are you an atheist?

I disagree

more of a spinoff I guess, none of the same characters but based in the same continuity. a lot of crazy retcon, too.

If the major religions don't believe in spirits I concede

"O get this I was around the whole time, even before Abraham. My scenes just all got cut for time."

At best NT is fanfic

"the World Series winner is really the objective champion of the world"
wait isn't this true by definition?

I don't think any Japanese teams get to play in the World Series.

just to clarify a bit: i think the distinction between science and religion tends to be under the most pressure at the limits of its present competence (this is probably obvious). these are questions that seem to brush up against transcendental questions: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, etc.

but as in that quote from Into the Cool above shows, even transforming religious questions into scientific questions tends to leave a negative transcendental residue (ie, "God can neither be proved nor disproved") that, i should think, leaves the door open for further questioning even if specific scientific questions get answered. that there is no obvious end (in either sense) to science is not a question to be addressed scientifically.

and while this is "moving goalposts," surely, i think this its a good thing! onward.

At best NT is fanfic

ok, finally a lol

just to clarify a bit: i think the distinction between science and religion tends to be under the most pressure at the limits of its present competence (this is probably obvious). these are questions that seem to brush up against transcendental questions: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, etc.

true, at the limits is where the questions religion and science seek to answer converge. still very divergent in how they go about attempting to answer them.

"Faith needs no basis. At the most objective level you could say it is an inherited trait, much like your eye color or geographic location of birth. To many people, belonging to a religious organization is something they were born into."

So you knew about your personal interpretation of god the same way a baby sea-turtle knows to go to the ocean right out of the shell?

"needs no basis" = illogical. Which is fine, not everything needs to be logical, but let's not pretend it isn't. If one thinks Logic isn't the end all be all then one shouldn't throw a fit when something gets called illogical.

i'd be curious to see the budget breakdowns of major religions devoted to transcendental research. I didn't think they moved much funding past telescopes and observatories and such?

haha. it's a travesty I tell you!

it'd be cool if some vatican money had been siphoned into the hadron collider. (either in research funding or literally dumped in there)

the "Institute for Transcendental Research" sounds like it would be cool but it would prob turn out to be some Scientology-esque cult.

Or a prog psych record

The "Institute for Transcendental Research" has its own myspace page.

just an idea, but I wonder if religion and science seem so tightly coupled (to a frustrating extent even) because they got a part/whole kind of dialectic going on. given that science produces information only through artificially constraining what phenomena are to be be observed (producing knowledge through partiality) then religion seems like the only game in town for (spurious?) claims about totality. you might say art already made this play with romanticism.

i'd be curious to see the budget breakdowns of major religions devoted to transcendental research.

not a 'major religion' per se but chabad def has a budget for this + institutions such as pop culture chabad transcendental org http://www.meaningfullife.com

Can you classify charity as transcendental research?

i would not, no

re: religion/science coupling, i'd chalk it up to which institutions historically had money to throw at research, the parallel to art being patronage.

science is a better method for discerning empirical "truth."

What makes you think science can access truth? Anyway, my problem with people arguing for atheism is that they never seem to be addressing me; just some other people who share a label.

your fault for choosing that label for yourself

:) yeah I guess so (though I never label myself, of course, I mean the label of 'theist')

Science gave us the human genome. That's a hell of a lot of truth.

boils down to theists making a claim, and other people not being convinced by it. it's just due to the nature of language and the human mind's yen for categorization that these people get labeled "atheists" (there's no equivalent term for those who deny the claims of moon conspiracy folks, anti-vaccine folks, etc). It's really difficult to "attack" a person or group solely on the basis of certain claims not convincing them, and yet...
The "argument for atheism" so far as one exists is "what makes you so sure?". Evidence so far presented in response has been very weak to those who value logic and reason.

Science gave us the human genome. That's a hell of a lot of truth.

I'm too drunk to get into a whole thing about this; but really? Always sucks having to quote Pilate :)

What makes you think science can access truth?

Says guy typing his thoughts out on a computer, nearly instantly able to be read by people all over the world in their own homes.

Evidence so far presented in response has been very weak to those who value logic and reason

see my problem with some atheists--not all and as I said I consider myself one at times--is that they don't value logic and reason enough!

Yeah...that doesn't tell me much. Which comes from the position of (somewhere near) radical skepticism.

x-post, but ryan otm

Airplanes are truth. Vaccines are truth. Atomic bombs are truth. Microprocessors are truth. Etc etc.

I'm not convinced you are entitled to say that. But as I mentioned 'is there truth/what is truth' is a complicated, annoying and tedious argument. But I think you're underestimating the problem there.

I'm entitled to say that. You don't have to accept that what is a truth for me matches what is a truth for you. Airplanes stay in the sky due to scientific knowledge (as opposed to praying for them to stay aloft), this is a fact, a true statement. Seems like your imbuing truth with a mysticism, holding it outside of the realm of science purposefully and then goin aha see, science can't access it!

you're imbuing

I don't think anyone said airplanes don't fly because of scientific knowledge.

ryan post blah blah blah blah

*flies buzzing*

whence this iconoclasm, matt

man you continue to amaze me at how badly you can miss a point, Adam

A literal reading of "truth" suggests something that is absolutely unfalsifiable and as far as we're aware no such thing exists.

Granny you are aware of the Coastline Paradox, right?

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

Says guy typing his thoughts out on a computer...

The ability of science to describe accurately the measurable properties of matter and to predict its behavior when placed in controlled circumstances are indisputable. Whether this constitutes the whole of 'truth' is debatable.

I think some math axioms come pretty darn close xxp

no cigar

Whether this constitutes the whole of 'truth' is debatable.

Not saying "airplanes fly, vaccines protect from disease" etc constitute the whole of truth. But they are a form of truth. Not "ultimate truth", not origin-of-the-universe, why-are-we-here type truths. Truths, nonetheless, don't really care what tsorobodo is saying really.

Do you not think there is a reason why scientist do not refer to unfalsified hypotheses as truths?