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Organized Religion, the Bible and the Will of God
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Post by
Gone
The work of science requires no faith. This is a notion that is brought up regularly that I would like to disabuse people of if possible.
The scientific process requires faith in the laws of physics (which are actually broken sometimes, see quantum mechanics, but that's not the point) as well as the established methods. The development of new scientific theories requires those brave enough to challenge the established ideas to have faith in their ideas (people like Galileo and Darwin). Finally the spread of scientific knowledge requires faith in the knowledge of those who gather the findings.
Faith plays a very big part of science.
Post by
134377
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Post by
134377
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Post by
109094
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109094
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Post by
Squishalot
Faith in theories? Scientists work on the basis that "that's the best answer we've collectively come up with yet, so let's take that as a starting point, and try to use it to explain other things." That's not the same as a religious persons faith that a statement is absolutely, and irrevocably true, as your physics example illustrates.
The problem is that through scientific induction, we're essentially basing our new theories on old theories, which were based on older theories, which in turn were... (etc.)... which in turn were results observed by some guys long dead who wrote down their findings centuries ago.
Compare that to the Bible - the induction process leads back to people who observed 'miracles' occurring.
I think that you could look at the same event occurring, and due to two different initial explanations for the non-replicable occurrence, come to two very different conclusions due to the direction that your testing and interrogation of the results go. One direction is physics and chemistry based. The other is philosophy based. While they're all theories, one can't disprove the other, not to say that they can't coexist.
At the end of the day though, the Bible and its teachings are the best answer that religious teachers have collectively come up with for events that occurred over two thousand years ago. So they take that as a starting point and use it to explain other things.
Except that is an example of Evolution and not one that is just practiced by humans. Take for example a Peafoul. The females are a dull brown and the males are a rainbow of colours. Females are selectively choosing the males with the most extravagant plumage and are thus selectively breeding that trait into the species. This occurs in a huge range of animals and is no different from what Humans do when selectively breeding an animal for a particular trait(s).
I'm not arguing that it occurs. I said that I don't consider man-driven selective breeding to be 'proof' of 'evolution' as we're discussing it. Re: the Peafoul - what is the natural selection justification for the rainbow plumage?
Except they do occur in a replicable manner as seen in Reznicks Guppy experiments. Where by, in both laboratory and natural conditions, he could change the pattern of the spots by varying both the type of predator that feeds on them (resulting in duller spots) and the type of sand/stone/pebbles in the riverbed (fine stones made for large spots, large stones made for fine spots) and thus the sexual preference of the females in as little as 10-20 generations.
Can you provide a link? The non-research article resources I googled up were mostly about mortality rates, which they claim can only be caused by a genetic change in nature, but drought and famine research in other animals would suggest isn't necessarily true (i.e. it's an in-built risk / reproduction link, such as male/female birthing ratios changing in periods of drought/famine).(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
asakawa
The work of science requires no faith. This is a notion that is brought up regularly that I would like to disabuse people of if possible.
The scientific process requires faith in the laws of physics (which are actually broken sometimes, see quantum mechanics, but that's not the point) as well as the established methods. The development of new scientific theories requires those brave enough to challenge the established ideas to have faith in their ideas (people like Galileo and Darwin). Finally the spread of scientific knowledge requires faith in the knowledge of those who gather the findings.
Faith plays a very big part of science.
Not at all. As I said, the rewards for anyone who challenges well-established concepts successfully are the biggest ones available in the scientific field. Most science is, honestly, boring. what scientists dream of is making the ground-breaking discovery and presenting a theory that others can confirm and replicate. The 'laws of physics' aren't taken on faith. They were basically presented by Newton and constantly refined ever since
Recently there was a story that got into mainstream news about faster than light particles. This idea would mean a big rethink of current physics and would represent the biggest change to our understanding since Einstein's work. The scientific community was highly sceptical but VERY excited at the prospect. Meanwhile the lab that presented the initial data did everything right, they published their paper with all the methods and data and essentially said "This can't be true but these are the results we got. We need other labs to do similar tests on this". Well, tests were done all over the world and the mistake that was made in the initial experiment was found but it makes an excellent example of the process.
All someone needs to challenge established ideas is a theory that stands up to testing. The quacks that claim to have invented cold fusion or perpetual motion machines can never present this kind of evidence and so they remain quacks.
Meanwhile studies are published and peer reviewed - they're replicated and repeated - all to remove faith, or even trust, from the picture entirely. If you doubt something that is just widely accepted as science then you can read the studies done on the subject, you can perform your own experiments to confirm them.
Post by
asakawa
Faith in theories? Scientists work on the basis that "that's the best answer we've collectively come up with yet, so let's take that as a starting point, and try to use it to explain other things." That's not the same as a religious persons faith that a statement is absolutely, and irrevocably true, as your physics example illustrates.
The problem is that through scientific induction, we're essentially basing our new theories on old theories, which were based on older theories, which in turn were... (etc.)... which in turn were results observed by some guys long dead who wrote down their findings centuries ago.
Compare that to the Bible - the induction process leads back to people who observed 'miracles' occurring.
This explanation of science bears really no relation to reality.
Newton did some amazing work. Now we can still use a lot of his work but people like Einstein have shown how, without Newton being outright wrong, the truth is much more complex. Questioning assumptions is what it's all about. We don't know everything now so one approach to to try to find more information while another important approach is to look for mistakes and assumptions previously made.
Post by
109094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
That's not the same as a religious persons faith that a statement is absolutely, and irrevocably true, as your physics example illustrates.
The thing is though, the laws of physics are what every scientific experiment is based upon. Without absolute faith in certain laws of physics, data becomes meaningless. Every experiment is done under the assumption that the laws of physics will hold. The example I gave with quantum mechanics is still something that much of the scientific community doesn't quite know what to do with yet.
Faith seems to be almost a dirty word in any kind of religion vs science debate. People make it out to be the antipode of evidence, which isn't the case. Yes faith can mean belief without evidence, but it can also be belief based on established evidence.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
And even then those basic assumptions are constantly being reexamined, and when found to have a flaw are revised or discarded.
It would be flawed to suggest that religious assumptions aren't likewise constantly reexamined and revised / discarded as appropriate.
Yes you can't "disprove", but you can do this: For example, you could look at the wheat that Ezekiel was eating when he saw his wheel, and find that it was infected by the ergot fungus. Archaeologists have found specimens in preserved grain stores from communities in that region and time that indicate that it was rife. You could then demonstrate the effects of that fungus being ingested. You could conclude that his experience was a psychadelic "trip", but only through scientific methods. You couldn't prove that it wasn't a miraculous vision, but you'd have very strong evidence that it wasn't. The person who claimed that it was a miraculous vision, sent by God, wouldn't be able to offer any evidence to support their conjecture at all.
Only if you could prove that all those items lined up. I think it would be very difficult to demonstrate how that could occur without the entire community having psychadelic experiences, not to mention that you would need to somehow demonstrate conclusively that the grain stored is in exactly the same grain and fungal condition that Ezekiel would have ingested it in.
Anyway, I'm off for the evening. Night all.
Post by
Gone
Just because something has a natural explanation doesn't mean it wasn't God's doing.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
That's not the same as a religious persons faith that a statement is absolutely, and irrevocably true, as your physics example illustrates.
The thing is though, the laws of physics are what every scientific experiment is based upon. Without absolute faith in certain laws of physics, data becomes meaningless. Every experiment is done under the assumption that the laws of physics will hold. The example I gave with quantum mechanics is still something that much of the scientific community doesn't quite know what to do with yet.
Faith seems to be almost a dirty word in any kind of religion vs science debate. People make it out to be the antipode of evidence, which isn't the case. Yes faith can mean belief without evidence, but it can also be belief based on established evidence.
You are still misrepresenting "science". An experiment has a control. A good control in an experiment shows the effects of the local physics which removes any possible, unexpected variations from the variables in the experiment. And even if unexpected things happened the test would need to be replicated by many others before the theory is considered to have merit. Essentially, a well controlled, double blind experiment doesn't even assume that the laws of physics will remain constant throughout the experiment.
The requirement of faith is what science aims to eradicate so in that sense it is the antithesis to science.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
Just because something has a natural explanation doesn't mean it wasn't God's doing.
And this is the point where I have absolutely no abrasion with religion at all. If we can all agree on core concepts but interpret them differently, then I am just happy with the agreement. Personally I don't feel that a deity is needed behind everything we observe but while we're agreeing on the observation, I won't argue with someone else's interpretation.
Post by
109094
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Post by
asakawa
Indeed, that's the "god of the gaps" idea isn't it. As long as the assumption that 'a god did' it doesn't hinder further investigation and isn't taught in the same way as evidence-based subjects then I don't have a big issue with people thinking that way.
Post by
109094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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