<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 11:40 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">One thing about religion that may be incompatible with science is worship. Where does a need to worship come from? Why do people get together and say how God is great? Sing hymns to God. Doesn't God know that? So that's irrelevant. Can you see anyone in science worshipping Darwin or Galileo? Tons of respect, all earned - yes. Worship - no. Atheism cannot offer people for people to worship. </div></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">How about prayer? I think that a study of prayer would show that it just doesn't work on any basis reliable enough to stand up to scientific standards. But some people love to pray , so that's another thing science cannot offer the religious person.</div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">And I don't see how science can get along with metaphysics. Science cannot deal with anything unobservable. </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Our theories do. We have theories that describe the interiors of black holes, other branches of the wave function, galaxies and radiation beyond the cosmological horizon, etc. despite none of them being observable.</div><div><br></div><div>Science tests theories by checking their observable consequences. Often these theories include phenomenon which themselves are not observable (like the big bang/inflation implying the existence of matter beyond the horizon, or the operation of a quantum computer implying the existence of other unobserved parts of the wave function).</div><div><br></div><div>If we verify the parts of those theories we can observe, then we ought to have confidence in those other parts of the theory that remain unobserved.</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"> It's going to take a lot for me to swallow any idea that science and religion can get together somehow. Differen epistemologies, as I said.</div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The theory of energy underwent many reformulations as our understanding improved. Cannot the same happen for our understanding of God, souls, reality, afterlives, etc.? Can science not investigate these subjects merely because some religion claimed them first?</div><div><br></div><div>The Baháʼí Faith, for instance, is very explicit in its belief that science and religion must be united in harmony. As it's leader described:</div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>"<b>The independent search after truth, unfettered by superstition or tradition; </b>the oneness of the entire human race, the pivotal principle and fundamental doctrine of the Faith; the basic unity of all religions; the condemnation of all forms of prejudice, whether religious, racial, class or national;<b> the harmony which must exist between religion and science; </b>the equality of men and women, the two wings on which the bird of human kind is able to soar; the introduction of compulsory education; the adoption of a universal auxiliary language; the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty; the institution of a world tribunal for the adjudication of disputes between nations; the exaltation of work, performed in the spirit of service, to the rank of worship; the glorification of justice as the ruling principle in human society, and of religion as a bulwark for the protection of all peoples and nations; and the establishment of a permanent and universal peace as the supreme goal of all mankind—these stand out as the essential elements [which Baháʼu'lláh proclaimed]."</div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>Jason</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"></div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 10:10 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><br>On Thursday, April 23, 2020, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div lang="x-western"> Dammit, done it again!<br>
<br>
Reposted, with correct Subject line :(<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 23/04/2020 00:18, Adrian Tymes wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div lang="x-unicode">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 3:51 PM Ben Zaiboc
via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On 22/04/2020 18:39,
Adrian Tymes wrote:<br>
> agnosticism is a lack of belief in gods. Atheism
is a belief in the <br>
> lack of gods.<br>
<br>
This is patently false. Agnosticism has nothing at all
to say about <br>
belief, it's about knowledge (from the greek, 'Gnosis',
meaning <br>
knowledge). Agnosticism is the position that you
don't/can't know.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And thus, a lack of belief.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Not necessarily.<br>
Many religious people will freely admit they have no definite
knowledge about their particular god, but still choose to believe
in it. I know that's a logically contradictory position, but
belief knows no logic. In fact it rejects logic.<br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div lang="x-unicode">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Atheism, in it's most
common form, is the lack of belief in gods. Some <br>
people define a 'strong', or 'hard' form of atheism that
is an assertion <br>
that no gods exist, but that is a minority view.<br>
<br>
These things are easy to look up.</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism</a> <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"Atheism is, in the broadest sense, an absence of
belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly,
atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities
exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is
specifically the position that there are no deities."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I guess both meanings are in use.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes. And one is overwhelmingly more common than the other.<br>
<br>
When I say I'm an atheist, I don't want people to assume I
subscribe to a minority interpretation of the term (mainly
because, to me, it's not so much the non-existence of gods that is
the important thing, but the not believing in things ('believing'
as in accepting things as true without a shred of evidence, and
even in the face of contradictory evidence).<br>
<br>
The narrowest sense is the one that needs qualification, not the
broadest one. This is true of job titles and many other things,
not just world-views.<br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>They're also definitions of God held by different religions or different believers which are scientifically consistent.</div><div><br></div><div>For example, God as the creator (consistent with the simulation hypothesis), or God as the "world soul" -- the collection of all conscious brings (consistent with open individualism), or God as Truth/Reality (consistent with mathematical realism).</div><div><br></div><div>It's easy to forget that there's any different religions and God's out there, as well as varying levels sophistications of belief, even within those religions.</div><div><br></div><div>There's no reason I see that religious ideas cannot be extended and grow together with advances in scientific understanding. To assume otherwise and say religious ideas must stagnate perverts and restricts not only religion but science as well.</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div><div><br></div>
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