Summer means no religion or politics?

[Nathan]

Can I ask a question?  What point exactly are any of you arguing because looking at all these posts all I'm seeing are insults and a refusal to look closely into the other sides point of view.  If your going to have an argument have it for the purpose figuring out something, and before discounting the other sides point of view look closely into it.

Before everyone starts saying that I think I am above everyone.  I am not, and I am sure there are plenty of people here smarter than I am but I have fallen into letting emotions rule an argument many times and I know that the only thing it breeds is dislike on all sides and a further rooting of people in their beliefs without justification.  

So either stop insulting and get back to actual arguing, or close this thread down because it's not helping this community and it's not helping any individual here.

If you want to continue arguing I would plead that you figure out what you are arguing about first.  Define the question then figure out the answer.

[Darth Mandarb]

Define the question then figure out the answer.

It's the science v. religion debate.

There is no question, and there is no answer.

If you can define the question then maybe you are God?

[Nathan]

If you can define the question then maybe you are God?

Haha, your right, that would be arrogant to say that I can define it.  I cannot define the question of Science v. Religion but it doesn't even look like a battle to me.  It has always seemed to me that science is open to ideas that cannot be disproved, I've read a couple quantum physics theories... that I woefully did not understand at all.  

Let me present the instance of time:  Time has been accepted by many scientists as the fourth dimension.  Now time is something  that cannot be seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted.  The only evidence for time is the effects that are seen to be caused by it.  I'm not pretending to understand it at all but it is the same as the case of God and Christianity.  These things cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched and yet the effects of them can be seen.  So why is God considered to be unscientific, whereas time which is equally unprovable is very much a scientific concept?

[SSH]

I thought this thread was just about Nacho trying to get his post count as high as mine... 

[Akatosh]

I dunno. I sorta lost track, but I think it was about proving the existence of an invisible unicorn, an island chieftain, oral prayer-healing licenses, claims that science wasn't better than pulling stuff out of your ass, the relativity theory in Gen 1:1, healthcare related worldwide conspiracies and goat-herding in Canaan. Then again, I'm delusional from painkillers because of some effing ear infection. 

(Oh, and thanks for stepping in, KhrisMuc. Guys, there is a reason why science aims at putting aside personal belief. Skepticism works. Blind faith doesn't. And there's no Evolution vs Creation debate in science anymore because the creationists lost already, several hundred years ago, over and over again, not because science was a religion on its own that discarded the idea as heresy. It's the religious fanatics who'd rather ignore reality than rethinking your own beliefs.)

/EDIT: That's actually a pretty good thougt, Natan. A famous German philosopher by the name of Kant had a similar one, and wrote a book called the Critique of Pure Reason. The thing is a doorstopper supreme, and I haven't read it in its entirety, but the gist is that
a) as we are only human, there are limits to what and how we can perceive, and
b) there are certain assumptions the scientific method hinges on, even if they are unprovable.

In summary: there are certain a priori assumptions we can not remove if we want rational thought to still work, although they are effectively non-provable. They are pretty trivial, though - IIRC, among the a priori are, for example, the assumptions that "effects need to have at least one cause" and "things happen after other things". The thing is, though, that theories that are built on them can, at some level, be disproven. For example, if we suddenly see effects happen just before their causes, the theory of linear time progression would be disproven. If we found true randomness (and I think we have, on the quantum level, but I don't know jack shit about quantum physics outside of Heisenberg's stuff), the theory of determinism would be disproven, and so on.
The main quarrel scientists have with religion is that a) currently, there is no deity neccessary to explain the universe, and b) assumptions are made that are inherently uncheckable - you try collecting evidence for the presence or absence of something that's explicitly stated to be undectable.

Oh, and I'd just like to say that "science vs religion" is basically a false dilemma. There are asshats on both sides that make them seem completly non-reconceilable, but as long as neither meddles into each others domain, they can co-exist perfectly.

[Khris]

Alright, I'm gonna try and be a bit more constructive here.

Akatosh, it's still a circular argument. You can't proof the logic of a certain system with it's own logic. By saying the big bonus of scientific theories is that they're "not just made up" you're only saying that scientific theories use scientific rules. Even if you put high trust in science you should be aware that it's comforting safety only is found (to illustrate that with a picture) inside the house - not in it's foundation.

The foundation science builds on is, as far as I understand it, the following two assumptions:
1) The world is real.
2) We can learn something about it.
If you don't accept those, well, that's your choice. It just seems incredibly stupid to me not to, given science's track record.



I can understand that some people aren't comfortable with saying "It's unknown." and thus attribute the existence of the universe and life to (a) higher being(s), which happens to be the Christian God of the Bible in your case, due to your Christian upbringing, and somebody else to a whole lot more non-Christians.
(To me, this is just an easy way out and not reassuring or comforting in the least.)

BUT, being a creationist and/or a literalist is something entirely different. To subscribe to one or both of these beliefs, you have to be utterly ignorant of a vast body of evidence and discoveries that flat out contradict either view.
Plus, creationists have a pretty impressive track record of intellectual dishonesty, flat out lying and pushing politically or otherwise motivated agendas.

The "documentary" eXpelled - No Intelligence Allowed is a prime example of what mean, fact-twisting, lying, ignorant, stupid and disgusting sons of bitches those people can be.
E.g. the quote-mining they did on Darwin is amazingly easy to see through.

While one might say that the makers of the movie don't represent creationism as a whole, just like there are a few black sheep among scientists, but the rest of them are nice, honest people, the fact of the matter is that the piece got raving reviews from basically every creationist group in the USA while it was trashed by virtually everybody else, including most of the religious groups.

[Nathan]

BUT, being a creationist and/or a literalist is something entirely different. To subscribe to one or both of these beliefs, you have to be utterly ignorant of a vast body of evidence and discoveries that flat out contradict either view.

What's the evidence against being a literalist?  I assume your talking about things that seem to be biblical errors.  I believe that if you read the bible closely then the contradictions make sense. (Sometimes you may have to look at  the original Greek or Hebrew. )  In any case if you can give me an example then I'll try to find out the answer and if I can't then I'll concede your point.

[Nathan]

Sorry for the double post everyone.  It was originally meant to be in one, not sure what I did.

a) currently, there is no deity neccessary to explain the universe, and b) assumptions are made that are inherently uncheckable - you try collecting evidence for the presence or absence of something that's explicitly stated to be undectable.

A)  I suppose that this is true but it really depends on how you look at it.  For instance one theory of how everything came into being with all of the laws of physics and such by Stephen Hawkings is that it all just popped into being and then there was the big bang from the material that just appeared.  My problem with this theory is why would these two giant masses appear for no reason with all of the laws of physics somehow ingrained in them, and even if that is what happened then why has no such thing happened again or did it for some reason magically happen. This seems to be a bit more of a stretch than God having created it.  The other theory of course is that God created everything.  So on both the sides of science and religion the ideas are based on an assumption and faith.  On science the assumption and faith that God does not exist and therefore something else had to do it.  On religion the assumption and faith that God does exist and created everything.  So while there is no 'need' for a diety it seems to be just as likely a theory as everything magically popping into existence.  So really how do you explain something that cannot be conceived except by an answer that is unexplainable in itself. (Wow that was a mouthful)

B)As far as it being uncheckable I would disagree. It is the same thing as a primary historical document.  It is a reporting of events.  You have to either take it on faith that it is correct or you have to look for corroboration.  There are many things that corroborate the bible as being historically accurate.  So while the claims in this particular historical book are much more incredible than the an account of a war or even of farm life in the 1600s it still bases it's assertions on first hand accounts.

I'm looking up that philosopher Akatosh he sounds interesting.

[Nacho]

What's the evidence against being a literalist?  I assume your talking about things that seem to be biblical errors.  I believe that if you read the bible closely then the contradictions make sense. (Sometimes you may have to look at  the original Greek or Hebrew. )  In any case if you can give me an example then I'll try to find out the answer and if I can't then I'll concede your point.

A couple of all the animals of the world fitting in an old prehistoric boat.

[Lionmonkey]

Lionmonkey:

Science relates occurances ans processes, predicts and describes things, puts diverse prcedures into context etc. You can call that truth, belief or whatever you can come up with, but it's still the same... it's an observation of the world as we see and know it.

When you, on the other hand, say, that some guy heard a burning bush speaking some thousand years ago, it has nothing to do with truth, the world or whatsoever.

A man sees a burning bush talk, relates it to power of an omnipotent being. How does it differ?

That argument is basically a negation of what people sense (in every way - seeing, smelling, feeling etc.) and just a fragile monument of thoughts that doesn't make any sense unless you believe in it.

Hey, we don't know if what people sense is even true, we don't know if we are just brains in a vat, experiencing a bad trip.
As I've previously mentioned, anything makes sense, if enough time is taken to explain it logically. An omnipotent being creating the world, a sphere circling around a big ball of fire while having people live on it's surface, even pink unicorns with wings and magic powers. What you call reality is what you choose from all of these to be most commforting.

Oh my god, I can't believe the amount of stupid I have to read here.

Alright, I'm gonna try and be a bit more constructive here.

The foundation science builds on is, as far as I understand it, the following two assumptions:
1) The world is real.
2) We can learn something about it.
If you don't accept those, well, that's your choice. It just seems incredibly stupid to me not to, given science's track record.

Stupideness is relative just like awkwarness of nose-picking.

We went to the moon. We got rid of several major, evil diseases. We have cars, television sets, Playstations, cell phones, GPS navigation, X-Ray machines, and had light bulbs and electric typewriters and steam machines even way before that.
None, NONE of those are possible without discovering/building and applying scientific principles/theories.

EDIT: Guitar hero, science doesn't follow "scientific rules". Okay, yes it does, but for every work there must be a plan on how to do it. It's nothing else than that. As I stated above, science doesn't make its own rules, but it takes a look at nature and draws conclusions from it. And afterwards it can apply these rules to other processes. When something works out, it counts as a rule (or as "truth" if you will) and I wonder what your argument against that would look like.

I'll try to help him out: Science takes a look. The science draws a conclusion. The science applies the rule. The science counts a rule as a truth/lie.

The problem starts somewhere between the first and the second one. For example, let's imagine, you land on an unknown planet in your spacecraft. And see an alien plant. It's coloured blue. You walk around your fine vessel looking for more and eventually find a thousand of various plants, all blue. So, you conclude that all  the plants on this planet are blue. In truth however, these plants are only a tiny tiny tiny part of all the planet's plants, which are purple, red and whatnot.
Most of the conclusions science gave us are based on our experience on Earth, which is a tiny tiny part of the galaxy and even tinier part of the universe.
Now about the "it works" part. What if all these sucessful experiments and apllying of science have sucess because of a sheer chance of random luck? Don't forget how big the universe is.  Even better, what if the reasons it works are different from the reasons scientists proposed? Everything can crumble with a big *crack* into atomic dust any moment now. That is why it's so dangerous to rely on anything.

Science delivered, delivers and will deliver, no matter how many stupid idiots are trying to discredit it.

Please, move to Canaan, go live in a hut and become a goat herder, praying all day for not dying of the flu if you must, but please leave us sane people alone with that vacuous crap.

Replace the word "science" with any religion and you've got the thoughts of any religious fanatic, you laugh at on youtube. See how this "credibility" of their beliefs makes different people so similiar?

Can I ask a question?  What point exactly are any of you arguing because looking at all these posts all I'm seeing are insults and a refusal to look closely into the other sides point of view.  If your going to have an argument have it for the purpose figuring out something, and before discounting the other sides point of view look closely into it.

Oh, we're just trying to satisfy or inhuman egos by demonstrating how smart and cool, compared to the other people we are in a stupid forum discussion.

(Oh, and thanks for stepping in, KhrisMuc. Guys, there is a reason why science aims at putting aside personal belief. Skepticism works. Blind faith doesn't.

A Real sceptic never believes anything. If a sceptic disagrees with an idea but also develops another idea on the topic, that is the moment when a sceptic becomes a believer, who protects one's own beliefs.

/EDIT: That's actually a pretty good thougt, Natan. A famous German philosopher by the name of Kant had a similar one, and wrote a book called the Critique of Pure Reason. The thing is a doorstopper supreme, and I haven't read it in its entirety, but the gist is that
a) as we are only human, there are limits to what and how we can perceive, and
b) there are certain assumptions the scientific method hinges on, even if they are unprovable.

In summary: there are certain a priori assumptions we can not remove if we want rational thought to still work, although they are effectively non-provable. They are pretty trivial, though - IIRC, among the a priori are, for example, the assumptions that "effects need to have at least one cause" and "things happen after other things". The thing is, though, that theories that are built on them can, at some level, be disproven. For example, if we suddenly see effects happen just before their causes, the theory of linear time progression would be disproven.

And this is the point when you must question: What is rational if rational thinking demands semi-irrational assumptions.

The main quarrel scientists have with religion is that a) currently, there is no deity neccessary to explain the universe, and b) assumptions are made that are inherently uncheckable - you try collecting evidence for the presence or absence of something that's explicitly stated to be undectable.

The main difference between scientists and religion is that the former set the benchmark for evidence's credibility a little bit higher than the later.

A couple of all the animals of the world fitting in an old prehistoric boat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember the book mentionig size of the boat

[Matti]

A man sees a burning bush talk, relates it to power of an omnipotent being. How does it differ?

Well, first of all, we can relate EVERYTHING we can't currently explain on an omnipotent being. It doesn't make it the truth though. Secondly, the point was basically about people today relying on a 2000 year old book where such a thing was mentioned. It could have been some druggy slob who ate some magic mushrooms and had some serious hallizunations. Well, or the bush WAS on fire and somebody completely unrelated talked to that man. Or whatever..

Hey, we don't know if what people sense is even true, we don't know if we are just brains in a vat, experiencing a bad trip.
As I've previously mentioned, anything makes sense, if enough time is taken to explain it logically. An omnipotent being creating the world, a sphere circling around a big ball of fire while having people live on it's surface, even pink unicorns with wings and magic powers. What you call reality is what you choose from all of these to be most commforting.

You can call it whatever you want, it's still that part of the world we experience. If there's something else which we don't know... well, then there's something else that we don't know. It still only makes sense to work with what we see and feel.

Most of the conclusions science gave us are based on our experience on Earth, which is a tiny tiny part of the galaxy and even tinier part of the universe.

Okay, and why the hell should we care about non-existing experinces on something somewhere in the galaxy? We (still) live on earth you know! And if we can set rules and make conclusions about what's going on on earth then we should do so.

Now about the "it works" part. What if all these sucessful experiments and apllying of science have sucess because of a sheer chance of random luck?

I seriously hope that you're kidding. Do you think all AGS members can connect to the internet by sheer luck? Do you think some billion cars can drive by sheer luck? This is why Khris is talking about stupidity..

Science delivered, delivers and will deliver, no matter how many stupid idiots are trying to discredit it.

Please, move to Canaan, go live in a hut and become a goat herder, praying all day for not dying of the flu if you must, but please leave us sane people alone with that vacuous crap.

Replace the word "science" with any religion and you've got the thoughts of any religious fanatic, you laugh at on youtube. See how this "credibility" of their beliefs makes different people so similiar?

I don't know what your problem is, Khris' post made perfectly sense.

A couple of all the animals of the world fitting in an old prehistoric boat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember the book mentionig size of the boat

I hope you're kidding again.

1. I just looked it up and it seems that the bible indeed describes the boat's size in Gen 6:14. Something like 133 meters long and 33 meters wide, with a storage room of some 40000 m³.

2. Despite that: Since the bible doesn't believe in evolution, ALL millions of different species and subspecies would have had to find space in that boat.

Noah's Ark is perhaps the most ridiulous thing in the bible one can take literaly.

[Dualnames]

Congrats to all!!!

The 566 limit has BEEN broken. This topic is now second in general discussion in replies..head for 1392, we can make it people !!!!

[Nacho]

50X50X300 cubits, to be precise, Mr. Matti.

[SSH]

Monkey, which infallible scientists should we believe about things which scientists disagree about? e.g. Global warming, The Monty Hall problem, Cold fusion, Were dinosaurs hot or cold blooded, etc.

You keep going on about "the track record of science" but I don't think microbiology made much impact on the development of my MP3 player in the same way that Alan Turing didn't contribute a great deal to the discovery of DNA. The fact that many scientists wrote to Marilyn vos Savant to tell her she was wrong when she published the correct answer in a column shows that many scientists only have a narrow area of expertise. You seem to think that knowing about any area of science at all qualifies  someone in philosophy, quantum physics, palentology, ancient hebrew, exegesis, microbiology, chemistry, etc. etc.

[Lionmonkey]

Well, first of all, we can relate EVERYTHING we can't currently explain on an omnipotent being. It doesn't make it the truth though.

That's because we can realate everything to anything. It's just a matter of time you decide to spend connecting everything into a logical network.

Secondly, the point was basically about people today relying on a 2000 year old book where such a thing was mentioned. It could have been some druggy slob who ate some magic mushrooms and had some serious hallizunations. Well, or the bush WAS on fire and somebody completely unrelated talked to that man. Or whatever..

Yes, and what if major scientific inventions were made the same way? We don't know for sure.

Okay, and why the hell should we care about non-existing experinces on something somewhere in the galaxy? We (still) live on earth you know! And if we can set rules and make conclusions about what's going on on earth then we should do so.

Imagine that you are watching two guys far away from you. Unbeknownst to you, there's a mine, hidden in the ground behind them. Sudennly you see one guy punch another, who loses balance and falls on his back, right onto the mine. At the instant, his body touches the ground, the mine explodes. Given, that you know nothing about bombs or mines, what do you thing: You think that his skin hitting the ground caused the explosion.
While it's true, it's not the complete truth. So what if our earthly processes are actually influenced somehow by that hidden mine, that undetectable force, that no one has thought about simply becauase they've already found an explanation - true, but not complete.

I seriously hope that you're kidding. Do you think all AGS members can connect to the internet by sheer luck? Do you think some billion cars can drive by sheer luck? This is why Khris is talking about stupidity..

Is thinking that a perfectly balanced coin is able to land on heads a million times in a row with no cheating stupid?
Don't forget that it is possible that our world (planet/galaxy/dimension or further) is but a tiny part of them all, where infinity of possibilities happen. In one world a coin will land on heads 2 times in a row, in another 3, in the next one 4 and so on, up to the infinity. But does it mean that the coin will always land on heads? No. So, why is it stupid to think that even if something with a chance of not happening happened very very many times in a row it may someday not happen?

I don't know what your problem is, Khris' post made perfectly sense.

The problem I look at in that part of my post is "Resistance of people's minds to opinions, exotic to their beliefs".

You seem to think that knowing about any area of science at all qualifies  someone in philosophy, quantum physics, palentology, ancient hebrew, exegesis, microbiology, chemistry, etc. etc.

No I don't, what made that impression?

EDIT:

1. I just looked it up and it seems that the bible indeed describes the boat's size in Gen 6:14. Something like 133 meters long and 33 meters wide, with a storage room of some 40000 m³.

2. Despite that: Since the bible doesn't believe in evolution, ALL millions of different species and subspecies would have had to find space in that boat.

Noah's Ark is perhaps the most ridiulous thing in the bible one can take literaly.

My bad, haven't really read the book since kindergarten.

[Matti]

Secondly, the point was basically about people today relying on a 2000 year old book where such a thing was mentioned. It could have been some druggy slob who ate some magic mushrooms and had some serious hallizunations. Well, or the bush WAS on fire and somebody completely unrelated talked to that man. Or whatever..

Yes, and what if major scientific inventions were made the same way? We don't know for sure.

We USE those inventions, we KNOW that they work! 'nuff said.

Imagine that you are watching two guys far away from you. Unbeknownst to you, there's a mine, hidden in the ground behind them. Sudennly you see one guy punch another, who loses balance and falls on his back, right onto the mine. At the instant, his body touches the ground, the mine explodes. Given, that you know nothing about bombs or mines, what do you thing: You think that his skin hitting the ground caused the explosion.
While it's true, it's not the complete truth. So what if our earthly processes are actually influenced somehow by that hidden mine, that undetectable force, that no one has thought about simply becauase they've already found an explanation - true, but not complete.

Of course we don't know everything, but more and more is being illuminated. You know, explanations can be falsified and other explanations can replace those. That's what science is all about. But simply blaming stuff that cannot be explained at the moment onto god is a simple way of not asking further questions.

Is thinking that a perfectly balanced coin is able to land on heads a million times in a row with no cheating stupid?
Don't forget that it is possible that our world (planet/galaxy/dimension or further) is but a tiny part of them all, where infinity of possibilities happen. In one world a coin will land on heads 2 times in a row, in another 3, in the next one 4 and so on, up to the infinity. But does it mean that the coin will always land on heads? No. So, why is it stupid to think that even if something with a chance of not happening happened very very many times in a row it may someday not happen?

Getting a car to drive using fuel and some mchanics has nothing to do with flipping a coin or parallel universes. Of course it always works, because we know why it works. It has nothing to do with chance or probability.

[Jim Reed]

We USE those inventions, we KNOW that they work! 'nuff said.

Sure, Mr. Matti. I pray, it works, too.

[Khris]

Lionmonkey, are you serious?
Do you actually live your daily life under the assumption that all natural laws could expire at any moment?

And are you aware that your story about the unknown mine explains exactly why people invented gods?

Also, no scientist would conclude that all plants on planet x are blue after looking at a tiny part of x's plant life.

Nathan:

What's the evidence against being a literalist?  I assume your talking about things that seem to be biblical errors.

What about Pi = 3? But let's not get into that.
Are you a literalist?

[Nathan]

Nathan:

What's the evidence against being a literalist?  I assume your talking about things that seem to be biblical errors.

What about Pi = 3? But let's not get into that.
Are you a literalist?

I don't know what definition you use for literalist, but if you mean do I believe that the bible is 100% correct and that all the things that are said in it happened then yes I am.  Otherwise what meaning would the bible have, it would just be a collection of stories to teach people which while being good is nothing out of the ordinary and in no way is the bible an ordinary book.

A couple of all the animals of the world fitting in an old prehistoric boat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember the book mentionig size of the boat

First of all, yes it does mention the size of the ark.  Genesis 6:15-16  "This is how you are to build it:  The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.  Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top.  Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle, and upper decks."

So yes it does give the dimensions.  As far as being able to fit every kind of animal on it, I would say that it would be possible.  IF I calculated right (and I'm not sure)  then that is 506,250 square feet per deck with a total of 1,518,750 square feet roughly.  Now, I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to fit every single kind of animal in the sense of different types of animals within a species.  For instance looking at dogs there are thousands of breeds I'm sure only one would be required and then natural breeding could take place and form many  many different breeds.  So it seems realistic to me that two of every kind could fit into the ark.  Although, I'm not sure how many animals would then be on the boat at that point since I'm unfamiliar with how many animals there were or are, but I do know that most belong to a much broader group such as housecats and lions are of the same species.  

My conclusion is this:  It would be possible for not every breed to have been brought on the ark and still have all the species and God would not have told Noah to build it to those dimensions if it was incapable of housing all the necessary animals with all the food.

[Khris]

Wow, yeah, that's exactly my definition of literalist.

Alright, just curious:
1) Why do men have nipples?
2) How come we never find fossils of current animals like rabbits or lions?