One Degree wrote:One last try. Can you tell me what intelligence is? If not, then how can you place limits on reason?
Is not your reason based upon intelligence?
In short, intelligence is the ability to acquire (synthesize) and use knowledge. Intelligence can be a factor in reason but I would not necessarily say it places limits on reason. Reason has its own limits (based on the very concept of reason) or more accurately things that makes it a valid tool to evaluate and deal with reality. If you take those "limits" (more like concept, scaffold or guidelines, but I will use the word you used) then this tool is no longer a valid (more importantly reliable) way to acquire and use knowledge (e.g. intelligence). So in a way it is not intelligence that can shape reason (although it is definitely needed for reason) but it is reason which can set boundaries upon intelligence in some cases.
So as to your question "Is your reason based upon intelligence?".
Hard to say, certainly there is a strong relationship. I would not say it is necessarily based on intelligence but I can say it is influenced by it.
I answer all that because I thought the questions were good questions but I don't see how they relate to what I said or how does it relate to what you quoted I said.
jakell wrote:Science will never be religious-like, nor be irrational, it is its own thing, a reliable tool.
Definitely absolutely resounding yes. I am glad you see that, now, do you also see how religious people love to distort science and in many cases try to dumb-down science with rhetorics of "dogma of science" "faith in science" and all that crap? This is a problem because it puts "gasoline" in an already volatile confrontation (science vs religion) and further 'fundamentalizes' both sides of the argument.
The real question would be is there anything outside of science, that it cannot broach? Those who have succumbed to scientism will insist that there is not, to the extent that it starts to look like an article of faith.
Certainly many things can exist outside of science, for instance art. And if religion were self-contained without trying to influence other people and other subjects of inquiry/knowledge perhaps it could coexist in a sorts-of liberation of the mind for those who feel more comfortable using it. But all of this is nice and good but it is also fictitious. The reality is far from that, I have stated my view on this previously so I know you are familiar with my position on this issue so to avoid sounding like a broken record I would refrain from repeating myself. And yes science is a tool plain and simple. It can be used with positive goals in mind and even with negative goals in mind. For instance this moron of Ken Ham certainly is taking hostage science language to advance his ridiculous beliefs of the world (with unfortunate intellectual casualties, children).
LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX wrote:I will respond to Xog, but I will say that I am not God-fearing, I am God-loving. I think there is a huge difference between the two types of people. God-fearing people will always be stuck on the notion of hell, God-loving people will emphasize forgiveness and, well, love.
I am not sure you can have one without the other ever be present. Emotions are fluids and erratic. Do you believe that whatever you do in life has no differential outcome in whatever you think will occur after you die. In other words you don't think there is a hell but I assume (correct me if this is incorrect) that you believe there is something
after death. If so do you think what happens to you after death will be influenced by the kind of life you lived? What happens if you are a bad person (according to whichever system the deity you believe in has) or a good person?
How does God create weather patterns? How would we exist without weather patterns? Remember, humans would not exist if it were not for the extinction of the dinosaurs and the major changes in the Earth's atmosphere that coincided with that. Life cannot exist without death, goodness cannot exist without evil.
For the record the default answer is not what you wrote but rather something along the lines "god works in mysterious ways" or "that's the way god is testing our resolve" both of which are shyt answers but allows you to run away from that argument. Your answer inevitable leads to the "god is really powerful, i'm sure he could have created humans without having to resort to destroy whole species of dinosaurs (which it also created) and create massive natural calamities such as hurricanes, volcanoes, diseases and earthquakes".