Are all scientists this stupid?

[Citizen]

What? Are we having an argument about religion vs. science?

C'mon, already. Where are the comments about some priests using superstitious gullibility to control people for the priests' benefit?

Who is going to be the first to point out the latest priestly caste and their corruption of science?

My, my, my. If we're going to have a "discussion", lets get a meaty one going, eh?

PS: I liked the Carl Sagan quote. Too bad it was framed as a a jibe at religion.

PPS: Whatever anybody does, don't--do not--define your terms. Nothing kills a good argument like clearing up what one means by the words used.

 

[Tawnos]

PS: I liked the Carl Sagan quote. Too bad it was framed as a a jibe at religion.

It was actually meant as a jibe against "that's not fair using an argument that says my point is invalid before I say my invalid point!" Hey, if you want to constrain the universe to be small, something where the entire depths of our knowledge can be summed up by nomadic sheepherders, so be it, but don't act like it's unfair for people to preclude your arguments.

 

[irish52084]

Off topic, but I've always wondered what percentage of OC/CCers are atheist. I am and only know 1or 2 others who are. Always been something I've thought about, because generally gun owners are viewed as right wing, conservative and therefore religious.

 

[Tawnos]

Off topic, but I've always wondered what percentage of OC/CCers are atheist. I am and only know 1or 2 others who are. Always been something I've thought about, because generally gun owners are viewed as right wing, conservative and therefore religious.

Agnostic atheist (no gods exist, but I'm sure you could define "god" in a way that I could not disprove it) here. Former gnostic theist (god exists and I can prove it), then agnostic theist (I believe god exists, but don't think I can prove it or that you can disprove it).

It is amusing when people expect me to be a particular religion or hold other sets of beliefs simply because I support what I consider a fundamental human right.

 

[Citizen]

It was actually meant as a jibe against "that's not fair using an argument that says my point is invalid before I say my invalid point!" Hey, if you want to constrain the universe to be small, something where the entire depths of our knowledge can be summed up by nomadic sheepherders, so be it, but don't act like it's unfair for people to preclude your arguments.

Oh. So we're arguing about how to argue rather than science vs religion.

Dang it. I thought there was gonna be some meaty discussion.

 

[Daylen]

wow. I go sailing and come back to find everyone left the old topic behind so they could bring out flamethrowers...

 

[Citizen]

wow. I go sailing and come back to find everyone left the old topic behind so they could bring out flamethrowers...

How better to burn them at the stake?

As Captain Hook said in the 1993 movie with Robin Williams: Hook, "I want my war!"

At the 7:38 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZRaW86uul0&feature=related

 

[Old Grump]

I find that POV as narrow-minded as you portray the ones you decry. It is designed to dismiss opposing views before they are even expressed.

Your choice. Moving on.

I'm willing to entertain alternative theories but a flat i don't believe it because some smart people don't believe it???

Give me a plausible alternative to the big bang without using magic, Give me a plausible alternative to the creation of life without using magic. If you must use magic to explain creation then give me a plausible explanation for magic but don't blow the smoke that somethings are just to wonderful for human comprehension.

When you have people like Von Neumann or Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz or Thomas Savery and James Watt
walking among us then I find it hard to dismiss their works because some smart guy somewhere doesn't believe in them. They have proven their points.

 

[Jack House]

but don't blow the smoke that somethings are just to wonderful for human comprehension.

So you're telling me that you fully comprehend string theory? You fully comprehend the theory of evolution? What about quantum field theory?

 

[chiefjason]

They have proven their points.

Then it's settled? Completely? While other scientists are working on Intelligent Design Theories. Irreducible Complexity research. My opinion is that it takes as much faith to believe it is settled as it does to believe "God Spoke". Why is it that you seem to refer to religion as "magic", then flippantly rule it out as possible? It's like saying all ideas are up for debate, well except for that one right there. Then they are not all up for debate. To me, Intelligent Design or Creationism is a much simpler explanation than all of the seemingly conflicting purely scientific theories out there. The theories seem to morph and shift but never quite jump the gap to completely solving the creation of life puzzle. Occam's Razor, the simplest idea is likely correct. I honestly feel that it takes as much faith to jump that gap as it does to believe in Creationism. You also have to be willing to suspend scientific laws to move from non living matter to life. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, things are in constant decay. Except that one time......

 

[Tawnos]

Then it's settled? Completely? While other scientists are working on Intelligent Design Theories. Irreducible Complexity research. My opinion is that it takes as much faith to believe it is settled as it does to believe "God Spoke". Why is it that you seem to refer to religion as "magic", then flippantly rule it out as possible? It's like saying all ideas are up for debate, well except for that one right there. Then they are not all up for debate. To me, Intelligent Design or Creationism is a much simpler explanation than all of the seemingly conflicting purely scientific theories out there. The theories seem to morph and shift but never quite jump the gap to completely solving the creation of life puzzle. Occam's Razor, the simplest idea is likely correct. I honestly feel that it takes as much faith to jump that gap as it does to believe in Creationism. You also have to be willing to suspend scientific laws to move from non living matter to life. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, things are in constant decay. Except that one time......

You really need to do some research before you keep talking about a subject you're so weak on. Here's a good article to just get you thinking: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/02/bands-of-iron.html

 

[Bookman]

I can't believe this thread is 6 pages long!

What...EXACTLY... does this have to do with OC.

If you're looking for an appropriate place to post this, try answerology.com

 

[Tawnos]

What...EXACTLY... does this have to do with OC.

If you're looking for an appropriate place to post this, try answerology.com

Hey Bookman, welcome to the social lounge... the non OC lounge

 

[eye95]

I'm willing to entertain alternative theories but a flat i don't believe it because some smart people don't believe it???

Give me a plausible alternative to the big bang without using magic, Give me a plausible alternative to the creation of life without using magic. If you must use magic to explain creation then give me a plausible explanation for magic but don't blow the smoke that somethings are just to wonderful for human comprehension.

When you have people like Von Neumann or Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz or Thomas Savery and James Watt
walking among us then I find it hard to dismiss their works because some smart guy somewhere doesn't believe in them. They have proven their points.

I have taught the theories of those people. I understand them. They have tremendous value in explaining how our universe currently works.

However, they have proven nothing! They have created models that are wonderfully useful in helping us deal with our universe. But, that is what science does for us.

 

[PT111]

Well, you've got a mighty good memory if you can remember that far back.

Well my memory isn't quite that good but I believe that the earth and universe as we know it was created sometime between 7 thousand and 7 trillion years ago. I don't think I was around then so I can't say for sure. I really have no idea how it was created and so far as I am concerned the string theory is just that, a theory. One of the most thought provoking moments in any movie I have ever seen was the closing scene of Men in Black where the creature places the Milky Way into a bag along with other galaxies like a bag or marbles. Is that just what we are, a marble in a bag for some unknown creature to play with.

As far as religion and God the original Star Wars movie made me think so much about what is God and it occurred to me that the "Force" almost directly described God to me. It is a force that fills our every movement, thought and everything around us. I do not consider it to be sacreligious or wrong, just a way for me to describe my beliefs. As for the scientific side of it all of the findings so far from Newton's laws of motion and gravity to Einstine's theories of relativity are theories that make sense to me but I can't say that they are absolute or correct. In 100 or 1,000 years someone may come along to disprove them and change our complete understand of everything from DNA to the peroidic table and be able to change matter to energy and back along with warp drive to the nearest galaxy.

None of these interfer with my beliefs in God, Jesus or the Bible but tend to make ny beliefs even stronger. In my first year of college I learned that an Engineer creates things and a Scientist discovers things. Neither one is though creating things or discovering things. Sometimes scientist discover things that we don't want discovered so when they do we try our best to discredit them by calling them stupid, heretics or other such names. When people proposed that the Earth revolved around the Sun they were threatened with death. I have no problem with saying that the Sun revolves around the Earth and that is a valid statement. However it is very hard to draw the orbits of all the planets and moons in our solars system while using that approach. Saying that they Earth revolves around the Sun just makes it easier to draw and understand.

 

[chiefjason]

You really need to do some research before you keep talking about a subject you're so weak on. Here's a good article to just get you thinking: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/02/bands-of-iron.html

I would expect nothing else from a website based on Atheism. Naturalism fits the Atheistic viewpoint. It supports it. For me the balancing act that is required for the universe to support life is just too far fetched to be accidental. I've never felt that life was accidental. Naturalism inherently makes life meaningless. I don't feel that way. You can't be both an accident and have a purpose. This may lean more towards philosophical differences than actual science. But at the point where you are developing theories that you cannot physically test, it also starts to delve into philosophy. I could point you toward Christian and faith based scientific ideas, but would that shift your thoughts? I don't read nearly as much as I used to, work gets in the way. But what I have read on Intelligent Design, and the type of cosmology that points to ID, fits into my belief system as well. And contrary to what some say, I don't feel I have to "check my mind at the door" or "commit intellectual suicide" to believe it.

While I am not trying to paint Einstein as a Christian, this is an interesting quote. I wonder how many scientists share this point of view, and how many are simply crunching numbers in search of an answer that fits their philosophy?

"The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. "

- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (1949)


Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose?

Sir John Templeton

 

[irish52084]

I just thought of a question. If we don't know exactly what existed before the "big bang" and people contend that god may have been the cause, then what came before God? Feel free to insert any deity in place of god if they are credited with creating everything.

Science has and will always pose the greatest "threat" to religion, because it promotes learning and progression to faith. This fear of science has long been known, and if god/gods exist, why not just end science? This fear or perceived threat is a human reaction, not one from a god/gods. Humans fear losing the control religion grants them over the believers of the religion. Look at the extremists of Islam that convince young men and women to carry out suicide bombings, they target the unemployed and outcasts of their society and they promise their families will receive large sums of money for it. They keep up the pretense of a holy war, but it boils down to a very human motive, money and control.

If you choose to be religious, then fine by me, I could really care less. However, if your religion begins to cause people to do terrible things, child abuse, killing, terrorism and torture, then I am obliged to fight back and end that which is causing a threat to my life, liberty, safety or my families. If you want the belief, than take care of your in house issues so others don't have to. Sort your own issues before anyone comes to my door to convert me to their great and holy religion of mass murder, rape and abuse. If you can give me a great argument as to why these things have not been handled then I will gladly listen to you tell me how to live my life, until then I say good day and get off my lawn.

 

[SavageOne]

Science is a religion for some. Science is as much a belief system as religion. You can't "prove" the Big Bang (which was first put forth by a Roman Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre), but you can "believe" in it. As far as the OP saying there is a 100% chance of life on the planet. If we learned nothing from that cat in a box it would mean there is also a 100% chance there is no life on the planet. Hell, until we "see" the planet it both exists/doesn't exist.

 

[eye95]

Time is a construct of our universe. If a being created the universe--and time--that being is not bound by the time that he created. He could exist in a realm absent the concepts of "before" and "after."

That is a difficult concept to grasp. If the being were trying to explain it to folks who lacked a lot of the science we have available to us today, he might say something like, "I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end."

 

[irish52084]

If the being exists in a realm separate to ours, then it answers no question other than it's ability to travel between reals, or dimensions as it may be. Existence of a greater being, who is the Alpha and Omega doesn't answer the question in any reasonable way, it's existence points to it having to be created from something else. Things decay in our time, but they do not cease to exist, they simply turn into something else. This is a constant in everything, therefore a creator would have to be a byproduct of something in order to exist and in the same token, would be decaying and turning into something else all together.

Time is a construct of man, not the universe. Time is simply a measurement to help the human brain classify things in our environment.