[quote]BBriere wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]BBriere wrote:
I’ve made this point several times in the past myself. To some extent, even the scientific minded still have to rely on faith. How do you know evolution is real? Have you ever examined the fossil records yourself? Do you have any knowledge on DNA structures, biology, bio-chemistry, geology, etc.? If not, then you really have to go on faith of what scientists have said. Same can be said of the universe. We know, obviously, that it exists, that the sun is the center of the solar system, that the moon revolves around Earth. How do we know other things? Scientists have told us based on their calculations, but the calculations have been wrong before. Ptolemy, who calculated the Earth to be round, thought it was also the center of the solar system. He created an entire branch of mathematics to explain the irregular revolutions of the planets around Earth. The Sumerians, who with the only the aide of simple mathematics calculated the Great Year, thought the Earth was bowl shaped. When I was a kid we were taught that Cro-magnon man evolved from Neanderthal. Now we are taught differently. So it definitely takes a little faith in what science teaches unless you have personally examined the evidence.
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You’re actually making my argument for me.
I have no problem with faith based on the best avaliable information/hypothesis. Pick up any text book from 60 years ago and you’ll find a wealth of misinformation – thats the nature of learning and knowledge, we take our best guess, test it out, keep what works, change what doesn’t. The theory of evolution is far more sound than the theory of spontaneous generation. The theory isn’t perfect, of course. It will be challenged and changed and modified as we learn more.
The problem I have is the fact that Christians are like people with one of those textbooks screaming that it’s right and that it has to be right and everyone who doesn’t agree with it will be punished, despite the fact that all evidence we have now contradicts much of what is in it.[/quote]
Well, my only point was that for those who say they only believe in science, there are very few who could actually explain why they believe what is in a science book. Take a person that believes in the Red Shift. Have they worked out the mathematics to prove it? Have they ever checked scientists work to prove it? Doubtfully, yet they will say a Christian is accepting things on blind faith. Well, if that Christian is going on what somebody told them was in the Bible then, yes. However, if they actually read and studied what is in the Bible then that is different. The bottom line is whether you put your stock in pure religion or pure science there is a degree of faith in either.[/quote]
There is also the option to put full stock in neither. I don’t believe the bible, nor do I believe we have a perfect understanding of our universe. I believe most if not all of what we “know” will eventually be disproven. But, in the case of science, its honestly the best we can do with what we have. In the case of the bible, you have people screaming and threatening when you refuse to ignore all that has been disproven (just read back to when Push TOLD me I’d be standing in front of his God one day… sure sounds like the threat of eternal punishment to me).
Is there a higher power? Are there things we don’t and can’t understand? Sure, I believe that. There are spectrums of light and sound we cant see or hear, but we know they exist. So the issue for me isn’t so much IF stuff is out there, but the fact that one particular interpretation of the metaphysical which makes no sense and has a holy book full of impossible history is so prevalent.
There probably is a higher power out there. I don’t know if it’s sentient. It’s certainly not benevolent. It’s sure as hell not a white man with a big white beard wearing a white robe. It doesn’t choose random groups of people as its “chosen” and burn everyone else. It doesn’t send the creations it “loves” to eternal torment because they happened to be raised Buddhist or Hindu or Baha’i.
I don’t know if there is a God or not. But, if there is, that God is a part of the universe, by virtue of its existing. It doesn’t exist outside of the universe.
