Should science be only for atheists

If you say so, but I wouldn't describe it quite like that.

 

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Matters of honor are not to be underestimated.

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But why is that too much?
I'm not saying it isn't, I would just like to know why you think it is too much, what the possible answers are. It's something I am interested in for my own sake as well.
Why does it seem so egregious to be requested that one devote one's life to something one has no certainty of?

I tend to take these things personally - because the topics are personally relevant to me.

My point was that it is possible to perpetrate such manipulation on oneself, by one's own actions (namely, by assuming a position and arguing for it vigorously).

Who are you?

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I get the distinct impression that you are projecting Signal. I don't know much about you, but it is entirely within the scope of possibility (probability even) that you and I differ quite substantially. In any case, I doubt that anyone is going to be interested in a protracted discussion with me (or you) at it's center, so maybe we should take a different direction.

 

James R is possibly going to show up at any minute and warn us to get back on-topic, so maybe we should do that. You can always start another thread and I'll happily get into it with you.

 

actually the proper terms for your analogy are a coin (regardless whether it is spinning or not) and its position (heads or tails).
The reason they are not mutually exclusive is because you can not talk of the heads/tails of a coin without the coin, or the sunlight without the sun, or (at least according to the theists position) material nature without god.

the reason is because all these things exist in a relationship of cause and effect.

God certainly is distinguishable to nature, much like the heads/tails of a coin is distinguishable from a coin or the sunlight is distinguishable from the sun.

IOW suggesting that god is supernatural simply isn't working with the theist's working definition that god contextualizes "the natural", much like the sun contextualizes the sunlight or a coin contextualizes whether it lands on hand or tails (or anything in between for that matter)

I don't follow.

If science doesn't have the capacity to either support or deny the existence of god, what sort of cripple mindedness comes to bear to make it capable to deny the existence of god?

(even to let you run with your assumption that religion operates on nothing but belief) if there's no evidence for "matter doing it", how is it not belief?

then why continue to use the word "supernatural" as you do?

too late for that I'm afraid - you are already working with a host of a priori assumptions - namely that matter does it, that god by necessity brings a dualistic as opposed to holistic aspect to the definition of "nature" etc

It's not so much that god falls out as a requirement, but rather that your a priori requirements require that god fall out.

BTW if one thinks they can make any knowledge based claim without a priori assumptions, they are grossly mistaken.

you suggest that they really don't know - IOW that they have artificially convinced themselves - and why do you think this? Because it conflicts with what you have merely convinced yourself of - namely that matter does it.
:shrug:

So if others fail to apply themselves in the proper manner , what then?

I suspect once again we are headed back down the well touted (not to mention narrow and incapable of housing a majority of what we - yourself included - would deem claims of knowledge) path of "empiricism has a monopoly on all knowable claims"

If you know that a certain person is your mother despite never having done a dna test, if you know something about advanced physics despite never having peered down a microscope or if you know a certain person is the president despite never having personally attended one of their rallies or swearing in ceremony, you can already answer this question.

So you are willing to accept that vouching on the authority of a third person, what to speak of inhibiting the pursuit of knowledge, actually makes the pursuit more fertile?

What are you waiting for?

So if you tell me the process to separate salt from seawater, that is also marred by your (so called) ownership of it?

The president example?
I don't think so.

If you try to know the president on your terms you wouldn't even make it past the first of his 100 secretaries, what to speak of waiting for him to come for dinner or what ever.

:shrug:

 

The desire for honor is frequently an important factor in human interactions.

My comment about honor wasn't specifically aimed at you, I was having that discussion with you for the purpose of the thread, to elicit positions that I find would be useful to discuss.

In theist/atheist discussion, there is often the tacit assumption that all participants are honorable people and that the discussion is merely and entirely about the things that have been stated, and that the intentions of the participants are genuine and honorable, and that as such, there should be no referring to the intentions of the participants.

I, however, hold that these intentions are not always genuine and honorable; that often, they are suspicious; and most of all, that they importantly shape what a person says and how they understand what others say - and that as such, they have relevance in specific to the theist/atheist discussion because topics of theism/atheism as such intimately involve the personalities of the participants.

Topics of theism/atheism cannot be discussed in the same aloof and depersonalized manner, as, say, biology or physics.

 

and yoru argument requires me to accept that it doesn't - so go figure
:shrug:

whatever problems you deem the claim has, you already own them when you start talking of all affairs operating in terms of matter

Even demonstrations require a degree of training. I mean you could try and demonstrate an electron to me and I too could say "yr fulla shit" till the cows come home - even in terms of science, there are very good reasons why its physicists who peer review the claims of physicists and geologists who peer review the claims of geologists.

But all this aside, whatever problems you deem with the claim, you already own them when you start talking of all things being within the context of matter, since there is no evidence for something as elementary as consciousness falling comfortably in such a definition.

I don't see anything there except your redoubled effort to examine the claim for god in dualistic terms

:shrug:

 

Gods don't pop in and out of existence like electrons, positrons, and photons do.

Gods are not elemental and so cannot be First.

The eternal basis of All admits no creation and no Creator.

Gods are not seen.

The whole entire notion is a totally lost cause due to self-contradiction.

 

they don't?

I suspect that you will post another psychedelic diagram to back this claim up

hence you have an eternal personality with eternal contingent potencies (such as the phenomenal world, for instance)

not by you, but so what

simply because you corrupt the argument to suit your own values
:shrug:

 

They do?

By who then?

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I was going to reply to the rest of your comments before I realized that this statement was the only truly relevant one among them (that and the fact that my previous comments have already adequately articulated my position). So let's deal with it.

The universe is a physical extension (or expression) of God, and it can be said that the universe exists within (or as part of) the greater reality that is God. There is therefore no casual disconnection between the two. According to this definition, God is not supernatural, but is indeed the very substance from which nature derives.

Now what?

 

sure


BG 4.8 To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.

Its not so much who but by what means

BG 7.1: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Now hear, O son of Pṛthā, how by practicing yoga in full consciousness of Me, with mind attached to Me, you can know Me in full, free from doubt.

 

Then if there is no dualistic distinction between matter and spirit its hard to understand why someone would vouch for science being only for atheists

 

And these quotes are taken from? How did you establish that it is truth rather than just something written in an ancient book?
Also, seeing is not the same as knowing.

 

I understand that that is the topic at hand, but I initially responded to a different but related matter, namely your contention that the term supernatural is not appropriate when describing God.

 

Knowledge basically has three parts

Theory
Application
Conclusion

(and in that order too I might add)


Questions about conclusions (which seems to be what you are on about here) arise from understanding issues of application.

Questions about application arise from understanding issues of theory.

If you don't have the ability, intelligence or even just plain interest to deal with issues of theory, you don't even make it to the epistemological first base.

If you doubt this, just try and explain how you know anything about an electron while I respond "... but how do you know that?" to every statement that you make.

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And the reason for that contention was that it was used to carry connotations of dualism. If you are no longer carrying that dualism, what is your point?

 

So no answer. Not a surprise really..

 

Nope, only the simple, lightweight stuff does.

Is that all you got out of it?

Complexities can't be first. Look at us, we came much later on, and we can't be Gods either, because we didn't come first and create everything else.

We are not eternal, the basis was, whether of nothing or the basic stuff, so, no creation of it.

God = mission impossible.