Simple question?

Science has been continually winning the arguments against mystery or supernatural explanations.

It never loses. 100 percent.

The best mystery can do is suggest an idea while something is unknown.

Best it's ever done.

With that kind of record, why people believe in religious superstition at all is just bonkers.

Quote: rxwine

With that kind of record, why people believe in religious superstitious at all is just bonkers.

Depends. When a religious person tells you they have proof the world will end/the rapture will take place on a given day, you can bet all the money in the world that the world won't end/the rapture won't take place on that day :P

Quote: rxwine

With that kind of record, why people believe in religious superstition at all is just bonkers.

They believe it because they were taught
it at an early age. Our minds are very easily
tricked, especially a very young mind. God
is real if that's what you're taught. Like Bill
O'Reilly says, the nuns beat it into him
literally when he was a kid. He'll be a good
brainwashed Catholic till the day he dies.

Quote: Nareed

The point is that when science comes up with something completely outrageous and seemingly impossible, we can find evidence for it in short order. And it call boils down to observations at the very core.

I think Original Sin is completely outrageous and seemingly impossible yet the evidence for it is all around us. We long to be good and do the right thing yet we struggle to do the very things we want to do or do the things we wish we wouldn't. We are capable of so much good but at the same time capable of so much evil. The observations of this reality are beyond doubt and religion comes up with the reason and deeper understanding of these observations.

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You're claiming religion points to a completely humdrum and unexceptional fact: creation requires a creator, but can find NO EVIDENCE AT ALL to support that claim.

The problem lies in the assumption that existence = creation.

What else possibly can existence point to?!? It is very simple to understand I don't see why you continue to deny it. The evidence is the simple fact that the things that exist all around us did not create themselves. We can trace this creation back to the Big Bang. Then we are left trying to explain what happened before the Big Bang to cause it to bang. We have to ask why or how did existence come to be condescended into a space infinitely smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. This answer is not found through observation obviously, because there is nothing to observe. We have to take what we have observed and apply reason and logic to it to come to the unavoidable reality of God. Can you explain existence as we know it in any other way? Of course not. Yet you continue to deny this obvious fact as clear as the nose on your face.

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And from that, the more you couldn't prove even that basic assumption, the more claims you've made and tried to impose on everyone. It's exactly like any other pseudoscience, such as astrology, but with much more deleterious effects.

Living a life based on the teachings of Christ has been shown to be the best of lives and is the reason why things like universities, hospitals, orphanages, and countless other realities beneficial for human beings exist. It is a way of life based on selflessness, generosity, humility, and sacrifice that is the root of all the good that is ever done in our world. To live this way is to find deep seated peace and a joy that the worldly values of greed, selfishness, pride, and power can never give and which leads to the greatest evils in our world.

Quote: rxwine

Science has been continually winning the arguments against mystery or supernatural explanations.

This is just not true. Science cannot explain miracles or the reality of the supernatural all around us. Take exorcisms for example.

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It never loses. 100 percent.

It is 100 percent wrong when it tries to do something it was never meant to do like pretend to do philosophy or make claims about the supernatural.

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With that kind of record, why people believe in religious superstition at all is just bonkers.

Why people believe in a secular materialism at all is really just bonkers.

Quote: FrGamble

I think Original Sin is completely outrageous and seemingly impossible yet the evidence for it is all around us.

It's a rather ordinary manipulation tool.

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We long to be good and do the right thing yet we struggle to do the very things we want to do or do the things we wish we wouldn't.

Have you thought about checking your moral code?

Not only do most people want to do good, most people are good. There's no way we could have built the complex technological civilization if that wasn't so. And it's only when grown-up, mature, adult civilizations realized that production and trade are preferable to war and conquest as a source of wealth, that humanity's potential could be unleashed.

Much of this conflicts with your moral code. For good reason.

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What else possibly can existence point to?!?

When we examine all we know about the Earth, plus what little we know about other planets and stars and galaxies, we see absolutely NO CREATION AT ALL, until primates evolve and begin purposefully shaping the mindless products of nature, weather, and life into tools. Unimpressive as it may seem, one fine day a primate chipped one rock with another rock to make a tool, and that is the first act of creation that we know about.

Where, then, do you get the idea that existence requires creation?

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Living a life based on the teachings of Christ has been shown to be the best of lives and is the reason why things like universities, hospitals, orphanages, and countless other realities beneficial for human beings exist.

I have terrible news for you:

All these wonderful things are the result of capitalism. Capitalism itself is a result of rational self interest applied morally for the purpose of creating wealth. And this goes square against the nonsense about poverty and humility you hold so dear. Many geniuses can be modest, but none of them are humble. A genius, especially a creative genius like Edison, Einstein, Curie, and so on, believes they can come up with something that improves on the whole of humanity's' intellectual achievements to date.

Do you know the pride that requires?

People do best when they cooperate with each other. This is often confused for selflessness. Truth is we cooperate best when we are free to trade with each other for mutual gain. This, too conflicts with your morality.

There is no sin, and there is no original sin. The vast majority of people are good, and want nothing more than to make something of themselves and live a good life, to have a family and friends, and share joy with each other. Try having that with medieval means of production and restricted trade.

There's conflict, of course. but when you realize you don't need to hold people within a mold, as religion demands, and that you're not entitled to that which others are not willing to give you, that you're not entitled to sacrifices, things get a lot more smooth. For that, though, you need to find value within yourself, and not seek it in the esteem or measure of others. another aspect contrary to your moral code.

Quote: FrGamble

This is just not true. Science cannot explain miracles or the reality of the supernatural all around us. Take exorcisms for example.

It also cannot explain the influence of the stars on your date of birth, or any other undetectable, ineffable things all around us. Take horoscopes for example.

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Why people believe in a secular materialism at all is really just bonkers.

Say that again when you're not posting on the internet, wearing clothes, eating food, driving, flying, living past 45 in good health, not dying of small pox, or doing any of a myriad things that are the product of secular materialism.

Quote: FrGamble

Science cannot explain miracles or the reality of the supernatural all around us. Take exorcisms for example.

It isn't that where someone claims possession by a spirit, and you can't use normal logic and reason on them?

I don't get why they also take a vow of celibacy.

Quote: Nareed

Not only do most people want to do good, most people are good.

This is true but you sell us too short. We desire to better, more good, we desire and strive for perfection not just good. Yet we are flabbergasted by the fact we cannot reach this perfection we seek. It does not stop us from pursuing it, why? Because we are destined to perfection it is in our DNA to seek it. Some are so bothered by their struggle for perfection and falling short that they give up and try to do something we can on our own reach very well, which is evil. They don't understand Original Sin and our human condition. You would be well to understand that.

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Much of this conflicts with your moral code. For good reason.

Nope, none of what you said conflicts with my moral code or understanding of humanity. What you are proposing falls short of the experience of humanity.

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When we examine all we know about the Earth, plus what little we know about other planets and stars and galaxies, we see absolutely NO CREATION AT ALL, until primates evolve and begin purposefully shaping the mindless products of nature, weather, and life into tools. Unimpressive as it may seem, one fine day a primate chipped one rock with another rock to make a tool, and that is the first act of creation that we know about.

What kind of craziness of your thinking about here. Are you saying that the creation of the earth is less marvelous than a primate making a crude axe? Are you saying the formation of the sun and other stars or the complex and universal laws of nature are not amazing and wonderful? Do you think that a primate making a tool is more an act of creation then the universe itself?!??

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Where, then, do you get the idea that existence requires creation?

From the above and also from what observational science shows us about an expanding universe and from logic itself that things that exist that do not have the necessary cause for their existence in themselves depend on something else as their cause for existence. Do you think it is something else, then what?

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I have terrible news for you:

All these wonderful things are the result of capitalism.

I have terrible news for you: Not only are you engaging in philosophy by saying this but I think you are wrong. Many of these things existed long before capitalism as we know it today existed. You are also again downplaying the goodness and morality of people. You seem to be saying that if there was nothing in it for them than none of the amazing innovation we know today would never have existed. That is bullocks.

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Do you know the pride that requires?

I know the brilliance, hard work, desire to help others, and selflessness it requires. I don't see where the type of pride I am speaking of fits in. Pride in its sinful form is when we put ourselves above all others and only do something if it will be a benefit to us. It is pride that stifles rather than promotes invention and the desire to benefit humanity.

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People do best when they cooperate with each other. This is often confused for selflessness. Truth is we cooperate best when we are free to trade with each other for mutual gain. This, too conflicts with your morality.

Nothing at all what you say here conflicts with my morality. In fact cooperation and community is at the heart of my morality.

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There is no sin, and there is no original sin. The vast majority of people are good, and want nothing more than to make something of themselves and live a good life, to have a family and friends, and share joy with each other. Try having that with medieval means of production and restricted trade.

Nothing of what you say above follows. How is the vast majority of people being good mean that there is no sin or Original Sin? How is having a good life, family and friends, and sharing joy impossible in medieval times or with restricted trade? I enjoy your love for capitalism but I think history, especially modern history, and philosophy show you are wrong.

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For that, though, you need to find value within yourself, and not seek it in the esteem or measure of others. another aspect contrary to your moral code.

You betray a false and twisted view of what you think my morality is. Again finding value within yourself is central to what Christ has taught us.

Quote: Nareed

Say that again when you're not posting on the internet, wearing clothes, eating food, driving, flying, living past 45 in good health, not dying of small pox, or doing any of a myriad things that are the product of secular materialism.

Secular materialism is the idea that nothing is of value that cannot be seen or observed. The things you mentioned above are possible because we find value in good food, community, travel, good health, none of which can be seen or observed or understood as valuable outside of philosophy and natural reason.