The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"

[Leumas]

I am making the point that the geocentric model was not intuitive thinking (rebutting Roborammas point)- it was a theory, ultimately wrong, but a theory none the less based in no way on religious teachings

It was based on the Bible. If it was not so then why would the church have considered it blasphemy and heresy to contradict it?

In the Bible god stops the sun for a whole day to enable Joshua to slaughter more people. YHWH also reverses the sun by 10 degrees to give a sign to a king that his boils will be cured as prophesied.

In Genesis god created the earth and everything on it THEN he created the two "lights" to light up the day and night.

The Catholic church burnt Bruno and banned Copernicus' writings because they were heretical and Galileo had to renounce his theories under pain of death if he did not.

If it was just a theory like any other why would the church consider it HERETICAL and blasphemous to oppose it?

They certainly considered it as a RELIGIOUS doctrine and based it upon many verses in the Bible.

 

[Limbo]

Thus, science cannot refute faith healing.

Except it can.

lol

1. Get a scientist with no faith
2. Have him try to experience a faith healing
3. It fails, obviously, since the faithless can't be healed by faith healing
4. declare science the winner through "fair-play" and "open-minded inquiry"
5. ???
6. profit

 

[TheGoldcountry]

lol

1. Get a scientist with no faith
2. Have him try to experience a faith healing
3. It fails, obviously, since the faithless can't be healed by faith healing
4. declare science the winner through "fair-play" and "open-minded inquiry"
5. ???
6. profit

you're right. thanks.

 

[MG1962]

It may not have been Religious (I'm not sure of that), but it was intuitive. That the Earth was stable and at the centre of things was just assumed. It wasn't until people had telescopes and could directly observe objects orbiting planets other than Earth, that Geocentrism was seriously challenged.

Ptolemy's theory was far from intuitive. The illustrations we see today attributed to his theory are wrong. They show an Aristotelian concept of the universe. Here is an outline of his theory - note the illustration on the right hand side

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest

The most important thing though was his theory made predictions about eclipses etc, and they came true, even though he had to invoke epicycles to do it.

In terms of challenges to geocentricism, one could argue heliocentric theories were equally intuitive. For although Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler explained the sun was at the center of the solar system. It wasn't till Newton that anyone could explain how it worked

 

[Donn]

lol

1. Get a scientist with no faith
2. Have him try to experience a faith healing
3. It fails, obviously, since the faithless can't be healed by faith healing
4. declare science the winner through "fair-play" and "open-minded inquiry"
5. ???
6. profit

1. Get a scientist with faith.
2. Have them experience a faith healing.
3. It succeeds, since they are biased.
4. Declare faith the winner.
5. Sell the scientist moon beams on elf wings.
6. profit!

 

[Roboramma]

You seem to be unaware the geocentric model of the solar system was actually a scientific theory, based on an accumulation of existing data

I'm not unaware of that at all. Actually at the time science and religion were pretty much intertwined. In a way they really are: both are about understanding ourselves and the universe in which we live. It's just that religion used to include science as well as mysticism, but the former has produced results while the latter has not.

Does religion still include science? To the degree that it accepts current findings, sure, but at this part they are very much more separate than they used to be.

 

[Roboramma]

But as I pointed out in my post - The Bible does not give an actual creation date. People implied that information from their interpretation of the Bible. That troubles me because it is usually those who read the Bible literally who follow this process, which seems inconsistent to me

Sure, but religion isn't just the bible. My point is that their view that the world is 6000 years old comes from their religion. That other people with different religious views also consider the same book to be divine in origin doesn't change that fact.

However this has to be tempered by what we thought the universe was. I am currently reading Thomas Wright's biography. He talks of his research being inspired by 13th Cent Catholic writings that argue the stars were not points affixed to a sphere, but are suns at incredible distances from Earth. The reason for this point of view was that if he stars were a on a fixed sphere we would limiting God's magnitude.

This was a very non Aristotelian viewpoint which is interesting because it is often claimed the Church's major issue with Galileo was belief in the Aristotelian system. Which means ultimately someone is trying to have their cake and eat it

It's interesting: certainly it's possible to get to the correct conclusions through faulty reasoning.

It's also worth noting that Galileo didn't live in the 13th century. The church has changed over time, so it's not surprising that what was considered acceptable at one time was considered heresy at another.

 

[MG1962]

It was based on the Bible. If it was not so then why would the church have considered it blasphemy and heresy to contradict it?

Fads - It was nearly 70 years after the publishing of Copernicus' theory that any real opposition began. This was almost entirely based on the western world discovering the enchanting balance of Aristotelian concepts

The Catholic church burnt Bruno and banned Copernicus' writings because they were heretical and Galileo had to renounce his theories under pain of death if he did not.

The problem faced was Galileo didn't support Copernicus' theory - and when he was asked to explain his theory in detail got very churlish about the whole affair. Most of the problem with that whole episode was the childish personal attacks from both sides. There were people in the Church who actively supported Galileo, but the mans lack of subtly saw him essentially thrown to the wolves

 

[Roboramma]

In the end all things can be reduced to stories, except perhaps for directly repeatable experiments. Experiments from within a relativistic system about which we are in the dark in terms of understanding.

Perhaps we exist as entities within an illusion and everything we can do and figure out about anything is little more than a reflection in degrees of our peculiar evolved capacities. Again stories.

And yet the things that we can figure out about the universe give us predictions, and those predictions reliably, quantitatively, to an incredible degree of accuracy, come true. That is very different than the sorts of stories we told in the past, though they were not completely lacking in those attributes.

All are stories, (some stories contain repeatable and verifiable observations, they are stories all the same), we are in the dark when it comes to our origins and what and why we are the way we are.

The highlighted bit is simply false. We know how evolution works, we know the mechanisms behind it. We know how matter interacts, and we know what sort of matter we are made of. Certainly there is a great deal left for us to learn, but the things we know, we know.

 

[MG1962]

It's also worth noting that Galileo didn't live in the 13th century. The church has changed over time, so it's not surprising that what was considered acceptable at one time was considered heresy at another.

And thats exactly my point. A latter fad in Greek philosophy actually pulled a lot of people away from a pretty good working theory about stars. Which as an after thought makes me wonder how much of the world view presented in the Bible is a reflection of Aristotle and his philosophy of balance and harmony in the natural world, rather than text messages from God

 

[paiute]

Yes, it can, and has been.

To your satisfaction, perhaps. You cannot refute the belief of the believers with your evidence.

 

[MG1962]

The highlighted bit is simply false. We know how evolution works, we know the mechanisms behind it. We know how matter interacts, and we know what sort of matter we are made of. Certainly there is a great deal left for us to learn, but the things we know, we know.

But do we - a re-evaluation of the Burgess Shale discoveries 70 years later lead to a major re-writing of our understanding of the Cambrian explosion. Every theory is up for grabs all the time, it is one of the most exciting elements of science

 

[Roboramma]

I am making the point that the geocentric model was not intuitive thinking (rebutting Roborammas point)- it was a theory, ultimately wrong, but a theory none the less based in no way on religious teachings

I think you missed my point. My point was that the religious stories that we see around the world are easily explained as the product of the human mind within the culture in which they arose. Science, on the other hand, as it probes the world, discovers very counter-intuitive truths.

Now that most people know that the earth goes around the sun, you'd expect religions to accept or claim that to be the case. But why was that not the case thousands of years ago? Because humans didn't have that knowledge.

So, if all the facts that religions give us are explainable as facts known to the people who produce them (or as the types of stories those people would tend to tell), why should we expect them to be correct on things that people can't know?

 

[Roboramma]

But do we - a re-evaluation of the Burgess Shale discoveries 70 years later lead to a major re-writing of our understanding of the Cambrian explosion. Every theory is up for grabs all the time, it is one of the most exciting elements of science

And yet we still consider natural selection to be the main underlying mechanism of evolution. Yes, we learn new things, and sometimes find old things to be inaccurate or wrong, but the doesn't somehow make all claims equally valid. Read my sig.

 

[Roboramma]

To your satisfaction, perhaps. You cannot refute the belief of the believers with your evidence.

I don't intend to refute anyone's belief. They have the belief, I don't even desire to change that. Nevertheless there is very good evidence that the universe (and the earth) is more than 6000 years old. That some people believe differently doesn't change that.

My knowledge that the universe is more than 6000 years old is stronger than my knowledge that there's tea in my cup. And I can see my cup from here(but not the tea, though I did just put it there a minute ago).

I'd like to add that I can't refute anyone's belief in homeopathy either, but that doesn't mean that it works. It doesn't, and the evidence I have is strong enough for me to make that conclusion. Science contradicts their faith, just as it contradicts the faith of YECs.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

lol

1. Get a scientist with no faith
2. Have him try to experience a faith healing
3. It fails, obviously, since the faithless can't be healed by faith healing
4. declare science the winner through "fair-play" and "open-minded inquiry"
5. ???
6. profit

Oh, I think I can fill in the missing fifth step:
5. "Disregard" scientific findings, become a faith healer, prey on the gullible and ...
6. profit.

It is quite sad actually.

 

[Donn]

..how much of the world view presented in the Bible is a reflection of Aristotle and his philosophy of balance and harmony in the natural world, rather than text messages from God

None of it is messages from god. What does that leave?

 

[westprog]

How good would the science of a Catholic be were he to determine the materials facts of transubstantiation?

I'm always amazed at this particular argument. Any Catholic knows that the bread and wine don't change their appearance whatsoever. So what exactly is the "scientist" testing? What is the "aha" moment supposed to be? In order to carry out this kind of testing of transubstantiation, it's necessary to make up a theory not actually believed by anyone, and then to refute it.

None of the various interpretations of the eucharist involve any change that would be detectable by a scientific test.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

I'm always amazed at this particular argument. Any Catholic knows that the bread and wine don't change their appearance whatsoever. So what exactly is the "scientist" testing? What is the "aha" moment supposed to be? In order to carry out this kind of testing of transubstantiation, it's necessary to make up a theory not actually believed by anyone, and then to refute it.

None of the various interpretations of the eucharist involve any change that would be detectable by a scientific test.

as a former altar boy, who had the duty of keeping the Body of Christ from touching the floor, let me assure you that logic is never mentioned

 

[Mudcat]

No it cannot be proved nor disproved. As we all know it's unfalsifiable. Which is why science cannot refute it.

You know I just love this claim Neil. You know why? Well when ever a creationist (which seems to be you in this case) says that science can not disprove God, I have a very relevant quest. I aim this at you now:

If science was making the opposite claim and saying that not only does God exist but your God is the one and only God would you really still be saying "Well, science can't proove or disproove God"?

Extra credit for an honest answer.