Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Belinda]

Skepdick, your entire argument is built on a false dichotomy—as if understanding conservation laws somehow prevents us from conceptualizing social or economic progress. That’s just nonsense.

OK, cupcake.

The physical world operates under conservation principles, but value, innovation, and social progress are emergent phenomena within those constraints.

Well, yeah! Emergentism is precisely the escape hatch you need given the failure of reductionist physics in the social domain.

Economics and ethics are not about creating something from nothing; they’re about rearranging and optimizing existing resources

Sorry, I don't understand how you can "optimize" something somewhere without "deoptimizing" something elsewhere.

Conservation laws and all that.

conditions, and incentives to improve human well-being.

At the expense of...? You know - conservation laws. +5 here means -5 elsewhere...

The idea that conservation principles make value creation "impossible" is just your own misunderstanding of how value actually emerges—through efficiency, knowledge accumulation, and systemic improvements.

Well, explain it to us then, genius. How does a nett positive emerge from a zero-sum system?

And let’s address this ridiculous claim that physicists and mathematicians are "social cripples" because they study symmetries. That’s the kind of ignorant anti-intellectualism that people resort to when they don’t understand a subject but want to dismiss it anyway.

Except, you got that all backwards. I am dismissing precisely the subject I do understand.

I am dismissing it on the basis for its insufficiency and inapplicability to the social domain.

Symmetries don’t make asymmetries invisible—they help us understand when and why asymmetries occur.

Contradiction.

How could an asymmetry possibly occur?!? You keep insisting that conservation laws (symmetries!) are never violated.

You’re not arguing against physics; you’re arguing against a cartoon version of it that you’ve invented because reality doesn’t fit your narrative.

I am arguing against abuse and misapplication of equational reasoning you have so thoroughly demonstrated.

Forcing the square peg of human affairs into the round hole of reductionist equational reasoning is a perverse form of anti-intellectualism. It's scientism.

Skepdick, your entire approach is just a desperate attempt to misapply conservation laws where they don’t belong. Yes, physical energy is conserved, but how that energy is used and transformed matters. Almost all energy on Earth is stored solar energy—the sunlight that powers ecosystems, fuels weather patterns, and, through photosynthesis, provides the foundation for life itself. That energy isn’t just static—it’s harnessed, converted, and optimized to sustain and improve conditions here on Earth. Life flourishes within physical constraints. It doesn’t mean we’re stuck in a zero-sum game.

Your "at the expense of what?" argument is just lazy. Efficiency gains, knowledge accumulation, and technological advancements don’t require "deoptimizing" something elsewhere. Solar panels don’t steal energy from the sun—they harness it better. Scientific progress doesn’t erase old knowledge—it builds on it. Medicine doesn’t heal one person by harming another—it improves human well-being across the board.

You demand an example of how a net positive emerges from a zero-sum system? Look around you. Civilization itself is proof. Every advancement, from agriculture to antibiotics to electricity, has expanded human potential without "violating" physics. You don’t understand the difference between physical conservation laws and the emergence of value from intelligent adaptation.

You’re not dismissing physics because it’s "insufficient"—you’re dismissing it because you don’t understand how emergence works and it conflicts with your weak, reductionist take. You think physics is "just equations" when, in reality, it describes why the universe produces complex, non-zero-sum interactions within conservation principles. You’re arguing from ignorance and pretending it’s insight.

Mike, if you harness the force of falling water at point A, would that reduce the force at point B downstream? Does using energy from the Sun affect and ' dilute'the total potential energy from the Sun?

[henry quirk]

He doesn't understand how often he contradicts himself.

That's how it seems, which is mind bogglin'. Of course, as I say, I don't believe he really believes any of this garbage. He may wanna be a meat machine but he knows he's not. So, all the advocacy for determinism is really a shine on the forum.

Very likely.

However, to the good, at least it's apparent there are plenty of good criticisms of Determinism here, and he's made them all come out of the woodwork. So maybe people other than Mike are getting smarter, even if he isn't.

Yeah, I noticed that. Also, I noticed how all these folks who normally hate each other's guts have informally banded together to give Mike what for. The only folks who seem willin' to sorta ally with Mike are brain-damaged old ladies and sad sacks.

[Atla]

I haven't been following the topic but I challenge you clowns to come up with just one sound criticism of determinism.

[henry quirk]

That's how it seems, which is mind bogglin'. Of course, as I say, I don't believe he really believes any of this garbage. He may wanna be a meat machine but he knows he's not. So, all the advocacy for determinism is really a shine on the forum.

It has likely been clear that this is why I refer to “psychological” analysis. Not in the sense of asserting someone is being psychologically unbalanced, but that our perception (all of our perceptions) and understanding of the world is strongly influenced by internal, psychological factors.

How can this be talked about fairly is the question.

What motivates Mike to pull a hoodwink on the forum?

Hell if I know, or really care.

Just a guess: he's a bad egg, an agent of chaos. He wants bad things for other folks.

[henry quirk]

I haven't been following the topic but I challenge you clowns to come up with just one sound criticism of determinism.

If you haven't been followin' then, for all you know, such criticism was already posted.

You could, ya know, start on page one and read.

[Atla]

I haven't been following the topic but I challenge you clowns to come up with just one sound criticism of determinism.

If you haven't been followin' then, for all you know, such criticism was already posted.

You could, ya know, start on page one and read.

If you think a sound objection was posted, then present it.

[henry quirk]

If you think a sound objection was posted, then present it.

Why?

[Atla]

If you think a sound objection was posted, then present it.

Why?

So I can make fun of your attempt

[henry quirk]

So I can make fun of your attempt

Then go find your objects of ridicule for yourself.

[Skepdick]

If you think a sound objection was posted, then present it.

Unsound assumptions require no sound objections.

How have you determined that determinism is sound?

[Atla]

If you think a sound objection was posted, then present it.

Unsound assumptions require no sound objections.

How have you determined that determinism is sound?

Science, for example without determinism this forum wouldn't work. How have you determined that it isn't sound?

[Atla]

So I can make fun of your attempt

Then go find your objects of ridicule for yourself.

So you can't present even one, you're all talk. That works too as an object of ridicule.

[Immanuel Can]

Yeah, I noticed that. Also, I noticed how all these folks who normally hate each other's guts have informally banded together to give Mike what for. The only folks who seem willin' to sorta ally with Mike are brain-damaged old ladies and sad sacks.

"True dat," as they say.

[promethean75]

"Master, please talk about what rules or “laws” apply to these non-physical things such as concepts and abstractions."

Gentlemen, if i may. Many psychologismists suggest that the very possibility of the rules of logic that govern our thinking depends on some kind of physical process of terminus at the synaptic level and, therefore, involves molecular, atomic and sub-atomic events. The termination of an action potential, for example. This is what is happening when you think "something can't be A and not-A at the same time." Your brain is wired to not accept that possibility. The neurons responsible for firing and producing the concept "A and not-A are the same" simply will not work. That's why when you were taught this logical law and learned to express it in symbolic terms with A and stuff, it was so naturally sensible.

There is no platonic realm of concepts and thoughts that is free of material causality, and all that inaudible talking in your head that you call thinking is made able by a streamlined electrical process. You could say a word, or i should say its mental space, has a gate around it that is powered and controlled by a combination of action potentials that work as a key for that concept. The 'apple' is set N. The feeling of 'truth' is set M. None of these words and ideas are wandering around the transcendental ether in your head. They are the outputs of hardwired circuit boards that have been evolving throughout your lizzles, my nizzles.

[Skepdick]

Science, for example without determinism this forum wouldn't work.

How have you determined that?

How have you determined that it isn't sound?

How have you determined that it is sound?