Starboy

ohwilleke,

A few important points to take into consideration:

1. Science is a-theistic.
2. The practice of science must result in a-theistic explanations.
3. In science the supernatural is irrelevant.

Can a scientist be a theist? Sure, but so what, in order for them to do good science their theism must be kept irrelevant. Operationally while a scientist is doing good science they are a-theists.

Starboy

Starboy

doubtingt, I know this person! Is this description part of some scientific study? That sentence nails it.

Starboy

NialScorva

I should point out that you are subtly wrong here. It's not strictly correct to say that "science is atheistic", science is naturalistic. As a consequence of this, science tends torward a best fit with atheism, but there's no strict requirement. The reason this is so important is that science is merely a tool in the discovery of truth, and isn't a very good worldview in and of itself. Let me make it brutally clear that I'm not belittling science, I believe that it is the *only* valid methodology for approximating truth in a world where absolute truth is impossible.

There's a whole wealth of other philosophy needed to make a world-view that science cannot provide, not the least of which is the moral issue. In fact, placing value in scientific truth is a moral distinction. Methodological naturalism doesn't imply anything about the objective existence of a god, such an omni-being is necessarily outside the scope of science.

Have you ever heard of the logical positivists? The central tenent to that philosophy is the verifcability principle, an initial (and naive) version went something like "only empirically verifiable statements are meaningful". This was designed to remove all metaphysics and morality from determination of truth. Of course, the problem when you ask whether the verificability principle is meaningful.

Starboy

NailScorva, if the choices are naturalistic or theistic then a-theistic means naturalistic. Is there any other way to see it? A-theism says nothing about the existence of god, to an a-theist god is irrelevant. A-theism cannot be and is not a world view in any sense of the word. I have heard of logical positivists, what does that have to do with this thread? I thought my point was clear. While a scientist is doing good science, they are a-theists.

Starboy

Bill

This subject is part of the field of cognitive antropology, among other fields (like sociology). I'm reading the II Book-of-the-Month, Pascal Boyer's <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=836" target="_blank">Religion Explained</a> (Paperback edition). On Page 318 he poses a similar question: "Why do some people believe and not others?" Ultimately, he decides that the question is unanswerable for any particular individual. Trends in a society as a whole can be analyzed, and various factors will emerge. For instance, a few dozen pages earlier, Dr. Boyer looks at the "cost of defection" as being one of the factors that holds believers within the web: they will not defect (to disbelief) if the cost of defection is "too high" (in their own personal judgment). If the cost of disbelief is getting promptly burned at the stake, there would be few atheists indeed in that society!

But, you ask, if people are generally predisposed towards belief (and Dr. Boyer certainly does make that case in <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=836" target="_blank">his book</a>), then why are there ANY who disbelieve?

It is more difficult to extract Dr. Boyer's answer to that question from <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=836" target="_blank">his book</a>, but I believe that the answer he would give would be more or less along the lines indicated above: random chance will produce certain individuals who will have the necessary experience(s) to become unbelievers. If the society is open to accepting the presence of such unbelievers, then they will be likely to make their presence known (this, again, has to do with the cost of unbelief). But if the cost of unbelief is too high, they may well persuade themselves to keep their thoughts to themselves because it just isn't worth demonstrating that you are an unbeliever.

=====

I haven't finished Dr. Boyer's book yet (I'm about a third of the way through at the moment), so I can't say what he would cite as the major factors tending to lead to unbelief (beyond the cost factor, above, which is more related to the question of whether or not an unbeliever proclaims his or her unbelief). However, based upon my prior reading of other authors, I would say that education is a factor (higher educational levels tend to lead to higher percentages of unbelief), wealth and power are each factors (the list of "members of the ruling class" who are either unbelievers or only the most nominal of adherents is rather legion), and the cultural stage of the civilization within which one is raised is also a factor (open atheism didn't arise within Western Civilization until the enlightenment, when the church lost its ability to burn atheists at the stake; this refers back to the issue of the "cost of unbelief," as I discuss, above).

Anyway, I hope that I've given you some ideas here, and that you might consider locating a copy of <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=836" target="_blank">Dr. Boyer's book</a> as reference material for your own writing(s).

== Bill

Gary Harris

The problem is that religion frequently involves gods, and these beings simply are not content to remain only in the mystical sphere. And the problem for theists is that when they claim that their god[s] has/have interacted with the natural world, then they have stepped on the turf where science can examine those claims.

That's the essential tension between science and religion. And usually it is religion which loses in that tug-of-war.

Starboy

Hi Gary,

The tug-of-war goes like this:

Theist: God has manifested itself with this miracle.
Scientist: There are naturalistic explanations for the “miracle”.
Theist: That may be so but god works in mysterious ways.
Atheist: So what, it can all be explained naturally.
Theist: The scientific explanation is irrelevant. It is my faith that informs me that it is an act of god.
Atheist: God is irrelevant for explaining the “miracle”.

And so it has gone for some time now. The amazing thing about current events is that for some reason that I cannot fathom, the Christians have found it necessary to explain god using science. This is the essence of creationism and the ID movement. It is the wackiest thing. It seems as if Christians forgot that faith is the foundation of their religion and they feel that relying on scientific proof is somehow better than faith.

Is this a “sign” that the long nightmare of Christianity may soon be over?

Starboy

Laera

Don't be confused by TBN and other xian propaganda - not all of them are trying to proove their god(s) with science. In fact, there are quite a few (lesser vocal) factions that simply absorb scientific findings into their "faith" and move on with their happy delusions that science is just discovering how god accomplished his handiwork... as long as they can still read the bible "through the eyes of faith" they're content with whatever else goes on around them. They'd rather not think about it too much...

This falls in with an earlier observation:
I was raised with exactly this capability - to separate religious things from the rest of the world. I even became an engineer before I realized that I had this duality of mind. It took an outside observer (non-xian) to point out to me my hypocricy in swallowing religious claims whole while being so skeptical and analytical in every other facet of my life. I'd just been taught to believe in xianity at all costs - and hadn't realized that those costs included essentially shutting down my powers of reason and curiosity. (I didn't WANT to investigate the validity of xian claims.)

How do they do it? Trained from birth. Trained in the meme of religious society - where the consequences of proposing the antithesis are too high to bear.

Starboy

Laera,

I have been an a-theist all my life so I am fascinated with the thought of holding two contradictory world views in your head at one time. Were you a YEC? Did you believe in a personal god? Or was religion just a habit and the basis of the religion just some remote theoretical construct?

Starboy

Laera

I was a very liberal xian - ELCA Lutheran (if that means anything to you). It's sort of two steps away from Catholic (with Episcopal/Anglican in between). Not really excessively dogmatic like the catholics, but into ritual just the same. (our services looked very similar to catholic masses - stand up, sing, sit down, listen to 20 minutes of sermon, chant liturgy, more standing/singing/sitting, repeat)

Definitely NOT a YEC - like I said in my last post, we tended to incorporate science into our lives and world-understandings, but it had no bearing on our "relationship" with god. Emphasis was definitely on Love, Relationship, and god's Grace as our only hope. Did a lot of mission trips where we never talked about god to anyone outside of our group, but did a lot of fun stuff and had "bible studies" (aka god-feeling support groups - no actual studying involved) twice a day.

It was easy to separate my "god world-view" from my "reality" world-view because they were kept very separate and distinct. Never really talked about god to anyone I didn't already know was interested in talking "like that." With everyone else, and in every other situation, I was just a person/engineer.

An example of how it worked:
I went to a very diverse engineering school where there were LOTS of various world-views (not just american xian). I had friends from all over the globe and the country, from all different kinds of backgrounds, and with all kinds of beliefs and non-beliefs. AND I went to church twice a week with people who believed like me. All my friends *knew* i was a practicing/believing xian, but it rarely came up unless they were just curious what I believed, then I told them, and they told me what they believed, and that was that. (one conversation even started with "I know you're going to hell, and you know I'm going to hell, so what's it matter, let's discuss.")

I did things with my church friends, and I did other things with my random friends. Never the twain did meet.

I always just assumed that other people had figured out the "seeming" problems with the bible, etc. becuase they'd studied it more than me, and why shouldn't I trust them - especially when it was my Mom telling me it all worked (she's a pastor)? (again, not applying my engineering-like mind just as I was trained...)

Any other questions?