If there were a just God

Of course, have a person pick up an apple. He could not have picked up the apple had he not existed. One needs no particular training to notice the apple being picked up.
and noticeably the prerequisites of application for picking an apple are not particularly challenging (unless one lives in the tropics I guess) ... which in turn doesn't grant it a lofty wrung on the ladder of sublime knowledge

But we can know nuclear power plants work. If the atom could not be split, a nuclear power plant would not work.
On the contrary you know nothing of the sort except what you read in books

There is no parallel in religion, and thus you cannot know if any particular religious authority knows what they are talking about. You may follow someone's teaching for personal subjective reasons, but you cannot expect any rational skeptic to believe it. This is in stark contrast to scientific claims, which have a clear observable track record of working.
actually there is a remarkable parallel in religion - you have a certain class who bear the professional issues of application and act as the foundation for all the literature that is generated on the subject and you have a host of others who agree or disagree based on that body of work (according to their vision of thetrack being observable and working).

The only difference I would say is that gross materialism has come more in vogue so the body of professionals operate out of system of services not too different from the medical industry before it was regulated about 150 years ago. (IOW you have a host of quacks thrown in with the real things and a general public not sufficiently educated to tell the difference)
 
What purpose does rational skepticism serve (anywhere)?
?
To discern facts from bullshit.


and noticeably the prerequisites of application for picking an apple are not particularly challenging (unless one lives in the tropics I guess) ... which in turn doesn't grant it a lofty wrung on the ladder of sublime knowledge


On the contrary you know nothing of the sort except what you read in books


actually there is a remarkable parallel in religion - you have a certain class who bear the professional issues of application and act as the foundation for all the literature that is generated on the subject and you have a host of others who agree or disagree based on that body of work (according to their vision of thetrack being observable and working).

The only difference I would say is that gross materialism has come more in vogue so the body of professionals operate out of system of services not too different from the medical industry before it was regulated about 150 years ago. (IOW you have a host of quacks thrown in with the real things and a general public not sufficiently educated to tell the difference)

On the contrary, even a skeptical person could learn what makes fission work and reproduce it on a small scale. In fact, a boy scout did it. You just don't want to admit that the "class" of people who say they are experts in the application of religion cannot show that what they say works.

The material is all there is.
 
But we can know nuclear power plants work. If the atom could not be split, a nuclear power plant would not work.


Do you know that?
Did you ever split an atom? Did you ever try to build a nuclear plant yourself?
Or are you just trusting others who claim they did it?


On the contrary you know nothing of the sort except what you read in books

Splendid responses to spidey's statement, you two, worldly in deliberation and sasquatchesque in conception.

Hall of Shame material. Well done.
 
To discern facts from bullshit.




On the contrary, even a skeptical person could learn what makes fission work and reproduce it on a small scale. In fact, a boy scout did it. You just don't want to admit that the "class" of people who say they are experts in the application of religion cannot show that what they say works.

The material is all there is.
Fancy that eh?

With even a tiny bit of application a boy scout can do it ....

(BTW did you see a boy scout do it or read about it?)
:D

Mind you .... the amount of application this kid did is far from tiny ...

Hahn, nicknamed the "Radioactive Boy Scout", is an Eagle Scout who got a merit badge in Atomic Energy and spent years tinkering with basement chemistry which sometimes resulted in small explosions and other mishaps. He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. Hahn diligently amassed this radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks and tritium (as neutron moderator) from gunsights. His "reactor" was a large, bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased [1] batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.[2]

Hahn posed as an adult scientist or professor to gain the trust of many professionals in letters, despite the presence of misspellings and obvious errors in his letters to them. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissionable isotopes.[citation needed]

Although his homemade reactor never achieved critical mass, it ended up emitting dangerous levels of radioactivity, likely well over 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but a chance encounter with police led to the discovery of his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On June 26, 1995 the United States Environmental Protection Agency, having designated Hahn's mother's property as a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure.
 
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Fancy that eh?
You are hiding the necessity for evidence within a hierarchical structure that cannot be attained without a prerequisite faith in the thing being proven. Therefore anyone who went through the training would believe it before they started, avoiding the possibility of proving it false. Seems like circular logic to me.

Contrast that with science, which encourages doubt, skepticism, and personal confirmation of facts by experimentation. You don't have to believe it before you see the results.
 
You are hiding the necessity for evidence within a hierarchical structure that cannot be attained without a prerequisite faith in the thing being proven. Therefore anyone who went through the training would believe it before they started, avoiding the possibility of proving it false. Seems like circular logic to me.

Contrast that with science, which encourages doubt, skepticism, and personal confirmation of facts by experimentation. You don't have to believe it before you see the results.
You are bypassing the fact that any call for evidence is lodged in application, and that all issues of application have some catalyst of belief at work in the foundation (and works through them until it comes to the stage of conclusion).
The only reason it appears circular is because you can't fathom the contribution of application to theistic claims .

This is not unique to theism, since if you remove application (IOW "theory -> conclusion") from any claim of knowledge you are also left with a charade propped up with belief

:shrug:
 
This is not unique to theism, since if you remove application (IOW "theory -> conclusion") from any claim of knowledge you are also left with a charade propped up with belief

:shrug:

The theory = conclusion, has a method establishing observable facts. The theory discusses the facts that are observed.

Religion has no method establishing actual facts. Everything is accepted through belief, making a wide open door for flim flam men and snake oil peddlers. The belief system is a flawed structure because of its flimsy composition.
 
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The theory = conclusion, has a method establishing observable facts. The theory discusses the facts that are observed.

Religion has no method establishing actual facts. Everything is accepted through belief, making a wide open door for flim flam men and snake oil peddlers. The system of belief is a flawed system.
Actually I was making the point that if you take away the application, you have a scenario much like what you describe
 
Actually I was making the point that if you take away the application, you have a scenario much like what you describe

Reality dictates one cannot take away the application once it exists. Hypothetically one can debate the issue, however, the application doesn't disappear.
 
You are bypassing the fact that any call for evidence is lodged in application, and that all issues of application have some catalyst of belief at work in the foundation (and works through them until it comes to the stage of conclusion). ...

Except the "belief" in science is only a tentative hypothesis. What application of religion counts as proof?
 
if their were a just god abuse,oppressed, and occupied peoples would get their rights respected.
 
Each person develops his/her opinion.

I think choice came before volition.
My point is that coming to the grade of application is not such a basic straight forward thing since many a university course is drawn out, tedious and potentially challenging.
 
My point is that coming to the grade of application is not such a basic straight forward thing since many a university course is drawn out, tedious and potentially challenging.


I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star. - Carl Sagan
 
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