I’ve been waiting for you!

Architecture that doesn’t touch the foundation? Heh. Where do you propose this discontinuity is located? Please don’t say “a different spot for each person” because that would sweep aside the possibility of population trends.

Who made up tha stupid analogy? Oh wait !

Yeah, I’m sorry that was completely not how I wanted to go about making an analogy. What I wanted to say was that science is the building and the sorts of going-on’s inside the building can vary independent of the building.

I was just trying to represent that divide/jump/grey area that exists between descriptive processes and normative philosophy.

Anyway, Daniel Dennett refers to those sorts of discontinuities as “skyhooks”. They are a type of explanation from mystery, essentially the logical fallacy of “argument from incredulity”. My friend Mano wrote about skyhooks to a good extent, and compared them to the foundational “cranes” of science.

Yes, I am aware of those! I’m actually a fan of Dennetts work on COnsciousness and I even agree with some of his points about how you should approach religion. Forgive me for not elaborating on skyhooks because this portion of the discussion came from my complete failure at analogy.

Of course you probably meant “see things as they appear” in a broader philosophical sense, but that still sounds awfully fatalistic to me. It’s a dim view of creativity and ingenuity you hold if you think we’re forever bound to what our current physical bodies can handle.

Yes, I meant that in the philosophical sense, though not as you would paint it. What I am saying is that no matter what things are always going to have a relation to us. Even if our perception/understanding of something is complete its completeness is always in relation to our observation of it. I don’t think that’s a wacky idea at all, plenty of people agree with that notion. Its part of the paradox of imagining a world with no observers, its impossible. Things will always be as they are in relation to us.

Science doesn’t give meaning to anything, its our interpretation of what science shows that does. Atheists/skeptics engage in normative thinking too, that’s essentially where I’m trying to go with this.

…who knows how far we could move the boundaries of perception and understanding that we’re seemily stuck with from birth…

It doesn’t matter how far it can go because it will always be perception, that’s the rub. Unless you are proposing a state of consciousness that isn’t conscious. Ask yourself what the significance/consequences are of being a conscious being, or better yet read Heidegger, Nietzsche, Sartre, Beauvoir and Kant too because he always had something to say about everything!

I heartily disagree! Feelings are interesting, but not terribly important. Truth is what’s important! Feelings are temporal and subjective; I can’t demonstrate them to another person, I can only describe them with language and hope they can extrapolate from their own experiences. However, if we can construct a scaffolding that’s less fleeting, more demonstrable, and more reproducible, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to use it? We’ve done that. It’s science.

Sigh… I have a feeling we are never going to go further than this.

I will say it again, SCIENCE DOES NOT EQUAL TRUTH.

It is a way to go about understanding a TYPE of truth but is is not the answer to ALL truth. In fact its logically impossible for science to make the claim that it seeks the truth because that’s dependent on Epistemology. Science can not exist and function within a vacuum. Unless you rewrite the definition of what science is but I doubt anyone would agree to that.

If you want I can substitute feelings for “how one ought to be.” I’m sure you care about concepts of fairness, justice and the law. However those truths can’t be found in science so do you discharge them or do you accept that you are doing things in addition to science.

I mean the universe doesn’t care about what we do, neither does the Earth. The only thing that has a concern for humans that we can know objectively is other humans. So why do you care about things? As far as scientific truth is concerned your cares are meaningless YET I know for a fact that you have no qualms about generating meaning. If you want to wiggle out of that by saying that generated meaning isn’t “truth” then all we have here is one big semantical discourse.

…Well, if that’s what floats your canoe, you’ll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world’s peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists.

Well one of the most basic tenets of my faith is that Allah doesn’t occupy any sort of objective reality nor is he tangible. There are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world so I would consider that one heck of a strawman.

If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right.” — Richard Dawkins, September 12.

I really don’t care about Dawkins, nor do I find him convincing at all. He should stick to genetics and leave theology and philosophy to people who actually know it.

I’m not downplaying the importance of existence, I’m rescuing notions of God from people like Dawkins who make wildly inaccurate claims. I went out of my way to read the books published by the “New Atheists” and franky I wasn’t impressed. Its as if there one focus point is on the silly, backwoods, uber fundamental God of Christianity. They never really approach the concept of logically possible Gods, nor do they give a framework of normative philosophy that answers some major questions, they just do the argumentative equivalent of “meh.”

They simply reject all things short of science, including normative philosophy, then just try to work in this silly crap about what they are doing is more meaningful than anyone else. Which is incredibly hypocritical seeing as how “more meaningful” is a subjective term in the way they phrase it.

Well I did enjoy this, though I admit it has been trying. I doubt I will ever convince you of anything other than the little points, so I should just leave it at that. Hopefully you are left with the realization that we aren’t all part of the “religious people are stupid/misguided” stereotype.

Though I have a feeling that you’ll just shake your head and say “smart girl, if only she saw it the right way.”

its more like humans are buildings and science is an excellent foundation. I think that for all people its not science all the way up. There can exist some architecture that is totally independent of science.
Architecture that doesn’t touch the foundation? Heh. Where do you propose this discontinuity is located? Please don’t say “a different spot for each person” because that would sweep aside the possibility of population trends.

Anyway, Daniel Dennett refers to those sorts of discontinuities as “skyhooks”. They are a type of explanation from mystery, essentially the logical fallacy of “argument from incredulity”. My friend Mano wrote about skyhooks to a good extent, and compared them to the foundational “cranes” of science.

But because we are thinking beings, and that we can not separate our consciousness we are forced to always see things as they appear to us.
Not quite. We’ve developed scientific tools to probe the electromagnetic spectrum well beyond visible light in both frequency directions. Paleontology and genetics have allowed us to construct the history of life from long before humans could write. Astronomy allows us to peer back into the early universe, and calculate forward billions of years in the future of our galaxy. The biggest scientific breakthroughs in the last centuries are notable because they allow us to see and understand beyond the daily routines evolution has equipped us to handle.

Of course you probably meant “see things as they appear” in a broader philosophical sense, but that still sounds awfully fatalistic to me. It’s a dim view of creativity and ingenuity you hold if you think we’re forever bound to what our current physical bodies can handle. I don’t mean to proclaim anything silly like “in the future we’ll all be cyborgs!”, but honestly, if we can master genetics and the vast complexities of cellular signaling, who knows how far we could move the boundaries of perception and understanding that we’re seemily stuck with from birth…

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” — Charles Darwin

Imagine that there was a conference on astronomy… [and] also across the street is a Mosque
To me, this analogy fails because the latter “sense of wonder” uses skyhooks. The history and traditions may be understood in terms of reason and causation, but not the mythology.

I’m a romantic so I must be biased when I say that how we feel about things is deeply important. [...] One ontology isn’t any better than the other because neither of them contain intrinsically the mode of thought that dictates how you should feel.
I heartily disagree! Feelings are interesting, but not terribly important. Truth is what’s important! Feelings are temporal and subjective; I can’t demonstrate them to another person, I can only describe them with language and hope they can extrapolate from their own experiences. However, if we can construct a scaffolding that’s less fleeting, more demonstrable, and more reproducible, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to use it? We’ve done that. It’s science.

Furthermore, feelings only affect our behavior, not the larger natural universe (most of which is beyond our reach). They don’t manifest beyond the electrical pulses within the lumps of grey matter in our heads. They’re a symptom, a byproduct of a biological organ. There is no imperative “should” for feelings except in light of neurological wiring and firing probabilities.

“It turns out wanting something doesn’t make it real.” — Randall Munroe. (“No matter how elaborately you fool yourself”)

Actually I think this anthropologist can do a WAY better job than I could
I haven’t had a chance to watch that yet, but I definitely will! TED talks are often fantastic.

I like quotes today, so I’ll wrap up with one more:

” Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: “Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn’t matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism.”

Well, if that’s what floats your canoe, you’ll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world’s peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right.” — Richard Dawkins, September 12.

Wait, really? Awesome!

Honestly I had no idea. And that makes it really, really cool Glad you’ve got a good sense of humor, as well! It’s far too easy to find those “death to infidels” comments. On the web, you’re a beacon of hope in a sea of childish tantrums.

Thank you! I thought my referencing the Qur’an, Islamic schools and a pdf about Islam was enough but going back and looking again I can see where confusion might have come from.

Yes, well played. It took me a good while to catch on. I also agree very much on most things you say about the lunatic fringe vs. silent majority.

Great! That’s actually really wonderful to hear! I have my heart set on being a professor so I’m constantly self-conscious about how I’m perceived when communicating and if I’m actually getting ideas across.

I still haven’t heard a lot that’s convincing about the strengths. As I said the other day, I’m quite interested in art, and it’s impossible to ignore the impact that religion has had on painting and sculpture and ceramics and other things. But I don’t quite get what makes that inspiration, cognitively speaking, more than a sort of fascinating mind-game.

How you phrases that question actually revealed quite a lot that I’ve failed to stress. My point isn’t that science leaves this vacuum and religion fills it in, its more like humans are buildings and science is an excellent foundation. I think that for all people its not science all the way up. There can exist some architecture that is totally independent of science.

In other terms if you divided up all of the habits, protocols, beliefs, declarations, and all other aspects of what it is to be a complete individual methodological empiricism only covers a small portion, rational thought a slightly larger and finally there is a wide expanse in which people freely interpret their existence in the world.

It is that wide expanse that can be filled with either religion, philosophy, free thought or any combination of. My entire point is that on a day to day everyone is going about doing the same things. That’s why I feel that there is room for religion.

For example, our ontology as uncovered by science contains no intrinsic value. In the simplest terms our ontology, according to science, is what happens when hydrogen atoms have a few billion years to do things. But because we are thinking beings, and that we can not separate our consciousness we are forced to always see things as they appear to us.

No one, not even the Bad Astronomer himself, can accept that raw ontology. Not because of any flaw or anything but because of the fact that experiential opinions are tied to consciousness. The universe isn’t self reflective but we are. Because of that we will always be stuck in our sense of the things in themselves and how we relate to them. I highly suggest picking up a copy of Neitzsche’s “Human, all to human.” It’s an excellent read that spells out far better than I can, the tough problems that come from being conscious.

To wrap this point up I do believe I’ve read on here a few times that people take their existence as a “gift” because of the small probability of life forming and the fact that we live in a universe that cares not for our existence. Methodological naturalism may have given us the root ontology but we can’t help but develop a relation to it. Therefor naturalism isn’t giving us the complete picture. Complete in a physical sense, incomplete in that it doesn’t tell us how to feel about it. I’m a romantic so I must be biased when I say that how we feel about things is deeply important.

Imagine that there was a conference on astronomy that had massive HD pictures of Hubble images projected all through out it, and a line of speakers that spoke in elegant and lucid prose about the beauty that is the Earth and its spot in the massive torrential seas of an unforgiving cosmos. I’m positive that no one would object to such a conference. The attendees, mostly skeptics and atheists, would probably agree with the things being said and I’m sure more than a few heart strings would be pulled.

Imagine also across the street is a Mosque, in it there is a talk being given by an Imam. This Imam is old, wise and much loved by the community. The topic of the conversation is Islamic Philosophy. In this lecture he talks about how early Islam took into it Hellenistic traditions and how these traditions radically altered the course of Islam. He briefly discusses the various schools of thought and what they may mean to the average person. The Imam goes on to say that despite the disagreements what can all be agreed on is the value of the gift of life. One may never be able to see the universe as Allah sees it but what can be seen is a world rich in opportunity and free for rational beings to walk through, learning and striving to better themselves.

These two examples aren’t extra-ordinary but they speak volumes about what really matters to us. Whether you believe the universe is the product of Allah or the explosion of a singularity from the contact of membranes what matters to us, what can only matter to us, is how that makes us FEEL. One ontology isn’t any better than the other because neither of them contain intrinsically the mode of thought that dictates how you should feel.

The Big Bang Theory doesn’t tell you how to feel, you figure that out for yourself.

I read a tiny bit about CI long ago but just recently stumbled on it again. I figured I was shortcutting something important, which is why I tried bouncing the idea off of you. Thanks. But anyway, how can you possibly tune your own behavior to match some ideal “kingdom of ends” like Kant states, if you never live to see any sort of societal “ends”? Is that even what you mean by “done”?

It’s ok, people get the CI so wrong all of the time its nothing new. What I meant by done is after you engage in the CI and have an ethical judgment generated you then go on to act as if that is the maximum of how you can behave in a situation. Believe it or not Wiki actually has a decent explanation :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ends

This might be my favorite part. I really don’t want to come across like Ayn Rand. Could you elaborate?

Actually I think this anthropologist can do a WAY better job than I could!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

http://www.ted.com/talk/wade_davis_on_the_worldwide_web_of_belief_and_ritual.html

I’m not sure things like neural and cognitive science, and empirical psychology and sociology have really hit their stride yet. What happens if/when we get a really thorough understanding of the mind and its interactions?

That is such a huge question I can’t do it justice as being part of this conversation. I’ll do my best to formulate a response and then post it tomorrow because its getting late here and I’ve been feeling really tired lately.

So while I’ll agree that it’s not some “key to all problems”, I recognize that it’s designed & adjusted specifically to solve more and more problems in an increasingly reliable manner. Is there anything non-western that’s comparable?

Hopefully the TED talks I linked to answers this question.

falafel [or] Big Mac
I’ll take falafel too, thanks, haha

I’m hungry now

Actually I’m Muslim
Honestly I had no idea. And that makes it really, really cool Glad you’ve got a good sense of humor, as well! It’s far too easy to find those “death to infidels” comments. On the web, you’re a beacon of hope in a sea of childish tantrums.
I did nudge in there the proper definition of belief and I think it went over well
Yes, well played. It took me a good while to catch on. I also agree very much on most things you say about the lunatic fringe vs. silent majority.

I’ve been surrounded by religion long enough to intimately know its pitfalls and strengths.
I still haven’t heard a lot that’s convincing about the strengths. As I said the other day, I’m quite interested in art, and it’s impossible to ignore the impact that religion has had on painting and sculpture and ceramics and other things. But I don’t quite get what makes that inspiration, cognitively speaking, more than a sort of fascinating mind-game. Ancient Assyrians, Byzantine Christians, pre-industrial Korean Buddhists — they all seem to seek a creative outlet to express the plights and victories of their mythical heroes, and often teach moral lessons along the way. It’s very interesting, but I don’t see why religion gets the credit when there seems to be some sort of larger social and psychological processes quietly going on underneath that kind of pattern.

going into the CI you aren’t suppose to know what’s best until you are done
I read a tiny bit about CI long ago but just recently stumbled on it again. I figured I was shortcutting something important, which is why I tried bouncing the idea off of you. Thanks. But anyway, how can you possibly tune your own behavior to match some ideal “kingdom of ends” like Kant states, if you never live to see any sort of societal “ends”? Is that even what you mean by “done”?

The way in which you infused the notion of best for everyone, I think, shows your bias. It’s slightly narcissistic and also a very Western notion.
This might be my favorite part. I really don’t want to come across like Ayn Rand. Could you elaborate?

Things like being happy, well adjusted and curious are wide enough that a material view can’t reel them all in
…Yet. I’m not sure things like neural and cognitive science, and empirical psychology and sociology have really hit their stride yet. What happens if/when we get a really thorough understanding of the mind and its interactions? I don’t want to be like Ray Kurzweil and posit a “singularity” of mind & machine or anything silly, but science has room to make steady inroads here. I’m not so willing to write these off as inscrutable or even just non-empirical.

I feel its an arrogant position to have, as if all I needed to do to live the best possible life is subscribe to the western notion that empirical thought is the key to solving all problems
I can understand the concern. But… I don’t quite hold that position. As I briefly mentioned earlier, one of the fascinating things about science is its flexibility. Historically it has been adapted by philosophers to be more reliable and less prone to human error. These days we have a complex system of peer review, government granting agencies, collaboration, intellectual property rights, hiring practices, and standards of publishing. Those weren’t the same 50 years ago.
So while I’ll agree that it’s not some “key to all problems”, I recognize that it’s designed & adjusted specifically to solve more and more problems in an increasingly reliable manner. Is there anything non-western that’s comparable?

atheists… aren’t even close to being objective in reality. If they were, there would be no room for love, aesthetics or meaning.
I suspect that a lot of the abrasive behavior by atheists on these topics is because they reject the sorts of love, aesthetics, and meaning that some religions try to dictate. I also suspect that, compared to the whole populace, a higher proportion of atheists are… gay, or intentionally unmarried, or intentionally childless, or interested in culture and music that are taboo in their region, or seeking a non-superstitious understanding of the world, or politically disillusioned, etc.
It’s the vocal minority like me that are busting down doors and trying to challenge people on what to think. The rest just want the same rights and breathing room afforded to even the most indifferent religious folks.

falafel [or] Big Mac
I’ll take falafel too, thanks, haha

@Brock

I’ll leave Renée’s thoughts to her. My impression is that she’s an atheist that makes a few too many concessions for religion. But she can comment on that.

Actually I’m Muslim, but maybe it was my verbose analytic speech that threw you off. Maybe I should have included a few “death to the infidels” for good measure.

Ugh, I did not just say that

I don’t think I’m giving concessions to anyone really, I give credit where credit is due. I try my best to not tell people what they believe because that would be arrogant of me but sometimes I’ll try to clarify things for the sake of facilitating discussion.

For example in my discussions about atheism it wasn’t my intention to tell anyone what they believe or make wild assumptions, however I did nudge in there the proper definition of belief and I think it went over well. Brock agreed with me on the definitions and I think there was very little drama in regards to that one point.

I must stress though, it is not my intention to do public relations for religious people nor am I a press secretary for atheists. I’m sure that we are all intelligent enough here that we don’t need examples given of the fringe elements of both sides. However I still think that there exists a silent majority of religious people and atheists that do go about doing the things I described, but they hardly get the airtime. Crazy always sells.

I’m not going to take the lunacy of some religious person and spin it like they are doing high philosophy. I’m sure that my reactions to things like Jesus Camp and Religulous are exactly the same, if not at least highly similar, to skeptics and atheists. However I’ve also spent enough time talking with Jesuits, Imam’s, Monks and other theologians to know that what they are doing is far from lunacy and is, in fact, fascinating and worthy of discussion or at least some attention.

I don’t fully understand what it means to be me, living between these worlds, but I think I’m on the right track. I value science and rational thought and I certainly can’t give up my reason and intellect. However I’ve been doing philosophy long enough to catch myself making mistakes and I’ve been surrounded by religion long enough to intimately know its pitfalls and strengths.

I’m not giving concessions, I’m simply reporting on the events of my life.

But I still have to ask (and this is for both of you): should I keep it to myself? For example, Immanuel Kant’s “categorial imperative” seems to say that I should behave in a manner that I think would, ideally of course, best apply to everyone. I think actively advocating more science and less religion fits the bill perfectly. Agree/disagree?

Disagree. The CI is actually a process to find what is best by seeing if things could logically survive being applied as if there were a universal law. Saying its what’s best for everyone is circular reasoning because going into the CI you aren’t suppose to know what’s best until you are done.

Take stealing for example. In the CI its not like stealing is bad because it wouldn’t be best for everyone. To steal implies ownership, if everyone stole to acquire everything as if it was a universal law then there would exist no property because no one would own anything. However if no one owned anything stealing couldn’t logically exist because there is no property. See what I mean?

Its weird but definitely fascinating. Kant actually didn’t have problems with religion, just as long as people weren’t woo about it all. The way in which you infused the notion of best for everyone, I think, shows your bias. It’s slightly narcissistic and also a very Western notion.

The problem with a pragmatic material viewpoint is that if you want to use that system you can’t have your cake and eat it to. Best, as far as methodological naturalism is concerned, only exists in the narrow confines of quantitative variables like physical health. Things like being happy, well adjusted and curious are wide enough that a material view can’t reel them all in. This is why I feel its an arrogant position to have, as if all I needed to do to live the best possible life is subscribe to the western notion that empirical thought is the key to solving all problems. It reminds me a lot of the attitudes of the colonial British as well as more recent examples of the Middle East being called barbaric.

Obviously things like hanging homosexuals and the treatment of women are barbaric, but I also feel as if many in the West would extend their opinions to all aspects of life in the middle east. It’s as if people wont be happy until I give up falafel for a Big Mac. I don’t blame them though, its so easy for people to get so narrow-minded that they lose all objectivity. In fact I’d say its an inseparable part of the human condition.

When it comes to science and its benefits I say yes please but when it comes to those other things that people claim are what’s best I say no thank you. That is unless it can somehow be proven to be the best but I doubt that would ever happen.

My plea to all people, especially atheists, is that they realize that the day to day things they are doing aren’t even close to being objective in reality. If they were, there would be no room for love, aesthetics or meaning.

That was pretty easy. I’m guessing that starting from a position of agnosticism helps.

I’ll leave Renée’s thoughts to her. My impression is that she’s an atheist that makes a few too many concessions for religion. But she can comment on that. What about you? Steadfast agnostic? I think you’re bending over to unnecessarily accommodate religion too.

Regardless, it sounds like you now have a good grasp on what I consider the best way to arrive at truth. Thanks for enduring the twists and turns that we took to get there

But I still have to ask (and this is for both of you): should I keep it to myself? For example, Immanuel Kant’s “categorial imperative” seems to say that I should behave in a manner that I think would, ideally of course, best apply to everyone. I think actively advocating more science and less religion fits the bill perfectly. Agree/disagree?

If you want to compare “apples to apples”, here are two statements that use the same definition of “belief”:
1. Johnny believes that physicists will find direct evidence for dark matter within 10 years.
2. A Christian believes that Jesus will return within 10 years.

Are these equivalent statements? Grammatically, yes. Scientifically, NO. The former, a hypothesis, is likely based on the historical record of physicists systematically building up the Standard Model over the course of the 20th century. As to the latter, well… Jesus, if he existed, hasn’t so much as winked at anyone in over 2000 years. The pattern underlying the reasoning for each statement makes them non-equivalent.

Notice how my so-called “belief” relies on the quality and quantity of demonstrable, measurable evidence? That makes it quite different from religious belief. But you know that.

There are many ways to define words; dictionaries are just one. There are also “colloquial” (popular usage) definitions, “functional” (approximate, in-practice) definitions, historical (and sometimes obsolete) definitions, legal definitions, and specific definitions for all sorts of specialties like philosophy, chemistry, dentistry, and typesetting.

In most cases, if you were to draw a Venn diagram, there would be some overlap. But not always. In physics, “work” (force times the distance through which it acts) is quite different than the colloquial and dictionary definitions (e.g. a task, or employment). The English word cleave has two dictionary definitions that are exact opposites!

Anyway, in formal science, it’s extremely important for researchers and textbook writers to define their terms clearly at the outset, to prevent confusion. That’s why I was careful to specify WHICH definition I was using when addressing Renee. Words like “belief” and “likelihood” have NO strict scientific definition — so you should not find them in formal papers. Scientists only say those informally, as a layperson would.

“I think the values and meanings derived from religion are generally axiological (i.e. moral and aesthetic), NOT epistemological. In other words, they’re subjective, and don’t arise spontaneously on new continents. Religious meaning always seems to spread through evangelism, word-of-mouth, written word, art, military invasion, etc.” When I took a course on the world’s religions in college (I did not want to summarily reject religion without first trying to understand it, plus it was an easy elective (heehee!)), the thing I learned the most about religions are that they are a product of their place and time. Most religions ask you to be good and you will be rewarded for it. The main difference was the cultural setting from where they arose, which dictated the means to the end. Jesus Christ was a product of his time and place, just as Buddha was a product of his time and place. And you are correct that any religion can be hijacked by those of “fanatical ideology”. As I said last night, religions are only another way man has used to answer questions about the “supernatural” with the lack of any natural answers. It can be A REALLY effective tool in the hands of fanatics. Fanatics have the uncanny ability to warp anything to their cause. Look at how Hitler hijacked genetics, to perpetrate the holocaust on the Jewish people.

In regards to, “skeptics… get worked up over [the] colloquial definition of… belief” here are
some definitions for you to ponder:

The FIRST definition listed for the word “faith” on Dictionary.com is as follows:
–noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.

Some definitions for “likelihood”, as defined on Dictionary.com are:
-noun
1. the state of being likely or probable; probability.
2. a probability or chance of something: There is a strong likelihood of his being elected.
3. Archaic. indication of a favorable end; promise.

And, as to “belief ” I will go back to Dictionary.com and offer these definitions for you:

-n.
1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

All references to any religious tenet is missing. I will grant you that #3 for “belief” can be used to describe as pertaining to something religious as well as any other type of secular organization or group. You will probably (lol) want to point out that only “likelihood ” makes reference to “probability”. And yet I will argue that these terms can be interchanged within a sentence, as long as the meanings as described above are used.

I’ll address y our posts later but for now I don’t have the time or energy to go back into it.

Again for contrast, my atheism is cautious, agnostic and tentative, and IMHO satisfying enough — especially in a world where bogus claims and fanatical ideology can sometimes facilitate things like parents neglecting curable illnesses in their children and afterlife-seekers flying suicide missions into buildings. ‘k?

I’m also not a big fan of foundationalism, but I could probably concede that logic (and by extension some mathematics) is self-evident and self-supporting. However, logic alone doesn’t involve action, it makes no comparisons to natural observation, and it becomes incredibly difficult to do manually at higher complexity. It has become extremely useful in computers, but our ability to tame the properties of silicon to make denser and better transistors didn’t stem from pure logic — it was tied to a methodological, natural approach to the mechanical and electric properties of material silicon.

So when i say science (as methodological naturalism) is the “best” epistemology, I mean that it has led to abundant life-improving tools. It’s what helping us produce a vaccine for H1N1, for example. Constructivism and foundationalism in isolation wouldn’t even come close, because they don’t have that critical methodological advantage of constantly comparing their output to natural observation.

This is often why I get irked when people mention science in a sort of tacit sense that science is somehow this self contained system
I hope I didn’t imply that. Science is definitely built on logic and deductive reasoning and math and other philosophical concepts! I agree that it has adapted with input from philosophers. One of its defining features is its flexibility.

religion offers a means of developing a value system so in that aspect alone I feel its justifiable
I think the values and meanings derived from religion are generally axiological (i.e. moral and aesthetic), NOT epistemological. In other words, they’re subjective, and don’t arise spontaneously on new continents. Religious meaning always seems to spread through evangelism, word-of-mouth, written word, art, military invasion, etc. Science on the other hand includes uniformitarianism, wherein the principles of physics and chemsitry and biology apply no matter where you go in the world, and as such could be derived from independent observation. That objectivity makes it “better”, in the sense of usefulness. When I say religion can often be “not useful” or a distraction or a maze of wooly-thinking, that’s what I mean.

I assumed no extra input was necessary because you were the one linking me to epistemology articles
I looked it up because you seemed insistent on having things phrased in philosophical terms. As I said it’s really not really my home turf. A lot of my understanding of formal logic comes from computer science though, and I could certainly go on for a while about how logical constructs differ from methodological science.

saltines are damn near soaking wet compared to how I define things
That’s very amusing