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Downvote me to death, but I cannot understand how someone can be so smart to study science and still believe in ancient religions...

by ultim8k 11y ago

theworstshill 11y ago
Its probably not the ancient religion they want to defend, but the way of life it allows them. Imagine someone barges in to your home and starts creating rules for you - e.g. from now only you only pee sitting down on the toilet. You also need to go to bed at 9pm sharp. All for your own good, etc...
JoshCole 11y ago
Preface: I'm completely opposed to terrorism and the wider Muslim faith from which it grows. That said... You're making the assumption that God isn't real. I know this assumption to be incorrect. This assumption has some support that makes it appear more right than it is, for a lot of reasons. For example: Its regular practice for parents to lie to their children about Santa Claus existing and then for those children to later find out that in fact Santa Claus does not exist. It's also regular practice for people to make idols out of men when they shouldn't. Nowadays there is a tendency to have a lot of very clever people not believe. (This was foretold in scripture by Jesus Christ.( Don't be wise in your own conceit and think that lack of religion produces cleverness. Plenty of scientists throughout history have been religious. Moreover, a lot of the tools that clever people tend to use nowadays like probability theory were originally discovered by people who were religious. Take Bayes as an example of that. I suggest you read the Gospels about Jesus Christ and actively try to believe that God is both real and a rewarder of those who seek him. And if it feels like you're being asked to be an idiot please check out Proverbs. I don't think anyone can read through that and at the end of it feel that religion and understanding are opposed. And unfortunately the stuff about a Devil that deceives the world is also accurate. So if you do end up doing that make sure not to forget the good news.
sytelus 11y ago
Fun fact: Donald Knuth, perhaps one of the most important computer scientist of our times and epitom of rational and logic, is a very very religions man. From Wikipedia: In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Lutheran,[21] is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated,[22] in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf. From psychology theory perspective, when you are kid you are boot loading your "firmware". This is the time in your life, where no questions are asked about validity of any statements and whatever is in the firmware is accepted as fundamental undeniable un-erasable core of your being. You will sure go on to learn from your environment and build your "kernel" on the top of it but everything must eventually reconcile with your firmware somehow. So there are many great scientists who are extremely religions and have spent in-ordinate amount of their lives justifying and rationalizing ancient verses with findings of the modern science. From a pure psychology point of view, the huge continuous dose of religions education at very early age is the primary reason why people in Islamic faith as well as parts of Christianity, Judaism and others are more stricter followers of their religion even when many of them turn out to be Nobel prize winners. So if you were ever to create a religion that would last for thousands of years, here's the tip: Make sure your ritual requires intense religious teachings at very early age. This is not to say that above mechanism is the only mechanism why people become religious. Many people do genuinely believe in presence of some greater being independent of religion just due to consequence of their rationalization process (aka "spiritual"). Lots of people also tend to become much more religious in older age regardless of religious education during younger age and there is whole bunch of philosophies around that too.

Downvote me to death, but I cannot understand how someone can be so smart to study science and still believe in ancient religions...

by ultim8k 11y ago

Downvote me to death, but I cannot understand how someone can be so smart to study science and still believe in ancient religions...

theworstshill 11y ago

Its probably not the ancient religion they want to defend, but the way of life it allows them. Imagine someone barges in to your home and starts creating rules for you - e.g. from now only you only pee sitting down on the toilet. You also need to go to bed at 9pm sharp. All for your own good, etc...

JoshCole 11y ago

Preface: I'm completely opposed to terrorism and the wider Muslim faith from which it grows. That said... You're making the assumption that God isn't real. I know this assumption to be incorrect. This assumption has some support that makes it appear more right than it is, for a lot of reasons. For example: Its regular practice for parents to lie to their children about Santa Claus existing and then for those children to later find out that in fact Santa Claus does not exist. It's also regular practice for people to make idols out of men when they shouldn't. Nowadays there is a tendency to have a lot of very clever people not believe. (This was foretold in scripture by Jesus Christ.( Don't be wise in your own conceit and think that lack of religion produces cleverness. Plenty of scientists throughout history have been religious. Moreover, a lot of the tools that clever people tend to use nowadays like probability theory were originally discovered by people who were religious. Take Bayes as an example of that. I suggest you read the Gospels about Jesus Christ and actively try to believe that God is both real and a rewarder of those who seek him. And if it feels like you're being asked to be an idiot please check out Proverbs. I don't think anyone can read through that and at the end of it feel that religion and understanding are opposed. And unfortunately the stuff about a Devil that deceives the world is also accurate. So if you do end up doing that make sure not to forget the good news.

sytelus 11y ago

Fun fact: Donald Knuth, perhaps one of the most important computer scientist of our times and epitom of rational and logic, is a very very religions man. From Wikipedia: In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Lutheran,[21] is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated,[22] in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf. From psychology theory perspective, when you are kid you are boot loading your "firmware". This is the time in your life, where no questions are asked about validity of any statements and whatever is in the firmware is accepted as fundamental undeniable un-erasable core of your being. You will sure go on to learn from your environment and build your "kernel" on the top of it but everything must eventually reconcile with your firmware somehow. So there are many great scientists who are extremely religions and have spent in-ordinate amount of their lives justifying and rationalizing ancient verses with findings of the modern science. From a pure psychology point of view, the huge continuous dose of religions education at very early age is the primary reason why people in Islamic faith as well as parts of Christianity, Judaism and others are more stricter followers of their religion even when many of them turn out to be Nobel prize winners. So if you were ever to create a religion that would last for thousands of years, here's the tip: Make sure your ritual requires intense religious teachings at very early age. This is not to say that above mechanism is the only mechanism why people become religious. Many people do genuinely believe in presence of some greater being independent of religion just due to consequence of their rationalization process (aka "spiritual"). Lots of people also tend to become much more religious in older age regardless of religious education during younger age and there is whole bunch of philosophies around that too.