Can the Religious Be Trusted?

[henry quirk]

What I observe is that when confronted with determinism...some individuals choose to sidestep, ignore, or deny the implications rather than engage with them.

Like you?

You expect us to...

reconsider the foundation of governance itself

...and...

design systems that acknowledge the deterministic nature of human behavior...build(ing) governance models rooted in data, evidence, and a deep understanding of cause and effect

...where...

Leaders would be selected based on expertise and their ability to address root causes of societal issues

...and...

Justice systems would shift from retribution to rehabilitation, acknowledging the complex factors that lead individuals to harm others

...and...

Environmental policies would be guided by predictive models, ensuring sustainability for future generations

...even though...

our brains are deterministic machines, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. We don’t control our thoughts, our desires, or our decisions. We are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which we neither initiated nor directed.

C'mon, Mike...

[attofishpi]

Big Mike thinks that Determinism is proved, merely because he wants to believe it.

Can you trust Big Mike to tell you anything logical, rational or true? Or is he simply a blind ideologue?

Discuss.

Oh! You mean compared to your implicit belief in the bible starting with Adam and Eve and finally by believing in Jesus you will save your soul and all who don't conform are doomed for hell?

Do you mean that kind of logic and rationality?

Just checking!

Very good Dubious..

I do like IC since he clearly loves the man that went to his death insisting we LOVE & TRUST each other, with what remains of HIS_STORY, all that can remain--> our FAITH in Him.

..however, I do feel IC maybe feels he is betraying some of that 'faith' if he decides to look at it - the Bible from a more realistic, logical, rational manner and is in fact forcing himself to be a 'good Christian' and believe it all literally.

[Dubious]

Big Mike thinks that Determinism is proved, merely because he wants to believe it.

Can you trust Big Mike to tell you anything logical, rational or true? Or is he simply a blind ideologue?

Discuss.

Oh! You mean compared to your implicit belief in the bible starting with Adam and Eve and finally by believing in Jesus you will save your soul and all who don't conform are doomed for hell?

Do you mean that kind of logic and rationality?

Just checking!

Very good Dubious..

I do like IC since he clearly loves the man that went to his death insisting we LOVE & TRUST each other, with what remains of HIS_STORY, all that can remain--> our FAITH in Him.

..however, I do feel IC maybe feels he is betraying some of that 'faith' if he decides to look at it - the Bible from a more realistic, logical, rational manner and is in fact forcing himself to be a 'good Christian' and believe it all literally.

Whatever beliefs people insist on believing is beyond anyone's ability to control. What remains is to default to the saying, to each his own.

To me Jesus comes across as an entity to be feared, not loved. A god doesn't behave like a human extortionist demanding protection money or he'll burn the place down. Take for example one of the greatest depictions of Christ in Western art, the Last Judgment by Michelangelo. This is more a depiction of an enraged tyrant than any god in one's ability to imagine.

Christ's sayings too as rendered in the Bible, are mostly reiterations of what was already understood in that time. There is nothing novel about it when Jesus came around but to merely confirm it.

I have no objection to the creation of a god as a messianic symbol of hope on an ecumenical scale leading into a future guided by the necessary insight to be the kind of entities who strive - though never fully achievable - toward a consummation of human potential; in effect, that we, among the other scribes sure to also exist in the cosmos, do not remain untold; but that requires a sophistication beyond our ability to express.

Most unfortunately, humans remain as pathetic as ever in the creation of their gods but most of all, in their behaviour toward the planet which created humans and every other living thing which ever walked, crawled or lived in its oceans.

What can one say! The fate of a garbage species is to eventually get anonymously dumped into a cosmic landfill...a story that could have been told as a success story but prevented themselves from telling.

[BigMike]

Oh, where do I even begin with the sheer audacity of what’s happening here, in this very forum? A space supposedly dedicated to philosophical inquiry, critical thinking, and truth-seeking—yet what do we see? The same tired defenses of faith, the same evasions, the same refusal to grapple honestly with the damage religious orthodoxy has wrought on human progress. It’s as if the lessons of history—the suppression, the fear, the stifling of intellectual freedom—have been scrubbed from memory, dismissed as irrelevant, or worse, defended as virtuous.

Do you not feel even the slightest pang of shame when you consider the toll this orthodoxy has taken on our species? The sheer weight of lives lost, minds silenced, progress delayed? For centuries, brilliant thinkers and innovators lived in fear—fear of heresy, fear of death, fear of being burned alive for daring to say, “I think the world might work differently than you say it does.” Galileo? Silenced. Hypatia? Murdered. Bruno? Burned. And for what? To defend an orthodoxy that demanded submission over understanding.

The frustration is palpable. Imagine where we might be if these suppressive forces had not existed. Imagine if curiosity, observation, and evidence had been met with encouragement rather than execution. Instead of centuries spent fitting square truths into round theological holes, we might have leapt forward into the Enlightenment and beyond, unimpeded. The Industrial Revolution might have happened in the first millennium, not the eighteenth century. Germ theory might have been discovered in the Roman Empire. Entire centuries of suffering—of ignorance—could have been avoided.

And what’s worse, this harm isn’t in the past. It continues. Right here, in this forum, I see the same refusal to confront the reality of religion’s role in suppressing progress. The same deflections, the same excuses. Religion inspires literacy? Sure—for the purpose of reading scripture. Religion funds art and architecture? Yes—but only when it serves as propaganda for itself. Knowledge was always allowed to grow, but only in ways that conformed to dogma. Progress could exist, but only as long as it didn’t challenge power.

You, sitting here reading this—have you ever stopped to consider what you’re defending when you defend this orthodoxy? Do you even realize that by refusing to confront these truths, by clinging to the comforts of tradition or faith, you are part of the very forces that have held humanity back? That you are complicit in perpetuating the very mindset that led to centuries of stagnation, suffering, and ignorance?

This isn’t about scoring points in an argument. This is about the potential of humanity—potential that has been stolen, suppressed, erased, not by chance but by choice. By the choice to prioritize belief over evidence, dogma over discovery. Every day that we fail to challenge this orthodoxy, every day that we excuse or justify it, we are part of the problem.

So yes, feel ashamed. Feel deeply and profoundly ashamed. Because the harm isn’t abstract. It’s real. It’s measurable. And it’s happening now. For every moment spent defending what is indefensible, another mind is lost, another breakthrough delayed, another opportunity squandered. If that doesn’t disturb you, if that doesn’t haunt you, then you are part of the reason humanity isn’t where it could—and should—be.

[Age]

EVERY so-called "scientist" IS 'religious'.

Can EVERY "scientist" be trusted?

[FlashDangerpants]

The frustration is palpable. Imagine where we might be if these suppressive forces had not existed. Imagine if curiosity, observation, and evidence had been met with encouragement rather than execution. Instead of centuries spent fitting square truths into round theological holes, we might have leapt forward into the Enlightenment and beyond, unimpeded. The Industrial Revolution might have happened in the first millennium, not the eighteenth century. Germ theory might have been discovered in the Roman Empire. Entire centuries of suffering—of ignorance—could have been avoided.

Kind of full of yourself aren't you?

[BigMike]

The frustration is palpable. Imagine where we might be if these suppressive forces had not existed. Imagine if curiosity, observation, and evidence had been met with encouragement rather than execution. Instead of centuries spent fitting square truths into round theological holes, we might have leapt forward into the Enlightenment and beyond, unimpeded. The Industrial Revolution might have happened in the first millennium, not the eighteenth century. Germ theory might have been discovered in the Roman Empire. Entire centuries of suffering—of ignorance—could have been avoided.

Kind of full of yourself aren't you?

Flash, dismissing a serious critique of centuries-long suppression of human progress as me being "full of myself" is exactly the kind of shallow deflection that proves my point. This isn’t about me, and it’s not about ego—it’s about the staggering toll that faith-based orthodoxy has taken on humanity. The wasted potential. The suffering that could have been avoided. The progress that was delayed, not for lack of capability or curiosity, but because dogma demanded submission.

If you can read about Hypatia’s murder, Bruno’s burning, Galileo’s silencing, and the countless lives crushed under the weight of orthodoxy, and all you take away is, “Wow, BigMike sounds pretty self-important,” then you’ve entirely missed the point. This isn’t about personal frustration—it’s about collective shame. It’s about what humanity could have been, and what it still could be if we stopped excusing the forces that held us back.

So, if you can’t engage with the substance of this critique, save your empty quips. This isn’t about stroking egos—it’s about calling out the ongoing harm of refusing to confront the truth. Either join the conversation in good faith or step aside. We’re talking about the future of humanity here, not my self-esteem.

[Age]

Oh, where do I even begin with the sheer audacity of what’s happening here, in this very forum? A space supposedly dedicated to philosophical inquiry, critical thinking, and truth-seeking—yet what do we see? The same tired defenses of faith, the same evasions, the same refusal to grapple honestly with the damage religious orthodoxy has wrought on human progress. It’s as if the lessons of history—the suppression, the fear, the stifling of intellectual freedom—have been scrubbed from memory, dismissed as irrelevant, or worse, defended as virtuous.

Do you not feel even the slightest pang of shame when you consider the toll this orthodoxy has taken on our species? The sheer weight of lives lost, minds silenced, progress delayed? For centuries, brilliant thinkers and innovators lived in fear—fear of heresy, fear of death, fear of being burned alive for daring to say, “I think the world might work differently than you say it does.” Galileo? Silenced. Hypatia? Murdered. Bruno? Burned. And for what? To defend an orthodoxy that demanded submission over understanding.

The frustration is palpable. Imagine where we might be if these suppressive forces had not existed. Imagine if curiosity, observation, and evidence had been met with encouragement rather than execution. Instead of centuries spent fitting square truths into round theological holes, we might have leapt forward into the Enlightenment and beyond, unimpeded. The Industrial Revolution might have happened in the first millennium, not the eighteenth century. Germ theory might have been discovered in the Roman Empire. Entire centuries of suffering—of ignorance—could have been avoided.

And what’s worse, this harm isn’t in the past. It continues. Right here, in this forum, I see the same refusal to confront the reality of religion’s role in suppressing progress. The same deflections, the same excuses.

"Theologians" like "scientists" BOTH suppress 'progress'. Just one example is BOTH BELIEVE, ABSOLUTELY, that the Universe BEGAN. So, science is NO better here than theology is in HOLDING UP 'moving on' and 'progress'.

AND, your BELIEF, and/or FAITH, in 'determinism' ONLY is ALSO HOLDING UP things, here.

Religion inspires literacy? Sure—for the purpose of reading scripture. Religion funds art and architecture? Yes—but only when it serves as propaganda for itself. Knowledge was always allowed to grow, but only in ways that conformed to dogma. Progress could exist, but only as long as it didn’t challenge power.

You, sitting here reading this—have you ever stopped to consider what you’re defending when you defend this orthodoxy? Do you even realize that by refusing to confront these truths, by clinging to the comforts of tradition or faith, you are part of the very forces that have held humanity back? That you are complicit in perpetuating the very mindset that led to centuries of stagnation, suffering, and ignorance?

This isn’t about scoring points in an argument. This is about the potential of humanity—potential that has been stolen, suppressed, erased, not by chance but by choice. By the choice to prioritize belief over evidence, dogma over discovery. Every day that we fail to challenge this orthodoxy, every day that we excuse or justify it, we are part of the problem.

So yes, feel ashamed. Feel deeply and profoundly ashamed. Because the harm isn’t abstract. It’s real. It’s measurable. And it’s happening now. For every moment spent defending what is indefensible, another mind is lost, another breakthrough delayed, another opportunity squandered. If that doesn’t disturb you, if that doesn’t haunt you, then you are part of the reason humanity isn’t where it could—and should—be.

[FlashDangerpants]

Oh, where do I even begin with the sheer audacity of what’s happening here, in this very forum?

[BigMike]

Oh, where do I even begin with the sheer audacity of what’s happening here, in this very forum?

Flash, let’s put aside your deflections and focus on the real weight of what we’re talking about: the suffering, the pain, and the incalculable loss humanity has endured because of the stranglehold of religious orthodoxy on progress. This isn’t some abstract intellectual exercise. It’s about lives destroyed, potential squandered, and futures stolen—all because curiosity and truth were crushed under the boot of dogma.

Picture a plague-stricken village in the 14th century, where the church declares illness a punishment from God. No effort to understand germs, no concept of sanitation, no chance for survival beyond prayer and penance. Families watched their loved ones waste away, helpless, because knowledge that could have saved them was buried under centuries of theological inertia. How many mothers buried their children? How many children grew up parentless? All while answers existed, waiting to be found, but couldn’t be sought because questioning the divine narrative was forbidden.

Imagine the fear Bruno must have felt as the flames consumed him for daring to propose that the universe was infinite. Think of Hypatia, ripped apart by a mob for the crime of teaching philosophy, her body desecrated as a warning to anyone who might follow in her footsteps. These weren’t martyrs to progress—they were victims of a system that valued submission over discovery, blind faith over reasoned thought.

And the tragedy isn’t confined to the past. Even now, in the 21st century, millions die preventable deaths because of the lingering grip of faith-based reasoning. Anti-vaccine propaganda thrives in religious communities, spreading lies that endanger lives. Climate change denial—rooted in dominionist ideologies—stalls action on a crisis that threatens the very survival of our species. LGBTQ+ youth are cast out of their homes, driven to despair, and too often to suicide, because ancient texts are twisted into weapons of hate. These are not hypothetical harms. They are real. They are happening right now.

Think of what could have been. Think of the mothers who wouldn’t have buried their babies if germ theory had been discovered a millennium earlier. Think of the untold millions who might have lived long enough to invent, to innovate, to inspire, if illness weren’t seen as divine retribution. Think of the worlds we might be colonizing now if the aeolipile, Hero’s steam engine, hadn’t been dismissed as a toy. The crushing weight of that lost potential should haunt you—because it haunts me.

So when you brush this off as me being “full of myself,” you’re not insulting me—you’re trivializing the suffering of every life lost to ignorance imposed by faith, every mind silenced by dogma, every generation that lived and died under the shadow of what might have been. This is not about ego. It’s about humanity’s pain, humanity’s loss, and humanity’s failure to confront the forces that caused it. If that doesn’t make you pause, doesn’t make you ache, then you’re part of the very problem we’re discussing.

[henry quirk]

Mike, according to you, we're...

deterministic machines, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. We don’t control our thoughts, our desires, or our decisions. We are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which we neither initiated nor directed.

...but here you are, again, giving us grief for not thinkin' right, as though any of us have any say about our thinkin' or actions.

You're...

sidestepping, ignoring, and denying the implications of determinism rather than engaging with them

...again.

[Age]

The frustration is palpable. Imagine where we might be if these suppressive forces had not existed. Imagine if curiosity, observation, and evidence had been met with encouragement rather than execution. Instead of centuries spent fitting square truths into round theological holes, we might have leapt forward into the Enlightenment and beyond, unimpeded. The Industrial Revolution might have happened in the first millennium, not the eighteenth century. Germ theory might have been discovered in the Roman Empire. Entire centuries of suffering—of ignorance—could have been avoided.

Kind of full of yourself aren't you?

Flash, dismissing a serious critique of centuries-long suppression of human progress as me being "full of myself" is exactly the kind of shallow deflection that proves my point. This isn’t about me, and it’s not about ego—it’s about the staggering toll that faith-based orthodoxy has taken on humanity.

you have a 'faith-based' BELIEF, in 'determinism' ONLY, "yourself" "bigmike"

The wasted potential. The suffering that could have been avoided. The progress that was delayed, not for lack of capability or curiosity, but because dogma demanded submission.

The wasted potential, here. The suffering that could have been avoided, here. The progress that was delayed, for lack of capability and curiosity, because dogma demanded submission, here, as well.

If you can read about Hypatia’s murder, Bruno’s burning, Galileo’s silencing, and the countless lives crushed under the weight of orthodoxy, and all you take away is, “Wow, BigMike sounds pretty self-important,” then you’ve entirely missed the point. This isn’t about personal frustration—it’s about collective shame. It’s about what humanity could have been, and what it still could be if we stopped excusing the forces that held us back.

SO, STOP 'trying to' 'justify' and/or 'excuse' your human being BELIEFS and PRESUMPTIONS.

Once you each individually and all collectively DO STOP, then you WILL STOP being HELD BACK, and thus WILL HAVE what it takes to MOVE FORWARD.

So, if you can’t engage with the substance of this critique, save your empty quips.

Are you even SLIGHTLY AWARE AT ALL just HOW MUCH you are being CONTRADICTORY and HYPOCRITICAL, here?

This isn’t about stroking egos—it’s about calling out the ongoing harm of refusing to confront the truth.

And, as I have been POINTING OUT and CALLING OUT the ONGOING HARM of you REFUSING TO CONFRONT the Truth, WHEN are you GOING TO ACKNOWLEDGE and ADMIT the Truth, here, "yourself"?

Either join the conversation in good faith or step aside. We’re talking about the future of humanity here, not my self-esteem.

Are you GOING TO JOIN IN, here, or are you going to STEP ASIDE?

[Age]

Mike, according to you, we're...

deterministic machines, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. We don’t control our thoughts, our desires, or our decisions. We are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which we neither initiated nor directed.

...but here you are, again, giving us grief for not thinkin' right, as though any of us have any say about our thinkin' or actions.

You're...

sidestepping, ignoring, and denying the implications of determinism rather than engaging with them

...again.

"bigmike", STILL, does NOT YET RECOGNIZE, FULLY, that EACH and EVERY word SAID and WRITTEN, here, IS BECAUSE of 'determinism', and 'pre-existing sequences'.

"bigmike", STILL, does NOT YET, FULLY, COMPREHEND and UNDERSTAND that even its VERY OWN DISTORTED and False BELIEFS and CONCLUSION is BECAUSE of 'determinism', itself.

[BigMike]

Mike, according to you, we're...

deterministic machines, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. We don’t control our thoughts, our desires, or our decisions. We are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which we neither initiated nor directed.

...but here you are, again, giving us grief for not thinkin' right, as though any of us have any say about our thinkin' or actions.

You're...

sidestepping, ignoring, and denying the implications of determinism rather than engaging with them

...again.

Henry, let me clarify this for you, because it seems you’re determined to misunderstand. Yes, we are deterministic machines, driven by inputs we don’t control. But that doesn’t mean engagement, critique, or discussion are pointless. On the contrary, these exchanges are part of the deterministic web of influences that shape thought and behavior. My responses—just like your objections—are not outside the deterministic framework; they’re embedded in it.

I engage with others’ reasoning not because I expect to change everyone’s mind. That would be naive. Most people are too entrenched in their beliefs, too resistant to evidence, or too limited by their intellectual or emotional frameworks to be swayed. But among the noise, there are always a few—the intelligent, the honest, the curious—who can be reached. Those are the ones I’m speaking to.

It’s not about "grief" or trying to make anyone think "right." It’s about contributing to the causal chain in a way that might influence the rare few who are capable of honest self-reflection and intellectual growth. That’s how progress happens—not by magically changing everyone’s mind, but by reaching the right minds, the ones who can carry better reasoning forward.

So no, I’m not sidestepping determinism. I’m working within it. If you don’t see the value in that, maybe you’re not one of the ones I’m trying to reach. And that’s fine—determinism explains your resistance too. But don’t mistake your dismissal for a refutation. I’m not here to change you or your like-minded Age. I’m here for the ones who can see beyond the noise.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Do you not feel even the slightest pang of shame when you consider the toll this orthodoxy has taken on our species? The sheer weight of lives lost, minds silenced, progress delayed? For centuries, brilliant thinkers and innovators lived in fear—fear of heresy, fear of death, fear of being burned alive for daring to say, “I think the world might work differently than you say it does.” Galileo? Silenced. Hypatia? Murdered. Bruno? Burned. And for what? To defend an orthodoxy that demanded submission over understanding.

BigMike, let’s take a deep dive into the swamp and mud-infested quagmire of these wild & whirling assertions you belch-forth here.

If you now examine your OP in the light of this paragraph and the post it came from, you will be able to distinguish your actual purpose and intention and, as well, be better able to understand why some (myself obviously) see you as driven by specific and active ideological imperatives. For this reason, when bringing up Huxley and Brave New World, one must ponder what BigMike’s University would teach and how the educational conditioning vat would operate in a process of intellectual reconditioning. And what curriculum the State’s educational program would adopt to educate the New Man.

You are dealing in hot-button emotionalized anti-religion tropes that are very susceptible to over-heated rhetoric. However, you and many who are pulled by seductive rhetorical gravity into such an adamant and inflexible position as yours is, lose your ground in understanding and appreciating “reality” in a fair historical sense and — note this — become ideologues of the anti-religion position. What this means (and what I have discovered in my own researches) is that you develop a contrived, exaggerated and rather historically revisionist view of the influence of religion (and theological principles) in intellectual culture and describe it (as you do) in sheerly negative terms.

The problem with the entirety of your position is that it is intellectually tendentious in a very ideologically-driven sense. But when one encounters more balanced and better-prepared historians and intellects, one is introduced to a better-reasoned perspective about the positive and creative influence of theology in Occidental culture. For example the historian Christopher Dawson. Or James J. Walsh’s The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries. Or such philosophers as Etienne Gilson in The Unity of Philosophical Experience.

The picture presented through these historical works will offer you a contravening picture to your rhetorical extremism. The truth of the matter is that religion (and specifically Catholicism and Christian theology) in Occidental culture has had so many different levels of influence that when one grasps this, one’s overall and general picture changes.

What I think “we” are dealing with here is far more complex and challenging than meets the heated rhetor’s eyes. I read you as a Hyper-Liberal ideologue with a bizarre Scientistic perceptual platform. In many ways you will find your analogues on this forum and in ‘modern philosophy’. Flash, Dubious, Accelafine, Promethean and a dozen others are expositors of these radically anti-Christian postures. And they too (in my opinion) operate from an over-heated rhetorical base that clouds their capacity to see clearly and fairly.

Like you they are driven in their perspectives. I understand this to be a fault. My view is that we must stand back and view all of this from some distance in order to arrive at more judicious perspectives.

My view of you is that you are a convoluted intellect invested in convoluting ideological positions. But this “you” is not solely a singular person but a driven and even a determined perspective which has been cobbled together for a range of purposes and “infects” people.

The real meaning here (what might be taken away from this conversation) in my view has to do with intellectual contamination by that which I define as “overheated”, extremist and tendentious. These infect our present and all of us, in one degree or another.

(If you think that Red Guard clip exaggerates the potential ramifications of ideological extremism then think again. We are living through such a time.)