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the science of faith.
- Thread starter gseeker
- Start date
gseeker
conflicted constantly
Don't worry outhouse I was getting to you. First you claim evolution is fact and theoryexcuse English comp 101 but the words theory and fact mean two very different things in a dictionary natural evolution is fact, macro evolution is theory and faith and is not proven in any way shape or form. It has not been proven with experience experiments nor with carbon dating or with the fossil records. I don't just accept the story of Genesis but there is historical recordinds in almosta every culture of a world wide flood and similar stories of Noah's arch from Israel to south America. Him that seems to have more evidence to support that than evidence to support evolution. At least in that case the actual event was witnessed and recorded.
painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
Actually, yes... I can measure it. It's all recorded in our genetics among other places.
Macroevolution is the transition from one species to another.... this is amazingly easy to not only witness but measure.
It seems to me that the basic misunderstanding the term macroevolution causes the most embarrassing mistakes on the part of the anti-evolution crowd.
Plus I don't "cling" to anything... if I was actually presented evidence to show that evolution can be stopped at a certain point then I would change my views. That is how science works.
And that is fundamentally different from how my faith works.
wa:do
Sir Doom
Cooler than most of you
Please, detail the 'negative results'. You should have some trouble with this, since results are always useful regardless of what they turn out to be. This is a fundamental misconception you seem to have about science.
You should respect me because I'm brilliant. God is not a theory, though. Its at best a hypothesis that can't even be tested because the parameters are too wide.
I'll be the judge of what is or isn't worthy of my great intellect. You like those backhanded compliments, don't you? Riddle me this, Captain Quality-assignment what exactly does inaccurate dating show you? A completely chaotic mess of random, unrelated species popping in and out of existence in no particular order? Is that what you see? Because that isn't what I see.
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
This thread has morphed into a debate over evolution, so I'm just addressing a point made when we were still discussing the question of equivalence between faith in God and faith in scientific claims. My argument has been that the OP makes a reasonable point that there is some equivalence, and I say that because I (and most people) trust scientific claims in the same way that a member of a church trusts a claim about religion. In fact, most people believe things on the basis of trust in information sources rather than actually fact-checking claims.
My problem is not so much with who is making a claim as it is with the assumptions that one needs to buy into in order to believe the claim. Owens believes in a plane of spiritual existence in which bodiless, brainless minds can perceive events in the physical world and intervene in the causal chains that bring about physical events. Since I find the existence of such a plane of existence to be implausible, claims made about it will short-circuit my trust that the people making such claims are justified in making them. That is, I cannot put the same faith in their pronouncements that I put in scientific pronouncements.
I didn't mean to say that I never trust what religious "experts" say about their doctrine, although I might think their claims internally inconsistent for one reason or another. I think that theologians are good sources of information about scripture and standard contemporary interpretations of it. I am more skeptical of religious claims about the existence of God or miraculous events that took place in the past.
True, but I'm not really interested in debates over scripture, since I don't accept the presumption that scripture is grounded in correct assumptions about reality. I recognize that people can have scholarly discussions about documentation that is presumed to support a religion; I just don't accept the presumption.
I do not believe that everything is a fake that is incapable of being proved scientifically. Not all claims are empirical, and not all empirical claims are falsifiable, except in principle. We can examine some religious claims scientifically--e.g. that something cannot come from nothing, which we no to be a false claim with respect to quantum events. We probably cannot prove or disprove scientifically that a historical Jesus existed, although we can certainly look at empirical evidence for his existence and make "educated guesses" about such matters.
Well, I certainly wouldn't jump to conclusions about the existence of God, based on what Terrell Owens claims.
My problem is not so much with who is making a claim as it is with the assumptions that one needs to buy into in order to believe the claim. Owens believes in a plane of spiritual existence in which bodiless, brainless minds can perceive events in the physical world and intervene in the causal chains that bring about physical events. Since I find the existence of such a plane of existence to be implausible, claims made about it will short-circuit my trust that the people making such claims are justified in making them. That is, I cannot put the same faith in their pronouncements that I put in scientific pronouncements.
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Orias
Left Hand Path
outhouse
Atheistically
Which you have faith in
nope
I know many of the facts, thats not faith, its called "educaton"
faith is defined as belief in something with no evidence, this alone OP fails
Sir Doom
Cooler than most of you
Yeah, I really don't like debating evolution and I'm not sure why I got sucked in. I'm not a scientist so I should just let them argue the point as its really only important to them (at least in my opinion).
You are correct, gseeker has a point about the parallels because we do just take the word of those that bring these ideas to light. I still think faith is focused more on what we want to believe as opposed to what we just uh... normal-believe. Whatever I mean by that.
Right, I think I presumed too much about the way you think and I'm sorry for that. I try to keep things in the realm of what I believe and what I think, and I think I got carried away in this case.
I don't really hold much belief in holy texts myself, but a lot of people do. And when those people attempt to make a point that sites the Bible, etc. I feel that it serves my argument better to assume the text is correct. I certainly will have no luck convincing a Christian the Bible is false, but I may be able to offer a different interpretation by a respected theologist that they may accept. In other words, I can't beat their faith. But I can show them a different perspective that won't violate it.
Sure, but I don't care much about proctology either. It's not really that important to me. But you betcha if someone starts trying to infer things about proctology that don't seem to make sense, I'll be looking for the nearest proctological study to make or break my decision about it.
Again, I apologize for speculating too much about your mindset.
Moving forward, though. The claims you bring up, to me, are examples of science and not faith. When someone says, "I know there is a god because something can't come from nothing." They aren't operating on faith, they think they are proving god to themselves with science. That's why its so easy to smash these type of arguments, because they are just bad science. The truth is that they would believe in god whether something can come from nothing or not. Evidenced by the fact that pointing out that something can come from nothing doesn't change their mind. I think the real problem with people who bring these arguments is that their faith has been shaken by science and they can't accept it so they fudge the numbers in their favor. It happens on both sides of the fence, of course.
Well, I certainly wouldn't jump to conclusions about the existence of God, based on what Terrell Owens claims.
Well sure, if you don't believe in the spiritual plane like T.O. does then his assertion that he won the game because of it is just ridiculous.
However, if he were here saying, "I won because of god." Telling him there is no god will not convince him, since he isn't likely to abandon his belief in god simply because you say its fake. We don't get any closer to convincing him that god didn't help him win. If, on the other hand, you approach the situation from his perspective (the bible for example) and point out things that show that god doesn't care about football, he may just change his mind about that out of loyalty to that faith. When it comes down to it, this is the point, right? I mean, if we don't care about expressing ourselves and attempting to convince the other party that our views are worth considering, then what is the point?
Now, T.O. is probably a bad example to use for this since he seems to regard himself far more than most people, and it may be extremely difficult to convince him that god doesn't have him on his personal fantasy league team every year. But I think this approach is pretty universal for discussion and debate. Without at least a tentative acceptance of the other parties views, what chance can we have of dispelling what we aren't even willing to hear?
Orias
Left Hand Path
Faith isn't defined as belief in something with no evidence, thats just what you say since it contends your logic, which trust is not rested upon.
gseeker
conflicted constantly
Really, the one thing that I will admit evolves is science. So you have had many scientific theories in the past that have later been proven wrong because the evidence to prove the concept was miss interpreted but if you at one time believed that scientific theory that was later proven wrong then you had faith. What you thought was proven to begain with had in fact no biases in reality which is why science uses the word theory because a fact can't be changed or altered.
outhouse
Atheistically
evolution is like gravity in this respect, we dont know everything about gravity but the apple falls. and of course life evolves. these are facts not up for dispute.
outhouse
Atheistically
false again
faith - definition of faith by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
gseeker
conflicted constantly
The difference is that you can see the interactions between the phases of the moon and the strength of gravitational pull you cannot see the interaction of evolution and the fossil records. Out of the millions of fossils in the record that you pointed out not a single fossil found is a transitional fossil proving evolution. The simple absence of transitional fossils, one species to another if anything disproves evolution. By the way the first definition you posted index faith proves that you have faith, in an idea you believe to be true.
Orias
Left Hand Path
false again
faith - definition of faith by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
Not false again, the definitions you provided does not say faith is something believed in with no evidence.
I'd like to note that you seem rather faithful with your wishful thinking.
gseeker
conflicted constantly
Wow, you are completely ignorant aren't you? I don't say that there aren't transition fossils in the record because of creationism I say that because of the geological studies I took in college. Paleontology. Is a mandatory class and you even get an introduction to paleontology in geology 101 and earth science in high school. I've been studying geology since I was 16 believe that when I make a reference to geological or paleontology that I'm speaking from a college education even if that education is incomplete. What are your sources? Every time I state a fact that brings evolution into question you just accuse it as being a lie. That is the weakest argument you can make in a debate and it makes you look foolish. If you have evidence that I'm lying post the information that contradicts what I'm saying with your source.
gseeker
conflicted constantly
Lmao that's what I'm saying. Ignorance can often be purposefull.