Predict the 1st Banning for uncivil behavior in the new Religious Threads...

[Kutnupe14]

If I tell you I buried my dead cat, and several days later it dug itself out of the grave you would be skeptical...no? There is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe the cat wasn't really dead, maybe I was lying. The idea that the cat actually came back from the dead and crawled out of the grave is, well...ridiculous. You would expect me to produce some pretty convincing evidence before you believed my story, right?

Now imagine I told you the cat was not only still alive, but invisible, can read your mind, and would torture you literally forever if you choose not to believe my incredible story? Would that make it any more palatable to you?

Well, the Bible makes some pretty ridiculous claims, and I feel I'm being quite "civil" in asking for sufficient evidence to support these extraordinary claims. Especially since people want to legislate the "inerrant word" of your particular resurrected cat into laws that affect my particular daily life.

If I told you I owned a field, and one day a 3 bedroom house popped up, and each subsequent day the house gained a room and was increasing in size, you'd be skeptical too. There could be a perfectly acceptable explanation, like maybe rouge carpenters are building the house when no one is around, right? The idea of a house popping out of thin air, and growing in ever increasing size, is ridiculous is it not?

Now imagine that this house isn't just growing but the speed it grows is increasing too. I then tell you that I haven't actually observed this, because the house is far to large for me to be at any particular end of it to gauge the speed of growth. However, I come up with some math problems that explain how it's happening, and you have to accept it because.... well, math.

Why is one story more believable than the other?

Kut (expands the discussion)

 

[jamil]

If I told you I owned a field, and one day a 3 bedroom house popped up, and each subsequent day the house gained a room and was increasing in size, you'd be skeptical too. There could be a perfectly acceptable explanation, like maybe rouge carpenters are building the house when no one is around, right? The idea of a house popping out of thin air, and growing in ever increasing size, is ridiculous is it not?

Now imagine that this house isn't just growing but the speed it grows is increasing too. I then tell you that I haven't actually observed this, because the house is far to large for me to be at any particular end of it to gauge the speed of growth. However, I come up with some math problems that explain how it's happening, and you have to accept it because.... well, math.

Why is one story more believable than the other?

Kut (expands the discussion)

Well, we're all internet mathematicians, right?

 

[D-Ric902]

*sneakin a peek*

We OK here?

 

[D-Ric902]

Well, we're all internet mathematicians, right?

(Funny, I hear laughter from above)

I remember something about His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than ours

 

[BugI02]

If I told you I owned a field, and one day a 3 bedroom house popped up, and each subsequent day the house gained a room and was increasing in size, you'd be skeptical too. There could be a perfectly acceptable explanation, like maybe rouge carpenters are building the house when no one is around, right? The idea of a house popping out of thin air, and growing in ever increasing size, is ridiculous is it not?

Now imagine that this house isn't just growing but the speed it grows is increasing too. I then tell you that I haven't actually observed this, because the house is far to large for me to be at any particular end of it to gauge the speed of growth. However, I come up with some math problems that explain how it's happening, and you have to accept it because.... well, math.

Why is one story more believable than the other?

Kut (expands the discussion)

I reiterate: "I can't observe electrons quantum tunneling, but I can observe real world effects that lead to concluding such tunneling is the best fit answer until something better comes along. If I contrive to observe the process in greater detail I may see something that causes me to re-evaluate/reformulate my ideas. The new idea if verified and accepted by peer review will STILL be the best fit answer to the question." substitute 'ever expanding self-building house' for quantam tunneling. I accept the ideas because they are the best fit explaination of real world observations.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Give it long enough Kut and someone will walk out of that house and call you a homophobe.

 

[BugI02]

And I re re-iterate:"I'm not sure why some are so focused on 'science can't prove [ insert scientific assertion you disapprove of/disagree with here ]. If you are so sure a given premise is wrong, you have only to prove your assumption scientifically (see what I did there) and the scientific lion will lie down at your feet. Invoking here a miracle happens​ isn't going to cut it." And your task is easy, you need only come up with an observation, reproduceable by others, that contradicts said scientific assertion.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

And I re re-iterate:"I'm not sure why some are so focused on 'science can't prove [ insert scientific assertion you disapprove of/disagree with here ]. If you are so sure a given premise is wrong, you have only to prove your assumption scientifically (see what I did there) and the scientific lion will lie down at your feet. Invoking here a miracle happens​ isn't going to cut it." And your task is easy, you need only come up with an observation, reproduceable by others, that contradicts said scientific assertion.

This has already been layed to rest. Science is observable, measurable, and repeatable. History is none of those things.

 

[Roadie]

"According to quantum mechanics, what we can observe about the world is only a tiny subset of what actually exists."

 

[BugI02]

This has already been layed to rest. Science is observable, measurable, and repeatable. History is none of those things.

Agreed, but the thrust of the questioning I'm responding is of the model I reiterated. Its people saying where did all the matter in the universe come from. and when you tell them they say you can't prove that since you can't observe it. But I can observe particles 'condensing' out of dense energy fluxes all day everyday in accelerators all over the world. If it works in the lab, it will work in the universe at large. It gives an observable, repeatable reason to believe the larger premise. At no time have I attempted to refute the word and I am a believer myself, as I have stated elsewhere in this thread. But a gratuitous attack on science because it doesn't have all the answers at any given moment I find hard to countenance

 

[MisterChester]

 

[churchmouse]

Move over...........pass the corn please.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

 

[eric001]

I once heard somewhere that according to this "science" thing, the very act of observing something changes that something.

Hhhhmmmm...

I also once heard according to a certain "religion" type thing that God is everywhere and thus would be observing everything all the time.




Sadly, I didn't quickly find a 'can of worms' smiley...but I'm pretty sure that those two things put together deserve one.

 

[eric001]

Also sadly, my mental batteries are needing a recharge. Be back sometime tomorrow to see what y'all think about the prior post.

My parting thought is that this universe and of course its beginning and ending (plural here???) are way more than science can presently explain with complete certainty. I certainly don't feel bad about this, as science is only really a few centuries old. We have to know enough to ask the right questions before we can try to meaningfully answer them--and I'm not convinced that science has yet matured enough to ask all the right questions. On the other hand, the world would be insufferably boring without a whole bunch of people asking a whole bunch of questions looking for better and better answers.

 

[BugI02]

Bonum Nocte

 

[churchmouse]

Bonum Nocte

Am i going to have to Google that...........

 

[Kutnupe14]

I reiterate: "I can't observe electrons quantum tunneling, but I can observe real world effects that lead to concluding such tunneling is the best fit answer until something better comes along. If I contrive to observe the process in greater detail I may see something that causes me to re-evaluate/reformulate my ideas. The new idea if verified and accepted by peer review will STILL be the best fit answer to the question." substitute 'ever expanding self-building house' for quantam tunneling. I accept the ideas because they are the best fit explaination of real world observations.

Here's another way of looking at it. The Old Testament predates modern science by a fair bit right? And yet, the creation story, follows essentially the exact same path that modern science tells us how the earth and all life on it came into being. How could a relatively uneducated populace come up with a series of events that mirrors subsequent scientific findings so closely?

 

[poptab]

Good night?

 

[hoosierdoc]

Can you give a few examples? I'm interested.

Here's another way of looking at it. The Old Testament predates modern science by a fair bit right? And yet, the creation story, follows essentially the exact same path that modern science tells us how the earth and all life on it came into being. How could a relatively uneducated populace come up with a series of events that mirrors subsequent scientific findings so closely?