Science ... NOT God ...

[Prestor John]

Then why has not one scientific achievement in all of humanity stemmed from reading his word?

Do you believe that that was God's goal when He had His Word written?

God created the Earth and all other things in the cosmos and gave them motions.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Ok, you go by what you imagine, i will use dictionary definitions as accepted across the world

Atheism is a straw man.

Then you use contradiction to describe real. Imagination is imagination, not reality. You may imagine pugs could fly, it doesn't mean the price of pork would take off.

Now in reality, the lake is a real lake, one duck us a real living duck, one duck us a facsimile. No context involved in reality

How can reality produces/causes imagination and then imagination is not a part of reality. Are you saying that brains as part of reality can't do imagination and that from causation in a brain in reality, then the result of imagination is not a part of reality? Are you claiming supernatural forces? An act of God? What? A real non-reality, where imaginations are and then we talk about them in reality?

 

[ChristineM]

How can reality produces/causes imagination and then imagination is not a part of reality. Are you saying that brains as part of reality can't do imagination and that from causation in a brain in reality, then the result of imagination is not a part of reality? Are you claiming supernatural forces? An act of God? What? A real non-reality, where imaginations are and then we talk about them in reality?

The fact we have imagination is real, what you imagine is simply electrical impulses

 

[LuisDantas]

They don't! Most atheists use science as an excuse/argument against religion

If we do, then the fault for being vulnerable is in "religion". Although I don't think that it is even proper to propose such a fragile construct as being a religion.

 

[Mock Turtle]

SOME are wise enough to tell the difference and SOME are stupid!

The ones having a different religion or those that have none?

Yes, have a nice day too.

Edited because ….

 

[HonestJoe]

I said "most". This was not an all-inclusive statement. There will always be non-atheists who conflate all atheists into one lump sum just as there will always be non-christians who assume all christians are the same, etc. Using the word "most" was intentional to help prevent exactly what you are accusing me of doing.

So an afterthought rather than core intent? I fear it could be ignored as casually as it was added.

Ultimately, there is only on atheist you can really speak for and there no real reason to speak for atheists at all. Tell us what you think, let us tell you want we think. We might all learn something.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Because they haven't realised that religion and science aren't analogues?

Or perhaps they just like comparing things from different categories like flamingoes versus spatulas, Uganda versus lambswool, etc.

I don't think that's an entirely fair criticism, since it is true that religion attempts to provide reasons for many things, and also to predict the future (whether here on earth, or supposedly after). In fact, religion tries to assert the "truth" that there will be an after, in some meaningful sort of way, for the individual as a person, and yet there is precisely zero reason ever given (by way of a single example, for instance) of such a thing ever happening.

You can see it as well in the evolution debates. In the world of science, there is now zero doubt that evolution accounts for all of the diversity of life on earth, yet, the religious pooh this based on nothing but their beliefs. In my experience, they even refuse to look carefully at the science that makes this abundantly clear. (I presume the reason for that is a terrible fear of what they may discover, and how that might shake their faith, but never mind that.)

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
That doesn't make your version of BS "true". You know, I rather liked the idea of believing I was in the palm of the hand of an omnipotent god. Liking that idea and that idea mattering to me, didn't make that idea true.

I didn't say it was true. I said I liked it.

What does "love" have to do with religion? "Love" brings others together (You know, I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony!) Religion is among the most divisive forces known to man; which is contrary to love.

Well, the combination of science, philosophy and religion is better

Yes, yes, and you love to play with words as it feeds your ego.

You do understand that dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive, yes? That words are defined according to how people are using those words, and is not an authority source on what those words are supposed to mean?

Tell that to ChristineM

You should also understand that a lake being "real" and it being "real" that you can imagine one is a grotesque false equivocation, right?

Well, that depends on how you understand the word "real". And likewise with me.

...

Here is a little story for you.
It was a test of fertility in men. They were told that it was about their sperm-count to check the fertility in men. But there was a test behind it. It took place over a longer period of time and half the men were as part of the test, given questions and other communication to plant the idea in them that their female partners were cheating on them. They wasn't even told a lie as such and yet the sperm.count got higher. From an idea(imagination and not real) in their heads, that their female partners were cheating on them, you got the result that the sperm-count rose.
Now back to that I like God. It makes me feel better and I don't mind that it is not real/true, because it works. It makes me feel better. I used to be an atheist, I had never, before I became an atheist, been actual religious. I was a culture Christian and that was it. I have never read the Bible or been actively religious, other than in the cultural sense.
Now I am not even Christian. I am a deist, but I feel better. I don't even believe in souls, Heaven or Hell or that morality comes from God. It just believe in God and I serve Her by being the best human possible I can by learning to do that, as I look at the world and the humans in it. I don't have to obey Her or worship Her. I am in Her Creation and that is the worship and obeying I do. There is more, but in short I created my own religion and it works for me.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The fact we have imagination is real, what you imagine is simply electrical impulses

Yes, and then we enter into supervenience and reductive and non-reductive physicalism. So I am a non-reductive physicalist in the sense of whether it is simply electrical impulses or there is more. Not that I believe in souls, Heaven or Hell or reincarnation. That connects to empiricism and what kind of experiences there are. Do you want to go there?

Here is a little story for you.
It was a test of fertility in men. They were told that it was about their sperm-count to check the fertility in men. But there was a test behind it. It took place over a longer period of time and half the men were as part of the test, given questions and other communication to plant the idea in them that their female partners were cheating on them. They wasn't even told a lie as such and yet the sperm.count got higher. From an idea(imagination and not real) in their heads, that their female partners were cheating on them, you got the result that the sperm-count rose.

 

[ChristineM]

Yes, and then we enter into supervenience and reductive and non-reductive physicalism. So I am a non-reductive physicalist in the sense of whether it is simply electrical impulses or there is more. Not that I believe in souls, Heaven or Hell or reincarnation. That connects to empiricism and what kind of experiences there are. Do you want to go there?

Here is a little story for you.
It was a test of fertility in men. They were told that it was about their sperm-count to check the fertility in men. But there was a test behind it. It took place over a longer period of time and half the men were as part of the test, given questions and other communication to plant the idea in them that their female partners were cheating on them. They wasn't even told a lie as such and yet the sperm.count got higher. From an idea(imagination and not real) in their heads, that their female partners were cheating on them, you got the result that the sperm-count rose.

Neuroscience is not definitive but it is quite well understood.

So the idea triggered a physical response, same as mind imagining put on leg in front of other... ohh look, i am walking.

Also the test must have been a long while ago. I don't think it would pass ethical review now

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Do you believe that that was God's goal when He had His Word written?

Perhaps not, but it doesn't exactly help is case either when it is filled with magical stories that science keeps knocking out of the part one after the other... what with the magical gardens and the talking snakes and impossible floods that never happened and all that jazz.

God created the Earth and all other things in the cosmos and gave them motions.

Prove it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How can reality produces/causes imagination and then imagination is not a part of reality

Not what he said. Read with attention. Focus.

Are you saying that brains as part of reality can't do imagination and that from causation in a brain in reality, then the result of imagination is not a part of reality?

Not what he said either.

Are you claiming supernatural forces? An act of God? What? A real non-reality, where imaginations are and then we talk about them in reality?

Again not even close.

 

[Wandering Monk]

They don't! Most atheists use science as an excuse/argument against religion

Science and religion are completely separate domains, since by definition, gods are not material and not falsifiable.

Science only deals with the material and with at least POTENTIALLY falsifiable things.

 

[Prestor John]

Perhaps not, but it doesn't exactly help is case either when it is filled with magical stories that science keeps knocking out of the part one after the other...what with the magical gardens and the talking snakes and impossible floods that never happened and all that jazz.

No one has disproved the existence of the Garden of Eden, the pro-mortal intelligence of animals and the Deluge.

Prove it.

How would I go about doing that?

 

[Wandering Monk]

Here is one early Christian's view of science and religion:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7] - St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim​

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Neuroscience is not definitive but it is quite well understood.

So the idea triggered a physical response, same as mind imagining put on leg in front of other... ohh look, i am walking.

Also the test must have been a long while ago. I don't think it would pass ethical review now

It was before the ethics were tightened.

So imagining is not a part of reality, yet it can have an effect in reality. Like your version of reality.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No one has disproved the existence of the Garden of Eden, the pro-mortal intelligence of animals and the Deluge.

Nobody has disproven flying monkeys and pink unicorns either.
You might want to learn how the burden of proof works.

ps: biblical flood = disproven beyond refute.

How would I go about doing that?

Do your own homework. It's your claim.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It was before the ethics were tightened.

So imagining is not a part of reality, yet it can have an effect in reality. Like your version of reality.

Thoughts and beliefs are real. What is being thought or believed doesn't necessarily reflect something real.

Physical effects as a result of thinking / believing things is normal.
Not different from having elevated heart rate when believing to be in danger upon hearing a noise in the bushes and believing it to being a dangerous predator, eventhough in reality it's just the wind.

It's a physical reaction to perceived input.
Your brain thinks it is real and responds accordingly.
It's called being mistaken.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

No one has disproved the existence of the Garden of Eden, the pro-mortal intelligence of animals and the Deluge.

That's not how it works. The burden of proof is on you to Prove The Garden of Even, pro-mortal intelligence of animals, and the Deluge. Which these, among others, the theists have desperately tried to do, miserably failed, then wants to shift the burden or proof and rewrite the effective scientific process in order to put the responsibility on everyone else.

 

[ChristineM]

It was before the ethics were tightened.

So imagining is not a part of reality, yet it can have an effect in reality. Like your version of reality.

More or less but there are not versions of reality, if just is.