Religion...

[ignatius]

We know atoms exist because we consistently manipulate them.  Complex electronic devices and atomic bombs exist because we are able to manipulate atoms.  I don't need to understand all the details around quantum physics but accept it because we have applications directly repeatable due to someone's understanding of it.  They have explained how they came up with their understanding in a way that it can be repeated and others can learn it and I could if I made the effort. They are testable and can be altered with predictable outcomes.

Responses to prayer are random and not repeatable.  Placebo effects are far more testable and repeatable than prayer and we understand placebos are usable in some mind over body situations, and it would be reasonable to suggest prayers are too.  It's up to you decide... is it in your head, was the response likely to occur (or even naturally possible) anyway or did you actually conjure up supernatural forces to meet your needs like an early tribal culture who initially came up with this?  You said 'actually seemed', which leaves the door open to all kinds of explanations.. what makes you choose the supernatural explanation?  Was it a guess or what you wanted it to be?  On what grounds could you suggest it's more likely supernatural than just a guess or a desire? 

[Roanoker]

So if you do not believe in God and He turns out to be real, what do you say to Him when you meet Him face to Face? "Oops!"? 

[ignatius]

So if you don't believe in Zeus or Apollo, imagine the consequences when you come face to face with them.  Imagine if you didn't believe in sun gods of early S American cultures and didn't make human sacrifices.  The consequences could be far worse. That's the Pascal's Wager card. Would you really base your belief (and life) on fear or an optimistic gamble?

If it turns out there is a god with the Judeo/Christian claimed attributes (though the attributes are obviously formulated as a reaction to cultures before them), I'd love to meet him.  After we become buddies having a glass of Rioja Tempranillo, watching the churning of some nebula in another galaxy, I'd tell him with a friendly nudge.... 'Dude, your communication skills kinda suck."  Earthlings are not able to have a reasonable interactive conversation with him.

After studying tribal cultures for a while, it's pretty clear that the concept of afterlife is also the result of our extremely powerful imaginations, mixed in with power of suggestion.  Mind/body connection is another interesting topic and the more info we receive about how the brain and memory works, the direction is heading towards the mind being dependent on the body, not independent.  A great deal is recently being learned from alzheimer studies that point to mind/memory dependence on the physical body.  Is just an opinion based on his own study... one Alzheimer researcher recently indicated our fascination with afterlife is essentially a romantic fantasy.  Seems to fit with what I've gathered from how tribal cultures embrace their imaginations.

[mlind]

England, France, & Spain have been culturally diverse for a long time due to the fact that they had colonies all over.  However, it seems like some European countries are trying to return to cultural isolation - witness the fact that France is sending gypsies back to Romania.  The dominant culture is always fearful, sometimes with good reason - the history of colonization in Africa, for example.

I think more wars have been fought over religion and/or ethnic dominance than any other reason.

[ComandanteCero]

Let me ask you this Ignatius, do you think humans would be better off without religion?  if so why?

[ignatius]

It's understandable that early humanity started from little knowledge and used imagination to develop an understanding of what happened around them.  Imagination likely came well before systematic reasoning or a process for accumulating knowledge.  Much of early imagination involved fear of natural forces such as earthquakes, lightning, volcanos, etc. - deifying these forces.  Culture and social rules that accumulate from those early (mis)interpretations create religion.

As our understanding of things improve, some misunderstanding of things need to be let go.  We understand now the earth is not flat.  The earth is not the center of the solar system.  Earthquake/volcanos/hurricanes all have natural explanations.  We let go of things that no longer make sense as new reasonable information comes along.  Even the supernatural concept has morphed as old gods no longer worked for people and became more dependent on faith as they aren't based on reason.  It's time to let go of the supernatural concept and give humanity credit for its own successes and learn from its failures rather than put into a supernatural context.  The supernatural concept was developed under the same conditions as superstitions and other past misunderstandings of very early humanity.

A world that had religion is just what it is. If it didn't happen, doesn't imply there would be a perfect world otherwise.  But I do challenge believers to at least reason through their beliefs and ask themselves which is more likely given new information... a supernatural explanation or a human/natural explanation to any situation.

Explaining ourselves in a supernatural context cheapens the human experience.  We don't give ourselves enough credit for our own ideas or ability to develop.  We attribute it to gods or claim they gave use some rulebook that were ultimately human ideas.  Before broad literacy, ideas would be much more easily accepted if attributed to the pop culture supernatural force of the time/place.

The world wouldn't be better without the initial religions, but it can progress by understanding how that process occurred.

[Marreekarr]

We know atoms exist because we consistently manipulate them.  They are testable and can be altered with predictable outcomes.  Responses to prayer are random and not repeatable.  You said 'actually seemed', which leaves the door open to all kinds of explanations.. what makes you choose the supernatural explanation?   

Well, first of all quantum physics is not necessarily repeatable.  We deal with 'probability' because there are things like quantum uncertainty where we know a particle's speed but not it's position, and vice versa.  And all sorts of things suddenly appear out of the quantum soup when we operate our particle accelerators.  So we speak about the nature of things that are going on at the sub-atomic realm but we do so knowing that the dastardly things are ghostly in nature.  And they are quite unpredictable!  So I derive meaning from my attempt to know the unknown when I refer to a sub-atomic 'particle', even though I've never seen it and I know that it is not actually a 'thing' in the purest sense of the word.  Likewise, when I pray to God and an answer seems to come back to me, then I use supernatural language to describe what appears to be going on.

[mean]

We deal with 'probability' because there are things like quantum uncertainty where we know a particle's speed but not it's position, and vice versa.

Just to make a minor clarification, you can know both, just not simultaneously to an arbitrarily high degree of precision. So, when taking a measurement, the more precisely you measure its velocity, the less precisely you're able to measure its position, and vice versa. But it's not like you just have no idea where the particle is if you have an idea of how fast its moving. It's more of a trade off.

Of course, you can't measure any of anybody's god's properties to any degree of precision, so in terms of probability, I'd give them all a zero.

[ignatius]

Well, first of all quantum physics is not necessarily repeatable.  

Basically it is, we are able to control atoms for a practical application, which is repeatable and knowing atoms exist was your original position.  I see where you are going now..

Basically you are saying there are things we don't fully understand yet in the natural world but know it exists (gravity is another example) so is justifiable to parallel it with supernatural explanations.  We could say the same with flying unicorns. One can claim it exists but it's not testable.  The natural forces we know exist but cannot see can be confirmed through it's impact on its surroundings and those are measurable, to the point we are able to counter or manipulate the force (such as gravity as well).

The trend though is that as nature is understood, the supernatural explanations keep shrinking (to the point more and more people are calling their god 'personal' now).  And then consider how the supernatural concept started in the first place... from early tribal cultures who deified thunder and lightning.  Human imagination really took off from there.

Given that, when any unusual circumstance occurs, such as someone dropping a coin that suddenly and unexpectedly floats, would you first research a natural explanation or first jump to a supernatural conclusion with no research into it?  

[mlind]

Given that, when any unusual circumstance occurs, such as someone dropping a coin that suddenly and unexpectedly floats, would you first research a natural explanation or first jump to a supernatural conclusion with no research into it?  

I'd look for the string attached to the coin.

[mean]

You find no string, and no immediately plausible explanation. Do you jump to believing it must be supernatural, or do you begin to reevaluate your understanding of physics?

[grovester]

context, if I dropped the coin during an exorcism I might be convinced.

[mlind]

You find no string, and no immediately plausible explanation. Do you jump to believing it must be supernatural, or do you begin to reevaluate your understanding of physics?

I guess I'm a cynic.  I'd still think it was a trick. Maybe that's a natural explanation.

There used to be joke in the scientific community about publishing in The Journal of Irreproducible Results.

[mean]

I guess I'm a cynic.  I'd still think it was a trick. Maybe that's a natural explanation.

That is a natural explanation. "It must be a sign from god!" or "It's an angel holding the coin!" or "It's my grandmother's ghost trying to tell me something!" or "It's balancing the hat of an invisible leprechaun!" would all be supernatural explanations.

[ignatius]

Let me ask you this Ignatius, do you think humans would be better off without religion?  if so why?

CC, since I've answered your question above (post 709), I'll ask you one.  Do you think it's still reasonable for believers to teach their kids (your kids if you have any)  beliefs based on misunderstandings of early humanity and not expose them to the information that also reasonably challenges it?  That is, would you teach your kids that Earth is still the center of the solar system or that it is flat?  We know better on the latter two, what keeps you clinging on to supernatural explanations given what we now know?

[aknowledgeableperson]

Do you think it's still reasonable for believers to teach their kids (your kids if you have any)  beliefs based on misunderstandings of early humanity and not expose them to the information that also reasonably challenges it? 

Not so much directed to me but the answer would be "why not?"  You call them misunderstandings whereas I would call them stories used to explain something complicated to someone with little understanding about the truth.  You seem to think that the bible has to be taken literaaly in order to be a believer.  A Christian, or a Jew for that matter with only the Old Testament, can still believe in evolution, the true age of earth, and that the universe was created with a big bang (if that is how it really happened since that is still a theory if memory is correct).  It's just that the big bang was started by God.
Was Sodom and Gomorrah destoryed by God and Noah actually build an ark?  I would bet not, much like the Haiti earthquake was God's vengence on the Haitian people.  It is just a way to explain the power of God, he can create and destory, much like a line from Bill Cosby - to paraphase - "I brought you into this world and I can take you out".
Besides, teaching them about religion is much like teaching them not to steal, lie, oe cheat.  They were free to reject those teachings if they choose to do so.

[mean]

You call them misunderstandings whereas I would call them stories used to explain something complicated to someone with little understanding about the truth.

Do we really need ancient stories to explain anything to anyone? If so, what, specifically, and why?

[ignatius]

It's just that the big bang was started by God.

This is like giving the definition of a word by using the word itself.  All you are saying is you believe in it because you believe in it.

What reasonable information suggests that supernatural explanations are still worth considering,  that _you_ would still promote it to future generations.  Which is more likely to you... that very early tribes used imagination to explain things or that the supernatural explanations they came up with have actual credibility?

[ComandanteCero]

[referring back to Ig's question]

I think the premise of your question is flawed, but instead of rehashing the difference between literalist fundamentalists and most religious folks, or going into how the Ptolemaic view isn't an article of faith, etc. etc. i'll jump to the meat of the question (as i see it) which is the question of how religion and science can happily co-exist.

I don't see an inherent contradiction between religion and science, and it's an erroneous assumption on your part to believe that people who are religious reject science and that scientists must reject religion.  Feel free to check out the science curricula of Catholic schools and universities, and see if there's anything particularly different than what you would find at a secular school.  The science and technology in themselves aren't the point of contention between religious and non-religious (disregarding fundamentalists), fundamentally it's the meaning ascribed to the scientific data that separates religious people from non-religious.  Both a religious and non-religious person can look at the same blastula under a microscope and recognize how it developed from a sperm and an egg, but their moral and ethical interpretation of what that blastula represents will vary depending on their philosophical/religious assumptions (i.e nothing to do with science per se).

Someone can be a scientist, believe in an objective reality that can be explored and understood through the scientific method, and also believe that there is a "meaning" in the universe.  Two people can find an elaborate pattern, collaborate on discovering the principles and rules of the pattern and how it "works".  The first person may believe that the principles and rules behind the pattern have no inherent meaning but are simply how the universe works, while the second might believe that there is some greater meaning that ties the pattern with their lives and how they live.  In the end the difference in opinion isn't about the principles and forces creating the pattern, it's their metaphysical interpretation of them.  

Now, at the present time our scientific knowledge of the universe still has some big gaps (which people are working very diligently to close... for example the biological mechanics of consciousness is an exciting one), but there's no particular reason to believe that the gaps won't be increasingly closed in the future to the point where we'll understand how 99.9% of the universe works.  I think when that day comes, people will look at the results of this massive endeavor and they will look at the patterns, and how the forces weave and interweave, and they will sit back.... and debate whether there is a meaning behind that pattern!

The religious traditions may change, their assumptions and teachings may evolve, but I think that religious impulse will continue for a very long time.

The important thing is to recognize where objective reality ends and where our assumptions and philosophies begin, and to agree to a society and form of governance that recognizes the importance of objective reality, educates people about it (i.e science), and then allows for everyone's right to interpret it as they please (as long as their interpretation doesn't involve harming or otherwise infringing on someone else's rights).  It can be a tricky tango, but it's doable, and it doesn't involve a silly either/or question when it comes to religion and science.  In fact, I would say the sooner you realize your own philosophical assumptions regarding reality and what science does and doesn't say about it, the sooner you'll realize there isn't some inherent contradiction between the two in objective reality, although the contradiction may be salient within your subjective world view.

[chrizow]

also, not every religion is antithetical to science.  see all the recent research where buddhist views of physics and consciousness predicted the newest scientific research in these areas - and, by nature, buddhism adjust with science instead of rejects it or modifies it to its own aims.