Name one question that religion can answer

[Free Soviets]

clearly i have been too vague before. apologies. i'll present it pseudo-formally.

premise 1: people using the religious methodology arrive at different answers to various questions, i.e. it is both obligatory and forbidden to practice human sacrifice.
premise 2: if a method leads to incompatible answers to the same question, then either all answers are right or some (up to and including all) of them are wrong.
subconclusion: therefore either all religiously derived answers to a question are right or some of them are wrong.

I challenge the two premises on the grounds that they are both dependent on another premise which has not been presented and has not been established, i.e., that ethics must be fixed and universal, not situational and responsive to time, place and culture.

i have no need for a premise one way or the other on that subject, actually. it doesn't effect my argument in the slightest. seriously, assume that morality is as relative as you like, the argument holds. if anything, it works even better since this is actually just one more way where the ethical revelations of the religious method differ radically. some revelations say morality is universalist, some say relativistic, and some even are just very particularistic. if morality is actually relativist in some sense, then it must be the case that all relevations that say it isn't are wrong. and then see prong 2.

2. if ethical subjectivism is true, then the religious methodology holds no special place as a source of moral belief formation and justification, since every person's ideas are unassailable regardless of their source.

Why does it need to hold a "special" place, as opposed simply to a functional place just like any other system of thought?

because it allegedly is the way of answering moral questions, of forming and justifying moral beliefs. and if not the then it's definitely a privileged one. but following this lemma instead shows that it has the exact same status as random whim - literally anything goes.

(and remember, this is assuming that all answers are right answers. if you claim that there are some positions that simply cannot be truly religiously derived, you have already taken the second fork)

fork b: assume that some religiously derived answers are wrong
1. if some answers are wrong, then we need a method for figuring out which. that method could be either the religious method or a non-religious method.
2. it cannot be the religious method, because the religious method is what created the incompatible answers in the first place - to the neutral outside observer, each answer has equal justification within the religious method's means.

By that logic, doctors should not review the work and ethics of doctors, lawyers should not review the work and ethics of lawyers, scientists should not peer review the work of scientists, etc. Do you believe that ethical or work quality review boards of other specialist professions should contain only people who do not work in that specialty? Or do you apply this standard only to religion?

no, that doesn't follow at all. firstly because we aren't talking about professions, but about methods. but more importantly, because there is something special about the religious method that makes it unhelpful as an adjudicator of conflicting religious beliefs. the distinctly religious method, remember, is that of revelation and mystical experience, etc. it is inherently subjective in that i can have no access to your mystical experience except for what you can tell me of it. so when two people have mystical experiences that led the one to believe x and the other to believe not-x, they cannot merely point to their own experience as evidence that their revelation is the true revelation. both revelations have identical amounts of justification within the agreed upon methodology.

other methods sometimes avoid this, usually by appeal to facts and independently evaluable criteria and the like.

And I have now wrangled with you over this all I wish to. You have repeated yourself to me at least three times now, and prior experience tells me we have nowhere to go but around again. I leave you to argue minute nuances of philosophy with Chumbly.

pobrecita

[The Realm of The Realm]

...
Moreover, there are some interesting theories which discuss a different, non-binary understanding of truth and falsehood....
...
Of course, you are perfectly at leisure to engage or not with such a topic, but to insinuate that FS is "engineering" a hijack for nefarious ends is completely disingenuous.

Philosophy is nothing more than the love of wisdom, and I assert that the OP's original question is intended to be philosophical ... I have no proof, but the evidence, in my view, is that the OP wished to provoke a discussion which would enrich people by making them wiser concerning the relative roles of science and religion. So I don't see a "hijack" in progress either. YMMV

Dialetheism -- violating the "rule" of the excluded middle, or Law of Non Contradiction (LNC) -- in mathematics is known as the intuitionist branch of study. Fuzzy logic is the best objective example of modern day usage of intuitionist concepts: an individual might be %71 'younger', %43 'mid-ager', and %35 'older' -- probabilistic statements about that individual's demographic group membership (smart market researchers seem to love fuzzy logic) that do ~not~ add to 100%.

Dialetheist statements tend to be mystical: "We are and are not godlike." Perhaps most honest mental models are dialetheist ... hypotheses to be disproved at some point, or to not ever be disproved, or propositions that are dynamically occult, like the current fate of Schrodinger's cat.

Remember that Aristotle's LNC is intended to be logically PRODUCTIVE -- it is the assumption/rule in logic that actually powers the engine of inference. Aristotle realized that without LNC there is no inherent force to move from ("maybe it's X, maybe it's Y, maybe it some of both X and Y ... and just maybe it's neither") to a single definitive answer ("it is X", "it is Y", "it is both X and Y", "it is neither".) The LNC isn't a "given" ... it is a "necessary to power logic as a tool".

Science and mysticism are both "truth-producing-systems" in the Godelian sense, even though, for example, physical science does not hold itself capable of directly proving a truth. But the scientific approximation and refinement (and occasional disproof) of hypotheses does give us a dimension of approach to the truth, even though it might not provide every detail we'd like. There are some things we "know" about gravity, for example.

Socrates had a model of unproved truth called a "true opinion" -- the idea that we could arrive at a truth without being able to prove it logically. We can adopt a true opinion based on evidence that is not conclusive or dispositive. We can "intuit" the truth of a matter, sometimes, absent evidence. And sometimes, even a mystical world-view (mythology) gives insight into a matter, a matter we would not be able to intuit on our own, but which we form a true opinion of by connecting the myth to the matter.

When it comes to fields of chemistry at the molecular level, for example, science is immensely productive and intuition and myth are largely a side-show: covalent bonds, pH, radioactive decay, etc. (But give intuition credit for Kekule's benzene ring, yes?)

On the other side of the coin, it seems science has not had as much to contribute to either aesthetics or ethics. (I am reminded of the scene from Dead Poets Society where Keating denounces the textbook commending the objective evaluation of poetics: "Excrement! That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard! We're not laying pipe! We're talking about poetry. How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? 'I like Byron, I give him a 42 but I can't dance to it!'")

Science, intuition, and myth are all richly-veined sources that have given humankind the ability to survive (and dominate, evn enjoy) this planet (so far.) Philosophy may be the vehicle by which we are able to discern when to give the lead in some area to science, when to intution, when to myth.

[Hydesland]

-snippage-

What is this 'religious method' that you guys are referring to? I don't really think such a thing exists. Generally, the way people come to religious conclusions are upbringing, religious/numinous experiences, innate/instinctive perspective and philosophical contemplation. The first and third is not a method, the fourth is not religious but philosophical, so unless there is a special way to bring about religious experiences, I can't think of anything that would count as a religious method.

[Free Soviets]

What is this 'religious method' that you guys are referring to? I don't really think such a thing exists. Generally, the way people come to religious conclusions are upbringing, religious/numinous experiences, innate/instinctive perspective and philosophical contemplation. The first and third is not a method, the fourth is not religious but philosophical, so unless there is a special way to bring about religious experiences, I can't think of anything that would count as a religious method.

i'm using it to refer to the actual numinous experience itself (as the thing that results in various beliefs and is taken to be authoritative in justifying them) rather than a particular way of achieving one. basically, i'm thinking of methods as the sorts of thing that answer the question "oh, and how do you know that?" granted, the initial answer in most religions (and even for people who are nominally using an empirical method) is that it is written somewhere, but i'm thinking of the more fundamental answer - the one on which the appeal to authority is grounded.

[Skama]

What is this 'religious method' that you guys are referring to? I don't really think such a thing exists.

It's more like philosophy. Can't be described concisely with mathematics, if that's what you meant.

[Katganistan]

Name one question that religion can answer that science cannot.

"Are you a [insert your favorite denomination of religion here] or not?"

[Dunczton]

religion is belief,philosophy, and thought not a fact or a calculation.

[Skama]

Calculations aren't facts, they rely on axioms.

[Free Soviets]

Name one question that religion can answer that science cannot.

"Are you a [insert your favorite denomination of religion here] or not?"

surveys are inherently unscientific?

[Hayteria]

You are thinking about it the wrong way, religion is what answers the "why" questions and science answers the "how"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZ_fsG5uMg

[Maurepas]

Which religion should you join?

[Dyakovo]

Which religion should you join?

Well, if you're looking to play it safe, all of them...

[Free Soviets]

Calculations aren't facts, they rely on axioms.

how does that make them less of facts?

[Allanea]

Calculations aren't facts, they rely on axioms.

how does that make them less of facts?

This may help.

ITT a mathematician explains it better than I can.

[Free Soviets]

Calculations aren't facts, they rely on axioms.

how does that make them less of facts?

This may help.

ITT a mathematician explains it better than I can.

assume the axioms are true (which we're presumably doing anyway, since that sort of the point of mathematical axioms). then a calculation that relies on them will report what is the case* - otherwise known as a fact. it is a fact that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

*provided we aren't subject to an evil demon and are using the standard definitions, etc

[Cameroi]

faith, no mater what its in, isn't about answering questions.
fanatics and unbelievers alike often mistakenly expect it to.

what faith does and CAN do, is to enhance, boost, assist, tangible methods when they exist, and sometimes, not always, but sometimes, bridge the gap when nothing else is available.

and it doesn't have to be faith in an established organized belief either.

it can be faith in just about almost anything. yourself, a leaf, a blade of grass, a big god, or even an invisible little critter friend, or maybe even a mantra, a song or a sequence of words, even a sequence of nonsense syllables, if it makes you feel a certain way.

probability isn't broken, but it can stretch a long ways in a lot of directions if you're not trying to stretch it in self contradicting directions at the same time.

there's a lot out there that no one knows anything about.
most, if not nearly all, of it means well.

love of course, comes into it. here's where what that's good for too.

and again it doesn't have to be toward or about only things or beliefs or perceptions that someone else has a name for.

the only thing i would caution against, is if someone makes it be about harm or hurt or causing harm or hurt, then this is the kind of surrounding they create for themselves and can very likely expect to hurt themselves by it.

otherwise, the most negative probably outcome is for there to be no outcome, whereas, the possible positive outcomes are literally unlimited. probability of course, rests somewhere in between.

[The Realm of The Realm]

...
premise 1: people using the religious methodology arrive at different answers to various questions, i.e. it is both obligatory and forbidden to practice human sacrifice.
premise 2: if a method leads to incompatible answers to the same question, then either all answers are right or some (up to and including all) of them are wrong.
subconclusion: therefore either all religiously derived answers to a question are right or some of them are wrong.

Or ... as you mentioned later on in this thread, the fact that some religiously derived answers to a question conflict may merely indicate that THE QUESTION IS UNDECIDABLE by this logic. The questions themselves, after all, are ~mystical~ in most cases.

That's the equivalent of saying that all of the answers are right -- insofar as our methods permit us to determine. Just as science has theories which have not been disproved yet, the religious method has ... "spiritual insights" ... that have not been fully resolved.

Remember, it's been proved logically (Godel) that no system of logic can operationally decide ALL truth and/or falsehood.

[Free Soviets]

...
premise 1: people using the religious methodology arrive at different answers to various questions, i.e. it is both obligatory and forbidden to practice human sacrifice.
premise 2: if a method leads to incompatible answers to the same question, then either all answers are right or some (up to and including all) of them are wrong.
subconclusion: therefore either all religiously derived answers to a question are right or some of them are wrong.

Or ... as you mentioned later on in this thread, the fact that some religiously derived answers to a question conflict may merely indicate that THE QUESTION IS UNDECIDABLE by this logic. The questions themselves, after all, are ~mystical~ in most cases.

That's the equivalent of saying that all of the answers are right -- insofar as our methods permit us to determine. Just as science has theories which have not been disproved yet, the religious method has ... "spiritual insights" ... that have not been fully resolved.

Remember, it's been proved logically (Godel) that no system of logic can operationally decide ALL truth and/or falsehood.

hmm, i think an idea like "it is truly indeterminate whether any religious answers are right or not" might make a good additional prong (though it should be obvious what conclusion that will lead to). but we need to be careful about undecidables. it could reasonably be called undecidable just going down either of the already existing prongs of the argument.