Philosophical question?

[TripTango]

Why is it unscientific? It's only that we don't know; therefor we can't conclude. If science actually used some of the resource material and did scientific studies, focused on creation; we may find answers. Instead science has completely and arrogantly ignored to follow through with a very sound theory. This makes them no better than the charlatans that hunted scientists down in the early years as warlocks and witches. I thought science wasn't supposed to be discriminative. So far, modern science has proven it's extremely discriminative to creation.

Who is this "science"? They sound like a bad bunch of people.

Science is not an organization. It is not a shadow-government. It is a methodology of examining the world using objective and reproducible evidence. It can answer some questions very well, some others not so well, and others still it doesn't attempt to answer at all. Anything that is unmeasurable is BY DEFINITION unscientific. That includes "why are we here" questions, "what is morally right" questions, "who is my soulmate" questions, and tons of other stuff. That doesn't make these questions unimportant -- it just means that science is silent on their answers.

However, when you start talking about a young earth, you are stepping into the realm of answers that do have evidence. And the evidence, overwhelmingly, is that young earth theories are total nonsense.

Okay how about the big bang; or any other theory for that matter? Are their inconclusive and undeniable evidence supporting those theories? How about recirculating universes? What about black holes making mini-verses? There are holes in everyone of those theories.

There is quite a lot of evidence for the big bang, actually. And again, no scientist can possibly prove that God didn't cause the big bang -- it's totally possible. I mentioned before that I've known a fair number of scientists who also believed in a creator. Every single one of them also believed in the big bang. It's not some atheist trick -- it's a conclusion based on all available evidence.

 

[TripTango]

If it came down to worshiping God or holding on to my material things I would worship God 8 days a week. Fortunately it's not. You are grasping at straws.

Grasping? I thought I was just poking some fun. Just playin, broseph.

 

[TripTango]

Yay, four strawmen and counting. I see you lack crucial reading comprehension.

I think it's cute how you use these rhetorical concepts (like "strawman") without understanding what they mean. That post up there was sarcasm, son. Hence the green font.

 

[RR7]

Funny post I found from Sam Harris, in regards to his debate with Craig:

The official video of my debate with the inimitable William Lane Craig is now online and can be viewed above.
While I believe I answered (or preempted) all of Craig’s substantive challenges, I’ve received a fair amount of criticism for not rebutting his remarks point for point. Generally speaking, my critics seem to have been duped by Craig’s opening statement, in which he presumed to narrow the topic of our debate (I later learned that he insisted upon speaking first and made many other demands. You can read an amusing, behind-the-scenes account here.) Those who expected me to follow the path Craig cut in his opening remarks don’t seem to understand the game he was playing. He knew that if he began, “Here are 5 (bogus) points that Sam Harris must answer if he has a shred of self-respect,” this would leave me with a choice between delivering my prepared remarks, which I believed to be crucial, or wasting my time putting out the small fires he had set. If I stuck to my argument, as I mostly did, he could return in the next round to say, “You will notice that Dr. Harris entirely failed to address points 2 and 5. It is no wonder, because they make a mockery of his entire philosophy.”
As I observed once during the debate, but should have probably mentioned again, Craig employs other high school debating tricks to mislead the audience: He falsely summarizes what his opponent has said; he falsely claims that certain points have been conceded; and, in our debate, he falsely charged me with having wandered from the agreed upon topic. The fact that such tricks often work is a real weakness of the debate format, especially one in which the participants are unable to address one another directly. Nevertheless, I believe I was right not to waste much time rebutting irrelevancies, correcting Craig’s distortions of my published work, or taking his words out of my mouth. Instead, I simply argued for a scientific conception of moral truth and against one based on the biblical God. This was, after all, the argument that the organizer’s at Notre Dame had invited me to make.

 

[MadeFromDust]

I think it's cute how you use these rhetorical concepts (like "strawman") without understanding what they mean. That post up there was sarcasm, son. Hence the green font.

Ok, continue to sarcasm your way around actual arguments.

 

[TripTango]

If it came down to worshiping God or holding on to my material things I would worship God 8 days a week. Fortunately it's not. You are grasping at straws.

And you are taking advantage of the benefits of scientific knowledge every single day, dismissing it completely only where it tells you things you don't want to hear.

 

[MadeFromDust]

And you are taking advantage of the benefits of scientific knowledge every single day, dismissing it completely only where it tells you things you don't want to hear.

For the fifth time, I'm not against science. Read?

 

[TripTango]

Ok, continue to sarcasm your way around actual arguments.

I honestly don't know where to begin. You are taking a gap in knowledge ("how did everything begin"), expanding it into a super-human being who writes in fire, floods evil people, and turns women into pillars of salt, and somehow calling that the reasonable answer.

 

[TripTango]

For the fifth time, I'm not against science. Read?

But you are, actually. Not because you believe in god (that's unscientific, but not "against science"), but because you believe an old book gives a better description of the ancient world than actual evidence.

 

[MadeFromDust]

I honestly don't know where to begin. You are taking a gap in knowledge ("how did everything begin"), expanding it into a super-human being who writes in fire, floods evil people, and turns women into pillars of salt, and somehow calling that the reasonable answer.

And you seem to try and put limits on what that superhuman being can do. God's greatest miracle for us is creating the universe, but I guess He's powerless to break the laws He created. If you don't believe in God or miracles fine, but that doesn't make me or billions of others "unreasonable".

 

[magnifier661]

Who is this "science"? They sound like a bad bunch of people.

Science is not an organization. It is not a shadow-government. It is a methodology of examining the world using objective and reproducible evidence. It can answer some questions very well, some others not so well, and others still it doesn't attempt to answer at all. Anything that is unmeasurable is BY DEFINITION unscientific. That includes "why are we here" questions, "what is morally right" questions, "who is my soulmate" questions, and tons of other stuff. That doesn't make these questions unimportant -- it just means that science is silent on their answers.

However, when you start talking about a young earth, you are stepping into the realm of answers that do have evidence. And the evidence, overwhelmingly, is that young earth theories are total nonsense.

That isn't Craig's request or theory. It's to prove that the existence of God actually exists.

And you are 100% accurate. Science isn't a conspiracy. It is supposed to be unbiased without prejudice. Anything is possible and everything should be tested if a plausible theory is presented. I think Craig has given a pretty iron clad theory. Do you not agree?

There is quite a lot of evidence for the big bang, actually. And again, no scientist can possibly prove that God didn't cause the big bang -- it's totally possible. I mentioned before that I've known a fair number of scientists who also believed in a creator. Every single one of them also believed in the big bang. It's not some atheist trick -- it's a conclusion based on all available evidence.

Never said the "Big Bang" was an atheist trick. But it's a theory that is supported by atheists and creationists a like.

 

[MadeFromDust]

But you are, actually. Not because you believe in god (that's unscientific, but not "against science"), but because you believe an ancient book gives a better description of the ancient world than actual evidence.

I’m of the opinion that science and God can coexist peacefully. “Science” and “secularism” don’t go hand in hand. Some of the greatest scientists in the history of the world believed in God, in fact most of them did. Maybe you should pick up that "ancient book" and read it sometime, it's extremely relevant for today. There's a reason it's both the greatest selling and shoplifted book in the history of the world, many times over.

 

[magnifier661]

Funny post I found from Sam Harris, in regards to his debate with Craig:

LOL, I guess he played the "victim" card because he lost the debate because clearly Craig couldn't beat him in a fair fight. Now that's hilarious!

 

[magnifier661]

But you are, actually. Not because you believe in god (that's unscientific, but not "against science"), but because you believe an old book gives a better description of the ancient world than actual evidence.

Be careful with this statement. You are seriously treading on Dogma. There are many historians that will attest that historically; many of the books in the Bible are accurate historical records. And Historians are a form of science too.

 

[TripTango]

I’m of the opinion that science and God can coexist peacefully. “Science” and “secularism” don’t go hand in hand. Some of the greatest scientists in the history of the world believed in God, in fact most of them did. Maybe you should pick up that "ancient book" and read it sometime, it's extremely relevant for today. There's a reason it's both the greatest selling and shoplifted book in the history of the world, many times over.

Have you ignored every single one of my posts? I've read the Bible. Cover to cover. Multiple times. Parts of it make great reading (I'm a big fan of the Song of Songs!), and other parts are pretty tedious (Book of Numbers, anyone?). I also just recently wrote several lengthy posts emphasizing that a belief in a god is not at all incompatible with scientific understanding.

 

[MadeFromDust]

Have you ignored every single one of my posts? I've read the Bible. Cover to cover. Multiple times. Parts of it make great reading (I'm a big fan of the Song of Songs!), and other parts are pretty tedious (Book of Numbers, anyone?). I also just recently wrote several lengthy posts emphasizing that a belief in a god is not at all incompatible with scientific understanding.

So why in your previous post did you say belief in God is "unscientific"?

 

[TripTango]

Be careful with this statement. You are seriously treading on Dogma. There are many historians that will attest that historically; many of the books in the Bible are accurate historical records. And Historians are a form of science too.

Historical evidence does not equal scientific evidence. I accept the Old Testament as a fantastic record of the culture and perspectives of the Hebrew people. I think it's likely that many of the events described in it happened in some form or another (a great flood, for example). I do not believe Lot's wife was literally transformed from a human being into sodium chloride, and the fact that it is written that way in the Bible does not constitute anything resembling scientific evidence.

 

[magnifier661]

Historical evidence does not equal scientific evidence. I accept the Old Testament as a fantastic record of the culture and perspectives of the Hebrew people. I think it's likely that many of the events described in it happened in some form or another (a great flood, for example). I do not believe Lot's wife was literally transformed from a human being into sodium chloride, and the fact that it is written that way in the Bible does not constitute anything resembling scientific evidence.

Really? You think Dawkins agrees with you?

So the work of Pluto isn't scientific either? There were some grand metaphors used in his description of historical events.

 

[TripTango]

So why in your previous post did you say belief in God is "unscientific"?

Read it again -- I said unscientific, but NOT "against science". There is no measurable evidence for your God's mass, volume, temperature, specific heat, or any other physical variable. (And not for lack of trying! Early scientists spent ages trying to determine the mass of the soul as it departed a body...) This doesn't mean that scientific evidence proves there is no god -- it only means that science is completely silent on the question of whether there is a god. And as I said before, I agree that there are TONS of important questions that are completely unscientific -- it's not a derogatory term.

 

[TripTango]

Really? You think Dawkins agrees with you?

Huh? In what way?

So the work of Pluto isn't scientific either? There were some grand metaphors used in his description of historical events.

You mean Plato? What does his writing have to do with scientific evidence? I haven't read his stuff since my undergrad days -- what experiments did he claim to have performed?

 

[magnifier661]

Huh? In what way?

That historians aren't a form of science.

You mean Plato? What does his writing have to do with scientific evidence? I haven't read his stuff since my undergrad days -- what experiments did he claim to have performed?

LOL oops! Okay, so philosophy isn't a science then?

 

[MadeFromDust]

Read it again -- I said unscientific, but NOT "against science". There is no measurable evidence for your God's mass, volume, temperature, specific heat, or any other physical variable. (And not for lack of trying! Early scientists spent ages trying to determine the mass of the soul as it departed a body...) This doesn't mean that scientific evidence proves there is no god -- it only means that science is completely silent on the question of whether there is a god. And as I said before, I agree that there are TONS of important questions that are completely unscientific -- it's not a derogatory term.

Well, I disagree there. I think there is plenty of scientific evidence for a designer. Enough so that the majority of scientists throughout history believed in God.

 

[magnifier661]

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

Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, such as existence, time, the relationship between mind and body, objects and their properties, wholes and their parts, events, processes, and causation. Traditional branches include cosmology and ontology.

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=449

This sounds like a good idea for an intramural softball game at a university. The scientists can put together a team, and the historians too. We scientists might lose -- we spend all our time doing science and not practicing softball (but I cannot speak for everyone).

A scientist is someone who applies the scientific method in order to learn more about nature. You can have a look at one of our answers to the question "The Role of a Scientist" to find out more. Scientists try hard to be good citizens and good neighbors and human beings as well as being dedicated to finding out more about nature by coming up with and testing them with experiments.

A historian often (we hope usually) acts in the same way as a scientist ought to act. History is really just our model of what happened, explained as best as we know how to. Which means that it is a collection of theories and descriptions, which is really what science is all about. These theories have to be tested with the facts, and if a theory conflicts with some kind of observation, it must be discarded and new theories sought. New explanations that are bolstered by more evidence win out over old ones, and sometimes history gets rewritten as more things are found out. Archaeology provides a great example of how historians can discover new material which can overturn old ideas and bring new ones into prominence.

 

[TripTango]

Well, I disagree there. I think there is plenty of scientific evidence for a designer. Enough so that the majority of scientists throughout history believed in God.

Scientific evidence? What physical property of God's are you proposing to measure, either directly or indirectly? Because I'd like to repeat your experiment on my own to see if my results match up with yours, since that's the foundation of the scientific method.

 

[TripTango]

That historians aren't a form of science.

LOL oops! Okay, so philosophy isn't a science then?

I can GUARANTEE you that history and (especially) philosophy are not considered sciences!

 

[MadeFromDust]

Scientific evidence? What physical property of God's are you proposing to measure, either directly or indirectly? Because I'd like to repeat your experiment on my own to see if my results match up with yours, since that's the foundation of the scientific method.

There is no physical evidence to observe of God because He's not a physical being, He's Spiritual. I think there's enough observable evidence in the universe to make a powerful case for a designer. There's a reason secular scientists scrambled to make up a multiverse theory.

 

[magnifier661]

http://www.crystalinks.com/platometaphors.html

Plato's Republic uses the sun as a metaphor for the source of "illumination", arguably intellectual illumination, which he held to be The Form of the Good, which is sometimes interpreted as Plato's notion of God. The metaphor is about the nature of ultimate reality and how we come to know it. (Socrates is the speaker of The Republic, but it is generally believed that the thoughts expressed are Plato's.)

or

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since their childhood deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals, plants, and other things are carried by people. The statues cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.
The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the sunlight coming into the cave from its entrance, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free "his fellow bondsmen," but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight.

Interpretation

Socrates himself interprets the allegory (beginning at 517b): "This image then [the allegory of the cave] we must apply as a whole to all that has been said"‹i.e. the preceding analogy of the divided line and metaphor of the sun. It has been up to scholarly debate in 20th century how exactly these three sequential comparisons can be coherently bound together. Main problems arise from allegory of cave having three cognitive stages and divided line having four of them where the first division (shadows, reflections) seems not to be needed to apply to cave and is hard to be interpreted ontologically, i.e. in the manner of cave at all. Metaphor of the sun seems to be alluding that from seeing things in light of sun we can raise to seeing ideas in the light of the Good while in cave it is not evident that it can not be done without considerably violent helping and forcing prisoners to look at light.

I wonder why scientists don't discredit these wild metaphors like they do with the Bible? Instead they embrace the thinking and incorporate it with science. Why can't they use the philosophy; as crazy as the literal definition; for their motives in science? What's the difference?

 

[magnifier661]

I can GUARANTEE you that history and (especially) philosophy are not considered sciences!

Okay so you disagree with wikipedia then?

and in terms of Historians; if you believe that their methods of explaining our past isn't respected on a scientific level; then we got problems here.

 

[RR7]

it can be RESPECTED on a scientific level. It doesn't make history a science, though. Or philosophy.

 

[magnifier661]

Scientific evidence? What physical property of God's are you proposing to measure, either directly or indirectly? Because I'd like to repeat your experiment on my own to see if my results match up with yours, since that's the foundation of the scientific method.

That infinity really isn't a probability. That even the "Big Bang" being slightly off 10 to the power of 600 can make or break life. That the solar systems we can see are constantly fixing themselves. Have you seen Craig's request on his theory? Do you really, with an open mind; believe it isn't called to be tested?