Faith vs Science

In this topic, I want to again bring up some basic questions regarding the difference between faith and science.

What constitutes valid evidence? (In regards to both Faith & Belief and Science Forums) Is valid evidence the same for both science and faith?

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Must Faith have evidence?

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We know that science requires evidence.

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Faith is often personal. Should people of faith be allowed to get angry when their beliefs are challenged? How should creationists defend their faith and still represent science?

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Is It Science, please

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain

Thread copied here from the Faith vs Science thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

To be more specific, I want to hopefully come to a consensus regarding the necessity for evidence in each venue--namely Faith & Belief and also in any of our Science Forums.

What is the bare minimum evidence required for scientific claims? Does this standard differ between evolutionists and creationists?

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Creationists are encouraged to respond to this thread as well as Evolutionists.

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Edited by Phat, : added

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain

And science is not. It's collective.

Granted I believe that the Bible itself is evidence in regards to matters of belief and personal philosophy.In regards to truth, such as the age of the universe or the distance to a star collective evidence is needed.As to the question, say, of whether a Bible was divinely inspired, I would argue that collective evidence is impossible or at the very least impractical due to the fact that unbelievers cannot use collective evidence to judge a philosophical belief system.

It would be better if the word "evidence" was not used at all in such matters. Since even Bible believers can't agree on what it says, it is far from "evident."

The words themselves are evident though. They are evidently there. I argue that in matters of faith & belief, the book or books of any given religion count as support for any arguments presented. I suppose we can agree that the word "evidence" need not be used.

They can't even agree on what books should be included or excluded.

Existence is a poor form of evidence. Fingerprints exist but they're not very useful as evidence unless you can figure out what they mean - e.g. that George was at the crime scene. If you can't agree on what the words mean, they're not very useful support.

Whatever you want it to be.There is no objective definition of "evidence", and I don't think there could be. Evidence is that which persuades you, and there is something unavoidably subjective about that.Science wants evidence that is repeatable and is consented to by the scientific community. So scientific evidence is not what persuades you, but what persuades you and the consensus of the scientific community. And that has generally worked well for science. Presumably. But it is more of a personal thing. Roughly, faith evidence is evidence of the trustworthiness of whoever is making the assertions that you take on faith. So Faith (the evc member) gave a higher trustworthiness to the Bible than I ever did. Back when I was an active Christian, I did trust the Bible, but only to the extent that it was consistent with experience and with what I knew from science. By contrast, Faith gives it the highest trustworthiness, even if it seems to contradict experience and science. There are times when people cannot help but get angry, so I don't think "allowed" is involved. They probably cannot do that.

In the science forums here, Faith needs evidence. That's the rules.Among those who believe in Biblical inerrancy a reference to the Bible may be all the evidence required - but even then quote mining or misrepresentation should not be tolerated, let alone appeals to a scripture that she thinks exists somewhere in the book.And what justifies Faiths anger ? It's far from always disagreement with the Bible. Very often it is disagreement with her opinions or defeating her arguments. Do you think that those are matters of deep religious significance to her ? Is her pride in herself her religion ? Is that what you mean by challenges to her faith ?What do you think Phat ?

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How should creationists defend their faith and still represent science?

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If the basis of Creationist belief is religious SHOULD they try to argue the science ?Surely they should argue about what they understand best rather than trying to bully the better-informed into agreeing with ill-founded and often ignorant opinions. And if they do not understand their religious foundations then they should work hard on those.Really, if they could show that God wrote Genesis 1 as a literal account of the creation they would have made their case.So why don't they ?

Because the story in Genesis 2&3 refutes the story in Genesis 1; the method is different and the order of creation is different.That's why we get the folk claiming the Bible talks about two instances of creation or that gen 1 is the plan while gen 2&3 is the execution.

But there lies much of the problem.The readers often do not like the words themselves and so find ways to get around the words themselves.The goal is to find an explanation that fits the conclusion wanted.A great example is in Genesis 2&3. In that story the god character lies and the serpent tells the truth.But that is NOT what the believers want so it has to be something different, find some other meaning than the words themselves.Faith begins with the conclusion, looks for or manufactures support and ignores anything that might conflict.Science is just the opposite.Science presents something and says "Please show how this is wrong". Science advances by finding mistakes and false conclusions.Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Formally, a hypothesis rules out certain observations as impossible. Instances where we make such observations are of course evidence against the hypothesis. But instances where we look for such observations (or are passively exposed to the possibility of finding them) and do not in fact make such observations, are evidence in favor of the hypothesis.Faith makes its own rules, it's not a set of epistemological principles, but rather is essentially opportunistic: it's whatever arguments make you feel good at the time.