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I don't think that refugees flew through space on 747's, a la Scientology (I may have gotten the specifics wrong). But, if you can show me how a 747 can fly thr

I don't think that refugees flew through space on 747's, a la Scientology (I may have gotten the specifics wrong). But, if you can show me how a 747 can fly through space, I am more than happy to be shown the error of my ways. Many religions have falsifiable ideas in them. Some of their "core tenets" may not be falsifiable but, again, you can't pick and choose through these books to get the pieces parts to fit your conclusion after the fact. That isn't how proofs work.

asimpletune 6y ago
Yeah, I see the point you’re making, and I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I didn’t mean to say that no religion has obviously falsifiable claims in them, and the example you gave is a perfectly fine demonstration. I’d even say obviously Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead, because that’s clearly not possible (and probably besides the point if you are simultaneously a serious, critical believe - I should point add that I’m not Christian by the way). So what did I mean? As part of a broader concept I’d say that there is a lot we don’t know about the world, that there are problems to solve that are beyond our current abilities to do so, and at a certain point there will always be a need to simply believe, because we don’t have the luxury of not making choices. My concept of religion in this sense then is by definition a system of thought pertaining to the things that we don’t get to know the answers to, but we still have to make choices on because that’s life. I’ll add that I don’t think the big name brand religions get to dictate what counts as a religion, any more than people in the past have had the right to have a monopoly on what counts as legitimate science. Everyone has a brain and therefore has a right to pursue truth, both for things that are falsifiable and not. I’ll add that this isn’t static either and hopefully, with time, progress will be made and things will transition from unknowable to knowable. When those things happen I hope that people will continue to update their beliefs (ie religions), and I don’t think that’s too controversial. With regards to the name brand religions, yeah they definitely have obviously false aspects to them, and I don’t know if people believe them as fact, even though they may say that or even think it. I do however think that they all have aspects to them that are applicable in the religious sense I defined above. For example the concept of a god, etc... My last thought is I think all of the concepts that are being discussed in this thread are very hard problems. The definitions themselves are hard, what we consider good and bad outcomes are hard, and in a way it’s hard to be compassionate when it feels like people are saying things that are dangerous. That’s basically it, I think it’s important to just remind ourselves that these problems are hard, because I know I have a tendency, or a mental limitation if you will, to get mad or impatient when I forget that. I don’t mean to imply you are btw, but as I was writing I could literally feel a sense of empathy and understanding in the more general sense by reminding myself that this stuff is hard. Sorry, wrote this on my phone, so sentences, spelling, grammar, structure, etc might suck lol.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  And I don't mean to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many wonderful things to learn from the scaffolding of religion and parable. To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age (no accusation on you). As an American, I would much rather we go towards a scientific, historical, philosophic and arts educational model and leave religion at home, with tax loop holes removed. Charity tax breaks should be more than enough for those churches that stick to their mission statement. But I digress. It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered.
  - asimpletune 6y ago
    > with tax loop holes removed Yeah, I agree completely. The fact that there is a material difference between one kind of institution and another gives legitimacy to complaining about religion, IMO. > To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age I totally agree and it saddens me to see this happen. I think one crucial detail though is that instead of religion, I would call this dirty politics (or maybe even just rhetoric?). Dirty politics itself isn't new, but what has changed has become the scale at which it is now employed. > It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered. I don't really know myself, but I lean towards yes, if the likes of Facebook had a policy of safe harbor, then they should be regards as havens for free speech. I don't know enough about FB to say if they are no longer protected by safe harbor, but they're probably not in that category. When we consider though the systematic exploitation of human psychology deployed at scale, it's honestly terrifying, but to me instead of treating it as a free speech question (which is hard), it should be treated as a privacy question and the kinds of businesses you should be able to make. All of these terrifying capabilities and their free speech implications are predicated on companies harvesting our data at scale. The answer should be that there are limitations on what you can do, and business should probably just make money by charging people for stuff. I get that, early on, it may have felt necessary because we didn't know better, and there wasn't a cultural infrastructure for consumers paying for digital goods. However, a lot has changed since then, and the internet has now become basically the equivalent of a welfare state, where our digital existences within it have been sponsored by all powerful benefactors, e.g. Facebook, Google. To me the solution is simply, pay for stuff, and make it hard to have businesses where your users don't pay for stuff. That could be have liabilities around data that you collect, or outright making it illegal. Can't promise I have answers to all of the details, but this I feel good about the overall premise of my hypothesis.

asimpletune 6y ago

Yeah, I see the point you’re making, and I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I didn’t mean to say that no religion has obviously falsifiable claims in them, and the example you gave is a perfectly fine demonstration. I’d even say obviously Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead, because that’s clearly not possible (and probably besides the point if you are simultaneously a serious, critical believe - I should point add that I’m not Christian by the way). So what did I mean? As part of a broader concept I’d say that there is a lot we don’t know about the world, that there are problems to solve that are beyond our current abilities to do so, and at a certain point there will always be a need to simply believe, because we don’t have the luxury of not making choices. My concept of religion in this sense then is by definition a system of thought pertaining to the things that we don’t get to know the answers to, but we still have to make choices on because that’s life. I’ll add that I don’t think the big name brand religions get to dictate what counts as a religion, any more than people in the past have had the right to have a monopoly on what counts as legitimate science. Everyone has a brain and therefore has a right to pursue truth, both for things that are falsifiable and not. I’ll add that this isn’t static either and hopefully, with time, progress will be made and things will transition from unknowable to knowable. When those things happen I hope that people will continue to update their beliefs (ie religions), and I don’t think that’s too controversial. With regards to the name brand religions, yeah they definitely have obviously false aspects to them, and I don’t know if people believe them as fact, even though they may say that or even think it. I do however think that they all have aspects to them that are applicable in the religious sense I defined above. For example the concept of a god, etc... My last thought is I think all of the concepts that are being discussed in this thread are very hard problems. The definitions themselves are hard, what we consider good and bad outcomes are hard, and in a way it’s hard to be compassionate when it feels like people are saying things that are dangerous. That’s basically it, I think it’s important to just remind ourselves that these problems are hard, because I know I have a tendency, or a mental limitation if you will, to get mad or impatient when I forget that. I don’t mean to imply you are btw, but as I was writing I could literally feel a sense of empathy and understanding in the more general sense by reminding myself that this stuff is hard. Sorry, wrote this on my phone, so sentences, spelling, grammar, structure, etc might suck lol.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
And I don't mean to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many wonderful things to learn from the scaffolding of religion and parable. To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age (no accusation on you). As an American, I would much rather we go towards a scientific, historical, philosophic and arts educational model and leave religion at home, with tax loop holes removed. Charity tax breaks should be more than enough for those churches that stick to their mission statement. But I digress. It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered.
- asimpletune 6y ago
  > with tax loop holes removed Yeah, I agree completely. The fact that there is a material difference between one kind of institution and another gives legitimacy to complaining about religion, IMO. > To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age I totally agree and it saddens me to see this happen. I think one crucial detail though is that instead of religion, I would call this dirty politics (or maybe even just rhetoric?). Dirty politics itself isn't new, but what has changed has become the scale at which it is now employed. > It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered. I don't really know myself, but I lean towards yes, if the likes of Facebook had a policy of safe harbor, then they should be regards as havens for free speech. I don't know enough about FB to say if they are no longer protected by safe harbor, but they're probably not in that category. When we consider though the systematic exploitation of human psychology deployed at scale, it's honestly terrifying, but to me instead of treating it as a free speech question (which is hard), it should be treated as a privacy question and the kinds of businesses you should be able to make. All of these terrifying capabilities and their free speech implications are predicated on companies harvesting our data at scale. The answer should be that there are limitations on what you can do, and business should probably just make money by charging people for stuff. I get that, early on, it may have felt necessary because we didn't know better, and there wasn't a cultural infrastructure for consumers paying for digital goods. However, a lot has changed since then, and the internet has now become basically the equivalent of a welfare state, where our digital existences within it have been sponsored by all powerful benefactors, e.g. Facebook, Google. To me the solution is simply, pay for stuff, and make it hard to have businesses where your users don't pay for stuff. That could be have liabilities around data that you collect, or outright making it illegal. Can't promise I have answers to all of the details, but this I feel good about the overall premise of my hypothesis.