Is there a rational reason for religion?

[koti]

1 minute ago, Scott of the Antares said:

The problem with the example of knowing how a computer or an airplane works is that they are nearly closed systems where we know the extents of pretty much every factor involved. While it is noble to use then as an analogy, I think they fall way short of comparing them to a universe of which we know very little. We cannot possible know every facet of the universe so assert that there is (or that there is not) a God is a matter of personal preference and nothing more. It cannot be known either way, period.

Not really...I don’t know how exactly the universe works and I have no problem with admiting it. In fact, it would be foolish of me to claim that I do know, I just don’t. I do know something about it though...I, a single person know more about the universe then the combined knowledge of all the people on earth 300 years ago and that is entirely because humans are capable to do science and work collaboratively and pass the knowledge to next generations. As for god/gods being a personal preference and like you say „it cannot be known either way” its like saying that you have a miniature Yeti in your closet and since I can’t prove that you don’t, therefore miniature Yeti’s might exist, period. 

[Itoero]

On ‎6‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 10:08 PM, Phi for All said:

I don't see how sufficiency relates to the requirement of religion in forming or leading groups that you're imposing. You're still using the word necessary, as in "fuel is necessary to start a fire". Groups can form and be led without religion, therefore religion is not a requirement, not a necessity.

Most groups are formed via a shared trust based belief. Depending on your opinion you can say trust = faith. 

Religion is not a requirement to form groups but since groups are formed via a shared trust based belief, they can 'in theory' always lead to religion.

99,9 % of all groups don't grow into a religion. But this causal relationship between groups and religion imo shows religion will never leave this world.

[Strange]

10 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Depending on your opinion you can say trust = faith. 

I don't think that is a matter of opinion. Trust and faith are very different things.

[Scott of the Antares]

56 minutes ago, Strange said:

The same could be true for every god that man has invented, as well as invisible pink unicorns, aliens with three heads, or a teapot that orbits the Sun somewhere.

Very true!

56 minutes ago, Strange said:

But, after sufficient time, one can use absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

One can use this ‘rule’ if one wants, but respectfully I wouldn’t agee that you are correct in making this assumption, or that this assumption has any kind of base in reality.

 

Edited July 12, 2018 by Scott of the Antares

[Strange]

5 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

One can use this ‘rule’ if one wants, but respectfully I wouldn’t agee that you are correct in making this assumption, or that this assumption has any kind of base in reality.

Really? So if you are looking for your keys and someone says, "they are on the table" you would never give up looking because the absence of evidence of them on the table is not enough to convince you that they are not there?

But maybe gods are different than keys. And certainly, the search space of the universe is greater than a table top. But we have looked very hard and there are precious few places left for these gods to be hidden. Even if they are very small and powerless; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-evidence-against-god_b_682169.html

Edited July 12, 2018 by Strange

[koti]

15 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

One can use this ‘rule’ if one wants, but respectfully I wouldn’t agee that you are correct in making this assumption, or that this assumption has any kind of base in reality.

 

So whats the difference between a miniature Yeti in your closet and the existence of god/gods? They both seem to have an equal amount of evidence going for them which is zero. Why would one be treated as plausible and the other as ridiculous? 

Edited July 12, 2018 by koti

[Itoero]

29 minutes ago, Strange said:

I don't think that is a matter of opinion. Trust and faith are very different things.

This difference is due to the presence of religion.

But it doesn't really matter, whatever you semantic preference is,  trust can become faith and faith can  form religion.

[DrP]

1 hour ago, koti said:

When I was 17 or 18 ...... she was also extremely atractive, kept on gently caressing me so...I went with it and started to make up shit

Edit: I was 16.

I guess you would go with the flow there, yea. lol.

2 minutes ago, koti said:

So whats the difference between a miniature Yeti in your closet and the existence of god/gods? They both seem to have an equall amount of evidence going for them which is zero. Why would one be treated as plausible and the other as ridiculous? 

You beat me to that.  If you use that line of argument to believe in god then why not every other single piece of mythical claptrap out there? They are all just as credible and all have the same amount of evidence.

It is a little like hypnosis I suppose...  when I was 3 years I would pray at Sunday school.  We would close our eyes and the lady would pray and we would picture Jesus writing our names into the book of life...  It was quite beautiful, the lady was lovely....  none of that makes it true though. People used to say I was brain washed and I just didn't believe it...  now I think I was. Not out of any ill intention from the old lady - she was lovely...  she had been mislead too and had not had the 40 years of modern life that I now have. Things were different even then - we knew a lot less.  

[koti]

28 minutes ago, DrP said:

  ...when I was 3 years I would pray at Sunday school....

Wow, you were praying at 3? I think I was barely talking at 3 and I certainly weren’t at sunday school at that age. My kid is 26 months right now and although he already knows the concept of 1,2,3,4,5 (hes only starting to talk with mixed results) I’d never consider giving him any traces of my  views on religion and I hope I will be able to keep it up for as long as I can to keep him autonomous in his thinking. You’re in DE right? I have some friends in East Berlin and my partner has experience with German culture (she had a German boyfriend for many years before me) From what I talked about this with my partner, the Church in Germany is taxed like any other business and barely anyone gives donations at Sunday Mass. This would imply that the indoctrination is not so strong in Germany as for example in Poland where I live. Is this true or do I have faulty information? 

Edit: Oh, oh, I clicked your profile, I confused you with an other member, please disregard my mumbling. 

Edited July 12, 2018 by koti

[Scott of the Antares]

50 minutes ago, koti said:

So whats the difference between a miniature Yeti in your closet and the existence of god/gods? They both seem to have an equal amount of evidence going for them which is zero. Why would one be treated as plausible and the other as ridiculous? 

The difference is I can open my cupboard and observe the entirety of it and see there is no Yeti. None of us can observe the entirety of the universe, and therefore claims about anything outside of the universe by religious nuts or their scientific equivalent are entire baseless. On this basis, I don’t think the analogies presented here stretch as far as you want them to be valid. In my respectful opinion.

It is fair game to speculate, investigate and propose, but no one can actually attest. That was my simple yet true point.

[DrP]

44 minutes ago, koti said:

 I clicked your profile, I confused you with an other member, please disregard my mumbling. 

No worries - I'm from the UK.  Yesterday I was talking about a German post doc in the football thread and you confused him with me I think.

[koti]

48 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

The difference is I can open my cupboard and observe the entirety of it and see there is no Yeti. None of us can observe the entirety of the universe, and therefore claims about anything outside of the universe by religious nuts or their scientific equivalent are entire baseless. On this basis, I don’t think the analogies presented here stretch as far as you want them to be valid. In my respectful opinion.

It is fair game to speculate, investigate and propose, but no one can actually attest. That was my simple yet true point.

Ah, but can you be sure there will be no miniature Yeti’s in your cupboard tomorrow?

 

30 minutes ago, DrP said:

No worries - I'm from the UK.  Yesterday I was talking about a German post doc in the football thread and you confused him with me I think.

Yep, thats it. 

Edited July 12, 2018 by koti

[Scott of the Antares]

1 hour ago, koti said:

Ah, but can you be sure there will be no miniature Yeti’s in your cupboard tomorrow?

I will check tomorrow! At the very least, I hope there are no evil monkeys in there:)!

Edited July 12, 2018 by Scott of the Antares

[Strange]

3 hours ago, Itoero said:

This difference is due to the presence of religion.

But it doesn't really matter, whatever you semantic preference is,  trust can become faith and faith can  form religion.

No. They are just words with different meanings. It isn't because of religion. You can choose to redefine them, but that isn't a very good basis for an argument.

[Strange]

4 hours ago, Scott of the Antares said:

The difference is I can open my cupboard and observe the entirety of it and see there is no Yeti.

They might be undetectable by current technology...

[Scott of the Antares]

48 minutes ago, Strange said:

They might be undetectable by current technology...

Again true! But that sword cuts both ways. And that is my close to my original point; we do not know. I am not advocating the idea that there are invisible yetis in my cupboard, but as you point out, if humans possess no means of detecting them, then it is impossible to say one way or the other.

I certainly agree that we may as well continue about our business as if they don’t exist, as it has no bearing on our life. But I don’t think we can assert that we are sure they don’t exist.

[Phi for All]

6 hours ago, Itoero said:

Depending on your opinion you can say trust = faith. 

Sorry, but I've defended the reasons why beliefs are defined by the probability of them being correct, and why I feel definitions shouldn't be as loose and unmeaningful as you've claimed. You haven't supported your arguments. All you do is repeat that if you exercise your opinion, you're allowed to bypass rigor and precision, and redefine common concepts. That's not reasonable. 

Other than making your faith look better, why don't you think there should be a distinction between a belief in something tangible, predictable, and observable (trustworthy), and a belief in something like a god or an "afterlife" or ghosts or other unknowable things (faith)? Do you honestly think people believe in chemical reactions the same way they believe in Zeus? Don't you think we owe it to ourselves to use more precision in the distinction? 

[Strange]

3 hours ago, Scott of the Antares said:

Again true! But that sword cuts both ways. And that is my close to my original point; we do not know. I am not advocating the idea that there are invisible yetis in my cupboard, but as you point out, if humans possess no means of detecting them, then it is impossible to say one way or the other.

I certainly agree that we may as well continue about our business as if they don’t exist, as it has no bearing on our life. But I don’t think we can assert that we are sure they don’t exist.

We can’t be sure about anything; that is not how science works.  But we can look at the available evidence and reach reasonable conclusions based on the balance of probabilities. 

[Scott of the Antares]

Ok, as you say, we can’t be sure of anything. 

[koti]

16 hours ago, Scott of the Antares said:

I will check tomorrow! At the very least, I hope there are no evil monkeys in there:)!

If you checked and the cupboard was empty, the miniature Yeti’s are either invisible like Strange pointed out or you need to check again tomorrow, you never know when they might show up. Either way I can sit here forever and keep you convinced that they’re there somewhere and there is no way you can deny it/prove otherwise. 

That’s one of the types of logic which is behind of how religions work and I think the analogy stretches exactly as far as it needs to.

Edited July 13, 2018 by koti

[Scott of the Antares]

6 hours ago, koti said:

If you checked and the cupboard was empty, the miniature Yeti’s are either invisible like Strange pointed out or you need to check again tomorrow, you never know when they might show up. Either way I can sit here forever and keep you convinced that they’re there somewhere and there is no way you can deny it/prove otherwise. 

That’s one of the types of logic which is behind of how religions work and I think the analogy stretches exactly as far as it needs to.

Hey Koti, that is all fine ‘n dandy, but you added the ‘invisible’ quality that was not present in your original analogy,  so it did not stretch.

The addition of this quality certainly makes it a better comparison.

[koti]

1 hour ago, Scott of the Antares said:

Hey Koti, that is all fine ‘n dandy, but you added the ‘invisible’ quality that was not present in your original analogy,  so it did not stretch.

The addition of this quality certainly makes it a better comparison.

Its fine without the invisible quality too as the minature Yeti can always appear tomorrow. Also I havent added anything, Strange added the invisible quality which is fine but my analogy is fine ’n dandy without it. 

Edited July 13, 2018 by koti

[Scott of the Antares]

That is some weak rhetoric right there.

And no, your visible yeti analogy does not work and actually fails. If it were as bullet proof as you think, then you would have disproved the notion of a creator and the worldwide science community would hand you an award. You are welcome to your erroneous  perception though.

[Phi for All]

31 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

That is some weak rhetoric right there.

And no, your visible yeti analogy does not work and actually fails. If it were as bullet proof as you think, then you would have disproved the notion of a creator and the worldwide science community would hand you an award. You are welcome to your erroneous  perception though.

The concept of an unobservable creator is unfalsifiable, therefore it can't be proven or disproven (which disqualifies it from scientific methodology). What koti was showing is that his yeti who may show up tomorrow (same thing as being invisible) is equally unfalsifiable, and therefore no different from a creator who also can't be observed. The analogy is sound.

[koti]

1 hour ago, Scott of the Antares said:

That is some weak rhetoric right there.

And no, your visible yeti analogy does not work and actually fails. If it were as bullet proof as you think, then you would have disproved the notion of a creator and the worldwide science community would hand you an award. You are welcome to your erroneous  perception though.

Scott I wasn’t trying to disprove the notion of a creator and I think you know that very well. Take it easy man...and don’t look out for those yeti’s and monkeys in your cupboard  

Edited July 13, 2018 by koti