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Gunnerstrip7 In reply to 42TheDoubleAgent42 [2014-01-04 17:38:38 +0000 UTC]

Einstein was religious-but to a small point. He believed in a god, but not to a point where he went to church everyday. I believe he worshiped a 'Nature God' of some kind.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-09 02:57:32 +0000 UTC]

best to leave religion out of science, it has been holding it back since always. religion has no helpfull input in the scientific methods. ofcourse everyone HAS to have freedom of relegion but we have to understand they're different things.
likewise with church and state, relegion musn't put it's laws on other things. u know? :T

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-09 10:06:20 +0000 UTC]

Always, except ironically the dark ages, when nobody outside the clergy bothered with science. Sure it didn't progress much, but were lucky humanity survived that period and it wouldn't have been possible without the church.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-09 14:04:27 +0000 UTC]

the dark ages are sometimes called "The dark ages of scientific repression" though. How did the church help humanity in that period?

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-09 17:48:36 +0000 UTC]

That is an incorrect way of naming it, though it's very popular to invoke that in anti-religious arguments. The dark ages are a 300 year period somewhere between the fall of the Roman empire and the 10th century, best known for social and economical decline, caused by both the fall of the empire and the global climate change caused by the eruption of the Krakatau. Science naturally did not progress in that era, because people were too busy trying to survive. It was the existence of the church and common belief in a higher power that helped people retain their humanity.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-10 00:30:21 +0000 UTC]

Modern science was just starting in the dark ages, but was constantly denied by the church because it was contradicting.
Copernicus is a great example but it happened everywhere.
The church didn't help people, it Caused the dark ages.
nobody was helped or cured of all the diseases at the time because they trusted god and the church, and just didn't do anything about it. Everything was dictated by the church and the progress of science was held back. that's why they're called "the dark ages of scientific repression". Ofcourse circumstances weren't ideal but the church defenitely didn't help. Humanity is something a civilization provides not a church.

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-10 07:57:15 +0000 UTC]

Well if that's what you want to believe, i can't stop you. You're not the first person i recommend studying the history of religion, and like all other people before you, you're going to refuse because you apparently know better than the many historians who actually researched the subject.

It's sad, really. For over 6 years I've been looking for the person who will convince me that atheism is not bred from ignorance. All the atheists i encountered since then just ended up proving me right. I'm just about to give up.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-10 13:03:38 +0000 UTC]

Ofcourse i'm not ignorant i'm just telling what i think. Isn't that what you are doing aswell? Its just what i understand of the dark ages. I actually I don't know enough about it to have a discussion about, but I'd still like to hear how/in what ways the church helped people in the dark ages?

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-10 18:16:50 +0000 UTC]

Well it helped people but not entirely without harm.

The positive contribution was providing places where the intellectual elite could gather, and training spiritual leaders that could oversee and guide the commoners. The inevitable fall of the Roman empire left much of Europe in disarray. The church was pretty much the only pillar of stability left. Christianity played a role in determining people's identity, much like language and nationality does today, and held them together, giving them a reason to work together to ward off outside threats (Asian nomads like my ancestors for example, who themselves became powerful allies against mongol and ottoman invaders, after their conversion). On the other hand the moral code it imposed on the people ensured the inner stability of society. Encouraging to do good and discouraging antisocial acts with the threat of eternal damnation was the closest thing society had to a working legal system.

The flipside was that the system was based on the axiom that the church is infallible, an axiom that had to be enforced. On one hand this meant that any threat to peace and social stability was quickly dealt with (the wast majority of heretics and witches burnt by the inquisition really were dangerous people, though history tends to forget about that). The downside was that any valid challenges to the authority of the church was handled the same way, leaving the entire institution prone to corruption, which resulted in many inner disputes (the name of the rose - the book, not the film - elaborated on the nature of such internal conflicts, I'd recommend reading it carefully), one of which eventually lead to the reformation.

The infallibility of the church also left no place for science to progress. That would've meant that with each new discovery, the church who was responsible for education, had to admit that they were yet again wrong about something. All scientists who made a discovery that was incompatible with the theories thought by the church were obligated to publicly recall their teachings (contrary to popular belief, they were not executed, Giordano Bruno was a special case, more precisely a raging lunatic who accidentally happened to be right about something).
Needless to say these problems were eventually solved. Society tends to balance itself out, it simply took a thousand years to recover from something like the fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing social and economical crisis. It's easy to blame everything on the church, but there simply was no other option available. And it's arguable if the scientific progress made in the past centuries did more good than harm in the long run.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-10 21:29:42 +0000 UTC]

I'm certainly not blaming everything on the church, and most of what you're saying is ofcourse right, but imagine what would have happened if there was no relegion in these periods. would that have meant people would just fall into extremely primitive behavior and loose all morals?, I think not. It just so happend that relegion was there and it all worked itself out evantually. If from the fall of the empire till the time of the renaissance would have been without relegion, what would have happened? That's something I sometimes wonder. maybe people didnt actually need a church to stay together and survive, maybe it was all a bit forced because a select group of peolpe could get very wealthy(relegious elites). And the elite group of people in the churches became powerfull enough to get everyone to follow them in a threatening way. Ofcourse people needed something and the church was the closest thing(like you said) to a system but i believe people would have built a society anyways, even if it would have gone a little slower at the beginning but in the long run would end up more advanced, dont you think? And what do you mean with your last sentence?

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-11 13:11:13 +0000 UTC]

I think Jung world disagree with that. I don't like dealing in what-ifs, but i don't think these people not being religious was ever an option. Human beings are religious by nature. Whatever helped them survive the dark ages with their morals and humanity intact would've been or would've become a form of religion one way or another. You probably heard obnoxious preachers talk of the proverbial God-shaped hole. That's actually a real thing in a manner of speaking, an actual part of the human mind. Even atheists have something in fulfilling the role of a god. Self esteem, humanity, even anti-theism, or any of the so called "factors", is technically a god, and any major school of thought centered around these abstractions is a religion.

Oh, and let's not confuse cause and effect, regardless of how tempting it is. Religions aren't forced on people because a select few want to get rich (real religions, not these modern sects). That's like saying economy is forced on us by the IMF.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-11 14:36:08 +0000 UTC]

By forcing i din't mean mercenaries and assasins , I meant it was all a bit boosted by the religious elites and not completely the choice of all the people it effected(basically everyone). And i meant ONLY at the beginning (later on it became a part of culture so it was no longer forced ofcourse).
And I'd say humans are not relegious by nature, there have been all kinds of events since humans came to be that couldnt be explained, therefore it was easy to say it was something supernatural. Alltroughout humanity these kinds of events have been seen as something holy or religious. But now that we have the scientific method we can look at these things and say: "hey here is something we don't know, lets investigate it". Relegion and all forms of it have been and still are an easy way of comforting one-self and eachother but it doesnt get us anywhere in terms of development. It has been a nice way of dealing with the world but it isn't in our nature. human nature is something that goes back far beyond the first settlements and tribes because a brain and any part of a body for that matter don't evolve in such a short time period. The way we think, the way we act and all our reflexes and fears have all been more or less unchanged since before humans were settling. relegion didn't exist such a long time ago and therefore it isn't naturally in our minds.

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-11 19:58:13 +0000 UTC]

Well, I'd say not even at the beginning. If you'd look into the history of religion and religious phenomena, you'd know religions came into existence spontaneously, and not to explain things that people weren't familiar with. They came into existence at the same time we started thinking in abstractions.

Try to recall how many times you heard or said things like "religion represses science", or "science debunks religion", or " is butchering the English language", or "the economy is going downhill". Try giving me a handful of religion, puting science on the table, dissecting a language or pushing the economy back up. Obviously, you can't do it, because these things don't actually exist. Then why do they play such a major role in modern society? Why do we keep attributing actions to them, or speaking about them like they were actual beings? How many scientific or linguistic disputes have you seen? These are called abstractions - a vital component of human thinking.They are not physical entities, although physical objects can be used to represent them. Turn on a computer, and say "science did this"; open a dictionary and say "this is our language", and you'd be telling the truth. It's no different than the Egyptians looking up at the sun and saying "that is our god". Religion is merely a very specific form of abstract thinking.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-11 21:23:42 +0000 UTC]

There is a rather big difference between Egyptians calling the sun a god and saying something like "this is our language". The one is provable and has been proved and the other remains based on faith, however i would agree they're both a way of thinking(wich is always abstract). But what is your point?

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-12 14:19:48 +0000 UTC]

What is probable?

A dictionary and a language are two different things.

Not all ways of thinking are abstract. Animals are not capable of abstractions, yet they do think in some shape or form.

My point was that religions developed spontaneously as part of abstract thinking, and not invented artificially as part of a controlled process.

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walabila In reply to BTIsaac [2012-12-12 17:33:32 +0000 UTC]

So everyone got the same ideas spontaneously and individually?
That's highly unlikely. It has to have passed from mouth to mouth at some point.
And i mean the thinking proces whether in animals or in humans is always abstract (while actually fysical too cause it's just electric currents) but thats not the point.
I think you misunderstood a word,
I didn't actually say "probable" maybe you meant "Provable"?
And what does it matter that a dictionary and a language are different? I din't say they were the same.

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BTIsaac In reply to walabila [2012-12-13 06:27:02 +0000 UTC]

I didn't misunderstand anything, my spellchecker just thinks its smarter than me and automatically corrects even the most basic words.

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walabila In reply to walabila [2012-12-11 14:38:06 +0000 UTC]

by the way: thanks for having this discussion! i'm enjoying it

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Christistarfish In reply to BTIsaac [2013-06-11 18:28:04 +0000 UTC]

Are you retarded?

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BTIsaac In reply to Christistarfish [2013-06-11 19:20:22 +0000 UTC]

Hm, let me see. I said this motivational is stupid on several levels, and I insulted atheists. If by your definition, those are signs of mental instability, then yes. Unfortunately, it's not a widespread definition, at least, making fun of atheists isn't classified as a mental illness by medical books. So I guess no.

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Christistarfish In reply to BTIsaac [2013-06-11 19:30:54 +0000 UTC]

Last time I checked, mental retardation is a disability of the human brain. The phrase took on as an insult since.....mental retardation has been possible.

I think it's appropriate to call someone "mentally retarded" as an insult if they're believing crap out of a book that has been not been proven to be reality, while the concept of Evolution has been a clear proven observation. These people don't have a big enough capacity to accept science as REALITY.

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BTIsaac In reply to Christistarfish [2013-06-11 19:56:43 +0000 UTC]

Aha, very cute.

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Christistarfish In reply to BTIsaac [2013-06-12 00:14:41 +0000 UTC]

You know it.

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BTIsaac In reply to Christistarfish [2013-06-12 06:49:26 +0000 UTC]

You don't even know what I meant.
Meh, nevermind. Scurry off now.

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scientificallycuriou In reply to BTIsaac [2013-06-20 13:23:08 +0000 UTC]

Very well put indeed Christistarfish!
Always nice to see when people are keeping up the fight against (self-)destructive ignorance.

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BTIsaac In reply to scientificallycuriou [2013-06-20 13:55:39 +0000 UTC]

Disagreeing with the notion that all religious people are mentally retarded, and that science is meant for debunking religion may be considered ignorant by some peopl, and whether this is true or not may be the subject of debate.

Replying to the wrong comment is just plain sloppy. You really have no excuse.

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cvcharger14 In reply to BTIsaac [2014-04-14 15:31:52 +0000 UTC]

Might I also add that no one has actually proven the process of evolution by direct observation, since no one can live long enough to observe the various mutations manifest themselves in the formation of a distinctly different specie from an existing specie.  We have only seen the end result.  Fossils cannot prove evolution correct because half the time the expert scientists are not even sure if they belong to the right animal.  Either that or they only find one bone fragment and try to make educated guesses about where the fragment came from.  However, that does not say that evolution is wrong.  It is proven correct because at one time our civilization recorded only certain species and subspecies as existing, then several centuries later, we find new species that look and behave like the previously established species.  The process of evolution was not observed, we just observed what it can explain.  Funny thing, no where in the formulation of the Theory of Evolution did Darwin say I have evidence that God does not exist.  I say that to the Creationist side of the argument as well.  None of the people who had the greatest influence on our study of science ever said they could prove God does not exist.  No one who legitimately worked in the field of science ever really cared about the existence or nonexistence of God.  Even the legitimate scientists today, by legitimate I mean they have degrees, who have a personal belief that God does not exist refuse to venture as far as saying that science can confirm their stance.  The reason that anyone says that is because someone some time ago within the atheist community saw science contradicting their interpretation of the Bible, and they already believed the Bible to be false all the way around.  To them this was an opportunity to suggest that they were right and they had a way to prove it, without rationally thinking about what their claim actually meant in the terms of the science that they claimed supported their stance.  Let me say this, legitimate science does not operate to prove a political or religious point.  If you want anything to prove those points, go study philosophy, art, and literature.  Science, mathematics, and history do not operate within those realms.

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BTIsaac In reply to cvcharger14 [2014-04-15 19:03:45 +0000 UTC]

I'm afraid I'm not the one you need to convince. Then again, those people will just call you ignorant, or mentally retarded, for what you just said.

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cvcharger14 In reply to BTIsaac [2014-04-16 02:53:51 +0000 UTC]

I know, but it doesn't hurt when I know that these people who are calling me "ignorant," or "mentally retarded" most likely do not have a formal degree in any of the sciences.  Philosophy does not count as a science.  In fact, it is labeled as a liberal art.  Either way, I have learned, especially from my college professors, who have Doctorates in the sciences and mathematics, that science is impartial on matters of religion, and that does also include atheism.  The most accurate way to describe the approach of science to religion is as agnostic.  It does not know and has no way of knowing, and that is what makes the scientific method a superior form of logical thinking.  Anyone who claims to know the answer of God's existence, while also claiming they have scientific evidence is the truly ignorant one.  I am not by any means agnostic, but I will take an agnostic approach to religion in order to better understand the universe.  Pictures like this one actually disappoint me, because the people who create them miss the point all together.  Science was not established for the purpose of proving that there is no God or as an style of thinking that is alternative to religion.  It doesn't work that way.  Science was established for the sole purpose of helping us to better understand our universe.  The first scientists came from a mix of religions, and they most likely pursued science as a means of spiritual growth, because it helped them to understand God better.  The idea that science provides a means of disproving religions and the existence of God actually originates with a more atheist agenda.  If you listen to the mainstream scientists, they talk about it as a spiritual experience, and sometimes even refer to it as understanding God, whatever God is.

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BTIsaac In reply to cvcharger14 [2014-04-16 05:35:34 +0000 UTC]

"Either way, I have learned, especially from my college professors, who have Doctorates in the sciences and mathematics, that science is impartial on matters of religion"

Too bad a certain evolutionary scientist, who's the current top dog of the scientific community, disagrees with that.

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cvcharger14 In reply to BTIsaac [2014-04-16 05:44:15 +0000 UTC]

Oh really, which one?

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BTIsaac In reply to cvcharger14 [2014-04-16 05:52:20 +0000 UTC]

The same one who said 9/11 was a good thing, because it will make people finally realise that religion is pure evil.

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cvcharger14 In reply to BTIsaac [2014-04-16 06:07:48 +0000 UTC]

Of course.  Add one more to the chalk board of the evils of religion.  Apparently it is so evil that those who oppose it would consider the loss of roughly 3,000 lives a good thing as long as such was caused by religion.  But then again, did religion cause 9/11, or was it a response to American culture and soldiers encroaching on the Middle East, because remember, we already had troops stationed there as a result of the Cold War.  The former leader of Al Qaeda was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, where troops had already been stationed for several decades.

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