Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

Not surprising ideas are based on faith rather than reason.

You have to keep up - DTE was here defending that people who take the religious side of a debate are not required to use reason, logic, facts or consistency ... :)
 
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You're still not getting it.

You don't know what nothing is - because you can't explain it. Calling it the absence of anything at all is not comprehension. Just like saying infinity is endless isn't comprehension. You can't contain nothing or infinity in your mind. You can only contain what would theoretically lead to nothing or infinity. That's because you're limited - or because the concepts are flawed.

Both of which are not necessarily the extremes you perceive them to be.

You have no idea if a structure is required for a dreamscape - because a dreamscape is not necessarily the human construct you want it to be.

You keep insisting that your senses and your ability to reason are such that they can't be mistaken about the potential of existence.



You have no idea what works. You have no idea that your senses reflect actual reality - or simply a limited perceived reality. You don't know to what extent your senses are functional - or if they're functional at all.

You have blind faith in your ability to reason and comprehend if you believe anything is an objective fact. Blind faith - because you have no basis beyond your own capacity which could potentially be utterly limited or broken.

Getting from London to New York doesn't make science less based on faith. Travelling isn't necessarily a representation of something more real than prayer, which requires faith on some level.

You are over philosophising and attributing to me claims I do not make. Science is simple: you just look at stuff and if two people see much the same thing you establish a correlation... We can do some now: Have you seen a kangaroo? I've never been to Australia, but I've seen them on TV, so I have some grounds to believe they exist in some way. Maybe they only exist as a figment of the collective imagination or as part of your dreamscape and maybe everyone is fooling me about the existence of Australia, I can't tell or at least I can't *prove* anything. But, if you confirm that you too have seen one then we've done some science in making the concept of kangaroos that much more real, we've done a peer reviewed measurement. I doubt we will win the Nobel prize for this work, though.
 
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haha. Yes perception and measurement is key to science, as is consensus and repeatability (since measurements can be in error). One has to think beyond the individual to get this, though.
 
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Which would be 100% predictable from the very beginning for a supreme being.

Right. What if there is no other way to institute free will without rebellion?



His duty but they have to face punishment together? I don't understand how that's fair.

Explain please.

Because they are one unit. Like they were married. It isnt really fair but thats the way marriage is.



Interesting position, and that's putting it gently ;)



Which makes the above position even more interesting ;)

I think I may have misunderstood what you said. I was trying to say that all evil based off the christian religion is either form the misunderstanding of the bible or the abuse of it.



He didn't create sin? Who created sin? How can they be sinful as his creations - and why did he allow for it when he knew what the result would be?

Sin is not created. It is rebellion against God. It is choice.



I'm pretty sure I've looked harder than most people. Mass murderers don't enjoy inflicting pain on people - it's just one more way they suffer from the inertia of making decisions that removes them from normal life. It can be a compulsion and murder or rape can bring momentary relief from a near-constant state of meaninglessness or pure suffering - but they don't actually enjoy torturing other people, they're just using them as a hopeless means to an end. More often than not, it's a desperate rebellion against "life" or whatever painful mental condition you endure by lacking empathy. The complete absence of enjoyment or normal emotion is quite common in serial killers.

Once you isolate yourself like that, life can be very hard to endure - and murdering people is never a sane choice made by people who enjoy inflicting pain. At least not as you or I understand enjoyment. You see the same kind of perceived cruelty or irrational violence commited in relationships of physical abuse. The abuser doesn't enjoy abusing - but it might very well seem that way to people who don't understand the psychology.

I think some people do really feed on the suffering of others. It may be based off something else but they still in the end enjoy it.


God enjoys the suffering of people that DO deserve it?

It is like the family of someone who got murdered. How they feel when they get justice.



Unfortunately, lots of animals still suffer without having committed any sin. Why is that? What's the point?

It comes down to man in the end and how nature is getting corrupted. I am fully expecting fruit bats to start eating meat. And people to take care of animals less and less. Sure there are a few people that look after animals but most dont seem to like animals. How can they when they dont treat people well either? Like that step father that that made his step son stand out in the cold in nothing but a bath towel for peeing his bed.
 
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Science is not based on blind faith it's based on what works. We have justified belief in the results of science, because, for instance we have immediate evidence that airplanes built on scientific principles actually do fly. No amount of praying to Jesus or the great Juju up the mountain is going to get you from London to New York in a few hours, that requires science.
And yet, a mere century and change ago, man had nothing but dreams and flights of fantasy about taking to the air. One might say it was a matter of faith that man would ever get off the ground. Now you can do it in a few hours.

You're really quite certain that we won't figure out how to, say, walk on water given a century of work on the problem? Then, something you summarily dismiss today won't seem quite so crazy, will it. But you have certainty in the reality you've chosen. One might call such blind certainty a faith of sorts, me thinks. Shall we call it the Church of Roq?
 
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And yet, a mere century and change ago, man had nothing but dreams and flights of fantasy about taking to the air. One might say it was a matter of faith that man would ever get off the ground. Now you can do it in a few hours.

You're really quite certain that we won't figure out how to, say, walk on water given a century of work on the problem? Then, something you summarily dismiss today won't seem quite so crazy, will it. But you have certainty in the reality you've chosen. One might call such blind certainty a faith of sorts, me thinks. Shall we call it the Church of Roq?

No - it was a dream realized ... through science. Rational thought, thorough hypothesis testing, rigorous experimentation, and so on. Logic, fundamental understanding. You know, everything religion and faith are NOT.
 
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You have to keep up - DTE was here defending that people who take the religious side of a debate are not required to use reason, logic, facts or consistency … :)
That's not quite what I said nor meant, but we can go with it. ;)

Your demand is that something self-identified as mystical be defended by logic and reason. It's a stupidly inappropriate stipulation, plain and simple. Y'all can beat on it until we run out of electrons and you'll still get exactly nowhere because your continued efforts just reinforce for everyone that you lack a fundamental understanding of what you're arguing about.

From my personal bunker of cynicism, I find the whole structure of organized religion to be an absolutely brilliant system of crowd control. Like any good lie (intending absolutely no comment to the "truth" of religion), there's enough stuff that's true/verifiable that it's easier to sell the BS. People are convinced to accept a shitty lot today on the promise of a payoff at some indeterminant point in the future and nobody actually sees anyone else's payoff to boot. There's a good bit of tribalism thrown in to manufacture common ground for the adherents and an outward facing enemy(ies) to focus on as the source of their daily ills. The "rules" are suitably vague, allowing leadership to justify pretty much any action they desire. Any questioning can quickly be stomped out because the very nature of the structure turns logic on its ear and openly flaunts that fact. It's sheer genius, if you think about it.
 
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No - it was a dream realized … through science. Rational thought, thorough hypothesis testing, rigorous experimentation, and so on. Logic, fundamental understanding. You know, everything religion and faith are NOT.

Same could be said of the big bang theory which is in all sorts of trouble(needs a lot of observable holes filled) and evolution(would need atleast 10 000 years or something to really test). You really cant PROVE either way evolution or faith. If you could prove one way or the other the one that you didnt prove would cease to exist.
 
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Same could be said of the big bang theory which is in all sorts of trouble(needs a lot of observable holes filled) and evolution(would need atleast 10 000 years or something to really test). You really cant PROVE either way evolution or faith. If you could prove one way or the other the one that you didnt prove would cease to exist.

You really have no understanding of science at all I am assuming?
 
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I have a fair understanding of science. I dont consider the big bang theory to be "science". Same with evolution though it is closer.

Though i have little to no understanding of chemistry. For some reason chemistry is hard for me to understand.
 
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You are over philosophising and attributing to me claims I do not make. Science is simple: you just look at stuff and if two people see much the same thing you establish a correlation… We can do some now: Have you seen a kangaroo? I've never been to Australia, but I've seen them on TV, so I have some grounds to believe they exist in some way. Maybe they only exist as a figment of the collective imagination or as part of your dreamscape and maybe everyone is fooling me about the existence of Australia, I can't tell or at least I can't *prove* anything. But, if you confirm that you too have seen one then we've done some science in making the concept of kangaroos that much more real, we've done a peer reviewed measurement. I doubt we will win the Nobel prize for this work, though.

Over philosophising?

It's not a dandy little theory I'm having fun with - and I'm not just out of college, fresh with challenging notions that I'm testing for kicks.

I really believe what I say - and it's not halfhearted. I go all the way on this.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know if you're honestly not capable of understanding what I'm saying - or if I'm simply failing to communicate what I consider relatively simple points.

I'll try one last time, and then I'll have to accept that we can't reach an understanding - because I don't have the stamina to go in circles endlessly.

If I confirm to you that I've seen something - and we assume that our perceptions of this thing is identical - and we assume that we're both fully functional and flawless in our ability to perceive and correlate that which we see, what makes you certain that I'm a real person - and not part of the dreamscape you've created in your mind? Would I still be a peer then?

You have no idea that what we're able to communicate and agree upon is anything like the totality of reality. We might both be limited to seeing that animal without seeing everything else it is and whatever else might exist beyond our senses. So we do a peer review based on potentially severe limitations. The animal might be an entire separate dimension that we're unable to interpret correctly and all we see is something that looks like a kangaroo. Great - but what use is that?

It's like meeting a girl and asking her: Do you love movies? She says yes. You ask: You like Lord of the Rings? She says yes. Then you'll feel a spark and you've found common ground - and there's something to build on, right?

But unfortunately there are a zillion other things that you don't share - and you simply didn't know that when the spark ignited. You discover that later on, when the relationship falls apart.

That analogy is meant to represent scientists who agree upon our current perception of reality - and they feel the spark of knowing something, to make it all worthwhile. Unfortunately, there could be a zillion things beyond our ability to perceive that would destroy utterly our idea of reality and rules - and demonstrate how what used to fit together perfectly, only did so because our minds would have broken if we didn't limit ourselves to what we could understand.

I'm not saying you should stop doing that - and if you want to function as if science is fact until proven otherwise - I have no problem with that.

I don't function like that. I just accept that my senses could be severely limited, and my perception of truth or "right/wrong" is for the moment, and I wouldn't want to dispute alternate avenues outright. That's just not possible for me.
 
@Damian

Thanks ;)

But I think Corwin has answered my most pressing question quite to my satisfaction. I think I got what I needed.
 
I have a fair understanding of science. I dont consider the big bang theory to be "science". Same with evolution though it is closer.

Though i have little to no understanding of chemistry. For some reason chemistry is hard for me to understand.

Probably you don't understand chemistry, because you spend your time studying biblical nonsense (and playing RPGs?) rather than learning about science. In any case, big bang is a theory in physics and cosmology, not chemistry and TOE is the underpinning theory of biology around which the whole subject revolves.

Big bang and TOE are two of the cornerstones of modern science. They have both been verified in many different ways. And you can't make good evaluations of science if you filter all your judgments through the lens of the indoctrination you were programmed with at your mother's knee.
 
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Over philosophising?

It's not a dandy little theory I'm having fun with - and I'm not just out of college, fresh with challenging notions that I'm testing for kicks.

I really believe what I say - and it's not halfhearted. I go all the way on this.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know if you're honestly not capable of understanding what I'm saying - or if I'm simply failing to communicate what I consider relatively simple points.

I'll try one last time, and then I'll have to accept that we can't reach an understanding - because I don't have the stamina to go in circles endlessly.

If I confirm to you that I've seen something - and we assume that our perceptions of this thing is identical - and we assume that we're both fully functional and flawless in our ability to perceive and correlate that which we see, what makes you certain that I'm a real person - and not part of the dreamscape you've created in your mind? Would I still be a peer then?

You have no idea that what we're able to communicate and agree upon is anything like the totality of reality. We might both be limited to seeing that animal without seeing everything else it is and whatever else might exist beyond our senses. So we do a peer review based on potentially severe limitations. The animal might be an entire separate dimension that we're unable to interpret correctly and all we see is something that looks like a kangaroo. Great - but what use is that?

It's like meeting a girl and asking her: Do you love movies? She says yes. You ask: You like Lord of the Rings? She says yes. Then you'll feel a spark and you've found common ground - and there's something to build on, right?

But unfortunately there are a zillion other things that you don't share - and you simply didn't know that when the spark ignited. You discover that later on, when the relationship falls apart.

That analogy is meant to represent scientists who agree upon our current perception of reality - and they feel the spark of knowing something, to make it all worthwhile. Unfortunately, there could be a zillion things beyond our ability to perceive that would destroy utterly our idea of reality and rules - and demonstrate how what used to fit together perfectly, only did so because our minds would have broken if we didn't limit ourselves to what we could understand.

I'm not saying you should stop doing that - and if you want to function as if science is fact until proven otherwise - I have no problem with that.

I don't function like that. I just accept that my senses could be severely limited, and my perception of truth or "right/wrong" is for the moment, and I wouldn't want to dispute alternate avenues outright. That's just not possible for me.

No, I understand perfectly what you are trying to say (you aren't exactly the first person to have had these ideas). It's true that solipsism is logically possible or that we could conceivably be living in some kind of Matrix world (I assume you've seen the Matrix) where evil aliens or mad scientists are projecting some view of reality onto us. We can't prove that isn't the case and yes our senses are limited and may be limited in ways we can't understand. But science doesn't make any claims about metaphysics, it just describes whatever medium it is that we do exist in by making observations.

Ask yourself this: Could Neo have made scientific observations about the world he thought he was in before he discovered that it was an illusion? The answer to that is yes and his science would then be the science of the matrix world he lived in, rather than the "real" one (which could itself be just a further level...). That's the best that we can do too with science, since we don't yet and maybe can never know with certainty what the underpinnings of reality really are.

The other powerful tool we have is Occam's razor. What we are looking for when we form a scientific theory is not the absolute "truth" which we can never know, but the simplest framework of theory that encapsulates a set of observations. We can then use that theory to make further predictions about whatever set of circumstances we find ourself in and if we find correlations we can say that it's a good theory. That's very different to believing things on blind faith.

In any case surely you can see that a justified belief in observations is totally different in principle than blind faith in fairies. That's surely a good starting point?
 
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Probably you don't understand chemistry, because you spend your time studying biblical nonsense (and playing RPGs?) rather than learning about science. In any case, big bang is a theory in physics and cosmology, not chemistry and TOE is the underpinning theory of biology around which the whole subject revolves.

Big bang and TOE are two of the cornerstones of modern science. They have both been verified in many different ways. And you can't make good evaluations of science if you filter all your judgments through the lens of the indoctrination you were programmed with at your mother's knee.

Another clear hallmark of religious zealots is the misrepresentation of the word 'theory'. Sort of how teens and 20-somethings have made 'literally' mean 'figuratively', religious people have tried to change theory to mean 'guess' ... rather than the still-in-testing supposition supported by loads of data and testing that is not as of year totally conclusive. 'Theory' doesn't mean some guy sitting mindlessly on a park bench 'hey, I wonder it ...'
 
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No, I understand perfectly what you are trying to say (you aren't exactly the first person to have had these ideas). It's true that solipsism is logically possible or that we could conceivably be living in some kind of Matrix world (I assume you've seen the Matrix) where evil aliens or mad scientists are projecting some view of reality onto us. We can't prove that isn't the case and yes our senses are limited and may be limited in ways we can't understand. But science doesn't make any claims about metaphysics, it just describes whatever medium it is that we do exist in by making observations.

Yes, and those observations could easily be entirely wrong or vastly incomplete and metaphysics isn't necessarily metaphysics.

Ask yourself this: Could Neo have made scientific observations about the world he thought he was in before he discovered that it was an illusion? The answer to that is yes and his science would then be the science of the matrix world he lived in, rather than the "real" one (which could itself be just a further level…). That's the best that we can do too with science, since we don't yet and maybe can never know with certainty what the underpinnings of reality really are.

It's possibly the best we can do. Personally, I think the best we can do is to keep an open mind and not exclude things that don't fit our current perception of reality as if that couldn't be feasible simply because we can't make sense of it right now.

Being certain is being blind, basically.

But otherwise, you seem to get it. As such, you have blind faith that your perception of reality is reality - when you try to use it to dismiss other perceptions of reality.

The other powerful tool we have is Occam's razor. What we are looking for when we form a scientific theory is not the absolute "truth" which we can never know, but the simplest framework of theory that encapsulates a set of observations. We can then use that theory to make further predictions about whatever set of circumstances we find ourself in and if we find correlations we can say that it's a good theory. That's very different to believing things on blind faith.

It depends on whether you believe them or not. If it's nothing but a working theory - and you keep that in mind, then it's not blind faith - because it's not faith.

But if you insist upon us knowing anything with certainty - then you're acting on blind faith.

To me, that is.

In any case surely you can see that a justified belief in observations is totally different in principle than blind faith in fairies. That's surely a good starting point?

Again, no, I don't think it's "justified" if it's belief. You can work from the assumption that what you observe is true - but that's not the same as believing it or having faith in it.

I work from the assumption that there's such a thing as gravity - but I don't believe in it enough to claim that it must exist and I don't have faith in it. I don't care if it's there or not, beyond having one possible explanation that seems to fit my current reality.

I use my current perception of reality as a working theory - nothing more. Which means I don't go around ridiculing people for having different perceptions of it. I find it interesting - even if it rarely makes sense to me.
 
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Again, no, I don't think it's "justified" if it's belief. You can work from the assumption that what you observe is true - but that's not the same as believing it or having faith in it.

I work from the assumption that there's such a thing as gravity - but I don't believe in it enough to claim that it must exist and I don't have faith in it. I don't care if it's there or not, beyond having one possible explanation that seems to fit my current reality.

I use my current perception of reality as a working theory - nothing more. Which means I don't go around ridiculing people for having different perceptions of it. I find it interesting - even if it rarely makes sense to me.

Now you are muddling up beliefs about the results of observations with beliefs about absolute "truth". As I already explained, scientific theories say nothing about absolute truth, what they do is predict the results of further observations (i.e. experiments), that's it!

So a justified belief is one where you believe that the results of an experiment or observation will turn out a particular way based on a theory that has been tested, replicated and verified using observations of the world. That's very different than believing in something that no one has ever been able to reliably detect, such as deities or fairies, not least when these concepts are in gross conflict with how we understand the world through looking at it.
 
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Now you are muddling up beliefs about the results of observations with beliefs about absolute "truth". As I already explained, scientific theories say nothing about absolute truth, what they do is predict the results of further observations (i.e. experiments), that's it!

No, I'm not muddling up anything. I'm simply saying that if you believe in science as a way to establish truth with certainty - you have blind faith.

Since you seem to do that, I'm saying you seem to have blind faith.

Otherwise, I don't know why you'd be busy ridiculing religion constantly. You can't on the one hand say that you know you can't know truth, and on the other hand use your predicted observations that might not have any truth to them as some kind of offensive tool to dismiss faith. It's as if you think that because human beings observe patterns and recognise them, that alone is proof enough to dismiss everything that doesn't seem to have observable or rational patterns.

But if you know that you have no more hold on truth than religious people - there's nothing more to discuss. Then we agree.

So a justified belief is one where you believe that the results of an experiment or observation will turn out a particular way based on a theory that has been tested, replicated and verified using observations of the world. That's very different than believing in something that no one has ever been able to reliably detect, such as deities or fairies, not least when these concepts are in gross conflict with how we understand the world through looking at it.

You have no idea if anyone has been able to reliably detect a deity. Lots of people claim to have done that, AFAIK. That YOU are unable to detect it or "feel" it - doesn't mean it's necessarily impossible. You might simply be unable to comprehend or grasp such matters.

As for your tested, replicated and verified theories using observations of the world - that's once again of limited use when our ability to do so might very well be highly flawed, tainted, limited or otherwise incomplete.

If you think relying on something that could very easily be utterly incomplete and flawed is "better" than having faith, that's on you. I'd call that blind faith.

You have nothing - absolutely nothing - to support that our ability to perceive or our capacity to comprehend is in any way complete or sufficient to establish reality with any kind of certainty.

Nothing…. except blind faith and the desperate assumption that what we understand and what we can measure is actually as it seems to be, and that we're really seeing everything there is when we apply our eyes to the task.

You think 2+2 = 4 is a universal law because it makes sense to you. You might not admit it, but you assume that's true because how can it not be? You can't imagine an alien or otherworldly mind functioning in a way where objects or measurements don't apply. 2+2 = 4 is yet another human construct that seems to fit our current reality.

If you're prepared to have that crash and burn, that's fine - but you sure don't seem to think that's feasible or even possible. If I'm wrong, then I have to say I don't know why you're so obsessed with the ridicule of faith.
 
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Probably you don't understand chemistry, because you spend your time studying biblical nonsense (and playing RPGs?) rather than learning about science. In any case, big bang is a theory in physics and cosmology, not chemistry and TOE is the underpinning theory of biology around which the whole subject revolves.

Big bang and TOE are two of the cornerstones of modern science. They have both been verified in many different ways. And you can't make good evaluations of science if you filter all your judgments through the lens of the indoctrination you were programmed with at your mother's knee.

What has been verified? You cant recreate the big bang nor can you recreate evolution in highly complex organisms(over 1000 amino acids) let alone human evolution so how can you say either have been verified?
 
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