<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Feb 24, 2025 at 2:12 PM 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"><u></u>
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On 24/02/2025 10:49, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 23, 2025,
1:52 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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A long time ago, I came up with an idea called
'relativity of <br>
importance', which has basically shaped my values ever
since. Simple <br>
idea, I'm sure many others have had it too. Ask yourself
"what's the <br>
most important thing you can think of?", then "Is there
anything more <br>
important to you than that?", and keep asking that
question until you <br>
come to a stop.<br>
Then you have a list, in order, of the things that are
important to you. <br>
Then behave in accordance with it.<br>
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<div dir="auto">That's a nice idea!</div>
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<div dir="auto">Do you think it is possible to rationally
justify an ordering? E.g., would you expect two
superintelligences to arrive at a roughly the same ordering?</div>
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Well, I'd expect each individual to come up with their own list, and
their own ordering. It doesn't matter if they are a village idiot,
an average human or a superintelligence. The point is to come up
with your own list, and your own ordering. This is in keeping with
the (or rather, my) answer to the meaning of life: You Decide.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I guess what I was asking is whether you see any possibility that goal prioritization could be made an objective science. If not, then I think this supports what Einstein said about goals not coming from science. If science can't decide it, then what is its source?</div><div><br></div><div>Note that charity ranking services (like GiveWell) struggle with this: how do you weigh and compare lifting someone out of poverty vs. saving someone's life, vs. restoring sight to a blind person, vs. avoiding a bout of severe illness?</div><div><br></div><div>Is there a way to measure these in units of "utils"?</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>
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<div dir="auto">Einstein had a lot of insightful things to say
about religion. But you may not be receptive to it because
of the word "religion". I share this with the hope that you
might consider the value in what Einstein has to say here:</div>
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<div dir="auto"><snip><br>
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While I'm sure Einstein was sincere, what he says is very blinkered,
and just reinforces my opinion that he should have stuck to physics.<br>
<br>
The issue of competition in human societies is interesting enough,
but this thread isn't the place to talk about it.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I found it insightful (but accept that each person experiences it differently).</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>
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If he even really did say this. Lots of 'Einstein
quotes' are apocryphal.<br>
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<div dir="auto">That's true. I checked the validity of this
quote many times to be sure.</div>
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<div dir="auto">It comes from his 1954 article Science and
religion.</div>
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<div dir="auto"><a href="https://einsteinandreligion.com/scienceandreligion.html" target="_blank">https://einsteinandreligion.com/scienceandreligion.html</a></div>
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<div dir="auto">Here is the full context:</div>
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<div dir="auto">"Now, even though the realms of religion and
science in themselves are clearly marked off from each
other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong
reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion
may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless,
learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will
contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But
science can only be created by those who are thoroughly
imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding.
This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of
religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the
possibility that the regulations valid for the world of
existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason.</div>
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<div dir="auto">I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist
without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed
by an image: science without religion is lame, religion
without science is blind."</div>
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<div dir="auto">What, specifically, do you think is wrong in
what he said?</div>
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<br>
All of the above. It's written from the pespective of someone
brought up in a society where the local religion is taken seriously,
as if it had some essential wisdom and wasn't a pack of lies
designed to make people do what they're told by a group of other
people who were originally clever enough and unprincipled enough to
trick everyone into being afraid of some stuff they just made up.<br>
<br>
It's just fundamentally wrong.<br>
<br>
"I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound
faith" says it all. For someone who came up with two theories of
relativity, it shows a disappointing lack of imagination.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>To be clear though, the "profound faith" Einstein was referring to was not a profound faith in god, or creed, but the profound faith that the universe is comprehensible and amenable to human reason.</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>
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And for me, religion is pretty much the worst way of
deciding <br>
on our goals. That's basically just letting some priests
tell you what <br>
you should be doing. And we're all familiar with the
tragic consequences <br>
of that.<br>
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<div dir="auto">Not all religions are those told to us by
priests. The belief that science is the best (or only) tool
for finding the truth is a belief (one some might call a
religion (scientism)). I think you just have an impoverished
conception of what religion can be.</div>
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I have a realistic conception of what religion is, in practice, in
the main. I'm sure there are some religions which can be fairly
inoffensive, but they are by far in the minority.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Nascent medicine was quite bad. But that didn't mean all treatments were bad, nor that the entire field should have been written off and never improved.</div><div><br></div><div>If you think science is the best tool to refine, improve, discard, and revise ideas, why not apply it to refine, improve, discard, and revise ideas that originated in the sphere of religion?</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>
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<div dir="auto"> What are your guiding principles, what is
your personal ethos and philosophy, what are your values,
and core beliefs? These constitute your own personal
religion.</div>
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Philosophy, not religion. I have a personal philosophy, which I'm
not going into here, but it's definitely not a religion.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I am fine with calling it a personal philosophy.</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> Religions,
on the whole, are based on superstition, and are a tool for
controlling people.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Would you agree then, that modifying those that are, such that they're not based on superstition, and not used tools of control, would be a net positive?</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> I'm not going to confuse things more than they
already are by calling my philosophy a religion. </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>
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<br>
It also implies that there are only those two options,
science and <br>
religion, which is far from true.<br>
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<div dir="auto">He didn't frame it as either or, he thought
both had interdependent relationships.</div>
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<br>
He is only presenting those two, and not mentioning anything else,
implying there is nothing else.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>His article is titled "Science and Religion"; it's not meant to cover other topics.</div><div><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>
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In my opinion, religion doesn't even belong in the realm
of philosophy, <br>
but rather psychology (or even psychiatry). Including
religion in <br>
discussions about philosophy, ethics, etc., is basically
equivalent to <br>
including homoeopathy in discussions about medicine,
astrology in <br>
discussions about astronomy, alchemy in discussions
about chemisty, etc. <br>
Religion is probably the biggest con trick in all of
history.<br>
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<div dir="auto">Are you an escapee from an organized religion?</div>
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No.<br>
I just actually read the bible. Then later a few other 'holy' books,
like the Koran (vile), the book of Mormon (hilarious), and a few
others.<br>
I say "I read" as if I had actually read them all the way through,
but that's not true. Let's say that I read enough.<br>
<br>
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<div dir="auto">I find that tends to leave a particularly
strong distaste for anything religious</div>
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Then you may view me as though I was an escapee from an organised
religion.<br>
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<div dir="auto">, and a specific view of what a religion must
be.</div>
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<br>
I have collected several views from examining several religions.
They do say that atheists tend to know more about religion than most
of the faithful. That seems to be right, from my experience.<br>
<br>
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<div dir="auto">Based on the philosophers you referenced, I
presume you believe in mind uploading.</div>
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Absolutely not.<br>
<br>
I think it's theoretically possible, and the only realistic
long-term alternative to extinction for the human race. </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>
I don't know if we will actually figure it out, and be able to make
it available to large numbers of people.<br>
I think it is desirable, and would be The Coolest Thing Ever.<br>
<br>
But I don't 'believe in' it.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Okay, well you believe (or "think") it is possible, which is what I meant to ask. :-)</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>
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<div dir="auto">Mind uploading is based on the idea that the
continuation of consciousness (i.e., survival) requires only
a continuation of the mind-pattern, not the survival of a
particular body or brain.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Therefore death of a body or brain is not
death, if at any future time or place that same mind pattern
is brought into existence.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Agree so far?</div>
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Of course.<br>
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<div dir="auto">Now consider:</div>
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Eternal inflation, 'reincarnation', Jupiter brains, all of reality.<br>
<br>
No, sorry.<br>
Some of the things you say may or may not be
feasible/realistic/true, but they are not worth my time thinking
about.<br>
Like the simulation argument, it doesn't matter to me, here, now.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I won't bring it up again.</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>
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<br>
Yes, I do think there 'is no god', or more accurately,
'aren't any <br>
gods'. (I find that there's a rather obnoxious
short-sightedness (to be <br>
polite, and avoiding calling it arrogance), among very
many people in <br>
the western world, using the word 'god', as if there
haven't been <br>
thousands of gods throughout human history).<br>
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<div dir="auto">How do you know what exists (or doesn't) in an
infinite cosmos, when there are infinite conceptions of god,
and possibly infinite universes?</div>
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I don't. I didn't say I did. I said "I think".</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My apologies, I misread you.</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> I'm not going to base
my behaviour on the theoretical maybe-possibility of something
relating to possibly-infinite universes. I'm basing it on whether or
not I think what the priests tell us is likely to be true or not.
And my conclusion is overwhelmingly not. I'm thinking on the level
of the refutation of Pascal's Wager and "Why doesn't god heal
amputees?", not the level of multiverses and the omega point. <br>
<br>
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This is a more tricky question, because you have to
define what <br>
'god/gods' means. But in the traditional religious sense
of the word, <br>
gods simply cannot exist, unless we have our
understanding of how the <br>
world works totally wrong (which is unlikely, because
our bridges and <br>
buildings tend to not fall down, we have put people on
the moon, and <br>
millions of other things that depend on our scientific
understanding, <br>
work fine).</blockquote>
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<div dir="auto">There is a conception of god (in Hinduism,
Sikhism, and Islam) as infinite truth. Most mathematicians
are platonists and therefore would acknowledge the existence
of such a god.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">There is a conception of god (in Hinduism) as
all of reality. Anyone who believes in a reality of any
kind, necessarily believes in such a notion of god.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">There is a conception of god (in Hinduism and
in Buddhism) as all of conscious. Those who believe in the
existence of consciousness also implicitly believe in such a
god.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">It's only when one artificially restricts
notions of god to bearded men in the sky, who care about
what people do in their bedrooms, or storm gods that shoot
bolts of lightning in anger, that we can so easy dismiss
them as silly.</div>
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<br>
I'm fine with people believing in those more abstract 'gods', if
they want to. It's not my thing, but as long as they leave me alone,
I'll leave them alone.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Okay, no problem there.</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>
It's precisely the beardy-in-the-sky gods that most people who are
believers, believe in, that are the problem. Those are the gods who
want to tell you who you can have relationships with, what you can
eat and wear, who you should be trying to kill, and which version of
hell you should be so afraid of that you'll do anything the priests
tell you to do to avoid it.<br>
<br>
And it's the worshippers of those gods that will do all they can to
infiltrate your government, your schools, your systems of justice,
subvert your news, corrupt and terrify (not to mention rape and
otherwise abuse) your children, steal your money, stifle progress
and dissent, and control your life.<br>
<br>
Yes, I know that not all religions are like that.<br>
<br>
But consider this: Which person do you think you should be more
concerned about, the slightly batty old lady who thinks fairies are
real, or the raving lunatic who has an automatic rifle and thinks
that anybody who even looks slightly gay needs to be 'taught a
lesson' (meaning: killed)?<br>
<br>
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<div dir="auto">Here are words of another thinker you like:</div>
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<div dir="auto">"Evolution moves towards greater complexity,
greater elegance,..</div>
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<br>
Well, nobody is right all the time, and in this, Kurzweil is
flat-out wrong. He's not a biologist, so we can perhaps cut him some
slack, but evolution emphatically does not 'move towards greater
complexity' etc. Evolution is completely blind to whether it results
in more, or less complexity (otherwise we wouldn't have cave fish or
viruses, for example). The other things he mentions are of a
different kind (apart from intelligence, I think), in that they are
not objective, they are concepts in human minds, and only
tangentially related to evolution.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>As evolution proceeds, more niches for life are created, which allows for a greater number of species, operating in a greater number of ways. Life (as a whole) is more complex now than it ever has been before. This doesn't mean every species is on a track for a larger brain and brain, but I think what he says is true for the biosphere as a whole. The trend is definitely noticeable if you consider the encephalization quotient for the mass of all life forms on the planet (or the population of all neurons on Earth).</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>
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<div dir="auto">...greater knowledge, greater intelligence,
greater beauty, greater creativity, and greater levels of
subtle attributes such as love. In every monotheistic
tradition God is likewise described as all of these
qualities, only without limitation: infinite knowledge,
infinite intelligence, infinite beauty, infinite creativity,
infinite love, and so on.</div>
</div>
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<br>
Which completely removes it from reality as we know it, therefore it
becomes irrelevant, and more importantly, not real.<br>
<br>
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<div dir="auto"> Of course, even the accelerating growth of
evolution never achieves an infinite level, but as it
explodes exponentially it certainly moves rapidly in that
direction. So evolution moves inexorably towards this
conception of God, although never quite reaching this
ideal."</div>
<div dir="auto">-- Ray Kurzweil in “The Singularity is Near”
(2005)</div>
</div>
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<br>
Ok, so he's using the concept of god as a metaphor. Fine.<br>
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<div dir="auto">Here are words of the physicist who invented
the quantum computers:</div>
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</div>
<div dir="auto">"In the final anthropic principle or if
anything like an infinite amount of computation taking place
is going to be true, which I think is highly plausible one
way or another, then the universe is heading towards
something that might be called omniscience."</div>
<div dir="auto">-- David Deutsch in “The anthropic universe”
(2006)</div>
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</blockquote>
<br>
Again, fine. Something that might be called omniscience. In the far
far distant future. If you want to define that as a 'god', ok, none
of my business. As long as it doesn't want to roast me for 'an
eternity' for not taking seriously the idea that somehow I'm
responsible for something my great-great grandfather did, and need
to not only apologise for it, but give up eating peanut butter
sandwiches for the rest of my life.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>LOL</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>
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I simply don't know if there are universes beyond this
one.</blockquote>
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<div dir="auto">The evidence is really overwhelming.</div>
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Ok, if you say so. I'm probably not qualified enough, or intelligent
enough, to evaluate the evidence. Not to mention not really that
interested.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's fine. Thank you for telling me so I didn't have to type anything up. :-)</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>
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don't even <br>
know how to properly define this universe. </blockquote>
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<div dir="auto">I would define it as a a connected domain of
causal interaction. But you're right it gets complicated
when we consider the various kinds of horizons, and even
moreso when we consider the ability for universes to
simulate one another.</div>
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Ok then.<br>
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I don't know why you say these are all in the realm of
religious ideas.</blockquote>
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<div dir="auto">They're all ideas related to fundamental
philosophical assumptions (i.e. beliefs) which further can't
be empirically proven or disproven.</div>
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philosophical assumptions which can't be empirically proven or
disproven are not the same thing as beliefs. Try asking any
christian (or better still, muslim) about their 'assumptions' about
their god, or their prophet.<br>
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Only the first two relate to religion, in that without
it the questions <br>
wouldn't even exist, but they are still amenable to
thinking logically <br>
about them, and coming to reasonable conclusions.<br>
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<div dir="auto">I believe all these ideas are amenable to
logical thinking.</div>
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So do I. Ergo: not religion. Do you think that transubstantiation,
the holy trinity, original sin, immortal souls, the infallibility of
the pope, just to pick some examples from the most familiar religion
in the west, are amenable to logical thinking?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, I think so. One could work to clearly define those ideas, and consider whether those definitions are logically consistent or not. If we cannot find any logically consistent definition, we can abandon the idea. If we do find a logically possible one, then we can further consider if it is nomologically possible, if there is evidence for or against it within this universe, and whether its existence (or non-existence) would lead to any observable consequences.</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div></div>