Convert Me Challenge

[adogablog]

Hi everyone!

This is my first time in this community so I hope my post is acceptable. My question must have been asked before but hopefully not in quite the same way. Anyway, I'm really excited to see what kind of answers I get since this is a subject that has really been bugging me lately, since I moved from a not-very-religious city to a town full

Comments

[chipuni]

I feel the best means of analysis uses scientific methodology, meaning giving validity only to arguments which can be tested using deductive reasoning.

You're writing about two VERY different things here, and that they're much more limited than reality.

Scientific methodology is wonderful for everything where conditions can be repeated. You can verify, say, magnetism easily in a scientific setting. But scientific methodology has nothing to say about one-time events, like history

[adogablog]

This is just the response I was looking for! It made me think. Neat. There is a lot to respond to here, I'll try to keep this succinct and focus on the most important arguments

[meus_ovatio]

Well, let's talk about being human. It is my opinion that humans are believing creatures. These beliefs do not serve strictly some idea of "knowledge", I mean, it is not like the point of us is limited to some set of knowledge, and simply knowing it. Beliefs, by which I mean religious, ethical or otherwise, are formative acts combining hope and desire, limited by what one knows, and expressing meaning beyond facts. So the question is not what you know, but what you want. So I would ask you, what do you want

[adogablog]

Not really sure how to respond to this...I think you are speaking in terms of faith and it doesn't really make sense to me. A belief, to me, is a form of knowledge. If you believe something, isn't that knowing it? I don't need to feel that I am right and others are wrong, although it is a flattering feeling, but I do need a reason to believe something in the first place.

[meus_ovatio]

No, I'm not speaking in terms of faith, I'm speaking in terms of humanity.

A belief, to me, is a form of knowledge.
Well there's your problem right there.

If you believe something, isn't that knowing it?
No, not at all. Not even close.

...but I do need a reason to believe something in the first place.
This is slightly dishonest. There are any number of reasons one can have to believe something in the first place. The fundamental human truth is that we all believe what we want to believe, for various reasons afterward. "Science", inasmuch as it serves as rhetorical shield for defending one's various beliefs, is an empty answer. It is as empty as "Religion" or any other curt term we use to wholesale justify our worldview. But we are living organic beings confronted with particularly meddlesome realities revolving around the need to eat and shit.

[adogablog]

What I am getting from this is (1) Belief is whatever you want to believe and (2) Nothing we know is absolute truth. An analogy comes to mind. Eternity is eternity, but some eternities are longer than other eternities. Maybe all we know is a projection of our own mind, but some of those projections may be more real than others. Maybe there was a big bang, for example. Since we are our minds, the best we can do is use our intellect to contemplate the most plausible reality for ourselves. Otherwise, what is the point of belief at all? I would love to believe there is a god that loves me and I am going to heaven when I die to fly around with angels. But it's not enough for me to want to believe it. When you believe something, the implication is you believe it to be true. Richard Dawkins says something is true or not true. Something can't be true to you and not true to everyone else. This is debatable given your points, but if this line of reasoning is to be discarded, belief itself would lose much of its meaning anyway

[essentialsaltes]

Science is great for telling us what is or was, but it is not suited for telling us how to act, or how things ought to be. You'll have to find some other tool to use for those things. Religion is one answer, but not the only one.

[adogablog]

True, humanism is another answer I suppose. Or you could have neither and still be a moral being. I don't think there is a way things "ought to be;" things are what they are as determined by evolution/adaptation. There is no real right or wrong; those concepts are subjective to humans as a result of our being such intelligent, social creatures. If we thought it perfectly acceptable to treat one another poorly, we would not have thrived to the extent we have because our social networks would not have been as strong.

I don't look down on people who are religious, I think it is great if it makes them happy and moral. But that doesn't make it true.

[alyoshas_world]

It's a huge leap from scientific method being the best means or analysis to something being outside the scope of possibility, don't you think?

[adogablog]

I'm not sure you are comparing comparable things. A leap from "scientific analysis" to "something outside the scope of possibility"? The latter is not a thought process...

[alyoshas_world]

You are the one who made the comparison. I'm pointing out its fallacy.

[adogablog]

Could you elaborate on or dumb down your original question?

[tcpip]

Wow, someone's upset the tumbleweeds :)

Anyway, what you're calling the scientific methodology can be extended to other pragmatic worlds of inquiry, as long as you alter your forms of verification.

In any case, the scientific methodology simply doesn't apply for what you're asking for. The possibility of "God" (let's just use that label) is valid, as even Bertrand Russell acknowledged, but it's just beyond our ken.

[adogablog]

If it's beyond our comprehension, meaning unknown and unknowable, why is it valid? Saying that reason and logic do not apply to God does not mean that there therefore has to be another form of thought, feeling or whatever, another something, that would reveal that there is a God. Furthermore, if God is so beyond our comprehension, isn't it ironic that God itself is a creation of the human mind? Doesn't that negate the whole idea

[tcpip]

If it's beyond our comprehension, meaning unknown and unknowable, why is it valid?

I would suggest because one can still make argument that is internally consistent. It may not have empirical validity, but it does have logical validity.

I don't even know if you are religious at all, or if anyone else who responded is.

Oh, I'm just a regular church-going atheist :)

[adogablog]

Oh and I totally don't get the feeling of upsetting the tumbleweeds, which is why I suspect most commenters here aren't very religious. I wonder, is it more likely for an atheist to ask for religious conversion, than it is for a person of religion to ask for reasons to not believe in God? While this is a very interesting idea for a community, I wonder how many deeply religious people are actually drawn to it. (This is all suspect of course, this being my first post.)