Great religious falsehoods

I agree that that's a false claim of religion. Science isn't leaving it alone, anyway. Apart from what you give as your primary reason, neurology, psychiatry, psychology and anthropology have plenty to say about religious faith, and even from genetics there are noises about possible genes that might make some individuals more inclined to religiosity than others.Science certainly won't leave it alone, whatever the desires of our faithful brethren!

What's that? Religious faith? I can predict that amongst the next generation of Irish people, as yet unborn, more will follow the Christian faith than any other religion. (Substitute Egyptian for Irish and Islam for Christian, same prediction, etc.). Would you bet against me?So, surely this thing called faith is not entirely unpredictable.Other mental states, conditions and cultural phenomena are observed in a scientific manner. Why not religious faith?

How do you know? You're defining your God and your faith the more you say about them, and the more you do that, the more a good psychologist or cultural anthropologist would have to work on.Let's look at your first post. Is your faith unpredictable? You make a lot of comments about your God, what he does and doesn't want/do etc., so someone should be able to get a pretty good fix on the iano faith.Certainly, this is usually something for study by the "soft" rather than the hard sciences, except where they overlap (as in psychiatry/neurology) for example.Religious faith can certainly be studied scientifically, I maintain.Indeed, it is being studied: And a fascinating study it makes

How can you know he's omnipotent? Where's your evidence for this?

That's the conventional way of looking at it, and I understand what you mean, but try this. The claim has to come from somewhere. So, we have an evidenceless claim emerging from the human mind/brain of a theist. Now, we are dealing with something that science can examine, something concrete. So, we can examine the God via the source of the claim.This way, if the proposed God is an objective reality, then your way of thinking might apply, but if it is a subjective delusion, the other obvious possibility/probability, then we could well identify characteristics that could be used as evidence against the existence of the proposed God.The word "proof" is a difficult one, but when there's no evidence for the existence of the proposed God, and good evidence against it, then perhaps the word proof could be used.So, having effectively disproved the God of one nutty theist, we move on to the next.

How does faith answer questions? Don't just make the claim, describe the process.

Again, how does faith answer questions? Don't just make the claim, describe the process.(Pointing out that science or casual observation or human instinct or anything else doesn't answer all questions doesn't answer my question). Yes. Loads of empirical evidence. Nem, don't tell me that you believe your wife loves you because of your religious faith.Hasn't she ever shown affection for you?The O.P. is about religious faith, Nemesis. How does having faith that the Koran is the word of God tell anyone anything?

The word faith can be about a number of things, but this thread is specifically about religious faith and the claim that it is immune to scientific scrutiny. Considering that, did I need to use the word "religious" in the question I was asking?From the O.P., entitled "Great religious falsehoods."

quote:

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I believe that of the greatest falsehoods of religion, this belongs at or near the top of the list are:
1. Faith is not subject to science

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So, my question to you was: How does (religious) faith answer questions? Don't just make the claim, describe the process. Bloody hell. Hundreds of intimate physical expressions of affection + she's said so hundreds of times, etc.! You do know that empirical evidence includes observation by the human senses, don't you? It could all be an illusion, in the sense that it could be an illusion that she's got grey eyes. Only when the subject is religious faith, and on this thread, it is. {ABE} Mine wife's financially independent, and I don't have life insurance. You're using the word "faith" in the sense of trust. We have to trust our senses is all you need to say. This trust in itself does not give us knowledge, as illustrated by your murdered man.But the subject is religious faith. Eh! Incidentally, in relation to something that seems to be a belief of yours, that science cannot examine love, here's some reading material for you. Human love is a phenomenon for which we all have plenty of empirical evidence. Some scienceAnd in relation to the O.P., some more. Edited by bluegenes, : Marked sentence

Please!When there's empirical evidence for things, like the various kinds of human love for example, they can certainly be examined by science.It's also worth noting that the O.P. is really about whether or not religious faith is exempt from scientific scrutiny, and like love, I argue that we have plenty of empirical evidence that religious faith exists, so it can be (and certainly is being) examined scientifically.

I think I said "your faith" rather than the Christian faith in general, but both can be studied, certainly. Any phenomena for which there is empirical evidence can be studied scientifically, and we have evidence of the existence of iano's faith, and the Christian faith.As for not knowing what the Christian faith is, of course we don't, nor do we know what religious faith in general is. That's the reason for studying them, isn't it? Intertwined, or one and the same, but matters of degree? Our studies haven't shown a clear difference yet, so far as I know.I may be straying a bit off topic here, iano, but what would you do if you caught a burglar in your house? The average American conservative creationist that we get here would probably support the idea of shooting him, either to wound or kill. What about you? Are those Americans with that view Christian, in your view?To clarify my angle on this topic. I know that religious faith is a real thing, and like all real things, it can be studied scientifically. Don't you agree?