Religion Therapy

[romevi]

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Show the rest!

[njbair]

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More like, "let's go actively seek out those with other beliefs and needlessly deride them for the sake of our own misguided sense of superiority, and then when some of them get offended we can criticize their rude responses as hypocritical even though we just did the exact same thing to them and we did it first and unprovoked!"

To be clear, I'm talking about the extremists, the anti-theists.

Religion is the cause of the worst **** in history.

Maybe the justification for it, but not the cause. Just like Jodie Foster is not the cause of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

[Photekq]

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm on this subject (as you have so eloquently laid out), it seems rather presumptuous to label someone 'narrow-minded' based on a single comment regarding my personal belief system.

Sorry, that was poor word choice. I did not mean to say that you're narrow-minded, rather that the statement alone was perhaps not considering all the historical implications of organised religion. My meaning would've been better described if I had just left out the first sentence :

While your statement is correct, I think it is a tiny truth in the huge question that is : "How has organised religion influenced the world?".

In fact, I do believe religion has brought some good to society. I do not believe that we as a species would not have come this far without religion. If we are to believe in the values that some religions teach us, then this conflicts with your statement of 'we would have very little that is great', because what makes humanity great is the acceptance of others beliefs and personal decisions (the condemnation of gays, abortion, etc).

This is a larger discussion that veers into the 'science versus religion' that we could spend an eternity on. I myself, am agnostic. I do not dispute the possibility of an omnipotent being, but I rely on physical evidence rather than belief. I think religions are a way for humans to cope with their existence in the universe. How could we be the only intelligent life in a universe so vastly infinite? If we are to believe what Christianity tells us, then the existence of the entire universe goes against all of it. There are things that exist in the universe that we can't comprehend how they are possible. Quantum theory shows us a world that would not be possible without science, or a belief that there is more than what religion tells us to believe.

So tl;dr - I am not against the thought of a 'God', but I just need to see the hard evidence. I am not condemning religion completely, but realistically, it has caused more irrational thought and harm through the ages.

That's fair enough and I can't dispute any of it. While I think religion played an enormous part in creating larger groups of people, and therefore an incredibly important part in our history, I don't think it will have an importance always (for good or for bad). I'm certain that at some point in the near future the vast majority of people will not be religious. Perhaps the world would be a better place if we had lost our religions earlier in history, or perhaps the world would be a better place if organised religion had never come about. I don't think so though. I think that until recently religion played a very important and necessary role in the history of humanity. That's just a conclusion I have drawn from what I know about history though, so there is no way of knowing whether or not I'm right in thinking this.

While I'm not much of a historian, I think much of what you wrote rings true and if I understand your primary point, your suggesting that it's not necessarily religion that's the culprit, but rather people exploiting the power of religion to do bad things for personal gain.

Yes, I do think that. However, it should be noted in some cases the creator of the religion can also be the one who looks to exploit it. I mean, take Scientology and Islam as examples. This is why I have called Islam a religion of conquest - that's what Mohammed used it for after he founded it and even while he was still founding it. In fact, that's how it was founded.

That said, it was not the main point I was trying to make. I was focusing on the very early days of certain areas in history, on the transition made from small, isolated communities that believe in local gods to larger communities that follow organised religion. I think this is of incredible importance, especially since you can see it happen in many, many areas. I'm of the opinion that organised religion is one of the main reasons for the formation of larger groups of people eventually leading to villages, then towns, then cities, then higher culture and finally civilization. Without the formation of these larger groups how could grand things (both terrible and great) have been accomplished? Even if these larger groups would have formed without organised religion, it certainly would have taken place at a later date. I think that, at the least, organised religion acted as a catalyst for change.

EDIT: @kurplop I wasn't sure if you were responding to me or Signature. Apologies if you were responding to Signature.

[Photekq]

I do agree with most of your points however religion was very different at these points of time from what it is today.

In the period of feudalism religion was used to make slavery and misery natural since God wanted "priests to pray for everyone, soldiers to fight for everyone and farmers to produce food for everyone". This was a common theme in history, abusing God to force people into slavery etc. It wasn't the loving God who formed these communities it was the God of wrath, scaring people into obeying priests or popes.

The biggest difference with the large communities in Antics and the ones after, was religion and slaves. Neither Antic Greece nor Rome were influenced by religion (Rome got introduced to Christianity in the downfall to unite the population in a "state religion"). The thing that build the world as we know it today are slaves. In the Antics slaves were the major source of income for both Rome and Greece and once they couldn't occupy more land resulting in no more slaves, it fell apart quite quickly. After the Antics, slavery was still a thing but just rebranded. Man was slave of God and indirectly slave under the church. The kings and queens of the middle age abused this to the best of their abilities resulting in better economy, and to the point we are at today.

The common theme is that it's the people abusing Religion who are the bad guys, not religion itself. However religion is not the reason we are at the point we are today, it's about the people abusing the unkown (not necessarily religion) to scare us into something uncomfortable. Therefore I have a hard time thanking religion for the society we have today, even though it had a big part in our history.

Soz for my grammar, Swedes no englando

All really good points. My knowledge of Ancient Rome and Greece is limited, so there's not much I can add. However, I do know that while Ancient Greece did not have ties between politics and religion, Rome did at least have some. The one example I can think of is the Emperors. While there was no real state religion in Ancient Rome, the Emperor was absolutely worshiped by all as a God or as someone with a Holy force. This was not the conclusion of the people, but something that was forced upon them and something that they were indoctrinated with from early age.

[Phirr]

To go into the Photekq mode of things, I'm not a Catholic, but I think the Catholic church's role in civilizing Europe was enormous. There have been studies done on the trait of clannishness, basically how tribal a culture is. An easy barometer for clannishness is how much closeness you feel towards distant relatives. Areas that demonstrate high levels of clannishness find high levels of political corruption. (You can read about the Hajnal line for more information on the topic.) The reason for this is basically that people promote or hire people based on relation to themselves rather than meritocracy. Thus places that find close cousin marriage common (certain areas in the middle east) tend to find high levels of political corruption.
Also inbreeding leads to IQ depression (1st cousin is something like half a standard deviation IQ depression on average, obviously population IQ is causative of level of civilization a culture is able to maintain) By banning marriage within 4 degrees of consanguinity(or 7 degrees, depending on calculation method) the Catholic Church lowered the overall level of clannishness in the culture and was responsible for some of the development of fair and impartial political and economic practices in Europe, though it took centuries to see the full effects. Countries that more strictly upheld the prohibitions on consanguinity typically did better in this regard.

[Phirr]

Also, baldgye, now that you've had a chance to explain yourself, your opinions come off much better than in the other thread. I believe in both Intelligent Design and Evolution, young earthers are a relatively small contingent of Christians, and a young Earth is not really consistent with the fossil record. I'm an old earth creationist, I think that the earth and universe are both old and created by God. The Big Bang Theory posits that the universe came in to existence at a certain point. That is to say, space and time started to exist at a certain point. There is good proof that the Big Bang Theory is true from observed patterns of cosmic radiation. Things that begin to exist have a causative factor (cakes don't bake themselves) The creation of space and time therefore would have to be caused by something outside of space and time, and with the power to create both. This suggests (at least to me) a creator of some sort.

Evolution is obviously true, as we can observe it in the lab, but it takes a leap of faith to think that it is responsible for all life on earth. Erosion creates rock formations. Mount Rushmore is a rock formation, but it was not created through erosion. Erosion is therefore not the full story, and is not responsible for all rock formations. This is similar to my view on evolution. Due to regression to the mean, much speciation seems rather difficult, for example the second a super intelligent monkey goes to breed, he will end up breeding with a less intelligent monkey, and their offspring will exhibit traits closer to the genetic mean, e.g. less intelligent. Some of this can be ameliorated with bottleneck effects etc, but not all of it. When those offspring go to breed, with the exception of incest, they will breed with those outside their genetic background, further regressing to the genetic mean. This does not mean that evolutionary speciation is impossible, I just find the level of observed speciation unlikely based solely on evolution with no divine intervention

In conclusion, the question of science or faith, evolution or creation is silly. They are not exclusive.

[fohat.digs]

I'm certain that at some point in the near future the vast majority of people will not be religious.

Perhaps the world would be a better place if we had lost our religions earlier in history, or perhaps the world would be a better place if organised religion had never come about. I don't think so though.

I think that until recently religion played a very important and necessary role in the history of humanity.

I generally agree with Photekq that religion and mythology were important stepping stones in the evolution of civilization.

At some point in the distant past, religion and science were pretty much the same.

Now we have reached the point where religion serves little purpose intellectually but still holds great emotional power.

[Parak]

I find the viewpoints of "we don't know how X happened"/"we don't have evidence that I find compelling about how X happened"/"we don't understand how X happened", "therefore God" a bit puzzling. It only takes a quick look back through history at the things that humanity used to attribute to God through lack of understanding, from lightning and weather to solar system and cosmic phenomena, things that we now can easily explain thanks to centuries of scientific advances. By processing the big questions still facing us in such a way diminishes the efforts of humankind to understand ourselves and the world around us, and does a massive disservice to those who spend their entire lives looking for meaningful answers to difficult questions. It expresses a mixture of a missing desire for knowledge with comforting thinking that can be used as a fallback at any time. It contains elements of the suppression of findings of Copernicus and Galilei, and I can only hope that such thinking and spread thereof continues to shrink as time goes on, instead of standing in the way of advancement of knowledge.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson so eloquently put it:

Does it mean, if you don’t understand something, and the community of physicists don’t understand it, that means God did it? Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, here’s a list of things in the past that the physicists at the time didn’t understand [and now we do understand] [...]. If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come at the problem.

[iri]

I don't hate Christians, I pity you

[kurplop]

People of faith have appealed to the supernatural to explain the unknown in the past and have often been proven wrong. At the same time, science has consistently had to revise its understanding of many of the mechanics of our universe. Just look at how often science has corrected its position on something as seemingly simple as the human diet. Fat will kill you, reduce salt, low carb, high protein, and then, we're not getting enough fat, we need more carbs, less protein, ad infinitum... To point the finger and suggest that the only misunderstandings come from people of faith would be a position I wouldn't want to defend.

What I am often puzzled by is the unwillingness of some, to be willing to leave room for the possibility that there may be a God who has intervened in the creation of the physical universe. For some, that possibility is off the table. They say that it isn't science. Science, as they define it, requires things such as observation, the testing of their hypotheses, peer review, etc.. I think that's valid as long as they also concede that not all things can be learned or understood through the narrow lens of science.

On another subject. I would like to call attention to what I think is an admirable quality I saw earlier in this thread. Nubs, was critical of the Church as he sees it today but his tone suggests a desire to debate anyone for the purpose of greater understanding by both parties. I think this is an attitude we all need to come into these discussions with. I'm not interested in shouting matches or casting insults. I don't think much understanding can come when someone tries bullying others by ridiculing them. I don't think blaming people of faith for the world's woes is effective foreplay to get them in the mood to rationally discuss something as personal as their faith.

I think this excerpt best sums up what I wish to convey

From The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor

[fohat.digs]

Science has consistently had to revise its understanding of many of the mechanics of our universe.

Just look at how often science has corrected its position on something as seemingly simple as the human diet.

This is precisely the strength and beauty of science.

And, human health, in all of its aspects, is hardly simple by any stretch of the imagination.

[kurplop]

I agree that the human body is quite complex. I used that as an example because I and most others have direct knowledge of that rollercoaster of changing opinions within the scientific community. Most of us wouldn't have the instruments or expertise to properly challenge concepts like quarks, neutrinos or on the other end, blackholes, galaxies or parallel universes.

I am not in any way either ignoring or discounting the enormous contributions modern science has made. I still marvel that I can have a device no bigger than a matchbox, that can not only store a lifetime collection of my favorite music but also play it back with concert quality. Those of you old enough to remember scratchy record, jammed tapes, and shelves of stored music can't help but wonder at how far science has enriched our lives. Medical advances, labor saving devices, the explosion of information, all I can say is, hurray for scientific progress.

My concerns are not so much with science but rather scientism. The perspective that empirical information gathering is the authoritative means of knowing about all things. I would dispute that claim for at least 2 reasons. First, without collecting complete information, we can't know with certainty that a thing is so, and second, not all things can be understood by sense data.

I just don't see how saying that God created all things, that He is the first cause that created matter out of nothing, is necessarily a simplistic concept that has to be wrong. A simple mind can understand it but so can the most ardent rationalist.

[Oobly]

Scientists who support intelligent design are not using God as the ultimate Deus Ex Machina (excuse the pun) to explain everything that's not yet understood in science. They are rather using scientific method to point to an intelligent designer being the most likely explanation inferred by the evidence we have.

We, as humans, have a pretty good instinct for detecting intelligence in the structure of a message or shape of an object. If a message comes from space containing highly specified information (such as a sequence of prime numbers) we would all assume it's from an intelligent (alien) source, despite the exceptional and extraordinary nature of such a conclusion. Yet if the same type of information is found in molecular biology it's usually ascribed to "evolution" via some unknown process that we haven't yet figured out instead of assuming it had intelligence behind it (despite having no evidence at all to support this and no mechanism that's been shown to be able to this). In other words, we don't know, therefore "evolution" did it.

It works both ways. However, in this case we have more information that is relevant. Information theory says that this type of information can ONLY be generated by external intelligent input, so there never will be a mechanism found that can generate this (like the complex specified information in DNA) through naturalistic means WITHOUT some outside intelligent influence.

There are numerous example of this type of inference to intelligence that can be found in all major scientific disciplines. To rule out the possibility of intelligent design is far less scientific than to allow it, since it both matches all the available evidence and in most cases is the most reasonable eplanation for many phenomena.

About worldviews: As I said before, all of our experience in life is based on evidence. We gather information, process it, test it and form opinions on the validity of various hypotheses based on the evidence and the trustworthiness of the source (largely based on previously tested evidences from the same or similar sources). This is what we do throughout our lives and the picture we build up of the world, including the specific hypotheses we have been testing and gathered evidence in support / opposition of, gives us our "worldview".

If we are presented with some new evidence that is very convincing, but doesn't match our current worldview, it throws us into turmoil. This is not surprising, considering the lifetime of evidence collection and testing that has led to this picture of the universe we have. This is true no matter what worldview we have. A true "seeker of truth" will accept the new evidence and try to test it / weigh it up against previously gained evidence and attempt some form of reconciliation depending on the trustworthiness of the source and the strength of the evidence itself.

However, and this is an important one, the most trusted hypotheses are those we have internalised, through some process that confirms for us very clearly their truth or falsehood and these become core to our worldview. In terms of personal, internalised, experiential evidence, opening a dialogue with the Creator is kind of a big one. This new reality really becomes the basis of the Christian's worldview since it is such an overwhelmingly powerful personal confirmation of not just the existence of God, but of the truth of much of what is written in the Bible. One reason for the force of their belief comes from the apparent awakening of a part of them that actually knows something. Not just in the sense of belief through supporting evidence, but independently and beyond shadow of a doubt knows. This is not something that can be conveyed to, or understood by, someone who has not had this experience.

Unfortunately, some try to apply the force of conviction of the core belief to surrounding and supporting areas of their life and this can lead to arrogance, judgmentallism, etc. It's too easy to offhandedly dismiss evidence which SEEMS to contradict some part of the supporting areas of their faith, often those that come through their particular interpretaion of some part of the Bible. Particularly when they have the comfort of the knowledge of their core belief being correct and they make the assumption of their interpretations being flawless.

[baldgye]

There is no scientific method for a hypothesis being more likely than a fact.


It's Kimi Raikkonen all over again.

[fohat.digs]

Information theory says that this type of information can ONLY be generated by external intelligent input, so there never will be a mechanism found that can generate this (like the complex specified information in DNA) through naturalistic means WITHOUT some outside intelligent influence.

I 'm sorry but I would not buy this argument for 1 second.

This is an ad hoc ergo propter hoc excuse of the worst kind.

You need to replace those capitalized words that you are shouting out with phrases like: "might possibly have been" because you have nothing of substance to back up your postulate of a Creator with.

[kurplop]

While admitting I am not well versed in information theory, I would probably be more comfortable replacing "can ONLY be generated by" with something like "can only be reasonably explained by". While we must leave room for all possibilities, I think Occam's razor would slice up the idea that complex designs wouldn't naturally presume a designer. I would suggest that to think otherwise would require a giant leap of faith.

[Oobly]

Alright, I'll put it this way rather: A closed system does not generate new information (although it can lose information), it only has the capacity to rearrange the information it had at the start through processes and laws built into the system (which themselves constitute a form of information).

Proponents of evolution will say that the biological systems in which such information is supposed to be generated are not closed systems and the environmental pressures and complex laws are the driving factor in introducing more information. But the complete biosphere of the earth is an informationally closed system, which implies that the informational content and complexity found in DNA has to have been present in some form in the environment (the biosphere of the earth) or the laws of nature. They're simply shifting the responsibility for the information from one place (information present in biological cells) to another (information present in the environment and the laws of nature). This doesn't in any way explain the origin of the information, merely moves the focus.

From our experience, this type of information always has an intelligent source, so to ascribe this kind of intelligent arrangement of information to some laws of nature and natural processes is a very far stretch (since this level of complexity is not present in any laws we've yet studied). Particularly when every mechanism that is proposed for this that can be tested, has been and the results are not promising. Claims that anagenesis causes speciation over long periods is not supportable due to a number of factors, one being the tendency to approach the genetic mean as mentioned by Phirr, another being the observation of mutation of e.coli bacteria and fruit flies over many generations that shows a tendency to loss of information and any so-called gain through duplication of existing information and "spliced" DNA is detrimental and sometimes fatal. I say so-called because duplication of existing information is not the same as generation of new information.

Software simulations of evolutionary processes are all flawed in that they either have the environment that drives the process contain the target information (such as Dawkins' systems) or contain the information in the formulas and laws used in the process. The end result is that the output contains less information than was put in by the intelligent programmers. It's also worth noting that all such systems require intelligence to create.

Then there is the existence of structures that are irreducibly complex, that cease to function if one component is changed or missing. These thus require all their components to come into being at the same time to create a functional structure. If just one arises through whatever means, it cannot generate a beneficial structure and would thus be eliminated in the evolutionary process of selection. Evolution cannot "see ahead" to the final beneficial structure and thus it wouldn't retain these partial, unbeneficial (and often detrimental) partial structures.

Speciation is a theory with no convincing supporting evidence, whereas design is implied everywhere you look. A particularly good example is the functioning of a cell. There are so many truly complex and amazing interdependent functions going on in a living cell that the probability of such a molecular machine to have come together by natural processes (even very complex ones) is effectively zero. There are very many "chicken or egg" problems, such as that certain proteins are necessary to enable replication of DNA, but that same DNA is necessary for the production of those proteins.

[Oobly]

There is no scientific method for a hypothesis being more likely than a fact.

...

And how do you judge what is a "fact" and what is a "hypothesis"? There are no scientific "facts", only hypotheses with large bodies of supporting evidence. And speciation (what most understand by the term "evolution") is not one of those, since the supporting evidence is very severely lacking (and in some cases actually opposed to it).

Adaptation has evidence and many evolutionists present such as evidence of speciation, claiming all it takes is time for one to become the other, but this is pure speculation and ignores evidence in opposition to it. It doesn't help that they lump both together into the same term. That simply shows their desperation in trying to convince people using testable theories on the one hand to "prove" the other, which is in fact not even directly related, let alone the "same thing". Adaptation uses the information present to adjust to a changing environment, sometimes with some loss of information. While some species can re-adapt back to their original configuration, others can't. An example of this is dog types. You can't breed back to the original wolf-like dog type from only say french bulldogs. The ancestral wolf-like type contained the potential for all the current breeds, but the resultant breeds don't contain the potential for anything but their own breed and some variations thereof. It's possible to breed back to the original genotype, but only by mixing some or all of the extant breeds to reintroduce the missing information.

[tp4tissue]

Alright, I'll put it this way rather: A closed system does not generate new information (although it can lose information), it only has the capacity to rearrange the information it had at the start through processes and laws built into the system (which themselves constitute a form of information).

Proponents of evolution will say that the biological systems in which such information is supposed to be generated are not closed systems and the environmental pressures and complex laws are the driving factor in introducing more information. But the complete biosphere of the earth is an informationally closed system, which implies that the informational content and complexity found in DNA has to have been present in some form in the environment (the biosphere of the earth) or the laws of nature. They're simply shifting the responsibility for the information from one place (information present in biological cells) to another (information present in the environment and the laws of nature). This doesn't in any way explain the origin of the information, merely moves the focus.

From our experience, this type of information always has an intelligent source, so to ascribe this kind of intelligent arrangement of information to some laws of nature and natural processes is a very far stretch (since this level of complexity is not present in any laws we've yet studied). Particularly when every mechanism that is proposed for this that can be tested, has been and the results are not promising. Claims that anagenesis causes speciation over long periods is not supportable due to a number of factors, one being the tendency to approach the genetic mean as mentioned by Phirr, another being the observation of mutation of e.coli bacteria and fruit flies over many generations that shows a tendency to loss of information and any so-called gain through duplication of existing information and "spliced" DNA is detrimental and sometimes fatal. I say so-called because duplication of existing information is not the same as generation of new information.

Software simulations of evolutionary processes are all flawed in that they either have the environment that drives the process contain the target information (such as Dawkins' systems) or contain the information in the formulas and laws used in the process. The end result is that the output contains less information than was put in by the intelligent programmers. It's also worth noting that all such systems require intelligence to create.

Then there is the existence of structures that are irreducibly complex, that cease to function if one component is changed or missing. These thus require all their components to come into being at the same time to create a functional structure. If just one arises through whatever means, it cannot generate a beneficial structure and would thus be eliminated in the evolutionary process of selection. Evolution cannot "see ahead" to the final beneficial structure and thus it wouldn't retain these partial, unbeneficial (and often detrimental) partial structures.

Speciation is a theory with no convincing supporting evidence, whereas design is implied everywhere you look. A particularly good example is the functioning of a cell. There are so many truly complex and amazing interdependent functions going on in a living cell that the probability of such a molecular machine to have come together by natural processes (even very complex ones) is effectively zero. There are very many "chicken or egg" problems, such as that certain proteins are necessary to enable replication of DNA, but that same DNA is necessary for the production of those proteins.

[baldgye]

There is no scientific method for a hypothesis being more likely than a fact.

...

And how do you judge what is a "fact" and what is a "hypothesis"? There are no scientific "facts", only hypotheses with large bodies of supporting evidence. And speciation (what most understand by the term "evolution") is not one of those, since the supporting evidence is very severely lacking (and in some cases actually opposed to it).

Adaptation has evidence and many evolutionists present such as evidence of speciation, claiming all it takes is time for one to become the other, but this is pure speculation and ignores evidence in opposition to it. It doesn't help that they lump both together into the same term. That simply shows their desperation in trying to convince people using testable theories on the one hand to "prove" the other, which is in fact not even directly related, let alone the "same thing". Adaptation uses the information present to adjust to a changing environment, sometimes with some loss of information. While some species can re-adapt back to their original configuration, others can't. An example of this is dog types. You can't breed back to the original wolf-like dog type from only say french bulldogs. The ancestral wolf-like type contained the potential for all the current breeds, but the resultant breeds don't contain the potential for anything but their own breed and some variations thereof. It's possible to breed back to the original genotype, but only by mixing some or all of the extant breeds to reintroduce the missing information.

idk what you've been reading (maybe the same sites which praise the great Kimi?) but there is massive amounts evidence which proves evolution and documents that slow process that took place millions of years ago.

A hypothesis btw is an idea or concept which has no evidence to back it up; like hypothesising that Kimi is a good driver and has had a good season this year.

[henz]

I'm a scientist, sceptic and Christian and believe all three are healthy models for experiencing, and interacting with, the world / universe.

I started to discuss the "science vs faith" issue in the other thread and would like to continue the discussion here.

In essence, I don't think science and faith are at odds at all since science requires faith. And faith can be scientific. I consider my own faith to be evidence-based and would say a lot of other Christians would be able to make the same claim.

I will quote my prior posts:

What is a

"Fact" is always a personal decision, based on evidence.

And:

"Proof" is a loaded version of the word "evidence". There are no proofs in science, just conclusions based on high probability due to a large body of convincing evidence. No scientific hypothesis can ever be "proven", only disproven by presenting evidence which cannot exist if the hypothesis is true. It all comes down to the evidence and always to a personal decision based on that. Every scientific "fact" requires belief. You look at the evidence and decide to believe the hypothesis or not. Even with something as "self-evident" as gravity.

In fact, faith is at the very core of science and the scientific method.

I don't think anyone should (or does) believe anything without evidence. As an example, if your parents tell you something is true, you have the evidence of previous statements by them being shown to match your experience of the world and you trust them. So you believe it. If you're naturally sceptical, like me, you look for evidence from what you experience to corroborate what they've told you. The same goes for any information you are presented with. You judge the source (trustworthy or not), look at the evidence and make a decision (or not, sometimes you judge there to not be enough evidence either way so you withold judgement and in some cases look for more evidence that either corroborates or opposes it).

i want to see the science behind jesus walking on water

[baldgye]

I'm a scientist, sceptic and Christian and believe all three are healthy models for experiencing, and interacting with, the world / universe.

I started to discuss the "science vs faith" issue in the other thread and would like to continue the discussion here.

In essence, I don't think science and faith are at odds at all since science requires faith. And faith can be scientific. I consider my own faith to be evidence-based and would say a lot of other Christians would be able to make the same claim.

I will quote my prior posts:

What is a

"Fact" is always a personal decision, based on evidence.

And:

"Proof" is a loaded version of the word "evidence". There are no proofs in science, just conclusions based on high probability due to a large body of convincing evidence. No scientific hypothesis can ever be "proven", only disproven by presenting evidence which cannot exist if the hypothesis is true. It all comes down to the evidence and always to a personal decision based on that. Every scientific "fact" requires belief. You look at the evidence and decide to believe the hypothesis or not. Even with something as "self-evident" as gravity.

In fact, faith is at the very core of science and the scientific method.

I don't think anyone should (or does) believe anything without evidence. As an example, if your parents tell you something is true, you have the evidence of previous statements by them being shown to match your experience of the world and you trust them. So you believe it. If you're naturally sceptical, like me, you look for evidence from what you experience to corroborate what they've told you. The same goes for any information you are presented with. You judge the source (trustworthy or not), look at the evidence and make a decision (or not, sometimes you judge there to not be enough evidence either way so you withold judgement and in some cases look for more evidence that either corroborates or opposes it).

i want to see the science behind jesus walking on water

it wasn't water, it was custard...

[henz]

I'm a scientist, sceptic and Christian and believe all three are healthy models for experiencing, and interacting with, the world / universe.

I started to discuss the "science vs faith" issue in the other thread and would like to continue the discussion here.

In essence, I don't think science and faith are at odds at all since science requires faith. And faith can be scientific. I consider my own faith to be evidence-based and would say a lot of other Christians would be able to make the same claim.

I will quote my prior posts:

What is a

"Fact" is always a personal decision, based on evidence.

And:

"Proof" is a loaded version of the word "evidence". There are no proofs in science, just conclusions based on high probability due to a large body of convincing evidence. No scientific hypothesis can ever be "proven", only disproven by presenting evidence which cannot exist if the hypothesis is true. It all comes down to the evidence and always to a personal decision based on that. Every scientific "fact" requires belief. You look at the evidence and decide to believe the hypothesis or not. Even with something as "self-evident" as gravity.

In fact, faith is at the very core of science and the scientific method.

I don't think anyone should (or does) believe anything without evidence. As an example, if your parents tell you something is true, you have the evidence of previous statements by them being shown to match your experience of the world and you trust them. So you believe it. If you're naturally sceptical, like me, you look for evidence from what you experience to corroborate what they've told you. The same goes for any information you are presented with. You judge the source (trustworthy or not), look at the evidence and make a decision (or not, sometimes you judge there to not be enough evidence either way so you withold judgement and in some cases look for more evidence that either corroborates or opposes it).

i want to see the science behind jesus walking on water

it wasn't water, it was custard...

that was a nice episode of mythbusters

[Oobly]

I also see that a lot of those who reject Christianity denote the behaviour of others or an organisation as the primary reason. I agree on that point, in that there are many who claim to be Christian and to be acting on behalf of "the Church" who do pretty despicable things. I encourage you to look past these to the central core of what Christianity is, that it's all about a Creator God who wishes interaction with His created people, despite their often terrible behaviour.

And that is really a personal thing. Not the exclusive domain of any "religion" or organisation. If you look at Judaism before Christ, it was all about the law. Follow the law, do the rituals, say the right thing in the right way at the right time in the right place, etc. Don't eat this kind of food, behave like this to these kinds of people, etc. And many of them followed the letter of the law. Christ came to replace the law, not to remove it, but so that people would behave in the spirit of the law instead of just the letter (from Matthew 22:35):

35 One of them, a lawyer [an expert in Mosaic Law], asked Jesus a question, to test Him: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 And Jesus replied to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ 40 The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”

There is also one further important point I wish to make about science and faith, in terms of evidence for God, His nature and His ways. We don't just have a few evidences, but three large bodies of evidence. The first is nature itself, the existence, intelligibility and structure of the universe from the largest cosmological scale to the smallest sub-particular level and everything in between. Then there is our own nature, with creativity, reason, morality, conscience, empathy, sympathy, etc. Then we have the Bible, the collection of written evidence. To claim that someone who believes in God is exercising a "blind" faith is discounting these three (large) bodies of evidence.

In a sense, you could say the "conversion experience" is the testing of the hypothesis based on evidence of God's existence, nature and actions. Thus follows more evidence, more conclusive and convincing than all the circumstantial and written evidence that was used to formulate the personal version of the original hypothesis.

[Oobly]

I'm a scientist, sceptic and Christian and believe all three are healthy models for experiencing, and interacting with, the world / universe.

I started to discuss the "science vs faith" issue in the other thread and would like to continue the discussion here.

In essence, I don't think science and faith are at odds at all since science requires faith. And faith can be scientific. I consider my own faith to be evidence-based and would say a lot of other Christians would be able to make the same claim.

I will quote my prior posts:

What is a

"Fact" is always a personal decision, based on evidence.

And:

"Proof" is a loaded version of the word "evidence". There are no proofs in science, just conclusions based on high probability due to a large body of convincing evidence. No scientific hypothesis can ever be "proven", only disproven by presenting evidence which cannot exist if the hypothesis is true. It all comes down to the evidence and always to a personal decision based on that. Every scientific "fact" requires belief. You look at the evidence and decide to believe the hypothesis or not. Even with something as "self-evident" as gravity.

In fact, faith is at the very core of science and the scientific method.

I don't think anyone should (or does) believe anything without evidence. As an example, if your parents tell you something is true, you have the evidence of previous statements by them being shown to match your experience of the world and you trust them. So you believe it. If you're naturally sceptical, like me, you look for evidence from what you experience to corroborate what they've told you. The same goes for any information you are presented with. You judge the source (trustworthy or not), look at the evidence and make a decision (or not, sometimes you judge there to not be enough evidence either way so you withold judgement and in some cases look for more evidence that either corroborates or opposes it).

i want to see the science behind jesus walking on water

Aha.. Miracles!

Another very interesting topic. If you accept that the Creator is outside of and greater than the extant universe, it's highly likey He can directly influence anything in it and is not limited by the laws and materials, etc that He has caused to come into existence.

Miracles are an indicator of the deity of Christ. The fact that He is greater than creation. The whole point of them is not to be explicable by science, but to be an exception to the generally accepted laws and rules that we observe. That's how you recognise them, by their specific exceptionality, as being acts of God, one who is not limited by His creation, but greater than it.

If a miracle were simply explainable by science they become tricks, deceptions, not pointers to God's identity as the one being who is not limited.

[Oobly]

....
idk what you've been reading (maybe the same sites which praise the great Kimi?) but there is massive amounts evidence which proves evolution and documents that slow process that took place millions of years ago.

A hypothesis btw is an idea or concept which has no evidence to back it up; like hypothesising that Kimi is a good driver and has had a good season this year.

Like what? Please point me to this "massive anounts of evidence" or a document that "proves" speciation.

Nope. A hypothesis is equivalent to a theory, usually one that can be tested and it remains a hypothesis unless disproven. It can never be proven, only supported by evidence.

And "Kimi is a good driver" is not synonymous with "has had a good season this year". They are independent since the latter is contingent on other parties and not directly derivable from the former, but that's off-topic for this thread.

[baldgye]

....
idk what you've been reading (maybe the same sites which praise the great Kimi?) but there is massive amounts evidence which proves evolution and documents that slow process that took place millions of years ago.

A hypothesis btw is an idea or concept which has no evidence to back it up; like hypothesising that Kimi is a good driver and has had a good season this year.

Like what? Please point me to this "massive anounts of evidence" or a document that "proves" speciation.

Nope. A hypothesis is equivalent to a theory, usually one that can be tested and it remains a hypothesis unless disproven. It can never be proven, only supported by evidence.

And "Kimi is a good driver" is not synonymous with "has had a good season this year". They are independent since the latter is contingent on other parties and not directly derivable from the former, but that's off-topic for this thread.

I'm at work so I can't link EVERY example but here is a good recent one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahelanthropus

it dosn't take too much googling... and #Kimisucks
I'm keeping this chat non-serious and light hearted because it's pointless to try and do anything else with a person who believes in the nonsense of a silly book and in miracles yet still talks about 'scientific theory'

[Oobly]

....
idk what you've been reading (maybe the same sites which praise the great Kimi?) but there is massive amounts evidence which proves evolution and documents that slow process that took place millions of years ago.

A hypothesis btw is an idea or concept which has no evidence to back it up; like hypothesising that Kimi is a good driver and has had a good season this year.

Like what? Please point me to this "massive anounts of evidence" or a document that "proves" speciation.

Nope. A hypothesis is equivalent to a theory, usually one that can be tested and it remains a hypothesis unless disproven. It can never be proven, only supported by evidence.

And "Kimi is a good driver" is not synonymous with "has had a good season this year". They are independent since the latter is contingent on other parties and not directly derivable from the former, but that's off-topic for this thread.

I'm at work so I can't link EVERY example but here is a good recent one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahelanthropus

it dosn't take too much googling... and #Kimisucks
I'm keeping this chat non-serious and light hearted because it's pointless to try and do anything else with a person who believes in the nonsense of a silly book and in miracles yet still talks about 'scientific theory'

The crushed skull of an ape is not very convincing evidence that one species has become another. In fact it's not hard to classify most "transitional hominid" skull finds into four categories: 1. hoaxes, 2. apes, 3. homo sapiens with one or other disease / disability, 4. completely misidentified remains (other animals or combining remains from more than one skeleton into a single creature). There are some that bear further investigation, but the whole "history of man" built up around the few supposed ape-men skulls and skeletons found is rather preposterous and based primarily on wishful thinking. They (evolutionist paleontologists) have their theory they're trying desperately to support because the alternative is unthinkable, to allow the possibility of the existence of God is anathema to so many of them, this will of course lead to exaggerated claims on certain of their finds.

One of the unfortunate direct results of a belief in evolution vs creation is the downgrading of the status of human beings from "a little lower than the angels", "crowned with glory and honour" and "created in His own image" to "a more evolved animal, but still just an animal". This is not just a scientific classification, but a very powerful philosophical one that paints the path for supporting absolutely horrific behaviour, such as the holocaust. It places our existence firmly in the sole realm of the physical, with no allowance or space for any form of abstract conciousness or "soul" aside from an emergent phenomena of the physical brain, without any plausible theory of how this could even come about.

This brings up another interesting point, concious self-awareness and the limitations of a purely physical "neural network", but I don't have time right now to expand on that. I leave it for a future post.

[baldgye]

One of the unfortunate direct results of a belief in evolution vs creation is the downgrading of the status of human beings from "a little lower than the angels", "crowned with glory and honour" and "created in His own image" to "a more evolved animal, but still just an animal". This is not just a scientific classification, but a very powerful philosophical one that paints the path for supporting absolutely horrific behaviour, such as the holocaust. It places our existence firmly in the sole realm of the physical, with no allowance or space for any form of abstract conciousness or "soul" aside from an emergent phenomena of the physical brain, without any plausible theory of how this could even come about.

This made me laugh a lot, cheers m8 lmao

[kurplop]

This made me laugh a lot, cheers m8 lmao

Most people who know me, think that I have a good sense of humor, but I must have missed the joke. What did you find funny in that statement?

[baldgye]

This made me laugh a lot, cheers m8 lmao

Most people who know me, think that I have a good sense of humor, but I must have missed the joke. What did you find funny in that statement?

It was the sincerity of the post mostly )

[kurplop]

It is a pretty rare commodity these days , isn't it?

[baldgye]

It is a pretty rare commodity these days , isn't it?

I mean, I opened my original post here with

• I don't hate Christians, I pity you
  

To then talk about 'downgrading' humans to being simply animals and talking about the 'soul' of a person is pretty funny, least to me anyway )

[kurplop]

Thanks for the clarification. On a serious note; why do you pity Christians? Speaking from personal experience, my faith has enriched my life. I admit that there is a comfort in believing that there is a purpose in all of this. When I first believed 42 years ago, I'm 61 now, my belief was partly prompted by emotion and partly from reasoning. Over the years I've questioned many things about my faith. I am a natural skeptic. People speak of seeking the truth and those words ring true to me. Sometimes it's creates an uneasiness, letting your belief system be vulnerable to inquiry but veracity demands it. Most of what I've chosen to read the last few decades is opposing positions. I already know what my position is. I want to hear the best counter arguments available. If my ideas are wrong, it may be unsettling but I really want to know it. So far, while my ideas are better developed, they have essentially remained the same.

For me, this thread is a window to a world of ideas I may have not yet been exposed to and I hope to learn from others here. That's why I hope that we can approach this with not only fun and humor but a spirit of honest inquiry.

[baldgye]

Thanks for the clarification. On a serious note; why do you pity Christians? Speaking from personal experience, my faith has enriched my life. I admit that there is a comfort in believing that there is a purpose in all of this. When I first believed 42 years ago, I'm 61 now, my belief was partly prompted by emotion and partly from reasoning. Over the years I've questioned many things about my faith. I am a natural skeptic. People speak of seeking the truth and those words ring true to me. Sometimes it's creates an uneasiness, letting your belief system be vulnerable to inquiry but veracity demands it. Most of what I've chosen to read the last few decades is opposing positions. I already know what my position is. I want to hear the best counter arguments available. If my ideas are wrong, it may be unsettling but I really want to know it. So far, while my ideas are better developed, they have essentially remained the same.

For me, this thread is a window to a world of ideas I may have not yet been exposed to and I hope to learn from others here. That's why I hope that we can approach this with not only fun and humor but a spirit of honest inquiry.

I pity the weakness of people needing to have something to believe happens after you die, or that there is a reason for all the ****ty things in the world and that at least something is out there looking out for you.
Or in other cases I pity your upbringing if you where indoctrinated in childhood.

I have no problem chatting about it (as should be clear) but I've also come to realise that most people can't handle how things are (or as far as we understand them) so 'debating' it is often a waste of time and energy, which is why I keep poking fun at Ooobly and his prior support for am F1 driver I consider to be terrible.

Religion is a coping mechanism born in prehistoric man to deal with concepts like mortality and causality, as our Welsh ambassador has pointed out it's been a brilliant tool to help our social evolution, but the time has come to move on. You invisible childhood friend never really existed and we've binned your comfort blanket.

[kurplop]

I often hear warnings from people that they shouldn't indoctrinate their children. They should be allowed to fill their own blank slate as their personal experiences dictate. I hear that all the time  and yet I've rarely seen it practiced, and then it was in cases of neglect or abandonment. A parent can't help but indoctrinate their offspring, at least if they are present in their children's lives. I chose to offer my daughters the best guidance I could and without regret. I think any responsible parent would.

Religion is a coping mechanism born in prehistoric man to deal with concepts like mortality and causality, as our Welsh ambassador has pointed out it's been a brilliant tool to help our social evolution, but the time has come to move on. You invisible childhood friend never really existed and we've binned your comfort blanket.

What evidence do you have to support that?   The almost universality of man's quest for something greater out there suggests the opposite.  A man experiences hunger because his body is made to function on the assimilation of food. I think it could logically follow that man's almost universal hunger for something greater outside this world is reasonable evidence that it likely exists. 

All of the talk of God being a crutch becomes irrelevant if God really exists.
 

[fohat.digs]

"chicken or egg" problems

I am going to mostly stay out of this thread, because is becoming more bickering than substance, but here is an amusing example.

For a creationist, the chicken obviously came first because the birds were created on the same day, and the first egg would not have been laid for days later.

With speciation, there would be one specific final characteristic that determines "chicken-hood" and at some point there were 2 parent birds, non-chickens but very close proto-chickens, that produced an egg which contained an embryo with a mutation that gave it true "chicken-ness" so clearly the egg came first.

[baldgye]

I often hear warnings from people that they shouldn't indoctrinate their children. They should be allowed to fill their own blank slate as their personal experiences dictate. I hear that all the time  and yet I've rarely seen it practiced, and then it was in cases of neglect or abandonment. A parent can't help but indoctrinate their offspring, at least if they are present in their children's lives. I chose to offer my daughters the best guidance I could and without regret. I think any responsible parent would.

Religion is a coping mechanism born in prehistoric man to deal with concepts like mortality and causality, as our Welsh ambassador has pointed out it's been a brilliant tool to help our social evolution, but the time has come to move on. You invisible childhood friend never really existed and we've binned your comfort blanket.

What evidence do you have to support that?   The almost universality of man's quest for something greater out there suggests the opposite.  A man experiences hunger because his body is made to function on the assimilation of food. I think it could logically follow that man's almost universal hunger for something greater outside this world is reasonable evidence that it likely exists. 

All of the talk of God being a crutch becomes irrelevant if God really exists.
 

But by your logic your stomach would decide it was full... simply making things up and saying your looking for a deeper meaning is disingenuous, and your metaphor describes the exact reason science exists....

[henz]

"chicken or egg" problems

I am going to mostly stay out of this thread, because is becoming more bickering than substance, but here is an amusing example.

For a creationist, the chicken obviously came first because the birds were created on the same day, and the first egg would not have been laid for days later.

With speciation, there would be one specific final characteristic that determines "chicken-hood" and at some point there were 2 parent birds, non-chickens but very close proto-chickens, that produced an egg which contained an embryo with a mutation that gave it true "chicken-ness" so clearly the egg came first.

Dont forget all the inbreed this would have lead to

[Oobly]

I admit I do take great comfort from my conviction that I cannot be separated from God and will live on after my physical body dies, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a weakness.

In fact it could be argued that it takes more strength to stick with your convictions in a world largely redolent with scientific naturalism and not to "give in" and go with the flow. However, my reasons for doing so are based on both intellectual reason and very strong personal evidence from my own life experience.

Let's do a little thought experiment and say that you had the experience of making contact with God in such a way that it's unequivocably really Him. So for you, God not only exists, but is in communication with you. How could that not rearrange your worldview?

What I'd like to know is how exactly you have personally ruled out the possibility of the existence of God? What was it that made you think He couldn't possibly exist?

"chicken or egg" problems

I am going to mostly stay out of this thread, because is becoming more bickering than substance, but here is an amusing example.

For a creationist, the chicken obviously came first because the birds were created on the same day, and the first egg would not have been laid for days later.

With speciation, there would be one specific final characteristic that determines "chicken-hood" and at some point there were 2 parent birds, non-chickens but very close proto-chickens, that produced an egg which contained an embryo with a mutation that gave it true "chicken-ness" so clearly the egg came first.

I agree, that's a logical and well reasoned argument for the chickening coming first.. but it still came from an egg, albeit not a chicken egg If you support the idea that birds evolved from reptiles that is.

Anyhow, I was referring to that type of conundrum, not specifically that one.

[Parak]

While I can follow your arguments Oobly, I still posit two overarching problems that are not specifically yet addressed:

1. The arguments tend to lean towards a 'God of the Gaps' type of reasoning that I've already mentioned. Interestingly, while science is now used as the primary (and I dare say only possible) means of describing the universe around us, the counterpoints to science made here so far appear to be done... using science. Which is of course how science is supposed to work. However, religions have twiddled their thumbs for millennia, secure in their beliefs. When science started to produce vast quantities of material indicating that some of those deeply rooted beliefs are either misguided at best and blatantly wrong at the worst, there is now this scramble to find these gaps in science as last bastions of faith and proof for a deity of some sort.

Inevitably upon gaining enough scientific knowledge to see some type of a gap in our collective understanding, one points at it as conclusive proof and leans back in contentment that their work is done. This is much easier to do so, of course, than to spend your entire life in academia looking for alternative explanations (which may be much more difficult to comprehend), as science has done over past few centuries. I find this kind of process just a bit disingenuous.

As a side note, it is extremely hard for the human brain to process phenomena that occur in geologic time scale. Millions and billions of years are quite hard to visualize. I do wonder if you accept for example that the solar system formed over a significant time span, and that the various chemical elements on Earth are a result of them being seeded by early cosmic processes.

2. Supposing even just for a second that said gaps are in fact indications of some sort of intelligent tampering, I fail to see how it logically follows that this is proof of a God. Leaving even the arguments of 'which God' also aside, a God is an extremely loaded concept to insert into such a gap, with a lot of excess baggage. Does it really have to be, for example (apologies if too extreme) "we don't know exactly how abiogenesis happened, therefore every word in the Bible is literally true and you will burn in hell for not believing"?

[fohat.digs]

What I'd like to know is how exactly you have personally ruled out the possibility of the existence of God?

I have not ruled out the possibility of God's existence by any means.

I see it much the same way as I do UFOs. I think that the universe is so vast that there must be intelligent life elsewhere, perhaps even some so much farther advanced than us that *they* would appear to be gods themselves. But if UFOs had visited Earth, and in particular if they had any desire to communicate with us, I feel certain that there would be plenty of evidence to show for it.

And in my opinion, the Hebrew Bible is hardly more reliable than the self-reports of random humans getting medical probings in the desert at night.

As I have said elsewhere, my respect for Jesus and his teachings is immense, and I consider him to be one of the greatest and most beautiful minds that the human race has ever produced, in spite of the fact that he lived in a primitive time where supernatural beings were deemed intellectually acceptable.

But what I am sick and tired of is people using what they "believe" to browbeat other people who do not share those beliefs.

If anyone ever showed me even a tiny shred of evidence for the existence of the Hebrew God, I would take it very seriously and might adjust my opinions accordingly.

[Oobly]

While I can follow your arguments Oobly, I still posit two overarching problems that are not specifically yet addressed:

1. The arguments tend to lean towards a 'God of the Gaps' type of reasoning that I've already mentioned. Interestingly, while science is now used as the primary (and I dare say only possible) means of describing the universe around us, the counterpoints to science made here so far appear to be done... using science. Which is of course how science is supposed to work. However, religions have twiddled their thumbs for millennia, secure in their beliefs. When science started to produce vast quantities of material indicating that some of those deeply rooted beliefs are either misguided at best and blatantly wrong at the worst, there is now this scramble to find these gaps in science as last bastions of faith and proof for a deity of some sort.

Inevitably upon gaining enough scientific knowledge to see some type of a gap in our collective understanding, one points at it as conclusive proof and leans back in contentment that their work is done. This is much easier to do so, of course, than to spend your entire life in academia looking for alternative explanations (which may be much more difficult to comprehend), as science has done over past few centuries. I find this kind of process just a bit disingenuous.

As a side note, it is extremely hard for the human brain to process phenomena that occur in geologic time scale. Millions and billions of years are quite hard to visualize. I do wonder if you accept for example that the solar system formed over a significant time span, and that the various chemical elements on Earth are a result of them being seeded by early cosmic processes.

2. Supposing even just for a second that said gaps are in fact indications of some sort of intelligent tampering, I fail to see how it logically follows that this is proof of a God. Leaving even the arguments of 'which God' also aside, a God is an extremely loaded concept to insert into such a gap, with a lot of excess baggage. Does it really have to be, for example (apologies if too extreme) "we don't know exactly how abiogenesis happened, therefore every word in the Bible is literally true and you will burn in hell for not believing"?

I believe I stated in an earlier post that science and faith are not in opposition and in fact are to some degree interdependent. You cannot have science without faith, since it's required for making the step from gathering evidence supporting a hypothesis, to accepting it as true in the general case. I am certainly not postulating a "god of the gaps". I could easily turn the argument around and accuse Dawkins et al of postulating an "evolution of the gaps". I am inferring to the best explanation, which happens to be a Creator. I do not claim "God did it" for each and every failing of science to render a clear picture of the universe, in fact I trust that science shows an ever more detailed picture of the amazing work of the Creator.

What I am saying, though, is that it's reasonable for an individual with an interest in science and a good head on their shoulders to believe in God. It is by no means an intellectual dead end. In fact, it opens up even more possibilities and makes of science an even more meaningful pastime in the pursuit of further truth. I don't find it surprising that many of the greatest scientists in history believed / believe in God: Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Planck, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, etc. When you have a worldview that explains the reason for being able to make sense of the universe it gives a good foundation for trying to do just that.

If you hold to the current theories of stellar evolution, then yes, all dense elements were supposedly created through cycles of stellar birth and death with light elements initially created by the big bang. I don't claim to be an expert in cosmology or the life cycles of stars, but I do know there are some severe problems with the current theories. Either way, I don't have any fundamental problem with that.

I do believe that the universe had a beginning in the process that's colloqially called the "big bang", but in my view it was more of a big stretch (which better explains the vortex-like nature of galaxies). Interesting that the cosmic background radiation points to an increasing expansion rate. This means the ancient Greek cyclic philosophy is incorrect and there really was a beginning and will be an end. It also means that uniformity theory goes out the window.

...

But what I am sick and tired of is people using what they "believe" to browbeat other people who do not share those beliefs.

If anyone ever showed me even a tiny shred of evidence for the existence of the Hebrew God, I would take it very seriously and might adjust my opinions accordingly.

I agree with this view completely, which is why I get rather upset with people like Dawkins who push their beliefs with such passion, and rail against belief in God so furiously. He and others like him give atheism a bad name, when in fact they practice a form of anti-theism instead.

There is, however, one point in favour of Christians sharing their belief and it's best illustrated by putting yourself in their shoes. If you had a revelation of experiencing interaction with the Creator, wouldn't you feel it worth the ire of others to at least try to tell them about it? Or would your conscience let you leave them in their ignorance through politeness?

There is already a large body of evidence for the existence of God, as I said before. The universe itself speaks of Him through its rationality, fine tuning, beauty and more, we have written testimony and witness and we have the existence of self awareness, conciousness, creativity, morals and love in our own natures. This is meant to be enough to take the next step yourself.

[fohat.digs]

There is already a large body of evidence for the existence of God,

So where is it? All I asked for was a tiny scrap of evidence.

I am not interested in psycho-blather.

Dawkins is rational and compelling, unsubstantiated belief in the supernatural is not.

[baldgye]

One thing that often gets missed is the agenda that organised religions have. They want and need your devotion in order for them to continue to exist. Science has no such agenda and is only interested in the truth.

[HoffmanMyster]

One thing that often gets missed is the agenda that organised religions have. They want and need your devotion in order for them to continue to exist. Science has no such agenda and is only interested in the truth.

Hmm, I'm not convinced it's so clear cut.  I think that you're absolutely correct about organised religion, but there are many instances of what I would call "organised science" having money and greed as a higher interest than knowledge.  Heck, even just look at the guy who published the article about vaccinations and all that; there's plenty of money floating around the science world, though I can't comment on the severity - it may be nowhere near the same order of magnitude.  But I think it's there to some degree, and shouldn't be ignored.

[tp4tissue]

One thing that often gets missed is the agenda that organised religions have. They want and need your devotion in order for them to continue to exist. Science has no such agenda and is only interested in the truth.

Science has as many agendas as Religion..

The difference is,  Science leads to far more productive outcomes, most of which TANGIBLE..


Religion at the highest level is an attitude of looking up, and realizing that there is no disconnect between man and his external environment, that our perception of the world is an incomplete representation.


Does it really matter what name we put at the top to describe this concept, jesus, god, meat-ball, etc? You can choose that for yourself once old enough..

[fohat.digs]

Heck, even just look at the guy who published the article about vaccinations

The vaccination hoax is pure anti-science. That has been proven time and again, most recently in front of a Congressional committee when one of its leading proponents admitted under oath that there was no evidence whatsoever that any vaccination ever did the harm that they were trying to describe.

"Science" (whatever that social body might represent) is always desperate to find any available penny to fund real research and I doubt that anyone serious about it would squander money on false propaganda. "Science" (whoever that is) has never had any agenda except for the search for truth.

Please present the evidence for your "organized science" disinformation - that is one of the most preposterous things I have ever heard!

Now if you are talking about "junk science" funded by people like the Koch brothers and other climate deniers, that is "organized anti-science" in my book.

[tp4tissue]

Heck, even just look at the guy who published the article about vaccinations

The vaccination hoax is pure anti-science. That has been proven time and again, most recently in front of a Congressional committee when one of its leading proponents admitted under oath that there was no evidence whatsoever that any vaccination ever did the harm that they were trying to describe.

"Science" (whatever that social body might represent) is always desperate to find any available penny to fund real research and I doubt that anyone serious about it would squander money on false propaganda. "Science" (whoever that is) has never had any agenda except for the search for truth.

Please present the evidence for your "organized science" disinformation - that is one of the most preposterous things I have ever heard!

Now if you are talking about "junk science" funded by people like the Koch brothers and other climate deniers, that is "organized anti-science" in my book.

You're going into word play here..

OK, it's all well, that Fohat.dig'z definition of science is proper and fine..

But, Science means different things to _differently_motivated_  people..


There's the Science of scamming people (marketing),  there's the science of how to manipulate people's will (marketing),

[HoffmanMyster]

Heck, even just look at the guy who published the article about vaccinations

The vaccination hoax is pure anti-science. That has been proven time and again, most recently in front of a Congressional committee when one of its leading proponents admitted under oath that there was no evidence whatsoever that any vaccination ever did the harm that they were trying to describe.

"Science" (whatever that social body might represent) is always desperate to find any available penny to fund real research and I doubt that anyone serious about it would squander money on false propaganda. "Science" (whoever that is) has never had any agenda except for the search for truth.

Please present the evidence for your "organized science" disinformation - that is one of the most preposterous things I have ever heard!

Now if you are talking about "junk science" funded by people like the Koch brothers and other climate deniers, that is "organized anti-science" in my book.

-_-

You've simply altered the definition of 'science' to disprove my point.  What you're calling "junk science" is exactly what I'm referring to when I say "organised science".  I AM NOT at all saying that we should not trust real academic research, or anything of the sort.  I'm also not suggesting that they're even remotely comparable in terms of the scope to which they have or have not affected the world negatively.  Notice how careful I was to add the disclaimer about severity?

I'm simply saying that both "organised science" and "organised religion" can do terrible things under the proper conditions.

By your point, the "organised religion" that baldgye and others are referring to could simply be called "anti-religion" (the Crusades were 'anti-religion', for example) and oh look at that I've just won the argument as you did.    But we haven't really accomplished much through this exercise, have we...