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[Pythagorean]

Again, you have come up with just weak, sputtering defenses of religion as something rational.
Nothing of what you have written contain valid arguments in favour of that:

Rather, your argumentative strategy has been:
1. Religious people feel that their beliefs are true, HENCE religion is rational.
2. Some religious people are behaving morally, HENCE religion is rational.
3. Some religious people are able to think rationally about maths and politics and so on, HENCE religion is rational.

If you haven't got anything stronger to come up with, I suggest you admit defeat .

I have declined to comment most of your wholly unsupported insinuations of what I supposedly mean (which, admittedly, has made up quite a bulk in your previous posts).

Admitting deafeat would require that we were actually in a battle. So far, neither of you have refuted my points. You've made up points that I never claimed and refuted those. *golf clap*

I never said relgion was rational either, so by that you're doing the same thing you accuse me of. SelfAdjoint did so as well in his previous post. You're both reading what you want to read to an extent.

*I* said you can't judge an individual's ability to use ration/logic by whether he's religious or scientific.

People CAN use religious techniques to achieve working results, it may be Indigenous Knowledge, but it works just as well as scientific knowledge, because logical/rational people know the effects and the causes, but they makeup the unprovable part, the "behind the scenes" (which is exactly what scientists do, if you read the paragraph below). And that's ok, because these 'behind the scense' are rather arbitrary anyway.

For a scientist, the emperical knowledge itself doesn't make intuitive sense unless they attach it to their personal experience somhow. This 'creative visualisation' may not be a correct model of reality (and it is indeed unique to each scientist if you take the tame to ask them) but it doesn't matter because it's arbitrary, just like in the case above.

NOTE: I'll repeat, I'm talking about specific cases of religious peopel, not ALL religious people. There are plenty of completely irrational religions and religious people. But you can't blanket it to all religions.

There's plenty of irrational scientists too.

 

[arildno]

So, your argument is:
There exist some irrational scientists, HENCE religion is rational?

There are plenty of completely irrational religions... But you can't blanket it to all religions.

Yes, you can. And you still haven't given any arguments against that.

 

[arildno]

*I* said you can't judge an individual's ability to use ration/logic by whether he's religious or scientific.

But it is, in fact, prudent to put those who have patently embraced irrational beliefs under stronger scrutiny than those who haven't before giving the judgment that the person is capable of using his reason properly in some other situations.

For example, I do not have a prima facie trust that a judge who is religious is objective in his valuation of evidence presented to him in a courtroom. Since he is confusing inner convictions with reasoned deliberation in one case (i.e, in his religious beliefs), why is it so improbable that he might do the same conceptual fallacy in a criminal case?
It is at least as probable at the outset that he will regard the testimonies of religious co-believers more favourably than the testimonies of non-believers.

 

[Hurkyl]

Are there objections to my assertion that rationalism, empiricism, and religon are not incompatable? I want to make sure that's settled before it gets lost amongst other discussion.

So, your argument is:
There exist some irrational scientists, HENCE religion is rational?

So, your argument is:
I can't be bothered to read your posts, so I'll just mischaracterize them?

Yes, you can. And you still haven't given any arguments against that.

So, your argument is:
Some religous people are irrational, so all religous people are irrational?

But it is, in fact, prudent to put those who have patently embraced irrational beliefs under stronger scrutiny than those who haven't before giving the judgment that the person is capable of using his reason properly in some other situations.

Um... isn't it most prudent to judge a person's capability to reason by observation of his reasoning ability?

Anyways, this is rather useless -- I don't think there are many strict rationalists these days, so your criterion for "stronger scrutiny" is satisfied by virtually everybody.

I suppose it's plausible that someone who believes in pure reason would be more capable of reasoning than someone who doesn't, such as a scientist, but do you really think it's a significant difference?

Oh wait, I notice the word "patently" -- are you suggesting someone who admits to his beliefs is more deserving of scrutiny than the person who tries to hide them?

Since he is confusing inner convictions with reasoned deliberation in one case

Now why would you think that?

It is at least as probable at the outset that he will regard the testimonies of religious co-believers more favourably than the testimonies of non-believers.

Is it? We're talking, after all, about a man who has been trained to disregard such biases.

Religion, of course, is a red herring anyways: the same could be argued for just about any method of grouping people. A scientist is probably somewhat predisposed to regarding other scientists favorable... and an evangelical atheist is probably somewhat predisposed to regard a theist unfavorably.

 

[Pythagorean]

But it is, in fact, prudent to put those who have patently embraced irrational beliefs under stronger scrutiny than those who haven't before giving the judgment that the person is capable of using his reason properly in some other situations.

For example, I do not have a prima facie trust that a judge who is religious is objective in his valuation of evidence presented to him in a courtroom. Since he is confusing inner convictions with reasoned deliberation in one case (i.e, in his religious beliefs), why is it so improbable that he might do the same conceptual fallacy in a criminal case?
It is at least as probable at the outset that he will regard the testimonies of religious co-believers more favourably than the testimonies of non-believers.

This is, again, a particular case, especially pertaining to Christianity in the U.S. Judicial system. I in no way ever supported "church and state". I do believe they should be separated in the U.S. I can't take my specific case (as a U.S. Citizen) and apply it to the general case like you do. I've been trained not (part of my academic, scientific training, none the less).

There are plenty of completely irrational religions... But you can't blanket it to all religions.

Yes, you can. And you still haven't given any arguments against that

.

Ok, you're right, you can, but it's not "prudent" to take specific cases and apply to them to general cases unless you have a large breadth of specific cases.

I'm under the impression I've seen a little more variety in religion than you, and I'd even go as far as to you say your scope is extremely limited.

And Taoism was one of my arguments against 'that'.

 

[arildno]

Taoism isn't a religion, it is a philosophical outlook. It finds plenty of evidence for its yin/yang division in the world, and is therefore a rational view, but not necessarily a scientifically useful perspective.

 

[Pythagorean]

Taoism isn't a religion, it is a philosophical outlook. It finds plenty of evidence for its yin/yang division in the world, and is therefore a rational view, but not necessarily a scientifically useful perspective.

if you want to disintegrate this into an argument over semantics, then you win for free. You could have pulled that one out a long time ago.

 

[arildno]

if you want to disintegrate this into an argument over semantics, then you win for free. You could have pulled that one out a long time ago.

Well, you were the one huffing and puffing over that attention to evidence wasn't necessary in order to be rational in your statements about the world.
I objected to that, until you admitted that religions proper should be regarded as irrational.
Then it was time to move onwards.

 

[Pythagorean]

Well, you were the one huffing and puffing over that attention to evidence wasn't necessary in order to be rational in your statements about the world.
I objected to that, until you admitted that religions proper should be regarded as irrational.
Then it was time to move onwards.

Looking back at the 'evidence' I'd say you were the one 'huffing and puffing' over evidence not being necissary in your statements 'about the world'.

All Hurkyl and I really did was tell you that you were making blatant assertions and that your posts are loaded with fallacies, and provided examples of where you're blanket assumption failed. We're not trying say 'you're wrong' and 'religion is right' and 'religion is better than science', we're just saying you're wrong

I understand that you can't handle being wrong, being an athiest and all. Arguing with you has been no different than arguing with my evangelical mother. I can only imagine you wiping the spit off your monitor after each post.

(that last part was just a little pokey-funny, teehehe)

 

[arildno]

Looking back at the 'evidence' I'd say you were the one 'huffing and puffing' over evidence not being necissary in your statements 'about the world'.

That's it, I've had enough of your irrelevant comments. Whatever are you talking about?

 

[selfAdjoint]

And that's enough for me. I am locking this thread.