Is Science A Religion?

[Super Polymath]

Ah, then you see it as an issue you just don't want to think about? Sorry to hear that.

 

 

That comment is essentially identical to the medieval goal of achieving a knowledge of God. Would you explain the difference between the two issues to me? Actually there are many people who sincerely believe God is a true aspect of "reality" and that is the very belief which gains them the qualification of "religion". Why do the beliefs of science not gain them the qualification of religion? (Note, I am not deriding science, I am merely trying to reach a truly objective perspective.)

 

 

Did I make any suggestion that “religion” was useless? It clearly has a great influence on peoples daily behavior. I feel you are misinterpreting what I wrote.

 

 

It seems to me that you are putting forth the word “accuracy” as a plug in for the word “truth” to avoid thinking about the issue I bring up.

 

 

That is not exactly what I said. We certainly do not have sufficient time to check everything we think we know so it is rather the goal that I speak of, not of actual achievement.

 

 

Did I ever say “reality isn't there”? I was talking about the definition of truth!

 

 

Now you are bringing up another issue I feel should be discussed. However, we need to define what we mean by “knowledge” and, at least in my mind, knowledge includes the concept of “truth”. In order to discuss “knowledge” we should at least be able to agree on the definition of “truth”.

 

I have put forth my definition of truth: “truth is exactly what you believe to be true”. As I said, “I would challenge anyone to prove that what he believes to be true is not true”. The only problem I see with my definition is that truth is not unchanging. Certainly you seem to see “knowledge” as changing. You also seem to be attaching the idea of truth to knowledge.

 

If you would like to define knowledge as “what you think is true”, I would willingly change the subject to “understanding knowledge". If instead your intention is no more than avoiding any discussion, I would be disappointed.

 

Have fun -- Dick

The only universal truth is that every system works toward equilibrium. Thermodynamics, for instance.

 

Reality is embedded with balance, in every facet of it's nature.

[Thoth101]

Alright I would stop there, you don't want to get burned at the stake by Christians like so many other free thinkers.

 

 

"he greatest oppressors in history was the Holy Roman Church, more so now than in Medieval times as far as wealth inequality just because there's a lot more people now. The thing about a global moral authority such as the Vatican, is that they can maintain the ecosystem killing, money machine that is in place without much effort at all & the Vatican does have more horded wealth than any nation combined. I would even say they secretly have all lost treasures hidden in volts somewhere"

 

 

I agree with that.

 

As for this part, about Moses, I think he used smallpox at-least for the Boils part, I dunno about the others.

 

 

I would debate that Moses didn't even exist in the first place. Just how the story of  Moses is written in the 3rd person. I think the great "Thomas Paine" in the "Age of Reason" from the 1700's broke It down pretty good.

 

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason4.htm

 

But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at once; for there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony; neither can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to things naturally incredible, such as that of talking with God face to face, or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of a man.

https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason17.htm

 

I proceed to examine the authenticity of the Bible, and I begin with what are called the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. My intention is to show that those books are spurious, and that Moses is not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hundred years afterward; that they are no other than an attempted history of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to have lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very ignorant and stupid pretenders to authorship, several hundred years after the death of Moses, as men now write histories of things that happened, or are supposed to have happened, several hundred or several thousand years ago.

https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason18.htm

 

The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the books themselves, and I shall confine myself to this evidence only. Were I to refer for proof to any of the, ancient authors whom the advocates of the Bible call profane authors, they would controvert that authority, as I controvert theirs; I will therefore meet them on their own ground, and oppose them with their own weapon, the Bible.

 

In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is the author of those books; and that he is the author, is an altogether unfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style and manner in which those books were written give no room to believe, or even to suppose, they were written by Moses, for it is altogether the style and manner of another person speaking of Moses. In Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (for everything in Genesis is prior to the time of Moses, and not the least allusion is made to him therein), the whole, I say, of these books is in the third person; it is always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord, or Moses said unto the people, or the people said unto Moses; and this is the style and manner that historians use in speaking of the persons whose lives and actions they are writing. It may be said that a man may speak of himself in the third person, and therefore it may be supposed that Moses did; but supposition proves nothing; and if the advocates for the belief that Moses wrote these books himself have nothing better to advance than supposition, they may as well be silent.

 

But granting the grammatical right that Moses might speak of himself in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd. For example, Numbers, chap. xii. ver. 3. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant of coxcombs; and the advocates for those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are against them; if Moses was not the author, the books are without authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment.

 

In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more evidently than in the former books that Moses is not the writer. The manner here used is dramatical; the writer opens the subject by a short introductory discourse, and then introduces Moses in the act of speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his harangue, he (the writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he brings Moses forward again, and at last closes the scene with an account of the death, funeral, and character of Moses.

 

This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book; from the first verse of the first chapter to the end of the fifth verse, it is the writer who speaks; he then introduces Moses as in the act of making his harangue, and this continues to the end of the 40th verse of the fourth chapter; here the writer drops Moses, and speaks historically of what was done in consequence of what Moses, when living, is supposed to have said, and which the writer has dramatically rehearsed.

 

The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth chapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called the people of Israel together; he then introduces Moses as before, and continues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26th chapter. He does the same thing, at the beginning of the 27th chapter; and continues Moses, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28th chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks again through the whole of the first verse and the first line of the second verse, where he introduces Moses for the last time, and continues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 33rd chapter.

 

The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of Moses, comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last chapter; he begins by telling the reader that Moses went to the top of Pisgah; that he saw from thence the land which (the writer says) had been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that he, Moses, died there, in the land of Moab, but that no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day; that is, unto the time in which the writer lived who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. The writer then tells us, that Moses was 120 years of age when he died — that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated; and he concludes by saying that there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, the Lord knew face to face.

 

Having thus shown, as far as grammatical evidence applies, that Moses was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a few observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book of Deuteronomy, proceed to show from the historical and chronological evidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because he could not be, the writer of them, and consequently that there is no authority for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men, women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as those books say they were, at the command of God. It is a duty incumbent on every true Deist, that he vindicate the moral justice of God against the calumnies of the Bible.

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, (for it is not an anonymous work), is obscure, and also in contradiction with himself, in the account he has given of Moses.

 

After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not appear from any account that he ever came down again), he tells us that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab; but as there is no antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was that did bury him. If the writer meant that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer) know it? or why should we (the readers) believe him? since we know not who the writer was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell where he was buried.

 

The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer lived; how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land of Moab? for as the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not at his funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses himself could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the speaker, would be an improvement on the play of a child that hides himself and cries nobody can find me; nobody can find Moses!

Read on

https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason19.htm