[awm]

 kenberg, on 2012-February-18, 08:20, said:

On one side, if someone doesn't like the health benefits provided by the Catholic Church, I am not sure why this is different from not liking the pay that is provided. Work for an employer that provides pay and benefits that are satisfactory.

This type of approach is what the Civil Rights laws were effectively banning. One might as well ask "If the restaurant down the street won't serve African Americans, why don't they just go to a restaurant that caters to them?" -- the market just doesn't work in these sorts of discrimination cases.

Discrimination against women by employers is systemic. Women routinely receive 25% less pay for the same work when holding the same qualifications. Employers refuse to cover women's reproductive health care needs (i.e. contraception) while routinely covering male reproductive health care needs (i.e. viagra). Sure, you can ask "if the company won't pay women as much as men / cover women's health care the way they cover men, why don't those women just find an employer who will?" but again, the market doesn't seem to work for things like that.

There are some church/state exceptions for actual religious organizations but these exceptions are (and should be) narrowly defined.

Honestly I'm surprised by this argument from someone who lived through the Civil Rights movement and seems moderate-liberal in their political views.

[kenberg]

I put in the part about pay for just this reason. At some point, people have to choose.

We set minimum wage laws. I agree with this. But if the Church pays above the minimum wage, we don't tell them how much above, except, as we agree, they cannot pay more to some and less to others on the basis of sex or race or such.

OK, what about health coverage? If they give health coverage but the coverage does not include contraceptive care is this really something that the government must address, rather than letting the potential employee evaluate the worth of? Until recently, I think the answer was no. Suppose they just pay their workers an extra $100 a month and tell them to spend it at the track, spend it on whiskey, or spend it on contraception. Me, I would take the $100 and forgo the contraceptive coverage, my wife being a bit past child-bearing age.

Salary and benefits are two sides of compensation, and we all make choices. High salary, low benefits would appeal to me. Low salary with high medical benefits might appeal to someone with five kids. Of course high salary with high benefits appeals to everyone, nice work if you can get it. We choose. There really is no way around the necessity of choice.

But we have, through the legislative process, decided that indeed the lack of contraceptive coverage is now a government concern. Perhaps this is wise, perhaps not. But the law is the law.

So, on balance, I think the bishops do not have all that much of a case either legally or morally. But not wanting to provide contraceptive coverage is quite different, I think, from a restaurant refusing service based on race.

As a final point, in my prologue I lamented the decline of simple solutions to everyday problems. Once we all made choices. Now we proclaim our rights and sue someone.

[barmar]

 mike777, on 2012-February-17, 22:30, said:

I agree they dont have a right to federal funds but they can ask for it or if offered them without asking, accept them. Rights is a funny word. If the govt wants to stop the money flow ok stop it, I mean I hope and pray the Catholic Church is not demanding taxpayer money as a right.

Why do you keep bringing up federal funds? They don't have anything to do with the ACA. It applies to all employers, regardless of whether they get federal funds, although different provisions apply depending on the number of employees a company has.

Quote

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

As has already been mentioned, this right is not absolute, some compromises have to be made for purposes of public policy. And the government has decided that universal health care trumps religious freedom, unless you're actually a church. If you're only church-affiliated, but not a church, you don't get as much religious freedom.

[barmar]

 kenberg, on 2012-February-18, 13:05, said:

OK, what about health coverage? If they give health coverage but the coverage does not include contraceptive care is this really something that the government must address, rather than letting the potential employee evaluate the worth of?

We already have a system where companies can voluntarily choose to provide health coverage or not, and potential employees can weigh this perk against other aspects of the job. But the goal of the law is universal health care. Everyone gets a reasonable level of health coverage, and shouldn't have to choose between a good job and good health care.

[hjoele]

 kenberg, on 2012-February-18, 08:20, said:

Life used to be simpler. No one needed to sue anyone or create national crises.

I was confirmed in the Presbyterian church in 1952 at age 13. Within a couple of years I had rejected these beliefs, partly on rational grounds but at least partly, perhaps largely, on my assessment of life and on the personal qualities of those in positions of religious leadership. Example: After my father's stroke he didn't get into church so often so my minister took it upon himself to explain that now that I had been confirmed it was my responsibility to get my father in to church so he wouldn't roast in hell.

So I had to handle this new relationship to religion. At least where I grew up I would say that challenging the religious beliefs of me fellow adolescent males would not have been a wise move, and largely I avoided this. When I applied for part time jobs I answered Presbyterian when asked about my religion. I figured those who asked such a question were not entitled to an honest answer. In adulthood I took a different view. If someone didn't want to hire me because of my religious views I figured I would not be happy working there.

How, if at all, does this apply? In two competing ways.

On one side, if someone doesn't like the health benefits provided by the Catholic Church, I am not sure why this is different from not liking the pay that is provided. Work for an employer that provides pay and benefits that are satisfactory.

On the other side, I really get tired of religious people explaining that their views on practically anything have to be given special deference because after all, it's not just their views but God's views and who am I to argue with God? The Constitution gives them the right to pray as they choose, I have no desire to interfere. Give onto Caesar and all that. But the rest of us have to figure out how to run the country.

On this general question of the existence of God, all I can say is that it was a difficult and somewhat frightening experience thinking all this through, but that is many years in the past and I will not be changing my mind.

[hjoele]

I've been lurking here for a long time. I have learned a lot about bridge by reading this great forum; I owe Fred, JLALL, Gnasher, Mikeh, Frances Hinden and many others a lot, for their tremendous bridge contributions. Thank you, all of you.

Kenberg is, however, the reason I now, at last, decided to break my silence: thank you, Ken, for your intelligence, civility and, well, sanity. (If only you would run for office...)

[kenberg]

I hope you continue to join in. I am sure we will find things to disagree on.

The BBO Forums are a very civil place.

[Winstonm]

Quote

I am sure we will find things to disagree on.

No, we won't.

[Scarabin]

But does culture not play a role in faith, whether faith in religion or science?

[kenberg]

 Scarabin, on 2012-February-20, 22:28, said:

But does culture not play a role in faith, whether faith in religion or science?

I suppose so. If I grew up in a different time and place I might well be burning witches or sacrificing virgins. Or quoting Chairman Mao. It's not clear to me where you are headed with this.

[mikeh]

 Scarabin, on 2012-February-20, 22:28, said:

But does culture not play a role in faith, whether faith in religion or science?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'faith in science'?

A lot of religionists assert that those who prefer science over religion as a means of understanding our existence are simply subscribing to a different but equivalent 'faith'.

In one sense, that seems plausible.

In a major way, it isn't.

Religions differ in detail, and those details have underlain the torture and slaughter of countless people over the millennia, as one set of believers attempts to prove the truth of their god (usually described as merciful or loving...irony is something that seems to escape most believers) to the adherents of a faith that may differ only on a trivial matter.

But one aspect of religion that appears constant is that it requires that the believer accept as true matters that are 'revealed' or pronounced by the ruler(s) of the sect. Critical thinking about the underlying tenets of the faith is not merely discouraged...it is treated as punishable, often by a gruesome death.

Science by contrast is built on the assumption that everything is subject to proof. Having said that, some ideas that were once considered little more than speculative have, through repeated testing, proven to be almost certainly correct, to the point that they are, for practical purposes, accepted as 'true'.

Take the question of the speed of light as the upper limit....recently some experimental results out of CERN suggested that it is possible that some sub-atomic particles can travel faster than the speed of light.

Were science like religion, this result would have seen the experimenters stripped of their privileges, and, in some religions, beheaded or stoned to death and, at the minimum, ostracized.

But in science, its practitioners are concerned with what actually IS rather than what some ancient seers claimed we should believe to be 'true'. So even tho the vast majority of physicists were and remain sceptical, every one of them (of those whose remarks I have read) was excited by the news. if the results stand up, and no other explanation appears more plausible, then science will explore how and why this happened and modify the ideas currently seen as 'true' to correspond with reality.

That's the opposite of 'faith'.

This question of language underlies a lot of the silliness spouted by anti-science religious people: as in when they refer to The Theory of Evolution as 'only' a theory...while having no apparent difficulty with the Law of Gravity

[blackshoe]

 mikeh, on 2012-February-21, 19:24, said:

This question of language underlies a lot of the silliness spouted by anti-science religious people: as in when they refer to The Theory of Evolution as 'only' a theory...while having no apparent difficulty with the Law of Gravity

There is no gravity. The Earth sucks.

[onoway]

 mikeh, on 2012-February-21, 19:24, said:

**

A lot of religionists assert that those who prefer science over religion as a means of understanding our existence are simply subscribing to a different but equivalent 'faith'.
**
Were science like religion, this result would have seen the experimenters stripped of their privileges, and, in some religions, beheaded or stoned to death and, at the minimum, ostracized.
**

You might be interested in this article written by a Dr Thomas Gold of Cornell University
http://amasci.com/fr...g/newidea1.html There are numerous examples of scientists who have been ridiculed and worse for results outside the "expected". One such is Dr Linus Pauling who came out with a study that an injectable vitamin C program had been effective treating certain types of cancer. Although at that point in time, he was already a Nobel winner, his research was dubbed quackery and he was considered to have "lost it" so to speak. However many years later, the Mayo clinic is reported to have run a study using his exact protocol and has found that indeed it is getting results.

So it might be a moot question about the benignity of science vs religion..how many people may have died in anguish as a result of the scientific community's refusal to consider something "too simple" as possibly the answer to a difficult question?

Also, science has brought us the atomic bomb and germ warfare and agent orange and GMO seeds and newly sophisticated ways to torture as well as heart transplants and hot water heaters and mousetraps. As well as being the vehicle for such horrors as the inquisition, religion has brought some sense of being cared for to people otherwise in hopelessness and despair, has given comfort to people who are dying, given a sense of purpose to lives such as that of Mother Teresa, literacy before schools were universal,improved living conditions and social change for many, if not for the women who want to be able to control their pregnancies. Many early scientist were either monks or certainly had strong religious ties..Copernicus, Linnaeus, Gregor Mendel (Linnaeus was ordained, and Mendel was a monk). So I think it's unfortunate that there is this black and white view of science vs religion such as you offer.

I was watching a video a few weeks ago of the Dalai Llama, and he was talking about how they are working closely with scientists to try to learn how some of the Buddhist monks apparently disprove some "laws of nature". So again, religion and science certainly can and do co-exist with people of open mind and good intent.

[kenberg]

Humans are fallible, time, energy and imagination are finite. The result is that sometimes a person who is believed to be way off base is actually right on target. Egos play a role, money can also play a role. This happens. It does not change the fundamental distinction between science and religion. Their criteria for deciding upon truth are simply different. The linked article has a further link to a talk by Freeman Dyson, another very independent thinker. He remarks that it took forty years for scientists to come to see that Gold was right about an issue with hearing. OK, that's really too bad. But they did come to agree, and the reasons were scientific. We all wish we could see the truth in an argument, or the flaw in an argument, right off. This does not always happen.

But the criteria are different, and the results are different.

[mikeh]

As Ken points out, the difference is one of how each method of understanding the universe approaches its subject.

Science approaches it, in principle, by using an observational process that is evidence based and testable...i.e. in principle falsifiable. This is one objection voiced by some physicists to string theory, btw....it seems (to them, I am too ignorant to have an opinion) that string theory may be untestable. However, it seems to me that IF string theory ever advances to the point that it mathematically explains everything we can observe, and that no other theory does, then its untestability is a minor quibble.

Religion approaches it, in principle, by claiming that a god or gods spoke or otherwise communicated with a select number of humans, and charged those humans with persuading the rest of us.

While I would hope that this comparison would suffice to demonstrate which approach is more likely to generate an accurate picture of the universe, only the most naive or disingenuous would assert that science is infallible. Science is practiced by humans. Humans are irrational. We are animals, and have characteristics that were selected for over evolutionary time for purposes having nothing to do with our ability (or the ability of some few of us) to develop string theory, or the operate the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.

We have our biases. We are subject to such psychological problems as confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, etc.

This is present even in the bridge community. Thus I happen to think that most of what Ken Rexford espouses is lunacy...my reaction is similar to the reaction of the scientific community when someone first proposed continental drift. However, if Ken's ideas are valid, and the game remains popular enough, I may eventually be proven wrong. If so, I hope that I will around to congratulate Ken.

[Winstonm]

Or a simpler mind, like mine, looks at it that certain people start with a narrative and ignore nonconforming data, while others start with data and then build a narrative that attempts to explain it.

[Scarabin]

As a small personal point I see dogmatism as out of place in any scientific approach. I also view the holocaust as one of secular "science's" achievements (and one to rival the conquistadores), and when I get too confident about scientific method I remember Schiller's essay on logic (which I read many,many years ago but which still impresses me).

[awm]

There's a difference between explaining the universe and imparting a moral sense.

Religion is remarkably bad at explaining the universe. Many things which have been conclusively shown untrue are/were part of religious doctrine. The problem is that whatever they claim, religious texts were written by very fallible human beings a long time ago when we didn't know much. Science is way better for explaining natural phenomena, by systemically looking for evidence and adapting to counterexamples.

Science does not, however, impart a moral sense. It allows us to create amazing new medicines and tools, but also terrible new weapons. There are definitely examples of horrible atheistic dictators (Stalin being the best example; I think the nazis were Christian if only in a very nominal sense).

However, religion is not so great at imparting a moral sense either. It has been used to justify many atrocities -- much more so than science, which may provide the tools of military power but gives little guidance on when to use them. The point is that atheist murderers don't say they kill "because there is no God" -- they kill for money or power or because they're crazy. But Christian (or Muslim or Jewish) murderers quite often will say they kill "because God told them too."

Certainly there are moral religious people, but there are also moral atheists. The idea that morality comes from "fear of punishment" is always fundamentally flawed, because it means one would be immoral if one could "get away with it". Morality comes mostly from a sense of empathy or community -- placing the good of others over selfish gains in at least some circumstances. Science might even explain it (in terms of evolutionary imperatives).

[Scarabin]

But there has to be something more than knowledge. Science does not give a reason for it but we must have morality, wherever it comes from.




"Dear God, I'd rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn so might I, standing on this pleasant lea, have some vision that would make me less forlorn."

[mike777]

"Guys if you dont think a God exists say so....otherwise shut up or say so..

In any event if you say there is a God ok....and what does say?

If no God then rest is bull crap.