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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[origamiscienceguy]

Dictionary.com

Evidence: that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.

Proof: evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

[Adragis]

If you wanna be REALLY philosophical, maths isn't absolute either. But that's way out there in terms of rationality, so yeah.

[TempAcc]

Math is a way to portraying reality in absolute values, but its not a perfect medium, since it still relies on interpretations of phenoma in a mathematical way. Math is good because its consistent and effective at portraying phenomena, but even that starts to fail when we get to the more iffy parts of reality, such as virtual particles and etc.

Of course, I'm far from being the best person at properly demonstrating this.

I'm a religious person myself, in many ways, but I do not superimpose my beliefs into what can and has been verified by science, which is easy for me, since I believe science can be a way to improve religion, to bring it closer to its real purpose, which is, again, the improvement of mankind.

I can prove my chair will support my weight when I sit on it, though.

Which prob means I'm God, by that logic :v

Brb, founding Tempaccism.

There is no God but TempAcc, and He is His own Prophet.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lo' and behold, as I sit upon my throne, the holiest chair, whose integrity I can fully verify prior to sitting on it. Tremble mortals, and despair, proper furniture has come to your world.

[Frumple]

Math is a way to portraying reality

... no? It is one of the means we use to attempt to describe reality, but math itself is... pretty much entirely divorced from reality. And certainly not intended to do the job. A lot like logic, really. It's about axioms and their interactions... that parts happen to be applicable (sometimes quite poorly) to reality is more happy coincidence than anything else...

[TD1]

You don't have faith in Homer, or Gilgamesh. Neither do I. I just add the Bible to that list of ancient fairy tales.

I'd actually like an answer as to why the Bible is taken as being reliable (by believers) in nearly everything it says, but Homer isn't. The Bible tells a story of God (gods if you include Jesus as a separate entity) and their interaction with humanity, and so does Homer. Homer tells the story as if it is true, just like Homer does. And if you're taking age into consideration, the Old Testament can be dated to around about the 12 Century BC, whereas the Iliad can be brought back to the 8 Century BC - in their written forms. Homer's works at least are well known to have been handed down as part of an oral tradition.

If you justify faith in one, why not the other? Is it just your culture? Is it whimsy? Is it because God specifically speaks to you?

[scrdest]

Dictionary.com

Evidence: that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.

Proof: evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

In a discussion, you're usually on your own side of the argument, not your opponents'.

Even still, the non-italicized part points to the simple fact that even going by your line of argument, a body of evidence is a proof.

Yes, there's a one in a jillion chance the next time you sit on it, the chair will in fact break. Or anything non-standard happens. That is an assumption that any self-respecting scientist makes during data analysis and is explicitly included in said analysis numerically in good ones.

The standard is that for not terribly important matters a conclusion that's true in 9995 out of 10000 observations is terribly unlikely to be a result of 9995 mistakes; for DO NOT MESS THAT UP cases like clinical tests it's 9999 out of 10000.

The second part of it is a more philosophical assumption that reality is consistent with itself. It's an entirely groundless assumption, for which there is absolutely zero evidence and zero proof. And yet it's still made - because it can be otherwise summed up as 'knowledge exists'.

It could absolutely be true! Except then we would have to more or less instantly revert to less than cavemen once we realized that. If how the world works, the fundamental laws of physics, can change on a whim then you cannot know anything - what worked as a chair yesterday may be a high explosive today, because someone cranked the cosmic dial on the free energy of wood.

Otherwise, you know fairly reliably that wooden chairs are a decent seating and won't break or vaporize from underneath you if they are the exact same as the chairs you tested and any breaking chairs are breaking due to hidden factors like material damage that you didn't test for but which will also reliably cause the same issue if you do test.

All of the things you claimed cannot be proved have been proposed in the first place by looking at the evidence then proposing a reasonable explanation then looking at more evidence turning up and checking if it, um, checks out. The age of the Earth would have no impact on radiometric dating or whatever else was used to gather evidence on that method; they don't use the age of the Earth as a reference point at all.  Even if the age of Earth or Big Bang were false the evidence that was used for them would still be true; it would just point to another explanation.

[origamiscienceguy]

Dictionary.com

Evidence: that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.

Proof: evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

In a discussion, you're usually on your own side of the argument, not your opponents'.

Even still, the non-italicized part points to the simple fact that even going by your line of argument, a body of evidence is a proof.

Yes, there's a one in a jillion chance the next time you sit on it, the chair will in fact break. Or anything non-standard happens. That is an assumption that any self-respecting scientist makes during data analysis and is explicitly included in said analysis numerically in good ones.

The standard is that for not terribly important matters a conclusion that's true in 9995 out of 10000 observations is terribly unlikely to be a result of 9995 mistakes; for DO NOT MESS THAT UP cases like clinical tests it's 9999 out of 10000.

The second part of it is a more philosophical assumption that reality is consistent with itself. It's an entirely groundless assumption, for which there is absolutely zero evidence and zero proof. And yet it's still made - because it can be otherwise summed up as 'knowledge exists'.

It could absolutely be true! Except then we would have to more or less instantly revert to less than cavemen once we realized that. If how the world works, the fundamental laws of physics, can change on a whim then you cannot know anything - what worked as a chair yesterday may be a high explosive today, because someone cranked the cosmic dial on the free energy of wood.

Otherwise, you know fairly reliably that wooden chairs are a decent seating and won't break or vaporize from underneath you if they are the exact same as the chairs you tested and any breaking chairs are breaking due to hidden factors like material damage that you didn't test for but which will also reliably cause the same issue if you do test.

All of the things you claimed cannot be proved have been proposed in the first place by looking at the evidence then proposing a reasonable explanation then looking at more evidence turning up and checking if it, um, checks out. The age of the Earth would have no impact on radiometric dating or whatever else was used to gather evidence on that method; they don't use the age of the Earth as a reference point at all.  Even if the age of Earth or Big Bang were false the evidence that was used for them would still be true; it would just point to another explanation.

My point is not about chairs. I am trying to explain my faith in the Bible, but I clealy chose the wrong example. I wanted something that everyone could elate to.

[Orange Wizard]

The closest real-life comparison to faith that I can think of is getting a random email with antivirus.exe attached. You can be rational and cast it aside, or you can have faith that the program is what it claims to be and open it - quietly hoping that it doesn't get into your porn folder.

[origamiscienceguy]

The closest real-life comparison to faith that I can think of is getting a random email with antivirus.exe attached. You can be rational and cast it aside, or you can have faith that the program is what it claims to be and open it - quietly hoping that it doesn't get into your porn folder.

Orange Wizard, you should change the thread title to something about chairs 

[Frumple]

... 'cept that's not just faith, it's also blinding stupidity. Especially considering you have (myriad) other antivirus/malware programs you can check the .exe against. The faith and blunt stupidity shouldn't have to be intertwined. Huge frothing bucketloads of theologians over the centuries have stated and emphatically pursued showing it doesn't.

And even irrationality doesn't necessarily imply imbecility...

[Rolan7]

I think maybe faith, for most religious people, is forming working hypotheses about things we don't know. 

"What happens after we die?"  "Maybe a series of rewards/punishments similar to our common moral framework (or that of ancient desert people)"
"Why are we here?"  "Because a supremely powerful being cares about us a whole lot, so we don't need to feel insignificant"

Or, for me...
"What's in the dark?" "Fascinating, alien beings who delight in our happiness and suffering"
"Are we part of something greater?" "The Earth is a super-organism"

This is entirely natural, people have to work with insufficient data all the time.  It's only a problem when these hypotheses get disproven by observable evidence...  But aren't discarded.  Only then does it become dishonest and dangerous.

[Arcvasti]

The closest real-life comparison to faith that I can think of is getting a random email with antivirus.exe attached. You can be rational and cast it aside, or you can have faith that the program is what it claims to be and open it - quietly hoping that it doesn't get into your porn folder.

Orange Wizard, you should change the thread title to something about chairs 

Religion and Spirituality Discussion: God-Proof Chairiots Edition

Already done.

[Rolan7]

How do I know that this chair-hitched-to-horses will support my weight?
Oh nevermind, it's iron.  Safe from Yahweh and fairies both!
... What do you mean "cold iron" isn't just iron that's cold?  *suspicious death*

[Graknorke]

No, it could be warm either.

[Orange Wizard]

... 'cept that's not just faith, it's also blinding stupidity.

True, but I'm having trouble deciding which side of the argument I'm supposed to be on.