1) religious people believe that the world comes from a spiritual source. They all agree on that. Whether they agree or not on religious manifestations (religions) they are not atheists because they believe in the spiritual source. Obviously! So bad argument 1 answered — Gregory

In what sense do you employ the word 'spiritual' here?
What convinced you that the supernatural/transcendent/outside of spacetime existed?
What evidence was presented to you or presented itself to you?
These are the types of questions Tom was asking you that you ran away from and you are still running.
If you answer them, you might compel atheists such as myself to change the number of gods they 'have faith in' from 0 to the 1 you favour. Are you afraid that your detailed personal reasons for your theism are too weak and will sound delusional? Are they just based on human primal fears? How can anyone judge if you only offer theistic generalisations, using words like 'spiritual.'

2) you say faith cannot accomplish a miracle. Well prayer is not perfect most of the time and if faith is not strong enough for a specific miracle God still grants more than what is asked for. You can't always see God's work Simple. — Gregory

Give me an actual example, from your personal experiences, that you have or do label 'god's work.'
Surely, others will then be able to assign a personal credence level to your claim, in a rational way.
You seem very reluctant to offer actual exemplifications, you only offer theistic generalisations. You need to do a lot better than your personal general needs and wishes for supernatural superhero's to exist, as it allays your fears of what's happening outside our caves

Any other concerns?

:lol: How much of your personal time are you offering me?

I'm really only interested in what we do to each other here and now. :wink: — Tom Storm

Yeah, I saw that wink Tom! You are a seeker! You are incapable of ignoring the possible futures for our species imo. You will ruminate on such at times, whether you choose to fight the urge or not.
It's important to stay sane, but life can become a bit boring, if you always resist dancing with the unknown.

Well, as far as I can tell, so I was told, we're not fully self-aware[/i] (there's stuff going on in our brains, like for example when I'm writing this post, that we're unaware of; I think it's called the un/sub-conscious and didn't someone come up with a theory of the collective un/sub-conscious? Was it Carl Jung?)

To the question "when are you coming?" there are varied and intriguing answers, eh?

The human race has had science since before it was human. It has been using science from the very beginning; for about 5 million years. Somewhere in there, they learned to use fire, altered bones, skins, stones, logs and reeds for their purposes and established settled communities. — Vera Mont

But the Earth is close to 5 BILLION years old and the first hominid species had to start with inventing rudimentary stone and wood tools and as you suggested, gain some controls over fire. The technical and scientific infancy and childhood of our species has taken the vast majority of that 5 million years.
The first homo sapiens (humans) was a mere 315,000 years ago.

What will happen in the 50 years that could have happened, and didn't, in the past 6000? — Vera Mont

The rate of technical advancement is increasing at a far bigger rate than it did in the majority of the 300,000+ years of the existence of the human race.

We are not on the cosmic calendar; we are on the doomsday clock. I'll be out of you way soon enough. — Vera Mont

:grin: Don't worry, that doomsday clock will tick for another billion trillion years of human existence.
I hope you are here for many years yet Vera! and if you are not, I personally, will miss your posts and your persona.

Our distant ancestors lived on a far more hospitable and generous planet than our descendants will have. — Vera Mont

I would choose to live now if offered to live in any past era. In fact, I would choose to be born in the distant future if I could make such a choice. Our future is not restricted to this planet.

Seems to me, you are very much enjoying thinking such thoughts!
Your head may hurt at times but you have to be alive to feel the pain and you also get to continue to 'wonder' what the correct answers are. WooHoo!

And so will the priests. Amen. — Olivier5

Absolutely, and long may their musings continue, as it means more and more of them stop being priests.
Many of the most ardent atheists who now have growing, public, online platforms are ex-theists.
They are causing a domino affect. Theism is not the future, it is the past.

No, not all definitions define progress as "simply going forward, — Lambert Strether

Hence the word "also", meaning one of several definitions. Meaning, 'progress' does not have to be read as going from less to more or inferior to superior; it canalso indicate the simple unidirectional sequence of events.

and even if they did, the Universe would have no care about earthling(s) definition of it — Lambert Strether

I can think of no reason why it should. Or even learn any language at all.

particularly since it shows many more signs of entropy, not development (even if that use of forward was the one) — Lambert Strether

I sad nothing whatever about 'development'. Nose and toes pointing the same way, one foot before the other, repeat. That's forward progress, whether the destination - known or unknown - is Disneyland or a swamp.

There's a point to Lambert Strether's remark. If I place A, B, C in that particular sequence, one begins to see growth/advancement in the series so arranged i.e. one instinctively feels C > B > A. — Agent Smith

One can also (alternatively, as another possibility) one could see three individual items, or a row of items, or a puzzle, or an encrypted message. The one who does the seeing need not be familiar with this alphabet and so interpret those images as pictograms for a house, a woman and a bundle of laundry. And one could meditate on that until he lost his mind...., I guess.

Something like that ... yes.

As some other posters have already highlighted, progress is subjective and/or illusory (perhaps they both mean the same thing). Are we making any progress?

Are we making any progress? — Agent Smith

Of one kind. The trouble with dictionaries.....

I enjoy this stuff, yeah! However, there's always a however, eh?

Of one kind. The trouble with dictionaries..... — Vera Mont

Great! Report what progress we've made.

Report what progress we've made. — Agent Smith

Consecutively numbered pages 1 thru 8.

I enjoy this stuff, yeah! However, there's always a however, eh? — Agent Smith

You can flip that however, you need the however for a comparator.
Intense thirst is so wonderfully relieved!

:up:

:up:

Despite no evidence people believe in god(s). Despite so much evidence scientists, not anyone else, doubt their very own painstakingly developed hypotheses/theories. Who's winning? :confused:

In what sense do you employ the word 'spiritual' he — universeness

Supernatural, above and beyond the universe, infinite. I don't believe in God because of arguments, but from experience. The stance I took in this discussion was that you were wrong to say faith is unreasonable. Something doesn't have to be proven to be reasonable. Your 2 specific arguments were refuted by me. God doesn't have to answer prayers specifically in order for the prayer to be efficacious and religious people disagree about specifics in religion but they are not atheist because they believe in the supernatural. So you were wrong in that. As for Tom, he said he was a pragmatist. Are you?

Maximum entropy (omega) is the terminus of all sequences. "Progress" is a parochial illusion like the apparent flatness of the Earth. — 180 Proof
The net entropy, you're right on the money, increases. Was there any order to begin with or was it always chaos and then more chaos? Gnomon. — Agent Smith

The topic of this thread seems to be based on a Category Error : assuming that materialistic Science and spiritualistic Religion are competing in the same game, on the same field. Even Aristotle, who was not known for promoting Religion, placed his scientific observations (Physics) into a different chapter from his philosophical commentary (Metaphysics). But conflation of categories is typical of 180's polarized polemics.

180 asserts his personal opinion (belief) on Progress (nada) as-if it was a statement of Fact. But that negative attitude toward history is just as much of an "illusion" (mental model) as the more positive assessments. Both Optimism & Pessimism are subjective judgments "of the heart" instead of value-neutral objective descriptions. Personally, I'm a Peptomist : the world in which I live has both good and bad effects on my evaluation of whether life is worth living.

Scientific Cosmology makes no good/evil evaluation of the beginning of the world. It merely notes that everything now existing was constructed & organized from a hypothetical dimensionless point-of-beginning (Singularity). But, Philosophical Ontology allows us to imagine what that POB was like, based on what we now know about the organization of the world. Plato & Aristotle proposed a scenario in which the infinite potential of Chaos was converted into the finite actuality of Cosmos. Do you have any better answer to the something-from-nothing conundrum? :smile:

The Illusion of Progress :
Progress is an illusion – a view of human life and history that answers to the needs of the heart, not reason. In his book The Future of an Illusion, published in 1927, Freud argued that religion is an illusion. Illusions need not be all false; they may contain grains of truth.
https://www.amacad.org/publication/illusion-future

What is progress in philosophy? :
Philosophical proponents of progress assert that the human condition has improved over the course of history and will continue to improve. Doctrines of progress first appeared in 18th-century Europe and epitomize the optimism of that time and place. Belief in progress flourished in the 19th century.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/progress/

Pessimism :
(Philosophy) a belief that this world is as bad as it could be or that evil will ultimately prevail over good. ___Oxford
Note -- 180's anti-religious belief in the dominance of destructive & disorganizing "Entropy" reveals a pessimistic assessment of the historical trend of the world. Yet it ignores the contribution of constructive Energy in the organization of the Cosmos. As for most religious faith, his personal belief is presented as-if it is absolute Truth. Do you believe that the world is "as bad as it could be"? Or do you agree with Shakespeare : “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” The world is simply what it is, but your imaginary or illusory worldview may be seen through rose-colored or dark glasses.

The topic of this thread seems to be based on a Category Error : assuming that materialistic Science and spiritualistic Religion are competing in the same game, on the same field. — Gnomon

interesting. I would say it's the other way around - materialistic religion (most instantiations of religion) and spiritualistic science (how science is generally understood) are in direct competition as explanations of life on earth, not to mention the compass by which we navigate values and meaning. The naturalistic fallacy isn't much of an impediment to most practical people, who look to science as an effective path to understand reality, while religion ( often a series of fallacies in search of purpose) diminishes in importance, except amongst the fanatics who view religion as a set of vulgar terrestrial commands.

Citation that religious fanaticism is on the rise? My guess in that about half the world's population is truly interested in religion, whole the rest is not

I didn't say fanaticism is on the rise, although that well may be the case as I suspect reasonable people tend to leave organised religions and the ones left tend to be fundamentalists. Maybe you can find us a citation? Consider the rise in fundamentalist Islam that has been well documented in the naughties and perhaps the key role of white Christian evangelicals in the crass and lamentable Trump phenomenon? Good book by a Christian professor on this subject - Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.

I see you continue to refuse to answer the questions posed by Tom and now me, regarding your personal experiences that brought you to your faith in your god. I wont follow Tom's very respectable attempts at repeating the questions to you. I am left to assume that you are not confident that your answers are strong enough to stand up to scrutiny. I employ pragmatism when I deem that it is wise to do so but I employ many other epistemologies such as skepticism, and the logic inherent in the scientific method. I am sure you do to, but in my opinion, you have allowed your primal fears to compel you into requiring/desiring, a supernatural protector.
I suggest that the next time life overwhelms you, you look to fellow humans to help you, and don't bother praying to your god for its help. It seems to be too busy to help humans. I think that's because it doesn't exist. How much do you rely on prayer to help you in your life?

Science, as some sci-fi novelists have theorized, is ultimately going to make religion true by ... creating (AGI) God. So this success science has made is going to have big payoffs for religion - the Vatican may already be covertly funding & rsearching AGI in one its secret labs hidden somewhere in the high alps. :lol:

Jokes aside, I'd say there is order, but it's local and temporary; chaos, on the other hand, is both global and permanent and increasing, exponentially. Stars, our only hope, burn for billions of years, but they die eventually.

What chance does Enformy have against Entropy - it's a losin' battle and therein lies the rub, eh mi amigo?

That said, your holism is all inclusive and the order of the light had its moment, its time in the sun; it is now the dark ages, the sun is setting - let's go to the beaches, let's drive out to the mountains. Beautiful sunset, oui mon ami?

Consider the rise in fundamentalist Islam that has been well documented in the naughties and perhaps the key role of white Christian evangelicals in the crass and lamentable Trump phenomenon? — Tom Storm

:clap: Also look at how religious groups (especially the evanhellicals) target third world countries.
Science tries to bring education to those who need it. Theists offer the uneducated and extremely poor, god solutions. Promises of paradise are thrown in, but only after you die and only if you comply with the requirements of the religious sales department, whilst you are alive.
Remember the claim by many native peoples:
"When the outsiders arrived, we had the land and they had their god, now they have our land and we have their god."
What a horrific deal that turned out to be!

I've answered all your questions already. That's enough

Aren't you assuming it's rational to leave religion in the first place?

Aren't you assuming it's rational to leave religion in the first place? — Gregory

Aren't you assuming it is rational to start from religion? And don't you need to separate crude religion from spirituality? Or theism from religion? Where do you being? But I'm not much interested in debating the merits of secularism versus religionism, there's enough of that on this site already, right?

I haven't said I can prove religion true. Nondual awareness of unity with God is hard to understand for everyone so people look for proofs. We do need to separate bad spirituality from what is good and make distinctions. I don't think there is a way to tell if the world is becoming more godless. I know a lot of good religious people who are having huge families

"I agree, in principle with Lamberts recent typing's in this thread BUT we are not separable from the universe, we are OF the universe, so there is a 'frame of reference,' within which the universe does care. We are that frame of reference. WE CARE and we are part of it!"


I never said we weren't part of it. I correctly said we are only a part of it and an infinitesimal part of it with barely a trillionth of a speck of influence on it

Can I ask if you find theism unpalatable? I think you implied you were a post modernist and subjectivist. Descartes and Liebniz believed in God, even if arguments they used were faulty. Kant believed in God too. I see God through Christian eyes during Christmas and Easter, Eastern eyes when I listen to sitar music, ect. I don't have to tell people about my experiences. Anyone can pick up belief in the most unusual ways

Can I ask if you find theism unpalatable? — Gregory

This would be an interesting discussion but should it be here and clog up the science/religion success thread? And I should say it is good when we can have these discussions without getting personal or needlessly rhetorical. I'm not a post-modernist - I lack the ability to understand the arguments - Heidegger may as well be in Latin (well, he did start out wanting to be a priest...)

The short answer is I have no sensus divinitatis and no subsequent argument I have heard has convinced me theism is useful or true. That said, I have a number of friends who are theists. I have two close friends who are a Catholic priest and a sister (nun) they think religion is by and large a terrible blight on the planet (including Catholicism) and many of my views about religion come through the work of religious writers - John Shelby Spong, Richard Rohr, David Bentley Hart.