Ye Religion Thread

[DaHanG]

As i proposed, doesn't human free will cover enough ground for potential suffering?

if crops grew perfect, and there were no floods, wouldn't that change how much suffering humans imposed on themselves?

Perhaps, but is that going to stop a Hitler from having significant impact on humankind? I doubt it.

[quadz]

looks like god wants us to create good things ourselves

So this god you've described has set things up so that millions of humans have suffered horribly for millenia, in order that we may someday discover enough science and technology to hopefully someday put an end to disease and hunger ourselves?

[QuakeDuke]

It has been fun, but I no longer have any reason to continue with this thread, or any other thread.

Since personal experiences prove nothing, any and all things we might discuss fall into the category of nothing. Why? Everything we discuss is based on our personal experience, what we've read, heard, learned in some form or fashion.

This also means all the science in the world means nothing. Why? Because every experiment, every theorem, every idea is embedded with the personal experience of scientists who then pass that on to us - however, since personal experiences prove nothing, all the stuff science has so called proven is invalid because it is based on the personal experience of the scientist who has communicated their personal experiences (learning, etc)  with us.

Hi QD,

I must say, I don't follow your reasoning with regard to science.  Because the key with science is it's not founded on the personal experience of the initial person who first proposed a new hypothesis to explain some natural phenomenon.  Rather, science requires that the initial discoverer's "experience" be able to be verified and reproduced by other scientists.

In this context, the scientific method itself is a repudiation of the notion that mere personal experience proves anything.  (Remember cold fusion?)  Indeed, it's not science until it's a shared, objectively verifiable experience.

Lemme know if I somehow missed your point...
Regards,
quadz

I suppose I should try to explain what I mean.

Everything is all inextricably bound with personal experience. I believe this, uh, theorem will prove true regardless of subject matter and and understanding (or lack of) of this can have a great influence in how we choose to believe personal experiences communicated to us by others.

1st, in the beginning (no, not baseball or a religious reference but as a starting place ) there is the personal experience of a person who has the "initial" experience of "discovering" (understanding, receiving revelation, whatever) of a particular phenomenon - this personal experience is handed off to others, but is still wholly based in the personal experience of the initial "discoverer", and can never be separated from that initial personal experience.

2nd, there now comes into the equation the personal experiences of those who "work" on the hypothesis, each adding to the work their personal experiences concerning what they have learned (thus it is their personal experience) of the personal experiences communicated to them by the initial discoverer.  How long (in terms of years etc) or how many people have input into the "work" doesn't change the fact that all that can be brought into the "work" is the personal experiences of each person who contributes.

So then we can state  the sum of any understanding concerning any phenomena is the total of all the personal experiences of those who have contributed to whatever is worked on. Therefore to state personal experiences prove nothing, would totally invalidate everything because  everything is made up of personal experiences.

Where problems begin is in choosing which personal experiences we are willing to accept. Those choices are greatly influenced by - you guessed it - our own personal experiences with whatever subject is before us.

Unless we are incredibly open minded (oh, we talk a good open-mindedness but our actions show how open-minded we are/aren't) we will always choose the personal experiences of those who will make us the most comfortable with our world view. We will justify those choices in many ways, but it still comes down to that. We just aren't willing to take a chance with our personal experiences, that they  might not be all there is and we might have to scrap a lifetime of (dis)belief in a particular subject and pursue a different view of it based on someone else's personal experiences yet this is the way we learn.

I've seen a lot of references to Stephen Hawkins in this thread, so I would assume he is a person that many would accept as an "authority" and thus someone many here would accept as having "acceptable" personal experiences concerning physics. Did anyone watch the special a week or so back (I mentioned it in the shout box?) where he admitted he had been wrong (although his uh, theory, had been widely accepted by the scientific world) about black holes?  Was he right all those years or wrong? Did he change his mind?

Simply because we, in our own personal experience haven't encountered a phenomenon in no way  invalidates the personal experience of someone who has - regardless of what that experience is. While there is nothing wrong with investigation of the personal experience in question, (and they should be investigated) for us to start from the premise they must be wrong (and how do we arrive at the premise they're wrong? Because we haven't experienced it). This starting position blinds us and prevents us from objectively looking at a situation.  Because we've already made up our minds they are wrong, our "evidence" gathering, our acceptance of personal experiences are going to be to support our position not to truly find out the truth. Science has been hindered by this for centuries. Man's denial of God and God's salvation plan for mankind suffers in the same way.

Beware of becoming so set in your ways of thinking that you become unwilling to accept someone else's personal experiences. To do so means we will never grow beyond our own limited views, and we will become dogmatic and extremist in our world view. If anything, the personal experiences of mankind proves that.

QD

[DaHanG]

I applaud your analysis, but I'm curious as to whether you still think I was dishonest as you've implied?

[quadz]

Everything is all inextricably bound with personal experience. I believe this, uh, theorem will prove true regardless of subject matter and and understanding (or lack of) of this can have a great influence in how we choose to believe personal experiences communicated to us by others.

1st, in the beginning (no, not baseball or a religious reference but as a starting place ) there is the personal experience of a person who has the "initial" experience of "discovering" (understanding, receiving revelation, whatever) of a particular phenomenon - this personal experience is handed off to others, but is still wholly based in the personal experience of the initial "discoverer", and can never be separated from that initial personal experience.

2nd, there now comes into the equation the personal experiences of those who "work" on the hypothesis, each adding to the work their personal experiences concerning what they have learned (thus it is their personal experience) of the personal experiences communicated to them by the initial discoverer.

[reaper]

So this god you've described has set things up so that millions of humans have suffered horribly for millenia, in order that we may someday discover enough science and technology to hopefully someday put an end to disease and hunger ourselves?

[DaHanG]

if crops grew perfect, and there were no floods, wouldn't that change how much suffering humans imposed on themselves?

Perhaps, but is that going to stop a Hitler from having significant impact on humankind? I doubt it.

i don't like how people can look at science and form such complete explanations, i think if we learned anything from science, it's that science only showed use how much we don't know. i'd also like to point out another time stephen hawking was wrong, he spoke about global warming as fact, yet we should believe everything he says?

What did science have to do with my explanation? Science has only showed us how much we used to not know.

i'd also like to point out another time stephen hawking was wrong, he spoke about global warming as fact, yet we should believe everything he says?

He was wrong about this? You know global warming doesn't exist?

[deft]

guys i got it. god makes the world with natural disasters and suffering so that you have something to look forward to when you go to heaven, hes so sneaky.

[DaHanG]

Well, shucks...I thought I'd drop by and see if anything has changed ..... it hasn't. Lots and lots of talk based on personal experiences & NO tangible evidence NOT tied to someone's personal experience....Too bad personal experiences don't prove anything.....

It's interesting how QD is completely fixated on the line "personal experiences prove nothing" when I admit I would rather have used the term religious or spiritual (which was in the context of what I meant). Why not give me the benefit of the doubt? Are you implying you know what I meant better than me? I am straight up telling you what I meant, and you can see the context plainly laid out where I never changed the term from "personal" to "religious" like you claim. Even if you "know" you're right about my dishonesty, is it not clear that I identified something undesirable with such a statement? Shouldn't we move on?

The

[reaper]

He was wrong about this? You know global warming doesn't exist?

stephen hawking is wrong about global warming, he speaks about global warming like it's a fact.

[DWxchzrles]

http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/beast.htm

something to really think about

[DaHanG]

He was wrong about this? You know global warming doesn't exist?

stephen hawking is wrong about global warming, he speaks about global warming like it's a fact.

You know Stephen Hawking is wrong about global warming? Please relay this information to our scientists and congressmen because this would be helpful.

it's about as far from fact as someone knowing religious experiences are pointless, and are just a byproduct of evolution.

I don

[metaL]

global warming is real

[reaper]

http://geology.com/news/images/global-warming-graph.jpg

[metaL]

100 year natural warming trend? how come this is the warmest the earth has been in thousands of years, many cities are breaking all-time high temperature records, maps are having to be changed due to the melting of antarctica and greenland, and the rise in temperature is directly proportional to the rise in carbon emissions?