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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
Science can tell us a lot, but as far as I know it cannot answer that "Why" question. It is not only relevent to humanity, but other life that I am sure abounds in the universe. What exists on the outskirts of the universe? What was before the Universe? What will happen when the Universe ceases to exist? Why did life form at all?

I am a spiritual person, and while science documents much that is important, it just cannot answer that pesky "why" question... as there is beauty in the stars, there is beauty in our spirituality too, and in all the religions of the world. We just have to look for it.

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ORIGINAL: ONaMISSION
The Darwinian position, that everything is an accident, is clearly more based in faith than reason, much like dumping thousands of tiny springs, screws, shards of glass, and so on, into a bucket, shaking it up, and expecting a fine swiss watch to fall out of the bucket. It is utterly absurd that such an immense, immeasurable (for us) degree of order around us and in us could ever be the result of accident. ----------------------------

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ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

One has to consider why it is we find order and sense around us. It could just be that as products of that order, we would naturally find that it all made sense. Even if we conceded that we are here by divine intervention, we have been here for a long time, and so the natural environment has become very familiar and we have adapted to it as much as we have adapted it ourselves, so that it will naturally have sense and order to it.
E

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ORIGINAL: ONaMISSION

However, you, sir, are a contradiction in that on the one hand you oppose religion in general (even though you say you cannot see that in your original post, I myself find it glaringly obvious)- I say, you are a contradiction because, on the one hand, you oppose religion in general as being irrational and for whatever other reasons you may believe. Yet, on the other hand, while still opposing religion, you yourself are in fact a deeply religious individual. By that I mean, that you hold a deep but irrational belief, which fact and reason do not support. you see, you believe that the source of things is NOT God, even though this is the explanation so far offered in the history of the world which actually stands scientific reason.

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ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

Uhhh...no.  Your understanding of atheism sounds like something they teach about atheism in Sunday school.  My belief in atheism is not comparable to your belief in God, because your belief in God rests on faith, and my belief in atheism is my rational inference on the basis of observation.  I'm prepared to abandon my belief in atheism if further evidence warrants it.  You're not prepared to abandon your belief in God for any empirical reason whatsoever.

Look, wanna hear the best reason why "God created it" is a useless answer to the question of "Where did it come from?"

Who created God?

Very well said, LaM. I compare it between trust and faith. I trust that when I turn the ignition to my car, that it will start. I have no faith that it will start, drive, and park itself.
 
I trust that when I pet a cat, it will purr. I have no faith that the cat will bark or moo.
 
With all this, my trust can be violated. My vehicle might have a dead battery, for instance, keeping it from starting. But this only means that my trust is subject to modification, much like my lack of belief in a god or gods. This trust is based on observable evidence and experience, and does not rely upon faith, which I see as trust without supporting evidence, and even in the face of counter evidence. I see trust as reasonable, and faith as illogic at its worst.
 
And one other thing, atheism is NOT a belief. It is a LACK of belief. To say that I do not believe in ghosts is not the same as saying that I have a belief that there are no ghosts. Lack of belief is a negative value, and does not mean that a counter belief replaces it. It would be best to say that I hold the subject of gods to possess an absence of value.

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ORIGINAL: ONaMISSION

However, you, sir, are a contradiction in that on the one hand you oppose religion in general (even though you say you cannot see that in your original post, I myself find it glaringly obvious)- I say, you are a contradiction because, on the one hand, you oppose religion in general as being irrational and for whatever other reasons you may believe. Yet, on the other hand, while still opposing religion, you yourself are in fact a deeply religious individual. By that I mean, that you hold a deep but irrational belief, which fact and reason do not support. you see, you believe that the source of things is NOT God, even though this is the explanation so far offered in the history of the world which actually stands scientific reason.

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ORIGINAL: Chaingang

FWIW, I like studying myths (or religions) - not because I believe in them - but because they reveal things about us as human beings that might be true or worthy of examination.

But we ought not believe things to be true just because they are pretty, make some kind of emotional sense to us, or because they favor our own peculiar culture over all others - they must also be actually true. Let's not forget that...

If you choose to believe in things that you cannot say for sure are true or not, then at least allow that what you are doing is more of an aesthetic choice than anything else. There is no truth value to preferring red to blue even if that's how you feel about those colors.

Likewise there is no truth value to preferring the teachings of Abraham to those of Siddhartha - it is a mere choice.

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

Ultimately, science says that all we are and everything else is, is the interaction of particles and energy.

This means that there is no reason to anything except that which we choose to put to it, and which reasoning and meanings are worthless conjurings that are misleading to what is real.

Science therefore consequently suggests that concepts of morality are equally worthless. So, I need not control myself in relation to the harm or even killing of others, since such actions are merely the result of chemical reactions at particle and energy levels. Similarly, I cannot be held responsible for any harm or killing I do, because those results were a consequence of natural molecular interactions. There is nothing to prevent me doing as I please either, since fear of reprisal is nothing more than another set of molecular interactions and therefore as worthless as the anger that brought about the attack.

Does this explain anything about why murder is wrong, how it affects victims' families and friends, what sort of person I must be and how desirable it is to control our emotions? No. I have yet to come across any hard bitten, pure scientist who would behave in the way described above, even though such a world is that suggested as real by science.

We need beliefs just as we need science. When we had religion without science it led to all manner of evil - if we dismiss religion and adopt pure science I can only think it would be worse than before.
E

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ORIGINAL: BrutalAntipathy

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

Ultimately, science says that all we are and everything else is, is the interaction of particles and energy.

This means that there is no reason to anything except that which we choose to put to it, and which reasoning and meanings are worthless conjurings that are misleading to what is real.

Science therefore consequently suggests that concepts of morality are equally worthless. So, I need not control myself in relation to the harm or even killing of others, since such actions are merely the result of chemical reactions at particle and energy levels. Similarly, I cannot be held responsible for any harm or killing I do, because those results were a consequence of natural molecular interactions. There is nothing to prevent me doing as I please either, since fear of reprisal is nothing more than another set of molecular interactions and therefore as worthless as the anger that brought about the attack.

Does this explain anything about why murder is wrong, how it affects victims' families and friends, what sort of person I must be and how desirable it is to control our emotions? No. I have yet to come across any hard bitten, pure scientist who would behave in the way described above, even though such a world is that suggested as real by science.

We need beliefs just as we need science. When we had religion without science it led to all manner of evil - if we dismiss religion and adopt pure science I can only think it would be worse than before.
E

Morals aren't found in religion, really. To behave because an invisible sky daddy will spank you if you don't is coersion, not morals. As I have pointed out before, if morality came from religion then every atheist orginization meeting would dissolve into bloody chaos. That there are thousands of atheist and freethought groups in America that meet monthly without death or carnage should be evidence in itself that morality is not a religious structure.

If we are to discuss this in line with Christian religious constructs, I will agree with you that the threat of retribution from God is not a requirement for morality. However to me, my religion is not separate from my life and the culture within which I live - religion includes everything of my culture including social morals, and is not something reserved for Sunday when I might go visit God in the cage we made for him but otherwise is ignored. This is the problem with introduced religions as opposed to ethnic ones, that the host culture continues around the new religion regardless of it - but thats another topic. If we are to discuss religion vs science as this thread is seeming to, then we must discuss religion with a capital R, meaning religion in toto. Even atheists share a set of values and beliefs, so in the way I mean religion, they too have a religion. Scientists alike.

Granted, science alone does not, indeed cannot, tell us how to live. That is not what science does. Richard Dawkins once wrote that a society based only on the teachings of evolution would be grim. But I have yet to meet a scientist that has attempted to raise a child this way. We instill in our children our own values, and their association with peers gives them even more social values. A society that failed to institute some form of commmunal values would self destruct, tearing itself apart from within. So in light of that, social values that protect our neighbors can be viewed as a form of evolutionary morality. We see something similar in the Old Testament which says to treat your Hebrew neighbors like siblings. It bears mentioning that those rules allowed them to kill or enslave their non Hebrew neighbors. That looks suspiciously like survival of the fittest to me. Their social morals allowed them to protect their own gene pools while elimiting their rivals.

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ORIGINAL: BrutalAntipathy

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ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

Uhhh...no.  Your understanding of atheism sounds like something they teach about atheism in Sunday school.  My belief in atheism is not comparable to your belief in God, because your belief in God rests on faith, and my belief in atheism is my rational inference on the basis of observation.  I'm prepared to abandon my belief in atheism if further evidence warrants it.  You're not prepared to abandon your belief in God for any empirical reason whatsoever.

Look, wanna hear the best reason why "God created it" is a useless answer to the question of "Where did it come from?"

Who created God?

Very well said, LaM. I compare it between trust and faith. I trust that when I turn the ignition to my car, that it will start. I have no faith that it will start, drive, and park itself.
 
I trust that when I pet a cat, it will purr. I have no faith that the cat will bark or moo.
 
With all this, my trust can be violated. My vehicle might have a dead battery, for instance, keeping it from starting. But this only means that my trust is subject to modification, much like my lack of belief in a god or gods. This trust is based on observable evidence and experience, and does not rely upon faith, which I see as trust without supporting evidence, and even in the face of counter evidence. I see trust as reasonable, and faith as illogic at its worst.
 
And one other thing, atheism is NOT a belief. It is a LACK of belief. To say that I do not believe in ghosts is not the same as saying that I have a belief that there are no ghosts. Lack of belief is a negative value, and does not mean that a counter belief replaces it. It would be best to say that I hold the subject of gods to possess an absence of value.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ONaMISSION

However, you, sir, are a contradiction in that on the one hand you oppose religion in general (even though you say you cannot see that in your original post, I myself find it glaringly obvious)- I say, you are a contradiction because, on the one hand, you oppose religion in general as being irrational and for whatever other reasons you may believe. Yet, on the other hand, while still opposing religion, you yourself are in fact a deeply religious individual. By that I mean, that you hold a deep but irrational belief, which fact and reason do not support. you see, you believe that the source of things is NOT God, even though this is the explanation so far offered in the history of the world which actually stands scientific reason.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I don't believe in life after death but even if there is, I'd put money on us not finding out there either because if there is life after death we'd probably still be subject to the same physical laws of the universe there.