Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Alexis Jacobi]

For yourself do you understand the difference between determinism and fatalism? Do you agree that some things are more agents of change than other things?

Do I have such a brutish face?! Could I really be so dumb (please, don’t answer that!)

Do you realize that BigMike’s determinism is more than anything fatalism? Did you read the paragraph of his that Henry often shoves under his determined nose?

No?

Well you should read it. And then actually read what Torba wrote about serious encroaching dangers.

Then comment.

Is that asking too much?!

However from the pragmatic point of view causal determinism yields life - enhancing results in medicine, diplomacy, crime detection, pharmacology, economics, psychology, psychiatry, engineering, crime prevention, and cookery.

That is something totally different from the ideology BigMike operates from.

The study of causation is simply good sense.

Like why, and how, was I, Alexis Jacobi, made by life into a pirate ? How did this come about? My mother used to have me help her roll yarn! My father smoked a pipe in the evenings and read the newspaper! We watched the sunset from the balcony!

How did it happen?! Well ask me, and I’ll spin you a yarn that will dry your socks!

[Belinda]

For yourself do you understand the difference between determinism and fatalism? Do you agree that some things are more agents of change than other things?

Do I have such a brutish face?! Could I really be so dumb (please, don’t answer that!)

Do you realize that BigMike’s determinism is more than anything fatalism? Did you read the paragraph of his that Henry often shoves under his determined nose?

No?

Well you should read it. And then actually read what Torba wrote about serious encroaching dangers.

Then comment.

Is that asking too much?!

However from the pragmatic point of view causal determinism yields life - enhancing results in medicine, diplomacy, crime detection, pharmacology, economics, psychology, psychiatry, engineering, crime prevention, and cookery.

That is something totally different from the ideology BigMike operates from.

The study of causation is simply good sense.

Like why, and how, was I, Alexis Jacobi, made by life into a pirate ? How did this come about? My mother used to have me help her roll yarn! My father smoked a pipe in the evenings and read the newspaper! We watched the sunset from the balcony!

How did it happen?! Well ask me, and I’ll spin you a yarn that will dry your socks!

But causal determinism does not inform you what will happen tomorrow : causal determinism informs us that constant conjunction is our best bet for predicting tomorrow 's events. Sometimes there is no evidence of constant conjunction and then we are reduced to a random guess.

Your anecdote about your childhood and parents is such that evidence is too sparse for evidence of constant conjunction. For your anecdotal evidence to be meaningful we would require a large sample of similar enough parenting correlating with similar enough effect upon offspring. Or alternatively, negative correlation.

[henry quirk]

Did you read the paragraph of his (Mike's) that Henry often shoves under his determined nose?

And here it is, B...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

It's all horseshit, of course, but if Mike's crap were true, then all your fine ideas on, well, anything would just be meaningless electro-chemical reactions.

If Mike's crap is true then you, B, are just a piece of meat, nuthin' less or more.

But my fine ideas mean something to me, Henry.

No, if Mike is right, they don't. They can't cuz if Mike's crap is true the value you place on your fine ideas is as much a meaningless reaction as the ideas themselves.

So -- loopin' back to your example -- if what happens necessarily happens and Bobby cannot change or avoid his impulse to do harm, then he also cannot reason his way to a new behavior and he can not decide to learn empathy.

But Henry, people do learn and they are empathetic!

Becuz they're free wills, B. They're metaphysically, ontologically, free.

-----

I voluntarily associate

If Mike is right: you can't voluntarily do a damn thing cuz what you do necessarily must be.

[popeye1945]

What is most often considered determinism is not that at all. Just as the world's evolution has no goal, so the cosmos has no goal, it is a process. This reminds one of the biblical expressions, "As is in heaven, so is on earth." Humanity thinks it has free will, it also does not. The earth and its changes are governed by the cosmos. The larger reality governs the earth and its constitutional aspects. The organism is a "Constitutional aspect of the earth. So, there is neither free will nor determinism. Humanity is governed by the indeterminate larger reality, a reality that has no direction, no set goal or destination. We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey. The religious reject science, I believe, because it won't promise them security and requires thought, and reason is the enemy of faith.

[Belinda]

What is most often considered determinism is not that at all. Just as the world's evolution has no goal, so the cosmos has no goal, it is a process. This reminds one of the biblical expressions, "As is in heaven, so is on earth." Humanity thinks it has free will, it also does not. The earth and its changes are governed by the cosmos. The larger reality governs the earth and its constitutional aspects. The organism is a "Constitutional aspect of the earth. So, there is neither free will nor determinism. Humanity is governed by the indeterminate larger reality, a reality that has no direction, no set goal or destination. We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey. The religious reject science, I believe, because it won't promise them security and requires thought, and reason is the enemy of faith.

I agree, Popeye, except that what I call determinism amounts to "We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey." Determinism is "the greater whole".

[Belinda]

Did you read the paragraph of his (Mike's) that Henry often shoves under his determined nose?

And here it is, B...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

It's all horseshit, of course, but if Mike's crap were true, then all your fine ideas on, well, anything would just be meaningless electro-chemical reactions.

If Mike's crap is true then you, B, are just a piece of meat, nuthin' less or more.

But my fine ideas mean something to me, Henry.

No, if Mike is right, they don't. They can't cuz if Mike's crap is true the value you place on your fine ideas is as much a meaningless reaction as the ideas themselves.

So -- loopin' back to your example -- if what happens necessarily happens and Bobby cannot change or avoid his impulse to do harm, then he also cannot reason his way to a new behavior and he can not decide to learn empathy.

But Henry, people do learn and they are empathetic!

Becuz they're free wills, B. They're metaphysically, ontologically, free.

-----

I voluntarily associate

If Mike is right: you can't voluntarily do a damn thing cuz what you do necessarily must be.

Henry, I chose what I wanted to do is what I mean by voluntarily. I was caused by my circumstances of personality and situation in life to want what I do want. You have a different personality and different circumstances that may cause you to want something different.
There is nothing metaphysical about wanting or willing. All animals want and will mostly without knowing why they do so. Even an ameoba will steer clear of an irritating fluid.

[henry quirk]

I chose what I wanted to do is what I mean by voluntarily.

Then you're not a determinist.

[popeye1945]

What is most often considered determinism is not that at all. Just as the world's evolution has no goal, so the cosmos has no goal, it is a process. This reminds one of the biblical expressions, "As is in heaven, so is on earth." Humanity thinks it has free will, it also does not. The earth and its changes are governed by the cosmos. The larger reality governs the earth and its constitutional aspects. The organism is a "Constitutional aspect of the earth. So, there is neither free will nor determinism. Humanity is governed by the indeterminate larger reality, a reality that has no direction, no set goal or destination. We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey. The religious reject science, I believe, because it won't promise them security and requires thought, and reason is the enemy of faith.

I agree, Popeye, except that what I call determinism amounts to "We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey." Determinism is "the greater whole".

Hi Belinda,
Interestingly, we are determined to follow the lead of the indeterminate, through the plasticity of both. We follow that which has no goal, no ultimate intent and is forever new. I am going to play with that one for a while. I am back. No, I don't believe the relation between the cosmos and that of the earth are separate things, thus the earth and its creatures are no more determined than is the cosmos in which we belong. What are your thoughts on that?

[Belinda]

What is most often considered determinism is not that at all. Just as the world's evolution has no goal, so the cosmos has no goal, it is a process. This reminds one of the biblical expressions, "As is in heaven, so is on earth." Humanity thinks it has free will, it also does not. The earth and its changes are governed by the cosmos. The larger reality governs the earth and its constitutional aspects. The organism is a "Constitutional aspect of the earth. So, there is neither free will nor determinism. Humanity is governed by the indeterminate larger reality, a reality that has no direction, no set goal or destination. We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey. The religious reject science, I believe, because it won't promise them security and requires thought, and reason is the enemy of faith.

I agree, Popeye, except that what I call determinism amounts to "We are subjects of the greater whole, our fate or destiny uncharted, plastic if you like in an unending journey." Determinism is "the greater whole".

Hi Belinda,
Interestingly, we are determined to follow the lead of the indeterminate, through the plasticity of both. We follow that which has no goal, no ultimate intent and is forever new. I am going to play with that one for a while. I am back. No, I don't believe the relation between the cosmos and that of the earth are separate things, thus the earth and its creatures are no more determined than is the cosmos in which we belong. What are your thoughts on that?

Popeye,I must ' believe in God' , as they say. I believe the Cosmos is one great huge Law.

I also believe God as one great huge law is far too complex to understand, for me anyway. This ineffable character of God is why we needed and still need wise men, prophets, and seers to throw some light on how to harmonise with the Cosmos.

[Alexis Jacobi]

… and that is why I am here: prophet, wise-man, philosophical shaman, story-teller, confabulator, healer!

Ask me anything. Suddenly I feel more generous!

[Alexis Jacobi]

There is nothing metaphysical about wanting or willing.

The fact that you refer to the metaphysical, in my way of understanding things, indicates that even as you deny its realness, you yet acknowledge it.

In my own case I cannot see how what is metaphysical to ourselves and our bio-mechanical world-bound life, is not understood as being “real”. It is in many ways more real than much that is so tangibly real in the pure physical sense.

Carl Jung pointed out that our “psyche” is a sort of thing, and this psyche is that which realizes (makes real, makes present) everything that is our human world. You (one) cannot deny or explain away the psyche of man, neither can you (one) understand it.

BigMike stated that all that is “man” (the human) in all senses is simply a bunch of neurons that happen to interact. Extraordinary reductionism! Extraordinarily stupid!

Man’s “willing & wanting” is deeply connected with man’s psyche. And everything hinges it seems to me how clearly man connects (if you will) with metaphysical ideas and imperatives.

[henry quirk]

AJ, B is like a 146 years old and her brain is damaged.

Literally, she is the old dog that cannot learn new tricks.

'course, you're no spring chicken yourself...mebbe new tricks aren't in your future either.

[attofishpi]

lmao!!

[Dubious]

AJ, B is like a 146 years old and her brain is damaged.

Literally, she is the old dog that cannot learn new tricks.

'course, you're no spring chicken yourself...mebbe new tricks aren't in your future either.

...mebbe an IQ enhancement by way of a lobotomy may cause more daylight to flow into your future, expanding your horizons to an incipient if somewhat foggy sunrise.

[henry quirk]

lobotomy

Trepanation is better.