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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Orange Wizard]

Huh, I thought heresy was like, opinions on church doctrine that differ from the church's accepted doctrine, and not just disagreeing with the church in general.

No, that's exactly what it is, but historically there's been a lot of overlap.

[Bohandas]

Huh, I thought heresy was like, opinions on church doctrine that differ from the church's accepted doctrine, and not just disagreeing with the church in general.

Anyway, currently going through the 4th fundamental book in spiritism, right at the start of the book there's a rather interesting philosophical analysis on why people started to become more and more materialistic and nihilistic in western society and how christian doctrine (altough the author is clearly referring to catholic doctrine in specific, in this case) failed to provide people with reasons to not walk away from the idea of life after death and become more individualistic.

I thought it was simply because modern science technology delivered visible miracles where previous worldviews didn't.

[TempAcc]

Define ~visible miracles~

No, porn doesn't count :v

[itisnotlogical]

Define ~visible miracles~

I'd say that instant (or close enough that it doesn't matter) contact with anybody else in the world that has any form of Internet is pretty cool.

Or being able to carry dozens, if not hundreds of books on a device about the size of a smallish sketchbook.

Or being able to (kinda) read other languages, if you get lucky.

Or being able to refrigerate food for weeks instead of having to eat it as soon as you got your hands on it.

Or not freezing to death in winter.

Or flying.

Basically, the modern world is much, much cooler than people realize.

[origamiscienceguy]

Define ~visible miracles~

No, porn doesn't count :v

The fact that we have eyes to see in the first place.

The definition will change to whoever you speak to.

[Rolan7]

Define ~visible miracles~

I'd say that instant (or close enough that it doesn't matter) contact with anybody else in the world that has any form of Internet is pretty cool.

Or being able to carry dozens, if not hundreds of books on a device about the size of a smallish sketchbook.

Or being able to (kinda) read other languages, if you get lucky.

Or being able to refrigerate food for weeks instead of having to eat it as soon as you got your hands on it.

Or not freezing to death in winter.

Or flying.

Basically, the modern world is much, much cooler than people realize.

It's really true.  The scientific method, wielded by incredibly determined people, has accomplished veritable and *verifiable* miracles.
Helps that they all had incentive to one-up each other, heh, but often not a lot of incentive.  Beyond advancing human knowledge.

[TempAcc]

I'm not saying thats not cool. I do enjoy these things on a daily basis, and I don't need to atribute it any sort of non human source to find it miraculous, it was mostly a joke comment.

What I meant by my original comment is that the philosophical essay I mentioned takes a stance I find rather interesting. Its not at all about science vs religion, in fact, it very much promotes scientific knowledge and evidence based logical thought as something we should always have within ourselves and are things which we should always use when interacting with the world.

It just says that taking the advancements of science as a reason to adopt a purely materialistic, nihilistic and individualistic view of life is just as foolish or even more foolish as adopting a extremist religious view, and at the same time it also criticises mainstream christian doctrine (with heavy implied emphasis on catholicism) for adopting contradictory ideas and ignoring the value of religion in the moral betterment of humanity by adopting strange and incompatible ideas such as eternal punishment for the wicked, with no hope of redemption once they get to that point, and that God favors rituals and doctrine rather than each person's own work and merit.

Ultimately, it does not care much for wheter you believe in God or not, but it warns about the dangers of a purely materialistic view of life, and condemns mainstream religion for being stern, slow and unable to keep the pace with the world and failing to improve the human condition by favoring rituals and old doctrines over the moral betterment of mankind.

[Rolan7]

Define ~visible miracles~

No, porn doesn't count :v

The fact that we have eyes to see in the first place.

The definition will change to whoever you speak to.

Charles Darwin agreed with that.
But, it turns out, it was practically inevitable once we had multicellular organisms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKZBh8BL_U
In short:
Sensing light was beneficial (very very basic microbes do this)
Sensing the direction of light (through a pinhole) was beneficial
Covering the pinhole with clear substance for protection was beneficial
Modifying that cover to focus the light was beneficial

And of course *everything* is better with bilateral symmetry, IE 2 eyes, which happened to allow depth perception with enough brainpower.

Charles Darwin, like practically every scientist in history, had his theories improved upon to more accurately describe reality.  Because that's the core of the scientific process:  If you make a more accurate theory, you win.  But then everyone else will want to one-up YOU, and steal that glory.  So there's an incentive to be right.

With religion, with all due respect, there's absolutely no built-in incentive to be correct.  Just to be attractive and comforting.  That's why a normal person may use faith healing to feel better, and medicine to get better.  (Or psychiatry to feel better...  since it's demonstrably more effective, but expensive)

[origamiscienceguy]

It is more than current comfort that most religions care about. Most care about getting to the afterlife.

[Rolan7]

Well first off, religions have a maddening tendency to try and claim things about the material world.  I wish they'd leave well enough alone, then I could ignore them.

Furthermore, no religion has verifiable information about the afterlife.  Since, by definition, it was verifiable it'd be scientific.
If there was a process to reliably speak to the dead, it'd be scientific because it could be tested.

[Frumple]

It is more than current comfort that most religions care about. Most care about getting to the afterlife.

Rol didn't say anything about current comfort. Just comfort. Getting to the afterlife is... pretty much entirely about comfort, just in the future -- christianity in particular is pretty explicit about that, as it heaps piles and piles of promised discomfort upon the person not believing properly (whatever the means for a particularly denomination).

Getting to the afterlife includes a very large component of current comfort, too. It's very much an existential and psychological salve to a lot of people throughout their life.

[origamiscienceguy]

It is more than current comfort that most religions care about. Most care about getting to the afterlife.

Rol didn't say anything about current comfort. Just comfort. Getting to the afterlife is... pretty much entirely about comfort, just in the future -- christianity in particular is pretty explicit about that, as it heaps piles and piles of promised discomfort upon the person not believing properly (whatever the means for a particularly denomination).

Getting to the afterlife includes a very large component of current comfort, too. It's very much an existential and psychological salve to a lot of people throughout their life.

Ok, I misread that.

[Adragis]

In my opinion this discussion is invalid.
You people are clearly not even considering the visible miracle that is Scientology.

[Orange Wizard]

Scientology is a miracle in the same way the Flat Earth Society is a miracle.

[Adragis]

Exactly.
It's the epitome of human enlightenment