I found his one with Lex Fridman from a couple of years ago really good, not the biggest fan of Gervais personally.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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He is a big advocate of atheism, when talking about religion and god and him being serious, he actually comes across as quite intelligent and makes some good points.
Agreed I'm just not a fan (albeit I love shows he produced there's just something about him I find incredibly forced).
My point is not so much that scientific method in the abstract is a belief system, but that those within science are necessarily part of a belief system. It can be traced through the educational system, to the institutions that fund science, to the need to maintain academic validity and the way this constrains thought. I think it directly influences the lines of enquiry we take, and perhaps most fundamentally the interpretive value of science.
There is no better place to see that in action than around quantum science where we theorise until we're blue in the face while attempting to retain old paradigms that plainly do not work and were only plausible within a specific subset.
Wait til they hear about Christopher Hitchens. And George Carlin!
But when you don't know the answer to something, you don't just make up your own version of events and then say it's true.
Proves my lack of understanding of what, exactly? And I disagree with your description of my post as "aggressive".
You said I cannot generalise out from one religion (i.e. all of them being conspiracy theories), witch implies that you accepted my one example. That's not putting words into your mouth. In contrary, you put words into my mouth by suggesting I was referring to some book or site I´ve never heard of.
About war religions, yes, I would still argue that Islam is one of them, as Muhammed himself was first of all a conquerer, and his new religion was very much used with political purposes. This is also explains the importance of loyalty in Islam. And yes, I would call it a conspiracy theory, where its opponents are accused of conspiring with evil forces. Not very different from more recent conspiracy theories in that sense.
Especially when that made up version is some of the dumbest things ever said by anyone, ever.
Cannot really see the logic here. Worshipping god is very much worshipping your own desires. Desire for help, desire for answers, and even desire for eternal life. My desires are far less, as I accept that I'm dead when I'm dead. It's actually must easier (and even healthier, I will claim) to come to peace with that, than keep on worrying your whole life that you in the end won't make the cut.
I have no problems with people being religious, however. My problems start with its institutions and its inherent hung to totalitarianism.
I subconsciously read posts in this thread in his voice in my mind.
Look, there's nothing silly about populating the world via mass incest (twice).
Good to see Steve King on the Caf.
Not having followed the conversation, when I read your post I immediately started reading the second half of it in Ben Shapiro's voice.
It kinda worked.
Apologies for the random rant, I’m in one of those moods. It’s all just another, maybe the oldest, system of control:
- why is he/she rich and I’m poor? God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.
- why am I ostracised for being homosexual? GOD hates homosexuality
- why do women have to be subjugated? Because God made Eve from the rib of Adam’s rib
- why can’t women have abortions? Because ONLY GOD gets to take a life
- how can I get to heaven? Pay indulgences out of the pittance you get
- why can’t I look internally for my morality? Cause then you’ll spend eternity in hell
It’s just pathetic.
- why is he/she rich and I’m poor? God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.
- why am I ostracised for being homosexual? GOD hates homosexuality
- why do women have to be subjugated? Because God made Eve from the rib of Adam’s rib
- why can’t women have abortions? Because ONLY GOD gets to take a life
- how can I get to heaven? Pay indulgences out of the pittance you get
- why can’t I look internally for my morality? Cause then you’ll spend eternity in hell
It’s just pathetic.
Sacred kingship for the win
Forming a scientific theory that best fits the evidence can in no way be considered a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories depend on evidence being misrepresented or ignored and big bang/expansion from a singularity theory does no such thing. Ill informed incredulity does not make something a conspiracy theory. If there is a better theory that fits the facts great. But if someone just says "we don't know everything" then the next logical step isn't filling the gaps with whatever evidenceless nonsense that first comes into their head.
If that is what someone chooses to do then why is that god the answer and not scientology's deities or any other religion's deity? Or some new age spiritual nonsense?
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There is actual evidence that suggest this though.
Seems a good place for this
I wasn't "accepting" anything. Just pointed out you can't use one thing to justify all others. That is the lack of understanding. No different for me in people saying they had issues with say Catholicism and a white beardy guy and as a result now put all religions in that category. Or to downplaying evolution simply because of one or two mad things people say about it.
The book and site, as I explained, use the approach you initially took, and continue to do so. So the bit about war. What is your reasoning behind this when the scripture and actions, in this case Muhammad, say the opposite? The first 3 wars in Islam were a direct result of persecution and attacks. So defensive in their nature. Similarly subsequent wars have certain explanations that you won't find in the Greek and Latin texts (these being pretty much anti Islam). Yet historical documents will tell you a different story than the one presented. See for example the taking of Spain. Even the crusades were unprovoked attacks.
You'll have to explain the evil forces bit. Can't get my head around that as you've presented it.
Which was kind of my point when I first wrote that response.
Let's apply some of the processes that science uses to religion and maybe we may get a different understanding. Note here I don't mean agreement I mean understanding
Also not true.
You do know that religious texts spoke about the expansion of the universe?
I believe before science did, or as we know today anyway
I'd say that we have applied them and found nothing.
They talked about lots of things but vague mentions of spreading out heavens and the like has zero to do with big bang theory.
I'd say we haven't.
With the greatest of respect here,. I think it was you who wrote earlier about being religious and moving away from it. Catholicism and the white beardy guy etc
The question I want to ask you is if you disagreed with one aspect of science, one field, would you dismiss all science? If not then why dismiss all religion based on Catholicism?
I wouldn't dismiss all science if I had a problem with a small bit of it. If there was no evidence for any science I would dismiss science. But since this can't be the case it is a meaningless question.
There is no evidence for anything supernatural despite a huge effort to find it so I dismiss it all. It lacks the evidential base we use for almost everything else in life.
And I didn't find Catholicism in particular problematic. I found the whole concept of an invisible supernatural all powerful creator, and in fact any supernatural being, odd. Then the more I thought about it I found it unbelievable and then finally realised it was nothing but an inherited folk tale.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” Carl Sagan
This is not my experience at all, and further supports my argument that people dismiss things they don't like based on one experience. Tbf religious folk do this too.
Everything has a process. A scientific process if you will. So if we take Islam and science. Yes people say the big bang and universe expansion is in the Qur'an. And yes you read the verse and maybe think " aye but its vague". However have you done it justice and have you followed the process you would with a scientific theory? For me no. It's dismissed because it's religion.
Science makes statements too. They can be vague or even (more likely) in terminology not always understood by everyone. So you follow a process. You break it down, you do your research. You look at opposing views then you reach a conclusion.
Religion isn't much different. If I can use Islam here. You have a statement. Expanding universe, big bang. It's usually an ayat (couple of lines) that in and of itself may not be sufficient. So you look through tafsir, you look to explanations by the great physicians and mathematicians and then draw a conclusion. Again fair enough if you then disagree.
Even simple things as Salah (prayer) for a Muslim has this format. The Qur'an simply says pray. The methodology was how Muhammad taught it go his companions.
Again not to be rude but you don't place your faith on something based on Ricky Gervais. That's as nuts as flat earthers to me.
Maybe the problem is in the word science. I know for the early scholars it wasn't a catch all term. For muslim scholars it wasn't for a lot longer.
A scientific fact isn't the same as a mathematical fact, for example. However we don't dismiss a scientific fact (or theory) we kind of build upon it. So as I mentioned earlier the notion of Gravity changed between Newton and Einstein but we still called it gravity even after the changes. We didn't dismiss it and call it something else. However with religion we tend to just take a notion and dismiss all religion as a result rather than try and understand it from another perspective. So in your case issues with Catholicism didn't mean looking at another religions perspective but instead dismiss al religion.
I would say the same about the use of the word supernatural. I can see why the notion of a God would be seen as supernatural. However is the big bang not also to be placed in the same category? Something from nothing and so perfect is more of a leap of faith than a creator for me.
Do atheists believe in the devil?
One experience? Huh? I left one religion, based on the lack of evidence for any religion/supernatural being and not just the Catholic/Christian god. I've had many experiences over nearly 60 years and being a trained scientist I'm pretty good at recognising reliable evidence and evaluating the reliability of evidence. There is zero evidence for a supernatural god or any supernatural being.
There are all sorts of processes that have nothing to do with science. And what scientific process could you apply to a vague statement in an ancient religious book? If the colour blue was mentioned you wouldn't think that it was predicting chromatics, or colorimetry. The bible mentioning animals on Noah's Ark wasn't anything to do with biology. It is reverse engineering to fit a belief system.
That isn't how science operates.
Ancient religions didn't have any way of knowing about a big bang so it is obviously utter nonsense to suggest that anything written there it is in fact demonstrating knowledge. It is outright impossible.
Ricky Gervais? Huh? What has he got to do with anything?
I also don't have faith or belief in anything. I understand things based on the evidence. As DNA once said (to paraphrase) "the only valid use of the word believe is when you choose to believe (or not) that your child is being truthful when they tell you them didn't eat the last chocolate biscuit".
They would be very odd ones if they did.
We build on scientific knowledge as the evidence builds and our understanding based on that evidence evolves. We don't do this with religion because there is zero evidence to even start with. We dismiss things for which there is zero evidence for its existence, be it a god or ghosts or [insert name of anything that doesn't exist]. And I didn't dismiss any Catholic perspective, I realised that there was no such thing as a god or other supernatural beings for that matter, not just a Catholic god. There was, and is, literally no evidence for it.
If people want to believe then that is their concern but you can't claim that there is any logical or evidence based proof that an invisible supernatural creator exists. The evidence is totally missing and people have been looking for a very long time.
Because a singularity is not nothing. We examine the theory in light of the available evidence and the evidence points to the theory being broadly correct and where it doesn't we try to refine things to better explain the evidence. That evidence gets harder and harder to confirm the closer you get to the singularity but we are getting there. That is the nature of science. But we don't just fill the gaps with something we wish were true though.
To paraphrase Dara O'Briain "Science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise it would stop".
That’s a seriously lacking description of the Big Bang.
No I didn't. So please enlighten me. Which religious texts ?
Care to expand on that?
This is basically like all those memes about The Simpsons predicting every single thing that will ever happen.
This is the point @Roane
You're talking about applying scientific rigour to religion and you somehow think that means divining for meaning in a particular old book of words. It's a bit of a nonsense. There is no evidence of god and if all you have is an old book and childhood indoctrination it's quite funny that you think scientific rigour would help your position.
Speaking of Gervais, I’ve always enjoyed the bit he told Stephen Colbert (a Catholic) one night… “you believe in 1 god I assume… ok so you don’t believe in about 2999 gods, and I don’t believe in 1 more…”