You atheist really annoyed me

by confusedandalone 226 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  Scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller can only do good science by leaving god outside the lab. They compartmentalise their lives.

  Says who? So what if someone like Francis Collins prays for help in his work and believes it makes a difference, how are you going to stop him?

  You're exhibiting an instance of the "all true Scotsmen" fallacy by defining your terms in a way that provides merely circular support for your conclusion. As in when someone may say that all true Scotsmen wear nothing under their kilts, and another may point to an example of a Scotsman who wears underpants. "Aha!" comes the inevitable reply, "but he's not a true Scotsman then, is he!"

  So you claim scientists must leave their theism at home. But that is not a description of the world as it actually is, but merely an assertion by you as to how things should be. Certainly there will be scientists who pray on matters involving their work or in some other fashion "mix" their science and theism in ways that might offend you. But then comes the inevitable retort from you: "aha, but they are not practising real science when they do that!"
• 

  cofty

  that is not a description of the world as it actually is, but merely an assertion by you as to how things should be.

  No it's how science is actually done in the real world.

  Methodological naturalism is the bedrock of all science. There is no room for god in the lab. Praying for help to do science is a different subject. Some scientists might credit their success to always wearing blue socks, another might put it down to prayer. They all practice strict methodological naturalism.
• 

  slimboyfat

  What about scientists who claim there is a role for inspiration in scientific discovery?

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22051559

  Just because you divide up the world in certai ways does not mean everyone else must do the same.
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  cofty

  Its doesn't matter in the slightest who or what they credit for their inspiration. I just explained that...

  " Some scientists might credit their success to always wearing blue socks, another might put it down to prayer. They all practice strict methodological naturalism."

  I said there is no place for god in the lab and that science has no comfort for theism. A scientist's personal interests, beliefs and hobbies are irrelevant.

  I already said a while ago that there are excellent scientists who are theists.

  I also said that this topic is not about science its about atheism - two very different if related topics.

  You frequently talk to a straw man SBF
• 

  slimboyfat

  It doesn't matter if some scientists conceive of themselves as using their science and theism together, you know better than they do what they are actually doing.
• 

  Anony Mous

  I saw a thing recently from I believe it was Neil deGrasse Tyson. He postulated that throughout history scientists have ascribed things they couldn't understand to a deity, but whenever they did that, they stopped looking for answers and they missed some really big things.

  The Arabians were really good at math and astronomy. Most stars are named arabian names and even now, our numerals are arabic numerals. However at their height of discovery and understanding their new ruler instituted a theocracy (Islam). And since then they have not recovered and they literally until this day are stuck in their 800AD mindset. The largest supplier of scientists and inventors should be them given they were well advanced before any European country but today it is Israel followed by Europe and the US.

  Isaac Newton invented calculus on a dare, answered and solved many physics questions. However at some point he got stuck in the multi-body calculations of our solar systems. He could figure out the gravity between two bodies but he had problems figuring it between the 8 bodies they knew off at that time. Eventually he ascribed the problem of multi-body gravity as something only a deity could make and solve and since he was probably the smartest guy in history, nobody took a stab at it because it was "God's work". It took almost 100 years for Lagrange to 'fix' the problem by simply calculating the point at which two bodies are in a position where it is easy to calculate (at what we now call the Lagrange points) and solving for the third. It's so easy, that this is introduced right after Newtonian physics in high school. But Newton simply couldn't think of the solution, said God did it and stopped looking for a solution.

  That is why introducing God in any context of discovery is BAD, BAD, BAD.
• 

  Truth seeker 674

  Cofty, when I was child I brought home copies of "Scientific American" my witness parents treated it like I was bringing home child pornography. Oh those lovely Theists who are believers in god, I can't imagine any of them as true scientist.
• 

  slimboyfat

  It's also interesting of course that your definition of science excludes the likes of Isaac Newton, of course, who invoked the hand of God to explain the movement of the planets. Perhaps even Darwin himself who was not above suggesting that God created a few primitive life forms and evolution took over for there.
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  Truth seeker 674

  It was the times they lived in Slim Boy thats why the vernacular.
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  slimboyfat

  Francis Collins is a contemporary scientist and he attributes various facets of human evolution to the hand of God.