Why Hate Science?

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haha! actually, i only hope the people at the university of my choice feel the same way... it'd be nice to get a degree i can respect.




i'm always interested. please send me a PM.

Fnord, can you refute the null hypothesis to positivity, positive thinking and a positive attitude? Can you refute the null hypothesis to "you can do anything you set your mind to?"

You can set your mind on coming up with an algorithm to determine whether a given Turing machine will halt with a given input. But you will fail. You can set your mind on trisecting an angle using only straight edge and compass but you will fail. You can set your mind on constructing a square whose area is that of a given circle, using only straight edge and compass but you will fail.

ruveyn

David Brooks in his book On Paradise Drive has a plausible explanation for why.


http://books.google.com/books/about/On_ ... 0cV2UYh7UC

The very short form of his explanation is that this attitude was created by the very first (European) settlers and has stayed with the country ever since since it fits the country so well. The very first settlers found a giant amount of land barely settled by anyone else which had apparently limitless natural resources. This gave them the notion that God had given them this land and they were on a religious mission to settle it and make a "New Jerusalem".

This notion gave them a forward momentum and sense of "anything is possible" which has been passed on from generation to generation and which attracts like-minded immigrants from around the world. The only thing that has changed is that this notion and forward momentum has been secularized for most Americans. What you are seeing today is a secularized form of the positivity that let the Puritans be convinced they had found the Promised Land even though they nearly starved.

I don't like how some scientists make religion into something evil and/or make people who follow a religion look like idiots. Posting pseudo-"studies" about how atheists are always smarter than religious people is just as intolerant as a religious person talking down to an atheist. It's just wrong,

On a similar note, I am bothered by the fact that we're fighting over such an issue. I mean, seriously, everyone. We all have a right to think however we want, no matter if others find our opinions to be "wrong".

If we start policing how other people think, we'll lose our own freedom to think in the end. It'll be like George Orwell's 1984.

Yeah! If those scientists would just shut up about it, evil religious people could make themselves look like idiots all on their own.

You're not evil, are you?


Yeah! Just because scientists are more correct than religious people about how the universe works does not mean that they're always smarter!


Yeah! It should be obvious by now which side is more correct more often about how the universe operates. I mean, seriously everybody; we all have the right to believe in whatever myths we want, no matter how much they conflict with reality.


Or the Spanish Inquisition ... or Sharia Law ...

Fnord, I can't help but be intrigued by your stance concerning religion the way you voice it on these forums. Namely, how your mention of your weekly church attendance could possibly correspond to those simple and very familiar secular arguments you express so often, all coming from the same person. Christian clergy of various denominations is upset about Christians falling short, but somehow I haven't seen one who sounds so much like the average atheist you're likely to find on any random internet forum before I came here.

Weekly church attendance does not automatically result in fanatical belief; sometimes, familiarity with the system does indeed produce contempt of the system.

You'd be surprised at how many people attend weekly services out of anything other than sheer devotion.

Certainly; possibly depends on the system in question too, I suppose. Some are more prone to causing disillusion when carefully examined.

Church attendance appears to often indicate social belonging, I find. Some people go to bars, clubs, others get up early and witness the liturgy. It might even be a question of taste, with aesthetic values finding their fulfillment in this or that kind of music being heard. Not to say that matters of taste should dictate one's beliefs however.

In my case, there are social and gustatory aspects - nice people who bring food. Almost every Sunday features a "potluck" with dishes representing Spanish, Mexican, Filipino, Chinese, and English/Irish/German cultures. Sometimes, the basement seems like a food court. Locals are invited, especially those with no permanent fixed address.

Otherwise, it's the personal abuse and internal politics in conflict with the weekly message that make me wonder if a certain Galilean Carpenter would shake His thorny head and weep at what His church has become.

Fnord - Not all religious people are evil. I know some are, but some AREN'T.

You're the one being biased now.

Did you not read the post just above yours?

I mentioned "nice people bringing food".

I never said that all religious people are evil.

Although I am willing to bet that those who jump to conclusions, make false accusations and spread lies about others are.

I admit, I might have misunderstood your meaning. If I did, I apologize.

So it's all about the food?I guess the old quote was wrong," the way to a man's heart is his stomach."Maybe " The way to a man's soul is his stomach."
Do you eat to live or live to eat

Science and technology is the new mythology.
Much of new science is wrong, and is a belief system based on faith

Like: Medical science is out to heal you, what a f***ken joke

Just another stupid belief system

there's a whole movement of people in the New Atheist community that don't feel that religion is a huge, monolithic plot to get all of us...

"Richard Dawkins Has Lost – Meet the New New Atheists"

i'm in that camp of people... and i get a lot of flack from hardline atheists for acknowledging that religion has been a driving force in civilization and a lot of the humanist doctrines we have today got their start in religion. not all religious people are bad people, as Fnord said; but this NNA movement is not apologist. we do not forgive the crusades or female genital mutilation, or deny that religion has had it's share of horrors over the years... we just believe that religious thought and religion is more complex than most people in the NA community make it out to be.

as for studies on how much smarter atheists are than religious people, i don't know about that because i haven't done any research on the subject. i do know that here in the US, there is a lot of chest-thumping about who is smarter – Liberals or Conservatives, with Libertarians coming into this picture only occasionally. What i am tending towards thinking about this idea is that it is just outgrouping by both parties, especially when "irrefutable evidence" surfaces supporting one group over another. what upsets me about those studies is the not the subject matter, but the way that the media handles the results... bad reporting contributes to the outgrouping. sometimes the studies aren't as bad as they seem, and the media distorts the facts pretty readily to "sell copy".

i don't believe for one second that that the religious are inferior to me. even their leaders like the late Dwayne Gish, he was not a stupid man, though he was intellectual dishonest and blindly following made up sets of data that supported his hypothesis alone.

for the record: i'm an Igtheist.