GaryDog
Gold Member
- Feb 10, 2016
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I don't find human behavior to be baseless and imaginary. I find your description of spirituality to be unsupported. And I'm right. "Spirituality" is a lazy conclusion that ends the discussion and relies on the mystical, or fantastic (just like theism ends the discussion of the origins of the universe with "god did it" and robs us of further inquiry).
Studies of human behavior are very much scientific, and ongoing. There's nothing "mystical" about it.
I never said "god did it" and so we shouldn't inquire further. Where did that come from?
It's not a lazy conclusion because it's observational fact. The oldest human civilization ever unearthed shows evidence of ritual ceremonial burial using red ocher. There is no pragmatic physical purpose for ritual ceremonies or red ocher. It is evidence of spiritual belief. It's not a lazy conclusion, it's the only rational one.
There is absolutely nothing about human spirituality that precludes physical science. The man who mapped the human genome was a Christian. Sir Isaac Newton was educated in a religious university and actually spent part of his life writing what would eventually become the foundation of the Protestant Church. He is considered the greatest scientific mind of all time.
Indeed, it is a very UN-scientific viewpoint to dismiss possibilities you cannot disprove. So it is YOU who is drawing the "lazy" conclusion. When you have adopted a conclusion you have adopted a faith and stopped practicing science. That's truth whether you throw up your hands and say "god did it" or if you proclaim "god doesn't exist!"
LMAO, you first lay claim that you're not bringing religion into the argument, and give me the shrug emoji, and then you go on to list the religious curriculum vitae for scientists you admire. Really? You wonder why I spy a religious agenda to your constant harping on "spirituality?"
People have been burying their dead and having rituals to deal with grief for eons, that's true. Elephants also honor their dead when they come upon corpses. There goes the "unique" aspect of our supposed "spirituality".
Science isn't about NOT dismissing items you CANNOT disprove....it's about only accepting theories that are supported strongly by evidence. That's why spirituality will probably forever be confined to church pews and philosophy works, because there's simply no evidence of it. It's a nebulous construct we use to describe myriad other behaviors having to do with grief, fear, happiness, etc.