Then there's the God v Science question.

Humanism
21

Sherlock - I did. Direct challenge to your ideology. Could you please explain what is the reasoned and rational understanding of the universe that religion provides.

22

Sherlock, you say you’ve presented your evidence. You said very little. You don’t seem too serious about your thesis.

23

I don’t mind discussing Sherlock’s hypothesis. Sherlock, when would you say that “recent period of time” (of relij vs sci began? What general decade of our last millennia?

24
You refer to “the triumph” of science, tell me when did that event occur?
It was not an "event". It was when we stopped praying for people to get better and developed medicine. Science literally makes the blind see and the lame walk, unlike Jesus who did that mythologically. When we stopped believing in a man above the clouds and went to the moon. When we stopped asking God to send us a savior and developed democracy to govern ourselves. When we stopped using the Bible as a textbook and made coherent arguments against slavery and the oppression of women. When we realized having wars over whose creation myth is correct is a dumb thing and instead created a multinational effort to discover the origin of the universe at CERN.
25

Personally I tend to agree with Mr. Holmes. People are very good at compartmentalizing their beliefs. Sir Isaac Newton could work out the principles of optics and develop the theory of universal gravitation with one hand, while messing around with alchemy and calculating the exact date of the Apocalypse with the other. For the same reason, I can be an avid science fiction fan and at the same time a skeptic about alien visitors.

26

Intelligent design? That’s it? Your kidding.

27

I already answered the question. There is no date for the “triumph of science”. It happened in many ways, as I stated. There is no definitive definition for the word “science” or the word “religion” either. This is a discussion forum, where we flesh out ideas not challenge each other to come up with witty responses to things that have been talked about for decades. If you can’t figure out that what you said a couple posts back was intelligent design, then sorry, we don’t have a lot of basis for a discussion.

You are all over the map so far. The fact that some people still practice witchcraft and believe in fairies doesn’t change the fact that we’ve solved many of the world’s problems in the last 500 years that were only in the dreams of most of our ancestors. And by “solved”, I don’t mean we’ve created a utopia across the planet. If you want to demand absolutes from me while you speak in vague generalities, we won’t get very far. Mostly what you’ve shown evidence for is that within the mind of a single person, thoughts of god and science can exist. No argument there. Maybe you should start over with a new topic.

28
the vast majority of atheists that I encounter often crack when the hard logic they so often claim to respect is used to against to undermine their vacuous position.
Oh dang, I’ve been exposed. Sorry my fellow atheist, I’ve shown our weak underbelly to this detective with incredible skills. Atheism is a flawed philosophy and we must all renounce it.

Never refer to any of this as evidence for a conflict of religions and science, ever again:

The Condemnations of 1277

Lists of excommunicable offences from the Council of Trent

Burning of Witches – pick your religion or era, up to the present

Kitzmiller vs Dover

Was Roman Science in Decline?

Galileo. Not sure what you argued here. That he held religious beliefs is not really the issue. The conflict was with him and his science vs the RCC and their dogmatic version of planets. Unless you want to say that Galileo’s version of Catholicism was correct and the then leaders of the Church were all wrong or something, which, still, what are you saying?

Archimedes Palimpsest

“Augustine does not condemn all observation of the natural, but he does condemn seeking knowledge of the created world for its own sake and for the achievement of having understood it, rather than for what it can reveal about its creator.”

I’m sure we could have a much more interesting conversation if you’d work a little harder at being reasonable.

 

29
Sherlock Holmes: "Yes but you said “It was when we stopped praying for people to get better” and I pointed out that perhaps billions of people do this, then yo said “When we stopped believing in a man above the clouds” and I pointed out that perhaps billions of people believe this then you said “When we stopped using the Bible as a textbook” and again I pointed out that perhaps billions of people do this.

So you talk about a change that took place but then deny it had any sort of date even approx, then you state that people stopped doing this and that and I pointed out that no they haven’t and you think I wrong to respond as I have?


I’d say that it’s impossible to answer for a few reasons.

  • For one, it's a process, so there's no definitive point where things change. It's like asking "when does a person get old?" There's no instant where the change takes place, so no one can answer it.
  • Another reason is that it started at different times at different places. Depending on where you are on earth, your society will be ahead or behind other societies. So how can someone answer if there are many answers?
  • Yet another reason is it's tough to answer, is that, as you said, there are still lots of people who benefit from scientific advances while denying the value of science. Where do they fall? They benefit from science while denying it's principles, so can you consider them to have adopted science or not?
Religion has been losing ground to science since... forever. In no instance has this loss been negative, while in every instance it's been a positive. (Please don't point to some psychotic dictator who's reign led to lots of death and suffering, or the abuse/negative impact of some scientific discovery- neither of those are not in any way related to this topic, as has been pointed out repeatedly in many other places.)
  • If religion says something about:
    • the age of the earth,
    • our origins,
    • the reality of miracles,
    • the value of certain genders or 'historically and genetically related groups of people' [some folks might use the word 'race'],
    • or any other topic that is investigated by science, there can be conflict.
If a particular religion agrees with science on every point, then that one religion has no conflict with science. Otherwise, by definition, there is a conflict.
30

So some religious people can be decent scientists. They have perhaps compartmentalized or rationalized opposing belief systems.

Believing in the supernatural by simply choosing to believe in it, is at odds with believing on the basis of objectively known facts and data. This must, I think, require some adeptness in resolving cognitive dissonance by those who hold both modes of beliefs.

31
"But lets take the age of the earth which you mentioned above, are you not aware that there is no way to prove that the universe was not created six thousand years ago with an appearance of great age?"
And so ends another attempt by a theist to pretend they are rational.
32

Sherlock said: “Therefore the presence of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation so must have some other kind of explanation, it must be a fundamentally very different kind of explanation and perhaps the only it could be conveyed to humans is as “In the beginning God created” – this is a logical way to view this question.”

 

TimB says: Who do you suppose was conveying this explanation to humans? God?

It is not a silly answer to say that you don’t know something, when you don’t know. What is silly is making up a story to satisfy your desperate longing for an answer. Consider this: You can’t find your keys one morning. You don’t know where they are but you REALLY need them. You look and look to no avail. You need those keys and you know they must be around somewhere so you keep looking, until you are so worn out looking that you want to quit looking, but you really need those keys. So you HAVE TO keep looking, UNLESS you come to believe that god has taken your keys in order to keep you at home today. Yay! problem resolved. You can finally relax.

(Until later on, your wife arrives and suggests that you check the pockets of your tweed jacket, that you brought in from the car last evening. But by then, you are caught up in the superstitious narrative that you told yourself, and decide that god just spoke to you through your wife, to return your keys to you.)

Hallelujah!

33

Okay, I might be understanding a little better where you’re coming from coming now, but you still are not being reasonable. It begins with your idea of belief in God (in quotes for some reason). Of course there can’t be a conflict with that and a belief in the observable universe governed by laws. That universe contains people who believe in God, so, no conflict. And you can contribute to science no matter what you believe. I was looking at those who claim to know what God wants vs those who claim they don’t need to check with something that they don’t have evidence for. “Claim” being the key word here. We don’t need to argue with whose right we just know people with those views have been in conflict. I guess, technically, you could say they aren’t required to be in conflict. So, getting pretty deep into semantics here.

Then there’s this idea that there is “no way to prove”. I could attempt a deep philosophical conversation about what “prove” means, or I could just say that again, you are playing semantics. In brief; we only move toward greater certainty but I’ll agree we don’t know absolute truth or even how close we are to that truth. I don’t think it is silly to say I don’t know something. But it is definitely not logical to make an argument that says there is no logical way to know. You would need to know everything to know that we can’t know something. We might be limited in our ability to know, but how could we know what that limit is? We keep reaching what we think are the limits of knowledge and we keep finding ways to move beyond that, further into the unknown.

34

Some assumptions are more consistent with our perceived reality, than others. Some assumptions are relatively and torturously absurd, like the Earth was created 6K yrs ago, in such a way to appear to investigating scientists that it is billions of years old.

Now you have to come up with a fictional reason, and I’m sure you can, for why god decided to pull that particular prank on humans.

35

TimB, your story hits close to home. I don’t own a tweed jacket, but my wife somehow always knows where my lost items are. She has an uncanny connection with my glasses, wallet, keys, hat, ball glove, belt, phone charger, and pretty much anything else I misplace on a regular basis. I’m so absent minded I would have a tough time living without her ability.

36
"By all means bury your head in the sand, I don’t expect a proof that the earth is > 6,000 years old from you, we both know there isn’t one (unless we make assumptions first)."
This is surreal.

Are you seriously using that argument? Please tell me you’re putting me on.

I feel like there’s a camera on me and you’re recording my reactions to these whacky posts.

37
we both know there isn’t one (unless we make assumptions first).
You have put two assumptions on equal footing. They aren't. I'm not going to attempt to elucidate them, something about "a god is logically possible or probable" vs "the laws of the universe are consistent throughout space and time", but that would be trying to do your work for you. All that work is ahead of you. It's a great journey. I wish you fair travels.
38

Let’s assume:

  1. There are natural causes for things that happen in the world around us.

  2. Evidence from the natural world can be used to learn about those causes.

  3. There is consistency in the causes that operate in the natural world.

OR

Let’s assume:

Any narrative of supernatural explanations of the world that anyone can come up with is just as likely to be correct as are narratives based on the above assumptions.

 

(I’ll go with the 1st set of assumptions.)

 

 

 

 

39

double negative. Logic 101 fail. We can demonstrate the universe is billions of years old.

40
A fundamental axiom that underpins cosmology is this: “The laws of physics are the same at every place in the universe” this is bluntly assumed, it is reasonable to assume it bust it does underpin cosmology.
Thought for a minute you'd turned and run, but I see you have more steam. I'm glad you recognize some of the aspects of science. If you've listened to John Lennox debates, that shows you've done some homework. Still not caring much for you ad hominens but hopefully we can work through that. I don't think I've done anything worse that call your arguments "weak". I can back that up and show their weakness, so that is not a personal attack, it's an attack on the structure and premise of your argument. If you can't handle that kind of discussion, maybe you should stay away from skeptic forums.

Obviously you think your arguments are not weak, but name calling and tone policing are not going to strengthen your argument or do much of anything to mine. A major hurdle we have hit is your idea of what “proof” is. You have so far avoided my comments about probability and possibility. Without some agreement on what those terms mean, I could say we are brains in a vat and fold my arms and make you prove I’m not. That’s boring, so I won’t.