Absolutely. However, strictly from a personal point of view, I believe that because these notions are built up from a worldview that starts off being provable and because they are subject to stringent and open peer review they are _more likely_ to be true. It's impossible for them to be known as facts but on balance the probability is higher that they are right.
How on earth do you prove something like that? What model are you using to stand up and say, "Well, I can't prove that these things are fact but it's more probable than your explanation"? I'm not seeing how that's doing anything but further illustrating the point made, that science is as much faith as Christianity if you take it beyond a certain level.
The important thing is that even their strongest adherents will actively seek people to question their beliefs and change they if they receive convincing arguements. This doesn't happen with any other faith.
Erm ... really, not. Christianity has undergone all kinds of schisms because of changes of opinion and questioning beliefs. Church of England, for example, to allow divorce. Lutheranism. Baptists and Methodists and all manner of other branches of Christianity show that, given the argument, things can change in a religious context. Protestant churches doing gay weddings, for example. Also, a fair few pagans (chaotes in particular) re-examine their beliefs in the light of other pagan traditions on a regular basis.
Indeed, not does it claim to. It says that we should wait for more evidence and testable theories _or_ (and this is the clincher) admit that we will just have to remain ignorant of knowing the truth for certain. No other faith is so open for admitting it's ignorance.
Again, only true if considering the foaming-at-the-mouth religious fundamentalist. Most of the people I speak to who are religious in any way at all do not claim to know anything; only to believe, which are not the same thing. Knowledge implies irrefutable fact. I believe that the cleaning lady does the office washing-up, but I don't know, because I've never seen her. Likewise, I believe that there is a guiding force to the universe, but I don't know. Most people don't; they just believe.
It shouldn't be in theory (at least from the science side) but the reality is that most people (myself included) find it hard to put up a good arguement and therefore often resort to rhetoric.
And that makes it all right? The fact that you correct the statement that we haven't discovered what makes humans capable of having memories or a personality or makes them tick psychologically and emotionally with "Not yet" is more than just rhetoric; it's arrogance, and it's further hardline materialism. You believe so strongly in the fact that someone somewhere will come up with a scientific explanation for what the theistic among us call a soul that you can't help but remark in a way that makes clear your absolute assurance that they will someday prove the rational side right. Maybe they will, someday, when science has advanced a fair sight more. Maybe they won't, and even that leaves any number of possibilities for why not. Maybe they just won't be able to process the data no matter how hard they try, leaving it a mystery. Maybe they'll actually find proof of the existence of a soul. Or maybe the religious right will decide that trying to find out such a thing is sacrilege and ban the research. Point is, you don't know, so it's not really fair to talk about it like you do.
And that's kind of the point: it's not so much the possibility of having the discussion at all as the attitude with which the arguments are presented. Hardline atheists tend to take this view of "It's okay if we have to resort to rhetoric because they haven't got anything better", and rabid religious fundies take this view of "Blasphemers questioning the Word of God and they are hellbound because the Bible says so!" Meanwhile, the rational people who should be doing all the talking sit there and go, "Condescended to on one side, verbally molested on the other ... I'm going to shut up now"
no subject
How on earth do you prove something like that? What model are you using to stand up and say, "Well, I can't prove that these things are fact but it's more probable than your explanation"? I'm not seeing how that's doing anything but further illustrating the point made, that science is as much faith as Christianity if you take it beyond a certain level.
The important thing is that even their strongest adherents will actively seek people to question their beliefs and change they if they receive convincing arguements. This doesn't happen with any other faith.
Erm ... really, not. Christianity has undergone all kinds of schisms because of changes of opinion and questioning beliefs. Church of England, for example, to allow divorce. Lutheranism. Baptists and Methodists and all manner of other branches of Christianity show that, given the argument, things can change in a religious context. Protestant churches doing gay weddings, for example. Also, a fair few pagans (chaotes in particular) re-examine their beliefs in the light of other pagan traditions on a regular basis.
Indeed, not does it claim to. It says that we should wait for more evidence and testable theories _or_ (and this is the clincher) admit that we will just have to remain ignorant of knowing the truth for certain. No other faith is so open for admitting it's ignorance.
Again, only true if considering the foaming-at-the-mouth religious fundamentalist. Most of the people I speak to who are religious in any way at all do not claim to know anything; only to believe, which are not the same thing. Knowledge implies irrefutable fact. I believe that the cleaning lady does the office washing-up, but I don't know, because I've never seen her. Likewise, I believe that there is a guiding force to the universe, but I don't know. Most people don't; they just believe.
It shouldn't be in theory (at least from the science side) but the reality is that most people (myself included) find it hard to put up a good arguement and therefore often resort to rhetoric.
And that makes it all right? The fact that you correct the statement that we haven't discovered what makes humans capable of having memories or a personality or makes them tick psychologically and emotionally with "Not yet" is more than just rhetoric; it's arrogance, and it's further hardline materialism. You believe so strongly in the fact that someone somewhere will come up with a scientific explanation for what the theistic among us call a soul that you can't help but remark in a way that makes clear your absolute assurance that they will someday prove the rational side right. Maybe they will, someday, when science has advanced a fair sight more. Maybe they won't, and even that leaves any number of possibilities for why not. Maybe they just won't be able to process the data no matter how hard they try, leaving it a mystery. Maybe they'll actually find proof of the existence of a soul. Or maybe the religious right will decide that trying to find out such a thing is sacrilege and ban the research. Point is, you don't know, so it's not really fair to talk about it like you do.
And that's kind of the point: it's not so much the possibility of having the discussion at all as the attitude with which the arguments are presented. Hardline atheists tend to take this view of "It's okay if we have to resort to rhetoric because they haven't got anything better", and rabid religious fundies take this view of "Blasphemers questioning the Word of God and they are hellbound because the Bible says so!" Meanwhile, the rational people who should be doing all the talking sit there and go, "Condescended to on one side, verbally molested on the other ... I'm going to shut up now"