Its sunday, lets have a religious debate!

frenchfighter

mfin wrote:

Oh.... and do they bulk of people who aren't religious not base their lives around being good people?? I don't see any link between being a good, generous, giving, considerate person and religious beliefs at all ...these are just normal things for a lot of people.

I never said otherwise. Simply that some people may rely strongly on their religious beliefs to inform their behaviour and morals and to giude them to being a better person. I never said religion was requisite to being a good person. There are good and bad people who are religious and good and bad people who are not.

mfin

frenchfighter wrote:

mfin wrote:

Oh.... and do they bulk of people who aren't religious not base their lives around being good people?? I don't see any link between being a good, generous, giving, considerate person and religious beliefs at all ...these are just normal things for a lot of people.

I never said otherwise. Simply that some people may rely strongly on their religious beliefs to inform their behaviour and morals and to giude them to being a better person. I never said religion was requisite to being a good person. There are good and bad people who are religious and good and bad people who are not.

Oh. So it doesn't mean a lot then, we're agreed, that's that one done then. Any comments on the other question of only one religion being right??

frenchfighter

That is twice you have tried to twist my words, or maybe you simply are incapable of understanding my points.

I was just replying to your previous question but as you are simply looking to bash people down (like you do in the pro race threads) I have deleted what I started to write.

To try and debate with some people is a futile endeavour, especially those who are close-minded.

mfin

frenchfighter wrote:

That is twice you have tried to twist my words, or maybe you simply are incapable of understanding my points.

I was just replying to your previous question but as you are simply looking to bash people down (like you do in the pro race threads) I have deleted what I started to write.

To try and debate with some people is a futile endeavour, especially those who are close-minded.

And it was you that was saying about people attacking people???!! ...'maybe you simply are incapable of understanding my points' you say... (are you on some higher level to me then, Im sorry) and 'but as you are simply looking to bash people down'... bit judgemental aren't you??? Sound's like you might be a bit over-sensitive as well to say the least.

I wasn't twisting words, you and I had basically agreed that on the fact that religious belief is not directly proportional to good morals, where's the twist in that? ...you'd chosen to say that some people feel their religion might seem to give them some kind of inspiration for their morals though. No problem with that.

Why try seek offence at something that isn't there...? sounds a bit daily mail reader-esque to me, and there's certainly a little venom in what you've written there.

passout

mfin wrote:

Oh.... and do they bulk of people who aren't religious not base their lives around being good people?? I don't see any link between being a good, generous, giving, considerate person and religious beliefs at all ...these are just normal things for a lot of people.

Interesting point. It's important to remember that our society and laws are build around religious beliefs. So if you operate as a law abiding citizen then you are effected by religion, even if you are an athiest. In other words 'secular society' is not old or established enough to break free from religion's influence. Personally I don't think that secular society in a pure form would be all that different, as along as a clear sense or right & wrong was still taught to youngsters.

The major religions (coupled with a bit of common sense) are useful for providing a moral compass. Also secular society is full of people 'trying to find themselves' or 'reconnecting' with something which is bloody annoying if I'm honest! Secular is OK in my book but it clearly leaves a gap for many many people. Whatever floats ya boat is my final word on this....

nasahapley

passout wrote:

Interesting point. It's important to remember that our society and laws are build around religious beliefs. So if you operate as a law abiding citizen then you are effected by religion, even if you are an athiest. In other words 'secular society' is not old or established enough to break free from religion's influence. Personally I don't think that secular society in a pure form would be all that different, as along as a clear sense or right & wrong was still taught to youngsters.

But then it's very likely that religious rules and regulations which later became the basis of our laws were themselves based upon nothing more than what seemed like sensible guidelines for living together in civilised society. Christopher Hitchens makes the point well: are we supposed to believe that before Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the ten commandments the Hebrews thought it perfectly ok to kill each other, steal from each other, covet each others asses and whotnot? Of course they didn't, otherwise they'd never have got that far. Those sorts of rules are a prerequisite for civilisation and don't need to be taught by imams, priests, rabis or whatever.

And that's my final word on this too. Probably.

nolf

mfin wrote:

Its in their nature to become religious and this, together with which one they are exposed to, results in which they believe, not any process of logic.

You've said that theres no hypothesis with which you can test, however you then go on to say that some people are born with a natural inclination towards religion.

Surely you could create a test to discover the gene that is passed down that makes a person relgiously inclined?
Thats a qestion that science could attempt to answer. However I have this funny feeling that there isn't actually a religious gene...

guilliano

Maybe not a gene, but there may be a part of the brain that is active/inactive in religious people that is the opposite in non-religious minds.

Gotte

guilliano wrote:

Maybe not a gene, but there may be a part of the brain that is active/inactive in religious people that is the opposite in non-religious minds.

That is an interesting notion. My first instinct was to say I'd favour nurture rather than nature, but then I wondered whether a religious nature could be something akin to an abitlity in languages, or music, or mathematics - that is; some people seem to have an innate ability which defies nurture. I wonder whether a predeliction to religion could surface in the same manner. I know religion isn't an ability as such, but natural ability must be simply a part of the brain which functions better in one person compared to another. Maybe a part of the brain which is attuned to the notion of divinity functions better. I wonder whether this is evident in young, sometimes very young, Buddhists who show an ability to meditate far above and beyond the normal person.
I imagine there's more than a few holes in that, but I'm just wondering aloud, really.

Spiny_Norman

I don't know that there's a part of the brain that's more active in people with a religious belief (though there might be - it's a developing field of research), but there's certainly an area which becomes active during ecstatic religious experience, and can be stimulated in laboratory conditions to replicate that effect. Whether that proves anything, I wouldn't like to say.

The scientific method is a form of belief, but of an entirely different type from religion. Classically, it requires the assumption that there are fundamental physical laws which do not change, which is the bare minimum assumed by anyone attempting to make any sort of sense of the universe. So there is a certain degree of belief involved, but to compare it to religious belief is grossly inaccurate.

As for the question of whether science can prove or disprove religion, I strongly suspect that it can't, although it may be possible to provide evidence for or against particular religious claims. Fundamentally, religion attempts to deal with the purpose of existence and the nature of what, if anything, lies outside the observable universe, both of which are beyond the scope of scientific enquiry. Stephen Hawking can plot the history of the universe back to the Big Bang and hypothesise that it was caused by the collision of two supercharged particles, but he can't say where they came from. However far back you go, the question of why there's something, rather than nothing, is a philosophical or religious question. Science doesn't have the tools to answer. That neither implies that there is or isn't a god, just that we can't know.

deptfordmarmoset

Spiny_Norman wrote:

I don't know that there's a part of the brain that's more active in people with a religious belief (though there might be - it's a developing field of research), but there's certainly an area which becomes active during ecstatic religious experience, and can be stimulated in laboratory conditions to replicate that effect. Whether that proves anything, I wouldn't like to say.

The scientific method is a form of belief, but of an entirely different type from religion. Classically, it requires the assumption that there are fundamental physical laws which do not change, which is the bare minimum assumed by anyone attempting to make any sort of sense of the universe. So there is a certain degree of belief involved, but to compare it to religious belief is grossly inaccurate.

As for the question of whether science can prove or disprove religion, I strongly suspect that it can't, although it may be possible to provide evidence for or against particular religious claims. Fundamentally, religion attempts to deal with the purpose of existence and the nature of what, if anything, lies outside the observable universe, both of which are beyond the scope of scientific enquiry. Stephen Hawking can plot the history of the universe back to the Big Bang and hypothesise that it was caused by the collision of two supercharged particles, but he can't say where they came from. However far back you go, the question of why there's something, rather than nothing, is a philosophical or religious question. Science doesn't have the tools to answer. That neither implies that there is or isn't a god, just that we can't know.

Excellent post, Spiny, and very clear! (I hope I'm not only saying that because it fits so well with my understanding of things...)

Gotte

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Spiny_Norman wrote:

I don't know that there's a part of the brain that's more active in people with a religious belief (though there might be - it's a developing field of research), but there's certainly an area which becomes active during ecstatic religious experience, and can be stimulated in laboratory conditions to replicate that effect. Whether that proves anything, I wouldn't like to say.

The scientific method is a form of belief, but of an entirely different type from religion. Classically, it requires the assumption that there are fundamental physical laws which do not change, which is the bare minimum assumed by anyone attempting to make any sort of sense of the universe. So there is a certain degree of belief involved, but to compare it to religious belief is grossly inaccurate.

As for the question of whether science can prove or disprove religion, I strongly suspect that it can't, although it may be possible to provide evidence for or against particular religious claims. Fundamentally, religion attempts to deal with the purpose of existence and the nature of what, if anything, lies outside the observable universe, both of which are beyond the scope of scientific enquiry. Stephen Hawking can plot the history of the universe back to the Big Bang and hypothesise that it was caused by the collision of two supercharged particles, but he can't say where they came from. However far back you go, the question of why there's something, rather than nothing, is a philosophical or religious question. Science doesn't have the tools to answer. That neither implies that there is or isn't a god, just that we can't know.

Excellent post, Spiny, and very clear! (I hope I'm not only saying that because it fits so well with my understanding of things...)

+1

rpayn93

Can I just say, as a religious (Christian) person that djbarren is a fundamentalist, and that fundamentalism is quite rare. I mean no one religious I know would be spurting that c**p about disease being caused by sin and how some one who is dying of AIDS is a sinner etc. It's like James Martin tarring us all with the same brush Harriet Harman coloured brush/ If you read between the lines in Genesis, there is in fact a correlation between the order God created things and Darwin's theory and also how many scientists think the world was created. Think about it; 1st the Earth was made. then water came from volcanoes (water cycle rain falls on sea etc.), admittedly single celled organisms were left out but until the late 18th century people though bad air caused diseases!, Plant life, water-bourne creatures, birds (admittedly this is wrong), reptiles and mammals, then finally Humans.

passout

Not sure about the religious gene comments. First of all belief in religion is technically not very different from believing in a philosopy or political doctrine (from a social science point of view). Then you've got the artificial divide between spirituality & religion - I can't imagine that there is a genetic difference! Surely it's socio-cultural i.e. nuture rather than nature?

As the above post, I think that this is right in the context of the UK but taking religious texts literally is pretty common world wide. Even in the USA (Bible belt) Darwinism still gets a rocky reception.