Ban the Religion Thread

[Chipz]

Peace. Could everyone just tone it down now? Many of you have gone a bit off-topic. I would rather that this thread didn't get cesspooled. I am afraid no ne else could vote in the poll then. Please, can all additional posters simply vote in the poll, and then state the reason for their choice, and leave it at that? Thank you. (From the Original Poster)

Reasonable expectations.

I voted 'yes' because... conversations in 'religion' thread's are unproductive. Typically they are simply rehashing commonly accepted thought, and how could someone correctly moderate that? Moderators (I feel) let the subforum run wild because any warnings / bans are only a small drop in an ocean of bigotry and insolence.

[wynn]

When you read a scientific explanation for teeth rot (and scientitfic explanations for the decay of organs, bones, tissues, infections, fractures, etc.),

is your mind put to rest?

It's good enough for me, yes.

Oh - and you contradict yourself:

Never used them. Not the illegal varieties anyway. I use Dr. Pepper pretty regularly. It does bring a small sunbeam of joy into my life... If it's frosty cold.

No drugs AND no God.

Wynn, make no mistake. I'm a miserable guy...

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=47

If science is so great and puts your mind to rest - then why are you a misrable guy?

[wynn]

I voted 'yes' because... conversations in 'religion' thread's are unproductive. Typically they are simply rehashing commonly accepted thought

But that is the whole point of discussion forums anyway:

to provide a space where a large number of people can have their ideas challenged and challenge others' ideas.


Closing down such avenues for discussion is like saying, "Science has figured out the process of drinking water in humans, therefore, it is all said and done, and there is no need for anyone to drink water anymore."

Acknowledging the existence of water is not going to quench anyone's thirst.
People actually need to drink, for themselves.

[Chipz]

But that is the whole point of discussion forums anyway:

to provide a space where a large number of people can have their ideas challenged and challenge others' ideas.


Closing down such avenues for discussion is like saying, "Science has figured out the process of drinking water in humans, therefore, it is all said and done, and there is no need for anyone to drink water anymore."

Acknowledging the existence of water is not going to quench anyone's thirst.
People actually need to drink, for themselves.

Let me demonstrate:

Crunchy Cat said this...
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2932235&postcount=1

I told them I thought they were confused.
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2932461&postcount=3

Crunchy Cat proved they weren't confused and provided useful information and proof.
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2932515&postcount=4

I admitted fault.
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2932823&postcount=7

And then they proceeded to inform.

This arguably happens in the 'philosophy' threads at times... I can't recall much concession here outside of ancillary facts.

[wynn]

This arguably happens in the 'philosophy' threads at times... I can't recall much concession here outside of ancillary facts.

It does happen. But because of the very complex nature of the topics, it's statistically rarer.

[Yazata]

I voted 'yes' because... conversations in 'religion' thread's are unproductive.

In this post, I'm going to argue for the opposite view.

Typically they are simply rehashing commonly accepted thought

The science threads are the same way.

I mean seriously, how does a layman begin to discuss science? What do those "discussions" consist of? It's not as if laypeople are in a position to actually do science on a board like this, to actually produce new theories or generate publishable results. About all that a layperson can do is ask questions, and then hopefully be set straight by a slightly better-informed individual who explains the widely held views of the scientific community and perhaps cites the peer reviewed literature.

Philosophy and religion are rather different. What matters in philosophy isn't adherence to any accepted body of philosophical fact. It isn't adherence to a body of evidence that typically only professionals are in any position to add to. What matters in philosophy is the originality of how we look at familiar things and the logical tightness, strength and creativity of the arguments that we advance about them.

In other words, philosophy is something that lends itself to amateur participation, provided that the amateurs have abounding curiosity and a strong native intelligence. In the context of Sciforums, it means that lay participants without a whole lot of university training and professional experience in the subject are still in a position to generate new and valuable ideas that might even conceivably interest the professionals.

Ok, so what about the religion forum? Well, I see the religion forum as being part of the philosophy hierarchy. It's the place for the philosophy of religion, for the application of philosophical thinking to religion and for the examination of religious concepts and claims with philosophical principles.

Far from being unproductive, I think that the religion discussions are some of the most productive discussions here on Sciforums. That isn't because they reach final broadly-accepted science-style conclusions about religion. They typically don't. (It's the history of religions and the descriptive phenomenology of religion that's more apt to produce a body of factual results that students will need university education to master.)

Rather, it's because the religion arguments provide illustrations of and occasions for the application of philosophical thinking to real issues that are of interest to just about everyone, from theists to atheists.

In my opinion, the real interest of the religion threads is in how religious questions so often raise interesting questions in areas like epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge. Religious people make what sound to many of our ears like outlandish claims, and what's our first response? (Or at least, what should our first response be?) We ask, how can people possibly know something like that?

Even the occasional threads attacking scientific doctrines like evolution raise interesting questions about no end of issues, ranging from the so-called 'scientific method', to the evidence for and conceptual structure of evolutionary thinking. These discussions also raise issues about the nature and purpose of so-called (and in my opinion grieviously misnamed) 'creation science', the psychology and role of cosmological myths in religious thinking, and interesting stuff like that.

The result being that while evolutionists and creationists are vanishingly unlikely to ever convert one another, their intellectual struggles are apt to leave both of them a lot more intellectually sophisticated and aware of underlying issues than they originally were when they started arguing with each other.

For all the frustration that confrontations with people unlike ourselves cause, and for all the resulting desire to eliminate them, our own intellectual growth often takes place fastest when we find ourselves in a dialogue with somebody who doesn't already share all of our views and ways of looking at things. We suddenly find ourselves having to explain and justify ideas that we previously just took for granted, and we will have to consider other ways of looking at things, if only to refute them.

That's deeply and fundamentally educational.

[Rav]

Well put

[Balerion]

Does it really? Did you actually read it in Hebrew and comprehend it?

Ah. Because you cannot defend the "moral" lessons of the Bible, you've decided that none of us really know what the Bible says unless we can read Hebrew (don't know why you chose Hebrew specifically, since the OT was also written in Aramaic, and the NT was almost entirely written in Greek).

You don't even seem to realize that this line of reasoning would even nullify your own argument that religion asks the "why" questions, and that, "That does not preclude the brilliant concepts which shape countless lives for the better from being admissible as evidence!" If you really want to play this game, then none of us have a leg to stand on, including you.

But clearly there has been enough Biblical scholarship done to have an idea of what's correct and what's not in the various translations of the Bible.

Well... you said they were wrong... for one.

No, I didn't. I didn't argue for the textual correctness of any one particular sect. I argued from the texts themselves.

Ech...you clearly haven't read much of anything. Isn't the whole book of Esther dedicated to explaining exactly this issue?

How so? That God would use a woman to do his work does not change the fact that they are regarded as the property of man.

It might 'demand' it. Unfortunately, demands aren't actions. So its demands are never met... because unlike religious philosophies.. it has no obligations! Who says a religious person can't learn biology? You? Perhaps it's YOU who is restrictive. As I said... how many historical great physicists were religious and righteous men?

Who says its demands are never met? Do you realize you live in such a secular society today? The laws that protect you and the rights that you have are the result of secular, not religious, reasoning and influence. We strive towards equality of the races and sexes, and while we still fall short in many places, the struggle only exists because secular society demands that equality, and because non-secular thinking demands inequality and oppression.

You're also wrong that secular society has no obligations. Secularism appeals to our basic human nature, and as such its obligation is to uphold what we as human beings find valuable. And as we have demonstrated, those things are typically and markedly different than what a religious society would find valuable.

And I never said a religious person can't learn biology. Where did you even get that? Of course they can. My point was that it is difficult today to reconcile one's faith with one's science, which is demonstrated in the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists today are non-believers. I don't care how many physicists were also religious in history; I specifically said that today, with our modern understanding of the world, it was difficult to be both a man of science and a man of faith.

Okay, and? Why would first born's be necessarily infants?

Okay, they don't necessarily have to be, but certainly many were. Point is, every ill you point to in modern society can be found in spades in the Bible.

There I go again, assuming that I was conversing with an adult. Won't make that mistake again, sockpuppet.

I refuse to answer any more stupid questions when you haven't even read the book you're refuting.

More bailing. You can't answer the point so you make up some reason you shouldn't have to. You're Wynn, with worse grammar.

Well... if experience serves me... most atheists are idiots. Don't we have the right to try to help them out of perpetual adolescence?

You've yet to demonstrate what about my arguments is incorrect. All you've done is say that because I don't read Hebrew I can't know what the Bible really says (a charge that is both absurd, and easily turned back around at you), and said that I haven't actually read the Bible. Nowhere have you actually countered my arguments with counter-points of your own.

[too-open-minded]

The argument that life would be less of a hassle without religious differences is a very good one.

Although banning religion is not the answer, educating people and letting them form their own opinion is.

[kx000]

The argument that life would be less of a hassle without religious differences is a very good one.

Although banning religion is not the answer, educating people and letting them form their own opinion is.

Educate me, please.

[Balerion]

The argument that life would be less of a hassle without religious differences is a very good one.

Although banning religion is not the answer, educating people and letting them form their own opinion is.

The OP was talking about banning the religion subforum, not banning religious practice in society.

[Yazata]

The argument that life would be less of a hassle without religious differences is a very good one.

Maybe.

But religious differences are just a subset of human differences. Even if religion was totally banished, whether from Sciforums or from life, people would still be battling with one another about their various identities, doctrines and faiths. Just think -- politics.

The only way to get everyone on the same page is to eliminate all differences between people, to somehow get everyone living and thinking alike. Totalitarian societies throughout history have tried to make that happen, without any notable success. People instinctively rebel against it.

Although banning religion is not the answer, educating people and letting them form their own opinion is.

I strongly agree.