Quote:Original post by The Frugal Gourmet Ok, so it's your genuine belief that religions change only because it threatens their "ability to maintain their congregation". That's pretty much as editorialized a statement as you can make. So, it's your educated opinion that religions change to maintain power or control. How do I know that there isn't some alternative reason? Like, perhaps religions change because they happen to be made up of thinking human beings with the capacity to embrace new ideas. Or perhaps there are 100 complex reasons involved. Basically, you're B.S.-ing. And doing so, ironically, in defense of Science.
We're in the realm of sociology here and it's an inexact science. I haven't personally done any hard research to back up my opinions but they are not just pulled out of my ass. I'm reasonably well read in history, economics, evolutionary psychology and other areas that lead me to believe religions exist partly as a mechanism of power and control. There are other factors and you're right that a religion is a collection of thinking (sometimes) individuals and can evolve for other reasons. The primary feature common to all religions however is that they are effective at perpetuating their own existence. Religions that don't have that feature tend to disappear.
Quote: Also, I'm skeptical on your other theory that religion necessarily amplifies the evils of human nature. Seems like another editorialized and un-Scientific statement to me. To prove such a thing, you must show more than a correlation between religion and the less desirable aspects of human nature -- you must show causation. But I'm not even sure you can provide the correlation. I can easily think of a-religious societies or social movements with little moral superiority to religious ones -- Nazism, Stalinist Russia, China today. I don't even need an experiment for that bit of evidence.
I don't think I said that religion necessarily amplifies the evils of human nature but I think there's plenty of evidence to make a compelling case that it can and often does. I qualified my original post with "that's a very difficult assertion to prove one way or another" because it is. My educated opinion is that religion does more harm than good but I don't claim that's a scientific fact because I don't have irrefutable evidence to present to make that claim.
Quote:Original post by kanzler Unless it's contents are flawed, the age of a book shouldn't have any impact on it's validity.
No, the age of a book in itself doesn't affect it's validity. However, an ancient book that people believe is the ultimate authority on all things largely because lots of people before them believed the same thing has no greater intrinsic authority than any other book and should be judged against the available evidence in just the same way as any other book would be.
Quote:Original post by mattnewport That's probably because you don't understand the difference between scientific 'belief' (accepting the current best explanation until evidence comes along to the contrary)...
In that case: Please explain to me why the Big Bang theory is better than the theory of God creating the entire universe in 6 days. Are theories concerning explosions scientifically more satisfying?
The same reason the parents wake up while your sleeping and put the presents under the tree theory is better than the theory of Santa Claus.
(Sorry to be trite, but you asked for it with that last remark)
Quote:Original post by mattnewport I don't think I said that religion necessarily amplifies the evils of human nature but I think there's plenty of evidence to make a compelling case that it can and often does. I qualified my original post with "that's a very difficult assertion to prove one way or another" because it is. My educated opinion is that religion does more harm than good but I don't claim that's a scientific fact because I don't have irrefutable evidence to present to make that claim.
Most (if not all) religions explicitly condemn the negative excesses of human behaviour. So the real question is: When some groups of religious people decide to go against their own teachings, can they still be considered to be part of that religion?
Quote:Original post by LessBread With regard to the healing power of prayer, it seems to me that prayer, in as much as it is similar to meditation, might work for the individual doing the praying. This isn't to say that God listens to the individual's prayer and responds, but that deep prayer, like deep mediation, might provide a healing benefit as it brings the body into alignment with the mind or some such. I've seen documentaries about studying the brains of meditating Tibetan monks and praying monastic nuns and it's possible that there might be tangible benefits to the effort.
I'd be willing to go with that, I've noticed that if I do something simular I tend to recover from illness and injury slightly faster.
Empirical evidence is good, I love science etc, but it doesn't change an experience I had a couple of years ago. I went to a church meeting with some preacher who was known for all these healings that supposedly took place in his meetings. I did believe in miracles and stuff (yes I'm a christian) so I went there with the hopes of being healed in my eyes, since I was (and still am) visually handicapped. Although I didn't get my eyesight back, something else happened. I was sitting there with intense back pains, that had started several years earlier, and the preacher starts describing my pain in detail. He says in what part of the room I sit. He says that it's much work in front of the computer, and synth-playing that causes it. And he says God is healing me. I couldn't quite believe he was talking about me though. I mean I got these problems before I got my synth. And I didn't even know what caused it. Anyway, he mentioned lots of other diseases and said that if he had mentioned your disease, you should check if it was gone, to do something you couldn't do before. I thought why not and moved my arm. For the first time in several years I could move it without effort, and suddenly I realised that all the pain was gone and that all muscles in my body was completely relaxed, in fact more relaxed than I could remember that they'd ever been. Again, scientific studies are great, but to me they can't prove there's no God or that he can't heal you.
I could go on (and I will :P) to tell about my dad who got healed from cerebral haemorrhage over 15 years ago. The doctors said they didn't know if he would live, it could go either way. Well they prayed for him in church. 18:15 the pastor said (translated from Swedish) "It's turning around now." The first thing the nurses said to mom when she came to the hospital afterwards was: "It's amazing, at 18:15 it turned around just like that". Some weeks later he was fully recovered (except for a minor eyesight condition that had been caused by the disease).
It awed me to find that today's science is so concerned in declaring ascetic forces "unexistant". Shouldn't they be spending the time elsewhere in a way that will actually benefit humanity, such as cancer and what-not?
What I am trying to say here is when has science gone beyond its original purpose? Science, like every other field of study, has quirks and unanswered phenominas. Attempting to answer every enigma and labeling it as "empirically correct" without the consideration for possible inaccuracy is just arrogance, not science.
Science is great in analyzing "physical" things. But when it comes to the area of culture, spirituality, and the human psyche; science is often as arrogant as a 4 year old bossing their mother around.
I believe what we need in this circumstance is the acceptance of a wide range of results, not just the ones scientists clasify as correct. Scientist are definatley out of their ballpark when delving into cultural areas that have defined human beings for hundreds of years.
Unless scientists can accuratley map this entire universe and all of its sub-branches, we have no reason to belive what they say.
"My gosh Jimmy, isn't this view of the ocean wonderful"
"Not really, its just a massive collection of Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sodium. In fact mother, from recent studies, the feeling of awe is not real. It is just a pseudo-effect that occurs with the release of epinephrine."
"What??"
"Beauty, love, and excitement are fake. So is everthing else that coincides with this."
"But Jimmy, we are humans not robots."
"This is science mother. Anyone who does not agree with us is an idiot for believing in their frugal ways."
Quote:Original post by vrok137 It awed me to find that today's science is so concerned in declaring ascetic forces "unexistant". Shouldn't they be spending the time elsewhere in a way that will actually benefit humanity, such as cancer and what-not?
and would you be saying the same if they came back with results which proved that it did infact help?
Quote:Original post by vrok137 It awed me to find that today's science is so concerned in declaring ascetic forces "unexistant". Shouldn't they be spending the time elsewhere in a way that will actually benefit humanity, such as cancer and what-not?
and would you be saying the same if they came back with results which proved that it did infact help?
right, so if right now, that same group had put all their efforts into cancer curing instead of this research and a cure was found by someone else and it was THEN discovered that Pray infact helpped cancer victims live longer and we would have known this if they had opted todo this study how many people do you think would moan about them not doing the study?
You said it yourself, science doesnt know a great deal about this sort of thing, so surely doing experiments is the way to fix that problem?
