Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[popeye1945]

The religious can forever be preoccupied with things that don't exist. Others have better things to do.

EXCELLENT! That's mine from now on----lol!!

Great - that makes another two to the clan of the extremely short-sighted people.

That's a fairy smart answer-- lol!!

[attofishpi]

EXCELLENT! That's mine from now on----lol!!

Great - that makes another two to the clan of the extremely short-sighted people.

That's a fairy smart answer-- lol!!

Poppy, which of these two men are the WISER? Which has the opportunity for greater KNOWLEDGE?

Man A: Atheist
Man B: Theist

Both these men are of equal intelligence, both have access to all the scientific comprehension and theories known to man.

ANSWER: Man B: Theist

Y?

..because the theist simply accepted that IF GOD exists, then it would be advantageous to have faith in ITS existence, since this GOD entity stated faith in ITS existence was a prerequisite to knowing of ITS (GODs) existence. Ergo, the theist has the ability to become more knowledge-able of the true nature of reality.

Do you disagree?

[popeye1945]

Great - that makes another two to the clan of the extremely short-sighted people.

That's a fairy smart answer-- lol!!

Poppy, which of these two men are the WISER? Which has the opportunity for greater KNOWLEDGE?

Man A: Atheist
Man B: Theist

Both these men are of equal intelligence, both have access to all the scientific comprehension and theories known to man.

ANSWER: Man B: Theist

Y?

..because the theist simply accepted that IF GOD exists, then it would be advantageous to have faith in ITS existence, since this GOD entity stated faith in ITS existence was a prerequisite to knowing of ITS (GODs) existence. Ergo, the theist has the ability to become more knowledge-able of the true nature of reality.

Do you disagree?

Which of the thousands of gods available to you are you counting on to deliver you to everlasting life? Alright, you are a believer. Ok, just for starters, what is the source of all meanings? The other thing I would press upon you is that if you believe in a god, you probably believe in a good god, a loving god. How do you explain a loving god creating a world where life lives upon life? Where a wasp lays its eggs in a caterpillar, and the young slowly eat the caterpillar from the inside out, careful not to kill it too soon, so the suffering is prolonged. Where in those thousands of gods are you placing your wager? Tell me, were you born into the religion you now practice, or did you make the decision when you were old enough to reason? I am sorry it must be painful to have something you have built upon to be challenged, but this is a philosophy forum.

[BigMike]

You want a metaphysical source for your values. I’m telling you: you don’t need one.

Some absolutists I might listen to (if I am in the mood). But some I am inclined not to pay much attention to.

You fall into the latter category …

I very certainly understand on what you base your admonitions! I simply do not think you’ve got it right.

Still, you are free to think in whatever way you wish to.

(Metaphysics (in my sense) means simply existent ideas or conceptions that appear with the general manifestation.)

What a strange and revealing thing to say.

You don't respond to arguments. You don’t weigh ideas based on their coherence, evidence, or explanatory power. You respond based on mood, on whether the voice delivering them belongs to someone in your selectively curated echo chamber. That’s not philosophy—that’s tribalism in a tweed jacket.

You admit flat out: “Some absolutists I might listen to... You fall into the latter category.” As if the truth depends on who says it—not whether it’s supported, reasoned, or consistent. That’s not intellectual curiosity. That’s vanity masquerading as discernment.

You say you “understand” what I base my position on. No—you dismiss it because it threatens your soft metaphysical haze, where poetry can be substituted for precision, and where inconvenient conclusions are waved away with ironic detachment.

You don’t want a discussion. You want performance art. You want to appear wise without ever risking the discomfort of having to revise your worldview. That’s not wisdom. That’s cowardice dressed in allusion.

You say I’m “free to think in whatever way I wish to.” Well, thank you, your graciousness astounds. But here’s the deal: I don’t need your permission. I’m not trying to impress you or win your favor. I’m holding up a mirror. If you don’t like what you see in it, that’s your problem—not mine.

Now either engage honestly, or admit that you’re here to emote, not to argue. But stop pretending you’re above it all when you can’t even answer the most basic challenges without retreating into a smug shrug.

[BigMike]

But here’s where you twist it: that very insight—your ability to observe the network of causes—is itself just another part of the network. You don’t stand outside of it. You’re not launching a metaphysical lifeboat. You’re just watching the tide from another angle.

The insight I refer to gives one the ability to choose differently, or to choose perhaps contrarily.

You don’t “believe in” what is metaphysical to tangible existence. I do. And this has already been gone over in other posts.

Alexis, let me break this down for you again, as I did months ago, in a way even your flailing metaphysics might grasp.

Imagine a river with an intricate delta—a vast network of branching streams and tributaries. Each drop of water flows through this system, but its path is dictated entirely by the topology of the delta, the slope of the terrain, the gravitational pull, the shape of the forks, and the volume of water behind it. There’s no pausing, no deciding. Just flow. Just inevitability.

Now picture your brain as a biological delta—electrochemical signals flowing through pre-established neural pathways, shaped by genes, past experiences, environment, and biology. These signals don’t “choose” where to go. They follow gradients, feedback loops, and signal strength. Every so-called “decision” is just the output of this unfolding process. It’s no more mysterious than a droplet taking the left fork because the terrain was steeper that way.

So when you say, “This insight allows me to choose differently,” I have to ask: what part of the delta are you imagining yourself to be? Do you think your “insight” floats above the terrain, reaches down, and rearranges the channels? Do you believe you possess psychokinetic powers, able to levitate your own neurons into new configurations by sheer poetic will?

Because from here, it looks like you’ve just anthropomorphized the droplet. You’ve built a theology around turbulence.

The “ability to choose differently” is not some magical override button. It’s a result of the shifting terrain—new experiences, feedback from past consequences, information processed by the very same deterministic system. You don’t transcend the river. You are the river.

Your talk of “insight” as a gateway to metaphysical authorship is laughable. It’s the philosophical equivalent of a puddle believing it chose the shape of the hole it filled. The moment you think your thoughts “float free” from cause, you’ve stopped doing philosophy and started doing spiritual ventriloquism.

So here’s a question for you, Alexis: if you believe your “insight” can rewrite the causal structure of your brain, do you also believe you can float rocks upstream by squinting hard enough?

Because short of that—your whole shtick is just a prettier way of avoiding reality.

[BigMike]

Mike,

I think you're interested in truth & wisdom.
Sadly, that sets you apart -
even on a philosophy forum.

Many are not interested in truth,
they're interested in security.

Your capacity to present truth threatens them,
as their security does not rest upon truth.

Truth reveals their volatility.

Alone, they'll likely squirm -
but together, like hyenas,
they'll try to circle you,
try to smother you with falsehood -
and if you become exhausted,
that's when they'll go for the throat.

To eliminate you,
by any tactic,
allows them to declare falsehood truth.
Allows them to declare the strength of their falsehood,
when all they established was the weakness of flesh.

Truth does not die.
Regardless of if not one speaks it.

They're not obeying the principles you are,
they're on a different path -
as you recognize, the path of truth scares them.

They do not know what they're doing -
they ignorantly lash out,
because they're frightened animals.

Not realizing their thrashing,
is carving out the pit,
that they'll starve in.

-

Fortunately, you're not obligated to play their 'game'.
If they were genuinely interested in truth,
they could research the insincere questions they pose -
but they wont do that, they're not interested in the response.
They demand YOU, respond to every intellectual dishonesty they can muster.
Why? To overwhelm you.
Again, they believe overwhelming you is equivalent to establishing the contents of their beliefs.
And again, all it would establish is the capacity for a majority to overwhelm a minority.

To listen, evaluate and explain takes energy/effort.
These are finite resources.
If you deplete these resources on their falsehoods,
you've gained nothing, and they've ensured their security.

I suggest focusing your energy on discovering, defining & living by truth.
It builds upon itself and empowers those who align with it.
That is not wasted energy.

The greater that monument of truth,
the more falsehood that will be revealed by it's light.

What a conventional load of pure hogwash!

The word truth is as much subjective as objective, equally proficient in ennobling a lie as it is in declaring something to be true. In that sense it's different from a fact, an objective entity establishing its credentials being nothing more or less than what its existence affirms it to be. It requires no other affirmation for the simple reason that it can't be falsified. Truth, on the other hand, has always been subjectively modified. In most civilizations the word truth is given as much credence as the word god in being the ultimate pledge of authority by a deciding human agent with the overt intent of making its beliefs and decisions impervious to negation.

Humans have never ceased lying about truth from the first generation on.

Dubious, you're confusing two very different things—epistemic humility and epistemic surrender. Of course humans have lied about truth. Of course language has been used to mask, manipulate, and mystify. That’s precisely why facts matter. That’s why determinism matters. That’s why we insist on a rigorous definition of cause, effect, and inference. Because the human impulse to bend truth for comfort or power is not a reason to abandon truth—it’s a reason to sharpen our tools for finding it.

You say, “Truth is subjective.” No—it’s not. Our perceptions of truth are subjective. Truth itself is not. The existence of objective reality is what makes disagreement possible in the first place. If truth were purely subjective, there would be no contradiction, no debate—just endless, solipsistic monologues.

You want to call Ben’s defense of truth “hogwash”? Fine. But facts don’t become negotiable because you’re jaded. If a stone falls, it falls whether a priest blesses it, a poet sings it, or a cynic shrugs at it. The fact stands. The law of gravity doesn’t care about your philosophical exhaustion.

Ben isn’t offering blind certainty. He’s offering alignment with the physical, the causal, the testable. That’s not dogma—it’s discipline.

The only real “hogwash” here is the implication that because truth has been abused by history, we should stop chasing it. That logic is poison. And worse—it gives cover to the very manipulations you claim to despise.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You don't respond to arguments. You don’t weigh ideas based on their coherence, evidence, or explanatory power. You respond based on mood, on whether the voice delivering them belongs to someone in your selectively curated echo chamber. That’s not philosophy—that’s tribalism in a tweed jacket

Not so. This has been a loooonnnggg conversation. I have seen you in operation. And what ideas I have presented or suggested were not of interest but fundamentally impossible to even consider given your predicates.

I responded specifically to your giving of advice: “You want a metaphysical source for your values. I’m telling you: you don’t need one”. You tell me, and others, many things, but what I tell you back is that having analyzed your scientistic reductionisms, I discover no compelling reason to place faith in your doctrines.

Is that more clear? The very suggestion is impossible to consider!

I think you should examine the “personality types” and get better insight into your own. That would involve work of another sort.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Imagine a river with an intricate delta—a vast network of branching streams and tributaries. Each drop of water flows through this system, but its path is dictated entirely by the topology of the delta, the slope of the terrain, the gravitational pull, the shape of the forks, and the volume of water behind it. There’s no pausing, no deciding. Just flow. Just inevitability.

Oy veh ist mir!

You are back to the “water molecule” simile!

Things go full circle, eh?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Note: You misunderstood Dubious! And you misread what he wrote.

Misunderstanding & misreading are inevitable errors that will follow your reductionist predicates.

[BigMike]

You don't respond to arguments. You don’t weigh ideas based on their coherence, evidence, or explanatory power. You respond based on mood, on whether the voice delivering them belongs to someone in your selectively curated echo chamber. That’s not philosophy—that’s tribalism in a tweed jacket

Not so. This has been a loooonnnggg conversation. I have seen you in operation. And what ideas I have presented or suggested were not of interest but fundamentally impossible to even consider given your predicates.

I responded specifically to your giving of advice: “You want a metaphysical source for your values. I’m telling you: you don’t need one”. You tell me, and others, many things, but what I tell you back is that having analyzed your scientistic reductionisms, I discover no compelling reason to place faith in your doctrines.

Is that more clear? The very suggestion is impossible to consider!

I think you should examine the “personality types” and get better insight into your own. That would involve work of another sort.

Alexis, you say my suggestions are "impossible to consider" because of your analysis of what you call my “scientistic reductionisms.” But that’s not a refutation—it’s a retreat. If the ideas I present are fundamentally impossible for you to consider, then we’re not engaged in a philosophical dialogue; we’re playing out a script where only one worldview is even allowed in the room.

You claim to have analyzed and rejected what I say, but rejecting something because it doesn't conform to your metaphysical expectations isn’t the same as engaging with its merits. You’re not showing that my reasoning is flawed—you’re just saying it doesn’t match your starting assumptions. That’s fine, but let’s be honest about it: you want your worldview to have primacy, not because it explains more or predicts better, but because it feels deeper or more meaningful to you.

That’s not philosophy either. That’s aesthetic preference masquerading as metaphysical insight.

If you ever do want to weigh ideas based on coherence, evidence, and explanatory power, I’ll be here. But if you’ve already decided that deterministic, materialist accounts are beneath consideration—if the very suggestion is impossible—then you're the one closing the door to inquiry, not me.

As for personality types—sure, we all have lenses through which we see the world. But some of us are at least trying to clean the lens, not decorate it with mythology.

[BigMike]

Imagine a river with an intricate delta—a vast network of branching streams and tributaries. Each drop of water flows through this system, but its path is dictated entirely by the topology of the delta, the slope of the terrain, the gravitational pull, the shape of the forks, and the volume of water behind it. There’s no pausing, no deciding. Just flow. Just inevitability.

Oy veh ist mir!

You are back to the “water molecule” simile!

Things go full circle, eh?

Yes, things do come full circle—and sometimes they need to. Especially when the point still hasn’t been understood or addressed.

The river simile isn’t some poetic throwaway—it’s a model for how causality governs behavior. It’s an analogy meant to strip away illusions of choice and agency and replace them with a view that aligns with physics, with neuroscience, and with what we actually observe in the natural world.

So yes, I’m back to the water molecule. Not because I’m stuck, but because it remains one of the clearest ways to cut through the noise. The flow doesn’t care about your preferences, your traditions, or your metaphysics. It follows from the structure of reality, from the conservation laws, from initial conditions and external forces.

I keep returning to it not because it’s trivial—but because it’s true.

And if your response is “Oy veh,” that’s fine. But maybe ask yourself why a simple, elegant, deterministic model draws out a theatrical sigh rather than a reasoned counterargument.

[henry quirk]

Jeez.

Mike, your entire post is moot if this...

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.

...is true.

Memory, learning, pattern recognition, and prediction (and the morality, compassion, justice, and meaning you say extend out from memory, learning, pattern recognition, and prediction) are empty reactions, meaningless firings of 'lectricity.

Memory, learning, pattern recognition, and prediction are just the on-going product of an on-going epileptic seizure, and morality, compassion, justice, and meaning (along with your self-congratulations for bein' on what you think is the right side of things) are nuthin' but the inevitable discharge from seizure-induced bowel movements.

anyway: I'm going for a walk, then a breakfast of ramen, coffee, and cigarettes...you scamps carry on

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, you say my suggestions are "impossible to consider" because of your analysis of what you call my “scientistic reductionisms.”

You misread. I say that suggestions I have made to you (others have offered different critiques) could not be even entertained by you due to rigid “scientistic reductionist” predicates.

No part of your position — a structure of ideas, an assembly of “facts” — is unintelligible to me.

Reductionisms are like that. Their simplicity satisfies I guess.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You claim to have analyzed and rejected what I say …

You fool! Had you read what I have written (over time) you’d have actually understood!

You cannot hear … for all that you have ears!

And I understand!

[BigMike]

You claim to have analyzed and rejected what I say …

You fool! Had you read what I have written (over time) you’d have actually understood!

You cannot hear … for all that you have ears!

And I understand!

Alexis, you magnificent mystic, you’ve really outdone yourself this time.

First you admit, quite candidly:

I say there is something else — and yes I cannot explain it through a proof! — that is operative in our World.

And now, just a few days later, you puff out your chest and declare with righteous thunder:

“You fool! Had you read what I have written… you’d have actually understood!”

Oh yes, Alexis, I’ve read what you’ve written. In fact, I read it twice—once for content, and once just to marvel at the sheer gall it takes to yell “I understand!” while also admitting you can’t explain what you supposedly understand.

You’re like the guy who bursts into the room shouting, “I’ve solved the mystery!” only to whisper, “I can’t tell you how.”

So which is it, oracle of vague metaphysics—do you have insight, or just vibes? If you “cannot explain it,” then what exactly are we supposed to understand? The hand-waving? The fog machine? The poetic ellipses that trail off before arriving anywhere?

Your idea of understanding seems to rest on others nodding along in confused reverence while you gesticulate toward the ineffable. Sorry, but I don’t genuflect before word salad.

And as for “you cannot hear”—look, man, just because people don’t buy what you’re selling doesn’t mean they’re deaf. It means the product sucks.

You want to play sage, fine. But if your insight collapses the moment someone asks for a clear sentence, maybe you’re not the guru you think you are. Maybe you’re just lost in your own fog, shaking your fist at the lighthouse.