fade
Staff member
Real science is critical thinking by definition. If someone blindly accepts a scientific theory without question then they are doing it wrong.
Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham
- Thread starter Mathias
- Start date
I don't recall saying to blindly accept scientific theory anywhere, but I'm not sure if that's what you're implying or not.
GasBandit
Staff member
I... think... he's channeling Socrates, and saying you're not allowed to assert any scientific principle you haven't verified yourself first hand, or else your "science" is just a faith, same as religion.
IE, any of us saying Dinosaurs are millions of years old are just religious adherents, unless we do the carbon dating ourselves (Because we've only been TOLD by somebody else they are), and for that matter, we have to independently re-invent carbon dating to make sure it is what we've been told it is.
fade
Staff member
I wasn't quoting to refute you but to continue what you said.
Got it. One thing about this whole debate is that science allows for the possiblity of pretty much anything, as long as it's provable. This would also include the possibility of a creator god or intelligence of some sort. Faith based claims preclude many possibilities unless you do some mental gymnastics to justify them.
but @Bowielee how do you know the results you are getting from all that science are even real? what if those repeatable results are only your subjective perception of what you think reality should be? What if we are all just brains in jars, some sort of bio coppertops for our giant robot overlords!?
WHOA....I just blew my own mind! NO MORE LSD FOR BONES BEFORE BED!
on a sidenote, purple tastes delicious... just thought you all would like to know :3
WHOA....I just blew my own mind! NO MORE LSD FOR BONES BEFORE BED!
on a sidenote, purple tastes delicious... just thought you all would like to know :3
GasBandit
Staff member
You're not supposed to take BOTH the red AND blue pills, Bones.
I came THIS CLOSE to minoring in philosophy. I decided to go with writing instead. I figured it dovetailed better with my career goals.
Well, unless you were old enough to live in the 60s and attend Woodstock.
I'd like to just clarify what I think Fade's getting at here. You don't need to be an expert geneticist or evolutionary biologist to think critically about the subject. The evidence is there and provided to you by the experts. You can go to a museum for example, and see fossils for yourself, and read up on the general literature that has been peer reviewed and keep asking "why" and "how" to your hearts content. Science encourages questioning, in fact. You can pretty much question stuff to mathematical axioms and derivations of where we get the units of measure and their standards if you really want.
That's exactly the skewed misunderstanding of what science actually is that pisses me off the most. Lay-people tend to look at science as some sort of unassailable bastion of facts and laws. The very first thing I was taught about the scientific method is that you never really prove anything, you look for the most likely and consistant factors, peeling away at the boundaries to whittle away truth from random chance. Science uses critical thinking to call everything into question. That's how science is advanced. If science were what people out in the world at large view it as, there wouldn't be a science of quantum physics.You know what's funny, jagoffs like this who take one of the best parts about science and mocking it like there's something wrong with it.
One (of many) reasons for me to be and remain agnostic is simply that the arguments a faith uses to "defend against" (or "fight" or "debate" or whatever) atheism are often completely different from the arguments used to debate (etc) other religions.
Accept that a religion is true. How do you find which one? What, other than "I was born in a Christian/Muslim/Hindu/whatever family/situation/culture" is your reason to pick A over B? How do you prove, or even find any reason whatsoever, to think your faith is the "right one"?
Oh sure, it can (easily) be argued that Allah of the Islam, and Yahweh of Judaism and Christianity are the same God....But firstly, that's not the official stance of any of the major players; secondly, there are many, many contradictory points between religions; and thirdly - there are plenty of religions that absolutely aren't compatible.
Accept that a religion is true. How do you find which one? What, other than "I was born in a Christian/Muslim/Hindu/whatever family/situation/culture" is your reason to pick A over B? How do you prove, or even find any reason whatsoever, to think your faith is the "right one"?
Oh sure, it can (easily) be argued that Allah of the Islam, and Yahweh of Judaism and Christianity are the same God....But firstly, that's not the official stance of any of the major players; secondly, there are many, many contradictory points between religions; and thirdly - there are plenty of religions that absolutely aren't compatible.
Hey now. I've met plenty of stubborn my-mind-is-as-closed-as-the-closet-Putin's-in atheists, and I've met plenty of scientifically minded religious people. As we have some of them on here, I'm a bit surprised to see people constantly refer to atheism as "scientific"'. It's a bogus disparity. There are plenty of unscientific atheists out there and vice versa.
Anyway, aside from that - religion isn't essentially and forever unchanging. We're not doing Mass in High Latin anymore, mostly. The Catholic Church accepts that the Earth revolves around the Sun (some few hundreds years late but still). It's just a very conservative institution, in general, and moves at a slower pace than the new-idea-of-the-day of modern man.
I'm fairly certain that I JUST said that science is all about being willing to accept that what you know to be true could be wrong. Frankly, I find agnosticism to be kind of a copout. It's a safety net, just in case. I'm willing to accept that there's the possibility of a benevolent creator or intelligent design or what have you, but I'm not willing to blindly believe in it just because I've been told that it's out there with no basis of proof.
There's no hypocrisy there that I can see.
All things are possible, but not all things are probable.[DOUBLEPOST=1392041431,1392041195][/DOUBLEPOST]
You've outlined exactly why some people are so adamant about shutting down religion. I personally think that people can believe whatever the hell they want, but the moment it leads to the revocation of rights, halting the evolution and advancement of the human race, or allows people to be hurt in any way, that's when I have serious problems.
Yes. Science is all that. But people are not. That is my point. The hypocrisy exists in the fact that many atheist are willing to renounce to all religion things because it's not logical, irrational, etc, etc. But unless your goal is to become a vulcan, all your life is full of illogical and irrational things that many are not willing to change.
Actually, I think it's the opposite. The foaming at the mouth atheists that you guys are vaguely referring to are those who have a personal axe to grind with religion. They feel like they've been lied to their entire life and feel the need to lash out. It's like a kid who finds out there's no Santa Clause running out in anger and telling all their friends who still believe in him out of spite.
I came by my atheism through logic and deduction, mostly by studying mythology and anthropology. If you look at the very small sliver of recorded human history that's represented by what the bible represents, it's ridiculous to me personally to believe that every single religion prior to it was wrong but christianity was right. This lead me to philosophy and psychology and my basic theory is that religion is a comfort to people because it gives easy answers to really big difficult questions. I understand WHY people want and or need religion/faith in their lives, but it's not something that I need.
They brought Hi-Mass back in the US at least, you can thank Pope Benedict for that one. The Catholics are more troublesome for their conservative views on social issues like gay rights and abortion. The science? The catholic church now embraces all of it, seriously, I am not making this up. They however do allow for the "God of Gaps" or at least that's how it seems to me. That is to say that there are somethings science doesn't have answers for yet, these are the things where the divine intervenes.[DOUBLEPOST=1392043486,1392043314][/DOUBLEPOST]
really want to fuck with people? try to explain to them that the proto-hebrew people had a pantheon of gods, Yahweh? he was the God of War. I also agree with what you are saying, I always just think its an interesting factoid that Jewish scholars bring up from time to time.
You might enjoy this book, if you haven't already read it.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Against-The-Gods-Monotheism/dp/0142196339
Bowie, than you just plain have a different definition of atheism and agnosticism than I do - or most anyone else.
Atheism is the belief, faith, conviction, what-have-you (you can say it's "certainty" but so does a religious person about their faith) that there is NOT a God/gods/Force/etc.
Agnosticism is the conviction/belief/idea/faith/etc that you do not know and/or cannot know.
We can go 17 more rounds about theistic agnosticism, apatheistic agnosticism, metaphysical agnosticism, and all that - I'm a philosophy major, seriously, I'll do it if you insist. But this seems a futile discussion. If you're "willing to accept that there's the possibility of a benevolent creator or intelligent design or what have you, but", you're not, in my book, a strict atheist.
Atheism, in the strict definition, is the positive belief in the nonexistence of (a) God(s). Nonbelieve in the existence of God is a much broader, more inclusive definition of atheism - but then there is little to no more room for a "third option". Semantics may often be the basis of understanding, it can also be used to fog things up.
Atheism is the belief, faith, conviction, what-have-you (you can say it's "certainty" but so does a religious person about their faith) that there is NOT a God/gods/Force/etc.
Agnosticism is the conviction/belief/idea/faith/etc that you do not know and/or cannot know.
We can go 17 more rounds about theistic agnosticism, apatheistic agnosticism, metaphysical agnosticism, and all that - I'm a philosophy major, seriously, I'll do it if you insist. But this seems a futile discussion. If you're "willing to accept that there's the possibility of a benevolent creator or intelligent design or what have you, but", you're not, in my book, a strict atheist.
Atheism, in the strict definition, is the positive belief in the nonexistence of (a) God(s). Nonbelieve in the existence of God is a much broader, more inclusive definition of atheism - but then there is little to no more room for a "third option". Semantics may often be the basis of understanding, it can also be used to fog things up.
Not at all. I don't for one second believe that god exists, but if you were able to show me proof, I'd have to amend that belief. That's where I take umbrage with you using the word faith, because faith means blindly accepting something despite evidence to the contrary.
As I said, I'm of the mind that most people who claim to be agnostic are really atheists who are unwilling to make that final disconnect.
No, that's not what faith means at all.
figmentPez
Staff member
Definition one from Merriam Webster is: "a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b. (1) : fidelity to one's promises." Definition 1 from Dictionary.com is "confidence or trust in a person or thing:" Definition 3. from the World English dictionary is specific to Christianity "3. trust in God and in his actions and promises"
All of those align with the definition of faith I gave you in another thread, trust in the testimony of a reliable witness. Words can have multiple meanings, and sometimes the distinctions between how they are used in different contexts is highly important. Just because many people use "faith" to describe belief in contradiction to evidence does not mean that such is the only definition the word has.
You of course completely skipped over this definition.
firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust[DOUBLEPOST=1392046822,1392046769][/DOUBLEPOST]
I'll definitely concede that.
Which is not at all "despite evidence to the contrary".
Saying you'll "believe something when you have proof of it" begets the need for belief. That's akin to saying you refuse to believe in anything until it's accepted as fact.