Religion Breeds Irrationality

[LeSellers]

Prop8, Tea Party, Glen [sic] Beck [are examples of the Church of Jesus Christ's embracing anti science].

RIng a bell?

A) none of those is "anti science", which was what you asserted.

B) The "Church", per se, has not embraced the TEA Party, nor does she say that Glenn Beck represents her stance on anything (and Brother Beck does not speak on scientific matters). While a fair case can be made that the Church of Jesus Christ has supported Prop 8, because it's not a function of science to determine whether men can marry men and women, women.

So, I re-issue my CFR: in what ways has "the Church has seen fit to align itself more closely with the anti-science conservative factions in this country" in "recent years"?

Lehi

[USU78]

Emotional intelligence? Too much exposure to superstition while a child? Who knows?

Maybe he can't grow up and come to terms with mortality or the "horror" of authentic action and responsibility undirected by a supernatural supervisor.

Intelligence or training in science doesn't fix everything and sometimes doesn't even manage to give the kind of perspective that we expect. Far from it.

There are apparently scientists that find they need to believe in Scientology or Hinduism or in the extraterrestrial origin of crop circles (or in Mormonism).

But, so much the worse for that scientist (or, better, so much the worse for that human being).

Or perhaps this particular non-radical-materialist can recognize the beauty in human relationships inter se, and in human relationships with the Divine.

Radical materialists tend to be very poor people people, don't value relationships, lack imagination, and are poor at apprehension.

Perhaps they were frightened by integrals as small children.

[mfbukowski]

I ask myself the same question. There are different kinds of intelligence. There are different kinds of success. Whatever good qualities they may exhibit, these individuals clearly lack curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage or integrity.

Read my siggy, read the article and then you might be worth talking to.

Your ignorance of the philosophy of mind is unbelievable. It doesn't go well with your arrogance. Arrogant ignorance is not becoming.

[WalkerW]

Whatever good qualities they may exhibit, these individuals clearly lack curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage or integrity.

Crazy how discoveries like, say, the Big Bang or genetics spawned from individuals who clearly lacked curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage and integrity.

[kolipoki09]

You must be kidding.

Prop8, Tea Party, Glen Beck.

RIng a bell?

Your answer shows how little you've actually read on this thread. You're a coward.

[Deborah]

Whatever good qualities they may exhibit, these individuals clearly lack curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage or integrity.

Wow! You obviously never read about their early lives or their career successes before becoming GA's.

Your arrogance and ignorance makes me question your claims of success.

[mfbukowski]

Your answer shows how little you've actually read on this thread. You're a coward.

There are fundamentalist critics and fundamentalist believers, but dogma is dogma and cannot be questioned, and to do so is threatening.

[Jeff K.]

I ask myself the same question. There are different kinds of intelligence. There are different kinds of success. Whatever good qualities they may exhibit, these individuals clearly lack curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage or integrity.

One wonders if you were looking in the mirror when you made those broad brush statements about people you have never known.

[Stargazer]

I love Tyson!

My in-laws recently let me take Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution home, but I haven't really been able to give it much attention due to school and other reading material. I plan to this summer.

That is so cool! I loved Tyson's book, The Pluto Files, and gee golly imagine that, he is also a brilliant, entertaining and interesting speaker! Has a great voice as well.

"No Republican wants to die poor." Brilliant observation. I might add that few if any Libertarians want to die poor, as well, but I'm well on the way towards this, darn it.

[elguanteloko]

So just to make sure we all understand, I brought up the fact that 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in God.

Fox, I get you on this one but this hardly shows anything in favor of a non-belief in God as most mothers buying Johnson & Johnson products for their little demons shows J&J products to be superior in quality. What about price? What about ignorance of other products or misunderstandings on the workings of the different products? ... and on and on and on.

Based on this and a number of similar surveys, I pointed out that among the top scientists in the US, the vast majority are do not burden themselves by slavish adherence to unfounded belief.

There's a myriad of beliefs we have that are unfounded but there's nothing wrong with having them or, do you have to understand EVERYTHING about one particular thing or idea before accepting it or applying it? Hardly. Plus, saying one is "burdened" by those beliefs is kind of useless. I definitely can see many good Christians scientists feeling very fulfilled within their belief system while others are not.

In an ingenious counterargument you point to one individual, who at best is among of the 7% of the top scientists in the country who do believe in God, as evidence that I must have been wrong in my assertions.

Brilliant - and sadly typical.

...

[44Foxtrot]

Wow! You obviously never read about their early lives or their career successes before becoming GA's.

Your arrogance and ignorance makes me question your claims of success.

There are successful and accomplished leaders in many religions. Would you argue that Scientology is true just because some of its leaders or leading adherents are accomplished and successful people?

Would you claim that the leaders of the Church of Scientology are good men who deserve to be slavishly followed because they have risen through the ranks of the Church of Scientology?

Of course not. Anyone who can stand up and claim with a straight face that the Galactic Dictator Xenu placed billions of his people on earth 75 million years ago and then killed them with hydrogen bombs and that the spirits or essences of these people can cause spiritual harm to modern day humans is certainly not one to be trusted or followed.

Their basic truth claims can be readily disproven. If such people really believe this easily falsifiable narrative, then they are not critical thinkers and or have very poor judgement. This fantastical narrative came from a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. The problem is that some take obvious fiction for fact.

It is more likely that these leaders do not really believe that the L. Ron Hubbard narrative is fact, but are willing to claim they do in order to maintain their position in the Church and keep the whole scam going.

Why is Scientology a scam? Because it tells lies to people and requires their money in return for the privilege of being lied to. If you have studied Scientology and know something about how the scam works, I am sure you would agree. The fact that folks like Tom Cruise claim that Scientology has helped them, and has given a great deal of money to the Church in return, does not make the truth claims of Scientology true.

Likewise, anyone who can stand up and claim with a straight face that the sun gets it's light from Kolob, that a common Egyptian funerary text created millennia after Abraham lived was written by the hand of Abraham, that God commanded Joseph Smith to engage in polyandry on pain of death by an angel's flaming sword, and that an angel provided Joseph Smith with ancient golden plates that were supposed to have contained an ancient record but, as it turned out, were completely ignored in the "translation" of the Book of Mormon, is certainly not an individual that most people, myself included, would trust or blindly follow.

Your first reaction would probably be that Church leaders would not claim all of this. Fact is that they have, and continue to do so. Several Presidents and General Authorities of the Church have stated that there is no middle ground for Mormons. Either Mormonism is all true or none of it is true; Book of Abraham, Kolob, flaming sword, polyandry, magic stone in a hat, Reformed Egyptian, Adam ondi Ahman, all of it. If you wish, I can provide a link to a recent LDS video by a General Authority re-stating this principle in no uncertain terms.

Such people are forced to claim that they "feel" that their truth claims are valid because, just as with Scientology, the overwhelming weight of evidence is that they are not. The sun does not get its light from Kolob, an angel with a flaming sword did not appear to Joseph Smith and command him to take other men's spouses and teenage females as wives, the papyri obtained by Joseph Smith were not written by the hand of Abraham. To claim that one actually believes all this is no different from claiming that one believes in the Thetans of Scientology.

For grown men to claim such belief in the face of all of the evidence to the contrary is astounding. I have precious little respect for such men. Their claims of the truth of Mormonism have no more weight in evidence, and are therefore no more valid, than the claims of Tom Cruise for the truth of Scientology

[Stargazer]

This sad topic has been argued over and over again, and for all of Foxtrot's insistence that the reason there aren't more Mormons with Nobel Prizes in some science or members of NAS is because Mormons make bad science or are bad scientists (and you can generally plug the word "theist" into there, too), there is no evidence that this is the case. By "evidence", I don't mean the apparent assertion that if someone doesn't have a Nobel Prize or is not a member of NAS, then that person is a bad scientist, I mean this: come up with objective criteria for determining whether someone is a good vs bad scientist, apply the criteria to all scientists, and then afterwards see if there is a correlation that could be determined to be a causation.

So, what makes a good scientist? Is it that the more peer-reviewed research papers published in recognized journals the better scientist one is? Clearly a scientist who has won a Nobel would have to be considered a good scientist, but does the failure to win one make one a poor scientist? Given that in 110 years of the Nobel Prize in Physics, less than 200 physicists have been honored with a prize, the award of a Nobel is of such rarity that it cannot properly be used as a measure of scientific prowess or lack thereof. In 110 years the maximum number of physicists who could be awarded a Nobel in Physics is 330 (the maximum number to share a prize is 3). There cannot be only 330 good physicists on the planet; the number of excellent physicists who must be overlooked is of necessity quite large.

The US National Academy of Science is a congressionally chartered corporation whose membership is selected by existing members. The body was created during the US Civil War, and back in those days it can be taken for granted that most of its members were theists of one stripe or another. How many are theists today? There is no way to search the NAS membership list on the NAS website for religious belief or affiliation, and religious affiliation or lack thereof is not a prominent feature of the various biographical articles on NAS members on Wikipedia, either. The sole source for what I would call anything like authoritative information on this topic is a report of a paper that appeared in the 23 July 1998 issue of Nature by Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham: "Leading Scientists Still Reject God." Nature, 1998; 394, 313.]:

Leading Scientists Still Reject God

Larson and Witham present the results of a replication of 1913 and 1933 surveys by James H. Leuba. In those surveys, Leuba mailed a questionnaire to leading scientists asking about their belief in "a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and in "personal immortality". Larson and Witham used the same wording [as in the Leuba studies], and sent their questionnaire to 517 members of the [u.S.] National Academy of Sciences from the biological and physical sciences (the latter including mathematicians, physicists and astronomers). The return rate was slightly over 50%. The results were as follows (figures in %):

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0

Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2

Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8

BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9

Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7

Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3

Note: The 1998 immortality figures add up to more than 100%. The misprint is in the original. The 76.7% is likely too high.

This clearly indicates that belief in God among NAS members has decreased over the past century.

However, while this indicates that leading scientists generally do not have a personal belief in God, it is illogical to take from this the conclusion that believing in God makes one a poor scientist. If this were the case, then 27.7% of NAS members in 1914 would be poor scientists, and if this were true then membership in NAS would be pretty meaningless.

The NAS position on God is that the existence or non-existence of God is not a scientific question. If this is a sound position, then it must logically follow that a scientist's belief in God is not a determinant of that scientist's relative value as a scientist. Only a scientist's science, as it were, can be regarded as an indicator of a scientist's value as a scientist. This means that any attempt to devalue a scientist based solely on that scientist's belief in God must be taken as bigotry, pure and simple. And I mean that in both directions.

[Mordecai]

This clearly indicates that belief in God among NAS members has decreased over the past century...

Many if not most of today's top scientists, in at least some fields, believe in some sort of God, although not typically a personal God. Einstein repeatedly emphasized his belief in an impersonal God, insisting that he was neither a pantheist nor an atheist. They apparently believe in a ubiquitous intelligence underpinning all of reality.

Antony Flew talks about a lot of today's top scientists and their belief, using many quotes from them in his book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. Prior to his death, he seemed quite open to Christianity, judging by the appendix of his book. He seems to be of the opinion that recent advances in science actually support belief in God. I think science today supports belief in God better than it has for 100's of years. There are some convincing breakthroughs, particularly considering how neo-Darwinism has fallen apart and also advances in microbiology and greater understanding of the "fine tuning" of the universe.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I've probably said this before, but I'm struck yet again by 44FT's strange arguments about science and religion which, themselves, have no grounding in a reasoned, or scientific analysis whatsoever. According to his own presumed standards his arguments simply hold no water and merit no deep consideration.

[Mordecai]

A) none of those is "anti science", which was what you asserted.

I would have included an "lol" in your response. Prop. 8 is anti-science? WHAT the HECK? The Tea Party is anti-science? LOL Where do we get these guys?

[USU78]

Many if not most of today's top scientists, depending on the field, believe in some sort of God, although not typically a personal God. Einstein repeatedly emphasized his belief in an impersonal God, insisting that he was neither a pantheist nor an atheist. They apparently believe in an ubiquitous intelligence underpinning all of reality.

Antony Flew talks about a lot of today's top scientists and their belief, using many quotes from them in his book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. Prior to his death, he seemed quite open to Christianity, judging by the appendix of his book.

Einstein's such an interesting case on the subject. You're never clear whether he's talking metaphor when he says, "G-tt wuerfelt nicht." It's also not at all clear whether he appreciates the Judeo-Christian foundation of Schiller's Spieltrieb (and its Hegelian antecedents).

I'm wondering: Were the physicists of Einstein's generation, who were much more likely to be religious as we understand the term, less skilled as scientists than their (IMO) less-talented descendants today?

[44Foxtrot]

Crazy how discoveries like, say, the Big Bang or genetics spawned from individuals who clearly lacked curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage and integrity.

WalkerW,

The comment was concerning the leadership of the LDS Church, none of whom are associated with advances in science such as genetics or the big bang, but who I claim lack one or more of the following: curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage, or personal integrity. My reasons for making such a statement are described in my post above regarding the scam of Scientology.

[Mordecai]

I'm wondering: Were the physicists of Einstein's generation, who were much more likely to be religious as we understand the term, less skilled as scientists than their (IMO) less-talented descendants today?

Isaac Newton certainly must have been a horrible scientist. Christians, like Newton, just don't know the first thing about science. ha ha

[LifeOnaPlate]

WalkerW,

The comment was concerning the leadership of the LDS Church, none of whom are associated with advances in science such as genetics or the big bang, but who I claim lack one or more of the following: curiosity, critical thinking skills, courage, or personal integrity. My reasons for making such a statement are described in my post above regarding the scam of Scientology.

Speaking of which, the guilt-by-association which continues to manifest itself in your posts is sort of annoying. How many times are you going to invoke Scientology as the premiere example of the fruits of religion and the test case by which all religion should be measured? Should I invoke some junk science to criticize the whole scientific endeavor as though I'm proving some sort of point? Weak.

[Mordecai]

Speaking of which, the guilt-by-association...

I think it's just bigotry. Invoking Scientology is just a rationalization to make an excuse for said bigotry. Everyone in the leadership of the Church has a serious moral character flaw, huh? Really? Because of Scientology. LOL Yeah, that's great reasoning.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I think it's just bigotry. Invoking Scientology is just a rationalization to make an excuse for said bigotry.

There are several interesting aspects of this ongoing rhetorical trick to think about. Maybe by articulating them here 44FT can finally leave that simplistic method of attempted shaming behind him (but probably not).

First, it seems there's a sense that because I believe in God I am therefore obligated to defend any and all accounts of what or who God is, or that I am somehow responsible to all such accounts for some reason. "Religion," then, can best be described by looking at what 44FT (and presumably many of us) view as a silly belief system based on science fiction.

Second, it seems that if Mormons object to being lumped in with Scientologists as being equivalent he can then try to say there's no reason to believe your views over theirs, and point out some LDS views which seem kooky to outsiders. That way his rhetorical grouping seems more legitimate when, in reality, it isn't quite legitimate at all.

Again, it would be like me dismissing some presently renowned geologist on the grounds that some uncredentialed young earth creationist has put together bad scientific arguments.

[mfbukowski]

I've probably said this before, but I'm struck yet again by 44FT's strange arguments about science and religion which, themselves, have no grounding in a reasoned, or scientific analysis whatsoever. According to his own presumed standards his arguments simply hold no water and merit no deep consideration.

Yep

I'm concluding there's no point in even responding to is tirades any more. A dogmatist is a dogmatist.

[Mordecai]

Again, it would be like me dismissing some presently renowned geologist on the grounds that some uncredentialed young earth creationist has put together bad scientific arguments.

Wait? You mean that's a bad argument?

[44Foxtrot]

Speaking of which, the guilt-by-association which continues to manifest itself in your posts is sort of annoying. How many times are you going to invoke Scientology as the premiere example of the fruits of religion and the test case by which all religion should be measured? Should I invoke some junk science to criticize the whole scientific endeavor as though I'm proving some sort of point? Weak.

There was no claim of guilt-by-association in my post. Mormonism is not associated with Scientology and I am certainly not claiming that it is.

I am simply pointing out the striking similarities between Mormonism and Scientology when it comes to the behavior of its leaders in defending the indefensible and in demanding blind adherence to the church's unfounded beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Mormonism is among a set of modern American religions with more or less charismatic founders. These include:

· Joseph Smith, Jr.: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (1830)

· Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Science or Church of Christ [scientist] (1879)

· Charles Taze Russell: Jehovah's Witnesses (1872)

· L. Ron Hubbard: Scientology (1954)

In terms of unfounded beliefs, all four have an ample inventory. In terms of religious belief and culture, all score relatively high on various cult attribute scales.

Seventh Day Adventists are another well established American religion, but I leave them out of this list because they are not as closely identified with any particular individual founder, and do not have the public perception problems and the high cult attribute scores of the other four.

[USU78]

cult attribute scores

Now that's just name-calling.

Or does 44 actually hold that there is some "scientifically" arrived-at set of criteria upon which all agree, establishing what a "cult" is.

USU "Thinks 44 doesn't own a dictionary" 78