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Religion is well suited to address a person's relationship with the Creator.
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Can you provide a definition as well as evidence for the thing you keep calling a "creator"?
Science gives us the insights to know what we know, through intellectual and practical activities, encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural, world through observation and experiment.
Religion just tells you what to believe, without offering anything to verify or validate it...just an ancient story book describing a monster who is a vengeful murderous sociopath.
Do you find it sensible that a person is willing to be credulous with their religious beliefs but are not willing to do it in any other area of their life?
Are you easily taken in other areas of your life?...how's that working out for you to just blindly believe what others tell you?
That's not a very wise approach to life.
A new synthesis of scientific knowledge has emerged and continues to flourish. In recent years the questions and answers about our Cosmic Origins have come from several domains in science. Astro-chemistry, Astro-biology, Astro-particle physics, invoking these multiple branches of science enables Astrophysicists to answer the questions, Where did we come from?, as well as offers insights into how the Universe works.
Humans have always been fascinated with the topic of our origins and for many reasons including both logical and emotional. Most of us cannot comprehend the essence of anything without knowing where it came from.
Science more than anything else has provided us with this insight. Science vs. Religion, has provided us with every advance in our knowledge about the Cosmos. Science has revealed that we live on a Cosmic speck of dust, orbiting a mediocre star in a far suburb of a common sort of galaxy, among a hundred billion galaxies in the Universe.
I get that this knowledge triggers impressive defense mechanisms in the human psyche...especially in religious folks. Throughout history, different cultures have produced creation myths that explained our origins as being the result of mysterious cosmic forces shaping our destiny. It's these myths that have helped humans to ward off feelings of insignificance. Doesn't it strike you odd that all of these creation myths all start out with a big picture, but then they get down to the sphere of our Earth with impressive speed, soaring past the creation of the Universe and all of it's contents, to life here on Earth? Then the myths arrive at innumerable details of human history and our social conflicts, as if we somehow formed the center of creation. No details on how stars formed, no details on how planets and solar systems originate, no mention of even the Dinosaurs!
You would think that all of these missing bits would have been of great importance in the creation myths...after all it's where we originated from. Instead of worshiping the myth that someone died for us...why not worship the death of all of those stars that generated the atoms to generate life here on Earth?
I know why...Plato described it best in his allegory of the cave. Humans have a natural tendency to believe that mysterious, dimly sensed entities govern the Universe, privy to knowledge that we can, at best, glimpse only in part. Humans in every culture, throughout recorded history, have concluded that higher powers rule the Cosmos, all the while gifted with an understanding of the gulf between reality and superficial appearance.
You represent the people chained up in the cave in Plato's' Republic.
You know better than that. Ever succeeded in defying gravity? Don't be coy. You use the words "natural," "laws," and "evolved" AS IF they explain anything. They do NOT. They are euphemisms that describe what we cannot explain the existence of.
But what IS Life and why does it differ from the other forms of matter, reactions, and processes in our reality? Or does it? Please avoid resorting to any euphemisms of the "self-whatever" or "emergent" type. Then I repeat: But what IS Consciousness and why does it differ from the other forms of matter, reactions, and processes in our reality? Or does it? Please avoid resorting to any euphemisms of the "self-whatever" or "emergent" type.This theory has what actual evidence of its truth? Again avoid your favorite euphemisms in response.How can anyone deny claims of a creator when their very own existence proclaims the existence of one? True , but unlike you, it is not necessary to ignore my own created status to pretend that one does NOT exist!
You constantly proclaim your disdain for "fundamentalists" on this forum, and yet your reasoning is very similar:
1) If we can't explain something, it means that it is supernatural (or evidence of the supernatural).
2) The existence of the universe, consciousness, emotions, or any other "profound" thing is direct evidence of a supernatural creator.
Science can not prove or disprove the relationship a person has with the Creator. Just like science can not prove or disprove a happy marriage. And for the same reasons. It is an apt analogy because it also sheds light on the whole "don't need God for that."
Science can most certainly prove the existence of human relationships with invisible beings. Such relationships are observable. Said relationships may be irrational, but they do exist. We can even measure how many people have relationships with invisible beings by taking surveys and polls. We can look at church memberships. We can get data on how many children have imaginary friends. And so forth.
Science can most certainly prove the existence of happy marriages. Such relationships are observable. And so forth.
Science can most certainly prove the existence of human relationships with invisible beings. Such relationships are observable. Said relationships may be irrational, but they do exist. We can even measure how many people have relationships with invisible beings by taking surveys and polls. We can look at church memberships. We can get data on how many children have imaginary friends. And so forth.
Science can most certainly prove the existence of happy marriages. Such relationships are observable. And so forth.
Good. Clarity.
What is your input or view or assessment on how the people in the scenarios in post #99 are responding to what they are faced with. They lack your clarity.
What is your input or view or assessment on how the people in the scenarios in post #99 are responding to what they are faced with. They lack your clarity.
I could not have said it better myself. Thanks Nozz!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
I am certainly not about to partake in your contrived attempt to hijack and derail the topic of this thread from science in the context of religious discussions.... into a NOT EVEN tangential discussion about the relative success of peoples marriages.
Science can not prove or disprove the relationship a person has with the Creator. Just like science can not prove or disprove a happy marriage. And for the same reasons. It is an apt analogy because it also sheds light on the whole "don't need God for that."
The usual tri-omni creator concept inherently isn't (dis)provable ... by science or by any other method because it is framed in such a way that it is immune to actual examination. So that has nothing to do with science. It has to do with asserted truth, asserted in a particular and unsubstantiatable way.
Even if your statement were true, "therefore god" is not the logical conclusion to draw. That is just standard god-of-the-gaps. We don't know, and can't sit with (largely technical) uncertainty, so we invent gods to explain and control things we don't understand, put words in their mouths, etc.
As to science proving or disproving a happy marriage, I rather think it can. Marriages are real relationships, with real participants, with real and measurable emotional and physiological responses and real and observable behaviors. It is possible to scientifically record their behaviors and measure their levels of satisfaction, contentment and happiness with some accuracy. Compared to the failed god hypothesis it is positively objectively determinable, despite that there are subjective elements to it.
What's really the case here is that science has not explained 100% of everything but that is no reason to suspect that the things it hasn't fully explained won't turn out to be fully explicable scientifically in the future. Religious faith has a terrible track record in this regard; science, insofar as it has progressed to date, has a superb track record. So science cannot currently fully explain the origins of the universe or the genesis of the first life forms or many aspects of consciousness and human thought life. So what. There was a time when it couldn't fully explain / prove disease processes or electromagnetism or the shape of the world either.
I stated before that science does not directly inform morality although it provides critical data inputs to it. I stated that we have philosophy in all its branches from mathematics to applied philosophy in various areas to fill that need. You have not demonstrated how secular philosophy is inferior to religious faith-based beliefs. I suspect because you cannot. In fact it is demonstrably superior because it is based on actual empirical observation, not on unsubstantiated assertions. Philosophy is not science and it is not as immune to bias or overreach, but it is far less so than religious faith which doesn't even have the natural world as a starting-point -- only people's random assertions about an imagined unnatural world, not unlike the hidden world of magicians suggested by JK Rowling really.
You know better than that. Ever succeeded in defying gravity? Don't be coy. You use the words "natural," "laws," and "evolved" AS IF they explain anything. They do NOT. They are euphemisms that describe what we cannot explain the existence of.
But what IS Life and why does it differ from the other forms of matter, reactions, and processes in our reality? Or does it? Please avoid resorting to any euphemisms of the "self-whatever" or "emergent" type. Then I repeat: But what IS Consciousness and why does it differ from the other forms of matter, reactions, and processes in our reality? Or does it? Please avoid resorting to any euphemisms of the "self-whatever" or "emergent" type.This theory has what actual evidence of its truth? Again avoid your favorite euphemisms in response.How can anyone deny claims of a creator when their very own existence proclaims the existence of one? True , but unlike you, it is not necessary to ignore my own created status to pretend that one does NOT exist!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80
You constantly proclaim your disdain for "fundamentalists" on this forum, and yet your reasoning is very similar:
1) If we can't explain something, it means that it is supernatural (or evidence of the supernatural).
2) The existence of the universe, consciousness, emotions, or any other "profound" thing is direct evidence of a supernatural creator.
You really need to read more of my posts, Freak. I do NOT believe in ANYTHING SUPERNATURAL. There is no such thing! The only thing fundamentalists and I can be said to agree on is that there IS a God and Jesus exemplified His true nature.
If only I were not sitting in a doctor's office waiting room right now, punching out this post one letter at a time, I would have so much to say here. Just wait until I get home. I hope. Unless I'm feeling like utter dog meat which sometimes happens after going places. I generally hate trips, even short ones, because I pay for them later.
I'm sorry you did not return. I hope you get to feeling better...breaks my heart to know that you are suffering.
Science is great at what it does. And oher disciplines each also offer their own subject matter expertise. They engage us in different ways, and help us grow and expand our understanding, and nourish us body, mind, heart, and soul.
I doubt I am the only one to notice this, but what you have done here is ENTIRELY ignore my question about your position..... and simply roundly restated the position again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
please see post 99 and second paragraph of 105.
Just because you ignore my posts and points, does not mean I ignore yours. I directly responded already to these posts and they do not in any way answer what I have asked.
Your "happy marriage" thread derail narrative which permeated both of those posts however is not an answer to it either. Because the eye of science very much HAS been turned on what it means to be "happy" at the level of the brain. It is a developing area of science, but a very real one nonetheless..... so your assertion that such things are outside the purview of science is very much a fail.
As for "relationship with the creator" as I said I was only this week reading an article on the subject of how religious experience operates on the same areas of the brain as sexual and drug experiences. So we very much also have a science of "relationship with the creator". So yet AGAIN your assertion that such things are outside the purview of science is very much a fail.
Two posts, and a double fail. 2 for 2 is not a great record. Have you got anything else? Remembering of course you did not say "some" things or "any" things.... but "MANY" things. Many. Yet the best you can offer from this list of "many" is 2 straight up failures which very much support, rather than rebut, the concept of the thread that "Science is important in Religious discussions".
I'm sorry you did not return. I hope you get to feeling better...breaks my heart to know that you are suffering.
Please feel better soon and return. We miss you!
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No details on how stars formed, no details on how planets and solar systems originate, no mention of even the Dinosaurs! 
