Re: AiG goes after Francis Collins

On Thu, 21 May 2009 08:04:32 -0700, snex wrote:

On May 21, 5:30 am, John McKendry <jlastn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 20 May 2009 15:09:13 -0700, snex wrote:
On May 20, 4:36 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 20 May 2009 13:49:42 -0700, snex wrote:
On May 20, 3:34 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Wed, 20 May 2009 12:59:13 -0700, snex wrote:
<snip>
but *there are no* religions that confine themselves to such
questions, and that is the key problem that "compatiblists"
constantly ignore.

Unitarianism for one.  Quakerism for a second.  Zen Buddhism for a
third.

I may be mistaken, and will eagerly read whatever cites you provide
to the contrary.

"Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality
of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in
one God)." - this is NOT an "ought" statement.

 It's also not a description of Unitarianism; it's just an etymology.
I'm a Unitarian and a strict agnostic. The practice of Unitarianism
does not include a creed. What makes me Unitarian is that I affirm the
Seven Principles:
    * The inherent worth and dignity of every person; * Justice,
    equity and compassion in human relations; * Acceptance of one
    another and encouragement to spiritual growth
in our congregations;
    * A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; * The
    right of conscience and the use of the democratic process
within our congregations and in society at large;
    * The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice
    for all; * Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of
    which we
are a part.

 To make your case, you have to show how at least one of those
principles is incompatible with what science tells us about the world.

if you dont like what wikipedia has to say about what unitarians
believe, perhaps you should correct it.


The Wikipedia article you cited is not about what Unitarians believe.
It's about the theological term "unitarianism", which the disambiguation
page summarizes as "a rejection of the Christian concept of the Trinity".
If you want to find what Wikipedia has to say about what Unitarians
believe you should look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism .

This thread is about the claim that religious belief is incompatible
with scientific understanding, though, and you are treating the
question as a word game. You are doing exactly what Creationists
do when they show us the words to prove that "Darwin (or Gould or
Eldredge or whoever it is) admits that evolution is false". You
are trying to settle a question of fact by looking in the dictionary.

But you can't bend reality to your wishes by manipulating words.
I told you what Unitarians believe, based on the common practice of
Unitarian-Universalist congregations and on my own experience as
a practicing Unitarian. It's time for you to address the topic, and
show how at least one of those principles is incompatible with
what science tells us about the world.


"Quakers also believe in the continuing revelation of Christ, with
the idea that God speaks directly to any person, without the need for
any intermediary." - this is NOT an "ought" statement.

 Presumably you would claim that science says that God does not
speak directly to any person, then. Can you outline the argument? Be
sure to address the notion of God as Ground of Being or First Cause,
and not just the kindergarten Old Man in the Sky.

there is no *evidence* that god speaks to any person, or even that any
god exists. remember, the issue is that garamonde stated that religion's
proper domain is "ought" claims only. religions that make "is" claims
are to be avoided. any "is" claims must be accompanied by evidence. none
is given.


I think Garamonde has sufficiently addressed your confusion about
what he actually said vs what you wish he had said. The issue is
whether religious belief is compatible with scientific understanding.

If you begin your reasoning with the premise that the only things
that exist are the things that have evidence, then it's not hard to
prove that "is" claims must be accompanied by evidence. But that
premise is an assumption about reality, not a discovered fact.
I claim, for the sake of argument, that you can begin with a
different assumption, namely that there is a God, and reality
will not trip you up. (I, not you, get to specify what I mean by
"God".)

That's what this thread is about. It's not about your misapprehension
of what Garamonde said, it's about your assertion that religious
belief is incompatible with scientific understanding. You keep
repeating that religious beliefs are held without evidence. That's
true. Now you need to prove that any belief held without evidence
is false. And you need to prove it without assuming it beforehand.


 But the bigger problem is that, as was the case with Unitarians,
Wikipedia does not dictate what Quakers are required to believe.

no, it only reports what they do believe.


In fact it does report what they believe, and it's a lot longer than
the one sentence that you took as "what Quakers believe". I know
a fair number of Quakers. I went to a Quaker college. What Quakers
believe cannot be summarized in one sentence. But it's certain that
Quakers can be good scientists, so whatever it is that Quakers
believe doesn't seem to be incompatible with science.


"Zen asserts, as do other schools in Mahayana Buddhism, that all
sentient beings have Buddha-nature, the universal nature of inherent
wisdom (Sanskrit prajna) and virtue, and emphasizes that
Buddha-nature is nothing other than the nature of the mind itself." -
this is NOT an "ought" statement.

 Does science assure us that sentient beings do not have
 Buddha-nature?
Again, can you sketch the argument that science uses to establish this?

science shows us that there is no *evidence* for these claims. remember,
the issue is that garamonde stated that religion's proper domain is
"ought" claims only. religions that make "is" claims are to be avoided.
any "is" claims must be accompanied by evidence. none is given.


 No, it's not an "ought" statement, but it doesn't look to me like
the sort of "is" statement that science deals with, either. Tell me
what scientific truth I have to deny in order to believe that all
sentient beings have Buddha-nature, or that Buddha-nature is the nature
of the mind itself, and maybe I will change my mind, but right now I
don't see the conflict.

it doesnt matter if the sort of "is" statements offered by a religion
are the type normally dealt with by science or not. garamonde's claim
was that the proper domain of religion is "ought" claims only.


That wasn't Garamonde's claim. I hope that's clear by now and I
don't have to belabor it. But the thread is not about what Garamonde
said, it's about whether religious belief is incompatible with
scientific understanding. That's why I asked you to outline the
argument by which science determines whether sentient beings have
Buddha-nature.

furthermore, why should anybody be compelled to accept any "is" claim
made by any religion, scientific or otherwise, without evidence offered?
if there is no possible way to test such a claim, then what is the basis
for asserting it?


Nobody is compelled to accept any "is" claim made by religion. Maybe
that's one way to distinguish the "is" claims of religion from the
"is" claims of science. The thread is about the claim that religious
belief is incompatible with scientific understanding. To show that
the two are incompatible, you have to do more than show that a
reasonable person is not compelled to accept <some given religious
claim>, you have to show that a reasonable person is compelled
to reject <s.g.r.c.>. And you can't appeal to the "rule" that
a reasonable person has to reject any claim that has no evidence,
because that's just a rule you made up.


all of these were taken directly from the wikipedia articles on their
respective subjects. you clearly have no interest in an honest
discussion if you couldnt even do that much looking up on your own.

 If you had been interested in applying critical thinking to your
own reading, instead of mining for words that appear to support your
presuppositions, you could easily have found difficulties with each of
your examples. That's how critical thinking works; you ask yourself how
you could be wrong.

how am i wrong? garamonde claimed that there are religions that only
make "ought" claims. he offered alleged examples. none held up to
scrutiny. it doesnt really matter if the "is" claims made by the
religions are amenable to science or not. the issue is that those claims
are indeed made and there is absolutely no justification given to accept
them.


When did that become the issue? Religious beliefs don't have to
compel, they just have to work. If they don't work for you, don't
believe them. Clearly they don't work for you, because they conflict
with your belief that nothing can be true without evidence. But
that's an arbitrary belief, and not every reasonable person holds
it.


and of course you ignore the fact that religion is constantly
offering answers to questions that *are* in science's domain.

You're making a pretty trivial error in ascribing to all religion
the properties of a few of the wackier protestant sects.

right. those wacky far out sects like: catholicism, methodism,
lutheranism, calvinism, baptists, etc.

Baptists tends towards wackiness.  I think Catholics gave up trying
to answer scientific questions and declared their faith compatible
with whatever science comes up with.  (Google "Truth cannot
contradict truth.") I'm not aware of Methodists, Lutherans or
Calvinists "constantly offering answers to questions that *are* in
science's domain."  Do you have a few citations handy?

every single one of those sects asserts that 2000 years ago, a virgin
really gave birth to a man who then really walked on water, really
fed thousands with only a few fish, really healed the sick, and
really physically rose from the dead. none of these are "ought"
matters and all of them are matters about how the natural world
behaves.

 The Roman Catholic Catechism on the Resurrection is
 athttp://www.va/archive/catechism/p122a5p2.htm#I These are
 selections.
<quote>
Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was the case
with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter:
Jairus' daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were
miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by
Jesus' power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they
would die again. Christ's Resurrection is essentially different. In his
risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond
time and space.

But no one was an eyewitness to Christ's Resurrection and no evangelist
describes it. No one can say how it came about physically. Still less
was its innermost essence, his passing over to another life,
perceptible to the senses. Although the Resurrection was an historical
event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the
reality of the apostles' encounters with the risen Christ, still it
remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that
transcends and surpasses history.

Faith in the Resurrection has as its object an event which is
historically attested to by the disciples, who really encountered the
Risen One. At the same time, this event is mysteriously transcendent
insofar as it is the entry of Christ's humanity into the glory of God.
</quote>

 My point is that you invariably insert the word "really" into
your arguments when it isn't there in the original text, and when the
meaning of "really" is exactly the point in dispute. The Roman Catholic
Catechism says that the Resurrection happened in history, so yes, it
really happened, but it also asserts that it was not a return to
earthly life, so not the sense of "really" that you keep insisting on.
And that's the Roman Catholic Church, where there is a creed and an
official dogma that you're supposed to conform to. There are many
Christian churches that don't have a creed. And none of the historic
creeds mention walking on water or loaves and fishes; even the strictly
orthodox creed-affirming traditional Christian is not required to
affirm every word of the Gospels.

you are distorting my claim. i never said that catholics believe that
jesus returned to a normal human life that he would later live out like
a normal human (the way catholics assert happened with lazarus, which,
ironically, is yet another nonsense claim they make that flies in the
face of science that you ignore). what catholics believe is that jesus's
body was physically dead, and then later physically rose from the dead.

Read again the part where it says "no one can say how it came about
physically". Whenever you say "catholics believe that jesus
physically rose from the dead" or (as elsewhere in the thread)
"a human body made of natural atoms walking around after death"
you are clearly and unequivocally misstating the Catholic doctrine
presented in the Catechism. Your misunderstanding, your assumption
that every "is" statement is a scientific statement, is so firmly
rooted that you can't imagine how the world could be different.
It's a form of self-imposed blindness.

whether they believe it was a "return to normal human life," the power
of a leprechaun, or anything else, is entirely irrelevant. the fact is
that they believe, and are *required* to believe, that the resurrection
of dead human bodies were real historical events in the same manner that
the delivering of the gettysburg address was. this absolutely flies in
the face of science.


No, it only flies in the face of your metaphysical assumption that
the laws of science cannot be violated. Your metaphysics is not
science.

Here's an exercise in critical imagining for you. Imagine that it's
part of your belief apparatus that (1) there is a Higher Power that causes
the laws of physics to be what they are, (2) that Higher Power
is aware of human history, and (3) that Higher Power wants humanity
to understand the universe.

Now Exercise 1: can you create an account of the Resurrection that
is consistent with the account in the Catechism?

Exercise 2: can you create an account of the Resurrection that is
consistent with the Catechism and with the laws of physics as they
are currently known?

Exercise 3: can you find a logical conflict between the three
assumptions in the assignment and the laws of physics as they are
currently known, such that logic compels you to reject either
one of the assumptions or one of the known physical laws?


if anything, the sects *you* mention are the wacky far-out ones. i
cant think of a single person that adheres to them.

The Quaker sitting on my left refers to this as the Fallacy of
Personal Incapacity.

ask him how many quakers there are in the world. then divide that
number by the number of people living.

 It's kind of amusing to see you falling back on the Ray Martinez
Lexicon, in which "all" means "some" and "none" means "some".

you need to reread the thread. garamonde was making the no true scotsman
fallacy by asserting that 99.999% of actual christians arent the *real*
christians because they accept things like the resurrection.


<snip some>
Many, perhaps most Unitarians and Quakers consider themselves
Christian.

 Just an aside: I don't know about Quakers, but I don't think this
is true for contemporary American Unitarians. Not in my experience,
anyway.

<snip more>

judaism,

Can you give me a cite for Judaism "constantly offering [scientific]
answers"?  Not a particular sect; I'm looking for a cite to Judaism
as a whole (since that's what you listed).

judaism makes all sorts of assertions about magical events as
historical. read their book!

 Read the posts that started this subthread, for pity's sake. On
the one hand you've got actual real live Jews telling you what they
believe, and on the other hand you've got you saying they believe
something diametrically opposite. Which one of those should count as
evidence for what Jews believe? And you have the balls to accuse others
of dishonesty?

you mean like susan s asserting that the idea that jews were once
enslaved is important? but the jews *werent* enslaved! do jews believe
that god spoke to abraham or not? is there any evidence that god spoke
to abraham, or that abraham even existed?


I mean for instance Susan's asserting that the idea of liberation
is important whether it's historically founded or not.


hinduism,

I'm not familiar with Hindu attitudes towards science, could you
give a cite?

hindus believe is reincarnation. this is not an "ought" belief.

buddhism,

This has not been my experience.  Perhaps a cite would be useful.

buddhists believe in reincarnation as well. this is not an "ought"
belief.

 While I'm not an official Buddhist, I am sympathetic to the teachings
of Theravada Buddhism, and while I don't understand how reincarnation
can work, given what I understand of the Buddhist account of the mind
and the self, I am pretty sure I could be accepted into a Buddhist
community without first being required to profess a belief in
reincarnation. Once again you argue that "they all believe x" without
looking at the evidence from real life.


"being accepted into a buddhist community" is not *being* a buddhist.

Actually it is. You're trying to play Word Magic again, but being a
Buddhist can only mean being a part of the community of Buddhist
practice. I repeat yet again, what we're discussing is the claim that
religious belief is incompatible with scientific understanding. So
we''re looking at specific examples of actual religious belief, and
this gives you the chance to show how those actual beliefs are
incompatible with a scientific understanding of the world.

I think your response here encapsulates everything that's wrong
about your position. You think there is a sort of Platonic ideal
called "Buddhist" that can be described once and for all in words
that have unique and simple meanings, so that "Buddhist" is
basically a composition of entries in a dictionary. That's not
how words work. You can't find out what a Buddhist is, or a Christian
or a Unitarian or a Quaker or a Jew, by rooting around in the
dictionary. When people apply your dictionary method to the word
"atheist" you don't hesitate to call it lying.

John

.

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