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I use "science" in the broad sense (like many philosophers of science); for any systematic pursuit of knowledge. I find it a bit unfortunate that "science" in colloquial English usage has been reserved to a subset of scientific disciplines (mainly those dealing with natural phenomena).

A part of the problem is, as Micamo writes, that saying that something is "nonscientific" for many people more or less has come to equal "nonsensical".

Goodness and beauty can still be about truth. And even if they were not about truth, a large part of humanities are descriptive; they seek to describe various features of reality, rather than to evaluate it. Whether the humanities succeed in this is another question.


Clearly there is a kind of "hierarchy", where some scientific disciplines are more "ideally scientific" than others (they have a higher degree of precision, more objective, are less likely to be influenced by subjective feelings or ideological preconceptions.)

Physics and chemistry are close to "ideal" sciences. Life sciences (biology, medicine, etc.) may be slightly less. When it comes to social sciences/humanities, psychology and economics are quite scientific. I have more doubts about many parts of sociology, anthropology, etc.

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constructedlanguages.net

I am not so sure about this; I know religious people that have said that reality/truth is irrelevant, only what God wants is relevant. (And the writ they ascribe to God, and claim is the only authority to which man should be a subject, they mainly ignore and care more about other authorities, Luther among them, so what God, according to them, has said that he wants is something they actively ignore - a clergyman I know said that we not only can but should ignore what Jesus said about oaths, because what Jesus said about them is irrelevant. But of course, what Jesus said is also the reason why he hates any gay-tolerant clergymen.

Some people that shape religion do actually just use religion as a cover for their own hate, insecurity and stupidity. Such dishonest thinkers aren't unusual in religions either. And they to contribute to how religion does get shaped over time.

Of course, not all religions are exclusively populated by that kind of attitude, and sometimes the reasonable members have the upper hand. At other times, it gets nasty. At times, the reasonable members use flawed mental models or have flawed starting points, and contribute to the nastiness. At times, the nastier members actually are forced by their starting points and/or flawed models to actually contribute in positive way.

Much more unsettling is the idea that these thinkers aren't dishonest at all. Our corn industry lobbyists really do think the sugar tariffs are good for America. Religious homophobes really do think there's an omnipotent creator on their side. And they aren't even consciously aware of this bias. The really scary thought is that people are willing to truly accept blatantly wrong and nonsensical ideas that happen to be personally convenient for them, and that this happens not only in crazy religious fundies but absolutely everywhere. How many of these types of ideas do both of us hold, right now? Can we even trust ourselves?

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I am quite convinced there are dishonest thinkers in religions - opportunists who see a chance of getting power by telling the congregations what they want to hear. Just look at all the televangelists who've been having gay sex. Certainly some of them might have felt a sting of bad conscience for it, but I doubt all of them do that. I genuinely think some of these thinkers are sociopaths of various kinds, and say whatever is convenient, not whatever they hold to be true. This is a minority, most likely.

I am pretty sure I am wrong about a lot of things - basically, I assume if you take all the mental models of reality that I have, most of them will be significantly wrong. Many will be close enough to provide workable results in real life. But I do intentionally seek out things that challenge my assumptions about things - I've done this in nearly every field that interests me.
However, an important realization that I do think holds is that very very many things - convictions, opinions, sexual attraction, interests, talents, physical characteristics, will pretty closely follow some kind of distribution - one very common one being the normal distribution, but pareto distributions, bernoulli distributions, binomial distributions, etc also pop up every here and there.

Understanding reality assuming that things are distributed means that every generalization is a lie. But they're useful lies. In a perfect world, everyone would understand every generalization as something that breaks down somewhat over most of the things it is concerned with. (It's very useful to have measures of how it breaks down; but most generalizations in polemics and so on leave them out because stating it openly that this is what you're doing will make people lose interest.)

What kind of religious people are you talking about? I know there are some (post)modern theologians saying things like "religion is not about truth". If you take a course in theology or philosophy of religion at a modern university, you will surely be confronted with this kind of thinking. But I doubt it has been an important strain of thought in traditional religion.

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My examples would actually be very conservative Lutheran clergy in some congregations in Finland. They expound greatly on different issues that they find bothersome - but they generally use fabrications to further their arguments. They ignore what the Bible says, and claim they care what it says. They preach hate for sins that barely are mentioned (or even not mentioned at all) in the Bible, while actively supporting the use of church buildings to do things that Jesus explicitly forbade. And when confronted with this, they mumble something and fade away from the discussion, only to reappear with the same message in their pulpit the next week.

Once when confronted with quite indicting evidence that his claims were built on fabrications, one of them even said explicitly that "truth and facts are irrelevant, it's still sinful".

I was thinking mostly about those theologians who according to you said that reality/truth were irrelevant. Those who I can think of who might be saying something like that would be (post)modern theologians of various kinds; who generally couldn't be labelled "conservative".

However; much of what you are writing seems like an array of accusations against the clergy in Finland. I might like do discuss such things; but I don't think this is the right forum for it.

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constructedlanguages.net

I think both conservatives and liberals can ignore reality - and to some extent it even makes sense to do so. Reality is difficult, models are easy.


You are misinterpreting what I am saying - this isn't a criticism, this is attestation of a pattern of behaviours; most clergymen in the lutheran church are fairly reasonable. These are a few members of a conservative clique - one that is willing to preserve their traditions because those traditions have always been part of true Christianity. Even when you can show that the tradition was invented in the 18th century. Or 19th. Or even early 20th. But when confronted with evidence that they are wrong, these can actually say that reality isn't important. Or that this ideal reality which has no semblance of actual reality is what's important.

All belief truthfully claimed as belief, sure. Beliefs "made up" by people who don't really believe them, though; or falsely claimed as beliefs by people who don't really believe them; well, there's lots of motives for that, and as a general rule no attempt at truth is involved.

, and I'd like to hear more about how it's done.



Ritual is not completely part of belief, nor is belief completly part of ritual. If we're going to talk about religions we'll have to talk about rituals with or without beliefs.
Anyway: I look forward to it!

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

All beliefs held inside of a person's mind. People don't always say things that align with their beliefs, but I'm interested in the beliefs themselves.



Well, I define two types of "ritual" (Original definitions again, yay!). First is any action or sequence of actions intended to bring about a specific result, with exception of recursive results (that is, an action that is, at some level, done for its own sake). This is what I call Ritual proper. Importantly, under this definition taking a child who is sick to the doctor is just as much of a "ritual" as sacrificing a lamb and sitting around in a prayer circle. Second are actions or sequences of actions that aren't done with any real purpose in mind but are performed in order to avoid social ostracism. Most noticeably, etiquette rules fit here nicely. I call these "Traditions."

Avoided actions or activities, taboos, are included accordingly.

I split the definition because they have quite different dynamics in a society. My theory is that all such "traditions" emerge from ritual where the original justification has been forgotten or discredited, and the difference between ritual and tradition is a continuum rather than a sharp dichotomy.

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The aim of religion - at least according to the more traditional branches of Christianity and other religions - is to grasp reality, or at least some aspects of reality. Some (post)modernist theologians may deny this.

Whether or not those religious people succeed in grasping the truth is another question. One can criticise both the methods used by religious people, or the conclusions reached. One must distinguish between the aim of some activity, and whether the activity succeeds on that aim.


If you characterise some group of people in an unfavourable way, it is an accusation. It may well turn out to be a true accusation. But I suggest this would be a discussion better suited for another forum.

(Btw IME when someone says something like "I'm not seeking to criticise or discuss anything, I'm just reporting the obvious facts", there is a sure flame war warning.)

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constructedlanguages.net

You could borrow the terminology used in behavioral psychology.

Positive ritual - The presence of the action etc.
Negative ritual - The distinct absence of an action etc.

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Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

Couldn't be bothered to read all the other posts, but thank you Micamo - I have to admit I never noticed how Religion and Science are the same thing.

I think you are very confused about words meaning then.

Religion requires rituals and such, maxwells equations has nothing that fits with anything religious



*clears throat* May I point to various people in USA who hold religious beliefs but are demonstrably DISHONEST in it? they demonstrate that they do not care about the truth but how they WANT it to be and will lie, cheat, steal and much more to make sure they get how they want it, knowingly

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I would imagine that what was meant was "in the first place"; you could almost argue that many religious beliefs are like (or were at the time of their positing) scientific theories - meta-narratives of the world and how it works based on the evidence they had available. What distinguishes it though is that scientific thought changes and adapts to the changing empirical landscape, whereas religion is, well, religious in its beliefs...

People can still be religious about science. Just think of all the militant atheists, or people who dogmatically hold one scientific theory as truth despite accumulating evidence against it (or them)...

A sure fire way to annoy a militant atheist is to insist he is religious... It's also a sure fire way to give him more ammunition to fire back at what he sees as his opponents: they tend to be 'militant' for a reason.

The difference is that in scientific communities, only the leading theory is the accepted theory. Holding onto an unconventional idea within these communities tends to get you branded as a 'pet-theorist' or a quack, at least until it is exonerated in the form of more compelling evidence. In religion, this is different; get enough people to decide they like your interpretation better and suddenly you have equal rights with any other faith (look at the guy who was allowed to wear a colander on his head in his driving licence photo due to being part of the satirical religion, Pastafarianism).

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Not really. In science ideas are only really homogenized within a single institution: Holders of minority ideas (except in the extreme cases) don't get stamped out, they just establish their own institutions. What you describe only happens with stuff so fringe it doesn't have enough adherents to form new institutions.

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They still won't be considered the accepted theory and supporters will still often be described as pet-theorists. String Theory draws a lot of flak despite being supported by the likes of Stephen Hawking, for example. As it stands, the quantum and relativity theories it's intended to supplant are still in place as the accepted models.

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.

Each different group gives other competing groups flack, it's just human nature. Pay no attention to it until it gets out of hand

It is out of hand however between religion and science I'd say, and yes they are both just equivalent schools of thought on how the world works.
However, unlike religion, science tends to rapidly adapt its ideas and listen to the world we try so hard to understand.

That is the whole reason why people came up with religious thoughts in the first place anyway.

Agreed, hence not wishing to call one by the other's name. ;)

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I speak English and a touch of Gàidhlig.
I am creating a conworld, which I refer to as the Carrion Series, that will contain three languages, Iriex, Dvoen and Maxna.