Science, Religion And The Bible

[John Jones]

I don't care about "proof!" How many times do I have to say that. The burden of refutation is upon you and doesn't end with disagreement.

What's a "burden of refutation"? Something you made up?

 

[Simon39759]

I don't care about "proof!" How many times do I have to say that. The burden of refutation is upon you and doesn't end with disagreement.

Here is the link again. It contains four reference pertaining to the reliability of carbon dating.
Now, until you find us at least a reference disproving these, the burden of proof has been fulfilled by us.


Here is the thing, if you don't know and don't care about science; why assume people are mistaken? Why start a post based on assuming they are wrong and ignorant?
Hell, if you don't care about science, why post on a website that is dedicated to the application of the scientific method?

 

[Simon39759]

Even DOC does better than this.

Well, let's not be crazy here.

 

[paximperium]

Well, let's not be crazy here.

I agree with Jones here. DOC recognizes logical fallacies and purposefully attempts to weasel his way around them.

David doesn't even bother to sound logical or intelligent.

 

[CurtC]

So... if a person says something because he heard it somewhere else, and repeats it without checking to see if it's true, and then when called on it, dismisses those who called him and refuses to talk about it,

... would that be considered lying? It's awfully close to it.

 

[Sledge]

I agree with Jones here. DOC recognizes logical fallacies and purposefully attempts to weasel his way around them.

David doesn't even bother to sound logical or intelligent.

David's going out of his way to sound illogical and unintelligent. Screaming "I don't care about proof!" is not exactly a great approach, is it?

 

[devnull]

[Laughs] What do they agree with?

Just because no one else answered this, I will.

The answer is "with each other" David. Please take the advice given to you are read the chapter on clocks in "The greatest show on earth".

I realise you have profound faith David, but are really making yourself look very silly here. Stop, take a breath, and go read the chapter. Its a very accessible book (as all of Dawkins' books are I find).

 

[Delvo]

The obvious question is how reliable is radiocarbon-14 dating so I provide a list of assumptions, all of which must be met in order for it to be accurate. That list of assumptions is never questioned.

Where is this? I haven't seen it.

 

[paximperium]

So we can conclude by David's behavior that Science, reason and basic logic is ignored by Religion and the Bible.

This concludes this thread.

 

[Trantor]

They, of course, underestimated the potent psychological seduction of religion and the amazing ability of the human mind to rationalize away such difficulties. But it's amusing that the wonderous discoveries that many thought showed the Bible to be inadequate are now used by Christians as evidence of God's power.

And when we find life on another planet, the whole process will begin anew.

I remember years back, explaining to my Pastor, my reasons for leaving the Baptist Church. At the heart of the matter, was my love of science. Near the end of our conversation, I asked him what would happen to Christianity, if we made contact with another intelligent species from another planet, that had never heard of Jesus or the Bible. His answer was simple; if the the aliens had no knowlege of Jesus or the Bible, then it was the duty of all Christians to educate them. The aliens would come to know Jesus and be saved, by the blood of Jesus!

 

[paximperium]

Where is this? I haven't seen it.

In Radiocarbon dating, there are several assumptions that is needed for it to work. However outside factors can affect these assumptions therefore a multitude of correcting factors and other methods were developed to decrease the errors of these assumptions. Then they went about testing these correction using tree rings, coral growth rates and a host of other methods.

Even then, there are well known factors that could render C-14 completely useless.

David's gripe about C-14 dating is equivalent to someone complaining that an Xray of a chest can't pick up lung cancer 100% of the time. It is a tool. It can be used wrong...like how Creationist often do.

I'm still very curious as to this claim of some council from 1971. I can find a few papers from Libby from 1970 and some a few years later but nothing from 1971.

 

[devnull]

So we can conclude by David's behavior that Science, reason and basic logic is ignored by Religion and the Bible.

This concludes this thread.

I agree. Therefore, your post concludes this...... crap! OK, OK.

This post concludes this thread!!

 

[Simon39759]

I agree with Jones here. DOC recognizes logical fallacies and purposefully attempts to weasel his way around them.

David doesn't even bother to sound logical or intelligent.

David's going out of his way to sound illogical and unintelligent. Screaming "I don't care about proof!" is not exactly a great approach, is it?

I don't know; but so far, David only to apply is casual disinterest with facts and reality to the realm of science. History, for example, seems treated in a much more respectful manner.
Doc, on the other hand, can misrepresent anything provided it appear to boost his case.
Part of this impression might, of course, be due to David's newness on this boards and him not having the time to deal with a wide range of subjects yet.

Furthermore, David is quite open about his disinterest (at least, once confronted with it), and does not engage in the wholesale retail of clupea like Doc does on a routine manner.

Time will tell, I guess

 

[Ladewig]

I don't even know what AiG is,

Answers in Genesis. A creationist site.

I'm equating you and your lame defense of science, your uninformed criticism of the Bible and your baseless one liners in rebuttal which do absolutely nothing but demonstrate my point and confirm your blind belief.

If you are bothered by the baseless one-liners, then why don't you simply ignore them.

Even if we throw everything directly or indirectly derived from radiocarbon dating, the flood story still has unrepairable holes in it. The have been dozens of detailed posts explaining the problems with the idea of a global flood in the past 10,000 years and you continually ignore them. Even if we are as biased as you suggest, that doesn't change the facts. There is no way to reconcile observed facts with the Genesis account. Remove the log from your eye before criticizing the mote in our eyes.

 

[Rosencrantz]

There's this interesting thing going on here where David is setting up a conflict between faith and science, as if they were equal forces in opposition. It seems like he views answers provided by science and answers provided by his religion as equally valid. Thus, he has no interest in looking at the former because he already has the latter. But he seems to get angry that so many of us don't accept his premise, that his "side" in this imaginary conflict is true and rational. He also seems frustrated that so many other Christians don't accept his interpretations of scripture as especially insightful either. Thus, it seems like he is lashing out at scientists, calling them closed-minded and dogmatic, unwilling to consider his evidence and ignoring his arguments. I would find the irony incredibly amusing, except it's so sad.

 

[Ladewig]

Furthermore, David is quite open about his disinterest (at least, once confronted with it), and does not engage in the wholesale retail of clupea like Doc does on a routine manner.

Time will tell, I guess

Please do not confuse disinterest with uninterest. David is most certainly not approaching science or this topic in a disinterested manner. He has a very active bias.

 

[Nonpareil]

Yeah, that is what the Christians say about their profound ignorance as well. I'm not impressed.

The difference between us and the Christians is that we actually have evidence. We have presented this evidence. You claim to have evidence. You have not presented this evidence.

Oh, well . . . that sounds like all the confirmation you need, welcome to the indoctrination!

I gave you the evidence in your "Deluge" thread. You specifically asked me to do so. Basically the last quarter of the page was nothing but my rebuttal to your "science post". And you claim that I have no evidence for what I say?
Your delusion is unbelievable.

I don't care about "proof!" How many times do I have to say that.

You can say it as many times as you want. The fact remains that you have none, and until you have some, whether you care or not, you have no case.

The burden of refutation

No such thing. Stop making stuff up and pretending that this constitutes an argument.

 

[paximperium]

History, for example, seems treated in a much more respectful manner.

I disagree.

I believe he seems to consider history more subjective and easy to manipulate since he has some knowledge about it(since he has shown no discernible knowledge at all about anything scientific)and so he thinks he can make up more factoids. His claims about Egyptian chronology is but one example of this behavior.

 

[Trent Wray]

Atheists are not atheists because they lack understanding of the bible. There is a lack of evidence for the existence of god(s).

When will you understand this point David?

 

[Unalienable]

Science to the science-minded atheist is considered to be infallible in much the same way that religious people think the Bible is infallible

As a science-minded theist I strongly disagree with you on this, and I think it's the central point of your post.

I don't believe that science is infallible--in fact I am quite positive it is fallible. The history of science shows over and over how science had to be revised in light of new observations. Scientists go out of their way to try to find holes in their body of knowledge, or to find exceptions to the rules that are regarded as sacrosanct.

THAT is the biggest difference between the "Bible-minded" and the science-minded. If you are scientifically minded you are prepared to overturn ideas, in light of new evidence or more coherent theories. It's a humbling position to take.

On the flip side of the coin, are you willing to overturn ideas of the Bible, if new evidence comes to light? Your rant about radiocarbon dating makes me think not.

I give to you an idea, which you can either take or dismiss, but it's a sincere offer: when empirical evidence and the Bible contradict one another, consider the possibility not that "the Bible is wrong" nor "Science is wrong", but instead explore the third possibility: that your interpretation of the Bible is wrong.

Perhaps an example is in order. Let's discuss the case of the Great Deluge, since it seems to be of interest to you. One interpretation is that the entire planet was covered with water, killing all the land animals (except for a couple that Noah stuffed into his ark). OK, that's one interpretation--but it fails to be confirmed by empirical evidence.

But... courage!!! Perhaps the interpretation of the entire planet being soaked in water is NOT what the Bible is trying to relay in the first place. Given that the Bible is indeed the word of God, when He use the word "world", perhaps He only meant that tiny dot on the globe which, at that time, represented the whole of humanity. Even a medium sized tsunami could have flooded the world, if you define "world" like that.

Now you can have your story about Noah, and nobody can prove it wrong, and (here's the kicker) you can still use wonderful tools like radiocarbon dating when you need to use them.