Personal Stories about Your Encounter with God!

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The odds are higher than you think, as a mathematician would know. Placing excessive significance on coincidence and chance is a common problem.

I believe that a fanatical belief in hard science is just as untenable as a fanatical belief in god. The nun and the athiest have alot in common.

Agreed. But fortunately, most scientists do not have a fanatical belief in their science. Rather, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, science keeps changing as scientists revise and update their "beliefs". Scientists admit when they make a mistake, and rewrite the books.

Compare that to Christianity where the book (the bible) stays the same forever and if you dare say it is wrong, you are accused of blasphemy and heresy, and in previous times you could even be killed for disputing it. Whereas among scientists, disputing a scientific "belief" is encouraged, provided that you do it in an intelligent manner with logical reasoning, evidence, experiments, observations etc.

Scientific inquiry can never be purely objective because it is biased by market forces and the social values of our time. Scientific investigation is paid for by companies that want to profit from technology. All those petrochemical and most especially the pharmaceutical companies originally gained wealth and power by starting World War II. Those companies were instrumental to Hitler's rise to power. Those companies are also responsible for all the environmental destruction that we are now experiencing. So when you say that the difference between religion and science is that science is open to objective inquiry, I have to disagree.

thats a very good point anandamide, about the effect of business interests on scientific research and knowledge. and to comment also on emp's statement that refutation of current scientific knowledge is encouraged, there have been many situations where this has not been the case. wilhelm reich, for example, died in prison and his books were burnt for challenging the contemporary scientific views. in many ways, the scientific establishment is very dogmatic.

In my opinion, you have provided some examples where that is the case, but these examples on the whole are not representative of the entire field of science. A large part of scientific inquiry comes from professors and researchers working at universities, not all research is conducted in corporations. The only reason you hear only about the research conducted at corporations all the time is becuase they are out to make a profit, thus the research is conducted in order to be released throughout the public in order to sway opinion, if it wasn't it would be a waste of money.

University research on the other hand is conducted solely for the pursuit of truth, which is funded by government grants and fellowships, but, the truth is boring and more importantly unprofitable, which is why these types of studies are rarely heard of in the realm of public opinion. We have made tremendous strides in physics, biology, neuroscience, etc, but you don't hear about them because they are not profitable, and thus are outside of the scope of the daily lives of most people. These types of studies are purely objective, which is further enforced by peer reviewed journals.

If you want to read about absolutely objective studies you will never find them on the news, or in the realm of public debate, but, only in certain types of peer reviewed journals, or in the realm of academic debate. Serious scientists find it a waste of time to debate findings done by corporations and for-profit research centers because they recognize this difference. Just because things are not a constant in your life does not mean that they do not exist. I myself had no idea of the scope or absolute objectivity of the research being conducted outside of the realm of public knowledge until I started to participate myself.

Granted that the government restricts the areas of research (there will never be studies on the benefits of marijuana, or the harmful effects of religion), but this is different from having a biased study. It is simply a limit on what we can study, not how we study something. Whereas religion is the opposite, they limit how we study something. This is a very important difference that is often overlooked.

And yes, there have been some instances where scientific inquiry has been stiffled, but, this is by and large not representative of the scientific community as a whole, much as there have been instances where religion has been used to sanction murder and horrific crimes, but, they are not representative of the religious community as a whole.

One cannot point to a few counterexamples and them make a universal judgement on an entire field. Otherwise I could say that an entire town was evil because of one murderer, or an entire religious community should be torn apart because of one pedophile. A view of the larger picture is needed for comparison, not a few conveniently selected snapshots.

Irrelevant. Even if scientific inquiry is not purely objective, it is still far, far more objective than religion.


You claim that WWII was started by petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies??? That is nuts. No historian will agree with you.


Another wild, nutty, unsupported claim.


Another claim that is nuts. YOU are responsible for the environmental destruction that we are now experiencing. You and everyone else living in cities and taking advantage of cars, buses, trucks etc being fueled by petrol/gasoline, and electricity generated by coal-fired power stations. You are a willing participant in the environmental destruction.


I did not say that. You are putting words in my mouth, and then claiming they are wrong. What I said was that most scientists do not have a fanatical belief in their science, and are open to revising and updating their "beliefs", as has been repeatedly demonstrated. Whereas in Christianity, the bible stays the same forever.

Regarding the issue of objective inquiry, science is far, far more open to objective inquiry than religion is. Furthermore, religion is usually not open to ANY inquiry, regardless of whether it is objective or subjective. Science is open to change, religion is not.

You changed your argument. First you claimed that scientists have fanatical belief in their science. When that argument was exposed as obviously and demonstratably wrong, you then changed to attacking science by claiming it is not "purely objective", which is a useless thing to say because all it means is that science is not perfect. No-one is claiming it is perfect. Nothing is perfect, but something can still be better without being perfect.

Even if that is true, it is irrelevant. The point is that science is far, far more open to change than religion is. The christian bible never changes. Science regularly changes. Therefore, returning to the original argument, scientists usually do not have fanatical belief in their science.


He was not imprisoned for challenging scientific views. Rather he was imprisoned for refusing to stop ripping people off. He was a scammer.


What do you mean by dogmatic? I will look it up in the dictionary. "Characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles." That is OBVIOUSLY false, as scientists constantly demand proof and perform many experiments to prove their principles.

The messages that anandamide and peebo posted are bizarre distortions of reality.

While I completely agree that science is waaaay more open to change than Christianity, the bible does occasionally change--there are differences, for example, between the old testament and the new testament. New thoughts about religion, however, often cause the new thinkers to split off into a new group entirely, which almost always ends up drenched in some religious war. The problem is that debatable science is more restricted to scientists, while religion is followed by the masses. If only priests and nuns were religious, then there wouldn't be religious wars; hence why there aren't any scientific wars, but only scientific debates. That said, the fact that the masses are involved is the reason why change in religion is met with such disdain. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the masses are moronic and evil when they form in groups, or factions. Atheists included. (Again, I am an atheist, so it's not like I'm trying to defend Christianity or religion, or go after science. Just saying. Heh.)

A few vehicles of Christians a few times for community service went to a very poor neighborhood and handed out groceries knocking on every door. This was a town I use live in.

Christians often do nice things for community service, this is part of the "experience" of God. Something to do with good deeds, it was not advertised, no news papers wrote about it.

A few religions teach that you will be rewarded for doing good deeds or selfless service. But think about it, if you will be rewarded, then it is not selfless! It is broken logic. They are doing the good deed because they think it will bring them closer to God, i.e. God will favor them, so it is actually selfish, or at least not completely selfless because there is also a perceived benefit to themselves.

Some Christians use good deeds as a form of advertising and recruiting. When doing so, they typically prey on people who are generally more susceptible/vulnerable, such as poor people.

And then occasionally a Christian does something that genuinely IS a good selfless deed. Christianity certainly is not all bad. It is just mostly bad.

I never was a fan of satanism or satanists.

First of all, objectivity as a concept has been well refuted. Objectivity does not exist, not in journalism or science. Understanding THAT is a very integral part of being culturally literate in society today. The concept of objectivity emerged from 19th century science when people thought that newly developed machines could eliminate human bias. For example, people thought that cameras were capable of taking photographs that would provide objective images. We know better now. We understand that machines are extensions of human consciousness and that their activities are influenced by their creators. The concept of objectivity has been widely refuted.

Scientific inquiry has "proven" that prayer has efficacy. In fact, studies have been done in the top ten universities in the United States but also around the world at various leading universities. It is easy to find many scholarly papers that discuss these studies online. One example that compiles such studies is www.integral-inquiry.com/docs/649/empirical.pdf

I am not a big World War II buff, but it is widely recognized that I.G Farben was instrumental to Hitler's rise to power. In fact, the executives of I.G Farben (the precursor of all pharmaceutical companies, and it formed the capital that provided the basis for all pharmaceutical companies today) were prosecuted for war crimes. Read about the history of I.G Farben to learn about this, it is information that is widely available. Strangely enough, it does not show up in college textbooks, but then alot of history gets edited out of those books. College textbooks provide what colleges like to believe are the "basics" of education, and don't give alot of details on the more exciting parts of history. You have to go to graduate school to get into the more interesting stuff. Or, just be an avid reader on your own. But this connection between the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries and Hitler is very well documented. This information is widely available. Type it in to a search engine and you will see with your own eyes. I've grabbed just one link to show you:

http://www.threeworldwars.com/world-war ... ground.htm

As far as MY being responsible for environmental destruction, well, again I have to disagree. I am constrained by many factors that make it almost impossible for me to "tread lightly upon the earth" ...but at least I am not one of those petrochemical executives in the 1930's who lobbied to have Cannabis Sativa banned with the agenda that it provided an enormous threat to the timber and petrochemical companies because the plant provides the most effective biomass fuel known. Henry Ford designed the automobile to run on hemp fuel and the plant got banned because the petrochemical companies were searching for bigger markets after World War II. They saw hemp as a threat to their empire. Even today the US government puts so many barriers in the way of hemp farmers. If hemp were used for fuel we would not have global warming and so many environmental disasters occurring around the world.


If there is one thing I've learned from my university education (and I went to school for about fifteen years because my disabilities made if difficult to find other employment) it is the importance of being a skeptic of all things, including scientific research.

Last edited by anandamide on 22 May 2006, 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jonathan, your response deserves alot longer answer than I can provide right at this moment, but I want to point out to you that there have been MANY scientific studies done on the therapeutic and other aspects of marijuana for decades. These studies have been done in the US and around the world. Most of these studies were reviewed in the Canadian Senate report that concluded marijuana should be legalized. The Senate's rigorous medical review supports the legalization of marijuana.

And I have posted above in response to Emp on the many studies both in the US and around the world that support the idea that prayer has efficacy.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/illegal-drugs.asp.

no, i don't think he was a scammer,however, lets disregard the reasons for his imprisonment. why were his books burnt? why did they burn his books?it seems rather dogmatic and inquisitorial to me, burning a mans books, wouldn't you agree?



scientific dogma certainly exists.
http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/200 ... ndiversity







yes, we can all find definitions of words that suit our arguments if we look hard enough.