Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Wildswanderer]

It didn't 'come from' anywhere. Whenever there was time, that energy existed.

Again that's not science. Everything comes from something else.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Yes, it actually does. The universe itself (all of space and time, matter and energy) simply exists. It is not caused because all causes are within the universe; within space and time.

What an absurd conclusion. You would be better off to say you just don't know.

 

[Wildswanderer]

We know matter exists. We can see it and touch it. We have nothing like that with deities.

What's so unreasonable about matter and energy being eternal (coexistent with time)? Why invent another entity when it isn't needed for understanding?

Anything being eternal is outside the realm of science. So what you have there is no different than religious beliefs.

 

[DNB]

Wisdom is knowing what to do. Intelligence is knowing how to do it.

Yes, I would say that that's a reasonable explanation, ...for starters. Because, in regard to this overall discussion one would need to define it more appropriately.
Wisdom is perception, perceiving past the obvious. And, yes, this leads one into knowing what to do, but, especially, why. Meaning, you understand what caused the situation at hand and how to react to it, that is, you are aware from where it was derived from - what caused it to happen.
Therefore, one with wisdom can accurately anticipate what will occur next. when given a particular context. Faith is believing in something that has not transpired yet (the blind aspect), because one perceives and recognizes the ingredients or formula that will lead to it. Thus, equally, and again, faith is understanding what caused an occurrence of a situation.
Faith is not credulity - naivete is credulity, faith is wisdom.

 

[DNB]

"Faith is wisdom" is just a meaningless platitude. There is nothing to understand.

I appreciate you sharing that, it does explain a lot.

 

[DNB]

It is certainly not simply accepting extraordinary claims without any supporting evidence or rational argument.
Wisdom actually requires scepticism. It requires us to question assertions, test claims, consider alternatives.
There is no "wisdom" in blind faith.

Faith is wisdom, and blind faith is an acquired faith - where further evidence is no longer required.

 

[DNB]

Skepticism is one of the most successful ideas humankind has produced, along with such things as justice and the laws of reason. Skepticism turned astrology into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, and creationism into the Big Bang and evolutionary theories. In other words, skepticism followed by empiricism turned the study of the stars from something useless to something useful, from something that failed to predict the courses of lives into something that accurately predicted where the moon would be when Apollo 11 was ready to touch down on it. All that faith can do for astronomy is to misdirect it, as it did for biology when the ID people decided to inject faith into their studies and came up with what faith always yields: nothing demonstrably true, nothing able to explain or anticipate reality, just like astrology. In fact, in the Dover trial, the prosecution got one of the ID people to agree to the similarity of ID and astrology in the sense that they are too much alike to call only one pseudoscience.



Faith is guessing.



Yes, but you do not. Faith has nothing to do with wisdom. Belief by faith in metaphysical (untestable) claims such as the existence of gods is not wisdom. Even intelligence is not wisdom, as intelligent people often use that intelligence foolishly. I can tell you what wisdom is in a single sentence, just as I can tell you what faith is in a single sentence. The concepts are easy to define and understand. If intelligence relates to problem solving and the ability to get what one desires, wisdom is knowing what things will bring happiness, what things to direct one's intelligence to solve. And faith is nothing more or less than unjustified belief, which as I indicated is the same as guessing and believing one's guess to the same extent that one's justified beliefs are believed.

I just finished writing this to someone else, so I'm just copying it over:

Wisdom is perception, perceiving past the obvious. And, yes, this leads one into knowing what to do, but, especially, why. Meaning, you understand what caused the situation at hand and how to react to it, that is, you are aware from where it was derived from - what caused it to happen.
Therefore, one with wisdom can accurately anticipate what will occur next. when given a particular context. Faith is believing in something that has not transpired yet (the blind aspect), because one perceives and recognizes the ingredients or formula that will lead to it. Thus, equally, and again, faith is understanding what caused an occurrence of a situation.
Faith is not credulity - naivete is credulity, faith is wisdom.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, of course. The universe existed LONG before there was life, let alone consciousness.



It's misguided at best.

As quantum shows, we have zero grasp on the reality of the universe. For all we know it could just be mathematical construct.
We need to temper our hubris.
I am old enough to remember when people lost their careers, reputation or tenur for believing in 'continental drift.'

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not in reality, no. For example, an absolute proof would have to provide absolute falsifications of unfalsifiable propositions such as eg Last Thursdayism, Dream-in-the-mind-of-a-Superbeingism, Element-in-a-Tron-gameism and so on through whatever is the complete list.

That list includes at least one God.

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon. Science can 'explain' much of the natural world. Not all, but much.

Bit of a straw man, since I have not seen anyone claim otherwise, why would anyone think modern science currently explains everything?

It cannot explain MEANING for instance, other than to deny it exists - which is not a scientific statement.

You're begging the question by assuming there is an overarching meaning, and science doesn't deny things that just shows a spectacular lack of basic understanding of how the methods work. Of course the claim is not a scientific statement, you just made it up.

But as I see it there's two ways to explain why we are here
1 - we are created
2 - it all happened by magic

That is one of the most absurdly obvious false dichotomy fallacies I've ever seen. Like all common logical fallacies it is of course irrational, by definition. It is creationism that invokes magic by the way, as it is at its core an appeal to mystery, without any explanatory powers whatsoever.

When there was n.o.t.h.i.n.g., not even time or phsyics or even numbers, then HOW did the univese
spring into being? And why?

The big bang theory explains the how, again you are using a begging the question fallacy with your assumption there is a why, that is a claim you would need to demonstrate sufficient objective evidence for. It is irrational to simply assume this.

I take it that this mystery by itself points to a creator,

Well there you go, exactly I said, a meaningless appeal to mystery, and this is skirting very close to an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy using a "god of the gaps" polemic. Again irrational by definition. So your post has used at least 3 different common logical fallacies that I can see, and offered nothing beyond assumption and assertion.

I will say it again then, not knowing how something happened, is not evidence for anything.

 

[Sheldon]

It's utterly crucial. Does any of this exist if not for an observer? My point is that the bible doesn't say we are the center of the universe.

What are all the redundant line breaks in your posts for, it makes them very awkward to read? That aside, we have evolved a brain capable of consciousness, and a level of self awareness, so what? The bible can't even get the most basic chronology of the formation of the universe and our solar system right, it reads precisely as if it is the entirely human product of the era and culture from which it is derived.

But Christians, adopting what just about every other culture on earth thought, put us at the center. I hold that this human center is not wrong. That's all.

Which suggests what to you, because I draw an inference from that, that what they claim is the inerrant word of an infallible deity, is quite obviously not. We are not at the centre of the universe, this was primitive understanding based on ignorance. We are not even at the centre of our own solar system, one of approximately 100 billion in this galaxy, which is one of approximately 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. We are one among millions of species that have evolved, and we only appeared on the scene a mere 200k years ago. It is risible to equate those facts as indicating our existence is in any way significant, beyond the significance we ourselves attach to it, perhaps necessarily, but nonetheless shockingly egotistical to imagine ourselves as more significant to the universe than any other species.

 

[Sheldon]

There's no natural explanation for why, only how.
No one knows where the energy came from to create the universe.

There's no objective evidence there is a why, this is pure assumption, and therefore irrational question begging.

No one knows where the energy came from to create the universe.

Ah a "god of the gaps" polemic, this is not evidence of anything, not knowing something does not rationally infer anything, these types of arguments are a from of argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies. Even were it not demonstrably irrational reasoning, it no more evidences a deity than universe creating pixies, and even were that fact not patently obvious, it would get you no closer to Jesus than the Aztec deity of gluttony, which one could make the same assumptions about using the same begging the question fallacies and circular reasoning fallacies first cause arguments always involve.

Beyond Planck time we don't know, and may never know what happened or how, and this is as true of religions as it is of Physics, the difference being physics doesn't based its conclusions on wishful thinking or unevidenced assumptions.

 

[Sheldon]

So? Science is the same as religion? Religion requires faith. No one denys that. But science isn't supposed to require faith, it's supposed to be based only on solid evidence.

What spectacularly stupid claim. Leaving aside the asinine misrepresentation of science, your argument seems to be faith is useless but you have nothing better, and only the first part is true of course.

 

[Sheldon]

...just so that no one misunderstands the point here: faith is wisdom!

An utterly meaningless non sequitur, both those words are amply defined as to common usage, and a cursory look in any dictionary dismantles the claim.

 

[Sheldon]

What an absurd conclusion.

Actually you are just failing to understand that causation is a characteristic of the physical material universe, as is space time. To assign causation outside of this condition is both non-sensical and pure assumption.

You would be better off to say you just don't know.

Oh the unbridled irony, you are the one claiming knowledge you don't have here. The phrase I don't know holds no fear for atheists in my experience, and definitely not for science which is predicated on the fact and necessity of ignorance, that it acknowledges and seeks to change, by constantly gathering testable empirical evidence.

 

[KWED]

As quantum shows, we have zero grasp on the reality of the universe.

It shows nothing of the sort.

I am old enough to remember when people lost their careers, reputation or tenur for believing in 'continental drift.'

Are you like 100 or something?

people lost their careers, reputation or tenur for believing in 'continental drift.'

Examples?

 

[PruePhillip]

It shows nothing of the sort.

Are you like 100 or something?

Examples?

By 'grasp' I meant comprehension. Quantum is essentially defined through maths. Who said to 'understand' quantum
proves you don't? Feynam?
Until the early 1960's continental drift was heresy in geology. I recall all the news from the Glomar Challenger and how
it showed the sea floor spreading and oceanic ridges. Suddenly continental drift was obvious - there was a mechanism.

 

[PruePhillip]

What are all the redundant line breaks in your posts for, it makes them very awkward to read? That aside, we have evolved a brain capable of consciousness, and a level of self awareness, so what? The bible can't even get the most basic chronology of the formation of the universe and our solar system right, it reads precisely as if it is the entirely human product of the era and culture from which it is derived.



Which suggests what to you, because I draw an inference from that, that what they claim is the inerrant word of an infallible deity, is quite obviously not. We are not at the centre of the universe, this was primitive understanding based on ignorance. We are not even at the centre of our own solar system, one of approximately 100 billion in this galaxy, which is one of approximately 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. We are one among millions of species that have evolved, and we only appeared on the scene a mere 200k years ago. It is risible to equate those facts as indicating our existence is in any way significant, beyond the significance we ourselves attach to it, perhaps necessarily, but nonetheless shockingly egotistical to imagine ourselves as more significant to the universe than any other species.

Like to pinpoint the center of the universe?
There's two accounts of creation in Genesis 1. The first account is less abstracted than the second, and if you take the 'days' for 'periods' then the entire story is super accurate in terms of SEQUENCE. God creates
1 - the heavens
2 - the earth

and then you, the observer, are on the earth (where else could you be?) An oceanic, cloud planet at that point.
and this earth is dark, oceanic and sterile
first the skies open
then the continents rise above the water line
and then life appears, first
1 - on land (fresh water)
2 - in the sea

Finally, man.

 

[KWED]

By 'grasp' I meant comprehension. Quantum is essentially defined through maths. Who said to 'understand' quantum
proves you don't? Feynam?

Quantum physics is only a small part ('scuse the pun) of the "reality of the universe". To claim we have "zero grasp of the reality of the universe" is demonstrable nonsense.

Until the early 1960's continental drift was heresy in geology.

No it wasn't. It was becoming generally accepted.

I recall all the news from the Glomar Challenger and how it showed the sea floor spreading and oceanic ridges. Suddenly continental drift was obvious - there was a mechanism.

Interesting. So you admit that we do indeed have "a grasp on the reality of the universe" to a degree.

 

[KWED]

Like to pinpoint the center of the universe?
There's two accounts of creation in Genesis 1. The first account is less abstracted than the second, and if you take the 'days' for 'periods' then the entire story is super accurate in terms of SEQUENCE. God creates
1 - the heavens
2 - the earth

But you just admitted that natural processes were involved in shaping the earth over billions of years. So why are you still claiming that it was done quickly, by magic?

Also, the description in Genesis contains some fundamental insurmountable errors. We know that it is wrong. So why do you believe it is an accurate description?