 |
| |
|
|
korn469
|
 |
Poetic Justic
Apr 1999
time: 00:30
|
|
Ben Kenobi (did you used to be obiwan18?)
i don't understand this need to turn christianity into a pseudo science, and i think it goes against the doctrine laid out in the bible
look at romans chapter 9
quote:
32 Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame."
|
you aren't going to prove god through ID or othersuch nonsence, it is a matter of faith according to the bible, and for me I have nothing that inspires that faith in me
that being said though, i think that people have a spiritual component and need to have their spiritual needs met to be a happy and healthy person, though people can go about that in a multitude of ways
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Jon Miller
|
|
I think you and I have different deffinitions of natural.
Note that at one time all sorts of things like lightning and the like were supernatural.
What seems to be a reasonable deffinition of natural to me, is that part of reality which we have the technology and mathematics to investigate. This is also what you are asking for when you ask for a repeated measurement or observable.
Note that ideas like probability wave or even electrons would seem supernatural to people of long ago.
You are on this site so you have probably read a fantasy book or two. In many of them, magic (and things relating to the gods) are most deffinitely natural events and occurances since they can be probed by science (I don't hink Tolkien's can, but a lot that I have read can be). I know you play some DnD, in that system magic is most deffinitely natural, not supernatural.
Your tape recorder experiment would just be a first step (like Franklin's experiments with lightning) towards making something that was supernatural, a natural phenomenum.
I personally feel that my deffinition of natural, that which can be studied and probed by science, is a better one than yours, since your deffinition does not hold for all time.
Jon Miller
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Lincoln
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by korn469
Ben Kenobi (did you used to be obiwan18?)
i don't understand this need to turn christianity into a pseudo science, and i think it goes against the doctrine laid out in the bible
look at romans chapter 9
you aren't going to prove god through ID or othersuch nonsence, it is a matter of faith according to the bible, and for me I have nothing that inspires that faith in me
that being said though, i think that people have a spiritual component and need to have their spiritual needs met to be a happy and healthy person, though people can go about that in a multitude of ways |
It is true that the knowledge of God according to the Bible is brought forth by relelation. In other words the initial move is made by God and not man. That is in fact the foundation of Christianity. But on the other hand there is a general knowledge available to all as to the reality of a supreme being:
Rom:1:20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made...
There are millions of people who are of no particular religion but still realize that a God of some type exists. They apparently see the evidence differently than do atheists.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Jon Miller
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Repeatability and consistency are necessary but not sufficient conditions of what makes something natural (as opposed to supernatural). |
are you going to provide any counter arguments?
I put forward that what is considered supernatural is based upon our understandings at the time and repeatedly taht which would be considered supernatural in the past is natural now as it becomes science. I see no reason why this would not continue to be the case.
Jon Miller
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Lincoln
|
|
Before we continue with this debate we should lay out a few basic rules of science:
A Concise Guide
to Understanding
Evolutionary Theory
You can observe a lot by just watching.
– Yogi Berra
First Law of Scientific Progress
The advance of science can be measured by the rate at which exceptions to previously held laws accumulate.
Corollaries:
1. Exceptions always outnumber rules.
2. There are always exceptions to established exceptions.
3. By the time one masters the exceptions, no one recalls the rules to which they apply.
Darwin’s Law:
Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.
Bloch’s Extension:
So will Darwinists.
Finagle’s Creed:
Science is true. Don’t be misled by facts.
Finagle’s 2nd Law:
No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory.
Finagle’s Rules:
3. Draw your curves, then plot your data.
4. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
6. Do not believe in miracles – rely on them.
Murphy’s Law of Research:
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Maier’s Law:
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
Corollaries:
1. The bigger the theory, the better.
2. The experiments may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory.
Eddington’s Theory:
The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.
Young’s Law:
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
Corollary:
The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
Peer’s Law:
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.
Peter’s Law of Evolution:
Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.
Weinberg’s Corollary:
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Souder’s Law:
Repetition does not establish validity.
Cohen’s Law:
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts – not the facts themselves.
Harrison’s Postulate:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Thumb’s Second Postulate:
An easily-understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex, incomprehensible truth.
Ruckert’s Law:
There is nothing so small that it can’t be blown out of proportion
Hawkins’ Theory of Progress:
Progress does not consist in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong.
Macbeth’s Law:
The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory.
Disraeli’s Dictum:
Error is often more earnest than truth.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Spiffor
|
 |
CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:30
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Lincoln
Finagle’s Rules:
3. Draw your curves, then plot your data. |
Well, Duh.
The very core of scientific method is to think of a theory first, ad to confront the facts to see if the theory is true or not.
quote:
Murphy’s Law of Research:
Enough research will tend to support your theory. |
Wrong. When empirical data doesn't support the theory, the theory is considered falsified. Its author has either to drop it, to change it according to the new findings, or to turn it from an absolute law to a quasi-law (i.e instead of saying "a --> b", he has to say "a --> greater likeliness of B to happen")
quote:
Corollaries:
1. The bigger the theory, the better. |
Of course. A theory is more likely to be true if it has precise conditions, which eat much paper. For example, a theory stating "if you drop an object, it falls" is easily falsifiable because it isn't precise enough. For example, it is false when the object is already on the ground when you "drop" it, it is wrong in non-gravity circumstances etc.
quote:
Eddington’s Theory:
The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge. |
Duh again.
When knowledge progresses, wrong theories get discarded, this is obvious. Until knowledge is reached, scientists do try-and-fail with their thoeries, until they find out.
quote:
Thumb’s Second Postulate:
An easily-understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex, incomprehensible truth. |
The endeavour of science is to model the complex reality into something fathomable. That's why we have measuring tools, that's why we have models etc. They are not the "truth", but they are our description of "truth" so that we can understand it.
quote:
Ruckert’s Law:
There is nothing so small that it can’t be blown out of proportion |
I'll keep that in mind when Rumsfeld will discover the HUGEOMGOMG piles of Saddam's WMD 
quote:
Hawkins’ Theory of Progress:
Progress does not consist in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong. |
Absolutely. Since we can't grasp the too-complex "truth", we need the subtlest simplifications of it, as they'll be closest to the "truth"
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lincoln
|
|
The rules were a joke Spiffor...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lincoln
|
|
I like Ruckert's law:
"There is nothing so small that it can’t be blown out of proportion "
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lincoln
|
|
Yea, we do have a tendency to follow Ruckert's law here.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Starchild
|
 |
a raving alcoholic drama queen with a penchant for the biosciences
Jan 1970
time: 00:30
|
|
Everytime Lincoln posts that essay of his I just gotta dig out my own response I wrote years back. It's especially cool when Che replies with a big thumbs up. That makes my heart will with light and sugar.
Meditations from the Crystal Garden
Written : Sometime ago. 1999?
Now, this is not meant to be a direct attack against anyone or their beliefs, but the exploration of a thought that's been dawning on me for the past few hours.
I read Lincoln's THE EVANGELICAL ATHEIST last night, the second time I'd seen and read it since it was first posted. Like the first time I read it, it rubbed me the wrong way but I couldn't put my finger on how or why it did. I left the thread to find something else to read, as I'm too much of a moderate, worship-whatever-you-please atheist to stomach the "holier than thou/we're right your wrong" attitude displayed by both sides on occassion.
It was a pity that Lincoln's essay got cut off, as it's a good piece of writing. Especially the idea of an all consuming pursuit and worship of nothingness. That complete devotion to oblivion stuck in my mind.
Anyway, I'm wandering a bit. After I had exited the thread, my best friend came on ICQ and we started talking. The conversation turned into a debate about religion, one of the few areas were our opinions differ. I was arguing on behalf of science while he took the side of religion and God. Around midnight, the debate focused on the beauty of a poem. "How does science explain the beauty in a poem?" he asked. As I admitted, it could not. Science is amoral, able to tell us the most likely reason why something is the way it is, but cannot tell us if that thing is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. There was a glaring void, where science could not tread. "That," he said, "Is where God is."
I kept asking him though, "Why must God be there?" I was not happy with a void being there, but I could live with an unfilled vacuum. Alas, it got too late for us to continue and he logged off, followed by myself. As I drifted off to sleep, the void filled itself for me.
Lincoln's Ungod is a void. A vast expanse of nothingness. However, I know that I personally do not devote my time to the pursuit of nothing. Science cannot explain beauty or art or kindness. It can offer reasons for those things, but it can't explain them fully. There are places where science stumbles, falters, and has to admit it's shortcomings. In those places, my friend saw God. I realized I saw something else. I saw humanity.
Atheism, to me at least, is not about the pursuit of nothingness and extending the void. It is about people, all six billion of them crowded onto this world. With no God or gods, it falls down to us to strive to be better than what we currently are. I have to believe, if that is the right word to use, that the vast majority are honestly and truly good inside. That our species is nobler and kinder than we seem to be.
We are a flawed species, with half a dozen wars for each peace treaty and the cries of the innocent for each symphony. We have many, many shortcomings that are our responsibility. We are to blame for every atrocity, every injustice.
Yet this also means that every achievement, every thing of beauty that we've ever made, is our's and our's alone.
So thank you Lincoln, for your part in helping further my personal belief system.
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:30.
Apolyton Time is 00:30. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
11-09-2003 08:54
@ Starchild
I think most people are pretty much out for themselves.
|