Then there's the God v Science question.

Humanism
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Abrahamic Christian monotheism was an argument from its conception. Today the argument has little meaning but continues for believers and nonbelievers

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Hal: God v Science question is inutile today. It was a question a few decades ago.
I'm confused how can you say that given the political reality in this country? Namely, there is a hostile take over attempt being executed against our American government, by people who believe they have god in their back pockets, and who want to see our country turned into a theocracy.

They use their God of the EGO to deny the reality or significance of Earth sciences and worse.

Can you explain what you mean?

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@citizenschallengev3

Religions are human constructs for enabling people to reconcile themselves with the seasons and hardships of their lives and to enable human societies to function in a civil organized manner
Is there anything that is not of human construct? There is nothing outside of "you", which is also a human construct.
Science on the other hand is humanity’s recipe for learning about the physical world and its processes as honestly as possible.
This is where you wander off into the maze of confusion where every construct is broken off from each other. And the make-belief relationship among all constructs is called science.

 

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CC-v.3 said: Science on the other hand is humanity’s recipe for learning about the physical world and its processes as honestly as possible.

Sree said:This is where you wander off into the maze of confusion where every construct is broken off from each other. And the make-belief relationship among all constructs is called science.


What on earth are you talking about… You are the one living in a maze of confusion and broken constructs of theism. May I remind you that there is only one worldwide accepted method of investigation into the nature of the universe and the world, “Science”!

OTOH, how many varieties of religions and theistic beliefs are there? Moreover, theists have been known to kill each other over their different belief constructs. Yet you dare suggest that science is a fractured confused belief system? I suggest that you clean your own backyard from religious trash before you start accusing scientists of littering the landscape.

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Well, write4U, that one shut up Sree.

I tip my hat.

sree: "Is there anything that is not of human construct?"
Seriously Sreeeeeeeee? Rhymes with eeeeeek, and sounds like finger nails on a caulk board.

 

Sree, Do you think the world disappears when you close your eyes or your mind goes to sleep?

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Hi, the personal assistant of John Lennox asked me to read the Gospel of John. It did not agree with me: “The Jews are sons of the devil, not of Abraham, since Abraham refused to kill his son and the Jews did not refuse to kill Jesus. Jesus is the son of God, and the Messiah, top dog Jew. Thus the father of Jesus is the father of the Jews. Then the devil and God are one and the same.” After reading John I wrote a letter on ecology and God. John might have helped me to be a nonconformist. Sincerely Yoram

 

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Conclusion: Since photosynthesis was not incorporated in the heat death theory, the theory is not relevant. If photosynthesis is included in the calculation, we have to worry about the conditions applicable to the heat death of the world. This does not, by any means, dismiss our worries about climate change. We can create green areas, stop deforestation and combat desert growth to absorb some CO2 and try to avert the heat death of the world at the same time.
Wow that was quite the ride. Sadly does not compute within this head.

 

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@yoramdiamand, please don’t post links only. We are here for discussion, so discuss, tell us about you. Also, refrain from generalizations about classes of people, like “Jews” even when quoting others. Since I don’t know you, I don’t know how it “did not agree with you”, and shouldn’t have to sort through 13 pages of charts and text to figure it out.

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Hi, pleased to meet you. My father was a deported Jew, so I was not generalizing on that matter. As you might have seen the link was the same twice, it was a small fight with the computer. My father knew John to be anti Jewish. So this is the reason why, I told him. As for God versus Science, I was very compact in earlier versions, and the professor asked me more info. So I cannot do it right can I? As for the discussion in short: Darwin does not mention the decrease of entropy in evolution, Isaac Asimov does. In the age of Darwin people thought the energy of the world was constant and the entropy of the world urged towards a state of maximized chaos. That is why old school thermodynamics do not speak of a gain of molecular complexity in evolution as a decrease of entropy. Asimov explains it is the sun with photosynthesis and the food chain that invest in molecular complexity: a decrease of entropy. Ilya Prigogine did not mention photosynthesis as the source of our food chain. To some a decrease of entropy is called creation, but to me it is just being complex. I think a decrease of entropy should be part of the evolution theory, and does not exclude God permanently but it is amatter of words. Kind regards Yoram

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Forum posts are not meant to be addressed to professors.

As for entropy etc, evolution does include the sun’s power. Not sure what it has to do with God.

(I just edited that to say “includes the sun’s power”, don’t know what I was thinking there. I could go in to more detail. A look at how species were pushed to change around the equator, and likewise the Galapagos, is a good example.)

 

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There really is no science “verses” anything. Science is. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that it is the best method of discovery known to man. In any “verses” one has to win and one has to lose. That is not a competition the religious should want because science isn’t going anywhere. You can try all you want to bury and obscure knowledge, but in today’s information society (what’s on your mind? Some dork here knows what I’m talking about) you’ll never eliminate actual knowledge or the methods by which it is maintained. So if it ever does come down to “science v God” then God is going to lose because science and reality are one in the same.

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So if it ever does come down to “science v God” then God is going to lose because science and reality are one in the same.
If what ever comes down to science v. God?

Seems to me within the hearts of easily half the people and our government Faith Based Thinking has been kicking the shit out of science based rationalism and constructive learning, and the ability to assess competing claims soberly and to learn from that debate, rationally.

 

Well okay, when faith = furthering self-interest and political power, things get mirky.

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If what ever comes down to science v. God? --CC
I see "it" in terms of the big "It". The survival of the species. When looked at from that perspective, you can find value in the memes of religion; the Leviathan, the rituals that taught, the ties that bound community in a positive way. As science became more dominant, the untruths of religion had to adapt to survive, they had to pit themselves against science, or admit their traditions were wrong. Every religion that is either small or not practiced at all has de facto admitted that defeat. This was true before science as we know it, when drought could not be fixed child sacrifice. There are a lot of ex-religions. Every ancient rock with a picture on it represents them. Every little building in the corner of a small town that is struggling to keep the heat on.

But when those go away, as they continually do, what survives is not the names of the gods or the timeline of their creation story, but the truth that we all die, that mothers love their children, that young men get into trouble and that hard work pays off in the long run.

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So, you have never heard of Deism? Incrcedible ignorance. I am not a Deist but still, you ought to know about it. No good wallowing in iggarance you know, old being.

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@pianowan, "So, you have never heard of Deism?"
Well,
"Deism" belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind. WIKI
Pianowan, and your point is?

My point is that these gods are characters in your mindscape and no part of physical reality.

 

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Every semantic purport in your intent is wrong. 1 I am not a Deist, simply throwing that at your obvious ignorance. I am on most days an atheist, except when confronted by people like you who I despise. 2 Deists don’t believe in Gods, as you know. 3 In truth there is no Objective Reality - all is witnessed from an individual perspective. If you believe in something beyond that, perhaps you believe in some kind of God. Objective Realists worship the God of their imagined Objective Reality (the Third Person, the Passive Tense, indocrtrinated by the novel and the science write up) beyond all viewpoints, except that we others know we simply deduce adduce and accept the Objective method as the working model. You cannot discuss reality as you wish before the advent of Modern Science, which changes our world picture day by day. No one will discuss reality billions of years hence. You are lucky you can bandy it about, glibly, today. Modern quantum physics has it that there is no position nor momentum regarding a particle before inquiry. Maybe there is no local realism. Scientists have many views about this and the philosophy of Physicalism is just one of them Chalmers has asserted that the hard question of consciousness is to do with a category error. The notion of the zombie, you for example, robotically responding to my post, or myself, posting. Well, if that (that we were not conscious) were so, there would be no real discussion nor reality.

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except when confronted by people like you who I despise --pwan
I try to keep up, but I don't read everything. I can't see what set you off. Deism has been discussed here many times in the past and the regular posters are fully aware of it. It seems you didn't see it mention in this one thread and that led you to a million assumptions. Your welcome to hang around, but maybe try to get to know a few people here before going off on rants about quantum physics.
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What I’m saying is that science isn’t going away or changing. Who cares what the ignorant masses do or think. Science is the genie let out of the bottle and there will always be scientists doing science since then. Science is here to stay.

It’s kind of ironic that science is the one not claiming to have “the answers”, even though science must back every claim with empirical evidence. But is also the one which is forever unchanging. Sure, there was a push in the last few decades to allow supernatural explanations so that science could be abused as a proof of God, but it didn’t change actual science one bit. Sure, it made the ignorant masses trust it less, but science is exactly the same as it always was.

Religion, on the other hand, does claim to have “the answers”, absolute truths backed by no empirical evidence. Yet religion changes all the time. The believers often think they’re doing things the same way the founders did, but they’re not. Since the “truths” are all really just “beliefs”, those beliefs have to evolve with society. There’s no way around beliefs evolving as the world changes. So religion changes secretly all the time.

And for those wondering what “it” is, “it” is a common colloquialism in the American English language. I can certainly understand not knowing that if American English, or especially English in general, is not your first language (I don’t pretend to know the first language of anyone here, though I must say all of your American accents are absolutely spot on, in my head, at least).

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Another one worth framing.

@widdershins: What I’m saying is that science isn’t going away or changing.

It’s kind of ironic that science is the one not claiming to have “the answers”, even though science must back every claim with empirical evidence.

But is also the one which is forever unchanging. Sure, there was a push in the last few decades to allow supernatural explanations so that science could be abused as a proof of God, but it didn’t change actual science one bit. Sure, it made the ignorant masses trust it less, but science is exactly the same as it always was.

 

Religion, on the other hand, does claim to have “the answers”, absolute truths backed by no empirical evidence.

Yet religion changes all the time. The believers often think they’re doing things the same way the founders did, but they’re not. Since the “truths” are all really just “beliefs”, those beliefs have to evolve with society. There’s no way around beliefs evolving as the world changes. So religion changes secretly all the time.


Nothing to add, just something worth mulling over.