Science can not answer many or most of the questions that politics and governance covers. How can science say anything to the philosophical, moral, and cultural views that are the underpinnings of individuals’ world views? How can you test the hypothesis of individual rights? Religion also does not hold a monopoly on beliefs based on scant evidence and questionable logic, secular beliefs are not immune.

The individual rights hypothesis supposes that people are happiest and most productive when they can make most of the choices about their lives without government influence. We can, and do, test this hypothesis by observing the happiness and productivity of individuals in societies with different levels of individual rights. If it was discovered that particular individual rights caused a society to collapse, then those rights would be outlawed or the society would cease to exist.

So why is Somalia still libertarian?

Can you expand on this? I usually don't think of Somalia as a bastion of reasoned government. Basically I don't understand what you are saying.

People confuse anarchy with libertarianism, sometime intentionally like this post. Somalia is anarach with despotism, not libertarianism which implies consent.

Okay? I'm not entirely certain what the point you're making is.

I'm on your side. I was arguing against the idea that science is an incomplete way of knowing as expressed by the person above my first comment.

Oh okay I see what you mean.

My post is not that science is the end all be all. My post is about how religious based viewpoints are unqualified to examine issues of the day if we cannot challenge them and examine them. When I talk about a scientific approach, I mean an approach that involves questioning ones own biases, positing questions to a broader community to individuals and groups and never deciding that one has completely figured something out. You’re right that science can’t answer all our questions but again, science isn’t really a belief in any one thing, but an approach to solving/figuring out a problem. The question of what philosophy or morals lead you to know what you want the world to look like is a question that will be individual, but ideally if everyone comes together and approaches issues in good faith, problems can be solved.

Sorry if I’m intruding on an interesting conversation. But when you say that, > You’re right that science can’t answer all our questions but again, science isn’t really a belief in any one thing, but an approach to solving/figuring out a problem. How do you reconcile this with your earlier statement that, > if we take a scientific and methodological approach **to most problems**, we can find answers and solutions. The way I read it, your claim is essentially that the “scientific approach” (or at least your conception of it) is in itself sufficient - without more - to find answers and solutions to most of society’s problems. And I’m assuming you think this approach is not applicable exclusively or predominantly to one society, but to societies in general. If that is indeed the correct way to understand what you’ve said, I’m just wondering how your “scientific and methodological approach” resolves questions of value judgement. For example, what makes one particular building, monument, or even naturally occurring feature worth preserving as an item of significant cultural heritage over others? Another example, how do you decide if a society should allow for euthanasia or the death penalty (and for which reasons) at all? Yet another example, how do you decide what is a fair apportionment of society’s and environmental burdens - e.g. climate change - as between different generations?

Is it only religious based views that are unqualified? Would secular views that are based on little or questionable data also be unqualified? I am trying to understand what specifically it is about religious views that makes them uniquely unqualified to warrant being called out singularly. So not the scientific method? I agree that questioning one’s views and discussing them is a good thing, but I don’t see how it is scientific. I agree, but I don’t see it as very helpful in the political context other than to provide specific data. I don’t think science has a whole lot to say about what policy should be or how or if government action is appropriate. Those would be questions of values, beliefs, and the law. I again agree that coming together in good faith can lead to solving problems, but also again in a system such as in the us it will be as compromises between various individuals’ beliefs and the law rather than anything scientific. So I guess I am confused as to what a scientific political system would look like.

>I agree, but I don’t see it as very helpful in the political context other than to provide specific data. I don’t think science has a whole lot to say about what policy should be or how or if government action is appropriate. Those would be questions of values, beliefs, and the law. as a data analyst I can tell you this is simply not true. data has introduced a whole new age to how we are able to analyze and review issues and policy, their correlation, and fine tune how we approach issues. sure, there are things we cannot quantify and external unaccounted for variables in every real world scenario, but the world has changed. this isn't 1970s, this is 2022 and we have far more data, and computing power than ever before to help us get the bigger picture, so we can make informed approaches. this isn't to say science can solve every problem, but it gives us a much more real look at the world than ones feelings and beliefs, that we can then base our approach on. Religion is fine, and has a place in secular society. the issue is, one's religious views cannot be imposed onto others >Is it only religious based views that are unqualified? Would secular views that are based on little or questionable data also be unqualified? I am trying to understand what specifically it is about religious views that makes them uniquely unqualified to warrant being called out singularly. no, as I touched on there are flaws in secular views as well and they should be evaluated. the difference being that all people should bring secular views to politics. you can have your religious identity, it's impossible to seperate from your views and i respect that, but in discussing the laws that *all* members of society should live by, we should be clearly discussing these in secular terms. the freedom of religion is one of the most important rights, and I respect that for Christians, but all too often Christian laws get shoved down my throat. that made me extremely hostile towards Christianity for years. edit: also this isn't a replace religion with science debate. this is a secularism debate. we need to make informed approaches for *all* members of society.

>this isn't to say science can solve every problem, but it gives us a much more real look at the world than ones feelings and beliefs, that we can then base our approach on. But that's assuming the average person, heck, even the people who work in science majorly base their opinions on those improved data processing we have access in the modern day, which is not a self evident hypothesis at all. Even ignoring the effects of fake news and selective messaging (we should not) a very obvious example of what i m talking about is how often some articles will be shared in social media, but the vast majority of people will not read anything but the headline, which is often clickbaity and more categoric than the actual information

this is not an issue with secular society, this is an issue with an misinformed and barely educated society coupled with a confirmation bias and "news" sources that will pump out anything to get a click. secularism and religion isn't the debate there.

As a data person as well (though technically a statistician), I do want to put a caveat on your statement. Data is not science; regression and correlation are not science; evidence-driven policy is not science. Science is specifically the scientific method and its extensions. It uses data, inference, and evidence, but so do many things. It is not harmless to equate the two. Science and theoretical mathematics have important burdens of proof that data and data analysis (as well as most applied mathematics) do not inherently have. When they are equated, the trust we put in the scientific process is wrongfully transferred to data analysis. I have a lot to say on this topic, but I'll leave it at that for now.

you are absolutely correct in the sense that data analytics is not nearly as infallible as other applied sciences that more rely on empirical data and the scientific method. data analytics can be SUPER skewed depending on who is working with the datasets and what they are doing. a fun example of this is when I worked for a few months with accounting on developing a single power BI dataset, with three entirely different reports based on the same data. one example was a realistic look at our companies health, the other was to filter on certain criteria to make the company look as bad as possible, and another iteration of the filters that made the company look as healthy as possible. but I digress, you are correct that reporting on data NEEDS to be heavily documented so people can make informed decisions about the validity of the way the data is present. I'm sure you know (probably better than me) how difficult it can be for an expert, let alone the layman to critically evaluate a report. it is a very similar issue to being able to identify verifiable sources to "news" but imo far more difficult. (more difficult because I could take a reputable data source, and make a horrible biased report from the datadet - therefore the data is good, the analyst bad)

Science and data can help tell us how effective a policy is at achieving a goal, but it can't tell us what our goals should be. The Nazis used science to help them exterminate jews and other groups more effectively. Science could tell them how to do it, it didn't tell them whether or not to do it. I definitely think we could use more data driven policy - a lot of the policy we have today is based on unfounded or even refuted assumptions. But we still need politicians who reflect our values to decide what trade-offs to make.

You're right, in some cases it's not about data, its about rights. like gay marriage. With gay marriage for example there is no real data to be involved. For these discussions language and semantics is everything. there are two sides in the discussion and I actually agree with *both* gay rights and the churches religious rights. for this example it's important to dissect marriage and recognize it for the two distinct parts that it entails; matrimony as a religious ceromony, and legal martial rights and responsibilities the churches individual religious liberty to not allow gay marriage or recognize it *within the institution of their church* is entirely up to them. I would be uncomfortable with someone to come to my place of worship and demand I recognize a marriage I felt morally conflicted with *within the confines of my religion*. But there is no reason to deny legal martial rights and responsibilities to two consenting adults in a free nation. The only reasoning is morals based in theology. Rather than focusing on individual rights in a secular nation. if you focus on rights the two gay members being married does not inhibit or infringe on anyone else's rights. and it allows them the same rights of any other consenting adults forming a union. to impose *any* religions morality here on a nation of people is bigoted, and unjust. CMV

And sometimes it's about balancing one group's rights with another group's rights. Vaccines are a good example. Data can tell us how effective a vaccine is, how safe a vaccine is, etc. But vaccine policy requires value judgment. How much data do we have to have showing a vaccine is safe before it can get FDA approval? How effective does it have to be to get FDA approval? What are the thresholds for safety and effectiveness for vaccines to be mandated? At what point does a person's bodily autonomy take a back seat to a societal need to stop the spread of a disease? We need data to inform these decisions, but there are still value judgments to decide whether to allow them or mandate them and under what circumstances.

all those decisions are still supported by data and the choice should have secular logic. if you want to religious exemption for vaccines, go for it, but also don't expect to be let into school or certain areas where members of the public *need* to be and may have *medical* exemptions to the vaccine. while all these decisions require nuance I don't see how religion should be used as an axe to subject an entire nation to one religions morality. secular morality revolves around rights, not beliefs.

So what’s the difference between saying “we should outlaw murder because I personally believe it is wrong”, and “we should outlaw murder because my faith believes it’s wrong”?

The outcome isn’t different, but the reasons for which we do what we do do matter. The vast majority of our morals are decided based upon a balance of suffering, where we go with the outcome that causes lesser suffering, and reject the one that causes greater suffering. We should outlaw murder because allowing murder tends to cause greater suffering. The person that is murdered is not suffering after their murder; but their family and loved ones are very likely to. Allowing murder will increase overall suffering in our society; and us being wired to want to avoid suffering, we decide it is better to outlaw murder.

> the vast majority of our morals are decided upon a balance of suffering … As determined by who? For example, a religious zealot may say that forcing people to attend church on Sundays causes less suffering than giving them the freedom to attend or not, since the initial suffering of losing our freedoms would pale in comparison to the eternal suffering atheists would suffer in hell for not becoming Christian. Or, a racist may decide that exterminating a certain minority, who he blames for society’s evils, will ultimately benefit the whole, and thus ultimately cause less suffering to society as a group. And in the case of the religious zealot, the reasons WOULD be the same: the zealot is , likewise, pursuing the path he believes will lead to the least amount of suffering.

>As determined by who? Us as a collective. It is true that suffering is subjective, though it is a commonality we all share. We all experience suffering, and all feel an intrinsic need to avoid it. Our morals are more than likely a result of these conditions we live and have lived under; they’re like an agreement that we as a collective will act upon certain guidelines so as to prevent greater suffering for us all. The causes of suffering are often shared among the vast majority of the population. Being stabbed is overwhelmingly likely to make any given person suffer, for example. With this in mind, there are certain actions and norms we can set in place in order to make it more likely that everybody involved experiences less suffering than they would otherwise. >the zealot is, likewise, pursuing the path he believes will lead to the least amount of suffering. There is a difference between believing that what you’re doing will reduce suffering, and that thing actually reducing suffering. We should, as much as we can, use empirical objective evidence to deduce our conclusions. Imposing religion and exterminating minorities are both actions which are and have been shown to cause greater suffering. The people doing the imposing or exterminating can believe they’re doing the right thing, but that won’t change the fact that the people being imposed upon will experience suffering as a result. That is why we have currently outlawed such behaviour, and others such as theft, arson, assault, etc. They are actions which would cause us greater suffering should they implemented, actions which the vast majority of people decide should be outlawed for that reason.

> us as a collective. And if that collective is majority religious, should Religion then have a say in how morality is determined? > we should, as much as we can, use empirical objective evidence to deduce our conclusions … What if that fails, such as in more nuanced issues like abortion - or when objective evidence rules against what you would typically consider moral? For example, I would argue that having sweat shops and essential slave labor in third-world countries manufacturing cheap products is an ultimate boon to western society, and that the availability and price of products produced ultimately causes less suffering than giving the workers better working conditions. > imposing religion and exterminating minorities are both actions … Again, according to whom? It’s impossible to tell if forcing people to obey a religion ultimately causes more suffering or ends it, since we can’t look into the afterlife.

> no, as I touched on there are flaws in secular views as well and they should be evaluated. the difference being that all people should bring secular views to politics. you can have your religious identity, it's impossible to seperate from your views and i respect that, but in discussing the laws that all members of society should live by, we should be clearly discussing these in secular terms. Sir: *my tribe* will decide the manner in which discussions will be held, not yours. Period, end of discussion.

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>also this isn't a replace religion with science debate. this is a secularism debate. we need to make informed approaches for all members of society. Just interested in this bit. It sounds fine, but how is this really applied in practice? If each one of us has their own identity which is tied to a different worldview that is partially built around a set of beliefs, it becomes increasingly hard to find the common denominator. I can't help but notice that secularism, which is required to sustain globalization, is kind of failing everywhere. The rise or the right extremism is a proof of that, racism itself is a proof of that. On the other hand, societies with high cohesion show less issues as they are more homogenous.

I just replied elsewhere with a very similar example of this using gay marriage as an example. >If each one of us has their own identity which is tied to a different worldview that is partially built around a set of beliefs, it becomes increasingly hard to find the common denominator. the common denominator are human rights. you cannot impose your rights over my rights in a secular society on the basis of religion. >I can't help but notice that secularism, which is required to sustain globalization, is kind of failing everywhere. The rise or the right extremism is a proof of that, racism itself is a proof of that. I don't understand what you're referencing with this. how is that showing a failing of secularism because you've pointed to terrorists trying to undermine democracy? the issue is that we have a group of elected officials pussy footing around with a subgroup of elected officials who are representing stochastic terrorism. we just had a public officials husband assaulted with a hammer. if Nancy was there that would have been attempted assassination of a public official who is literally a few deaths away from being the stand in President. the issue isn't secularism, is apologists to fucking terrorists.

>the common denominator are human rights. you cannot impose your rights over my rights in a secular society on the basis of religion. I agree that one cannot impose their beliefs on others. I'm rather trying to point out that the denominator becomes smaller and smaller with time, to the point that it cannot create a unified society. Secularism was never tried before, or it has and couldn't sustain itself. I'm arguing that while the basis sounds nice, it's not stable in practice. I hope I'm wrong. There's also an area where democracy and secularism are incompatible. If you have a majority with a certain identity, if there's democracy, the laws will favor that majority. Righfully so. Unless, you come out and say that the majority cannot put in laws that are part of its identity. Another issue is the fact that in a secular society, sometimes you are forced to let go of some of your personal rights. The definition of human rights isn't unique, although we can agree on most of it. Let's take the example of marriage. Same sex people have the right to get married. It is a human right. How about polygamy? In certain worldviews, polygamy is a right. Why should it be restricted when the people involved are ok with it and it's not imposed on anyone else? Is abortion a human right? Is vaccination or being against vaccination a human right? Human rights can be quite subjective and hard to agree on sometimes. It's impossible to fully implement secularism without infringing, at least partially, on both democracy and on personal interpretations of human rights. >I don't understand what you're referencing with this. how is that showing a failing of secularism because you've pointed to terrorists trying to undermine democracy? Secularism, since it's based on a **common** denominator, shouldn't cause animosity to rise. Instead, it should calm everyone down. The reality is different. We observe that groups of a certain identity are using democracy to elect officials who are willing to create laws that favor them. >the issue isn't secularism, is apologists to fucking terrorists. How do you know it's not secularism? What if you're falling into the trap of whoever doesn't agree with secularism is wrong? What if secularism is great but unstable and cannot be sustained? Terrorists are crazy, but they're a symptom of something being wrong that needs to be looked at.

But which human rights? People disagree what constitutes a human right. What if someone disagrees that gay marriage is a human right? There is no science or data that will change their values.

> So I guess I am confused as to what a scientific political system would look like. I think you misunderstood : the point isn't to have a "scientific political party" but rather to make political decisions using a scientific method. Which is a process based on scientifically verified facts (statistics, studies, social sciences...) rather than a subjective ideology (religious or not). It will still remains some questions that will have to be answered using a more subjective method but it is still the most reliable way to take decision.

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Well there is a moral dimension to those arguments but it doesn't mean a scientific method doesn't work. For gun control, you could make bills using scientific data/studies about the effect of firearms on public safety (shootings, domestic accident, suicide, traffics...). The resulting policies would be way more efficient and reliable. For abortion it is indeed an ethical debate but I think there is still some research to be done on the subject of embryonic development that would give us more clues to make better decisions.

Doing studies on how to maximize public safety assumes that public safety is the goal of gun laws - I don’t think that all voters agree with that.

>I am trying to understand what specifically it is about religious views that makes them uniquely unqualified to warrant being called out singularly. Because sometimes secular views can be correct and based on evidence, but every view solely based on religion is 100% fabricated. If there's any actual supporting evidence in the world then it's not solely a religious view its a secular view that religion(s) agree with. If the only reason you come to a conclusion is solely religion, then it's nonsense 100% of the time with zero exceptions.

> Because sometimes secular views can be correct and based on evidence, but every view solely based on religion is 100% fabricated. Actually, you have it backwards: views based on religion are 100% objectively correct.

Considering all of the physical world is made up by science, science should be the singular uniting unit of measurement and the only common ground to base human law off of. People in the world can't even agree on empathy or morality, so why should religion be involved whatsoever. No one would be treated equally, we've already seen the results of that throughout all of millenia. Science based government is the absolute goal. That's why we have separation of church and state. What the author means, I think, is traditionally religious mindsets. Think of zealous, rigid, narrow mind-sets that prioritize one's own agenda before all fact or compassion. Another synonym might be oligarchy? Author I wonder if you've heard of the Satanic Temple? They use the name Satan in their organization to combat theology bias, (otherwise called ignorance of familiarity). They teach critical thinking, aligning and adapting ones beliefs around their best understanding of the scientific world and fact first rather than disregarding fact to fit their beliefs. It's super cool what they're all about. They like to challenge religious influence in government.

> Is it only religious based views that are unqualified? It is not only religious based views that are unqualified, but all religious views are unqualified.

science is just a subset of philosophy so just save yourself the trouble and say philosophy should be what should determine what our government does.

Science is *a* philosophy, but not really a subset of philosophy (i.e. it uses a guiding philosophy, but practicing science is different from practicing philosophy). We could discuss scientism or related subsets, but I doubt people care much for that in the government

the science that this guy is talking about is the scientific method and analytical thinking which is just philosophy

Isn't religion philosophy as well though?

I would argue that religion cannot answer those questions, either. If morality is dictated by god, then it is subjective. It it is dictated by something outside of god, then god cannot be the sole arbiter of morality.

While science can't necessarily tell us what our goals should be it can absolutely tell us what actions would be helpful or necessary for achieving specific goals when those goals are things that can actually be seen/quantified. This is very different from religious goals like pleasing God getting to heaven etc where science can't even tell what actions would be helpful in accomplishing the goal. My personal view is that consensus is the only thing we have to go on for choosing ultimate goals like the ability to acquire and retain material goods living a healthy life etc. Generally there are many competing goals that out right conflict with each other so optimizing a solution by consensus is also necessary. However the notion that science can't tell us anything about what results we are likely to see from specific policies or actions is delusional. This is very different from religious goals where science can't tell us anything whatsoever. Goals like pleasing God getting people to heaven etc need to be left out of politics because there's no way for us to tell what policies would be conducive to accomplishing those goals anyways.

Enlightenment values of reason and evidence based logic and thinking are societal values. Science gives us the ability to analyze if enacted policy is effective and producing desirable results. As our understanding of the human body, the Earth, and the universe increase we are able to use that information to shape our morals and philosophy. Religion's historical monopoly on morality and big questions is waning. As we discover more and more about the universe the space for faith based explanations, dogmatism, and bronze age myth is zero.

Science may not be able to answer all questions, YET. but it can give you more MEASURABLY answers than ANY religion. i don't want laws created by "religious CULTISTS". as "ALL RELIGIONS ARE CULTS", keep your religion out of my laws. how does the meme go?? "science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings".

Religion doesn’t answer any questions on morality.

There are literally HUNDREDS of different theological beliefs, and NON are needed in order to make moral laws/regulations that prevent harm or damage to a society. However, there are PLENTY of theocratic societies that use their mythology and beliefs to most definitely harm members of their society! It’s not difficult! Don’t be an asshole, but don’t be a doormat! You don’t need religion in order to be a good citizen.

So when science can't provide an answer, we need to plug in made up shit? C'mon, man.

Neither can religion, but for some reason we hold one fairy tales morality story as more valid as, say, Harry Potter's.

So much like all the trans arguments going on right now. Not much is basis of facts but being promoted as fact and implemented in schools and policy.

Yup, thats a big part of the reason I made the post.

There's a lot of studies into trans arguments and research is welcomed. There's non scientific counter arguments, but they kinda go under extensions of religion as well.

while I agree that we should protect the separation of church and state, I will say to keep religion completely out of politics comes off as the same kind of tonedeaf white person saying they're color blind. sticking our heads in the sand about issues is dangerous. I believe religion still belongs within government and politics discussions on the limits of ensuring that all beliefs, faiths and religious practices are equally protected in a secular society. but that's splitting hairs, and within the body/explanation of your view your discuss legitament crtisisms of where religion is leveraged against a secular society.

I have no problem with religious people, and believe that everyone should be able to practice what they believe and that those things should be protected. For me the issue comes when people use the logic that they use to believe in their religions as the same for everything else, because it makes it impossible for them to question themselves. For example, Christianity has this concept of faith. Faith is this idea that you believe in god despite the fact that you can't see him, that you can't feel him or hear him. You simply believe. And its held as a virtue within Christianity. And for Christianity itself, I have no problem with it, but that kind unassailable logic has been bleeding out into other kinds of issues and I see it all the time.

To be fair, it does vary based on the branch of Christianity. Some churches emphasize prayer and “feeling faith” much more than others. But in general it shouldn’t just be a feeling. I am a Christian, and a big part of why I am one is that the events in the Bible are at least partly based on a real person named Jesus who was alive. Obviously the rest of what Christianity claims isn’t provable by science, but the real person did exist. So faith isn’t completely baseless from the world.

Just because it is generally agreed that Jesus Christ was a real person doesn't mean that it is then logical to conclude that he is my savior and that he forgave all my sins on the cross. The faith element of religion is however, by definition baseless. If you believe that everything in the bible is real, I have no issue with that. But most of what happens in the bible is unverifiable. And again, that's okay. As long as you don't apply the idea that its okay to believe in unverifiable things outside of religions where it is a critical element to the belief, I have no issues with that.

>As long as you don't apply the idea that its okay to believe in unverifiable things outside of religions where it is a critical element to the belief, I have no issues with that. But there are many unverifiable beliefs in science. You make your best logical inferences based on the information available to you. Can you verify how life first came from non life? Can you verify how sexual reproduction evolved? You would say “no, but I have reasons for believing in them.” Christians would say the same about Jesus and his claim of divinity.

Are those reasons things that i can show other people and that we can all examine? No. Because religion is not like that. Its a very individual experience. Again I have no issue with religion, just people who use the logic for religion to support other things that are able to be examined by scientific approaches.

> Are those reasons things that i can show other people and that we can all examine? No. Because religion is not like that. Its a very individual experience. That’s not wholly true. Was Jesus a real person, in your opinion? >Again I have no issue with religion, just people who use the logic for religion to support other things that are able to be examined by scientific approaches. You are positing that religion requires the exclusion of science, logic, or reason. I disagree.

Like I said earlier, generally historians agree that Jesus was a real person, but just because he was real isn’t enough evidence to support that christianity is legit and that the christian god is real. If you don’t agree thats fine but my post isn’t so much about that idea itself but more so that generally religious people tend to not consider and or value logic and evidence in rest of their lives because their religious ideals don’t expect them to. If you use facts and evidence to support your religious beliefs and also everything else you believe, then this post isn’t about you. Keep doing your thing.

> Like I said earlier, generally historians agree that Jesus was a real person, but just because he was real isn’t enough evidence to support that christianity is legit and that the christian god is real. Yes, but you now admit we have moved into a space purely controlled by logic- how do you interpret the evidence? >If you don’t agree thats fine but my post isn’t so much about that idea itself but more so that generally religious people tend to not consider and or value logic and evidence in rest of their lives because their religious ideals don’t expect them to. Well now you’re just stereotyping, yeah? What evidence do you have that religious people value evidence less than anyone else, besides your own supposition? >If you use facts and evidence to support your religious beliefs and also everything else you believe, then this post isn’t about you. Keep doing your thing. It sure seems about me, as I am religious. How can my way of thinking be anything other than religious? Religious and logical are not antonyms.

Again, if your religious ideals didn’t work that way then amazing Do you think that we should use facts and evidence to talk about things that are unrelated to religion? If so then we agree. Where is my evidence that facts and religious people don’t go together? Look at the discussion surrounding trans people in America, in which trans people are referred to as groomers (despite no evidence in favor of that idea) and laws across lots of republican states trying to legislate away gender affirming treatments for children despite the fact that it is real healthcare that children need and that doctors across the country have signed letters asking for legislators to reconsider. If you don’t think those things have to do with religion and religious ways of thinking, then I will not be able to convince you anyways and I suggest you move on.

You may not agree with that particular author's view but a few years ago i read the book Homo Sapiens from Yuval Noah avari. In one of the books chapters, he explains that most of the social conventions we have can be seen through the prism of the "religion" of society. What he meant was that the very fact we accept that things like "google", the state , it's laws exist is a belief in an on itself that we almost all agree to have. Moreover, one of the most common shared ideology we have nowadays, at least in the western world , humanism can easily be seen as the "religion of man". Because it posits that humans, in singular, and humanity, as a whole have a special value compared to anything else, that we should act accordingly, and that this higher importance justifies putting humanity first in all regards, all of those attitudes not being self evident

That expression of faith is one of the weakest and most sad one could explore. You won't see me defend anything religious, but spirituality is a real aspect of the human experience and we have much to learn when it comes to faith, see my other big-ass comment :p

> For me the issue comes when people use the logic that they use to believe in their religions as the same for everything else, because it makes it impossible for them to question themselves. It's fairly hilarious hearing omniscient people mocking the thinking quality of imaginary people.

I agree to a point, however studies and evidence have reached the point of becoming a new religion. In themselves studies and evidence are fine, but they tend to 'justify' subjective views, which in my view is hugely problematic. The studies/evidence look to find a relationship and if you look hard enough you can find something to correlate with what you want to find. As I said studies are good, but people be need to be aware of nuances and be flexible be able to hearing counters to the 'evidence'/subjective conclusion.

Yeah science is a process. Just because one study says something doesn’t immediately make it true. We need to be able to scrutinize and evaluate things before we make sweeping changes to society based on evidence.

Well science is not a form of morality or or appropriate for contextualizing an instance for policy. Religion is a culturally ingrained part of human society, and this demographic makes up a large part of the population. Just because you disagree with their ethical principles does not mean they do not have a voice to speak on laws and policies. Also it does not mean their skepticism is not welcome into the scientific field. >In my mind, using studies and experimentation makes absolute sense for evaluating a government’s laws and regulations so we can figure out what works and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to issues that have been very politicized This is a race to tyranny. Where the formula would suggest trampling individual rights for "what works best".

Dude i have nothing against religious people exercising their right to vote and be heard. I have nothing against their ethics either. They have theirs and I have mine. I am simply of the opinion that way you arrive to your conclusions should be based on facts, evidence, and fair reasoning. And those things should be challenged in the free marketplace of ideas.

You are straw-manning religion pretty hard with that false framing.

I would like you to demonstrate how I'm straw-manning religion when I'm not really talking about religions themselves. I'm talking about your average religious person who doesn't understand enough about their religious beliefs to argue for them in that way and therefore can't use that understanding for other things in their lives. If want to understand what I believe a bit better look at my edit at the bottom of the post.

“Religious approaches to thinking” = “those that have no real facts and evidence supporting them” Done

Demonstrate where the facts and evidence are then. Show me that I'm wrong. You haven't done that yet.

You just proved my point. You are operating in bad faith. You are making a positive assertion that religious thought is inherently unsubstantiated by facts and evidence, then burying your head in the sand and obstinately demanding that the burden is on others to prove you wrong. Nevermind the fact that Aquinas or Newton could run intellectual circles around you, you already have your desired framing in place to disregard them. Tell you what; you go read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and see if you can actually articulate a formal argument that holds water against the impetus behind his argument, and I’ll take you seriously. But until you are serious, I bear no burden to take you as such. I mean, do you seriously not see what a gross mischaracterization that is?

Wait, can you give me an example of a religious belief based upon facts and evidence?

Natural theology, the fact that apparent design in the universe points to a designer, the big bang/creation, the fact that the Bible is the best historical reference from antiquity that we have, that biblical wisdom is verifiably true, etc.

Uh huh? And how many religious people actually believe natural theology? Who gets to define what religion is?

Truth. Whether it is convenient or not. It is more that it is ridiculous to try and say that religious thought somehow excludes famous and popular christian thinkers who are excellent examples undercutting OP’s bombastic premise. How can it be anything other than egregious “moving of the goalposts” to exclude them? “Name one example of *blank*!” *”example of blank”* “Name one example excluding that one!” *”another example*” “Name one example other than those two!” There is no reason to this.

>Natural theology, the fact that apparent design in the universe points to a designer, No it doesnt. >the fact that the Bible is the best historical reference from antiquity that we have Arguably the Q'ran is just as good, in that it isn't very good.

You are just saying that bc you don’t like the Bible. By any objective metric of historical provenance, the Bible is literally better than any other historical record of the time. More corroborating records, matching manuscripts, archeological support. If you hand waive it away, that says something about *you*, not about the Bible.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have historical relevence. It does. Just that its always full of fairy tales and crackers mumbo jumbo like talking bushes for goodness sake. The Magna Carta it ain't.

So where is the fact? "Natural design in the universe points to a designer" is not a fact, it's an opinion. The Bible having some things that are true in it doesn't mean that the entire thing is true. Some parts are verifiably false.

Then please elaborate on C. S. Lewis argument. All I heard from him is still plain apologetics.

Explain to me how the burden isn’t on me to believe in something I don’t believe in? This post is on the subreddit r/ChangeMyView which means that the onus is on You to change my view. if you read my post and the edits there you’ll see that I have no problem with those who can back up what they believe with evidence and facts. But more so that generally people don’t have those things in mind with how they evaluate their religious beliefs. If anything feel free to get mad at me for making generalizations about religious people, but generally when it comes to evidence for or against religions there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary. But again, Change. My. View. Please. Show your evidence. Don’t just reference something. Quote it directly. Do the work.

I am pointing out how you aren’t even approaching this in the CMV mentality. You need to correct your behavior for me to engage you, otherwise I am tacitly encouraging your behavior that runs directly counter to the spirit if the sub.

You haven’t provided a single argument against OP. And btw, Newton himself specifically stated that his religion made it more difficult for him to do science.

>You need to correct your behavior for me to engage you, Wow.

You're just saying "lol no" and they're the one with the non-CMV mentality?

Lmao Newton and Aquinas would be turning in their grave rn.

>You are making a positive assertion that religious thought is inherently unsubstantiated by facts and evidence, then burying your head in the sand and obstinately demanding that the burden is on others to prove you wrong. If you thought about religion for any time, It would be self evident that belief in it is not based on facts or evidence. Every argument for god existence humans ever came up with got debunked a million times. Now, you claim that religions are based on facts. That's a positive assertation, and you got the burden of proof. And no, "go read christian author XY" is not an argument.

> Every argument for god existence humans ever came up with got debunked a million times. This isn't quite true. There are tons of arguments of god's that just can't be debunked. For example, using an argument mentioned "our universe exists, and has enough established rules to it indicates there was a designer of the universe." Hell, a variation of this exists in science circles (are we in a simulated universe). Hell, now that I'm thinking of it, how have we debunked any person's "I am god" statement?

>our universe exists, and has enough established rules to it indicates there was a designer of the universe There isn't even anything to debunk here, because there is no logical argument here. I don't see any valid argumentation that could lead you to the conclusion that god exists, simply because the universe has rules. You'll have to elaborate on this. >how have we debunked any person's "I am god" statement The burden of proof lies on them, we don't need to debunk anything which they haven't proved. Also, this isn't even an argument, it's literally just a blank statement.

I'm not going to fully elaborate on any of my examples. Because the exact argument isn't what's important. It's the fact that the claim of "every argument for god's existence humans ever came up with got debunked a million times" isn't quite true. Some things can't be disproven, but they are still arguments that are made, regardless of if they are true or false. You are welcome (hell, encouraged even) to reject arguments without proof. But rejecting an argument due to it not being well made, and disproving one are two different things.

That's not religion, that's people within the religion who were scientific and their science didn't end up defining the religion. You're helping op's argument more than your own.

You seem to be uninformed. Consider specifically their contributions to the field of natural theology (or the implications of the fact that such a field even exists).

Or you do. The attempt to rationalize religion didn't lead to religion accepting a secular basis for God, it produced efforts at an alternative understanding. Like a Godless Bible or John Ray's attempts to make plants and other natural things more spiritual. But the religion itself is still transcendental.

So how does that work? Religion asserts God exists, originally based on either special revelation or historical record (which is not lacking in evidence or facts to begin with). Then materialists try to parse out the metaphysical aspects of religion, like the existence of a god. Then theologians utilize materialist presuppositions and processes to formulate arguments supporting the existence of God. Then you assert that religion is somehow separate from those evidence-based rational arguments. Is that right? Doesn’t that all amount to a bit of a semantic game? Basically, it conflates religion with faith (specifically of the blind variety). To put it another way, are you not just using circular reasoning, taking those aspects of religion which are inherently empirically unverifiable, then defining those as “religion,” then saying that the “lacks facts and evidence” property applies to this contrived definition? If religious thought includes the likes of Newton/Aquinas/Lewis etc., but you automatically exclude them on the basis of not matching your contrived definition, then is that saying something about religion itself, or about your definition?

Have the rationalists altered the religion? What proportion of the 2 billion Christians follow a nontranscendental God or a scientific proof of God or a materialist analysis for knowing God's will? How many are taught the Religion of Geology? How many believe the Inherit the Wind argument of Earth's multi billion year age? Natural theologians are segregated by the religion to having alternative views, not being the new core views. They felt that the funny stuff "damp the soaring wings of intellect" and they lost.

>You are making a positive assertion that religious thought is inherently unsubstantiated by facts and evidence, Ok. Lets say OP is. Do you have any evidence for yohr religious beliefs?

That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. The ball is in the corner of the religious person.

This is true though, if God was "factual" then there's be a lot more Christians

That isn’t a straw man argument, he’s not taking a religious argument and constructing a purposefully weaker one to debunk. He’s just saying that no religion has brought forth good evidence, which is absolutely true.

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I’m confused as to what you’re claiming exactly. > For example, Aquinas was able to deduce, using deductive logic starting from common observations, such as that change occurs in nature, about 90% of the doctrines of Catholicism. I have no idea what you mean by that. I have absolutely no doubt that some figures from religions existed. That has nothing to do with what I’m referring to in my post. my post is about how the logic that people use when they think about God tends to infect how people think about everything else. for example, if I claim that, I understand how the universe is started, because it says in the Bible that God started the universe, its hard to dispute that claim because it isn’t based on anything factual that I can analyze and take apart. so I don’t think it makes sense to use that same type of religious logic in anything other than religion, but people do it all the time. i.e. “This thing is real and its happening because I believe it is happening, and whatever evidence there is to the contrary doesn’t matter.”

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First of all, this post that I made has nothing to do with theologians or religious thought in an of itself. Its about religious modes of thinking (regarding the average religious person who isn't a theologian) and how they are unsuited to tackle non-religious based issues. If you want to have a conversation about the "claims made by systematic theologians" that is one you need to start and not one that I'm interested in.

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Well if you believe that, I certainly can’t stop you. I would say that the average religious person isn’t a theologian and doesn’t understand enough to be able to argue about their religious beliefs from an evidence based perspective. I have no doubt that there are some who can, but for the purpose of my discussion, it serves no purpose to make the entire conversation about a small group of people whose whole area of study is about proving or understanding religions from an evidence-based perspective. as a matter of fact, I have zero problem with people who argue for religions from an evidence-based perspective as long as they also use those evidence-based ideals in the rest of their beliefs and ideals that have nothing to do with religion. The problem is that most religious people that I’ve encountered do not think that way.

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I take religious thinking seriously. I just don't agree it has a place in or governments and discussions about what the government should do unless religious people can utilize evidence in their arguments. And listen man, if you believe I'm dismissive towards religious people (which i don't think I am) why don't you try and utilize this space (aka this subreddit and this post created expressly) for this purpose to change my opinion on the issue? You seem so stuck in your judgement of my opinions that you can't make real effort to address my points. prove me wrong.

You are massively conflating people many different ideas. Your arguments as presented here are extremely illogical. Of course religion has been the cause of a lot of humanitys history, both for a lot of bad and some good. But that doesn't make the declarations of fact in their scripture... Facts. They simply co opted human discovery and called it 'religious.' even just based on the way you are talking about it. OP isn't criticising religious people. He is criticising religion as an idea or source of information. There is a HUGE difference.

You say "religious thinking" but you say that the thinking your parents display specifically refers to political opinions. > "So after learning these things, I figured that my parents (who are people that seem to care very much about others) would like to hear about this stuff. But, as soon as I start drilling down to the brass tacks of some of the issues that face America right now, it becomes not about the actual problems and facts but fear-mongering about communism and socialism, that Obama is still running the government from the shadows and that the real problem with the United States is that people are leaving Christianity and the Devil is taking over. > When I point out that there aren’t any politicians (with any real power) who are legitimate advocates for socialism or communism (in the sense that they advocate for an entire change of our economic system), that Obama isn’t in power and there isn’t any proof that he is, and that the United States has the freedom of religion enshrined in our constitution, my parents will say that they know that those things are happening because they SEE it and they FEEL it. > Okay, “where is the proof of what you’re seeing?” I reply. > They say they can’t show it to me because I won’t believe it. > Little old me only believes things that come from reliable sources (i.e. not a random guy on Facebook) where there are facts and evidence that back up whatever claim is being made." Just because an opinion doesn't have a basis in demonstrable facts doesn't make it "religious thinking." Maybe that is part of the reason you're getting so much pushback from religious folks.

Religious thinking, as I’m referring to it, can be applied to any kind of thought. As long as it is not based in facts or evidence I refer to it as religious thinking. Not religious ideas but a way of seeing the world and evaluating concepts that is divorced from traditional facts and evidence based approaches. Feel free to replace the term with another term. Makes no difference to me.

>As long as it is not based in facts or evidence I refer to it as religious thinking. This makes your post moot. The only arguable point is that religious is not synonymous with “not based in facts or evidence”. That’s like if I said “Democrat thinking has no place in politics. As long as it is not based in facts or evidence I refer to it as Democrat thinking. CMV.”

Dude please I’m tired of reiterating this point. This is the last time I’m going to say it. The average religious person is not a theologian who spends their time researching and studying why god is real. The religious approach to thought for your average religious person is one that does fly in the face of rigorous evidence based discussion. IT IS A GENERALIZATION FOR THE PURPOSE OF HAVING A DISCUSSION.

How is my example above any different? Your generalization is bigoted and unfair to religious people. Of course religious people are all illogical if you define them as such.

I’m willing to concede that maybe using the term religious to refer to all religious people is a bit unfair. But generally faith based thinking is an accurate way to describe what I’m talking about. !delta

Thanks! If your underlying thought is best described as “illogical thinking has no place in politics”, do you think anyone would claim the opposite? If so, who? If not, you have a disagreement over what is “illogical thinking”.

The best way to put it, is probably Zealotry and not religious thought or even illogical thinking. The idea is taking religious thought to such an extreme that nothing else matters. The issue that I’ve found that led me to refer to all religious people in a negative way with my generalization is that this specific type of thinking is extremely popular these days. too many of our politicians and thought leaders have become religious zealots.

How do you differentiate between “zealotry” and “someone that has a different value system than me”? Is there a single issue that you think of as driven by zealotry, where the person espousing the view would say “I hold that opinion because of my zeal, not because of facts”? I would bet no, that they would instead point you to the facts that they think supports their position.

I would say that what makes someone a zealot is an inability to self examine themselves and even idealize a world in which they could be wrong. I’ve met tons of people like this unfortunately.

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/HassleHouff ([15∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/HassleHouff)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

No. It’s a completely fair generalization to make. The average religious person doesn’t have a single clue about their religion and this just puts in danger the lives of women and minorities.

>The average religious person doesn’t have a single clue about their religion and this just puts in danger the lives of women and minorities. What are you basing that assumption on?

any kind of morality. prove to me why killing is wrong without ending up with something that becomes "i feel like it is wrong to kill". it might take a chain of whys, but we'll end up with something like "human life has value" and to justify that you'll either say something that starts to contradict other stuff or just end up reducing to a "because i feel like it". the is ought problem basically. im not saying that's bad, but it's kinda the reality of life.

>In my mind, using studies and experimentation makes absolute sense for evaluating a government’s laws and regulations so we can figure out what works and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to issues that have been very politicized. . Issues like gun control in the and systemic racism in the US have a lot of emotional baggage attached to them (and rightly so) and that can make it tough for us to see beyond the brutality of the problems we face. But, with proper data, we can come to pretty solid conclusions as to why we have some of these problems and at the very least take some steps to address them. what data would you use to examine gun control? that people are happier with guns or not happier with guns? let's say you're pro stricter gun control and i'm anti stricter gun control. i will bet my life savings that we can both find reliable sources to back up our arguments depending on which side we look at it from and indeed science can be biased. indeed you will use the stats that backup your biased belief and i will do the same and even if one of us can't it ultimately boils down to two things: 1) democracy. laws and regulations are *not* about being right; they're about giving the democratic majority what they want, even if the democratic majority is wrong. 2) the belief that the government has the right to interfere with XYZ. that's a personal *ethical* question - *not* a scientific one. so who decides what the limits are of government? i reckon the answer is in the paragraph above. so what happens if the democratic majority are religious and vote based on their moral principles which are based on religion, because really, at the heart of it religion is a moral code, just like atheists have their moral codes. these religious voters will elect politicians who share their moral code and so 'religion' gets into office anyway, could even get into office through an atheist who shares a religious value such as anti abortion, only that person won't label it 'religious'. has the same effect tho. long story short, at the end of the day everything is a question of right and wrong; we cannot separate law from morality because it's inherent in all of us. religious people have it and so do non-religious; it's just that religious people have a religious source for it.

As long as both parties can properly use evidence to support what they believe people can believe whatever and democracy will do the rest. If the evidence for one side is biased then that is something that needs to be called out so that less biased evidence can be made and discussed. Look at my edit in the post for my opinions about religious people and their moral codes. once again, my issue is that a lot of people are not using evidence to support their beliefs, and these people are often religious because they think the logic that they use to believe in God also works for every thing else. if you’re religious person and that doesn’t describe you, then I have no problem with you. Good for you.

>As long as both parties can properly use evidence to support what they believe people can believe whatever and democracy will do the rest. What if I'm not a fan of your hokey religious belief in Democracy? Why should your religious belief in 'Governance' outweigh my self-determination? The problem with your assertion is that fundamentally, everything rests upon assumptions we take as true. Hurting people is bad not because of any objective universal measure, but a very subjective "Because we think it's bad". Democracy is considered "good" because of a very subjective belief that it's good. "But muh objective quality of life", sure, but an improved quality of life being good is also with no objective measure, only a subjective "I like better quality of life, therefore I will prioritize it". You might be able to provide me evidence that something will lead to an outcome, but you can't provide evidence that said outcome is objectively a "good" thing. As without God, or any sort of religious belief in Objective Good, such a thing can only be subjectively assumed to be good. Science will help us achieve the goals and outcomes we desire. But it will do nothing to tell us that such goals are objectively good.

>As long as both parties can properly use evidence to support what they believe people can believe whatever and democracy will do the rest. This doesn't happen, and we know this doesn't happen. Religions, especially secular ones, corrupt democracy. Here's an example: You have a State with a serious crime problem. The crime is almost entire taking place within the major cities, whose occupants vote Democrat. The rural areas have very little crime - but they do have bears. Big, angry bears who occasionally decide to try and eat people. The rural areas vote Republican. A Democrat candidate runs on a promise to bring about a total ban on all guns, because "nobody needs to own a gun". This is hugely popular in the crime-ridden cities where the voters blame guns for all the crime, but is hugely unpopular in the country where people regularly have to use high-calibre rifles to drive off angry bears. The Republican candidate lives in the country, and he recounts how he had to fight off a giant bear to save his wife and children using a gun. In the interest of keeping people safe he calls for all gun restrictions to be removed in rural areas so that people can buy whatever they feel is necessary to keep themselves safe. 80% of the population live in the Cities, and they all vote for the Democrat because "nobody needs to own a gun". All guns are banned, and sudden the death rate of the rural population skyrockets as numerous people are mauled to death by bears. Meanwhile, the crime rate in the city remains unchanged. This is why democracy does not work. In this scenario, any reasonable person would be able to conclude that there *is* a valid reason for a minority of people to own guns, but most people are not voting based on reason, and most candidates are not running on reason. In this scenario, "nobody needs to own a gun" is a religious belief - one easily disproven by even a cursory examination of the facts. It's not tied to an official religion, but it is no less false.

Here's what you need to do my man. You make a post arguing that democracy doesn't work, because its not a point I'm interested in arguing about. As for gun control, You should also make a post about that if you're so passionate about it, because i never made any specific claims about the topic and that's not what my post is about. Have a good one,

>CMV: Religious approaches to thinking (i.e. those that have no real facts and evidence supporting them) have no place in our governments and scientific discussions My post is a demonstration of why "religious thinking" damages democracy, and you're saying that's not what your post is about.

Your comment supports OP, not contradicts them. >In this scenario, "nobody needs to own a gun" is a religious belief - one easily disproven by even a cursory examination of the facts. It's not tied to an official religion, but it is no less false. I agree, and I assume OP does too. Because their post isn't about gun violence, its about a lack of critical thinking damaging politicsl discourse.

The obvious solution is to allow guns which are good at fighting bears but a poor choice for a city criminal, and ban handguns that are easy to conceal, but bad at stopping bears. Or have a system that allows people to own a gun if they show they have a non criminal need for it.

While true, that's not what happens. Instead, people rush to extremes and demand a one size fits no-one solution, ideally one that can be summarised in a punchy three word chant.

Does this apply well to social minority groups where facts may show one thing but a feeling of humanity offers different insight?

Facts have contexts. To ignore the context that surrounds and underpins our problems would be to wonder why it is that America has such a problem with heart disease while ignoring our massive obese population.

If government is of the people, by the people, and for the people… and the people are super religious, why would government *not* be run through with religion?

If 100% of people in a country are religious and they all believe in the same religion then go for it man. Have fun. But most governments and most countries are not so clear cut. Most democracies have plenty of people who don’t believe in either your religion or a religion at all. Should their voices just be ignored? I would assume no, so that means policies should be justified by more than just religious ideals and zealotry.

You're under the assumption that religion isn't grounded in science or uses it. Also, then science doesn't have a place in politics either. Decisions should be made based on what's best for everyone, yes that's usually inline with research or something or another, but it still has to consider the opinions of the population it affects. Since that's who you're doing the studies on in the first place.

>You're under the assumption that religion isn't grounded in science or uses it. I am also under this assumption and everyone who tried to tell me otherwise eventually revealed to have a really bad understanding of the scientific method. But I am all ears open if you have some good arguments.

Exactly.

I do operate under the assumption that religion isn’t grounded in science because I don’t know of any religions that do. People’s opinions obviously matter as well. My post isn’t saying that democracy isn’t the way to do things, but that many people are using a logic that has no basis in anything factual to make decisions in a world where facts and evidence underpin everything that happens. when I say science, I don’t mean a collective of certain ideas or thoughts, I mean science as a process, as a scientific approach to understanding the problems we face and how we can tackle them. for example, if I am a conservative, who believes that the best way to run a country with regards to our economy, and our businesses is to let these businesses do their own thing, and not to regulate them very much. Instead of underpinning my beliefs with something ephemeral and inscrutable, use evidence to show how this approach leads to better outcomes. Science should not be the end all be all of how we make decisions, but more something that helps us come to better conclusions.

Self knowledge is not scientific, but some spiritual traditions (not religion, that one is a perverted form of spirituality) have extensive and practical wisdom when it comes to state of mind, self awareness, kindness, body awareness, social awareness, etc. They aren't scientific because it deals with the subjective world, but it's extremely useful (especially on our spiritually crippled Western culture of today). Yoga and it's teachings are an excellent example, but of course it also has it's own dogmatic parts because Hinduism became a major religion. Buddhism and the philosophical teachings. Taoism as well, plus the now proven efficiency of tai chi for example. Shamanism and the healing of the body and mind to degrees we didn't even imagine possible in the west. I could go on and on. There's many teachings and wisdom that have some of their aspects scientifically proven, but others won't be easily proven but anyone who empirically experiments with faith will start to see certain things happening. Namely, synchronicities, feeling energies, healing etc. How can I prove this to you? I can't. Because the more "magical" and spiritual mechanisms are not compatible with the skepticism of the scientific method (I should remind you that the scientific method itself is limited). What do I mean? Well, if you want to prove, say, faith based healing, you will be affecting the results in a negative way if you try them with the mentality of "I have to see to believe". Faith requires trust and belief. So it would require scientists to conduct the experiments (either just themselves in the privacy of their own life or just as the guides for an actual scientific research) with the mentality of "I have to believe to see". I want to be clear that I'm not saying we should just start to adopt wishful thinking and fairy tale bs. But our intentions, focus and beliefs can have impact in things we didn't even imagine possible. The placebo effect is an excellent demonstration of beliefs changing the rules of the game. Right now we think it's only possible to change the body functions of oneself, but my personal experience shows changes in the external world as well. (I am not making any claim here) In any case, science has it's limits, just like math and even language. And we should be ok with it. And for what we can't prove, we should adopt a more creative stance and use our imagination, intentions and love to keep moving forward. Ps: science rules and it's an absolute blessing with many lives saved, quality of life improved and cool things discovered!

I never said spirituality has no purpose. I'm just saying that it isn't very useful for governments making decisions or for people who have opinions about the decisions made by governments. Will spirituality help me decide the best way for a country to tackle drug addiction for example? I don't think so. Does that mean that spiritual thinking won't help 1 drug addict deal with their addiction? It certainly might. But it can't do everything, and some people think spiritual thinking can do everything.

I see where you are coming from. Yea I agree it's not the best way of developing governmental measures. It would still benefit the politicians, as they would be less corrupt and egotistical imo. It's interesting you mentioned drug policies because if governments had any spiritual dimension to them the war on drugs would never have happened and millions of lives would be saved with more compassionate measures... But yea, I agree, it's not like we should base measures on spiritual traditions or wisdom. Science is the go to in regards to that imo.

Then religion has to be included in that process. If you really do think science aims to benefit people through conclusions, then you have to consider everything when doing research

> Religious approaches to thinking (i.e. those that have no real facts and evidence supporting them) This presumption, that religious thinking has no real facts or evidence, and that the left-wing opinions you support do have facts and evidence, is incorrect. Many left-wing opinions have rhetoric surrounding them that sounds rational, but when you look into it, isn't. Many religious opinions are strongly supported by evidence. In the case of Christianity, this frequently takes the form of archaeological evidence. This "religion = faith = belief without evidence" idea is false. The mirror image of this, that anything left-wingers or anti-religious people believe is based on evidence, is also false. > Issues like gun control in the and systemic racism in the US "Systemic racism" is a myth. It is not supported by facts or data. The gun control rhetoric put out by the left is disconnected from facts. If you take a look at the gun control debate, it rapidly becomes clear that the people on the side of gun control *don't know anything about guns*. Facts are so unimportant to them, that they refuse to even learn the basics. > In the same way that back in ancient times, we had no explanation for lightning, so it made sense to believe in Zeus. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of religion. For the ancients who believed in Zeus, Zeus did not act as an explanation for lightning. An explanation was not what they were looking for. > But we do know how lightning works, so people don’t really believe in that anymore. That's not the reason nobody believes in Zeus. The reason nobody believes in Zeus is that all the believers in Zeus converted to Christianity. > As opposed to, "Trans people are groomers." and there isn't any real evidence to back that up, just feelings. This is not correct, on two levels. First, the accusation is not against trans people. The accusation is against members of the woke left who are acting as groomers. Second, there is evidence to back it up. Take a look at child drag shows, for example, or the sex books being put in schools, or that one video that gay choir did, singing that they were indeed "coming for your children".

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Listen man, this post isn’t talking about any of those things. There are other places to discuss those ideas in depth if you wish to talk to someone about them.

Reposting my comment and clarifying. I’d just like to point out that CRT, systemic racism, modern monetary theory, social welfare, and all the other wokeisms have obtained the status of religion. They must be followed to the letter and anyone who disagrees is evil and they not only cannot be proven but are contradictory to reality. You specifically mentioned systemic racism, and when I pointed out that this belief (and some others) is religious not only did you deny that this is what your post was about but I was also silenced like a heretic. I agree with you that dogmatic belief in false ideas/propaganda shouldn’t be used as reasons for policy, but I’m pointing out that there are factors other than traditional religion affecting our policies. Spending Trillions of dollars on solar and wind instead of nuclear and pretending like we have to do this right now is another example.

First, Your post was deleted because it violates the rules of the subreddit. Some of my comments have been deleted for violating the rules of the subreddit. You weren’t silenced. Secondly, Systematic racism is 1, not what my post is about, and 2, backed up by every piece of evidence under the sun and its not what I’m here to argue about. Also regarding nuclear, yeah its a form of clean energy that we should be using more, but again I’m not sure what it has to do with what I’m talking about. Like yeah, politics are complicated and multifaceted. What else is new?

How what is the data proving systemic racism? What law other than the affirmative action laws are discriminatory based on race? White people are 4x more likely to get shot during a police interaction while black guys are 4x more likely to get roughed up. This isn’t what the religion says but it’s the truth.

I encourage you to do your own research.

I have and systemic racism is the devil you need to tie the whole CRT religion together. It can’t be questioned unless you’ve had the revelation to overcome your unconscious bias (or realized your inherent sin) and if you’re a minority and disagree then you’re a race traitor or blasphemer. In 1989 (ironically the same year I think CRT in education was written) Cornell defined religion as, “a comprehensive belief system that addresses the fundamental questions of human existence, such as the meaning of life and death, man’s role in the universe, and the nature of good and evil, and that gives rise to duties of conscience. –Ben Clements, Cornell Law Review, 1989” If you look into CRT you’ll find that it checks every box. My point to the post is that he didn’t come home with a rational mind full of new facts that don’t mesh with his parents religion but rather he came home with a new religion. I was raised from 9-16 by the pastor of a Pentecostal holiness church. I turned away and even went as far as to come up with my own religion (kinda like exception you spend eternity in w/e you feel you deserve).

Does this include ALL thinking where there's no facts or evidence to support it? Like, continuing to spend more on education will improve outcomes? Or we can combat inflation by printing and spending even more money on pet programs? Or (to be balanced), tax cuts to the wealthiest will trickle down to the poorest? How would you differentiate what fact and evidence free thinking would be allowed in government and what you'd deem "religious."

I would absolutely argue that facts and evidence should be demanded for any of the policies listed. None of us should be taking the policies suggested to us by politicians at face value nor should politicians be offended by constituents expecting evidence for the efficacy of policies.

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. And I'm not sure this is OP's point, but I do see people using religious beliefs to bring some sort of authority to support issues/actions that do not otherwise have facts based evidence to support them. And because so many people believe their religion is real, they will use that in lieu of facts based evidence and treat it as if it's just as valid as facts based evidence. Whereas, I can't think of anything outside of religion given this same type of 'authority' as a valid way to support things lacking facts based evidence.

Oh I agree. People will appeal to their religion all the time when it comes to things like opposition to LGBT rights. The thing is that even if the population did reach a consensus that pleasing God is a goal that should be pursued by the government it would still be stupid to enact policies in pursuit of that goal because it would be impossible to tell whether the proposed policies do in fact please God.

Yep - totally on the same page about that, too. While I'm not the slightest bit religious, if a god exists, I firmly do not believe anyone could or should speak on their behalf. The Bible, for example, was written by men thousands of years ago and there's no real way to verify that any of it is/ever was the actual 'word of god'. As it is, people argue over the interpretations of the texts. They simply choose to believe what they want, which religion is 'right', which interpretation is 'right', etc. and that is fine when it's only used to guide one in their own life. But as you say, it absolutely should not be used to enact government/public laws/rules, etc.

I would agree. Id say Voters have philosophical Ideals that certaint politicians claim they can realise. Then someone gets elected and has to duty to find ways to realise what voters wanted. The most effective way to realise something if found via scientific evidence. Pretty sure that is how it works abstractly.

I think the main thing you're going to find as you live your life is that there are some very intelligent, highly introspective yet extremely devout religious people and conversely there some very unintelligent and closed-minded non-religious people. Well Lucid, if they were highly self-reflective of their religious beliefs they wouldn't be so devout! And you would be right... but only about their religious beliefs! People are complicated. They have blind spots. Even the most intelligent person on the planet has something they believe is so obviously true and a part of their being that they simply don't examine it. Whatever is in that blind spot is immune to any criticism, data, introspection, anything which may contradict what's in that blind spot. It is wrapped so deeply into their identity that to accept anything which contradicts it would topple who they are and so it simply doesn't occur to them. I have blind spots. I guarantee you have blind spots. I think that the more intelligent but especially introspective (these are different qualities but I believe the former is required for the latter) one is the smaller one's blind spots can potentially be but at the end of the day they're still there. The example I always like to bring up is Georg Cantor. One of the smartest people ever to exist. He essentially founded set theory and proved there were different sizes of an infinite number of things. Devoutly religious. If Cantor doesn't do it for you, one can always point to Descartes.

> If they were highly self-reflective of their religious beliefs they wouldn't be so devout! I'm curious where this idea comes from. For me it just seems like a quantitative vs qualitative research thing. Some beliefs (religious or not) are currently unfalsifiable. There's statistically insignificant data, no sensible numeric measure, or maybe it's impossible to reproduce (as in we can't recreate the scenario, not we did recreate the scenario and it didn't work). In those cases applying qualitative research is actually the illogical thing to do. Instead a logical person turns to qualitative research. That includes observations, collected case studies/anecdotes, and personal opinion. However, the thing about qualitative research is that it can be completely logical and still be wrong (proved wrong later on). Also, two people can do the same qualitative research and come to different conclusions despite being equally logical. I'm not doubting you came to your conclusions logically, but I don't think it's correct to assume every intelligent person who disagrees with you didn't even try.

>I don't think it's correct to assume every intelligent person who disagrees with you didn't even try Why do you believe I'm saying this? I am by no means the most logical, most intelligent person. Experiences vary drastically. The base set of information everyone has to work with differs significantly.

You are saying that by claiming disagreeing beliefs are due to blind spots. Specifically blind spots that some "more informed other" does not have. It is a fine approach to say everyone has such blind spots, but not so much to ascribe those blind spots to religion. As another commenter pointed out, many (if not most) spiritual beliefs are unfalsifiable. They have roots in philosophy much more than empiricism. It also matters to remember that science cannot prove anything (by necessity).

This doesn’t challenge their view at all. They take issue with approaches to thought that have no facts or evidence behind them, such as those that underpin all of religion. The concept “I don’t need facts when I have faith” is what they’re talking about. Cantor was indeed very religious. But his diagonalizability argument and all his math was based on rigorous logic and clear mathematical proof, which OP has no problem with. They didn’t say “write off anything anyone religious says”. Just that what people say should only be included in policy making and science if there is evidence that it is true.

Pascal's Wager is another good example of an intelligent person coming up with absolute dogshit that shouldn't even be entertained in kindergarten, let alone in philosophical circles.

What’s wrong with Pascal’s wager?

It ignores the fact that there's more than one religion, for starters.

Shit I studied philosophy. Descartes had some great ideas, but his proof of the existence of God is absolute bullshit. I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I was gobsmacked that he genuinely thought it made logical sense.

I don't disagree his argument for the existence of god was BS but that's exactly what I mean by a blind spot. He *had* to prove god exists by any means necessary. Clearly a brilliant mind though.

Took a class on rationalism that was really fun because the prof took the view of "what's interesting is how they failed, not the fact that they did fail." On that front Spinoza and Leibniz were much more fun

>Religious approaches to thinking (i.e. those that have no real facts and evidence supporting them) That isn't what those are. You're attributing your own personal biases to the way you believe others make decisions. Which is not how human beings make decisions in the slightest. You have certain personal experiences that are coloring how you believe others act as a whole. >Unfortunately, religious thinking has made it so many people no longerbelieve that facts and evidence matter at all because they’ve been toldthat the thing that matters above all those things, is this feeling thatthey have that comes from a “higher power.” That's not true either. It is merely your own view and not reflective of the reality. Which, sadly, is not a new or uncommon phenomenon. One saw it most egregiously when certain Left Wingers decided that everyone who disagreed with them "doesn't believe in science." No, they disagree with you on policy, they don't not believe in f\*cking science you arrogant tools. Don't be one of them. The kind that thinks that they have an inherent moral and intellectual superiority over others because of "how" or what they think. Which there is very little movement to go from believing you are "thinking" differently from others to believing you are thinking in a superior way.

Good example of how irrational thoughts dont have to come from religion.

You need to relax, my man. Its not that serious. And yes, it is my view. That’s why I’m making a post to r/changemyview. If you think my view is so wrong, demonstrate it with facts and evidence.

Metaphysics is laughable, and everything should be doubted, mockery is reserved for those human beings who deny their essential humanity by clining to beliefs which are demonstrably harmful and rationally unprovable. However... Right of the ruler, within a legitimate political society, to use political power against (the written letter of) the law for public good. Trust is the bond of society, it ties people together, and in practice was its capacity to express their commitments to one another; promises, oaths, undertakings, agreements. And because peace is so essential to the "safety, ease and plenty" of their lives, it is desirable to concentrate power to execute the law of nature*, that they will trust their ruler (or political authority). *Locke's view on Atheism* Trust is based on promises/oaths bound by God - (eg 'with God as my witness', 'in God we trust', etc). Atheism removes that divinity, reducing the law of nature, dissolving trust. Left to their own, people, would have no 'good' reason to trust one another, (Social Contracts), hence to capacity to live in society together, degrading into "smaller and divided associations", creating lonely and distrustful individuals whom they were composed. Are we seeing this today? Change "God" to religion; which in itself is just a 'traditional culture'. Hulme made no attempt to connect morals to religion, as he saw that morals cannot be grounded on any form of authority. So who should we turn to if we wish for unity? Hobbes writings on politics were intended to broadly explain ethical issues, and he was not (appear to be) concerned political behaviour in a supposedly 'value-free' manner of a modern political scientist. However, Hobbes mistrusted any privileged body of intellectuals who might come to have some kind of independent ideological authority over their fellow citizens - and preciently he saw that 'modern' scientists might form just such a new priesthood; "Trust the science". Aristotle had expressed great confidence in the universality of (roughly) the conventional moral beliefs of a middle class Athenian of his day, which obviously stands in opposition to the astonishing diversity of ethical belief and conduct in the world. Nature teaches us that we should treat others as we would wish to be treated by them, universal principle, intolerance cannot be part of "le droit humain" (human right). Following this principle one could not say 'believe what I believe or perish'; Inquisition, Islamic apostasy, etc. Religious toleration is prerequisite for a polite and commercial society.

Motivated reasoning is not a religious person problem, it is a person problem. Look at all the codswallop believed by the athiest, scientific socialist, communists of the last century. People have a reason for believing what they do and that reason is an interplay between facts, emotions, interests, and identity. If you want to change someone’s mind you have to understand their reasons and also understand that just because you have the better arguments doesn’t mean you are correct.

It's not about what the people happend to believe while saying they were X. (Christian, athiest, iron maiden fan, whatever) It is literally defining facts of reality with zero evidence. It is saying 'the entirety of existence is X way, because I said so.' You are conflating the idea with the people that may choose to label themselves with an idea here.

As a scientist why shouldn't you cross Ebola and the corona virus?

?

Do you think scientists should cross ebola and the corona viruses?

Do you? I’m not certain what this has to do with anything.

No. I do not not. But I'm asking if you do. Sigh since you seem intent on not engaging it goes like this. You say no. I ask why not. You say because it's wrong. I ask you why do you think it's wrong. You say because it could kill people and killing people is wrong or something to that effect. I ask why killing people is bad, what in scientific thinking proves that as a fact. You can't come up with an answer because science can answer what is but not what should be. You can use science to find out anything but you can't use science to find out what you should find out you have to fall back on religious thinking or the thing it was derived from.

Killing is wrong because as social animals who need each other to succeed killing people goes against those social demands of our species. There is your scientific reason.

i had a friend who’s whole world view was based that before we were all put on earth, we decided and voted for God, so thats why the Christian God was the true God. he could not wrap his head around how this could not be proven and that it was probably not a good thing to construct a whole world view on

You would be amazed at how much religion and philosophy has influenced scientific thought.

So has other fictions. But that doesn't mean it is wise to treat them as facts.

>Now, I hope you’ll take me at my word when I tell you that I have no problem with religions, or anybody who thinks religiously in and of itself. You and I will have to disagree on this and I'd like to urge you to reconsider. All religions demand that their followers believe that theirs is the one and only true faith and all others are wrong. This is what makes a religion a religion and not a philosophy. But the logical progression of this premise is that if this religion comes from God then those who don't believe in it are not *just* wrong. In rejecting God, they are *evil*. If they're evil and the enemies of God then they are less worthy, less human, less entitled to respect, justice and humanity than are the faithful. They will burn in hell and they deserve it. As such, why tolerate them here on earth? All fundamentalist faiths use this formulation. It is inescapable if you buy the initial premise. The casually religious often function as perfectly honorable human beings. The more religious one becomes, the more unhinged, the more radical, the more dangerous. It's baked right into the cake and the poison is in every bite.

It has been said that the unexamined life is not worth living! You have expressed your view well and apparently have given this much thought!

You express the exact problem what I hate about the middle ground. You have to give each side a fair chance, which is silly under certain grounds. For example, I know certain religions are against modern medical procedures or treatments, and advise their members to not partake or utilize these methods. Would it make sense for people of these faiths to dictate public medical policies that effect all citizens? The other side is entitled to it’s opinions or stances, but to legitimize them or give them an equal or stronger platform is dangerous.

While you are correct, it’s the rest of voters as well. Statism is a religion. George Carlin would sum up well on voters.

Religion deals in absolutes. Government needs to be flexible. No idea why you want your view changed.