NOMA is Alive and Well in Ohio

In my Evolution Education group, I tend to suppress direct attacks on religion itself by those who support evolution because I, despite not myself beleiving in God, see the conclusion of atheism from acceptance of evolution as a non-sequitur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29

If A is true, then B is true.

B is stated to be true.

Therefore, A must be true.

Evolution does not by itself prove atheism to be true.

This is a very nice report Richard. Thank you.

I think the major problems in attempting to reconcile science and religion come from people’s insistence on maintaining their preconceptions of a deity (or deities), preconceptions which come from the attempts of people thousands of years ago to make sense of the world. The mere existence of thousands of sects (many of which are dead sure they are right and everyone else is wrong) should give one reason to be cautious in assuming the various “holy books” give all the answers about deities.

If someone is inclined to look for the hand of a deity of some sort behind this universe, they should at least be open to the possibility that, based on what we know from science today, the deity (or deities) may be nothing like those ancient notions.

On the other hand, atheism is logically untenable because it assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods. That’s a little too much hubris given our awareness of what we don’t know about the universe. We may not (and may never) be sufficiently evolved to recognize or understand the hand of a deity in the universe if, in fact, we really are a subset of a universe created by such a deity. We just don’t know what we will know in the future.

So I should think that some humility, curiosity, and a careful openness would be better than sectarian warfare and wars between science and religion.

However I also realize that there are many who will continue to insist that they have the Absolute Truth and will be willing to do whatever it takes to proselytize and keep their children from being exposed to “evil unbelievers”. Being nice or being tough with them makes no difference. Only secular laws and separation of church and state will keep them at bay for now.

If A is true, then B is true. B is stated to be true. Therefore, A must be true.

NOMA is wrong at least in these 2 cases:

Morality:

- science: studies it as a natural phenomenon (evolutionary origins, cognitive processes, animal behavior, game theory ..)

- religion: morality is not a natural phenomenon, without God there would be no morality, animals have no morals etc.

Mind/Soul:

- similar conflicts, religion requires "soul" to be independent of brain (because of afterlife and free will) and exclusive for humans, specially designed not evolved

NOMA is wrong at least in these 2 cases:

Morality:

- science: studies it as a natural phenomenon (evolutionary origins, cognitive processes, animal behavior, game theory ..)

- religion: morality is not a natural phenomenon, without God there would be no morality, animals have no morals etc.

Mind/Soul:

- similar conflicts, religion requires "soul" to be independent of brain (because of afterlife and free will) and exclusive for humans, specially designed not evolved

While NOMA may fail in certain cases, it does appear to be a useful tool for teaching high-school students (based on Richard's reported conversations with several teachers). It seems to me that, in the same way that most science is taught at the high-school level as established fact, NOMA can be used as an educational tool without requiring that unprepared immature minds delve into the finer details of the debate.

Whatever criticisms of NOMA you want to make, I agree that it serves just fine as an acceptable compromise. I'd heard the concept as a teenager; I think the idea has a fair amount of penetration in the US.

Drawing from the OP and my own experience, I think NOMA is most applicable in grade school education - which is a little below the level of mind/soul/morality debates anyway.

Creationist contortions to deal with astronomy and biology are increasingly ridiculous. Although the position that 'God waved his hand and just made it seem that way' is trite, at least it is consistent. You can even reconcile it with hardline positions wrt evolution's incompatibility with faith. I think one could be a perfectly competent scientist with such a belief system, although a person who dedicates their life to studying something they believe to be fabricated is a little weird.

Dave Thomas,

You confused "converse" with "contrapositive". A statement and its contrapositive are logically equivalent (in classical logic).

Statement: A => B
Converse: B => A (may have different truth value)
Contrapositive: ~B => ~A (always matches statement)
Inverse: ~A => ~B (always matches converse)

Mike Elzinga said

"On the other hand, atheism is logically untenable because it assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods."

Some Atheists may hold that position. Atheism itself merely says that theistic belief is 'untenable'. Atheism is the default position; going into a conversation where you have never heard of such a notion as theism, you are atheistic until such time your views are swayed into accepting a theistic belief.

Oddly, if there comes a day when it is determined that 'god(s)' exist and they have done "this, this, and this... (like create the known universe) we will come to know it by the only means possible to us, science.

Dave

I'm with Dave here. I'd argue that the rational position is to presume, as the default, that phenomena exist only when we have evidence supporting their existence. We could, if we wanted to waste the rest of our lives, sit down and list everything we could imagine that *might* exist, but for which no evidence has ever surfaced. Even at the very edge of science (for example, string theory) proposals are made, not always testable, in an effort to explain *genuine evidence* of some sort. This position of not trying to find an "explanation" for what nobody has ever noticed is taken so much for granted it doesn't even have a name.

Except for gods. There's no more evidence for gods than for an indetectible star wandering around our solar system, but we posit one (or more) anyway. And so the term "atheist" denotes a very particular special case - the failure to accept that gods, alone among everything unevidenced, don't exist. And this is NOT logically untenable or displaying excessive hubris. It's the same damn posture we take toward *everything* that doesn't exist as far as we now know.

The only alternative to atheism is Making Stuff Up, and THAT is logically untenable. Sorry.

Nigel D. says: "While NOMA may fail in certain cases, it does appear to be a useful tool for teaching high school students...."

That, right there, is the issue. If infidel michael choses to let his personal religious beliefs be influenced by evolution, he is perfectly free to do so. (For the record, I'm in accord with him on that.) But, it is not necessary for students-- or anyone-- to use evolution as a basis for their personal religious beliefs.

The real conflict does not come from science dictating the contents of religion-- but from far-right religious groups trying to dictate the contents of science.

The trouble with NOMA is that it is not about the real world. It purports to break up an unnecessary schoolyard brawl between science and religion, but doesn’t address religion as it is, only religion as some of us think it should be: a maker of statements about "values," non-testable non-quantifiables. In reality, some believers make all sorts of fact-claims that they consider fully religious that stomp all over the "magisterium," as Gould rather pompously termed it, of science: which is why Panda's Thumb is necessary. Any statement that there is not "really" any conflict between religion and science implies that Creationism is not, somehow, “really” religion. That may flatter some non-Creationist religionists, but Creationism _is_ religious by any scholarly or commonsense standard. And Creationism violates NOMA. NOMA is therefore prescriptive, not descriptive, and what it prescribes is the disappearance of NOMA-violating religious statements.

Which isn't going to happen. There’s nothing wrong with making prescriptions, but to confuse them with descriptions is almost the definition of wishful thinking. What does NOMA boil down to but the trivially true idea that things would be swell if Creationism would only go away?

Religion and science aren't going to retire to calmly segregated non-overlapping magisteria just because it would be nicer. We should accept that things are messy and are going to stay messy. NOMA is one possible accommodation that some religious believers and nonbelievers may wish to adopt for themselves, but in doing so, to avoid delusion, they must recognize that it does not apply to some actual forms of religion. NOMA-type beliefs are not neutral or above the fray: they plump for certain types of religion, types that some agnostics, like Gould, apparently view as harmless and some believers view as safe from scientific botheration. Such beliefs may have their uses as politic fictions, like the pretense that Texas can secede whenever it likes, but that's about it.

Sincerely,

Larry

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: 'Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science.'... "In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as 'miracle' -- operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.... "NOMA does impose this 'limitation' on concepts of God . . .."

Dave Thomas, You confused “converse” with “contrapositive”.

— One Brow

Why should Gould's demands be of any concern to you, FL?
Didn't you, yourself, allege that Intelligent Design, and your three-planks are/were non-religious in nature?

Or are you being inconsistent again?

I just read the review of the talk over at AIG then read Larry's comments above - he is exactly right - NOMA is logical, rational, legal etc - but a complete failure when dealing with creationists. Creationists' beliefs are not logical or rational. They believe that empirical scientific facts are LESS TRUE then their interpretation of the Bible. They believe that empirical data, facts learned through our senses or instruments have to be compared to the ONLY ULTIMATE TRUTH (God's Word) before accepted as true. Man's thoughts/ reasoning/ logic is less perfect therefore if data/observations/facts conflict with the Bible those facts are erroneous.

In addition Some of these people sincerely believe that secular laws do not apply to them when there is a conflict between "Man's law" and "God's LAW"- that is why they see no problem with trying to inject religion into the classroom - they think it is their duty to do so- in order to save souls as they were commanded to do by their faith- ultimately these people cannot be convinced to stop their illegal actions - they must be forced to stop. (This extremist belief system also creates situations that charlatans and crooks can take advantage of- Dr Dino et al)

Almost ironically, Larry Gilman and FL are raising exactly the same complaint about NOMA that was raised by Richard Dawkins. Creationism IS a religious doctrine, and it DOES make specific assertions flatly refuted by any possible rational understanding of reality. Period. There is no ambiguity. When religious doctrine comes straight out and says there's an elephant in the room, and no conceivable detection techniques can notice any trace of one, there's no easy reconciliation.

Now, as I understand it, the closest we can come (and FL's question seems to have been indeed raised and answered) is that most religions have creation tales, all of them fanciful and imaginative, all written for similar reasons (to place ourselves on the desired pedestal, to assuage natural curiosity, as implications of other aspects of a faith-system, etc.) One can (and most people do) understand these tales in their mythic contexts, much as we understand the purpose and nature of the Paul Bunyan tales. Nobody ever intended that these fables be read as literal natural history!

So Gould (and Gilman) are correct that anyone who perversely chooses to take as literal history the most obvious, flagrant and arrant fiction, deserves all the cognitavie dissonance they get. For the literalist, there really is an elephant in the room, and those blithely walking right through it are the irrational ones, not themselves!

NOMA is a special case of the compromise struck way back in old England and the Netherlands, when people decided to separate religion from the rest of life--so that they could get on with the rest of life. This type of separation is also more or less the civil religion of the USA, where theism is more or less the default position (despite the fact that it's the other way around empirically), but civil society is not supposed to be governed by religion.

What is more, "naturalism" itself exists primarily to suggest that there very well could be something beyond actual evidence, even though we have no reason to think so at all. "Naturalism" is supposed to tell theists that they can believe in the "supernatural" (the lack of anything but convention to tell us what the "supernatural" is tells us the 'real value' of that term), while they ought to follow science otherwise. This works for many theists.

The problem now is that such a naked fiction as "naturalism" is, can be used by the mendacious IDists to pretend that we're deliberately ignoring other "possibilities". Sorry, the supernatural "possibilities" aren't really possibilities (not epistemologically, certainly, and "ontology" is largely meaningless), and allowing that they 'may be' was the compromise that our sort made with relatively reasonable theists. I bring this up because it points out both the fact that NOMA has been useful in getting people to accept science (true for many many theists), and it has led to some theists taking all of the slack given them only to try to hang us with the fictions granted to them.

On the whole, though, I think we're stuck with NOMA for quite some time, like it or not. This is mainly because it accords so well with the fictions surrounding separation of church and state as it arose, wherein pious lip service to an increasingly-meaningless theism was poured on, while theisms' ill effects on cosmopolitan society were disposed of by getting theism out of most of society. Many people need it as a crutch, too, for they cannot leave religion behind, while they desire the benefits of secular science and of secular society.

One simply should not forget that the attacks on "naturalism" and "materialism"--both of which essentially mean nothing, while empirical evidence means everything--are also predicated on NOMA and its fictions that the "supernatural" might mean something. It's a two-edged sword, then, and we should tolerate it only so long as it helps people to deal with science and society.

If it comes to pass that at some time NOMA is used primarily to cut against science, as the IDiots attempt to do, then it ought to be abandoned.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

By “the liberal option,” do you mean reading sacred texts as metaphor rather than literal truth? For instance, liberal Christians don’t take the creation stories in Genesis as scientific fact. They read these stories more as poetry. Are you saying that option, for the most part, doesn’t exist for Muslims because the Quran is seen as a text that’s been handed down from God? It would be an overstatement to say that option does not exist, but it has a much weaker social position. Let me give an example. Here in the United States, the mainstream scientific community has a big problem with creationist movements and intelligent design. As scientists, one of our closest allies in trying to combat creationism is the liberal religious community. It’s much more effective to send somebody to a school board meeting who’s not a scientist but actually a priest or rabbi or minister in a more liberal denomination and to explain that they don’t see a conflict between teaching evolution and religion. But in the Muslim world, this is much more difficult because the public affinity toward creationism is much stronger. Darwinian thinking really hasn’t penetrated the popular discourse. Plus, it’s very hard for scientists who work in Muslim countries to find liberal religious figures who would go out there and publicly say Darwinian evolution is not a problem for Islam.

So we have "god of the gaps" and now you are promoting that we need a soft landing pad for those that are completely and (obviously) insanely confused about reality. I am beginning to appreciate Dawkin's notion that these parents are abusing their children. We are allowing people who are clearly irrational to be responsible to children?

You suggest that we offer a nice little soft pillow of transitional irrationality? This smacks of the treatment to calm the insane in an institution.

This does not seem to me to be the right solution.

Personally, I think Gould's NOMA was ill-conceived since science truly does have much to say about religious notions like gods and prayer, while, as the DI(Discovery Institute or Dembski's Imagination) well-demonstrates, religions often view themselves as qualified to assign their own truth values to scientific claims based on the religion's doctrine while, like Dembski and company, they disregard or intentionally misrepresent the science.

Clearly, if there exists some god which alters the natural course of events in response to prayers, as the religious claim, the effects of those alterations must be measurable; otherwise, the prayer is doing nothing. Answered prayer, then, is a claim testable through standard scientific techniques. So, some religious claims definitely overlap with science, meaning Gould's NOMA, while it may balm the psychological sore spots of the religious, does not accurately reflect the relationship between science and religion.

There may well be NOMA in the realms of human experience, but the mutually exclusive inhabitants on the opposite sides of the divide are not religion and science. The dichotomy might be better characterized as reality/non-reality.

Science seeks to keep itself in the reality camp by using the natural world as its standard and freely making adjustments to its ideas as better approximations of what is the true state of that natural world come along.

Religion, by contrast, starts with some body of ideas arrived at through tradition, authority or revelation, and they seek to defend those ideas by selecting from either side of the reality/non-reality divide anything that supports their position. From the reality side they might choose humanitarian aid as evidence that their doctrines make them more moral, loving or compassionate. From the non-reality side they might embrace the solipsistic notion of "chosen people." What's more, the religionist's ignorance of reality is all too often claimed as belonging to the unreal, as can be seen when real-world coincidences or medical misdiagnoses are held up as otherworldly miracles. Since, for their purposes, they don't need to discipline themselves to stay anywhere near reality, they lack any sort of objective standard that would make them appear rational, logically consistent, or even coherent.

We all, non-religious and religious alike, live in the one and only reality there is. Sure we each have distinct life circumstances resulting from the influences of our cultures, education, knowledge, and experiences, but beyond that subjective self, lie as set of commonalities shared by all. This shared reality has paradoxes, questions, conundrums, puzzles, riddles, enigmas and mysteries enough to last anyone a lifetime, and we are each free to explore them through whatever means we have at our disposals. Science chooses both its course of inquiry as well as its set of allowable explanations from reality, whereas religion is a complete catch-as-catch-can fabric having bits of reality interwoven with the entirely imaginary. With reality as its foundation, science regularly produces reliable results useful for all mankind, while religions, having no such solid footing, make only unsupported claims which they further claim will benefit only their own adherents.

If Gould's notion of NOMA is the permission slip signature granting science students access to the magnificent ideas embodying evolution, then I'd have to acquiesce to its use, but while it may function as an implement of conciliation for those warring over evolution, it does not represent the actual state of the science-religion relationship.

Try thinking of NOMA as an "ought", not an "is".

Glen Davidson said: "...however bad creationism is in the US, it is much worse in the Muslim world..."

If a teacher in Sudan can get 40 lashes (the possibility of execution was mentioned) for letting her elementary school class name a teddy bear "Mohammed," imagine what might happen to anybody denying creationism. As a matter of fact, the Christian Reconstructionists and Theocratic Dominionists want the same thing here.

Richard B. Hoppe said: "Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God was very useful in the skirmish in the local district four years ago, particularly with school board members, and I anticipate that Collins’ The Language of God will be even more useful should another such skirmish arise."

these books do not contain sound logical reasoning. they make the same exact errors of reasoning that IDers and creationists make, they just apply them to different premises. IDers claim biochemistry is too complex to have evolved, so there must be a creator. francis collins claims that morality could not have evolved, so there must be a creator. is this really what we want to use to teach people?

these kinds of books are just band-aids, rather than fixing the actual problem. 50 or 100 years down the line, religious people may accept evolution because of them, but then they will be demanding that their "alternative theories" on the origins of morality be taught alongside the scientific explanations that are sure to come.

if you want to fix the problem, you should stop offering these short-term compromises and attack the source of the problem - faith itself.

FL: We studied Gould's book for one semester. The most interesting part of the book, is where Gould demands total surrender from Christians:

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: 'Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science.'... "In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as 'miracle' -- operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.... "NOMA does impose this 'limitation' on concepts of God . . .."

Notice: Gould is laying down a total demand to abandon the historicity of any and all historical miracle claims period. That, of course, wipes out Chrstianity. No wiggle room. Finito. So here's my question. Did anybody bring up Gould's surrender demand at the symposium? And if so, what were the responses given? FL

Dale, FL raises a valid point. christians cannot promote NOMA while simultaneously maintain that 2000 years ago a man literally rose from the dead and will welcome you into heaven when you die if only you accept this as historical fact. taking the gospel stories as literal truth is just as absurd as taking genesis as literal truth, and it is just as encroaching upon the domain of science if you want to stick to NOMA. under NOMA, only science can evaluate the events of history, including events in galilee 2000 years ago.

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: ‘Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science.’… “In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as ‘miracle’ – operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat…. “NOMA does impose this ‘limitation’ on concepts of God ….”

perspective: vast majority of Americans are not the extrmist wacky "christians" that are pushing creationism - for them NOMA works just fine.

Side note for Snex: I believe you have characterized NOMA's position WRT Christianity, perfectly and succinctly.

Sincere Thanks. FL

I’m with Dave here. I’d argue that the rational position is to presume, as the default, that phenomena exist only when we have evidence supporting their existence. We could, if we wanted to waste the rest of our lives, sit down and list everything we could imagine that *might* exist, but for which no evidence has ever surfaced. Even at the very edge of science (for example, string theory) proposals are made, not always testable, in an effort to explain *genuine evidence* of some sort. This position of not trying to find an “explanation” for what nobody has ever noticed is taken so much for granted it doesn’t even have a name. Except for gods. There’s no more evidence for gods than for an indetectible star wandering around our solar system, but we posit one (or more) anyway. And so the term “atheist” denotes a very particular special case - the failure to accept that gods, alone among everything unevidenced, don’t exist. And this is NOT logically untenable or displaying excessive hubris. It’s the same damn posture we take toward *everything* that doesn’t exist as far as we now know. The only alternative to atheism is Making Stuff Up, and THAT is logically untenable. Sorry.

Among other things, FL, you have repeatedly stated that Intelligent Design is allegedly irreligious. I repeat, why would you care about NOMA if ID is irreligious as you have repeatedly claimed? On the other hand, of course, it could have been that you were lying all this time and ID really is religious in nature.

Furthermore, FL, my relationship with God is my own business, and nobody else's. I will not allow other people, be they living, dead, or undead interfere with my relationship with God, nor will I allow people to set up roadblocks to my attempt to understand life as I see it. I can not fathom why people, including you, FL, continually make inferences both subtle and unsubtle that I can not be allowed to simultaneously accept Our Lord Jesus Christ as my savior, AND contemplate what ground sloths, trilobites, and placoderms were like when they were alive, knowing that the last two groups died out millions of years before the nummulites used to form the limestone the Pyramids and Sphinx of Giza had appeared. I would ask you why these people want to forbid me from thinking like this, but, I know that you're going to either 1) lie to me again, 2) make a big song and dance number in order to evade answering it, or 3) A combination of both.

(2) For Stanton: do you agree or disagree that this NOMA demand effectively calls for abandoning belief in the historicity of all Biblical miracle claims, thus eliminating Christianity?

When considering the NOMA concept, it is important to be cognizant of the position of the observer (scientist or theologian). When working as a scientist, it is absolutely essential that NOMA be firmly established. The scientist is restricted to observable, measurable phenomena. Previous postings to the contrary, I see no errors in NOMA from the perspective of the scientist.

The problems with and criticisms of NOMA seem to have their origin in theology. By proscribing some domain that is not available to theology, NOMA is interpreted by some theologians as excluding God from part of the world. This exclusion or proscription offends those theologians as a direct attack on their deity and their central beliefs. In addition many scientist-believers find NOMA offensive, but every objection I have heard is with respect to the restrictions on theology, not the limits on science.

I see NOMA as essential for scientists and as reasonable and practical advice for theologians.

With respect to Dick's teachers, when they teach science, they must adhere to NOMA. When his teachers work in philosophy or the humanities, they will be more circumspect and flexible.

There's a nice piece in the Dec. 6 2007 NY Review of Books about W.H. Auden's christianity, which he interpreted as, simply, that which emphasizes "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". Everything else, in Auden's view, was "pompous metaphysics". Religion that is given and commanded to some people, but not to others, he regarded as frivolous.

Auden's christianity, which did not hold with the Platonic doctrine of an immortal soul, nor with the resurrection, nor with miracles that violate the laws of physics, is a heresy, of course. And it's not clear to me why "christianity" is even necessary to the commandment of loving thy neighbor as thyself. (I think that this can be derived from a humanistic sense of biophilia, for instance.)

Nevertheless, there are many self-identified christians who take Auden's stance. And this specifically moral interpretation is in fact completely non-overlapping with the scientific enterprise.

Mike:

The distinction-without-a-difference between atheism and agnosticism has always confused me. I just don't see it. These words mean, unwillingness to believe anything for which no evidence exists. Am I an atheist, or an agnostic, in not believing there's an undetectible star wandering around our solar system? Perhaps the distinction in most peoples' minds is, the atheist rejects what doesn't exist until evidence suggests otherwise, while the agnostic simply fails to accept what doesn't exist pending evidence? This is a very fine line to walk.

But I think I understand your underlying concern: People are pattern-finders, from seeing faces in clouds to projecting human-type intent onto weather patterns. We wish to "find" some ulterior motivation for all that happens. I think it requires special training, applied diligently, to set aside the natural human teleological orientation toward the Great Outside World. People are just simply not satisfied when critically important events in their lives are explained away as unguided, coincidental results of interacting dynamic sets of contingencies. People seem to just HATE living in a chaotic, probabilistic world.

Whimsical, unknowable gods "solve" this angst, by repositioning it into a world of intentions and motivations and purposes we all live with and live by. Yeah, it's total nonsense, but I agree it's the worldview we have to deal with. Saying "that's just stupid" is going to be less appealing than saying "this may be correct, but there may also be alternatives." But this is a tactical, rather than a logical, consideration. This tactic recognizes that for the most part, people ALREADY live largely in a world of make-believe. We gotta play it where it lies.

FL:
(Stanton pls forgive me for addressing a question directed at you)

1) I wasn't at the symposium - but the notes of the original post seem to address this issue - but I don't think NOMA means what you think it means - which leads to ...

2) Gould was saying not that you have to surrender your beliefs - (he didn't even say that miracles didn't happen) but that a scientist cannot invoke miraculous explanations - miracles are outside of the realm of science - scientists must work AS IF miracles don't exist otherwise the results of science will not be verifiable, falsifiable, testable, repeatable (aka scientific)

So we have “god of the gaps” and now you are promoting that we need a soft landing pad for those that are completely and (obviously) insanely confused about reality. I am beginning to appreciate Dawkin’s notion that these parents are abusing their children. We are allowing people who are clearly irrational to be responsible to children? You suggest that we offer a nice little soft pillow of transitional irrationality? This smacks of the treatment to calm the insane in an institution. This does not seem to me to be the right solution.

if you want to fix the problem, you should stop offering these short-term compromises and attack the source of the problem - faith itself.

Here are two plain and simple questions. (1) Did the panelists discuss this at the symposium itself?

Nevertheless, there are many self-identified christians who take Auden’s stance. And this specifically moral interpretation is in fact completely non-overlapping with the scientific enterprise.

I have heard it said (not sure of the source) that all religions have two parts: a code of behavior, and a cosmology that provides a rationale for that code of behavior. Unfortunately, I find it possible for science to disagree with both these parts. It would be nice if religion would "behave itself" from a NOMA perspective and take its cosmology as metaphor, but this is not likely to happen anytime soon. As for the code of conduct, a religion that claims that it is moral to support the death penalty while it opposes abortion and birth control, or that sees sex as only for procreation and not for binding two people together, or that seeks to overpopulate the earth or affect foreign policy in order to hasten the Second Coming, can be seen from a scientific or rational perspective to be behaving irrationally and in a harmful manner.

Criticizing NOMA in minute detail misses the point. People arn't going to read the book. The principle that "Science has its sphere and so does religion" is the important part. Where that line lies is debatable, but it's better to accept a compromise and get on with life.

The creationists and the power-hungry always try to frame these arguments in absolute terms: evolution = atheist = you're going to hell. They argue identity and to some degree ethnicity. Anything that weakens these absolutist arguments is a huge plus for science and for education.

Since religion is essentially fiction, of course it can be re-written (adapted) to suit whatever reality science uncovers. If science and religion do indeed occupy separate "Magisteria," they can only be labeled "truth" and "make believe." Separate but not equal.

Flint,

We're in agreement: NOMA doesn't really work unless religion is strictly about questions of morality. Which it rarely, if ever, is.

I'm a firm proponent of NOMA, and I'm encouraged to see others feel the same way about it as I. To be honest, I really see no way around it that is consistent with the philosophy of science. NOMA simply says 'let science be science', free of whatever metaphysical baggage some would have it address. This applies to those who would use science to infer the existence of God, and equally well for those who would use to science to say there is no God (i.e., mistaking science for scientism).
With this in mind, I would agree 100% with Dale that the rejection of the supernatural does not extend logically from science. It IS a non-sequitur; Science can only see what its eyes were made to detect. Some will no doubt take offense to this (vehement creationists and atheists alike), but the inherent limitations of science (which NOMA recognizes) demand it. People are free to believe what they will regarding the existence of the supernatural, but let's face it: without being able to invoke a scientific framework in answer to such questions, one position is no better supported than the other.

The distinction-without-a-difference between atheism and agnosticism has always confused me. I just don’t see it.

P.S. to my reply to Flint.

I agree that the there is a tactical part to be played when it comes to the issue that science doesn’t support our historical notions of deities. This is the issue that the biblical literalists fear the most; if the scientific evidence is correct, biblical literalists know nothing of deities. That takes them out of the running for the top positions of authority they so desperately crave.

Mike,

I guess I'm not familiar with what you're calling "hard atheism", which sounds to me like a positive claim absent any supporting evidence. But I agree, we do not know what (or how much) we do not know. Claims of Absolute Truth are religious.

But you still raise confusing distinctions, which probably arise from the fact that "gods" are essentially undefined - or self-contradictory, which amounts to the same thing. Presume for the sake of discussion that "gods" DO exist in ways that can be tested, observed, and measured. How would they be distinguishable from, say, aliens with unimaginably advanced technology? If those aliens are not "gods", then what ARE gods?

Alternatively, let's say I can arbitrarily assign you superhuman abilities. Is the comicbook Superman a god? How about if we eliminate his weakness to kryptonite? Now? Let's give him mind-reading powers. Now? How about weather-control abilities? What DO we give him, where we might all agree he has crossed the line from extraordinarly gifted alien, to lower-class god?

I guess I'd say that "true gods" are inherently not detectable in any possible way, on the grounds that if they WERE detectable, they wouldn't be gods. The philosphy gets murky when we start Making Stuff Up.

Maybe we're defining magic as something that has not yet been explained, rather than as something that cannot in principle be explained? The agnostic holds out hope that someday an explanation can be supported by the evidence? But in that case, it was never magic to begin with. So the atheist regards the Believer as wrong, while the agnostic regards him as ignorant and confused?

infidel_michael writes:

" NOMA is wrong at least in these 2 cases: Morality: - science: studies it as a natural phenomenon (evolutionary origins, cognitive processes, animal behavior, game theory ..)"

However, what science doesn't study is the actual content of morality, namely, what is moral and immoral, which is what philosophy and religion do look at. Crude cartoons of ideas make appealing targets, but we should no more welcome it among us evilutionists than we do when we see the cdesign proponentsists using it.

However, what science doesn’t study is the actual content of morality, namely, what is moral and immoral, which is what philosophy and religion do look at.

Jordan: I would agree 100% with Dale that the rejection of the supernatural does not extend logically from science. It IS a non-sequitur; Science can only see what its eyes were made to detect.

mike, the term "agnosticism" was coined with the very meaning you dont like. sorry, but thats what the word means. and "atheism" simply means "without god belief." how many times do atheists and agnostics have to define their own positions before you stop telling them what the words they use for themselves mean?

Presume for the sake of discussion that “gods” DO exist in ways that can be tested, observed, and measured. How would they be distinguishable from, say, aliens with unimaginably advanced technology? If those aliens are not “gods”, then what ARE gods?

FL:

IMO, acceptance of NOMA doesn't require the elimination of christianity, which at its core only requires that you believe that Jesus died for you and you will receive eternal salvation if you believe in him. No-one observed Jesus' dead physical body actually coming back to life after his death; his disciples were visited by an apparition which was so transformed they at first did not recognize him. Its only bloody-minded biblical literalism which is incompatible with NOMA.

Its only bloody-minded biblical literalism which is incompatible with NOMA.

kycobb, how do you know that "eternal salvation" exists? if it does in fact exist, then it is science's job to discuss it, not religion's.

how do you know that “eternal salvation” exists? if it does in fact exist, then it is science’s job to discuss it

snex: mike, the term "agnosticism" was coined with the very meaning you dont like. sorry, but thats what the word means. and "atheism" simply means "without god belief." how many times do atheists and agnostics have to define their own positions before you stop telling them what the words they use for themselves mean?

snex: kycobb, how do you know that "eternal salvation" exists? if it does in fact exist, then it is science's job to discuss it, not religion's.

flint said: "But in that case, science must come up with some useful, operational definition of what “eternal salvation” MEANS. But I don’t think you’ll have much luck coming up with any mutually agreeable definition of either eternity or salvation. And without any operational definition, how can you even begin to construct a test?"

if you cant construct such a test, you drop the subject until you can. that doesnt mean religion gets to come in and pick at the scraps. claims about what exists are always science's domain, and under NOMA, religion NEVER gets to touch them, no matter how poorly science can address them.

for mike:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism

both contain the definitions im referring to, and since those are the definitions used by people who refer to themselves with the words, those are the definitions you should use.

jordan said: "Why? How? “Salvation” from “sin” doesn’t exactly fall within the realm of science."

if a god exists, then it is science's job to discover that, not religion's.
if that god tells us that it will punish us for certain behaviors, then it is science's job to discover those behaviors and the punishment, not religion's.
if we exist after death, then it is science's job to discover this, not religion's.

under NOMA, religion is not in the business of telling us what IS, ONLY science can do so.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism… both contain the definitions im referring to, and since those are the definitions used by people who refer to themselves with the words, those are the definitions you should use.

snex: under NOMA, religion is not in the business of telling us what IS, ONLY science can do so.

snex:

Permit me to disagree. Religion has made up a bunch of terms whose meaning derives *entirely* from the arbitrary cosmology of that particular faith. Outside that context, these words have no meaning whatsoever. Words like "god" and "salvation" and "sin" and "angels" and "heaven" and so on are embedded in, and derive ALL of their meaning from, an imaginary construction. Science can't try to extract them and "test" them, anymore than science can determine without context how large something must be to qualify as "big".

Maybe my Merriam-Webster Dictionary is using “non-standard” definitions, and I probably have read too many philosophers.

... “atheism” makes a hard claim that no deity exists.

the doctrine that there is no deity

jordan said: "Under NOMA, science is in the business of telling us what PHYSICALLY is. Religion addresses the metaphysical."

flint said: "Permit me to disagree. Religion has made up a bunch of terms whose meaning derives *entirely* from the arbitrary cosmology of that particular faith. Outside that context, these words have no meaning whatsoever. Words like “god” and “salvation” and “sin” and “angels” and “heaven” and so on are embedded in, and derive ALL of their meaning from, an imaginary construction. Science can’t try to extract them and “test” them, anymore than science can determine without context how large something must be to qualify as “big”."

whether or not the universe was created by an intelligent being is a matter of what physically exists. either intelligent universe creators exist or they do not exist. whether or not we survive our own deaths is again a matter of what *actually* happens in reality. either we survive our own deaths or we do not. science is how we learn about what *actually* happens in reality. if science cannot address the issue, then religion does not get a free pass to move in. that is explicitly against the concept of NOMA.

Flint said:

"I agree one cannot accept NOMA and “the historicity of all Biblical miracle claims” at the same time. One MUST understand that the biblical myths, tales, and fables are NOT historical claims. If one cannot understand this, one is simply not making a good-faith effort!"

There is a difference between miracle claims and other "myths, tales, and fables" in the bible. Miracle claims, by definition, are suspensions of natural law (I think Glen Davidson also pointed that out above) and therefore cannot, even in principle, be subjected to scientific tests. Either you believe or you don't.

But as for other "myths, tales, and fables" in the bible, some are based on fact, some aren't, many are undoubtedly exaggerations of actual events. They can all be studied as possible history-- IF one gives up the demand for biblical literalism.

Biblical literalism not only wreaks havok with any scientific findings that run afoul of it. It also makes any attempt at real biblical historical analysis impossible. It is irrational in every possible way. Under the yoke of biblical literalism, one cannot even study the bible effectively as a work of theology, because in fact, the bible is full of contradictions. The entire exercise becomes either a frustrating attempt to explain away contradictions, or limiting the readings to a few, selected verses at a time, so that the contradictions aren't apparent.

There is no question biblical literalism is inherently opposed to science. But it hasn't done history or even theology any favors, either.

if science cannot address the issue, then religion does not get a free pass to move in. that is explicitly against the concept of NOMA.

Mike Elzinga, Flint,

The concepts of atheism and agnosticism are, for many, one and the same idea, but in order to have a coherent conversation about them, especially in philosophy, it is essential to give them exact working definitions to be certain all interlocutors are on the same page.

The most common definitions among the philosophy set stem directly from the roots of each word.

Theists are those who hold the belief that a diety of some sort exists; atheists are simply those who do not hold that belief. Note that anyone who does not make the claim of being a theist is by default an atheist. As pointed out, some atheists go beyond the simple definitional of atheism to assert that no god exists. I am one such person.

Agnostic comes from the Greek root gnosis meaning knowledge. A-gnosis, or agnosticism then means that one thinks there exists insufficient knowledge whereby to arrive a definite conclusion. Realize that if a person uses agnosticism to avoid taking sides they have, by not asserting their theism, fallen into the atheist camp. If you do not assert your belief in Thor, you are atheistic with respect to Thor. Theism and gnosis deal with the distinct arenas: one, belief in dieties, the other, knowledge.

Most important for actually discussing the issues with people is clearly defining the terms. In fora such as this, you can easily have people simply talking past each other since they are using different definitions.

I have two brothers each of whom has a PhD in the Philosophy of Religion, both of whom are atheists, and both of whom are full professors of philosophy at universities here in the US. They stress the necessity of defining working definitions and forcing each other to stick to them.

One of the major difficulties they point out in trying to discuss religion with most people is that, though most are theists, almost none has anywhere near a clear conception or definition of their own religion or their own god. We discussed this very topic over our recent Thanksgiving dinner. Is your god an interventionist, that is, does it do stuff like answer prayer that could be detected? Does your god send people to hell? Isn't a god that sends one to hell different than a very similar one that does not? Does that make Christianity polytheistic? It sounds like a lot of work to do before you start your discussion, but not doing it could make the whole endeavor a complete waste of time.

Even among the dogma-hammering Catholics, what constitutes god or Catholicism is vague and ill-defined at best and quite hysterical at its laughable worst. People often spend years of their lives in church and talking about and thinking about their Christian, or Baptist or Methodist beliefs, and they really know little about it except perhaps a few lines of catechism. When talking to these people, those definitions will be hard fought.

Clearly, when one claims to be a theist, the fun is just beginning. Before you've defined your religion or agreed on a working definition of god, one of you are likely to be on your deathbed.

The primary sense from the non-archaic definition from www.m-w.com is that atheism is “a disbelief in the existence of deity

There is a difference between miracle claims and other “myths, tales, and fables” in the bible.

I’d argue that the rational position is to presume, as the default, that phenomena exist only when we have evidence supporting their existence.

Agnosticism makes a somewhat softer claim that no deity has been detected but it doesn’t rule out unexpected future possibilities for detection.

Flint: We're not communicating here. Yes, of course, if something is (a) in principle testable; and (b) sufficiently well-defined to be amenable to test, then this is the proper domain of science. But "salvation" is neither definable nor testable in principle. It has no meaning. So religion is free to make any claims it wishes, since the word has no referent. But it's not legitimate to take a word different religious sects bitterly disagree about, which is because their cosmologies differ, and try to extract it, assign it a NEW meaning not compatible with any existing religious meaning, and then propose to test it scientifically. Consider the claim that reality as we know it is being continuously choreographed by entities undetectable in principle within our frame of reference. Can this claim be tested? Can it even be assigned meaningful semantic content? Or is it just the sort of content-free noise at which religions excel? Science can NEVER determine how many angels can dance on a pinhead.

snex: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism both contain the definitions im referring to, and since those are the definitions used by people who refer to themselves with the words, those are the definitions you should use.

Russ:

My claim here is that it's a rational default position to presume, pending evidence otherwise, that whatever is NOT evidenced, does not exist. Call this what you want. However, I've gone further and said that "the supernatural" is a term that cannot in principle refer to anything, because anything that exists is by definition natural. So "supernatural" refers to the unknown if it something exists, or to the imaginary if it does not.

“salvation” is definable. christians, for example, define it as going to heaven as opposed to hell. heaven and hell are defined as states of being that one experiences after one dies. since “states of being,” “experiences,” and “afterlife” are all concepts that we can in principle define, “salvation” is a well-defined concept. so far, we cannot test it though. it is well-defined but untestable

flint, you are being silly. we all know what an "intelligent being" is and we all know what it would mean for one to "create a universe." we dont need all of the details filled in to understand these 2 concepts. both of these concepts are definable in strictly naturalistic terms. and whether these concepts apply to the reality we inhabit is a matter of that reality, and therefore within the domain of science. no matter how powerless science may be at approaching them, they are still within its domain, and if you want to adhere to NOMA, religion needs to keep out. religion under NOMA is strictly prescriptive. it cannot tell us whether or not the universe was created by an intelligent being. it should not even be discussing the matter.

Flint,

My comment was simply informational. I thought it useful to emphasize the importance of agreeing on definitions before trying to discuss these issues, especially if one expects to be able to build arguments.

Regarding the supernaturalism and the rational default position, I agree with you completely.

FL excommunicating the majority of the world's Xians: 2) For Stanton: do you agree or disagree that this NOMA demand effectively calls for abandoning belief in the historicity of all Biblical miracle claims, thus eliminating Christianity?

As someone who has spent a lot of time detecting and measuring things in the physical world, I wouldn’t waste time attempting to detect something that is defined as being undetectable. That just seems like common sense.

If supernatural means undetectable (because it is beyond any natural means of detection), then detecting and characterizing something defined as supernatural is futile.

There is a long history of people believing that humans are in some sense deity detectors. If that is the case, and deities are defined as supernatural, what is the real distinction between natural and supernatural?

There is also a long history of holy wars among deity detectors, and there are literally thousands of groups of deity detectors existing today. That would suggest a few things: (1) deity detectors are notoriously unreliable and unfocused; (2) deity detectors are not sufficiently sensitive to deities and are simply detecting a lot internal of human noise, (3) there are thousands of deities, or (4) there are no deities, just noise.

There are other questions that come up. Is “religion” primarily about deity detection, or is it instead primarily about how humans understand their relationship to the universe and to each other? If it is about the former, science isn’t of much help and, in fact, suggests that historical concepts about deities are not supported by the evidence. If it is about the latter part of the question, science can help a great deal.

It seems to me that dealing with the latter question would be more fruitful in communicating with the public than attempting to shore up sectarian dogma about a specific deity.

But this is from a detector operating in the physical world (as far as I know).

raven: It is not like anyone has a time machine so who can prove anything 2,000 years later, one way or another?

Dale H: Exactly. There is plenty of room for religious belief in the normal course of human affairs. It’s only when religions make specific claims about the natural world that science can examine that the conflict between science and religion arises. The mature thing to do in that case is to simply let go of the religious myths and deal directly with the scientific facts. You’d be dishonest to do otherwise and that dishonesty, not evolution or even atheism, is the greatest enemy of religion in the modern age.

IMO, acceptance of NOMA doesn’t require the elimination of christianity, which at its core only requires that you believe that Jesus died for you and you will receive eternal salvation if you believe in him. No-one observed Jesus’ dead physical body actually coming back to life after his death; his disciples were visited by an apparition which was so transformed they at first did not recognize him.

Romans 4:25 (Jesus) was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

1 Cor. 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

Dan Dennett in his recent Breaking the Spell makes the salient point that it's only in modern "organized" religion that profession of belief is important at all. Members of "folk" religions don't go around propping up their beliefs with any analogue of theological niceties --because they actually believe. They'd bet their life on the existence of the supernatural elements of their worldview, every single time. Actions speak louder than words, they say.

Only in a climate of "ambient doubt" (his phrase) do we see the importance of constantly proclaiming belief. In the modern world I think we're seeing a culture of near-universal "don't ask, don't tell" agnosticism, where essentially nobody actually believes the doctrines of their "faith." (Certainly, most religionists cannot clearly articulate said doctrines, so it's legitimate to ask if someone can truly believe something they don't understand.) Theology, in this view, is institutionalized whistling past the graveyard.

Snex: and yet you think you can tell us what happened 4.5 billion years ago? how about a little consistency please?

raven, what does science tell us about whether or not dead human bodies can get up and start walking around 3 days later?

Something that happened to the universe 13 billion years ago or the entire Earth 4.5 billion years ago can be expected to leave measurable evidence. Something that happened to one man or a loaf of bread 2000 years ago cannot be expected to leave measurable evidence (given our current state of technology).

snex said: raven, what does science tell us about whether or not dead human bodies can get up and start walking around 3 days later?

raven, i could tell you the same story happened just yesterday to a friend of mine (who just happened to be an avatar of thor, not a "real" person.) and what could you do to disprove it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! so lets all invent stupid shit and call it real. is that how it works now?

snex: raven, what does science tell us about whether or not dead human bodies can get up and start walking around 3 days later?

clicked too soon....

no, thats not how it works. these events, if they did in fact happen, happened IN THE NATURAL WORLD. since science is how we determine what events happen/happened IN THE NATURAL WORLD, religion gets NO say in the matter. religion needs to keep quiet and not make up such tales.

snex said: raven, what does science tell us about whether or not dead human bodies can get up and start walking around 3 days later?

After all, if Jesus did NOT rise from the dead as the Bible clearly claims he did, he must still be plain ole DEAD MEAT right now, just like everybody else in the cemetery.

snex said: clicked too soon…. no, thats not how it works. these events, if they did in fact happen, happened IN THE NATURAL WORLD. since science is how we determine what events happen/happened IN THE NATURAL WORLD, religion gets NO say in the matter. religion needs to keep quiet and not make up such tales.

Flint--I don't know if Paul Bunyan tales are based on a real person or not. Winston Churchill was definitely real, but he's credited with saying a lot of stuff he never did. An historian working on Churchill's era has to sift through fact and legend to figure out what really happened.

It gets a lot worse, of course, if you're dealing with very ancient materials. But that doesn't mean everything in the bible is as mythical as the first chapter of Genesis. Mainstream, respected Middle Eastern archaeologists think King Solomon was a real person, for instance.

The trouble is, if a scholar is tied to biblical literalism, he can't sift through the evidence. He can't say, "the fall of Jerico was an actual, historical event, but geological evidence indicates it occurred 200 years before the biblical chronology says it did. So a folk legend of the event probably got inserted into later, written accounts." That is the kind of evidence scholars working with very early materials end up with. It's a difficult field, and people working in it have to put up with a lot of unsolved riddles, but it's no more 'just myth' than the history of WWII-- except for people who accept biblical literalism.

I think your view of the bible is wrong-- but I think it's wrong because you're letting the biblical literalists set the agenda. A world-wide flood is obviously a myth. Was the story of Noah based on a real flood? Maybe. But you can't even ask the question, was Noah's flood a real event that later got mythologized, until you unhook from the biblical literalists. So what could be seen as an interesting and valuable collection of ancient texts--some describing historical events, some pure myth, some (e.g., The Book of Job) never intended to be taken as fact-- becomes essentially a stupid joke book.

Worse, the mental contortion biblical literalists go through to defend literalism in the face of blatant contradictions in the bible is exactly the argument style they use to push creationism. The essential technique is to talk around in circles until your opponent doesn't know which way is up. (But if, instead, your opponent catches every single lie, tell everyone what an angry person he is, and then declare victory as soon as his back is turned.) You can look at FL and see what it does to believers' minds.

Refusing to let the biblical literalists set the agenda in the debate is, I think, one of the things that might make more moderate Christians wake up and realize what is going on in America-- and beginning in other parts of the world. People who thought they were good Christians because they tried to follow the teachings of Jesus are being told they're atheists who will burn in Hell. Many of them find this disturbing.

Literalism is truly toxic stuff, and refusing to accept its cartoon-character version of the bible may be one of the ways it can be attacked. Otherwise I wouldn't care. If very ancient history isn't your thing, that's fine. But getting sucked into the trick question, "is the bible the literal word of god or just a myth?" is handing the creationists ammunition they don't need.

hoary:

You may have misunderstood, I'm not sure. I think there's no question that a lot of the OT is historically accurate, a lot of it is sheer fable crafted for political purposes, and a lot of it is something that crystallized around some real event, and they just kind of growed.

And that's why I tried to compare to Paul Bunyan - some aspects of the tales are surely grounded in real history and locale. Some aspects are as fanciful as Noah. Perhaps some of the various characters and events are almost unrecognizable exaggerations of real ones.

(As for the dating problem, you might enjoy reading David Rohl's proposal for, and reasons for, redating much of the OT. If you are persuaded by his analysis of Egyptian history, then as he points out, a great deal of "this archaeological find would match the OT if only it happened 200 years later" suddenly line up with impressive consistency.)

Anyway, this is why I wrote at some length about how we read novels. There's no soul-searching about what parts are fiction (usually, lead characters) and what parts are historical (usually settings, background events, known historical figures). Sometimes a reader who hasn't studied the time and place might not be entirely sure whether a particular person, event, or location is invented.

And so I think there is far more reason to think Jesus didn't exist than that he did. After all, his life story is *immediately* derived from mythical characters well known at the time, so if there was a real person on which the Jesus tales are hung, that person is so dwarfed by the outfit he basically disappears.

But this doesn't mean Jesus is useless, anymore than any great fiction is useless. Jesus is a fine vehicle for teaching moral lessons of all sorts, and for multiple other useful church purposes. I myself consider living by teachings attributed to the Jesus character to be mostly quite functional and beneficial. I certainly don't need to be tricked into thinking Jesus was a real, physical person to consider this.

And I agree mindless literalism is toxic. I'm reminded of the effort to teach chimps to drive cars. They were superb skilled drivers on tracks and other courses, but the notion of exercising judgment simply couldn't be taught. To the chimp, green MEANS go. Put a brick wall in front of them, turn the light green, and they slam into the wall! They could not learn that green means that you MAY go, not that you MUST go.

And FL illustrates what happens when one is psychologically incapable of exercising judgment in interpretation. For him, either *everything* in this novel is true, or *none* of it is true, which absolves him of deciding what Churchill really said and what was only attributed to him because he was well-known. Problem is, when tales are obviously, wildly fictional and literal interpretations are idiotically nonsensical, he has *no choice* but to be a senseless idiot.

Basically, if we disagree on anything, I can't find it.

raven, you cant pay lip service to NOMA and at the same time allow religious people to make claims about events that allegedly happened in the natural world when those events are diametrically opposed to the way science has shown us that the world actually works. if we are to respect NOMA, then the "but it was supernatural!" excuse does not fly. religion gets no say about what happened in galilee 2000 years ago (or any other location and time period) PERIOD, FULL STOP, END OF STORY.

these events, whether they happened or not, are the domain of science. if science cannot currently address them, then we go with what is consistent with what science has already shown us, i.e. dead bodies do not resurrect.

The two fundies seem to have left the field temporarily. So I will grab the soapbox.

Anyone who does science has to follow the data where it leads. Methodological naturalism and all that. We try to describe objective reality as well as possible, and science works and works well. This is why the 21st century looks a lot different than the 16th century.

Within that framework, it is IMO a good idea to accomodate believers whenever possible.

1. 90% of the US population self identifies themselves with a religion. They aren't going away. They pay the bills for science which in the US is 1/3 the world's total R&D. This is many tens of billions of dollars/year.

2. If there was a conflict between a few thousand evolutionary biologists and nearly 300 million Xians, guess who would lose? The scientists would lose their funding, our competitors and enemies would cheer wildly, and the US would sink into 3rd world status.

This is to some extent what happened in the Moslem world. Science is almost a don't ask, don't tell activity and they do little of it. Many of their good scientists work in the West. The countries with money import a lot of Western technology which means they will always be a step behind.

Science has always been neutral on the supernatural. Religion should be neutral on science as well. When they aren't, we should call them on it. Otherwise NOMA is as good an idea as any.

Despite the opposition of a few cults, science has greatly benefited anyone who drives a car, uses electricity or computer, or visits a doctor.

I think maybe snex and others are disagreeing about issues that often are considered separately.

Philosophically there is nothing to say that someone dead three days didn't rise from the dead.

Scientifically, we (using the vernacular) know that they do not. However, science cannot rule out interventions "from the outside" (whatever that is), wild deviations from the norm, or IOW, the exception. Science deals with the rule, and if Jesus was the exception then Jesus is not ruled out either by science or by philosophy.

But there's more to it in our normal practices. If I am arrested for stealing the Hope Diamond, and it's in my possession, all of my invocations of "possible exceptions" and philosophical treatises about how no one can rule out God putting the Hope Diamond in my pocket will be to no avail. We don't care about that, and indeed, God is effectually banished from the courtroom (and was before science did it), other than in ritual.

That, I think, is what snex is getting at. No one makes the exceptions in the courtroom that we're asked to make for religion. Sure, we can't rule out Jesus walking on the water, or rising from the dead, but only religion really expects us to allow for those events. However careful philosophy and science are at saying that exceptional claims are not ruled out, in all practicality they are ruled out. This is because we are limited, and cannot verify or falsify the exception, so normally the exception isn't given the time of day.

But of course, if one wishes to believe the exception, there is room in our epistemology to put God or miracles into the unavoidable gaps. Do we really credit such wishful thinking? Not usually, in fact.

So it remains that science must recognize its limits, such that it cannot rule out exceptions--for exceptions are not what science understands. Yet the fact that we have made a huge number of observations, and have inductively concluded that no one who appears to be human rises after having been dead for three days, holds an enormous amount of weight in the usual affairs of humanity, such that we do not credit claims to the contrary, either in science or in the courtroom.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

i would add to what Glen D said the fact that NOMA would effectively prohibit religion from saying anything about such claims. religion is refusing to play by the rules when it does so, because under NOMA, we already agreed that science is the field we use to evaluate claims about what happened.

FL, your idea of absolutism is far more insulting to most Christians than to most non-religious evolutionists, so it falls flat. Gould was saying that science cannot examine issues like the Resurrection of Jesus, because for that and all other miraculous claims in history we have no empirical way to check them out. For you to state that we must therefore reject science, including the theory of evolution, to maintain belief in God as a supernatural entity and in the Bible as a spiritual handbook is a claim I consider to be a non-sequitur! How dare you twist NOMA to mean something it does not! That makes you a liar, the perfect example of the dishonesty I spoke of earlier!

dale, you are completely wrong about gould and NOMA. what NOMA means is that ALL claims about the natural world, including who resurrected, when they did, and where, are under the "magisterium" of science, strictly because they are claims about the natural world. religions that make such claims arent playing by the rules.

FL: Notice: Gould is laying down a total demand to abandon the historicity of any and all historical miracle claims period. That, of course, wipes out Chrstianity. No wiggle room. Finito.

FL: Given that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of those historical miracle-claims whose historicity would be automatically eliminated under Gould's "First Commandment of NOMA", wouldn't acceptance of NOMA destroy (in rational terms) what you called the "core" of Christianity? Therefore, the First Commandment of NOMA is very clear and unequivocating. Gould IS saying you HAVE TO abandon belief in God doing any historical miracles or supernatural interventions. Period. Including raising anybody from the dead. Eliminated. Kaput. Doesn't matter if you call yourself a Fundie or a Libbie or a Moderate. NOMA says give it up no matter what. (In fact, if you have a copy of his book, you already know that this NOMA surrender demand was specifically aimed at religious moderates, NOT the fundies whom Gould despised!) NOMA says give it up baby!! Why not, as a Christian, go ahead and consider rejecting NOMA? I mean simply flat-out reject it, period, the same way you reject OLD SCRATCH. Just say "no" to NOMA. Simply pick another model of science & religion, if you need to. There's more than one to choose from, so why not shop around? Pick Ian Barbour's, or pick Del Ratzsch's, or pick William Dembski's (YAY!!). Just find a model other than NOMA, one that doesn't mean flat-out abandoning the Resurrection. Pick a more rational model, one that acknowledges that HISTORY is the one place where science and religion overlap and therefore the two domains cannot be entirely separate. Accept Jesus and Reject NOMA. Otherwise you Accept NOMA and Reject Jesus, and you know the elevator only goes STRAIGHT DOWN from there!! (Muy Caliente Amigo!!)

snex: dale, you are completely wrong about gould and NOMA. what NOMA means is that ALL claims about the natural world, including who resurrected, when they did, and where, are under the "magisterium" of science, strictly because they are claims about the natural world. religions that make such claims arent playing by the rules.

There are a couple of ways of looking at miracles. OK, there are many more than two ways, however I think that most ways of considering miracles involve the two anchoring the ends of the spectrum of miracle claims that I wish to discuss.

One sort of miracle is what we see with certain television evangelists, and what the Gospel of Mark continually holds out to its believers. These miracles defy the normal operations of our world. They are also observed, and thus they lead many to belief in the supernatural of some kind or other. Different religions and different people interpret these purported miracles differently, but whatever they are, these are supposedly observed exceptions to the "scientifically established order." However, these are also rare, at best, and suspected by most of us not to really happen.

The other kind of "miracle," the sort that academic theologians came up with over time, can be exemplified by Kierkegaard's "condition of faith" which is given to the believer. This "miracle" happens without being observed by anyone other than the recipient, and it is a completely new and unprecedented condition in the human. This is something that is, purportedly, entirely outside of the scientific enterprise of collective and repeatable observations, and it is more on the order of what intellectual religion considers to be "God's intervention," involving a relational situation with God that one "knows" in a way that is not open to scientific investigation.

Now I do think that Kierkegaard and his ilk were dealing with psychological events which are tolerably well understood by science today as regularity and "rule", such that what seemed tenable to Kierkegaard appears rather less so today. However, there almost certainly is enough gap in our neurological and psychological knowledge that a wishful believer may still believe in the "miraculous condition of faith" without exactly being anti-science. And in fact, there would be very little or no room for ID in the belief taken up in the Kierkegaardian version of faith, for only the unobserved (not really even observed by the believer, who is simply different afterward) and miraculous change he has experienced is the sort of miracle happening today (naturally, one may ask how Kierkegaard knows of this "phenomenon").

Now where Kierkegaard would differ from most of us is that he seems to accept ancient miracles--based on the condition of faith given to him by God. Well, that's problematic in several ways. Nevertheless, this is the kind of "supernatural" that really is posited to be beyond science, but not beyond individual experience, and as such it remains, IMO, slightly tenable.

The former miracles, while not completely demolished by a science that deals with the rule and not the exception, are essentially held to be scientifically meaningless.

The latter kind of "miracle" is not conducive, generally, to the scientific spirit, which intends to understand everything according to rule. We can't be sure that everything can be so understood, of course, however what we know thus far doesn't provide much scope for energies which come "from the outside" or are in fact exceptional. Nonetheless, I cannot state in full and total confidence that the "condition of faith" is in fact not given to the believer. My greatest complaint is that it, like all claims of miracles, is a dead end to our quest for knowledge---even if it happens to be the truth.

There is thus little or nothing to be said for miracles, not even for the kind the Kierkegaard believed in. Still, it remains a fact that we have to recognize the limits of science, and thereby concede that what science does not know remains unknown to science. Hence the believer may honestly believe what does not go against science (ID and other pseudosciences are properly legal, but intellectually dishonest), including this "condition of faith" appearing without precedent.

I can find nothing in such belief to consider praiseworthy, but there is little reason to condemn another viewpoint, either, so long as it is not coupled with a desire to impose that viewpoint or derivations from that viewpoint.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

dale, do you even know what you are talking about? what NOMA means is that science deals with what happens and how it happens, while religion deals with why it happens (teleologically) and how we should behave. if religion starts talking about what happens (bodies rise from the dead) and how (by supernatural powers), then it is not respecting NOMA.

The difference between an atheist and an agnostic is that an atheist looks at the evidence for god and concludes that it is insufficient to warrant belief. An agnostic concludes a priori that evidence for the supernatural is impossible, and dismisses any attempts to demonstrate its existence as futile. Explained this way, atheism is actually the more open-minded position, as it is willing to admit the possibility of there being compelling evidence in favor of theism.

snex, please understand this:

The Resurrection of Jesus may indeed by a historical event or it may be only a myth, but it would only be subject to scientific investigation if we had access to the body of Jesus Himself, whether it is dead or alive, and we can identify the power that resurrected Jesus. Neither is the case, so.....

dale, we may have that access tomorrow, for all we know. would you then suddenly declare it to be the domain of science and not religion? how can things switch like that? according to gould, they cannot. the magisteria DO NOT overlap. either the resurrection is always under the magisteria of science or it is always under the magisteria of religion (or some other non-overlapping magisteria like art). it cannot switch. since we all agree that claims about what happened, when it happened, and how it happened all belong to the magisteria of science, the resurrection belongs to the magisteria of science, and any other magisteria that attemps to discuss it is overstepping its bounds.

H. Humbert: The difference between an atheist and an agnostic is that an atheist looks at the evidence for god and concludes that it is insufficient to warrant belief. An agnostic concludes a priori that evidence for the supernatural is impossible, and dismisses any attempts to demonstrate its existence as futile. Explained this way, atheism is actually the more open-minded position, as it is willing to admit the possibility of there being compelling evidence in favor of theism.

talkorigins.org: The naturalism that science adopts is methodological naturalism. It does not assume that nature is all there is; it merely notes that nature is the only objective standard we have. The supernatural is not ruled out a priori; when it claims observable results that can be studied scientifically, the supernatural is studied scientifically (e.g., Astin et al. 2000; Enright 1999). It gets little attention because it has never been reliably observed. Still, there are many scientists who use naturalism but who believe in more than nature.

raven, would you care to point out where i have ever claimed that god absolutely does not exist? if you cannot, i hope you have the honesty and decency to apologize.

if religion starts talking about what happens (bodies rise from the dead) and how (by supernatural powers), then it is not respecting NOMA.

would you care to point out where i have ever claimed that god absolutely does not exist?

Just because two or more magisteria do not overlap does not mean that a particular subject cannot pass from one to another. Religion was used to address the origin of the universe, Earth, life, and mankind thousands of years ago. Once science began to address those things, religion retreated from them. Likewise, religion may also retreat from the issue of the Resurrection of Jesus if we ever have access to the (dead) body of Jesus, and thus Christianity will be discredited, just as FL said. Until then, that particular subject will be one of religion. You may BELIEVE that Jesus rose from the dead, or may not, but for now you cannot support either position empirically. And what you cannot support or falsify empirically, even if it is a historical claim, belongs in religion, period!

what flint forgot to mention is that even liberal christians take the resurrection story literally. he is trying to claim that it is a cleverly designed fiction made to get a point across, when in fact the gospel accounts were written with the specific aim of getting us to believe them literally.

this isnt to say we cant accept them as fiction anyway and take messages from them the way we do from any other fiction, but flint is fooling himself if he thinks this is anything even approaching common in christianity.

flint, do you think francis collins believes that jesus literally rose from the dead, or that the stories are a convenient fiction used to get moral points across?

Dale Husband: Just because two or more magisteria do not overlap does not mean that a particular subject cannot pass from one to another. Religion was used to address the origin of the universe, Earth, life, and mankind thousands of years ago. Once science began to address those things, religion retreated from them. Likewise, religion may also retreat from the issue of the Resurrection of Jesus if we ever have access to the (dead) body of Jesus, and thus Christianity will be discredited, just as FL said. Until then, that particular subject will be one of religion. You may BELIEVE that Jesus rose from the dead, or may not, but for now you cannot support either position empirically. And what you cannot support or falsify empirically, even if it is a historical claim, belongs in religion, period!

Flint--

I think you're right, that we don't disagree on any essentials. Whether one accepts the bible as one would a novel, with useful but not necessarily factually accurate material (as well, unfortunately, as some pretty appalling stuff); or one tries to tease it apart, as I tend to enjoy doing, is simply a matter of taste. In either case, it's a BOOK, not some magic key to heaven that can't be questioned.

The fundamentalist movement with its emphasis on biblical literalism was, as I'm sure you know, started in the late 19th century as a response to "Darwinism." I suspect, since it came out of the Ivy League (Princeton) that part of the intention was to keep the laboring classes properly subservient. But no matter how well-meaning their instigators, Big Lies always seem to have terrible social consequences, don't they?

I suppose Francis Collins, who DOES beleive in the Resurrection of Jesus as well as in evolution, will be the next target of snex's wrath for not following his version of NOMA. Sheesh!

FL, your idea of absolutism is far more insulting to most Christians than to most non-religious evolutionists, so it falls flat.

Dale said "I think you got the differences completely reversed!"

Nope, just trying to clear up your misunderstanding. From wiki: "Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods."

Got that, Dale? Agnosticism is a claim about the limits of knowledge, and it rules out human knowledge of the supernatural a priori. Atheism imposes no such limitations. It merely judges theism as unsupported by current evidence. It's a conclusion.

Anyone who thinks atheism is a claim to knowledge, or that atheists claim to "know" that no gods exist, simply has no idea what the hell they're talking about.

The Resurrection of Jesus may indeed by a historical event or it may be only a myth, but it would only be subject to scientific investigation if we had access to the body of Jesus Himself, whether it is dead or alive, and we can identify the power that resurrected Jesus.

Sorry Dale, non-sequitur. Ideas don't fall flat because they offend.

Oh, so something that is currently not falsifiable can still fall within science NOW?! Nope, that's NONSENSE! If you guys were trying to discredit Gould's idea of NOMA, that did it!

raven: For the dogmatic atheist once again. Science is neutral on religion. We study what we can, what we can't isn't science. Science has never been able to disprove or prove the existence of god(s) or the supernatural. There is no support there for atheists.

Even atheists like Russel and Dawkins admit it. They do not say god doesn't exist. They say that their reading of the evidence is that god is very unlikely. That god doesn't exist isn't a proven fact. It is a belief just as much as the one that god does exist.

It is OK to believe whatever one wants to, free country. It is a logical fallacy to confuse one's belief with a fact and to claim that science supports this fact when it doesn't. It is amusing sometimes how atheists go ballistic when they are accused of having a religion but occasionally fall into the same thought patterns anyway.

flint, do you think francis collins believes that jesus literally rose from the dead, or that the stories are a convenient fiction used to get moral points across?

Science has never been able to disprove or prove the existence of god(s) or the supernatural. There is no support there for atheists.

Even atheists like Russel and Dawkins admit it. They do not say god doesn’t exist. They say that their reading of the evidence is that god is very unlikely. That god doesn’t exist isn’t a proven fact. It is a belief just as much as the one that god does exist.

It is OK to believe whatever one wants to, free country. It is a logical fallacy to confuse one’s belief with a fact and to claim that science supports this fact when it doesn’t.

As one of the panelists, I never really thought of this in terms of NOMA. Yes, I delivered the platitude of religion answering "Why" while science answers "how," but that was not my main point. My main point was that all religions, if they are to be honest and true, must reconcile themselves with the objective realities of the natural world. Evolution is one of those realities. To deny that is to impoverish one's faith.

best,
Jeff

I am surprised to find that RBH knows so much about me that he can comment confidently on what I have or have not done...

I always find it amazing the presumptions people will make.

Raven: Science has never been able to disprove or prove the existence of god(s) or the supernatural. There is no support there for atheists. GuyeFaux: You clearly have no idea what atheists think.

One sure way to make atheists go ballistic and write fatwas and declare holy war is to accuse them of making up a new religion. They claim that not believing in something isn't much of a foundation for a religion. I suppose they have a point.

But a lot of them, not all, and not the most coherent fall into the exact same pattern of hard core religious fanatics. Repeating the same fallacies. Accusing each other of doctrinal heresy. Claiming to have the one true truth. Declaring holy war on other notprophets. They may not have a religion but they sure act like their viewpoint is one.

It's amusing for a while but it gets tiring. Like reading UD for more than 5 minutes. Same stuff repeated over and over and it was dumb the first time.

im still waiting for raven to either point out where i stated that i am absolutely confident that no gods exist or apologize to me for making a strawman.

i am also waiting for him to address the arguments relating to belief in a literal resurrection of jesus and how it squares with NOMA.

what i get instead are ad hominems. and he claims that the "atheist fundies" are the ones making fallacies. go figure!

quit being a coward raven, address the arguments and apologize for mischaracterizing my position on the existence of gods.

The difference between an atheist and an agnostic is that an atheist looks at the evidence for god and concludes that it is insufficient to warrant belief. An agnostic concludes a priori that evidence for the supernatural is impossible, and dismisses any attempts to demonstrate its existence as futile. Explained this way, atheism is actually the more open-minded position, as it is willing to admit the possibility of there being compelling evidence in favor of theism.

Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods.”… Agnosticism is a claim about the limits of knowledge, and it rules out human knowledge of the supernatural a priori. Atheism imposes no such limitations. It merely judges theism as unsupported by current evidence. It’s a conclusion.

raven: They all do so. You can even excommunicate nonbelievers.

snex: i am also waiting for him to address the arguments relating to belief in a literal resurrection of jesus and how it squares with NOMA.

the main issue is fear of death, though all living creatures die, thinking humans don't want to die. so Fountain of Life, After Life, Heaven, or Hell all become an important way of denying death. we want to live on, as this makes it easier to face death, we believe (though reality says death is it!)

Christians have the hardest time on this, their god flubs a lot, his creation Lucifer rebelled (now causes evil), his masterpiece Adam & Eve went against him, all mankind went against him (so the flood) an objective observer would say of the Christian god "What a Jerk!". and who's to say he wont't flub again (creating more sorrow for us all) What an evil creature!

But words don’t mean what any one person, or any subset of persons say they mean. The meanings of words are by a sufficient amount of consensus.

If this deity is purported to be the creator of the universe, it is somehow outside the universe and we are back to the first problem above. If this is a deity that is part of the universe (some say is the universe) and it reveals itself to humans, the track record of that revelation is sufficient reason for skepticism.

This was the sense I was referring to in suggesting that atheism is logically untenable.

Science is neutral on religion. We study what we can, what we can’t isn’t science. Science has never been able to disprove or prove the existence of god(s) or the supernatural. There is no support there for atheists. Even atheists like Russel and Dawkins admit it. They do not say god doesn’t exist. They say that their reading of the evidence is that god is very unlikely. That god doesn’t exist isn’t a proven fact. It is a belief just as much as the one that god does exist.

Claiming to have the one true truth. Declaring holy war on other notprophets. They may not have a religion but they sure act like their viewpoint is one. It’s amusing for a while but it gets tiring. Like reading UD for more than 5 minutes. Same stuff repeated over and over and it was dumb the first time.

One sure way to make atheists go ballistic and write fatwas and declare holy war is to accuse them of making up a new religion. They claim that not believing in something isn’t much of a foundation for a religion. I suppose they have a point. But a lot of them, not all, and not the most coherent fall into the exact same pattern of hard core religious fanatics. Repeating the same fallacies. Accusing each other of doctrinal heresy. Claiming to have the one true truth. Declaring holy war on other notprophets. They may not have a religion but they sure act like their viewpoint is one.

FL:

I know you think one has to be a literalist to be a "real" christian, but I don't. To me, Jesus' resurrection from death does not require that his physical body breathed again, but that his eternal soul lives on after the death of his physical body, which means that our souls can live on as well. If to you that means I'm not a christian, well, you are entitled to your beliefs.

SNEX:

We have a little thing in the US called the 1st Amendment, which means that no matter how many times you proclaim that the religious cannot opine about the existence of God, or eternal salvation, they can and will do so anyway. Let me know when you become King of the World so you can try to enforce your edict.

Religion is not a source of any knowledge. NOMA is just another thing about which Gould was very wrong.

Religion is not a source of any knowledge.

Since FL is the ruler of what True Xians are, it is between you and Snex to fight it out for Pope of the atheists and write the dogma, creed, and prayers.

I assume you know that all atheists once belonged to the same nonchurch but it schismed during the reformation and the various sects don’t agree or like each other much. But feel free to pretend your sect is the only True Atheist sect. They all do so. You can even excommunicate nonbelievers.

Even atheists like Russel and Dawkins admit it. They do not say god doesn’t exist. They say that their reading of the evidence is that god is very unlikely.

That god doesn’t exist isn’t a proven fact.

It is a belief just as much as the one that god does exist.

"raven, what does science tell us about whether or not dead human bodies can get up and start walking around 3 days later?" You are also using your premise to prove your premise. If god doesn’t exist, then JC wasn’t supernatural, and miracles can’t occur. Science can’t address your premise, so it just shrugs it’s shoulders and says whatever.

Stanton:

raven: They all do so. You can even excommunicate nonbelievers.

How do they do that? Send them to their rooms without porridge?

"Religion is not a source of any knowledge." Religion is not a source of any scientific data. Whether data and knowledge are synonymous is another question.

More generally, however, making the claim that no deity exists (I think we have ruled out detecting the supernatural) could logically demand more knowledge than we may currently have or are able to comprehend. This is where it becomes more difficult to support the position of atheism (denying the existence of a deity).

Religion is not a source of any knowledge. NOMA is just another thing about which Gould was very wrong.

There is a disconnect between the first claim and the second here, as Russel and Dawkins presumably have scientific evidence among the evidence that they are using to conclude that any given god is unlikely.

And I do think you will understand what non-religious persons feel when they see religions and their texts. Same stuff repeated for thousands of years and it was dumb the first time.

So on the first claim, what prohibits a supernatural entity or process situated outside our universe to interact with it?

On the other hand, atheism is logically untenable because it assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods.

The fact is that religion is not the source of any knowledge, your non sequitur notwithstanding.

Flint says religions gets to “make stuff up,” but that’s bogus. If that were the game, science could make up answers just as easily as religion could.

the only way NOMA works is if religion is a separate but valid “way of knowing.” If it isn’t, then there are not separate magisteria.

“supernaturally caused” is truly oxymoronic, nonsensical when carefully examined.

More generally, however, making the claim that no deity exists (I think we have ruled out detecting the supernatural) could logically demand more knowledge than we may currently have or are able to comprehend. This is where it becomes more difficult to support the position of atheism (denying the existence of a deity). How does one know what evidence one has missed or what may become available in the future?

Might some form of pantheism be possible, etc.?

there’s a possibility that some things PG knows are in fact incorrect.

Are these things then NOT knowledge? If a religion makes a claim, you believe it and live by it, you find comfort and satisfaction in it, is it knowledge?

And by “valid”, of course you mean, scientific. If a religious believer “knows” that he has “accepted Christ as his savior”, is this “invalid knowledge”? If through his faith, he “knows” that his life is meaningful, is THAT invalid?

Flint:

the only way NOMA works is if religion is a separate but valid “way of knowing.” If it isn’t, then there are not separate magisteria.

And by "valid", of course you mean, scientific. If a religious believer "knows" that he has "accepted Christ as his savior", is this "invalid knowledge"? If through his faith, he "knows" that his life is meaningful, is THAT invalid? What you (and PG) are doing here is dismissing religion as "lousy science", as foolish as FL dismissing science for its failure to follow scripture.

To suggest we are discussing absolute truth or knowledge is as always untenable.

This is really sort of fascinating. Theism is so pervasive, so presumed, that “atheism”, lack of belief or even *interest* in the concerns of the theists, gets a name all for itself. Then theists like raven, who project religious faith onto everyone and are unable to even conceive of any lack of faith, try to categorize the “religious faith sects” of the individuals who have no faith.

"The fact is that religion is not the source of any knowledge, your non sequitur notwithstanding." If you’re satisfied with this approach, fine.

I don’t want to dispute the philosophical overlaps between facts, knowledge, and understanding.

What you (and PG) are doing here is dismissing religion as “lousy science”, as foolish as FL dismissing science for its failure to follow scripture.

If you want to call people’s personal opinions “knowledge,” then I “know” that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best flavor on Earth.

Stanton:

snex: i am also waiting for him to address the arguments relating to belief in a literal resurrection of jesus and how it squares with NOMA.

Why is it necessary to determine whether or not Jesus Christ really rose from the dead after dying for people's sins before a person can continue doing science-y things like studying placoderms or trying to figure out quantum mechanics?

And what FL fails to understand is that Gould was being gallant by proposing NOMA. Religion has most obviously failed as a valid way of understanding shared, objective reality. Gould was offering the religious a way to save face. He was saying “Look, I’ll just turn my head and pretend you never made all those absurd claims about reality that didn’t pan out. In return, don’t ever tread on science’s turf again, because you’ll lose.” It was a bit of historical revisionism.

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. ... The text of Humani Generis focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church—a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for "teacher." We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed "conflict" or "warfare" between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or "nonoverlapping magisteria"). The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.

PG, my mistake, then. I agree with your assessment of Gould. I guess I just wanted to presume the best of him.

its necessary to refrain from making claims about what jesus did or did not do without evidence if you want to adhere to the standards of NOMA.

I do not doubt that one could find an occasional nun who would prefer to teach creationism in her parochial school biology class or an occasional orthodox rabbi who does the same in his yeshiva, but creationism based on biblical literalism makes little sense in either Catholicism or Judaism for neither religion maintains any extensive tradition for reading the Bible as literal truth rather than illuminating literature, based partly on metaphor and allegory (essential components of all good writing) and demanding interpretation for proper understanding. Most Protestant groups, of course, take the same position—the fundamentalist fringe notwithstanding. The position that I have just outlined by personal stories and general statements represents the standard attitude of all major Western religions (and of Western science) today.

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise

Why demand this incredibly high standard of radical epitemological skepticism of atheism when we don’t do so for any other claim?

PG, my mistake, then.

To summarize, Pius generally accepts the NOMA principle of nonoverlapping magisteria in permitting Catholics to entertain the hypothesis of evolution for the human body so long as they accept the divine infusion of the soul. But he then offers some (holy) fatherly advice to scientists about the status of evolution as a scientific concept: the idea is not yet proven, and you all need to be especially cautious because evolution raises many troubling issues right on the border of my magisterium. One may read this second theme in two different ways: either as a gratuitous incursion into a different magisterium or as a helpful perspective from an intelligent and concerned outsider. As a man of good will, and in the interest of conciliation, I am happy to embrace the latter reading.

I knew the main thrust of his message: Catholics could believe whatever science determined about the evolution of the human body, so long as they accepted that, at some time of his choosing, God had infused the soul into such a creature. I also knew that I had no problem with this statement, for whatever my private beliefs about souls, science cannot touch such a subject and therefore cannot be threatened by any theological position on such a legitimately and intrinsically religious issue. Pope Pius XII, in other words, had properly acknowledged and respected the separate domains of science and theology.

"Why demand this incredibly high standard of radical epitemological skepticism of atheism when we don’t do so for any other claim?" It relates to the issues I mentioned in my reply to Torbjörn. Many people simply haven’t been through the exercises of analyzing these ideas. I suggested a reason for this is because of the fear and emotion surrounding these ideas, due in large part to the fundamentalists taking over words.

atheism is logically untenable because it assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods. That’s a little too much hubris given our awareness of what we don’t know about the universe. We may not (and may never) be sufficiently evolved to recognize or understand the hand of a deity in the universe if, in fact, we really are a subset of a universe created by such a deity. We just don’t know what we will know in the future.

why should metaphysical claims about the creation of the universe or of the existence of "the supernatural" have any bearing on questions of morality?

— PG

If A is true, then B is true. B is stated to be true. Therefore, A must be true. Evolution does not by itself prove atheism to be true.

OTOH, intelligent design in nature implies God evolution by natural selection makes intelligent design unnecessary for explaining apparent design nature therefore God is not necessary is not non sequitur at all, and that’s closer to the actual process by which science leads to atheism, by eliminating reasons for proposing the God hypothesis in the first place. Atheism is an application of Occam’s Razor.

I’d say the answer is, because all (the metaphysical claims, the supernatural, morality, the soul) are (represented by?) mental constructs that have been used throughout history to shape human societies.

Arguments about whether or not these exist outside of the realm of “memes” are, IMHO, the essence of metaphysics, and such arguments are outside the realm of science.

(the metaphysical claims, the supernatural, morality, the soul)

PG:

I am unable to see any relationship between my list (the metaphysical claims, the supernatural, morality, the soul) and yours (ether, phlogiston, N-Rays).

Popper's Ghost: P.S.

(the metaphysical claims, the supernatural, morality, the soul)

My point was that "morality" is the odd man out.

Consider the application of Gould's notions of "teaching authority" and "professional expertise", and Flint's notion of "knowledge", to astrology. If an astrological believer “knows” that he has “accepted astrology as his guiding light”, is this “invalid knowledge”? If through his faith in astrology, he “knows” that his life is in accordance with the grand scheme of the universe, is THAT invalid? Is astrology a source of knowledge? Why are the pronouncements in the daily astrology column as to how to lead one's life any less valid that those from the pulpit? It's not enough to point out that astrology is "bad science". The astrologer consults stars and charts, with a considerable amount of personal interpretation thrown in, while the preacher consults sacred texts and personal revelation.

snex:

Stanton:

snex: i am also waiting for him to address the arguments relating to belief in a literal resurrection of jesus and how it squares with NOMA.

Why is it necessary to determine whether or not Jesus Christ really rose from the dead after dying for people's sins before a person can continue doing science-y things like studying placoderms or trying to figure out quantum mechanics?

its necessary to refrain from making claims about what jesus did or did not do without evidence if you want to adhere to the standards of NOMA. that being said, i agree with PG that NOMA wrt religion is bunk because religion has no magisterium. but if YOU want to respect it, then YOU need to abandon beliefs about jesus for which there is no evidence.

I am unable to see any relationship between my list (the metaphysical claims, the supernatural, morality, the soul) and yours (ether, phlogiston, N-Rays).

No, I’d disagree.

Isn’t saying that you’re obligated to completely abandon your faith in order to do science also a gross violation of NOMA?

i am also waiting for him to address the arguments relating to belief in a literal resurrection of jesus and how it squares with NOMA.

— Stanton

Why is it necessary to determine whether or not Jesus Christ really rose from the dead after dying for people’s sins before a person can continue doing science-y things like studying placoderms or trying to figure out quantum mechanics?

Stanton: Isn't saying that you're obligated to completely abandon your faith in order to do science also a gross violation of NOMA?

"NOMA is wrong at least in these 2 cases: Morality: - science: studies it as a natural phenomenon (evolutionary origins, cognitive processes, animal behavior, game theory ..)” However, what science doesn’t study is the actual content of morality, namely, what is moral and immoral, which is what philosophy and religion do look at.

If you have “been through the exercises of analyzing these ideas” then you shouldn’t be writing such nonsense.

Apparently I’m not getting your point.

Mike Elzinga, I think Popper was suggesting that if you had indeed "been through the exercises of analyzing these ideas," then you should be beyond such basic mistakes as claiming that atheism "assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods."

as when you are asked whether it is right to smother a crying baby (your own/someone else’s get different responses) in order to save a room full of people in hiding.

If you have “been through the exercises of analyzing these ideas” then you shouldn’t be writing such nonsense.

And they don’t think or even care about the philosophical issues surrounding their beliefs. Their gods might be conceived as real, supernatural entities, or they may be vague metaphorical beings, existing in their minds, that capture the essence of what it is to be a good human being. Living life without them is unthinkable for these people. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with that. You seem to find it illogical or inconsistent.

Mike Elzinga, I think Popper was suggesting that if you had indeed “been through the exercises of analyzing these ideas,” then you should be beyond such basic mistakes as claiming that atheism “assumes we know enough about the universe to rule out any gods.”

We may not (and may never) be sufficiently evolved to recognize or understand the hand of a deity in the universe if, in fact, we really are a subset of a universe created by such a deity. We just don’t know what we will know in the future.

Gould was saying that science cannot examine issues like the Resurrection of Jesus, because for that and all other miraculous claims in history we have no empirical way to check them out.

Just because two or more magisteria do not overlap does not mean that a particular subject cannot pass from one to another.

Religion was used to address the origin of the universe, Earth, life, and mankind thousands of years ago.

Once science began to address those things, religion retreated from them.

Popper's Ghost: I already addressed this sort of radical epistemological skepticism. We may not (and may never) be sufficiently evolved to recognize or understand that Behe and Dembski have been right all along. We just don’t know what we will know in the future. So the theory of evolution is logically untenable, and evolutionary biologists have a little too much hubris.

But Gould said “science in the empirical constitution of the universe”, so religion doesn’t, and never did, have anything to say about such matters. Gould was wrong.

Funny how some people would rather turn into solipsists than simply concede that religion is bullshit, isn’t it?

And they don’t think or even care about the philosophical issues surrounding their beliefs. Their gods might be conceived as real, supernatural entities, or they may be vague metaphorical beings, existing in their minds, that capture the essence of what it is to be a good human being. Living life without them is unthinkable for these people. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with that. You seem to find it illogical or inconsistent.

Hawkeye on MASH can relate to that one, after what happened in the final (2 hr.) episode.

Stephen M. Barr is at it again. New National Review (Dec. 3, 2007) "The Soul and Its Enemies".

Final sentences: "One does not need a scientist to confirm that one has a spiritual soul, however. Its powers are daily on display in our lives as rational and free creatures. Of course, there are those who disagree with this. And they are quite free to disagree. But their very freedom to disagree is proof that they are wrong."

LOL

So we have a soul since (it is defined to be that) we are rational and free and so anyone that disagrees is rational and free and thus has a soul.

Seems awfully circular to me.

I think I'll add a comment near the current bottom of this thread. I say "current" because threads about "religion" and "atheism" do tend to go on for a very long time.

I'd just like to make an odd observation and see if anyone else feels the same way.

As much as I admire the intellectual effort that has gone into this thread, it has nothing to do with the reasons why I, personally, oppose creationists in particular, and religious authoritarians in general. (I oppose all authoritarians but religious ones are common and egregious enough to deserve special mention).

For me, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they hold opinions which I know to be factually wrong, nor even to do with the fact that they hold opinions that I consider unethical. I strongly support their right to believe as they wish, and to live as they wish, as long as they don't violate the rights of others. I strongly support their right to legally proselytize, too, even if others find it annoying, as long as they do so within the generous bounds of the law.

(It is trivial to note that I support the rights of atheists, liberal Christians, astrologers, UFOlogists, and anyone else in exactly the same way - your right to believe and express yourself is not impacted by whether your beliefs or claims are factually true, except where the latter may impact on the rights of other people.)

What bothers me about creationists is PURELY that they attempt to violate my rights, both in very direct ways, and in indirect ways, by delibrately using pseudoscience or moral pronouncements based on their own sectarian views to affect public policy in malign ways.

In the direct case, ID/creationists have schemed for decades to have claptrap taught as "science", in taxpayer-funded schools, to a captive audience of students, in gross violation of the rights of any and all who don't share their religion, and even to the detriment of those who may, but may also wish to learn what mainstream science believes, and/or to respect the constitutional rights of their fellow students despite religious differences.

In the indirect case, they promote ideology-driven pseudoscientific denial, with various degrees of success, of climate change, HIV, the value complete health education (including reproduction/sex), etc.

In addition to all that, they engage in activities which are not illegal, but are exploitive of freedom. For example, no reasonable law can forbid books which have incorrect or misleading content, as any author and editors could innocently include such content at any time. Exploiting this, creationists fill shelves with books intended to mislead the public about science.

I do not mean in any way to disparage the open and enthusiastic dialogue of this thread.

I do want to note, thought, that it is not now, and has never been, my goal, to convert others to my particular personal beliefs. It is true that I vigorously attempt to convert the views of others on specific issues which are impacted by legislation that can be changed. But from that perspective, I would rather convert someone whose religious views I disagree with, on a practical political issue, than endure bad legislation created by voters who agree more closely with me on some philosophical issue, but differ in political attitude.

My goal is to stop creationists from violating my rights. I bother to post this because there may be a false impression (*perhaps deliberately created*) that various philosophies and sects are "equally" trying to advance their own subjective views at the expense of the rights of others. This is not the case. There are a few posters who speak vaguely if sinisterly about "stamping out religion" or some such thing, but I am not aware of any serious efforts by atheists or liberal Christians to violate anyone's rights. There is ONE side who provokes conflict by disrespecting the rights of others in a way that actually matters, and that side is the creationist side, whatever anyone else may post on the internet.

Notice: Gould is laying down a total demand to abandon the historicity of any and all historical miracle claims period. That, of course, wipes out Chrstianity. No wiggle room. Finito.

Only in the opinion of someone like FL, who can't understand anything deeper than the literal superficial level.

There are a few posters who speak vaguely if sinisterly about “stamping out religion” or some such thing

Raging Bee: Notice: Gould is laying down a total demand to abandon the historicity of any and all historical miracle claims period. That, of course, wipes out Chrstianity. No wiggle room. Finito. Only in the opinion of someone like FL, who can't understand anything deeper than the literal superficial level.

Notice: Gould is laying down a total demand to abandon the historicity of any and all historical miracle claims period. That, of course, wipes out Chrstianity. No wiggle room. Finito. Only in the opinion of someone like FL, who can’t understand anything deeper than the literal superficial level.

re you saying that FL and people like him are the only christians out there who take jesus’ resurrection as a literal historical account? just how many christians out there do you think do NOT take the resurrection literally?

The resurrection of Jesus may have been the most central doctrinal position in Christianity taught to a Gentile audience. The Apostle Paul said that 'if Jesus has not risen from the dead then the Christians were the most miserable of all men' (I Corinthians 15:19). According to Paul, the entire Christian faith hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus. Christians annually celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Easter time.

Within the body of Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology depend. According to The New Testament, Jesus, the central figure of Christianity, was crucified, died, buried within a tomb, and resurrected three days later (John 19:30–31, Mark 16:1, Mark 16:6). The New Testament also mentions several resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once" (1 Cor. 15:6), before Jesus' Ascension. These two events are essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and are commemorated by Christians during Good Friday and Easter, particularly during the liturgical time of Holy Week.

Um, yes. I was even more concerned about this drivel: We may not (and may never) be sufficiently evolved to recognize or understand the hand of a deity in the universe if, in fact, we really are a subset of a universe created by such a deity. We just don’t know what we will know in the future.

[quote]While that argument has its detractors, it was alive and well a few weeks ago in Ohio.[/quote]

so what you're in effect saying, is that the capitulation to illogic in the face of numeric superiority is alive and well.

not a shocker, really.

as a band-aid measure, NOMA might be at least temporarily productive, but I can't say I find it desirable in the least over the long term; it's simply far too easy to poke holes in the "logic" behind it.

OTOH, it's certainly easier/simpler to deal with the issue in this fashion in primary/secondary educational institutions. I suppose then the work would shift to exposing the logical fallacy behind it once/if the students make it to post secondary education.

Hard to say if that would mean less work or more.

I was presuming the discussion had something to do with bridging the gap between the world view of science and that of religion.

Collins, the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief and an evangelical Christian, made the argument common to theistic evolutionists, namely that science answers “how” questions about the world while religion answers “why” questions.

Mike Elzinga: And, yes, there are people I know, and have known for decades, from our culture and other cultures who find atheism untenable.

The gods of these people can be to them metaphorical or real, but they provide something to aim for.

They find no problems with science and their religion. They feel that the understandings of humans are always incomplete and will always be. They will simply tell you that perhaps someday it will become clear, but don’t fret about it. But atheism is out of the question, and it is no problem for them. Most don’t feel any need to talk about their religion unless it comes up in some kind of relevant conversation.

You may feel that this is “radical epistemological skepticism” or “drivel”. One old lady I know would just smile at that; and she doesn’t strike me as being stupid.

So maybe the question should be rephrased, is there some threshold above which acknowledging that atheism is viable becomes unavoidable? What kind of knowledge is required? Why is it even important?

Is everyone required to be consistent and logical in their approach to everything life?

If there is one puzzlement that is expressed most often by these people about science and religion it is, “what is all the fuss about?” I think they see life and living as much more approximate and loose. Excruciating attempts at logic and consistency in religion and science are seen as pathological and unrealistic.

I wouldn’t call these people irrational or naive; in fact, I am willing to defend them.

WTF are you talking about you wouldn’t call them irrational? You just got done laying out all the reasons why they are. Now you want to pretend that isn’t irrationality? Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t defend people’s right to stay muddled thinkers who embrace contradictions while at the same time pretending they’re perfectly rational people. Perhaps you should straighten out your own thinking and get a handle on what it is exactly you think you’re “defending.”

I’m sorry that you have such a hard time living in a world with irrational people and that you feel so much animosity toward them. But I am afraid that Star Trek’s Vulcan planet is not a real place.

should we abandon the enlightenment for sympathy's sake?

it would appear so.

i rather doubt that H. Humbert was talking about burning the pious, there, mate. Only pointing out logical flaws in your reasoning.

sorry, but his argument is not flawed that I can see. If we don't fight irrationality in whatever form it chooses to take, and instead choose to curb our arguments in favor of being "polite", we consign ourselves to rule by irrational mob majority.

I think there is an excellent argument to be made that the survivability of religious memes is due in no small part to the false idea of "fairness" given to any competing idea, regardless of whether such is based on any kind of rational thought or not.

In short, it's become time for the likes of Dawkins to migrate the debate towards the rational side, away from deference to irrationality, not the likes of Collins to stymie it in irrational drivel.

I think you, Mike, would like to ignore the fact that there actually IS a culture war going on, and that somehow politeness and deference will defuse the issue.

ever think you will be mowed under by the overwhelming majority who appear to think that religion is the way to run things, both politically and socially?

will your reaction to being mowed under be to politely step aside?

this is all rhetoric, of course, but still I wonder if you have truly thought through the end result of your "approach" to the matter.

Which, when boiled down, is essentially the status quo.

You can’t defend people’s right to stay muddled thinkers who embrace contradictions while at the same time pretending they’re perfectly rational people.

I can find no flaw in that reasoning Mike. Perhaps you could specify where the flaw lies for us?

Mike, you're coming off the rails here, buddy. First you wanted to defend the people you spoke about as "not irrational." As that was clearly incorrect, now you've moved the goalposts to "not dishonestly irrational," which is an awkward phrase I'm not sure makes much sense. I guess you mean they don't try to hide their irrationality. That they don't expend much effort in trying to make their beliefs internally consistent, or in fact even to make much sense at all.

Look, Mike. I understand that people are not going to be 100% rational all the time. But I see irrationality as an epidemic in our society with dire consequences for us all. When people are encouraged to compartmentalize mutually contradictory beliefs whenever it's emotionally convenient, or ignore uncomfortable facts, or celebrate illogic, then all the advances of the enlightenment are at risk of vanishing. Yet here you are encouraging this behavior. And you say my attitude isn't helpful?

I think we can all recognize that people are by and large irrational. Where we part company is when you trumpet this as some kind of virtue. I know this may strike you as surprising, but science is a rational enterprise. It couldn't function if people behaved in the manner you advocate. While it may be helpful to point out from time to time that people have the right to believe whatever fool thing their heart desires, there is no need to refrain from discouraging bad thinking and promoting sound thinking. That people tend toward irrationality isn't no reason to "defend" it, it's the reason we must oppose it. Just as although it may be a natural human tendency to be wary of strangers different from ourselves, we still need to vocally oppose racism. Negatives don't need defending or reinforcing.

So, Mike, I implore you. Ask yourself who's attitude really is unhelpful here to the cause of ensuring the advancement of science and rational thought. I'm not unrealistic. I don't expect advocating reason and rationality will result in a purely rational "Vulcan" society anymore than I think advocating truthfulness and justice will result in a purely honest and just society. That doesn't mean we should cease striving toward nobler goals.

H. Humbert & Ichthyc,

Your last comments sound exactly like the ranting that comes from fundamentalist pulpits about how the world is going to hell because everyone has turned their back on their sectarian god. The only difference is that you replaced the sectarian god with your own “god”.

What makes you think I don’t know there is a culture war going on? Didn’t you check that link I gave?

You are engaging in the same kind of absolutism that the culture warriors are. You took the bait. I have a newspaper article on my desk at this moment with a letter to the editor from a distraught mother anguishing over the terrors of what evolution and sex education in the public schools are doing to the innocent children. It sounds just like your posts, with evolution and sex education replacing “irrationality” and “abandoning the enlightenment.”

Or perhaps you are you fundamentalist culture warriors in disguise, helping to promote the caricature of atheism that they spew from their pulpits? It’s a bit hard to tell, you know.

Most people live in a world with an entire spectrum of ideas, each full of subtleties and nuances and contradictions. Much of it works. You should find out why. If you want a world full of intellectual purity with everyone thinking your thoughts, you are in for a big disappointment.

Your knowledge of philosophy apparently hasn’t developed beyond the bimodal logic used by the fundamentalists. You want arguments and contradictions explained logically and rationally, otherwise it’s “gotcha”. It is that black/white thinking that is behind much of the culture war. Get past it.

The ideas behind evolution should at least give you a hint that such a spectrum would exist and that many of the ideas within that spectrum are viable. The ones that work survive. Now that is an interesting area to explore, instead of standing back and scolding in self-righteous revulsion.

Most of us know who the dishonest ones are.

mike, if irrationality and contradictions are perfectly acceptable to you, then what is your basis for fighting creationism? furthermore, why is it that when you do fight creationism, you do so on the grounds that it is irrational and contradictory? by doing so, you implicitly admit that irrationality and contradictions should be avoided.

mike, if irrationality and contradictions are perfectly acceptable to you, then what is your basis for fighting creationism? furthermore, why is it that when you do fight creationism, you do so on the grounds that it is irrational and contradictory? by doing so, you implicitly admit that irrationality and contradictions should be avoided.

mike, if irrationality and contradictions are acceptable, then you have no grounds to say that 1) creationism is wrong, and 2) creationism should not be imposed on others.

i assume you support the idea that we should impose mathematics, evolution, and other ideas that we believe to be correct on innocent children through the public school system; and that the reason you support this is because we believe those ideas are correct. what you dont seem to understand is that people who believe in irrational and contradictory ideas feel the exact same way! since they believe their ideas to be correct, they have a legitimate expectation that those ideas be taught to their children through public schools. telling these people that their irrational and contradictory beliefs are just as valid as rational and consistent beliefs, yet denying them the right to have those beliefs taught in public schools is speaking out of both sides of your mouth, and they arent dumb enough to fall for it.

Yes, Mike, fundamentalist atheists are just the same kind of caricature as fundamentalist religionists. What disgusts me is that they are fundamentalist "in the name of science" and in order "to protect science", and as such do science an incredible disservice. No wonder science has such a bad name in certain circles. The problems arise when you confuse philosophy with science, and science with philosophy, which fundamentalist atheists routinely do.

Science provides knowledge, not a world view. Atheists and theists alike can embrace the exact same science; where they differ is in the philosophical conclusions that are beyond the scope of science proper. While established scientific findings are debatable only to a tightly limited extent, philosophical conclusions and views derived from them are very much debatable – they are not dictated by science.

I still have to see scientific proof for either atheism or theism. Atheism or theism cannot be scientific conclusions; as far as science is involved, they can only be philosophical conclusions from science.

If you cannot grasp the difference between a scientific conclusion, i.e. a conclusion *of* science, and a (philosophical) conclusion *from* science, then this is deplorable. It is not because you know and defend science so admirably well, it is because you miserably suck at philosophy.

The purity and authority of science is not just harmed by attacks against its findings from irrational creationists, it is also harmed by exaggerated claims in the name of science.

A theist can very well both believe in miracles, like the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and acccept all of science (including evolution, of course), and he can be entirely rational at the same time. Why? Because science can only show that miracles do not occur on a regular basis (something which most rational theists have no problem with), but it cannot show that miracles never occur. I still have to find the scientific evidence that the resurrrection of Christ did not take place. If you have it, please, please, please show it to me – my curiosity is burning.

To a theist like me, God created the world, and the stunning regularity of nature that science studies. If God created the world, he is in control over its workings too. So if once in a while he decides to perform a miracle (really a truly exceptional event), is he then “not allowed to do that” because it is “against the standards of science”? A creator bound by his own creation? To a theist such a suggestion would be incredibly preposterous and ludicrous.

And indeed, entirely irrational.

al, if standards of evidence are not necessary for determining whether or not a galilean preacher rose from the dead 2000 years ago, why should they be necessary for anything at all? why do you think your pet beliefs are the only exceptions? for all you know, the real god is in fact allah, and he did in fact tell people that they would get 72 virgins for crashing airplanes into the world trade center. go ahead and disprove it!

Your last comments sound exactly like the ranting that comes from fundamentalist pulpits about how the world is going to hell because everyone has turned their back on their sectarian god.

Al,

A very good summation, but the one glaring omission is any hint of a demarcation between rational theism and irrational fundamentalism. At what point and by what measure does a theistic "world view" become fundamentalist?

Yes, Mike, fundamentalist atheists are just the same kind of caricature as fundamentalist religionists.

Your last comments sound exactly like the ranting that comes from fundamentalist pulpits about how the world is going to hell because everyone has turned their back on their sectarian god. The only difference is that you replaced the sectarian god with your own “god”.

Most people live in a world with an entire spectrum of ideas, each full of subtleties and nuances and contradictions. Much of it works. You should find out why.

The ideas behind evolution should at least give you a hint that such a spectrum would exist and that many of the ideas within that spectrum are viable. The ones that work survive.

Bill Gascoyne: Al, A very good summation,

but the one glaring omission is any hint of a demarcation between rational theism and irrational fundamentalism. At what point and by what measure does a theistic "world view" become fundamentalist?

but the one glaring omission is any hint of a demarcation between rational theism and irrational fundamentalism. At what point and by what measure does a theistic “world view” become fundamentalist?

This doesn’t save belief in the Resurrection, unfortunately, since it “negates” the established scientific theory that the dead don’t walk. If you think it doesn’t, define “negate” for me.

GuyeFaux:

but the one glaring omission is any hint of a demarcation between rational theism and irrational fundamentalism. At what point and by what measure does a theistic "world view" become fundamentalist?

Once it negates established scientific theory (not the same as debatable scientific hypothesis, of course)... This doesn't save belief in the Resurrection, unfortunately, since it "negates" the established scientific theory that the dead don't walk. If you think it doesn't, define "negate" for me.

"could be demonstrated to actually fall within the limits of the repeatable"

should have read:

"could be demonstrated to actually fall within the limits of the previously as repeatable established phenomena"

al, i fail to see how your position maintains the "truth" of the resurrection but does not do the same for the noahchian flood. the lack of evidence for the flood can simply be explained by appealing to a miracle. same for any alleged evidence for evolution or any other scientific theory youd care to name that one can arbitrarily declare wrong by faith.

Your last comments sound exactly like the ranting that comes from fundamentalist pulpits

scary that you appear to think so.

you obviously need to take a break from thinking about these issues; it appears to strain you too much.

maybe when you can think outside of your labels and generalizations, you can actually hold an intelligent discussion on the issue at hand.

till then...

I don’t expect advocating reason and rationality will result in a purely rational “Vulcan” society anymore than I think advocating truthfulness and justice will result in a purely honest and just society.

moreover, Mike seems to forget that Vulcan society merely repressed EMOTION. they still had their irrational religions, too.

not that even Vulcan society as envisioned by Roddenberry made any sense, since emotion itself can be utilized in a quite rational fashion, and also can be a rational response to a given stimulus.

shorter:

"Vulcan society" is an asinine argument to bring up in favor of or to detract from just about any point imaginable.

As soon as I saw that, I should have just not even bothered to respond further.

However, now that I'm "in":

There is quite a big difference between the spectrum of religious views of various individuals existing in relative peace and the political activities and “Wedge strategies” being used by culture warriors in their attempts to impose their sectarian view on others.

not with regards to the level of rationality, no. In fact, one could easily argue that from a purely rational standpoint, the lies and spin of the DI are an entirely rational endeavor. If someone is suffering from delusions, it's perfection rational and expected they would try to defend their current mental state from attack. that DOES NOT mean that the underlying mental state is itself, rational.

this is the simple point Mike seemingly refuses to understand or acknowledge.

bottom line, when Mike says this:

You took the bait.

He's projecting.

In fact it was HE who "took the bait", and the false argument he swallowed was the "fair and balanced" one.

an argument most americans seem to be raised on from birth, and appears responsible for much of the maintenance of serious woo round these parts.

The problems arise when you confuse philosophy with science, and science with philosophy, which fundamentalist atheists routinely do.

bullshit.

that you project how you interweave your philosophical underpinnings with your own versions of "science" have nothing to do with how the rest of us deal with the issue.

YOU are a great representation of why NOMA doesn't work other than as a artificial crutch.

I still have to see scientific proof for either atheism or theism.

that you think the two are equivalent wrt to the level of "proof" required indicates exactly that you too, just like Mike, have fallen for the "fair and balanced" meme.

here's a clue:

wtf would an atheist have to PROVE?

it's bullshit, and if you could even think about it for just ONE second, you'd see why.

but no, your theism requires your addled brain to come to its defense in the form of denial, so you are then unable to see the non-equivalence of saying atheism requires scientific proof.

it's fucking ridiculous.

that anyone here thinks your arguments are good in summary or detail is regrettable, but the level of intellect on PT seems to have fallen a great deal in recent years.

I had given the answer already above, in # 136710: “Science can only show that miracles do not occur on a regular basis (something which most rational theists have no problem with), but it cannot show that miracles never occur.”

Certainly, science will have been useful in many cases to show that an alleged miracle in fact did not occur, since the event in question could be demonstrated to actually fall within the limits of the repeatable, i.e. the normal.

that anyone here thinks your arguments are good in summary or detail is regrettable, but the level of intellect on PT seems to have fallen a great deal in recent years.

It is a pity that Pandas thumb submissions result in some less than civil comments. The panelists at the event described by Dick Hopppe, in the original thread, were very "civil" in their dialogues. I was among them, so I can say that with a level of confidence. I just wish that contributors to Panda's Thumb, and contributors to the DI Blog, could also maintain civility.

best,
Jeff

Flint: But please make an effort to understand that to someone who takes for granted without evidence (and therefore without possibility of being swayed by evidence)...

Ichthyic: I don’t expect advocating reason and rationality will result in a purely rational “Vulcan” society anymore than I think advocating truthfulness and justice will result in a purely honest and just society. moreover, Mike seems to forget that Vulcan society merely repressed EMOTION. they still had their irrational religions, too. not that even Vulcan society as envisioned by Roddenberry made any sense, since emotion itself can be utilized in a quite rational fashion, and also can be a rational response to a given stimulus.

"the only way NOMA works is if religion is a separate but valid “way of knowing.” If it isn’t, then there are not separate magisteria"

of course this brings up the question of if religion is VALID (and this question seems to have used up most of the thread) I think the focus is misplaced

I DON'T CARE about the validity or religion/religious clams, I don't care if they are TRUE or not, AS LONG as they stay seperate from science. If religious claims "stay in thy kiddy pool" so that the adults can "swim laps" in the adult pool (get science done, run business that needs to be done in a secular society, run public schools) w/o interference - I would be satisfied

I am ok w/ accepting NOMA as a "fence" or "barrier" between science and religion - with the hope that good fences can make good neighbors (or at least tolerable neighbors)

Religion isn't a "way of knowing".

Organized religion is often a way of getting people to think they know things that can't be checked.

Henry

Organized religion is often a way of getting people to think they know things that can’t be checked.

Flint: Yet is "knowing" you are "saved" or that you will "enter heaven" not knowledge in any sense? Granted, they can't be checked or verified, but whoever "knows" these things, really doesn't care about scientific rigor. They care about God's Will. Telling them that such notions have no anchor in reality won't bother them, because THEY "know" better.

jasonmitchell: I DON'T CARE about the validity or religion/religious clams, I don't care if they are TRUE or not, AS LONG as they stay seperate from science. If religious claims "stay in thy kiddy pool" so that the adults can "swim laps" in the adult pool (get science done, run business that needs to be done in a secular society, run public schools) w/o interference - I would be satisfied

H. Humbert:

Flint: Yet is "knowing" you are "saved" or that you will "enter heaven" not knowledge in any sense? Granted, they can't be checked or verified, but whoever "knows" these things, really doesn't care about scientific rigor. They care about God's Will. Telling them that such notions have no anchor in reality won't bother them, because THEY "know" better.

The delusion these people hold that they "know" something absurd, illogical, contrary to all reasonable probability and devoid of evidence, is exactly what makes them so dangerous, Flint. When a person's firmly held beliefs have "no anchor in reality," then they have no anchor in reality. Losing all sight of reality is what allows people to ignore global warming, deny evolution, or fly planes into buildings. It's all connected. They're all symptoms of the destructive ability of faith to uproot people from reality to and set them adrift in a sea of irrationality. Now, certainly in such an environment, not everyone's delusion will skew in the same direction. People's personal ideas of god tend to resemble their own personalities quite closely. A kind person's god will be the epitome of kindness, an intelligent person's god will be logical and truthful, and a bigot's god will be a vindictive and judgmental god. Some people see this variety as proof that religion is a neutral phenomenon, since religious people retain a wide spectrum of beliefs and ethics. In cannot be universally condemned as bad, they say. Except this is what they miss: religious faith uproots people from reality. It is inherently irrational by definition. Faith can be used to justify any behavior whatsoever. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and once it manifests itself it cannot be managed. Faith makes people impervious to rational argumentation. They can't be reasoned with, as certain posters' hysterical reactions to having their dogma questioned demonstrates. So the message should be loud and clear: religious faith is not "knowledge" in any sense of the word. The correction needs to start there, since everything which follows from the assumption that faith is a valid form of knowledge is wrong.

I think this discussion has run its course.

RBH