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> Did you survey all religions to make such claim? That is the definition of religion. They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. T

by eis 4y ago

> Did you survey all religions to make such claim? That is the definition of religion. They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven. > And it's not like you don't need axiomatic bases that need to be accepted as is to base science on. Correct, there are axioms - assumptions - which the rest of the logical system is based upon. Same as for example in Mathematics. The assumptions are much more reasonable than for example assuming there is a God because they result in expirically testable predictions. I have started to watch the video you linked to, I have not finished it yet but the beginning was pretty good and the presenter seems well spoken. But by about minute 10 I already noticed a lot of logical fallacies. He is (rightfully maybe) accusing certain famous people in history of wrong logical arguments but then he quickly makes the same plus a lot of ad hominems thrown in for good measure. For example the claim that the "four horsemen" of science think that replacing mosques and synagogues into starbucks would make society all peaceful is frankly just ridicolous. Then he immediately follows it up by claiming if there is no religion then there is no morality. This is completely baseless. I am not a religious person but I do have morals. I'm not running around trying to torture people just because I don't believe in a supernatural being. I'm going to watch it in full because listening to the other side of an argument is the best but I have to say this talk is going south very fast IMHO :(

al_mandi 4y ago
> They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven. That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. > I am not a religious person but I do have morals. He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture.
- eis 4y ago
  > That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. If there was real experimentally testable and unambigous proof than scientists would need to accept that. What does belief in the unseen with evidence mean? > He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture. So he is contradicting himself then. I'm now at minute 30 but there are so many logical fallacies it's really hard to watch. The example with the kid asking why the mother is boiling water and apparently science not being able to explain the "why" ("because I love you") or the reason of why the universe exists: he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions that would give you possibly different answers and they can't all be right at the same time. He claims science cannot "prove" emotions or other workings of our brain. Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works. We already know that emotions are in part controlled by substances like hormones. We don't know 100% of it but we're working on it. He further goes on to claim that science cannot provide morality. He again gives no evidence of this. Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments? Another claim is that science could not explain why someone would go and help a drowning kid. Once more no evidence. How about us being evolutionary programmed to keep our offspring alive to increase chance of the survival of our species? Just earlier to that he claimed animals have no morals. But that is the exact same behaviour that animals are showing... I can't also follow the argument about science needing to find all possible combinations of DNA mutations that show the transition from apes to humans. Why does it need to show every minute step? How does that show religion is correct instead? The constant flood of strawmans is impressive at least. I'm at minute 30 and not sure if I will comment more on it, it is very tedious because there is just such an enormous amount of illogical argumentation.
  - al_mandi 4y ago
    > he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument. > Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works. No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy. > Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments? Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children. If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action. In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts. I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands. Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do.
    - eis 4y ago
      > His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument. That is a wild claim. Science is very much in the domain of answering "why". Science is selfcontious enough to know it can't answer everything. Religion claims the answer "why" but there is tons of claims without proof and often impossible to disprove and so a very sneaky tool. I don't know what genetic fallacy you are refering to. > No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy. As I said, he claims science cannot explain emotions without providing any evidence whatsoever and anyone who is following science even a bit should clearly see that it seems entirely possible that we will be able to understand it all. He wrongfully accuses science and uses this accusation to make us seek the answer in religion instead. Terrible. > Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children. I gave you an example. Protecting children serves an evolutionary goal. We can find more logic scientific reasons for this behavior. The presenter then brings an example of standing up for an old lady in the bus. Equally here we can make arguments like "if people behave this way then it will increase their own quality of life when they are older". A young person giving up their seat is a minor inconvenience to them but the gain for the old person is much bigger because they might experience a lot more relief when sitting down. This behavior could be explained as an optimization of quality of life of the society. If different cultures agree on certain acceptable behaviors then that hints at other reasons than religion because different societies have different religions. Which one is the right one? > If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action. Again logical fallacy. There is nothing inherintly preventing a religious society from commiting atrocious acts as evidenced by religious sacrifices. What if we agreed tomorrow to form a religion which required that red haired kids be sacrificed by the age of 10? How is it being decided by a religious group any different from a secular group? Your claim that a secular group can't have morals is absurd and baffling. > In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts. If we behave similar to animals in some regards is it that we do that because of our instincts or do animals have religious believes? If Islam has some rules that make you behave well then that's great. But it does not mean that you need Islam to behave well. > I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands. I don't think so. I bring arguments and explanations why his claims don't hold water and his examples are not evidence for his claims. If you want then we can go more into some specific examples. > Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do. Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god. I would btw like to ask you: would you agree that some parts of Islam might be wrong or do you believe it is 100% correct?
eis 4y ago
I finished it now. It did not get any better. Most of his arguments can be boiled down to "science can't explain that so it must be god". No. Towards the end he shows a lack of understanding of statistics. He claims if any infinitesmally small change to the laws of nature would have caused an uninhabitable universe then it must have been specifically designed the way it is. He brings several examples that actually are all the exact same argument. The mistake here is that he assumes that there was only one random try at creating this universe and that we cannot have been sooo extremely lucky. There is no reason to believe that there was only one try. What if there were a large number of tries? If all the other tries resulted in uninhabitable universes then of course us being in the lucky version must make us think this was not random chance. Example: ask a large number of people to flip a coin ten times. Eventually you will reach someone that actually flipped ten times heads in succession. What would that guy think? Clearly that's not a normal coin and you designed the whole thing to be like that because what are the odds of him flipping ten times heads? He does not know about the other thousand people you had play this game that didn't get ten times heads.
- al_mandi 4y ago
  > There is no reason to believe that there was only one try. Exactly what he mentions in his talk, on what are you basing this belief? It's a metaphysical claim that is outside the realm of science. You just proved his point.
  - eis 4y ago
    Erm, what? I disproved his point. He claims because us being in this unlikely universe is proof for a design. No, it's a logical fallacy as I outlined in the example of flipping coins. The video presenter is the guy who flipped 10 times heads and claims "See! God made this happen!" Can you please point to the exact time in the video where he mentions multiple tries? That would contradict his own point about the low chance and hence design. He assumes there was only one "flip of the coin". There is zero reason to assume this and so his whole argument falls because when his assumption does not apply then mathematics tells us there is absolutely nothing special about finding ourselves in that "unlikely" universe because actually when taking a step back it isn't unlikely, it is pretty much guaranteed - completely without anyone designing it that way.
deleted 4y ago
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by eis 4y ago

al_mandi 4y ago

> They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven. That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. > I am not a religious person but I do have morals. He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture.

eis 4y ago
> That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. If there was real experimentally testable and unambigous proof than scientists would need to accept that. What does belief in the unseen with evidence mean? > He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture. So he is contradicting himself then. I'm now at minute 30 but there are so many logical fallacies it's really hard to watch. The example with the kid asking why the mother is boiling water and apparently science not being able to explain the "why" ("because I love you") or the reason of why the universe exists: he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions that would give you possibly different answers and they can't all be right at the same time. He claims science cannot "prove" emotions or other workings of our brain. Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works. We already know that emotions are in part controlled by substances like hormones. We don't know 100% of it but we're working on it. He further goes on to claim that science cannot provide morality. He again gives no evidence of this. Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments? Another claim is that science could not explain why someone would go and help a drowning kid. Once more no evidence. How about us being evolutionary programmed to keep our offspring alive to increase chance of the survival of our species? Just earlier to that he claimed animals have no morals. But that is the exact same behaviour that animals are showing... I can't also follow the argument about science needing to find all possible combinations of DNA mutations that show the transition from apes to humans. Why does it need to show every minute step? How does that show religion is correct instead? The constant flood of strawmans is impressive at least. I'm at minute 30 and not sure if I will comment more on it, it is very tedious because there is just such an enormous amount of illogical argumentation.
- al_mandi 4y ago
  > he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument. > Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works. No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy. > Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments? Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children. If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action. In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts. I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands. Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do.
  - eis 4y ago
    > His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument. That is a wild claim. Science is very much in the domain of answering "why". Science is selfcontious enough to know it can't answer everything. Religion claims the answer "why" but there is tons of claims without proof and often impossible to disprove and so a very sneaky tool. I don't know what genetic fallacy you are refering to. > No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy. As I said, he claims science cannot explain emotions without providing any evidence whatsoever and anyone who is following science even a bit should clearly see that it seems entirely possible that we will be able to understand it all. He wrongfully accuses science and uses this accusation to make us seek the answer in religion instead. Terrible. > Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children. I gave you an example. Protecting children serves an evolutionary goal. We can find more logic scientific reasons for this behavior. The presenter then brings an example of standing up for an old lady in the bus. Equally here we can make arguments like "if people behave this way then it will increase their own quality of life when they are older". A young person giving up their seat is a minor inconvenience to them but the gain for the old person is much bigger because they might experience a lot more relief when sitting down. This behavior could be explained as an optimization of quality of life of the society. If different cultures agree on certain acceptable behaviors then that hints at other reasons than religion because different societies have different religions. Which one is the right one? > If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action. Again logical fallacy. There is nothing inherintly preventing a religious society from commiting atrocious acts as evidenced by religious sacrifices. What if we agreed tomorrow to form a religion which required that red haired kids be sacrificed by the age of 10? How is it being decided by a religious group any different from a secular group? Your claim that a secular group can't have morals is absurd and baffling. > In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts. If we behave similar to animals in some regards is it that we do that because of our instincts or do animals have religious believes? If Islam has some rules that make you behave well then that's great. But it does not mean that you need Islam to behave well. > I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands. I don't think so. I bring arguments and explanations why his claims don't hold water and his examples are not evidence for his claims. If you want then we can go more into some specific examples. > Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do. Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god. I would btw like to ask you: would you agree that some parts of Islam might be wrong or do you believe it is 100% correct?

eis 4y ago

I finished it now. It did not get any better. Most of his arguments can be boiled down to "science can't explain that so it must be god". No. Towards the end he shows a lack of understanding of statistics. He claims if any infinitesmally small change to the laws of nature would have caused an uninhabitable universe then it must have been specifically designed the way it is. He brings several examples that actually are all the exact same argument. The mistake here is that he assumes that there was only one random try at creating this universe and that we cannot have been sooo extremely lucky. There is no reason to believe that there was only one try. What if there were a large number of tries? If all the other tries resulted in uninhabitable universes then of course us being in the lucky version must make us think this was not random chance. Example: ask a large number of people to flip a coin ten times. Eventually you will reach someone that actually flipped ten times heads in succession. What would that guy think? Clearly that's not a normal coin and you designed the whole thing to be like that because what are the odds of him flipping ten times heads? He does not know about the other thousand people you had play this game that didn't get ten times heads.

al_mandi 4y ago
> There is no reason to believe that there was only one try. Exactly what he mentions in his talk, on what are you basing this belief? It's a metaphysical claim that is outside the realm of science. You just proved his point.
- eis 4y ago
  Erm, what? I disproved his point. He claims because us being in this unlikely universe is proof for a design. No, it's a logical fallacy as I outlined in the example of flipping coins. The video presenter is the guy who flipped 10 times heads and claims "See! God made this happen!" Can you please point to the exact time in the video where he mentions multiple tries? That would contradict his own point about the low chance and hence design. He assumes there was only one "flip of the coin". There is zero reason to assume this and so his whole argument falls because when his assumption does not apply then mathematics tells us there is absolutely nothing special about finding ourselves in that "unlikely" universe because actually when taking a step back it isn't unlikely, it is pretty much guaranteed - completely without anyone designing it that way.

deleted 4y ago

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