On 9/5/2011 12:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 05.09.2011 07:59 Stathis Papaioannou said the following:
On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru>
wrote:
Hence you could take the existence of people in the USA who
"believe in an immaterial spirit, distinct from brain
processes" positively. After all, they are working hard and
contribute to prosperity.
In any case, I do not think that the ideology should affect
reasoning.
It does affect reasoning, that's the problem. A religious person
usually can't say what evidence would make them change their
religious views, because they are views they hold without
evidence.
A dialog from lectures of Prof Hoenen:
A physicist comes to a theologian: "You know, I have checked
everything from an elementary particle to the Universe. God does
not exist, as I have not found him."
A theologian: "You have done your job well. I would be really
surprised if you could find the God."
Insofar as religion makes no predictions about the world it cannot
be proved or disproved. But when it does make predictions, for
example that the Earth is 6000 years old, usually believers cannot
say what evidence they would accept that this belief of theirs is
wrong.
Religion is based on beliefs and it says it explicitly. Many of your statements are also
based on your beliefs. The difference is that you do not want to list your beliefs
explicitly.
That's the problem with religion - it's based on beliefs. Science is based on evidence,
which changes; so there is no such thing as "what science *believes*".
Do not also forget what what Bruno says about theology. I
personally agree with him because as long as we leave the empirical
basis, we start using our beliefs.
Finally imagine that you are a boss of a company. Could you be
successful if you believe that everything is determined by the
initial conditions of the Universe?
Yes, of course, it shouldn't influence your decisions at all.
This statement is a good example of a belief, as you cannot prove it empirically.
As a normative statement it's not even empirical. But probably Stathis also meant that
some bosses successfully run companies while also believing that the universe is
deterministic (and that others run companies thinking that some things are random and
still others that there is libertarian free-will, either human and/or divine). It might
be interesting to survey a sample of successful businessmen, but one problem I forsee is
that they will likely not have any well defined opinion on the question. When surveyed
about religion there are plenty of successful businessmen who are not religious: Richard
Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Wozniak, Warren Buffet. But when asked about religion
they say things like, "I'm an agnostic or an atheist. I'm not sure what the difference
is." Businessmen natrually tend to think about business, not philosophy.
Brent
You cannot employ it for predictions as well. Hence what is the difference with a belief
in the God?
Evgenii
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
