<div dir="ltr"><div>I just wanted to clarify some things in the digest below (if I don't respond to a particular point below, assume I accept the point / agree):</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 5:16 AM Ben Zaiboc 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>
Ben: "The problem is, the very nature of religion is about control,
not figuring things out."<br>
<br>
Jason: "I would say that depends on the religion. What about Bahai
Faith, Unitarian Universalism, the Universal Life Church, and
countless others?"<br>
<br>
Almost all religions forbid (sometimes with severe penalties), or at
least strongly discourage, homosexuality.<br>
Even Sikhism, which is one of the least offensive religions I know
of, prohibits a bunch of silly things like getting your hair cut,
having sex with the wrong person, drinking, etc. And of course
there's no need to even mention the Judaeo-Christian religions, we
all know what they're like. The Bahai faith forbids homosexuality
and gambling. Hinduism has various food rules, taboos concerning
women and feet, and of course the 'sex with the wrong person' thing
that just about every religion has (question: do you know of <i>any</i>
contemporary religion that doesn't have this? Why do religions
arrogate to themselves the right to tell you who you can and can't
have sex with? Why do they even think it's any of their business?)<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's a good question, I don't necessarily endorse or advocate any of those proscriptions. Perhaps something worth investigating is that religious systems, like businesses, and life forms, are probably subject to something like Darwinian forces. They have to out-compete others to survive in the long term, and that probably requires that they offer some benefit for their host societies, either in terms of greater stability, prosperity, cooperation, or whatever effects serve to increase the fitness of the society that hosts them. This is perhaps not unlike Dawkin's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme">meme</a>" concept.</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>
<br>
Notice I'm not talking about things like a ban on murder, theft or
extortion (in fact, some of those things are even encouraged in some
religions, under some circumstances), but things that are either
literally harmless or a matter of opinion. This is symptomatic of
systems that have control as one of their goals. "No, you can't do
that". "Why not, it's not hurting anyone?". "Because I (or this
book, or that imaginary man in the sky) say so, that's why not. Just
do as you're told". Or some pathetic attempt to disguise 'because I
said so' such as "Because it makes baby jesus cry".<br>
<br>
Some of the major prohibitions:<br>
<br>
Sikhism<br>
Haircuts: Cutting or removing hair from any body part is strictly
forbidden<br>
<br>
Intoxication: Consumption of drugs, Alcohol and tobacco, and other
intoxicants is not allowed for Amritdhari Sikhs and Keshdhari Sikhs.
Drugs and tobacco are forbidden for all.<br>
<br>
Strict prohibition on eating meat killed in a ritualistic manner
(such as halal or kosher)<br>
<br>
Having extramarital sexual relations<br>
<br>
Bahai<br>
Homosexuality<br>
Gambling<br>
<br>
Islam<br>
Just about everything, including leaving Islam<br>
<br>
Christianity<br>
Homosexuality, a ton of other things<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Jason: "In my view, both religion and science are about believing"<br>
<br>
Science is manifestly not about believing. It's about observing,
theorising, testing and revising. Belief is about holding something
to be true, no matter what. Belief is static. You can believe
something that is true, but you can just as easily believe something
that is false. There is no difference between the two in a belief. A
difference in the real-world consequences, yes, but not in the
belief itself. Science is fluid, responsive, and is always getting
closer to the truth, while never quite getting there. Belief already
has 'The Truth' (in the minds of believers, at least), so there's no
need to investigate further. In fact, it's usually discouraged.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think the above excerpt removes critical context and distorts my original meaning. I said they are both about believing because they both concern beliefs. Religion is one's set of beliefs, and science is a tool by which we can improve our beliefs.</div><div><br></div><div>The above seems to equate belief with blind faith (a belief based on no evidence). I disagree with that equivalence. We all have beliefs, and we all have some reason we can point to for why we hold that belief. Some justifications are more rational than others, and probably most of the beliefs we hold are wrong.</div><div><br></div><div>Or perhaps in Robert Anton Wilson's words, every belief may be "true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. And if you repeat this 666 times, you will achieve supreme enlightenment — IN SOME SENSE!"</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>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Ben: "In science, evidence is king. In religion, evidence is the
enemy"<br>
<br>
Jason: 'Again, this is highly dependent on the particular religion.
Take these words, from the son of the founder of the Bahai Faith:<br>
<br>
"If religion were contrary to logical reason then it would cease
to be a religion and be merely a tradition. Religion and science are
the two wings upon which man's intelligence can soar into the
heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible
to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of
religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of
superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science
alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing
slough of materialism."'<br>
<br>
<br>
Religion, in general is contrary to logical reason. That's one of
the things that usuallly characterise it. Otherwise, we'd call it
'logical reason'. <br></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>
"the despairing slough of materialism" is a revealing phrase. Why
call it that? I'm a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool hard-core
materialist. Odd, then, that I'm not wallowing in a slough of
despair, is it not? In fact, my attitude to life is very far from
despair. About as far as you can get (although I sometimes despair
of <i>people</i>. Usually religious people). So just what does that
phrase reveal? Personally, I think it reveals fear. Fear that magic
might not be true. Existential angst. Fear that Kierkegaard might
have been right. Perhaps even fear of the personal responsibility
that's implied by relinquishing supernatural fantasies and embracing
materialism. After all, if you can't rely on a god to guide and look
after you, you're on your own, and that can be scary. I remember
being scared like that, as a kid, and not wanting to grow up and
have to look after myself. Then I grew up, and started to look after
myself. <br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Why are you a transhumanist (forgive me if this assumption is incorrect, I am assuming you are as you are active on this list)?</div><div><br></div><div>Does transhumanism not for some of us provide hope of a brighter future? Perhaps in the past this role was served by such promises found in religious texts--especially if you consider living in an era where people saw little to no technological or cultural progress in their lifetime.</div><div><br></div><div>If you were both atheist and a pessimist (a pessimist regarding the future, technology or progress), then I think that would be quite a despairing world view. If, however, you are a transhumanist, optimist, singulartarian, etc. then there are plenty of reasons to not despair.</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>
<br>
In my opinion, religion and science are not like two wings, but two
propellers, one pointing forwards, and one pointing backwards.<br>
<br>
<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Perhaps you can only see religion as it is and not for what it can be. Here is the main question I would like you to answer: is it possible to apply science to ideas normally considered the exclusive domain of religion? Can, in some hypothetical future, science investigate things like: God, gods, afterlives, ressurection, reincarnation, reality creation and intervention? I say yes.</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>
<br>
Ben: "You can say that the word 'god' can mean a lot of different
things. Fine. Sell that to the religious folks, see how far you get"<br>
<br>
Jason: "I don't need to. All of those examples of different concepts
of God I provided are core elements of existing religions"<br>
<br>
Yes, you can cherry-pick whatever you like, to be compatible with
whatever argument you like. For example, I've heard people use
Einstein's remark about god not playing dice with the universe to be
proof that he believed in god. We can play that game all day, it
doesn't resolve anything.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Did I cherry pick? I cited religions whose adherents represent a majority of the Earth's population.</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>
<br>
Give that Hilda Phoebe Hudson to your average christian, what do you
think they'll make of it?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Are we discussing religious ideas or religious people?</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>
<br>
Also, of course every religion claims 'truth' for itself. The
problem is, they're very often conflicting 'truths'.<br>
<br>
For most believers, their god is not some abstract concept like
Truth or Consciousness, but an all-powerful nosy and vindictive
being that watches your every move, and punishes you for disobeying
your priest. If you're very lucky (and obedient), you might get
rewarded with some ill-defined paradise. After you're dead.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think you're describing only one sect of one religion. Perhaps this is the one you were raised in?</div><div><br></div><div>There are as many Hindus as Catholics. The supreme God in Hinduism is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman">Brahman</a>, who is the ground of all being. In Hinduism one of the most common and sacred of phrases is "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta#Mahavakya_%E2%80%93_The_Great_Sentences">Brahman is Atman</a>". <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80tman_(Hinduism)">Atman</a> is the world for Soul or Consciousness. Thus you have as many people on Earth as in all of Catholicism who take it as a core tenet that the ground of all being is consciousness.</div><div><br></div><div>So it's perhaps a little myopic to say most believers believe in a God that is all-powerful, nosy, vindictive, and punishes you for disobeying your priest. I think only a small minority of people would agree that the former sentence describes the God they believe in.</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>
<br>
Core elements of religions tend to be things like the baffling holy
trinity, the obnoxious concept of original sin, the insecurity of
the god in question, it's interest in our sex lives, punishments and
rewards for obeying or not, the imperative to convert non-believers,
a ton of rules about things you can't do, or must do, great detail
about the horrors that await the naughty, much vaguer ideas about
the rewards that await the compliant, and lots and lots of stories,
most of which are irrelevant to modern life, baffling to most
people, and hence in need of interpretation by the priests.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
"There are sets of beliefs compatible with science"<br>
Only if you redefine the word 'beliefs'. Science requires evidence.
Belief does not.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I agree with the last sentence, but I would add:</div><div><br></div><div>Science takes in evidence as input, and as output refines our confidence in different beliefs. We can't separate science from its goal/output, which is to produce a better set of beliefs.</div><div><br></div><div>I think at this point, we may be mainly arguing over definitions, and not really discussing ideas of substance that we hold actual disagreements on.</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>
<br>
I suppose you could claim that the belief that the sun will rise
tomorrow is compatible with the scientific observations that lead to
the same conclusion. But they are different things. One does not
need evidence, the other does. One doesn't have to be explained, the
other does. Maybe not such a problem with things like the sunrise,
but a big, big problem when it comes to things like whether or not
you should eat peanut butter on the second thursday of the month. Or
the existence of a soul. Or the age of the earth.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>We all hold fundamental beliefs concerning reality. Some of those beliefs are informed by listening to priests, some are informed by reading ancient books, others by reading recent articles, a rarer few from actually performing experiments themselves. In the definition I am operating under, all of those fundamental beliefs concerning reality are religious beliefs, regardless of how they were informed.</div><div><br></div><div>If an atheist comes to reason that a God that is both omnipotent and benevolent is incompatible with the reality he sees around himself, that is still a religious belief, even though it is informed by logical reasoning. It is a religious belief inasmuch as a theist who believes there must be some greatest thing that exists through some ontological reasoning.</div><div><br></div><div>Again we are only talking definitions here, you probably disagree with my use of "religious" to refer to any fundamental belief concerning reality, gods, souls, existence, the afterlife, etc. If I were to attempt describe your definition of a religious belief, it is one that must be based on no evidence, static, and support some theistic concept for which there is no evidence.</div><div><br></div><div>But the problem with such a definition is that it changes the definition of religious based on the present state and progress of science. What if we do find evidence for or against any of those fundamental concepts which today you call religious? Then, given that we now have evidence, such beliefs (under your definition) would no longer be religious beliefs. Take the simulation argument, for example, which makes a scientific argument for the high probability that this universe we find ourselves in was created by a vastly superior intelligence. Is someone who believes in such a God (the creator of the simulation) a religious belief or not? Under your definition, it is not clear if belief in God is now a religious idea or a scientific one. Under mine, I would say it is still a religious belief because it is remains a fundamental belief concerning the nature of reality.</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>
<br>
So if you confine your 'beliefs' to things that can be demonstrated
to be true using the scientific method, yes, there are beliefs that
are compatible with science. But can you really call them 'beliefs'?
We need to distinguish between things that are held to be true
because we can show evidence or a good logical argument, and things
that are held to be true just because. Which usually means some
emotional investment in an idea.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
"I agree with you that a static belief system is not as good as one
that can adapt in response to new evidence and understanding. I am
not arguing for a static belief system, only pointing out that there
are frameworks of belief (what you might call religious systems)
that transcend the definition of religion that you provide"<br>
<br>
What I'm saying is that a 'belief system that can adapt in response
to new evidence' is not a belief system at all, it's science. If you
are not arguing for a static belief system, you're arguing for
science.<br>
<br>
And if you say Science is a religion, again we have a problem with
words. If you say that whales are fish, you've lost the ability to
distinguish the real differences between them. You have to start
using qualifiers such as 'milk-producing fish', which just leads
back to needing different words for the two different things.<br>
<br>
If you want a word that encompasses both, then I'd suggest
'world-view'. This seems to fit, as a scientific world-view and a
religious one are both ways of trying to understand the world,
taking different approaches.<br>
If you say "Ah, but this religion takes the same approach as
science", then it's no longer a religion, it's science.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Jason: "Interesting thought: Is Sagan's definition of science itself
a static belief? How could it ever change?"<br>
<br>
No, his definition is not a static belief. Because it's not based on
dogma. It's based on observation. "Science works" is not an
unsupported belief, it's an observation. To say that Sagan had a
belief in science is not correct. Everything in your quote is
subject to falsification and if necessary, revision. You can't say
that about any 'holy gospels' which are held to be eternally true,
inviolable, infallible. Which of course is utter nonsense.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>In what category would mathematical beliefs, such as the belief that "1 + 1 = 2" fall into? Are true mathematical beliefs falsifiable, subject to revision, eternally true?</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>
<br>
How could it ever change? Through observation of conflicting
evidence. If, for example, we observed that how we wish things to
be, consistently and reliably changed reality, then the statement
"We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is
with how we wish it to be" would be falsified. I can't speak for
Sagan, and neither can anyone else now that he's dead, but I would
certainly change my own opinions if the example above came to pass.
And anyone who wouldn't, couldn't say that they have a scientific
world-view.<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72"><br></pre></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Given the evidence and examples I provided regarding the scientific theory of the mechanistic description of the mind, have you changed your own opinion regarding the physical possibility of reincarnation, resurrection, and the continuance of a mind beyond the death of one of its bodies?</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div></div>