Sam Harris: Religions Are Failed Sciences

[Carol]

Incidentally elder, is this experience of yours the reason you have an angelic polar bear as your avatar? Just noticed it.

Heh. El Oso del Dios = the Bear of God. I'm surprised I didn't notice it either.

 

[elder999]

Incidentally elder, is this experience of yours the reason you have an angelic polar bear as your avatar? Just noticed it.

That's a brown bear. El Oso de Dios, which is a name Danny jokingly hung on me before another ceremony, but, yeah, because of that day......(I've posted about it here before, though I'm not finding it.....)

 

[fangjian]

1-It's as I say, the bear spoke to me with the voice of "God."
2-I was hallucinating.
3-I'm lying.
4- It's as I say, but the bear was just a talking bear messing with a dude's head.
5-It's as I say, but some other entity was speaking through the bear.
6-It was an escaped circus bear.

Sorry. This is where I got the idea that 'the bear was speaking to you'. It's kind of implied above.

 

[elder999]

Sorry. This is where I got the idea that 'the bear was speaking to you'. It's kind of implied above.

Those were possible hypotheses for you to make.I know! what happened. :lfao:

That's not to say that the bear did not tell meo anything .......

 

[fangjian]

One more thing you said that '...it won't change my belief about the event one iota' How come? I welcome any challenge to my beliefs. I don't cling to any of them, as that would imply dogma. And if you have dogmatic beliefs that are resistant to the outside, how can one learn anything? Is that true elder999? You can't be persuaded?

 

[elder999]

One more thing you said that '...it won't change my belief about the event one iota' How come? I welcome any challenge to my beliefs. I don't cling to any of them, as that would imply dogma. And if you have dogmatic beliefs that are resistant to the outside, how can one learn anything? Is that true elder999? You can't be persuaded?

Nothing at all dogmatic about it: I know what I experienced. I'm open to conversation, I mean, we're having one, after all, but "persuasion?"Better that you try to persuade me that the Sea of Cortez isn't wet....:lfao:l

 

[Empty Hands]

I appreciate your reply and you have outlined several pertinent social theories cogently. Can you tell me please, in your example, which one(s) of those particular social theories would make it wrong for you personally to kill Breivik had he gunned down and murdered your children?

All of them. They aren't social theories either, but philosophical systems of ethics and morality.

As I alluded to, theistic systems of ethics and morality are actually uncommon in the field of philosophy. You will find that more systems of morality lack god(s) than have them.

I am simply trying to open the discussion (as you seem open to doing) beyond the utter closed-minded indoctrination of many athiests, Jenna.

This is not the first referral to close minded, hypocritical, indoctrinated, dogmatic and "religious" atheists in this thread. Why is it even relevant? No one here has shown such attitudes. It basically sounds like poisoning the well, giving a reason to ignore arguments from atheists that cause discomfort.

 

[Empty Hands]

I am sorely disappointed in the lack of elaborate and imaginative gedanken experiments in this thread. Maxwell invented a Demon people! We have big shoes to fill.

So, what "evidence" there is is purely subjective, experiential, and of no use to anyone but me, and, perhaps, those who choose to believe me.

I don't accept that your general experience cannot be interrogated scientifically. In fact, experiences like yours are already under laboratory investigation, which I think you yourself referred to earlier in the thread.

First, the method you used and the result you obtained, while perhaps unique to you in the details, is not unique at all in general. Mystics, saints, holy men, hermits and heretics have been using similar methods to obtain similar results for thousands of years. Deprivation, of sleep and food (yours). Monomaniacal focus and/or repetitive motions and words, for hours or days at a time. Ecstatic dancing. Scourging. Drugs. All can produce experiences similar to yours. That suggests a method, and a biological mechanism.

Subjective experiences and reports of the same count as evidence. Otherwise we would never have been able to scientifically investigate the mechanism of hallucinations, perception disorders, and similar. So you get a lot of people together, and you induce ecstatic states using some of the methods above, and have them report their experiences. This is gedanken, so do them all, with thousands of people in every treatment and control group. Then you start intervening. 5HT2A inhibitors, noradrenergic inhibitors, certain opioid inhibitors, all of the pathways involved in hallucination, but which do not affect normal perception. Do self-reported numinous experiences decrease or stop entirely when hallucinogenic inhibitors are used? That might tell you something about whether the experience is the result of a stress state leading to hallucination or whether an outside entity is communicating with the people.

Can the experiences be caused, instead of blocked? Use 5HT2A agonists like psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs to see if we can replicate these religious experiences without the exogenous stressors. You can use other methods like trans-cranial magnetic stimulation as well. In fact, I already know that drugs and methods like these can induce "religious" experiences in the laboratory. That tells you something too.

Once you have identified biological pathways involved in these religious experiences, do genetic studies to compare alleles of the involved receptor pathways with religiosity and religious experiences. Maybe you will find the "atheist gene", a less active 5HT2A receptor or something similar.

People undergoing these experiences can also be monitored to learn more about the mechanism. Blood hormone and other levels. fMRI brain imaging to give insight to the brain structures involved.

This is all just off the top of my head. If your subjective religious experience is not subject to the scientific method, then no subjective experience is. But we know this is not true, and indeed religious experiences themselves are already the subject of investigation. See the neuroscientist Daniel Dennett for more information.

 

[elder999]

I am sorely disappointed in the lack of elaborate and imaginative gedanken experiments in this thread. Maxwell invented a Demon people! We have big shoes to fill.



I don't accept that your general experience cannot be interrogated scientifically. In fact, experiences like yours are already under laboratory investigation, which I think you yourself referred to earlier in the thread.

First, the method you used and the result you obtained, while perhaps unique to you in the details, is not unique at all in general. Mystics, saints, holy men, hermits and heretics have been using similar methods to obtain similar results for thousands of years. Deprivation, of sleep and food (yours). Monomaniacal focus and/or repetitive motions and words, for hours or days at a time. Ecstatic dancing. Scourging. Drugs. All can produce experiences similar to yours. That suggests a method, and a biological mechanism.

Subjective experiences and reports of the same count as evidence. Otherwise we would never have been able to scientifically investigate the mechanism of hallucinations, perception disorders, and similar. So you get a lot of people together, and you induce ecstatic states using some of the methods above, and have them report their experiences. This is gedanken, so do them all, with thousands of people in every treatment and control group. Then you start intervening. 5HT2A inhibitors, noradrenergic inhibitors, certain opioid inhibitors, all of the pathways involved in hallucination, but which do not affect normal perception. Do self-reported numinous experiences decrease or stop entirely when hallucinogenic inhibitors are used? That might tell you something about whether the experience is the result of a stress state leading to hallucination or whether an outside entity is communicating with the people.

Can the experiences be caused, instead of blocked? Use 5HT2A agonists like psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs to see if we can replicate these religious experiences without the exogenous stressors. You can use other methods like trans-cranial magnetic stimulation as well. In fact, I already know that drugs and methods like these can induce "religious" experiences in the laboratory. That tells you something too.

Once you have identified biological pathways involved in these religious experiences, do genetic studies to compare alleles of the involved receptor pathways with religiosity and religious experiences. Maybe you will find the "atheist gene", a less active 5HT2A receptor or something similar.

People undergoing these experiences can also be monitored to learn more about the mechanism. Blood hormone and other levels. fMRI brain imaging to give insight to the brain structures involved.

This is all just off the top of my head. If your subjective religious experience is not subject to the scientific method, then no subjective experience is. But we know this is not true, and indeed religious experiences themselves are already the subject of investigation. See the neuroscientist Daniel Dennett for more information.

Still missing the point: this experience isn't subject to scientific interrogation-it's not duplicable. While, yes, other people have other, similar experiences, and while the methods used to attain them can be duplicated, this one cannot: it's mine.

In that context, it's just as you say: no subjective experience is subject to the scientific method.

In the context of the rest of your post-most of which, save the biochemisty (Thanks!) I'm well aware of-of course they're subject to investigation. Those contexts are particularly limited though: specific technologies under specific controls, most of wich already take place in ceremony, taking place in a laboratory setting: drumming and chanting at certain rates, keeping certan postures for prolonged periods, fasting an sleep deprivation all come to mind-all done in the laboratory.I wasn't in a laboratory, though, and no one is likely to pick out the exact spot I chose to stand on the hill-this is a vital part of the ceremony, and one with fairly vague instructions. No one could or would tie and string tobacco bundles in exactly the same fashion as I did-I don't know that I could, as I'm not partiularly fastidious about such things. Drives some people nuts! You could duplicate the time of year, and some generalities, but not quite duplicating any of them would be disqualifying, wouldn't it?

In any case, you help prove my point: the video in the OP makes a weak case, or, at least, not the right one: religions aren't failed science; in many cases, they aren't "failed" anything, in that they do exactly what they set out to do. There are several religious technologies which, quite simply, work.

 

[fangjian]

drumming and chanting at certain rates, keeping certan postures for prolonged periods, fasting an sleep deprivation all come to mind-all done in the laboratory.I wasn't in a laboratory, though, and no one is likely to pick out the exact spot I chose to stand on the hill-this is a vital part of the ceremony, and one with fairly vague instructions. No one could or would tie and string tobacco bundles in exactly the same fashion as I did

Wait what? This was a religious ceremony you were doing? and not drinking water for four days?

religions aren't failed science; in many cases, they aren't "failed" anything, in that they do exactly what they set out to do. There are several religious technologies which, quite simply, work.

I think most religious people would disagree with you that all of their books are just allegorical.

 

[elder999]

Wait what? This was a religious ceremony you were doing? and not drinking water for four days?

Yes, this was the hanblechia, or lamenting for a vision-what you might have heard called a vision quest, and we often say "going up on the hill."

Got one drink of water each night after the sun went down. No food. No sleep, as long as I could help it. Plains Indians are pretty big on suffering as part of religion, and this was a religious ceremony. I think I made that part pretty clear, too:

..... I engaged in a ritual where I didn't eat, didn't drink water, and stood staring at the sky for four days. Sometime on the fourth day, I'm approached by a bear. I insist-and I do-that I had a conversation with the bear. I further assert that the bear was the universe/God's/"the force's/Foot's (sometimes I call God "foot," it's my way of making fun of Him) way of conveying a message to me-that I had a rather prolonged and meaningful conversation with "God."

...oddly, though, the bear was no vision....I am so blessed! :asian:

The bear itself, at least, was not a hallucination, and was observed by another

I think most religious people would disagree with you that all of their books are just allegorical.

I didn't say all their books-I said most "creation myths." If they don't believe that they're allegorical-or meant to be-well, they are quite simply wrong. They can, of course, believe what they want-whatever they choose to believe, as can you. :lfao:

 

[Empty Hands]

Still missing the point: this experience isn't subject to scientific interrogation-it's not duplicable. While, yes, other people have other, similar experiences, and while the methods used to attain them can be duplicated, this one cannot: it's mine.

You could say the same about any experience, any result, any chemical interaction. Every single cell in my dish reacts slightly differently to the drugs I test, and the average differs slightly every time. Every mouse has a slightly unique physiological reaction. No physical phenomena is perfectly duplicable. That's why God invented the Standard Error Measurement. I don't see how your experience differs in that regard. Aggregate experiences give insight to the mechanism.

In any case, you help prove my point: the video in the OP makes a weak case, or, at least, not the right one: religions aren't failed science; in many cases, they aren't "failed" anything, in that they do exactly what they set out to do. There are several religious technologies which, quite simply, work.

Very true, and religion succeeds at other things it sets out to do, like acting as a social tie or a social control. I don't think anyone disputes this. I didn't watch the video and I am only passingly familiar with Sam Harris, but this is how I would phrase this argument:

Science is more than a technology or a means to a specific utilitarian end. Science is a method of epistemology, first and foremost. To my knowledge, it is the only falsifiable system of epistemology in existence, which as we both know makes for a superior method. Religions are also methods or systems of epistemology, except that they are non-falsifiable at the core and all testable claims of these systems have been shown to be false (i.e. the Bible implies the world is a few thousand years old, Nation of Islam claims the evil wizard Yakub created white people, etc.). Religions are thus failed in some cases and inferior in all cases as systems of epistemology, renamed "sciences" to fit Harris' claim.

 

[Archangel M]

In 1979 Pope John Paul II expressed the wish that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences would conduct an indepth study of the celebrated and controversial "Galileo case". A Commission of scholars for this purpose was established in 1981 and on Saturday morning, 31 October they presented their conclusions to the Pope. A summary of these conclusions was given by Cardinal Paul Poupard Receiving them in the Sala Regia of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father took the occasion to thank the members of the Commission for their work and to speak to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the distinct but complementary roles that faith and science fulfill in human life. Also present were members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See and highranking officials of the Roman Curia.

The following English translation of the Holy Father's address, which was given in French, appeared in L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - 4 November 1992

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~nmcenter/sci-cp/sci-9211.html

If you are REALLY interested in understanding the relationship between faith and science (at least in the view of the leader of MY religion) this is worth a read.

PS:Note the number of Nobel prize winners who are members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

 

[Archangel M]

Nothing?

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[Empty Hands]

Nothing?

On the one hand, the response of the Catholic Church and the last few Popes in particular to modern science is very heartening. They have eschewed the fundamentalism of some of the Protestant traditions and have attempted to harmonize faith with the obvious and apparent facts of the world. It is also admirable that the Church has had a scientific tradition for some centuries, and that some Orders, such as the Jesuits, are devoted to learning. The Catholic Church does much better on this score than many other sects of Christianity and some other entire religions.

On the other hand, the Church still reserves a non-scientific postulate of the soul in their scientific agreement. Not that they shouldn't of course, the soul is the base of the Christian tradition. However, it's hard to make a scientific statement while still reserving an entirely non-scientific argument as part of it. Sort of like saying "I accept that your computer works by physical laws, except I still believe that invisible hamsters running on invisible wheels are ultimately powering it."