Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa (Post 364470)

Theology does have a place in concert with science when one discusses morals. The reason why is because we are spiritual creatures... even AJ. *Grabs popcorn, sits back, and waits for three pages of arguments*

Originally Posted by honeybarbara (Post 364476)

unfortunately, as a history of science buff and my major being in physical anthropology (fuck me, if that wasn't a primarily racist backdrop for the beginning of a science, I don't know what one is!) many people do use science attempt to back of some really hideous sh*t. Don't get me wrong, please. I *love* science and I love the history of science and I love philosophy of science. I was also brought up in a household of two researcher parents. Science is not faultless or pure in this regard. As mush as I love it, it's been used pretty destructively. I know it's the individuals that corrupt it, but that's really no different imo than corruption in any other field. People, all people, even scientists, can be fucked up bastards with no concept of the implications of what they are doing or it's repercussions at the very least of the baddie scale, and at the top end of the baddie scale, they can be unfathomable bigots of every rainbow flavour and use what they are doing to try and make a reason why X people do X and M people do M.

Sociobiology and eugenics are extremely slipperly slopes, for example. And I really *really* am wary about people looking for "genes" of behaviour. The implications being we cannot help who we are and cannot change. I know the gay thing slides into that, however my argument is the gay gene should be fucking moot. If gay was *truly* ok, it wouldn't matter that you had a genetic "excuse." And I personally won't use it to back up my argument for the vary reason that you can then use the gene excuse for xenophobia and all other types of human behaviours that frankly should be examined and overcome.

So while I honour and have a sense of beauty and purpose in science, I'm very aware of people being people with it. It's not different than any other human endeavour.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek (Post 364321)

I knew I should have chosen my words more carefully. I originally had written suite of tools for understanding Nature. I think that science and spirituality answer absolutely different sets of questions. I will agree, provisionally, that there is no reason to believe that science disproves a belief in one or more divine beings. At the same time, I'm going to insist that there is nothing that science can do to prove that there is any kind of divine being. If one is going to believe then believe and do so wholly but science can offer you not one shred of support for your beliefs. That is not it's job.

At the same time, that street goes both ways. If science cannot tell one whether or not there is a god or many gods, then spirituality/religion cannot tell science what it's conclusions should be. I understand that, for instance, the young women saying that they believe that some divine being created the Universe and all that is in it. I understand that they believe that the Bible offers an explanation about what happened that it renders all other explanations moot. I get that. I also have to say, "so what?" Evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life available at present. If we're going to educate people in the life sciences then we're going to have to teach them evolution. Otherwise the life sciences won't make sense. However, it doesn't matter if evolution violates this or that holy book. It really doesn't matter because Nature isn't obliged to agree with what our religions would prefer.

I have said before and I'll say again--I don't promote atheism nor do I try to evangelize for a naturalistic worldview. I have nothing with which to replace that which gives people meaning and unless I do (and that question just isn't in my competencies) it would be wrong, in a deep ethical sense, for me to try to do so. That said, I'm not going to apologize for a naturalistic worldview. Just as you wouldn't (and shouldn't) apologize for a non-naturalistic worldview.

Yet, I'm still going to insist on demarcation. I think that's fair. While I don't see any good reason to believe in a heaven and I'm going to apply a fair and consistent standard (i.e. no special pleading) I am not going to argue that science 'disproves heaven' or what have you. For that, however, I think religion/spirituality needs to recognize the demarcation lines as well. Whether someone believes that the Bible teaches that humans were created by God is and should be irrelevant to the scientific process. "God created humans" is a religious statement, it has no business in a scientific discussion unless there is some proof that we *need* to invoke a divine being (and we don't) to explain some feature of the natural world we shouldn't allow it into the discussion. If we *do* have to allow that idea into the discussion then that statement has to be subject to the same criteria otherwise we are no longer doing science.

Yes, this is a limitation science imposes on itself but it is a necessary limit. It is the reason why you can take a scientist in Mumbai, one in Berkeley, one in Beijing and one in Cairo and all present them with data and they will be able to have a conversation about that data. They may all hold different religious beliefs or none what-so-ever but that won't get in the way because there is a common language to talk about the matter. The problem with invoking religious language in a scientific discussion is that in order to have a common ground we now have to agree that one person's religious assumptions are the correct ones. It cannot *simultaneously* be true--in the sense that I used it earlier, where that means 'the world is actually obliged to be that way'--that the Universe was created by one divine being in 6 days and was birthed by another divine being while being the egg of yet another divine being. Those three statements are mutually exclusive if are meant to take them as factual.

So before we can get down to explaining how something might give birth to a universe we would have to establish that this something exists. If I really and truly believed that the Greek pantheon described an objective "out there" reality is there anything you could say to convince me otherwise? Most likely not.

In science, on the other hand, ultimately there *must* be things that would convince me otherwise. If there isn't, I'm simply not doing science. I may not have a word for what I am doing, but whatever that word is it isn't science.

As an aside: something I have always found curious about the idea that there is not an objective reality 'out there' is how astoundingly self-centered it is. I take your existence as read (otherwise I'm either hallucinating or you are an AI in which case you can pass a Turing test). I presume that you take my existence as read. That means that without proof, I presume that your existence has some objective fact whether or not I have ever encountered you. If I had never been on the Internet, or had I died in, say, 1977 you would still exist. Therefore, barring evidence that I'm hallucinating or that you are an AI, I can say you objectively exist. I think that an objective reality is a pretty safe bet--like using a scale between 0 and 1, with zero being "does not exist" and one being "does exist" that objective reality is a .9 easily. I would say that our confidence on that should be high enough that for any ordinary purpose we can treat it as if it were true.

That .1 percent of skepticism is, to me, the mark of a scientist. There is a chance, however unlikely, that there isn't an objective reality. Although I think that there are a lot of other entities--certainly on this planet--that would probably disagree and would go about behaving as if they actually exist whether or not we believed in it. Like the honey badger, it don't care, it exists whether we believe in it or not.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by honeybarbara (Post 364493)

hum. I dunno about that. My dad taught me certain morals based on ecology and biology. Not all of them mind you, but a chunk. Not using the scientific method, exactly, but the results of behaviour (cause/effect type stuff). Plus physchology, though a messy science with unisolatable variables (like ecology) does make some attempt in a sideways way that one could then apply to moral "law".

for example when I was little:
"barbara, don't throw that on the ground. it's littering. You know how we share this environment with other people and other animals? if everyone put their on the ground whereever in great quanities, then it will cause people and animals to get sick and die. We wouldn't be able to farm the land and use plants for medicines and the animals that help us (ecology web explained earlier) and have their own value would disapear." kind of thing.

also I don't shit close to a river when I'm hiking/camping and I make sure it's in the top soil. I also don't shit very much in the same place and am very aware of where other people in the camping group are shitting and what kind of clime we are in. Those are moral choices (are they? not to fuck with the water supply or the environment) based on scientific knowledge.

I dunno, does that fit in to that slot? I'm not sure but it sort of does??

or maybe not. I'm on pain meds today so my thinking is a bit fuzzy.

Originally Posted by citybutch (Post 364483)

I think you have deeply misinterpreted me and my beliefs. I believe in both evolution and a divine nature to... well, nature. I am not sure where you get anywhere in my post that I do not believe in evolution. I don't even believe in heaven for goodness sake. Well, at least a heaven that is beyond this life.

I was merely asking in a philosophical sense and hoping for a more intellectual conversation not a rebuttal of my post and an analysis of my "beliefs" which I did not state in this thread and have barely stated in others. ... The questions are common ones when one is having a conversation about the philosophy of science...

Your assumptions led you a little astray in your response to me...

Originally Posted by honeybarbara (Post 364476)

unfortunately, as a history of science buff and my major being in physical anthropology (fuck me, if that wasn't a primarily racist backdrop for the beginning of a science, I don't know what one is!) many people do use science attempt to back of some really hideous sh*t. Don't get me wrong, please. I *love* science and I love the history of science and I love philosophy of science. I was also brought up in a household of two researcher parents. Science is not faultless or pure in this regard. As mush as I love it, it's been used pretty destructively. I know it's the individuals that corrupt it, but that's really no different imo than corruption in any other field. People, all people, even scientists, can be fucked up bastards with no concept of the implications of what they are doing or it's repercussions at the very least of the baddie scale, and at the top end of the baddie scale, they can be unfathomable bigots of every rainbow flavour and use what they are doing to try and make a reason why X people do X and M people do M.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek (Post 364509)

I wasn't saying *you* didn't believe in evolution, I was offering evolution as an area of contention. You may not doubt evolution but you are in a distinct minority in the United States. Forty percent of Americans believe that human beings were created, in our current form, within the last 10,000 years. They ignore any evidence to the contrary and do not know nor do they want to know what evolutionary theory says. They insist that because their holy book *says* this that nature is obliged to agree with them and that the entire biological sciences are just wrong. Not on some empirical issue, but rather we are wrong because we do not agree with the biblical account. It was an example of the demarcation problem, not meant to say that you doubt evolution.

Put it this way, you seem to like Deepak Chopra. I am not fond of him for reasons I won't get into. It would be uncalled for me to show up at a Deepak Chopra speaking engagement and then, every time he mentioned 'quantum' ask him to explain how he squares his interpretation of QM with the scaling problem (which I won't get into here). What I see happening with creationists is that they are showing up in schools and saying that they reject this theory in biology because it offends their religious sensibilities and that therefore, biology is *required* to submit itself to those sensibilities. I see no reason why biology should do that.

I wasn't trying to analyze your beliefs or rebut your post.

As far as spirituality being a set of tools to understand the Universe, okay so far as it goes but it is a different set of questions. I think that spirituality is *useless* for understanding how stars work. In fact, I would say that it is worse than useless. My problem isn't when spiritual people say "these are the set of tools to help me get through my day while staying sane". I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when spiritual people say "my <insert holy text here> teaches that the reason that stars burn is that <insert pre-scientific account of stars here>". To be clear, I am NOT saying that you are doing this. I am trying to clarify the point I was making.

I was, more or less, agreeing with you. I was not trying to say you believe in heaven. I do not know what your beliefs are other than that you are some form of Christian. But large numbers of Christians *do* believe in heaven and that is fine, unless they are going to insist that heaven is a factual place in which case I think that it is reasonable to treat it like any other factual place and begin to ask questions about it.

Again, this is not to say that you believe in heaven or that you are like a large numbers of Christians. For all I know you are in a denomination of one. I am offering up examples of where I see the demarcation lines being drawn. This is completely separate of your beliefs about heaven, evolution or, for that matter, quantum mechanics or any other specific issue.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by citybutch (Post 364565)

Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.

Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa (Post 364470)

Theology does have a place in concert with science when one discusses morals. The reason why is because we are spiritual creatures... even AJ. *Grabs popcorn, sits back, and waits for three pages of arguments*

Originally Posted by ScandalAndy (Post 364505)

Well, this is kind of what I was getting at in a way. If your Da didn't care about the environment (morality) and knowing the repercussions of poor ecological stewardship, your own beliefs wouldn't have been influenced the way they were. That's using morality to influence morality.

I'm saying there's no set of data you can use to measure whether something is more or less moral, more or less worthy of being enforced as a standard. I'd go so far as to say most people believe that killing is wrong, that is a moral judgment. There is no scientific data to back this up, though. That tenet of their personal beliefs is influenced only by opinion and not fact.

Originally Posted by atomiczombie (Post 364648)

I did a lot of work in teasing apart the relation of religious and scientific discourse when I was a philosophy student back in the 90's. Briefly, I think you hit the nail dead center, AJ, when you said that it is not the job of scientific language to address issues of religious faith. That isn't its function, yes. There is a lot of confusing of one type of concept for another when talk of an intersection occurs.

I am going to come back at some point hopefully soon (it is pride weekend so there's a lot going on) when I can posit my thoughts more elaborately. I also have some book recommendations to make that really do a great job expounding on this topic.

There are lots of great posts in this thread and I am enjoying reading what you all have to say. :)

Originally Posted by Mister Bent (Post 364447)

Originally Posted by julieisafemme (Post 364861)

See but this is the problem. The Torah can be interpreted many ways because it is a metaphor. There is no need to explain things in factual terms unless you want to read it literally. In fact that is kind of a bummer.

Here is a good article by my rabbi. It talks about exactly what you guys are discussing here in the tension between science and religion and evolution. Maybe it will be interesting. Sorry to butt in!

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2000...2-935.aspx?p=1

Originally Posted by julieisafemme (Post 364861)

See but this is the problem. The Torah can be interpreted many ways because it is a metaphor. There is no need to explain things in factual terms unless you want to read it literally. In fact that is kind of a bummer.

Here is a good article by my rabbi. It talks about exactly what you guys are discussing here in the tension between science and religion and evolution. Maybe it will be interesting. Sorry to butt in!

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2000...2-935.aspx?p=1