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Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:36 am
by geo
ant wrote:The absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
Ant, I'm guessing you believe in God and you feel threatened by science which is why you seem to want to take science down a peg. But from my perspective, science makes no claims about the existence of God or any other supernatural phenomenon. Science is just a method for exploring our world. Our scientific inquiries are necessarily limited to the physical world. If you believe in something that has no basis in science, no supporting evidence, and especially something that is supernatural, than that is a matter of faith. It really is as simple as that.

This belief of yours may go farther than simple belief in God, however, and maybe that's why you see a conflict with science. Perhaps you believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible that says the earth is 6,000 years old. But the vast preponderance of evidence shows that the earth is billions of years old. Is that the nature of your dispute with science?

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:06 am
by johnson1010
Science puts the onus on religion to prove the existence of an intelligence that is responsible for the creation if the universe and consciousness. So be it.

However, science has yet to explain the ORIGIN of life. It (science) can only explain in fragments the processes involved in the development of life.

Score:

Religion = 0
Science = 0

Scientists are hot on the trail of the origins of life. It's the study of abiogenesis and you can find a lot of information on it if you give it a go.

I found some excellent videos which go step-by-step on the likely origin of life a while back. I'll see if i can locate them for you.

We have also described, in detail, exactly how animals evolve over time to bring about the dazzling diversity of animal life with methods that are open to the public, repeatable, measureable, traceable, and which provides critical information which cross connects many fields of study.

Check out this thread for further discussion.

http://www.booktalk.org/yes-evolution-t8939.html
However, science has yet to explain the ORIGIN of life.
Religion has yet to explain the origin of anything.

The methods of science are also responsible for literally everything that we can prove we actually know. Engineering, agriculture, medicine, architecture, fabrication, textiles, art, automation, publication, electronics, trans-continental rail and road systems, the assembly line, trans-oceanic telecommunications infrastructure, boats, wheel barrows, hand-axes, satelites, automotives, the calendar, trips to the moon, telecommunications, vaccines, irrigation, sanitation, flight... all of these are only made possible through the use of the scientific method.

Meanwhile the contribution of religion to our understanding of the world? Instances where they can demonstrate that they actually know anything at all about the claims they make? Got any?

Not only have the assertions of religion about our supposed supernatural destinations always and invariably been beyond their ability to certify, a great bit of religious assertions about the things we CAN test have proven to be incredibly wrong-headed and flat out incorrect.

So, a revised scoreboard would more accurately look something like this.

Science = Everything that seperates us from dirt-scratching subsistence gatherers and rat hunters.

Religion = Hot air.

Check here for more discussion:

http://www.booktalk.org/reason-and-wishes-t10899.html

Welcome to the boards, Ant.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:31 am
by ant
Ant, I'm guessing you believe in God and you feel threatened by science which is why you seem to want to take science down a peg.


I can not say that I believe in a personal God - one who sits in judgment of humans, punishes/rewards, concerns him/herself over situations that are created by man. As for your claim that I wish to take science down a notch, you're actually wrong. I have a great deal of respect for science and its inquisitive nature. Hence, the great majority of my readings are scientific in nature.

There seems to be an arrogant animosity exhibited by people who support science in a dogmatic way, while turning their nose up at people who subscribe to doctrines of faith. This disturbs me. There are limits to language and logic which will (I'm guessing) always prevent us from having a complete understanding of the material world. To presume otherwise is arrogant presumption.


Science is just a method for exploring our world.
I agree.

This belief of yours may go farther than simple belief in God, however, and maybe that's why you see a conflict with science.


I actually believe both science and religion can be reconciled.
Perhaps you believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible that says the earth is 6,000 years old. But the vast preponderance of evidence shows that the earth is billions of years old. Is that the nature of your dispute with science?

:lol:

I have no dispute with the practice of science. My dispute is with people that transform science into dogma. They are no better than those lost in religious dogma.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 12:00 pm
by geo
ant wrote: I have no dispute with the practice of science. My dispute is with people that transform science into dogma. They are no better than those lost in religious dogma.
Very good. We get a few religious trolls here and sometimes you have to feel them out to see where they're coming from. You say science and religion should be reconciled. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by people who transform science into dogma. There are those who are anti-religion, of course.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:12 pm
by ant
You say science and religion should be reconciled.
Not to quibble with words, but I said I believe science and religion CAN be reconciled, not SHOULD be. :)

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:54 pm
by Dexter
ant wrote:
You say science and religion should be reconciled.
Not to quibble with words, but I said I believe science and religion CAN be reconciled, not SHOULD be. :)
If you thought they could be reconciled, why wouldn't you think they should be?

If by reconciliation you mean answering questions about the origin of life or the universe, then if religion could say something about it with any evidence whatsoever, it would cease to be religion -- it would be science.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:05 pm
by Interbane
Ant wrote:There seems to be an arrogant animosity exhibited by people who support science in a dogmatic way, while turning their nose up at people who subscribe to doctrines of faith.
This is an understandable reaction to points that crop up in religious debates. I've seen science attacked in many different ways, many of which boil down to the fact that science does not give absolute answers.

Science embodies trial and error. If we try it and it doesn't fail, we hang on to it until it does fail, or until we can think up something better to try. That isn't absolute, but it's the best we can possibly do. The position of a creationist or literalist is that the divine inspiration given during the authoring of the bible gives access to knowledge unmatched by anything we humans could come up with. Even our methods of reasoning, such as logic, are seen as human creations thus fallible. If logic is in direct conflict with certain beliefs, the person will believe it is logic that has failed, since nothing humans can come up with could match knowledge straight from god.

The belief can be internally consistent, but it has no foundation. It is ultimately founded on faith. Not the simple faith such as what we have in our senses, or the trust in a loved one, but the complex faith of accepting a worldview with vastly insufficient evidence and reasoning. In most cases, zero evidence and reasoning. So the belief that there are absolute answers is defeated by it's own foundation. It's a false position, or at least invalid.

This causes a misunderstanding. The scientist sees the creationist as having zero evidence. Which means, the magnitude of difference is vast. The answers provided by science have an exponentially enormous amount more evidence, so much so that the difference is ridiculous. But the response is always that the fallible answers of science cannot match the absolute knowledge of god. The debate misses the point, as the scientist repeatedly gives testimony of the reliability of scientific answers, and how bright a light it has beamed into the darkness of our universe.

I do not have an "ultimate concern" a la Nietzsche that would equate to a "god". I don't believe there is any intelligence that hasn't evolved, and all would be on par with our human intelligence if there is life elsewhere in the universe. The most recent Scientific American had an article about the limits of intelligence based on the constraints of physics. Not to say some novel physical basis couldn't evolve to be even more intelligent, but that hypothesis would need evidence.

Science isn't my god, but I find myself defending science in debates an unreasonable amount. I would defend philosophy or many other things which come under attack by religious people. It depends on where the weakness in their beliefs lay, and where the most effective counterarguments lay. Which is usually science based. The mention of science is a consequence of the debate rather than a representation of ubiquitous religious devotion to science.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:00 am
by ant
If you thought they could be reconciled, why wouldn't you think they should be?

If by reconciliation you mean answering questions about the origin of life or the universe, then if religion could say something about it with any evidence whatsoever, it would cease to be religion -- it would be science.[/quote]



From my personal perspective, I can reconcile the two. Should I? I think I experience personal satisfaction in doing so.
Should you? Should your friend, or spouse, or neighbor? Quite frankly, I don't really care.

No, I don't mean by answering questions related to the origin of life.
Wild guess here, but there are some things that science will never have evidence for. :idea:
If mathematics expresses the natural world, then Kurt Gödel would have something to say about science expecting to have proof about everything in existence. :P

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:08 pm
by johnson1010
there certainly IS an explanation for and about everything. Will WE know all those explanations? Certainly not.

What i mean to say by that is there is no reason to expect anything would have a supernatural explanation. Everything that is or happens is a result of the natural processes of the universe.

I have heard people argue that the big bang represents a magical 'something from nothing' event. I don't see that being the case. Big bang holds that at one point everything everywhere was in one spot. With everything in one spot there is no information to be had. no room for a binary state. So all that really means is that if there was something before the big bang (which i think is very likely) then we can't know anything about it because there was no information preserved through the singularity.

And there are some natural occurances which may be beyond our ability to grasp in any meaningful way. We are just organisms, after all, with limited intellectual capacity. That doesn't mean we should blame the things we don't understand on magic (not to assert that is what you do, ant. Speaking generally here.).

And though there are very probably some things which we can only wrap our heads around in an abstract way such as the incredible scope of the universe, there may well be other intelligences out there, or in the future, that CAN understand those things, and to whom they will be as simple a concept as basic arithmatic.

Re: Don't give creationists the attention they crave

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:15 pm
by johnson1010
Ant,

here's one of those abiogenesis videos i referenced earlier.

http://dotsub.com/view/720518f1-8879-44 ... a75db27591