The fact that there are people who are educated in both disciplines simultaneously proves that the two are not mutually exclusive. By definition. I don’t know how much clearer I can make that.
I think you’d be surprised at how many scientists with religious faiths use science in an attempt to prove a god exists. Buy Richard Dawkin’s ‘The God Delusion’ for a comprehensive look at that.
Sure they can both be believed, but they can’t both be RIGHT. They are mutually exclusive in the fact that they can’t both be right.
The problem with this is they didn’t discover religion using the scientific method. They started with the assumption that they were right. This causes strong bias and causes them to throw their training to the wind every time it contradicts their stubborn belief.
None of that is really part of the debate ( amongst reasonable circles ). Evolution is proven. We’ve witnessed it. It’s getting to be very hard to deny our evolved roots, given the evidence. Though not without unproven or theorized patches, it’s getting to be evident that we are evolved creatures as well.
The debate of religion is that it can be argued that it’s symbolic, and intangible. It’s difficult to debate this because of the cyclic arguments they perpetuate. Because of our unique perspectives, and lack of ‘hive conscientiousness’ we cannot debate someones personal views, or feelings.
It’s impossible for us as humans. The best that we can do is use tangible evidence and shared perceptual accepted items, and debate the evidence we have to describe it, and it’s function.
Pretty wordy, but I think I can get what your saying, and by using your logic, I can point out that emotion is not a valid argument and thus an argument based off faith is invalid.
EDIT: also like to add that the reason I was putting all that was not to necessarily prove evolution but to show that there was no faith in my beliefs.
Salvation is in fact contingent upon faith. I don’t know any other option. Again this is not your faith but faith given to you, you can’t have faith unless God gives it to you.
They try to find evidence of this in a natural world.
God is a supernatural being, and true as far as we know you cant do a test on natural things and have a supernatural outcome. There’s no litmus test for God. You won’t find God doing natural tests, but you will find indications of God and evidences of God’s handiwork.
My point was that you don’t assume God and conclude something else. You look at the evidence, a complex organism perhaps, and conclude that such an organism could not evolved through natural processes because information can not arise form natural events. This gives evidence for God, you don’t start with God as the assumption.
The problem is that we don’t know everything about the world, and this isn’t conclusive. As far as we know currently, the only reasonable explanation for how information could arise is through a supernatural force. Chance can’t create meaning. Meaning comes through intention and design only.
What we have is long bursts of time with no evolution, and then explosions of evolution. Not like the tree of life where there are gradual evolution happening, but millions of years of nothing, and then within a very short time-span thousands of new species. These bursts are currently unexplainable. Id like to take this opportunity to point out that God works in the world in natural ways, and we look to science to see how God works. Perhaps we will find out how this happened through future scientific discovery. Evolution does not eliminate God.
The scientific arguments for God, as opposed to the logical arguments for God, come from the evidence of the beauty around us.
The world. The universe. Matter. Beings. All points to a creator. How did matter get here. How did stuff arise. We know there was a point in time where there was nothing, and then there was something. Something beautiful. Something that follows orderly laws. Where we can discover the characteristics of God by the things he has made. The evidence is simply things exist.
The point of faith is its not something taught. There’s nothing I can say or teach to anyone that will give them faith. Someone can go to church, read the Bible, strive to live by it’s teachings, and not have faith. No one can give someone else faith.
Other religions say you need to find religion inside yourself. Find that faith inside of you.
Christianity holds that natural man rejects God. Ever since Adam, the world is corrupted by sin. Sin is rebellion against God. No one has faith in God unless God first works in someone.
Someone can be told about a religion, and genuinely believe what they hear. I get what you’re saying. And yet this makes Christianity different.
Hey i got to run to the post office, but I’ll get the rest of your post and everyone else’s when I get back.
I did not know such denial of reality could exist.
You’re saying God exists but there is no way to prove him.
You’re logic is the world is so purtiful and fills me with such warm and fuzzy feeling that god must exist.
You are saying information cannot appear by chance. Why not?
At all religious:
The world follows natural laws or axioms. Nothing can go faster than the speed of light, mass cannot be created or destroyed, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another and many many more. God contradicts these. He can speak to you, so he is telepathic and his thoughts exceed that of the speed of light. We can’t find him so he probably isn’t matter but if he isn’t matter then what is he? If he created the universe, then he created matter and energy, how does he create matter and energy? He sends you to Hell or Heaven. Where is Heaven and Hell? Are they some far away planets? If they are then where are they? How do you get to them?
What is God? Is he matter? Then what elements are he made of? How do the compounds he is made of give him the power to do what he does? If he isn’t matter, then what is he and how does he affect our universe? How does he make our universe? If he made us in his image then why are we corrupt? Why aren’t we telepathic? Why can’t we create matter? Why aren’t we all-knowing? How is he all-knowing?
Science states that everything follows natural logical laws, and as you say, god follows natural laws, yet in the above paragraphs he repeatedly breaks every single scientific natural law there is. God contradicts science so both cannot possible be true. Science and religion are mutually exclusive. Pick one.
This is where we disagree, then. I think your belief that faith is given to you by god is based on teachings or whatever you want to call it (or conclusions made from teachings), and you don’t.
I just want to make clear that any given religion has things that make it ‘unique.’
The problem with those kinds of theories is that they are about things beyond this universe, which is by definition not observable, and therefore those theories are unprovable.
Where you see god’s handiwork, I see natural beauty, formed through processes that are in themselves wonderful, without the need for any higher power.
I understood that; what I was trying say is that going from a complex organism, for example, to a god or intelligent design, is a big leap.
You say that “information can not arise form natural events.” This is, in my view, faulty for two reasons.
First, information is relative and subjective. Information is only perceived as information by a mechanism or decoder if you will that can interpret that information. From that you could conclude that what to us may seem like information, could be totally nonsensical to other beings.
Take language for example. No one designed language, it evolved through hundreds of thousands of years, basically by chance: words and grammatical constructs that were the ‘fittest,’ i.e. the most popular and the most commonly used, survived.
Second, ‘information’ arises naturally all the time. Nearly every natural process, from ecosystems to star systems, are governed by ‘information.’
If simple informational systems can arise naturally, why not more complex ones over time?
The concept of a veritable “tree of life” is outdated. Current evolutionary theories include explanations for these bursts of evolution. Some things I can think of off the top of my head are natural disasters, like meteorites striking the earth, super volcanoes erupting, etc. These things could usher in a period of little evolution because there isn’t much to evolve, but as soon as life starts picking up again, spurts of evolution can occur.
I agree that evolution, or indeed any other scientific theory, does not eliminate a god, but it does not include one either.
“Beauty” or similar observations are not scientific arguments. They’re subjective, unverifiable observations, and therefore cannot by definition be considered scientific.
This sort of argument is faulty and stems from the perception of time inherent to all humans.
Time does not work in such a way that there must be a starting point and an ending point. There was no beginning, there will be no ending. There was never nothing, there will never be nothing.
You could in theory go back in time until the big bang, but before that, time does not exist and therefore concepts such as a beginning are irrelevant.
I know I’m not explaining this very well, but I suggest you read Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time if you haven’t already. It explains these concepts concisely and understandably.
I must say that Stephen Hawking believes in god and does explain how he can still fit into everything in his book, but his arguments are entirely different from yours.
Couldn’t resist replying already, sorry 
Sorry, I wasn’t implying yourself or Assassin. I was referring to humanity in general and the problems that religion causes in arguments and even in politics.
Neither can I, since you are clearly being the most ignorant here. I’m not criticising your views on evolution - I agree with it. Instead, I’m criticising your bigoted views on science and religion being either right or wrong.
Firstly, the whole question of science and religion is primarily a historic one in your case where, by the examples you chose, the earth isn’t flat and isn’t at the centre of the universe. Those ideas were first put forward when science and religion were far closer together, when indeed much scientific thinking was religious. The two were almost intertwined. Many of the greatest minds of those ages (Philolaus, Ptolemy, Herman of Reichenau, Copernicus, Galileo) were of a society where belief in gods, or God, was the norm. These men weren’t atheists - their ideas or discoveries didn’t dissuade them from religion, even when, in the case of Galileo, they were punished for their works. I say this to highlight that both in a historical background and a modern one, the line between science and religion isn’t cut and dry. You can’t simply state that one is right and one is wrong when they were born of the same idea - it’s just that one looked to a more philosophical, metaphysical arena for more contemplative, less introspective answers.
Your example of the earth being flat or at the center of the universe as being of a religious basis is also false. Those two ideas came from observation of our surroundings and drawing the simplest, easiest, most logical solution from that. Who knows how long those ideas have been around for. Christianity simply sponsored those ideas because they supported vague quotations in the Bible, and because religion ofted headed the scientific research in those times and, like all people, they were often resistant to change. There would have been many educated people who would have resisted any new theories too.
Secondly, you say that science has always been right. May I ask for proof, or is that too dismissive? Science has never been continually right. You can observe and study something and draw a conclusion from that, but that’s not to immediately say that, because it’s science, it must be correct. You’re drawing a conclusion from something and providing the best proof that you can come up with. It’s up to others to look at your work and decide whether or not it is correct or not and for it to become common knowledge. That’s pretty much what scientific theories are. If you look at the ideas of gravity or motion, or the theory of relativity or of quantum mechanics, these are ideas that have been written down and become accepted as common knowledge because they must, in that it is the most logical conclusion there is. Sound familiar? Even theories of dinosaurs or of multiple universes have become common belief now, when they are simply theories.
In many cases, such as the concept of gravity or of quantum physics, the ideas have not been proven. Taking the example of gravity - you can study its effects, but gravity itself is intangible, and it is still being debated and studied furiously today. My point is that science is by no means infallible. There have been theories and ideas and solid, supposedly proven facts, that have been proven wrong further down the line somewhere. All science is, is a theory upon a theory upon a theory that has entered into common knowledge. Very few things can be proven beyond all doubt. That sounds extreme but really it is quite logical. For example, prove to me that this desk is made of wood, or your chair of plastic. All you will show me is an idea - an idea with evidence arguing for it, yes, and evidence that I will most likely agree with, but it is undeniably an idea. And that is what science is - a belief. All you’ve done is got enough evidence for you to make that leap to certainty and belief and there you have it - you believe that the chair is made of plastic. This makes me sound very anti-science, but I’m just playing the Devil’s advocate in this case. But I digress.
That turned out to be a rant. I’m not taking sides in this particular discussion. I see myself as a person who respects both science and religion - I’m a logical person and yet I have a certain idiosyncracy within my nature that also makes be somewhat keen to believe in something far greater than human existence. Be that as it may though. Learn before you flame garth.
But science is the BEST set of theories on top of theories. It explains everything far better than everything else.
There’s a tiny chance I’m wrong and there is a god and I’m being an idiot, but that chance is so slim I’m going to dismiss it. Much of science hasn’t been proven, but it all makes sense and it’s the best possible explanation. If a better one comes along then I will fervently preach it, but for now, because the likelihood of science being right is so high, I’m going to take it’s laws as true. Religion is wrong. Do I know that with 100% certainty? No. But I know that religion doesn’t make sense and contradicts everything that does.
Sure, maybe gravity isn’t true, but there is so much supporting it I’ll accept it as an absolute truth.
Also, Religion enforced that the earth was flat.
People have put a barrier in their mind between science and religion. One is evidence and logic and the other is tradition and faith. They tell themselves that the two intertwine and work together, but if they knocked down that barrier and truly eliminated all faith from their thoughts, they would find that science smashes their comforting bubble of god to pieces. If you truly apply the ideas of logic reason and evidence to religion and block out your faith for just one moment, you will find the world is very different than you have imagined.
Religion is the cause of all the troubles in the world, the biggest failure of mankind. They will laugh at us in the future.
It’s pretty tiresome seeing people make up what I said in the OP. I didn’t say anything about the existence of god, I said about the Eucharistic Miracles. Jesus.
Also, if I lost my faith, I lost for a reason. I find it insulting when people say they’re sorry about it, or they’re sad that it happened. I’m glad: it’s my ‘soul’, it’s my happiness: leave me be.
HOOOOOO BOY! Dang, Assassin, your points are so full o’ holes, I’mma tempted to drain my pasta usin’ 'em.
I’m eagerly awaiting you’re next shipment of manure.
I steadfastly disagree and I’m an atheist. Let’s take it down to variables for simplicity’s sake.
Science deals with X and only X.
Religion deals with Y and only Y.
Religious scientists, in their job, deal with X. Religious scientists, in their personal life, deal with Y. They know that they cannot test Y because their tests come from X. Y is not science. They know that. So, in matters of science, they deal exclusively with X. A scientist can test the makeup of the universe and still believe a god had its hand in doing so.
I don’t buy it for one second, though. If Y had something to do with X, it would leave a mark on X and testing and observing in X would reveal that mark. In thousands of years, we haven’t seen a single thing from Y that cannot be fully explained inside the realm of X.
That’s also not to say that there are some nonscientists who want to inject Y into X.[/SIZE]
Where?
To use your confusing Y X termanology, If Y can’t be explained or proven with X then Y is most likely wrong.
X deals with Y, and W, Z,Q and every other letter in the alphabet.
God is not above science, nothing is above science.
Sorry if it’s confusing. I’m trying to remove any values-judgments. Yes, Y is most likely wrong (as I’ve stated before). However, religious faith is about unprovable things and most definitely are not science. That’s not to say that it has to be either/or. You don’t give up science because you’re religious and you don’t give up religion because you’re a scientist.
If he lives externally to the natural world, he does. But, if he lives 100% externally from our reality, then why should we spend even a shred of time talking about him if we cannot know anything about him? If this entity never ever ever interacts with our reality, then it kind of is a waste of time to suppose about the entity’s characteristics.
Again, you might as well be talking about the world of Harry Potter. Entertaining, yes. Helpful to our reality, sure. But it does no good believing that there are actually staircases in a real place called Hogwarts that really do move under the watchful eye of actual living paintings… That’s just silly.
Yet there are thousands, millions, of people that will make laws on being good because Santa Claus is coming to town or you are evil, stupid, wrong, and untrustworthy because you don’t fear the Eye of Sauron.
Sheesh.
TOO. MANY. POSTS.
Can you guys let me catch up a bit?
Hold off for just a second, or else you’ll face the biggest reply, and I’ll face a thousand tl;dr following.
So, I am a math and science guy. I really love science, and especially physics. Its not like when I don’t know something I just say, ‘well God must have done it’ when science can’t figure it out. Rather it is a motivation. We have discovered how God has made gravity to work, and the strong nuclear force to work, and all the natural laws. Then we see quantum weirdness, and I want to know what miraculous thing God has created. What is this mystery yet to be discovered? God isn’t a fallback, its a motivation.
You’d be surprised. Many say they’re way is just one way to heaven. One way to the same God. All ways are valid they claim. Nope. Christianity claims exclusivity.
I wasn’t claiming that no one knew how the eye evolved. I didn’t know the eye example meant anything significant. If it could be shown that it could have evolved, then yes it is plausible that it could have evolved. No argument.
Don’t make a claim when you don’t know what the facts are. That’s what this book is. Its science through and through. Most of it so deep its completely over my head. What’s the test? You want a test right? The test is do current models produce the intended results. The conclusion is, with all the science you could ever want proving it, no.
Remember what we’re trying to do. We’ve already established that you can’t prove God exists through scientific method. Why not? Because the scientific method only applies to natural things. You can’t do a test on matter and find anything other than matter. What these people are doing is proving the effects of creation. Proving that all this could not exist without divine intervention. This example for instance, the Signature in the Cell, looks to scientifically prove that current models of evolution do not explain the information we see in the cell. It posits that the only working model is that of a divine intelligence.
Remember we can’t prove God through scientific method. But we can see the evidence for his existence through what he has created.
Is it wrong to teach something? If I truly did have the key to salvation, would it be moral to keep it to myself? But because we do believe that we have been given God’s Word, we believe we have a responsibility to let others know. If we didn’t wouldn’t that be utterly selfish to keep salvation to an exclusive club? Furthermore, with such good news of salvation, could you really expect us to keep such wonderful news to ourselves?
Just one note here. Do I believe in God? Yes. Do I believe Christ died to pay for my sins? Yes. Do I ever have any doubts? Occasionally, but not very often. Why at all? Because I still am a rebellious person who breaks God’s law. I still have sin as a part of me. And as long as I am on earth in this body, I’ll still be imperfect and with sin. Though of course I strive to grow closer to God every day.
Um… what? There isn’t an unforgivable sin in the way you are meaning it. Paul murdered Christians before he came to Christ. He was still forgiven. There’s nothing especially binding or damning with murder.
Christians do cause problems and they should. The message they carry is heavy. Its a message of life and death. It should carry some weight, it should cause disturbance. And it will.
John 15:18-22
18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
DONT REPLY YET PLEASE PEOPLE. I CANT KEEP UP! IM GOING THROUGH POSTS RIGHT NOW.
It’s been 15 minutes, this better not be a massive wall of text.
It’s gonna be.
What else could I do?