For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point • Hacker News Board

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#51

Post by KMag » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:39 AM UTC

Fezzik wrote: post #35

_8j50 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. Academic theologians want to answer why. A religious person already knows, if you have to find data and infer things then it is philosophy not religion. Religion is based on information directed by the creator either directly to the believer or via trusted proxy. For example if you asked me why the universe exists I already know: because God willed it so. Most religious questions are a whether or not somethi…

Maybe it’s pedantic, but in my experience the best summation of a scientific approach to beleif is to say ‘I will withhold belief until sufficient evidence is provided to support the belief.’ Most noticeably, this stance does not exclude the currently unknown from being true or known at some point, it simply holds a person to the honest — and truly humble — mindset of never thinking things are true on insufficient ev…

I think they're rather asserting that the scientific method is built upon materialist axioms, whereas religions are almost definitionally come with non-materialist axioms as foundational.

It may seem self-evident that purely materialist axioms are more useful as a basis for starting the discussion, but depending on the end goal, starting the discussion more easily may not be advantageous in reaching the end goal. It's possible that restricting ourselves to purely materialist axioms is a case of looking for our keys under the light post because it's dark in the alley where we dropped them.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#52

Post by KMag » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:41 AM UTC

rembicilious wrote: post #50

Fezzik wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s pedantic, but in my experience the best summation of a scientific approach to beleif is to say ‘I will withhold belief until sufficient evidence is provided to support the belief.’ Most noticeably, this stance does not exclude the currently unknown from being true or known at some point, it simply holds a person to the honest — and truly humble — mindset of never thinking things are true on insufficient ev…

Most Protestant christians believe that the christian bible is divinely inspired. Everything else they believe follows from this first unprovable belief. They may not accept an idea if they feel it conflicts with their personal interpretation of the christian bible, no matter how convincing the evidence. On the other hand, some protestants are not so attached to their beliefs, and can adapt them to mesh with reality…

Let's not confuse theologians with most theists. Most theists (and most atheists, for that matter) haven't delved deeply into the foundations of their belief systems.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#53

Post by yummies » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:53 AM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #49

yummies wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if they are abusing other people, you'd care, and intervention would be justified? Is that not imposing your dogma on them?

I’d assert that an anti-dogma stance is inherently non-dogmatic.

I challenge the assertion that the gp is really antidogmatic. The definition of abuse and the appropriate response to it, while generally unquestioned in one society, may not be the same in a remote island society.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#54

Post by KMag » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

djokkataja wrote: post #45

givemeethekeys wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I propose that religion incorporates the most accepted science of the time it was established. We haven't had a new popular enough religion that incorporates the current state of accepted science. It benefits the leadership of any organization to give its members a reason for its existence. The better the reason, the greater chance of growth. Religions aim to provide the complete package - rules for society and the i…

I think it could be handy if there was a "religion" that looked at the various ways that historical religions are beneficial for their adherents (in practices and beliefs) and tried to distill things down and build some new things up from whatever gets worked out in that way. From a secular perspective, religions contain quite a bit of invented material, so this doesn't seem that unreasonable. And this could potentia…

What if it turns out that for many actions, the game-theoretically optimal strategy for the individual isn't optimal for the society, and people's gut instincts are reasonably close to game theoretic analysis? In other words, what if it turns out that it's really objectively best for society if everyone is tricked into being good?

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#55

Post by trhway » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 6:39 AM UTC

yummies wrote: post #48

trhway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tangentially, I am a bit baffled by folks that are not believers yet try to make sense of a religion, don't they understand hierarchy of belief? I'd not give a damn about religion if it weren't shoving itself in my face everywhere. For example I don't care whatever religion some people on some remote islands may be practicing because they aren't forcing their religious dogmas on me (and as long as they don't abuse o…

But if they are abusing other people, you'd care, and intervention would be justified? Is that not imposing your dogma on them?

it isn't a dogma, it is my personal dislike of [unconsented] abuse. Depending on situation/domain i may be wrapping it into legal/dogmatic/moral/etc. devices, whatever works, yet in the end at the very core it would be just that my personal dislike of abuse.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#56

Post by atoav » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 6:57 AM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #22

This article seems to be saying that science and religion are trying to answer the same question, how did we get here. But I feel like that's misguided. I've always been under the impression that science is descriptive, it answers how? Whereas religion is deeper than that and aims to answer why? We can explain how natural processes work, but, and I believe this is a question Aristotle asked with the immovable mover,…

But there is intersection between science and believe systems. Knowing what we know about space for example, it would be hard to justify the believe a certain subjective perspective onto a star constellation influences a persons fate based on their birth date =astrology.

In this case the more we know about the how of the stars in the sky the less we can believe the uninformed why astrology is trying to present us.

Similar conflicts happen with religion and one cannot ignore that knowing the how deeply influences the why. Most members of our species can't stand the lack of meaning and the will use what they know to create stories that convey it. This is an understandable mechanism and in itself not a problem, but it can become one if the story is told in a way where it starts to clash with the facts.

In the end these stories, even when they call themselves holy texts are written by humans from their own limited perspectives of the time. That doesn't mean, there can not be wisdom in there, but there can also be wisdom in other texts so that doesn't really cut it..

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#57

Post by CodeBeater » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:15 AM UTC

mjh2539 wrote: post #36

Ishmaeli wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the King James Version (KJV) was so dominant for so long among English speakers that archaic language came to be associated with Holy Writ. Generations have been conditioned to think that scripture is supposed to sound old. Now, lots of Christian denominations do favor more modern translations, but the KJV refuses to go away. Fun fact from the church I grew up in (Mormonism): aside from the Bible and the Book…

I mean...Jesus was an orthodox Jew and prayed in (mostly) Hebrew (the sacral language), not Aramaic (the vernacular language of the Jews at the time). Having a "sacral language" or "sacral register" is not specific to the English or to the KJV. You will find the same phenomenon in other areas as well, some of which aren't even remotely religious. Think of the register of speech people use when writing a paper for pub…

I can 100% relate to that. For most of my 12 year long career I wrote, spoke and produced technical documentation exclusively in English.

Now that I work with a bunch of Portuguese speaking people, I find that I have a hard time communicating about anything related to work in an informal manner.

That leads to some awkward (albeit funny) situations in which sometimes I forget non-domain-specific words in Portuguese, and just Google Translate them (back into my own native language!).

In one instance I could not come up with a good enough translation for the word "henceforth", so I translated it and got "doravante", which I obliviously used it when establishing new deploy procedures. I got some laughs from my co-workers because apparently "doravante" is an absolutely archaic word.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#58

Post by ithkuil » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:30 AM UTC

Science may not be able to explain why and how the universe came into existence but it may explain why humans so stubbornly insist to know the reasons for something they can't ever know yet at the same time are so willing to accept irrational explanations for it.

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#59

Post by renox » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:03 AM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #22

This article seems to be saying that science and religion are trying to answer the same question, how did we get here. But I feel like that's misguided. I've always been under the impression that science is descriptive, it answers how? Whereas religion is deeper than that and aims to answer why? We can explain how natural processes work, but, and I believe this is a question Aristotle asked with the immovable mover,…

Religion doesn't have a good answer for that too, except 'burn the heretics who ask who created God'

Re: For natural theologians, proving God was beside the point

#60

Post by LocalH » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:22 AM UTC

yummies wrote: post #53

daseiner1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d assert that an anti-dogma stance is inherently non-dogmatic.

I challenge the assertion that the gp is really antidogmatic. The definition of abuse and the appropriate response to it, while generally unquestioned in one society, may not be the same in a remote island society.

Let's jump right in the deep end. Let's say you have a remote culture where genital mutilation is done for purely religious reasons. This is done in an unclean fashion, as it's a tribal culture. Would you argue against intervention?