are you an atheist?

scientists KNOW their brains can mislead them, that's like the whole POINT of science.

all explanations are metaphors

yes science with its reproducable and verifiable data is totally the same as some nutcase on the corner chatting with God. gimme a break.

I think for many believers their subjective experience of God is also reproducible and verifiable. They pray -> they feel better.

I was saying how can a God, who is attributed with creating the universe, not be an element of scientific concern if he is the cause of everything material? How could God be separate from science if he is such an important variable in the material origins and behavior of the universe?

― Evan, Tuesday, February 11, 2014 4:18 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The very foundations of science come from these ridiculous people trying to see some order in the entrails of a lamb. Most of the biggest names in science, upon which entire disciplines are built, pursued their scientific work with a genuinely religious ferver. Many of them believed they were discovering the mind of God, and that science WAS a spiritual pursuit. Some of them even died for this belief.

For them, science isn't separate from God.

believers use scientific method almost as much as "scientists" do. it's just a formalization of how the brain gathers info and analyzes it. diff is believers drop the method at a certain point, in certain arenas (not coincidentally these are the areas that the scientific method cannot now or possibly ever fully explain), for various reasons.

don't think you quite understand what reproducable and verifiable means

fwiw I wouldn't describe what I'm talking about (which, by the way, I don't believe in, I'm just taking this side of the argument) as God being a "variable in the material origins and behavior of the universe."

Recently Lichtman’s postdoctoral researcher Narayanan Kasthuri set out to analyze every detail in a cylinder of mouse brain tissue measuring just a thousand cubic microns—a volume 1/100,000 the size of a grain of salt. He selected a region surrounding a short segment of a single axon, seeking to identify every neuron that passed through it.

That minuscule patch of brain turned out to be like a barrel of seething snakes. Kasthuri found a thousand axons and about 80 dendrites, each making about 600 connections with other neurons inside the cylinder. “It’s a wake-up call to how much more complicated brains are than the way we think about them,” says Lichtman.

Complicated, but not random. Lichtman and Kasthuri discovered that every neuron made nearly all its connections with just one other one, scrupulously avoiding a connection with almost all the other neurons packed tightly around it. “They seem to care who they’re connected to,” Lichtman says.

Lichtman can’t say yet whether this fastidious pattern is a general rule or a feature of just the tiny area of mouse brain he sampled. Even as they scale up the technology, he and his colleagues will need another two years to complete a scan of all 70 million neurons in a mouse. I ask about scanning an entire human brain, which contains a thousand times more neurons than a mouse’s.

“I don’t dwell on that,” he says, with a laugh. “It’s too painful.”

Gonna posit here that despite the work Shakey wants it to do, this is the precise opposite of "don't know shit about the brain." That's like saying that if someone can do analytic geometry or differential equations but not whatever that dude that proved Fermat's Last Theorem did that they "don't know shit about math."

For them, science isn't separate from God

that's because science and religion both stem from trying to explain the as yet unexplained. the difference is that one arrives at the conclusion and works backwards.

I think for many believers their subjective experience of God is also reproducible and verifiable. They pray -> they feel better.

If you sit down and do nothing for 5 minutes, you get the same effect. Does that disprove God?

What if it means God is sitting down and doing nothing?

I was pretty explicit about c+p'ing that because it was interesting, not because it supported any particular pt.

xxp

"We don't know everything" =/= "we know nothing." Frankly, that's someone like Ken Ham's game ("If the Big Bang is true where did the singularity come from? CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS.") and beneath anyone who takes the subject seriously from any direction at all.

xxp fine, still

What if it means God is sitting down and doing nothing

Then I am the most religious person alive.

Can't we just say God is The Big Bang and then drop the whole thing?

God is so lazy. Sheesh. Get to work God!

we have a pretty good idea of what the brain does. How it does it is still pretty baffling.

WHAT IF GOD IS MY LAPTOP WHAT THEN ATHEISTS.

j/k I don't even have a laptop

^^ metaphor for atheism

fwiw, there is scientific evidence that "prayer" makes people "feel better." Kind of paradoxical when you think about it -- if you know that "prayer" is actually just a scientifically explainable brain activity that produces objectively measurable results, it would tend to lessen one's faith that something metaphysical is happening, which would in turn make it more difficult to produce that "prayer effect" on one's own mind

So cool how "gravity" and "electrons" and "elements" and "magnetism" nobody has ever held in their hand or seen w a naked eye. Are scientists just Concept Artists in disguise?

I have a gravity I got last week, once I show you the evidence that science is true, I will win this debate for all time.

people tend to feel better by petting dogs or cats. Bow down before them.

You are arguing with arguments that I am not making.

as are you, so we're even

Sorry, yeah i got off topic. Kinda a brainstorm.

you just said you're arguing just for the hell of it, so forgive me if I'm having trouble even grasping what your point is here.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

My point is that a purely subjective belief in god is valid and it's silly to try to argue that eventually science will obviate that

And that provided you aren't actually using this subjective belief to make objective explanations or predictions about the material world, it's no crazier than saying stuff like "I love you" or "that's funny"

Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure people have seen elements with their naked eye.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/afontevecchia/files/2011/11/Gold-Bars-in-Fort-Knox.jpg

That one is number 79. You're welcome.

those comparisons are wack. I love you because Zeus has made it so. That's funny because little elves are tickling my funny bone.

and gravity and electromagnetiism aren't things, but the observable effects of things.

And that provided you aren't actually using this subjective belief to make objective explanations or predictions about the material world,

like many people who make your arguments, you are really emotionally invested in not admitting any space for religion in the world

why do you think that is?

wait wait lemme lie down on a couch, doc

My point is that a purely subjective belief in god is valid and it's silly to try to argue that eventually science will obviate that

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 5:11 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Doesn't our history as a species discovering why something works scientifically and replacing the magic based theories suggest that trajectory will continue?

Yes but the history is also of people doing things for silly beliefs as well and that will continue.

Like you guys are forgetting that alchemy gave birth to chemistry, astrology to astronomy, etc.

the space that religion inhabits has been shrinking steadily. a logical conclusion would be that one day, MAYBE, it will inhabit no space. I have no sentiment tied to religion, so that's fine by me. I see no need to believe in things that have no proof and perhaps can never be proved one way or the other, and that as you said shouldn't allow you to make explanations and predictions about the material world (reminds me of The Ether). if someone wants to believe in spiritual/supernatural stuff, that's fine so long as they keep it to themselves more or less. I have nothing to compel me to believe in such things.

Yes but the history is also of people doing things for silly beliefs as well and that will continue.

it will continue. indefinitely? you don't know

I would say there is lots of religion. Basically pop culture, celebrities, wealth, etc. has replaced the old gods. People still have weird rituals that have nothing to do with physical survival and are there for mainly psychological reasons. You who submit to your iPhone.

where all my alchemy believers at!??!

if you want to stretch "religion" to mean all those things, it's a meaningless term but you win the argument

I would say there is lots of religion. Basically pop culture, celebrities, wealth, etc. has replaced the old gods. People still have weird rituals that have nothing to do with physical survival and are there for mainly psychological reasons. You who submit to your iPhone.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 5:23 PM (29 seconds ago)

Sure, but is this a counterpoint? What does it have to do with scientific progression?

How is it a stretch to say money is God? Every day people are killed in the name of money, you know? I consider this dangerous, cultish behavior.

because no one thinks Money created the universe

like many people who make your arguments, you are really emotionally invested in not admitting any space for religion in the world

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:16 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why do you think that is?

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:17 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This isn't really directed at Hurting, but theists in general.

like many people who make your arguments, you are really emotionally invested in preserving any space for religion in the world. why do you think that is?

See where it gets you to make things psychoanalytically personal?

Scientific progression, because the internet, because democratization of knowledge, because "I know more than you" or "I saw that meme first" is how you pray towards the god Information. Animated gif Iconography, fan fiction gaming mods, cosplayers pretending to be comic book gods in movies that make more money than whole nations.