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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:09 am
I've seen a lot of people approach science like it's the tool that disproves God's existence. The initial reaction I have to statements like this, is why? In a most general sense, I get a lot of, "well surely you don't think God just magically made everything." That's one I hear a lot. But then I remind those kinds of folks that God was never declared using magic anywhere in the Bible, so that's out. Then they often get into the finer details of how everything works. And for some reason that eludes me, if they find out how something works, then God could not have done it? Example being that some people think because there's proof of evolution, that it rules out God's handywork. But I find this out of place for 2 reasons. The first being, that you can't conclude that because something has mechanics, that it could not have been created. This is actually a rediculous sentiment, as watches have mechanics. That doesn't exclude them from having been created. The second reason being that God is proclaimed to have created everything. So how does proving that something exists, or functions in a certain way disprove God's handywork? Again, back to the watch example. Let's compare the watch to say the earth for example. The watch comes with instructions for use, just like the earth came with instructions from the Bible (God's word). Now the watch won't likely come with a schematic for its design, or a list of all its internal mechanisms and applied sciences. But we don't go so fas as to say the mechanics or existence of the watch, for lack of detailed internal descriptions, excludes it from having been created. The fact that people make this argument against God's work is a tad absurd and very bias. Example: If God is real and evolution is real, then why didn't God talk about evolution in the Bible? I'd call this case and point.
An issue I actually have with science itself, along with its dissemination, is that it's not always so cut out and perfect as some people make it out to be. I used to be the kind of atheist that looked on science as the one and only real truth humanity really had. Problem was, as I got older, I saw science changing. It wasn't as much set in stone anymore. And much more to my surprise, science had often developed so much, that the truth it was claimed to wield had changed entirely. Truth of a matter never changes unless the matter of that truth changes first. There is room for perspective granted, but this goes beyond that. So I stopped taking science for granted and looked deeper. I started to find out, although inclusive af many facts, science is largely built up around estimations, best-guesses, and proposed physics. And I have no problem with that which is proven, tried, and true. And I don't really have a problem with developing science either. What I have a problem with, is variables, assumptions, and proposed ideas being weighed against people's faith as if it's any better. Ultimately, the science is often investing faith, with some facts, that what they assume is correct. Likewise, religion is often the same thing. Now I hear people refute religious claims with scientific fact, but it peeves me just a bit when I look into those facts and find a few noteworthy facts (that do not support the claim) surrounded by a vareity of estimated guesswork. The scale of religion and science have often tipped in my studies from time to time, but more often lately, I see them on the same scale. This leads me to consider the options of how science might easily just be the tools the creator used in making the universe. It doesn't really sound difficult to comprehend. For me, the only missing link is establishing that creator, but at this point that's more a personal matter. I figure if one hasn't found God, and they're out to disprove him, then they are investing in a fallous effort, 1: Because if there is no God, they are flat out wasting their time, and 2: If there is, what good do they hope to accomplish? I suppose what I'm getting at here is that science does not make any case against God's existence, let alone a solid one. No one should rely on science as a means of disproving a creator, mostly because it's silly. I consider the possibility that stars and things may have formed from other things, and those things from other things, so forth and so on from any given time. To say that it all had to begin with something has to be true, unless something at one point came from nothing. I figure it either all came from God, or from something else. And if you ask where that something else came from, it could be something else. The universe shows us that elements contstantly mingle and transform, both creating and destroying. To assume there was one beginning where from which before, there was nothing, is assuming that something came from nothing. And I satisfy that case with either God exists and he was the something before that nothing, or he dosn't and everything just keeps going. This exludes any number of possibilities I may not be aware of. Actually, given the state of the universe as it is, it's actually quite simple to see how either God could have done it, or that it sustains istelf through measures already in play.
I also understand the case where people say everything created comes from a creator. I agree with this, but even this is accepting that God exists and created everything. That faith can and does justify that statement. The way I see it, if someone has that faith, then their claim is justified, because there is no 100% undeniable fact sheet out there with all the details beginning to end. Faith is a requirement to believe anything. And I haven't found anyone that doesn't believe in something. It is also just to say that's an assumption based on faith. That is assuming that the universe was created. To have faith that things interacted and thus, formed life, etc. is no more or less an assumption. So both views are quite valid as far as science is concerned.
Well, enough rambling from me. Anyone got anything else in relation to science they want to talk about?
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:21 am
My brother, a hardcore scientist, and I have allot of conversations about science. Due to how evenly matched our conversations are on most parts, we inevitably go back to what may be considered the greatest mystery; the Big Bang.
Science has enough evidence to consider the Big Bang theory solid, although impossible to prove. However, what it comes down to is at first there was nothing. Nothing. Then matter (?) and anti-matter (??) collided to cause the big bang. The conversation usually goes something like the following at this point...
Me: "So how did matter and anti-matter come to be?" Bro: "They were just there." Me: "And because it's matter and anti-matter it has the ability to break the law of physics stating that you can't get something from nothing or create more matter than you started with?" Bro: "Yes, because of the amount of energy involved." Me: "Back to how it got there, what makes it impossible for God to have put it there and caused all this?" Bro: "That can't be proven." Me: "Neither can the idea that he didn't."
Because every conversation inevitably ends this way, we tend to avoid the topic of God Vs Science and simply enjoy each others' company in other things, such as gaming and politics. I'm sure he's always hoping I'll wake up and put Christianity aside, at the same time I hope he wakes up and chooses to give God a chance.
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Lord Alucard Ere Casanova
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:13 am
I find religion vs. science to be a false dilemma in most cases. Science is a tool for discovering how the universe works. It is a system of formal investigation that sets philosophical naturalism as an axiom since it is an objective common ground that avoids most metaphysical debates and focuses on cases that are repeatable and observable by the senses thus open to peer review and criticism if new observations disprove current held "truths". Where the supposed "science disproves God or gods" comes in at is when one believes that a system set up to assume philosophical naturalism as default, somehow proves philosophical naturalism as fact.
The problem though with science is that it just gives us the facts. Well part of human psychological make up is that "just the facts" are meaningless if we cannot apply a value of some kind to it and we are prone to reject these facts if presented in a way that is opposed to values currently held. (There's also cases where facts might undermine a political authority who holds to an outdated idea as a source of authority but we will not touch on this subject since it can delve into the conspiracy theory madness.) For a fact to be accepted in a culture, it has to be consistent with values currently held by the culture or the culture would have to change its values to accommodate for the new fact that presents an inconsistency. The former is the safest and most common method of introducing a new fact. Example the people in Christianity opposed to evolution are those who hold that the only way the Bible has any authority is if everything in it is literally 100% factual to the T. This method of thinking about the Bible is rather a recent development in Christianity. (There were a number of Christian theologians who defended evolution that are for the most part unheard, I have lost the name of the book on this topic sad ) You had thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and Maimonides (Jewish but held a similar view) that stated that if scriptures were ever in conflict with scientific and historic facts and observation then the passage was to be taken to be allegorical or metaphorically. Note that this was written during a time when very little was known about the natural world and many Hellenistic "science" and "history" texts were being rediscovered.
Next often times it's religion that provides the motivation for an individual to pursue some course of inquiry. Case in point, The Big Bang was originally a term coined to mock thiss theory since the person who developed the theory was a Catholic priest who wanted to figure out how God could have created the universe out of nothing.
The idea I present concerning values puts into perspective why stem cell research is considered controversial. Is an embryo a human life and if it is it worth trading one life for another? Is there any point in time when an embryo is not a human life? It's not that the good that could result is being opposed but that the research in many cases opposes values that people hold. Example while many are opposed to embryonic stem cells, most are not opposed to stem cells that come from other sources such as human fat and umbilical cords.
I'm just going to throw that out there but at one point sperm was believed to contain "little people"/homunculus in them and it was believed at one point that by dissecting a deceased human it would prevent them from being physically resurrected when Jesus returned.
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:29 am
i find science helps prove that god is out there. evolution, i have a hard time believing that such a complex organism like us or any other multi celled animal, or even a single cell animal, came about just by chance. something had to happen for atoms to make the jump and creat cells, and then make living cells and have everything work well enough for that thing to function untill it reproduced
just becasue something can be explained doesnt mean god didnt make it.
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:44 am
Lord Kilo Von Mortenson My brother, a hardcore scientist, and I have allot of conversations about science. Due to how evenly matched our conversations are on most parts, we inevitably go back to what may be considered the greatest mystery; the Big Bang. Science has enough evidence to consider the Big Bang theory solid, although impossible to prove. However, what it comes down to is at first there was nothing. Nothing. Then matter (?) and anti-matter (??) collided to cause the big bang. The conversation usually goes something like the following at this point... Me: "So how did matter and anti-matter come to be?" Bro: "They were just there." Me: "And because it's matter and anti-matter it has the ability to break the law of physics stating that you can't get something from nothing or create more matter than you started with?" Bro: "Yes, because of the amount of energy involved." Me: "Back to how it got there, what makes it impossible for God to have put it there and caused all this?" Bro: "That can't be proven." Me: "Neither can the idea that he didn't." Because every conversation inevitably ends this way, we tend to avoid the topic of God Vs Science and simply enjoy each others' company in other things, such as gaming and politics. I'm sure he's always hoping I'll wake up and put Christianity aside, at the same time I hope he wakes up and chooses to give God a chance. Yes, that is what I find interesting. Either something was there to contribute to the existence of matter and anti-matter, or it's just as conceivable that they were the tools used for God to instrument the sudden happening of creation. Seems to me like a certain sublte point of agreement was made. I mean, you both choose to accept something was there that you have no proof of. It goes to show you both have faith, albeit in different answers.
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:55 am
Shanna66 i find science helps prove that god is out there. evolution, i have a hard time believing that such a complex organism like us or any other multi celled animal, or even a single cell animal, came about just by chance. something had to happen for atoms to make the jump and creat cells, and then make living cells and have everything work well enough for that thing to function untill it reproduced just becasue something can be explained doesnt mean god didnt make it. You have a very fine point there. As much as I've looked into the complex organism part, I can see how a lot of it feesibly works on a case by case basis, all up until the reproduction part. Organisms have such a short lifespan really. Unless all of the same conditions repeated time and time again long enough to create that life and have it die over and over again until it developed the means to reproduce itself. That's just really hard to buy I guess. And true wisdom in your last statement. Really. I've been trying to figure out why people think that, and it seems to be the assignment of this myterious magic some people associate with God, as if there's nothing to it but magic and anything found as real or fact disproves his involvement. That entire theory base doesn't make any sense though. There's nothing to support it.
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