It was an example of a religion
— S

↪S
Right. Which is why your argument was an overgeneralization. — Pantagruel

No, it's why you misunderstood the target of my criticism.

Would you say fashion trends are therefore incompatible with mathematics?
— AJJ

If they lead to contradiction, then in that respect, yes. — S

Providing mathematics has no input on fashion trends (and vice versa), could there be a contradiction?

Providing mathematics has no input on fashion trends (and vice versa), could there be a contradiction? — AJJ

But as I've said many times now, religion does, in at least some cases, have an input on worldly matters open to science, so you're breaking down the analogy. That's why the notion of two entirely separate and non-overlapping domains is bullshit propaganda.

Providing mathematics has no input on fashion trends (and vice versa), could there be a contradiction?
— AJJ

But as I've said many times now, religion does, in at least some cases, have an input on worldly matters open to science, so you're breaking down the analogy. That's why the notion of two entirely separate and non-overlapping domains is bullshit propaganda. — S

So implicitly your answer is “no”. And therefore as long as religion has no input on scientific questions (how old is the earth?), and science has no input on questions of natural theology/philosophy (does God exist?), then there will be no contradiction. But from your post you seem to be saying they conflict only when they encroach on each other’s territory; not that they do in principle.

So implicitly your answer is “no”. And therefore as long as religion has no input on scientific questions (how old is the earth?), and science has no input on questions of natural theology/philosophy (does God exist?), then there will be no contradiction. — AJJ

No, that's not what I'm suggesting at all.

But from your post you seem to be saying they conflict only when they encroach on each other’s territory; not that they do in principle. — AJJ

There are extremely prevalent religious beliefs, the content of which is in conflict with science, and also the respective methods of arriving at belief are opposed and incompatible for any given belief.

So implicitly your answer is “no”. And therefore as long as religion has no input on scientific questions (how old is the earth?), and science has no input on questions of natural theology/philosophy (does God exist?), then there will be no contradiction.
— AJJ

No, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. — S

I didn’t say you were. It’s what follows from you implicitly answering ‘no’ to my previous question.

There are extremely prevalent religious beliefs, the content of which is in conflict with science — S

Yes. When religious beliefs conflict with science, they do indeed conflict with science. Thank you.

and also the respective methods of arriving at belief are opposed and incompatible for any given belief. — S

What is the scientific method for arriving at the belief in a transcendent God, and why is it incompatible with the Kalam Cosmological Argument’s method, say?

So, you aren't willing to bear the burden of your claims? — creativesoul

You are the one who made an initial claim you fucking dunce. Holy shit. You told me the sky wasnt blue, I looked and saw that it was and pointed that out to you and you demand the burden of proof is on me to show you the blue sky (an analogy you imbecile) . Only a dishonest sack of shit like you could possibly think I have the burden of proof when you are the one that made the initial claim, you fucking fucktard dipshit loser.

Ok, so if you pay attention to my insult laden paragraph above, you will see that there are arguments and points being made. Did you notice them? Both insults and argument are present.
This is the case with S and his posts.
Now, once again, you either care about correcting your error or you dont. Comfortable about being wrong about it, or not comfortable with being wrong about it. Either way, I will not spend MY time doing the work you should already have done and you should stop making a claim thats so easy to see is false.

...all you have done is repeat your declaration. I have an equally valid argument. You are an idiot, because thats what you are!
Wow. That IS easy. Now I get why you do it that way. What other magic can I perform with this buffoonish device of yours?
I can fly, because flying is what I can do! There is no such thing as god, because no god exists! Look ma, I solved all the religious debates! Oh and I am going to go jump off a building because my argument is so strong id be stupid NOT to think I can fly.
You need a nice big bowl of Humility with a side of Shut the Fuck Up Until You Do. Lovely dish.
I win, you lose, good day sir!

Ya...so what do you do when you know the burden of proof has shifted, but the other person isn't willing to acknowledge it?

Since you know it, then you know that you have been successful. I'd suggest just walking away with the W. Allowing your own arguments to deteriorate into insults (whether warranted or no) adds nothing to your position.

Things are finally starting to make sense.

In this case the insults do in fact add to my position, as the insults are specifically included to illustrate my point.

LOL! Fair enough.

Knowledge is knowledge.

It doesn't matter whether it's science or religion. They're all trying to give us information with some kind of utility in our lives. So, what if the delivery isn't the best - religion is not a joke, so it's ok to miss the punchline; and what if it doesn't appeal to our hearts or explain the personal (subjective) - science is not reason or common sense, we still have to apply our thinking abilities despite the experiments.

I don't know if it's the fear that if we're wrong then we've failed or something much more primal than that, like fear of the dark, or the unknown, but there is a need to stop bulshitting ourselves.
Most people haven't conducted scientific experiments for themselves to be able to say they trust scientists. Most people accept on faith that scientists know what they're doing. Try applying that to religion, spirituality or metaphysics - what do we get? And, why the difference?

The answer is simple - they target the personal. How come meditation wasn't deemed scientific (until recently, if that) when it's been known for thousands of years that it is useful? Why don't we accept qi (or prana) when the evidence of bio-energies (bio-electrical/bio-magnetic/bio-electro-magnetic) are so obvious in our physical mechanics or so readily acceptable to our intuitions?
It's because we're afraid. Unlike science which is all about the external, religion (spirituality and metaphysics) direct greater influence to the inner person (the psyche). That's why we don't question faith, because if we're wrong then it might mean failure, loss (death). And we hate loss (death), by a lot. Unfortunately, we fear it even more.

Thanks for making it clear as to why participating on this site can truly be a complete waste of time.

You're are about as much of either a fuckwit or a troll as S and Terrapin, It amazes me that many of us seem to be too stupid, undisciplined or forgetful to simply ignore the three of you.

S just wants all people to think and value how he thinks and what he values. S supremacy. It’s like using a blunt object. Instead of guiding people by asking the right questions, he wants to force his will on the world. Asking the right questions gets others, as well as oneself, to discover new truths. S seems to think he already has all the answers, and the unthinking masses need to be subjugated and tamed.

Some entertainment for the warriors here… Back to the past:

Round 1

In the Beginning,
God played an active role in the Cosmos,
After creating it, each and every verse,
And especially the life upon the Earth,
Which planet is supposedly
Only a few thousand years old,
Or so it has been told.

God won this round, hands down,
For even those many science clowns
Who were around at the time
Thought that mankind was prime,
Being the special center of creation,
And that the sun and the stars in elation
Revolved around his holy nation,
The Earth fixed, under a dome.

And, furthermore,
That evil spirits caused physical ills,
Along with all of our mental slips,
As aggravated by life’s frills,
Which were all called ‘sins’,
With blame that still came from within.

Even fun was one of sin’s evil cousins,
In the Bible made from old Jewish legends.

Thankfully, those hundreds of odd Gods
Who had come to reign before GOD
Were crushed, as by Jehovah trod.

We are spun of the Eternal Golden Braid,
Those windings of Truth, Love, and Beauty made
From the Goodness of Purity Immortal—
The Theory of Everything’s singular portal.

What is Man but the special chosen species
For which all the plants grow and the waters reach,
For which the Earth turns ‘round, and orbits
A sunny furnace, spreading Love’s energy,
Enabling us to thrive above any and all creation.

It’s ever on forever’s edge that we meet our destiny,
That in our temporary parentheses of Eternity
We would flourish for just this moment, bidden,
As the blossoms of Perfection’s Flower Garden.

A hundred trillion stars and countless shores
Were built to light our universal nights explored;
Forty million other lower species too, the All-Might
Placed about our world, merely for our delight.

Our names are Writ Large on the Heaven’s marquee,
In the supernovae stardust showered from Thee.
From Nothing You came not, but of a naught
Our own universe was made and ever wrought.

A starring role we play in this reality show,
Every atom spinning fine just for us to know,
Our ancestors rising/falling for us to stand upon,
Oh man! They lived and died for our lone promise!

Every shaft of light shines with us in mind;
Thus it beams forth our beginning and our end—
In and of God’s hidden and Heavenly Shrine.
Oh life! We cherish being, that of Yours and mine.

We do so much deserve reward beyond this role—
And so it is that one’s immortal spirit-soul,
That angelic vapour that drives a living being,
Will go forth to glory on, beyond the scene.

However, about three centuries ago,
The realm of natural law was extended, so
The Supernatural Kingdom
Began to shrink away some,
Eventually vanishing from all of existence,
But we get ahead of our own persistence…

From what beastly heart sprung our zest?
Through what searching eye became our sight?
What sounds in the bushes let us hear?
What dark past haunts but helps us be?

Across what ink black rivers did we have to swim?
To what ends at length did we search for food?
In what deep entangled forest were we bred?
Of what stars did we shine in their stead?

Oh Man! What a piece of work—the mind;
What noble deeds done and undone in kind.
What Rube Goldberg inventions heaped upon—
In the layers of brains the mind is made upon.

What is this sapiens mammal animal,
But of some slime and of brutish law!
So, let’s ‘neglect’ this state of affairing,
On the grounds that it is unappealing.

What is Man but the only bloom for which all
The 13.7 billions years of evolution and love
Have occurred, in a predetermined swirling yeast,
To form and flower such a vainglorious beast.

Round 2

God came out quick, now claiming the writ
That He guided the Earth safe through its orbit
Around the the now centered sun in space,
For by now the Earth’s motion around the sun
Was known to be true to nearly everyone.

Newton demolished this notion
With his laws of motion.
God thus no longer ruled Nature’s course,
For the world was free to run its course.

From Isaac: Laws and Revelations:
There is a mote in space known as Earth,
A pale blue dot of fluff orbiting a hearth.
Due but to Newton’s laws of motion there’s none:
No Godly hand guiding it safe around the sun.

The vanishing had now really begun.
The heavens and the Earth were one.

Stars and galaxies went on and on puffing
And we became the center of nothing.
God was losing his definition in stone,
As his sworn traits disappeared one by one.

So, He’s retreated to higher ground, that is,
Outside of space, time, and all that exists.

So, while we're at it, let us place our hand on a copy of Sam Harris's The End of Faith, and solemnly affirm:

I believe in a single substance, the mother of all forces, which engenders the life and consciousness of everything, visible and invisible. I believe in a single Lord, biology, the unique son of the substance of the world, born from the mother substance after centuries of random shuffling of material: the encapsulated reflection of the great material sea, the epiphenomenal light of primordial darkness, the false reflection of the real world, consubstantial with the mother-substance. It is he who has descended from the shadows of the mother-substance, he who has taken on flesh from matter, he who plays at the illusion of thought from flesh, he who has become the Human Brain. I acknowledge a single method for the elimination of error, thus ultimately eliminating myself and returning to the mother substance. Amen.

Sam Harris's The End of Faith — Wayfarer

‘The God Delusion’, and ‘god is Not Great’ were well written, too.

You could probably just as easily use them.

Arguing with religious fanatics, I've noticed it on several philosophical websites, is like drinking a strong poison and not dying from it.

The best is to leave them alone. If you don't, you may blow up in anger or in frustration by seeing them claim so many fallacious, improper, stupid, and ignorant facts and arguments, and then sticking by them despite overwhelming evidence, both a priori and empirical.

Religions are no longer opiates that sedate... they have turned noxious. The shelf-life has expired a long time ago, and the followers of them still try to force them dow our throats.

This often also applies to anti-religious fanatics.

This is a fairly long thread, so I will not address any previous posts. As a point of interest, when I contributed to this forum some years ago, this subject was discussed at length, but that's philosophy, no actual conclusions have ever been drawn, except by individuals. Science and religion have sometimes been at odds, but they do not have to be.

If one defines religion as belief in God, that is not a reason to reject scientific investigation. It could be argued that God created science. That concept appears in the writing of Einstein and Hawking. However, I should add that while I will always be willing to discuss the matter, I really don't give a rat's ass. But . . . religion does not mean belief in God, and that is why one has to be very careful how one words philosophical questions. If the question was meant to be - Are science and the belief in God contradictory, then it should be written as such.

This often also applies to anti-religious fanatics. — Wayfarer

I'd say it applies to even to moderates of both camps.

@Wayfarer and @Coben, you just proved my point. The fact is, that facts and reason support anti-religionism. You can't say "this applies to anti-religious as well." You are right that we, the anti-religious are toxic for you, make you angry and frustrated, and we also stick by our points like the religious do. These indeed apply to both camps. BUT there is a big difference: Facts and reason support anti-religionism more and more and more. This does not apply in reverse.

I agree with you, however, that the debates should stop. They are fruitless, they are vengeful, and they create a level of unnecessary frustration.

The best is to leave them alone. If you don't, you may blow up in anger or in frustration by seeing them claim so many fallacious, improper, stupid, and ignorant facts and arguments, and then sticking by them despite overwhelming evidence, both a priori and empirical. — god must be atheist

No, no anger, for they like what they want and their doing so is actual and so that's how it is and thus can be with humans. Their 'God' remains as a shrinking 'maybe', true, for science has closed many of the gaps of their supposed, posited, and revealed 'God', which is the popular one, though unfortunately that 'God' is the polar opposite of a good role model, which will eventually doom that particular notion of 'God'.

The fact is, that facts and reason support anti-religionism — god must be atheist

Do you understand what ‘positivism’ is? Or ‘scientism’ Do you know why Dawkins/Dennett are accused of ‘scientism’?

It’s a myth that ‘science disproves religion’ in any general sense. Sure, science undermines many forms of religious belief, but questions as to whether the Universe is animated by an underlying cause are quite out of reach for science. The kinds of religious belief that science undermines, for instance ‘biblical literalism’, are based on faulty readings of religion in the first place. So the conflict is really often between biblical fundamentalism on the one side, and scientific materialism, on the other. And they’re mirror images of each other.

As for ‘the gaps’ - they simply reappear in different forms. Right now, there’s a big debate about the so-called ‘fine tuning principle’ - why it is that the Universe seems to have just those attributes required to give rise to complex forms, when there’s nothing science can demonstrate that shows why it should be so. One of the arguments against that is that the universe is just one instance of a vast ‘multiverse’, and the one that just happens to support life - something for which there could be no more evidence than there can be for a ‘first cause’.

And it’s a perfectly legitimate subject for a philosophy forum; only ‘fruitless’ for fundamentalists who want what they consider ‘proof’ one way or the other, because that’s never going to be had.

Wayfarer and Coben, you just proved my point. — god must be atheist

Please show how I proved your point.

The fact is, that facts and reason support anti-religionism. You can't say "this applies to anti-religious as well." — god must be atheist

You seem to be confusing the merits of a position with the behavior of the adherents. I was writing about the latter. Nothing I said is countered by what you say here.

You are right that we, the anti-religious are toxic for you, make you angry and frustrated, — god must be atheist

I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me nor that they make me angry and frustrated.

I agree with you, however, that the debates should stop. They are fruitless, they are vengeful, and they create a level of unnecessary frustration. — god must be atheist

I didn't say the debates should stop.
Please don't include me in lists, if you are going to assign positions to me.

The good thing about science is that it is self-critical. I am not an agnostic or an Atheist, yet I don't believe in any God as described to me so far. They are all pathetically human constructs. I am not an Atheist because I refuse to be categorised by what I am not. Atheism has been invented by those who fear God, to pigeon hole the rest of us. I suppose I could believe in a supreme Cosmic intelligence, but what good would that do me? I'd have to believe in some reward-punishment afterlife. Believe it or not, there are other interpretations of reality that don't adhere to belief or disbelief. But if you do subscribe to one of the two opposites, its going to take a bit of a leap. PS I don't believe in enlightenment either.

I heard great theory, about life elsewhere in the Universe, from a Christian friend of mine. He said words to the effect: It is highly unlikely there is intelligent life other than on Earth, because the Lord would have had to send is only son and saviour to die for their souls too.

I cracked up.

I don't believe in any God as described to me so far. They are all pathetically human constructs. — Drazjan

Yes, with some demolished by science and some just plainly showing God's lack of integrity. All that remains, really, beyond the trivial, is whether a 'God' is probable or not, beyond us never being able to know for sure, leaving it ever to be a 'maybe'.

Hail! Lord Byron’s Golden Mean extends:
Let us have wine, lovers, song, and laughter—
Water, chastity, prayer the day after.
Such we’ll alternate the rest of our days—
So on the average we’ll make Hereafter!