Faith and science
-
Quote:
There is no such evidence to support the theory that god just upped and created everything.
Sure there is. 1. It's impossible for randomness to create what we have today. It can't be done. 2. We have historical records 1000s of years old claiming that they have seen God and that God has told them He created the earth and have seen visions of its creation. 3. We have people alive today who have claimed to know God.
Quote:
and means nothing.
Let me understand this. I give you a process for how to know if God exists and without even trying it you dismiss it purely on prejudicial basis? In that case, what's the point? If you're too closed-minded this will never go anywhere.
Quote:
But what of all the other billions of people who have
That's my point. They know there is a God. Even Einstein knew there had to be one. Just because people don't agree on the nature of God does not take away from the fact that they know there is one.
Quote:
Well you know at the time whether you are stealing or helping.
Of course. And why aren't any other species of the billions like that? How can randomness produce 1 in billions like us? And where did that come from? Evolution? Evolution can't cause that emotion.
Quote:
well, we're not[^], for starters and evolution and randomness can create exactly that.
No it can't. If you believe it, can you prove it? In your own words instead of linking to the internet?
Quote:
But you can define it, predict it, measure it.
As you can with God. Where's the problem?
Quote:
What does that even mean?
Well, I already explained it so I am guessing you are being purposely obtuse. To nourish means to do. As Christ said, if anyone wants to know whether His doctrine is real or not, do it.
Quote:
but it is you who are blinded by that belief to the facts
If it were a fact that God did not exist you would be able to prove it. Therefore, it's not a fact. On the other hand, there is a process you can follow to know if He exists and you refuse to test it. That's on you.
There are only 10
RyanDev wrote:
1. It's impossible for randomness to create what we have today. It can't be done.
Pure randomness, no - but I feel you have a misunderstanding of evolution end physical laws.
RyanDev wrote:
2. We have historical records 1000s of years old claiming that they have seen God and that God has told them He created the earth and have seen visions of its creation
and we have many, many records of those that knew the Sun God made the earth, or some other devine being - yet you choose to believe in a sub set.
RyanDev wrote:
We have people alive today who have claimed to know God.
We also have people who claim to be psychics, claim to have been abducted by aliens etc. etc. etc.
RyanDev wrote:
Even Einstein knew there had to be one.
The same Einstein who said " I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
RyanDev wrote:
And why aren't any other species of the billions like that?
Many species cooperate. Monkeys groom one another, for example, bees feed their queen and protect the nest.
RyanDev wrote:
How can randomness produce 1 in billions like us? And where did that come from? Evolution? Evolution can't cause that emotion.
Yes it can. Of course it can. Bodies have feedback from their inputs - at is simplest animals feel pain when things threaten to damage them, and feel pleasure when (for example) eating - as this is doing good. Mother birds regurgitate food for their offspring - this allows the offspring to grow; the chemical processes that have evolved in the mother bird's brain make it 'feel good' when regurgitating for its chicks. There are as many examples as there are creatures - and they ahve all evolved - they haven't just been 'made up' by some deity.
RyanDev wrote:
If you believe it, can you prove it? In your own words instead of linking to the internet?
Well, proving evolution is hard given the time-scales involved, but surely you can look at the
-
Sure, but what 1,000 men call evidence and one man says is not, one can see that, in all probability, the one is a dick head. And I would argue that evidence is evidence - whether you choose to use that evidence as support for an argument or simply refute it is up to the individual, but surely then it is up to all parties to show why they think that evidence is acceptable or not. Examples: Most people agree fossils are evidence of animals long since extinct. Some argue that they were 'put there by god' or are simply not as old as others would have it. Most people believe man travelled to and walked on the moon, evidence being the number of people seeing it, evidence such as moon rocks, etc. Some argue it was all one big hoax. If one was to point out lines of electricity pylons strung across the land in the far future, and suggest that they were used for carrying electricity from place to place, a naysayer could easily say that that wasn't so - but without an alternate viable theory it's just dis-belief.
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
_Maxxx_ wrote:
what 1,000 men call evidence and one man says is not, one can see that, in all probability, the one is a dick head.
Take Galileo and that new fangled heliocentrism theory of his. Some people just don't have a clue. :rolleyes:
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
_Maxxx_ wrote:
what 1,000 men call evidence and one man says is not, one can see that, in all probability, the one is a dick head.
Take Galileo and that new fangled heliocentrism theory of his. Some people just don't have a clue. :rolleyes:
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
_Maxxx_ wrote:
The key here is in the word 'evidence'
Evidence can be very subjective. The inquisitors had evidence of their own. By 1615 Galileo's writings on heliocentrism had been submitted to the Roman Inquisition, and his efforts to interpret scripture seen as a violation of the Council of Trent. :doh:
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
_Maxxx_ wrote:
The key here is in the word 'evidence'
Evidence can be very subjective. The inquisitors had evidence of their own. By 1615 Galileo's writings on heliocentrism had been submitted to the Roman Inquisition, and his efforts to interpret scripture seen as a violation of the Council of Trent. :doh:
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesJimmyRopes wrote:
Evidence can be very subjective.
Only by those with IQs approximating their shoe size and religious types, so it doesn't count. I don't believe the reason for the church's opposition to Galileo was anyting to do with evidence but all to do with the fact that they'd said the earth was the centre of the universe and didn't want anyone contradicting it - i.e. it was a matter of faith/
-
JimmyRopes wrote:
Evidence can be very subjective.
Only by those with IQs approximating their shoe size and religious types, so it doesn't count. I don't believe the reason for the church's opposition to Galileo was anyting to do with evidence but all to do with the fact that they'd said the earth was the centre of the universe and didn't want anyone contradicting it - i.e. it was a matter of faith/
_Maxxx_ wrote:
I don't believe the reason for the church's opposition to Galileo was anyting to do with evidence but all to do with the fact that they'd said the earth was the centre of the universe and didn't want anyone contradicting it - i.e. it was a matter of faith
Sometimes science is just a matter of faith. Take for instance bloodletting. It survived for 3000 years until it was debunked in the 19th century. There are many examples of so called science that have succumbed to more modern theory. That is how science progresses. New technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. Then new technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. Then new technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. I think you can see where I am going with this. What is evidence today often turns out to be quaint folklore as new technologies come along that allow for a more complete understanding of the physical properties of a phenomenon. Niels Bohr developed a quaint theory about the particle nature of the electron. Wolfgang Pauli comes along and defines the wave function (state function) of a particle. Louis de Broglie later developed a theory about the wave nature of an electron whereby an electron can reside anywhere in an atom, including the nucleus. But this goes against Bohr theory that prohibits an electron to exist in the nucleus. Was believing Bohr's theory a matter of faith, or was it a belief based on the evidence of the day?
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
kmote00 wrote:
Is it rational to believe something that you have literally no way to prove?
First humans are not rational - not a single one of them. Second logic is based on beliefs. Both implicitly and explicitly. Explicitly it via assumptions although the vast majority of people believe those completely. Implicitly it comes from failure to recognize that accepting logic itself is a belief and one that cannot be proven.
kmote00 wrote:
So the obvious question for the astronomer in this distant future is simply...
Hypothetically of course it would be more realistic to consider if the question would even be relevant given that humans might no longer exist, and very likely the Earth will not and most definitely will not exist as it does now.
jschell wrote:
very likely the Earth will not and most definitely will not exist as it does now
The Sun does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova. Instead it will exit the main sequence in approximately 5.4 billion years and start to turn into a red giant. It is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large to engulf the current orbits of the solar system's inner planets, possibly including Earth.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
_Maxxx_ wrote:
I don't believe the reason for the church's opposition to Galileo was anyting to do with evidence but all to do with the fact that they'd said the earth was the centre of the universe and didn't want anyone contradicting it - i.e. it was a matter of faith
Sometimes science is just a matter of faith. Take for instance bloodletting. It survived for 3000 years until it was debunked in the 19th century. There are many examples of so called science that have succumbed to more modern theory. That is how science progresses. New technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. Then new technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. Then new technology comes along and new theories are developed. All with scientific evidence to back them up. I think you can see where I am going with this. What is evidence today often turns out to be quaint folklore as new technologies come along that allow for a more complete understanding of the physical properties of a phenomenon. Niels Bohr developed a quaint theory about the particle nature of the electron. Wolfgang Pauli comes along and defines the wave function (state function) of a particle. Louis de Broglie later developed a theory about the wave nature of an electron whereby an electron can reside anywhere in an atom, including the nucleus. But this goes against Bohr theory that prohibits an electron to exist in the nucleus. Was believing Bohr's theory a matter of faith, or was it a belief based on the evidence of the day?
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesJimmyRopes wrote:
Was believing Bohr's theory a matter of faith, or was it a belief based on the evidence of the day
I think people generally accepted the theory due to its ability to explain phenomena - so the accepted it based upon evidence. Outside the scientific community many , I guess, would accept what they were told by those more knowledgeable and one could say that that is belief as a matter of faith. And the thing that reads slightly wrong in your post is the 'new technologies ... new theories' generally speaking theories don't just pop up out of new technology or new information, they evolve. previous theories tend to be found to be right 'under some circumstances' or (as you allude to) given the current knowledge. We still use Newtonian physics every day, for example, even though the equations are measurably wrong at relativistic speeds.
-
JimmyRopes wrote:
Was believing Bohr's theory a matter of faith, or was it a belief based on the evidence of the day
I think people generally accepted the theory due to its ability to explain phenomena - so the accepted it based upon evidence. Outside the scientific community many , I guess, would accept what they were told by those more knowledgeable and one could say that that is belief as a matter of faith. And the thing that reads slightly wrong in your post is the 'new technologies ... new theories' generally speaking theories don't just pop up out of new technology or new information, they evolve. previous theories tend to be found to be right 'under some circumstances' or (as you allude to) given the current knowledge. We still use Newtonian physics every day, for example, even though the equations are measurably wrong at relativistic speeds.
_Maxxx_ wrote:
And the thing that reads slightly wrong in your post is the 'new technologies ... new theories' generally speaking theories don't just pop up out of new technology or new information, they evolve.
I agree, to a certain extent that theories evolve in some cases where there is a firm basis of the theory in the current understanding. In other cases they are shattered by new technology allowing for some new insight into the nature of a phenomenon.
_Maxxx_ wrote:
We still use Newtonian physics every day, for example, even though the equations are measurably wrong at relativistic speeds.
A good example of what you are saying "previous theories tend to be found to be right 'under some circumstances'". Another example might be metallurgy. Some techniques practiced today date back to the bronze age. They are most likely founded in some underlying truth about the composition of metal and likely to change only in application -- new type of furnace as opposed to an open hearth and bellows to excite material at a molecular level -- as technology progresses. Thank you for a well thought interesting discussion into the nature of belief.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
_Maxxx_ wrote:
And the thing that reads slightly wrong in your post is the 'new technologies ... new theories' generally speaking theories don't just pop up out of new technology or new information, they evolve.
I agree, to a certain extent that theories evolve in some cases where there is a firm basis of the theory in the current understanding. In other cases they are shattered by new technology allowing for some new insight into the nature of a phenomenon.
_Maxxx_ wrote:
We still use Newtonian physics every day, for example, even though the equations are measurably wrong at relativistic speeds.
A good example of what you are saying "previous theories tend to be found to be right 'under some circumstances'". Another example might be metallurgy. Some techniques practiced today date back to the bronze age. They are most likely founded in some underlying truth about the composition of metal and likely to change only in application -- new type of furnace as opposed to an open hearth and bellows to excite material at a molecular level -- as technology progresses. Thank you for a well thought interesting discussion into the nature of belief.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
JimmyRopes wrote:
Thank you for a well thought interesting discussion into the nature of belief.
Hey - I think this might be the first thread that didn't end in insults, you plonker. Damn! :)
_Maxxx_ wrote:
Hey - I think this might be the first thread that didn't end in insults, you plonker.
Damn!
:)Yes I forgot this was the back room you sheep shagger. :-D Actually, I did forget it was the back room. It reminded me of discussions we used to have in the lounge before the righteous bigots avengers got an abuse icon to click whenever a discussion didn't adhere to their very limited world view. Ah, the bad old days.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes