SHJIHM :: Passion of The Christ :: Expelled ~ Runboard
"There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing." -Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Placating terrorists, meeting with dictators, compassion for murderers... but no humanity for the unborn... incredible.
OOT
Re: Expelled I am sorry, Lauchlin, but you are simply begging the question. A scientist has as much right to search for 'design' in nature as one has to assume that all came about by happenstance. Neither approach is more or less scientific.
I think you misunderstand my meaning. All looks into the presence of design that I have seen are fraught with bias and shoddy logic. I am not saying that design can't be approached from a scientific perspective, I am saying I have never seen an approach that fits.
Every time I see someone advocating design it is made up of a very subjective analysis, which when examined closely, is all geared towards proving that there is a creator, as opposed to letting the facts speak for themselves.
I mean, if you look at Darwin, he was basically beaten down by logic. He was actually a religious man, but saw that the facts did not support the outlook of everything being created as we see it now. This is an example of following where the facts lead, as opposed to trying to find information that supports what you already believe.
If one does not look at the facts, and try to see what they imply, as opposed to presupposing the answer, then you depart from the scientific method.
I would actually like to see someone who is blatantly non-religious, or agnostic, examine the idea of design. That way, the scientific world would likely take it seriously, instead of immediately assuming that the work was biased.
So again, I have nothing against the idea of design, just the way that it is approached, and falsely labeled as scientific, under that approach.
I guess, in order to advocate a designer, one would have to be able to measure design, or make contact with the designer in a reproducible way. How one can do that, outside the subjectivity of private revelation mixed with assumptions, I have no clue.
I am sorry, Lauchlin, but you are simply begging the question. A scientist has as much right to search for 'design' in nature as one has to assume that all came about by happenstance. Neither approach is more or less scientific.
According to my atheist friend.....
quote:
If your evidence (of God) does not measure up to scientific standards, then by definition, it is not evidence. Merely conjecture, anecdotes, and supposition, which can be used as evidence of any conclusion you wish to draw.
--- "My Sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Re: Expelled In a way that is my problem with I.D., Tony. It attempts to put God in a test tube and that seems like an irrational thing to do. Any rational conception of God would conceive of him as being greater than science as science is simply a means to explore the material universe. If a person believes that science is competent to address all things knowable then he is already assuming that God does not exist. That is again begging the question.
Re: Expelled Why are the universal constants tuned just so? There are a number of fundamental, universal, physical constants that because of the values they have allow our universe to exist as we see it. If any of them had varied from their actual values what we know would be entirely different if it were to exist at all. We don't know why they have the values they do but assuming a designer is consistent with our knowledge of these things. The other solution that those from an atheist perspective have proposed is that an infinite number of universes exist and we just happen to be in the one that got everything right. All the others are out there some where in some multi-universal set not doing nearly as well as the one we happened to inhabit.
Seriously, thinking like this can make people reject atheism and become theists.
Re: Expelled I definitely understand where you are coming from, folks.
Come to think of it, maybe one of the issues with science and God is the fact that science is a series of observations, with a conclusion at the end, where God is already defined (as much as He can be) in human terms.
But anyways, the idea of universal constants being tuned 'just so' is just a matter of how we define the constants. All it really reflects is interaction between things, defined in knowable quantities. In actual fact, these constants reflect 'us' as the designers, as opposed to indicating that there is some other creator, as these constants are just us observing interaction.
There is, of course, the whole question of 'why do things interact according to such specific patterns?' which I think is a much more relevant question, especially here.
The postulation of science is that the presence of order does not necessarily indicate design. Stating that when we design something, it has a given order by the nature of how we set it up for a purpose gives us a natural bias to assume that if something has order, it was designed.
All of these things coming together, it has occurred to me that the only way to scientifically prove God, without making large jumps and assumptions, is to be able to interact with God in a measurable way. How do you measure something, when one of the core tenets of Christianity is Faith, which means we believe even if we do not see the Lord in person. This implies a lack of that kind of 'concrete' interaction.
As I have concluded many times, I don't think science can prove or disprove God.
Perhaps, with your point about putting God in a test tube, Michael, is that that is exactly how science proves things. Little baby steps that are brought together to make a solution that fits as flawlessly as possible.
Re: Expelled It gets worse, Lauchlin, if you look at how Catholic/scholastic philosophy defines the observable universe. The physical properties that we measure in science are classified as 'accidents' of a potentiality for existence that has had a form imposed on it. That is why a Catholic can say entirely sincerely and with a straight face that the Eucharist after consecration is truly a different substance than it was before that simply has all the external characteristics (accidents) of bread. And that is why a scientist (for instance P.Z. Meyers) would scoff at the Catholic belief. But the point is that whatever the essence of God is, it is not measurable by science because it does not have the properties that material beings are able to observe. By definition, science cannot address theology directly. That is why people are reduced to looking for evidence of a divine intelligence behind creation. We can only look for indirect evidence.
Re: Expelled From a scientific perspective, all the possibilities of now are considered, making the fact that we are here as we are now an instance of random chance. I guess it seems amazing to observe what we are now, and so some state that it is 'too complex' to have come around through happenstance.
However, we are looking at an end result, after the fact. To predict that things would have turned out like this would be an amazing feat, but noting that after the fact, when speaking in statistics and probability, is nonsensical, as it has already been decided. You buy lottery tickets before the lottery not after.
Because of this, science still strives to ask questions - which, of course, stopping and saying things are too complex would completely halt - and see if there is a cause for the universe. In science, faith is a bad thing, as faith makes for weak science.
As for the eucharist, if you could sample it before, and after, and show that there is a difference in the substance, then a scientist would listen. Otherwise he says "Well, you believe it has changed, but if I believe that it has changed into something that will corrupt the soul, does that mean that I am right?"
Because of this, I don't think that science can address theology at all. As I stated above, faith has no place in science, should not touch down anywhere in a scientific analysis. Faith is really anti-science, if you want the truth of it. It has no material proof, relies on a book, and tradition, as opposed to reason and logic.
I wonder why the two communities can't just sit back and play nice?
In science, faith is a bad thing, as faith makes for weak science.
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Faith is really anti-science, if you want the truth of it.
These statements can only be true if science attempts to elevate itself to the position of a religion. If science allows itself to remain a tool to explore the material universe then science and faith complement each other. They don't conflict.
