Faith

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So I can't see justifying believeing in something because it is more likely to produce a certain result more than another thing. Because if it has odds that the results will change, then it will change, no matter the odds. Thats my personal observation.

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OK, Riverrat.Go to the nearest highway overpass, and dive off head first.The odds are very good, although not 100%, that you will hit the pavement, crush your skull, and die.If "the results will change, no matter what the odds," then you must therefore believe that your odds of floating down to the ground unharmed are just the same as hitting the ground and dying.What kind of silliness is that?

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That is a completely irrelevant comparison, for which you are now famous for. It means nothing and is the rantings of a lunatic.

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Your kind of reasoning is beyond baloney.

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How interesting it is to watch someone who must resort to peresonal attack instead of systematically explaining their position.

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I guess to you that Halle Berry and Oprah Winphrey are both likely to produce the same results because they are both girls.

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According to you, that is true.You said: YOU said that NO MATTER THE ODDS, IT WILL CHANGE.YOU said that.Don't blame me if you don't make sense to yourself.

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What is it you are trying to say? Because I can eat clams, does it mean I will never get a bad one?

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No.According to what YOU said: To use YOUR logic:

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You cannot predict the odds of certain things, and comparing what I'm saying to jumping off a bridge, is like comparing a spec to the universe.

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But I CAN predict with very high accuracy that your skull would be very likely to hit the pavement and be crushed, killing you, if you were to dive headfirst off of a highway overpass.YOU are the one claiming that: All we have to do is plug my scenario into your statement to see how absurd it is:If you don't believe that jumping headfirst off of a highway overpass is more likely to produce the result of your death through the crushing of your skull than you floating, unharmed, to the ground, then you are holding a foolish, outrageous belief.If you think I have misinterpreted your reasoning, please explain how.

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Be real, say something relevant. Your trying to make science look good by comparing the odds of jumping off a bridge with the odds of something catacylismic happening to the earth,

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Nope, I'm not comparing any such thing.I am taking your statement to it's logical conclusion.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-01-2004 08:55 PMThis message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-01-2004 09:46 PM

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Which means.....Ta DA! Nothing.

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It is actually a direct refutation of your statement that claimed:So I can't see justifying believeing in something because it is more likely to produce a certain result more than another thing. Because if it has odds that the results will change,then it will change, no matter the odds. Thats my personal observation.So, you must not believe that it is justified to believe that it is more likely that you will crush your skull on the pavement after diving off of a highway overpass than any other thing happening.The odds are very slight that something else might happen, but according to you, then the results will change, no matter the odds.Why do you refuse to let go of this illogical view of yours? Pride?

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You just don't get it.

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Yeah, and I hope I never catch it.

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So your odds of me crushing my skull turn out to be not something that you really can predict with any degree of accuracy at all. I also believe that odds are person specific. You might say, since 1,000,000 people have jumped off bridges and 900,000 have crushed their skulls, that you have a 90% chance of crushing your skull. This observation is completely inaccurate. We can only say that 90% of the people who have jumped already have crushed their skulls, but to say that it would happen to me, would be guessing. To have FAITH that it would happen to me, would be IMO wrong. Maybe God doesn't want me to die yet, so I actually have 0% chance of crushing my skull, can you prove me wrong?

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I am quite comfortable thinking that the probability is high that you would crush your skull if you dove head first off of a highway overpass.If you hold to your original claim that because the odds are not 100% that this would happen that ANYTHING that could happen is going to happen REGARDLESS OF THE ODDS, then why don't you do the deed and see what happens?Isn't the reason you DON'T dive head first off of a highway overpass because you also consider it likely that you would crush your skull on the pavement and die?Do you or don't you believe that this is an extremely likely outcome?

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What we can say with 100% acurracy is that if gravity is in effect,

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No we can't.We can say this with strong confidence that approaches 100%, but since we are not omnicient, we could be wrong that gravity is in effect. There could be another force that we don't know about which is affecting us that we haven't found yet, or may never find.

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This is a scientific theory that I could accept. What are the odds that this would change, I think just about 0%.

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Yep, the odds that this will change are just about zero percent, but the tenets of science do not allow us to say that we know anything at all at 100% accuracy.Besides, you do know that there are several various competing theories of gravity, don't you, and that we don't really understand how it works very well?

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But if there is an odd that could change it, then it would indeed change one day. So, I am not going to let that be my God

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Good, neither am I.

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So if you can't admitt that there is an ELEMENT of faith to believe in science

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Is there an element of faith in statistics, riverrat?Is there an element of faith in probability figures?Is there an element of faith in mathematics?

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Since your so smart, do I really need to explain the difference between the odds of something, and the idea of jumping off a bridge?

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No. It seems you are having a very difficult time following an analogy. I really, at this point, am begining to wonder if you even understand what an analogy is.This is what you said:

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So I can't see justifying believeing in something because it is more likely to produce a certain result more than another thing. Because if it has odds that the results will change,then it will change, no matter the odds. Thats my personal observation.

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How do you justify believing that you won't be killed by a ten ton boulder falling from the sky the moment you walk out of the front door?After all, didn't you say that it is not justified to believe in something just because it is likely to produce a certain outcome?

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The 2 are completely different, yet you still think that they have something to do with each other, for which you are famous for.

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It's called an A-N-A-L-O-G-Y.It is a hypotheticall exapmple which illustrates your statement taken through to it's logical conclusion.

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I wouldn't jump off that bridge if the odds were 1% that I would crush my skull. I don't play games with my life, which has nothing to do with discussing odds.

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LOLOLOL!!!That's what a "game" like this would be about! Probability, odds, and your "chances" of surviving or not.You just contradicted yourself, anyway.You just said that you wouldn't jump off the overpass even if your chances of dying were only 1%, but all along we have been discussing your statement:

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So I can't see justifying believeing in something because it is more likely to produce a certain result more than another thing. Because if it has odds that the results will change,then it will change, no matter the odds. Thats my personal observation.

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So, according to you, the outcome of something happening, no matter the odds, will be different than what is likely to happen.So why do you hesitate diving off that overpass, if the outcome will be different than you dying, no matter the odds?Why bring up your 1% if the odds don't matter?

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No, I don't. Like I said the odds for me personally might be 0%. The only way to find out is to jump. So we won't find out my odds. This is what I'm telling you.

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Upon what data do you base your idea that your odds are going to be different than anyone else's?

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This is why odds are sometimes not good scientific data, or a reason to believe in one thing or another.

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Um, all of science operates by using statistical analysis of data.All of it. Including Astronomy, the branch of science you claim to be able to contribute to.

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Thats why I said if no outside forces get involved.

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Please complete this sentence fragment.I have no idea what you are trying to say.

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Yes I do, because we don't know the exact weight of planet earth, we cannot nail down the gravitational constant.

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That is incorrect.Any Gravitational theory could handle diffent mass measurements for the Earth. The problems are with the theories themselves.The theories try to explain how and why gravity works and how it related to the other physical forces. The versions we have are diffenent becausse there are some serious gaps in our understanding of these things.Then why do you say that you could accept Gravitational Theory, and not Evolutionary Theory, even though we don't know much about Gravity, and there isn't even consensus on a single theory of Gravity? By contrast, we understand a great deal about how evolution works, there is an overarching Biological theory of Evolution which incorporates and unifies many disciplines and fields in the life sciences.

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Since statistics are taken by and recorded by man, oh yea.

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You do understand that by "statistics" I am talking about the kind of statistical analysis that scientists do to interpret the data they gather in experiments.Can you show me an example of religious-type faith from any statistics textbook?An example from any math textbook would be OK, too.

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You see all those people fleeing Florida because of a probabilty forcast? No thats faith.

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What?I don't need faith to know that a hurricane is extremely likely to hit Florida. I can see it. I can see the direction is moving.No faith needed when there is physical evidence.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-05-2004 10:36 AM

Riverrat, are the two concepts below exactly and precisely the same?"faith in the unseen""trust from observation and experience"

Riverrat, it would be much easier to follow the conversation if you would include the relevant parts of the messages you were responding to so the reader wouldn't have to go back and forth to see what was said.

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I don't see that.

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How involved in the professional scientific world are you?

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I don't think that it its clear. I see the passion that people belive in science and all its predicted outcomes. People in here even devote their lives to studying it. People in here, whether they would admit it or not would use certain aspects of science to not believe in God.

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...and that would be their personal choice, just like it is your personal choice to reject science because of your religious views.What you have continued to claim without basis is that the professional scientific community is using religious-type faith in some way in their professioal scientific work.

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They have faith even if they think they don't.

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You don't have faith even though you think you do.

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Just because they wouldn't admit it, doen't mean they don't have faith.

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Just because you won't stop fooling yourself, doesn't mean you really do have faith.

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Many people are trying to prove to me all these things are so close to being 100% that we should believe in them.

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No.All these things which are very well supported by evidence are to be trusted, because it would be perverse and unreasonable to not give them provisional acceptance.Just as it is perverse and unreasonable to not provisionally accept that the Earth is round, it is unreasonable and perverse to not provisionally accept that alelle frequesncies in populations change over time.

Yeah, I'm that optimistic.Or I'm a bulldog.One or the other.

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Because if I jump off a bridge I fall.

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That is the EFFECT of gravity.That is not gravitation THEORY.The several competing THEORIES of gravity are filled with gaps and holes because we do not really understand gravity very well, but yet you accept it?We understand Evolutionary theory very well, but you reject that theory.If you want to reject it on religious grounds, fine, but so far you refuse to do so. Somehowe, you think that evolutionary theory is not good science, and so you reject it, even though it is much better supported and understood than any of the various theories of gravity.

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Now please, mutate yourself into a whale, so I can see evolution at work.

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Do you think that completely misrepresenting evolutionary theory is supposed to make some kind of impressive point?It is only making you look foolish and childish.Nowhere in evolutionary theory is it predicted that I can "mutate into a whale".Evolution is the accumulation of changes of allele frequencies in populations over time.Do you deny that this happens?

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What makes one weeks lotto have winners of several, and the next weeks not have any? It cannot be explained by odds.

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It is ENTIRELY explained by odds, riverrat!!!The site below is a listing of software packages which can calculate the odds of various games of chance:Formula Software for Statistics Mathematics Probability

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There are 5 very different words there.
Whats your point?

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You know what the point is, stop being coy.Answer the question, please.

I guess God told you I was a lesbian before, eh riverrat?

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Right, the fact that we fall is cleary obvious that gravity exists under certain conditions. Doesn't matter what the theory says.

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NO. The fact that we fall is only an observation. The theory behind this falling, that it is a side effect of a force that not only makes us fall off of bridges but also holds planets in orbit and influences the evolution of stars, is not apparent at all, and it took great minds, starting with Newton and continuing to the present day, to start to make sense of all of this. The fact that we can simply call falling "gravity" is our privilege of growing up in a time when great minds have started to figure this out for us.

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Why not? you seem to think if I jump off a bridge, that all of science is correct. I was trying to relate to you on your level of thinking.

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Riverrat, I want you to STOP repeating this false representation of what I am saying.Since you seem to want to be beaten over the head with your own statements:

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So I can't see justifying believeing in something because it is more likely to produce a certain result more than another thing. Because if it has odds that the results will change,then it will change, no matter the odds. Thats my personal observation.

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Do you want to change this statement in any way, or retract it? Because, as it's written, it is ridiculous and nonsensical.

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Of course it is. You just can't prove that.

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No, it isn't, and yes, I can provide evidence of my claim.That you think it is constitutes example #295 that you don't understand evolutionary theory.1) Any mutations manifested in me as an individual are already fixed in my genome.2) Evolution is the change in the alelle frequencies in populations of organisms over generations. You know, that whole reproduction and selection thing.3) Just to be clear, evolution doesn't happen to individuals. Evolution happens in populations. Got it?That is what evolution proposes. The false cartoon of Evolutionary Biology you draw is much like a bad sequel to "The Fly".

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If we were in full control of evolution, it would be possible. The fact that you think its not, could mean that evolution doesn't actually exist.

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No, the fact that I think it's not is because I understand how evolution works and you don't.

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We could theortically mutate you into a whale, over time given the right natural selections. Why do you think you can't? Your the evolutionist.

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No, individuals DO NOT EVOLVE, populations do.

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I do not know enough about it, to give a qualified answer.

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Then you have no comprehention of the most basic, simple mechanisms involved in Evolutionary Theory.I find it telling and unfortunate that you vehemently deny that which you have no understanding of.Why don't you study and understand the following links, and then we can discuss any issues you have in one of the Evolution threads, or you can begin a new one.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
Five Major Misconceptions about EvolutionIf you love science as much as you say you do, don't you think that you should study and understand at least the basics of the science of evolutionary Biology? [qs]I also have not witnessed this for myself, so I would be taking other peoples words that it happens.[/quote]You haven't seen asteroids. You have taken other people's word for it that those are rocks flying around. All you see are little points of light. Do you now reject the idea that asteroids exist?

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Also whether this change in allele frequencies actually changes one species into another remains to be seen. Is that acceptable?

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No, it's not acceptable.We have directly observed one species actually changing into another species both in the lab and in the field.We also have a lot of genetic evidence and fossil evidence that this has happened.You do realize that all of the major Creation "science" organizations have eventually had to admit that speciation happens, right?

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Odds would say that its 1,000,000 to 1. Which is a theory.

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No, it is NOT a theory.It is mathematics. It is axiomatic.

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That doesn't mean that every 1,000,000 tickets sold there would be a winner.

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Exactly....as predicted by the mathematical statistical formulae.

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There might be 5, 10, 20 or none. How can the odds explain this,

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This is precisely what the odds predicted by the statistical mathematics explain.

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and what use would those odds really be.

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The use of the statistical analysis/odds is so that the people who run the lottery and casinos can accurately predict how much money they will make from their games of chance.Man, please get a basics statistics book and learn some of this stuff.My friend used to say that the lottery was a tax on people who are bad at math.

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If I am destine to be the winner, then my personal odds are 1-1.

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Mathematics doesn't deal in destiny.The behavior of the lottery is exactly and precisely predicted. We know exactly how often, based upon numbers of tickets sold, the chances that nobody will win, exactly how often one person will win, exactly how often two people will win, etc. This will not predict, however, which specific days those wins will happen.I thought you said that mathematical statistics had an element of faith in them, but all I see is a bunch of math and a random number generator.

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Well my faith in God, would come from the second choice, regardless of any silly little objective test.

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Riverrat, where your faith comes from is not an answer to the question I asked.I'll ask it again: Let me clarify.When I say "trust from observation and experience", I am referring to objective tests.When I say "faith in the unseen", I am referring to personal, subjective belief.Are they exactly and precisely the same concept, or are they different in some way?

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Professionally? Aside from the science I need to know to complete my tasks in my company, I am not a scientist at all.
So I am giving you a perspective from a person with half a brain that is not in the scientific community, and has to trust what all scientists say.
I did work in research labs for 11 years, but I wasn't doing the research, but I talked to a lot of the people there to try and learn as much as I can, because of my love for science.

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To give you an idea of what I was learning, I watched research scientists develop "fake" blood, and use it in animals.
I watch them extract cells from a kidney and then separate them in a ceterfuge, then run them through a spectrograph, to analize if a new medicine was working. I fully understood what was going on, but I am not a scientist. Thats why I tell you I am not qualified to argue about evolution. I can ask question, and interject my opinion, but because I am Christian, it seems I am labeled.

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No.It seems that because you claim things as true which are actually false that makes you a target.

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I used to believe in evolution, and take it on faith,

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Then you accepted it for the wrong reasons. Evolution stands on the evidence which supports it, not because people like you take it on faith.Don't mistake the reasons you used to accept evolution with the reasons I and others here accept it. We have not made the mistake you did, and neither do most professional life scientists.

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and even used it as an exuse to question God's exsistance,

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If you didn't ever understand it and know about the evidence which supports it and only took it on faith, then you just used it as a substitute religion.I am now understanding, I think, where you have gotten the idea that all of us and scientists believe in evolution as a religious faith; it's because you figure because you did this, then everybody who accepts evolution must have done this, too.

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and the accuracy of the bible.

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Well, most of recorded history contradicts the Bible, and the Bible itself is internally inconsistent in many places. Much of science does contradict a literal reading of the Bible.

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I hope you appreciate my honesty.

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Sure, I appreciate it. However, this doesn't mean that you get to make claims about the entire scientific community and what the publish in their professional journal articles if you don't really read them?

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No no no and no. I do not reject science because of my religious views.

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Sure you do.Why don't you reject Gravitational theory, even though there are huge, gaping holes in our understanding, while you reject the ToE even though it is a much tighter, mush better understood and supported theory?I can only conclude that you are singling out the ToE to reject because it contradicts a literal reading of the Bible.

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I reject science because of science. I do not even actually reject it. I just take it for what its worth.

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You aren't fooling anybody, riverrat. It is clear that you accept certain theories because they don't interfere with your religious views, and reject others because they do.

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Based on conversations with scientists.

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...which is not their professional scientific work.

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Based on the passion by which you argue with me about it.

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...which is not their professional scientific work.

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By seeing if an evidence fits into a scientific model first, then if it doesn't, disregard it, or come up with some silly explaination.

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I have already addressed and refuted this point, and you did not rebut. If you continue to repeat claims that have been addressed without offering any explanation, you will be in violation of the forum guidelines.Anyway, why should a scientist consider an anomolous finding to be anything else than an anomoly if the previous million findings have suggested something else? IOW, should scientists constantly question the validity of the entire Germ Theory of Disease every time they can't figure out right away what is the cause of a particular disease?

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When people use it to not believe in God.

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...which is not their professional scientific work.

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By scientists falsifying data.

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You had better support this serious accusation with some evidence very quickly or retract and apologize.You had better not be casually throwing around accusations of outright fraud without some evidence, or else you are stooping to the most dishonest, dirty, and immoral methods of maligning that which you don't like.

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When science is wrong (which is most of the time)

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Yep, all of those cancer cures are totally wrong. That vaccine stuff? Wrong. Predictions of eclipses and metoer showers? Completely wrong most of the time.Yep, science is so wrong. Why do you love something so pathetically ineffective in figuring out the natural world again? [qs]You don't have faith even though you think you do.[/quote]

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Explain. I do not have faith that God exists. what are you talking about?

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*sigh*You had just made the amazingly arrogant statement that "Scientists have faith even though they don't think they do".I simply turned it back upon you in order to illustrate the stupidity and arrogance of such a statement.

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I'm sure every scientists throughout the generations, for the last 2000 years felt the same way about whatever they believed in too.

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First of all, there were no scientists 2000 years ago.Science, as a formal discipline, is only about 200 years old, and that is being very generous.Science as an actual profession with awarded degrees is only about 100 years old.

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To bad it keeps changing, and God doesn't.

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NO!!!It is science's GREATEST STRENGTH that is is able to CHANGE IN THE LIGHT OF NEW EVIDENCE.Otherwise, how could we ever improve our understanding of anything?Otherwise, how could we ever correct errors?Otherwise, how could we ever learn?Honestly, how can you say you love science when you don't seem to know the basics of scientific methodology?Read about them here:science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

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There you go again with a bad analogy. Why should I trust that analogy?

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Because the evidence which supports evolution is just as strong as the evidence that supports a sherical Earth.

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Go ahead, mutate into a whale. Take a week if you have to.

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I have already addressed this gross misrepresentation of evolutionary theory in another post.I have got to say, riverrat, that rarely have I come across someone who claims to love science who is also so misinformed and uninformed about science as you.Luckily, there is a remedy. Read. Study. Inform yourself. Learn.

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They are different, but have no revelance on what I am saying.

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Can you please explain how they are different?The relevance is this, riverrat:There is a large difference, contrary to your claims, between subjective religious faith (that can be known only to an individual) and trust derived from objectively-gathered evidence (meaning gathered through observation and experience that anyone can examine).

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It also doesn't falsify anything, whether it is subjective or objective, only to scientists.

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Oh, so one of those phrases means something specific to scientific methodology?Which one, and how so?

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Just because something is subjective, does not make it untrue.

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Well, true.However, if something is subjective, it cannot be scientific.

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If 2 million people all feel the same thing when searching for God, is that still subjective?

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Yup.The reason it is subjective is because there is no way of telling if they are feeling the same thing.

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If you say yes, then results from taking medication are subjective too.

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Nope.Those effects can be, and are, tested by non-subjective methods, such as MRI's, blood tests, urine tests, blood pressure tests, etc.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-06-2004 12:06 PM