The god of the atheists.

[Tooshay]

Sorry for being a little bit tangential but I just wanted to state my opinion on the big bang theory. The big bang theory is just that, a theory. There is little actual evidence of the big bang theory, sure there is some, but I can make a theory that all life came from unicorns then they all transformed into different things and that's where humans and animals come from, there is a little bit of evidence to support that but it doesn't make it any more likely. I personally find issue with that fact that many people simply believe something because someone else thought of it first, not saying its impossible, but I'm just saying it shouldn't be chalked up any higher than any other theory in lieu of a lack of evidence.

Now that being said, I will go ahead and point out that there is little to no evidence of the creation theory so people don't come out of the woodwork to say that I'm shooting the big bang theory in the knee to make it equal with a theory that they would also say I'm partial too.

Discuss in my little tangent bubble here if you wish, otherwise ignore me.

I'm not sure why you think there is not much evidence for the big bang. It is now pretty much the only respected theory among scientists because it has considerably more evidence than any other theory about where the universe came from. But thats the great thing about empiricism. We can work with the big bang theory, use it now because we have evidence for it, but if we find that evidence points towards a different explanation, then we will use that one. Science/empiricism =/= faith. Or in other words, its totally okay to change your opinion in light of new evidence.

 

[CrystalShadow]

The problem is you think there is a beginning. Just because we don't know what happened before doesn't make it the beginning. and saying a wizard did it is just a reflexive handwave. There is no way to make a wizard strolling up and making existence anything less than retarded. How the fuck is there a wizard if nothing exists yet? If we're going on the presumption that beginnings exist, the wizard must've had a beginning too, so it comes down to existence just happening for no reason.
Think of religion, both theist arguments and meta-analytical arguments such as atheism and agnosticism, as the answer to an illogical question. Consider what questions religion answers, and you will find that each question makes at least presumption. Any unproven presumption makes the question faulty, and therefore any answer to the question is false, and thus any answer is equally valid. The correct action is rejecting the question entirely. Though, it doesn't really matter if you're right or not. All this religious shit only matters as far as the stuff people do in the name of whatever stupid beliefs they hold.

I think you've got this pretty well thought out.
But it does leave one problem; everything (and I do mean everything, science, math, the idea of there even being an 'objective universe' that can be measured, and so on) rests on unproven assumptions.

The very definition of a mathematical axiom for instance, is "Assume this is true." - Which can then be used to deduce logical consequences, but that doesn't make the axiom itself any less arbitrary.

The very idea of what constitutes 'proof', can pretty much only be taken to be fairly arbitrary, because how do you 'prove' that what you are using as 'evidence' is valid, without first defining what constitutes valid evidence? (Which is entirely circular, and thus unprovable.)

So... Congratulations. You've rendered it entirely meaningless to ask any questions of any kind. XD

Scientific theories make no claim to veracity, they simply haven't been disproven. The assumption is kept in mind and the theory is open to challenge and modification as new evidence is found. With religion, the assumption is taken as true. Where Science attempts to reconcile all the information into a theory, Religion attempts to fit new information into the old. So, in general, I support the scientific method.
My push for the religious question to be rejected is more utilitarian than ideological. If you question the question, you'll find no reason to answer it because it only serves itself. Any practical benefits gained would be better found with more specific questions, so ask those instead.

I think I know what you're saying. In the sense that whatever questions science answers do tend to have practical applications.

I can certainly question, what they actually apply to, but that's an abstract question that doesn't mean that much.

Now, to disprove something still implicitly assumes something about the nature of proof, but then mathematics gives a useful reference for that, because it shows anything which is internally inconsistent is false, whatever the your starting premise might be.

The practical application of science depends somewhat on certain, unprovable assumptions, but since this in general applies to a 'world', which, whatever it may actually be, seems to obey a consistent set of rules (or at the very least, it is non-trivial to induce any condition under which it does behave inconsistently), science would seem valid at least in that context.

Now, the limitations are easy enough to demonstrate in that people are more than capable of having hallucinations which they cannot tell apart from reality.

That they are hallucinating is obvious to others, but since you can hallucinate just about anything including other people, if you were the one having the hallucinations, how would you be able to tell the difference?

But that's simply asking rather pointless questions at the end of the day. They'd only start to have meaning if people had latent abilities related to this. There's no evidence that they do, but it's certainly one of the biggest potential clashes. (What I mean to say is, if the statement "What you believe becomes reality" holds any truth whatsoever, this clashes quite badly with empirical science. - You can't really test something you don't believe in, if your belief about it influences the result. - But then, if that were true, what would that imply anyway?)