Science - Limited

[Ihateyoumike]

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Jesus can set you free. If you ever feel tired of carrying your yoke, the LOVING CREATOR will be there for you, and will make a party to celebrate your freedom.

[Hitsumei]

How something you can not see or touch can kill something that does not exist?

Very carefully.

[SSY]

Now, again: I have both.

Lets say you are doing an experiment, measuring the time it takes for a ball to hit the ground from the top of a tall building.

You sums, based on ball size, wind resistance, ball weight, building height, air viscosity etc etc etc, suggest the ball should hit the ground in 10 seconds. Yet, in all the trials you do, the ball takes 20 seconds to hit the ground. Your imediate reaction is to check the maths and what numbers you put in, but your lab partner, who did most of the sums, asks you to have faith, and just ignore the results.

What would you do?

[Sophus]

But I have both! and it is way too cool!

You have scientific knowledge and faith? Okay. You have faith and scientific thinking? Impossible (at least in every aspect of your life). The scientific method demands openness, freed thought, investigating and critical thinking. Freed thought is ambitious and produces change. Faith is static and content. With religion you have to craft ways to defend or justify your beliefs. You have to search not for truth but something that says, "Look, see! I was right!" Deism is different, but that's hardly a faith. At least they don't package God in a box.

[McQ]

Why is it that the believers who come in here and spout the most about science know jack about it? Really? Is it some kind of requirement that these people talk the most about what they know the least?  

[Hitsumei]

Why is it that the believers who come in here and spout the most about science know jack about it? Really? Is it some kind of requirement that these people talk the most about what they know the least?  

I think that it is probably because of the widespread view that atheists have replaced religion with science, and thus science is the most effective area to engage them on.

[McQ]

Why is it that the believers who come in here and spout the most about science know jack about it? Really? Is it some kind of requirement that these people talk the most about what they know the least?  

I think that it is probably because of the widespread view that atheists have replaced religion with science, and thus science is the most effective area to engage them on.

I suppose....but it's really weird.

I can accept (just speaking for me) someone saying, "I can't prove god exists, and I don't think he has to be proven from a scientific standpoint. I just feel a personal spiritualism and a link to something greater than I can understand."

Or along those lines, you know? I mean, I'm married to a person who believes that and it been working out just fine for 25 years.

But trying to argue and say that science (as if science is a thing or belief system) can prove the almighty, or saying the opposite, that science is evil and opposed to god and spirituality....I don't get it.

[McQ]

Hello McQ!

Well, if I tell I am Spanish, would yu forgive my "low writting level?"
And yes, I should have put this under religion.

Thanks!

For Ever Newton

Of course you get leniency if English is not your first language. I never said you didn't. I also never said you have a low writing level. What I said was that you were writing to us like we were in second grade.

A simple introduction from you would have prevented this misunderstanding. That's why we ask people to make introductions and to read the forum rules.

 

[PipeBox]

Why is it that the believers who come in here and spout the most about science know jack about it? Really? Is it some kind of requirement that these people talk the most about what they know the least?  

They may know many facts attributed to science, but they do not understand the methodology, or if they do, they don't put it to use.  I used to think I was good at science because I understood the terminology and had a laundry list of facts about astronomy and cosmology memorized.  I could and can even make inferences with this knowledge, but none of this is science.  Science is a reasonable method for gathering knowledge about the universe.  I used to be a smart Christian, but I seldom applied scientifically rigorous thinking in my day-to-day life, and never to my God.  Doing that is often fatal to the concept of God, because you realize that all you have backing it is dogma and desire.

It's true, science can tell us nothing of anything that is truly supernatural.  What of it?  What if I held that Cowboy Land is external to God in the same way God is external to the universe, and that God is the conception of a supernatural cowboy, that conception going on to create this universe as we see it?  We just don't know, and even according to Christians, we can't.  That's why I'm agnostic.  Anything is possible, right down to there not being any physical qualities that govern the universe but it all having been total, random luck up until now, every particle barely moving towards other so it appears there's gravity, fusion in stars being on the lucky whims of protons rather than fusion being truth.  But that's not likely.  And neither is the Christian God, not with the profound lack of evidence and God's attributed qualities.  Ask why enough, and you'll always reach a point in reality where, if the person is being honest, they'll answer "I don't know," and as an agnostic atheist and freethinker, I'm not afraid to say it.

[Hitsumei]

I can accept (just speaking for me) someone saying, "I can't prove god exists, and I don't think he has to be proven from a scientific standpoint. I just feel a personal spiritualism and a link to something greater than I can understand."

Or along those lines, you know? I mean, I'm married to a person who believes that and it been working out just fine for 25 years.

That's pretty well the standard position in my circles, though it is not a topic that is brought up very often, and I don't talk much about philosophy or science with my friends.

But trying to argue and say that science (as if science is a thing or belief system) can prove the almighty, or saying the opposite, that science is evil and opposed to god and spirituality....I don't get it.

Science is kind of a belief system, in a sense. It is a way of thinking, it entails practices, and philosophies, and is really something plenty of people live by. The average atheist isn't a scientist, so it isn't really a belief system, or a way of life for them, but for plenty of scientists and philosophers, I think that it is.

There is nothing inherently negative about having a belief system -- I don't think -- the problem arises when your beliefs are not justified, or false.

I understand both of the positions that you describe. Whether their particular god is capable of being proved or disproved by scientific means depends on how they have defined it, and the same pretty well applies to the other position as well.

[McQ]

Science is kind of a belief system, in a sense. It is a way of thinking, it entails practices, and philosophies, and is really something plenty of people live by. The average atheist isn't a scientist, so it isn't really a belief system, or a way of life for them, but for plenty of scientists and philosophers, I think that it is.

There is nothing inherently negative about having a belief system -- I don't think -- the problem arises when your beliefs are not justified, or false.

I understand both of the positions that you describe. Whether their particular god is capable of being proved or disproved by scientific means depends on how they have defined it, and the same pretty well applies to the other position as well.

Good points, Hitsumei.

Yeah this one's a very difficult topic to discuss because of the definitions that we prepossess. If those aren't made clear, then people may end up disagreeing over something that, fundamentally, they actually agree upon in most ways, yet don't realize. It's so easy to get too simplistic with this and not reason it out or take the time to get on the same page.

For me, since I work every day in a particular area of science (Oncology), I define science less as a belief system and more as a tool. I always have thought of it that way. However, that said, I find that I base much of what I do in other areas of my life on the same scientific methods I use in work, therefore, you might be able to make an argument that it is also my "belief" system.

[Lilbeth]

Don't knock science too much....It has given us antibiotics and modern medicine, space travel, the ability to sit at this computer and chat with anyone in the world who wishes to....blah, blah, blah........
What has religion given us? I am asking.......

[Sophus]

What has religion given us? I am asking.......

Bigots!

 

[Squid]

I detect an unnatural obsession with wood...

[Tom62]

I detect an unnatural obsession with wood... .