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Author Topic:   Belief Versus The Scientific Method
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 32 of 513 (885312)
04-04-2021 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Phat
04-04-2021 3:43 PM


Re: Frodo Lives
But we do know that Frodo gave his finger for you.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 51 of 513 (885340)
04-05-2021 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by Tangle
04-05-2021 5:06 PM


Re: Frodo Lives
An old joke that is pertinent:
quote:
A Christian is walking all alone, by a cliff, slips, and falls over the side. A short distance down, however, he is able to catch hold of a tree root that's sticking out.
So there he is hanging onto a tree root over a long sheer drop, just as we've seen in so much popular media (see cliffhanger). Knowing that he's miles away from any human help, he prays to God to save him.
The clouds part and a Divine Voice calls out to him: "Have no fear, my son! Just have faith in Me and let go!"
Upon hearing this, the Christian considers for a moment what God had commanded him to do and responds: "Is there anybody else up there? I need a second opinion!"
Phat knows what he's supposed to do, but he keeps complaining that it's too hard and not fair. Which it isn't. Which is undoubtedly the point.
The Jesus Freaks I learned fundamentalism from circa 1970 spoke often of Jesus wanting followers whose faith was "hot" and not those whose faith was only "lukewarm" (ie, "I do believe, really I do! But I don't wanna act on it, to actually do what I'm told to!").
There's another teaching they gave me and that Pat Robertson used on a reporter during his presidential campaign. The reporter asked if a non-Christian could be saved and Pat replied that he could be but only if he followed all of Mosaic Law his entire life without fail or a single lapse. Having eyes to see and ears to hear (ie, having been taught the hidden meaning to the teachings and parables -- plus having hear that explicit teaching espoused), I immediately recognized that as their argument for why Christ is so necessary for salvation. God had given the Jews laws that He had deliberately made too impossible to be able to keep, so as to make Christ an absolute necessity.
Could this mean that Christ was Moses 2.0? That God also deliberately made following Christ just as hard to follow, if not more so? Why? Because God does have a Sense of Humor after all? Sick though it may be.
Edited by dwise1, : without fail or a single lapse

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 72 of 513 (885366)
04-08-2021 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Phat
04-07-2021 2:25 PM


Re: Apologists are us
Yeah I forgot that you berate us for having the audacity to think we are any more blessed or favored than a womanizing, drunken atheist who laughs at organized religion and our "sky daddy".
Really? You are seriously going to push that old stupid shite?
In the meantime, we are all sick and tired of Repuglians pulled that same old stupid shite of projecting their own sick perversions onto their opponents in the height of hypocrisy.
Believers' lies about atheists' motivations are based on their own sick longings. Here is the literal testimonial of a local creationist (and one of the worst liars I have ever had to suffer, besides perhaps Trump (but that is a close call) ) of how he had become a fake atheist:
quote:
I was raised in Buffalo, New York, and was fortunate to have great parents They took my sister and I to church every Sunday, we attended Sunday school and church camps in the summer. I believed in God, and never gave the issue much thought.
In sixth grade, I remember seeing a big colorful book produced by Time-Life. It caught my eye, and I opened it up and was pleased to see big colorful drawings. One set of drawings really caught my eye. There was a series of animated drawings that went across two pages. On the far left was a very ape-like character walking on all fours and covered with hair. The character to his right was a little more upright, he had shorter arms, was starting to walk on two legs and had less hair. This progression continued for a few more drawings until at the far right side of the page there was this handsome fellow, a human being! This is called the ascent of man chart that nearly everyone is familiar with.
In sixth grade, I looked at that chart for a while, smirked, thought it was ridiculous, and went outside and played softball.
Eventually I made it to ninth grade. While in a Biology class, the teacher was teaching us about evolution and placed the same chart up on the wall. I still remember it. I sat there and studied that chart for a long time. It was on that very day that I recognized a major conflict existed between what this teacher was saying and what the Bible taught. Should I believe my science teacher, who is teaching man has ascended from ape-like animals, or do I believe mommy, daddy, and that book (the Bible) that says God made man instantly from the dust of the ground?" I reasoned that this teacher is a scientist after all, so this must be valid information.
I had a choice to make that millions of people world wide are faced with. Do I believe the Bible or what is taught as science (please note I did not call it science).
In ninth grade I chose to go with the science teacher, and considered myself to be an atheist for about 14 years. I took many more science classes in high school and in college (I am a Mechanical Engineer), and none of these classes changed my beliefs, if anything they reinforced my atheist beliefs.
I assume the majority of you are in college now. Do you understand my story? I am pretty certain you have had several hours of your education dedicated to the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. I would love to hear how this affected you. Has it done anything to your faith? It obliterated mine!
Question! Why in 6th grade did I think the drawings were ridiculous, but in 9th grade I believed them?
Was it because I was more intellectual? No. Was it because the Biology teacher explained it so convincingly? Not really. The real reason for my becoming an atheist in 9th grade can be summed up in one word...hormones. In 6th grade I did not have much temptation in my life. Perhaps my biggest sins were a lie here and there, throwing snowballs at the school bus and riding my minibike where I shouldn't.
But in 9th grade a whole new world opened up to me. The temptation of drinking, drugs and premarital sex presented themselves to me at exactly the same time I was being taught evolution. I knew the Bible said that being drunk and having sex outside of marriage was wrong, but here is my science teacher, telling me the origin of man is completely contradictory to what the Bible taught as the origin of man. I felt excited.....and decided the Theory of Evolution was for me, after all the Bible was scientifically wrong on the very first page!! I considered myself to be an atheist. As an atheist I no longer had to abide by any rules but my own. If I wanted to get drunk, no problem, if I wanted to try to have premarital sex no problem, I now belonged to the evolution "religion" (religion meaning a system of beliefs built on faith) that allowed me to sin without guilt.
It was not the data that made me an atheist, it was the conclusion, a belief that made me the judge of right and wrong. Those cartoon drawings of ape men did look sharp, but I wanted to believe them emotionally, more than I really believed them intellectually.
Besides his first sin against English ("They took my sister and I ... " -- please please please study some German (or any other inflected language, though Russian can be a bit more difficult, ну? (Да, я говорю мало по русскиы, конечно) in order to learn the most basic things about case), he just told us in no uncertain terms that it was not evolution, but rather HIS OWN RELIGIOUS TRAINING that had turned him into a "atheist". He wanted to find a legalistic loophole to allow him to sin guilt-free and he found one that had been taught to him his entire life: if you don't believe in God then you are not responsible for your actions and you can freely sin in every which way you could possibly want.
Furthermore in our email correspondence, he stated emphatically that he had continued to believe in God and had prayed to God every single night of his "atheism". All of that demonstrates decisively that he was just a fake atheist, though he insists that he was an actual atheist and so he knows exactly why atheists are atheists. Complete and utter BS lies.
The truth of the matter is that atheists are more moral than "true Christians" are. Referring to developmental psychology, moral reasoning also goes through stages of development. To test where a child is in moral reasoning, we can use the Jean Valjean scenario from "Les Misérables" in which a man becomes a hunted convict for having stolen a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, though sometimes redressed as stealing an expensive medicine to save his dying wife's life. The earliest most primitive stage is "rules-based morality" in which some authority makes the rules and your job is simply to follow those rules. Basically the Nürnberg Defense ("Ich befolgte nur meine Befehle.", "I was only following orders."). Milgram's infamous psychology experiment in which "teachers" would electrocute "students" to death exposed this mode of morality: if an authority figure takes full responsibility for your actions, then you can commit the most unthinkable acts as directed to by that authority figure.
Most adults, especially "true Christians", are stuck in rules-based morality. God tells me to kill gays and abortion doctors, so that is what I will do. I am not responsible for those killings, but rather God is. Yes, that is intentionally extreme, but that is their mind-set. But thus belief in God as your sole responsibility for being moral is actually a cop-out. If God tells you to do something immoral, then the bad consequences of your actions are not your fault, but rather God's, the One Authority who took full responsibility for your actions. You were only following your Befehle. Thus, "true Christian" teachings that atheists don't believe in God in order to escape responsibility for their actions is a complete reversal of reality: "true Christians" use God in order to escape from responsibility for their own heinous misdeeds, choosing to blame God for the great damage they cause.
Rather, atheists do take personal responsibility for their own actions. We have no other choice! Nobody else to blame!
And BTW. Women are not objects, but rather people in their own right. Objectifying them is far more a Christian thing than an atheist thing. Unless you happen to be yet another a theist pretending to be a fake atheist.
So please do not blame atheists for your own moral shortcomings*.
 
 
*FOOTNOTE:
Back when streaking (running naked in public) was a thing in the early 70's, during the Oscars when David Niven was presenting some guy streaked across the stage. David Niven recovered with a remark that some people should refrain from airing their own short-comings in public.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 73 of 513 (885367)
04-08-2021 1:37 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by ringo
04-08-2021 11:11 AM


Re: One For AZ
Another take is that if life had never evolved on this planet, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
There's also a probability fallacy involved, though I don't remember its name. Basically, you are sitting in a poker game. What is the probability that you would have that exact hand that you are holding? Abysmally small. Therefore, you are not holding that exact hand. Wait, what?
And that is exactly where that probability fallacy falls apart. Yes, we can calculate the probability of getting a particular hand and it is very small. But once you do have your hand, then it's a done deal, 100% probability! What are the odds of getting that particular hand? Doesn't matter, because I already have it!
So what are the odds of the universe and life on earth being the way that it is? Doesn't matter, because it already happened! Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 92 of 513 (885417)
04-12-2021 2:59 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by jar
04-11-2021 1:38 PM


Re: Reality Phat. Try Reality.
What does the symbol "PRATT" actually mean?
Phat already answered that one in his Message 90: "Points refuted a thousand times." Basically, creationists are apparently incapable (or unwilling) to learn and keep coming back with the same tired old false claims that have been refuted to their faces so many times that, cumulatively, "a thousand times" would be a gross underestimate. Seriously, I have personally witnessed creationists who, after a point was refuted so completely and utterly to the point that the creationist himself had to admit it was false, would then continue to use that exact same false claim (that he himself had admitted was false), thus constituting deliberate lying (at least in my book).
Elsewhere, I don't remember an exact phrase but the gist is that it's like trying to kill the undead, that no matter how many times you kill a false claim it just keeps coming back to life and you end up having to refute over and over and over again ad infinitum.
Here's a science v. creationism insight. In science when something is found to be false, there are papers published which establish that fact and, ideally, that old false claim is dropped and no longer taught (though there can be some inertia in the system that requires older proponents of that false idea to eventually die out). Such a system does not exist in creationism. Creationism not only doesn't care to test any of its claims, but when a claim is actually found and acknowledged to be false, it still does not get removed from the creationist literature.
Case in point is Dr. Henry Morris' repeating of Harold Slusher's false claim about moon dust (which I very strongly suspect Slusher had himself gotten from yet another unknown creationist via handwritten notes since Slusher had misinterpreted "Volume 11" (eleven) as "Volume II" (Roman numeral two)). I did original research into this claim (see my page, MOON DUST) though a couple astronomers published first (no biggie).
The thing is that Dr. H. Morris had published that false claim in his book, Scientific Creationism (2nd Ed). Since then, the ICR and Answers in Genesis have both done their best to back away from that moon dust argument, but Dr. H. Morris' Scientific Creationism (2nd Ed) is still in print as the latest edition and is still, I would assume, widely read by budding young creationists.
To put that into more practical terms, we have a situation that P.T. Barnum described as a "sucker born every minute". There's an almost steady stream of new converts entering into fundamentalist Christianity (ie, while that movement is hemorrhaging those children born into the faith fleeing that faith for the psychological damage it does, it tries to keep its numbers stable by recruitment through proselytizing).
The ultimate problem is that the creationist literature never ever corrects itself. Many creationist claims date back around 1980. While those claims have been refuted soundly, none of those refutations appear in the creationist literature. Indeed, the most common creationist refrain is (paraphrasing) "None of these challenges to evolution have ever been answered by scientists." Oh yes they have been answered! But like the antepenultimate fake news source, "FOX 'News'", the creationists just refuse to publish what scientists actually have to say about your false claims, thus deceiving you.
Next what does the symbol "God as I understand Her" actually mean?
Here's a signature fragment of mine from a novel:
{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Regardless of whether the supernatural actually exists or not, you will always have those individuals who will create gods and then try to convince you of their own personal interpretations, their "own personal heresies."
Do I really need to spell it out for you?

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Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 105 of 513 (885677)
04-22-2021 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 101 by Phat
04-22-2021 3:21 AM


Re: Luke 4 yet again Phat
The God I create exists even if I never existed.
Uh, what?
Uh, you created that god, so if you never existed that god would never have been created.
Huh?
IF A Creator of all seen and unseen exists and IF Jesus represents His identity with humanity, then GOD exists. And no, I do not believe that only those in the synagogue are able to have Holy Communion.
Again, Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-Oscar? (the "Oscar" stands for "over", which is used in radio communications)
Synagogues engaged in ritual cannibalism? They cannot even tolerate any beef less than well-done (hence kosher salt which is good for drawing blood out of meat). Plus "Holy Communion" refers both to a specifically Christian (not Jewish) and also a mystery religion ritual (also not Jewish) in which worshippers' partaking of the resurrected god's body and/or blood in order to partake in that god's immortality.
So why slander Judaism as you have done?

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 110 of 513 (885690)
04-22-2021 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by jar
04-22-2021 6:19 PM


Re: Basics Phat, basics
I first heard this one in the 1990 Eric Idle/Robbie Coltrane comedy, Nuns on the Run, in which two small-time crooks hid out by posing as nuns in a Catholic school.
One, the non-Catholic, had to teach the theology class so the other, who had a Catholic background, told him about the Mystery of the Shamrock which demonstrates how the Trinity is actually One. In a later scene, that fake nun's line was "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shamrock."
Many years later, I was surprised to hear that that Shamrock lesson was real and apparently had been used by Saint Patrick himself!

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 113 of 513 (885695)
04-22-2021 10:21 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Phat
04-22-2021 10:12 PM


Re: Analogies and Anthologies
My analogy was always the Sun, the Light and the Heat.
Ironic, since it was Sun God worship that had transformed early Christianity into what it is today. Complete with move the Day of Worship form the actual Sabbath (Saturday, AKA sábado) to The Sun's Day, Sunday.
Just for fun and nostalgia (I learned a lot from these films in elementary school), meet Our Mister Sun:
Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed link

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 115 of 513 (885697)
04-22-2021 10:28 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by Phat
04-22-2021 10:23 PM


Re: Analogies and Anthologies
"Thinking started spreading like the measles."
Christianity is not so much about Jesus as it is about a Sun God.
 
ABE:
One of the problems of having learned so much science so early in my life is that I cannot understand how anyone could so severely misunderstand it.
For example, creationist Kent Hovind has his solar-mass-loss claim which I treat here. But various things that he has said in the past makes it appear that he does not understand how the sun works, even to the point thinking that it burns through combustion, a special kind of combustion in which mass ceases to exist (and this from a self-avowed expert in science!). Every creationist I've asked about their views of how the sun actually "burns its fuel" have just gotten all kinds of huffy and left.
Part of that is them just being creationists (ie, looking for any excuse at all to run away from any actual discussion), but seriously, how does a scientific illiterate thing that the sun burns?
Edited by dwise1, : ABE

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Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 117 of 513 (885699)
04-22-2021 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by Phat
04-22-2021 10:40 PM


Re: Analogies and Anthologies
Allah had no son.
Sorry, but that is a false etymology. You cannot equate "Sun" with "son" in any language except for English. If it doesn't work in the original languages, then it is not valid.
For example, a local creationist found "great wisdom" in a child's response to a theologian's musing that Jesus had a twin brother. She said, "The Bible says she was with child, not with children.
First, the English never ever uses the expression of being "with children".
Second, that is not even what the Bible says! In the original Greek, it says that she "had in belly", meaning that she was pregnant. Absolutely no mention of children let alone any hint of how many children she was carrying.
If you want to analyze the exact wording, then you need to go back to the original language.
 
Another false folk Christian etymology is "atonement" which they misinterpret as "at-one-ment". Yet again, using English to interpret a non-English word and concept, so complete BS.
 
BTW, Jesus has a very prominent role in Islam.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 119 of 513 (885701)
04-22-2021 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Phat
04-22-2021 11:32 PM


Re: Analogies and Anthologies
... my intention was not to conflate Son and Sun. They just sound alike ...
Hence my point. Far too many believers commit such conflations and arrive at utterly false conclusions.
To quote a fundamentalist Christian co-worker (but still a very good guy), "That's just plain wrong!"

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 120 of 513 (885702)
04-22-2021 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Phat
04-22-2021 11:32 PM


Re: Analogies and Anthologies
And the one on cosmic rays. I learned so much from those Dr. Baxter films. Though it wasn't until "Green Acres" about a decade later that I ever learned who Eddie Albert was.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 131 of 513 (890379)
01-05-2022 1:40 AM
Reply to: Message 129 by PaulK
01-05-2022 12:27 AM


Re: belief in the method
Furthermore, that link is to WorldNetDaily, which Wikipedia describes thus:
quote:
WND (formerly WorldNetDaily) is an American news and opinion website and online news aggregator which has been described as "fringe" and far-right as well as politically conservative. The website is known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
Not very promising.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 139 by drlove, posted 01-05-2022 3:14 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 133 of 513 (890381)
01-05-2022 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 128 by drlove
01-04-2022 11:41 PM


Re: belief in the method
Belief is involved in the scientific method when that method is attempted to be applied to things that involve more than the natural laws the bind science.
Which is to say, never. Because nobody who properly uses the scientific method would attempt to apply it to the supernatural. Attempting to apply the scientific method to the supernatural would constitute misuse and abuse of the scientific method.
 
For a more complete discussion of this question, refer to a topic from back in 2007: So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY). In it I posed the question of just how IDiots' reformed science was supposed to actually work. 396 message in total. No answer to my fundamental question of just how it is supposed to work.

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Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 146 of 513 (890398)
01-05-2022 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by drlove
01-05-2022 3:14 PM


Re: belief in the method
Hm, I smell troll. Yuk!
Now you are trying to favour one media over another based on one media making unsubstantiated claims about other media.
Just what the hell are you talking about? If you have a particular case of "unsubstatiated claims" in mind (other than the bat quano nonsense posted on your wnd site), then present it!
In the case of science regarding the supernatural, science only says that it cannot deal with the supernatural and hence cannot use it.
Just as my computer keyboard cannot deal with photographs or music, so it cannot use either of those two media as input. If you truly think that that means that my keyboard is making unsubstantiated claims about photos or music, then please explain yourself.
Dang, the stench of troll is getting strong!
 
"drlove". Does that mean that you're a "true Christian"™? Their Orwellian distortion of the word "love" is very well-known.

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Replies to this message:
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