Galileo and Science Denial

@skado Got it. Thanks.

Did you by any chance watch the video?

@skado
Yes

I did view the video, and that is not really the issue it addresses, it seems more likely that Skado did not view the video, at least not with an open mind.

First. The conflict between Galileo and the church, (Not religion sadly because he was very devout, and failed to see through it.) occurred because the church had bought into some very bad pseudoscience, that of Plato and Ptolemy etc. which may once have been science in its day, but which was way out of date by then. The church then tried to use its fake authority, ( Not even justified by the Bible which hardly mentions it. ) to keep the old science alive in order to promote the idea of its own infallibility, thereby putting it in conflict with Galileo.

Which is exactly the problem with religion, since religion is in fact simply the fallacy of proof by authority. Which is not something that those wishing to promote truth would ever wish to use, since there are many better tests of veracity such as logic, the experimental method, etc. even the ad populum fallacy is better sometimes. And therefore religion is almost invariably only the resort of those which to promote the untrue, which puts it in conflict with all sources of truth not merely science.

Secondly. The video is only one short extract from a much longer one, much of which is in strong contrast with the extracts as presented. Cherry picking.

Thirdly. The opinion expressed is only and opinion of one man's interpretation of another opinions, and is therefore very questionable.

Fourthly. Einstein made many statements on religion and god many of which are much more strongly in conflict with its ideas. Cherry picking again.

@skado
When Galileo pointed to the difference between true religion and bad interpretation of scripture he was merely splitting hairs. Religion is not just one interpretation but ALL interpretations. For example, peaceful Moslems who disavow Islamic terrorists as "not true Moslems" are simply wrong. The terrorists are extremists in the same belief system.

@Flyingsaucesir
Wrong according to what authority or what standard? There is no scholarly consensus as to exactly what religion is. If some hammer-users use hammers to murder people, does that make hammers inherently murder weapons? Are then all carpenters murderers by association? The overwhelming majority of religious people are not violent extremists. Are their tools and methods complicit by association? Does the minority set the standard for the majority?

By what chain of cause-and-effect reasoning to you arrive at the conclusion that their bad behavior was caused by their religion or hammer-use? Bad-behavers exist in all groups. Some people will behave badly regardless of belief systems or tools they associate with, but they are usually a small minority. Some people who have no association with those beliefs/tools also behave badly.

@skado
No scholarly consensus as to what exactly religion is? Well, yes. But there is consensus that religion can be a lot of things to a lot of different people. Religion's openness to interpretation is one of its defining characteristics.

How do I know religion when I see it?

Short answer: if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Longer answer:

(from The Random House College Dictionary)

"religion: n. 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of superhuman agency or agencies, usually having a moral code for the conduct of human affairs. 2. a specific and institutionalized set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. 3. the body of persons or institutions adhering to a set of religious beliefs and practices: a world council of religions. 4. a deep conviction of the validity of religious beliefs and practices: to get religion. 5. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion. 6. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith. 7. a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice. 8. religions, (Archaic). religious rites. 9. (Archaic). strict faithfulness, devotion: a religion to one's vow."

Notice that these definitions make frequent reference to beliefs, without ever saying specifically what those beliefs are. In fact, they could be just about anything. And there is where the trouble starts. Since religious believers do not have to be in any way constrained by a baseline of objective facts, they are free to form religions around all kinds of wacko ideas. The result is proliferation of sects through a process of schism. Under the heading "Christian" alone there are over 40,000 different sects. They all claim to be the "true religion."

@Flyingsaucesir
There is clear conflict between literal interpretations of religious texts, and modern science. My point is that literal interpretations of religious texts is not the same thing as “religion” as the speaker in the video pointed out. When people interpret religious texts that way, as he says, they have interpreted them incorrectly. Many famous Christian, Buddhist, and other theologians and philosophers throughout time have said the same thing I’m saying, but many people have their minds set on taking it literally, both theists and atheists.

Not only does it conflict with science and good sense when taken literally, it conflicts with itself! When properly understood as it was written, as metaphor, it loses both internal conflict and conflict with objective reality. Galileo wasn’t splitting hairs. He understood that the text was never intended as scientific propositional truth, but as metaphor to live by.

@Flyingsaucesir Exactly. The idea that religion can be recovered and made good simply by leaving out the supernatural, is nonsense, the literal belief in the supernatural is probably the least harmful and silliest bit of religion, and certainly not the source of its evil.

The real defining quality of religion is the awarding of fake authority to things which do nothing to earn that authority. Whether that be religious tradition, religious social groups, religious texts, religious leaders or religious metaphore. Which definition of religion covers all the main bases, and if there are elements of religion outside of that they are trivial and unimportant. The important point being, that for those people who want to promote truth, there are plenty of ways to do it and plenty of ways to justify truth, from empirical science to philosophy, spheres where authority can be questioned and earned. The only people who want fake authority and have any real use for it, are people who wish to promote untruths, often things they know to be untrue, that is the only use it has.

In the past it is true that religion was often the only game in town, when it came to issues such as morality, cosmology, etc. but those days are long since gone. Which is why religions can only increasingly in the future find a place in the market place of ideas, by appealing to the criminal, and becoming the home of organized crime. That is its future if not its past.

@Flyingsaucesir The hammer anology does not work, it is in fact a typical example of why metaphor usually fails, since an artificial world can always be created where anything may be made to work metaphorically.

A better way to look at it, using the same flawed method , (Fight fire with fire.) would be to say that once people believed, that the disease Malaria was caused by the bad air in swamps, literally "mal- air ". We now know, of course, that it is caused by a parasite carried by insects which live in swamps. The fact that swamps however do not cause malaria does not mean that swamps are safe places to go , or that you are not more likely to catch malaria near a swamp, because that is where it lives. Thus moderate religion creates the swamp which is the natural home of the extremist, by normalizing beliefs not supported by logic, or evidence and by normallizing faith alone as a souse of belief and as a justification for action and morality, moderate religion creates the perfect environment for the extremist to live in.

@skado
We are not too far apart in our views. We both agree with the good professor when he says that literal interpretation of scripture that was meant to be taken metaphorically is bad theology. And obviously much of that conflicts directly with science. But here is where we apparently part ways: both you and the professor seem to maintain that individuals or institutions that embrace bad theology are not religious; that they are simply mistaken, in error. I say that they (the fundamentalists, jihadists, fanatics, extremists, what have you) are extensions and manifestations of the core religion, that they are enabled by the same flabby thinking that underpins the "true" religion, i.e. belief in the literal existence of something for which there is no independently verifiable evidence. Once on that slippery slope, anything goes, and any atrocity can be justified or rationalized. Parenthetically, I would like to note here that not all scripture was meant to be taken metaphorically. Some of it clearly was meant to be taken at face value, such as proscriptions against certain behaviours or guidelines for how to live in civil society. The texts di not come with a primer explaining which bits are poetry and which are meant to be taken literally. That is left up to the priests, church elders, or individual members. It's no wonder there is confusion.

@skado, @Fernapple
You make some good points! However I am not so sure that belief in the supernatural is the least harmful part of religion. I think it is in fact what makes it possible to assign fake authority to persons or institutions that have not earned it. The priest says, "Do this, believe that, or you'll go straight to Hell." This only works because the peasants were not trained in science and most didn't have the temerity to say, "Oh yeah? Prove it!" The small minority that did came to a bad end, either pulled apart on the rack, nailed to a cross, drowned, disemboweled, or burned at the stake. Historically, the religious powerful have ruled by fear and intimidation (which is a sign of the inherent weakness of their intellectual stance). And so it is today in Afghanistan, where the Taliban rule by AK-47 fiat.

@skado, @Fernapple
I must say, you have some good ideas and you write well. Keep up the good work!

@Flyingsaucesir Yes it is true that literal belief has been at the bottom of the problem , and I perhaps should have included it in the list. Though it has to be said that some religions such as Maoist personality cult, which helped to kill millions, and the Nazi cult which used exactly those sorts of interpretations of both Christianity and North European paganism, plus the Hitler personality cult, did not rely on a literal theist god very much, if at all.

@Fernapple
Yup, the unsupported belief does not have to be in a deity. It could very well he a personality cult. Either way, anything goes once you break free of objective facts. That's what is so scary about what is going on in the Republican Party these days. A near-total break with reality!

@Flyingsaucesir
Well I agree wholeheartedly that “It's no wonder there is confusion.” It’s a very complex phenomenon, that is tied so inextricably to both the human heart and the human mind that it might be something of a “miracle” if we humans were to ever see it clearly. It’s a subject that requires and deserves the very most nuanced and careful explication we can muster.

“...both you and the professor seem to maintain that individuals or institutions that embrace bad theology are not religious...”

OK, I can see how my words may have given that impression, but let me clarify. I’m not saying they are no part of religion; I’m saying they are not the entirety of religion.

And further, I’m saying they are poor representatives of “religion” because they are a minority subset, who happen to be the worst practitioners. But they are often the squeaky wheels who generate the majority of splashy headlines.

But for every Roy Moore or Jerry Falwell there are ten thousand gentle folk who lean on Jesus to make it through a grueling workweek to feed their babies. One might argue there are better things to lean on, but certainly things could be worse if they had nothing at all to lean on. The majority of any population will never be intellectuals.

“... they are enabled by the same flabby thinking that underpins the "true" religion, i.e. belief in the literal existence of something for which there is no independently verifiable evidence.”

My friend Fern has helpfully pointed out that flabby thinking is not just found in religious quarters, but also in political, and I would add business, and education, and the arts, and just about any domain that humans inhabit. Yes, even science. What atrocity can’t be justified by some combination of politics and science? Tuskegee? Hiroshima?

Fanatical thinking is a human trait that infects every realm of human endeavor. It wasn’t invented by religion. It isn’t the essence of religion. The point I’m trying to illuminate here is that “true" religion is not about belief in the literal existence of something for which there is no independently verifiable evidence. Any more than “true” filmgoing is about belief in the literal existence of Jabba the Hutt. Or that “true” literary appreciation is about belief in the literal existence of Atticus Finch.

And yes, religion is more than one thing. It often includes literal advice on mundane practices as well as allegorical tales for moral reflection. But when a scripture says love your neighbor as yourself, and a self-declared follower thinks that means kill everybody who thinks differently from you, you can’t blame the scripture.

@skado
Heh heh! Indeed! Well said!

First, may I ask if you watched the video?

Not talking about a literal quarrel between an individual and an institution, but a metaphorical “quarrel” between “science” and “religion”. A clash of philosophies as it were.

Did you try the YT link in the “unavailable” notice?

Check out the video.