Science-Religion. Which wins?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1801

<p>Many people also use their god to evade personal responsibility and become complacent over pre-existing scenarios. To many, it isn’t necessary to objectively understand how the universe, life, and other phenomena came into existence because “God” made it that way. It isn’t necessary to be responsible for ensuring that justice is served because “God” will eventually provide that. Worldly and personal problems don’t need to be solved because “God” has dictated an indissoluble path. Moral rules don’t need to be more closely examined because divine fiat has already provided a sacred moral code. Constructing valid and defensible arguments of their religious positions isn’t needed because their faith is impervious to criticism. The list of indiscriminately held convictions proceeds indefinitely.</p>

<p>Lastly, the quality of arguments offered by theists are astonishing for just how belligerently appalling and fatuously conceived they are. Given how importantly believers treat the existence of their god(s) and the validity of their faith, it would only be expected that they would dedicate more effort into developing the most coherently wholesome arguments possible. But alternatively, more effort goes into fraudulently distorting or egregiously contradicting scientific confirmations, formulating erroneously premised rationalizations, propounding metaphysical conceits, and appealing to emotionally-based wishful hankerings.</p>

1802

<p>Much of the naturalism versus supernaturalism debate boils down to four main qualities that best support the underlying substructures of scientific theories and mathematical models. The most basic is parsimony: the principle that things are usually intrinsically associated and operate in the most uncluttered or economical fashion. In other words, phenomenon don’t need to be accounted for with “rationalizations” that are effusively equipped with contrived assumptions, embellished with baseless conceits, or flagrantly embroidered with assertions that run contrary to objectively supported findings. For instance, due to the findings in the physical sciences, it is no longer necessary to suppose that there is a luminiferous aether infusing the universe in order to enable light to travel or to account for an object’s affinity for combustion with its phlogiston content. Secondly, there’s universality – the greater range of phenomenon confirmed by the model the more likely it is to be valid. The periodic table excludes the possibility of there being independent theories for each element since one scientific model suits them all effectually and with remarkable clarity. The same extends to evolution; from the hierarchal pattern of life to genetic discrepancies on the basis of biogeography, to the dating of fossilized remains, to molecular data, to mutating bacterial colonies into separate behavioral units, to controlled experiments of speciation of fast-breeding organisms, to every fragment of data collected from every biological evolution, organic evolution by means of natural selection infinitely exceeds the intellectually negligent explanation of “God did it” and the cognitively emaciating falsehoods of creationism and intelligent design. Thirdly, is a theory’s degree of falsifiability and predictability. The best scientific theories account for the extensive range of phenomenon ordinarily through mathematical abstractions (i.e. Relativity) or descriptive generalizations (i.e. evolution by means of natural selection). </p>

<p>Ultimately, is the degree of logical consistency, empirical regularity, and theoretical uniformity of the solidly confirmed knowledge among seemingly isolated disciplines. Among the knowledge in the natural sciences, there are no blatant contradictions since physics, chemistry, and biology do not reach some point of discontinuity or wall of distinction, but are rather specific to a certain realm of honest investigation. Epistemic disunity among branches of knowledge becomes more pronounced the further it slants towards subjectivity and the less well-supported it is on a technical level. The social sciences are clearly experience more technical friction because they often ignore the very root foundation of their existence. Ideological strife has always been endemic to political science because it truly lacks an objective foundation and the constituent sources of political behavior and activity and the proper method of analyzing such are virtually non-existent. But when it comes to doctrinal, ethical, philosophical, and persuasive disjointedness, nothing supersedes the shambled epistemology of religious conviction. Many of the same features of religious belief are nearly universal among cultures (belief in celestial or worldly divinities, post-mortum cajolery, ritual, and an underlying mythology to placate worldly uncertainty and overall ignorance), but no two have ever precisely agreed. Commonalities among religions are either borne out of the same underlying psychological processes or due to common influence. (For instance, Christianity plagiarized the concept of virgin births, vicarious redemption, and resurrection from its pagan predecessors).</p>

1803

<p>”If there is no god, why be good?”</p>

<p>The idea that, if one does not adhere to religion and belief in a certain god, there is absolutely no reason to be good. But, curiously enough, it has been those that have adhered so strongly to this notion that have been the most unpleasant. Indeed, the more profound the religious fervor of any period and the more overpowering the dogmatic convictions, the greater has been the brutality and the more decrepit has been the set of existing circumstances. When, in previous eras, the Christian faith was taken for what it truly was, there were the various movements of the Inquisition, millions of hapless women incinerated under the asinine charge of witchcraft, the Crusades (a sustained venture of religious intolerance), and various forms of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of individuals committed under the ideological banner of religious belief. Such is the coincidence of messianic ideology and apocalyptic weaponry.</p>

<p>Even today, the Christian religion, as organized through its churches, still remains as one of the most enduring and principal enemies of moral, social, and scientific progress. The Catholic Church explicitly shuns the use of artificial contraception, only facilitating the spread of diseases propagated through person-to-person contact, including HIV/AIDS. If an individual is unfortunate enough to marry someone with the disease, the Catholic Church maintains that it is an immutable sacrament that they must adhere to celibacy or remain paired and that birth control isn’t an option to prevent the birth of children stricken with the virus. No one whose ordinary rapport has not been corrupted by ideological injunction, or whose moral nature has not been desensitized to all awareness of suffering could support the belief that it is morally proper or socially beneficial that the set of consequences should endure. This “sin” of synthetic contraception, ironically, is more beneficial towards hampering the spread of disease and limiting the burdens of overpopulation – unless one considers the oppression of an over-expanded population to be naturally controlled through the unfortunate dynamics of disease and starvation. </p>

<p>In other words, an irrational calcified dependency on religious ideology creates a false morality, which absolves itself from the true plight of human suffering and the efforts designed to alleviate it. Religious opposition impedes moral and intellectual betterment by hampering stem cell research, birth control, abortion (as it involves cases of protecting the life of the mother), and the use of a vaccine to confer immunity toward the human papilloma virus.</p>

1804

<p>Moreover, humans have been in existence for around 200,000 years. For 198,000 of those years, there was famine, suffering, torture, and so on. So suddenly, approximately 2,000 years ago, it suddenly became time to intervene and condemn some unfortunate figure to a human sacrifice somewhere out in the Middle East. (It’s also worth noting that he wasn’t chosen for assimilation into the Chinese community where the population was largely literate, intellectually grounded, and literate of the association between evidence and valid deduction.) This is nonsense; it cannot be believed by a thinking person.</p>

<p>The central tenet is Christianity is also patently immoral – vicarious redemption, or the vacuous concept that we can simply bequeath our “sins” onto some other individual. One can settle or defray the cost of someone else’s debt, even fulfill someone’s prison term in many cases, but one cannot take away specific moral transgressions (dubbed “sins” in religious context) that inherently blemish one’s record with “God.” In essence, there is innate cognitive dissonance when it comes to one’s relationship with this perceived supreme being. Simultaneously, it is both worshiped and feared. By this thinking, if one fails to do what is stated within a particular holy book, that person is a wretched sinner. According to Christians and their holy book, there is this eternal, unchanging god and demands these various outlooks and personal governings, which is a profoundly encumbering dictatorship of absolutely no appeal. By this baseless assumption, there is a celestial divinity that knows our thoughts, can convict us of thoughtcrime, and condemn us to eternal punishment if we do not adhere to high-minded conduct. From such a perspective, that is not mentally, morally, or intellectually healthy. To put it bluntly, it is something of which there is absolutely no reason to believe to be true. </p>

<p>It’s only through historical coincidence that it is considered perfectly conventional – and even virtuous – to believe that a divine force is privy to our thoughts and that we are capable of being salvaged by consuming a eucharistic wafer, whereas hearing voices is indicative of mental infirmity and of the deep need for psychiatric expertise.</p>

<p>So it certainly isn’t surprising that religion is a conception that suddenly gained widespread appeal roughly around the beginning of despotic political rule and that the inseparable spirit of church and state enjoyed such a seemingly endless, reciprocated association – and in many political states, still does.</p>

1805

<p>It always astounds me the level of indiscriminate trust and gullibility people feel towards a holy book. There are numerous absurdities: 900-year lifespans (Source: mentioned somewhere in Genesis), plants growing before the onset of sunlight, 1.5 cubic feet for each pair of the 2-5 million species taken aboard Noah’s Ark ([Source](<a href=“Genesis 6:15 KJVSourceurl - - Bible Gateway”>Genesis 6:15 KJV - And this is the fashion which thou - Bible Gateway)</a>), a worldwide flood which would require a rate of precipitation of 8,640 inches per day for 40 continuous days (How was the depth of the water measured? Where did all of this water go?), God believing that houses and clothes may contract leprosy ([Source](<a href=“Leviticus 14:33-57 KJVSourceurl - - Bible Gateway”>Leviticus 14:33-57 KJV - And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto - Bible Gateway)</a>), God itself believing that the cure for leprosy entails incantations and the blood of a bird ([Source](<a href=“Leviticus 14:49-53 KJVSourceurl - - Bible Gateway”>Leviticus 14:49-53 KJV - And he shall take to cleanse the house - Bible Gateway)</a>), among others. Also, there is the tale of Joshua preventing the sun from setting while the Israelites took vengeance on the Canaanite kings (Joshua 10:12-13). How exactly the sun’s rotation was halted and subsequently restarted is never indicated. </p>

<p>[JSTOR:</a> An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie](<a href=“http://www.jstor.org/pss/1387852]JSTOR:”>http://www.jstor.org/pss/1387852)</p>

<p>This is something that is, like all religious foundation, unmistakably designed to ensure subservience, cohere to a type of cultural uniformity, fulfill psychological longings, and provide a type of opiate to the masses, all while serving as a political tool and as an irrational pretext and justification for martial conquest. The mental and sociological origins of religious belief, rituals, and superstitions are fully comprehensible on an empirical level – including their development, expansion, and eventual extinction, and their social intentions, addictive nature to the human brain, and how its baseless assertions feel more emotionally enriching than thought governed by objective reason. (I wrote much on the subject earlier in this thread). It certainly isn’t a difficult concept to understand once one adopts a nonpartisan approach and it is absolutely dumbfounding how many people are so loathe to understand the basis of its material – not immaterial – origins. </p>

<p>So conquer the world by reasoning, evidence, and informed intellect and not simply by being slavishly subdued by the fear encompassing the unknown through the fiats of ancient mythology. The entire conception of supreme beings is a notion that stems from the ancient Asiatic civilizations governed by powerful autocracy – a political tool wielded for the sake of securing and maintaining sociopolitical power. The world doesn’t need an apologetic craving after the past or an inhibition of the free intellect by the words articulated long ago by ignorant men.</p>

1806

<p>So if I had to concisely state precisely why I am against religion, even though they all have varying degrees of idiocy, it is because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. Personally, I find it much more rewarding to grasp the Universe as it actually is rather than to abide by delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. To quote H.L. Mencken, “Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.”</p>

1807

<p>Are you done?
That makes it approximately a 5 hour rant.</p>

1808

<p>Oh, and about this comment:</p>

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<p>Simply because a holy book is bigoted in this respect doesn’t mean that you have to adhere to its conviction. Stating that homosexuality is “wrong” isn’t any fundamentally different than saying that a certain gender or skin color is wrong. Homosexuality is biologically ingrained and not something that one can willingly control.</p>

1809

<p>Wow mifune, just wow. I cannot believe that you just spent all that time writing trying to turn people against their faith. It seemed it got you quite worked up. I saw this on a T-shirt the other day. </p>

<p>“A man who believes in God is more rational than a man who is offended by a God he doesn’t believe in.”</p>

1810

<p>^ It’s more of a matter of getting away with conceit-infused arguments than the belief itself. Arguments for religious faith are appalling for just how atrocious they happen to be. But unfounded faith is something that deserves some serious reflection and there is absolutely no need to indiscriminately trust it as fact.</p>

<p>And t-shirt slogans do not always display the wisest of aphorisms. That statement is completely vacuous, since almost every publicly exposed argument against religion will be fundamentally labeled as an utterance of exasperation, no matter how moderate it happens to be. However, that doesn’t hold true in, say, the realm of politics because political debate is essentially presumed as part of the profession.</p>

1811

<p>mifune, I hate to say this, but no one is going to read everything you just posted. And no one is going to bother responding to vast majority of your arguments. I respect your tenacity, but considering the amount of effort you are putting into this discussion, your endeavor is about as futile as the logically flawed creationist arguments you are challenging.</p>

1812

<p>This thread has 121 pages. SMH.</p>

1813

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<p>I’ve read about half of it, and I hope to get to all of it eventually.</p>

1814

<p>^ I have skimmed it all, and will try to read through and respond to the parts that specifically address me.</p>

1815

<p>Silverturtle, you have an internet crush on mifune, so you don’t count :)</p>

<p>My reasoning is that an argument of this length and quality would be better suited to appear in a more… sophisticated forum. For the context of this debate, mifune’s recent several dozen posts are overqualified and exaggeratedly lengthy.</p>

1816

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<p>If people have an interest in what I have to say, then I welcome them to read it. If not, that is quite okay.</p>

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<p>Well, I do plan to author a novel on this subject someday. </p>

<p>Regarding other matters, I attended a lecture today delivered by a Harvard professor in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department on the findings of the progress of human evolution. Unfortunately, I don’t have the slideshow with me or the corresponding scientific papers expounding the work, but it’s quite incredible. </p>

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<p>I feel that he simply enjoys these types of discussions.</p>

1817

<p>Oh no, you are quite mistaken. There is certainly a romantic interest brewing here.</p>

1818

<p>Oh dear…</p>

1819

<p>Mifune is a girl right? Where’s HE86!?!?!?! I need him to tell me!</p>

1820

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<p>No, I am a boy.</p>