weight if there's no evidence behind them. If that's 'scientism', then so be it.

I won't consider that form of intuition scientifically explained until a computer can be programmed to simulate a conversation of that subtlety.

There's a great explanation for intuition: the subconscious. Until we gain any contradicting information, i consider it plenty explained.

Before the thread degenerates further I feel it relevant to point out that Science measures the physical reality. Science uses physical tools to do so. Physical tools do not act in the same technological medium as Spiritual Values. Physical tools can not measure spiritual values accurately, if they are able to do so at all. Despite the teachings of Philosophy, and specifically Psychology, Religions do occasionally attempt to weigh and move matters which are neither physical nor mental.

To be a little more precise, "Scientism is the assumption that no spiritual things exist."

That a spiritual reality exists is inherent in the opening post and query of this thread. Those individuals who refuse to entertain this possibility can not participate correctly in the thread.


...and also...my fellow forum members... The Rules are here. Let us bide by them.

Sorry to not have answered earlier but to Sench, rationality is beyond religion or science. Someone who is religious can be rational, while a scientist can also be rational. But if a scientist isn't rational then he isn't a true scientist as anyone can claim they are scientists or have claims (although through skeptical thinking these claims can be can be fallacies). A rational thinker wouldn't assume a thought that is bias as rationality allows anything to be possible, even if it may be absurd in a direct environment (such as a planetary environment). We do not know if the laws of nature on Earth apply to the other end of the universe as theories can be hypothetical.

Science cannot explain religion since at our level of intelligence not everything is able to be explained. You can come close at times by philosophical think as it takes everything in consideration and through skepticism it can be thoroughly thought through.

Rationality by definition is "the ability to think on the basis of reason". Reason by definition is "the ability of the human mind to form and operate on concepts in abstraction, in an ordered and usually a goal-oriented manner". Simply assuming an answer is not based on abstract thought but on simple dull thought, not based on intellect but rather bigotry. Just because science cannot explain a deity and you assume that deities are existent doesn't make you a rational person and just because religion cannot prove a deity and you assume that deities are non-existent doesn't make you rational either. Rational people are rather the third way thinkers since through abstract thinking they come to different opinions. Nothing is ever as simple as an irrational person will think it might be.

So irrationality leads to bias as biased people tend to see their opinion as fact when it isn't.

Define a deity. Do it. You will not get it right. I think might know what I am up to.

Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with this, but I did see the use of Occam's Razor as a way to explaining science to be the be all and end all answer. Trust me, if Occam's Razor was right, then logically, Religion would probably be right.

How does the earth revolve around the sun? There are two ways to answer that.
-E=MC^2 is one of them. Then we go into the details of it. What is E, what is M and what is C.
-"God does it" is the other way to answer. Now, some may say that the questions one would have to ask is "What is God", but that is not necessary in answering how the earth revolves around the sun. Therefore, Occam's Razor would say that this answer is the simplest one and must be the correct one because of it.

Occam's Razor as a defense to Science doesn't really fly with me. Occam's Razor itself is too simple. As Albert Einstein once said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Occam's Razor to me is the simpler. I cannot accept it as being "logic".

Mr_Doomed wrote:Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with this, but I did see the use of Occam's Razor as a way to explaining science to be the be all and end all answer. Trust me, if Occam's Razor was right, then logically, Religion would probably be right.

How does the earth revolve around the sun? There are two ways to answer that.
-E=MC^2 is one of them. Then we go into the details of it. What is E, what is M and what is C.
-"God does it" is the other way to answer. Now, some may say that the questions one would have to ask is "What is God", but that is not necessary in answering how the earth revolves around the sun. Therefore, Occam's Razor would say that this answer is the simplest one and must be the correct one because of it.

Firstly, Occam's Razor isn't an absolute, it's a heuristic -- there are no 'musts'. Secondly, the razor is, in a perfect scenario, supposed to be used only between two competing hypotheses that both equally well explain the data, and 'Goddidit' doesn't. Thirdly, bringing in a god supposes a very complex being who lives in a hitherto unknown 'dimension', which we have almost no information on, especially empirical data -- so is that really simpler than the physical laws we already know that?

Occam's Razor as a defense to Science doesn't really fly with me. Occam's Razor itself is too simple. As Albert Einstein once said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Occam's Razor to me is the simpler. I cannot accept it as being "logic".

So, to paraphrase RationalWiki, if all the food in your fridge was gone, you would consider the theory that a gang of international thieves it and the theory that your roommate and xyr hungry friends ate it all last night equal?

Actually, 'Goddidit' (as you so eloquently put it and respectfully put it) does explain it. It explains it much simpler than anything else does. It is a hypothesis just as much as E=MC^2 is. It can explain everything in one simple statement, where E=MC^2 needs much more explanation.
Physical laws are only subject to what we can sense. What if we can't sense certain things? I believe it is science who seems to claim the existence of something called "dark matter"; Something that cannot be sensed as it literally passes through regular matter. Seems like just as much proof exists for that as does God. The best part about it is that this dark matter is needed for science in order for an anomaly that was discovered in space to fit with the theory of relativity. So both Goddidit and E=MC^2 hinges on something that can not be physically found. All of 50 years worth of physics could be equated to all the silly theories that people had in the past that the earth was flat (and for all I know, it is flat).

Also, just because something seems to exist in our empirical world, it doesn't necessarily exist. I think of people with some form of psychosis, who believe in things that aren't really there. Who's to say that we aren't the same, just we have socially adapted ourselves to be considered "the norm".

I think, therefore I am. That last sentence was the only thing which I believe in with 100% certainty. For all I know, the gang did steel my food, or maybe it was my roommate. Either one is logical given I wasn't actually there to experience it. Or maybe the food never actually existed and it was all just an illusion. Please study epistemology because I believe that if one really wants to seek out knowledge, one should start by studying the philosophy of knowledge.

Tea wrote:To be a little more precise, "Scientism is the assumption that no spiritual things exist."

No. Scientism is where your entire world is based on science. It says nothing about spirtuality, or if it can measure spirituality, or if spirituality exists. Google 'scientism'.

solidmatterdrive25: Both RationalWiki and Conservapedia are terribly bias sources to choose. You can see how people complain about it in the RationalWiki forums.

Though I see that the last thing, that I wrote in my post was completely ignored.

Again I must thank you Dealing With It for starting another interesting topic of discussion. Your posts are always interesting and exceptional which is why read them to the letter unlike certain posts which after reading their first few sentences I see no point in reading on since I am well rehearsed in their continuation. In role play gate way there are many such individuals who have exceptional posts such as Tea and many others.

I shall read the other posts later for I do not currently have the time to read them properly.

On the subject in question I feel that the answer is No however as it is with my personality I never believe that anything is final.

My reasons for this answer are that science and religion are two very different forms of thought. Ideally science explains the physical and religion explains the spiritual (the deeper meanings of existence) however in our age (past 1700 years not including Judea which existed long before that) the existing religions involve themselves less in the spiritual and more in the physical as it has been since the beginning of the "Business magnate" religions.

What I mean by this is religions that like any good Business magnates seek to gain as may buyers as possible and to drive out competition from the market. Social science can indeed explain religions such Christianity Islam and Judaism because all three served the political agenda of control over people and the individuals wish for power over his brother man.
Each claimed to have the one truth and denied all others and used force to pursue this agenda. Indeed the rise of these religions to power in a fascinating subject which I recommend to all and if any one makes a serious study of it one can understand why it is in my opinion impossible for these religions to be true. The existence of a higher being is possible but he would be unrelated to our own religions since they are based only on the will of humams.
I am not saying paganism was an amazing and perfect system which is indisputably true I am however saying that there is deference between a spiritual religion and a political one. My own spiritual belief is about iving everything greater meaning thus do I find peace and enjoyment in my life. On physical matters such as the reason for the universe I forever ask questions. For a long time I believed it was a "sin" to speak of my spiritual belief in words for then they become the words of man and no longer an interpretation of nature. The pagan religions where interpretations of nature and the mind, the names and statues of the gods and goddess where a way for mankind to give those ideas his own image so he could relate to them with greater ease. The desert dogmas are different because they are not interpretations of nature but a will to dominate all life… in my opinion.

Each must undertake his own study to reach his own truth, in my case I once believed in Christianity secretly because of its lack of popularity in my environment however my eyes where opened to the truth about the cult when I saw the corruption within it. At first I believed this to be individual corruptions unrelated to the religion however I came to see how all three religions where based each on the will of men to dominate and rule over their brothers and sisters and even if each began with noble goals each inevitably succumbed to corruption. It became all too clear to me that those religions did not represent a god, they represented the will of man to dominate man and in my own spiritual faith that is the part god takes; he represents the will of man to rule man. Any religion that has within its text only the words you shall not clearly expresses a will to rule upon you. Any religion that claims to be the one truth already denies its own truth for if other religions are lies why should the other not be a lie just as if the other religion is true why should the others not be true? To this the desert dogma's have only one answer; because we said so or because they are evil because we said so.
When a religion has men calming to speak in the name of gods it is clearly a religion fueled by mans desire to rule as a god over mankind. When a religion claims to have created everything it is an attempt at crushing mankind's natural will to question for when one questions something it is a threat to the answer another has found.

It is possible to explain such religons with social and political S becuase that is in essense what they are. I do not represent the truth because i think there is no one truth as i think there is no one of anything. I have no one answer and I forever find new ways of seeing nature and myself there shall never be one final answer to me for it is the qwestion which I seek and not the answer.

Sorry if this post is muddled, I simply have no words in which to describe by own spiritual belief because I have never needed them to describe it. All right i have made a righ mess out of this post... help.

Mr_Doomed wrote:Actually, 'Goddidit' (as you so eloquently put it and respectfully put it) does explain it.

What better term to the explain the view that it's God responsible for things that happen(ed) in our universe than 'God did it', shortened to 'goddidit'?

It explains it much simpler than anything else does. It is a hypothesis just as much as E=MC^2 is. It can explain everything in one simple statement, where E=MC^2 needs much more explanation.

Except it doesn't actually explain anything, it just replaces the question with more questions of 'God'. You're misunderstanding what 'simple' means in Occam's Razor -- it's not 'simple to explain', it's (according to Wikipedia) simple as in 'makes the fewest assumptions'. To suppose a god, you have to make a ton of assumptions, and since we know physical laws and whatnot any scientific explanation would almost certainly make fewer.

Physical laws are only subject to what we can sense. What if we can't sense certain things? I believe it is science who seems to claim the existence of something called "dark matter"; Something that cannot be sensed as it literally passes through regular matter.

But, hypothetically, we can still detect its existence.

Seems like just as much proof exists for that as does God.

Dark matter isn't proven.

The best part about it is that this dark matter is needed for science in order for an anomaly that was discovered in space to fit with the theory of relativity.

There was a hole, so scientists filled the gap with an hypothesis to explain it. There are other explanations that fill the same gap.

So both Goddidit and E=MC^2 hinges on something that can not be physically found.

Fewest assumptions; and through scientific testing, we already have alot of evidence that E=MC^2 is true, so instead of throwing it out because an anomaly was discovered, a hypothesis was proposed.

All of 50 years worth of physics could be equated to all the silly theories that people had in the past that the earth was flat (and for all I know, it is flat).

So you're saying science is worthless?

Also, just because something seems to exist in our empirical world, it doesn't necessarily exist.

Technically reality is subjective, but most of us can agree on things that exist.

I think, therefore I am. That last sentence was the only thing which I believe in with 100% certainty. For all I know, the gang did steel my food, or maybe it was my roommate. Either one is logical given I wasn't actually there to experience it. Or maybe the food never actually existed and it was all just an illusion. Please study epistemology because I believe that if one really wants to seek out knowledge, one should start by studying the philosophy of knowledge.

Have fun with pyrrhonism.

Aniihya wrote:solidmatterdrive25: Both RationalWiki and Conservapedia are terribly bias sources to choose.

I was only citing it for an example of when you should and would use Occam's Razor in real life because, not for any of my actual arguments.

You can see how people complain about it in the RationalWiki forums.

If people complain about it, then it must be bad.

Though I see that the last thing, that I wrote in my post was completely ignored.

Weren't you addressing Sench?

The last thing about the definition of a deity was addressed to everyone for a particular reason.