The theory would exist, practical application is another matter. So are we then moving then into the age old, 'if there is a god then make him stop all the world suffering' malarkey.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm on about. All of these things, the belief in God, Gravity, Cold Fusion, predict a universe with certain behaviours and provide evidence for their validity.
Gravity has a mountain of evidence that can be reproduced, and has been!, time and time again. We have yet to find an experiment that shows Gravity is wrong.
Cold Fusion, as a hypothesis, is the same as Gravity. Except when you try to reproduce the evidence! Every time we've tried to make it work, it doesn't.
So while they are both equally valid Hypothesis, only Gravity gets to be called a Theory, because we can test the Hypothesis and get the same results, over and over and over and over again.
God, the Bible, has evidence. Evidence the same way that Cold Fusion has evidence. "Well, you had to be there!" and "It worked, I saw it!"
As a Hypothesis, God is the same as Gravity. But the moment you start to say "I have evidence for God" is the moment you open yourself up to critical investigation. You're saying you have facts that support your Hypothesis. If your facts are dis proven then you are wrong!
Facts are facts, there is no relativity there. 1 + 1 = 2 (3 for sufficiently large values of 1 >>) You are not entitled to your own version of reality!
Id say that christianity if followed as Jesus actually teaches is fucking awesome.
Really? It's a religion which teaches that we are all born terminally ill but commanded to be well. That it's moral to atone for your sins or wrongdoings is to pile your burdens upon a human sacrifice and achieve vicarious redemption. That the scapegoating of one man is the only way to be 'cleansed'. That I am complicit, nay, I drove the nail into Jesus myself, and am responsible for the human sacrifice of Jesus. This is not an ethical basis for morality. If you think this is fucking awesome, you have serious issues.
I have a defense, I really can't spell I'm not joking, it took me three years to learn how to spell my last name.
Blah I'm at a loss now. Partly owing to my inability to understand physics and due to me poorly structuring my argument. I shall coincide that religion stumbles when it comes to evidence as presented through science (an area I am terrible in). I also don't want to make an ass of myself. I shall then pose this question; What is luck? Vague I know, but how is this explained when disproving the existence of a deity.
I'm just saying what JESUS TAUGHT. Nothing else. Be good to others. Treat people how you want to be treated. Help the sick, help the poor. I'm not talking about any of the fantastical things...
No such thing. At best it is coincidence. Random chance given meaning by a 3lb piece of (tasty?) meat in an effort to increase it's effort to pass on it's genes to the next generation.
There was this study where a machine would randomly dispense food to a pigeon. So the pigeon looks over it's left shoulder and food came out. By random chance the very next time food came out the pigeon was looking over its left shoulder again! So the pigeon kept looking over it's left shoulder, hoping more food would come out. Sometimes it did, sometimes it came out when the bird was doing something different.
The point being that those two random coincidences imprinted an idea of cause and effect upon the bird. And so the bird did it a lot and because the bird did it a lot there was a very large chance that it would get a hit. Each hit reinforced this idea that looking over it's let shoulder would make food come out. Even though it had nothing to do with it.
Id say that christianity if followed as Jesus actually teaches is fucking awesome.
Really? It's a religion which teaches that we are all born terminally ill but commanded to be well. That it's moral to atone for your sins or wrongdoings is to pile your burdens upon a human sacrifice and achieve vicarious redemption. That the scapegoating of one man is the only way to be 'cleansed'. That I am complicit, nay, I drove the nail into Jesus myself, and am responsible for the human sacrifice of Jesus. This is not an ethical basis for morality. If you think this is fucking awesome, you have serious issues.
And Andrew. Jesus never said shit about orginal sin. And for that matter it is only a big deal because of some made up dogma. And man did not ask for Jesus to die. God decided that it needed to happen. And it is not the "Only way to be cleansed" If you are truely repentent then your sins are forgiven. I'm not saying I believe in 100% what the bible has to say. That would be fucking crazy. I just think there are some good parts.
I bet there is something biologically that makes animals want to see correlation at a heightened rate, so that they use more trial and error than normal. Things like superstition are just this instinct backfiring.
I bet there is something biologically that makes animals want to see correlation at a heightened rate, so that they use more trial and error than normal. Things like superstition are just this instinct backfiring.
This is basically what it comes down to. It's better to interpret that shadow/rustle in the bushes as a panther and run away, even if you're not sure of it. Better to have false positives than false negatives in those cases!
I'm just saying what JESUS TAUGHT. Nothing else. Be good to others. Treat people how you want to be treated. Help the sick, help the poor. I'm not talking about any of the fantastical things...
The Golden Rule FAR outdates Jesus or Christianity.
I just think there are some good parts.
If you're going to pick and choose, why even bother?
I bet there is something biologically that makes animals want to see correlation at a heightened rate, so that they use more trial and error than normal. Things like superstition are just this instinct backfiring.
This is basically what it comes down to. It's better to interpret that shadow/rustle in the bushes as a panther and run away, even if you're not sure of it. Better to have false positives than false negatives in those cases!
No, they just try to make connections of the world around us in order to make sense of it. The construct of a god or gods is just a very primitive form of explanation which has been surpassed by the scientific method. There are secondary and tertiary reasons for religion such as morals and ethics, but I say they are predicated from the initial reasoning to try to understand the universe.
Is it possible then for science to become the next 'religion'?
Not if you do science right.
The difference is that religion requires faith, whereas science expressly forbids faith. I don't have "faith" in any scientific principle; I have conclusions which are drawn from evidence.
There are secondary and tertiary reasons for religion such as morals and ethics, but I say they are predicated from the initial reasoning to try to understand the universe.
And control. What we forget is the old testament is mostly laws which the Jews, who were mostly nomadic tribes, set up as a form of government. I wrote a paper, which I mysteriously lost, about how the old testament sets up the concept of God as synonymous with the law. So anyone who rejects religion also rejects the rules of the tribe and is ousted from all social functions. On the flip side, anyone who strongly believes in God will always be a stand-up citizen in the eyes of the law. This is also the reason why the first story in the text is about Humanities first sin: disobeying God. "Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ruined Eden for the rest of us so try not to make the same mistake."
Is it possible then for science to become the next 'religion'? Again I don't want to be that crazy person, I'm merely suggesting a conclusion.
"The only sacred truth [of science] is that there are no sacred truths." -Carl Sagan
Science is a method of understanding, not a sort of belief system itself. It provides a way to analyze, change, and correct our understanding of the universe.
Comments
Gravity has a mountain of evidence that can be reproduced, and has been!, time and time again. We have yet to find an experiment that shows Gravity is wrong.
Cold Fusion, as a hypothesis, is the same as Gravity. Except when you try to reproduce the evidence! Every time we've tried to make it work, it doesn't.
So while they are both equally valid Hypothesis, only Gravity gets to be called a Theory, because we can test the Hypothesis and get the same results, over and over and over and over again.
God, the Bible, has evidence. Evidence the same way that Cold Fusion has evidence. "Well, you had to be there!" and "It worked, I saw it!"
As a Hypothesis, God is the same as Gravity. But the moment you start to say "I have evidence for God" is the moment you open yourself up to critical investigation. You're saying you have facts that support your Hypothesis. If your facts are dis proven then you are wrong!
Facts are facts, there is no relativity there. 1 + 1 = 2 (3 for sufficiently large values of 1 >>) You are not entitled to your own version of reality!
Blah I'm at a loss now. Partly owing to my inability to understand physics and due to me poorly structuring my argument. I shall coincide that religion stumbles when it comes to evidence as presented through science (an area I am terrible in). I also don't want to make an ass of myself. I shall then pose this question; What is luck? Vague I know, but how is this explained when disproving the existence of a deity.
So the acts of luck are happenstance then.
OR
A symptom of a fundamentally random universe.
There was this study where a machine would randomly dispense food to a pigeon. So the pigeon looks over it's left shoulder and food came out. By random chance the very next time food came out the pigeon was looking over its left shoulder again! So the pigeon kept looking over it's left shoulder, hoping more food would come out. Sometimes it did, sometimes it came out when the bird was doing something different.
The point being that those two random coincidences imprinted an idea of cause and effect upon the bird. And so the bird did it a lot and because the bird did it a lot there was a very large chance that it would get a hit. Each hit reinforced this idea that looking over it's let shoulder would make food come out. Even though it had nothing to do with it.
The difference is that religion requires faith, whereas science expressly forbids faith. I don't have "faith" in any scientific principle; I have conclusions which are drawn from evidence.
Science is a method of understanding, not a sort of belief system itself. It provides a way to analyze, change, and correct our understanding of the universe.