I'm talking about pre-modern cultures, even as recently as the middle ages. Modern cultures are very homogenous with how internal mental and emotional processes are conceptualized (that is to say, it is a well known fact all over the world that thinking and all sensation originates in the brain).

Edit: Here is another book which talks about mentalization and the construction of mind-objects through perception and cultural/linguistic reinforcement. Part of the book talks about variations of lived experience as recently as the middle ages.

Yeah, because [science] (http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Modern-Science-Middle-Ages/dp/0521567629/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) and [religion] (http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450301701&sr=1-6&keywords=rodney+stark) have totally [always been antithetical to each other] (http://www.amazon.com/Savior-Science-Stanley-L-Jaki-ebook/dp/B004H0OAX2/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450301757&sr=1-2&keywords=stanley+jaki). [It's not like religion had any role in advancing science] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_cleric-scientists). And it's totally not like the idea that science and religion are enemies was a protestant smear started in the 19th century to defame Catholics; that would be a ridiculous idea. Saint Dawkins is always right.

When most people transition from denial to acceptance of evolution, it's indicative of a change in their way of thinking. They have shifted to a more skeptical mode of thought, or else they would not have changed their mindset in the first place. That alone is kryptonite to religion.

However, since we're speaking about the mostly-christian west...

Evolution is especially toxic to Christianity. One of the oldest and most central dogmas of the religion is original sin. Original sin requires that humanity be descended from one couple who were "innocent" at creation but ended up bringing sin/evil into the world through "the fall". As a result, god punished them and by proxy all of humanity (since all of humanity is descended from this one couple). The reason that Jesus came and died was to save humanity from original sin.

Evolution kills original sin because:

• There was no original couple that all of humanity descended from. In fact, this is quite impossible.
  
• There was no "innocent" humanity: human traits are clearly evolved just like every other life form.
  
• "Evil" (or death and disaster, if you like) vastly predates humanity and is simply a part of existence, therefore there was no "fall" event. Existence continues the same as it always has. In fact, without this death and disaster evolution can't do what it does.
  
  Since Jesus came to save everyone from original sin, and there was no original sin, Jesus becomes pointless.
  
  Thus, Christianity is destroyed.
  
  Obviously there are many apologetics surrounding this (Otherwise there would be no way we could have evolution-accepting Christian denominations)... but they all fall flat, as apologetics do. A comprehensive examination of the evolution/christianity problem can be found in the book Evolving Out of Eden, which is a great book.
  
  As far as just "religion" or "god" in general though, evolution doesn't really harm it much in the generic sense, as you can build a religion around evolution.
  

Those guys are horrible at history. I would recommend going to /r/badhistory for rebuttals, in the meantime I found some books that I think can really help out debunking this myth.

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction

Philosophy of Science: An Historical Anthology

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

When Science and Christianity Meet

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450

The Savior of Science

For the Glory of God

The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo

Yes this is a long list but that's because it's studied so often ;). I hope this helps.

> The Bible is about one thing, man's relationship with god. A well-educated Christian will realize this and not try to make it a science or history lesson.

Perhaps I'm missing your point.

That's a nice sounding thesis, and it's one that allows a lot of "well educated" Christians to sleep well at night and quiet the demons of cognitive dissonance. However, it's pretty incoherent when you critically examine it.

The bible defines man's relationship with God in terms of some pretty clear truth claims. You have an eternal relationship with God via some concrete acts (e.g. Jesus was a person who existed, then died in a specific way, for a specific reason) which get their power via history (covering the sin which entered the world through Adam, a person who existed and acted in certain ways), and so on.

Any attempt I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) to tease the story from the history quickly become totally arbitrary, empty platitudes, because they have no basis other than ones own interpretation.

The book Evolving out of Eden is really well put together, and catalogs many (failed) examples of attempts to 'harmonize' or 'rationalize' or 'spiritualize' or 'mythicize' in the face of the clear differences in the biblical account vs observable reality.

https://www.amazon.com/Reliable-Knowledge-Exploration-Grounds-original/dp/0521406706/

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Science-University-Center-Values/dp/069117900X/

https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Second-Should-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656/

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733/

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Boris-Castel/dp/1551113872/

https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Literacy-Method-Illini-Books/dp/0252064364/

https://www.amazon.com/Representing-Intervening-Introductory-Philosophy-Natural/dp/0521282462/

As to your question - the next layer would be: what is the difference between a scientific theory and an ad hoc fitting superstition?

Maybe one answer has to do with range. A good theory will fit a wide range of phenomena. "ad hoc" usually refers to a narrow range of phenomena.

Perhaps a fair guess would be that it is fairly safe to extrapolate a theory hmmm 20% beyond the range that it has been tested. If you tested a fit out to 10 miles, you can fairly walk another 2 miles before checking your life insurance policy. If the fit has been tested for 1000 miles, you can feel good for another 200 miles. So if you need to walk say 20 more miles to reach those ripe peaches, better to work with the 1000 mile fit.

Not a bioology textbook, a design textbook.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846251397

(found from ISBN lookup)

I'll go ahead and plug The Fool and the Heretic featuring Todd Wood and Darrel Falk.

I just finished it and was actually stunned at where Todd left himself: he accepts that the breadth and depth of evidence for an ancient cosmos and evolution itself is comprehensive and even convincing. Admitting this as a YEC takes a lot of integrity. But it's not a strong position to argue from.

Yes it is: http://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Evolution-Science-Creation/dp/B00NB59QCE/ref=tmm_aud_title_0

Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3

Great ideas for A Mormon Universe: Inspired Science in an LDS Cosmology abound in books like Earth in the Beginning and The Kolob Theorem: A Mormon's View of God's Starry Universe. I own and and love these books for their entertainment value. They're absolute hogwash in 98% of their interpretations of the 2% of what they borrow from the realm of science.

I see your bet and raise you

I'm currently reading Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality by Robert M. Geraci. This book explores how religious ideas have infested our expectations for AI. It's arguments are quite similar to The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson which was an even deeper consideration of the metaphysical implications of uncanny representations of human beings whether in the form of dolls, puppets, robots, avatars, or cyborgs. I think it is really important to understand what is driving the push for this technology.

Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat is also a good book on the dangers of AI.

You want more book recommendations? Well, one of the creepiest aspects of AI is that Amazon is using it for its recommendation engine. So just go on Amazon and it will be an AI that recommends more books for you to read!

Do you know what authors he likes? I can think of a few resources, but they're all directed toward specific authors. For example, there's this book review of Neale Donald Walsh's book, Conversations With God:

http://philochristos.blogspot.com/2005/10/conversations-with-god-part-1.html

Then there's also this debate between Depak Chopra and Greg Koukl:

https://vimeo.com/68013469

I think Ronald Nash and Douglas Groothuis also have books on New Ageism from a Christian perspective.

EDIT: Here's Doug Groothius's book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0877845689/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

I haven't read it, so I can't vouch for it.

Second Edit: If you don't mind reading something by a non-Christian, you could check out Victor Stenger's book, Quantum Gods. This book takes New Agers to task for misrepresenting physics.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Gods-Creation-Search-Consciousness/dp/1591027136

Stenger criticizes the New Age film, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" as well as "The Secret."

But why did he put the word 'Quantum' in his title? Also here's a direct link to the book on Amazon so those with money can throw it at the author:

Amazon Link

1. The [Pythagorean Illuminati] (http://pythagoreanilluminati.com/index.html) believe in a philosophy that is very similar to CTMU (at least in intent, if not actual detail). Therefore, what they find most interesting would probably be interesting to you as well.
   
   
   From The Last Man Who Knew Everything by Mike Hockney:
   
   
   >The Illuminati periodically debate which the most important subject of all is. The consensus order is typically:
   
   >
   
2. Mathematics
   
3. Philosophy
   
4. Science
   
5. Religion
   
6. Psychology
   
7. Politics
   
8. Economics
   
9. Sociology
   
10. History
    
11. Art
    
    >
    Some wish to give far higher importance to art. Some think religion should be at the top. The most zealous arguments concern whether philosophy should swap places with mathematics and assume top position. The advocates of this position say that philosophy is the subject that asks the critical questions. Although mathematics gives all of the answers to the mysteries of existence, it would never have done so if the philosophers hadn’t paved the way by asking the all-important questions.
    >
    Hockney, Mike (2012-07-14). The Last Man Who Knew Everything (The God Series Book 3) (Kindle Locations 2602-2621). Hyperreality Books. Kindle Edition.
    

    
    

    
    
    

12. Take an easy major (or skip school entirely) so you have time to become an autodidact, like Chris Langan himself.

This conversation is futile because you're obviously a braindead empiricist and materialist, totally irrational, totally lacking in reason and logic, to the point where Hume of all people is who you advocate for.

>Needed some comedy to brighten up the disappointment.

Why are you disappointed? Is it because you have no fucking clue what Truth is, what noumenal reality is, since you have rejected reason itself, rejected the greatest genius in human history (Leibniz), and rejected ontological mathematics -- without even understanding the first thing about it, naturally. How absurd and irrational is that?

Only a Mandarin empiricist and Ortega mediocrity would behave the way you do.

>Ortega wrote, “But the present-day writer, when he takes his pen in hand to treat a subject which he has studied deeply, has to bear in mind that the average reader, who has never concerned himself with this subject, if he reads does so with the view, not of learning something from the writer, but rather, of pronouncing judgment on him when he is not in agreement with the commonplaces that the said reader carries in his head.”

https://www.amazon.com/Mandarin-Effect-Crisis-Meaning-ebook/dp/B07VHTRDTJ

Yes, existence is fundamentally imbued with purpose, and dialectical evolution -- it is 'built in' to each mathematical Leibnizian monad. The PSR, expressed mathematically as Euler's Formula (and with Occam's Razor as an obvious corollary) governs all the objective, a priori, mathematical laws of the universe. All of ontological mathematics stems from the PSR, as does all of "physics" (which is just a fallacious sensory interpretation of the underlying mathematics).

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Knew-Everything-Book-ebook/dp/B008LHYVX6

The PSR is a "bold assertion"? Objective reason is a bold assertion? Well, you can reject the PSR all you want, but that means ipso facto that you have chosen to be irrational, which means that there's no point you advancing any kind of rational argument, is there? You can't use reason to argue against reason. That would be absurd.

>"Atheism is a strange, irrational cult. Here’s a simple challenge to all atheists. Rationally prove that eternal minds do not exist. Rationally prove that immaterial singularities do not exist. Rationally prove that Fourier frequency domains do not exist. If you are an atheist and you cannot do so then you are just another hopeless, irrational person of faith that rules out rationalist conclusions because they do not conform to your irrational belief system. You are another of the idiots that reads tea leaves rather than using reason and logic. You imagine that you have some rational comprehension of ultimate reality even though you reject the Principle of Sufficient Reason and Occam’s razor. How irrational is that?
>
>The object that is beyond the ability of the atheist to understand is the eternal mathematical singularity. This object rationally refutes atheism, but atheists are too stupid to realize it. They have staked their entire worldview on the non-existence of singularities, and they are 100% wrong. The PSR rationally proves the existence of mathematical singularities and there is nothing rational that any atheist can do to refute the PSR. The only weapon they have to use against it is their irrational faith in a universe where things allegedly happen for no reason, purposelessly, randomly, and subject to an uncertainty principle.
>
>This is the sort of drivel they believe is “rational”. Any attempt to argue against the PSR is of course inherently and automatically irrational. The task of trying to use reason to defeat reason is the ultimate self-defeating and self-contradicting undertaking.
>
>Atheists belong to the bizarre cult of non-thinkers that imagine they are rational even though they dismiss the PSR as nonsense and thus accept the Principle of No Sufficient Reason. They belong to the forces of irrationalism that oppose the PSR.
>
>You cannot use reason to attack the PSR. You can use reason only to defend it. Atheists are no friends of reason and logic. Their central concept of reality is empiricist, not rationalist. Their central activity is empirical observation, not rational consideration of the consequences of the eternal PSR. They are mired in the temporal and contingent and reject the eternal and necessary. They despise the a priori and accept only the a posteriori." - Dr. Thomas Stark, Castalia: The Citadel of Reason (The Truth Series Book 7)

https://www.amazon.com/Castalia-Citadel-Reason-Truth-Book-ebook/dp/B079KP9Y9M

Learn about reason and the PSR:

https://www.amazon.com/Causation-Principle-Sufficient-Reason-Book-ebook/dp/B00P89UES6

Learn about ontological mathematics:

https://www.amazon.com/Ontological-Mathematics-Curious-Introduction-Thinking-ebook/dp/B07TNRK7MK

Maybe when you've studied and learned something (i.e. Truth, reason, ontological mathematics) rather than 'dismissing it without a second thought' (the exact effect Ortega predicted!), and when you no longer reject the PSR (by which you out yourself as a totally irrational empiricist), then I can actually take you seriously.

Milky Way Galaxy

Author Jerry Davidson Wheatley calls this the "Color Paradox"

Read Me

Great idea for a contest! I would love to add Dwight D. Eisenhower to my presidential section of my library! Or perhaps the book A Devil's Chaplain.

This is a collection of essays from a variety of authors on the subject. It covers a bunch of perspectives, both atheist and theist. It might be a good starting point.

Side note about the brain and the mind: I heard about this book which you might find interesting (I haven't read it myself.)

Interested in Nicomachean Ethics. I can pay shipping for it, but I've also got a couple books you may or may not appreciate.

Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman.
Flowers for Algernon by David Keyes.

I'd also check out Br Guy Consolmagno's books, particularly "God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion". This would be less about apologetics but how a life of faith can also be a life dedicated to scientific endeavors.

Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]by Bill Nye (Author, Narrator)

British edition has a peacock feather on the cover: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846251397

Link to American edition: http://www.amazon.com/Hallmarks-Design-Evidence-design-natural/dp/1903087317

I didn’t decide to believe in God. Most people don’t, even most people do believe in God. There are several ways to explain this, scientifically and theologically (which actually parallel nicely). In scientific terms, belief in God is produced by several cognitive mechanisms through evolution that involve agency detection, teleo-functional reasoning, etc. These are the main concepts. The theological explanation, which isn’t out of step with the scientific ones, is the sensus divinitatis.

Theism is the default belief, according to science. You might find this book interesting:Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not

I would also question your use of 'fact' and 'factually' because those words have a narrow range of use. For example, is it a fact that capital punishment is wrong? If that is or is not a fact is determined by your world view; not the other way around. 'Existence' is likewise complicated, because different entities have different modes of existence. So to say "God exists" is very different from saying "Al Gore" exists.

This one looks close enough.

This Video

Is by the guy who wrote this book which is just a longer version of that talk. More of an analysis of how Christianity works in the scientific mind.

Wondering if you have ever heard of a man named Jerry Davidson Wheatley. After reading his book, a few times, I came to understand the universe on a different level: [The Nature of Consciousness : The Structure of Reality: Theory of Everything Equation Revealed : Scientific Verification and Proof of Logic God Is] (http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Consciousness-Everything-Scientific-Verification/dp/0970316100/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1324143689&sr=8-3)

This doesn't really have anything to do with feminism. This is an old argument, and you can read about it in things like Mary Midgley's book. It is a philosophical argument, but not specifically a feminist one.

http://www.amazon.ca/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733

> So I'm actually writing a book that contains a chapter on pantheism. Can you point me towards the sources that include those quotes about open individualism or other porminent pantheist sources you think I should know about? But I do love that open individualism thing and I agree that it is inherently an idea of spiritual connection. I'll look more into that.

Well, here's his book. And another book that's super expensive and so i don't own but which is the main textbook for open individualism. Schrodinger's book is pretty good though, even though he admits tat his book is more of an explanation than an argument. And then the third link is a link to schopenhauer's works, edited by the person who made the main open individualism textbook. Schopenhauer was apparently an open individualist too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0918024307?keywords=schrodinger&qid=1450233393&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Am-You-Metaphysical-Foundations-Synthese/dp/1402029993/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454939417&sr=8-1&keywords=I+Am+You%3A+The+Metaphysical+Foundations+for+Global+Ethics

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=kolak+world+will

And if you want other good books here's the best process theism book and an encycopedia page that sums up some of its basic themes.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/processp/

http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Relativity-Social-Conception-Lectures/dp/0300028806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457655151&sr=8-1&keywords=a+social+conception+of+god

And if you want another slightly different book there's paul tillich's book. Which is basically a christian pantheism. Though the system isn't inherently christian. But it shows you how he made it christian. Since it involves symbols to make sense of things you necessarily can only use symbols for.

http://www.amazon.com/Tillich-Guide-Perplexed-Guides/dp/0567032914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457598040&sr=8-1&keywords=Tillich%3A+A+Guide+for+the+Perplexed

And here's a book by fechner, who while he did mention pantheism a bit its more about life and death and identity. But still definitely worth reading. He's considered the anti-schopenhauer, since he has a super positive mentality, whereas Schopenhauer was super depressed.

http://www.amazon.com/little-book-life-after-death-ebook/dp/B00N52L19Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454362314&sr=8-1&keywords=fechner+life+death#reader_B00N52L19Y

And one more. A book I haven't read, but its an anthology from a lot of the big names.

http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Live-Move-Have-Being/dp/0802809782/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454026430&sr=1-6&keywords=panentheism

panpsychism is also useful. This book details how prevalent it was in history up to modern day.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262693518/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1PA5HM0MRCFT0

And this last paper isn't necessarily pantheist per say, but its related, being about group minds.

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140721.htm

>I would say that sentience isn't a requirement for meaningful god concepts,

Well, I'd say so too, but it helps to have something more coherent to express to people. I was just giving an example that helps explain to skeptics why you're not just using the word god haphazardly.

> but isn't that reasoning that I see popular on this sub especially a fallacy of composition? Or are you just saying "there exists some consciousness in the Universe"? The implication can be taken the wrong way if you aren't that specific.

The point here isn't that this makes it analogous to a person. That's why I said you need to stress that it doesn't mean its independently sentient. But that if there's no metaphysical barriers between people, then the primary "identity" "is" the social organism of the individual discrete egoes that exist in it. I mean... I'm bad at explaining. That's kind of vague. But it makes sense when you compare open individualism to closed individualism. And in fact, schrodinger went a step further than this even. He implied that the consciousness was necessarily a type of unity that was divided in the same way a crystal reflects one thing into a lot of images. And so while you're not talking about an independently sentient entity, you are arguing that consciousness in reality has a level of unity. (He may have also been a panpsychist, but he doesn't explicitly say.) Since everything is connected, not in a meaningless way, but in a tangible albeit abstract way.

I guess a good example, would be like imagine if you physically had one neuron that transferred information between your and someone else's brain. There are twins conjoined at the head who can actually read eachother's thoughts. So overlap of identity obviously exists in some sense. Here its saying that all identity exists within the same global identity. There's no barriers, but its obviously far apart enough that you aren't directly experiencing as you what goes on in someone else's brain.

+++ for "Saving the Appearances: a Study in Idolatry" https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Appearances-Idolatry-Owen-Barfield/dp/081956205X

I'm willing to say "I don't know" about a great many things. Including, whatever gets other people through the day.

In practice, we need heuristics to live our life in a full and meaningful way -- most of the interesting things we face in the human (and especially social) domain have no decidable truths, at least, not in any computation time that matches the scale on which decisions must be made. Yes, we can talk about aggregate behaviors under very specific conditions, but when you focus on complex interactions that are typical of the real world, your ability to issue predictions degrades considerably. (This is even true at the cellular level: we have no real idea how all of the 'omics work together as a complex system, even though we have plenty to say about each individual component.)

I'm willing to follow your suggested reading, if you follow mine (the Kauffman book I mentioned earlier). An added bonus is that I have not read it yet, so I don't really know what, precisely, Kauffman has to say.

What I find more interesting is why you are (1) so certain of your position that nothing like any kind of divine/sacred experience exists in the world (note, I am not referring to a monotheistic "God"); and, more importantly, (2) why you are so invested in convincing me that no such thing exists. I mean, I don't really personally care if you have that experience or not, it's kind of your loss (I guess) if you don't, but I assume you're doing fine without it. But, unless I'm reading you wrong, you seem really upset that I don't share your experience. I keep reading the word "arrogant" and "irresponsible". I threw out the word "arrogant" earlier, but only because you seem very sure that I am "wrong" and "irresponsible" and a few other negatives that frankly don't seem justified given my laissez-faire attitude towards other people. Or is that the problem? You want other people to live as you decide?

If you really want to know what I think about "truth" and responsibility, here it is: we Westerners, collectively, are moving way too fast, messing up complex systems we don't understand, with all of the evidence pointing to the fact that we are severely harming the planet and ourselves. We are doing that precisely because we don't value the planet, the biosphere, or even ourselves sufficiently to take the long view of what we're doing. Would I seek to gain converts to that position? Absolutely, but only insofar as it slows down our collectively destructive behavior. I don't really care if fellow environmentalists are atheists or pagans (or even christians), but I do care whether people insist that the world is so meaningless that they can treat it as their personal toxic waste dump. That, my friend, is the epitome of irresponsibility.

See also http://www.amazon.com/Apocalyptic-AI-Robotics-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0199964009/

>I can't understand how both religion and science can be compatible.

The ability or inability to understand something does not make it true or false. If "religion" is true, of course it is completely compatible with science - that's just definitional.

But yes, of course you're right - either science or religion is going to be ultimate. We all hold beliefs that are most foundational and basic, and when those beliefs seem to contradict other facts (even if in reality they are compatible) then the most foundational will win.

To help you understand, I would suggest you read something on the history of science from a religious perspective, like: https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Science-Christian-Natural-Philosophy/dp/0891077669