Hacker News Reader

> The idea that religion provides some sort of certainty is a complete falsehood trivially debunked by a cursory glance of theological discourse.

You are missing the fact that most religious people aren't interested in theological discourse, much less debate.

While I agree that no religion can answer these questions convincingly, they just don't have to. That's what faith is all about. The answers provided by religions are intended to be "believed" and followed without much questioning. That's why I think there is not much room to discuss between science and religion: one can (and must) be questioned, while the other just can't.

But it was specifically said that providing those answeres was a benefit.

>You're ignoring the fact that religions haven't been able to convincingly answer any of these questions, either. Else there wouldn't be so many of them and they wouldn't be having highly intricate theological debates about the half-dozen types of millennialism and interpretations of whether and to what extent Mosaic law is still relevant, among many other things.

The mere presence of debate does not preclude certainty about overarching principles. Various denominations might disagree about what's moral in a situation, but they can at least agree about why this specific kind of morality is important, and what reasoning and evidence should be relevant in the discussion, and how this morality plays into a larger conception of the Christian life. Elements like the Gospel, the Apostle's Creed, and the metaphysics of traditional deism can all be harnessed to conduct and resolve debate. There are more certainties than there are the opposite. And perfect certainty will never be achieved, even on a theological level. Since one of the charges of theology is to adapt and present Christianity to a changing world.

Unlike, say, secular moral discourse, especially manifest in political speech, which makes no effort whatsoever to establish shared principles. There are few, if any, first premises which can initiate debate. There are few agreed-upon standards for what counts as relevant evidence, or how certain values outweigh others.

Wading in secular moral philosophy, the situation becomes even more dire. No one could ever hope to walk into a secular philosophy class with modern material and achieve any guidance about how to conduct their life.

The ability to debate and resolve issues is the marker of a healthy tradition. Not all issues can be resolved. But there should at least be a vehicle to coming to the best available answer. Studying, say, the progression of Catholic theological doctrine is a good example of this. But in our post-Reformation era, in which every theological debate ends up spawning a new Protestant denomination, your lack of confidence is understandable.

I do, of course, agree with you that our broader cultural approach to such issues is entirely arbitrary and resistant to intellectual progress.

Edit: Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice, Which Rationality is a stellar treatment of this problem you're noticing:

http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-Mac...

Even Catholics are quite inconsistent. There's the oddly progressive Old Catholic Church that split off from the mainline at the turn of the 19th century over papal infallibility. There's the sedevacantists who think all Catholic activity after the Second Vatican Council is illegitimate. Even among those, they can't agree whether or not popes after Pius XII even can be legitimate if they recant their alleged heresy, or if it's all lost. The latter conclavists thus actually get to elect their own popes (who are antipopes from the perspective of the mainline).

Then amongst traditionalists and others, they can't agree on whether or not classical liberal principles are compatible with Catholic doctrine or not. Christopher Ferrara and others thinks that all of United States history was a giant mistake and that we should revert to pre-Enlightenment theocracy, Tom Woods and others argue that liberalism is what Catholicism logically leads to.

No, there isn't much certainty about overarching principles. That you can't conduct your own life based on secular morality is false. Most people don't conduct their lives on any explicit morality. The ones that have ever pondered these questions in depth have always been a minority. Everyone else has only trickled down breadcrumbs from some clergyman, or ignored it.

Morality from religion? Please. Who practices what Jesus personally told his believers to do?

"anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." Matthew 5:32

Combine that with God's official "Thou shalt not commit adultery"

And especially for the protestants, directly by Jesus again:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." Matthew 6:19 "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal."

And of course, who does this, as Jesus says:

"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." Matthew 18:9

Now explain why you don't do what Jesus and God personally, according to the holy books, tell you to do if you get the morality from the religion.

Even if you are a believer you have to see that it's a human consensus that decides what's moral at any particular point in time. That consensus was historically at some times at some places more influenced by some holy books, therefore the witch hunt ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.") and luckily it's not that much anymore, at least in Europe.

Have even more fun trying to accept the morality from Islam holy books. Note the whole Quran is claimed to be the actual "words of God.": "Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward." Quran (4:74)

The previous poster was trying to make the case that the questions themselves are significant, and as are the answers, not merely that religion tells people to accept and obey.

If that's the case, then the secularist world doesn't have to come up with actual answers either. They just have to tell people what to think and do, and then they'll have the authority structure they so desired.

It sounds nice to know that when you are born, society has a place for you. They have a job for you. They can tell you what to wear, what dance to learn, and what products to buy. They can tell you how to treat your neighbor, or how to regard the Chinese. They can tell you what the good death is like.

just as those ignorant of secular philosophy who never deliberate any of these questions have quite likely settled on some ad-hoc worldview that works for them

Compare this to the paucity of experimental data to back up software development methodologies and computer language design. Most software development shops just settle on some ad-hoc worldview that works for them.

There are no out-of-the-box answers provided by anyone.

There are definitely out-of-the-box answers being hawked by someone, Whether these answers are backed up by actual theology doesn't change the fact.

Oh, I fully agree on programming and software development. It's mostly pseudoscience and a swath of tacit unquestioned assumptions. Same with theoretical computer science the moment it steps out of discrete mathematics and combinatorics. It's quite unfortunate then that so many programmers are opposed to philosophy and the humanities, it would truly help them be more introspective. I would never imply that it is any different.

Debate means that all parties are wrong?

By that logic, if, say people disagree about whether cryptography is good, both sides haven't been able to answer the question.