The Problem with Science as a Substitute

[nereas]

I have faith. I have faith that the sun will rise every morning. I have faith that my car will start and take me where I need to go. I have faith that the roads I am driving on are safe. I have faith that the other drivers on the road are going to drive safely, not always true.

Faith is not about religion or God, faith is about believing something that you cannot necessarily prove. To have faith you must first realize that what you are choosing to believe may not be the truth. Otherwise this is known as blind faith and will lead you to your death.

Who ever said that Atheists claim science as their religion? I am an atheist and I spend much more time thinking about how well my business is doing or being concerned about the problems in my life than I do about physics or biology. I do not feel God, I do not see God's work, therefore I have no reason to believe he is there. I know people like to say "You can't see air," No, I can't but I can breath it in and feel it when I turn on my air conditioner.

Your comments are vaguely in the realm of philosophy, regarding perception of the senses and also inductive reasoning. That which you see every day you induce logically that it will recur the next day as well. This has nothing to do with faith. It is simply inductive reasoning.

If you will go to your local Barnes & Noble, and find a book on elementary philosophy, that will help you to understand better. But for now, you are outside of both realms of science and of religion.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thal, you don't need to be embarrased that you did not graduate from college.

You're quite right, I don't need to be embarrassed that I did not graduate from college. Had I not graduated I might have been.

It's just a pity that you did not get to take advanced college chemistry and learn about the technical weaknesses in the assumptions around carbon dating.

To the point, I did the entire majors' chemistry series at U.C. Berkeley and then a graduate course in Chemical Oceanography that include an section on ¹⁴C techniques and such.

It is really a shame that your education was wasted on arts and crafts, you might have been able to make a meaningful contribution.

 

[Warthaug]

You're quite right, I don't need to be embarrassed that I did not graduate from college. Had I not graduated I might have been.
To the point, I did the entire majors' chemistry series at U.C. Berkeley and then a graduate course in Chemical Oceanography that include an section on ¹⁴C techniques and such.

Ahh, classical Nereas. Cannot argue with facts, so he falls back to the good ol ridicule. He knowns he's an uneducated bum, who's grasp of science is non-existent. So he tries to drag you down to the same level as himself.

His next step - he'll add you to his ignore list.

It is really a shame that your education was wasted on arts and crafts, you might have been able to make a meaningful contribution.

I doubt he has even those credentials...

I don't know if you saw this in last weeks edition of nature. An interesting letter to the editor!

Atheism could be science's contribution to religion. Matthew Cobb & Jerry Coyne. Nature, Vol454, p1049.

We were perplexed by your Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation ('Templeton's legacy' Nature 454, 253-254; 2008). Surely science is about finding material explanations of the world -- explanations that can inspire those spooky feelings of awe, wonder and reverence in the hyper-evolved human brain.

Religion, on the other hand, is about humans thinking that awe, wonder and reverence are the clue to understanding a God-built Universe. (The same is true of religion's poor cousin, 'spirituality', which you slip into your Editorial rather as a creationist uses 'intelligent design'.) There is a fundamental conflict here, one that can never be reconciled until all religions cease making claims about the nature of reality.

The scientific study of religion is indeed full of big questions that need to be addressed, such as why belief in religion is negatively correlated with an acceptance of evolution. One could consider psychological studies of why humans are superstitious and believe impossible things, and comparative sociological studies of religion using materialist explanations of the rise and fall of the world's belief systems.

Perhaps the Templeton Foundation is thinking of funding such research. The outcome of such work, we predict, will not bring science and religion (or 'spirituality') any closer to one another. You suggest that science may bring about "advances in theological thinking". In reality, the only contribution that science can make to the ideas of religion is atheism.

Bryan

 

[nereas]

You're quite right, I don't need to be embarrassed that I did not graduate from college. Had I not graduated I might have been.
To the point, I did the entire majors' chemistry series at U.C. Berkeley and then a graduate course in Chemical Oceanography that include an section on ¹⁴C techniques and such.

It is really a shame that your education was wasted on arts and crafts, you might have been able to make a meaningful contribution.

Then I am surprised that you have forgotten all about the inherent assumptions of carbon dating, because any college curriculum in advanced chemistry is going to hammer on that, and its on the final exam as well.

Maybe you are just getting old? And your memory is gone, dear old friend??

 

[Thalassamania]

Then I am surprised that you have forgotten all about the inherent assumptions of carbon dating, because any college curriculum in advanced chemistry is going to hammer on that, and its on the final exam as well.

Maybe you are just getting old? And your memory is gone, dear old friend??

Just what assumptions are you assuming that I have forgotten? The ones hat you discovered on wiki or is there a special Nearas correction that we don't know about?

 

[Sas]

Then I am surprised that you have forgotten all about the inherent assumptions of carbon dating, because any college curriculum in advanced chemistry is going to hammer on that, and its on the final exam as well.

Maybe you are just getting old? And your memory is gone, dear old friend??

I'd like to hear about these assumptions you are talking about nearas?

 

[Thalassamania]

I'd like to hear about these assumptions you are talking about nearas?

More than he knows about radiometric dating with carbon-14 can be found here: [wiki]Radiocarbon dating[/wiki]

 

[AXL72]

I think this thread should be closed.

 

[nereas]

Thal, you either paid attention in advanced college chemistry or you did not.

Either way, I am not paid to be your professor. You could not afford it.

 

[nereas]

I think this thread should be closed.

Go away! Scat! Scram!

Go play in traffic, without a car.