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About LinkBacksI'd like science to continue to strive for an explination that is slightly more sophisticated than 'a big man in the sky with magic powers made everything'Originally Posted by Kezzer
And luckily, it seems that is exactly what is happening.
I'd like science to continue to strive for an explination that is slightly more sophisticated than 'a big man in the sky with magic powers made everything'
And luckily, it seems that is exactly what is happening.
I'm happy to admit I do not have the worlds greatest understanding of the Bible - so far my studying of it, along with discussions etc. with many other Christians, has shaped the faith I have. As far as my liturgical beliefs go, I most closely fit within an Anglican denomination.
As far as your judgement of my being a Christian or not is concerned, you are more than welcome to have your own opinion. I have to admit that I am not overly concerned with what label people attach to me, save only that I hope they attribute the good things to Christianity and don't hold up the bad things as representative of all Christians.
As far as contradicting the fundamental basics, I would be grateful if you could show me where that is the case. The fundemental basics of Christainity is an acceptance that God's own has paid the 'justice' and as such we are 'saved'. I do have that acceptance. I also try to love God and respect other people. I'm not perfect at that, I admit, but I don't see where I am contradicting any fundamental basics.
Regards,
kalniel
I'm obviously not being very clear here, so I'll try again.
The science against the 6000 year claim contains (I assume) statistical analysis of its assertions (and statistics is not a particularly intuitive area of mathematics).
Your problem is that there is not a shred of evidence to say that the Earth is six thousand years old and created by a supernatural. I agree with you entirely. The uncertainty arises in that we are never in a position to say 'we have all of the evidence pertaining to this hypothesis' - we can say with 99.99999% confidence that the Earth is yay old, but there will always be .00001% leftover for nutcases to make up stories with.
It's not that these stories have an intrinsic probability of being accurate, or that we should give them credit, it's rather that we can't scientifically disprove them as we have that little uncertainty left over.
So, yes. Mathematically, at least, nothing is certain.
Last edited by Byatt; 27-02-2007 at 03:52 PM.
Yep, the chance of there being anything which we can know with 100% certainty.
Hang on a sec...
D'oh!
I'm not certain really, I think there are some things in mathematics that we can know 100%, such as 1+1=2, but there will probably be a mathematician around here to tell me that under some conditions that is somehow not exactly accurate.
Science is very much like law. You know never prove anything conclusively, you can only provide evidence about something. I mean, the amount of bone marrow in a rib, we could probably make a person from one now (albeit not a female from a male). Yes, I hold that there is a very very small possibility that this happened literally as the bible tells it.
Tell me how you can know with certainty that you have not lived your entire life in a coma in which you are dreaming this reality up?
because i have a better imagination than this
Vodka
No, but you are talking down to me, and have been since you first posted, so I'll quote this:
'God may have created everything, but since he went to so much trouble rigging isotope decay rates, making our DNA 98% the same as the great apes, counterfeiting and hiding all these fossils for us to find, I BETTER believe in evolution if I know what's good for me.
And as Geology shows that fossils are of different ages, Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time, Taxonomy shows the biological relationships among species with Evolution as the explanation that threads it all together; and Creationism is the practice of squeezing ones eyes shut and wailing "does not!", I think I'd have choosen it anyway.'
And then stop trying to converse with a being of your intellect.
Tell me how I can know with certainty that you actually meant to type that message as it appears on my screen, and didn't actually mean to ask me something else.
Normally I'd assume beyond reasonable doubt that you did and just answer, but now...
Beyond reasonable doubt exists as a term pretty much because nothing can be proven 100% conclusively...
I'm going to put a post in now, as by the time I've read the end of the thread, there's more to read again.
Imagine we're in the year 1500. A child asks his Father why it went dark in the middle of the day the day before. In this year, what do you think the man will say to his child about what we know now to be a perfectly natural phenomena (eclipses)? I'm pretty sure that rather than simply saying "I don't know" he'd say that God caused it, not knowing a better answer.
Now fast forward to today. A child asks his Father how the universe came to be. Being of a Christian background, what does the Father say?
Now, move on 500 years again into the future. Our knowledge has changed. This may make our current beliefs sound silly. It may not, but my point is that everything that people couldn't understand in the past was blamed on God, when science has shown us evidence for us to believe something else, it makes believing that God did it such a tiny probability with all the evidence that science provides.
Rather than blaming things that we don't understand on God, can we not just say "we don't know"? Why do we need an answer that MAY be right, but you currently have no evidence for?
looking forward to fundie getting on so he/she can tell us more about there special relationship with god
Vodka
Right - If nothing can ever be 100% proven, then it must follow that this includes everything - including the statement 'nothing can ever be 100% proven'because nothing can be proven 100% conclusively...
So, if that statement can never be proven to be 100% correct, then there is a small chance it is not, and therefore a small chance that something can be proven 100%.
You having that?
Last edited by Stewart; 27-02-2007 at 04:14 PM.
*golf claps*
Vodka
Even Richard Dawkins, my favourite bad philosopher, admits that he is 'agnostic about God', but in the same way that he is 'agnostic about fairies' - ie you can count it as beyond reasonable doubt, but never as proven.
It is simply beyond science to conclusively prove anything. The scientific method says
1: This is how I think the world works
2: If this is so, then a will lead to b...
3: Therefore, I shall cause a to happen
4a: If b then doesn't happen, my hypothesis in (1) was wrong
4b: If b does happen, then you do it again. The more times you do it and get a positive result, the stronger the evidence that your hypothesis is correct. It is never proven because there is always an (increasingly small with each repetition of the experiment) chance that the next time the outcome will be (4a) and your hypothesis is incorrect.
A good example of this, where something seems proven beyond reasonable doubt, but then isn't, would be Einstein's showing Newton's (fairly self evident) physics to be not 100% correct. We therefore needed to change our views on how physics works, despite it being beforehand relatively obvious that Newton was correct.
More close to home would be, as I mentioned earlier with reference to 'A Beautiful Mind', the fact that people do hallucinate. A hallucination is, by medical definition, indistinguishable from reality by the person experiencing it. It can be of anything, and in any or all sensory modalities. Thus, a person on a psychiatric ward will relatively commonly believe that they see or hear things that lead them to believe with certainty that they are being experimented on or persecuted. I do not think it likely that I am hallucinating this computer, my tactile, auditory and visual experience of it seems real enough, but it is possible that I am hallucinating it.
There is nothing in life that we hold to be true that cannot potentially be explained by our hallucinating the world in which we live. It is incredibly unlikely, but still potentially the case.
I believe I already said that, followed by a "d'oh"!
In fact, actually, yes, that easy, because "If nothing can ever be 100% proven, then it must follow that this includes everything - including the statement 'nothing can ever be 100% proven'" is correct - it can never be proven. Doesn't mean it can't be true.
Last edited by Alex; 27-02-2007 at 04:19 PM.
This is rapidly spirialing out of control.
In a word - can anything, in your opinion, ever be 100% proven? You've said no, but now you say yes; yes?
Stewart, to answer your original question, coming from a religious childhood, I think I understand why people believe in god in their own way.
It is a part of the structure of their lives. I find that most people are either brought up religious and therefore have religious familys and friends (mostly) and rely on church for a good deal of their lives. You are supported in your beleif and defence of it by a community of people.
More importantly it is part of the basic structure of what you beleive in in life, and it's very hard and scary to change that, especially in a situation where you are supported in your faith and 'warned' about disbeleivers testing your faith.
The other people who come to find religion later in their life, whether highly intelligent or otherwise, typically are looking for some structure in their life which is missing.
At the end of the day having a god telling you what is right and wrong I find extremely unhealthy. Especially as it's all actually written by men with mainly Power in mind or from a time that is no longer relevant (eg we are not involved in constant tribal wars unlike the times when old testament and the Koran were written).
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