Science is not a replacement for religion because science is not a moral code. It can tell you how something can be done, but not what is right or wrong to do. Attempts to develop such moral codes by reasoning from first principles turns out to be incredibly difficult and can easily lead to degenerate conclusions.

In another comment you ask what scientism is. We can define it as an attempt to turn science into religion. It retains the surface look and feel of science, but isn't science. HN has a lot of people who follow scientism - you can find them getting frustrated on any story about science asking why other people can't just Believe The Scientists like they do.

  > Science is not a replacement for religion because science is not a moral code. It can tell you how something can be done, but not what is right or wrong to do. Attempts to develop such moral codes by reasoning from first principles turns out to be incredibly difficult and can easily lead to degenerate conclusions.

I have not seen any proof of that. Neither did I see proof that only religion can give you the correct moral code. As I mentioned a few times: given that there a several disagreeing religions they can't be all right. So it's not the fact that something is a religion that gives a correct moral code.

Even if something is difficult, it does not mean that I instead resort to making up some stories and declare that's the right moral code.

  > In another comment you ask what scientism is. We can define it as an attempt to turn science into religion. It retains the surface look and feel of science, but isn't science. HN has a lot of people who follow scientism - you can find them getting frustrated on any story about science asking why other people can't just Believe The Scientists like they do.

Well if that were the definition of scientism then I wouldn't subscribe to scientism. That would sound pretty much like the opposite of science and an attempt to subvert and abuse it.

Ah, I didn't argue that religion gives you a correct moral code, or that there is only one possible moral code. Religions are the result of memetic evolution so it's natural that there's some variety. All I argue is that science doesn't give you one at all.

Proving this would take at least a whole book, maybe more, but such books have been written many times in the past when science vs religion was more topical. Most people don't demand such a book because "science can tell you how to do it but not whether you should" is a pretty uncontroversial position that's been taken by scientists themselves many times, it's pretty much the starting point of the debate over whether Nagasaki should have been nuked for example.

Still, consider a sample moral problem: revenge. Christianity (to take a familiar example) has a very evolved take on revenge. It teaches that you shouldn't avenge wrongdoing (eye for an eye), instead you should "turn the other cheek". If everyone did this it has obvious advantages for stopping conflicts escalating into long term violence, but it denies people a sense of justice. So Christianity also has a whole lot of evolved stories about how that's OK because sinners will be judged in heaven by God and maybe sent to Hell if they've been bad, so you can turn the other cheek yet rest assured that justice will be done ... in the afterlife. Obviously all this is totally unfalsifiable, it doesn't attempt to be rational in any way but it's a really useful set of beliefs and stories for creating a more peaceful society.

If you take only science as a starting point, how do you derive this sort of moral code and - just as importantly - make it stick? How would you teach it to children? In fact you'd struggle even with the far more basic task of deriving a moral code that bans murder. You can't start with evolution because animals kill each other all the time; there's nothing unnatural about murder. It's the prohibition against it that's unnatural, but science is just the study of the natural world, so that's no help. See for yourself, try it. Come up with a rational first-principles explanation of why murder is bad without invoking religion, and which doesn't simply boil down to tautologies, circular reasoning, appeal to authority or other logical fallacies. I've tried - it's hard!

"if that were the definition of scientism then I wouldn't subscribe to scientism."

Right, but nobody explicitly subscribes to scientism. We don't even have such a word as "scientismist" because it's pretty much the defacto default religion of the modern population.

Scientism is perhaps the nastiest of all religions because it denies its own nature. Other religions accept what they are, but this one presents itself as pure rationalism even though it's not. It's very, very easy to accidentally become a follower of scientism which is why so many people are. All you have to do is use reasoning like this:

1. Science is a good way to determine what is true.

2. But I am busy and don't have time to do science. Therefore I will delegate it to professional scientists.

3. I don't have time to figure out who is applying the scientific method on a person-by-person basis, so I'll delegate that to scientific institutions (universities, governments, corporations etc).

3. I don't have time to verify that these institutions are actually using the scientific method. Actually I'm not even sure what the scientific method is, beyond the very basics. So I'll assume that if people are being referred to as scientists by other people who are also being called scientists, and the places they work have money, then they are scientific institutions.

4. I don't have time to actually read what these institutions write down in their holy books/journals, because a lot of it is written in Latin, but I am sure that it is Science and that The Word of Science is Truth, so whatever these institutions claim must be true.

5. I don't have time to actually find out what these institutions claim, but there's this noisy town crier in the middle of our village who says that the institutions claim X, and nobody seems to be objecting, so I have Faith that this must be The Word and therefore Truth.

5. I don't understand why these oddball heretics keep popping up who lack Faith in The Word as transcribed by the priests at the Institutions, because why would anyone doubt what is obviously and clearly True? Yes, scientists are merely men and may sometimes be unclear about the universal underlying Truth, which may even be unknowable to us mere mortals, but nonetheless it is important for community cohesion to have Faith and therefore we should banish these heretics as far outside the village as possible.

In other words, although people like to think they're rational, being rational is time consuming and difficult so most people delegate it. But - and this is where it becomes scientism - they don't recognize that this is what they've done. They conflate belief in a hierarchical Church-like system with rationality, and end up believing anything that people working at these institutions say even if it's obviously pseudo-scientific. And, they treat doubt in the sciencey-ness of the priestly class as terrible heresy; such heretics deserve to get their printing presses smashed up (cancelled).

  > All I argue is that science doesn't give you one at all.

But I have given you examples of arriving at moral rules through arguments that are not based on religious thought.

  > Proving this would take at least a whole book, maybe more, but such books have been written many times in the past when science vs religion was more topical. Most people don't demand such a book because "science can tell you how to do it but not whether you should" is a pretty uncontroversial position that's been taken by scientists themselves many times, it's pretty much the starting point of the debate over whether Nagasaki should have been nuked for example.

Why would it take a book? I just gave counter examples and have disproven your claim already. That you can find examples where science can not explain something does not mean it cannot explain anything in terms of "why". The whole point of science is to explain the "why". Why it happened, why it is that way and why it will happen.

You can use science to debate if Nagasaki should have been nuked. That though would probably be a complex discussion but I can see a possibility that someone scientifically shows that there would have been better ways to solve the conflict.

  > Obviously all this is totally unfalsifiable, it doesn't attempt to be rational in any way but it's a really useful set of beliefs and stories for creating a more peaceful society.

Only under the assumption that everyone in the society strictly follows the rule. As soon as one guy just turns into a tyrrant or if another group comes in order to suppress them the framework collapses and so it is unworkable in the real world where there are real threats.

  > If you take only science as a starting point, how do you derive this sort of moral code and - just as importantly - make it stick?

We have laws that prohibit harming others and they don't need religious justification. Harming a member of society is against everyones interest because we are part of society and we optimize for a good quality of life of society as that optimizes our own. Take Sweden as an example. Very secular country. Are you claiming their society has weak morals? Are they full of revenge killings?

  > In fact you'd struggle even with the far more basic task of deriving a moral code that bans murder. You can't start with evolution because animals kill each other all the time; there's nothing unnatural about murder. It's the prohibition against it that's unnatural, but science is just the study of the natural world, so that's no help. See for yourself, try it. Come up with a rational first-principles explanation of why murder is bad without invoking religion, and which doesn't simply boil down to tautologies, circular reasoning, appeal to authority or other logical fallacies. I've tried - it's hard!

I did it in other comments but here we go again: it's easy to argue that since we optimize the survival of our society we should not kill each other. A species that is happy to just randomly kill each other has real disadvantages that should be obvious. Your claim that animals kill each other all the time: killing within their own group is rare. Take two random animals from the same species and put them together in a room and see if they will kill each other. Do this with enough animals and different species. The vast majority will not kill each other. How come?

  > Right, but nobody explicitly subscribes to scientism. We don't even have such a word as "scientismist" because it's pretty much the defacto default religion of the modern population.

I don't agree with that. You seriously claim that the majority just blindly believes in science but wouldn't admit it? Or is it maybe because people started to trust a system which they can at least partially verify and that can explain a lot of the real world?

  > Scientism is perhaps the nastiest of all religions because it denies its own nature. Other religions accept what they are, but this one presents itself as pure rationalism even though it's not. It's very, very easy to accidentally become a follower of scientism which is why so many people are. All you have to do is use reasoning like this:

Blind belief is always bad. Which one is the worst is not a particularly interesting conversation to me.

We alreay agree that scientism (meaning religious corruption of science as you've shown) isn't good. Don't think we need to expand on that further.

I don't quite see where you provided examples before this comment, sorry, could you repeat them? I looked through the thread and see you asserting we don't need religions anymore, but not where you give concrete worked examples of moral questions and how to resolve them with science.

"You can use science to debate if Nagasaki should have been nuked"

I'm not really sure how. It would be interesting to see an attempt. Note that doing this without relying on ambient moral principles like "killing people is bad" is probably impossible but those moral principles don't come from science, as I point out, hence why I don't see how to do it.

"We have laws that prohibit harming others and they don't need religious justification."

Yes I thought you might go there. It doesn't work. Those laws are derived from religious codes originally. Also, the law is not a moral code, the law is supposed to implement moral codes. If you believe morality flows from law as the original source, you have to believe that lawmakers are inherently more morally capable than the people they rule. Moreover you cannot have such a thing as a tyrant because the moment they achieve power and change the law, whatever they do becomes axiomatically moral and therefore they are not a tyrant. Are you really going to argue that? No way are most people going to go anywhere near a claim like that, quite the opposite, it is often argued that lawmakers are less moral than regular people!

"Harming a member of society is against everyones interest because we are part of society and we optimize for a good quality of life of society as that optimizes our own"

This isn't a logical argument from first principles. Harming someone else can very much be in your interest in all sorts of situations. For it to be considered immoral, there must be some higher justification that states that your clear self-interest in harming an enemy is subservient to some other principle.

Claims like "we optimize for a good quality of life of society" don't mean anything concrete. It's just restating a belief that the original position is morally correct in different words. Every tyrant in history has always claimed to be acting for the betterment of society and how can you argue otherwise without some system deeper than "this is morally good because we say it's best for everyone therefore it is"?

That's what I mean by it being difficult. All the obvious answers just lead you in circles.

"Your claim that animals kill each other all the time: killing within their own group is rare. Take two random animals from the same species and put them together in a room and see if they will kill each other."

So by analogy it's OK to kill other races but not your own? That's certainly a moral code that has existed in the past, but it's not one that is accepted today.

But it's an odd argument because it's really common that animals will fight and injure each other within the same species, sometimes fatally. Usually fights over territory or mating dominance. Even in pack animals there are fights over who gets the mates. By coincidence I was at a zoo just two days ago and they had a few cages where there was only a single animal, with an explanation that they had to do this because if they put more than one animal of the same type in the same cage they would fight for dominance. It's normal e.g. the antlers on a deer are for fighting. One of them was a type of crane, and the explanation was that cranes pick a single mate for life and this one had picked "Man", so would fight with any other crane. Animal jealousy!

"You serious claim that the majority just blindly believes in science but wouldn't admit it?"

After what we saw in the last two years! Wow yes, absolutely I seriously claim that. The amount of pseudo-scientific garbage that the population swallowed about COVID is just incredible. Claims that fell apart the moment you read the papers or even just thought about them were routinely passed off and accepted by the population because they came from "experts". It is one of the major themes of our age.

  > I don't quite see where you provided examples before this comment, sorry, could you repeat them? I looked through the thread and see you asserting we don't need religions anymore, but not where you give concrete worked examples of moral questions and how to resolve them with science.

I gave an example right in my comment to which you replied. Further explanation below. Another example was when al_mandi asked me to give an example how rape can be argued against.

  > This isn't a logical argument from first principles. Harming someone else can very much be in your interest in all sorts of situations. For it to be considered immoral, there must be some higher justification that states that your clear self-interest in harming an enemy is subservient to some other principle.

I think I see where your misunderstanding is. That you can find a specific situation where harming someone else can be in your interest does not invalidate the argument that says so in the grand scheme of things and in most situations. Nearly nothing is absolute.

The same logical fallacy has been shown in this HN discussion about a dozen times.

A general rule can be true even if in a specific case it does not apply. Killing someone in the general case is bad but in specific cases it can be good. Take for example a suicide bomber running into a crowd. That killing is bad in general can be argued for with logic and without resulting to religion. It should be obvious that killing in general will harm your own chances of survival in general. I can deduce that with my own brain and don't need a prophet to tell me. You can ask me to go the full chain of logic back to first principles but you know full well that's a lot to do. Can we see the desire to not get killed as something given not by religion?

For example: if you show that science can not explain a certain thing then that does not mean science can not explain anything at all.

If B follows A then NOT B does not follow NOT A.

A triangle is a geometric shape. It does not follow that if something is not a triangle then it's not a geometric shape.

  > I'm not really sure how. It would be interesting to see an attempt. Note that doing this without relying on ambient moral principles like "killing people is bad" is probably impossible but those moral principles don't come from science, as I point out, hence why I don't see how to do it.

The claim is that morals can only come from religion but I argued and showed that this is not the case.

Your claim is that something ALWAYS applies (e.g. ONLY religion can bring morals). If I can show a single counter example then I invalidate your claim. If I claim that something is true ON AVERAGE and you show one counter example then that does NOT invalidate my claim.

If you say that ONLY a 6 sided dice can throw a 4 and I have an 8 sided dice and throw a 4 then you lose. If I say on average you will roll at least a 2 with your dice then rolling a 1 does not prove me wrong.

  > Claims like "we optimize for a good quality of life of society" don't mean anything concrete. It's just restating a belief that the original position is morally correct in different words. Every tyrant in history has always claimed to be acting for the betterment of society and how can you argue otherwise without some system deeper than "this is morally good because we say it's best for everyone therefore it is"?

This is simple evolution. If we don't optimize for life in our society then we have a clear disadvantage compared to other societies that do so. Animals follow the same and they don't need religion for that.

  > So by analogy it's OK to kill other races but not your own?

No, you again fell into the same logical fallacy. You can see two races as individual members of a larger society. Put random animals from different species into a room and most of them will also not kill each other. That does not mean some of them will not kill the other. And the fact that some will kill the other does not mean they all will do so.

  > But it's an odd argument because it's really common that animals will fight and injure each other within the same species, sometimes fatally. Usually fights over territory or mating dominance. Even in pack animals there are fights over who gets the mates. By coincidence I was at a zoo just two days ago and they had a few cages where there was only a single animal, with an explanation that they had to do this because if they put more than one animal of the same type in the same cage they would fight for dominance. It's normal e.g. the antlers on a deer are for fighting. One of them was a type of crane, and the explanation was that cranes pick a single mate for life and this one had picked "Man", so would fight with any other crane. Animal jealousy!

Some and sometimes. As explained, that does not invalidate the argument. You can't claim that the majority of animals constantly fight within their species.

  > After what we saw in the last two years! Wow yes, absolutely I seriously claim that. The amount of pseudo-scientific garbage that the population swallowed about COVID is just incredible. Claims that fell apart the moment you read the papers or even just thought about them were routinely passed off and accepted by the population because they came from "experts". It is one of the major themes of our age. 

Yea the past two years have been... difficult in many respects. But again, same logical issue. It does not mean that they always blindly believe in all of science.

Thanks. I wasn't reading all your other posts in this thread. I have now read your proposal for a non-religious opposition to rape.

I'd like to clarify what I'm arguing here. I'm not arguing that only religion can provide a moral code. I don't think I've stated that anywhere. To try and clarify, what I'm claiming is:

- Science is not in and of itself a moral code. NB: science is not the same thing as rationality!

- Creating a moral code as comprehensive and useful as those that religions provide, based on nothing more than logic applied to a handful of axioms (first principles), is really hard. Maybe not impossible! But it's definitely harder than it looks, and this can easily lead to bizarre and destructive conclusions, or arguments that sound logical on the surface but which actually contain fallacies.

You are arguing (I think) that the codes provided by religions are totally irrational and should be discarded. I'm not actually religious but find myself in the Nietzschian camp, thinking that is risky and has to be refined a bit. If you accept the axioms (e.g. that the word of God/Jesus is axiomatically moral, that the Bible records the word of God/Jesus), then the reasoning from that point on is pretty straightforward. And in particular it's fairly complete because the Bible covers how to treat a lot of common situations. We know this moral code sorta mostly works, because it's been around a long time and we have a lot of experience with it. We also know what happened to communist societies that deliberately erased religion and replaced it with Marxist morality - hundreds of millions of deaths, which is why a common American insult to the Soviets in the 20th century was to call them "godless". This is what Nietzsche predicted in "The Will To Power".

"It should be obvious that killing in general will harm your own chances of survival in general ... This is simple evolution. If we don't optimize for life in our society then we have a clear disadvantage compared to other societies that do so."

OK, now we're getting somewhere. This is a Darwinian argument: that which leads to successful reproduction is moral.

The problem is that this justification fails in the case where one side is overwhelmingly strong. If my side knows about guns and has them, and all you have is spears, then realistically I can kill as many of you as I want without any real risk. Moreover I can then move in and take all your land and women, so at that point it's an evolutionary fit strategy to do so. Yet this shouldn't be considered morally OK merely because the risk of dying in return is very low. Indeed, it's critical to have a moral code that doesn't involve relative risks here to stop exactly that genocidal situation from occurring.

"Put random animals from different species into a room and most of them will also not kill each other. That does not mean some of them will not kill the other"

Correct but I've never claimed 100% consistent or even majority behaviour; it'd be irrelevant to my argument to do so. My point is that if you build a Darwinian moral code then there's nothing really wrong with me fighting and killing you. After all, animals do it sometimes. Sure not all the time, and I wouldn't go around killing people all the time anyway for the risk related reasons you previously highlighted. But so what? If evolution is all there is to it then how could anyone tell me not to kill you for moral reasons? The fact that most of the time, animals don't do it? Not convincing.

  > I'd like to clarify what I'm arguing here. I'm not arguing that only religion can provide a moral code.

I am sorry if I misunderstoo your position or possibly mixed it up with what al_mandi said. He was the one who stated it is only religion that can give us morals and without it we'd be a barbaric society and living like animals.

  > - Science is not in and of itself a moral code. NB: science is not the same thing as rationality!

I would agree with this. Science uses rational thought to build knowledge about reality.

  > - Creating a moral code as comprehensive and useful as those that religions provide, based on nothing more than logic applied to a handful of axioms (first principles), is really hard. Maybe not impossible! But it's definitely harder than it looks, and this can easily lead to bizarre and destructive conclusions, or arguments that sound logical on the surface but which actually contain fallacies.

I would also agree here that building a moral code from axioms is a lot of work and hard. And it has to be because there is a huge amount of situations in life for which the moral code would need to be queried for guidance. But wouldn't it provide an immense value if we did all that work and it turned out to be workable? The problems you listed exist just as well in moral code derived from religious axioms.

  > You are arguing (I think) that the codes provided by religions are totally irrational and should be discarded

No, I would not say that all of the moral code provided by the various religions are completely irrational and should be discarded. There is a lot of guidelines that I would probably agree with. I just reject some of the axioms like the existance of god. I can agree with a conclusion even if I disagree with how they arrived at said conclusion. Note that I do not claim there is no god. I am not an atheist. But I see no proof for it and we just don't know if there is one or not. It is not proven and it seems not falsifiable.

  > If you accept the axioms (e.g. that the word of God/Jesus is axiomatically moral, that the Bible records the word of God/Jesus), then the reasoning from that point on is pretty straightforward.

I don't accept these axioms.

  >  And in particular it's fairly complete because the Bible covers how to treat a lot of common situations. We know this moral code sorta mostly works, because it's been around a long time and we have a lot of experience with it.

Sure, it might sorta mostly work but at that point we could also have just come up with random moral rules and tried them all over a long time and stuck with the set that sorta mostly works. We would not need to justify them with religious axioms. I think you will agree with me here because you also said religion is not the only way that can provide a moral code.

  > We also know what happened to communist societies that deliberately erased religion and replaced it with Marxist morality - hundreds of millions of deaths,

I don't think the soviet era was following the core spirit of science though. It had a lot more in common with religious doctrine. That they pushed to erase religion was rather a play in order to remove any competing power systems that could endanger them.

  > The problem is that this justification fails in the case where one side is overwhelmingly strong. If my side knows about guns and has them, and all you have is spears, then realistically I can kill as many of you as I want without any real risk. Moreover I can then move in and take all your land and women, so at that point it's an evolutionary fit strategy to do so. Yet this shouldn't be considered morally OK merely because the risk of dying in return is very low. Indeed, it's critical to have a moral code that doesn't involve relative risks here to stop exactly that genocidal situation from occurring.

I have actually already addressed this. Your argument overlooks that the two groups belong to a bigger group which again needs to optimize for survival. If one part of a species kills another part of the same species then the species has weakend itself. This goes all the way up to all living things. It is an often held misconception that survival of the fittest means it has to be a contest where the winner is the last man standing. If we killed every living being that might be a threat to us no matter how remote then that would actually harm ourselves because it destroys large parts of a working ecosystem and would create all kinds of unforseeable, possibly fatal problems. Religion might arrive at a similar view by proclaiming god has declared life sacred because it was his creation. To me, this while being a useful thought can create a lot more issues because it is intellectually lazier and when people don't understand or are even allowed to question "why" then they have a higher chance of applying the rule in a destructive way. One has to be concious that no rule in a moral code must be assumed 100% correct in all situations.

  > Correct but I've never claimed 100% consistent or even majority behaviour; it'd be irrelevant to my argument to do so. My point is that if you build a Darwinian moral code then there's nothing really wrong with me fighting and killing you. After all, animals do it sometimes. Sure not all the time, and I wouldn't go around killing people all the time anyway for the risk related reasons you previously highlighted. But so what? If evolution is all there is to it then how could anyone tell me not to kill you for moral reasons? The fact that most of the time, animals don't do it? Not convincing. 

My previous paragraph gave some more explanation on my point of view. To specifically address your example: you killing me for arbitrary reasons poses a risk to you. Society will see your behaviour as destructive to itself and will try to prevent it or punish you for it. This does not mean that killing is always bad. Killing someone that is about to kill other people for no reason would be justified.

Animals don't have the same cognitive capabilities that we have. Nonetheless nature has baked into them traits that are common and result in a lot of behavior that one could reasonably argue that they must have some kind of moral code as well. Human morals are more sophisticated but there are similarities. Now, we are surely not the be-all end-all of evolution which means our cognitive capabilities are also limited. Maybe in a million years our ancestors will look back and pity us for our limited understanding and poor morals :)

At this point I'd like to thank you for a much more intellectually interesting conversation. I was a bit exhausted after the one with al_mandi.

I thank you too for your deeply considered and respectful debate.

I'm not religious and I also don't accept the axioms that the Bible is the word of God, that anything God says is true, etc. We share the goal / ideal of a moral code that is based on simpler, tighter axioms and sound reasoning. Some years ago I thought it would be easy to develop such a code. Nowadays I fear that it's very difficult, perhaps too difficult right now, and we are perhaps to evolved religion what Da Vinci was when he tried to build a mechanical bird i.e. far further away from being able to match the evolved system than he realized, and for many reasons he couldn't have understood.

"I don't think the soviet era was following the core spirit of science though. It had a lot more in common with religious doctrine."

I think this was one of the core criticisms of communism, made both by philosophers in the 19th century and more everyday folk in the 20th. Marx liked to claim that his ideas were scientific, but actually nothing about Marxism is scientific. His critics contended that to be religious, to want to believe in or even to worship something, is a core part of human nature, and that if you simply abolish evolved religions then new pseudo-religions would immediately emerge (but they'd be worse).

We can see that this happened repeatedly in all communist countries: the population was quickly "converted" to new religions which involved worshipping and deifying both the abstract concepts of man, progress and communist ideology, along with also the less abstract leaders. Hence all the "cults of personality" i.e. religions that viewed Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc as quasi-prophets of the coming utopia.

If this claim of a deep need for religion/belief is true, and as I get older I see more and more evidence that maybe it is, then trying to create a moral code based purely on logic derived from a set of sound core axioms might be naive or backfire - sort of like trying to convert the world to speaking Esperanto would. But of course it's very difficult to disentangle cause and effect. Perhaps the apparent "need" for religion is in reality mostly a need for a comprehensive moral code, and as communism didn't provide one, it instead turned into a stunted and disfigured substitute for one.

One obvious way in which an artificial moral code might be lacking is in the story telling aspects. Religions have the advantage (?) that they're easy to teach to children because children ask "why" a lot but can't understand complicated answers. If you had to explain every rule via reference to a long chain of cause/effect logic, it might be difficult to impart the urgency of morality to children and this could lead to problems later. But arguably we have this issue already.

"If we killed every living being that might be a threat to us no matter how remote then that would actually harm ourselves because it destroys large parts of a working ecosystem and would create all kinds of unforseeable, possibly fatal problems"

Yes, so the code we're patching together here is a kind of mix of Darwinian evolution combined with a kind of Gaia style planet/social ecology philosophy. It can work for some things. A concern that arises is that this would appear to be ultimately a form of New Age collectivism - everyone is linked to everyone else. In such a code, do individual rights have any meaning or is everything subservient to the greater whole and if so, how does that not lead in a great circle back to communism?

I find the COVID vaccine mandates to be a good test case for some of these issues. Putting aside for a moment the widely accepted yet pseudo-scientific justification for them (without stopping transmission there is no possible argument in favor), this is ultimately a question of individual rights and risks vs collective outcomes. A "for the betterment of the species" moral code requires some ability to make collective vs individual moral tradeoffs, but in practice such decisions must always be mediated by the state. As we've seen, modern states seem unable to maintain even the most basic levels of rationality about some topics.

  > I'm not religious and I also don't accept the axioms that the Bible is the word of God, that anything God says is true, etc. We share the goal / ideal of a moral code that is based on simpler, tighter axioms and sound reasoning. Some years ago I thought it would be easy to develop such a code. Nowadays I fear that it's very difficult, perhaps too difficult right now, and we are perhaps to evolved religion what Da Vinci was when he tried to build a mechanical bird i.e. far further away from being able to match the evolved system than he realized, and for many reasons he couldn't have understood.

This is an interesting point. Maybe using computer simulations could be a valuable tool to attempt it? Oh boy, now I fear someone will develop a Moral AI :) (I think it would be a bad idea)

  > I think this was one of the core criticisms of communism, made both by philosophers in the 19th century and more everyday folk in the 20th. Marx liked to claim that his ideas were scientific, but actually nothing about Marxism is scientific. His critics contended that to be religious, to want to believe in or even to worship something, is a core part of human nature, and that if you simply abolish evolved religions then new pseudo-religions would immediately emerge (but they'd be worse).
  > We can see that this happened repeatedly in all communist countries: the population was quickly "converted" to new religions which involved worshipping and deifying both the abstract concepts of man, progress and communist ideology, along with also the less abstract leaders. Hence all the "cults of personality" i.e. religions that viewed Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc as quasi-prophets of the coming utopia.

I would agree with this although I am not sure if the rise of replacement belief systems is a given. These absolutist belief systems (be it based on god or on more earthy core) are the ultimate issue as far as I can see. So a society has to come up with a way to prevent these extreme ideologies. The problem is that a society which is not absolute also has to be tolerant to people having other belief systems or otherwise it itself would be an absolute and extreme system. I'm not 100% sure of this.

  > If this claim of a deep need for religion/belief is true, and as I get older I see more and more evidence that maybe it is, then trying to create a moral code based purely on logic derived from a set of sound core axioms might be naive or backfire - sort of like trying to convert the world to speaking Esperanto would. But of course it's very difficult to disentangle cause and effect. Perhaps the apparent "need" for religion is in reality mostly a need for a comprehensive moral code, and as communism didn't provide one, it instead turned into a stunted and disfigured substitute for one.

I am convinced that we humans require a moral code - something that can guide us when making our decisions but I don't see a reason why it has to be from religion. Also humans are lazy. So religious moral code is a very convenient tool in our lives. It is accepted in your group of peers if they share the religion so no need to argue too mcuh, it doesn't need too much thinking because a lot is declared via doctrine and like you said it sorta kinda works. I think this is one of the reasons why religions spread. Accepting it makes life easier in a way.

Religions are undergoing also an evolutionary process in my opinion. They often base themselves upon the previous one and alter it trying to improve it.

  > One obvious way in which an artificial moral code might be lacking is in the story telling aspects. Religions have the advantage (?) that they're easy to teach to children because children ask "why" a lot but can't understand complicated answers. If you had to explain every rule via reference to a long chain of cause/effect logic, it might be difficult to impart the urgency of morality to children and this could lead to problems later. But arguably we have this issue already.

Very good point that I had not thought of. We teach children with story books. We tell them stories. Trying to teach them with dry rational arguments might not work. And children have less capacity to distrust. When they ask "why" it is usually because they are naturally curious and just don't understand something. As they grow older they are more likely to question the teachings if they don't think these make sense. Only when growing older did I come to the realization that I can't take the religious teachings of my childhood as true. I do remember my mother reading me kids stories which had moral insights but had nothing to do with religion so it seems stories are the key but they do not need to be religion based. There could be a simple version of the moral code for kids which can piece by piece be replaced with a more complex one as they grow up.

  > Yes, so the code we're patching together here is a kind of mix of Darwinian evolution combined with a kind of Gaia style planet/social ecology philosophy. It can work for some things. A concern that arises is that this would appear to be ultimately a form of New Age collectivism - everyone is linked to everyone else. In such a code, do individual rights have any meaning or is everything subservient to the greater whole and if so, how does that not lead in a great circle back to communism?

Again good point and question. I think what the core issue here is, is the question of the group or the individuum is more important. Arguably chosing either one can lead to pretty serious issues. If we choose the group then we run danger of looping back to communism indeed. If we choose the individuum then we go in the "the strongest can take it all" direction. This means a balance between the two has to be found. That is what we have in our societies right now in many regards. In law systems we have rights of the public and rights of of private individuals. I'm not sure if this can be derived from Darwinian thinking. Maybe evolution also tries to optimize for an individual to be the best it can as long as the downside for the species is not bigger than the upside of the individual?

Many times a right or freedom for some part of society is a removal of a right or freedom of another part. It always boils down to a balancing act. And yes, a justice system is required to mediate that. Though we should not assume that it will be perfect, as long as it is based on humans which are imperfect it will be imperfect as well but it should be possible to build a really good one. We have a few that I would describe as "not too bad" but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Depends on the religion. Catholicism has many problems, but you won't get far accusing it of being insufficiently methodical.

> I think the ratio of babble to sound reasoning is much higher in science

You mean lower surely?

Correct, I have edited the comment. Thank you.

> Religions are based on a lot of completely made up stuff

Did you survey all religions to make such claim? And it's not like you don't need axiomatic bases that need to be accepted as is to base science on. There's a lot of "I think" and assumptions in your post that are not backed up by evidence, and some even contrary to reality.

This is a good starting point to expand your horizon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3cNUixEBM

  > Did you survey all religions to make such claim? 

That is the definition of religion. They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven.

  > And it's not like you don't need axiomatic bases that need to be accepted as is to base science on.

Correct, there are axioms - assumptions - which the rest of the logical system is based upon. Same as for example in Mathematics. The assumptions are much more reasonable than for example assuming there is a God because they result in expirically testable predictions.

I have started to watch the video you linked to, I have not finished it yet but the beginning was pretty good and the presenter seems well spoken. But by about minute 10 I already noticed a lot of logical fallacies. He is (rightfully maybe) accusing certain famous people in history of wrong logical arguments but then he quickly makes the same plus a lot of ad hominems thrown in for good measure. For example the claim that the "four horsemen" of science think that replacing mosques and synagogues into starbucks would make society all peaceful is frankly just ridicolous. Then he immediately follows it up by claiming if there is no religion then there is no morality. This is completely baseless. I am not a religious person but I do have morals. I'm not running around trying to torture people just because I don't believe in a supernatural being. I'm going to watch it in full because listening to the other side of an argument is the best but I have to say this talk is going south very fast IMHO :(

I finished it now. It did not get any better. Most of his arguments can be boiled down to "science can't explain that so it must be god". No.

Towards the end he shows a lack of understanding of statistics. He claims if any infinitesmally small change to the laws of nature would have caused an uninhabitable universe then it must have been specifically designed the way it is. He brings several examples that actually are all the exact same argument.

The mistake here is that he assumes that there was only one random try at creating this universe and that we cannot have been sooo extremely lucky. There is no reason to believe that there was only one try. What if there were a large number of tries? If all the other tries resulted in uninhabitable universes then of course us being in the lucky version must make us think this was not random chance.

Example: ask a large number of people to flip a coin ten times. Eventually you will reach someone that actually flipped ten times heads in succession. What would that guy think? Clearly that's not a normal coin and you designed the whole thing to be like that because what are the odds of him flipping ten times heads? He does not know about the other thousand people you had play this game that didn't get ten times heads.

> There is no reason to believe that there was only one try.

Exactly what he mentions in his talk, on what are you basing this belief? It's a metaphysical claim that is outside the realm of science. You just proved his point.

Erm, what? I disproved his point. He claims because us being in this unlikely universe is proof for a design. No, it's a logical fallacy as I outlined in the example of flipping coins. The video presenter is the guy who flipped 10 times heads and claims "See! God made this happen!" Can you please point to the exact time in the video where he mentions multiple tries? That would contradict his own point about the low chance and hence design.

He assumes there was only one "flip of the coin". There is zero reason to assume this and so his whole argument falls because when his assumption does not apply then mathematics tells us there is absolutely nothing special about finding ourselves in that "unlikely" universe because actually when taking a step back it isn't unlikely, it is pretty much guaranteed - completely without anyone designing it that way.

> Can you please point to the exact time in the video where he mentions multiple tries?

I was referring to what you wrote. You said that there's no reason that there weren't multiple tries to get the universe just right to support life. I'm saying that's a metaphysical claim you just made, which is outside the realm of science, which is the point the presenter was making.

I can actually use his own logic to prove the opposite point of his claim. Since his reasoning only works if there was one (or very few) tries wouldn't it be very unlikely to have had few tries compared to a much high number of possibly inifite tries? That means his case is in fact the unlikely case (few tries and hence likely design).

What I am saying is that we have no reason to assume and certainly no proof for ANY number of tries so we can't deduce what he claims. But if you follow his reasoning then he actually would need to come to the opposite conclusion that he came to.

I am not making the metaphysical claim, he is making it. I am only showing that his own logic works against him. Anyone who claims god exists is in the realm of metaphysical.

> What I am saying is that we have no reason to assume and certainly no proof for ANY number of tries

Who made the tries?

It seems like he's wanting to borrow science or at least some logic when it supports his argument but when it comes to the gods, he wants to say they exist outside of science and logic. This is a common argument and it's not ultimately falsifiable, ie, 'I say it's true because you can't prove otherwise'. And so too do invisible flying fairies exist who render themselves outside the realms of science due to magic pixie dust.

And so is any other argument to attempt to explain what was before the universe. Those are outside the realms of science. And furthermore, just because something is not falsifiable does not make it untrue. We exist in this world after all, so something had to have happened at the start.

I posted that lecture as an intro to broaden people's perspectives. It is then a proof by induction to reach the correct religion that explains our world. Some signs are summarized on www.provingislam.com. There are lots of great scholars who have presented many proofs on the matter.

  > And so is any other argument to attempt to explain what was before the universe. Those are outside the realms of science.

That's the point of the submitted article. That any theory that cannot be proven should not be paid much attention to. They are nice thought experiments but that's it.

  > And furthermore, just because something is not falsifiable does not make it untrue.

Neither does it make it true. The point is if there can't be proof then it's pointless to think too much about it.

  > I posted that lecture as an intro to broaden people's perspectives.

Unfortunately the video failed miserably at that. It was full of wrong claims and conclusions, logic errors and on top used the same attacks on certain groups that it in the beginning complained about.

  > It is then a proof by induction to reach the correct religion that explains our world. Some signs are summarized on www.provingislam.com. There are lots of great scholars who have presented many proofs on the matter. 

You said there were proofs in the video. There were none whatsoever. You can't follow a proof of induction based on wrong premises. Religion does not explain our world, science does (to some extend). Religion is a tool that has been used for good and bad throughout history.

Please don't refer to more outside sources that supposedly contain proof but bring one solid proof here yourself. So far everything has been debunked.

> That any theory that cannot be proven should not be paid much attention to

So we continue to live our life as animals?

As I mentioned elsewhere, in Islam, we have logic, observational evidence, and the honest news to get to truth. Disregarding any one of them is nonsensical.

> Neither does it make it true. The point is if there can't be proof then it's pointless to think too much about it.

Honest news is a source of truth.

> You said there were proofs in the video

There were several arguments made, e.g. fine tuning argument and the fact that something cannot come out of nothing. Those are established, and denying them is basically denying logic.

  >> That any theory that cannot be proven should not be paid much attention to
  > So we continue to live our life as animals?

What? How does yours follow from mine? I absolutely can't follow your way of thinking. Please explain. We seperated from animals long before religions were a thing. I am not living life as an animal just because I am not a theist (nor atheist).

  > As I mentioned elsewhere, in Islam, we have logic, observational evidence, and the honest news to get to truth. Disregarding any one of them is nonsensical.
  > Honest news is a source of truth.

"Honest news" is hearsay. I can't go and verify any of it. I cannot logically explain any of it even. You are asking me to just believe it is true what someone a millenia ago said, something (miracles) that goes against any real life obvervation I can do. Sorry, not happening.

  > There were several arguments made, e.g. fine tuning argument and the fact that something cannot come out of nothing. Those are established, and denying them is basically denying logic. 

You said there is proof and yet whenever I ask you to present it you don't. I refused a whole bunch of the arguments made in the video, I think it was extremely misleading and some might call it dishonest.

I specifically refuted his fine tuning argument. I did so using basic logic and understanding of statistics. Can you tell me where exactly I was wrong? Quick recap: he assumes (unjustified) that there was only one try at making the universe and so the chance to get our universe would be excedingly low. There is no reason to make such an assumption and if you remove that assumption then the most likely scenario is actually that you arrive at our universe because with enough tries you will hit the jackpot a hundred times in a row, guaranteed. From our limited point of view that would look like a rigged system, something designed to be that way. This might be unintuitive at first to many people but is a simple mathematical fact.

That is just one of the possible explanation without resulting to intelligent design. Stephen Hawking's top-down cosmology is another. There are a few more.

> "Honest news" is hearsay. I can't go and verify any of it. I cannot logically explain any of it even. You are asking me to just believe it is true what someone a millenia ago said, something (miracles) that goes against any real life obvervation I can do. Sorry, not happening.

Look up the Islamic Isnad system.

Furthermore, if that's how you're going to view the world, then you can't accept any news about history. Obviously that is not wise or rational.

> I did so using basic logic and understanding of statistics. Can you tell me where exactly I was wrong?

By assuming there were many "tries" before the current universe came into existence. Who was behind those tries? When was the first try? Those are all metaphysical claims.

  > Look up the Islamic Isnad system.

I did but I didn't see anything that convinced me. It really is hearsay.

  > Furthermore, if that's how you're going to view the world, then you can't accept any news about history. Obviously that is not wise or rational.

No, you keep on making wrong conclusions. I accept there are historical texts and I can with rational thought come up with rough estimates how likely those events happened as written. Historians are usually honest that they can't be 100% sure that those events happened exactly as written because there is a long history of our understanding of events being incomplete, inaccurate or completely wrong. We can't take historical texts as gospel to build all our system of society and be so brazen to claim it's 100% true. And if some historical text talks about miracles, something which cannot be explained with rational thought and to the best of our current knowledge should be impossible then I have to be extra sceptical.

  > By assuming there were many "tries" before the current universe came into existence. Who was behind those tries? When was the first try? Those are all metaphysical claims. 

I showed that when I use his base of reasoning then his conclusion is wrong. Applying statistics leads to the opposite conclusion than what he presented. His hole argument rests on an assumption he picked out of thin air. So if he can do it then I can with equal right assume there were many tries, no? Him and me would both have no justification to pick either.

Now if I give you my own opinion then I would say there is zero reason to make such assumptions and therefor we cannot deduce anything about how many tries there have been, when the first try was, if there even exists time outside our universe or what other rules apply or don't apply. It's all thought experiments. Thinking that the idea of god was there and just willed the universe into existance is a thought experiment just as valid as me claiming a pink machine prints universes. I cannot prove that and you can't disprove it. It's a stalemate. I admit that fact while you are 100% sure of your point of view. And since you are so keen on relying on history: history tells us people that had your point of view eventually were proven wrong.

Like you said, all those things including your claims are metaphysical theories. They are not facts.

> It really is hearsay.

No it's not. Even non Muslims admitted that we Muslims have the right to be proud of it. There's nothing else anywhere like it, secular or non secular texts.

> Historians are usually honest

Our Muslim historians even more so.

> And if some historical text talks about miracles, something which cannot be explained with rational thought and to the best of our current knowledge

Or that God bent the laws of our reality to make a point. Not everything is explainable by logic, especially when we see such events take place thousands of years later in our lifetimes today.

> So if he can do it then I can with equal right assume there were many tries, no?

No, because his claim is that there is a creator, whereas you're just making a claim that has no basis in your secular materialistic world view.

> Now if I give you my own opinion then I would say there is zero reason to make such assumptions

We exist, so there had to be a starting point. We have evidence that people came and claimed to be sent from God, and we proved their claims based on many things (their character, miracles, etc). The Quran to this day stands as a living miracle, and its challenge is up for anyone to take (many centuries after everyone tried and failed).

These things remind me of how new atheists are flimsy with their arguments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn7n-gff-0c

> They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven.

That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things.

> I am not a religious person but I do have morals.

He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture.

  > That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things.

Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. If there was real experimentally testable and unambigous proof than scientists would need to accept that.

What does belief in the unseen with evidence mean?

  > He mentions that non-religious people can have morals later in the lecture. 

So he is contradicting himself then. I'm now at minute 30 but there are so many logical fallacies it's really hard to watch.

The example with the kid asking why the mother is boiling water and apparently science not being able to explain the "why" ("because I love you") or the reason of why the universe exists: he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions that would give you possibly different answers and they can't all be right at the same time.

He claims science cannot "prove" emotions or other workings of our brain. Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works. We already know that emotions are in part controlled by substances like hormones. We don't know 100% of it but we're working on it.

He further goes on to claim that science cannot provide morality. He again gives no evidence of this. Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments?

Another claim is that science could not explain why someone would go and help a drowning kid. Once more no evidence. How about us being evolutionary programmed to keep our offspring alive to increase chance of the survival of our species? Just earlier to that he claimed animals have no morals. But that is the exact same behaviour that animals are showing...

I can't also follow the argument about science needing to find all possible combinations of DNA mutations that show the transition from apes to humans. Why does it need to show every minute step? How does that show religion is correct instead?

The constant flood of strawmans is impressive at least. I'm at minute 30 and not sure if I will comment more on it, it is very tedious because there is just such an enormous amount of illogical argumentation.

> he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions

His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument.

> Well I think we're getting closer and closer to understand how the brain works.

No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy.

> Why can't we derive morals from logical scientific arguments?

Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children. If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action.

In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands.

Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do.

  > His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument.

That is a wild claim. Science is very much in the domain of answering "why". Science is selfcontious enough to know it can't answer everything. Religion claims the answer "why" but there is tons of claims without proof and often impossible to disprove and so a very sneaky tool. I don't know what genetic fallacy you are refering to.

  > No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy.

As I said, he claims science cannot explain emotions without providing any evidence whatsoever and anyone who is following science even a bit should clearly see that it seems entirely possible that we will be able to understand it all. He wrongfully accuses science and uses this accusation to make us seek the answer in religion instead. Terrible.

  > Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children.

I gave you an example. Protecting children serves an evolutionary goal. We can find more logic scientific reasons for this behavior. The presenter then brings an example of standing up for an old lady in the bus. Equally here we can make arguments like "if people behave this way then it will increase their own quality of life when they are older". A young person giving up their seat is a minor inconvenience to them but the gain for the old person is much bigger because they might experience a lot more relief when sitting down. This behavior could be explained as an optimization of quality of life of the society.

If different cultures agree on certain acceptable behaviors then that hints at other reasons than religion because different societies have different religions. Which one is the right one?

  > If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action.

Again logical fallacy. There is nothing inherintly preventing a religious society from commiting atrocious acts as evidenced by religious sacrifices. What if we agreed tomorrow to form a religion which required that red haired kids be sacrificed by the age of 10? How is it being decided by a religious group any different from a secular group? Your claim that a secular group can't have morals is absurd and baffling.

  > In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts.

If we behave similar to animals in some regards is it that we do that because of our instincts or do animals have religious believes? If Islam has some rules that make you behave well then that's great. But it does not mean that you need Islam to behave well.

  > I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands.

I don't think so. I bring arguments and explanations why his claims don't hold water and his examples are not evidence for his claims. If you want then we can go more into some specific examples.

  > Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do. 

Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god.

I would btw like to ask you: would you agree that some parts of Islam might be wrong or do you believe it is 100% correct?

I think we keep talking past each other.

> Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god.

Which is why in Islam we have three sources of truth: observations, logic, and the honest news. We have established that Muhammad, Prayers of God be upon him, existed, and the Quran is preserved, and the authentic Hadiths are preserved. He performed miracles, and foretold events, some of which only came true in the past couple of decades (more at www.provingislam.com). As such, we trust what he brought forth to us.

> I would btw like to ask you: would you agree that some parts of Islam might be wrong or do you believe it is 100% correct?

I believe Islam is 100% correct. If I don't, then by definition I am not a Muslim. We don't get to pick and choose what we like and don't like. Of course, you're going to have to mention exactly what you mean by "some parts of Islam", that's quite a vague term.

  > I think we keep talking past each other.

On this I guess we agree! :)

  > Which is why in Islam we have three sources of truth: observations, logic, and the honest news. We have established that Muhammad, Prayers of God be upon him, existed, and the Quran is preserved, and the authentic Hadiths are preserved. He performed miracles, and foretold events, some of which only came true in the past couple of decades (more at www.provingislam.com). As such, we trust what he brought forth to us.

Again I can't follow your reasoning. You say that Islam is based on three sources of truth, one being logic but you at the same time claim that god does not follow logic and that we should not try to apply our logic to understand him and his rules. This makes no sense.

  > I believe Islam is 100% correct. If I don't, then by definition I am not a Muslim. We don't get to pick and choose what we like and don't like. Of course, you're going to have to mention exactly what you mean by "some parts of Islam", that's quite a vague term. 

But there is more than one version of Islam, isn't there? That means you also believe that only your version is the one true version. It also means you believe there cannot have been any mistakes in any of the writings. In any passed on stories. If there is no room for errors then there is no room for improvement. These prophets and scholars were 100% perfect. New knowledge can not supersede old knowledge. This is the definition of blind belief. You don't accept the possibility of errors. You leave no room for another view.

"Some parts of Islam" is intentionally vague because I asked if you believed if it is 100% true. It does not matter what parts of Islam I was refering to because 100% by definition covers it all.

There have been a great number of religions throughout thousands of years. Or iterations and versions of the certain religions. I find it arrogant and shortsighted to believe that your version is the final one and no other that comes after it will be better.

> same time claim that god does not follow logic and that we should not try to apply our logic to understand him and his rules. This makes no sense.

It does make sense. Those three sources of evidence can have some overlap. We cannot for example retest that an ancient battle took place even though we know it did. Not everything is testable over and over again. Same applies here.

> But there is more than one version of Islam, isn't there?

What do you mean by version? Sunni vs Shia I presume? Yes, but we apply the same standards to arrive at truth. Furthermore, all "versions" have the same core: God is one, we all have the same Quran, we all have to pray, fast, etc. We all submit to God. Any other differences we can discuss to arrive at the truth.

> It also means you believe there cannot have been any mistakes in any of the writings.

We have an Isnad system in Islam, something that does not exist anywhere else in either faith systems or even secular systems. It gives us absolute confidence in being able to know if texts are valid or not. If we apply those standards to the Bible for example, it would immediately be rendered as weak (we don't know who the bible authors are).

The Quran is 100% preserved. The authentic Hadiths are 100% preserved. It depends on what you mean by "stories". This is a deep topic that I would not be able to do justice over a post, you'll have to watch an introductory lecture that talks about these things. Furthermore, there is a very specific process in how we go about deducing rules from Quran and Hadith. These are the major schools of thoughts (Hanafi, Shaf'ii, Maliki, and Hanbali).

> If there is no room for errors then there is no room for improvement.

Not true. There are many nascent topics that we have been able to derive rules for based on the approaches I mentioned.

> You don't accept the possibility of errors.

Not true. We know and classified Hadiths according to their authenticity, we have Hadiths that are Mutawater for example, all the way to falsely attributed Hadiths which are fabricated. We've done the work a long long time ago.

> There have been a great number of religions throughout thousands of years. Or iterations and versions of the certain religions. I find it arrogant and shortsighted to believe that your version is the final one and no other that comes after it will be better.

The Islamic view is as follows: God sent prophets and messengers to people throughout history. We accept Moses, Jesus, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Saleh, etc. Prayers of God be upon them all as prophets and messengers. There were many whom we don't have the names of, we're talking hundreds of thousands if I recall correctly. They all came with the same core message of the Oneness of the Creator, and to worship him and submit to him. As such, the followers of those prophets and messengers were called Submitters (Muslims in Arabic). Over time, those messages got corrupted. For example, Jesus Prayers of God be upon him, never claimed to be God or son of God, however, over time some people attributed this false idea to him, and we have the present day incarnation of Christianity.

Islam is the final revelation from God, and is preserved. It supersedes everything before it. Muhammad Prayers of God be upon him was sent to all of mankind until the end of time. He brought with him many miracles, and foretold many events in the future, some of which are happening today before our very eyes.

We have to accept all of those prophets that God sent, otherwise we're not Muslim.

On the other side, there are definitely man made religions (e.g. satanism) and many self proclaimed prophets that were not sent from God. Obviously, we don't give those people any credence, and we were warned about them in our texts.

Also, I've heard the fallacious argument before. Just because there are many religions does not mean that one of them isn't true. This is the genetic fallacy. Something that Dawkins and his ilk do all the time without realizing it.

  > It does make sense. Those three sources of evidence can have some overlap. We cannot for example retest that an ancient battle took place even though we know it did. Not everything is testable over and over again. Same applies here.

If something is not testable then I need to be sceptical. Maybe the ancient battle happened. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it happened but the written texts are full of inaccuracies. I can't tell. The more evidence the better. Historical records from a thousand years ago are many times highly inaccurate.

  > What do you mean by version? Sunni vs Shia I presume? Yes, but we apply the same standards to arrive at truth. Furthermore, all "versions" have the same core: God is one, we all have the same Quran, we all have to pray, fast, etc. We all submit to God. Any other differences we can discuss to arrive at the truth.

And why is there still no final resolution which one is the true one?

  > We have an Isnad system in Islam, something that does not exist anywhere else in either faith systems or even secular systems. It gives us absolute confidence in being able to know if texts are valid or not. If we apply those standards to the Bible for example, it would immediately be rendered as weak (we don't know who the bible authors are).

This literally is appeal to authority. "These fine men said so and so it must be true". I don't believe in the stories in the bible either.

  > Not true. There are many nascent topics that we have been able to derive rules for based on the approaches I mentioned.

I am talking about existing rulings. It assumes they have all been, without any shred of doubt 100% perfect. It does not leave room for future knowledge to improve our understanding of the past and adjust accordingly.

It is one of the core concepts of science. Always be open to challenge our understanding of reality and refine our models when new evidence emerges. Since we honestly admit that we don't know everything yet, we need to be open to change and improve.

  > Not true. We know and classified Hadiths according to their authenticity, we have Hadiths that are Mutawater for example, all the way to falsely attributed Hadiths which are fabricated. We've done the work a long long time ago.

But you said in another place that you believe everything that Islam teaches you is 100% correct. So all these checks and work has been done yes? Or are you open that there might be a (even if very small) possibility that some mistakes sneaked in somewhere somehow?

  > The Islamic view is as follows: God sent prophets and messengers to people throughout history. We accept Moses, Jesus, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Saleh, etc. Prayers of God be upon them all as prophets and messengers. There were many whom we don't have the names of, we're talking hundreds of thousands if I recall correctly. They all came with the same core message of the Oneness of the Creator, and to worship him and submit to him. As such, the followers of those prophets and messengers were called Submitters (Muslims in Arabic). Over time, those messages got corrupted. For example, Jesus Prayers of God be upon him, never claimed to be God or son of God, however, over time some people attributed this false idea to him, and we have the present day incarnation of Christianity.

But it's hearsay. And why does god need you to worship him? Is it bad for god if you don't worship him? If I don't pray, am I somehow hurting him?

  > Islam is the final revelation from God, and is preserved. It supersedes everything before it. Muhammad Prayers of God be upon him was sent to all of mankind until the end of time. He brought with him many miracles, and foretold many events in the future, some of which are happening today before our very eyes.

How can you claim it is the final version and nothing will come after it? Do you know the future? Can god change his mind?

You do realize that there have been tons and tons of religions before Islam and many of their followers shared the exact same view as you do? "Our version is the real truth! This time for sure!".

  > We have to accept all of those prophets that God sent, otherwise we're not Muslim.

Ok, if you want to be a Submitter than you have to be a... Submitter. Just please don't try to force others to be Submitters too.

  > On the other side, there are definitely man made religions (e.g. satanism) and many self proclaimed prophets that were not sent from God. Obviously, we don't give those people any credence, and we were warned about them in our texts.

All religions are man made. They are a theoretical concept to work with certain ideas about the supernatural.

  > Also, I've heard the fallacious argument before. Just because there are many religions does not mean that one of them isn't true. This is the genetic fallacy. Something that Dawkins and his ilk do all the time without realizing it. 

I cannot disprove your version of god. But as long as I don't see definite proof then I can't submit to this ideology.

> The more evidence the better. Historical records from a thousand years ago are many times highly inaccurate

The Islamic Isanad system addresses this issue.

> And why is there still no final resolution which one is the true one?

The differences are mostly political. There is a resolution, it's just that people stick to their desires in the face of evidence.

> It does not leave room for future knowledge to improve our understanding of the past and adjust accordingly.

Islam does leave things open to adjust as we further our knowledge. The foundations do not change. This does not have anything to do with whether it is true.

> And why does god need you to worship him?

Because He said so: https://quran.com/21/23

> Is it bad for god if you don't worship him? If I don't pray, am I somehow hurting him?

Of course not. He doesn't need us.

> Do you know the future?

God told us the future (it's in the Quran).

I'm quite curious, we Muslims believe that Jesus Prayer of God be upon him will return. If you are alive at that time, is that sufficient evidence for you to accept?

> All religions are man made.

Yet you present no evidence. I presented proof (e.g. provingislam.com) about very detailed prophecies made thousands of years ago and came true. Just because you want something doesn't make it so.

>Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such.

Anyone who claims God does not exist does not have proof of such.

Correct. We can't prove the existance and we can't disprove the existance. Either side would be wrong.

Religion claims there is a god. Science says just we don't know.

It is pointless to be on the side of religion because as we agreed one cannot prove or disprove it and therefor it becomes indestinguishable from any other claim that can't be falsified. Christianity says there is a god. I say there's a funny pink machine spitting out universes. You can't prove me wrong so you can't say who is right.

> It is pointless to be on the side of religion because as we agreed one cannot prove or disprove

You agreed, not everyone. Just because you want something doesn't make it real. The evidence is overwhelming. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsEZXx8kRg

>But they are very very old tools and I don't think we need them anymore.

The societial problems that once solved by religion is worse than ever. It is true that current religions cannot solve it, because they have been "fact checked" out by the new religion of "science" with scientists as the new holymen, but that is a separate discussion.

The point is, we need a solution to those problems more than ever, but we truly cannot hope to find one.

Science is not a religion. Scientists are not holymen as evidence by the constant questioning of their theories by other scientists. That's the whole thing science is about! Relentless checking of hypothesis through experiments that match reality.

I agree strongly with you that we need a solution to these problems as currently we don't have one. I disagree though that we cannot hope to find one. Hope dies last :)