[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
“we don’t know for sure” is a non-answer, it isn’t an opposing view.
NOW, in terms of reasonable. Causation for the universe is reasonable (the most reasonable in my view) and not only is religion the most reasonable answer to causation, it’s the only one. So, I accept it as such. Doesn’t mean that I claim to know anything absolutely.
“we don’t know for sure” is an intellectually lazy cop out instead of an answer. And one you don’t seem to apply evenly to other fields on inquiry.[/quote]
Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you had a medical condition that was very difficult to diagnose. You saw several experts, and they were all baffled. Their position would be “we don’t know what you have.” You then went to see one more expert in the field who, unbeknownst to you, was a batshit crazy fundamentalist. After reviewing your history and conducting his own tests and examination, he too is baffled. However, instead of saying “I don’t know what you have,” he tells you that God has given a mysterious disease, he probably wants you to have this disease, and therefore, he is not willing to pursue the matter further or consider possible treatments because he does not wish to interfere with God’s plan. Would you accept this “diagnosis?”
“I don’t know” is only intellectually lazy if it accompanies the phrase “and we’re tired of trying to find out.” But that’s not what scientists say. They say “We don’t know, but we’re going to keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories.” Saying “I don’t know” is intellectually honest. Saying “God did it” may be honest depending on the context, but I would argue that for most people, saying “God did it” is the cop out. As I said, people want to know; the don’t like not knowing. I can sympathize because I too would like to know. But I choose not to throw up my hands and say “God did it” just to satisfy my need to know.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Hey DD, I thought this would be interesting, what is science to you? (Or what definition of science do you adhere to?)[/quote]
Science is the pursuit of ways to predict natural occurrence. Essentially I think of it as map making for the universe.
It is not, as people incorrectly believe, a pursuit of why things are as they are.
You have to remember, that a map by definition is not a substitute for the thing it maps.
There is a pretty cool Neil Gamin story about an emperor obsessed with map making. He starts out trying to make the perfect paper map then escalates to progressively larger models, with each individual person and hut accounted for, until ultimately, while bankrupting the country, he orders an exact 1 to 1 scale replica of his kingdom built with an actual person and an actual animal to represent every person an animal. (In the end his advisor kills him to save the kingdom).
Sometimes I think, even really smart people start down the same path as this emperor. A map can be useful, but it cannot be perfected. The only perfect map is reality. I think scientific pursuit of the perfect map of the universe is ultimately futile and can be wasteful and ignorant.
There isnâ??t a perfect equation for the motion of a specific ball and a specific distance drop. According to quantum theory initial conditions are never exactly knowable anyway. Itâ??s a map. It can help you get to a desired destination. Itâ??s useful to help build a stronger building. That is all.
[/quote]
There is this free book written by Vox Day called “The Irrational Atheist” that is mainly written critiquing the new atheism movement. Anyways I thought the second chapter of that book relates to this, its called defining science on page 32. Although I enjoyed the book enough to read about half of it which is pretty good. http://irrationalatheist.com/downloads.html
If you read the chapter tell me what you think about it.
I know this question has been asked before and I’m sure you’ve read it, but it needs to be asked again.
Can you explain why, when you can only claim the possibility of a supernatural force, you can then claim specifics on its qualities? This makes little sense to me.[/quote]
You’re right, I can’t claim specific qualities. When I said that this Deity in no way controls or interferes in the lives of humans what I meant was that the cosmological argument does not support the idea of a Deity as envisioned by Christianity - a Deity that loves us and sent a son who was crucified in order to save us from sin. The cosmological argument supports the possibility that a deistic being may exist, but from that we cannot know anything more about this being. Again, is it possible for this Deity to love us and care for us? Sure, but given the suffering that goes on around the world, I find that highly unlikely. I understand that Christianity has an explanation for all of this with the doctrine of Original Sin. I am not convinced by the doctrine of Original Sin. Any being who would condemn billions of his “children” to death and suffering because of what two people did some 6,000 years ago is not a being filled with love and compassion.
[/quote]
I agree with your assessment of the cosmological argument. All it does it support the possibility. I have no problem with that. And while I certainly have a different opinion about the doctrine of Original Sin, I can understand your reservations.
As far as condemning billions of His children for two people’s actions is concerned, are you referring to suffering and death on earth, or are you referring to hell?[/quote]
Well, if I may jump in…
To go from uncaused-cause to God of the Bible is quite few steps in to the journey. So if you accept uncaused-cause, at least for the sake of argument, you can draw some parallels. Once you have come to the conclusion of uncaused-cause, next you have to figure out what “it” is. There is only a couple of things we can ‘know’ about the uncaused-cause. First, it has to independent of realm, universe, whatever, or more simply, it has to sit outside the causal chain, be able to affect it and not be affected by it. To be a cause and not be caused, it must possess something, like a will otherwise, why would it create.
Looking at God as described in the bible (or any other religion where the object of worship is the creator) you can draw some similarities. Both create and are not created, both have a will, both necessarily exist outside of creation. Not a deduction, but a strong inference that God and uncaused-cause are one and the same. Actually there can’t be two creators of everything, so that alone is the strongest link…
Now fast forwarding massively ahead to original sin, it’s sorely misunderstood and I am not going to pretend to be a scholar, I’ll just give you my take on it from what I do know. Sin means to defy or go against God in someway. God gave this ability to choose to man. Man chose to separate himself from God through sin. Since we have the ability to choose, we have to either choose to draw back close to him through the situation we were given, or to continue to separate further. What you cannot do, is choose not to decide… ← Way different the the philosophical discussions of creation and existence.[/quote]
I agree with this, Pat. And for me, I have zero problem drawing the conclusions you laid out. What it doesn’t do is explicitly prove my and your God in a way that satisfies Mike’s skepticism.
Unfortunately our earthly condition with pain, suffering, death of loved ones, and hard times seem to keep a lot of people from believing. When we say “God is good”, the conversation seems to devolve into-“well if He’s so good, why isn’t my life peaches and cream?” It seems that a “Heaven on Earth” is what is expected from a benevolent God. Which leads us back down the path of Original Sin where, before it, humans actually had something like that.[/quote]
And they have a point, really. Technically, God could have made an existence with less suckyness to it.
The problem of evil, not a supposed lack of evidence, is the number one reason people don’t believe, don’t care or are flat angry. Everybody’s journey is there own. [/quote]
Ah, the problem of evil. Pat what do you think about the axiological arguement? For those who don’t know what that argument is here is a good video about it.
I know this question has been asked before and I’m sure you’ve read it, but it needs to be asked again.
Can you explain why, when you can only claim the possibility of a supernatural force, you can then claim specifics on its qualities? This makes little sense to me.[/quote]
You’re right, I can’t claim specific qualities. When I said that this Deity in no way controls or interferes in the lives of humans what I meant was that the cosmological argument does not support the idea of a Deity as envisioned by Christianity - a Deity that loves us and sent a son who was crucified in order to save us from sin. The cosmological argument supports the possibility that a deistic being may exist, but from that we cannot know anything more about this being. Again, is it possible for this Deity to love us and care for us? Sure, but given the suffering that goes on around the world, I find that highly unlikely. I understand that Christianity has an explanation for all of this with the doctrine of Original Sin. I am not convinced by the doctrine of Original Sin. Any being who would condemn billions of his “children” to death and suffering because of what two people did some 6,000 years ago is not a being filled with love and compassion.
[/quote]
I agree with your assessment of the cosmological argument. All it does it support the possibility. I have no problem with that. And while I certainly have a different opinion about the doctrine of Original Sin, I can understand your reservations.
As far as condemning billions of His children for two people’s actions is concerned, are you referring to suffering and death on earth, or are you referring to hell?[/quote]
Well, if I may jump in…
To go from uncaused-cause to God of the Bible is quite few steps in to the journey. So if you accept uncaused-cause, at least for the sake of argument, you can draw some parallels. Once you have come to the conclusion of uncaused-cause, next you have to figure out what “it” is. There is only a couple of things we can ‘know’ about the uncaused-cause. First, it has to independent of realm, universe, whatever, or more simply, it has to sit outside the causal chain, be able to affect it and not be affected by it. To be a cause and not be caused, it must possess something, like a will otherwise, why would it create.
Looking at God as described in the bible (or any other religion where the object of worship is the creator) you can draw some similarities. Both create and are not created, both have a will, both necessarily exist outside of creation. Not a deduction, but a strong inference that God and uncaused-cause are one and the same. Actually there can’t be two creators of everything, so that alone is the strongest link…
Now fast forwarding massively ahead to original sin, it’s sorely misunderstood and I am not going to pretend to be a scholar, I’ll just give you my take on it from what I do know. Sin means to defy or go against God in someway. God gave this ability to choose to man. Man chose to separate himself from God through sin. Since we have the ability to choose, we have to either choose to draw back close to him through the situation we were given, or to continue to separate further. What you cannot do, is choose not to decide… ← Way different the the philosophical discussions of creation and existence.[/quote]
I agree with this, Pat. And for me, I have zero problem drawing the conclusions you laid out. What it doesn’t do is explicitly prove my and your God in a way that satisfies Mike’s skepticism.
Unfortunately our earthly condition with pain, suffering, death of loved ones, and hard times seem to keep a lot of people from believing. When we say “God is good”, the conversation seems to devolve into-“well if He’s so good, why isn’t my life peaches and cream?” It seems that a “Heaven on Earth” is what is expected from a benevolent God. Which leads us back down the path of Original Sin where, before it, humans actually had something like that.[/quote]
And they have a point, really. Technically, God could have made an existence with less suckyness to it.
The problem of evil, not a supposed lack of evidence, is the number one reason people don’t believe, don’t care or are flat angry. Everybody’s journey is there own. [/quote]
Ah, the problem of evil. Pat what do you think about the axiological arguement? For those who don’t know what that argument is here is a good video about it.
I cannot view the video from work, but I think the argument has value as another form of the cosmological argument. The problem I have seen it is poorly executed 3 line arguments. Basically it says that morals exist, they come from somewhere. Since an infinite regress is a circular argument, they most come from something that caused them to exist with out itself being caused to exist. ← As you can see, a cosmological argument.
The advantage you have with this argument version is that morals and morality are metaphysical, you cannot sense them physically. Since only physical objects are beholden to space and time, you can argue the up the causal chain with out the often troublesome space-time continuum being a factor. So you have causation existing outside of time, so you cannot debunk it with a temporal order counter argument.
Creationism has been scientifically disproven. (fossil records don’t indicate a great flood, dating techniques don’t suggest a world that is only a few thousand years old, etc)
Evolution has the possibility of being disproven (give me a rabbit fossil in the pre-cambrian era and the theory is dead), but it has not.
[/quote]
Fossil records indicate many big floods and many mass extinctions of many varieties. Creationism wasn’t meant to be a matter of historical and archeological fact. It’s not a history book. [/quote]
single great flood, my bad[/quote]
World wide? No, but I have heard of evidence of a big fat flood in the region where Noah would have lived and known as “the world”.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
My favorite is when O’Reilly said that he beat Dawkins in a debate because science can’t explain what came before the Big Band (which is now some “crazy theory”) but he could explain by invoking God, therefore, he wins because he has an explanation. [/quote]
LOL, that was my favorite part too! The first I saw that video and saw that part, I was like “wait what??”.[/quote]
So which is the more reasonable explanation of existence: a creator, or a blank look?
Creation being the ONLY explanation for something does give it more weight.[/quote]
That’s a false dichotomy. The argument against atheism is that the two possible explanations are “a creator did it” vs. “something came from nothing.” That’s not correct. The two explanations are “we don’t know for sure” vs. “a creator did it.” People like to know, and they have trouble saying “I don’t know.” That is part of the appeal of religion - it provides an explanation for virtually everything and allows people to think that they know. I also don’t like not knowing. I would be more comfortable knowing. But I accept the fact that I don’t know and just deal with it.
[/quote]
That’s a “God of gaps” perspective which is not it. It is as simple as either existence came from something, or it came from nothing.
Whether it God made the Big Bang happen directly or not is not pertinent. That is as far back as we can go.
It’s an exercise in logic. Something from something is more logical. Something the could create must exist and not be subjected to causation, but be able to cause. This has to be the case. That’s not the same as “I don’t know what happened, God must have did it.”
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
“we don’t know for sure” is a non-answer, it isn’t an opposing view.
NOW, in terms of reasonable. Causation for the universe is reasonable (the most reasonable in my view) and not only is religion the most reasonable answer to causation, it’s the only one. So, I accept it as such. Doesn’t mean that I claim to know anything absolutely.
“we don’t know for sure” is an intellectually lazy cop out instead of an answer. And one you don’t seem to apply evenly to other fields on inquiry.[/quote]
Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you had a medical condition that was very difficult to diagnose. You saw several experts, and they were all baffled. Their position would be “we don’t know what you have.” You then went to see one more expert in the field who, unbeknownst to you, was a batshit crazy fundamentalist. After reviewing your history and conducting his own tests and examination, he too is baffled. However, instead of saying “I don’t know what you have,” he tells you that God has given a mysterious disease, he probably wants you to have this disease, and therefore, he is not willing to pursue the matter further or consider possible treatments because he does not wish to interfere with God’s plan. Would you accept this “diagnosis?”
“I don’t know” is only intellectually lazy if it accompanies the phrase “and we’re tired of trying to find out.” But that’s not what scientists say. They say “We don’t know, but we’re going to keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories.” Saying “I don’t know” is intellectually honest. Saying “God did it” may be honest depending on the context, but I would argue that for most people, saying “God did it” is the cop out. As I said, people want to know; the don’t like not knowing. I can sympathize because I too would like to know. But I choose not to throw up my hands and say “God did it” just to satisfy my need to know.[/quote]
It depends…If your saying I don’t know where existence comes from, but it damns sure ain’t God. That would be intellectually lazy.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
My favorite is when O’Reilly said that he beat Dawkins in a debate because science can’t explain what came before the Big Band (which is now some “crazy theory”) but he could explain by invoking God, therefore, he wins because he has an explanation. [/quote]
LOL, that was my favorite part too! The first I saw that video and saw that part, I was like “wait what??”.[/quote]
So which is the more reasonable explanation of existence: a creator, or a blank look?
Creation being the ONLY explanation for something does give it more weight.[/quote]
That’s a false dichotomy. The argument against atheism is that the two possible explanations are “a creator did it” vs. “something came from nothing.” That’s not correct. The two explanations are “we don’t know for sure” vs. “a creator did it.” People like to know, and they have trouble saying “I don’t know.” That is part of the appeal of religion - it provides an explanation for virtually everything and allows people to think that they know. I also don’t like not knowing. I would be more comfortable knowing. But I accept the fact that I don’t know and just deal with it.
[/quote]
That’s a “God of gaps” perspective which is not it. It is as simple as either existence came from something, or it came from nothing.
Whether it God made the Big Bang happen directly or not is not pertinent. That is as far back as we can go.
It’s an exercise in logic. Something from something is more logical. Something the could create must exist and not be subjected to causation, but be able to cause. This has to be the case. That’s not the same as “I don’t know what happened, God must have did it.”[/quote]
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
“we don’t know for sure” is a non-answer, it isn’t an opposing view.
NOW, in terms of reasonable. Causation for the universe is reasonable (the most reasonable in my view) and not only is religion the most reasonable answer to causation, it’s the only one. So, I accept it as such. Doesn’t mean that I claim to know anything absolutely.
“we don’t know for sure” is an intellectually lazy cop out instead of an answer. And one you don’t seem to apply evenly to other fields on inquiry.[/quote]
Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you had a medical condition that was very difficult to diagnose. You saw several experts, and they were all baffled. Their position would be “we don’t know what you have.” You then went to see one more expert in the field who, unbeknownst to you, was a batshit crazy fundamentalist. After reviewing your history and conducting his own tests and examination, he too is baffled. However, instead of saying “I don’t know what you have,” he tells you that God has given a mysterious disease, he probably wants you to have this disease, and therefore, he is not willing to pursue the matter further or consider possible treatments because he does not wish to interfere with God’s plan. Would you accept this “diagnosis?”
“I don’t know” is only intellectually lazy if it accompanies the phrase “and we’re tired of trying to find out.” But that’s not what scientists say. They say “We don’t know, but we’re going to keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories.” Saying “I don’t know” is intellectually honest. Saying “God did it” may be honest depending on the context, but I would argue that for most people, saying “God did it” is the cop out. As I said, people want to know; the don’t like not knowing. I can sympathize because I too would like to know. But I choose not to throw up my hands and say “God did it” just to satisfy my need to know.[/quote]
Your first paragraph has nothing to do with the topic. God did it is only a cop out if it is also accompanied by “because we’re tired of trying to find out.”
why isn’t your answer to the start of the universe (the big bang) “we don’t know for sure?”
Why don’t you apply the same “we don’t know” criteria to all of science?
I personally say, the best theory is X. This includes both the big bang and a creator because neither are known for sure.
But this is where I have a huge problem with your thinking. Science is not and cannot be the pursuit on metaphysical truth. Those are questions entirely outside the scope of science. You cannot scientifically “keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories” on philosophy. It isn’t even possible. Things like origin (in the religious sense) and morals and purpose and on and on and on are not study-able through science. The only way to seek those answers is to step outside of science.
Science only goes as far as discovering the gravitation coefficient is 6.67x10^-11 m^3/kgs. It cannot ever discover why it’s 6.67x10^-11 m^3/kgs.
Like I said science is a map. It doesn’t contribute to the philosophical understanding of anything. This is one point where I disagree with guys like hawking. He seems to think that if we can perfectly model the universe, we can gain some incite to it’s purpose or existence, It’s just not true. A perfect 1 to 1 scale model of the universe already exists.
A perfect model is perfectly useless. Maps are useful only because they are approximations. Is it useful to perfectly calculate the velocity of a ball falling including things like quantum mechanics of each individual atom? NO. Is it useful to approximate the velocity of the ball falling with an imperfect model? yes.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
“we don’t know for sure” is a non-answer, it isn’t an opposing view.
NOW, in terms of reasonable. Causation for the universe is reasonable (the most reasonable in my view) and not only is religion the most reasonable answer to causation, it’s the only one. So, I accept it as such. Doesn’t mean that I claim to know anything absolutely.
“we don’t know for sure” is an intellectually lazy cop out instead of an answer. And one you don’t seem to apply evenly to other fields on inquiry.[/quote]
Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you had a medical condition that was very difficult to diagnose. You saw several experts, and they were all baffled. Their position would be “we don’t know what you have.” You then went to see one more expert in the field who, unbeknownst to you, was a batshit crazy fundamentalist. After reviewing your history and conducting his own tests and examination, he too is baffled. However, instead of saying “I don’t know what you have,” he tells you that God has given a mysterious disease, he probably wants you to have this disease, and therefore, he is not willing to pursue the matter further or consider possible treatments because he does not wish to interfere with God’s plan. Would you accept this “diagnosis?”
“I don’t know” is only intellectually lazy if it accompanies the phrase “and we’re tired of trying to find out.” But that’s not what scientists say. They say “We don’t know, but we’re going to keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories.” Saying “I don’t know” is intellectually honest. Saying “God did it” may be honest depending on the context, but I would argue that for most people, saying “God did it” is the cop out. As I said, people want to know; the don’t like not knowing. I can sympathize because I too would like to know. But I choose not to throw up my hands and say “God did it” just to satisfy my need to know.[/quote]
Your first paragraph has nothing to do with the topic. God did it is only a cop out if it is also accompanied by “because we’re tired of trying to find out.”
why isn’t your answer to the start of the universe (the big bang) “we don’t know for sure?”
Why don’t you apply the same “we don’t know” criteria to all of science?
I personally say, the best theory is X. This includes both the big bang and a creator because neither are known for sure.
But this is where I have a huge problem with your thinking. Science is not and cannot be the pursuit on metaphysical truth. Those are questions entirely outside the scope of science. You cannot scientifically “keep trying, keep learning, and develop new theories” on philosophy. It isn’t even possible. Things like origin (in the religious sense) and morals and purpose and on and on and on are not study-able through science. The only way to seek those answers is to step outside of science.
Science only goes as far as discovering the gravitation coefficient is 6.67x10^-11 m^3/kgs. It cannot ever discover why it’s 6.67x10^-11 m^3/kgs.
Like I said science is a map. It doesn’t contribute to the philosophical understanding of anything. This is one point where I disagree with guys like hawking. He seems to think that if we can perfectly model the universe, we can gain some incite to it’s purpose or existence, It’s just not true. A perfect 1 to 1 scale model of the universe already exists.
A perfect model is perfectly useless. Maps are useful only because they are approximations. Is it useful to perfectly calculate the velocity of a ball falling including things like quantum mechanics of each individual atom? NO. Is it useful to approximate the velocity of the ball falling with an imperfect model? yes.[/quote]
Reminds me of an example that John Lennox gave. He talks about a cake that someone made and how science can investigate its structure, bonds, tensile strength, but it says nothing about why the cake was made and that you would have to go to its maker to find out.
Ummm, what’s the point? That we’re insignificant compared to the rest of the universe? Doesn’t that go against your Biblical teaching that we’re somehow special compared to the rest of the universe?
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Ummm, what’s the point? That we’re insignificant compared to the rest of the universe? Doesn’t that go against your Biblical teaching that we’re somehow special compared to the rest of the universe?
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Ummm, what’s the point? That we’re insignificant compared to the rest of the universe? Doesn’t that go against your Biblical teaching that we’re somehow special compared to the rest of the universe?
Creationism has been scientifically disproven. (fossil records don’t indicate a great flood, dating techniques don’t suggest a world that is only a few thousand years old, etc)
Evolution has the possibility of being disproven (give me a rabbit fossil in the pre-cambrian era and the theory is dead), but it has not.
[/quote]
Fossil records indicate many big floods and many mass extinctions of many varieties. Creationism wasn’t meant to be a matter of historical and archeological fact. It’s not a history book. [/quote]
single great flood, my bad[/quote]
World wide? No, but I have heard of evidence of a big fat flood in the region where Noah would have lived and known as “the world”.[/quote]
From what I’ve gathered, creationists take a literal meaning from the bible so according to that belief, there is a single world wide flood.
And yes, I agree with you, I’ve read things about the story of Gilgamesh and perhaps a couple others that may be describing the same middle eastern great flood (I think it’s middle eastern).
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Ummm, what’s the point? That we’re insignificant compared to the rest of the universe? Doesn’t that go against your Biblical teaching that we’re somehow special compared to the rest of the universe?
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Ummm, what’s the point? That we’re insignificant compared to the rest of the universe? Doesn’t that go against your Biblical teaching that we’re somehow special compared to the rest of the universe?
:)[/quote]
No.[/quote]
:)[/quote]
x2[/quote]
You guys didn’t watch the end of the clip, did you?
