Yes, I do see what you mean, but there's nothing religious about rejecting
extraordinary claims in the absense of convincing evidence.
>>>We need to be open minded
>>>towards all religions and try to work out what's really "Going On" as
>>>someone said on this list a while ago then we will all benefit.
>>
>>Ah, the old "Argument from Ignorance" falacy. "You must be open minded to
>>my claims because you can't prove that they're not true." The burden of
>>proof is on the one making a positive assertion. If someone says there
>>are jackalopes living in Texas, or I have created cold fusion, or God
>>exists, it's their responsibility to back up the assertion with proof,
>>it's not my responsibility to take them seriously. The only truly
>>open-minded approach is to accept that their complete lack of proof is
>>convincing evidence that their claim is false.
>>
>O.K some of what you say is true but when proof does come up we must
>consider it.
Absolutely. That's a whole lot different than "[being] open minded towards
all religions" though.
>Einstein had no phisical proof for his theories at the
>time but if we would've dismissed him as crazy because of it we would be
>a lot worse off today (or maybe better off but that's a different
>matter). There are a lot of things in history that have had no proof to
>start with but in the end they start to become accepted as new evidence
>comes up.
Scientific theories are always considered tentative. If anything comes up
that falsifies a theory, it's discarded, or refined. Contrast this to
religious dogma, which is usually presented as absolute truth, and which is
usually unfalsifiable. If a scientific theory is rigorous enough to stand
up against testing over time, it's worthy of being accepted as fact
(tentatively, of course). If religion had this standard of rigor, I
wouldn't have a problem with it. But if that were the case, it would be
science, not religion.
>
>I'm not saying that there will or won't be proof eventually that a god
>exists but we need to look at the claims made in religios books about
>experiences of people and study them for what they are without any
>prejudice
But without accompanying evidence, or at least a way to test the claims, we
don't have a way to sift out the prejudice and delusion of the people
making the claims.