Science and Faith

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:41 pm

Kalium wrote:Einstein wasn't even much of a deist. His vision of God didn't line up very well with anything even vaguely Abrahamic.

I think I could be very much with Einstein on that one as well. I certainly don't reject a notion of god, but I reject the notion of an Abrahamic god or even a sentient god. I don't actually even care for the term 'god' and that's why I always write it in lowercase. My notion of god is comparable to the Gurjieffian "Trogoautoegocrat = the process by which everything in the universe is the way it is", and that's as far as I'm willing to take it. That automatically precludes any concept of religion for me, dispenses with the notion of objective morals, eternal life, salvation or divine enlightenment, and equates any sort of worship to the same level of function as a cargo cult (or below).

Strangely I'm still okay

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:41 pm

requiett wrote:It's wrong to immediately dismiss either ideal offhand for your own uneducated lack of evidence. Science and religion are replete with self-contridictions.

Please, cite a few contradictions within science. I'd like to see what you're thinking of. There are lots of them within religion.

requiett wrote:We've observed as far into the construction of our reality as humanly possible, yet we have no idea how we even observe it.

Wrong on both counts. Scientists (and attentive laymen) know there is more than can be observed. Scientists (and attentive laymen) also have a pretty good idea how most of our methodologies work, too.

requiett wrote:And so, just to complicate matters in this so-called debate, I invite you to try some magic mushrooms or LSD, and see how well your beliefs in this universe hold up.

Do you honestly think, even for a second, that I don't know what hallucinations are like? Or that random neurochemical firings in the brain have any impact on how physics and chemistry and similar work?

I like the 'different ways of knowing' argument. It's so full of shit that it's explosive from all the methane.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:43 pm

requiett wrote:And so, just to complicate matters in this so-called debate, I invite you to try some magic mushrooms or LSD, and see how well your beliefs in this universe hold up.

Magic mushrooms and LSD are actually my smoking gun for the material nature of being and the impossibility for being outside of it. Fuck with your brain chemistry and watch being flip out and completely reverse itself. No brain chemistry, no being.

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:55 pm

If God is the ultimate scientist, and we are his experiment, then, like any good scientist, he wouldn't interfere with it until it's reached the predictable outcome.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:00 pm

Okay, I can see that, though in that case why is this more probable than the absence of god as such? In this case I think the 'absence' position should just as well serve as the unmarked position. And I'm a believer in unmarked positions.

Likewise, this would also suggest a highly idealized modern (rather than post-modern) view of science.

badmartialarts · Post by **badmartialarts** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:05 pm

requiett wrote:If God is the ultimate scientist, and we are his experiment, then, like any good scientist, he wouldn't interfere with it until it's reached the predictable outcome.

I've actually always like the alchemical notion that God is purifying mankind to perfection, and occasionally steps in to add a pinch of brimstone or a dram of mercury or something, trying to change us from lead into gold. Right now were just in a calcining step or something. :/

Of course, that's a very Western view of things, that mankind in by nature evil and needs outside help to become good. Eastern teachings are the exact reverse, that mankind is born pure and the outside world corrupts us and brings us down. And HK-47 teaches us that we are all organic meatbags.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:09 pm

requiett wrote:If God is the ultimate scientist, and we are his experiment, then, like any good scientist, he wouldn't interfere with it until it's reached the predictable outcome.

That's sophistry, not an argument.

Oh, and the burden of proof is always on the positive. That is to say the logical assumption must be atheistic, and the burden of proof is to prove the theistic.

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:11 pm

I notice when people tend to drift too far into one view, they become know-it-all assholes, and everything becomes a justification for their means. College professors and Spanish inquisitors have alot more in common than most people realize.

Personally, I think it takes alot more faith to think that a well-organized existence sprang out of chaos and nothingness than to say there is some intelligent design involved.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:18 pm

requiett wrote:Personally, I think it takes alot more faith to think that a well-organized existence sprang out of chaos and nothingness than to say there is some intelligent design involved.

That's nice, but faith is not evidence. Occam's razor is a useful logical tool, though, and it dictates that the larger the unknown, the less probable it is. An omnipotent and omniscient is pretty much the largest unknown possible.

Also, implying that I'm nuts or similar for having strong views will get you nowhere.

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:19 pm

Kalium wrote:Oh, and the burden of proof is always on the positive. That is to say the logical assumption must be atheistic, and the burden of proof is to prove the theistic.

Why is that so? Have we come any closer to proving that God doesn't exist rather than him not existing? This view you present is very "Age of Enlightnment" era, which is obsolete and outdated. Science was used as a tool of freeing us from the tyranny of church as government, not freeing us from the belief in God.