Faith vs Science

Well I appreciate you attempt, I'm sure it's well-meant. But you've totally ignored everything I've said and you're still trying to make my mental picture of the world similar to yours. It would help a lot if you accepted at face value that it's not.The bible and Christians do indeed talk a lot about faith - I never use the word outside these fora. Try to understand that this thing you feel is vitally important to you and you Christian friends, that you bang on about day and night and live your life by, has no part in my life. To the extent that it's of any consequence to me, it's a concern, it bothers me that so many people are so deluded. In your case the belief seems benign, you appear to have a liberal, even benevalent belief, in others the belief is harmless and in others it's extremely dangerous. But the core of all faith systems are nonsense - a belief in invented, random systems for no reason other than birth origin is long past it's usefulness to us, no matter how benign. And you think wrongly. You're doing it again - pushing your belief system onto others. STOP IT! The golden rule has nothing whatsoever to do with faith.The desire to do both good and harm is totally natural for all of us, they're both completely explicacable as evolved traits caused by a balanced necessity to compete to survive and to co-operate to succeed beyond mere survival. We have violent emotions that society has tamed over time for the greater good. If you want to see the evidence for this I suggest you read Pinker's book 'The better angels of our nature, why violence has declined.' We also have empathetic emotions that allow us get on together - mostly. The point of these reductionist explanations is not to give away our humanity, it's to show you that I do not think about our life here the same way as you do, and to encourage you to stop trying to making an equivalence.Where we do have common ground is that we both know that people are capable of enormous good as well as enormous harm and if there's a useful purpose to what we as individuals do here, it's to encourage the good and discourage the bad in order to build better societies for our children to benefit from. We just have different reasons for feeling that way.

Well, that was the point I was making. I used the word faith in an attempt to draw it back to the topic of Faith vs Science. I have a problem with the topic anyway as I don't see a conflict. I simply view science as a natural theology. Well ya but we do have a point where are minds meet as you point out in the first paragraph I quoted. We just disagree completely about the reasons for why it is that we feel that way about good and harm. People have done terrible things in the name of one religion or another but they have also done terrible things for non-religious reasons. In the end whether the reasons are religious or secular, (disregarding mental illness), the reasons are really about pride and power.As far as being deluded is concerned I feel the same way about atheistic beliefs. I just don't think that calling other people's beliefs deluded is helpful to any discussion.Maybe another way to look at it is that our beliefs form our world view. Yes my Christianity has been a large part of forming my world view and it is your beliefs and influences that have largely formed your world view. In many ways, again going back to the first quote I used in this post, our world views do overlap.

aarghhh.....is there any point discussing this with you? You take absolutely no notice of what is said and fall straight back to the same errors of thinking. Watch my lipsI DO NOT HAVE A FAITH OR A BELIEF.Why can you not just accept that? Explain. It's the entire reason for your belief. If you were born elsewhere you simply couldn't and wouldn't have it. That is utterly undeniable. I had the same beliefs and the same influences. I rejected them on evidence and lack of evidence. Our world views differ entirely, our real lives overlap perfectly because we're made of the same biological stuff and have been brought up by similar societies with similar values. It has nothing to do with faiths or beliefs.

Then you go on to say Do you believe that or don’t you?What I meant about having similar world views is that we do have similar values. We do disagree about the basis for our similar world views.Yes, I get it that you reject all religions as false, though you accept that there might possibly be a prime mover, but you think that is highly unlikely as you see no evidence for such an entity. Does that work for you?Just wondering if when you say that we, have been brought up by similar societies with similar values, if you can acknowledge that Christianity has played a part in the fact that we have similar societies and values? There are people that grow up around me who hold all kinds of religious beliefs, and Christians can be found in pretty much any place on the planet. People convert from one thing to another. You rejected Christianity for atheism. Actually I have always lived in Canada, but my specific Christian beliefs have been largely formed by my studying the work of 3 Brits, namely N. T. Wright, John Polkinghorne and initially C S Lewis.

Of course I 'believe' that. In exactly the same way I 'believe' that i'm typing this on an iPad. ie I'm not using the word in the same way you do when you say you believe in a Resurrected Christ or my cleaner says she believes in dowsing. Please, please make the distinction. Nearly. I can't rule out a non-interventionist god - that's purely rational. As is my view that the evidence is overwhelmingly against there actually being one. But I'm also an atheist which means I don't believe that there is one; that's "believe" in your sense. Of course. Christianity is at the base of both of our societies. But so too is democracy, law, education etc etc. But there's no core differences between peoples of whatever race or religion. You're dissembling. You know that had you been born in a village in the Atlas mountains you would be a Muslim. [ABE: and so would I] At least be honest.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

I agree that you can know that we are products of our cultures, that is obvious. However, we can't absolutely rule out the possibility, no matter how remote you view the possibility, that we are influenced by some entity outside our physical world. I would agree though that the belief that you refer to is not the same as my belief in a resurrected Christ. Cultural influences are observed in our every day life, resurrection not so much. That is pretty much the point I have been trying to make all along. It does seem to me that you shouldn't be able to absolutely rule out an interventionist god either but that's kinda splitting hairs. I was being honest. I only indicated that it is possible. I have a friend who grew up in a strongly Muslim family, in strongly Muslim country and converted to Christianity while still living in that country. His family has disowned him. However, I do agree that he is the rare exception and your point is nearly always true.That doesn't on its own however make my beliefs, or a Muslim's beliefs wrong. For that matter, you aren't likely to get two Christians who have thought seriously about their faith to agree on everything either. There's a tiny bit of a gap between Faith and myself.

Science, and evidence-based conclusions in general never "absolutely rule out" anything. Ever.

Come off it! If that was the point you were trying to make, I wouldn't be diagreeing with you would I? The disagreement was that a beliver's faith is the equivalent of 'faith' in science. Or in your example, a belief in the Loch Ness monster is the same as a 'belief' in V=I*R. Technically, we can't rule out anything, but practically we can and do. In fact we have to to get anything done. We reach a standard of proof and accept that position until there's a demonstrable reason not to.But an uninvolved god is undetectable so can't be ruled out.An involved god though, must, by definition, be actively interfering with reality. In most believer's views their God does this routinely and frequently. If that was actually the case we'd be able to detect it. We have never been able to do so and when claims have been made of physical supernatural interventions they've been found to be false or fraud.This is your rabbit in the Cambrian, one single non-controversial supernatural event would prove your case. You haven't got one.

I wasn't comparing belief in the Loch Ness monster to belief in V=I*R. I was actually comparing it to my Christian faith. Here is what I said.

quote:

---

I suppose some people believe in the Loch Ness Monster. I believe that they are wrong. I believe in God. You believe I'm wrong. Neither of us can know that we are right. They are simply our beliefs.

---

I was never trying to compare my Christian faith to faith in science. Actually I have faith in science to the degree that it has discovered a great deal of what goes on in the world. My argument was when you and others say that if something can't be discovered scientifically it doesn't exist. For example again I'll take evolution. I have faith that science has done a good job of showing how life has evolved. The question then is whether or not the root cause is intelligent or not. Science doesn't answer that as it can only discover what happened and even how it happened.Here is what I said in my original post in this thread.

quote:

---

The point I make is that science tells us that there was a point at which T=0. As I understand the entire universe quickly became a mass of mindless and likely dimensionless particles, or something like that. (Cut me some slack as I'm no scientist. ) Fast forward to today and we have sentient, emotional beings, with an understanding of morality, who are able to discern physical and mathematical patterns in the universe.

​

I look at that and conclude and have faith in the idea that there is something more that is the reason that things are the way they are, and that the "something more" is intelligent and rational. You disagree and conclude and have faith in the idea that there is nothing more, and that we are simply the result of the processes that made us what we are.

---

I agree with that. I have no evidence for and have never witnessed something beyond the natural. I have experienced things in my life that I believe were outside of of natural life experiences but I have no evidence that I can give to substantiate the point. Our thoughts come from all sorts of natural sources and we don't always know from where. I do believe that there is that "still small voice" that touches our hearts and minds. If that is true then I suppose that would be a miracle. Well I would suggest just the fact that we exist.

That's not the comparison I'm complaining about. You keep claiming that an atheist has the same sort of faith in science as you have in God - s/he doesn't. Do'h....hardly non-controversial....Given that supernatural events are routine for your belief, you'd think that just one of them might be available. As for voices in your head....well, least said about that the better.

Sorry to interrupt but I won't take long. You guys always think a supernatural event, a miracle, would convince you, but the fact is that you'd find some way to rationalize it away. And of course you won't accept miracles reported by others, you'd have to see it yourself. The Bible is full of witnessed miracles, witnessed by many people at once, but you won't accept those, always find some way to discredit them.All I wanted to say. Carry on.

Thank you for that demonstration Faith.As we can see theists recognise the need for evidence - and so as Faith has so nakedly shown - they have to pretend to have good evidence,And since the evidence she has is hopelessly inadequate she resorts to slandering anyone who refuses to accept it.

I'm pretty certain that an instantly regererated limb would convince me. How about a levitating statue? Real transubstantion instead of pretend. Prayers that actually work. It's simple stuff. An easy challenge to meet I'd have thought.

Not really. I'm suggesting that there are those that use science as a method of disproving the existence not of a specific "God" but of the idea that there is a prime mover(s) that is responsible for the fact that we exist.I have faith in science and the scientific method. Well, I still suggest that the fact we exist is pretty miraculous. I also believe that the resurrection was an actual historical event but the evidence for that is in the accounts of the early Jesus followers and we can either accept those accounts or reject them.The use of the "still small voice" is obviously a metaphor and not meant to be a literal voice. Maybe another word would be our conscience.

The problem is not science in general---it makes sense, is verifiable, and passes most critical thinking tests. The problem is when science is used to explain origins. Science is NOT the origen, nor is Stephen Hawking anywhere near brilliant enough to come up with a hypothesis that explains origin. If he were that smart he would be able to walk...indeed fly.