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The Science of the Benefits of Religion

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Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#91

Post by jhgb »

ecpottinger wrote: post #21

I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses - Please read on before you just dismiss what I have experienced. Going door to door I have meet plenty of people who say "I don't believe in God, we got here thru evolution!". So I ask the simple question which theory of evolution do they think is probably has the right idea. Too often I hear, "Survival of the strongest." or "What? There is more than one theory about how evolution wor…

> What is clear to me is that to these people evolution is a BELIEF and not something they thought of

Everything you consider to be true is a belief. That's the very definition of a belief: beliefs are the things you consider to be true. So you saying that this is a belief to them carries little information.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#92

Post by smackeyacky »

zdragnar wrote: post #81
lalaland1125 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not at all accurate; the faith people express in science is generally identical to the faith other people express in religion, with no difference in the reasons, motivations, or justifications offered. I think this is fundamentally incorrect. People believe in science because it produces results in the form of correct predictions and devices.

Just look at nutrition science as an example for why this isn't so. Salt, fat, cholesterol, fructose, etc have each gone through several wild swings in good for you / bad for you. The science is entirely unsettled, yet forms the backbone of many doctors' recommendations. Then, when the science gets taken in by mainline cultural space, it gets blown up into all sorts of utterly nonsensical, mystical woo-woo. Somehow m…

You can't just pick and choose what is scientific and what isn't to try an conflate reason with religion. That is an argument in bad faith (ahem).

Further, using statements like "entirely unsettled" in reference to science is a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. It's not "settled" like religious arguments where everybody agrees to a particular interpretation of the holy book. Science either works and we make stuff with it, or it doesn't and it gets tossed away.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#93

Post by smackeyacky »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #75
lalaland1125 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not at all accurate; the faith people express in science is generally identical to the faith other people express in religion, with no difference in the reasons, motivations, or justifications offered. I think this is fundamentally incorrect. People believe in science because it produces results in the form of correct predictions and devices.

Sure, so do religions. But people make no distinction between believing in science in the same area where it makes correct predictions, and believing in "science" in an area where it has nothing valid to say, because it makes correct predictions somewhere else. To most people, science is just a word, and they support it because they know that that is the right thing to do.

Which people are these? Can you cite some examples?

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#94

Post by jhgb »

overrun11 wrote: post #50
lalaland1125 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is that for evolution most people can point to (or try to point to) a legitimate source of authority for why they believe evolution is true. Whereas for religion, there is nothing to point to other than blind faith.

Who decides legitimacy and why is a university a more legitimate source of knowledge than a church?

> why is a university a more legitimate source of knowledge than a church

Because knowledge has to be justified in order to be knowledge. Universities produce justifications (in form of repeatable experiments, studies, proofs, etc.), churches don't.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#95

Post by lisper »

smackeyacky wrote: post #90
lisper wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know? Maybe if you studied the Bible you'd end up believing in it. :-) It turns out that you actually can induce subjective experiences in yourself that I believe are similar to what religious people describe as "feeling the presence of God". It's an interesting and worthwhile exercise (though not what we do in my study group, that's a more academic format). But it's worth doing at least once in your life.…

Like a lot of atheists, I have studied the bible. My parents had me confirmed as an Anglican in my teens (ironically one of the first steps that took me from "I don't know if this is true" to "this particular religion is patently false"). It's impossible to understand western literature without a decent working knowledge of the bible (although choosing which one is problematic in itself), it's useful for that alone.…

> studying the bible made me less religious, not more.

Yep, same here.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#96

Post by jhgb »

truetraveller wrote: post #68
estaseuropano wrote: post #6

There seems to be little doubt that religion, faith, spirituality or rite can have benefits. The question is how to get the good side of all these (community, meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment) without the nasty side (exclusion and intolerance, resistance to or denial of reality, imposition of impossible standards, the denial of one's own preferences and wants). Religion has been a major source of soothing and a m…

The nasty side applies just as well to non-religious, non-spiritual communities. Even worse, perhaps. There are many examples. Look at the intolerance and hypocrisy in France, one of the most secular states. A girl is not allowed to go to school with the Muslim head scarf. This is worse than the Taliban. France allows insulting the Prophet (pbuh), but you'll get to jail for insulting the president. France has killed/…

> Look at the intolerance and hypocrisy in France, one of the most secular states. A girl is not allowed to go to school with the Muslim head scarf. This is worse than the Taliban.

Tolerance of intolerance is a difficult topic, of course. Should France tolerate intolerance?

> France allows insulting the Prophet (pbuh), but you'll get to jail for insulting the president.

The Prophet is dead but the French president is alive. Even if you have laws promoting a mutually polite society, they don't apply to the dead (any more than for example property rights do -- the dead can't own things either).

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#97

Post by thaumasiotes »

smackeyacky wrote: post #92
zdragnar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at nutrition science as an example for why this isn't so. Salt, fat, cholesterol, fructose, etc have each gone through several wild swings in good for you / bad for you. The science is entirely unsettled, yet forms the backbone of many doctors' recommendations. Then, when the science gets taken in by mainline cultural space, it gets blown up into all sorts of utterly nonsensical, mystical woo-woo. Somehow m…

You can't just pick and choose what is scientific and what isn't to try an conflate reason with religion. That is an argument in bad faith (ahem). Further, using statements like "entirely unsettled" in reference to science is a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. It's not "settled" like religious arguments where everybody agrees to a particular interpretation of the holy book. Science either works and…

I mean, you're responding to an example of "science" that doesn't work and we make stuff with it.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#98

Post by truetraveller »

jhgb wrote: post #96
truetraveller wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nasty side applies just as well to non-religious, non-spiritual communities. Even worse, perhaps. There are many examples. Look at the intolerance and hypocrisy in France, one of the most secular states. A girl is not allowed to go to school with the Muslim head scarf. This is worse than the Taliban. France allows insulting the Prophet (pbuh), but you'll get to jail for insulting the president. France has killed/…

> Look at the intolerance and hypocrisy in France, one of the most secular states. A girl is not allowed to go to school with the Muslim head scarf. This is worse than the Taliban. Tolerance of intolerance is a difficult topic, of course. Should France tolerate intolerance? > France allows insulting the Prophet (pbuh), but you'll get to jail for insulting the president. The Prophet is dead but the French president is…

> Should France tolerate intolerance? How is voluntarily wearing the head scarf "intolerance".

>the French president is alive. So what? It's still within my "Freedom of Speech" to say whatever I want, as long as it does not directly incite violence. Regardless of whatever Frances' convenient version is. I believe even the US allows insulting the president.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#99

Post by beaconstudios »

woodpanel wrote: post #79
estaseuropano wrote: post #6

There seems to be little doubt that religion, faith, spirituality or rite can have benefits. The question is how to get the good side of all these (community, meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment) without the nasty side (exclusion and intolerance, resistance to or denial of reality, imposition of impossible standards, the denial of one's own preferences and wants). Religion has been a major source of soothing and a m…

> Religion has been a major source of soothing and a major source of suffering for all of humanity's past The idea that religion is such a big source of suffering throughout all of our history is one I stopped believing once I took a closer look at the actual nature of war, particulary how a country's elite is moving closer to war and how "religious" said elite actually is. IMO the amounts of blood shed over millenia…

Yep, war has always been about resources and the fights of the elites. Religion is only ever an excuse, just like WMDs or whatever; a convenient lie to mislead the populous into believing there's a legitimate casus belli.

Re: The Science of the Benefits of Religion

#100

Post by truetraveller »

woodpanel wrote: post #79
estaseuropano wrote: post #6

There seems to be little doubt that religion, faith, spirituality or rite can have benefits. The question is how to get the good side of all these (community, meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment) without the nasty side (exclusion and intolerance, resistance to or denial of reality, imposition of impossible standards, the denial of one's own preferences and wants). Religion has been a major source of soothing and a m…

> Religion has been a major source of soothing and a major source of suffering for all of humanity's past The idea that religion is such a big source of suffering throughout all of our history is one I stopped believing once I took a closer look at the actual nature of war, particulary how a country's elite is moving closer to war and how "religious" said elite actually is. IMO the amounts of blood shed over millenia…

Thank you. For anyone in doubt, look at despicable acts that governments have committed. Like how they massacred thousands, in the name of Imperialism / "Freedom".
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