Why science is better than religion...

[gnostic]

Perhaps, I didn't phrase my thoughts right.

Houses are not physically built by the scientists, but in Australia (I don't know about other countries), there are the building standards for home and any non-domestic buildings, which builders must follow. There are safety guideline in what materials being used, and how they are used, set by scientists, engineers and other technical experts.

For example, for brick veneer houses, the wooden frame of the house, like the span of the timbers (wall studs, wall plates, floor joists, ceiling joists, rafters, etc), are dependent on the type of timbers used, the size (width and thickness), and whether they are seasoned or not, hardwood or softwood. Different wood have different properties, strength, durability, etc. It is science that determine these.

Who do you think test those timbers, to determine the optimize size and span between each wood members (between wall studs)?

Architects provide the inspiration and innovation of the room layout and interior and exterior design of the house, but they have to follow the rules too, set by engineers and scientists.

It is geologist who can tell what the foundation for the house, which is dependent on the type of earth: sandy soil, clay, etc. They can help to determine the size of the footings, the depth. Also the type of soil will also determine the properties of the footing; does the concrete need to be more compact (or dense). These days, most house tends to be built on concrete slab, instead of using footings and floor joists. Geologists, like engineers, have some background in science.

And though engineers are engineers, science played a large part in engineering. And having studied civil engineering over 20 years ago, I have seen a lot of what I have learned, derived from science. I also had to learn geology, field surveying, hydrodynamics (about main pipelines and sewerage system).

If you want to go and do medicine, do you go to religion to learn medicine?

Other than learning morals, and possibly laws, which are mostly outdated in any case, there is no practical application for religion today, unless you go televangelism, where you can manipulate and exploit people in donating their lifesavings.

 

[gnostic]

Either way, I'd rather be hiding in a mansion than under a table, if I needed to hide that is.

Why would you need to hide, might I ask?

Ragnarok?

*toot toot*

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Why would you need to hide, might I ask?

Ragnarok?

*toot toot*

Hehe, or from other people. Many people hide behind their labels.

 

[idav]

What is this 'outward' evidence of which you speak?

What your reading.

Check that. Correlated to chemical activity, not a result of. Please do your homework.

There is no difference there. We think something when a chemical sends us a signal to.

I realize for you this may appear to be true. For me, it is akin to saying, Life is opposed to Reason.

Yes well your version of using our inner thoughts to justify spirituality which you feel comes from our thoughts is a bit circular.

I think you mean, what we claim to not understand. Faith is, as stated previously, placement of trust in a foundational framework, and then extends from there. We have faith in materialistic evidence because we have faith that our material selves is extension of 'reality.' We have no objective evidence to substantiate this, but we do (magically) have what appears like separated, independent manifestations of other material witnesses who (magically) can corroborate our material findings.

No I mean what I said. Faith is what is left after going through what we know. We all have a degree of certainty. If I'm 95% certain I will take the remainder 5% on faith.

Depends on how much one is distorting (actual) love.

Depends on confusing physical need for emotional need.

LOL, I like the personification on this as if this is standard across the board. I'm sure it helps you / someone in believing that the refutation can be made.

Mimicking your method.

Yeah, you're showing up a good 3 steps behind what I said if this is your version of critical analysis. To help you with where you're at, I'll agree. If we are self aware of ourselves as beings of matter, then critical analysis would let us know given size of universe and time we have, there is much more to learn about material existence. All while we continue to pull veil over that which is needing to learn. But learn we must, and so press on. Full steam ahead.

Right. Critical analysis never stops as long as we don't know everything.

Yeah, that is not the self. I understand for you, given allowance of awareness to this point, it is all self awareness can explore. Let me just be clear here on online forum that to me, you are not a body.

It explores where our thoughts and needs come from. You think your thoughts belong to you.

Not why, but what. And at best it attempts to explain a variation on how. A variation that assumes mundane explanations ought to suffice for all learners, unless you are really really needing to get philosophical about love. But seriously stop that philosophical inquiry about Love as science doesn't have time with such abstractions. Simply not practical. And not easy to research either. Stick to love of mate which leads to courting and possibly reproduction. That is only type of love we need to be concerned about. You got that?

No it really isn't all that complicated. We are a product of the electo-chemical responses in our brains. We "feel" love because of this. We obsess over people because of it. It is these needs that drive our emotional state.

edited

 

[Riverwolf]

Either way, I'd rather be hiding in a mansion than under a table, if I needed to hide that is.

Ah, come on. A good cave will suffice.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Ah, come on. A good cave will suffice.

Taking refuge in the natural instead the designed? I love how far this metaphor extends.

 

[idav]

A good cave will suffice.

Great until there is an earthquake.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Great until there is an earthquake.

And now the metaphor is crumbling...:sad4:

 

[Yanni]

First of all, my opinion is that testing your hypotheses and beliefs is a much greater approach to life than simply accepting blindly without reason (faith).
Religion is based on faith, and therefore is not based on evidence. When religious people call science a religion, I am simply astounded. Science is a wonderful endeavour by humanity to discover its own origins and purpose. If you wish to be religious as well, that is obviously fine. But I find that it is ridiculous to say that 'evolution shouldn't be talk in schools' etc. when evolution is science, and science has more evidence, by default, than religion.
But the main point of this thread is not to ridicule religion. For much of my life, I have heard people say things like 'don't reduce things to science' or 'science spoils things because there is no mystery anymore'.
This is supremely stupid. Science is considered by many to be something which destroys any meaning or mystery behind things. This is untrue.
Science enhances our understanding of things, of course. This, I am sure nobody would dislike. But, to say that science removes meaning or mystery is misguided. If discovering the truth about something removes meaning, it simply means that the meaning was simply an illusion in the first place (like religion) and that we should embrace a more rational, logical approach. We create our own meaning in life. We have family, friends, knowledge, ourselves etc. We are alive. We are fortunate to be alive, and that should be meaning enough to live.
Also, to say that science destroys mystery is wrong. Although its immediate effect is to remove mystery (why anyone would prefer mystery to knowledge is beyond me), it can in a lot of ways create new secrets and mysteries to solve.
In short, science is a wonderful endeavour by humanity which places emphasis completely on evidence. Religion is outdated, in my opinion, as it neglects evidence.
If you believe that religion is reasonable or that faith is good, please tell me why.
Thanks,
Richard.

Then can science explain, by natural means, why the Jewish people are still in existence despite 2,000 + years of dispersion, persecution, attempted annihilation, pillage, rape, torture, ridicule, etc? Can science explain how the Land of Israel somehow only produced vegetation able to support a nation that permanently established itself on that Land, while all nations before we came back to Israel about 60 years ago were never able to permanently settle on the Land? As this article explains it better:

WONDER #6: THE INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL
The land of Israel was known to be fertile for millennia. When you were back in sixth grade, learning about the Middle East, do you remember what that region of the world was it called?
It was called, "The Fertile Crescent." The Middle East was strategically important. It controlled the trade routes from Europe, Asia, and Africa. All of ancient civilization wanted to possess it and keep it flourishing.
But we see a very strange thing. As long as the Jews are living in the land, the land remains fertile. As soon as the Jews leave, the land becomes a desert and no other nation is able to cultivate it.
There is a fascinating quote from Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867.
"We traversed some miles of the desolate country, whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds, as silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tavor safely. [Tavor is in the north, in the Galilee, the most fertile part of the land.] We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on towards the goal..., renowned Jerusalem. The further we went, the hotter the sun got, the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bound the approaches to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live there." (Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, Vol. II, Harper and Brothers, 1922, NY)
Has anyone been to Israel recently? Does this sound accurate to you? Once again, a startling and strange phenomenon, completely defying the laws of nature: When the Jews are not in the land, the land becomes a desolate wilderness.
Has this ever happened anywhere else in the world? The white men came to this country and took it over from the American Indians. It had amber waves of grain. Did the land suddenly become a desert? Of course not! It doesn't make a difference who's living in the land. If a land is fertile, it's fertile; if it's a desert, it's a desert.
Not so with the land of Israel. Only there does the land become uninhabitable when the Jews are exiled. (Seven Wonders of Jewish History).


Please explain (if you can).

 

[otokage007]

Then can science explain, by natural means, why the Jewish people are still in existence despite 2,000 + years of dispersion, persecution, attempted annihilation, pillage, rape, torture, ridicule, etc? Can science explain how the Land of Israel somehow only produced vegetation able to support a nation that permanently established itself on that Land, while all nations before we came back to Israel about 60 years ago were never able to permanently settle on the Land? As this article explains it better:

WONDER #6: THE INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL
The land of Israel was known to be fertile for millennia. When you were back in sixth grade, learning about the Middle East, do you remember what that region of the world was it called?
It was called, "The Fertile Crescent." The Middle East was strategically important. It controlled the trade routes from Europe, Asia, and Africa. All of ancient civilization wanted to possess it and keep it flourishing.
But we see a very strange thing. As long as the Jews are living in the land, the land remains fertile. As soon as the Jews leave, the land becomes a desert and no other nation is able to cultivate it.
There is a fascinating quote from Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867.
"We traversed some miles of the desolate country, whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds, as silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tavor safely. [Tavor is in the north, in the Galilee, the most fertile part of the land.] We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on towards the goal..., renowned Jerusalem. The further we went, the hotter the sun got, the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bound the approaches to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live there." (Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, Vol. II, Harper and Brothers, 1922, NY)
Has anyone been to Israel recently? Does this sound accurate to you? Once again, a startling and strange phenomenon, completely defying the laws of nature: When the Jews are not in the land, the land becomes a desolate wilderness.
Has this ever happened anywhere else in the world? The white men came to this country and took it over from the American Indians. It had amber waves of grain. Did the land suddenly become a desert? Of course not! It doesn't make a difference who's living in the land. If a land is fertile, it's fertile; if it's a desert, it's a desert.
Not so with the land of Israel. Only there does the land become uninhabitable when the Jews are exiled. (Seven Wonders of Jewish History).


Please explain (if you can).

There's nothing to explain at all, in fact, the hability to survive of the Jewish is quite laughable, even if compared to animals, which don't have the inteligence to adapt to the environment as good as humans. To put you an example:

The crustaceans known as Triops cancriformis are the most ancient specie in the planet. They exist since 220 million years. They have survived two glaciations and the massive destruction of their ecosystem by humans.

Are the crustaceans the chosen people and therefore... Are the jewish deluded?

Please explain.:areyoucra

 

[Yanni]

There's nothing to explain at all, in fact, the hability to survive of the Jewish is quite laughable, even if compared to animals, which don't have the inteligence to adapt to the environment as good as humans. To put you an example:

The crustaceans known as Triops cancriformis are the most ancient specie in the planet. They exist since 220 million years. They have survived two glaciations and the massive destruction of their ecosystem by humans.

Are the crustaceans the chosen people and therefore... Are the jewish deluded?

Please explain.:areyoucra

We're talking about humans over here, not animals or other species.
This is what a few great minds said on the subject:

[FONT=&quot]“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” [/FONT](Twain, Mark, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, New York: Doubleday: 1963, p. 249. See also "Concerning the Jews," an essay by Mark Twain in Harper's Magazine, September 1897).[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

"The Jews' destiny is too imbued with the "metaphysical" to be explained either by material or positive historical terms...Their survival is a mysterious and wonderful pehnomenon, demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by special predetermination...The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely perculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny..." (Berdyaev, Nikolai, The Meaning of History, London: World, 1935, pp. 86-87).

In the seventeenth century, when Blaise Pacal, the great French philosopher of the Enlightenment, was asked by Louis XIV for proof of the supernatural, he answered, "The Jewish People, Your Majesty." Why? Because he realized that the survival of the Jewish People up to the seventeenth century violated all the laws of history. Can you imagine what he'd say if he knew the Jews made it to the twenty-first century?

Next are the words of Thomas Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, who lived in the late 1700s:

"The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal and illustrious acts of Divine Providence...and what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner as none other nation upon earth has been preserved. Nor is the Providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation...We see that the great empires, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God, are all com to ruin...And if such has been the fatal end of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, let it serve as a warning to all those, who at any time or upon any occasion are for raising a clamor and persecution against them." (Gould, Allan ed., What Did They Think of the Jews? Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1997, pp. 92-93).

By the laws of history, the Jews ought to have vanished by now. Their continued existence is a supernatural occurrence. Supernatural occurrences cannot be explained through any natural means. And you haven't addressed the Land of Israel being interdependent with the Jewish People yet.

 

[McBell]

We're talking about humans over here, not animals or other species.
This is what a few great minds said on the subject:

[FONT=&quot]“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” [/FONT](Twain, Mark, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, New York: Doubleday: 1963, p. 249. See also "Concerning the Jews," an essay by Mark Twain in Harper's Magazine, September 1897).

"The Jews' destiny is too imbued with the "metaphysical" to be explained either by material or positive historical terms...Their survival is a mysterious and wonderful pehnomenon, demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by special predetermination...The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely perculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny..." (Berdyaev, Nikolai, The Meaning of History, London: World, 1935, pp. 86-87).

In the seventeenth century, when Blaise Pacal, the great French philosopher of the Enlightenment, was asked by Louis XIV for proof of the supernatural, he answered, "The Jewish People, Your Majesty." Why? Because he realized that the survival of the Jewish People up to the seventeenth century violated all the laws of history. Can you imagine what he'd say if he knew the Jews made it to the twenty-first century?

Next are the words of Thomas Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, who lived in the late 1700s:

"The preservation of the Jews is really one of the most signal and illustrious acts of Divine Providence...and what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner as none other nation upon earth has been preserved. Nor is the Providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies, than in their preservation...We see that the great empires, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God, are all com to ruin...And if such has been the fatal end of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, let it serve as a warning to all those, who at any time or upon any occasion are for raising a clamor and persecution against them." (Gould, Allan ed., What Did They Think of the Jews? Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1997, pp. 92-93).

By the laws of history, the Jews ought to have vanished by now. Their continued existence is a supernatural occurrence. Supernatural occurrences cannot be explained through any natural means. And you haven't addressed the Land of Israel being interdependent with the Jewish People yet.

I take it you did not like the answers you got when you asked this in all the other threads?

you appeal to authority is still nothing more than an appeal to authority.

Please present these "laws of history".

 

[Yanni]

I take it you did not like the answers you got when you asked this in all the other threads?

you appeal to authority is still nothing more than an appeal to authority.

Please present these "laws of history".

Like the strong is supposed to defeat the weak, especially when the weak are further weakened by fighting with their hands tied behind their backs, and survival of the fittest.

 

[McBell]

Like the strong is supposed to defeat the weak, especially when the weak are further weakened by fighting with their hands tied behind their backs, and survival of the fittest.

So you are basically saying that it is your belief that Jews are so weak they have had to divine protection in order to survive?

I for one would not say that the USA is divine, but to each their own.

 

[McBell]

Like the strong is supposed to defeat the weak, especially when the weak are further weakened by fighting with their hands tied behind their backs, and survival of the fittest.

So you are basically saying that it is your belief that Jews are so weak they have had to divine protection in order to survive?

I for one would not say that the USA is divine, but to each their own.

Sounds an awful lot like Muslims who say that the Koran has to be from Allah because Mohammed was so stupid he could barely remember to breath....

 

[Yanni]

So you are basically saying that it is your belief that Jews are so weak they have had to divine protection in order to survive?

I for one would not say that the USA is divine, but to each their own.

The Jews didn't have a military throughout the past 2,000 years that they could defend themselves against armies. We have been dispersed throughout the world; we didn't have a single unified nation living in their own land that we could defend ourselves militarily. God has always been our protection and has assured us that despite what happens to us, we will never be utterly destroyed. That is evident in the latest attempt on our existence as a people - the Holocaust. Yes, 6 million Jews died. However, we are still here, practicing the same religion our ancestors before us practiced. We are as eternal as eternity itself.

 

[Adonis65]

Through testing we can accurately determine Truth. Simply accepting a notion blindly without testing it carries the severe risk of placing faith in falsehood. Therefore, limiting oneself to personal opinions is exactly what blind faith is.

Wrong. It's excatly what anti-theists think they know about God. The testing comes from faith and prayer. The result is getting answers from God.

 

[McBell]

The Jews didn't have a military throughout the past 2,000 years that they could defend themselves against armies. We have been dispersed throughout the world; we didn't have a single unified nation living in their own land that we could defend ourselves militarily. God has always been our protection and has assured us that despite what happens to us, we will never be utterly destroyed. That is evident in the latest attempt on our existence as a people - the Holocaust. Yes, 6 million Jews died. However, we are still here, practicing the same religion our ancestors before us practiced. We are as eternal as eternity itself.

That is an awful long winded 'yes'...

 

[McBell]

Wrong. It's excatly what anti-theists think they know about God. The testing comes from faith and prayer. The result is getting answers from God.

Ah, so basically whatever strikes your fancy...

 

[Acim]

science was required to find out the best means of doing both of those things.

So wherever there is art (as process and/or product) science can take some, perhaps all credit for the result, since at some point artist / creator may have studied "best practices" or some variation of science?

There is no critical understanding in religion. Religion is about asserting something as true (or false) regardless of rational investigation, inquiry or critical understanding.

Either you are not very familiar with spirituality / religion or you missed the point I made previously. Plausibly both.