[Besoeker]

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.

Could your god prevent tsunamis and the subsequent huge number of fatalities?
That's just yes or no.

[XogGyux]

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.

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).

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".

[One Degree]

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.

My only purpose was to get you to think of the limitations/distortions/unknowns in our reasoning abilities, and realize there may be things we don't understand about reasoning. Perhaps inspiration is an example. We solve problems unconsciously but we don't know for sure what method we used. Perhaps understanding God and morality is more like that or something else. You probably also saw in the definitions of intelligence that emotion is included. This also throws some doubt on black and white reasoning. All of these things simply lead to doubt as to how one type of intelligence and scientific logic would be the only things we need to reason with when we are supplied with so much more. We also are aware of how little of our brain capacity we use. All of these things should open our minds to endless possibilities, not limit us to one tool that works for one aspect of intelligence.

[XogGyux]

My only purpose was to get you to think of the limitations/distortions/unknowns in our reasoning abilities, and realize there may be things we don't understand about reasoning. Perhaps inspiration is an example. We solve problems unconsciously but we don't know for sure what method we used. Perhaps understanding God and morality is more like that or something else. You probably also saw in the definitions of intelligence that emotion is included. This also throws some doubt on black and white reasoning. All of these things simply lead to doubt as to how one type of intelligence and scientific logic would be the only things we need to reason with when we are supplied with so much more. We also are aware of how little of our brain capacity we use. All of these things should open our minds to endless possibilities, not limit us to one tool that works for one aspect of intelligence.

You seem to be talking about a half dozen different topics here.
First: A method might not be perfect but that does not mean we should abandon something that we know works because we have tested it a billion times and it is reliable for some other arbitrary system, specially when we know such arbitrary system does not work. To put this in context, you cannot (or you can, but you would end up making a fool of yourself) simply dismiss proper reason and logic (which requires a specific method, set of definitions, constant feedback and evaluation) and simply replace it by a set of logically flawed arguments "because they sound good to someone". You mention emotional intelligence but that is simply part of the broader definition, consider it "acquiring emotional 'knowledge'and applying emotional 'knowledge'". And I am not talking about any black and white other than using the right tool and rather than investing in some bizarre tool that we know does not work. If that is what you call black and white then I disagree with you, this particular topic is exactly black an white if that is what you mean. If you mean something else then be more specific.

We solve problems unconsciously but we don't know for sure what method we used. Perhaps understanding God and morality is more like that or something else.

Got some evidence or you want to leave that in the realm of speculation?

All of these things simply lead to doubt as to how one type of intelligence and scientific logic would be the only things we need to reason with when we are supplied with so much more.

Why do you think they lead to doubt? I am not saying there is nothing more than intelligence, logic, science and reason when it comes to acquiring knowledge. But when it comes to knowledge about the natural world they are without a doubt the major players.

All of these things should open our minds to endless possibilities, not limit us to one tool that works for one aspect of intelligence.

This is a big problem and a big flaw of some people's thinking. Not accepting blindly a proposition of god does not mean "mind is closed". Not by a long stretch. I would wager that a scientist that finds evidence for a god will be the first one to believe, while other "believers" will continue to be stuck with whichever god they used to believe before. For instance if tomorrow there is irrefutable scientific proof that Zeus exists, by in large the scientific community would accept this fact while by in large the different religious communities would try find excuses (e.g. "the proof was put forth by satan" or "jesus is just testing our commitment" or "the infidels faked the evidence"). So when it comes to "open mind" religious people should be the last people to throw stones into someone else's glass roof. You confuse not accepting something without evidence with accepting something on faith. Like I have said before, you do not believe in unicorns (or at least I hope you don't) does that make you a "close minded stubborn person"? of course no, there is absolutely no reason why you should believe in their existence and although we cannot prove with absolute certainty that they do not exist we have reasonable expectation that they don't. We all need skepticism to live our lives properly. You don't trust a random guy in the street to take care of your running car while you go inside the store (you are skeptic of his good intentions) and you don't believe on gnomes (you are skeptic about their existence). In fact, in life our "standard" stance is to be skeptic about everything, skeptic about entering the dark room, skeptic about touching a gooey stuff in the floor, skeptic about the intentions of the guy wearing a mask entering a bank, skeptic about going to a major surgery. It is after we have reasonable information that the room is safe because it is inside your house and it is closed, the gooey stuff is safe because it is jello and it is yummy and that the guy wearing the mask is doing so because he just had a face transplant and the mask is not really a mask but a protection, or that the surgeon has years of experience doing such surgery is that your "skepticism" is dismissed, you need reasonable expectations/knowledge/experience to dismiss it. However when it comes to god all of those protections are vanquished and your intellect becomes vulnerable, but even this is not simple. It usually takes years of church indoctrination or living in a heavily religious society in order to renounce your skepticism, and in most cases it is not successful (e.g. a large number of Christians are skeptical about a literal flood and Noah's Ark, or at least I hope they are.)

[jakell]

My only purpose was to get you to think of the limitations/distortions/unknowns in our reasoning abilities, and realize there may be things we don't understand about reasoning. Perhaps inspiration is an example. We solve problems unconsciously but we don't know for sure what method we used. Perhaps understanding God and morality is more like that or something else. You probably also saw in the definitions of intelligence that emotion is included. This also throws some doubt on black and white reasoning. All of these things simply lead to doubt as to how one type of intelligence and scientific logic would be the only things we need to reason with when we are supplied with so much more. We also are aware of how little of our brain capacity we use. All of these things should open our minds to endless possibilities, not limit us to one tool that works for one aspect of intelligence.

I would like to again stress my opinion that there is nothing wrong with our reasoning abilities per se, the problem lies in the insistence that there is only one approach to absolutely everything, one symptom of which is the demanding of definitions, without at all considering that they may not be one.

If we manage to get past the obstacle of agreeing that there may be more than one approach, then we've started to take a step back and hopefully employ what could be called meta-reasoning. I think this is what you are reaching for when you talk of the Unconscious, which is probably accurate in that we don't give it much attention, I reckon though that we can become more conscious of it.

[Besoeker]

My only purpose was to get you to think of the limitations/distortions/unknowns in our reasoning abilities, and realize there may be things we don't understand about reasoning.

I think most people, perhaps the vast majority, accept that our knowledge on any subject or in any field is limited. And sometimes flawed.

So I don't think you are adding anything of substance.

[One Degree]

I would like to again stress my opinion that there is nothing wrong with our reasoning abilities per se, the problem lies in the insistence that there is only one approach to absolutely everything, one symptom of which is the demanding of definitions, without at all considering that they may not be one.

@Besoeker
I agree I was adding nothing of substance. @jakell had already explained it very succinctly, but seemed to fail to get the message across. I was simply trying to find different paths to the same idea.
Edit: My view may be a little different from others. A lot of logic seems to be for communication purposes. We have an 'insight' and then we use logic to get our conscious minds to accept it and use logic as language to explain it to others. How much of the knowledge comes from the scientific method and how much comes from somewhere else and we simply use the scientific method to verify it? This makes it appear things came from the scientific method because this is what we have chosen as our language to explain the world.

[jakell]

@Besoeker
I agree I was adding nothing of substance. @jakell had already explained it very succinctly, but seemed to fail to get the message across. I was simply trying to find different paths to the same idea.
Edit: My view may be a little different from others. A lot of logic seems to be for communication purposes. We have an 'insight' and then we use logic to get our conscious minds to accept it and use logic as language to explain it to others. How much of the knowledge comes from the scientific method and how much comes from somewhere else and we simply use the scientific method to verify it? This makes it appear things came from the scientific method because this is what we have chosen as our language to explain the world.

I don't get frustrated though, it's bit of a paradigm shift, and I don't underestimate its difficulty. I think it gets easier as you get older, but this isn't a given.

As to your second point, I agree entirely, some insights seem to come from somewhere in between intuition and conscious reasoning.
Some might regard it as a 'cheat' to employ the scientific method to later fill in the gaps, but really it's a necessary thing in order that others can then come to the same conclusion (or not if they disagree)

[XogGyux]

I would like to again stress my opinion that there is nothing wrong with our reasoning abilities per se, the problem lies in the insistence that there is only one approach to absolutely everything, one symptom of which is the demanding of definitions, without at all considering that they may not be one.

The insistence and demanding of definitions only occurs when people start being sleazy about their motives/definitions. If you don't think an entity can be defined under any circumstances then it cannot participate in a logical/reasonable argument. I can illustrate this, suppose we are debating about plane transport of animals, "plane" can mean many things, it can describe a very large aircraft with capacity to transport cows and pigs or it can describe a tiny single straight wing plane with just capacity for the pilot and perhaps some tiny capacity for tiny animals or insects. But if in the middle of conversation the definition of "plane" changes to a "physical plane" the whole debate becomes meaningless. Furthermore I disagree that we cannot define god, do a search of the term and you will find a myriad of definitions. You might not be able to define "exhaustively" (e.i. all of its characteristics and properties) in part because such entity is not part of the natural word (either does not exists or exists outside our reality thus inaccessible to us) but we can certainly have "tentative" definitions that we can use on debates (for instance a "supreme being", or for instance "natural entity origin of our universe (perhaps big bang but could be something else depending where physics take us)" and those definitions could be very useful to debate/think/use logic but depending on what is being debated (e.i. morality) they might be mutually exclusive and lead the debate in different directions. Understand this, most of everything we know of have fluid definitions, a table can be a large rectangular board with 4 perpendicular wood sticks (legs) glued on the corners but it can also be the top of a bar counter. Legs can be people's leg or can be a chair leg. Definitions matter in our world, most of the time the context is enough so we don't require clarification of meaning but when the discussion is being affected because of the use of 2 different meanings then clarification is required.

[QatzelOk]

The standard impasse in discussions of this nature, but it's really a failing of only having that one tool again. After a few rounds of this, some rationalists might start to question the utility of their approach, the ones who don't end up getting more and more frustrated and angry.

It's clear that religion is with us and will be into the foreseeable future, and unless we go to war or bring in a totalitarian world regime (see Communist Russia), a middle way has to be found. Constantly waving the 'magic' wand of rationality at it does not help, heck, it doesn't even work on internet forums.

While your "compromise" between hard science and God-as-origin is a common one in the USA, it's also very, very dangerous.

It calls to mind the image of a gang of nuclear scientists sitting around talking about how the messiah might be brought back by a nuclear confrontation.

God-based-morality mixed with scorched-earth (because driven by capitalism) technological development = extinction.

[Besoeker]

While your "compromise" between hard science and God-as-origin is a common one in the USA, it's also very, very dangerous.

It calls to mind the image of a gang of nuclear scientists sitting around talking about how the messiah might be brought back by a nuclear confrontation.

God-based-morality mixed with scorched-earth (because driven by capitalism) technological development = extinction.

Oh well, we'll all die anyway.

[QatzelOk]

Oh well, we'll all die anyway.

There's a huge qualitative difference between individuals dying of natural causes without any technology... and entire species going extinct because of technology.

God-as-origin-of-morality is a technology just like coal-powered electrical plants and Agent Orange.

[Besoeker]

There's a huge qualitative difference between individuals dying of natural causes without any technology... and entire species going extinct because of technology.

God-as-origin-of-morality is a technology just like coal-powered electrical plants and Agent Orange.

Disagree.

Technology is something you can repeat, replicate, and measure. Like the output of an electrical plant.

[QatzelOk]

Disagree.

Technology is something you can repeat, replicate, and measure. Like the output of an electrical plant.

The experiment of "Abrahamic Ideology" has been repeated, replicated and measured. Its effects are well known, and many philosophers have spoken about its many side effects.

When Christianity was forced onto Europe, the effects were similar to when it was forced on Natives in North America, or when Ukrainian farmers were forced to adopt Communism and modern farm techniques.

[Besoeker]

The experiment of "Abrahamic Ideology" has been repeated, replicated and measured. Its effects are well known, and many philosophers have spoken about its many side effects.

When Christianity was forced onto Europe, the effects were similar to when it was forced on Natives in North America, or when Ukrainian farmers were forced to adopt Communism and modern farm techniques.

What has god done that can be replicated and measured ?

[QatzelOk]

What has god done that can be replicated and measured ?

This question makes no sense. It should be "What has man done with literacy and hierarchy?"

Answer: He has distorted natural power relations and greatly reduced human wisdom with... mandatory lies. Carved in stone.

[Besoeker]

This question makes no sense. It should be "What has man done with literacy and hierarchy?"

It's a perfectly sensible question. If you can't or won't answer it, that's fine.

[QatzelOk]

It's a perfectly sensible question. If you can't or won't answer it, that's fine.

Asking "what God has done" (to deserve a thread like this one) is like asking someone "when did you stop beating your wife." It's a question that automatically answers itself in a way that repels reasoned argument.

God-lovers shouldn't be in here plying their products. Nor Devil worshippers. (I'm trying to be as vague as possible about my own beliefs... for the sake of the thread!)

This is a secular discussion on philosophy. Believing-in-God tends to shut down any kind of philosophical journey. It's a made-to-order philosophy for people who are unhappy but don't have time (or the disposition) to think about why.

[Besoeker]

Asking "what God has done" (to deserve a thread like this one) is like asking someone "when did you stop beating your wife."

No it isn't. The latter infers that wife beating took place.

"What has god done that can be replicated and measured ?" makes no such inferrence.
So, can you answer that very direct question?

[One Degree]

"What has god done that can be replicated and measured ?" makes no such inferrence.
So, can you answer that very direct question?

You are just repeating the same non arguments. Why is this issue so important to you? Why do you care what others believe?