"Does the Empirical Nature of Science Contradict the Revalatory Nature of Faith?"

[Izakflashman]

I'm sure we can all agree that Scientology is a crock of shit. they believe in an alien named "zeul" or something. Wasn't he the bad guy in ghostbusters 1?

Ghostbusters 2 and Scientology has nothing to do with actual Science (i.e. theory of evolution etc.) Leave your ignorance out of this thread.

On the subject of Morality first. Morality is a term created by man and therefore should not even be included in this discussion. Do you think a newborn tiger shark thinks about the moral repercussions of devouring his unborn siblings in the womb? No its the survival of the fittest instinct kicking in. Morality was just a term created to define why you couldn't bludgeon your neighbor and steal his stuff and to help shape a functioning society with laws and rules to govern the people to prevent occurrence A from happening...

That was a bad call with the ignorance thing, but Zeeky already covered that.
And I don't think the tiger shark thing was a good example. Unless now animals have morals and a will to create a better herd through democracy or something.

...Now let me clarify, I do not by into any of this organized religion bullshit. A lot of the teachings in the Good Book (whichever it is you prefer) are good life lessons and are still relative in meaning today. The practice is where all of these teachings lose their meanings and become bastardized.

That is an unfortunate truth. Bastardized is right, and thats where I think a lot of christians get thrown into the same basket. Meh. Gutted, hopefully the people who are bending their own agenda's will stop getting money in the collection plate or something.

 

[matrix3509]

Science and Religion should be left in two seperate rooms, never to meet for this specific reason:

Science, by its very nature, deals with things that can be measured and proven empirically. To be perfectly blunt, it tells us, what, when, where, and how.

Religion, on the other hand, deals with the specific things science CANNOT AND INDEED WILL NEVER explain. Religion tells us, who, and why.

Argue against me all you want atheists, but every basic law in every civilised country came from someone who got their teachings from one god or another. Those laws are:

1. Do not kill.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not cheat.
4. Do not lie.

Believe it or not all of these basic laws came from people with some sort of religious guidance. Without them, we would have ended up far worse.

As this and other previous threads prove, science and religion only provoke massive flamewars when they are allowed to meet. They both answer very differnt quenstions and as such should never EVER be compared.

Because this is the way I see it, I have the ability to be a scientist and still have may faith.

And if so many smug holier-than-thou atheists would stop looking down on me from atop their massive rightous erections, maybe I could practice my faith in peace, and not bother anyone.

 

[Labyrinth]

I did not say they are in no way driven by morals--I said they are not necessarily driven by morals in every single instance. You oversimplify the way humans actually think and behave.

And I did not say that any morals are absolute, or indeed that there is an absolute truth. You're oversimplifying the way human mentality works.

It's how humans should behave.

And how do you define that? It's different according to different people because of their morals.

 

[Shivari]

I wasn't going to post in this thread, but I read that article and it got me in the state of wanting to voice my opinion. I haven't read all of the posts in this thread, but this will be more of a few refutations with a lot more of just my thoughts on some things.

As for the examination of the Higgs Particle versus the Existence of God, it's a difficult comparison to make. Faith, for one point, simply is. One cannot verify Faith, for then it would not be Faith any longer. But it goes just beyond definition of the word. If I were to ask any of you if you have a brain, you would say Yes. You don't need a MRI, you simply know you have a brain. Do you have a cranium? Yes. When you turn the ignition on your car, the will the engine run? People have Faith in all sorts of things, those who are religious simply have Faith that God exists. As LaCoil said, we do not need evidence, we have Faith. I have five fingers, my avatar has a red tie, and God exists. It's no more difficult a question than whether or not the sky exists.

The key difference between the faith of having a brain or that my car will turn on, and the faith of a God existing, is how much reason there is to believe in such a thing. I believe I have a brain, even though I haven't had an MRI to test it, because I can think, and thinking requires a brain, ergo I have a brain. I believe the engine in my car will turn on tomorrow because it turned on yesterday, and the day before that as well. I have seen it happen, I have experience with it being so, so therefore (barring some unfortunate breakdown of my engine) I have no reason to believe it won't turn on tomorrow. This isn't quite the same faith; I have strong logical reason to believe it is so.

The belief in God though is different. I can not follow a logical step-by-step that lands at the conclusion that there is a God. I have no experience with a God; he has not shown himself to me and he never answered any of my prayers when I was a believer. I have no way of logically tracing to his existence or any experience with him existing, ergo I can't find a reason to believe he exists. This is faith, there is no true logical reason to believe, but it is believed ever so.

These are two separate faiths, one that requires some form of logical proof or experience, and another that is true faith; that which has no proof and no experience. I'm not saying that you have no reason to believe NewClassic, nor that you should change your way of thinking, I'm just stating that these aren't the same types of faith. You may believe just as strongly in your brain existing as God existing, but that doesn't mean that they are for the same reasons.

That's because it has to be, without evolution there is no scientific explanation for the existence of anything. I would also argue that evolution does not explain first cause, and that there is no scientific theory that can.

Evolution never claims to explain the origin of life, and there is no theory that does, but that is no reason to stop searching and just turn to God. Science admits that not everything is known, and searches for ways to learn that which is not known. Just because it has not been found doesn't mean it will never be found or that it is not worth searching for. We do not know how life originated quite yet, but we also didn't know that there all living things were made up of cells hundreds of years ago; that doesn't mean that cells didn't or don't exist, it means that we hadn't found out about them yet, as is the case with the origin of life.

I believe that morals do not change, ever. What is truly good will always be so, same for truly evil.

Morals are things that I see more as something developed because of a need for them, not because of a religion, or any sense that we are born with; they are simply a product of the world we live in. We needed them for any type of society to survive. Murder can't become commonplace in society, otherwise it will dissolve into anarchy, so it is seen as taboo in society. In any system where the participants are codependent on the others for survival, a moral will develop that hurting this system by removing participants is wrong, as it would hurt the system and the greater good that those participants strive for. This is seen in animals as well, primates living together will not kill each other in normal conditions as it would hurt their society (which is less robust than ours, but is still a society in it's own merits), and threaten their survival as a whole if it became the norm. Same with ants, they work together to feed their populous and if they didn't work together, and instead fought, none of them could survive the way they do as a whole. Now obviously, as humans have more intelligence, we will have a wider variety of morals that will develop due to the need for them, but morals aren't something that was handed to humans for their own solitary use.

And yes, morals are subject to change, as well as subjectivity. I believe that homosexuality is perfectly moral and fine, and many would disagree with me. But that fact that there is a substantially higher percentage of people that do agree with me today than say, 100 years ago suggests that the morals of society have changed as a result of the circumstances that we live in and the views that we hold, and will continue to do so. We can also view other morals that people hold (or don't hold) as wrong, but what is truly right and wrong in the world of morality is subjective. It's a product of our nature and our environment, there is no one true set of morals that is right, as what is "right" at any given time is dependent on what the circumstances of the time are.

And I thought I was going to bed 4 hours ago...

 

[The Great Fa]

A lot of people who are Science people--especially the most vocal of them--aren't so much interested in Science as they are in something Anti-Religion.

This is something I have long suspected and I'm glad to have it confirmed by a self-professed Science person. But this really wasn't the meat of your post so...

the same Religious people who go nuts over Evolution believe in earthquakes, even though plate tectonics was a big deal with it first came on the scene contradicting the calculations of Bisshop Ussher as to the age of the earth

Well, this is true, but Ussher wasn't God. Maybe this is a little unconventional for a Catholic *gasp!* but I think the being who is most worthy of our devotion and obedience is God Himself, not a corporeal power. I still think, say, the Pope should be obeyed, but if his words aren't supported by those of God, they're open to debate.

these are the same people with lightening rods on their houses, even though back when Ben Franklin invented them, they considered lightening to be God's Wrath and refused to put them up

This is sort of similar. If God was feeling wrathful, He could cause lightning to rain down on us, of course that's not to say it can't also occur without His help. I think it's just a matter of sorting out what God has actually told us and what we just decided was cool. I'm a little rusty on my Bible, but doesn't God usually announce he's going to destroy something before he does so? We could extrapolate that any lightning that falls after God has announced destructive intentions, that lightning is the wrath of God. Am I just talking out my ass here?

It's that kind of continual retreat, that 'God of the Gaps' mentality that drives Science people nuts, the refusal to see that the same arguments they are making were made against lightening rods, to even consider those prior mistakes as something to learn from.

I can see how that would be kind of annoying. But I don't think it's fair to target those people from the past for their misunderstandings. I'd imagine, that for the average person in those days, understanding how natural lightning works would be quite beyond them. By contrast, these days, with all our fancy education, anyone can understand the theory of evolution; and they can resist it because it is just a theory. Unlike plate tectonics and lightning, evolution can never be a fact, unless I grossly misunderstand the concept. As long as there's that shadow of doubt, Religion people will have the room and, dare I say, the right to oppose evolution.

 

[LOOY]

As long as they don't preach in our schools we won't think in their churches...

 

[Redlac]

Hmm..think I'll stick to the Original Post.

For anyone that's bothered, I'm a Christian.

My thoughts then.

I have to say I agree with Patrick Bateman's comment that you don't reconcile chalk and cheese. Science and Christianity for me deal with two different subjects. But their paths do cross occasionally. Science is the process of figuring out how the material world ticks, my Christianity helps me figure out how the spiritual world ticks.

Sometimes the two are at loggerheads with regards to certain issues, evolution being the most obvious one. science presents one case for man's origins, my scriptures another. Neither can be absolutely proved as yet. So, I put that in the 'ask God when I meet him' pile of questions, until further revelation through either medium is presented. For now, I'll just have to be content with not knowing, it's not like it's going to help me do my retail job any better.

To me at least, science and religion can co exist peacefully, just like many other things can. Both answer questions, but it's figuring out what type of question it is that can be the tricky bit.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Argue against me all you want atheists, but every basic law in every civilised country came from someone who got their teachings from one god or another. Those laws are:

1. Do not kill.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not cheat.
4. Do not lie.

Believe it or not all of these basic laws came from people with some sort of religious guidance. Without them, we would have ended up far worse.

Thank for addressing all Atheists as a collective, for we are all stereotyped bible burners with a hive mind and we don't ever stop talking.

You speech didn't (ironically) make you come off as holier-than-thou or in anyway present you as being insulting towards another group of people (Atheists).

Religion has these rules because human kind made religion and hey, get this, people don't like being dead, having their stuff taken and being deceived.

Imagine that, things the majority of people hate being done to them are listed as sins.

I could not have called that...

 

[SecretTacoNinja]

If everybody stopped discussing religion I would be happier for it. I don't give a damn if someone secretly believes in one or more big men in the sky as long as they don't feel the need to discuss it with everyone. I'm sick of hearing about it. I'm sick of this stupid divide religion vs atheism creates.

This ridiculous debate is going to carry on until the end of time, I don't feel the need to discuss it any longer.

 

[The Cheezy One]

im a Protestant and i heard something once
if im wrong, ive lost my life
if your wrong, youve lost far more

 

[The Great Fa]

As much as I would love to keep on debating this and that, I'm starting to lose the feeling in my legs and I desperately need sleep.

No, I am not wussing out! Shame on you!

 

[Booze Zombie]

im a Protestant and i heard something once
if im wrong, ive lost my life
if your wrong, youve lost far more

"If God gave you a life, why would he want you to waste it talking about him?
If he wanted something to talk about him all the time, he'd have made a world of parrots."

"If God gave me a life and then forsakes me for not using my life to tell everyone about him, he's a dick."

 

[000Ronald]

I usually abstain from discussions like this, but this one in particular piqued my interest. Morality, like belif, is interesting, in that everyone has one, even if it is a complete lack thereof.

Hear me out for a moment; I'm not saying there are universal laws, besides those that govern the universe, just that everyone lives in some way. We're not animals; we understand that there are reprocussions to our actions. Therefore we try to prevent what we understand to be negative reprocussions; the thing is we all want different things. One person may want to move out of their house while another may want to take advantage of their loved ones for years. One person may want to avoid a ticket as to keep from having to pay a fine, while one person may want to get somewhere on time, as to not dissapoint their friends.

This is where morality comes in. Let's take the latter part of my last scenerio as an example. Did the second person not care about the law? Not nessecarally; he just cared about his friends more. Did the other person care about the law more? Not nessecarally; he may have just gone out to get something from Dairy Queen. Both cases have different circumstances, and different interpretations can be made of them.

Another point; this whole question brings up another question; are people born with a knowledge of right and wrong or is it taught for them? Do people need to be told what is right or is it only the job of a tyrant to tell someone else what is right? What is right? What is wrong? Who are you to decide either, especially for another person?

It is interesting. So often, at least in my expirience, people don't think of the implications of what they belive. "I belive in nothing" they say. "You may belive that there is nothing, but you cannot belive in nothing." I reply. "I belive in myself, an only myself." they say. "Then you belive in nothing." I say. "I belive in God." they say. "Which one and how?" I say. I don't have a lot of conversations with people, as you can tell.

Personally? I do what my heart tells me is right; this stands above everything for me, the thunderous cries of billions of people telling me what they want me to be, the wishes of those who love me to be something better than them, and the desires of my own body. I know what I belive is right, and this is what I follow; this is what I am. I'll let you chose your own path.

Apologies Abound