yeah, they fail/refuse to see it is the same thing. they label each thing as separate and take sides.
but if you remove the labels it's the same.

lol i can't either. i don't think they can get the concept of god not being a humanoid entity.
god can be this completely abstract form of energy or a "law" that governs the backdrop of existence.

god can be god to us, but have a god he looks up to as well. god is just the level above you, you cannot yet understand. we know it exists. yet we cannot explain it.

as soon as we understand it, another layer will instantly materialise, and that will be the new god. so on so forth forever.


YES. this is exactly what this whole thread is about.

i'm talking about the base of a building, and they're talking about everything built ontop of that base. they're still using the upper floors as argument as proof the bottom floor works.

when im pointing at the bottom floor saying... look buddy, if that bottom floor is based on faith, everything above it is as well.

if there's any flaw with the bottom floor at anytime in the infinite future, the whole structure is kaput.



yeah but we are not looking at evidence beyond the axioms. the evidence is all built on the axioms.
we are ONLY concentrating on the axioms. everything else built on it, is within that bubble.

we're not arguing a system WITHIN the system. we're arguing from a perspective outside of religion and outside of science.

in this argument you are no longer a religious person, or a scientist.

you are merely an observer (no pun intended lol), an entity, viewing the two classes of method of procedure, peeling away all the shit that has been built on it, and only concentrating on the theoretical idea/concept of what they are based on.

you are nitpicking at one of the top floors of the branch of "faith" that spreads to religion.

all the religious stories, and how we are created in present form, noah's arc, storys of jesus or buddha or vishnu or ganesha etc... are studies that have EXTENDED from the axiom of "god".

it would be like me arguing against the newest found sciences. whatever that may be. for the sake of argument lets just say some new theory within quantum physics.

of course you can argue against those things.

im asking you to ignore EVERYTHING built on the idea of god. and only look at the axiom of god alone.
and im asking you to ignore EVERYTHING built on the idea of scientific axioms, and only look at the axioms alone.

we're ONLY CONCENTRATING on the base. nothing else. ignore everything else built on top. ignore the fact that you even know any of the other stuff for the sake of this argument.

we're arguing the axioms. not what's built on them.


anything you learn in church, is something built on an axiom.
anything you learn in school, is built on an axiom.

we are not talking about those. i have to emphasize this point.

we are not talking about anything you can learn from any religious house (church) or any academic school. not arguing about anything you can read in religious texts or academic text books.

we're talking about the philosophical concept of what they are both built on. and only that.

we are talking about the METAPHYSICAL aspect of existence and knowing and all that.


what evidence is offered from the scientists other than the results built on the axioms?

all their results, are comparable to stories of noah's arc. they are dismissable because the very fundemental core. the base, is uncertain.

this is why the thread exists, we are educating each other and filling our brains with more perspectives, so that we can fine tune our own. like i said many times before, we are probably all right, all talking about two sides of the same coin.

but the process... is based on that fixed belief that the base of what your understanding of the picture is true, but you have no EVIDENCE of that base.

no matter how you shoot it, the PROCESS is still based on something you cannot prove.

any system/process can be true, if built on a base that revolves around truth that cannot be proven.

but that is the definition...

i am taking a neutral stance with this.

it seems like you want to create a new definition/version of faith to fit the mechanics of science... does it not?

but there is still the core definition, which is:

"belief in something in which you cannot prove"
is that not faith in all aspects? axioms or not?

and you are also taught to never question the laws and theories that have been laid down by the forefathers of science.

if you were to question the laws of relativity, you'd be burnt like a witch.

if you were to question the laws of motion, you'd be laughed at.

is that not the same thing?

yet you can go and tell them to prove these laws, and they'll come back empty handed. they will only be able to show you results within the system in which these laws are defaulted to absolute truth.


it's because science is looking at a microperspective of how things work.
"religion" or lets just call it spirituality, looks at a macroperspective.

science describes how the gears turn in a machine.
spirituality is trying to describe what lies beyond the machine, and beyond that, and beyond that.

most people don't have the intelligence and wisdom to understand these things without microperspective functions to make these things "understandable". hence religion and all the stories you can find in holy books. those are just things to ground metaphysical concepts that have no empirical or tangible form at all. they only exist as concepts.

you can't keep bringing up holy stories and stuff. those are just ways that were laid down to let the average person have a grasp on whats going on.

it's also one of the reasons buddhism is not that popular. what they are working and striving for, is not in the form of a story or some gimmick. it's a philosophical concept, an understanding that cannot be translated into a story, or shown with empirical evidence.

very few ppl have the time or brains to fully understand the world beyond what is visible, tangible and measurable. Hence the holy stories. as civilization advanced science stemmed from faith, and starts to slowly replace these stories. but the BASIS of what these things are based on, can never be proven with empirical data.

the very nature of the understanding of metaphysics, is not empirical. it only exists in the mind.



and like religion, when a new "god" descends and has a better explanation of everything, people will convert and follow that.

but have you considered the fact that, there very well probably be evidences in this cosmos, that are beyond human understanding? so distant from human understanding that we couldn't understand it or even realise we are looking at it if it were put in front of our faces?

that only through these evidences can you prove the other side of the story?

i can demonstrate the laws of motion to a dog all day, but in the end, he won't even now what im doing.

you have to think beyond your capabilities. the macro perspective.

when you're exploring the cosmos and looking for grand scale meanings, you care not about an ant hill on some planet in some galaxy, in some super cluster, all those things are meaningless. it's like columbus stopping his exploration to look at a grain of sand.


we are not computers. we don't purely rely on empirical evidence and what we can sense.

we have an ability which all humans have. you cannot prove this, and there is no evidence for it. but you know it, i know it.
we have the ability to project ideas beyond current understanding. we can conceptualize things that are not tangible. you cannot ignore that ability.
like i said again... we aren't just computers. we have human brains. we can create worlds within the mind. you cannot dismiss that in how the world functions. we are part of that world. and there are probably many other things out there in this cosmos that have this same capability, if not more.

Religion opposes true axioms, as in, all rules of such axioms were predetermined. Therefore, religion is unfalsifiable. In such case, religion is no more than a unfalsifiable theory... A bit worse than the conventional sense of reason would prefer actually.

Not that the objects of religion doesn't exist, but the fundamental nature by which its existence has been imposed on people is nothing short of a hoax. Indeed if there were to be real objects of religion, religion must first submit to the possibility that such objects may also not exist.

Darwin amongst many of his contemporaries (i.e., LeMark) purposefully aimed to oppose religion, and out came the theories of evolution. The new thing they had in common was starting from reasoning that ideas proposed by religion could not be the only explanaton

... All using axioms. Religion's axioms are spent. They lead to nothing new; they are not axioms. Should faith be placed on axiom is in fact an axiom concerning faith itself and not religion.

The difference is that "witches" are actually burnt or killed by followers of various religions, whereas new scientific "discoveries" may be taken seriously; remember even cold fusion was given respect until proven not repeatable.

Would the scientific community lock up anyone like Galileo just because a new controversial finding was made?

I took the definition of faith straight from the dictionary. No, we do not have absolute proof that we are not in a dream the moment, we believe we are likely not. It appears I would call this a belief while you would call it faith.

Again, goes back to assessing likelihood, just because my axiom is not absolute (I can only be certain of my consciousness and nothing beyond), I can still conclude the creationists are wrong, and it is unlikely there ever was a talking snake or an Adam and Eve.

The idea of a causeless cause or self-creation? I find it incomprehensible, personally.

Within an uncertain base, we can still assess which story is more likely.

We need to draw a distinction between faith and belief. With inductive reasoning, obviously nothing is absolute, but we can't go about saying we have faith in everything as in essence we are only holding a belief.

Science is just how we attempt to figure things out. Spirituality is a field where many pseudo scientists and conman make a living out of.

I'm not sure if I believe in anything supernatural including the concept of a soul or a spirit, but in my human spirit (speaking metaphorically), being able to doubt is extremely important. Religion in general forces one not to doubt, which to me, is counter-intuitive.

I don't think anyone fully understands the world, as far as the holy stories go, they appear to be simply made up, I mean look around, there are so many religions out there, how arrogant we have to be to hold the conviction that mine is the truthful one while others are all wrong?

As far as I can see, ones religion is largely a social impact from one's environment.

Buddhism actually tells the story of Siddhartha, who went about experiencing everything in life from riches to poor to be finally enlightened. His life story maybe real, but the idea of reincarnation seems as unlikely as heaven and hell. But mind you, just like the Christians have "miracles", Buddhists actually have "empirical proof", that reincarnation takes place, believe it or not!

With so many religions out there, they cannot all be real obviously. It appears to me more likely they are all false, perhaps created with good intention to control people in our violent past. It's interesting they always have similarities, burning the witch (always the nasty female), sacrificing the innocent to appease the angry Gods, etc. Maybe we can cherry pick only the best teaching from each religion and move on. Leaving the mythology and unnecessarily rituals and irrational beliefs behind, to avoid stories such as the following:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/ny...tual.html?_r=0

Science explains that a flame emits light because of vibrating soot particles. This is due to observation and proven fact.

One religion states that a burning bush can talk and give advice. Again probably based on observation, yet no proven fact.

I believe, that some science is based on faith. But that's where it's different, religion from my point of view says have faith; everything you should believe in is true. Science in my opinion says, believe nothing, everything could be wrong the way we see it but there are some laws that have been proven that govern the our environment.

Fascinating show on PBS right now, called "The Quantum Activist" - the guide description for it reads, "Trying to bridge the gap between the divine and the scientific, Dr. Amit Goswami challenges traditional views of existence and reality."

IMDB listing: The Quantum Activist (2009) - IMDb

If you're actually interested in exploring these concepts, I'd suggest giving it a look.

He was also on the Joe Rogan podcast recently. Might want to check it out too.

Ironic.. your name I mean..
For someone named observer.. you fail the grasp what he's trying to say.
Not surprising though.

Vast majority of people wouldn't. People are just as fanatical about science these days as they were about religion in the past.

Exactly what I've been saying all along - "science" (or more appropriately, "Science<tm>") has pretty much become a religion for a lot of people.

This is the most interesting thread I've read in a while, thanks for opening up my mind a bit, or a lot!

it's the only "religious" debate (taken from a neutral point of view lol), that hasn't gone to a shit show hahahaha... the irony considering the people that post in here and the audience.

no but they'll toss him out of a university or lab and have the whole scientific community laugh at him and cause great shame.

that's the same thing.

should i just change the title of this argument to:
"Science and religion are but under the same umbrella of belief"

cuz if it makes more sense to you that way, i can keep changing the last word of that sentence to anything till it fits the picture im trying to describe.

you believe you are likely not, but you have no evidence or proof, your belief is based on nothing. that nothing can be replaced with the word faith if that makes you feel better. but in the end it's still the same.

i'm saying belief, faith, nothing, are the same thing.

if you want to be all scientist about it, then show me proof. show me evidence.
but there's nothing.

so you call it belief, others call it faith. some people call it nothing.


you cannot even be certain of your own consciousness. it could be just as likely an illusion or some kind of rudimentary programming. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference if that's the way it was intended to be.

just like you can't tell you're in a dream when you're in a dream.

let me give you an example. you become lucid in a dream. you have no proof. you just know it. you know you're in a dream... you know you're dreaming. but none of the other dream characters believe you. you tell the other characters in your dream that they're just dream characters. they tell you to go fuck yourself. they call you nuts.

are you really in a dream? you can fly... but wait... you could always fly in dreams...
but you remember you can't fly in "real" life... but you can't distinguish if it's a dream or real life... what if your memory is incorrect. i mean, your waking memory of dream memories are highly inaccurate. why wouldn't your dream memories of waking moments be highly inaccurate?

the dream characters keep asking you for proof. you believe you are dreaming. you have faith in yourself that you're not fooling yourself. you believe in that faith.

you see you cannot prove anything from within the system you are in.
in the example above, it is a state of mind. you cannot escape or prove that state of mind without waking up to another state of mind.

you wake up. before your feet touch the ground the dream is already hazy. hazy like if i asked you to recall what you did on a specific day 237 days ago (just some random day). you can't remember. images of events, feelings, start to all merge and mix. you are totally uncertain of anything that happened.

but you are certain of what is happening NOW. but you were just as certain when you were dreaming. or 237 days ago.

the current state of mind we are all in now, is the waking state of mind. which is locked into a certain bandwidth, it cannot operate outside of this. we cannot perceive or be aware of the things that go outside of it. we are constantly being fooled by how our minds operate as we are living it.

things in certain states of mind make sense, even when they don't make sense in other states of minds. dreams are the best examples.

science makes sense in this waking state of mind. but once we try to apply it outside of our perceptive limits... it doesn't make any sense any more.

im just saying, perhaps, in another state of mind, one that perhaps no human has achieved yet, the sciences we have achieved are just some laughable memory. like how it made sense we could fly in our dreams.

of course it makes sense now... we are living it. we are describing it from within the system it created. we built a world surrounding us with it. it's the only thing we can describe anything with. but of course it makes sense.


i'm saying you can't. with an uncertain base, you cannot make any judgements on top without all of those judgements being just as uncertain.

anything you build on a base is equal to the uncertainty of the weakest link. in this case it is the base.


you're still nit picking at the small things in religion!!!

who cares which story is right, that's irrelevant! they could all be right or all be wrong, or a mix of everything. whatever. it could be anything you want.

a religion could save a million lives, or destroy a billion. that's all irrelevant to this discussion. morality and all that and consequential actions are not relevant. they are meaningless in this discussion.

even if they are all false, it doesn't add onto your argument.

what they are...is based on is nothing. some belief. some faith. all the little stories are just interpretations of some greater force (which i am absolutely certain we cannot interpret properly, not with our current capacity for intelligence).

you show different children, pictures of the same thing. they will all interpret it differently. they could all be wrong. but the thing they are interpreting is real.

when we use the word religion in this discussion, don't label it to any tangible or symbolic thing like Christianity or any other religion.

don't give it a form, don't give it symbol, don't give it meaning.

think of it as an ideal.

zoom back in time to (i know this didnt happen but just play along), to the first two people that thought of some method of operating.

they both come across a thought/problem/scenario, and one decides they have to go further to investigate this thought through testing and repeating things.

the other decides they have to further investigate by looking inward and beyond the testable physical reality.

over hundreds of thousands of years we see one turns into "religion" and one turns into "science".

but at the start, when the two diff people came across the same problem, they both were interpreting something very real to them. their thoughts of how they should deal with it, were based on the same reaction to the same scenario.

how can you say they're not based on the same things??? they are both based on the very same human reaction to the same thing.


if i've learnt anything from this discussion, it's that both science and religion are both a form of art. each with it's own intentions in presentation. but in the end they are both just exercising some part of the mind in different ways. trying to manifest meaning into physical reality.

and of course art is a form of philosophy.

Just ask any scientist who's dared publicly question the "facts" of Climate Change<tm>...

At the risk of taking this off topic, I'm just going to leave this here not for us to read word for word literally like the Bible, but to think about its implications on perceptions of awareness with an open mind:

In a mother's womb were two babies. One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?" The other replies, "why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later. "Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?" "I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths." The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short." "I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." the other replies, "No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere." "Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us." "Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now? "She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world." "I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist." To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her."

Subsequent commenters missing this part entirely, in 3... 2... 1...

That's why they can't be under the umbrella of faith.
The original idea isn't faith. The idea is the axiom[1], as you suggested. They may well share an axiom, but faith is the belief in something without proof. The divergence is the willingness or unwillingness to deconstruct an axiom. Therefore, they cannot be under the umbrella of faith.

Or did I completely miss the mark here?

[1]An axiom, or postulate, is a premise or starting point of reasoning.

Everything we do is under the same umbrella of belief
 

Are you comparing cold fusion scientists with bad data being laughed at, with Galileo having his house arrest?

To understand the difference between the words "belief" and "faith", one doesn't go "all scientist" (what does that mean anyway) but need to look at the definitions and our general understanding and usage of the words.

I see a huge difference between faith and belief.

I am certainly more comfortable seeing the word belief rather than faith in your statement, as it removes the dogmatic connotation. However, at the end of the day, all we are really saying is, in an absolute sense, everything is uncertain without proof (including religion and science as they both rely on some kind of belief system) thus they are all under the same umbrella?

Let's see, but doesn't any ideology fall under this same "uncertainty umbrella"? So does astrology, fortune telling, racism, and the various cults? I find it intellectually meaningless and unhelpful to understand the world from this perspective.

For the same token, just because creationism and evolutionism are both "theories", should we group them together as alternatives in school?

No, we don't need to blindly praise science, nor to alienate it calling it arrogant, we simply need to understand it as a tool, an approach helping us figure how things around us work.

I suppose Descartes will disagree with you, with his "I think, therefore I am" line.

I think I was the one who brought up the dream example, and yes, of course there is much uncertainty in the absolute sense.

What small things are you referring to? When I mentioned the danger of irrational faith, I see babies catching deadly herpes from dirty men biting on their genitals to perform circumcision in the developed western world, while there are laws to protect such barbaric unhygienic practises.

Sure, this is going off topic but you get my point.

I'm not sure I understand what argument you see that I am making. My point was that regardless if they are under the same umbrella you so propose to group them, one has to be able to make a judgement call on the likelihood of which path will work better.

Of course you can, when you face a mad man with a knife slashing at people on the street, can you not assess that you will likely not get injured if you stay away from him?

Just because parents feel that seeing an evangelist faith healer gives them even more fulfilment than a medical doctor, we have to draw a line on which is more likely to achieve the goal helping the sick.

Why do we must assume that whatever stories are interpretations of some greater force? Even if there is one, perhaps the greater force is completely indifferent to us? Isn't it an infinite regress anyway, the force, its cause, the causeless cause, etc.

Yes they also experience heat, cold, laughter, pain, joy, you name it.

This I have a problem with, what exactly are we talking about then? What ideal? A meaningless belief? A belief in supernaturalism? A belief we don't really understand? An incomprehensible belief?

Personally, I see religions as our ancestors' genuine attempt to figure out this world. At a time, there is no question that religion offered the best explanations. As we discover new things however, especially in the past 200 years, we notice that certain older beliefs simply don't add up and so people begin to take the teachings more metaphorically, or to leave the camp and look for better answers.

Looking at our history with religions' past dominance, I would say science grew out of religion. Darwin, Galileo are people like you and me who just figured out this world a little better.

If these important discoveries were not made, the Vatican and the Church of England would still hold on to their belief that the world is 10,000 years old.

Human reaction to the same uncertain world, yes, of course, are based on one's belief, past experience, education, etc. By the virtue of the vagueness of your proposal, what exactly is in common?

That we are all human acting based on what we feel is real? And thus this is why we propose science and religion should be considered under the same umbrella of belief/faith?

Sure we can call all this humanity, but to me, it is a poor way of helping those who are trying to understand what science and religion are truly about.

Stay tuned for our jihad and inquisition..

"I think not," said Descartes... and promptly vanished.
:troll:

Say what you will, but, I don't lump science and religion together.

http://i.imgur.com/P8VEQ.jpg

yes I am.

the scientists that laugh at the cold fusion scientists with bad data... if it were up to them, they'd bar them from science. is it not the same. the initial feeling of "what a load of crap"...can lead to many results (the only difference would be what is socially acceptable at the time).

which is exactly what I am trying to say here. the initial faith, lead to many different things. I am not focusing on anything after. I am just focusing on the initial thought/feeling.


You have faith in that your pursuit of science will support your beliefs.

others have faith in that the pursuit of religion will support their beliefs.

... is it not the same? are you guys not exercising the same tool?

if faith were a tangible tool... you'd both be wielding the same one, using it in different ways and getting different results.


yes.

yes. they are all under the same umbrella of faith as well.


only at the level where the mind can understand the subtle differences.

I would assume it would be taught in high level philosophies in university.

not to little kids that will mix it up and misinterpret it.





to understand what science and religion are about, you skip the axioms, and you study what has been built on it. but we are not debating what science and religion are about. We are debating where they both came from.

we are talking about the concept of faith.

con·cept
/ˈkänsept/
Noun
An abstract idea; a general notion.
A plan or intention; a conception.

you can't label it as anything else. like the definition says... it's an abstract idea. which is why i am telling you to drop everything tangible and observable. those things are not abstract. they do not pertain to this discussion.

(below referring to all the stuff i quoted but didn't reply):
after thinking about it for a few weeks... I have come to a conclusion as to why you cannot see things my way.

you are too focused on being result driven. you are focused on the tangibles and the observables. you are too focused on the physical being.

i think your problem is unless something is intellectual or meaningful to you, you disregard it as garbage.

I are not talking about what CAME TO BE, AFTER. I am talking about the very spark that started it. The thought of which path you will take. not where the path has ended up.

you are too focused on the applicable function of religion vs science.

But I am totally not talking about that at all.

Don't focus on what USE something has. otherwise you can disregard most forms of art as well.

totally don't focus on the utilitarian part. that is just totally going down the wrong path for this discussion.

don't focus on what has come to be or anything around you at all. that's not the point.

you kinda get what I mean?


the things you can see, touch, feel, smell, are not important. They're just... things in our lives. They only help you understand the how of things. not the why.

I am digging deeper into the metaphysical realm. the very initial first spark of thought/emotion. the faith in which the path you take, before you take it, before you know anything about it.


here's another example for you:
we are both scientists at the forefront of quantum physics (or anything else u want). up to this point we have both agreed on theories and all that.
but then comes a point where I have my own theory, and you have your own theory.
even though we are both scientists... we both have faith in our belief of our own theories.

is that not the same faith we both have, but on different things?

does it make more sense if i say it that way?

as you can see.. you can this concept of faith in MANY different scenarios.

it would probably be better to say, that faith, is a decision. regardless of what results of the decision. both people had to excersize the tool of deciding before moving forward.



you posting this demonstartes you have no idea what I am talking about.

yet it further supports what I am talking about.

between the first pic and the second pic in both columns, is faith, in which path you will take.

the results are different, but the initial concept of faith is the same.

that is all i am saying.

how is that not an easy concept to grasp?


are people so... blinded by results and tangibles, that they measure the world backwards?

just because you end up with a different result, does not mean the first step was different.



If we are both lost in a desert, without any tools or knowledge of directions. one of us chooses to head east and one chooses to head west... we will have different results. perhaps one of us will die. perhaps we'll both live. the possibilities are endless. but i don't care what the possibilities are.

I'm talking about, the INITIAL decision that made you blindly choose one way or the other.

is it not the same function we both used to decide which way to go?

is it NOT FAITH?