Just stop the useless complaining.
POSTED BY: LostInTheVerse
UPDATED: Thursday, November 25, 2004 04:27
VIEWED: 24069
PAGE 9 of 17
INFO: my home computer died, really busy at work, might not be able to post until 1-2 weeks later.
Quick Replies:
The correct word is absolution. Plese absolve me of my error.
To the "science" people: Don't just think of American Christianity when thinking of religion. Think broadly, from shamanism to Later Day Saints to scientology as early stage religons which change rapidly. (like i argue science is) But I am really enjoying the discussion.
Jason, great post. I think it explains the basic differences well.
Lastly, please don't debate off this post as it is really rushed during lunch.
Gotta go, work calls.
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"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I also included Republican policies as part of the problem. If you were to look up the history of energy trading deregulation that was behind Enron, you would see what I mean. Look it up yourself. Perhaps if you had to find this info on your own you would vaue it more instead of just quibbling.
My quibble is with the way you specifically blame the Bush administration and Republican policies in the last four years for Enron. Enron was cheating on their income tax at least as early as 1996. Most of the crimes for which Enron execs have been jailed occurred prior to 2001. If you want to condemn Bush for energy deregulation, go ahead, but Enron's not his fault. They turned bad during the Clinton administration. Clinton's Justice Dept could have shut them down, but Bush's did.
This morphing of the facts is the same to me as the Lancet's claim of 100,000 deaths in Iraq becoming 100,000 "civilian" deaths, then 100,000 civilians killed by Coalition forces, then "mostly women and children targeted by smart bombs". The fact that you want to make a point or support a position doesn't validate altering the original information.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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As an ex-physics major and a member of both "worlds" as some people would put it, science is certainly fallible. Old and accepted theories get disproven quite often. Science is, in and of itself, a belief system. Need proof? This whole "nobody knew the world is flat 500 years ago" thing is just plain wrong. An astronomer and geographer by the name of Eratosthenes is credited as being the first person to measure the earths circumference. Over 2000 years ago. Yet, all of Europe is reputed to have known for certain that the Earth was flat, just 500 years ago.
Science itself is based on faith and experience, just as religion is.
~ Lost In The 'Verse
"About a year before we met, I spent 6 months on a moon where the primary form of recreation was juggling geese. My hand to god. Baby geese. Goslings. They were juggled!"
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Quote:
It is the practice on internalizing a system of believes that rationalizes your world
My daughter is (to put it kindly) delayed. It's very hard to explain the difference between "Jesus" and "electrons", both of which are really just concepts.
The only way to demonstrate the difference is to say: Well, we think of electrons because it helps us explain things like lightening, and with that understanding we can light up lights and make motors spin. You can't do the same thing with Jesus- he won't make the lights light up or turn a motor or make your medicine.
I find it a little unnerving that she hears more about Jesus in her day to day life- even tho we are an atheistic family of scientists- than she does about electrons. I also participate in a neurology web forum, and it never ceases to amaze me that after someone's child has had a successful surgery, the parents often say "THANK YOU JESUS".
Just a comment.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I also participate in a neurology web forum, and it never ceases to amaze me that after someone's child has had a successful surgery, the parents often say "THANK YOU JESUS".
Just a comment.
It's because they have faith (in God. More specifically, the Christian God.), which you as an atheist, or myself, as a "militant agnostic" don't have, and can't quite understand. They believe that Jesus intervened for their child, due to their faith and prayers. They may also believe that God is the reason electrons do what they do, because God created the electrons.
I think about faith quite a bit. I wonder how my family had it, and how I went to church regularly for 20 years without getting it. As I get older, I look back on the times that faith was a comfort to members of my family, and think it wouldn't be such a bad thing, but it's just not there for me. I note that faith doesn't locate one anywhere in particular on the religious scale, and that there are people of faith on both sides of any particular political issue.
We will do people of faith a disservice of we try to classify them as one thing based on the politics of the noisy few. That's why I'm sort of leery of discussing politics as it relates to religion. All of the faithful get tarred with the same brush. We need to be very careful or we end up being as biased as we believe some of them are.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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I think you brought up a really good example. To many many folks, Jesus and electrons are about the same (I am not saying that these folks have an intellect of a 5 year old.) sort of unseeable amorphous thing that, in fact, do require some amount of faith to be able to believe that they "exist". Yes, there are a lot of mathematics and physical experiments that can show that in fact, something like an electron fits into the scientific model that we use. (We can even "see" electrons from the tracks they and their buddy particles leave behind in a cloud chamber). But to people who will never can into those aspects. It's all magic to them. Can it be part of their believe system too? Sure, but they will never come to understand it through the rigor of scientific proofs or math. For the greater populace, "science" is faith based.
And much more importantly, if you go out to some of these other countries where aboriginals still live the way they did eons ago. Healing is done thru traditional means of praising some sort of spirit or diety or thru some sort of shamanic ritual - it might be accompanied by some sort of herbal or procedural practice that actually does the curing (cleansing with ash, sitting in a smoke house, etc.) But to them, it works and each day that they live, they see and find "evidences" around them that affirm their beliefs. To them, the night is brighter or darker on certain nights because of the spirits or their deities. To them, their entire world around them works because of all of these influences. They can explain everything just as well and as terrifically and as reasonably can within the confines of their believe system.
To them, lighting, thunders, and storms are an affirmation of their believe system. If they pray , it works like this. If they treat others kindly or badly, it affects us in other ways.
To the modern people, to enlightened scientists, the believe system also allows them to explain their world as terrifically and as reasonably as you can within the confines of that believe system.
These aboriginal people are no less rational than you or me. We all just have a different way of explaining how the world around us work, different ways of rationalizing it.
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:
It is the practice on internalizing a system of believes that rationalizes your world
My daughter is (to put it kindly) delayed. It's very hard to explain the difference between "Jesus" and "electrons", both of which are really just concepts.
The only way to demonstrate the difference is to say: Well, we think of electrons because it helps us explain things like lightening, and with that understanding we can light up lights and make motors spin. You can't do the same thing with Jesus- he won't make the lights light up or turn a motor or make your medicine.
I find it a little unnerving that she hears more about Jesus in her day to day life- even tho we are an atheistic family of scientists- than she does about electrons. I also participate in a neurology web forum, and it never ceases to amaze me that after someone's child has had a successful surgery, the parents often say "THANK YOU JESUS".
Just a comment.
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Please note that I wrote this post in haste.
@Jasonzzz:
You are speaking mostly in meta-physical terms.
Again, religion cannot change or changes extremely slowly. Science can change in a very fundamental way *very* quickly. Look at the development of quantum mechanics in the first few decades of the 20th century for an example. The "creation myth"... well... changed. This cannot happen in religion.
Basically, religion has set its beginning and will not/cannot change it. Science set its beginning and has/will change it before/again based on need. That is quite a fundamental difference if you ask me.
eg Science only has what it thinks is the irreducible concepts. This may change today or tommorow or never. The difference is that Science accomidates for this change. Religion cannot, it's the problem of blind faith. You might note that scientists do *not* have this problem.
Science also doesn't rationalize the world around us. It explains it. The difference being that rationalization is philosophy and explaination is science. There is a *large*, albeit, subtle difference.
Science also represents current reality and truth. Does this mean that it cannot change? No. After all, any truth is just a relative thing, right? I mean what is truth? What is reality? Oooo, but that isn't science. That's philosophy.
Scientists come up with how the world works. The religious, the philosophers then argue over what it all "means."
You story is rather inacurate. Allow me to correct it.
"Earth is flat" - Once "true."
"Earth is round" - Fundamental difference. Extremely different. Reality was very different, the people just wipped the sweat from their brow when the realized that the world would go on.
To anyone *in that day*, this was a vast change in understanding there world. I realize this along with anyone that is half-way intellegent. To say that reality didn't really change and that was what science thought is just telling of how much you don't understand the subject.
Today's scientists are doing a lot of good work. Yes, the schools are doing an extremely poor job of "teaching" science. Which is one of the problems. That being that the teachers are teaching science like it is a absolute when this is clearly not the case. Teachers almost always don't actually understand what they are teaching and will actually teach it improperly (I know of numerous cases where this is the case). Teachers teach these things as thought it is a horror and this clearly comes through to the kids (science = ick!).
But, one must realize that no-one that there job isn't to do research can keep up. To keep up you must understand what is going on. With todays science, being extremely specialized, the only thing that can be done, is to buy and read something like Popular Mechanics and/or watch the Discover Channel and/or... I think you get my point.
But also, it isn't necassarily a problem if the people don't understand how things are in todays world. I don't understand how my apartment building doesn't fall over in high wind. I just trust the person that designed it and the people that built it. Is this faith? That is arguible. I just call it trusting my fellow man.
The problem really arises when you have people that don't understand, saying that they do, and then making some conjectures that are filled with logical flaws. Since the layman isn't able to see such things ((s)he doesn't understand science) the problem self perpetuates.
Should people know more? Absolutly. Do the *have* to? Not necassarily. I don't know how my computer works, but it does. If it breaks and I can't fix it, is there someone that can? Yes.
If things remain this way, there isn't necassarily a problem. People just must know there limitations.
And the way it is "dumbed down" is almost the only way that the masses will be able to understand it (unfortunatly). If the true theory was presented, then it would go over even a lot of scientists heads (science has become very specialized).
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
This morphing of the facts is the same to me as the Lancet's claim of 100,000 deaths in Iraq becoming 100,000 "civilian" deaths, then 100,000 civilians killed by Coalition forces, then "mostly women and children targeted by smart bombs". The fact that you want to make a point or support a position doesn't validate altering the original information.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
BTW, the lancet article actually quotes a range of 8000 - 194000. They just decided to pick 100000 for convenience and bias. The reporters decided to only quote 100000 because that was their viewpoint anyways.
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Quote:
Originally posted by LostInTheVerse:
As an ex-physics major and a member of both "worlds" as some people would put it, science is certainly fallible.
Proven constantly.
Quote:
Originally posted by LostInTheVerse:
Science itself is based on faith and experience, just as religion is.
There is a difference between faith and belief. And just because belief is involved, it doesn't make it a religion. Proof by contradiction: I believe that the internet will work along with my computer. It doesn't mean that it's a religion for me.
And you're going to have to mention to be a moment what religion was told that something it had faith in was wrong, provided evidence and they changed straight way. This isn't an if and only if.
----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:
If we were all in the southern US we could try to not discuss the Civil War
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Another verbotten topic to mangle! Thanks!
Heh heh! Chat away!
Here in England, it's more like 'The North Will Rise!'
Death to the southern jessies!
*Nyuk*
'tis all in fun, though the English civil war did kill 1/4 of the population apparently - some millions - they're about to release a book on it.
Pete
P.S: My home town was Royalist, in case you're asking. The one I'm living in now was Parliamentarian (the winning side) but changed allegiance to the Royalists just before they lost! How mad is that?
"If you can keep your head whilst others... eurgh! Ack! I've spilt my ink! Ugh! Ink on my trousers! Agh! Ink on my shirt! My only hope! The window! Aieeeeee!" (Falls to death)
- Jonathan Nash
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