Convert Me Challenge

[adogablog]

Hi everyone!

This is my first time in this community so I hope my post is acceptable. My question must have been asked before but hopefully not in quite the same way. Anyway, I'm really excited to see what kind of answers I get since this is a subject that has really been bugging me lately, since I moved from a not-very-religious city to a town full

Comments

[adogablog]

This is just the response I was looking for! It made me think. Neat. There is a lot to respond to here, I'll try to keep this succinct and focus on the most important arguments.

First, you’re definitely correct that the scientific method and deductive reasoning are different things. I was trying to sum up the sort of thought process I use by terming it scientific methodology which was a poor choice of words. Basically I was just describing the thought processes I consider to be logical.

As to what scientific methodology can and cannot cover, it is quite possible to use scientific methods to test psychological behaviors, and just because something is unpredictable does not mean science cannot explain it - take climate, for example. We can predict the behavior of simpler life forms and can predict human behavior up to a certain point, beyond which I believe there is still a scientific explanation, we just haven’t got that far yet. As for the arts, we know there are creative parts of the brain that allow us to create art - the research in brain plasticity reveals a lot here. If you are referring to what we do or do not find beautiful, I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for that as well, depending on the makeup of each individuals brain chemistry. Science determines so many other aspects of human behavior, including one’s personality in his/her genetic makeup, I can’t see why it would not determine what we find beautiful as well. Perhaps it is similar to taste or smell - before we knew how those senses worked, I am sure those preferences seemed just as mysterious.

Strictly speaking, perhaps we cannot run an experiment using the scientific method on what we find beautiful (but then why not? With the funding, we could expose hundreds of people to the same work of art and compare their response to their individual brain chemistry, the limiting factor here being our very limited understanding of the brain). Not just beauty but anything - just because we don’t have the ability to run a scientific experiment does not mean there is not a scientific explanation. If we don’t have the means to test a hypothesis, we can still use deductive reasoning and Occam’s razor, which are far inferior methods. But my main point is that despite the limitations of these approaches, I see no equally justifiable alternatives, and to use religion or “God” to explain the unexplainable still seems completely absurd, in my humble opinion.

I find the Occam’s razor thing to be the weakest argument - why can’t something complex be correct over a simpler argument? But I suppose when given two options, the simpler is usually the most plausible. That said, your exemplary statement in no way sways me, since I see the statement “God made the universe” to be enormously complicated, you just phrased it very simply.

Lastly, regarding the document verification, it is obvious that humans wrote all the holy books, I mean, is this really something we would need to test scientifically? I didn't think this was disputed in any religion. I don’t deny that Jesus’s disciples wrote the bible (or whoever it was - I don’t know much about what is written in the holy books, since the content itself would make no difference to me). My main issue is the huge jump from a human writing the books to human revelation from God inspiring the content of these books. It's completely ridiculous.

This was longer than I intended…at the risk of a never-ending debate over semantics, I am most interested in this last point. In the event you still care enough to respond, I would appreciate your defense of something closer to the real argument here - the existence of a deity, or a direct reason to consider a book - any book - to be holy.

(edited for typos :)