Religion
Related: About this forumCritical thinking shapes religious experience on campus
By Lucy Svoboda January 31, 2014
Stanford’s religious culture is in many ways defined by its commitment to diversity: the University is overseen by three different chaplains, boasts over 30 student religious organizations and was founded as a non-religious institution. Stanford’s commitment to a liberal arts education, however, has also shaped the religious experience on campus by emphasizing critical thinking and open dialogue, according to campus religious leaders.
“I would argue that—with a liberal arts education—you want to question all of the assumptions that you arrive with and hold to some of them more deeply because of it,” said Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, senior associate dean for religious life. “I think that religions worth their salt aren’t afraid of the intellect or afraid of scientific inquiry, but welcome them.”
It is this focus on inquiry and questioning that surrounds Stanford’s religious culture and that has led some to reevaluate their beliefs.
“Coming [to Stanford], the way I have always thought of it, it is definitely a crucible of faith,” said Cale Strong ‘16. “It either refines your faith and makes it very strong or it burns it up and destroys it.”
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/01/31/critical-thinking-shapes-religious-experience-on-campus/
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Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)I would concur with this students: not all religion gets swept away by reasoned dialogue. Just the petty, tribal kind that empowers authoritarian (and frequently corrupt) cultural gatekeepers.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)It doesn't "refine" it. Compartmentalism, intellectual dishonesty, and cognitive dissonance refine faith. Apologetics for religion have been "refining" religion for thousands of years to survive as some milquetoast brand of faith.
More than that, religion for most people in the US is not about whether the claims of a religion are true, but the very tangible benefits of a community and tradition, weighed against and family and social pressure. And the vast majority of religious people came to religion through childhood indoctrination.
These are the reasons most people are religious, not because they think their religion is true, or even caring about whether it is true. That's why most don't even read the texts of the religion they claim to follow.
Every religion worth it's salt has all sorts of terrible logic and bad reasoning to back it up, and if those don't work, well, they fall back to their true foundation, faith.
rug
(82,333 posts)Your premise, that religious belief is incompatible with critical thinking, itself rests on intellectual dishonesty.
I assume you're simply parroting the usual confusion between the scientific method and reason.
In fact, no one knows the origin of things. Science actually has no stake in that question. It does observe, hypothesize and test as it goes along, ending up where it will.
Most religious thought does address the origin of things and posits the notion of extranatural origin or creation. And most again posit the notion of an extranatural creator or creators. That is hardly cognitive dissonance, a current buzz phrase. It is an approach to human understanding of what exists but cannot be naturally explained.
Critical thinking certainly does refine that premise, considering its implications and seeking a coherence to those implications.
You don't believe it? You believe all that exists is material and has no nonmaterial explanation? Whoop de doo, good for you. Here's a cookie. But you really don't have an intellectually persuasive case; you have an opinion.
As to the rest of your comments, well, they are simply unsupportable subjective conclusions. Take comfort in them.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Assuming something is true based on no evidence is not critical thinking, and that is the premise of every faith-based belief. Making claims about the supernatural, in other words making claims about things which by definition can never be proven, is what religion does.
Science does not make presumptions because critical thinking and science go hand in hand. It's no surprise religions posit all sorts of claims that we can't test, given what faith-based beliefs are.
Critical thinking cannot refine a presumption, it only undermines all presumptions. So using critical thinking to support a presumption that is undermined by critical thinking is one of the many types of dissonance religion creates.
rug
(82,333 posts)If you cannot, you are subjecting your entire consciousness and thought to five senses. Worse, you are forbidding yourself from even contemplating what such a thing might be.
I'll repeat: you're simply parroting the usual confusion between the scientific method and reason.
I'm being intellectually honest and consistent when I say that a supernatural entity, by definition, cannot have any evidence to support it. If there is evidence, then it's no longer supernatural.
That is to say, it's a non-sensical question.
I'm not "subjecting" myself to reality, just acknowledging it.
I understand that the scientific method and reason are not the exact same thing, but neither supports faith, by definition. If I give a reason for believing in a god, then it's not faith based. If that reasoning is shown to be faulty, I can always fall back on faith. In fact, if I'm defending a faith based-belief based on reason, the only reason for doing so is to convince others based on reason or other foundations, but not based on the same foundation of faith. It's a non-sensical position of course, but the human mind is capable of dissonance and compartmentalizations, or I may just be being dishonest.
rug
(82,333 posts)others"
Speak for yourself.
You really do have a lot of assumptions littering your thought. It does detract from your points.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Are you going to address my points? Or selectively quote a part of a sentence and cryptically refer to "assumptions"? Seems like a very intellectually dishonest tactic.
It's ok to admit you're wrong.
rug
(82,333 posts)It's bad form to use opinions as facts.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)MellowDem
(5,018 posts)What assumption? Or are you moving on from that?
rug
(82,333 posts)It's your statement.
It's bullshit. It's an assumption.
Prove it.
And why is it an assumption? You can't point it out?
okasha
(11,573 posts)cited, in this post and many others, is an assumption. You have been repeatedly asked for facts to support those assumptions and have to date completely failed to provide any.
What you have are opinions, and faith-based opinions at that.
Then list out what they are and I'll address them.
I see a lot of projection.
rug
(82,333 posts)
edhopper
(33,579 posts)the very essence of scientific knowledge is that there is no supernatural agent involved.
There is no reason to accept the posits of religions steeped in ancient superstition that some extra-natural agent was involved in the beginning of the Universe. And unless you have evidence otherwise, there is nothing to show a supernatural agent has affected the Universe since it's beginning.
rug
(82,333 posts)It claims knowledge of nothing beyond that.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Few major religions claim its beliefs can be gained through knowledge. Buddhist enlightenment is the only one that comes to mind.
As has been pointed out to you many times, most other religions, certainly all the Abrahamic ones, have come to their beliefs through revelation, an act of the divine revealing the divinity in the world.
That is not knowledge. It is an acceptance of these as true. In short, faith.
It has as much to do with the scientific method as whistling does with whittling.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)or maybe not, who knows. no way to know which has any answers at all. except Jesus was the son of God because some one felt it to be true. But he wasn't because others had that revealed to them. Or maybe he was and came to America because that was also revealed. but people need to shape their whole lives around these revealed truths because that's what God wants.
rug
(82,333 posts)That's where critical reasoning comes in.
The belief system must have some sort of internal coherence. And it must conform to the few basic values that virtually all humans share.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)say that.
Jim__
(14,076 posts)“I personally think that having those conversations reflects a deeper level of acceptance…[because] acceptance reflects a personal involvement,” Bridges-Lyman said. “Whereas tolerance is more of letting something happen on the side and not being engaged with it. I don’t think tolerance is bad, but I personally think acceptance is better. I think it’s better to reach out to people and see where they are coming from.”
If I were a student at Stanford, I wouldn't ask anyone wearing a dastaar or an abaya about their dress unless I knew them really well. Questioning people, especially people you don't know very well, about their dress could be interpreted as a form of calling them out. The safest thing is to just ignore it.
rug
(82,333 posts)I wouldn't walk up to a perfect stranger and ask but it's an obvious topic of conversation with an acquaintance.
Maybe I'm just nosy.