One popular chain of reasoning amongst us ex-Mormons goes like this:

*************

1.) Science and religion are irreconcilable enemies;

2.) In the future, humanity will increasingly accept (1);

3.) Science is clearly superior to religion in yielding information about the world;

4.) In the future, humanity will increasingly accept (3);

5.) In the future, as a result of (4), humanity will increasingly choose science and reject religion;

6.) As a result of (5), science and reason will flood the globe at the expense of religion, which will dwindle and eventually disappear.

*************

Like most sets of untrue beliefs about the world, including Mormonism, this one does have a contact point with reality: (3) is unquestionably true. The problem is with the rest of it - especially with (5) and (6). Regarding those two points in particular, the scientific evidence (in the form of carefully gathered and collated demographic data from various sources around the world), is devastating and clear: (5) and (6) are almost certainly false.

For those interested in investigating this further, the most rigorous summary and analysis of the data I have found is in a book called "Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?", by University of London political scientist and demographer Eric Kaufmann. For those uninterested in three hundred page books on demography, here is a link to a lecture by Kaufmann going over the data: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYEyv5a_3LM . It is well worth watching for anyone interested in religion and society.

Good luck in your intellectual journey.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 02:49AM by Tal Bachman.

I'll bite.

"secular humanism is the abominable church" not my idea.
Secular polygamy. Just an idea.
Nvm. "Counterfeit family." Problem solved.

Thx for sharing. I'll reflect on using birth control. "if we can't kill them out we breed them out." Ergo secular polygamy. Not my idea. Just an idea.

I'm fine with the counterfeit family. Thx to a counterfeit culture, I have a counterfeit family. I love mine.

Hugs to my sentient apes out there. Believers or not.

As I understand it, secular humanism is a philosophy, not a church.

agree it's not a church.

Or shall they inhibit it?

"If the meek are to inherit the earth, What's going to happen to all the tigers?"

Grrr....

Haha...reading your comment made the lyrics "And the meek shall inherit the earth" from RUSH's 2112 pop to mind. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2112_%28song%29

faith == believe ideas are true despite there not being any evidence and often when there is evidence against the idea.

science == Does not accept an idea as true if there is no evidence to support it, abandons ideas that have evidence against it.

Mutually exclusive concepts./

MJ - As Sam Harris notes, many religions are not creedal at all. This is one reason why Harris champions the religion of Buddhism - which he clearly views as fully compatible with science.

Wake up, will ya?

“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”


― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

Kismet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> “If scientific analysis were conclusively to
> demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be
> false, then we must accept the findings of science
> and abandon those claims.”
>
>
> ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom:
> The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

That's more rational than the stance taken by most religious leaders, but it's still only halfway there.

When a Dalai Lama states that Buddhists shouldn't accept any claims (supernatural or other) until there's evidence to show them *correct,* then he'll be "compatible with science." Until then, the "I'm going to believe this stuff unless science can prove it false" is still fallacious and non-compatible with the scientific method. No matter what Sam Harris says :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 03:20PM by ificouldhietokolob.

you can't demonstrate to yourself to be true.
In other words, belief is not required.

BadGirl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> you can't demonstrate to yourself to be true.

Um...if you mean I can't demonstrate that I exist, sure I can. Quite easily, actually.

> In other words, belief is not required.

In Buddhism? Sure it is:

"The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the "four noble truths": existence is suffering ( dukhka ); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment ( trishna ); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the "eightfold path" of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration."

None of those "noble truths" is a demonstrable fact, and all require "belief."

Other than the concept "Buddhism doesn't require you to believe anything you can't demonstrate to yourself to be true, eh?" You obviously believe that to be true of Buddhism, but how can you actually demonstrate that to be true? I know that Buddha made such a claim, but is it a true claim of the Buddhist faith? How can you demonstrate that the Buddhist faith is true? If it is not a "faith", why call it a religion?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2015 05:18AM by MJ.

http://www.samharris.org/index_dev.php/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha

I think Sam Harris makes some distinctions between the religion of buddhism and the ideas of buddhism.

Great, thingsIthink and MJ - then let's change it to, "Sam Harris thinks the ideas of Buddhism are compatible with science". Are you happy now?

Did you even read my post? What is it with you guys?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 02:50AM by Tal Bachman.

Buddhism, faith that Buddha's teaching should be made into a religion in contradiction to Buddha"s teaching.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Clearly Buddha discredits the use of faith, which is what my point was about.

I think Buddha is great, but to make a dogmatic religion based on his teaching when he, himself, warns against it, is rather silly and makes something that should stand on its own without the use of faith and limits it to dogma by the use of faith.

BTW, if you want to make a compelling and convincing argument, you need to do better than "Sam Harris said". Unlike you, I do not take it on faith that Sam Harris is right.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2015 10:46PM by MJ.

MJ - Though you seem not to have noticed, I have written tens of thousands of words on this topic over the past decade on here, and made dozens of recommendations to works of science on the topic of religion, and myself made cited many evidences in support of everything I've said. In all that, I've quoted Sam Harris in support precisely once.

There is a towering, gargantuan forest behind the minute twig you've so proudly noticed. Why don't you familiarize yourself with it?

So you have written a lot and quoted people, that does NOT make your right, nor does it mean it addresses the points that I have made.

Dismissing something as "a minute twig" without addressing it, to me, is an admission that you can not actually address what I have said. It is often the details, the so called minute twigs, that prove great claims to be total BS. I have familiarized myself with it, that is why I point out that minute twig that you ignore in order to hold your claims to be true.

Just claiming over and over that you have quoted someone's OPINION that I do not always agree with does not make you right. The fact that you try to dismiss my point, without actually addressing it, tells me that you are unable to actually address it.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2015 05:29AM by MJ.

And what, pray tell, does "inherit the earth" mean? If it's some fuzzy mush about descendants in perpetuity, then bacteria inherited it at least 3.5 billion years ago. They'll be around long after our species has annihilated itself along with all other megafauna.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 02:32AM by Void K. Packer.

Tal Bachman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One popular chain of reasoning amongst us
> ex-Mormons goes like this:
>
> *************
>
> 1.) Science and religion are irreconcilable
> enemies;
>
> 2.) In the future, humanity will increasingly
> accept (1);
>
> 3.) Science is clearly superior to religion in
> yielding information about the world;
>
> 4.) In the future, humanity will increasingly
> accept (3);
>
> 5.) In the future, as a result of (4), humanity
> will increasingly choose science and reject
> religion;
>
> 6.) As a result of (5), science and reason will
> flood the globe at the expense of religion, which
> will dwindle and eventually disappear.


Is that YOUR chain of reasoning?
It's not mine.
And I don't know anyone who espouses it.
Which, of course, makes me highly skeptical of your claim that it's "popular."
Got any facts to back that claim of popularity up?

I think insects will inherit the earth, until the sun goes nova and it gets just too hot.

The MAD will inherit the Earth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJnMQG9ev8

Science deals with the real outer world. Religion deals with the imaginary inner world. The problems the world face today are that it gives higher value to the real world than the imaginary world and that it regards the two as conflicting (your post) instead of complementary.

However, we live in a complex world. It takes both real and imaginary parts to have a meaningful life. The process of birth or death may be like multiplying yourself by (-i), flipping the emphasis of the two components. But that's just me musing.

Love comes from the inner world (i), but it's the only thing that's really real. It only becomes obviously real outside this photo-negative existence.

Science is finding that separating intention from causality isn't as cut and dried as we've been led to believe. We like to poo-poo Mormonism for blurring the lines, but I give credit where credit is due. Mormonism is crap for completely different reasons.

Edit: Okay, I forced myself to watch the video. I think there's a strong correlation between religious fundamentalism and ignorance. Huge numbers of ignorant people will remain mired in the third world, so they are basically irrelevant to the world at large. If you're talking fundies at home, they do grow up like tares among the wheat. These people aren't the educated movers and shakers. In the US, they are mortgage paying, heavily leveraged wage slaves. Again, irrelevant. Sorry if that sounds callous. Human value doesn't come from breeding. It comes from education and self actualization.

An interesting point he makes is that religious radicalization is a response to secular radicalization. If you try to marginalize the fundamentalists, it's like cutting arms off a hydra. They just grow back double.

Basically, the religious will live on the earth. They won't inherit it. Fundamentalism will continue to be a nagging social problem until modern society learns to dissipate it by accommodating it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2015 04:59AM by bradley.

I think religion is doomed for one simple reason - it offers no solutions to real world problems except the following:

Accept suffering on the promise things will be better when you are dead and also don't fear death.

What happens when science finally allows us to cheat death? Every day science is eliminating real world suffering by overcoming real world problems. Religion offers exactly the same solution today it offered 2k years ago and more. Tomorrow science will find new fixes to real world problems, and religion will still only offer the same solution.

Religion is dead, it just doesn't know it yet.