5 ms·

More of a misdirection, really. I cry over the thousands of years of wasted time where humanity has tried to figure out the demands of an entity that simply do

by beders 9y ago

More of a misdirection, really. I cry over the thousands of years of wasted time where humanity has tried to figure out the demands of an entity that simply doesn't exist. Instead, we got dragged into wars, instigated by rulers who manipulated followers of so-called 'holy books' into killing their brethren. We denied education to large parts of the population. We suppressed anything resembling science&progress because it might offend an imaginary being. It's a frigging disaster. Imagine a world where we would have followed science and reason early. Where we didn't destroy libraries, but gradually improved their wisdom. All those years down the drain. Sigh.

vumgl 9y ago
Not only wasted time, but also wasted intellectual energy. Many theologians and apologetics are often smart people that could use their intellect to more useful (i.e. right direction) domains.
- 09bjb 9y ago
  Moral questions are religious questions. Can suffering be scientifically observed and quantified? The "right direction" is a fairly large, old, and subtle debate without an easy or obvious answer. While I'm totally on board with the idea that furthering scientific knowledge is a net positive, we're definitely suffering these days from an overabundance of powerful technology and a deficit of "right direction" for that technology. Thinking deeply about what exactly the right direction is in no way strikes me as wasted intellectual effort.
  - vumgl 9y ago
    Can suffering be observed and quantified using religion? I would still use science for that.
  - redial 9y ago
    Moral questions are moral questions, and they are hard. Religion has just convinced you, despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, that you should equate religion with morality, when only one look at their 'holy' places and institutions should suffice for any one to conclude they are not in the least related.
  - beders 9y ago
    Organized religion would like you to think that 'Moral questions are religious questions.' That's just flat our wrong. Morality is fluid and has been re-defined by people living in tribes or larger societies. One can argue fairly well that we would already live in a more just world if we would have skipped that non-sense of believing in a higher being. For example, we now agree slavery is kinda bad. Yet, not too long ago the bible was used to justify slavery around the world. Who's to thank for this progress? Certainly not religion.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > For example, we now agree slavery is kinda bad. Yet, not too long ago the bible was used to justify slavery around the world. Who's to thank for this progress? Certainly not religion. The Christian religion (including the Bible, but not always by the subset of Christianity which holds that the former is entirely contained in the latter) was likewise used to justify abolition, and this, like justification of slavery, goes back to the fairly early days of organized Christianity.
      - redial 9y ago
        What does it say that it was actively used with authority (and horrifyingly is still being used) by both sides of the slavery debate? Shouldn't the literal word of the most moral being in the universe be clear regarding slavery, at the very least?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > What does it say that it was actively used with authority (and horrifyingly is still being used) by both sides of the slavery debate? That Christianity isn't a unified hive mind? > Shouldn't the literal word of the most moral being in the universe be clear regarding slavery, at the very least? Arguably it should be, but then the idea that the Bible is the literal word of God is not, itself, a doctrine shared by the whole, or even majority, of the Christian community (it's a doctrine primarily of the evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Protestantism.)
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Moral questions are religious questions. Moral questions are (or at a minimum involve subordinate questions which are) outside the scope of empirical science; in this way they are similar to many religious questions (and the categories overlap), but they are not the same as, or a subset of, religious questions.
    - beders 9y ago
      Moral questions are not outside the scope of empirical science. Religious moral questions are outside the scope of any meaningful questions. (see the various god-related commandments in the 10 commandments, none of those make sense to non-believers)
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > Moral questions are not outside the scope of empirical science. Yes, they are. Science can answer is, it can't answer ought. (It can help reach practical conclusions from moral axioms applied to concrete facts, but that's not really answering moral questions: the choice of axioms is the thing that answers the moral questions, and science can't help you there.)
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Imagine a world where we would have followed science and reason early. Having seen the history of tribalism fused with areligious and antireligious ideologies and empowered by applied science in the modern era, I can't see it as particularly better than the results of tribalism fused with religious ideology but without systematic science earlier in history. Science is a powerful multiplier, but inherently value-free; the values to which it is applied necessarily come from elsewhere
- redial 9y ago
  There has only ever been one source for values: people.
  - beders 9y ago
    Couldn't agree more.
- beders 9y ago
  You can use science to verify ethical statements. That said: The definition of 'tribe' already implies shared values (more often than not centered around a primitive version of the golden rule)
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > You can use science to verify ethical statements No, you can't. (And not just in the sense that science falsifies rather than verifies.) Ethical/moral statements always have a value component that is empirically unfalsifiable. They sometimes also have a falsifiable factual premise that, along with a set of value premises, supports a conclusion. Science can falsify the fact component, and sufficient failute to falsify can justify belief in the false component, but cannot falsify or (by failing to falsify) justify the value component, and therefore cannot justify the statement as a whole.
nvahalik 9y ago
> Instead, we got dragged into wars, instigated by rulers who manipulated followers of so-called 'holy books' into killing their brethren. We denied education to large parts of the population. We suppressed anything resembling science&progress because it might offend an imaginary being. Actually, the biggest and dirtiest wars of at least our recent history were actually driven by men who were atheists (or at least non-theists). Hitler, Pol-pot, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin, Lenin... all atheists with body counts in the tens (hundreds?) of millions. Furthermore, Some of the biggest advances in the sciences (take for example the scientific method as described by Sir Francis Bacon assumed that the universe itself was ordered by God and therefore science was actually possible) and the institutions of higher learning were started as ways to train people for purposes of theology (thinking here of places like Oxford and Princeton). Religion has actually been a huge driver in our ability to teach and understand the world.
- redial 9y ago
  No. Hitler was a catholic, he killed atheists and despised the evolutionary theory. After all, Arian people were supposed to be god's chosens not those jews. He wrote this himself in Mein Kampf. Stalin was a student at a seminary. Every US president has been at last a theist. How many wars has the US been in? How many deaths? Wars have many reasons, most of them non religious. Religion is just used as a excuse and it works every time.
  - nvahalik 9y ago
    > Hitler was a catholic ... Stalin was a student at a seminary If you can prove to me that these men were actually acting in accordance with the stated doctrines of the institutions that they claimed, then your point might be valid. However, it isn't and it won't be because they were not. Man corrupts religions to his advantage—that is not religion's fault. It is man's.
    - redial 9y ago
      Ah, the No-True-Scotsman fallacy. First you lie and claim Hitler was an atheist when in fact he was a catholic until the day he died, and then is somehow my fault? Isn't lying in the ten commandments? I don't know if in his heart he was truly a devout servant of the lord or if he was just pretending, but most importantly, you don't either. All we can be sure is that he claimed to be one, and that the Catholic church embraced him, made treaties with his government, celebrated his birthday officially every year and never excomulgated him. That sounds like a better catholic than most, he made the church a lot of money and, they gladly took it. Whatever he was, he was not an atheist. And he didn't claim to be one, in fact, he claimed the opposite.

by beders 9y ago

vumgl 9y ago

Not only wasted time, but also wasted intellectual energy. Many theologians and apologetics are often smart people that could use their intellect to more useful (i.e. right direction) domains.

09bjb 9y ago
Moral questions are religious questions. Can suffering be scientifically observed and quantified? The "right direction" is a fairly large, old, and subtle debate without an easy or obvious answer. While I'm totally on board with the idea that furthering scientific knowledge is a net positive, we're definitely suffering these days from an overabundance of powerful technology and a deficit of "right direction" for that technology. Thinking deeply about what exactly the right direction is in no way strikes me as wasted intellectual effort.
- vumgl 9y ago
  Can suffering be observed and quantified using religion? I would still use science for that.
- redial 9y ago
  Moral questions are moral questions, and they are hard. Religion has just convinced you, despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, that you should equate religion with morality, when only one look at their 'holy' places and institutions should suffice for any one to conclude they are not in the least related.
- beders 9y ago
  Organized religion would like you to think that 'Moral questions are religious questions.' That's just flat our wrong. Morality is fluid and has been re-defined by people living in tribes or larger societies. One can argue fairly well that we would already live in a more just world if we would have skipped that non-sense of believing in a higher being. For example, we now agree slavery is kinda bad. Yet, not too long ago the bible was used to justify slavery around the world. Who's to thank for this progress? Certainly not religion.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > For example, we now agree slavery is kinda bad. Yet, not too long ago the bible was used to justify slavery around the world. Who's to thank for this progress? Certainly not religion. The Christian religion (including the Bible, but not always by the subset of Christianity which holds that the former is entirely contained in the latter) was likewise used to justify abolition, and this, like justification of slavery, goes back to the fairly early days of organized Christianity.
    - redial 9y ago
      What does it say that it was actively used with authority (and horrifyingly is still being used) by both sides of the slavery debate? Shouldn't the literal word of the most moral being in the universe be clear regarding slavery, at the very least?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > What does it say that it was actively used with authority (and horrifyingly is still being used) by both sides of the slavery debate? That Christianity isn't a unified hive mind? > Shouldn't the literal word of the most moral being in the universe be clear regarding slavery, at the very least? Arguably it should be, but then the idea that the Bible is the literal word of God is not, itself, a doctrine shared by the whole, or even majority, of the Christian community (it's a doctrine primarily of the evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Protestantism.)
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Moral questions are religious questions. Moral questions are (or at a minimum involve subordinate questions which are) outside the scope of empirical science; in this way they are similar to many religious questions (and the categories overlap), but they are not the same as, or a subset of, religious questions.
  - beders 9y ago
    Moral questions are not outside the scope of empirical science. Religious moral questions are outside the scope of any meaningful questions. (see the various god-related commandments in the 10 commandments, none of those make sense to non-believers)
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Moral questions are not outside the scope of empirical science. Yes, they are. Science can answer is, it can't answer ought. (It can help reach practical conclusions from moral axioms applied to concrete facts, but that's not really answering moral questions: the choice of axioms is the thing that answers the moral questions, and science can't help you there.)

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Imagine a world where we would have followed science and reason early. Having seen the history of tribalism fused with areligious and antireligious ideologies and empowered by applied science in the modern era, I can't see it as particularly better than the results of tribalism fused with religious ideology but without systematic science earlier in history. Science is a powerful multiplier, but inherently value-free; the values to which it is applied necessarily come from elsewhere

redial 9y ago
There has only ever been one source for values: people.
- beders 9y ago
  Couldn't agree more.
beders 9y ago
You can use science to verify ethical statements. That said: The definition of 'tribe' already implies shared values (more often than not centered around a primitive version of the golden rule)
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > You can use science to verify ethical statements No, you can't. (And not just in the sense that science falsifies rather than verifies.) Ethical/moral statements always have a value component that is empirically unfalsifiable. They sometimes also have a falsifiable factual premise that, along with a set of value premises, supports a conclusion. Science can falsify the fact component, and sufficient failute to falsify can justify belief in the false component, but cannot falsify or (by failing to falsify) justify the value component, and therefore cannot justify the statement as a whole.

nvahalik 9y ago

> Instead, we got dragged into wars, instigated by rulers who manipulated followers of so-called 'holy books' into killing their brethren. We denied education to large parts of the population. We suppressed anything resembling science&progress because it might offend an imaginary being. Actually, the biggest and dirtiest wars of at least our recent history were actually driven by men who were atheists (or at least non-theists). Hitler, Pol-pot, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin, Lenin... all atheists with body counts in the tens (hundreds?) of millions. Furthermore, Some of the biggest advances in the sciences (take for example the scientific method as described by Sir Francis Bacon assumed that the universe itself was ordered by God and therefore science was actually possible) and the institutions of higher learning were started as ways to train people for purposes of theology (thinking here of places like Oxford and Princeton). Religion has actually been a huge driver in our ability to teach and understand the world.

redial 9y ago
No. Hitler was a catholic, he killed atheists and despised the evolutionary theory. After all, Arian people were supposed to be god's chosens not those jews. He wrote this himself in Mein Kampf. Stalin was a student at a seminary. Every US president has been at last a theist. How many wars has the US been in? How many deaths? Wars have many reasons, most of them non religious. Religion is just used as a excuse and it works every time.
- nvahalik 9y ago
  > Hitler was a catholic ... Stalin was a student at a seminary If you can prove to me that these men were actually acting in accordance with the stated doctrines of the institutions that they claimed, then your point might be valid. However, it isn't and it won't be because they were not. Man corrupts religions to his advantage—that is not religion's fault. It is man's.
  - redial 9y ago
    Ah, the No-True-Scotsman fallacy. First you lie and claim Hitler was an atheist when in fact he was a catholic until the day he died, and then is somehow my fault? Isn't lying in the ten commandments? I don't know if in his heart he was truly a devout servant of the lord or if he was just pretending, but most importantly, you don't either. All we can be sure is that he claimed to be one, and that the Catholic church embraced him, made treaties with his government, celebrated his birthday officially every year and never excomulgated him. That sounds like a better catholic than most, he made the church a lot of money and, they gladly took it. Whatever he was, he was not an atheist. And he didn't claim to be one, in fact, he claimed the opposite.