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Now speaking as someone with a science education.
  • In science, the closest thing to common-sense "facts" are proofs within an axiomatic system, of which 2+2 = 4 would be an example. Even there, you can run into problems, for example conflict between axioms which may or may not be resolved by modifying the axioms.
  • In science, things get more vague if you include reality, that is, observations. What you do is creating hypotheses to create hypotheses describing past observations and predicting the outcome of future observations, and then decide which hypotheses are useful and which among the useful is best based on those future observations. Such a hypothesis is an axiomatic system itself, but you don't just judge it for internal consistency but also its relation to reality and to rival hypotheses. The adoption of a hypothesis that survived some tests may be considered akin to "fact", but one with inherent uncertainty. Due to that uncertainty, it could also be considered to be akin to "belief" (except a superseded scientific theory can still be useful: see Newton vs. Einstein), though the intuition of a researcher that this or that hypothesis is worth to be pursued is closer to common notions of "belief".

This is a weaker distinction of "fact" and "belief" than in common sense, but I find it even more difficult to do the opposite and apply the above two to religion. Very little prediction and verification and little competition is involved in the establishment of religious belief. Meanwhile, while theological debates are pretty much constrained to dogma and/or scripture and thus an axiomatic system, religious dogma and especially scripture is very elaborate as axiomatic systems come, and interpretation has a lot of room: is a certain passage allegory or history? Is a particular group of evil people denounced for apostasy, rape or homosexuality? What to make of slavery in the Bible? And so on. The relationship to reality is usually in the form of behaviour prescriptions derived from the axiomatic system, rather than the feedback of observations.

Now what you seem to be thinking of is collisions between scientific "facts" and religious belief. Like creationists seeing the Flood where geologists see processes like erosion over hundreds of millions of years, most other Christians believing that their God played an active role in the emergence of both life and humans while science is looking into hypotheses of abiogenesis and sees man as just one of the apes, Muslim literalists believing that children originate from their father's seed only with the mother only modifying the foetus while science says that the mother's ovum and the father's sperm fuse (with the former bringing in more genetic info), Hindu fundies saying that all species exist forever while science says that they evolve and branch out and go extinct all the time.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 06:58:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think - and Katrin can correct me if I am wrong - that Katrin is thinking of the answers to typical childrens questions where there isn't much of a scientific answer. What was before the universe? What will come after? What happens after death? Where was I when grandma was a child? Does God exist? Does Santa Claus?

A parent might answer to the best of their capabilities, and hopefully not troll to much, but in the end the answers are bound to reflect both their knowledge of facts and their spiritual beliefs. While god-in-the-holes (of knowledge) is a weak (and shrinking) argument for the existence of god, that is different form the existence of holes and these are filled up by extrapolation/belief.

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by A swedish kind of death on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 07:15:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This sub-thread started because Katrin expressed the view that teaching "stuff like Creationism" and active misinformation "about matters of reproductive health" is about facts not belief, whereas I contended that there isn't such a clear distinction. That is, the debate focuses on issues where there can be a conflict with science.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 07:29:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
A parent might answer to the best of their capabilities, and hopefully not troll to much, but in the end the answers are bound to reflect both their knowledge of facts and their spiritual beliefs.

Or they can just say 'I don't know.'

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 08:07:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That would be the most unsatisfactory option.
by Katrin on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 08:38:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Only if you'd rather pretend you have answers to questions you can't possibly know the answer to.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 09:00:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That's why you're not a scientist.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 09:16:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Wait, what? Why would that be unsatisfactory? Better to make some stuff up rather than tell the truth?

I'd much rather tell the kids "I don't know, let's go find out" or "I don't know, and neither does anyone else" than make some stuff up. I'll go along with Santa, but the moral I'll use it to teach later on is not one I suspect you're going to like ...

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 11:00:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You are giving the answer to your own question there: I would answer to these questions either "I know" or "one can't know, but I believe" or "I know how we can find that out". I would not simply answer "I don't know" and leave the child alone with that answer. That would be highly unsatisfactory and kill the child's curiosity.
by Katrin on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 11:04:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
What's wrong with "One can't know"? What you need to tack "I believe" on for?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 12:03:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Because although (undisputedly) one can't know where grandpa is now that he is dead, I would find it unsatisfactory and even cruel to break off the conversation at this point. I wish to have the option to tell a child what I believe where Grandpa is. This option what is in dispute, though.
by Katrin on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 12:37:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Of course that option is not in dispute.

What is disputed is the propriety of presenting only your belief on the matter. What is wrong with saying. "Nobody knows. Some people believe such-and-such. Some people believe so-and-so." With or without appending "I believe this-and-that."

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 12:52:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh yes, this option is exactly what is in dispute. It is exactly this behaviour which constantly gets called "indoctrination" or "forcing one's kids".

You would apparently wish that when I speak about my beliefs I mention the fact that other people have other beliefs. I am not averse to that, in fact that is what my children always used to ask in a certain age. And then I answered that. They used to ask about certain persons and soon detected patterns of orthodoxy and unorthodoxy.

Why is it important that I add the information unasked?

by Katrin on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 01:15:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Please bear in mind that the problem is notyou, a non-authoritarian parent who is happy to expose her children to different viewpoints. [without wishing to speak for everyone, I'm pretty sure nobody would accuse you of brainwashing or mind control]

The issue is the average religious parent [and if you think that's the same thing, you haven't been around].

If the authoritarian parent delivers the official religious viewpoint about a particular question, you may be sure that she will not offer alternative views, or encourage the child to think about them. And that is a problem, as I'm sure you will agree.

And I'm also sure you will answer "but the problem is not religion, it's authoritarianism". Which is true.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 01:38:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
eurogreen:
And I'm also sure you will answer "but the problem is not religion, it's authoritarianism". Which is true

But it is so much more fun to harp on "The issue is the average religious parent" instead of "The issue is the average authoritarian  parent" I assume. For, why else should you do so, if you already know that the problem is not religion, it's authoritarianism.

By the way, I have never said I had an issue with atheism. The problem is not atheism, it is intolerance.

by Katrin on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 02:00:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As long as authoritarian behavior justified (or excused) on religious grounds is given more deference than authoritarian behavior in general, then the unmerited respect society holds religion in is a part of the problem.

As long as authoritarians can use religious rhetoric to rally people who really ought to know better into defending their abuses, then sorry, but religion really is a problem.

And as long as religious rhetoric is inseparably laced with a number of malicious social engineering tricks, it will always be under suspicion by people who don't like to be brain-hacked.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 02:16:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Here's a thought experiment for you, then :

A non-religious authoritarian group ordains that all its members must wear a distinctive hat at all times in order to symbolize their obeissance to their Great Leader.

Parents belonging to this group insist that their children should wear these hats at all times. The children are not allowed to take their hats off at any other time (except in the bath or in bed).

Should schools allow the hats to be worn?

(I'm guessing that you're going to find this upsetting and insulting?)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 14th, 2014 at 03:55:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
eurogreen:
(I'm guessing that you're going to find this upsetting and insulting?)

No, but I find it so unrealistc that it is boringly easy to answer. And is it really so unclear what I find upsetting and insulting in this debate, and why? (That's a question. If I get a "yes" for an answer, I can clarify)

You are back at reducing the headscarf (which lurks behind your ominous hat) to a symbol of obeisance to authoritarianism, and the act wearing them as unvoluntary and enforced, and all the the girls who do as victims without agency. We have been here before. First of all, Islam (and religion in general) is not authoritarian. Some practices are. In those cases where compulsion plays a role, the ban on headscarves doesn't solve the problem. In the better case of compulsion you haven't altered the situation, in the worse case you harden positions of parents and girls. Some girls consent to wearing headscarves in order to achieve more freedom in other fields, and a ban on this strategy increases their problems. In many other cases there is no compulsion, and you are banning girls from wearing a piece of clothing that is important or even essential for practising their religion (if you want to harp on your non-religious group: for a social network they attach importance to), or that is important for them for other reasons. One motivation for wearing a headscarf which you consistently ignore or ridicule is setting a counterpoint to the compulsion to objectifying clothing, by the way.

So much for your thought experiment. You can't claim it was realistical, can you? If you have a phobia against hats, do something about it. If you can't see that there are many reasons to wear a headscarf or a hat, you are blind to reality. And if you want to do something against authoritarianism, fight authoritarianism.

by Katrin on Fri Feb 14th, 2014 at 12:52:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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