... His father laughed aloud, and his lady mother too. At once shining Hector took the helmet off his head and laid it on the ground, and when he had kissed his dear son and dandled him in his arms, he prayed to Zeus and to the other Gods: Zeus and ye other Gods, grant that this my son may be, as I am, most glorious among the Trojans and a man of might, and greatly rule in Ilion. And may they say, as he returns from war, "He is far better than his father."

"What moves the Greek warrior to deeds of heroism," Kitto comments, "is not a sense of duty as we understand it...duty towards others: it is rather duty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate 'virtue' but is in Greek aretê, 'excellence' — we shall have much to say about aretê. It runs through Greek life. ..."

Finding I could speak the language of ants, I approached one and enquired, 'What is God like? Does he resemble the ant?' He answered,'God! No indeed --we have only a single sting, but God, he has TWO!'

My understanding of science (I have a BA in applied maths at Cambridge; and I did physics at school) is that "science" is quite limited in scope

First come I. My name is J–W–TT.
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am the Master of this College,
What I don't know isn't knowledge.

It began to develop when printing made written language common rather than rare, five hundred years ago or so, and with electronic processing and copying it continues to develop and proliferate so powerfully, so dominatingly, that many believe this dialect - the expository and particularly the scientific discourse - is the highest form of language, the true language, of which all other uses of words are primitive vestiges.

And it is indeed an excellent dialect. Newton's Principia was written in it in Latin, and Descartes wrote Latin and French in it, establishing some of its basic vocabulary, and Kant wrote German in it, and Marx, Darwin, Freud, Boas, Foucault - all the great scientists and social thinkers wrote it. It is the language of thought that seeks objectivity.

I do not say it is the language of rational thought. Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective thought. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner. The essential gesture of the father tongue is not reasoning but distancing-making a gap, a space, between the subject or self and the object or other.

Take some of the scientific laws for example, like Newton's laws of motion or anything. I suggest that the laws are meaningless unless/until someone comes along and understands them: entertains them: gives them meaning: uses them, discovers how they're applicable.

But ditto there are religious "laws" or theorums, for example ...

* There is no God but Allah
* The Tao which can be named is not the eternal
* For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
* Don't lie

... and similarly these are meaningless until somebody gives them meaning. But if we give them meaning, then they become knowledge, and are useful.

Along the way, science develops a vocabulary (including words like force, gravity, field, statistical confidence) which have technical meanings.

But IMO the body of religious knowledge also has a vocabulary and techniques, some of which (I find) have meaning and are useful.

I have no patience with the concept of 'tolerance' of other religions.

Science answers "how."

Religion answers "why."

Science answers why as well. Why did the apple fall from the tree? Gravity. A detailed explanation of how gravity works gives you both the how and the why.

It seems to me that most of the "atheists" have so far been rightly shitting on organized religion and the monkeys that buy into it to the exclusion of all other evidence, while perhaps falling into a similar trap themselves in wanting to disregard any possible validity in both the various "wisdom" or "spiritual" traditions that history has to offer us, and the human experiences that are more easily modelled in a non-scientific symbol structure.

These are all things the brain does. Biology. Nothing magical about it.

No one I know, Christian, Pagan, Hindu, Jew, or otherwise has ever claimed that their beliefs are verifiable. We all know they're not to anyone other than ourselves. The only people who claim that its verifiable and totally correct and omg-you-non-believer-you're-*gasp*-wrong are fundamentalist whack-jobs, playgans and predators. Not people that should be taken seriously by anyone IMO.

These are all things the brain does. Biology. Nothing magical about it.

Gandhi once said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Which is all very clever and quotable, clappityclapclap, but more importantly has about it the ring of, oh-ho-yes, #TRENDINGTOPIX. That man was totally ahead of his time.

“I like your Science. I do not like your Scientists. Your Scientists are so fucking Neurotic And Dull.”

#ModernGandhism. PLAY ALONG.

Now, dogma and especially dogma enshrined in law is fucking stupid, but personal faith is not, or maybe it is but it's the particular strain of stupidity that makes us who we are. None of us are perfectly rational beings. We all have faith in something.

Science can explain the biological process and reason for falling in love, but does that really compare to Shakespeare?

SCIENCE, on the other hand ... hoo boy. Reading some of the posts by people who apparently think SCIENCE is this monolithic entity made out of Goodness, puppies and blow jobs kinda gets up my nose. SCIENCE is a business, always has been, always will be. SCIENCE has traditionally been competition, back-biting, stealing other people's ideas, slander and other very HUMAN faults.

But some questions -- what happens to our consciousness when we die? -- don't have a definite answer yet.

Let's be fair, Science doesn't have a perfect record either. Just off the top of my head, wasn't the French Revolution at least partly fueled by a desire to create a "society of reason", free from religious thought? And yet it was a massive bloodletting.

... The faces on the west portal of Chartes are among the most sincere and, in a true sense, the most aristocratic that Western Europe ever produced.

We know from the old chronicles something about the men whose state of mind these faces reveal. In the year 1144, they say, when the towers seemed to be rising as if by magic, the faithful harnessed themselves to the carts which were bringing stone, and dragged them from the quarry to the cathedral. The enthusiasm spread throughout France. Men and women came from far away carrying heavy burdens of povisions for the workmen - wine, oil, and corn. Amonst them were lords and ladies, pulling carts with the rest. There was perfect discipline, and a most profound silence. All hearts were united and each forgave his enemies. This feeling of dedication to a great civilising ideal is even more overwhelming when we pass though the portal into the interior. This is not only one of the two most beautiful covered spaces in the world (the other is St Sophia in Constantinople), but it is one that has a peculiar effect on the mind; and the men who built it would have said that this was because it was the favourite earthly abode of the Virgin Mary.

.. The faces on the west portal of Chartes are among the most sincere and, in a true sense, the most aristocratic that Western Europe ever produced.

We know from the old chronicles something about the men whose state of mind these faces reveal. In the year 1144, they say, when the towers seemed to be rising as if by magic, the faithful harnessed themselves to the carts which were bringing stone, and dragged them from the quarry to the cathedral. The enthusiasm spread throughout France. Men and women came from far away carrying heavy burdens of povisions for the workmen - wine, oil, and corn. Amonst them were lords and ladies, pulling carts with the rest. There was perfect discipline, and a most profound silence. All hearts were united and each forgave his enemies. This feeling of dedication to a great civilising ideal is even more overwhelming when we pass though the portal into the interior. This is not only one of the two most beautiful covered spaces in the world (the other is St Sophia in Constantinople), but it is one that has a peculiar effect on the mind; and the men who built it would have said that this was because it was the favourite earthly abode of the Virgin Mary.

Having read the last page and a half at a stretch, I think it would be productive if everyone take a couple points as a given before we progress:

1) Both science and religion, like all human pursuits, are capable of and have done both great good and horrible evil, and to attempt quantification of either's is a waste of time.

2) Neither science, nor religion, nor good, nor evil, will ever disappear completely from human civilization, therefore speculating on why one or the other would be better is masturbation.

The amount of cyclical posting in here to the tune of "I'm not saying all _______ is bad, just that _______" or "if the world didn't have _______, _______ would never happen" is crippling the real conversation, and Rachael's original topic, IMHO.

I think it's safe to assume that no one here genuinely believes that either science or religion is fundamentally evil and capable of no positive influence, and if someone does, they're a moron and should be ignored anyway.

But again, the point is Extremism, be it Faith or Science, is a bad thing.

Also: that's a Godwin jump.

Eugenics in general is an example of science gone wrong.

Mengele was a good example of what we're referring to

@Andre - well, it is invoking Godwin to use a Nazi scientist to make a point about atheism. I don't understand what you mean by the flying brick stuff.

I can accept that definition of extremism too and still ask for a single example of where such "scientific extremists" with their pro-science agenda actually represent a threat to individuals or societies in the way that religious extremists so clearly do.

I think trying to establish any equivalence of authority between the two is just plain wishful thinking.

Mengele was a monster, his crimes were commited in the name of science, maybe, but science doesn't mandate the things he did. That's why it's a Godwin to bring him up. The causal link between faith and extremism is in contrast, undeniable.

You could argue science is driven by fear too, but that's not really true. It's driven by relentless, insatiable, demanding curiosity that is only intolerant of bad information and refuses to be swayed by special pleading.

Even religious extremists don't do what they do just for love of their religion, not just for a pro-religious agenda. Otherwise they'd never have had to come up with that shit about the seventy-two virgins.

Religion and science are both belief frameworks.

andrenavarro: Even religious extremists don't do what they do just for love of their religion, not just for a pro-religious agenda. Otherwise they'd never have had to come up with that shit about the seventy-two virgins.

But that is a perfect example of how religion appeals to people's primitive impulses, lust in this case, in order to manipulate their thinking about unknowns. Without religion the concept of an afterlife of reward simply wouldn't exist! Science can demonstrate not only the exceedingly low probability of the seventy two virgins scenario being correct, but also the origins of those primitive impulses, their evolutionary function and how we have outgrown the need to be governed by them. Science can teach us true things about ourselves and the universe. Religion can teach us nothing, except by accident.

Gattaca does not represent a real-world threat of "scientific extremism", its society is hardcore social Darwinist. There is nothing scientific about that. Social Darwinism (also a rationale for eugenics) is a political ideology as opposed to Darwinism which is support for a theory about evolution. Gattaca's society uses technology to inform and achieve their objectives but there is nothing inherently scientific about their aims.

You make a reasonable point about Mengele, I can see the argument and understand why it wasn't a simple Godwin as it initially appeared. I still think that you're wrong though. Yes, Mengele used science as a justification for some horrific things. Yes, there is an argument that he did what he did because on some level he believed it served science. But the deliberate cruelty, the psychopathic disregard for human life are not specifically caused by scientific thinking. Science is incapable of providing a justificaction for such horrors, they were mandated by a rabidly xenophobic and racist political ideology.

People who blow themselves up on crowded streets or trains on the other hand are doing it specifically because their religious beliefs mandate it.

It is the religious argument that allows them to believe that what they do is moral. Likewise, with Mengele, it was the ideology that gave him the excuse and the opportunity to indulge himself, not the scientific method.

I'm sorry that you think I'm being narrow-minded, I don't see myself as being hostile to personal, private faith and I certainly don't intend to offend anybody else's sincerely held beliefs but as long as we're discussing it honestly I'm not going to tiptoe around out of respect for the sanctity of anyone's fantasy. Thinking someone is wrong and thinking they're an idiot are two very different things. The idea that you either have to be on the side of science or religion is absurd. I'm on the side of people in general, and most people have considerably more nuanced views than they're given credit for.

I trust the scientific method, and believe quantifiable data is the only way we can learn about the world. I would not expect anyone else to put any stock in an experience I alone had, and could not quantify. But does the fact that I experience something that is not quantifiable, explainable, or tangible and do not refute it's existence make me a non-atheist and/or a non-realist?

Music is not just mathematically related vibrations. That would be as you point out sound waves. Sequenced sound waves perhaps, but this tells us nothing about what we define as music, why it can be so evocative, why a series of tones can unlock forgotten memories.

While science may provide a model to tell us how such tones cause a surge of neurotransmitters to a region of the brain, it cannot tell us what those memories are, what they mean, because objectively they have no meaning.

But does the fact that I experience something that is not quantifiable, explainable, or tangible and do not refute it's existence make me a non-atheist and/or a non-realist?

Its also worth remembering that there was a time when the Church was a sponsor of the sciences...

Certain modern interpretations of Buddhism seem to be able to fit into this category, no? Or even the writings and lectures of Carl Sagan?

Is there a lexicon that would better fit this perspective without getting muddled and confused with the religious language of the old world?

It was a poorly thought out analogy.

An atheist can still have a sense of "spirituality" (for lack of a better term), yes?

It's nothing supernatural, it's just moments of coming face to face with one's own nature, and one's interrelatedness with the world.

Quantifying a soul or a spirit seems to be a similar (or the same) concept as quantifying consciousness: the concept itself is so fragmentary and vague that there's no clear way to research it.

I'm sorry if you were dismayed but Science as method is reductive, the models that we create using that method may be elegantly described, but in and of itself cold objectivity is what makes it work. I ask you, what else could scientific method tell us about the Statue of David? Please also be aware that prior to using my two extremes of scientist and theologist I did say what a normal person may say, someone who is not restricted by the rigours of those disciplines.

Please don't get me wrong here folks I think both science and our imaginings are fundamentally important however too often people fall into one camp and dismiss the other precisely because they are separate. To me the trick is not to struggle to find common ground but to celebrate them in their differences in the same way one would sports and cuisine.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

I do aspire to be more than a fleshy bag of meat and brain-chemicals, though.

I do aspire to be more than a fleshy bag of meat and brain-chemicals, though.

The majority of people on the planet are religious, I think.

The straw atheists who need setting to rights don't seem to be here, if indeed they are anywhere.

The question is on what categorical level the word "fantasy" (or any other descriptor) unifies fantastical fiction and religious text, and by what common features it does so?

I do think it's time for me to go.