Should Science Speak to Faith?

[taks]

it is conceptually impossible to "know everything" from an information theoretical standpoint. the knowledge of something creates more information, which then requires more knowledge to understand, and subsequently creates more information, etc. there are also many things that are simply not knowable, such as what is the energy/whatever that makes people sentient. essentially, you cannot observe the box from within the box. there are many things that are unprovable as well, and the existence of an omnipotent being falls into that category (the only way to know for sure is to die, at which point communicating such information to the land of the living becomes impossible, and even death may not reveal such an answer in the first place).

 

taks

[Sand]

I disagree.

[metadigital]

Heisenberg, the quantum physicists of the third millenium, taks and I disagree with you.

[Sand]

Then we just have to agree to disagree, thusly drawing this argument to a close.

[metadigital]

Personally, I think we will eventually Science will be able to explain everything in existence. Eventually. Just because we don't know how something works, or why, does not mean it cannot be explained by science later on. Could a person of the 3rd century know how gravity works in relation to stellar bodies or understand molecular biology? Of course not. Ancient people had to invent gods to explain the unexplainable to quell their fear of the unknown. If some occurance happens that defies our understanding of the world we immediately attribute it to the supernatural.

 

We are wired that way.

 

Just remember Clark's Law (paraphrased): Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable to magic.

 

We invented God, Odin, Zeus, and all the rest because at the time we lacked the understanding of how the universe worked all those thousand of years ago.

Actually, Eratosthenes worked out that the Earth was a planet orbiting the sun like the others, in the third century BC.

[taks]

I disagree.

that you disagree but are unable to prove your case proves mine _almost_ by contradiction. you need to bone up on your logic skills, sand. look into goedel's incompleteness theorem while you're at it, which is all the proof i need to make my case.

 

taks

Edited June 18, 2007 by taks

[Sand]

Actually, Eratosthenes worked out that the Earth was a planet orbiting the sun like the others, in the third century BC.

 

Was his findings accepted by the bulk of humanity? Yes or no.

 

One individual is irrelevant. I am talking about human civilization as a whole. No doubt we can find a single individual here and there throughout history that was ahead of their time but as a civilization? What matters most is not the knowledge of one man, but the progression of technology and understanding of the universe by our species as a whole.

[metadigital]

G

[Xard]

Science isn't and will never be omnipotent nor it will give all the answers.

 

We will eventually, if we don't kill ourselves off or have a mass extinction level accident, be able to learn all the answers through science. Of course that is assuming that we rid ourselves the shackles of religion that is holding us back.

 

Damn you meta, you already brought Heisenberg in this

 

It's kinda funny how quantum physics collapsed whola basis of materialistic worldview. Ironic, actually.

 

Anyway, do you know Sand that "Laws of nature" are nowadays "high propabilities" (or whatever the official english term is). It's really just semantics since highest propabilities tend to happen "quite often", but nonetheless, they're still propabilities

Edited June 18, 2007 by Xard

[Sand]

I disagree.

that you disagree but are unable to prove your case proves mine _almost_ by contradiction. you need to bone up on your logic skills, sand. look into goedel's incompleteness theorem while you're at it, which is all the proof i need to make my case.

 

taks

IF you say so, but my view is that all knowledge that can be gleaned by scientific understanding of our universe is knowable eventually even though it may not be known right now.

[metadigital]

Actually, Eratosthenes worked out that the Earth was a planet orbiting the sun like the others, in the third century BC.

 

Was his findings accepted by the bulk of humanity? Yes or no.

 

One individual is irrelevant. I am talking about human civilization as a whole. No doubt we can find a single individual here and there throughout history that was ahead of their time but as a civilization? What matters most is not the knowledge of one man, but the progression of technology and understanding of the universe by our species as a whole.

WTF is "human civilization as a whole"?

[Sand]

Our civilization, Meta. You know, the whole social and fragmented framework of our society that has a total population over 6 billion.

 

At the time of Eratosthenes, was his findings accepted by the human civilization of that era?

[metadigital]

There is no such thing as "the whole civilization".

[Sand]

There is no such thing as "the whole civilization".

Look outside your window, and there it is.

[Walsingham]

Canto, if I understand your point, you're heading in a line I was thinking about. Science can tell you why things happen, and knowing the causes of things makes you happy. But science can't do all the things religion can. As you may have noticed from my sig I was lucky enough to do a bit of freerange historical research on the Italian campaign recently. In the course of this I was struck by the extent to which men in tehir diaries and letters drew on their conceptions of God for strength. Doing so permitted them to execute attacks, and endure conditions that defy description here.

 

Going back to this topic, I think that science can go a long way, and I stand by my previous statements supporting it. However, removing religion entirely would be to needlessly deprive ourselves. Religion can inspire, and has inspired many great scientists, because it eleveates our surroundings to the status of the divine, and not mere ashes that can be ignored. It has also proved capable of sustaining researchers enduring harsh or straightened circumstances.

 

But most importantly, religion is usually a cultural focus of morality. Science deprived of morality is a beast, capable of any depravity.

[Sand]

Oh yes it is a great source of morality where bigotry, hate, and violence festers. Religion has done a real bang up job in the Middle East right now, and hell, human history is full of violence done in the name of religion. Even here in the US there are people, by their own admission devout Christians, support bigotry and discrimination against certain members of our society simply because they are born different.

 

Yeah, real good source of morality there, Walsh.

 

The point is that religion can be just as deprave and absent of morality as science.

Edited June 18, 2007 by Sand

[Walsingham]

Ultimately things like right and wrong are not scientific. This is my real point. They are usually axiomatic/based on simple faith. Again it seems strange that I should have to point this out to you when you - atheisms poster boy - consistently argue against (for example) helping people. With your scientific dialectic whirring away at full power your over-riding amibition appears to be sitting in a shack in Montana, eating beans from a tin while the nukes fly past.

 

Religions do teach morality. Yes, the people doing the teaching do sometimes teach the morality that it is groovy to dash around smacking heretics/kaffirs. But, and it pains me to keep reminding you, there are millions of faith based do-gooders dashing around as well.

[Sand]

Um... I'm not an Atheist.

[Walsingham]

Um... I'm not an Atheist.

 

I beg your pardon. Reformed baptist cthulhite.

[Sand]

Um... I'm not an Atheist.

 

I beg your pardon. Reformed baptist cthulhite.

HA!

 

Actually the closest thing to what my beliefs are would be more on the lines of Empirical Irrationalist.

[Walsingham]

Empriical Irrationalist? If I decode that correctly this would mean you like to establish firmly what the facts are and then contradict them. We had some monks like that near where I grew up. They were called the Holy Brothers of the Wilful St Cretinous.

[Pidesco]

[Xard]

^ Seconded

 

Oh yes it is a great source of morality where bigotry, hate, and violence festers. Religion has done a real bang up job in the Middle East right now, and hell, human history is full of violence done in the name of religion.

 

There has been other mantras. Nationalism, tribalism (which is responsible for IMHO worst atrocity since WWII, Stalin and Mao, Rwandan Genocide), economy, political ideologies, science (Unit 731 as mere example) etc. and to be all honest, I would not call religion even "winner" here. "Achievements" by Stalin or Mao beats those of Hitler and Pope Alexander II by mile.

 

Also, "Positive Christianity" was NOT big factor in Nazi Ideology

Edited June 18, 2007 by Xard

[WITHTEETH]

...it is completely surreal hearing that there are people in the world wanting religion as part of their science classes, part of their govermental doctrines (didn't the Taleban just get ousted because being ruled by Sharia law wasn't politcally correct?!?) and so on

 

I don't think religion should be part of any science class. Morals themselves should not be part of any science class.

 

science is completely amoral. It does not care in the least about morals and does not recognize their existence. Science is science. The very idea of empirical morality is laughable. Science doesn't have any vested interest in policy. At best, it can predict what will happen and record the happenings after the fact. All policy is moral and none of it is based on science. Science argues after the fact in a policy discussion, not before hand.

Morals can can come through experiences of the senses. but just like reading the bible, its hard to pick and choose what is the good and the bad. This is the main reason why people denounce an atheist, because they think we have no moral basis. My moral status may flux over time due to different empirical findings, but to say i don't have a moral basis is at the very least, untrue.

 

Can a person feel pain? Can a person feel pleasure or tranquility? These feelings can be felt empirically through the senses, and partly even through certain brain scans. So, should i do everything that feels pleasurable good? Of course, not. what may feel good to me may hurt another, so i have to take other people into account. So now it becomes the greatest good(pleasure/tranquility) for the greatest amount of people, this is utilitarianism, a form of hedonism, because every good should not persuade, and not every bad should be avoided, we have to look at the the larger picture. And Compassion is possible through our capacity of empathy, and through that we can understand people and try to cause less harm.

 

 

As for science being amoral... well duh. Science is statistics. and the bible is a clump of stories. But to believe stories over hard statistics is a reasoning fallacy!

[Walsingham]

WITHTEETH, genuine question: you say that you should worry about another's feelings? Why is that? I don't see that that is based on scientific reasoning.