Are you Religious?

[ZedNova]

I am religous. My church is http://www.venganza.org/

The church of the flying spaghetti monster. I am a believer. In fsm.

I loved the gospel of the FSM. Funny as heck.

[czokletmuss]

Do the Kerbals believe in a higher power?

In Kod, of course

I'm surprised by the very civil discussion as well. Which reminds of a very interesting debate which took place in Oxford's Museum of Natural Science - I was there once! - between professor Jonh Lenox - mathematician and philosopher of science - and Richard Dawkins - evolutionary biologist and leader of the new atheism movement. It is civil, sophisticated and quite deep, and both of them make very good points about the subject, which is science-religion issue.

If you are interested, you can find it here: http://youtu.be/J0UIbd0eLxw

Edit: About ethics and religion; in western civilisation the ethic (Greek philosophy) predates Christianity and Islam, so I don't find convincing argument that only believers can be moral. History teaches us, that both believers and nonbelievers can behave in a very noble or very evil way - we're all humans after all.

Edited April 26, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Britpoint]

No. Many of our current laws are inherited from Roman law, which really doesn't have much to do with Christian dogma.

To be fair, this is not what he said. He said "Religious texts", and there was plenty of religion before Christianity. I don't buy that his claim is accurate but there have been plenty of civilisations over the years where religious law was the law.

So basically, what you are saying is that Christians behave only because they are afraid of going to Hell. Without that fear, they would steal, lie, kill and rape. Ok, but that doesn't really make we want to be friends with any Christians.

I know quite a few atheists who are pretty decent people and who aren't afraid of going to Hell. You don't need fear to be a good person.

Again, not what was said. OK, he said religious people feared divine punishment, but he also acknowledged that atheists aren't inherently evil, and they are that way because they fear mortal punishment such as prison. Once more, I don't agree with the argument, but let's not misrepresent it. It is easy to see why people might assume that fear of punishment is the only reason we might behave in a moral manner, because there is that fear of punishment lingering over us. It's all very well saying "I would be good and moral if there was no law to force me," but it is hard to know for certain without living in a lawless society.

[llamatoes]

I am an Atheist, I tend to keep my religious beliefs to myself, unless someone else whips out theirs, at which point I will happily provide a counter argument.

I am pretty good on the subject on religion, I usually come top of the class in RE tests.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

I suppose i am religious, there's a baby Jesus statue in the hallway that we (my family) all give a kiss to if someone goes out, so i guess i am an idol-worshipper as well! I carry a picture of the virgin Mary who i love very much but sadly i fail her all too often, i'm not really worthy, these things are symbolic to me too, even if these Gods turn out not to be the ones that exist and God is something or someone else entirely i am still confident my intentions will be taken into consideration, and i won't be thought of too badly for praying at the wrong altar.

With regard to science it's been nothing but a great boon for me, it's put glasses on my face and everytihng else we have is due to clever people making clever things, it's never threatened my faith because i don't have faith, i have hope, it's a bit different, and i absolutely love Kerbal Space Program, it is awe-inducing indeed.

Edit* oh and much like others here have mentioned, i keep my religious beliefs to myself unless asked about them.

[K^2]

It depends what you mean. There are clear contradictions between science and practically every established religion and the claims they make. Although there isn't inherently a contradiction between science and the vague notion of a deity (although within science a deity is unnecessary and completely unsupported).

Science does not make any claims that religion would refute. They have fundamentally different purposes, giving rise to fundamentally different questions, and taking fundamentally different approaches to how these should be answered. There is zero overlap between real science and anything that can be called religion.

Evolution is frequently a hot topic, primarily because some number of religious people and a lot of science "fans" have gotten into their head that it somehow contradicts religious statement on origin of the world. I can see where they got that idea, but I really don't understand why nobody has set them straight yet.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the world was created five minutes ago by some omnipotent (or close enough) being. It was created exactly as you remember it being five minutes ago, with all the things in the world, all the memories of every person, every letter in every book, and untold numbers of photons already on the way from distant stars that did not actually exist when these photons were due to depart. Now suppose that the world was created to obey certain laws, and to make the picture complete, it was made to be consistent with these laws if you extrapolate back to before the creation. Could you tell the difference from the world that existed all that time? Not if the creator knew what he was doing. So can you then, for example, use the carbon dating techniques to date a historic artifact? Sure thing. That artifact might not have existed more than five minutes, but you can learn useful information from it by simply ignoring that fact and talking about it being carved from wood some hundreds of years ago. And once you establish that, you can make predictions of the sort of tools that would be used, and maybe look for them at the same site. This is useful information despite your entire conclusion being wrong based simply on the fact that the universe appears to follow certain rules and it appears to have followed them in the past.

This is the point of science. To make useful predictions. It's not about figuring out what actually happened. Or how things actually work. That's not what science does. A lot of people are confused on this point. Science simply does not answer the "why" questions. We make an assumption that there is some sort of objective reality. We assume there is some correlation between that and our observations. From that we extrapolate models of the world. And all we care about is that these models make useful predictions. If they do, we call them scientific theories. It is ok if these theories are wrong. We already know that Newtonian Mechanics is flat out wrong. Doesn't stop us from using it. We know that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible, so at least one of these is wrong, and that doesn't stop us from making major breakthroughs either. It's entirely ok for a theory to be wrong. In fact, we simply don't care about the truth of it. Just whether it's useful.

So it is with evolution and the Big Bang theories. They give us valuable predictions. They are genuine theories and they work. None of that depends on whether the universe has been around for over 13 billion years, 6,000, or five minutes. You can believe either one of these and still make use of any theory that contradicts it, just like I know that gravity is not some force that scales as MG/r², but I still can use that formula to make very real predictions for trajectories of asteroids and comets.

Now, personally, I don't feel a need to believe in something, so I don't hold to any religion. But some people do. And they can believe what they want. No amount of science can possibly contradict any kind of belief. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite go the other way. It's entirely possible to hold belief that science is something other than it really is, and consequently believe that it's somehow a threat to your other beliefs. I'm not entirely certain what to do about that.

Edited April 26, 2013 by K^2

[Aladran]

This describe best what I am : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

Can't prove, if there is a god or not, so next question.

[TerrificToby]

Religion kinda, to me, signifies belief without need for a proof. I could write essays on my religious views (which tend to be a bit off-the-beaten path). But if you want to reconcile religion and science, I say look at all those subatomic particles: They work in some way, and form the building blocks of everything in our universe. But why do they work the way they do? Ultimately, I think a higher power (God, Buddha, Jehova, What have you) is responsible for the design of how the universe works, and then has let the universe take its course. Deism in a way, I guess.

exactly that with me.

[Relick]

No, and I don't have time to write why religion is silly, and why deism is silly. If someone wants to know I'll explain.

[Gniuz]

I'm going to hell.

Drugs, Hookers and Rock 'n' Roll

Me and satan are gonna have a party.

[Latcarf]

I'm going to hell.

Drugs, Hookers and Rock 'n' Roll

Me and satan are gonna have a party.

Straight up, OFWG

[Gniuz]

Just trying to lighten the mood a bit. It's all got a bit to serious.

Should never talk about religion or politics.........especially when drunk

Edited April 26, 2013 by Gniuz

[RearAdm1ralD00M]

I'm a Christian, but I don't consider myself religious because that implies a man-made institution set on controlling people and keeping them stupid. I'm also fairly well-educated on many scientific topics and do not immediately discredit science as "HERESY!" If a scientific theory conflicts with my beliefs in a way that cannot be resolved, I merely respectfully disagree with it. I don't call the person who took the time out of their life to study, analyze, and formulate that theory a blasphemer, but I respectfully disagree with them and go on with my life.

Example: I believe in intelligent design, but respect other peoples' right to believe evolution, creationism, or the belief that all life is some form of pasta (I'm looking at YOU pastafarians!) I don't Bible-thump those people, I just respectfully disagree.

Also, I used to be an Atheist. Careful examination of the Universe and all it's grand complexities guided me to the belief that everything is just too darn complicated to have gotten there by accident. Also, I agree with K^2's post entirely.

[Tiberion]

Gniuz: You're pretty much the the only person in the thread that is being directly disrespectful to other people. You should stop if you don't want to contribute anything other than sarcasm. Go fly a rocket.

I am also a Christian and a Baptist, and I often find myself at odds with the so-called "official" stances of my religion as much as I do anti-theists.

In fact, I find both people "who deny evolution and insist the Earth is only a few thousand years old" to be the other side of the coin of the people "who claim God simply cannot exist and that science has somehow definitively proven that that the creation of the Universe and the ordering of the laws that govern it were somehow the result of a random "bang" and everything is purely coincidental. "

Basically, they have locked themselves into a very narrow view of the Universe and insist it must be the one and only way. And the end result is that those two people with identical but opposite mindsets end up bickering endlessly. But, as it true with virtually anything, the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle of the extremes. Evolution and Creationism are not mutually exclusive ideas, and science and religion are two instruments we used to define the unknown (and perhaps unknowable)

I look at the vastness of the Universe, the complexity of the things that happen all around us every day, and just how different humans are from all other known life, and I find it impossible to believe there is NOT a God. And then I find it easy to have faith.

And in the end, we're all making faith-based decisions on the subject of a Deity. Belief without proof. Even with atheists are faithfully declaring that they don't believe, because you can no more prove there is a God than there isn't.

We are all people of faith in the end.

[Person012345]

Science does not make any claims that religion would refute. They have fundamentally different purposes, giving rise to fundamentally different questions, and taking fundamentally different approaches to how these should be answered. There is zero overlap between real science and anything that can be called religion.

Religion never "refutes" anything.

This is not a good start to a reply to my post. Because you know what? Most religions DO make scientifically disprovable claims. And those claims then get disproven. That is a contradiction between science and a specific religion. Which is what I said.

Evolution is frequently a hot topic, primarily because some number of religious people and a lot of science "fans" have gotten into their head that it somehow contradicts religious statement on origin of the world. I can see where they got that idea, but I really don't understand why nobody has set them straight yet.

So apparently you know everyone else's religious beliefs better than they do?

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the world was created five minutes ago by some omnipotent (or close enough) being. It was created exactly as you remember it being five minutes ago, with all the things in the world, all the memories of every person, every letter in every book, and untold numbers of photons already on the way from distant stars that did not actually exist when these photons were due to depart. Now suppose that the world was created to obey certain laws, and to make the picture complete, it was made to be consistent with these laws if you extrapolate back to before the creation. Could you tell the difference from the world that existed all that time? Not if the creator knew what he was doing. So can you then, for example, use the carbon dating techniques to date a historic artifact? Sure thing. That artifact might not have existed more than five minutes, but you can learn useful information from it by simply ignoring that fact and talking about it being carved from wood some hundreds of years ago. And once you establish that, you can make predictions of the sort of tools that would be used, and maybe look for them at the same site. This is useful information despite your entire conclusion being wrong based simply on the fact that the universe appears to follow certain rules and it appears to have followed them in the past.

That is correct. It is true that it's quite possible that the world was created 5 minutes ago. The reason science essentially ignores that is that if it was created exactly as it is now, with all the signs of age, it's practically useless to us to assume it was created 5 minutes ago, and that is unfalsifyable.

That is fundamentally different from a god that heals the sick when prayed for, for example. That is a testable claim.

This is the point of science. To make useful predictions. It's not about figuring out what actually happened. Or how things actually work. That's not what science does. A lot of people are confused on this point. Science simply does not answer the "why" questions. We make an assumption that there is some sort of objective reality. We assume there is some correlation between that and our observations. From that we extrapolate models of the world. And all we care about is that these models make useful predictions. If they do, we call them scientific theories. It is ok if these theories are wrong. We already know that Newtonian Mechanics is flat out wrong. Doesn't stop us from using it. We know that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible, so at least one of these is wrong, and that doesn't stop us from making major breakthroughs either. It's entirely ok for a theory to be wrong. In fact, we simply don't care about the truth of it. Just whether it's useful.

I alluded to this above, however, it's not entirely factual. Getting to the truth is the BEST way of making useful predictions. Understanding the reality we live in is the most effective way of predicting how it behaves. Old theories get replaced as new ones come along. Sure, newtonian gravity may still be used for certain applications because it's good enough and is simpler. But afaik it is in all aspects inferior to general relativity. There's no thing that is better predicted by newtonian gravity than by GR. I'm not sure how the relationship between GR and quantum mechanics is so I won't comment (but I don't think we have a properly formulated theory for QM gravity yet).

So it is with evolution and the Big Bang theories. They give us valuable predictions. They are genuine theories and they work. None of that depends on whether the universe has been around for over 13 billion years, 6,000, or five minutes. You can believe either one of these and still make use of any theory that contradicts it, just like I know that gravity is not some force that scales as MG/r², but I still can use that formula to make very real predictions for trajectories of asteroids and comets.

Which is of course irrelevant to my actual post.

Now, personally, I don't feel a need to believe in something, so I don't hold to any religion. But some people do. And they can believe what they want. No amount of science can possibly contradict any kind of belief. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite go the other way. It's entirely possible to hold belief that science is something other than it really is, and consequently believe that it's somehow a threat to your other beliefs. I'm not entirely certain what to do about that.

So you think someone who claims that the world was made in 7 days, around 6000 years ago and DOESN'T claim any sort of celestial jiggery pokery to make it look like it does now, who just straight up says that god made the world, in this reality, 6000 years ago in 7 days, is not in conflict with the scientific evidence?

[SolarLiner]

I am religious. In a religion where the Big Bang has made the whole universe, where the Sun said "Fiat Lux!" and an Ozone layer is protecting us. For who do I pray ? I am ploytheist: Newton, Planck, etc etc ...

[Gniuz]

How have I been disrespectful to anyone?

I haven't been offensive, I haven't discredited any ones view of GOD as rubbish. I haven't swore at any one. In fact all I've done is try to be light hearted about a subject that is completely based on opinion in every aspect.

If you are offended by my sarcasm I am sorry, but this whole thread is offensive and to be honest I really don't think the mods should have let it go on this long.

G.

[Capt'n Skunky]

There's a reason we don't allow religion and political discussion on these forums. There are hundreds of other sites that will welcome it but we are not one. They always devolve into slagfests whether intentional or not.

Sorry, but this one is locked.

Cheers!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager