The Islamic theocracy in Iran continues to demonstrate its willingness to murder its own citizens to protect the theocracy they impose on their population.
I don't blame all muslims or all the tenets of Islam, for the actions of the nefarious group in power in Iran. I merely cite their actions as an example of what those who manipulate theism and theists can achieve. I know that there are counter claims from theists about the nefarious actions to be found in secular governments. We need to have sufficient checks and balances against all manipulations of human primal fears, theistic, political and social.

The Islamic theocracy in Iran continues to demonstrate its willingness to murder its own citizens to protect the theocracy they impose on their population.
I don't blame all muslims or all the tenets of Islam, for the actions of the nefarious group in power in Iran. I merely cite their actions as an example of what those who manipulate theism and theists can achieve. I know that there are counter claims from theists about the nefarious actions to be found in secular governments. We need to have sufficient checks and balances against all manipulations of human primal fears, theistic, political and social. — universeness

You stand opposed to state sponsored murder as a means of population control, you don't blame the average citizen for the acts of their brutal government, and you also stand opposed to secular governments that do evil?

What is your stance on mothers and puppies? Are you in favor of those?

Based upon the controversial statements you made about evil, I bet you stand in favor of good things. I just bet you do.

Science has found truth about the physical universe. There is no Christian chemistry, Islamic chemistry, and Buddhist chemistry. There is just chemistry — Art48

There is no such entity as "science". There is a methodology outlined by humans to guide other humans in the pursuit of a certain kind of knowledge. The human practicing these methods have subdivided their subject matter into separate disciplines, just as the practitioners of religious pursuits have staked out their own territories.

There is no Chemical beatitude, no Biological heaven and no Physical salvation. So what? It doesn't hinder scientists in their endeavours.

Religion has failed to find truth about the spiritual universe. — Art48

True. It hasn't found a truth; it has found billions of truths.

:up:

At any rate, I'm not sure what you want to discuss ... — Hanover

I made my points on page 1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/762981

Finding meaning in one's life, for me, is the proper use of religion.

Well I think finding one's own meaning in one's life is the proper use of one's life. Religion, no matter how 'personalistic', is always essentially totalitarian – often infantilizing – with it's ready-made, handed down from on high, canonical "meanings".

And yet you offer no cite to this ancient doctrine and ignore all the cites set forth in the Wiki article specifically on the point of psychology of religion. — Hanover

So much to choose from, articles like:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/religion-based-fear-twr/
https://medium.com/spiritual-psychology/3-fear-based-religious-beliefs-that-go-unquestioned-a0d7c03e5c1a

From Bertrand Russell:
“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

Carl Sagan's quote refers to 'reassurance.' in:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Why do you think he chose that word?

Sigmund Freud wrote that religion is a delusion created by our subconscious mind in its attempt to deal with fear. He taught that humans are subject to three innate fears: the fear of death, the fear of the destructive forces of nature, and fear associated with suffering and the physical demands of life.

I could list a large number of qualified folks who comment on fear based religion, such as:
https://sofoarchon.com/breaking-free-fear-based-religion-escape-prison-belief-face-lifes-problems/
Those who think religion is fear based would be a long list and you probably will handwave them away anyhow.

What is your stance on mothers and puppies? Are you in favor of those?

Based upon the controversial statements you made about evil, I bet you stand in favor of good things. I just bet you do. — Hanover

I am glad that you find my position so obvious and compelling that you support it with the same affection that you obviously have for puppies and mothers. Do you now accept that manipulating human primal fears to promote a religious doctrine is bad? Even if such beliefs allow you to have a personally tailored supernatural protection already in place that you can appeal to if 'your world starts to fall apart?'
Do you feel that potential protection truly exists?
I am just interested in the personal credence level you give it.

Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. — universeness

No, Bert, it bloody well can't! Fear, like every other emotion, is with us to stay - unless you mean science can help us all to become cyborgs. Science can also give, and has given, a lot of brand new reasons for fear.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. — universeness

And if someone wants both, they can have both.

He taught that humans are subject to three innate fears: the fear of death, the fear of the destructive forces of nature, and fear associated with suffering and the physical demands of life. — universeness

Sound like perfectly natural and justified fears. And so these very intelligent men look around at the practice of religion in their own society and leap to the facile conclusion that this fear was the universal and only motive for religion.
Of course, those fears are justified and useful; there are also unjustified, irrational fears created by human imagination, and unbelievers can have them [phobias, anxieties, neuroses] more easily than true believers, who have a built-in psychological gyroscope.
You can quote a lot of famous people who share your same opinion, and you all will even be right when assuming that it's true - of some people, but you'll be wrong about others. It's an opinion based in your own beliefs, that satisfies your own need for certainty, but no generalization applies to everyone else. However respected a man may be in some specialized field, he cannot know the experience, perception, motivations and inspirations of a stranger.
Especially if he starts at the wrong end.

No, Bert, it bloody well can't! Fear, like every other emotion, is with us to stay - unless you mean science can help us all to become cyborgs. Science can also give, and has given, a lot of brand new reasons for fear — Vera Mont

:lol: I would love to see the rather posh Bertrands response to you calling him bert!
Science WILL offer all sorts of transhumanism in the future and I think science makes many of us fear a lot less. To boldly go.... does exemplify a human wish to conquer primal fear.
Carl Sagan again: (I have this quote beside a photo of Carl on my bedroom wall. Geek and proud to be!)
"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first formed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew, with undiminished wonder: What are the stars?
Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready to set sail for the stars."

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
— universeness

And if someone wants both, they can have both. — Vera Mont

I agree, but I can still challenge them on the 'delusion' part, yes?

You can quote a lot of famous people who share your same opinion, and you all will even be right when assuming that is true - of some people. And famous people, too, like everyone else, can also be wrong. It's an opinion based in their own beliefs. But no generalization is applies to every case. However respected a man may be in some specialized field, he cannot know the experience, perception, motivations and inspirations of a stranger. — Vera Mont

I agree, and you can also apply it to many famous people that I don't share the same opinions with.
From Aristotle through to Thomas Aquinas to serious horrors such as Ayn Rand.

None of those pretend to be scientific, but are just people, like you, offering their opinions.

Well I think finding one's own meaning in one's life is the proper use of one's life. Religion, no matter how its personalistic, is always, in essence, totalitarian – often infantilizing – with it's ready-made, handed down from on high, canonical "meanings". — 180 Proof

Alright, so you stand opposed to the totalitarian, infantalizing, ready-made religions. What about those that are not?

There is no such entity as "science" — Vera Mont

Similarly, there is no such entity as Vera Mont. Conversation over.

Science can also give, and has given, a lot of brand new reasons for fear. — Vera Mont

We can always act with courage when confronting that which we have "reasons for fear" (risk :chin:); it's the lack of "reasons" that paralyzes us with fear (terror), crippling denial and fetishizing infantilizing superstitions (e.g. religion :pray:). Reasoned fears are far more adaptive than the unreasoned fears from the childhood of our species.

What about those that are not? — Hanover

Of the extant major world religions, I don't know of one which is not. Which religion do you mean?

Carl Sagan again: (I have this quote beside a photo of Carl on my bedroom wall. Geek and proud to be!) — universeness

"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first formed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew, with undiminished wonder: What are the stars?
Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready to set sail for the stars." :fire: :up:

agree, but I can still challenge them on the 'delusion' part, yes? — universeness

Challenge, sure. But preferably in the same courteous tones you would expect from them. People don't much care for being called liars, sight unknown, life unseen.

Science WILL offer all sorts of transhumanism in the future and I think science makes many of us fear a lot less. — universeness

When? Scientific enterprise has been chugging along for 500 years, and yet people are still acting paranoid. Not because they're scared of Nature (primitive people's were not) and fear of death suffering doesn't seem to be any less on this side of the church wall. People are mostly scared of other people, with good reasons and bad ones. Science hasn't made the tiniest dent in that. It has helped us make a lot more people to be afraid of... but then, it's also helped us create the conditions for our own extinction.

To boldly go.... does exemplify a human wish to conquer primal fear. — universeness

You haven't met any cats or raccoons? Anyway, Sagan is right: the drive to explore and conquer have been with us much longer than Organized Science or Organized Religion or Civilization. none of those things alleviate fear. The only thing that does is a sense of personal security: when you know where your next meal is coming from, where you will sleep and who'll be there with you and you don't hear any gunfire or howling wind. We're not scared all the time (except maybe white supremacists), and we need to be scared sometimes.

Reasoned fears are far more adaptive than the unreasoned fears from the childhood of our species. — 180 Proof

What makes you think our species had a 'childhood'? People without cellphones can be adult and people with rocketships can be immature. Who says people who lived out in the woods, went barefoot and had to catch their own dinner instead of ordering out were less able to reason than people who have access to all the world's history and yet select leaders like Putin and Trump?

Of the extant major world religions, I don't know of one which is not. Which religion do you mean? — 180 Proof

For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

This should get us started.

:lol:

In a world of 8 billion people, Judaism as a whole has about 15 million followers and the "Reformed Judaism" movement only has a little over 2 million followers. Not a major world religion.

While Christiianity is a major world religion, with over 2.3 billion followers, the Christian sect of "Unitarianism", with under 1 million followers globally, constitutes a statistically insignificant fringe.

And Buddhism, with over a half bilion followers worldwde, is a major world religion which, in most of its sects that I'm aware of, traffics in two or more of the common failings of religion I've mentioned: "idols, superstition, conformity or scapegoating".

So far, Hanover, your examples suck.

They are counterexamples to your comments about "religion." This means your criticisms are not of religion but of particular religions.

23% of believers in God don't subscribe to the tenants of a particular religious doctrine, meaning we have millions of unaffiliated theists that avoid your silly criticisms.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/

You just hold firm to your untenable position that theism is a monolithic, unnuanced belief system. It's just factually incorrect.

'Tis the season. :halo: :victory:
Shadowbox with strawmen to your heart's content. *Reason's Greetings*

People tend to make glib blanket judgements about things they don't understand. And then consider themselves superior to people who admit they don't understand everything. People are funny.

So far, Hanover, your examples suck. — 180 Proof

"Religion" as an entity discrete enough to stand trial, should really include all religions... not just the current big organized ones you happen to know about and consider popular enough to count as major.

Someone made an apt comment about that:

Shadowbox with strawmen to your heart's content. — 180 Proof

None of those pretend to be scientific, but are just people, like you, offering their opinions. — Hanover

Right back at you. I am willing to express my reasons for my personal atheism. It seems you are totally unwilling to explain why you have theistic beliefs. This is very common indeed with theists who contact the phone in shows I mentioned earlier. After a few exchanges with the presenters of the show they mostly enter some prolonged stutter and stammer mode or get angry due to their own lack of ability to explain the logic they apply when trying to justify their faith based viewpoints.

We can always act with courage when confronting that which we have "reasons for fear" (risk :chin:); it's the lack of "reasons" that paralyzes us with fear (terror), crippling denial and fetishizing infantilizing superstitions (e.g. religion :pray:). Reasoned fears are far more adaptive than the unreasoned fears from the childhood of our species. — 180 Proof

:clap: Science offers us protections that encourage us to leave the cave and face those big scary animals and those very 'human unfriendly' conditions in space.
From big spears to bullet proof vests to space suits and even transhumanism.
I for one, feel more confident, 'to boldly go.....,' with science / technology backing me up, than I do trying to defend against the threats life throws at me by pointing a Christian cross and a bible (or a star and crescent symbol and a quran) at it and engaging in forlorn prayer to a nonexistent, when 'my world is falling apart.' Takin a purely pragmatic stance for a moment, I think I have more chance of surviving and thriving within democratic secular humanist governance compared to my chances of surviving and thriving under theocratic governance.

:up:

Science wins because the magic works. Making wine from grape juice works; making wine from water does not.

But notoriously, science cannot tell us how to live, only expand our options. Who you gonna call?

The book being promoted here attempts to make a religion of science, and necessarily fails. Just as one cannot fix a broken heart with a spanner, or even a scalpel. The right tool for that job is love, and the science of love is a disaster worse than any quackery, because you cannot have it, you cannot test it, you cannot repeat it, all you can do is kill it.

Challenge, sure. But preferably in the same courteous tones you would expect from them. People don't much care for being called liars, sight unknown, life unseen. — Vera Mont

I will not walk on eggshells around theists and theism for fear of offending them. Especially when so many of them take certain quotes from people like Aquinas as one of their main purposes in life:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/42/a8/5c42a859667dd7912a0d1989cc2ea9c8.jpg
I do expect courteous tones from theists but I very rarely get such. I will continue to respond in kind. Not with an eye for an eye mentality but not as a cowed intimidated interlocuter either.

When? Scientific enterprise has been chugging along for 500 years, and yet people are still acting paranoid. Not because they're scared of Nature (primitive people's were not) and fear of death suffering doesn't seem to be any less on this side of the church wall. People are mostly scared of other people, with good reasons and bad ones. Science hasn't made the tiniest dent in that. It has helped us make a lot more people to be afraid of... but then, it's also helped us create the conditions for our own extinction. — Vera Mont

The speed of advances in science has been incredible and very impressive indeed imo.
We were always under threat of extinction. 99.9% of all creatures that have ever lived on Earth are extinct, the vast majority of those extinctions have nothing to do with the human race.
Theistic doctrine suggests that the Earth and its contents are here for us to use as we please.
God will at some point return and either destroy the Earth and take its chosen people to be with it or, If it wants to keep the Earth going, then it can easily repair any damage and do what it wants with it.
I look to science to teach humans how vital it is to correct our suicidal stewardship of our planet.
If we continue to treat the Earth the way the fundamentalist Christians suggest we can, then we have a whole lot more trouble ahead.
Science does indeed help to unite people in common cause and certainly has put significant dents in human primal fear. It offers us many technological protections, medical advances, improving lifespan etc. It can show us real pictures like pale blue dot and by doing so, demonstrate to us that we are indeed one little planet and one species that needs to globally unite.

You haven't met any cats or raccoons? — Vera Mont

Science offers you lots of protective padding/armour and even a machine gun. Lions and tigers and bears oh my ....... they just cant compete.

none of those things alleviate fear. The only thing that does is a sense of personal security: when you know where your next meal is coming from, where you will sleep and who'll be there with you and you don't hear any gunfire or howling wind. We're not scared all the time (except maybe white supremacists), and we need to be scared sometimes. — Vera Mont

Science and secular humanism is trying to achieve the protections we all want and I have more confidence that they will succeed, compared to the solution of pointing a Christian cross and a bible at our problems alongside praying for a nonexistent god to intervene.

But notoriously, science cannot tell us how to live, only expand our options. — unenlightened

Does an image, directly from science, such as 'pale blue dot,' not have any affect on your personal views on how you should live and does it not impact your view of how others should live?

Just as one cannot fix a broken heart with a spanner, or even a scalpel. The right tool for that job is love, and the science of love is a disaster worse than any quackery, because you cannot have it, you cannot test it, you cannot repeat it, all you can do is kill it. — unenlightened

You cant love if you are dead! Love wont fix a dying heart but a triple bypass might.
Love dies of natural causes there is no need to kill it but a person can kill it if they choose to.

The book being promoted here attempts to make a religion of science, and necessarily fails. — unenlightened

An old boring totally debunked suggestion. There is no aspect of science which can be connected to religion. Science has no god to show deference to. No scientist worships or prays to the scientific method, just like they don't worship or pray to that spanner you mentioned.

:up: Very interesting info. I have noted down the links to check them later. Thanks.

You cant love if you are dead! — universeness

You claim! But have heard the Grateful Dead.

Does an image, directly from science, such as 'pale blue dot,' not have any affect on your personal views on how you should live and does it not impact your view of how others should live? — universeness

Having an effect is one thing, but that dot cannot tell me whether to build more rockets or grow more beans. It can show me the dot, but not measure the beauty.

You claim! — unenlightened

You have convincing evidence to the contrary?

but that dot cannot tell me whether to build more rockets or grow more beans. — unenlightened

I would go for growing beans unless you also know how to build significant rockets, then you can do both. Both activities sound useful to me, as compared to other possibilities, such as developing a conviction on your part to start a new religion and build more churches/temples/cathedrals/mosques etc or become a preacher/priest/minister/Imam/theosophist etc.

It can show me the dot, but not measure the beauty. — unenlightened

A scientist is a person, so can measure beauty as all humans can. Just like you are able to measure beauty. Do you agree that such is in the eye of the beholder? When you compare/discuss your measurement and a scientists measurement of the beauty of the pale blue dot image, you may completely agree, mostly agree or agree that one persons meat is another persons poison.
How does a scientific image like pale blue dot affect you politically? or/and anthropologically?

Science wins because the magic works. Making wine from grape juice works; making wine from water does not. — unenlightened

All those benighted Jews, etc. had been making wine for centuries before Jesus. Science has been part of the human psyche as long as spiritualism - they're part of the same imaginative, curious, exploring and extrapolating mind. They were never in competition - no winning and losing - until they were politicized for the very purpose of pitting people one against another.

Especially when so many of them take certain quotes from people like Aquinas as one of their main purposes in life: — universeness

I hoped you would at least use discernment: attack only those who are have done harm to you or someone who didn't deserve to to be harmed. I hoped you would give individuals the benefit of a doubt; judge them by their words and actions, not a label you've stuck on them.

The speed of advances in science has been incredible and very impressive indeed imo. — universeness

Sure. We can now ensure the death of everything on Earth in fifteen minutes flat. Of course, many creatures would take considerably longer to actually die.

We were always under threat of extinction. 99.9% of all creatures that have ever lived on Earth are extinct, the vast majority of those extinctions have nothing to do with the human race. — universeness

None of those extinctions included the human race. This one does. And I thought the benefits of science should include preventing extinction, not insuring it.

It can show us real pictures like pale blue dot and by doing so, demonstrate to us that we are indeed one little planet and one species that needs to globally unite. — universeness

Those pictures have been seen since since 1959. How many voluntary international unions have taken place since than, and how many divisions?

Science and secular humanism is trying to achieve the protections we all want and I have more confidence that they will succeed, compared to the solution of pointing a Christian cross and a bible at our problems alongside praying for a nonexistent god to intervene. — universeness

We'll send out lots of space probes with friendly messages and maybe the advanced aliens will come and save us from ourselves.
They both sound like the same kind of wishful thinking in the teeth of all evidence.

I hoped you would at least use discernment: attack only those who are have done harm to you or someone who didn't deserve to to be harmed. I hoped you would give individuals the benefit of a doubt; judge them by their words and actions, not a label you've stuck on them. — Vera Mont

I assume you meant 'or someone who did deserve to be harmed,' in the quote above.
We all make such judgements, in the same way you have judged me as deserving of your words above.
I suggest you yourself have made quite a few assumptions and stuck a few of your own inaccurate labels on me.

Sure. We can now ensure the death of everything on Earth in fifteen minutes flat. Of course, many creatures would take considerably longer to actually die. — Vera Mont

Do you think that's faster than a big rock from space could achieve, or how about a massive eruption of the caldera under Yellowstone park or how fast do you think the Christian god could do it, if it existed?

This one does. And I thought the benefits of science should include preventing extinction, not insuring it. — Vera Mont

A spoon is a good scientific invention, but I can still kill someone with one. Hopefully M.A.D will prevent nuclear war. Science can, but does not have to be used to destroy. Theism is exactly the same. Its up to 'good' humans to prevent such threats. if they cant then, imo, we deserve our fate. The Earth will survive, and another species will inherit the stewardship of the planet. Even if it takes another 300 million years of evolution through natural selection. I am currently, more concerned that a theist like Putin has control over a nuclear arsenal, than I would be, if he were not a theist.

Those pictures have been seen since since 1959. How many voluntary international unions have taken place since than, and how many divisions? — Vera Mont

1959! You are impatient Vera! That's only 63 years ago. It's a bit of a 'diva stance' to complain that the human race has not made enough satisfactory global improvements in your lifetime. I personally think that many improvements have been made. But discussing particular examples and giving my details as to why I think a particular example qualifies, is probably a whole other thread. The equality rights gained by LGBTQ+ people in the West for example. Progressive political movements via groups like 'Compass' and 'Momentum' in the UK. I could go on.

We'll send out lots of space probes with friendly messages and maybe the advanced aliens will come and save us from ourselves.
They both sound like the same kind of wishful thinking in the teeth of all evidence. — Vera Mont

There may be no aliens close enough to communicate with, for another million years. Perhaps we are the only game in town and the 'aliens,' will be us when we colonise the Moon, Mars and who knows where else.

Update: Here is a very exciting development in nuclear fusion, in the news media today!
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/why-nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-at-us-lab-promises-a-new-source-of-clean-energy/ar-AA15eNdX