Life From Dirt?

[SkepticThinker]

As long as you understand that science is unable to show anything else except physical underpinnings and science does not know if anything else is needed.
Science will never show any spiritual side, so you have limited you world to the material, and it is not a meaningless label, it's a descriptive label.

You claim the existence of things that are not in evidence and then blame science for your lack of ability to demonstrate (or even just define) it's existence?
That's on you, not science.

 

[SkepticThinker]

How things are justified seems to be different to different people. If I have faith them my faith has been justified to me or I would not have it.

Thank you for demonstrating again that faith is unjustified belief. Please don't say it's not, the next time it's pointed out to you, because you've just admitted it here. And you seem perfectly fine with this unjustified belief, and good for you, that's your prerogative. But it's not anywhere near good enough for me or people who are interested in believing as many true things as possible, while not believing as many false things as possible.

Anything can be believed on faith and that makes it a poor pathway to truth. Science on the other hand, can actually demonstrate it's claims. I'll stick with that, thanks.

No the discussion turns in another direction and away from the ever growing demands for scientific testable gods when science cannot do that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

As long as you understand that science is unable to show anything else

Because science requires evidence.

except physical underpinnings and science does not know if anything else is needed.

Since evidence is the only way to know, how could you otherwise know?
If science doesn't know, how could you know?

Science will never show any spiritual side

What is that, a "spiritual side"?
How do you know it is real, whatever it is?

, so you have limited you world to the material,

No. I limit my view to that which can be demonstrated by evidence.
I do that not because of any a priori dogmatic decision like "materialism"...
I rather do that out of practical necessity.

If not by evidence, how could I expand my view in a justifiable way with things not in evidence?
How do you tell the difference between a non-existent thing and an unfalsifiable thing not in evidence?

and it is not a meaningless label, it's a descriptive label.

To me it's a meaningless label, because I have no dogmatic subscription to it at all.
Show me evidence of "non-material" things and I'll HAPPILY accept those things.

But if all you have are "claims" and "visions" and "feelings", then I have nothing to go on and nothing to distinguish that which you claim from that which doesn't actually exist.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Why make it complicated. Either there is a God or there is not.

Because let's face facts, you don't believe in "a" god, rather, you believe in a very specific God.

 

[Audie]

Not a local flood.



That seems to be based on who is doing the doubting.



Logical possibility is why science does not eliminate God.



The leap of faith is by people who believe and preach that there is no God.
Because someone though lightning was thrown by God, does not make it true.
Finding a mechanism for lightning does not eliminate God.
No possible natural mechanisms eliminate God.



You don't need a God to understand (partially) what happens in the universe.

A local flood is not what the Bible describes.
If you do enough " interpreting" any book, becomes true.


Of course there could be a god.
" preaching g and teaching" that there isn't one
is about you, AGAIN, debating g people not present.

Of course science can't show there's no God.
Just that the bible-god is a human invention.

No theists just point out the assumptions and presumptions and skeptics/atheists deny that they exist, or say "who cares, what science says is good enough for me and if science has not actually shown something to be true, that is OK with me also,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, science right or wrong, rah, rah, rah."

You may well believe you point
out presumptions/ assumptions of
science but the claims you make against
the validity of science are uniformly vacuous.

Say something real sometime. Talking crap then
trying to make it the fault of people you lie about
when they won't accept it is shabby. Real shabby.


As for unnamed unknown skeptics who behave
in ways that you made up, well, you got in two
of your favorite fallacies.

Making things up, and, debating non existent people.

Then there's your trick of not even responding
to what was in the post you answer.

Is it true that you assume a uinverse without God is
impossible?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Faith is a gift from God

Critical thought is the gift, not belief by faith, and it's a gift of evolution and of Western academic culture. Children believe what they are told by faith because they have no way to evaluate what they are told beyond whether they like the idea or not. They all accept the Santa story if told it young enough, because they have no defense against it until they are older. That's what you are calling a gift.

Should it surprise us that a worldview that can only be believed by faith extols it as a path to truth?

Why demand detection of a spirit by physical methods?

I guess you don't see the problem there. Have you detected what you call spirit? Did you use your brain? If you answer yes, then that is the physical process that reveals what you call spirit to you. It also reveals it to me, but I interpret it differently than you do. But the key point is that like you, I do this using "physical methods." The material world doesn't begin outside your body. Your body and brain are material as well.

I don't know, I just believe God is real.

This is what you are calling a gift. What has this gift done for you so far that you couldn't have without it? I realize that you are expecting a reward after death, but we have no reason to believe that consciousness survives death however much we might like that to be the case. If mind ends when life does, was it still a better life for you lived that way? I hope so. I've lived it both ways, and this is better for me.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

My imagination and faith-based beliefs are irrelevant.

Then why do you insist on bringing them up?

Science that can only test for physical answers and can only come up with physical answers are all that are relevant.
Not to me, but to you.

No. To everyone.
Science requires evidence.

That your supernatural faith based things can't have evidence is a problem for your claims. It's not a problem of science.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Some people have bigger d-cks than they need to survive.

My wife very much enjoys my big d-ck and as such it has very much increased my chances to spread my genes.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

All that has been shown to be plausible, at a stretch, is chemistry forming bodies.

No. Clearly you are not up to date to just how far the science of abiogenesis has come.

And really what is probably being shown is that building block design and environment design was needed, but don't expect anyone in science to say that.

That's a totally ridiculous argument, on par with saying that a freezer shows that ice requires "design" because the freezer was designed.
You might want to learn what a "controlled environment" is.

Also, you seem unaware that these building blocks are even found in space rocks.

Just being rational. And no, if God exists, we both win.

Your ridiculous statement is on par by saying that just because all the evidence showed that the Manson crew killed Polanski's wife, that doesn't mean that extra-dimensional aliens didn't do it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How things are justified seems to be different to different people.

Yes. Rational people require demonstrable evidence. Irrational people are content believing things on faith or bad evidence.

If I have faith them my faith has been justified to me or I would not have it.

Sure. The problem is the standard for belief. It's so low that it's virtually non-existent.
It's not a rational standard. And in fact, it's a standard that you yourself will consider to be too low when it comes to any other subject.

No the discussion turns in another direction and away from the ever growing demands for scientific testable gods when science cannot do that.

No. The discussion stops because there is nothing to discuss.

You have a belief and you hold it because you hold it because you hold it.
There is nothing to discuss when you flat out say that justifying it with evidence is "not required".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Faith is a gift from God and we look the gift horse in the mouth if we don't want it or are skeptical that it is a good gift.
Why demand detection of a spirit by physical methods? I guess people who do that don't really want the gift.

I don't know, I just believe God is real.

Faith is not a virtue.
Faith is not a pathway to truth.

If anything, faith is a very efficient way to end up with false beliefs.
Faith is gullibility.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Logical possibility is why science does not eliminate God.

That is taking a logical possibility a bit too far. That way FSM exists and created the universe.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So anything, including occam's razor is fine to take faith in God off the books. OK

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

I can only repeat my question:

Why would it be a good idea to invent / imagine unnecessary / obsolete unsupportable entities to explain anything?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Why would science come up with anything else than naturalistic answers when science can only study nature?

It can only study things that can have evidence because science works through evidence.
As it happens, we call those things "nature".

Don't blame science for the fact that the stuff you insist on believing can't have any evidence by definition.
Again, this is a problem of your beliefs. It's not a problem of or for science.

I believe the Bible however as extra on top of what science can come up with.

Except when it contradicts the science, I bet. I bet you go for evidenceless biblical tales over evidence based science.

This is usually how it goes when one doesn't care about beliefs being justified by evidence. Evidence takes a backseat and is rendered unimportant.

Many people just know instinctively that there has to be more than what we see around us.

Your instinct evolved to avoid being eaten by lions on the plains of africa. Not to understand quantum mechanics, geological time, the inner workings of micro organisms, extreme gravity, etc.

As such "instinct" is notoriously unreliable to answer the hard questions of reality.
Just about every breakthrough in science is "counter-intuitive" and challenges "common sense".

 

[Audie]

Let's not kid ourselves here, the story in the Bible is definitely not about a "local" flood. The whole point of the story is that God killed everyone on earth except for Noah and his family - the only truly righteous people on earth.
To make it into a local flood (and let's face it, you're having to do that because the science doesn't back up a global flood) is to butcher the story into something rather mundane and pointless.

Anything but admit it's possible for the
Bible and the god it describes to be as phony as all
all the other gods and their scared perfect books.

 

[Polymath257]

Why make it complicated. Either there is a God or there is not.

Sorry, but that is an overly simplistic dichotomy.

Which God? What properties does this God have? How can we know about such? How can we test our ideas about God?

There have been thousands of different God beliefs humans have come up with. If *any* of them were correct, it would be easy to dismiss those that are not. And yet, it seems that many different alternatives still exist about even the most basic properties. And this is after literally thousands of years of investigation.

Faith is a gift from God and we look the gift horse in the mouth if we don't want it or are skeptical that it is a good gift.
Why demand detection of a spirit by physical methods? I guess people who do that don't really want the gift.

I don't know, I just believe God is real.

You can only believe there is a gift if you believe there is a gift-giver prior to the belief in the gift. So I need evidence there is such a gift-giver.

I do not demand detection of spirits by physical methods. I demand detection of spirits by methods that give consistent results when done even by skeptics.

It isn't that I don't want a gift. it is that I believe there is no gift-giver and those who think there is a gift are mistaken.

What I want is not a good way to determine what is true or false.

 

[Polymath257]

How things are justified seems to be different to different people. If I have faith them my faith has been justified to me or I would not have it.



No the discussion turns in another direction and away from the ever growing demands for scientific testable gods when science cannot do that.

And *why* can science not do that? Is it simply because the concept of God is too vaguely defined to be testable? Or is it that no tests are possible, which eliminates the reasons to believe?

 

[Polymath257]

All I am doing to agreeing with science that science cannot say there is no God, or that a God is not necessary really.
What are you doing but saying that science is wrong and that God is not needed (when that is not know).
You can think you understand it all as much as you like but science has not shown as much as you think to be true imo.

Science *can* say that God is not necessary for understanding the universe. I can do so by actually obtaining understanding without a God. And, in fact, it does that quite well.

I disagree that an *existent* God would be untestable via science. Either such a God is detectable by some means in a consistent way (in which case it is testable) OR it isn't (and then there is no good reason to believe in such a God).

Not a local flood.

Fair enough. We do have evidence of local floods in the area.

That seems to be based on who is doing the doubting.



Logical possibility is why science does not eliminate God.

It is also a very, very weak filter on ideas. For example, there is no purely logical reason to dismiss beliefs in elves or leprechauns. But it is still quite reasonable to dismiss those beliefs.

And the same reasons that lead to the dismissal of beliefs in leprechauns also lead to the dismissal of beliefs in Gods.

The leap of faith is by people who believe and preach that there is no God.
Because someone though lightning was thrown by God, does not make it true.
Finding a mechanism for lightning does not eliminate God.
No possible natural mechanisms eliminate God.

And that is precisely why the 'God Hypothesis' is useless for understanding.

Once again, logical possibility is a very weak filter for ideas. A much better and stronger one is to require ideas that could be eliminated by some tests if they are wrong.

So, supposing that there is no God, how would we go about showing that fact? Until this is answered, the belief in a God is simply a fantasy with no explanatory power.

You don't need a God to understand (partially) what happens in the universe.

So what is the 'God Hypothesis' good for?

 

[Polymath257]

Why would science come up with anything else than naturalistic answers when science can only study nature?

I disagree with this characterization.

Science can study anything which can be detected in a way that yields consistent properties. There is no demand that the detection be 'natural' (whatever that means).

And, in fact, the term 'natural' is worthless except for when it is defined as those things that can be detected.

I believe the Bible however as extra on top of what science can come up with.
Many people just know instinctively that there has to be more than what we see around us.

And instinct is a poor judge of truth. That is easily seen.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I disagree with this characterization.

Science can study anything which can be detected in a way that yields consistent properties. There is no demand that the detection be 'natural' (whatever that means).

And, in fact, the term 'natural' is worthless except for when it is defined as those things that can be detected.


And instinct is a poor judge of truth. That is easily seen.

Can you expand on the bold one?