Why Do You Believe That The Earth Is 4.54 Billion Years Old? (Muslims, Savior)
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The first question is: Is such a man trying to find God or is he trying to fill something inadequate inside himself? Perhaps you are blaming my defense of one's own path for the evil that lurks in some men.
Do you think that if we outlaw God and all religion, that this particular man of which you speak would turn into a docile, harmless homebody? And, when did we start living in a society that blamed and punished everyone for the misdeeds of a few?
Ok, which is it? Is it evil for all men to walk their own path or is it evil for one man to ensure everyone lives under a particular set of rules? You really do have to make up your mind.
You say that it is bad for each to walk his own path. Therefore the conclusion is that men should live under one set of rules.
You say that it is evil for a person to try and make men live under one set of rules. The conclusion is that each man should walk his own path.
I really don't think you need me in this conversation. You are arguing both sides of your own point. How's that going for you? I know that I can be unreasonable sometimes, but I really think you have to pick a side.
So, here you are on the side of "men should live under one set of rules". And... those rules should preclude God and any and all religious belief? Then we'd all be safe?
I agree with this.
First, please define "truth".
Then tell me what evidence we have for the "truth".
It is really hard for me to discuss this with out these definitions.
Do you mean like this thread about the world being 4.54 billion years old? The scientists have given some great facts. Between them all, they have poked and prodded the earth, put stuff under the microscope, turned over rocks, dug in the ground, looked at water rings and tree rings and done all kinds of things. I think they have done a wonderful job and shown us the great vastness of science. I'm impressed. It is nothing short of amazing. They have unraveled the mysteries of earth.
How have they done with love? Well, for that matter, and hate, greed, gluttony, envy, and jealousy? How about evil, goodness, kindness, selfishness? What have those studies said? I don't recall seeing them. How long has man been around? How long has science been around? Surely, there must be some conclusions from science as to why these things exist. What did they find when they put these under the microscope? Or did some kind of dating? Or dissected them?
What is the truth about these things? How can we talk about these things if we don't have the truth or the evidence? Can we really have an opinion until we have the scientific results? Oh, my no-god! They don't exist! If they did, science would have told us. There would be evidence! But, you know, that is strange because it seems that I felt love. Well, no.... That one time it sure wasn't real, because we got a divorce. Ok. That proves it. There is no love. I can say without equivocation, that spouses share no love. People don't love their kids. They don't love a dog or a cat. They sure don't love their Mamas. Because, there is no proof! None. Nada. Zip. No scientific tests. Nothing to put under the microscope. You can't see it, or feel it, or hold it in your hand. It simply does not exist. Maybe I should go over to the family forum section and enlighten them. Maybe I should just tell them love doesn't exist and they don't love their kids and they are fools for thinking they do. They think they love their kids, but they don't. How could they? Love doesn't exist.
Of course one can choose what evidence to consider and how that evidence is interpreted, but the resulting believe is not a choice. I can no more choose to believe in a God than you can choose to not do so.
First here, you are arguing that each follows his own path. Then you are arguing that it doesn't matter whether we follow our own path because nobody has any choices of their own. Is the conclusion then that we should be living under one set of rules?
I think you need to go back and reread my post. This last paragraph is an example of where you've obviously either misread what I said or have misinterpreted it.
What I originally stated is in RED. How can you conclude from what I posted that I somehow claim that "nobody has any choices of their own"? I clearly stated that one can choose what evidence one will consider AND how one interprets that evidence. Those are clear choices.
Please reread my previous post and I believe you'll come away with a different understanding of what I was saying.
By the way, truth is that which conforms with reality.
Last edited by mensaguy; 12-20-2014 at 03:43 PM..
Reason: Red is reserved for Moderator actions.
Amaznjohn said: Of course one can choose what evidence to consider and how that evidence is interpreted, but the resulting believe is not a choice. I can no more choose to believe in a God than you can choose to not do so.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amaznjohn
I think you need to go back and reread my post. This last paragraph is an example of where you've obviously either misread what I said or have misinterpreted it.
What I originally stated is in RED [Ella Parr changed the red to blue because the Mods ask us not to use red]. How can you conclude from what I posted that I somehow claim that "nobody has any choices of their own"? I clearly stated that one can choose what evidence one will consider AND how one interprets that evidence. Those are clear choices.
Please reread my previous post and I believe you'll come away with a different understanding of what I was saying.
By the way, truth is that which conforms with reality.
Ok. Lets say for the sake of argument that you do think a man has choices. You said, and I quoted so I don't get it wrong.
[Amaznjohn] I clearly stated that one can choose what evidence one will consider AND how one interprets that evidence. Those are clear choices.
So, if a man can choose what evidence he will consider AND choose how he interprets that evidence, those are clear choices. Then he is making choices for himself without a set body of rules determining what he must believe when sifting through the many options he has to make a choice. So, he is taking his own path because he can go to the right or to the left because he has choices for which information to accept. So, now you are saying that a man should take his own path. Let me see here... Yes... yes, that is exactly what I said and you disagreed with me. But now, you agree with me. That's good.
I could never agree that we should live under one set of rules that demanded what we believe.
I'm terribly sorry if I misread or misunderstood the first time around. Thank you for drawing that to my attention. I'm glad that the rest of the post didn't have any misunderstanding and we are on the same page.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amaznjohn
By the way, truth is that which conforms with reality
Of course we are back to defining "truth" and now to defining "reality".
With my own eyes, I have seen the sun rise in the east, travel across the sky, and descend into the west and disappear. I have seen it, you have seen it, everyone with vision has seen it. When I was in Boston, I saw it rise out of the ocean. When I was in San Fran, I saw it drop into the ocean. Every night on the news, they tell me what time it will rise and set. My grandfather and my father and all of my relatives and my teachers at school and in college, and all my friends and acquaintances have said, the sun rises and sets. They write songs about and books and you hear it on TV all the time.
Yet, the sun never moves. Science tells us that.
So, we have 2 truths and 2 realities. You cannot tell me you haven't seen the sun rise, move across the sky and set. I know you have. I have, too. What I saw was a reality and it happened just the way I said I saw it. Science tells us that is not true and they tell us why. Thus, the second reality. Then there is the third reality. The earth is turning, not the sun. Can you feel the earth turning? I can't. I know that it is turning. But, from where I stand, I can't see it or feel it or touch it. Does that mean it really isn't turning at all because I can't see it or feel it or touch it?
If truth conforms to reality, then the sun rises and sets... because that is the reality of what we see with our own two eyes. Any other belief is a leap of faith... in science.
Last edited by Ella Parr; 12-19-2014 at 02:38 AM..
This is the 'How do we know what we know?' Question. It is as inevitable as 'Who made everything, then?',
The argument is that man can really know nothing for sure, so anything could be true. Thus purely Faith -based speculations are as valid as the most rigorous science. I could explain further, but, do I need to?
This is the 'How do we know what we know?' Question. It is as inevitable as 'Who made everything, then?',
The argument is that man can really know nothing for sure, so anything could be true. Thus purely Faith -based speculations are as valid as the most rigorous science. I could explain further, but, do I need to?
Amaznjohn said: Of course one can choose what evidence to consider and how that evidence is interpreted, but the resulting believe is not a choice. I can no more choose to believe in a God than you can choose to not do so.
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Ok. Lets say for the sake of argument that you do think a man has choices. You said, and I quoted so I don't get it wrong.
[Amaznjohn] I clearly stated that one can choose what evidence one will consider AND how one interprets that evidence. Those are clear choices.
So, if a man can choose what evidence he will consider AND choose how he interprets that evidence, those are clear choices. Then he is making choices for himself without a set body of rules determining what he must believe when sifting through the many options he has to make a choice. So, he is taking his own path because he can go to the right or to the left because he has choices for which information to accept. So, now you are saying that a man should take his own path. Let me see here... Yes... yes, that is exactly what I said and you disagreed with me. But now, you agree with me. That's good.
I could never agree that we should live under one set of rules that demanded what we believe.
I'm terribly sorry if I misread or misunderstood the first time around. Thank you for drawing that to my attention. I'm glad that the rest of the post didn't have any misunderstanding and we are on the same page.
Of course we are back to defining "truth" and now to defining "reality".
With my own eyes, I have seen the sun rise in the east, travel across the sky, and descend into the west and disappear. I have seen it, you have seen it, everyone with vision has seen it. When I was in Boston, I saw it rise out of the ocean. When I was in San Fran, I saw it drop into the ocean. Every night on the news, they tell me what time it will rise and set. My grandfather and my father and all of my relatives and my teachers at school and in college, and all my friends and acquaintances have said, the sun rises and sets. They write songs about and books and you hear it on TV all the time.
Yet, the sun never moves. Science tells us that.
So, we have 2 truths and 2 realities. You cannot tell me you haven't seen the sun rise, move across the sky and set. I know you have. I have, too. What I saw was a reality and it happened just the way I said I saw it. Science tells us that is not true and they tell us why. Thus, the second reality. Then there is the third reality. The earth is turning, not the sun. Can you feel the earth turning? I can't. I know that it is turning. But, from where I stand, I can't see it or feel it or touch it. Does that mean it really isn't turning at all because I can't see it or feel it or touch it?
If truth conforms to reality, then the sun rises and sets... because that is the reality of what we see with our own two eyes. Any other belief is a leap of faith... in science.
I don't know that I can continue my discussion with you if you continually demonstrate an inability to understand my statement and continue to manipulate them into something they are not. For example, you somehow equated my statement that one CAN choose what evidence one considers with my advocacy that one SHOULD choose what evidence one considers (which you mischaracterized as one's "path"). We DO NOT agree because I don't think we should encourage others to "find their own paths" regardless of the outcome and the ramifications for others. We should encourage everyone to objectively evaluate all relevant, demonstrable evidence and make their conclusions based solely on this criteria. If their conclusions result in a dangerous, dogmatic belief then we must encourage a reevaluation while preventing the spread of the destructive belief.
Your analogy of the sun rising and setting as evidence of multiple realities is nonsensical IMO. Rising and setting are only metaphors and in no way describes the relationship between us and the sun. Reality is what can be observed, demonstrated, and predicted, that the Earth rotates on its axis causing the sun to SEEM to rise and set. What seems to be the case is not necessarily reality. You might see David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, but that is not reality because you nor he can demonstrate that this is what happened, much like you cannot demonstrate that the sun rises or sets as you described it happening.
Though we cannot feel the Earth move, we can observe it from other perspectives and demonstrate that it does, verifying that the movement of the Earth is as much a reality as can be determined.
I don't know that I can continue my discussion with you if you continually demonstrate an inability to understand my statement and continue to manipulate them into something they are not. For example, you somehow equated my statement that one CAN choose what evidence one considers with my advocacy that one SHOULD choose what evidence one considers (which you mischaracterized as one's "path"). We DO NOT agree because I don't think we should encourage others to "find their own paths" regardless of the outcome and the ramifications for others. We should encourage everyone to objectively evaluate all relevant, demonstrable evidence and make their conclusions based solely on this criteria. If their conclusions result in a dangerous, dogmatic belief then we must encourage a reevaluation while preventing the spread of the destructive belief.
Your analogy of the sun rising and setting as evidence of multiple realities is nonsensical IMO. Rising and setting are only metaphors and in no way describes the relationship between us and the sun. Reality is what can be observed, demonstrated, and predicted, that the Earth rotates on its axis causing the sun to SEEM to rise and set. What seems to be the case is not necessarily reality. You might see David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, but that is not reality because you nor he can demonstrate that this is what happened, much like you cannot demonstrate that the sun rises or sets as you described it happening.
Though we cannot feel the Earth move, we can observe it from other perspectives and demonstrate that it does, verifying that the movement of the Earth is as much a reality as can be determined.
Irritating, isn't it? I've been rattling your cage, Amaznjohn. I was a little bent out of shape the night I answered your snippy post to me. I try not to be that way. My whole entire first post was using your statements to show you how you sound and how stupid I think your conclusions and your actions here are. Obviously, you didn't pick up on any of that. You are not a bit different than the Fundamentalists here who can't take their blinders off either. You just continue to beat the same dead horse. I was really surprised that you didn't challenge anything but the last paragraph. Never fear, Amaznjohn, I do so understand your statements-- esp. when they make a modicum of sense.
You are not making sound, logical arguments, you are just the opposite side of the Fundamentalists coin. You say a person should not walk his own path and you say that people should not live under a set of rules that decides their thinking. What is the alternative? You say that making one's own choices, calculated guesses, preferences, or decisions in this life is not taking one's own "path" (road, way, direction). Well, what is it then? There are a lot of crossroads in this life. Each makes decisions everyday about which path ( road, way, direction) he/she will go. It is just plain stupid to say that people don't choose which way to turn on their journey through life. I guess now you are going to tell the reason for this is because they are not following scientific method.
Your "science is the be all/end all" and "nothing exists with out scientific proof" is just totally insane. There are tangibles and intangibles in this world. Scientific method was created for those tangible things. There is no scientific method for intangibles. You can't prove or disprove love, hate, greed, envy and all the rest with scientific method. There is no such test. Even science will tell you that.
You have come into a forum where the topic is an intangible. You keep harping on the reason God cannot exist is because science can't prove it. God may not exist, but you can't prove or disprove it with scientific method. So, quit saying you can or you are just like the fundamentalists. The earth is a tangible and scientific method can prove how old it is. Absolutely everybody, but the Fundamentalists, agree that scientific method is the proper way to prove how old it is. Scientific method is not the way to prove an intangible - any intangible, all of the intangibles. I am very familiar with scientific method and I dealt with it a lot in college. It is not designed to deal with intangibles. So, quit saying it is.
I should have just said this instead of my former post. I am sorry. I had a melt down. Obviously, you didn't get my point. You cannot compare apples and oranges. You cannot compare tangibles with untangibles. They are totally different.
Last edited by Ella Parr; 12-19-2014 at 02:27 PM..
Uhhhh I do hope that doesn't mean that you think "purely Faith -based speculations are as valid as the most rigorous science"?
If you do, please say, I shall explain why they are not.
Arq, you'll have to excuse me. I'll be more specific. I assumed that you had gotten my point. Sorry. Then you can fuss if you disagree.
My point to Amaznjohn was that there are 2 totally different elements at work here. There are the tangible things and the intangible things. Scientific method was created for the tangible things in this world and The intangibles are faith based. I don't mean faith as in religious faith, I mean faith as in belief, trust, opinion, or assessment of the situation, collecting the information that you can; conclusions, etc.
For example, a good parent teaches his child to cross the road safely. After a time and factoring in the child's age etc., you have faith (belief, trust, are of the opinion that, or from your assessment of) that your child will not try to cross the road into oncoming traffic. You have to come to this conclusion (and it is only a conclusion) based on what you know about your child or the teaching you have given him or what you discern or what you feel. Everyone has to do it or you wouldn't be able to let your child out of the house ever. There is no science or scientific method that can do this for you. In this situation, you have only faith that you have come to the right conclusion and are making the right choice. Sadly, your child's life may depend on your conclusions.
I use this example because a woman I know did NOT want her son to cross the street. She rationalized that if she didn't teach him to cross the street, he never would think of it on his own. When he was 10, he went to his cousin's house. The cousin, used to crossing the street, crossed without hazard. The other boy, not knowing how to cross the street, darted out into the street and got hit by a car. Luckily, he didn't die.
These intangibles fill our lives. There is no science or scientific method to tell us about these intangibles. We have every day decisions to make. We have love, and hate, and greed, and envy (etc.) in this world that science cannot explain. We have to deal with all of these things based on the faith that our own conclusions are right.
So, yes I believe science and faith-based conclusions carry equal weight in their respective circumstances.
Last edited by Ella Parr; 12-19-2014 at 03:40 PM..
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I do hope that doesn't mean that you think "purely Faith -based speculations are as valid as the most rigorous science"?
