Floods, Fossils, Science and Faith (Split from Global Warming)

[t_BuckeyeScott]

My intent wasn't to attack your specific belief system, but rather the shortcomings of the argument; "I don't see how X could be explained by natural processes, therefore God must have been involved."

The reason I don't believe in a personal God is that I haven't found any evidence of one, which is the same reason I don't believe in unicorns, elves or dragons. If God does exist, for whatever reason He chooses to stay unseen in the background and takes a hands-off approach to the workings of the universe and consequently is a non-factor.

Could that be because you would rather not find evidence of one?

 

[Bleed S & G]

Could that be because you would rather not find evidence of one?

yeah, but we can't show evidence of one.. soooo why would you require someone to find evidence..?

awesome discussion by the way

 

[Brewtus]

Could that be because you would rather not find evidence of one?

In all honesty, I like the idea of a personal God and eternal life. But what I prefer and what is reality are rarely the same. I'm a skeptic in my business and personal life so why shouldn't I be one in regards to my spirituality? I research and seek evidence before buying a house or car, so why shouldn't I ask for the same when believing in a God? If God were so powerful and influential, why isn't He obvious to every person on the Earth?

And could you imagine living in a universe where there was no God?

 

[Bleed S & G]

In all honesty, I like the idea of a personal God and eternal life. But what I prefer and what is reality are rarely the same. I'm a skeptic in my business and personal life so why shouldn't I be one in regards to my spirituality? I research and seek evidence before buying a house or car, so why shouldn't I ask for the same when believing in a God? If God were so powerful and influential, why isn't He obvious to every person on the Earth?

And could you imagine living in a universe where there was no God?

My answer to you would be:
1.) why constrain yourself to what you preceive as reality when theories every bit as credible as darwins say there is no reality, there is no physical world
2.) recognize you are the truth, and confusion and stress are not real but only precieved
3.) understand most 'religious' people, are blasphemous
4.) why isnt He influential? hmm, well this is where it gets tricky. this is where i believe religion is personal, and our ideas of God are so distorted.. including my own. in my life, He's very influential.. which makes this a hard game to play - if there is no physical world am i imagining these feelings? but then back to, there is no confusion and it's a tool of deception - it's very real.

 

[Bleed S & G]

Growing up in cathlioc schools - i always believed in God. Highschool came and i stopped believing in God. it made no sense to me and a lot of loose ends went untied. if theres a direction i could point anyone struggling with faith or enjoy theology as much as i do and learning about the human race's interaction with a higher being.. check this stuff out. these are all gnostic texts.. this one is awesome and i recomend anyone into any of this stuff read it all the way through. it's long, but really cool concepts.. i believe its thought to have been written by John the apostle, the author of everyones favorite book of revelation..

anyways, the book of the great invisible light:
http://www.thepearl.org/Great_Invisible_Light.htm

 

[GoBucks89]

But science seeks the natural explanation for things,

There you go being too honest again. If science is seeking only the "natural" explanation, then it assumes there is no supernatural explanation. In other words, "science" (in your mind) assumes atheism. I know you were trying not to reveal this, but you messed up. Better go back and re-formulate your answer so as to avoid this unintentional honesty.

 

[StooGrimson]

There you go being too honest again. If science is seeking only the "natural" explanation, then it assumes there is no supernatural explanation. In other words, "science" (in your mind) assumes atheism. I know you were trying not to reveal this, but you messed up. Better go back and re-formulate your answer so as to avoid this unintentional honesty.

I disagree. Please don't re-formulate anything b/c you were absolutely right. There's absolutely nothing wrong with science excluding the supernatural (if one believes in it), nor is there anything wrong with one's supernatural beliefs excluding science. Sometimes the two can co-exist peacefully; however, attempting to force the two to co-exist can be quite futile sometimes.

 

[Brewtus]

1.) why constrain yourself to what you preceive as reality when theories every bit as credible as darwins say there is no reality, there is no physical world
2.) recognize you are the truth, and confusion and stress are not real but only precieved
3.) understand most 'religious' people, are blasphemous
4.) why isnt He influential? hmm, well this is where it gets tricky. this is where i believe religion is personal, and our ideas of God are so distorted.. including my own. in my life, He's very influential.. which makes this a hard game to play - if there is no physical world am i imagining these feelings? but then back to, there is no confusion and it's a tool of deception - it's very real.

Why would I assume that I'm not living in reality and a physical world? I have not experienced anything in my life that would make me think otherwise. If you need to suspend reality and belief in a physical world to accept the existence of God, why wouldn't that also open up a million other possibilities of beings greater or more worthy than God? If God doesn't exist in this reality then God isn't worth believing in.

There you go being too honest again. If science is seeking only the "natural" explanation, then it assumes there is no supernatural explanation. In other words, "science" (in your mind) assumes atheism. I know you were trying not to reveal this, but you messed up. Better go back and re-formulate your answer so as to avoid this unintentional honesty.

Technically science is agnostic, not atheistic. The difference being that science doesn't deny the existence of God or try to prove His nonexistence, but it also does not take into account the possibility that God influences nature. F=MA not F=MA +/- the whims of God.

 

[Buckeyes85]

There you go being too honest again. If science is seeking only the "natural" explanation, then it assumes there is no supernatural explanation. In other words, "science" (in your mind) assumes atheism. I know you were trying not to reveal this, but you messed up. Better go back and re-formulate your answer so as to avoid this unintentional honesty.

Unintentional honesty? Ok. You do know of course I didn't invent the word "science"; define its purpose or populate the profession? You also understand that mathmeticians, physicists also attempt to explain certain things without presuming a supernatural cause? You do understand also that many, if not most of those mathmeticians and physicists believe in god (and are therefore not atheists). They simply don't use the existance or non existence of god as the basis of a hypothysis as to why certain things occur, etc.

Is that really that hard to understand?

 

[Bleed S & G]

Why would I assume that I'm not living in reality and a physical world? I have not experienced anything in my life that would make me think otherwise. If you need to suspend reality and belief in a physical world to accept the existence of God, why wouldn't that also open up a million other possibilities of beings greater or more worthy than God? If God doesn't exist in this reality then God isn't worth believing in.

No no no

You said:
But what I prefer and what is reality are rarely the same.

I said:
1.) why constrain yourself to what you preceive as reality when theories every bit as credible as darwins say there is no reality, there is no physical world

who said anything about suspending reality? it does open up a million possibilities.

why assume there are multiple 'realities'?

 

[Bleed S & G]

Anslems Proof of the Existence of God:
which really proves nothing but its cool..


1. The Fool asserts that God does not exist.
2. What is called "God" is "a being than which no greater can be conceived."
3. The Fool agrees that "a being than which no greater can be conceived" exists in the mind, since he understands the words.
4. To say that "a being than which no greater can be conceived" does not exist is to say that such a being is only an idea--it does not exist in the mind and in reality.
5. But such a being, which exists in the mind alone, is in fact "a being than which a greater can be conceived" since it is greater to exist in both mind and reality than just mind alone.
6. So, the Fool believes that "a being than which no greater can be conceived" is "a being than which a greater can be conceived" which is impossible.
7. Therefore, since "a being than which no greater can be conceived" cannot exist in the mind alone (because that is self-contradictory) such a being must exist in both mind and reality. 8. Therefore, God exists.

 

[buckeyegrad]

This has been done before by Frank Drake and is called the Drake Equation:

where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate at any given time and
R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of the above that are willing and able to communicate
L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization

The current estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy alone that have intelligent life is roughly 1,000.

See more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Here's a big problem with this formula and it is stated right at the beginning of the article:

The Drake equation (also known as the Green Bank equation or the Sagan equation) is a famous result in the speculative fields of xenobiology, astrosciobiology and the search for extraterrestrail intelligence.

As I see, it that number is hopeful science fiction.

And of course, we still don't have a number for the odds of life generating from non-life.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Here's a big problem with this formula and it is stated right at the beginning of the article:

The Drake equation (also known as the Green Bank equation or the Sagan equation) is a famous result in the speculative fields of xenobiology, astrosciobiology and the search for extraterrestrail intelligence.

As I see, it that number is hopeful science fiction.

And of course, we still don't have a number for the odds of life generating from non-life.

I should take it then that you also don't accept the numbers I used in my post?

 

[JoJaBuckeye]

Perchance a definition of science is in order. Here's mine.

Science is effort applied to ignorance.
​

Ergo, where there is science, there must be ____________ ???​

 

[GoBucks89]

Unintentional honesty? Ok. You do know of course I didn't invent the word "science"; define its purpose or populate the profession?

No, what you said was that science seeks "natural" explanations, which would exclude the supernatural. However, when I looked for a definition of science, this is what I found:

sci?ence (s

ns)
n. 1. a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.

2. Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
3. An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.
5. Science Christian Science.


As you can see, there is no reference to seeking only natural explanations. There is one sense in which the word is restricted to only "natural phenomena" (1b), but this would more properly be labeled "natural science" because it studies only that which is found in nature. The roots of the word indicate only the seeking of knowledge or a desire to learn. Yes, I realize that you didn't invent the term, but your definition of it reveals what you wish it to be: a search for answers that excludes any supernatural explanation. Yet if a person truly desires to possess knowledge, then he would not limit himself to only those things that explicitly manifest themselves before his eyes.

You also understand that mathmeticians, physicists also attempt to explain certain things without presuming a supernatural cause? You do understand also that many, if not most of those mathmeticians and physicists believe in god (and are therefore not atheists). They simply don't use the existance or non existence of god as the basis of a hypothysis as to why certain things occur, etc.

Fair enough, but are you saying that supernatural causes must be excluded? If not, then you cannot rule out lvbuckeye's arguments by appealing to science, since scientific study does not rule out the supernatural.

Technically science is agnostic, not atheistic. The difference being that science doesn't deny the existence of God or try to prove His nonexistence, but it also does not take into account the possibility that God influences nature. F=MA not F=MA +/- the whims of God.

If you don't deny the existence of God then you cannot declare that the flood account of Genesis is just a made-up story. Yet, you have done exactly that. So which is it? Do you deny or don't you? You can talk all you want about "there is no evidence" but this is just an argument from silence. The most you can say in opposition to lvbuckeye is that you don't accept his theory, which is perfectly understandable since you are an atheist. But you cannot appeal to science for help because science is impotent in trying to establish or refute a historical account. Your denial of the Genesis flood account is pre-determined by your philosophical beliefs, for better or worse.