Creation

The King James version is four hundred years old. They had the same sunlight and moonlight and lamplight then as the ancient Hebrew authors had. They did not know about "light" beyond the visible spectrum. No, I did not write that. It is the residual radiation from the Big Bang. It is NOT what the ancient Hebrews would have called "light". Science concludes this supports the Big Bang. Your dissenting opinion has no value. You might as well disagree with a pilot about aerodynamics. It's unlikely that all of science will be thrown away in favour of your uninformed opinion. There is no logic in that. "Existence" is not a thing; it's a property. So you were being dishonest. You did know that the Big Bang has been called a theory and/or a hypothesis. I haven't said what I accept. You are not remotely near qualified to talk about holes in the Big Bang theory/hypothesis. Nonsense. Science doesn't just discard explantions that are incomplete. It modifies them and/or replaces them when better explanations are found.

You contradict yourself. If scientists want to be the first to discover something, they're quick to criticize what other scientists discover. They're more likely to look for the flaws in the other guy's work than to jump on the band wagon and give him undue credit.

"Search for the truth" is too broad.

If the amendment is based on fact, the belief is no longer a belief. If it is not based on fact, it's just another belief; one is as good as another.

I explained it. Read my post. In science, truth is not the goal. If something is "true" - i.e. if it is supported by evidence - it can be used for further study. For example, it is true that radioactive decay rates do not change; that truth can be used as an "assumption" to accurately measure ages. No. That is not how science looks at truth at all. You can have a few untruths here and there without the whole edifice falling down - just like you can take a couple of studs out of a wall to put in a door without the whole house coming down. No it isn't.

There is no such thing as "the truth". Religion thinks there is - and thousands of different sects all think that they have found it, so they stop looking. That's the opposite of science.

No. Anything found through prayer and meditation is unreliable unless it can be verified objectively. We know that because "truths" found through prayer and meditation vary widely among different groups of believers. How can you know when "the truth" has been reached? Our understanding of facts can change. At one time, Newtonian physics was considered to be "the truth" but now we know it isn't the whole truth. It would be foolish to pretend that what we know about physics today is the whole truth. As I have said, an "assumption" in science is a fact that has been verified in another context. The example I gave was radioactive decay. We do not have to verify it as fact every single time we measure the age of a rock or a bone because it has been verified as fact multiple dimes in different contexts. It doesn't matter how many parts are "wrong". As long as it's the best explanation, it's the best explanation. You're misrepresenting what I said. Here's the whole quote:

quote:

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3. "The truth" can be seen as an absolute. What science finds can always be improved/amended. Message 1367

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Science doesn't search for absolute truth because it isn't possible to know when we've found it.

Objective evidence. Apologists have all kinds of excuses for why it doesn't work. But you claimed that there is such a thing as absolute truth. To reach absolute truth, you'd need to have ALL of the facts, not just some facts. How can you know when you have all of the facts? For all intents and purposes, facts ARE what is believed to be true at any given time. We can not be sure that a "fact" will never change. Nothing is indisputable. The best explanation IS the best explanation. It may well turn out to not be "true" - Newtonian physics, for example. Again, you should read what I write instead of just making it up in your head. I said, "Science doesn't search for absolute truth because it isn't possible to know when we've found it." How can you determine when "absolute truth" has been found?

ICANT does. He says he has reached absolute truth. How can he possibly know a destination exists if he hasn't been there? Are moving destinations anything like moving goalposts? What about ANY facts? I'm satisfied to wait until a bridge exists before I try to cross it. A "leap of faith" my be inspiring in some situations but in most situations it's just plain stupid.

The reason there is no objective evidence is because it would be impossible to establish a clear cause-effect link between the prayer and the event. Unless you can be 100% sure that you're not hallucinating this entire conversation, you have no "absolute truth". On two separate occasions I have seen two moons in the sky at the same time, so I don't trust eyewitness testimony - even if it's my own. Of course I do, just like I disagree that two moons are an absolute truth. Existence is not a thing. It's property of things. You could be hallucinating this entire conversation. Of course it was. It was the best explanation at the time. Walking was the best form of transportation that we had until we discovered better ones. Nonsense. Newton was neither misinformed nor deluded. There's a difference between scientific fact and absolute truth. Scientific fact is the best information that we have at any given time. Absolute truth is unattainable because time keeps moving forward and we keep adding new information.

Or you might be hallucinating.

If one of us could be hallucinating, it could be you. I'm deliberately not swallowing your nonsense without questioning it. Do you have an honest response?

When there is no evidence, the default position is false - i.e unless there is evidence pointing to a cause-effect relationship between prayer and _______, we can not conclude that prayer is effective. Mental illness is another possibility. The person who is hallucinating is the last one to be qualified to determine whether he is hallucinating or not. So what? Only one is visible to the naked eye. I said I SAW two at once. You're being illiterate. Read what I wrote. Existence is a property of things that exist. That's what I'm telling you. You don't seem to be fooling anybody on this forum except Phat. Of course it does. It's the best explanation until if and when a better one comes along. The Empire State Building was the tallest building until a taller one was built. He wasn't "wrong" per se. His understanding was incomplete because he didn't have the information that was found later. Dictionary definitions are for schoolboys. Correct. There's nothing there about it being "indisputable" or absolute. Correct. So why do you keep disputing that? Who said it was "better" than a hypothesis? Why should it be?

Your story doesn't address Tanypteryx's point at all.

That can't be right. He has used examples that have nothing to do with God. I think it's plain that he just doesn't understand what absolute means.