Thanks. A sequence of links would be much appreciated. Edit: oops, that was the very object of your post… Checking… argh! 404!
As for the arguments… Well on one hand we have seemingly universal laws of physics, and on the other we have (undetectable) immortal souls and miracles. From a cursory look, that simply doesn’t add up. We also have perfectly reasonable explanations for religion in a natural world, making the existence of religion very weak Bayesian evidence for a supernatural world.
Finally, a secondary, but salient, point: if atheism is false, then which form of supernaturalism is true? If one existing human religion is true, which one? Why are you Christian specifically? Do you have any specific reason to believe Christianity is more likely than any other religion, or did you just happen to enjoy a Christian upbringing?
Re-Edit: maybe you addressed those points in your sequence. I’ll read it when the links aren’t down for me any more.
Just to be crystal clear, the series of posts explaining why I think Science and my religion are compatible don’t exist yet. What I linked to is a series of posts explaining what I think Science is. I wanted to pin that down first before asking what is, or is not, compatible with it. Besides, how Science works is interesting in its own right.
Although I do believe in an afterlife, I do not believe that the mechanism for this is that the soul is immaterial. My “soul” is a pattern of information in my neurons, which is eventually going to be downloaded to new hardware.
It’s true I was raised Christian, but I went through a period of doubt and reflection around the time I was in the 6th grade. I decided then that there was enough evidence specifically for the Resurrection of Jesus to believe in it. It’s not a question of whether there are good explanations for religion in general, it’s that this partiular sequence of events seems to me highly implausible from a naturalistic perspective.
You could say that my upbringing makes me biased, although that’s a catch-22 because there’s no course of conduct which can change how I was raised.
I don’t think it’s just because I was raised Christian—my best friend from college, who was Jewish, very reluctantly agreed with me that the evidence is good, and converted despite the risk that he would be disowned by his father. All I can say is that I decided the evidence was good enough, even taking into account any biases of my own that I can detect. Like always, you just do the best you can.
I understand the pull of the idea that there’s a discord (though obviously not a strict logical contradiction) between laws of nature that work so well almost all the time, and exceptional events like miracles. But partly as a result of my experience in physics, I don’t think this is as much of a problem as it appears at first glance. But I’m going to be talking about this very thing later on my blog though, so I won’t discuss it here and now.
Do you have written something that explain that evidence in more detail?
Clicked around out of curiosity and found what appears to be a cursory explanation for Aron’s belief in Jesus’ resurrection here. First impression is that he has treated NT accounts of Jesus as though they were written by several separate eyewitnesses (in other words, as they’re represented in the Bible and by modern Christian churches) and may not be aware of alternative explanations of the origins of the gospels by historians. Lukeprog’s journey might be illuminating.
And in fact, if one looks, much of the evidence for religious claims takes exactly the same form as History, because in fact, it is History (i.e. documents from the past purporting to say what has happened). I refer to the numerous historical documents in which it is claimed that events have occurred by supernatural agency, which are not possible by normal natural means. In other words, claims of miracles.
There are probably much more separate documents that documents the supernatural powers of Uri Geller than there are documents that document the powers of Jesus.
If we want to know whether eyewitness accounts of miracles are true we don’t have to focus on pre-20st century claims.
It’s true I was raised Christian, but I went through a period of doubt and reflection around the time I was in the 6th grade. I decided then that there was enough evidence specifically for the Resurrection of Jesus to believe in it. It’s not a question of whether there are good explanations for religion in general, it’s that this partiular sequence of events seems to me highly implausible from a naturalistic perspective.
Kind of a shame the doubt and reflection couldn’t hold off a bit longer, so that the critical thinking skills could get some firm foundations before crystallizing the social pressure in there permanently.
Thanks. A sequence of links would be much appreciated. Edit: oops, that was the very object of your post… Checking… argh! 404!
As for the arguments… Well on one hand we have seemingly universal laws of physics, and on the other we have (undetectable) immortal souls and miracles. From a cursory look, that simply doesn’t add up. We also have perfectly reasonable explanations for religion in a natural world, making the existence of religion very weak Bayesian evidence for a supernatural world.
Finally, a secondary, but salient, point: if atheism is false, then which form of supernaturalism is true? If one existing human religion is true, which one? Why are you Christian specifically? Do you have any specific reason to believe Christianity is more likely than any other religion, or did you just happen to enjoy a Christian upbringing?
Re-Edit: maybe you addressed those points in your sequence. I’ll read it when the links aren’t down for me any more.
Just to be crystal clear, the series of posts explaining why I think Science and my religion are compatible don’t exist yet. What I linked to is a series of posts explaining what I think Science is. I wanted to pin that down first before asking what is, or is not, compatible with it. Besides, how Science works is interesting in its own right.
Although I do believe in an afterlife, I do not believe that the mechanism for this is that the soul is immaterial. My “soul” is a pattern of information in my neurons, which is eventually going to be downloaded to new hardware.
It’s true I was raised Christian, but I went through a period of doubt and reflection around the time I was in the 6th grade. I decided then that there was enough evidence specifically for the Resurrection of Jesus to believe in it. It’s not a question of whether there are good explanations for religion in general, it’s that this partiular sequence of events seems to me highly implausible from a naturalistic perspective.
You could say that my upbringing makes me biased, although that’s a catch-22 because there’s no course of conduct which can change how I was raised.
I don’t think it’s just because I was raised Christian—my best friend from college, who was Jewish, very reluctantly agreed with me that the evidence is good, and converted despite the risk that he would be disowned by his father. All I can say is that I decided the evidence was good enough, even taking into account any biases of my own that I can detect. Like always, you just do the best you can.
I understand the pull of the idea that there’s a discord (though obviously not a strict logical contradiction) between laws of nature that work so well almost all the time, and exceptional events like miracles. But partly as a result of my experience in physics, I don’t think this is as much of a problem as it appears at first glance. But I’m going to be talking about this very thing later on my blog though, so I won’t discuss it here and now.
Do you have written something that explain that evidence in more detail?
Clicked around out of curiosity and found what appears to be a cursory explanation for Aron’s belief in Jesus’ resurrection here. First impression is that he has treated NT accounts of Jesus as though they were written by several separate eyewitnesses (in other words, as they’re represented in the Bible and by modern Christian churches) and may not be aware of alternative explanations of the origins of the gospels by historians. Lukeprog’s journey might be illuminating.
There are probably much more separate documents that documents the supernatural powers of Uri Geller than there are documents that document the powers of Jesus.
If we want to know whether eyewitness accounts of miracles are true we don’t have to focus on pre-20st century claims.
/me looks with sudden interest
You are a scientist.
You’ve noticed that too?
Kind of a shame the doubt and reflection couldn’t hold off a bit longer, so that the critical thinking skills could get some firm foundations before crystallizing the social pressure in there permanently.
Do you really think that the best way to encourage critical thinking when you’re older, is to avoid doing it when you’re younger?
No, which is why I refrained from saying any such thing.