Philosophy and science

[HoonDing]

Scientists will rue the day when it is revealed the Big Bang was just God lighting a match.

[Humodour]

Scientists will rue the day when it is revealed the Big Bang was just God lighting a match.

 

Which is pretty much the only acceptable role some supernatural being could play in our modern understanding of science. It's the view my moderately Catholic mum subscribes to.

 

I'm fine with it, because it allows a theist to accept the discoveries of science (such as evolution and the mind as emergent behaviour of causal systems) through an objective filter. Curiously, this is the worldview which Einstein subscribed to (although he believed in nature/the universe, not any intelligent or supernatural being - but they become essentially equivalent at this point anyway).

 

Personally I'm inclined to lean towards our universe nucleating as a bubble off another universe (no big bang), as that's where the physics is leaning - but that still doesn't resolve the question: who codes the coders? I.e. what created god? Did god create itself? That's a tautology and doesn't provide any useful information. It is equivalent to "the universe created itself". So I don't really care too much to delve into it, or feel strongly about who or what another person deigns to believe the coder is, or why it exists. It's beyond our comprehension and always will be as far as I can tell, because it lies outside the realms of causality (I know there are logical systems that aren't causal and which a causal subset of logic can stem from, but it does my head in thinking about them).

Edited October 25, 2012 by Krezack

[Hornet85]

 

On another note, I would really love it if somewhere in the future someone discovered an error with our mathematical system. It would be funny to me if all those zealot scientists would suddenly realize that their entire society was built upon faith on a system.

The greatest difference between science and religion is the search for knowledge, once science stops searching and starts imposing they are at fault of the same sins that they accuse religion of.

 

Mathematics is not a belief system. It doesn't require you to have faith in it. When you do your taxes you are using mathematics. You can't say you don't believe in mathematics and so you are not paying your taxes. When you drive you car, it was design using mathematics. When you use your computer, its mathematics. When you use your GPS, its mathematics. Its a tool of pattern.

 

Science is another fact that you cannot avoid regardless of whether you are religious or not. When you are ill, you don't stay home and pray to god, you go to the hospital, that's science at work. When you want to go somewhere far, you don't pray to god to take you there, you get on an airplane, that's science at work.

 

So, I don't understand how religious people could have anything against science, its a part of nature that you cannot avoid. The very computer you are using to visit this forum is science at work.

 

If you religious people want to blame something for others not believing in your religion or your belief system, you need to look elsewhere. Perhaps even look at your own religion and ask, why are people leaving this belief system. Science is merely a systematical way of laying out the facts that describe the working of nature. If you are pissed off at why evolution was responsible for life and not god, go blame nature. Science merely tells us how nature works.

 

The whole science vs religion thing is just silly.

[Rosbjerg]

Except in life, you can never live without believing you know the truth. Without belief, there is no living. That is, practically speaking, you need to believe, whether by action or inaction, in something. The most atheist scientist does not believe 'nothing' - he may belive nothing in principle, but in practice, in the everyday, he must trust in the 'truth' of many things.

 

I'm not saying there is no thruth I'm saying assuming one based on no tangible evidence is dangerous - if we go through life only on assumptions you are probably gonna end up dead very quickly. We adapt our world view through observation and rationale (ideally). If I believed/assumed I was immortal you would scoff at my assumption as it not based on reality. But you're right, I assume gravity as a thruth, but only because it has so far proven itself through my oberservations - God has not therefore I can't see how one can assume this 'thruth'.

 

So to rephrase; to hold assumptions based on intangible or non-present evidence is frowned upon in almost any case, but in religion a requirement.

[Hurlshort]

If you religious people want to blame something for others not believing in your religion or your belief system, you need to look elsewhere.

 

Who are you talking to with this post?

 

The only people that have brought up religion in this thread have been the people attacking it. And no one is attacking science.

 

Well, Orogun's post might be seen that way, but he was more pointing out a humorous situation than actually questioning mathematical law.