Do you believe in God or Science?

[Silatuyok]

Religion is Religion

Science is Science

Talking about one in terms of the other is like using Geometry to explain Shakespeare. You're not using the right language.

Amen.

.....

 

[Starry]

Not really. If you were to take a religious person who believes the bible wholeheartedly, for example, he could still use science to try to, say, prove that there really was a flood that drowned the earth. If you're just talking about the spiritual aspects of them (existence of god, angels, afterlife, free will, good/evil ect) then science can also overlap. For starters most of those things aren't mutually inclusive with religion, you can question the existence of a higher power without thinking in terms of religion at all. And science can be used to formulate arguments,hypothesize, make points ect ect.

It doesn't have to be thought of in terms of either one either. Like for example, in talking about the creation of the universe, many scientist accept the odds that all the events happened just as they did are extremely poor. Some may argue that it wasn't so random, and that maybe some outside variable influenced it somehow. Some may call it a "god" others may just think of it as something undefinable or unknown to us, just for an example. They can be defined in the others terms and then applied to them, it's not like comparing geometry to Shakespeare, there is some overlap between theology and science allowing parts of one to apply to the other.

Agreed! Very well said.

 

[LazyHermitCrab]

it's hard to 100% believe anything other than "i think therefore i am"

 

[Flanscho]

Not really. If you were to take a religious person who believes the bible wholeheartedly, for example, he could still use science to try to, say, prove that there really was a flood that drowned the earth.

According to what science tells us, there never was a global flood. And even IF there would have been a global flood, it wouldn't be any evidence that any religion would be true, unless there'd be a proof that this flood would have been the result of some sort of divine intervention.

It doesn't have to be thought of in terms of either one either. Like for example, in talking about the creation of the universe, many scientist accept the odds that all the events happened just as they did are extremely poor.

You are right. The chance that things actually turned out like this are poor. People who thought that the concept of determinism was true would think that everything would always happen the same way, since it's all just a chain of events. But due to certain uncertainty principles on quantum scale, this is unlikely.

Still, that exactly we come into existence is unlikely doesn't prove anything again. Why? Let's try this example. Imagine you have a die with a near infinite number of sides. Side 1 means, that humans as we know come into existence. Side 2 means, that very furry humans come into existence. Side 3 means, that some sort of highly intelligent octopus come into existence. Side 4 means, that some sort of highly intelligent shrimp come into existence. And so on, for the remaining sides.

Now throw the die. Let's say it's a 4. The intelligent shrimp says "oh, what for a coincidence that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done this on purpose." The shrimp thinks that you placed the die with the four up, to have exactly the shrimp come into existence, because you wanted exactly him. Because the chance of a four being thrown on a die with a near infinite number of sides is tiny, right? But the truth is: it was coincidence!

Now throw the die again. Let's say it's a 78, the number of the intelligent birds. The birds say "oh, what for a coincidence, that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done that on purpose". But again: coincidence. The bird thinks he is special, because it's unlikely that exactly his species would be chocen. But again: you did NOT want specifically want the bird.

In our universe, nobody throws any dice. Instead, small events that put some randomness into the creation of the universe do the job. However, no matter how the universe turns out, no matter what tiny random events happen, if life is possible, life will teem. That is no coincidence. And life will adapt. And ask questions.

The universe was not created just for us. We are just the result of the progress of evolution. Well, not THE result, as that progress will never end. We are just the current stage of evolution, and how life fits onto this planet.

 

[vj288]

According to what science tells us, there never was a global flood. And even IF there would have been a global flood, it wouldn't be any evidence that any religion would be true, unless there'd be a proof that this flood would have been the result of some sort of divine intervention.

I didn't say it did, I was just using an example of how someone may try to use science to prove a point about the validity of a religious text. Nothing more.

You are right. The chance that things actually turned out like this are poor. People who thought that the concept of determinism was true would think that everything would always happen the same way, since it's all just a chain of events. But due to certain uncertainty principles on quantum scale, this is unlikely.

Still, that exactly we come into existence is unlikely doesn't prove anything again. Why? Let's try this example. Imagine you have a die with a near infinite number of sides. Side 1 means, that humans as we know come into existence. Side 2 means, that very furry humans come into existence. Side 3 means, that some sort of highly intelligent octopus come into existence. Side 4 means, that some sort of highly intelligent shrimp come into existence. And so on, for the remaining sides.

Now throw the die. Let's say it's a 4. The intelligent shrimp says "oh, what for a coincidence that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done this on purpose." The shrimp thinks that you placed the die with the four up, to have exactly the shrimp come into existence, because you wanted exactly him. Because the chance of a four being thrown on a die with a near infinite number of sides is tiny, right? But the truth is: it was coincidence!

Now throw the die again. Let's say it's a 78, the number of the intelligent birds. The birds say "oh, what for a coincidence, that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done that on purpose". But again: coincidence. The bird thinks he is special, because it's unlikely that exactly his species would be chocen. But again: you did NOT want specifically want the bird.

In our universe, nobody throws any dice. Instead, small events that put some randomness into the creation of the universe do the job. However, no matter how the universe turns out, no matter what tiny random events happen, if life is possible, life will teem. That is no coincidence. And life will adapt. And ask questions.

The universe was not created just for us. We are just the result of the progress of evolution. Well, not THE result, as that progress will never end. We are just the current stage of evolution, and how life fits onto this planet.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, that's a very good argument too. I'm not talking in absolutes here, as I said I think it's impossible to know through reason something like the specifics of how the universe was created. And there are even stronger arguments for either side out there too I don't have in the back of my head right now. Between the argument you presented and the fine-tuning argument I referenced I think they are both strong (but easy to poke holes into) and neither are enough to stand on alone as proof for anything.

 

[hoddesdon]

There is no single scientific evidence that supporst the existence of any deity. It's more the other way round. The more we learn, the less space there is for religion. Take the solar eclipse for example. Before science made us realize what it really is, people thought it was a sign from the gods. Or earthquakes: the gods are angry with us! Diseases? A curse! And so on and so on. Everything, of which people didn't know how it works, was explained with religion. And then we learned what it really was like, and realized that religion had nothing to do with it.

There is the fact that it is unlikely that the universe would be so fine-tuned by chance. You yourself said that the likelihood of that happening by chance is poor. It is part of scientific theory that things tend to be random and tend to entropy. Therefore there is a large unexplained contradiction. So that is scientific evidence.

The intelligent shrimp argument falls down because life itself is as unlikely as the fine-tuned universe, and hence intelligent life is therefore even more unlikely, so that is improbability multiplied by improbability.

The argument that life is inevitable has no evidence to support it. It is itself an example of the intelligent shrimp argument. Life exists on Earth, so therefore it must be pre-ordained to exist everywhere. If it only exists here, then, given the vastness of the universe, that emphasizes how improbable it is, and therefore more likely to be not caused by chance.

 

[hoddesdon]

Too be fair to hoddesdon, there are many accepted theories for the existence of God that are backed up by science, but there are also many that make a solid argument against the existence of one. While things like the fine tuning argument (that the odds of the series of events leading to creation of the universe are so minuscule it would be hard to believe that it happened by chance) do make a very convincing case, there are counter arguments like the multiverse argument (that there is a generator that creates and infinite number of universes, inevitably leading to one that supports life like the one we live in).

The problems with the multiverse theory are first, that there is absolutely no evidence to support it, and, second, its provenance is suspect because it only arose after the fine-tuning argument was recognized. That is, scientists do not want to accept the fine-tuning argument, so the multiverse theory was dreamt up as a way out. The conclusion came first, and then the explanation.

 

[hoddesdon]

You are right. The chance that things actually turned out like this are poor. People who thought that the concept of determinism was true would think that everything would always happen the same way, since it's all just a chain of events. But due to certain uncertainty principles on quantum scale, this is unlikely.

Still, that exactly we come into existence is unlikely doesn't prove anything again. Why? Let's try this example. Imagine you have a die with a near infinite number of sides. Side 1 means, that humans as we know come into existence. Side 2 means, that very furry humans come into existence. Side 3 means, that some sort of highly intelligent octopus come into existence. Side 4 means, that some sort of highly intelligent shrimp come into existence. And so on, for the remaining sides.

Now throw the die. Let's say it's a 4. The intelligent shrimp says "oh, what for a coincidence that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done this on purpose." The shrimp thinks that you placed the die with the four up, to have exactly the shrimp come into existence, because you wanted exactly him. Because the chance of a four being thrown on a die with a near infinite number of sides is tiny, right? But the truth is: it was coincidence!

Now throw the die again. Let's say it's a 78, the number of the intelligent birds. The birds say "oh, what for a coincidence, that exactly we came into existence. Someone must have done that on purpose". But again: coincidence. The bird thinks he is special, because it's unlikely that exactly his species would be chocen. But again: you did NOT want specifically want the bird.

In our universe, nobody throws any dice. Instead, small events that put some randomness into the creation of the universe do the job. However, no matter how the universe turns out, no matter what tiny random events happen, if life is possible, life will teem. That is no coincidence. And life will adapt. And ask questions.

The universe was not created just for us. We are just the result of the progress of evolution. Well, not THE result, as that progress will never end. We are just the current stage of evolution, and how life fits onto this planet.

Nobody throws any dice, but yet the dice were thrown. If the uncertainty principle rules, then how does a definite result occur? How do random events always produce a non-random or structured result e.g. the universe which functions in a structured way for billions of years and life, which is structured and self-sustaining?

 

[vj288]

The problems with the multiverse theory are first, that there is absolutely no evidence to support it, and, second, its provenance is suspect because it only arose after the fine-tuning argument was recognized. That is, scientists do not want to accept the fine-tuning argument, so the multiverse theory was dreamt up as a way out. The conclusion came first, and then the explanation.

I agree that the mulitverse theory is ad hoc most of the time, just to poke holes in the fine-tuning argument. There is as much evidence for the fine-tuning argument as there is for the multiverse argument though, and it's just as probable. It's purpose is to show put forth another explanation for the fine-tuneness of the universe that isn't as weak as pure randomness, and it succeeds in doing so I think. It definitely gives the fine-tuning argument a rival in the the respect of the fine-tune-ness.

 

[kilojoule]

Not really. If you were to take a religious person who believes the bible wholeheartedly, for example, he could still use science to try to, say, prove that there really was a flood that drowned the earth. If you're just talking about the spiritual aspects of them (existence of god, angels, afterlife, free will, good/evil ect) then science can also overlap. For starters most of those things aren't mutually inclusive with religion, you can question the existence of a higher power without thinking in terms of religion at all. And science can be used to formulate arguments,hypothesize, make points ect ect.

It doesn't have to be thought of in terms of either one either. Like for example, in talking about the creation of the universe, many scientist accept the odds that all the events happened just as they did are extremely poor. Some may argue that it wasn't so random, and that maybe some outside variable influenced it somehow. Some may call it a "god" others may just think of it as something undefinable or unknown to us, just for an example. They can be defined in the others terms and then applied to them, it's not like comparing geometry to Shakespeare, there is some overlap between theology and science allowing parts of one to apply to the other.

I respectfully disagree. In my experience those in favour of religion cherrypick what Science they're interested in which is very unscientific. Those in favour of Science can't wrap their heads around the idea of a belief not based on logic or fact. They are not measurable in terms of each other. They're not comparable at all.

 

[kilojoule]

Amen.

.....

hehehe

 

[vj288]

I respectfully disagree. In my experience those in favour of religion cherrypick what Science they're interested in which is very unscientific. Those in favour of Science can't wrap their heads around the idea of a belief not based on logic or fact. They are not measurable in terms of each other. They're not comparable at all.

Maybe that's a tendency, I don't think it applied for all people in the respective fields though. It may speak to some of them, but certainly not all. They really aren't mutually exclusive things, even though some people treat them that way. There is obviously a difference between faith and reason, in fact I'd say they're opposites. Religion, or religious things do not have to be about faith. There's theories that are being discussed in this thread about the creation of the universe and how it could be for or against the existence of god - a religious idea. But the terms it's being discussed is not "there is a god because the bible says so and that's that." No, science is being used as evidence to support one side or the other.

And it's not totally black and white with all people either. It's not always "The bible tells me everything" or "Only through science can we find the answers." Most church go-ers probably aren't going to depend on prayers to cure cancer, they'll support research in finding a cure through science.

I might be a little off base with some of the things I say because when I think of religion my mind tends to go to the philosophy of religion which is a bit different, but the same basic concept most times. But the fact that there even is a philosophy of religion is an interesting thing in itself, philosophy being a discipline that not only all modern day sciences derived from but also that is extremely reason based.

 

[Metal_isthe_Answer]

My only problem with religion is the people who believe it. Religion is supposed to teach things like treat others as you would want to be treated, people are what make it not work. Science at its core is supposed to exist just to find the truth, but even that can be corrupted by people.

 

[kilojoule]

VJ It's good to have different view points on it. I don't have any experience in philosophy. You offer an interesting perspective.

 

[hoddesdon]

The votes for "God" and "both" together exceed the number for "Science". Since science says that God does not exist, you can include "both" with "God" since an atheist could only vote for "Science".

 

[coyote]

The votes for "God" and "both" together exceed the number for "Science". Since science says that God does not exist, you can include "both" with "God" since an atheist could only vote for "Science".

but you left out 'none'

'science' and 'none' together have more votes than 'god' and 'both' together

it's that sort of overlooking of the facts to suit your own purpose that causes you to lose credibility with the sciencey people

 

[Remus]

^ The "oh no another poll" followers seems to have won the day.

We need to band together to form our own commune!

 

[hoddesdon]

but you left out 'none'

'science' and 'none' together have more votes than 'god' and 'both' together

it's that sort of overlooking of the facts to suit your own purpose that causes you to lose credibility with the sciencey people

That is quite an inflammatory statement.

I take "none" to mean "abstain". That means those votes are not counted. You have no valid reason for arbitrarily adding "none" to "Science", since "none" means rejecting "Science" as well as "God".

Conversely, my justification for adding "both" to "God" is that "both" means that both science and God are accepted. However, science states that it is impossible to accept both, so a scientist would say that accepting God means rejecting science, and that voting for "both" means voting against "Science". Therefore "both" and "Science" are mutually exclusive, and can not be counted together.
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[Remus]

Since science says that God does not exist, you can include "both" with "God" since an atheist could only vote for "Science".

An agnostic could vote 'both'.

 

[Flanscho]

An agnostic could vote 'both'.

An agnostic doesn't believe in a god though. He/she just says "maybe, maybe not, nobody knows".