an idea can only be a theory if:
1) it has been proven wrong
2) is exposed to be proven wrong

for example, newtons theory of motion was set up in framework that allowed to be disproven through logical deduction (and later experimental results). it was also proven wrong.

note that this does not mean that all theories are wrong.

it also follows that any idea that does not fit this framework is not fit for logical discussion (unless it is observed as a law). ideas that can manipulate data to fit their framework cannot be given any weight because they don't offer themselves the opportunity to be proven wrong.

the above idea is taken from a chapter in "fooled by randomness". i think it does well to explain why religious debates always go round in circles and never do much to convince either side either way. becausethe idea of religion is set up in such a way that it cannot be proven wrong, it can only be given the same intellectual weight as the idea of astrology, or voodoo, or flying spaghetti monsters.

True, but I've seen flying spaghetti monsters.

that's all well and good for science, which depends upon testability (and falsifiability, from popper, which is where i assume this book is getting its ideas from).

religion's different, though. if you want to define a theory like that, then religion ain't a theory, plain and simple, and it ain't about logic (another term we get from science).

exactly.

and it's not a universal law either.

so if it's not a theory, not a law, and its ideas are not based on any tangible evidence, it's...

define tangible evidence. is it like repeatable evidence, like a laboratory? if so, then no, it's not. but most religious practitioners wouldn't care.

i personally see no need to put religion into a category like "theory," "law," or whatever. it's its own thing, and that's fine. people **** it up, but people **** up a lot of stuff. doesn't mean religion in general's anything to scoff at.

tangible as in any piece of evidence that can be used to verify the statements religion claims.

like it or not, religion is just an idea, and as an idea, it should be subject to the same scrutiny as other ideas. to say that religion gets is own special treatment just because its been around so long is weak.

i'm not saying anything like that at all. i just think that there are MANY different ways of evaluating the credibility of evidence, ideas, whatever, and that it's a pity that science seems to have taken a stranglehold on all such endeavors.

for the record, i'm atheist. just an apologist, i suppose.

Not quite. A theory is more like a framework of ideas. The scientific meaning of theory doesn't mean that it is wrong or that it hasn't been proven. A theory is the framework that links facts together. Yes, you're right, being falsifiable is an extremely important part of being a theory. But in scientific terms, to be considered a "theory" is very strong language and is quite meaningful.

i think that there are actually very few.
could you give us some nonscientific methods to find out the truth of a
proposition or idea?

and maybe you shouldnt scoff at religion because so many people take it
so seriously, but i have yet to hear one good defense of religious metaphysical
claims. and this is a big problem, because many religions hardly bother to defend
their moralistic claims either, speciously tying them to their absurd metaphysical ones.

in fact, i would go so far as to say that all major religions are philosophical and societal dead ends. there is no way to put this politely, but i think it is important to add that any serious defense of traditional religions in the last few decades has been nothing short of pathetic. but, i would be interested to hear any reasons you have to believe otherwise.

i said evaluation. i never said anything about truth, which is pretty much a dirty word in my book, used scientifically or in other contexts.

but sure, other ways of evaluating things: the singularity, or forcefulness, of an event and its impression upon me; beauty; love; etc. i'm sure anyone could come up with more. all i'm saying is that there are more than "is it real? can i make it happen again?" and that those are just as valid, if not more so.



i'd say science is a dead end in much the same way, and that it's a problem associated with that nasty word "truth." discuss.

but yes, if people do take something seriously, i think that others should as well. that's not to say that i like fundamentalists of any kind--i don't--but i do take it as a frame of reference that what they believe is of as much importance to them as anything i could imagine, and that any discussion therefrom has to take place in some sort of pluralistic aura of respect for things like that. so, scoff, no. disagree with, sure, but no more than i disagree with atheists who attack religion without end (NOT pointing at anyone here, more other similar forum discussions i've had elsewhere).

Seriously, I gotta go to bed tonite but this thread should be good. Give me 12 hours.

maybe im not getting it, but i dont think you have provided enough explanation of your position to really discuss.
so are you saying that one claim about the world is never better than any other?
this seems too absurd for me to comment on, but this isnt what you are saying, then you must accept some sort of truth. so back to my original question- how do you decide what is true?

and i still have no idea how you define religion. so if you cant use logic or testability, how would you choose which religion to believe?
maybe you are just talking about mystical experience. but if that is the only true religion, then you must accept that most parts of all of the current religions are false, and the athiests are basically right(i am assuming athiests believe religious experiences really happen at some level, but all religions' explanations for them are false.)

i don't see what you disagree with...

my point was that in order for an idea to quallify as a theory, and therefore be given any sort of intellectual weight, it must be falsifiable.

Were those or's or and's that I was quoting? I probably just misinterpreted.

that is only true of generic belief in a creator. i'm not aware of any specific fundamentalist religious belief that doesn't conflict with empirical evidence in some way. these debates only go round in circles because the fundamentalists just refuse to acknowledge the evidence, or aren't smart enough to comprehend it.

or's

my linguistic skills are not that great

i think it has more to do with the fact that the "theory" of religion is set up in such a way that any logical discourse or empirical evidence against it can be manipulated in favor of the theory's framework due to the unlimited flexibility of its initial conditions.

for example, the bible states that the world was created ~5000 years ago. empirical evidence (the fossil record), proves that this is not the case. religious authorities claim that an all-knowing god could create the illusion of a fossil record to test our faith. and so the theory does not allow conditions under which it can be disproven. intellectually, the idea of religion is very stubborn.



i agree. looking for truth in any area of life is futile. we can only constantly refine relative truths (which is what most science undertakes).



i think science, like religion, can do more harm than good. especially when misinterpreted or taken too seriously. but i also believe that science has more potential to improve the overall quality of human life, and to get nearer to relative truths than religion.



i think respect should be given where it is due. however, i do not think it is appropriate to let an idea steer humanity in the wrong direction just because a lot of people take it seriously. a lot of people take ethnic cleansing seriously too.

fundamentalism doesn't have unlimited flexility, though. at that point it becomes the equivalent of generic belief.

logical discourse/empirical evidence will disprove all forms of fundamentalism (for practical purposes - meaning prove the chances of validity are vanishingly small).

could you explain what you mean by fundamentalism?

it's a word that gets thrown around quite loosely on this forum (im guilty of that), and i would like to know what others mean when they use it. thanks.

this example is disproven for practical purposes by logical discourse



specific religious belief that excludes the validity of any other belief

as for what i'm saying about the evaluation of claims, yes, i am saying no method of evaluation is inherently better than any other in all cases. that's not to say that i wouldn't argue for one over the other, but i would never lay claim to having access to any sort of objective (or even generalized) standard of determining my own judgment in such matters. or to be more succinct, i don't give a flying **** about what's true and what's not, in the sense that most people (and i assume you do here) mean the word "truth."

as for how i define religion, well, that's tough. i'm not religious, myself, so i don't really have much vested in it. but the sorts of ways of doing so that are cropping up in the contemporary discourse are more satisfying to me than things like "theory," "idea," etc. what many postmodern scholars are wont to do, rather than use rigid terms to define things like this, is to say, ok, we have a list of things that a lot of things we call religion exhibit:

-the belief in a higher power
-ethical imperatives put upon practitioners
-a metaphysical understanding of the universe
-a community of followers
... and so on and so forth, however many you'd like (my students in one of my classes came up with 40-ish)

and take that list of characteristics and say that anything that exhibits x or y number of those things (it need not be all of them, and buddhism is a good example of something that doesn't generally ascribe to the first characteristic i listed) is a religion. whether that's useful to you or not, well, i don't know. but that's how i generally approach talking about anything that's popped up in human civilization over the course of history.

and about your last point, re: logic and testability: well, i don't disagree with you outright here. i just think that people should decide that for themselves. for me, my very profound yet very singular experience with LSD once made something my "religion," but i wouldn't ever say "everyone should go do LSD and go for a walk in the woods alone." using something different from the universally applicable methods of evaluation allows me to say something like that. if i really believed that logic was the only way of saying something is right or true, then i'd have to say that my judgments should be applied to all. i don't, so i don't.

this brings me to what i do disagree with: the idea that "logic" is the same for all people. there are places in the world where the idea of causality works entirely differently--people don't resort to the scientific story of how things work very often, and there's no real criterion for determining whether a "god did it" or the like should be overwhelmed by a "the law of gravity determined that..." i find it unfortunate that people on both sides generally find this sort of statement nihilistic in some way, because i actually think looking at the world in terms of multiple (and equally "correct") value systems leads to a healthier society (lots of philosophers over the course of history have termed this sort of view things like "cosmopolitainism," and they generally like it). the sort of "logic is logic for everyone" is actually, in my view, the kind of thing that leads to totalitarian thinking. i'll back that final claim up if necessary.




the general understanding of "fundamentalism" is a set of beliefs that takes some sort of textual evidence (or sometimes other forms of evidence) as literally and infallibly true.