:okay:

I guess you and I have different definition of what questioning means.

I made a statement about how both science and a creator needs faith. Putting faith in our 5 senses is just easier vs. putting faith in a creator. If that's called questioning science, call me guilty.

Next time tell the pilot to just take off autopilot and not touch the controls. Let's see how much 'faith' is needed for divine intervention. The miracle of modern flight is derived from very strict understandings of science and nature and engineering. There is nothing 'faith'ful about it.


Science allows people to fly planes.
Faith flies planes into buildings.

O SHI-....

Do you follow:
Diasporic,
Juche,
Baha'i,
Jainism,
Shinto,
Cao Dai,
Zoroastrianism,
Tenrikyo,
Neo-Paganis,
Unitarian-Universalism,
Rastafarianism,
Scientology,
Nestorianism
Oriental Orthodoxy (Monophysitism),
Roman Catholicism,
Anabaptists,
Lutherans,
Methodists,
Pentecostals,
Reformed,
Presbyterianism,
Mormonism,
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,
Anglican,
Baptists,
Society of Friends (Quakers),
Seventh Day Adventist,
Black Hebrews,
Buddists,
Samaritans,
Jehovah's Witness,
Adventism,
Islam,
Ahmadiyya,
Shiite,
Wahhabi,
Alawites,
Shafi'i,
Zaiddiyah,
Maliki,
Deobandi,
Sufism,
Orthodox Judaism,
Modern Orthodox Judaism,
Conservative Judaism (Masorti),
Modern Orthodox Judaism,
Hassidic Judaism,
Karaite Judaism,
Reconstructionist Judaism,
Nazarenes,
Crypto Jews,
Hinduism,
Druidry (Celtic Religion),
Babylonian and Assyrian religion,
Aztec mythology,
Nauruan indigenous religion,
Church of All Worlds,
Judeo-Paganism,
Orisha religions,
Kongo religions,
Wicca,
Faery Wicca,
Confucianism,
Satanism,
Law of One,
Universal Life Church,
Church of the Universe,
Native American Church,
Candomble,
Transcendental Meditation,
Hare Krishna,
Purva mimamsa,
Vedanta Society,
Dances of Universal Peace,
Unification Church,
Holiness movement,
Friends of the Western Buddhist Order,
Johrei or Reiki,
Hao Hao,
Golden Dawn,
Spiritualism,
Argenteum Astrum,
Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis,
Church of Jesus Christ Christian,
church Universal and Triumphant,
Process Church of the Final Judgement,
or
Kardecist Spiritism?

and, what characteristic makes the religion you follow correct, distinguishing it from the others listed?

Gold material right here on this page. Ironically, look at the date too. :ahwow:

Yes, exactly.

These "rule-sets" you speak of are not an intrinsic integral part of the universe. Scientists develop "rule-sets" in attempts to explain several observations with a solitary rule. A new observation within the scope of their responsibility elicits a revision of that rule so that it can stand again as an all-encompassing explanation.

Take, for example, the periodic table. Through the recent centuries, chemists have worked to organize, add precision, and revise Lavoisier's primitive list of elements that he published in the 18th century. New tables were postulated then forced back to the drawing board when more atomic properties and periodicities were discovered and required to be taken into account. This all culminated with Mendeleev's table which, with the addition of new elements, evolved to today's.

For the greater part of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, "rule-sets" of classical Newtonian mechanics were sufficient to deal with the realm physics. Come the 20th century, however, and Newtonian physics faltered in the face of extreme situations: observations at atomic and sub-atomic scales; observations in a moving frame of reference; and observations of very fast moving things. To speak in somewhat layman terms, quantum theory and the theory of relativity were born. Newtonian physics was developed by us to explain what we observed. Though it is still valid, we now know that its scope is limited; the extremities of physics fall under modern physics - that is, relativity and quanta.

Your "rule-sets" aren't discovered. They are developed and under constant scrutiny for revision.
The periodic table we know today was not a part of the creator's blueprints for our universe; it is the product of our reverse engineering.

The positing of god into that flow is preposterous. What you're doing is inserting an element so dissimilar to everything else.

Think of... an oven. Mommy puts in a tray of a gooey substance and closes the door. One hour later, she opens the door and pulls out a fluffy cake! What happened behind the oven door is a mystery to me, but I take clues such as the ingredients in the batter, the application of heat, and the passing of time to conjure the idea that physical and chemical processes occurred to transform the batter to cake.
You might come around and tell me that I am wrong. In fact, there are magic mice inside the oven who use magic on the batter to transform it into a cake.

Though the presence of such a conjecture works, it is absurdly out of place and thus unacceptable to most people -- much like your insertion of god into a scientific flow.

200 years ago you might have said:
discovery -> Newtonian Mechanics -> god

Hello, 20th century! Pally777 would now like to say:
discovery -> Newtonian Mechanics -> Modern Physics -> god

Sorry, you can't simply insert god into the flow where it's difficult to see further. There exist far more plausible successions.

it seems you guys are on two different pages of the same book.

you guys are arguing about really petty details of the things most close and familiar to us.

you guys sound like two lab rats arguing about why the lab functions the way it does. and why the lab u live in exists. the fact is the lab exists for whatever reason you can think of. but the lab you live in is just a tiny minuscule thing in the large picture. there's an infinite amount of labs operating in infinite possible ways. winning an argument or losing an argument in one lab doesnt matter in the larger picture when those arguments have no meaning in another lab.

you can replace 'god' with 'unknown', im sure we can all agree on that.

right now you guys are asking him to answer that. which is impossible of course because to religious people "god" is too complex to be understood. and to science it's just yet to be discovered because we're too primitive to have figured out how it works.

i hate to do this to the science side guys, but....

in the far far future when post-humans will know almost everything about everything (ironically becoming god like ourselves)...

it will go something like this:
discovery -> Newtonian Mechanics -> Modern Physics -> post singularity discoveries -> millions perhaps billions of years of science and understanding -> god.

the fact is "god" or the unknown will always be there infinitely. the top will always be god/unknown.

there still is the question... why do things exist? why couldn't the cosmos just be a null void of nothingness? why does anything exist?

where did it come from? and where did that come from? and where did that come from? etc.

it seems everything that exists was created from some energy/force. those energy/forces were created by another force. a chain reaction of events. that span forever in both directions.

and even if we find a formula to answer forwards and backwards infinitely...

it still begs the question of the nature of existence.

these are the questions you guys should be arguing about.

not because of why the mechanics of something within such a small thing such as our universe works. there's way larger things beyond our universe. the multiverse, beyond that, other planes where our laws of physics don't function the same way.

we are smart enough to eventually figure out how things WORK of course. like you say we just reverse engineer it and use scientific rigour to rule everything else out and get the best answer.

but if we trace things by events, we will still be searching forever. like calculating pi. there is just no end.

the question is why is there no end... (or if there is an end, then why does it end? what was before that?!)

those are the questions you guys should be asking yourselves and debating about.

as society progresses and knowledge becomes advanced, stuff like religion, metaphysics, philosophy and science are on a linear path of converging.

the reason i direct this to science people is because, i already know what answer religious people will give. God. i guess im more throwing this question out to the philosophers.

Very different definition of faith.

Science encourages one to question its premises and theories (including our sense perception), religion doesn't allow one to question its teaching. Science is an approach, a method, an attitude, not a set of rigid doctrines.

However, putting faith in a religion is arguably much easier for many, as most children are brought up simply following parents' footsteps. Rejecting a religion takes critical thinking which religious teaching discourages.

It's incorrect to associate one's trust in our 5 senses only with science and call it faith in science, as billions of people without any education also take a similar stance.

We are born to trust our senses with or without science, as it has proven to work for us. Just like we naturally assume we are not in a matrix or a dream; sure we can never prove that we are not dreaming philosophically speaking, but life goes on until we see evidence otherwise.

The bottom line, faith in ones senses doesn't equate faith in science. Faith in ones sense perception is applicable to all human beings, be it the religious or the free thinkers.

AzNightmare is a tool, that is all.

Onward Christian Soldiers..

Personally, I'm far more satisfied with an "I don't know" response, than the bad answers with much contradictions.

"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

"Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works."

Carl Sagan

isn't being SATISFIED with "i don't know" the same as religion?

they don't know, they just say its the work of god, too crazy for our understanding.

you don't know, you say it's beyond our understanding.

neither answers are satisfying to me.

a delusional answer is just as bad as "don't know, dont care because i cant figure it out anyway". both go on with their daily lives. its not satisfying at all. they're both just ignoring the question and putting faith in their own daily lives.

if you remove all the petty details, the base of the belief or answer, is still the same.

ignoring the question, and putting faith in something else that understands it.

or

being satisfied with not knowing what it is.


semantics.

The Uncertainty of Knowledge
 

The difference is as follows:

The scientists: We don't know, let's try to find out, and they go to work.

The religious: We know, it's the work of God. And let's not doubt or question it, have faith.

A great video to watch, by someone who can word it much better:

I disagree with your perspective, but I know what you are trying to say. You are saying that the theories (or rule-set) that scientists develop are ever changing with new discoveries and thus are not rule-sets. Whereas I see that there is an underlying rule-set intrinsic to the universe that we have yet to fully comprehend. Scientists have been discovering bits of these underlying rule-sets and revising their theories as they discover more. As they refine their theories we get progressively closer to the intrinsic rule-set of the universe. That's my opinion.

Why do people always think of God in the universe as "magical"? I can see this universe and God fitting together just fine rationally. What part of God is magical? Cannot God have created all of the rule-sets I talked about and know how to use them to do what you'd call "magic" or miracles? The reason you'd call it "magic" or miracle is because you don't understand how it was done. I can imagine an all powerful being apply His infinite knowledge in ways we have yet to understand. To me, science and God are not mutually exclusive.

"Why do people always think of Santa in the universe as "magical"? I can see this universe and Santa fitting together just fine rationally. What part of Santa is magical? Cannot Santa have created all of the rule-sets I talked about and know how to use them to do what you'd call "magic" or miracles? The reason you'd call it "magic" or miracle is because you don't understand how it was done. I can imagine an all powerful Santa apply His infinite knowledge in ways we have yet to understand. To me, science and Santa are not mutually exclusive. He can deliver billions of presents in one night."

^ What's wrong with this statement?

Ah yes, my nigga Santa goin' ta work...just another day at dat North Pole.

You got the message across way better than I. When I said science and religion both required faith, this is what I meant. Science says "I don't know and I believe will eventually find out"; this is having faith that you'll eventually find out all knowledge. My view is that religion says "I don't know and I will try and find out, but I believe all answers will eventually point to God"

I'm a scientist at heart and I don't just take an answer like "because God". I try and find out more knowledge about this world as I go. My believe is that all answers will eventually lead to God in the end.

For those that think religious people do not desire to advance human knowledge, you have it completely wrong. Religious people do want to discover more about how the world works, because we feel it will lead us closer to understanding God.

The difference is you can disproof the existence of Santa by going to the North Pole, trying to be good and see if you get a present, trying to be bad and see if you get coal, etc... you can actually verify Santa, because you know all the rules-sets that apply to Santa.

Can you do the same with God? Do you know what rule-sets apply to God? Can you proof or disprove God? I think not.

Well, for a long time people thought God lives in the sky (Ie. the Domain of Heaven). So, even though Santa Claus may not live in the North Pole, that's symbolic, just like how God is "up there" is symbolic.

You haven't disproven the existence of Santa Claus. And presents? Millions of children get presents. That is Santa Claus's work.

My claim of Santa Claus fitting into the Universe still stands.

Or, Unicorns work too. Heck you can't disprove Unicorns can you?

Until you can answer "What is god?" and your evidence for such deity, you are doing the same thing as I am doing for Unicorns and Santa Claus.


On another note, you were probably raised into Christianity. Don't you find that fascinating? Why Christianity over say, one of the religions in Mindbomber's list?

The meaning of life, death, why things are and why things are not can all be answered by science..in due time.

Evolution explains why certain animals exist and why certain animals don't anymore. Geology, climatology, pathology, anthropology, etc explain the intricate tidbits about life/death/culture.

Imagine if an ancient town got wiped out by a tsunami...they would think terrible things like vengeful gods, monsters, or the lack of sacrificed babies; but nowadays we have a scientific explanation.

Some think that Science plays the debby downer position and takes away the 'mysteries' of life / universe, but I think it does the opposite.

it was faith that got the wright brothers going and believing that they could get it done

faith/belief pushes a lot of scientists and inventors towards/into the realm of innovation or if you will... creation :)

why does faith mean one would expect "divine intervention"?

Yes and faith also has parents praying for their children when sick or injured, instead of taking them to the hospital.

faith pushes a lot of people towards/into the realm of not doing what's right, or if you will... ignorance :)

The difference with your example is, sometimes they stumble upon science by accident.

lol that sort of statement is true for anything though

there's always an idiot or idiots around to be the exception or even the rule