Sigh... Bend over backwards in your own posts; dont tack...

Post #17,861 by CRConrad 11/12/01 10:16:49 AM Reply	Sigh... Bend over backwards in your own posts; dont tack... ...your cringe-obatics onto mine, please. Sure, the origins of religion and science have a lot in common. (Hey, both can be said to grow straight out of the basic question "How does the world work?"). And sure, lots of scientists have been, and still are, religious people; and lots of religious people have been, and still are, scientists (because people will be people, and our prejudices are among the last things we ever want to give up). And, suuure, the "Absent Watchmaker" theory might be a way to reconcile religious sentiment and scientific observation. But, apart from that ridiculously contrived William-of-Ockham-is-choking-on-his-beard -style longshot -- which explains absolutely nothing more than the same model without the Blind Tinkerer, but exists only to preserve an otherwise-too-obviously ludicrous superstition -- the content of the religious cosmological model has absolutely fuck-all to do with the content of current scientific theory and observations. Which, for reasons that are hopefully obvious when you read the preceding monstrum of a sentence, is expressed as "religion has nothing to do with science" in the common vernacular. (One would have thought most people could grasp that simplification pretty much immediately, and wouldn't have to go off on tangents about the origin of philosophical speculation...) So please, Ben, let my posts stand as the statements of general principle they're intended as, OK? You can bend over backwards to appease the Jeezmoids in threads of your own, or in replies direct to them. The Tillster: And then a few centuries later, a peculiar thing happened. Some people looked at all of this science, and took the fact that God was not involved as evidence that God was a superfluous theory, in fact God did not exist. Yeah, 'xackly... But what's so "peculiar" about that?!? Perfectly valid scientific reasoning, isn't it? There is a supreme irony here. Discoveries made by devout Christians like Isaac Newton, which were possible because of theories of how a perfect God would act, became evidence that there was no God!? Yup. Life (and history) is ironic, sometimes. So what? (Just look whom you're talking to: "Christian" -- Ha!) R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #17,953 by ben_tilly 11/12/01 7:11:11 PM Reply	Reasonableness is in the eye of the beholder A common intellectual trap is to confuse that which we happen to believe with the epitome of logic and reasonableness. When it comes to religion, all sides tend to do that. Here are a series of sayings, going from ones we agree on to ones we are likely to differ on sharply. The cosmology laid out by fundamentalist Christianity is discredited by science, and is completely unconnected in content. Many scientists, both past and present, have been strongly motivated by their religious beliefs. When you add in scientists with quasi-religious beliefs (for instance beliefs that many physicists hold about the existence of a GUT), this number goes up sharply. Science's foundation was made possible by a number of religious and quasi-religious beliefs. There are areas of the human experience, starting with the question of how conciousness works, which are unaddressed by science and which are probably unaddressable by science. (Note, science can address questions about what a person will do, what they will report, etc. I don't believe it can ever address the feeling that you exist.) There are many religious people who believe that the sense of self arises from having a soul granted by God. If you believe this, then God is not a superfluous assumption. Atheism is not a logical consequence of science and the scientific method. Science may lead us to reject a variety of religious beliefs. But it does not address several questions which are central to science. Now as I say, I think you are likely to disagree with my final statements. But before you proceed to lecture and disagree, I should point out that I have a pretty decent handle on how science works. The position that I have laid out above is one that I have actually thought about quite a bit, and it is what I have concluded despite the fact that the conclusion runs counter to my own gut beliefs. (I am, after all, an atheist.) Fire away if you wish. But I think I will let this thread sit with this post. I don't really have any new points that I can think of to make on this topic... Cheers, Ben
Post #17,990 by Brandioch 11/12/01 11:18:11 PM Reply	My take. #1. Science cannot disprove the existance of any god. #2. Science cannot prove the existance of any god. This is because science is only capable of measuring reproducable phenomena. !BUT! Science can show that certain events could not have happened without divine interference. Such as the world wide flood of the Bible. Which is the point I usually diverge from the religious ones. Anything can be claimed, with divine intervention. At which point, I don't see the sense of discussing "science" with them.

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