Science vs. Religion

Mookie Baylock

soulsinging wrote:

and none of those questions explains the particular existence of those particular sulfur balls on that particular location. your explanation simply explains the existence of some sulfur balls beings on earth. it might be a better explanation, but it does not exclude the existence of another one.

im well aware of the process of scientific thought. there have been things that have happened in my life that the only way to adequately explain them is some sort of higher being behind all the science. ive considered every imaginable alternative, and some sort of greater force propelling the occurrences is the only one that makes sense. they defy any scientific explanation i've ever heard.

Like I said, those sulfar balls probably predate the biblical story by millions of years. Someone says where did those sulfar balls come from? Someone else makes up a story, it gets told, retold, eventually ends up in the bible.

I think whenever we get into this debate, you talk about your experiences, yet you never tell us what they are?

surferdude

ClimberInOz wrote:

Religion is the most common example of blind faith- faith in something without any observational evidence. It is also one of the few parts of our lives where we accept blind faith- nobody would seriously try and cross a road by themselves if their eyes were closed and they had ear plugs in - yet that is the same blind faith that is accepted when people say they believe in god.

Why do accept the unproveable bond between people as when you accept the faith involved in a marriage, but then rule out peoples experiences and how they relate to God?

ThumbingMyWay32

I love a good liberal back-patting thread.

ClimberInOz

soulsinging wrote:

this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Not actually meant to be a serious argument- just a fun play on words- in fact you will find no definition of atheist as one who does not believe in a higher power.

ClimberInOz

surferdude wrote:

Why do accept the unproveable bond between people as when you accept the faith involved in a marriage, but then rule out peoples experiences and how they relate to God?

My point is the difference in the type of faith- Faith in a person is based on what you see and experience with that person- If you see them in bed with somone else that faith is changed by a real world observation.

Faith in god is rarely shaped by what is observed.

ClimberInOz

Mookie Baylock wrote:

I always laugh when anti-science people try to discredit science by saying "it doesn't prove anything". The way I look at, science does proves things, we don't accept anything as 100 percent, but not because science isn't perfect but because we are imperfect.

Science is infalible, we are not. We are subject to bias, human error and falsification. Also, we are limited by our own brain size. Some things are just too darn big for us to wrap our head around. Science itself is designed to compensate for this by being elastic enough to change when a human error is discovered.

For some reason, religionists see this as a weakness.

well said. There is a limit to what we can understand using science, but this reflects our own inabilities to use science to its absolute potential rather then any inbuilt failing of science.

hippiemom

angelica wrote:

I remember recounting to you a little over a month ago that I have not stepped foot in a church for my own purposes since I was about 14, which is about 28 years ago. That was the truth. I have found immense spirituality naturally, and without the need of a middle man.

We have that much in common

angelica wrote:

I've travelled through levels of personal awareness enough to learn a few things. And the few things I've learned are also understood philosophically at this time, and documented from outside of me, scientifically. Humans, whether personally in our individual lives, or collectively through past eras, have evolved through specific stages of awareness. Whether personally, or collectively, in order to transcend from one level to the next successfully, we need to transcend AND integrate the past level. If we do not integrate the past level, we dissociate from it--become unconscious of it where it wreaks havoc all around us.

We are currently moving onward through and past the deeply-felt downside to the effects of the "Enlightenment" or rational period where scientism has reigned as dictator. Due to the imbalanced overtaking of science, we have much scientific advancement, and yet as humans we are dramatically crippled and imbalanced. Most of our systems are set up so that we think it is neutral to rape and pillage ourselves, each other, and the earth. This is because we have stripped our lives of meaning and value with the neutrality and imbalance of the dictatorship of scientism these hundreds of years. We have allowed an unnatural hierarchy of scientism-rule to fuel us through the industrial age, to the great risk and detriment to humans. And yet many consider most the progress aspects. While we have had much progress, we have little idea what we've lopped off in terms of balance/health/community by utilizing such imbalance for so long.

I would argue that the imbalanced overtakings of science are largely due to the culture in which modern scientific thought has arisen, namely one in which humans are thought to have dominion over the entire earth. That is not a scientific idea, but a religious one. The unnatural hierarchy was not brought to us by science. We have certainly used science to exert that dominion, but it was Genesis, not a scientist, that introduced the idea that the world is ours to do with as we please. That is what we need to move through and past, and move towards an understanding of our own place in an inter-connected universe.

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

I did not purport that my theory disproves alternate theories, or that my theory was absolute. Simply that alternate theories can exist to explain phenomena of which other observers can not see. The same may explain your conclusions of a higher propulsion force in the universe. There are many things about the universe we are unaware of that could drastically alter our perceptions. Such as dark matter, string theory, etc.. perhaps Newtonian law or Einstein's theory of general relativity are completely wrong.

If all things incomprehensible must be explained by the existance of an incomprehensible being, then how do you explain the incomprehinsible being?

all things incomprehensible do not HAVE to be explained by an unexplainable being, they just can be. take the big bang. science offers no sensible theory as to why or how the universe would go from utterly empty to a sudden and vast explosion of matter in no time at all. the very idea is ridiculous. until science gives me a better answer, i will simply ascribe it to some unknown creative force driving the way our universe works. we dont know why atoms spin round or where they get there charge. every time we make a discovery like that, we have more questions. we learn more and more about how things work, but little about why they work or how they came to work that way as opposed to another way.

i dont explain the incomprehensible being as you put it. i just find that there is more order to life than chaos and that there must be a reason for that. i dont believe in religion, or in "god" setting down 10 rules to follow and handing them to humans in stone tablet form. i look to nature and science to reveal "god's plan" to me.

ThumbingMyWay32

soulsinging wrote:

the point of an incomprehensible being is to make sense of that which cannot be explained. i dont believe anything in the bible and im sure your explanation of the sulfur balls is spot on. my point is solely that science has limits from time to time. there are things as of yet that it cannot explain. until it explains them, i ascribe some sort of driving creative force to be that explanation. why does math work? why do cells stay together? there is a lot science hasn't explained yet.

take the big bang. what caused it? where did all that matter come from? a sudden spontaneous explosion of vast amounts of matter from nothing makes even less sense than some sort of god to my thinking. if science one day comes up with a plausible explanation for it, then i will accept it. but until then, there's no reason not to accept the unexplainable as being the work of something greater.

BAM! Put that in your public school curriculum and smoke it.

soulsinging

Mookie Baylock wrote:

Like I said, those sulfar balls probably predate the biblical story by millions of years. Someone says where did those sulfar balls come from? Someone else makes up a story, it gets told, retold, eventually ends up in the bible.

I think whenever we get into this debate, you talk about your experiences, yet you never tell us what they are?

like i said, im sure you're right. i dont believe anything in the bible to be true. doesn't mean i believe you have any definitive prove that god does not exist. god, to me, is little more than a creative force of direction. the reason life has more order than chaos.

i have spoken about my experiences before. i do not feel like reiterating them here becos they are deeply personal to me and i dont feel like having you and ahnimus going at me with your bullshit pop culture psychological analysis of me.

soulsinging

ThumbingMyWay32 wrote:

BAM! Put that in your public school curriculum and smoke it.

uhhhh... i never said what i just posted should be taught in public school. what i said has never been proven and school is about learning what science HAS explained, not the questions it raises. they can get into the questions in college.

ThumbingMyWay32

soulsinging wrote:

uhhhh... i never said what i just posted should be taught in public school. what i said has never been proven and school is about learning what science HAS explained, not the questions it raises. they can get into the questions in college.

Yeah, you must missed that one...

Science required to be taught.. Religion should be banned...

Nevermind...

soulsinging

ThumbingMyWay32 wrote:

Yeah, you must missed that one...

Science required to be taught.. Religion should be banned...

Nevermind...

whose religion would you teach? ive no problem with a separate class in every high school covering the basic tenets of all major religions and their development over time.

sonicreducer

poop

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

all things incomprehensible do not HAVE to be explained by an unexplainable being, they just can be. take the big bang. science offers no sensible theory as to why or how the universe would go from utterly empty to a sudden and vast explosion of matter in no time at all. the very idea is ridiculous. until science gives me a better answer, i will simply ascribe it to some unknown creative force driving the way our universe works. we dont know why atoms spin round or where they get there charge. every time we make a discovery like that, we have more questions. we learn more and more about how things work, but little about why they work or how they came to work that way as opposed to another way.

i dont explain the incomprehensible being as you put it. i just find that there is more order to life than chaos and that there must be a reason for that. i dont believe in religion, or in "god" setting down 10 rules to follow and handing them to humans in stone tablet form. i look to nature and science to reveal "god's plan" to me.

Fair enough.

I put my faith in science, because it tries to figure things out.

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

Fair enough.

I put my faith in science, because it tries to figure things out.

i dont care enough about how sulfur balls got in the desert to figure it out i put my faith in the fact that what i need will be provided, sometimes knowledge via science, sometimes direction via the people in my life, sometimes inspiration via art, etc.

ThumbingMyWay32

soulsinging wrote:

whose religion would you teach? ive no problem with a separate class in every high school covering the basic tenets of all major religions and their development over time.

Yes, slow down.

I agree with the premise you've already stated in terms of public schools more or less suggesting that science is the end all be all when discussing everything from creation to evolution to atoms and oranges. (haha yes, atoms and oranges)

And to build on your Creation example I find it extremely laughable when people explain off the Creation theory which such ideas as the Big Bang yet believe that one may be mentally unstable in suggesting that a higher being could be responsible for what we know as existence.

In other words, to save from simply trying to rephrase what you've already stated, I agree with you.

Ahnimus

Creationism isn't a scientific theory, it's a theological theory.

Science has strict guidelines and one of them is falsifiability, therefor Creationism can never be a science because it can't be disproven.

ThumbingMyWay32

Ahnimus wrote:

Creationism isn't a scientific theory, it's a theological theory.

Science has strict guidelines and one of them is falsifiability, therefor Creationism can never be a science because it can't be disproven.

The Big Bang Theory is the scientific means of explaining the creation of the universe.

Besides.. Here's one for ya.. Disprove God's existence. Any God.

soulsinging

ThumbingMyWay32 wrote:

Yes, slow down.

I agree with the premise you've already stated in terms of public schools more or less suggesting that science is the end all be all when discussing everything from creation to evolution to atoms and oranges. (haha yes, atoms and oranges)

And to build on your Creation example I find it extremely laughable when people explain off the Creation theory which such ideas as the Big Bang yet believe that one may be mentally unstable in suggesting that a higher being could be responsible for what we know as existence.

In other words, to save from simply trying to rephrase what you've already stated, I agree with you.

i doubt we agree totally. i think creationism is a joke in terms of science. i believe evolution has enough supporting evidence that it ought to be taught in high school science class. i dont think the big bang should be, unless it is mentioned in passing. the better answer would be "we dont know, if you become a scientist maybe you can figure it out!" get kids excited about science instead of intimidated by it. but i digress. bottom line, is the two are closely intertwined to me. i believe evolution happened. i believe it occurred becos some creative force set things in motion that way and that it happened according to scientific principles that were created by that force.

to use a political analogy, god is the government... creating the rules. science is the laws... the rules we live by. scientists are essentially lawyers... trying to figure out how the rules work and apply to the rest of us. religious leaders are lobbyists... trying to encourage us to think hard about why we have the rules we do.