Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[BigMike]

just because an event is determined doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.

And who is it meaningful to? No one. Any meaning or value placed is just another causally inevitable thought. Any rejection of meaning is also causally inevitable.

So yes, I’m a “machine made of meat,” But that doesn’t strip (my) life of purpose—it redefines it.

It negates it. You're nuthin'. A meat puppet doin' as cause & effect directs.

Henry, it seems like you’re leaning into fatalism rather than determinism here, and there’s an important distinction. Fatalism suggests that outcomes are fixed no matter what we do, like a script playing out regardless of input. Determinism, on the other hand, recognizes that actions, thoughts, and experiences are themselves part of the causal chain shaping the future. What you remember, what you learn, and what happens to you today directly influences what you do tomorrow—not because you “choose” it freely, but because those events physically alter the neural pathways in your brain.

Calling us "meat puppets" doesn’t negate that we are dynamic, causally interconnected systems. A puppet pulled by strings has no feedback loop, no ability to learn, no mechanism for memory. But humans, governed by the laws of physics and biology, do. That’s why practice leads to mastery, why exposure to ideas changes minds, and why the deterministic unfolding of events doesn’t make life purposeless—it makes it rich with causally grounded possibilities.

Yes, all meaning arises deterministically, but that doesn’t strip it of value. If understanding how things work changes future behavior, even in deterministic systems, then "meaning" is simply the name we give to that process of influence. Dismissing that as "nothing" misses the entire beauty of how cause and effect allow the world to change, grow, and evolve—even if it’s all inevitable.

[henry quirk]

my critique

Isn't yours. You are a flesh node, transmitting signal.

You are nuthin'.

[henry quirk]

Fatalism suggests that outcomes are fixed no matter what (I) do, like a script playing out regardless of input. Determinism, on the other hand, recognizes that actions, thoughts, and experiences are themselves part of the causal chain shaping the future.

A distinction that makes no difference. You will do as you must either way and you have no say on it.

[BigMike]

Fatalism suggests that outcomes are fixed no matter what (I) do, like a script playing out regardless of input. Determinism, on the other hand, recognizes that actions, thoughts, and experiences are themselves part of the causal chain shaping the future.

A distinction that makes no difference. You will do as you must either way and you have no say on it.

I’m waiting for your response to my last question before deciding whether to add you to my ignore list.

[henry quirk]

I’m waiting for your response to my last question before deciding whether to add you to my ignore list.

Please, repeat it or direct me to it. I missed it (according to you, it was inevitable I should).

[BigMike]

I’m waiting for your response to my last question before deciding whether to add you to my ignore list.

Please, repeat it or direct me to it. I missed it (according to you, it was inevitable I should).

Done!

[henry quirk]

Done!

-----

If anybody can be bothered to direct me to Mike's question, I'd appreciate it.

[BigMike]

While I aim to engage thoughtfully and productively in discussions, there are limits to what is worth pursuing. My ignore list consists of individuals who repeatedly show they are uninterested in engaging with ideas constructively or are more focused on derailing the conversation than on advancing understanding.

My ignore list currently consists of these individuals:

1. Age
2. Alexis Jacobi
3. Atla
4. attofishi
5. FlashDangerpants
6. godelian
7. henry quirk
8. seeds
9. Skepdick

[Atla]

Someone who goes on about science, but throws out the neuroscience of the prefrontal cortex. Because it shows that we are meat machines who make decisions, meat machines with wills. And he has already decided that he doesn't like that.

[Atla]

While I aim to engage thoughtfully and productively in discussions, there are limits to what is worth pursuing. My ignore list consists of individuals who repeatedly show they are uninterested in engaging with ideas constructively or are more focused on derailing the conversation than on advancing understanding.

My ignore list currently consists of these individuals:

1. Age
2. Alexis Jacobi
3. Atla
4. attofishi
5. FlashDangerpants
6. godelian
7. henry quirk
8. seeds
9. Skepdick

What external factor made you reply to some people who you have on ignore?

[henry quirk]

My ignore list consists of individuals who repeatedly show they are uninterested in engaging with ideas constructively or are more focused on derailing the conversation than on advancing understanding.

As you reckon it: we can only do what we do. It's not our fault we're disruptin' your sermons. What we do is causally inevitable.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, I guess there’s no one left for BM to converse with except IC. In any case, I enjoyed (if that is the word) IC’s responses to BM.

BM is wedded to a contradiction. Or his primary terms are confused and he cannot sort them out. It is not worth the energy required to sort him out. He projects his own established recalcitrance on numerous here and can’t see that.

I do really think it is wise to think about the vast part of our world, and even our lived life, in deterministic terms. But by deterministic I mean conditioned. We are so much wedded to our circumstances and context. We are pushed along in a wave and current of causes. For that reason I say we have a cubic centimeter of opportunity to act differently.

It just has seemed that what he snatches away with his right hand, he smuggles back in with his left …

He cannot in any sense jettison his own will, choice and agency.

His entire discourse is rendered absurd.

My ignore list consists of individuals who repeatedly show they are uninterested in engaging with ideas constructively or are more focused on derailing the conversation than on advancing understanding.

Projection …

[accelafine]

While I aim to engage thoughtfully and productively in discussions, there are limits to what is worth pursuing. My ignore list consists of individuals who repeatedly show they are uninterested in engaging with ideas constructively or are more focused on derailing the conversation than on advancing understanding.

My ignore list currently consists of these individuals:

1. Age
2. Alexis Jacobi
3. Atla
4. attofishi
5. FlashDangerpants
6. godelian
7. henry quirk
8. seeds
9. Skepdick

What external factor made you reply to some people who you have on ignore?

Then why do you respond to his posts if you know you are on 'ignore'? That's just bad manners and deliberate baiting. You have that in common with Age. You do realise this still creates a big red intrusive blob on someone's page that's impossible to ignore don't you? Of course you do, dearie.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But here’s where you miss the point: just because an event is determined doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. The rock rolling downhill doesn’t “intend” to erode the landscape, but it does shape it, inevitably. Likewise, my words—determined as they may be—serve a causal function. They influence the deterministic processes in others, potentially altering their perspectives or behaviors in the future. That’s not meaningless; that’s the mechanism of change in a deterministic system.

Except — I will speak only for myself — what you have brought into focus is the realness and importance of the choice (agency, power) that I do have.

The question then becomes one of thinking about my own agency but also my agency in relation to or connected with metaphysical or supernatural agency (which I understand to be real).

You represent man who becomes like a machine because that is all he can see: machine entity. You emblematize psychological mirroring. You have so empowered an occult metaphysical picture (machine-like, agency-less), then made it a doctrine, and then subsumed yourself into it. You present us with a cultural tendency that has all sorts of implications.

What is “divinity”, what is “God”, what is it that man must mirror himself to? We have to conceive of some axis completely outside of conditioning, context and determinism.

[Alexiev]

Then let's do that: a "genuine choice" is a choice that actually alters the possible outcome of an incident.

That's actually pretty good, but some clarification is needed about what it means to change a possibility, and also some of the other words.

It seems rather clear, actually.

If we define "genuine choice" in that manner, then determinism and "genuine choice" are clearly incompatible. However, as I pointed out repeatedly, the normal definition of choice (I assume such a "choice is "genuine") is "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities." We humans can be "faced with" choices even if the one we will pick is determined. That's because we don't know what the outcome will be until it occurs, just as the gambler doesn't know which card is on the top of the deck until it is dealt.

The problem with using words in an idiosyncratic manner is that they are useful only if we accept the shared meaning.