Why I Think That Science Kinda Sucks

[Quiddity]

Carl Sagan: You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.

How does this have anything to do with this thread?

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

Let me ask you something. Do you think one can follow the scientific method to disprove something doesn't exist? Do you believe God's existance to be a legitimate scientific issue?

Those questions should make it radiantly obvious. If you don't see it, I don't know what else to tell you.

I think many religious claims can be defined as legitimate areas of empirical or historical inquiry. If a powerful being existed like God, couldn't His existence be detected in some empirical way? I submit that defining God as beyond space and time is a post-hoc rationalization of the lack of empirical evidence for His existence. Similarly, if prayer could influence events, or if the Eucharist literally became human flesh upon consecration, couldn't these things be established through empirical research?

-Nato

 

[Skeptisch]

Do you believe God's existance to be a legitimate scientific issue?

The God hypothesis is a scientific question, one that can, in principle at least, be answered empirically with a yes or no result. The existence of God is thus subject to legitimate scientific scrutiny, bringing to bear all we are learning in the research laboratory to a question that used to be considered one of opinion only. “The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientifically question, even if it is not in practice—not yet—a decided one,” he writes. Did Jesus have a human father? Was his mother a virgin? Did Jesus come alive again, three days after being dead? “There is an answer to every such question, whether or not we can discover it in practice, and it is strictly a scientific answer.”
RD

 

[Quiddity]

I think many religious claims can be defined as legitimate areas of empirical or historical inquiry. If a powerful being existed like God, couldn't His existence be detected in some empirical way? I submit that defining God as beyond space and time is a post-hoc rationalization of the lack of empirical evidence for His existence. Similarly, if prayer could influence events, or if the Eucharist literally became human flesh upon consecration, couldn't these things be established through empirical research?

-Nato

Yes, but that's not what I asked. The claims by Victor Stenger are more broad and deal with God's existance. I concede certain aspects of religious claims can be looked at and I have no truck with science poking it's head into such matters. What I'm talking about is a priori adherence (as Richard alludes to in my link earlier).

 

[Quiddity]

The God hypothesis is a scientific question, one that can, in principle at least, be answered empirically with a yes or no result. The existence of God is thus subject to legitimate scientific scrutiny, ........

Wousers. :areyoucra

Let's agree to disagree mmk?

I'd be curious to see what a scientist would think of these very comments.

 

[McBell]

I've already made my argument. Now I am only trying to help you to understand it. In order to understand where I am coming from, I really think one needs to have a good grasp of parapsychology, mysticism, philosophy, comparative religion. But none of my opponents in this thread demonstrate a background in these fields. Science doesn't value them. So, I try to present a little bit of material. Sue me.

Really?
You honestly think that:

"Yes I would, Kent."

I might get in trouble for violating rule 6.

Is sufficient reason to take anything you have to say seriously?

 

[Sleeppy]

And who has ever said that?

-Nato

What makes you an atheist?

 

[McBell]

Let me ask you something. Do you think one can follow the scientific method to disprove something doesn't exist? Do you believe God's existance to be a legitimate scientific issue?

Those questions should make it radiantly obvious. If you don't see it, I don't know what else to tell you.

Perhaps it would help if you were to actually answer the question?

 

[Tristesse]

What makes you an atheist?

I'm not him, but I would guess, not believing in a god. Seeing as how thats the only requirement.

 

[Quiddity]

What makes you an atheist?

Please don't ask that. It's going to derail the thread and it may just make me sleepy.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

What I'm talking about is a priori adherence (as Richard alludes to in my link earlier).

This "adherence" excludes the work of secular crankery too. The vast majority of pseudoscience has no supernatural dimension, it's just misguided numbnuttery.

Shouldn't we exclude constructs that are incoherent and slapdash? And how are we supposed to do that after protocols like methodological naturalism have been discarded as philosophically biased?

-Nato

 

[Sleeppy]

I'm not him, but I would guess, not believing in a god. Seeing as how thats the only requirement.

Then you should know I want the cause.

 

[Quiddity]

Perhaps it would help if you were to actually answer the question?

Perhaps.

 

[Skeptisch]

I'd be curious to see what a scientist would think of these very comments.

Richard Dawkins "is" a scientist (“Foundation for Reason and Science”)

 

[Tristesse]

Then you should know I want the cause.

What cause? Atheism is the cause.

 

[McBell]

What cause? Atheism is the cause.

Atheism isn't a cause.
It is a label.

 

[Tristesse]

Atheism isn't a cause.
It is a label.

I meant it is the end result.

 

[McBell]

I meant it is the end result.

The effect?

Again I have to disagree.
Atheism is a label.
And by label I mean a symbol.
Seeing as the term "atheism" means so many different things based upon whom you ask, the term has become rather meaningless.

 

[Tristesse]

The effect?

Again I have to disagree.
Atheism is a label.
And by label I mean a symbol.
Seeing as the term "atheism" means so many different things based upon whom you ask, the term has become rather meaningless.

I said the result. It's a label, of course, but it's also a response to a claim.

 

[Quiddity]

This "adherence" excludes the work of secular crankery too. The vast majority of pseudoscience has no supernatural dimension, it's just misguided numbnuttery.

Shouldn't we exclude constructs that are incoherent and slapdash?

Exclude them from what? From criticism? Or from calling them science? Or that it resembles the majority? You don't need to convince me that this is a minority but I won't ignore or exclude it as if it doesn't exist. In the same way that you wouldn't ignore fundamentalist theist from blowing themselves up in the name of God.

And how are we supposed to do that after protocols like methodological naturalism have been discarded as philosophically biased?

Now that's a good question. Well, to be fair, I'm not saying to completely discard it, it's inarguable the amount of usefulness it's warranted over the last decades. The beef is more with metaphysical naturalism rather then methodological.