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Barbo wrote:
I personally think string thoery is a 6 dimensional mound of feces. Mutlidimensional manifolds at each point in space just so the numbers work out doesn't really bode well with us experimentalists. ....the craziest thing about physics is that there is still debate about how ice skaters can actually skate on ice.

You are of course describing the top problem traditonal physicists have with quantuum mechanics. That is, physics is an observable, experimental science, whereas quantuum physics are mostly mathematical theories with little observable experiments.

Yet if traditional physics still can't explain an easily observable phenomena such as ice skating, who's to say the quantuum theorists are a mound of feces?

I personally enjoy the ideas of reality that quantuum physics describes. If they turn out to be correct, we live in an incredibly fascinating universe.

disco suicide wrote:

Anyway, as much as I feel that the Abrahamic religions have fucked things up in our world,

Hasn't science fucked up the world as well?

Example: Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Greenhouse effect. Et cetera. All in the name of rational progress, right?

Not science but the misapplication of that science. You can't blame "science" for what people do with it. You need to blame those people. Just like you can't blame "religion" but instead the people who twist that religion to pursue their own bigoted and often violent agenda.

There is no evidence for matters of faith, and that is why they remain matters of faith. It isn't that I haven't seen the evidence myself, it's that it doesn't exist.

Isn't the fact that something like, well, we'll say more than 1 million people have what they describe as faith in a higher power, that there is evidence of faith? This faith is proven by their actions towards their faith. For instance the Buddhist monks who lit themselves on fire without screaming or giving anykind of signs of pain. That was their faith. Whether it can be quantified, observed, or qualified is a matter of trying to find evidence of God that doesn't exist.

If there was a God who asked that all you have to do is choose to have faith in order to receive His blessing and reward, do you think He would just give it to everyone? Irreputable scientific evidence of God's existence would in essence take away our right to freewill. Evidence for the existence of God would drastically change our freedoms and rights and then you would have to have faith in that observation.

Completely Hypothetical question:

If science proved the existence of God, would you believe in science?

Not science but the misapplication of that science. You can't blame "science" for what people do with it. You need to blame those people. Just like you can't blame "religion" but instead the people who twist that religion to pursue their own bigoted and often violent agenda.

True.

disco suicide wrote:Isn't the fact that something like, well, we'll say more than 1 million people have what they describe as faith in a higher power, that there is evidence of faith?

I do not doubt that there are people who have religious faith. That is what all those more than one million prove: That there are faithful people.

The matters of faith: There is an omnipotent God, he loves us, he wishes us well, he created everything... Those are matters of faith for which there is no evidence, and cannot be. That is why they are the dominion of faith. I have no need for such things, and I do not choose to believe in them. Nor ghosts, nor astrology, nor sentient earth goddess, nor reincarnation... All matters of faith because there can be no testable evidence for them.

dbl-post

I do not doubt that there are people who have religious faith. That is what all those more than one million prove: That there are faithful people.

Ah, fair enough.

While I do believe what I choose to believe, as I progress through college and take science classes, I have at times had serious doubts as to the existence of the Christian God, but due to a number of what appear like more than coincidences to me, I have come to believe that there is a higher power, and due to a lack of a more comprehensive spiritual education, I choose to believe in that which I have become most familiar with. While Christians for the most part are dubious of people who call themselves atheist or agnostic, I can appreciate this honesty and courage. I can see the arrogance of a person who says 'I know' there is a God, even though he's never seen one. There is also arrogance in someone who says 'There is no God'.

If a person says 'I don't know if there is a God', I can find that to be understandable, this at least shows that that person is willing to admit that it is beyond him.

I do believe in ghosts although I do not try to coerce others into believing in ghosts or psychic residue(in this I mean that emotions and human thought are a form of energy which no matter how nominal; they do exist. I don't find it completely implausible that when a person sees a ghost they are merely witnessing the residual effects of an intense emotional reaction that occurred in a place), however you view it, I don't think it is without its merits. You may say, 'but science has not found any evidence of these things'. Perhaps there is no scientific way to detect the spirit or anything not within the realm of science.

All matters of faith because there can be no testable evidence for them.

Just as the human body only has five senses available to it, the science community as a whole and throughout time constitutes a body of knowledge, information, and evidence that can only be detected with this scientific bodies' "five senses" so to speak. As I'm sure you are aware there are many things that the human bodies five senses cannot detect as well as many things in which our senses do detect giving us evidence of our surrounding. This may seem like an odious comparison, but are not scientists, science, and all things science an extension of man's curiousity which in itself is an aspect of humanity and its five senses. Science is also limited in its understanding of the universe, and so to put your entire confidence in something that is so tenuous and questionable shows a lot of faith in humankind.

(A little fascinating factoid: Readers may already know this from the movie with the title that relates to the fact that when a person dies, they weigh 21 grams less than they did when they were alive. Some would say that this is the soul leaving the body. I'm not sure what the scientific explanation for this is. I would like to know.)

While I do not find it appropriate to attack or try to coerce someone into seeing things the way I do, I will defend my beliefs when I feel they are being misrepresented and explain why I believe what I do as it pertains to the circumstances. Of course, in order for me to truly convince you, then you would need faith.

disco suicide wrote: Perhaps there is no scientific way to detect the spirit or anything not within the realm of science.

Science -- or rather reason and observation -- are the tools for understanding the natural world. If you want to convince me there is something I cannot encounter in the natural world I inhabit, you are welcome to try, and I am open to learning about it. So far everything I have heard about a world beyond the natural one has been pure bullshit, and I don't expect your arguments to be significantly different.

Of course it is possible there is a supernatural world. That is no reason to jump to the conclusion that there is one. In fact, it has resisted being discovered so consistently that it is safe to presume that it doesn't exist, since there is no evidence that it does.

(A little fascinating factoid: Readers may already know this from the movie with the title that relates to the fact that when a person dies, they weigh 21 grams less than they did when they were alive. Some would say that this is the soul leaving the body. I'm not sure what the scientific explanation for this is. I would like to know.)

The weight of a lungful of air.

While I do not find it appropriate to attack or try to coerce someone into seeing things the way I do, I will defend my beliefs when I feel they are being misrepresented and explain why I believe what I do as it pertains to the circumstances. Of course, in order for me to truly convince you, then you would need faith.

Yes, I suppose if I already believed in this nonsense, you could convince me to believe in it pretty easily.

Of course it is possible there is a supernatural world.

totally

That is no reason to jump to the conclusion that there is one. In fact, it has resisted being discovered so consistently that it is safe to presume that it doesn't exist, since there is no evidence that it does.

but isn't that jumping to a conclusion? as if we have gotten to the point where we've seen all there is (and perhaps always has been) on this earth, or reached the end of understanding. i think without the persistant and totally unsubstantiated hunch a lot of our truths may have been overlooked. i sort of like that whole idea of faerie (at risk of sounding exponentially lame), as written about by tolkien. it's there, here, at the same time as everything else, the world exists scientifically, but only if you make room to see it. or, what about ghosts and ghost detection? what's up with that? i'm not trying to make a point i just don't understand (no, i do understand but can't second) how folks can actually BE so human-scientific.

kenoki wrote:

Of course it is possible there is a supernatural world.

totally

That is no reason to jump to the conclusion that there is one. In fact, it has resisted being discovered so consistently that it is safe to presume that it doesn't exist, since there is no evidence that it does.

but isn't that jumping to a conclusion?

No, it's arriving at that conclusion after numerous experiments and observations offer no evidence that a supernatural world exists.

kenoki wrote:

That is no reason to jump to the conclusion that there is one. In fact, it has resisted being discovered so consistently that it is safe to presume that it doesn't exist, since there is no evidence that it does.

but isn't that jumping to a conclusion?

No. It is avoiding thinking paradoxically. If there is no evidence of a supernatural world (there isn't) then it is foolish to assume that there is one. Not doing so is to avoid jumping to a ridiculous conclusion which is contra-indicated by the evidence.

I see no dead body, nor any other evidence that a murder has been committed here. I would be foolish to assume there has been a murder and spend my energy trying to figure out why the murder is undetectable. It is more reasonable to avoid presuming the occurrence of a murder if there is no evidence for one.