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Sort of. Academic theologians want to answer why. A religious person already knows, if you have to find data and infer things then it is philosophy not religion

by _8j50 4y ago

Sort of. Academic theologians want to answer why. A religious person already knows, if you have to find data and infer things then it is philosophy not religion. Religion is based on information directed by the creator either directly to the believer or via trusted proxy. For example if you asked me why the universe exists I already know: because God willed it so. Most religious questions are a whether or not something is the will of the creator and how to implement that will. Of course that is monotheistic but with hinduism for example their many gods do things and that is why things are, how to do things to align with them is also a question as is with buddhism and reincarnation based on how well one implements the universe's will but my point is religion is what is there based on the answers to the questions you mentioned not the pursuit to answer that question. If you come up with a religion on your own I suppose you can call it that (although I must question the difference between that and a philosophical principle) but religion as is organized religion already has answers for the believer. Tangentially, I am a bit baffled by folks that are not believers yet try to make sense of a religion, don't they understand hierarchy of belief? As in you need to know arithmetic before you can do linear alegbra? How can one understand anything religious without being theistic (buddhism aside). Most of the common atheist questions about faith are easily answered with the prerequisite of theism fulfilled for example. The fundamental difference between science and religion in my opinion is that science says "I will believe things only if I can understand them" while religion says "The things you can understand and that are beyond human capacity to understand are described this way" religion is based on the acceptance that one cannot understand all things in reality, that things beyond our understanding or currect capacity or ability to know are still real and have effect in our reality.

whiddershins 4y ago
There is a lot of non revealed theology. For an intro I would suggest The Last Superstition by Edward Feser. Basically Aristotle lays out the framework without getting anywhere near a religious text.
trhway 4y ago
>Tangentially, I am a bit baffled by folks that are not believers yet try to make sense of a religion, don't they understand hierarchy of belief? I'd not give a damn about religion if it weren't shoving itself in my face everywhere. For example I don't care whatever religion some people on some remote islands may be practicing because they aren't forcing their religious dogmas on me (and as long as they don't abuse other people). The Big Religion though that we have around is forcing it's tentacles everywhere trying to strangulate everything, and thus even non believers have to deal with it defending themselves.
- yummies 4y ago
  But if they are abusing other people, you'd care, and intervention would be justified? Is that not imposing your dogma on them?
  - daseiner1 4y ago
    I’d assert that an anti-dogma stance is inherently non-dogmatic.
    - yummies 4y ago
      I challenge the assertion that the gp is really antidogmatic. The definition of abuse and the appropriate response to it, while generally unquestioned in one society, may not be the same in a remote island society.
      - LocalH 4y ago
        Let's jump right in the deep end. Let's say you have a remote culture where genital mutilation is done for purely religious reasons. This is done in an unclean fashion, as it's a tribal culture. Would you argue against intervention?
  - trhway 4y ago
    it isn't a dogma, it is my personal dislike of [unconsented] abuse. Depending on situation/domain i may be wrapping it into legal/dogmatic/moral/etc. devices, whatever works, yet in the end at the very core it would be just that my personal dislike of abuse.
- _8j50 4y ago
  You don't care so much you use every opportunity to tell people how much you don't care? Clearly I meant atheists that criticize things they don't even believe in.
  - Rechtsstaat 4y ago
carpo 4y ago
There are many things in science that scientists don't understand but still believe exist. The difference is the scientist won't then ascribe that thing to a god just because it's not understood.
- KMag 4y ago
  You're conflating scientists and the scientific method. Down this road lies "No true scientist"/"No true Scotsman".
analog31 4y ago
I take it from the opposite direction. I trust that every sufficiently mature religion has a self consistent doctrine with answers to every question. If the religion is popular enough, I can just look up the questions and answers. For this reason, I have no reason to even engage in the dialogue. For this reason, I share your bafflement.
Fezzik 4y ago
Maybe it’s pedantic, but in my experience the best summation of a scientific approach to beleif is to say ‘I will withhold belief until sufficient evidence is provided to support the belief.’ Most noticeably, this stance does not exclude the currently unknown from being true or known at some point, it simply holds a person to the honest — and truly humble — mindset of never thinking things are true on insufficient evidence, no matter how badly the conclusion is desired. You seem to be asserting that religious persons are willing to believe things on insufficient evidence, for example those “things beyond our understanding or currect capacity or ability to know,” and that is somehow a good thing?
- keane 4y ago
  This is just Positivism or Empiricism and there are huge problems with it as a method of epistemology. The link is discussing the First Cause argument and you, like others in this thread, are reducing metaphysical arguments to “others believe differently from me only because they want their belief to be true”. As for the sufficient evidence, regardless of the personal perspective in the parent comment, you should know that a fundamental (Abrahamic) theological claim is that all humans have sufficient evidence of their creator’s existence. That’s mainly where the dispute is: the religious say what we all have universal access to /is/ sufficient; the non-religious claim what we have is insufficient.
  - dickersnoodle 4y ago
    If it were only that clear-cut. "What we all have universal access to" is (so far) ineffable, which makes it open to lots of individual interpretations. The result is a great deal of what H. L. Mencken called "a great deal of theological blather and turmoil" because there's no way of telling truth from falsehood.
    - keane 4y ago
      Here’s the thing: the religious believe that everyone on Earth, in that they experience reality alone, have sufficient evidence that reality has a creator. That elements of reality may be indescribable or that individuals experience reality in a subjective way doesn’t affect that claim. Resigning truth and falsehood into a single category is a nonstarter. The conclusion here from HL Mencken’s quote is a fallacy called inflation of conflict.
ykevinator2 4y ago
throw0101a 4y ago
> The fundamental difference between science and religion in my opinion is that science says "I will believe things only if I can understand them" […] There are certain metaphysical assumptions that you have to make before you can start science: * That there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers. * That this objective reality is governed by natural laws; * That reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. * That Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all things in nature must have at least a natural cause. See: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Providing_assumptions_required_for_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Provid... Not all world views have those. Take the first one: AFAIK, Buddhism (and Hinduism?) believe that the world is an illusion. Why would do empirical experiments on illusions? I don't think it was an accident that science took off in Europe. Certainly there were individuals in other parts of the world that were curious about how the cosmos worked, but the overall worldview of their societies wasn't as receptive to such endeavours. There were many scientists in Muslim areas, but Islam generally ended up denying the fourth point above: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism TL; DR: Science itself cannot prove science is true.
- azth 4y ago
  As a Muslim, Islam's stance is quite nuanced. God does lay out rules that govern our world (called Sunan in Arabic, plural of Sunnah - path or way or method, etc.), and we accept causality in general. At the same time, we believe that God is the ultimate root cause of everything. If He wills, He can break these laws (e.g. we have the narrative of how Abraham Peace be upon him was thrown into the fire when he denied and destroyed the idols of his tribe, only for the fire not to harm him because God ordered it not to: https://quran.com/21/68-69 https://quran.com/21/68-69), and nothing happens without God's knowledge or permission. This is why we have bases such as: https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2517 https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2517 As you point out, we have had many Muslim scientists in our history that pushed the boundaries of discovery and knowledge. We're proud of our history and their achievements.
swat535 4y ago
First, in a very real sense, the modern physical sciences came from religion. The great founders of science—Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, etc.—were, without exception, trained in ecclesially sponsored schools and universities. It was under the aegis of the church that they took in their physics, their astronomy, and their mathematics. More specifically, they learned in those institutions two essentially theological truths necessary for the emergence of the experimental sciences—namely, that the universe is not God and that the universe, in every nook and cranny, is marked by intelligibility. If nature were divine—as indeed it is considered to be in many religions, philosophies, and mysticisms—then it could never be an apt subject for observation, analysis, and experimentation. And if nature were simply chaotic, void of form, it would never yield up the harmonies and patterned intelligibilities that scientists readily seek. When these two truths, which are both a function of the doctrine of creation, obtain, the sciences can get underway. Second, when science and theology are properly understood, they are not in conflict, since they are not competing for primacy on the same playing field, like opposing football teams. Utilizing the scientific method, the physical sciences deal with events, objects, dynamics, and relationships within the empirically verifiable order. Theology, employing an entirely different method, deals with God and the things of God—and God is not an object in the world, not a reality circumscribed within the context of nature. As Thomas Aquinas put it, God is not ens summum (highest being), but rather ipsum esse (the act of being as such)—which is to say, God is not a being among beings, but instead the reason why there is an empirically observable universe at all. In this way, he is like the author of a richly complex novel. Charles Dickens never appears as a character in any of his sprawling narratives, yet he is the reason why any of those characters exist at all. Accordingly, the sciences, as such, can never adjudicate the question of God’s existence nor speak of his activity or attributes. Another type of rationality—not in competition with scientific rationality—is required for the determination of those matters. And this brings me to my third point: scientism is not science. Sadly rampant today, scientism is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge. The undeniable success of the physical sciences and the extraordinary usefulness of the technologies to which they have given rise have produced in the minds of many this conviction, but it represents a tragic impoverishment. A chemist might be able to tell us the chemical makeup of the paints that Michelangelo used on the Sistine Ceiling, but he couldn’t, qua scientist, tell us a thing about what makes that work of art so beautiful. A geologist might be able to tell us the stratification of the earth below the city of Chicago, but he could never, again qua scientist, tell us whether that city is being justly or unjustly governed. There isn’t a trace of the scientific method in Romeo and Juliet, but who would be so stupid as to assert that that play tells us nothing true about the nature of love. In a similar way, the great texts of the Bible and the theological tradition are not “scientific,” but they nevertheless speak the profoundest truths about God, creation, sin, redemption, grace, etc. Both the cause and effect of scientism, sadly, is the attenuation of the liberal arts in our institutions of higher education. Rather than appreciating literature, history, philosophy, and religion as conduits of objective truth, many today relegate these to the arena of subjective feeling or subject them to withering ideological criticism.

by _8j50 4y ago

whiddershins 4y ago

There is a lot of non revealed theology. For an intro I would suggest The Last Superstition by Edward Feser. Basically Aristotle lays out the framework without getting anywhere near a religious text.

trhway 4y ago

>Tangentially, I am a bit baffled by folks that are not believers yet try to make sense of a religion, don't they understand hierarchy of belief? I'd not give a damn about religion if it weren't shoving itself in my face everywhere. For example I don't care whatever religion some people on some remote islands may be practicing because they aren't forcing their religious dogmas on me (and as long as they don't abuse other people). The Big Religion though that we have around is forcing it's tentacles everywhere trying to strangulate everything, and thus even non believers have to deal with it defending themselves.

yummies 4y ago
But if they are abusing other people, you'd care, and intervention would be justified? Is that not imposing your dogma on them?
- daseiner1 4y ago
  I’d assert that an anti-dogma stance is inherently non-dogmatic.
  - yummies 4y ago
    I challenge the assertion that the gp is really antidogmatic. The definition of abuse and the appropriate response to it, while generally unquestioned in one society, may not be the same in a remote island society.
    - LocalH 4y ago
      Let's jump right in the deep end. Let's say you have a remote culture where genital mutilation is done for purely religious reasons. This is done in an unclean fashion, as it's a tribal culture. Would you argue against intervention?
- trhway 4y ago
  it isn't a dogma, it is my personal dislike of [unconsented] abuse. Depending on situation/domain i may be wrapping it into legal/dogmatic/moral/etc. devices, whatever works, yet in the end at the very core it would be just that my personal dislike of abuse.
_8j50 4y ago
You don't care so much you use every opportunity to tell people how much you don't care? Clearly I meant atheists that criticize things they don't even believe in.
- Rechtsstaat 4y ago

carpo 4y ago

There are many things in science that scientists don't understand but still believe exist. The difference is the scientist won't then ascribe that thing to a god just because it's not understood.

KMag 4y ago
You're conflating scientists and the scientific method. Down this road lies "No true scientist"/"No true Scotsman".

analog31 4y ago

I take it from the opposite direction. I trust that every sufficiently mature religion has a self consistent doctrine with answers to every question. If the religion is popular enough, I can just look up the questions and answers. For this reason, I have no reason to even engage in the dialogue. For this reason, I share your bafflement.

Fezzik 4y ago

Maybe it’s pedantic, but in my experience the best summation of a scientific approach to beleif is to say ‘I will withhold belief until sufficient evidence is provided to support the belief.’ Most noticeably, this stance does not exclude the currently unknown from being true or known at some point, it simply holds a person to the honest — and truly humble — mindset of never thinking things are true on insufficient evidence, no matter how badly the conclusion is desired. You seem to be asserting that religious persons are willing to believe things on insufficient evidence, for example those “things beyond our understanding or currect capacity or ability to know,” and that is somehow a good thing?

keane 4y ago
This is just Positivism or Empiricism and there are huge problems with it as a method of epistemology. The link is discussing the First Cause argument and you, like others in this thread, are reducing metaphysical arguments to “others believe differently from me only because they want their belief to be true”. As for the sufficient evidence, regardless of the personal perspective in the parent comment, you should know that a fundamental (Abrahamic) theological claim is that all humans have sufficient evidence of their creator’s existence. That’s mainly where the dispute is: the religious say what we all have universal access to /is/ sufficient; the non-religious claim what we have is insufficient.
- dickersnoodle 4y ago
  If it were only that clear-cut. "What we all have universal access to" is (so far) ineffable, which makes it open to lots of individual interpretations. The result is a great deal of what H. L. Mencken called "a great deal of theological blather and turmoil" because there's no way of telling truth from falsehood.
  - keane 4y ago
    Here’s the thing: the religious believe that everyone on Earth, in that they experience reality alone, have sufficient evidence that reality has a creator. That elements of reality may be indescribable or that individuals experience reality in a subjective way doesn’t affect that claim. Resigning truth and falsehood into a single category is a nonstarter. The conclusion here from HL Mencken’s quote is a fallacy called inflation of conflict.

ykevinator2 4y ago

throw0101a 4y ago

> The fundamental difference between science and religion in my opinion is that science says "I will believe things only if I can understand them" […] There are certain metaphysical assumptions that you have to make before you can start science: * That there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers. * That this objective reality is governed by natural laws; * That reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. * That Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all things in nature must have at least a natural cause. See: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Providing_assumptions_required_for_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)#Provid... Not all world views have those. Take the first one: AFAIK, Buddhism (and Hinduism?) believe that the world is an illusion. Why would do empirical experiments on illusions? I don't think it was an accident that science took off in Europe. Certainly there were individuals in other parts of the world that were curious about how the cosmos worked, but the overall worldview of their societies wasn't as receptive to such endeavours. There were many scientists in Muslim areas, but Islam generally ended up denying the fourth point above: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism TL; DR: Science itself cannot prove science is true.

azth 4y ago
As a Muslim, Islam's stance is quite nuanced. God does lay out rules that govern our world (called Sunan in Arabic, plural of Sunnah - path or way or method, etc.), and we accept causality in general. At the same time, we believe that God is the ultimate root cause of everything. If He wills, He can break these laws (e.g. we have the narrative of how Abraham Peace be upon him was thrown into the fire when he denied and destroyed the idols of his tribe, only for the fire not to harm him because God ordered it not to: https://quran.com/21/68-69 https://quran.com/21/68-69), and nothing happens without God's knowledge or permission. This is why we have bases such as: https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2517 https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2517 As you point out, we have had many Muslim scientists in our history that pushed the boundaries of discovery and knowledge. We're proud of our history and their achievements.

swat535 4y ago

First, in a very real sense, the modern physical sciences came from religion. The great founders of science—Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, etc.—were, without exception, trained in ecclesially sponsored schools and universities. It was under the aegis of the church that they took in their physics, their astronomy, and their mathematics. More specifically, they learned in those institutions two essentially theological truths necessary for the emergence of the experimental sciences—namely, that the universe is not God and that the universe, in every nook and cranny, is marked by intelligibility. If nature were divine—as indeed it is considered to be in many religions, philosophies, and mysticisms—then it could never be an apt subject for observation, analysis, and experimentation. And if nature were simply chaotic, void of form, it would never yield up the harmonies and patterned intelligibilities that scientists readily seek. When these two truths, which are both a function of the doctrine of creation, obtain, the sciences can get underway. Second, when science and theology are properly understood, they are not in conflict, since they are not competing for primacy on the same playing field, like opposing football teams. Utilizing the scientific method, the physical sciences deal with events, objects, dynamics, and relationships within the empirically verifiable order. Theology, employing an entirely different method, deals with God and the things of God—and God is not an object in the world, not a reality circumscribed within the context of nature. As Thomas Aquinas put it, God is not ens summum (highest being), but rather ipsum esse (the act of being as such)—which is to say, God is not a being among beings, but instead the reason why there is an empirically observable universe at all. In this way, he is like the author of a richly complex novel. Charles Dickens never appears as a character in any of his sprawling narratives, yet he is the reason why any of those characters exist at all. Accordingly, the sciences, as such, can never adjudicate the question of God’s existence nor speak of his activity or attributes. Another type of rationality—not in competition with scientific rationality—is required for the determination of those matters. And this brings me to my third point: scientism is not science. Sadly rampant today, scientism is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge. The undeniable success of the physical sciences and the extraordinary usefulness of the technologies to which they have given rise have produced in the minds of many this conviction, but it represents a tragic impoverishment. A chemist might be able to tell us the chemical makeup of the paints that Michelangelo used on the Sistine Ceiling, but he couldn’t, qua scientist, tell us a thing about what makes that work of art so beautiful. A geologist might be able to tell us the stratification of the earth below the city of Chicago, but he could never, again qua scientist, tell us whether that city is being justly or unjustly governed. There isn’t a trace of the scientific method in Romeo and Juliet, but who would be so stupid as to assert that that play tells us nothing true about the nature of love. In a similar way, the great texts of the Bible and the theological tradition are not “scientific,” but they nevertheless speak the profoundest truths about God, creation, sin, redemption, grace, etc. Both the cause and effect of scientism, sadly, is the attenuation of the liberal arts in our institutions of higher education. Rather than appreciating literature, history, philosophy, and religion as conduits of objective truth, many today relegate these to the arena of subjective feeling or subject them to withering ideological criticism.