Some of you may enjoy Sinai and Synapses. 
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If Science Can't Answer it...
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
You might think that is "condescending," but the plain truth is that a lot of people cannot understand many processes, and fall back on meaningless or just plain false "explanations" employing attribution to divine design and power.
I personally do not fall into that category but thanks for taking the time to explain all this to me.
Audie
Veteran Member
Religion? Any answer you want to any question you ask
Then the question has no value. According to Richard Dawkins.
Science does answer some "why" questions, including questions about the purposes of things. Those it does not answer may simply be unanswerable. The questions "what is the purpose of a light bulb?," "what is the purpose of a firefly's light,?" and "what is the purpose of the sun?" all look like the same sort of question superficially, but are importantly different. The first invites an answer in terms of the intentions of those who make and use light bulbs. The second is a question in evolutionary biology. The scientist can provide answers to both of these. The third question is not of the sort that science answers, but this does not trouble Dawkin's scientist, for he denies that this question is meaningful at all.
Following on this, Dawkins wondered whether there were any deep, important questions that science was incapable of answering. He supposed that there might be, citing as an example the question of what determined the fundamental constants of physics. But, he claimed, such gaps in scientific explanation should provide no comfort to theologians who wished to claim a distinctive sphere of competence for religion. For if any area of study were to deliver answers to these questions – questions Dawkins labeled "the deep questions of existence" – it would be science, not religion.
Lecture II: The Religion of Science
Do you agree?
Or do you think religion holds some meaningful answers for humanity?
If science can't answer it...then I'll use the non-scientific resources, my own experience, and general rules of thumb I apply to life to answer it.
One of my general rules is that binary thinking is limiting and wrong. I personally see limited value in religion for me. That doesn't mean I think science has the answers to everything. Indeed, I see that line of thinking as potentially dangerous and lacking in nuance.
One of my general rules is that binary thinking is limiting and wrong. I personally see limited value in religion for me. That doesn't mean I think science has the answers to everything. Indeed, I see that line of thinking as potentially dangerous and lacking in nuance.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
I would say false dichotomy.
What about: What my wife wants?
Then the question has no value. According to Richard Dawkins.
Science does answer some "why" questions, including questions about the purposes of things. Those it does not answer may simply be unanswerable. The questions "what is the purpose of a light bulb?," "what is the purpose of a firefly's light,?" and "what is the purpose of the sun?" all look like the same sort of question superficially, but are importantly different. The first invites an answer in terms of the intentions of those who make and use light bulbs. The second is a question in evolutionary biology. The scientist can provide answers to both of these. The third question is not of the sort that science answers, but this does not trouble Dawkin's scientist, for he denies that this question is meaningful at all.
Following on this, Dawkins wondered whether there were any deep, important questions that science was incapable of answering. He supposed that there might be, citing as an example the question of what determined the fundamental constants of physics. But, he claimed, such gaps in scientific explanation should provide no comfort to theologians who wished to claim a distinctive sphere of competence for religion. For if any area of study were to deliver answers to these questions – questions Dawkins labeled "the deep questions of existence" – it would be science, not religion.
Lecture II: The Religion of Science
Do you agree?
Or do you think religion holds some meaningful answers for humanity?
Religion can answer any question. . . but incorrectly.
RELIGION'S ANSWERS:
1. Lie us into wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and try to lie us into wars in Niger and North Korea, and make torture camps, while claiming to "fight the Axis of Evil" (presumably on God's behalf, yet God said "thou shalt not kill").
2. Must join the National Rifle Association to run for office to represent the Religious Right (kill for God).
3. Heal the rich, let the poor languish (vote against universal health care, aka Obamacare).
4. Cut taxes for the rich, outsource factories and jobs overseas to take advantage of cheap foreign labor. W. Bush was about to shut down the port of Los Angeles, and build a port in Mexico.
5. Drill offshore (spill), pipelines through nature, frack, avoid solar, use oil and coal, then rewrite (with lies) PhD scientists with dire warnings of mankind's contribution to Global Warming (rising oceans, heat, intense storms). Assert that scientists are enemies of religion.
Religion morphs into a killing machine against God, against humanity, and against nature.
Osama bin Laden morphed his peaceful religion into a religion of hate and terrorism. Some claim that the Muslim religion is not peaceful, but filled with violent rhetoric.
Science answers the questions that it can. But science is still growing, and there are questions still unanswered. Theists unfairly use those limitations of science to presume that God did it all.
I think that many of the constants of physics are required to make equations work. For example, with any three of Maxwell's equations, we can find the fourth equation. This wouldn't be possible with different constants.
I thought she wanted a real one.
Atlas holds the world. But what holds Atlas? Atlas stands on a turtle. But what holds the turtle? Etc. Every lie engenders the next lie. What a tangled web.
Science proposes theories based on the best knowledge that our best (and most educated) minds can produce. Scientists would change their minds in a heartbeat if they felt that they were wrong. They don't consider their theories to be facts.
Theists try to make the world (and science) fit their ideas. God heals? Heaven and hell exist? God is good?
Conspiracy theoriests: Flat earth? Never went to the moon? John Kennedy killed by: Russians, Cubans, LBJ, Nixon, CIA?
When theists see something that puzzles scientists, they say "aha....God made it happen." Expansion of the universe....God did it. Big Bang. . . God did it.
Every limitation of science is not a proof of God.
Some of you may enjoy Sinai and Synapses.
I looked that site over and like what I saw.
It is illogical to say that "if science can't answer it, religion must."
It's turtles --- all the way down!
Of course that doesn't make any sense.
But inventing God doesn't solve anything, and for exactly the same reason. If we must assume that there must be some reason for absolutely anything, some support for absolutely any existence -- we are still left with this tiny problem:
that reason or that support, by our own definition, needs either a reason or support of its own. So you are not a millimeter further ahead!
The only solution to this truly fundamental paradox (in a world where something obviously exists) is this: it might just be true that "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE."
But don't read that the way you see it, and as you usually understand it. Read it, instead, as "it might just be the case that in a quantum universe, it is impossible that a state of nothingness could remain, that nothingness itself may well be unstable." And if that's the case, well, when nothing becomes unstable and results in something, well, there are no limits to where that something can go.
Some of you may enjoy Sinai and Synapses.
Looks interesting.
I had trouble with the Sacred Science page loading (admittedly on phone), but I skim read through some of the links around grants and an almost editorial type piece.
Thanks for sharing!
firedragon
Veteran Member
Then the question has no value. According to Richard Dawkins.
Science does answer some "why" questions, including questions about the purposes of things. Those it does not answer may simply be unanswerable. The questions "what is the purpose of a light bulb?," "what is the purpose of a firefly's light,?" and "what is the purpose of the sun?" all look like the same sort of question superficially, but are importantly different. The first invites an answer in terms of the intentions of those who make and use light bulbs. The second is a question in evolutionary biology. The scientist can provide answers to both of these. The third question is not of the sort that science answers, but this does not trouble Dawkin's scientist, for he denies that this question is meaningful at all.
Following on this, Dawkins wondered whether there were any deep, important questions that science was incapable of answering. He supposed that there might be, citing as an example the question of what determined the fundamental constants of physics. But, he claimed, such gaps in scientific explanation should provide no comfort to theologians who wished to claim a distinctive sphere of competence for religion. For if any area of study were to deliver answers to these questions – questions Dawkins labeled "the deep questions of existence" – it would be science, not religion.
Lecture II: The Religion of Science
Do you agree?
Or do you think religion holds some meaningful answers for humanity?
Some of the most reputable atheists have criticised Dawkins for this kind of missionary style polemics to disrepute. Michael Ruse thinks he brings "us" as in "atheists" to disrepute.
Follow Dawkins in his science. Evolutionary biology or what ever his direct knowledge is in. Not his philosophy which he is less than an amateur in, or his discussions about religions and metaphysical topics which he has no clue of. His sarcasm might make you happy which is a common strategy taken by almost all internet polemicists in the atheistic arena, but that's good for a stand up comedy show, not philosophical discourse.
Dawkins is embarrassing.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Everything need not have a purpose. Why do virtual particles crop up and vanish. It is just the way things are.
'Why it is so?' is a matter of research and science does that. That includes the questions that science cannot answer today. The deepest question relates to existence and non-existence (Ex-nihilo?). Perhaps science will be able to answer it in the times to come.
Religion really does not have any answers for humanity, it only creates conflicts.
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