My Beliefs- GDR

There are things we know and things we believe. I know that right now it is sunny and I believe that tomorrow it's going to rain. My Christianity is a belief.

Well yes, exactly. It's been shown to be wrong over and over. It's got to the point where there's very little left to be wrong about. And you'd be bang on right.But it has absolutely nothing to do with god and everything to do with reality. Religions and believers have been able to tell us nothing new about god for thousands of years. Science is informing us everyday about what's real.Stick around, we're building a brain:
Why we're building a 1 billion model of a human brain | New Scientist

I use objective evidence as to how these things came to be. I’m talking about the root cause of why these things came to be which is an entirely different question. As you agree you can’t objectively know that God does not exist. We know I can’t establish as a fact that God exists with what we currently know. In actuality I’m much more interested in what it means to my life if He does exist as opposed to what He has done. You keep making that claim. I do not deny that there is an evolutionary history for things like altruism. I merely pointed out that I did think that one of the proposals was logically consistent and I actually gave another possibility for how altruism could have evolved naturally that seemed more likely to me from a commonsense POV.Incidentally, I have ordered Miller’s book. I didn’t see any statement of science of his that I disagreed with. I am not saying that God can’t be found in religion but we know that no religion has everything right. Look at the wide varieties of belief within Christianity. I am a committed Christian and Faith thinks I’m a heretic. God, IMHO, is a constant whereas religions evolve in their understanding of the nature of God.

I don't consider that to be a good analogy. While we may not 'know' when it might rain, we have various predictive models regarding weather patterns and events. And ultimately, when it starts raining, the belief moves to knowledge. But you asserted that belief in god or in a form of Christianity essentially indicates that belief can never become knowledge? Is that what you are stating?

Probably not the greatest analogy but still regardless of the forecast I can’t know that it will rain tomorrow. I am of the opinion that it will never become knowledge but who knows what science might uncover. I wouldn't rule out that possibility.Just the same though, although it isn't knowledge, I am very confident of the basics of my Christian faith although I am less confident of my beliefs when it comes to the details.

No you don't when you kept making statements about your subjective conclusions in regards to altruism when we kept telling you there is a perfectly good evolutionary account of altruism.You can re-read your posts. And when we look into how these 'things' came to be, like altruism, mammals, the planets, the solar system, the sun, we see natural processes at work. It is the same question.The only thing you can do is separately prove there is a god. At that point, we can intelligently discuse what this god did. Otherwise you're just musing about the way you believe things to be, that is subjective and irrelevant. Seems like you're missing the key element: Does he exist to begin with? That's ridiculous. You literally said there was no objective evidence for the evolution of altruism. Just re-read your posts. I didn't say that. I said you had a problem accepting scientific evidence. Something Miller would not do. That is the difference. You have this very very wrong. People's understanding of the nature of god evolves, as does yours, and religions are borne from that. God is not a constant however, god is an unknown.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

I accept that there is an evolutionary account of altruism. That does not answer the question of whether or not that account is the result of an intelligent plan. I agree that there is no scientific evidence to come to a conclusion on that question. I also agree that there is no scientific evidence that points to an intelligent planner subtly influencing our thoughts. I can’t prove there is a god. This thread is about what I believe, which although it is subjective does make it relevant to the discussion. In my opinion — yes. Without going through all of the posts I acknowledged near the beginning that there might be a genetic or evolutionary aspect of altruism but as far as I knew there was no objective evidence. (I’m sure we all agree that there is also a social component to the development of altruism.) You posted a link to a site which cited an experiment that did show a link between genetics and altruism and since then I have agree that there is some evidence which indicates that there is a genetic component. I’m not at all qualified to pass any judgement whatsoever on the accuracy of the study.I am fine with there being a genetic explanation for altruism. I believe subjectively that there is more to it than just that though. What scientific evidence am I rejecting? That may be but, I believe that God is consistent.

Unless belief is derived from an epistemological basis that actually works it amounts to nothing more than fantasy based on wishful thinking rationalised to seem like more.Not only are the epistemologies you cite (divine revelation, subjective feelings etc.) known to fail, they are also known to pander to human psychological weaknesses that lead to misplaced conviction. If one wants to to be deeply convinced of something that is almost certainly wrong then basing one's conclusions on apparently divine revelation and subjective experience combined is a fairly sure-fire way to achieve that. Not all "world views" are equally subjective or equally valid. Some are based on epistemologies with proven record of success whilst others embrace epistemologies which lead to misplaced conviction.You are doing the latter.

But I have found that epistemologically it does work - it bears out. They haven’t failed at all. Revelation, (I’m not sure I would have used that term in reference to myself), and subjective feelings, combined with reading what others have written over centuries, listening and talking to others and then actually trying to live a life that reflects what has come all that confirmed my convictions showing that they aren’t misplaced.I’ve already given personal anecdotes in this thread so I won’t repeat those but I think that we all agree that people who aspire to living out the Golden Rule are happier than those who don’t, and that the same holds true for society in general. Following God as seen through the lens of Jesus leads to that position.I’m not saying that only Christians can come to that conclusion at all, but I am saying that epistemologically Christianity focused on Jesus works. I suggest I’ve just shown that you are wrong. It does and has worked, and worked consistently. It works in our individual lives and it works globally as well.Edited by GDR, : typos

Fair enough. Although you may want to read up on the predictions of renowned physicist, Michio Kaku. He discusses our evolution as a species from Type 0 to Type 1. At the Type 1 stage, we will actually become a fully planetary civilization, harnessing the full output of our planet. With that, not only will we be able to 'know' the weather, we will actually be able to control it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj_UKcBBSccOne can view this as science fiction. But as our modern age has shown us, science fiction has a funny way of becoming science fact.Edited by Diomedes, : Embedded youtube wasn't working.

Great video. I own and have read Kaku's book "Parallel Worlds". I enjoyed it although I don't profess to understand all of it. (Or even most of it. )
Here is an incredible story of a young man who could play a large role in bringing science fiction to science fact. Jason BarnettAbE I just wanted to add that Jason is enrolled at the "Perimeter Institute" which is CANADIAN, and so I just wanted to show a little, very humble pride in my nationality, by a proud Canuck. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

One of many Canucks on this board. And for the record, while I currently live in the United States, I grew up and went to school in Southern Ontario, Canada, near the greater Toronto area.

We miss you up here. You must be a Sharks fan eh? I lived in the Toronto suburb of Oakville before moving out to the west coast, before that I spent 15 years in Montreal after growing up in various cities in Alberta calling Medicine Hat my home town.I also have close ties to the US though as my wife is from Boston and one of my sons married a girl from Washington state so I have 4 American grandsons.

I don't think Straggler was saying that what you're doing "doesn't work at all."
I think he's just saying that not all world views work the same.Some have been historically proven to boost productivity and progress far beyond others.This doesn't mean that what you're doing is broken or useless. Therefore, the fact that your worldview "works" doesn't prove anything wrong about Straggler's statement.The statement just means what it says... that other world views have proven to have a superior track record when trying to understand "the truth" about reality.Like this:
Just because 100 is greater than 25; doesn't mean that 25 is equal to 0.
You can't claim that just because 25 isn't 0... then 25 is just as good as 100.

I'm sure that all sorts of things can make one happy. I may be absolutely blissful in believing myself to be the best looking and intelligent person on the planet. But this doesn't make that belief correct. It is perfectly possible to be blissful as a result of being delusional. So happiness isn't really relevant when considering the accuracy and reliability of one's conclusions is it?I'm talking about epistemology. Knowledge and how we acquire it. How we differentiate between knowledge and belief. Etc.What epistemological techniques are you applying (i.e. what methods of knowledge acquisition)? Why do you consider conclusions borne from these techniques to be accurate or reliable? What verifiable discoveries have resulted as a consequence of applying these epistemological techniques (i.e. what is their track record)?The 'Golden Rule' has been arrived at by numerous philosophies many of which are entirely secular. It seems to be based on the sort of recipricocity and empathetic abilities that we know are evolved traits. Certainly it is just wrong to say that knowledge of the golden rule depends on the sort of divine revelation and subjective religious expereince that you are promoting as worthwhile methods of knowledge acquisition here.So - I ask - What objective knowledge have these methods ever led to?