Comments on: Religion, space, and the power of cultural connections

By: Ernest Valdemar

Ernest Valdemar — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Let’s step back here a second, beyond issues of “compatibility.” All people hold all kinds of incompatible beliefs, all the time. It’s one of the things our brains can and will do. The question of compatibility is an “ought,” not an “is.” In other words, holding incompatible beliefs is a moral/ethical question and not an ontological or epistemological question. Or, as I put when confronted at the bar at closing time, “People believe all kinds of crazy crap.”

Yes, it’s true that many committed Christians have no problems with modern science. It’s also true that many committed Christians have no problems with ghosts and hauntings. Both ideas are incompatible with traditional Christianity, but that’s not really a problem for the human brain. Likewise (as recent Internet dust-ups have shown), many committed Atheists hold views about human social institutions that have no rational basis, but are simply a reflection of how one was socialized as an adolescent.

Before you can uniformly condemn people for holding incompatible beliefs, you first have to show that holding incompatible beliefs is somehow a “bad thing.” AFAICT, it’s simply a “thing,” it’s something people do, part of human nature.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:35:00 +0000

No, Russian Orthodoxy doesn’t have the crazy literalist, anti-science bent that fundamentalist protestants in the US have.

But the Russian Orthodox church has an unhealthy closeness to the Putin regime. Both institutions aid the other. Currently Russian Orthodox is recognized as the preeminent religion. Catholics, Jesuits, and others have severe restrictions.

Russia would be a paradise for US fundamentalists (uh, if they practiced Russian Orthodoxy) in terms of the preferences afforded the majoritarian religion.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:37:00 +0000

…but the RCC and the ROC are branches of the same religion. Red Team or Blue Team, they all play the same game come the weekend. I believe the ROC favored burning uncooperatives at the stake.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Can’t follow that. Science is concerned with how things work and why things work that way. We don’t just observe and record data, we also search to define the underlying laws of physics that create those data points. That is the “why” of science. Why do we have an appendix? Why is the sky blue? Why do some spiders eat their mates?

Religion seems more concerned with why things happen the way they don’t. Why does the sun revolve around the Earth? Why did God put fake fossils in stone?

The mechanics of how we came to be tells us exactly why we’re here. We’re here because we got lucky. Among all the other physical, chemical, biological, and evolutionary throws of the dice, we’re one of the few that didn’t fail, yet. If that leaves you wanting a better explanation, why don’t you ask the same thing of every customer who leaves a casino richer than they arrived. Most lose; a few win. It’s just chance.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:59:00 +0000

Ipo hit it. It’s all about balance. The Mafia sometimes helped protect their neighborhoods from petty crime. It didn’t outweigh their immoral acts and organized criminal enterprises. Religion has done some good, but compared to the suffering it has caused, the good pales.

By: Quiche de Resistance

Quiche de Resistance — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:10:00 +0000

Godel was definitely not ALL about math. Many are not aware of his other unfinished proof, using modal logic to prove that God exists given the existence of big booty white girls. (sounds a bit racist I know, but dude grew up in eastern Europe, that’s what he had access to.)

By: Scott Wood

Scott Wood — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:28:00 +0000

But of course, we’re not goldfish.

By: Scott Wood

Scott Wood — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:25:00 +0000

I’ll do it for Reggie.

By: Quiche de Resistance

Quiche de Resistance — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:53:00 +0000

Heng, what if one system of beliefs leads to creation of the big bang theory, or the pioneering of genetics?

By: Maj Variola

Maj Variola — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:09:00 +0000

I only read this because I thought this was about RMS.

By: Dan Hibiki

Dan Hibiki — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:29:00 +0000

Why else do you think the pope has his own astronomer?

Can’t let the mormons get e’m first.

By: Felton / Moderator

Felton / Moderator — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:50:00 +0000

That certainly gives “space mission” a whole new meaning.

By: Dan Hibiki

Dan Hibiki — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:18:00 +0000

That’s because they want to be the first to find aliens and convert them to christianity.

By: Ipo

Ipo — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:23:00 +0000

He might not had set out to prove you wrong.
Diogenes pointed out that the imbalance between the Good and the Bad, achieved by religion, is blatant.

By: heng

heng — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:53:00 +0000

I understand that in terms of consequences, there’s a gulf of difference between simple belief in god and being a nut-job fundamentalist. However, I still can’t see any qualitative difference between one set of beliefs without evidence and another set. The fact that one leads to bombing infidels and the other to afternoon tea with the vicar is a testament to the malleability of human nature, not the validity of the beliefs.

By: atimoshenko

atimoshenko — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 09:05:00 +0000

Yeah but they all still believe that divine revelation is a valid epistemological process, and that demanding veneration can, at least on some occasion, be ethical.

Not to mention that they only way religion can be reconciled with the modern world is by ignoring religious teachings that are no longer reconcilable. And the older the religion, the greater the number of teachings that must be ignored.

The human ability to compartmentalise contradictory beliefs does indeed make it possible for very many smart people to be religious. The more difficult claim to justify is that religion, especially over the last 200-or-so years, has delivered anything of worth.

By: MertvayaRuka

MertvayaRuka — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:37:00 +0000

They don’t have time for anti-science backlash, they’re too busy stirring up anti-LGBT thugs.

http://www.polarimagazine.com/editorial/literal-russian-attack-gay-rights/

By: robuluz

robuluz — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:24:00 +0000

@boingboing-7eb3c8be3d411e8ebfab08eba5f49632:disqus Our subjective experience is constructed emotionally and rationalised after the fact. Objectively this can be understood rationally, but for many of us the language of symbolism and mysticism is the most satisfying way to resolve the paradox of being.

By: bzishi

bzishi — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:10:00 +0000

Why would you think emotions are irrational?

By: robuluz

robuluz — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:45:00 +0000

You could start with this guy.

By: robuluz

robuluz — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:42:00 +0000

“Science and religion are by their very natures in conflict.”

Or else Science and religion are by their very natures complementary.

By: audax_axon

audax_axon — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:47:00 +0000

… at the risk of identifying myself as a huge dork, I hope I’m not the only one whose first thoughts on seeing this image were Warhammer 40K!!!

By: robuluz

robuluz — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:37:00 +0000

You make the mistake of thinking you are a rational being. You are not. You are an emotional being with a capacity for rational thought.

Ignore the non-rational nature of your inner world at your peril.

By: mottel

mottel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 03:26:00 +0000

In a conversation I had once with a physicist at JPL, he told me that in his anecdotal observation, people involved with the study of Space were far more likely to believe in G-d. (Interestingly, he found that almost all of the geneticist he’d met were atheists.)

By: Daneel

Daneel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 03:05:00 +0000

Sorry to disappoint, but read the article, didn’t get that idea. Just some statements from people who were religious before they went into space, indicating that it hadn’t changed their minds.

Anyway, don’t put words into my mouth – where exactly did I claim that anyone who is religious is my intellectual inferior?

I know that plenty of smart people are religious, I just don’t understand how they can be.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 02:49:00 +0000

“Ding!” says this atheist.

Look, I fully believe the some people use “but it’s my beliefs” as an attempt to condone severe bullshit that harms other people and makes life on this planet worse.

But that doesn’t describe all religion or all religious people. And, at a certain point, if your beliefs make you act better towards your fellow man and if they help you get through the messiness that is life and if they don’t force you to infringe on my rights … I DO NOT CARE. I’m not going to give them special authority or say that they’re better people because they believe in stuff that I don’t see any reason why you’d think it exists.

But I also don’t feel the need to write them off or scream at them about how stupid they are or discount any value that they provide to society. And I think (in general, for everybody) it’s valuable to know that people you respect don’t think exactly the same way you do. That’s how we learn to get along in this life.

Seriously, you guys. You guys, seriously.

By: Rob Knop

Rob Knop — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:54:00 +0000

You might get the idea that since there are people who you would otherwise have respected who aren’t atheists, that perhaps your idea that anybody who isn’t an atheist is your intellectual inferior is a flawed notion that bears reexamination.

By: Rob Knop

Rob Knop — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:51:00 +0000

You aren’t arguing against religion, you’re arguing against extreme fundamentalist religion. You’re making the same mistake that so many of the antitheists make of thinking that the only real religion out there is the fundamentalist variety.

There are LOTS of those who regularly attend church and who completely accept the evidence for evolution. There are LOTS of those who regularly attend church and who are open homosexuals, or heterosexuals who are accepting of same. There are LOTS Of those who regularly attend church who believe that men and women are equals. What you’re portraying as religion does exist, but is not what *religion* is.

By: Dignan

Dignan — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Thanks, I wanted to say exactly this. Science and religion are absolutely in conflict at their very foundations! Religion is all about received knowledge; the truth is given to you from religious authority and you must believe it . Science is all about questioning and discovery; you begin with the search for knowledge and continually test reality to discover what is actually true.

They could not be more opposed. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an accommodationist or just doesn’t understand the basis of science. Of course, I know Maggie does understand science, so I am disappointed.

By: bzishi

bzishi — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:01:00 +0000

@Mister44:disqus I agree. I have many irrational fears and beliefs. I know, for example, that I am about 100,000 times larger (or more) than most spiders. But my mind says I’ll die if they even touch me. I have experienced psychosis before (I felt my friend was going to murder me). And I suffer from OCD (I will drive back and forth across town to check that my garage door is shut) as well as other mental disorders.

Many of my fears and beliefs are due to mental illness. And I have had to confront them and challenge my beliefs. The way that I see myself and the world is not the same as what most people do. I would hope that others in a more sane mental state could do so with greater ease.