Religion II

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by Actor

#9025



Besides his seminars, Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True seems to be quite visible on the internet. However, I submit that Coyne’s book Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible is his magnum opus.

“There are no heated discussions about reconciling sport and religion, literature and religion, or business and religion; the important issue is the harmony between science and religion. But why, of all human endeavors that we could compare with religion, are we so concerned with its harmony with science?

“The answer, to me at least, seems obvious. Science and religion – unlike, say, business and religion – are competitors at discovering truths about nature. And science is the only field that has the ability to disprove the truth claims of religion, and has done so repeatedly. … Religion, on the other hand, has no ability to overturn the truths found by science. It is this competition, and the ability of science to erode the hegemony of faith – but not vice versa – that has produced the copious discussion of how the two areas relate to each other, and how to find harmony between then.” – Jerry Coyne


Religion has no ability to overturn the truths found by scientists. That doesn’t keep some people from trying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txzOIGulUIQ






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTjA3BXz45c

I consulted Russell Blackford ("personal and professional" friend of Coyne), to sum a defense of Faith vs. Fact...

https://theconversation.com/against-...religion-52660

...and encountered this line..."To an outsider, or to anyone with doubts, those tactics [the claim of altering beliefs to fit science] will suggest that religious thinkers are not engaged in an honest search for truth. Rather, they are preserving their favoured belief systems through dogmatism and contrivance."

That's a curious line considering a particular criticism of Coyne from fellow, nothing-to-fear atheists..." Jerry Coyne is not acting like a freethinker who has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the honest pursuit of truth..."...https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secula...ng-episode-ii/ ...

...but even more so when contrasted with Faith vs Fact from the review of Edward Feser..." For considered as an omnibus of concrete examples of elementary logical fallacies, Faith versus Fact is invaluable. "

https://www.firstthings.com/article/...s-of-fallacies

I presumed that Coyne's work was basically an attack on creationist fundamentalist Christians. Feser's review confirmed that for me..."Yet, as Coyne admits, even 'evolution . . . is accepted by many Jews, Buddhists, Christians, and liberal Muslims.' In short, when all the qualifications are in, it seems that Coyne’s paradigm of 'religion' is Bible Belt creationism. Apparently, he was absent the day his college statistics class covered the notion of a representative sample."

You seem to be unable to conceive of the majority of Christians as anything other than uneducated, anti-science creationists, despite repeated evidential debunking here, and elsewhere...

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...and_technology

You aren't the heir of objective, observational evidence as the only rationality, freed from constraint by the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment thinking. You're the heir of the philosophical position that only science can provide answers and explanations, since in order to control nature, only the quantifiable exists...

"I am come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave. … [S]o may I succeed in my only earthly wish, namely to stretch the deplorably narrow limits of man's dominion over the universe to their promised bounds."--Francis Bacon...

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2012/05/...f-science.html

"It was Descartes who told us we might truly become “like masters and possessors of nature”; Descartes who gave us the mathematical physics that has proven to be the indispensable instrument of modern science; and Descartes who foresaw that the ultimate instrument of the Baconian project would have to be medicine, since health is the primary good of life and the foundation of all other goods."...

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publi...sors-of-nature

In order to have predictability and control, one must reduce or eliminate the qualitative aspects of nature (qualia), and champion only the quantitative, i.e., "scientism". (I'll use the term some consider an insult, because Alex Rosenberg, for one, welcomes it).

As one implication of "scientism", arising from Descartes' question (How does the mind [now containing immaterial qualia per Descarte, and currently Dennett, et.al.] act on the material?) was the concept of dualism, or the "Mind-Body problem", of which you claimed to be unaware previously.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...-consciousness

Perhaps there's a need to introduce a little mystery and common sense experience (qualia, e.g.) back into our world.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

That makes no sense whatsoever. What I don't believe are science text books and their lame theories on the genesis of the universe, its age, etc.

Again, the bible deals with metaphysical realities; science deals with only physical realities. And the twain shall never meet.

Got all that now...?

From your writing it would seem the word lame must be a synonym for "proven by observation and experimentation."

I was flipping channels and for some reason paused at a TV bag of wind I didn't recognize. Right at the precise moment I landed on the channel, he was preaching (more like ranting about) the same story you love to tell about the young earth, a great flood, and the nonsense of evolution.

His "church" was full to standing room only. Still it represented only a small part of the idiocracy that believes what we see today is trumped by the writings of men who were a very long distance from understanding a solar eclipse and the sun pausing are not the same thing.

To paraphrase, render unto science that which is proved by science......

[Buckeye]

That's great but you're a little late.

Attributed to Voltaire circa 1764: "all antient histories, as one of our wits has observed, are only fables that men have agreed to admit as true."

How comfortable are you with that?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Buckeye

That's great but you're a little late.

Attributed to Voltaire circa 1764: "all antient histories, as one of our wits has observed, are only fables that men have agreed to admit as true."

How comfortable are you with that?

Was Voltaire placing the bible in that same category? If he was...then I am comfortable with that.

[Buckeye]

I thought as much, and that's why "I set the trap."

Think about what you're saying, not to mention the repercussions.

[dnlgfnk]

Voltaire would not argue with Boxcar.

"La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite".

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

From your writing it would seem the word lame must be a synonym for "proven by observation and experimentation."

I was flipping channels and for some reason paused at a TV bag of wind I didn't recognize. Right at the precise moment I landed on the channel, he was preaching (more like ranting about) the same story you love to tell about the young earth, a great flood, and the nonsense of evolution.

His "church" was full to standing room only. Still it represented only a small part of the idiocracy that believes what we see today is trumped by the writings of men who were a very long distance from understanding a solar eclipse and the sun pausing are not the same thing.

To paraphrase, render unto science that which is proved by science......

Well, here's my "proven observation": Atheistic Materialism and Evolution are both self-defeating worldviews, regardless of what you think science has proved. So...I'll stick with biblical theism which doesn't run into any brick walls with the laws of logic.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

Voltaire would not argue with Boxcar.

"La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite".

And he'd be foolish; for only the truth can set us free.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

And he'd be foolish; for only the truth can set us free.

Pretty ironic statement.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

Pretty ironic statement.

But a true one. As one example, just look at how the Lord has kept me free of the world's wisdom, so called.

[TJDave]

Originally Posted by boxcar

But a true one. As one example, just look at how the Lord has kept me free of the world's wisdom, so called.

Out of the mouth of babes.

Thanks, a real gem! I was getting tired of the old signature.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by TJDave

Out of the mouth of babes.

Thanks, a real gem! I was getting tired of the old signature.

When you tire of that one, you should consider this: "For the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of the world". But make sure you quote it in its entirety.

[Hank]

Originally Posted by boxcar

But a true one. As one example, just look at how

, so called.

Indeed.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

But a true one. As one example, just look at how the Lord has kept me free of the world's wisdom, so called.

True. He hasn't burdened you with having to carry the great weight of scientific knowledge around.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

True. He hasn't burdened you with having to carry the great weight of scientific knowledge around.

You mean the great weight of "science's" horse manure. Jesus did say, "Come unto me all you who weary and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest". This is true in more ways than one.