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| Author | Topic: Belief in God is scientific. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Taq Member  Posts: 7670 Joined: Member Rating: 4.2
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The skeptic does not say that there is no God. The sketpic asks for evidence for God, and upon seeing no evidence sees no reason to believe that God does exist. If and when that evidence is presented, then the skeptic will change their position. The real question is why believe that there is a God to begin with. If your only answer is that other people are doing it, then you really don't have much of a reason. It gets even worse when you begin to evidence God by pointing to our ignorance.
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divermike1974 Member (Idle past 2052 days) Posts: 59 Joined: |
quote: Humanity would have failed long ago it it didn't believe 'it could do it' Edited by divermike1974, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member  Posts: 16083 Joined: Member Rating: 10.0
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It is true that belief is a strong motivating force. But that has no bearing on the question of whether it is a reliable way to establish facts. Yes, people believed that they could put a man on the moon, this motivated them to try it, and they succeeded. They were right. Some people believed that they could get rich by investing in Enron, this motivated them to try it, and they failed. They were wrong. Some people believed that they could build perpetual motion machines, this motivated them to try it, and they failed. They were wrong. Some cult leaders believed that they could raise the dead, this motivated them to try it, and they failed. They were wrong. And so forth. It is true that if we never believed true things, we'd never try and succeed --- but on the other hand lots of people have believed false things and failed. The belief itself does not guarantee truth, and does not guarantee success. "Belief is integral to human success" you write. Sure. But it is also integral to human failure. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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divermike1974 Member (Idle past 2052 days) Posts: 59 Joined: |
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Rahvin Member (Idle past 1235 days)  Posts: 3964 Joined: |
That's about the biggest non-sequitur I've ever seen. That's not at all how belief, thought, nor evolution work. “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers “A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.
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jar Member  Posts: 30934 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Tangle Member  Posts: 6618 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.5 |
How much belief do you think it would take for you to win the lottery? Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16083 Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
You what?
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Stile Member  Posts: 3372 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 4.3
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I think you're ideas about belief and science and good/bad things are a bit too strict. Belief is certainly a good thing. A very good and powerful thing. But science isn't everything. Belief is a tool for us to use to help us feel better. To provide hope or a sense of motivation. It is very powerful. Neither is "better than the other" all the time. The trick is to identify the situation and use whichever method is appropriate. When doing science, it's just kinda obvious that the Scientific Method is preferred over Belief.
I don't know about "failed." But, yes, I agree things would be different.
Correct. But remember to try and separate the ideas. They are separate ideas, try to identify when they are to be used separately.
Exactly. Separate ideas for separate tasks.
Yes. They will use their belief to motivate themselves. I have two cars. Which one will you drive?
The statement makes sense if you can identify that Belief and Science are two separate ideas that help us with separate tasks.
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divermike1974 Member (Idle past 2052 days) Posts: 59 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16083 Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
Or you could just look up the term "gauge bosons". If you're going to talk about how simple the universe is, my point is that you shouldn't leave them out of your description of it.
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ViperAce Junior Member (Idle past 2022 days)  Posts: 6 From: Phoenix Joined: |
I feel that the website godandscience.org (mainly the cosmology parts) offers a lot of good suggestions from commonly accepted science for the existence of God, and a personal one at that. One of my favorite examples is the long list of examples of qualities of the universe that highly give the impression of "fine tuning", enough to where it seems absurd to think that a non-designed universe could even result in a universe that could even result in matter, let alone living things. Some of these things that seem to be fine tuned are the rate of exansion, the ratio of matter to anti-matter, and certain aspects of the laws of physics; where with each of these the universe would be vastly different and unsuitable for matter if they were changed by even the slightest amount yet could have easily "happened" differently. I for one feel that these are good evidence for God, though definitely not direct proof as many will say. I don't think science "proves" the existence of God, but I think it provides a rational grounding for belief in God. Expecting science to produce undeniable proof for God, seems unrealistic whether God exists or not. What would hard proof of God look like, to where even the most stubborn atheists can't deny it? Edited by ViperAce, : No reason given.
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NosyNed Member  Posts: 8830 From: Canada Joined: Member Rating: 4.1 |
There you can add to the fine tuning discussion. As noted over and over we really don't know enough to make any statements bout it. It is possible that there is no tuning of any kind possible. The qualities of the physics of the cosmos might have to be just as they are with no wiggle room at all. But we don't know that.
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PaulK Member Posts: 14719 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
If you want to discuss any of the arguments on that website feel free to start a thread. However I have to say that the introductory essays gave me no feeling that it has anything much to offer.
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Pressie Member Posts: 1998 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: Member Rating: 3.9 |
I got the same feeling. I had a quick look at other parts (on 'cosmology', but not really on cosmology) written by Richard Deem (who's claimed to have an M in Microbiology). Doesn't bode well for his knowledge on Physics or Cosmology. Maybe ViperAce should start a thread on it. I could learn from the people who know more than me on those subjects. I'm still trying to get my head around many of the posts on Cosmology and Physics on the other thread mentioned. The Physics 1 I did years ago is not of too much help at all. My fear is that it's just going to be the same regurgitated, yet totally unconvincing, arguments presented. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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