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Religous Debate- Need input....

losman said:
here is latest staement that he keeps hammering....


"I'm just trying to get you to understand that the theories postulated by "science" are faith-based beliefs, and are therefore religious beliefs."
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I would ask, why the scare quote around the word science? Is there a distinction between "science" and science? Is it "science" or science which "postulates" the theory of gravity? Is the theory of gravity a "faith-based belief"? The germ theory of disease? Quantum theory?
 
Who's rules are these? :confused:
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My own - a mental checklist of ways to avoid headaches and drawn out "debates" on negatives. Common when dealing with Christians, especially of the evangelistic and born-again ilk.

I'm an evangelical atheist. If someone talks to me about religion or faith, I'm going to whack them around about it with logic and facts. Is it attacking their faith? Yes. Yes, I believe it is. ;) I’m OK with this, however, if it makes just ONE of them evaluate the historical evidence of their faith.
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Ok, but if you do that two times in a row, you'll then have to convince me miracles don't happen.
 
Question:

If the argument against a creator is "Who created the creator?", then who/what created the "softball size of mass"?
 
wastepanel said:
Question:

If the argument against a creator is "Who created the creator?", then who/what created the "softball size of mass"?
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I guess you got us there.........:D















(Psssst. If we don't understand something, we don't automatically asssume some great bearded guy in the sky made it...) ;)
 
I'm seriously just asking...

It has nothing to do with what you think, what I think, what anybody thinks happens. Nobody knows, so what's the point of arguing?
 
wastepanel said:
I'm seriously just asking...

It has nothing to do with what you think, what I think, what anybody thinks happens. Nobody knows, so what's the point of arguing?
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It's our best theory based on what we do know, and what we can witness back 13.6 or so billion light years ago...

Compare that against 'the other' evidence.....

If God wants us to 'know' the answer, he should have written us a better book.....

;)
 
wastepanel said:
OK...let me rephrase.

What created the huge amount of mass responsible for the universe today? What did it consist of?
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It consisted off the entire mass of the universe....

What created it? What created what created it? What created what created that? What created what created what created the one who created the ball of mass?

A guy could grow weary.......;)
 
wastepanel said:
OK...let me rephrase.

What created the huge amount of mass responsible for the universe today? What did it consist of?
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It's scientifically kown that I, as the Titanium Superhero, made this universe. I had alot of mexican that day, and this is the mess that exploded on contact with the common household chemicals I used to use as my toilet water and my electrified spine.

I've been trying to clean this sh*thouse up ever since.

You infidels could f***ing help a bit once in a while, you know.
 
losman said:
here is latest staement that he keeps hammering....


"I'm just trying to get you to understand that the theories postulated by "science" are faith-based beliefs, and are therefore religious beliefs."
Click to expand...

Some folks have offered good advice for answering this already, but I'll just add something said many times on these boards. It is quite to the point:

The theories postulated by science are not faith-based beliefs. The laws and theories extrapolated by science exist whether anyone believes in them or not. In fact, they would exist whether humans existed or not.

Religion, in this regard, is the complete opposite. Take away people (faith-generating pods, so to speak), and there is no such thing as religion.

In other words, science does not concern itself with beliefs or faith. Science is a method of discovery, and it operates independently of all human biases (well, good science does anyway). The discoveries made require no faith, they require no belief, and they require no human validation whatsoever. They simply are what they are.

And, as has been stated, there is no "off" position on that method of discovery. So the discoveries are constantly being re-evaluated, improved upon, updated, and sometimes even downright reversed.

Religion? Not so much.

We could overturn the entire known body of physics completely --- I mean prove it to all be wrong --- and a physicist would still be a physicist. Were we to do the same with religion, would a Christian still be a Christian? Or a Jew a Jew? Or a Muslim a Muslim?
 
wastepanel said:
What created the huge amount of mass responsible for the universe today? What did it consist of?
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The mass "crystalised" out of energy. That's a metaphor, but not a bad one. It may be the best answer you can get unless you study quantum theory in detail.
 
Phil said:
Some folks have offered good advice for answering this already, but I'll just add something said many times on these boards. It is quite to the point:

The theories postulated by science are not faith-based beliefs. The laws and theories extrapolated by science exist whether anyone believes in them or not. In fact, they would exist whether humans existed or not.

Religion, in this regard, is the complete opposite. Take away people (faith-generating pods, so to speak), and there is no such thing as religion.

In other words, science does not concern itself with beliefs or faith. Science is a method of discovery, and it operates independently of all human biases (well, good science does anyway). The discoveries made require no faith, they require no belief, and they require no human validation whatsoever. They simply are what they are.

And, as has been stated, there is no "off" position on that method of discovery. So the discoveries are constantly being re-evaluated, improved upon, updated, and sometimes even downright reversed.

Religion? Not so much.

We could overturn the entire known body of physics completely --- I mean prove it to all be wrong --- and a physicist would still be a physicist. Were we to do the same with religion, would a Christian still be a Christian? Or a Jew a Jew? Or a Muslim a Muslim?
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I agree with you whole heartedly, except for the "faith" comment. The point I am trying to make here is that those of the religious view and those of the scientific view share a likeness.

(1) Religion assumes there is a/many God/creator
(2) Science assumes there is no God/creator

Both sides are assuming. Honestly nobody knows which theory is correct, yet both sides are to the far right or far left on the issue. I know there are Christians who are (or are percieved as) disrespectful or ignorant of science. Unfortunately, we all share a faith one way or the other.
 
wastepanel said:
(2) Science assumes there is no God/creator
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Science doesn't care if there is a creator or not.

I'm not sure why you would say that science 'assumes' no creator exists.

Science just hasn't found proof of a creator......
 
wastepanel said:
I agree with you whole heartedly, except for the "faith" comment. The point I am trying to make here is that those of the religious view and those of the scientific view share a likeness.

(1) Religion assumes there is a/many God/creator
(2) Science assumes there is no God/creator

Both sides are assuming. Honestly nobody knows which theory is correct, yet both sides are to the far right or far left on the issue. I know there are Christians who are (or are percieved as) disrespectful or ignorant of science. Unfortunately, we all share a faith one way or the other.
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I disagree.

I don't think science assumes anything. At least not on a broad scale (i.e. there is/is not a god/creator).

Science deals with observable phenomena. It formulates testable hypotheses about those phenomena. And runs tests/experiments to determine the merit of those hypotheses. Those hypotheses that do not hold up under repeated scrutiny are ultimately rejected, and those that do hold up are converged to draw the most accurate conclusions possible about the observed phenomena.

The only assumptions science might conceivably make would be in the details of the tests/experiments, and even saying that is a stretch.

Science makes no assumptions about any broad conclusions, such as the existence or non-existence of a god. That would be putting the cart before the horse. It would be backward. It would not be science.

The short of it is, there is simply no observable phenomena to support the religious viewpoint, so science does not concern itself with it.
 
wastepanel said:
If the argument against a creator is "Who created the creator?", then who/what created the "softball size of mass"?
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We don't know who created the softball-sized ball of mass.

Nor do we know who created the creator.

The difference is, we're fairly confident that the first existed (because we have a lot of evidence that we've found that points to it), and we're actively looking to see if we can figure out how it came about.

Contrary to popular believe, science does not assume that there is no God or creator. That would be a stupid assumption to make, because we have no hard evidence to support it. Nor does science assume that there is a God or creator -- that would be equally stupid, for exactly the same reason. If you have some evidence that God exists, scientists will be happy to examine the evidence and evaluate it -- that's what Behe did in Darwin's Black Box, and the results were somewhat unfortunate for him. But that's how science progresses, over the dead bodies of failed theories.
 
I see that all of you are on the same wavelength, and I cannot argue with your conclusions. However, I have run across many people that automatically rule out the thought of a creator. That is my point in all of this mess. Yes, nobody can provide proof of a creator. However, there is no proof that there is no creator.

There may be disrespectful religious types that rule out science, but there are also disrespectful scientists that rule out religion. Yes, some/most/all religions sound silly. But what these people hold is a blind faith that there is a creator. One person posted earlier that physics can be overturned one day based upon one discovery, and scientists will accept that as fact. In reality, the same thing would happen for the religious types. I feel that arguing this topic is silly because NOBODY KNOWS. If someone said God did it, somebody else could say the Spaghetti Monster did it, someone else might say it just was always there. Each argument holds the same merit. The difference between each is a faith that the theory is correct. Yes, religion jumps a step we are unsure about. Science stops at "we don't know". Yet, many scientist hold an opposite faith of the religious and do rule out God.
 
wastepanel said:
I see that all of you are on the same wavelength, and I cannot argue with your conclusions. However, I have run across many people that automatically rule out the thought of a creator. That is my point in all of this mess. Yes, nobody can provide proof of a creator. However, there is no proof that there is no creator.

There may be disrespectful religious types that rule out science, but there are also disrespectful scientists that rule out religion. Yes, some/most/all religions sound silly. But what these people hold is a blind faith that there is a creator. One person posted earlier that physics can be overturned one day based upon one discovery, and scientists will accept that as fact. In reality, the same thing would happen for the religious types. I feel that arguing this topic is silly because NOBODY KNOWS. If someone said God did it, somebody else could say the Spaghetti Monster did it, someone else might say it just was always there. Each argument holds the same merit. The difference between each is a faith that the theory is correct. Yes, religion jumps a step we are unsure about. Science stops at "we don't know". Yet, many scientist hold an opposite faith of the religious and do rule out God.
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I 100% rule out the chance that the Christian/Jewish God as depicted in the bible exists.

I 99.99% sure that if there is a creator, he does not want me to kiss his rear end on a regular basis.

I do not know, because I can not know, if our existence is part of a creation. I will await scientific evidence, or the hand of GOD itself to show me.... ;)
 
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