Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Immanuel Can]

I'm happy to expedite your path to enlightenment as requested...

That's interesting. So you don't actually have a contrary theory to the theory that an original mating pair was necessary for the human race to exist...if you did, I'm sure you'd simply have offered it.

Well, then, your skepticism regarding that original story isn't founded in anything, it would seem. You don't have an alternative story -- at least, not one you have any reason to prefer.

Of course, I knew that. But now, you do, too.

From the sounds of it, he may have been disputing original sin and thus whether Christ needed to die for that sin.

That's possible.

But if Dubious were aiming at that, then he/she would have to have a solid basis for an alternate theory, and a definite reason to prefer that alternate theory...and it would need to be one that did not imply that there was an original mating pair. Otherwise, what's his/her basis for ridiculing the idea of this original pair going off track morally in some way? And what's the basis of his/her confidence that the Biblical narrative isn't at least metaphorically adequate to the history of human fallibility?

Consequently, Dube might not become convinced of the particulars of the Biblical narrative. But he/she would lose any basis for ridicule, since he/she would have no alternate narrative in hand that would have more proof to it than the Biblical narrative understood in a metaphorical or Jungian way. And then, all the confidence of Dubious's position would be gone. He/she would have to concede that the Biblical narrative was at least as good, for purposes of metaphorical explication, at least, if not also for literal history, as anything he/she could offer.

So just how confident is Dubious that when he/she ridicules the Biblical narrative, he/she himself/herself is standing on something firmer than quicksand?

[Alexiev]

[
Science doesn’t need to predict every human decision to support determinism. That’s a strawman argument. Science works by identifying patterns and probabilities within constraints. The fact that you equate this with "worthlessness" only highlights your ignorance.

So, Alexiev, let me spell it out for you one last time:

• Determinism isn’t just a useful framework—it’s reality. Everything we observe follows the rules of the universe’s four fundamental interactions and conservation laws.
• Free will, as you defend it, requires rejecting these foundational principles. If you’re going to argue otherwise, show your work. Which conservation law does free will violate, and how does it interact with the physical brain?
• Stop dodging, stop deflecting, and stop acting as if your vacuous rhetoric is clever. It’s not. It’s cowardice masquerading as intellect.

As usual, you are spewing nonsense that is utterly irrelevant to anything I have written. I have never claimed to reject determinismm (unlike some of your other interlocutors, with whom you must be confusing me in your warped and unimaginative fashion). Instead, I have claimed it is irrelevant. Scientists need not be hard determists. We'll leave hard determinism to the astrologers. After all, if everything has been determined since the Big Bang, why wouldn't the movement of the stars be correlated to and predicted by the movement of the stars? Everything is caused by everything else, after all.

Determinism may or may not be a reality, but who cares? The deterministic attempts in politics and social reforms have been resounding and horrible failures. Communism is a leading example -- by trying to make history a science and the good of the State more important than individual rights it led to untold horrors. Eugenics would be another example -- a "scientific" approach to human reproduction that claims to be able to improve human welfare at the cost of freedom.

History may be a science, some day. But since that day is yet to come, claiming that this glorious future will benefit us all is silly. We simply don't know. The same is true for most humanistic disciplines: art, literature, languages, anthropology, religion, etc. Even those areas of the humanities in which science has been most successful (economics and linguistics) scholars are moving away from determinism. Perhaps you should follow their lead. Determinism is a form of Modernism. The post-modernists may not have replaced it in a cogent way, but their critiques of it are trenchent. Try reading them (although this may be difficult for you since you appear to be unable to read my posts).

[Impenitent]

Sorry...can't see the connection. How can you have a human race with no original mating pair of humans to produce them? By asexual reproduction, like an amoeba? The question's ridiculous.

It seems you're saying evolution is ridiculous...

I'm just asking what your theory is. How did the human race get started without sexual reproduction? I've never heard at theory like that, and I'd find it intriguing to hear it spun out.

and the stork has flown away...

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

It seems you're saying evolution is ridiculous...

I'm just asking what your theory is. How did the human race get started without sexual reproduction? I've never heard at theory like that, and I'd find it intriguing to hear it spun out.

and the stork has flown away...

-Imp

Yes; as has mitosis, time-travel, cloning, panspermia...

[accelafine]

I'm happy to expedite your path to enlightenment as requested...

That's interesting. So you don't actually have a contrary theory to the theory that an original mating pair was necessary for the human race to exist...if you did, I'm sure you'd simply have offered it.

Well, then, your skepticism regarding that original story isn't founded in anything, it would seem. You don't have an alternative story -- at least, not one you have any reason to prefer.

Of course, I knew that. But now, you do, too.

From the sounds of it, he may have been disputing original sin and thus whether Christ needed to die for that sin. If the tale of the Garden of Eden is some kind of allegorical myth, then might that mean that original sin is an allegorical myth as well? If it is an allegorical myth that there was a talking snake and an apple that God told the first two people not to eat then what might have been our true original sin, if not that?

It's a ridiculous story anyway. Makes no logical sense. Aesop's fables are far more clever and insightful. The boy who cried wolf is genius.

[BigMike]

[
Science doesn’t need to predict every human decision to support determinism. That’s a strawman argument. Science works by identifying patterns and probabilities within constraints. The fact that you equate this with "worthlessness" only highlights your ignorance.

So, Alexiev, let me spell it out for you one last time:

• Determinism isn’t just a useful framework—it’s reality. Everything we observe follows the rules of the universe’s four fundamental interactions and conservation laws.
• Free will, as you defend it, requires rejecting these foundational principles. If you’re going to argue otherwise, show your work. Which conservation law does free will violate, and how does it interact with the physical brain?
• Stop dodging, stop deflecting, and stop acting as if your vacuous rhetoric is clever. It’s not. It’s cowardice masquerading as intellect.

As usual, you are spewing nonsense that is utterly irrelevant to anything I have written. I have never claimed to reject determinismm (unlike some of your other interlocutors, with whom you must be confusing me in your warped and unimaginative fashion). Instead, I have claimed it is irrelevant. Scientists need not be hard determists. We'll leave hard determinism to the astrologers. After all, if everything has been determined since the Big Bang, why wouldn't the movement of the stars be correlated to and predicted by the movement of the stars? Everything is caused by everything else, after all.

Determinism may or may not be a reality, but who cares? The deterministic attempts in politics and social reforms have been resounding and horrible failures. Communism is a leading example -- by trying to make history a science and the good of the State more important than individual rights it led to untold horrors. Eugenics would be another example -- a "scientific" approach to human reproduction that claims to be able to improve human welfare at the cost of freedom.

History may be a science, some day. But since that day is yet to come, claiming that this glorious future will benefit us all is silly. We simply don't know. The same is true for most humanistic disciplines: art, literature, languages, anthropology, religion, etc. Even those areas of the humanities in which science has been most successful (economics and linguistics) scholars are moving away from determinism. Perhaps you should follow their lead. Determinism is a form of Modernism. The post-modernists may not have replaced it in a cogent way, but their critiques of it are trenchent. Try reading them (although this may be difficult for you since you appear to be unable to read my posts).

Alexiev, you’ve moved from irrelevant deflection to outright nonsense with this latest diatribe. Let’s get one thing clear: dismissing determinism as irrelevant while smuggling in arguments about its supposed failures only exposes your incoherence. You claim to have never rejected determinism, but your entire argument hinges on the idea that it’s either meaningless or harmful. So, which is it? Are you rejecting it outright or just terrified of its implications?

Let’s dismantle your drivel:

1. Your "irrelevance" claim: Determinism is not irrelevant because it forms the backbone of every scientific advancement humanity has achieved. Medicine, technology, engineering, climate science—every single one of these fields depends on deterministic principles. The fact that you can write your dismissive nonsense on a computer is itself proof of determinism’s relevance. Or do you think the electrons in your keyboard are engaging in "free will"?
2. Your appeal to political failures: Communism and eugenics? Really? Neither of these failed due to determinism. They failed because of flawed ideologies, human corruption, and bad implementation—not because they relied on an understanding of causality. Conflating political atrocities with deterministic science is an insult to reason and history. Show me where the four fundamental interactions of nature caused a Stalinist purge. Oh, wait—you can’t, because this is just another one of your desperate attempts to distract from your lack of a coherent argument.
3. Your astrology strawman: Equating determinism with astrology is laughable. Determinism doesn’t claim "everything causes everything else." It asserts that every event has a cause that operates within the constraints of physical laws. Astrology, by contrast, is pure pseudoscience—something your argument increasingly resembles.
4. Your handwaving at the humanities: Yes, the humanities involve elements of subjectivity and interpretation. That doesn’t mean they’re untouched by determinism. Neuroscience informs psychology, which informs sociology, which informs anthropology and education. The interplay between determinism and human behavior is a field of active study, not the dead end you pretend it to be.

Finally, your smug invocation of postmodernism only highlights your intellectual laziness. Postmodern critiques don’t negate determinism—they critique overly simplistic applications of models to human systems. If you had any real understanding of those critiques, you’d see they don’t support your pseudo-philosophical gibberish.

So, let me ask you again: if determinism is irrelevant, as you claim, what mechanism governs human behavior and the universe at large? And don’t dodge with more rhetoric about political failures or the humanities—give me a mechanism that doesn’t violate conservation laws or the four fundamental interactions. If you can’t, then admit that your argument is little more than a frightened refusal to engage with reality.

[seeds]

It seems you're saying evolution is ridiculous...

I'm just asking what your theory is. How did the human race get started without sexual reproduction? I've never heard at theory like that, and I'd find it intriguing to hear it spun out.

I'm happy to expedite your path to enlightenment as requested...

Approximately three million years ago there was this young female named Lucy who, by account, was extremely good-looking but also very lonely until by chance she met Ricky who was equally lonely but very handsome. (There were very few of their kind around at the time and their meeting wasn't inevitable!) Well, as you may imagine, the chemistry was immediate and on fire, having occurred most fortuitously at this precise historically centered moment of intense mutual recognition that the subsequent history of the human race was decided once and for all, when Ricky was the first to say I love Lucy.

That's some good 'splainin' there Dubious.

And as we all know, Lucy was always getting Ricky into trouble with her misadventures, one of which (an apple swiping caper) was particularly troublesome.

Anyway, after Ricky sang "Babaloo" to Lucy, little Ricky soon showed up and needed a wife, so big Ricky sang Babaloo again to Lucy and the rest is history.
_______

[Alexiev]

[

Alexiev, you’ve moved from irrelevant deflection to outright nonsense with this latest diatribe. Let’s get one thing clear: dismissing determinism as irrelevant while smuggling in arguments about its supposed failures only exposes your incoherence. You claim to have never rejected determinism, but your entire argument hinges on the idea that it’s either meaningless or harmful. So, which is it? Are you rejecting it outright or just terrified of its implications?

Let’s dismantle your drivel:

1. Your "irrelevance" claim: Determinism is not irrelevant because it forms the backbone of every scientific advancement humanity has achieved. Medicine, technology, engineering, climate science—every single one of these fields depends on deterministic principles. The fact that you can write your dismissive nonsense on a computer is itself proof of determinism’s relevance. Or do you think the electrons in your keyboard are engaging in "free will"?

Hard determinism clearly does not form the backbone of science. That's nonsense. Instead, scientists try to observe what happens and speculate as to what general rule can predict similar occurences. Science makes no claims whatsoever about the universality of these rules or the possibility of miracles that defy the rules. Why would it? Such claims are beyond the realm of science.

[*] [

b]Your appeal to political failures:[/b] Communism and eugenics? Really? Neither of these failed due to determinism. They failed because of flawed ideologies, human corruption, and bad implementation—not because they relied on an understanding of causality. Conflating political atrocities with deterministic science is an insult to reason and history. Show me where the four fundamental interactions of nature caused a Stalinist purge. Oh, wait—you can’t, because this is just another one of your desperate attempts to distract from your lack of a coherent argument.

They represent two of the most significant attempts to use a scientific approach to order society. This is obvious. Two terrible examples do not prove that scientific approaches can never work, but they suggest a degree of caution of which fanatics like you seem incapable.

[*] [

b]Your astrology strawman:[/b] Equating determinism with astrology is laughable. Determinism doesn’t claim "everything causes everything else." It asserts that every event has a cause that operates within the constraints of physical laws. Astrology, by contrast, is pure pseudoscience—something your argument increasingly resembles.

Really? Then why are you arguing? Everyone agrees that events tend to "operate within the constraints of physical laws" (some people believe in miracles, which may also be constrained by laws of which we are unaware). You're the one who stated that all events have been "determined" forever. If so, astrology would be reasonable in principle, even if (like scientists) astrologers often are wrong.

[

So, let me ask you again: if determinism is irrelevant, as you claim, what mechanism governs human behavior and the universe at large? And don’t dodge with more rhetoric about political failures or the humanities—give me a mechanism that doesn’t violate conservation laws or the four fundamental interactions. If you can’t, then admit that your argument is little more than a frightened refusal to engage with reality.

Your question reveals your utter failure to understand my critique. I've used the card analogy many times. The order of the cards (everyone agrees) is predetermined by the shuffle. But the fact that it is predetermined is irrelevant to the gambler, who can only make decisions based on the fact that the order is random to him. The same is true for us in the rest of life. In those areas where the future is unknown (we all know that if we drop something it will fall) we act as if the future is indeterminate. This is so obvious that you display an unconscionsble degree of either stupidity, ignorance, or prejudice by failing to acknowledge it.

[Dubious]

I'm just asking what your theory is. How did the human race get started without sexual reproduction? I've never heard at theory like that, and I'd find it intriguing to hear it spun out.

I'm happy to expedite your path to enlightenment as requested...

Well, then, your skepticism regarding that original story isn't founded in anything, it would seem. You don't have an alternative story -- at least, not one you have any reason to prefer.

Of course, I knew that. But now, you do, too.

You make yourself more pathetic with each reply and with each post.

Forgive them lord, for they know not that they know not but condemn them to the lowest levels of mindless ignorance for attempting to make it a permanent condition.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm happy to expedite your path to enlightenment as requested...

Well, then, your skepticism regarding that original story isn't founded in anything, it would seem. You don't have an alternative story -- at least, not one you have any reason to prefer.

Of course, I knew that. But now, you do, too.

You make yourself more pathetic with each reply and with each post.

Still no story. Lots of insults and rhetoric, but no way to explain your own position. Philosophers note this kind of thing, you know...they don't go for the "shiny objects" of insults you wave in front of them...they still expect an answer. And they notice when you don't have one.

Have a nice day.

[Dubious]

Well, then, your skepticism regarding that original story isn't founded in anything, it would seem. You don't have an alternative story -- at least, not one you have any reason to prefer.

Of course, I knew that. But now, you do, too.

You make yourself more pathetic with each reply and with each post.

Still no story. Lots of insults and rhetoric, but no way to explain your own position. Philosophers note this kind of thing, you know...they don't go for the "shiny objects" of insults you wave in front of them...they still expect an answer. And they notice when you don't have one.

Have a nice day.

One must clearly be careful how one feeds information to those whose comprehension is below idiot. So I'll make this as simple as possible.

Adam & Eve and all such depictions of the first mating couple = false

Evolution proven beyond all conceivable doubt = true

Addendum: The first condition verified as false necessitates the conclusion of Jesus dying for our sins equally false.

CAUTION! Don't try to figure it out if it's going to blow a few dozen neurons since that's all you got left!

[Immanuel Can]

One must clearly be careful how one feeds information to those whose comprehension is below idiot. So I'll make this as simple as possible.

Adam & Eve and all such depictions of the first mating couple = false

Yes, I understand you fully.

But what is the TRUE story, according to you? Since there was, according to you, no "first mating couple," what was there, in its place? What do you believe instead of that?

It can't be Evolutionism, because Evolutionism would proceed by sexual reproduction. And therefore, there WOULD have to be some "first mating couple," even if you didn't know what their names were. But you insist there was none. You say "all such depictions" are false. So whatever brand of Evolutionism you say you believe in, this would guarantee that it was not based on sexual reproduction.

So how did it operate? By mitosis?

[accelafine]

That question is so stupid that even AI doesn't acknowledge it

[Immanuel Can]

That question is so stupid that even AI doesn't acknowledge it

Well, it's Dube's question, essentially. I don't even believe it can be asked: but Dube seems to...

Because if all accounts involving a first mating pair are false, then something different must be true; and that automatically raises the question of what that "something different" could possibly be.

But you know what else is interesting? That you so didn't have an alternative story to the "first pair" idea that you went to ask AI. That's interesting.

But it's understandable. Dube can't possibly be right. The mere suggestion of some other story is so wildly implausible that apparently AI can't even figure out what to do with it.

[Alexiev]

That question is so stupid that even AI doesn't acknowledge it

Well, it's Dube's question, essentially. I don't even believe it can be asked: but Dube seems to...

Because if all accounts involving a first mating pair are false, then something different must be true; and that automatically raises the question of what that "something different" could possibly be.

Sexual reproduction offers an example of my critique of BM's hard determinism. Children inherit thousands of genes from their parents-- some from the father some from the mother. The distribution of this inheritance may indeed be "predetermined" by natural forces. Some sperm swim faster. Once the ovum is fertilized, natural forces may affect which genes come from the father and which from the mother.

However, since we cannot measure, control, or predict the distribution of genes, it is random as far as we are concerned, and it makes no difference to us whether it is determined by natural forces. In this case, as in many others, determinism or non-determinism is utterly irrelevant.