Faith Vs. Science

[volgadon]

I have no professional stake in the historicity of the BOM. I could simply remain silent on the subject and retain my job at BYU without the slightest difficulty, as, in fact, most faculty at BYU do.

Until 2 or 3 years ago, this was the only article by Bill Hamblin that I had read.

http://books.google.com/books?ei=X9NHTc3GM4PSsAPymrWNAg&ct=result&id=ja1mAAAAMAAJ&dq=the+horns+of+hattin&q=hamblin

[44Foxtrot]

Good grief you are one thick-headed person.

First, you (willfully?) misunderstood the analogy, employing the fallacy of the perfect analogy. The point of the analogy is between critics who dismiss an idea without understanding it, while refusing to actually learn anything about it. It doesn't matter if the idea being dismissed is true or false. What matters is the attitude of the dismisser. It is a matter of intellectual integrity. If you are going to repeatedly proclaim that historicity of the BOM is idiotic while never bothering to actually read current scholarship on the subject, you lack fundamental intellectual integrity. Worse, you refuse to be educated on the topic. Maybe you are right about the BOM. But, if so, you are right for the wrong reason. Being right is not the issue here. Intellectual integrity is the issue. One can have intellectual integrity and be wrong on a subject, and one can lack intellectual integrity and still be right. This is not about disbelieving the BOM. It is about claiming that those who believe in historicity are idiots, while refusing to even look at the actual arguments they make.

There is apparently a fundamental difference in our views of intellectual integrity. To take your example of Scientology, it is certainly not necessary for one to read L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics to determine that Scientology is fiction. All one need to do is look at Hubbard's career as a science fiction writer, and understand that his Scientology foundational narrative has Thetans being deposited into volcanoes on Earth not billions, but trillions of years before the Earth ever existed. With this information in hand, it is relatively simple, and intellectually quite honest, to deduce that Scientology is fiction, and not what its founder and members claim it to be.

If one is interested in history or literature, I suppose one might go ahead and read more of L. Ron Hubbard's work. Since I am interested in science and fact, I can safely assume that Scientology is neither and move on.

Joseph Smith Jr. was a money digger and convicted glass looker and, according to Richard Bushman, his family was deeply involved in folk magic. The same tests that can applied to L. Ron Hubbard and the foundational claims of Scientology can be applied to Joseph Smith Jr. and the foundational claims of Mormonism. The outcomes are the same. If one has read the Book of Mormon, taken Church History in Seminary and Institute, and was a born in the Church member in good standing for three decades, you certainly cannot claim that he or show does not know enough about the Church to make an informed decision as to the veracity of Joseph Smith's claims.

This is exactly the type of arrogance and condescension that make it impossible to have a rational conversation with you. You refuse to engage the actual evidence and analysis--I've never seen you do so--instead insisting on the fundamental lack of integrity of those with whom you disagree. When have I played the "faith card"? CFR. Am I doing so now? The issue at hand is your personal intellectual integrity. I am evaluating this based on the overt and explicit evidence of what you have said and done on this board. It has nothing to do with faith. It really has nothing to do with the historicity of the BOM.

I did not claim that you had played the faith card. I said I understood that it was difficult for you not to do so. Nonetheless, I apologize for even mentioning the faith card or testimony bearing in the context of the discussion. In looking back at what you had said previous to that comment, I see that it was wholly inappropriate on my part to do so.

[Nathair/|\]

There is apparently a fundamental difference in our views of intellectual integrity. To take your example of Scientology, it is certainly not necessary for one to read L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics to determine that Scientology is fiction. All one need to do is look at Hubbard's career as a science fiction writer, and understand that his Scientology foundational narrative has Thetans being deposited into volcanoes on Earth not billions, but trillions of years before the Earth ever existed. With this information in hand, it is relatively simple, and intellectually quite honest, to deduce that Scientology is fiction, and not what its founder and members claim it to be.

If one is interested in history or literature, I suppose one might go ahead and read more of L. Ron Hubbard's work. Since I am interested in science and fact, I can safely assume that Scientology is neither and move on.

Joseph Smith Jr. was a money digger and convicted glass looker and, according to Richard Bushman, his family was deeply involved in folk magic. The same tests that can applied to L. Ron Hubbard and the foundational claims of Scientology can be applied to Joseph Smith Jr. and the foundational claims of Mormonism. The outcomes are the same. If one has read the Book of Mormon, taken Church History in Seminary and Institute, and was a born in the Church member in good standing for three decades, you certainly cannot claim that he or show does not know enough about the Church to make an informed decision as to the veracity of Joseph Smith's claims.

I did not claim that you had played the faith card. I said I understood that it was difficult for you not to do so. Nonetheless, I apologize for even mentioning the faith card or testimony bearing in the context of the discussion. In looking back at what you had said previous to that comment, I see that it was wholly inappropriate on my part to do so.

"Do you really believe that the sciences would ever have originated and grown if the way had not been prepared by magicians, alchemists, astrologers, and witches whose promises and pretensions first had to create a thirst, a hunger, a taste for hidden and forbidden?" -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

There is apparently a fundamental difference in our views of intellectual integrity. To take your example of Scientology, it is certainly not necessary for one to read L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics to determine that Scientology is fiction. All one need to do is look at Hubbard's career as a science fiction writer, and understand that his Scientology foundational narrative has Thetans being deposited into volcanoes on Earth not billions, but trillions of years before the Earth ever existed. With this information in hand, it is relatively simple, and intellectually quite honest, to deduce that Scientology is fiction, and not what its founder and members claim it to be.

You know what is sad, is that if something is so false, why do you need to spread untruths about the religion?

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

Xenu (pronounced /?zi?nu?/[1][2][3] ZEE-noo), also Xemu, was, according to the founder of Scientology and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions[4][5] of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology dogma holds that the essences of these many people remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.[1][6]

IT was 75 million years ago not trillions.

FYI I am not sticking up for scientology.

[Bikeemikey]

A quick response to Analytics:

Skepticism and blind faith are opposites.

Skepticism and faith are not opposites.

The problem with the argument is that you start by assuming all those engaging in enquiry by faith have already decided to ignore the outcome data. This is not the case. It is false to assume that faith is the same as acceptance of our desires (psychological appetite for the non-reason non-rational beliefs).

Many "scientists" want/desire to believe in a specific outcome of a process of study. Often times it is a desire for a certain outcome that motivates/inspires people to get involved scientific inquiry. To claim otherwise is an absurdity. The test of a scientist is how well they can ignore their own personal beliefs, bias and desires, and deal with the data that is being provided. Having personal desire and belief is not bad science. Letting such beliefs compromise your capacity to analyze objectively is what makes bad science.

However, this is true of faith also. Faith does not mean you accept your desire as true, it means you let the desire work in you to the point that you actively begin to consciously test it. True faith may lead to the abandonment of certain desires we begin with. Faith is not the slave to human psychological appetite and weakness, it is another tool to monitor such desires for error, using data sets and evidences that "science" is not willing to analyze. However, faith does not exclude the integration/inclusion of data from the empirical senses either.

An honest inquirer seeking knowledge through faith must also exercise degrees of skepticism otherwise they fall prey to their own bias and undermine their capacity to seek and find truth.

Please stop arguing from the flawed premise that all faith is blind.

[WalkerW]

If one is interested in history or literature, I suppose one might go ahead and read more of L. Ron Hubbard's work. Since I am interested in science and fact, I can safely assume that Scientology is neither and move on.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why you separate "facts" from history and literature.

Joseph Smith Jr. was a money digger and convicted glass looker and, according to Richard Bushman, his family was deeply involved in folk magic.

Bushman also recognizes the bulk of the historical documents and witnesses declare the Book of Mormon to be of divine origin.

[Daniel Peterson]

If one is interested in history or literature . . . I am interested in science and fact

There's that reflexive, complacent, and apparently quite na

[ERayR]

There's that reflexive, complacent, and apparently quite na

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

There's that reflexive, complacent, and apparently quite na

[WalkerW]

An interesting article on inverted atheism: Paul Wallace, "Way Beyond Atheism: God Does Not (Not) Exist," Religion Dispatches (Dec. 14, 2010).

[44Foxtrot]

You know what is sad, is that if something is so false, why do you need to spread untruths about the religion?

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

Xenu (pronounced /?zi?nu?/[1][2][3] ZEE-noo), also Xemu, was, according to the founder of Scientology and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions[4][5] of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology dogma holds that the essences of these many people remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.[1][6]

IT was 75 million years ago not trillions.

FYI I am not sticking up for scientology.

Although the Thetans themselves are supposed have been around for trillions of years (far longer than this universe has existed), they were said to have been deposited on Earth 75 million years ago. So you are correct. (It has been a while since I read this stuff.)

However, my point is not altered in the least by this detail. Whether one claims that the foundational beings of their religion have been around for longer than the universe in which they now exist, or came to Earth before it existed, there is no reason to consider their truth claims any further.

[Vex]

Although the Thetans themselves are supposed have been around for trillions of years (far longer than this universe has existed), they were said to have been deposited on Earth 75 million years ago. So you are correct. (It has been a while since I read this stuff.)

However, my point is not altered in the least by this detail. Whether one claims that the foundational beings of their religion have been around for longer than the universe in which they now exist, or came to Earth before it existed, there is no reason to consider their truth claims any further.

I believe you are referring to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera_in_Scientology_doctrine#Scientology.27s_chronology_of_the_universe

Though factual accuracy is disputed.

[Dan Vogel]

Keven Christensen,

Positivism has a flavor. Alan Goff's essays are particularly good at describing it. For instance, in his review of Vogel, he notes that "This positivism attempts to deflect attention from the ideological ramifications of its own position. Positivism, and the positions advanced by its positivistic apologists, represents a "deliberate refusal to scrutinize the metaphysical and ideological interests that inform their readings."

According to deconstructionists, this is true of all ideologies. I have yet to see Goff acknowledge his position is relativistic, and for that reason incoherent. In fact, he denies it. His definition of positivism goes way beyond standard definitions. One can take his descriptions and reverse them to create a similar definition for relativism, and since these are Goff

[WalkerW]

For recent work on this very subject, see George Yancey (sociologist at my very own University of North Texas), Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education (Baylor University Press, 2011).

To go along with this, see John Tierney, "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within," The New York Times (Feb. 7, 2011). I strongly recommend reading the studies linked to within the article.

[LDS Guy 1986]

Can the two really co-exist or is it one or the other? I am interested in everyones opionion. There is a cool video of a scientist who explains that I found. Check it out and I would love to hear all the responses

click on the link to view the video: http://elderbevan.bl...ist-mormon.html

Science and faith can coexist, in fact they must coexist. All truth and knowledge is from God, so when science seeks truth it is Godly.

When science contradicts the eternal truths of the Gospel though it is not truth but deception caused by the imperfect nature of man's understanding.

Just my two cents on the matter.

[thesometimesaint]

LDS Guy 1986:

I would say that there is no dispute between correctly understood science and correctly understood eternal truths. But as we know so very little of both it is premature at best to eliminate either or to conflate them.

[WalkerW]

Thomas Jackson has some interesting articles on science and religion in The Guardian.

[ElderDarionBevan]

you can believe in both

[volgadon]

Right, but it is hard to believe in the dogmas of both simultaneously.

[WalkerW]

Philosopher Edward Feser's skeptic parody is priceless. I especially like the following:

You won

[44Foxtrot]

Philosopher Edward Feser's skeptic parody is priceless. I especially like the following:

You won

[Vex]

Feser states that his writing is from a Roman Catholic perspective. While you may think the above is priceless, I see it as uninformed, ignorant and defensive. In support of this viewpoint, I would ask you to imagine the world today if Roman Catholicism still held sway over the western world and we didn't have scientists and engineers.

By labeling this tripe as priceless, you are essentially claiming that the world would be better off today if scientists and engineers left the labs and the test facilities and went back to the monastery.

Surely you cannot be serious.

44 misses it.

[Daniel Peterson]

I would ask you to imagine the world today if Roman Catholicism still held sway over the western world and we didn't have scientists and engineers.

Like, say, the devoutly Catholic Galileo, or the devoutly Catholic Copernicus? Or Father Georges LeMaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist who helped to originate the concept of the Big Bang?

you are essentially claiming that the world would be better off today if scientists and engineers left the labs and the test facilities and went back to the monastery.

Like Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics and abbot of the Monastery of St. Thomas near Br

[LDS Guy 1986]

LDS Guy 1986:

I would say that there is no dispute between correctly understood science and correctly understood eternal truths. But as we know so very little of both it is premature at best to eliminate either or to conflate them.

I see all revelations as correctly understood eternal truths unless they conflict with the scriptures. I put my faith in the eternal truth of the scripture over the best guess of man.

I understand where you are coming from, but science is just a non religious form of revelation from God to men, without God there is no science.

[volgadon]

Like, say, the devoutly Catholic Galileo, or the devoutly Catholic Copernicus? Or Father Georges LeMaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist who helped to originate the concept of the Big Bang?

Like Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics and abbot of the Monastery of St. Thomas near Br