Posts by Seraphim23

71

Theism Makes Science Impossible

by cofty in

it is not impossible to be a great scientist and a theist - kenneth miller and francis collins are good examples.. however, science depends on methodological naturalism - a working assumption that there are natural causes for observed effects.

please note that methodological naturalism is not the same as ontological naturalism.

in other words scientists may believe in a spirit world or not as long as god is never invoked as an answer.. contrast this with theism which, unlike deism, declares god to be immanent and active in the world.. consider a scientist who is also a theist doing research into the efficacy of a new drug that cures heart disease.

Seraphim23

Or they believe that God wont interfere with the general order of things.

71

Theism Makes Science Impossible

by cofty in

it is not impossible to be a great scientist and a theist - kenneth miller and francis collins are good examples.. however, science depends on methodological naturalism - a working assumption that there are natural causes for observed effects.

please note that methodological naturalism is not the same as ontological naturalism.

in other words scientists may believe in a spirit world or not as long as god is never invoked as an answer.. contrast this with theism which, unlike deism, declares god to be immanent and active in the world.. consider a scientist who is also a theist doing research into the efficacy of a new drug that cures heart disease.

Seraphim23

I believe in God galaxie but I wouldn’t call it a theory, nor would I dare science to disprove it as such. Those who do are making an error in my view. It’s not possible to get material proof of something immaterial. Evidence for miracles if true is also not proof because there can be no proof for miracles even if they happen. If one believes, it is down to their own judgement at the end of the day. Science may seek proof but it will wait a long time for it in my view.

71

Theism Makes Science Impossible

by cofty in

it is not impossible to be a great scientist and a theist - kenneth miller and francis collins are good examples.. however, science depends on methodological naturalism - a working assumption that there are natural causes for observed effects.

please note that methodological naturalism is not the same as ontological naturalism.

in other words scientists may believe in a spirit world or not as long as god is never invoked as an answer.. contrast this with theism which, unlike deism, declares god to be immanent and active in the world.. consider a scientist who is also a theist doing research into the efficacy of a new drug that cures heart disease.

Seraphim23

Galaxie mathematical theories are not scientific theories unless they are backed up by observation of some sort. I just think it important to realise that science is always provisional and so proof is not an appropriate word to use if one is talking about what science is. To say it is proven may be to do what theists are being accused of, which is the stopping on enquiry on the basis that we already know the real why.

Although true that the facet of belief can allow people to believe anything they want, irrespective of being a theist or not, this doesn’t mean that what science has established as a good theory is not also predicated on the unprovable believe that truth untimely exists. Science is predicated on this belief of truth but in order to prove it is a true belief one needs to prove it. The only way to do this would be to get all knowledge that exists in a universal theory of everything but how will one ever know that one has all knowledge? I believe this is not possible and so ultimately even science is based on an unprovable belief system of sorts even though it works to a degree.

71

Theism Makes Science Impossible

by cofty in

it is not impossible to be a great scientist and a theist - kenneth miller and francis collins are good examples.. however, science depends on methodological naturalism - a working assumption that there are natural causes for observed effects.

please note that methodological naturalism is not the same as ontological naturalism.

in other words scientists may believe in a spirit world or not as long as god is never invoked as an answer.. contrast this with theism which, unlike deism, declares god to be immanent and active in the world.. consider a scientist who is also a theist doing research into the efficacy of a new drug that cures heart disease.

Seraphim23

Hi galaxie. I hope I don’t come over as being pedantic but it is an important point to my mind in that science doesn’t deal in proofs when it comes to its conclusions. Technically is it only mathematics that deals with proofs. Science deals with best theories. Best in this context is defined by a variety of considerations like parsimony and other things like its ability to predict and so on. There have been times when new and better theories replaced those at one point accepted as `fact`. Often the older theory wasn’t false exactly, in so much as it wasn’t as accurate as the newer one in making predictions ect. In science all it takes is one example of the theory failing and the theory is proved false. However existing theories often fail when subjected to different or stronger circumstances in nature, which shows they are incomplete in explaining the whole show. This means there is always the potential for a new and more inclusive theory to supplant any existing one as long as there are unknowns in nature. Hence we go from hypothesis to theory, if its accepted but never to proof. There is another issue however concerning the fact that the more inclusive a theory is, the more complex it must be, which is a potential issue for parsimony. I won’t go into that one though.

71

Theism Makes Science Impossible

by cofty in

it is not impossible to be a great scientist and a theist - kenneth miller and francis collins are good examples.. however, science depends on methodological naturalism - a working assumption that there are natural causes for observed effects.

please note that methodological naturalism is not the same as ontological naturalism.

in other words scientists may believe in a spirit world or not as long as god is never invoked as an answer.. contrast this with theism which, unlike deism, declares god to be immanent and active in the world.. consider a scientist who is also a theist doing research into the efficacy of a new drug that cures heart disease.

Seraphim23

I think it is true that the idea that God can be active in the world is contradictory to cause and effect, or rather the methodological nature of how science is done, which assumes that all physical things are part of a connective whole and therefor have a relationship in various ways to itself, directly or indirectly. If God acts in the world, this relationship would be disrupted from the normal ways that nature is known to operate, science is contradicted in essence.

However more can be said than just this because there already are places in the universe that are known to not operate in the normal ways nature is known to. Black holes demonstrate this quite well, as does the contradiction of classical physics with quantum mechanics, according to at least the main interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is the Copenhagen interpretation as it is called. All this shows that even what is thought to be known as scientific fact is not entirely known. This means that not all natural circumstances are taken into consideration when a fact about nature is stated as unarguable fact. There is uncertainty at the extreme level of things which causes valid questions about how certain natural causal relationships really are and why and even the definition of nature itself!

For instance, if all is just cause and effect then predictability should be no problem at all. In many cases in science, this is the case, which demonstrates that cause and effect is indeed a real thing. Even here however uncertainly increases the more extreme the natural forces get which decreases predictability and therefor the view that know facts really are as certain as they are assumed to be. However an issue also arises of the exact starting point of any example of cause and effect because without this knowledge predictability is not completely accurate anyway. Then there is also the ultimate starting point issue. Did something come from nothing or has something always been infinity, and if no time before the universe or multiverse, how then does cause and effect happen anyway and so on and so forth?

If there are places in the universe where known physics breaks down, goes against common sense, or relates to philosophical questions of metaphysics and knowledge itself, or what is thought to be known about scientific fact is not quite a certain as we like, then the idea of a God working in the universe might not contradict scientific naturalism even though it appears that it must.

Our own ability to choose and make choices as well as effect the world around us accordingly, is perhaps the most personally obvious example of the issues raised here. The age old `hard problem of consciousness` rears its ugly head. If all things are simply cause and effect, then free will, choice and consciousness really don’t exist at all because the brain is just a physical object subject to cause and effect, no matter how complex it is and the processes it is subject to. Personal experience, if it is indeed real, challenges this notion!

The scientific method, which being a methodology is itself a process and therefore subject to cause and effect is predicated on what it attempts to study being also subject to cause and effect because if it isn’t, then predictably of a theory goes out of the preverbal window. As we all know, a theory can’t really be called science unless it predicts to at least some extent of accuracy. The very idea of personal choice and free will contradicts the notion of predictability. If an illusion then who or what is being fooled?

Most people would accept their own freewill even if it has limits, however they would also accept the validity of science based on causes leading to effects, and the relationships science studies to allow this process to occur. The very fact that predictability does exist in many areas of science also affirms the validity of cause and effect and of course science. This however is a contradictory position to having free will. If it is true that people do have choice and effect the world around us as a result, then God being able to do likewise could well be the same issue irrespective of God not being physical because apparently physical things only work according to cause and effect and don’t permit our own freedom of will.

Perhaps there is another way to look at it because if science and God acting in the world are mutually exclusive ideas, then so is science and human free will, and our ability to affect through freedom of choice. Are we prepared to throw out the one thing that allows for rationality to be understood, which is our own consciousness, in order to protect the idea that cause and effect and the study thereof are the universal and only epitome of rationality? It seems to me that something deeper is going on in reality that allows for real choice to be real and also the simple idea of cause and effect. Science may not be up to this study because of the way it is currently defined. Don’t get me wrong, it is good that it is defined the way it is because otherwise it would be a lot less effective which is why God should be left out of the doing of science. However its advantage may be a disadvantage in other areas of reality. This may mean that the universe works according to more than one paradigm at the same time.

38

Atheism and Theism are only partly right!

by abiather in

today we know that matter and energy are interchangeable, hence they are there always in either form, they are eternal, hence requires no creator.

hence atheism is right in rejecting a creator, but failed in providing any motivation for people to do good.

religions, in their effort to provide a motivating factor for humans to do good, introduced creation stories and other myths; hence they too are right (as far as their intention is concerned), yet failed in producing any worthy resultsworld was steadily moving from bad to worse and from worse to worst!.

Seraphim23

abiather Your metaphor about pilots that bombed Japan is problematic to say the least for it doesn’t address the inconstant logic of your statements. Many who go to war think rightly or wrongly, that right is on their side and put their own lives at risk for people or a cause they believe to be worthy of such personal risk. That in itself could be thought of as the very epitome of altruism.

What people do and why they do it cannot be separated as easily as you imply even though one can be ostensibly good while the other not so much or the other way around. Take abortion for instance, as you mention it! There are reasons why abortion is a good thing; say for a mother who will die if she does not have one for medical reasons. Whether this is a good or bad thing for the embryo and at what stage is up for debate but on balance is will be a good thing for the mother and her existing family.

If you ask atheists why they are atheist, I suspect that none will say that it was because they wanted to escape personal responsibility and therefore changed what they thought to be true, as though choosing one sweet over another in a candy store like the changing wind. As for theists they mostly believe because it is what they were taught to believe by their parents. Again it seems to be not for trying to escape personal reasonability.

You are conflating motive with action and action with consequence and then categorising consequence according to the human concept or right and wrong. This concept does not really exist in nature except in the basic forms of decay and order without moral judgment. In people good motives can give rise to actions and these actions intended to be good can result in bad and vice versa. Actions intended to do good do not always do so because life is more complex that you posit. There is a of course a general correlation between actions intended to do good and good outcomes but over time this effect is always naturalised. Those who feed the poor will eventually die as the poor also will, only to be replaced by new poor and those who wish to help them.

For your position to be having any kind of merit you will have to demonstrate why the effects of entropy and decay will not affect your good works or whatever it is you are trying to preach? You will also have to take into account basic logic and reason, which as yet you dont seem to be doing.

38

Atheism and Theism are only partly right!

by abiather in

today we know that matter and energy are interchangeable, hence they are there always in either form, they are eternal, hence requires no creator.

hence atheism is right in rejecting a creator, but failed in providing any motivation for people to do good.

religions, in their effort to provide a motivating factor for humans to do good, introduced creation stories and other myths; hence they too are right (as far as their intention is concerned), yet failed in producing any worthy resultsworld was steadily moving from bad to worse and from worse to worst!.

Seraphim23

Abiather your arguments seem to have big philosophical and logical issues that need to be addressed. For instance, most atheists started out as theists and so if the reason for them rejecting a creator was to avoid personal responsibility, then it does not follow that theists also reject personal responsibility in the form of inventing a forgiving God. Atheists should have just stayed where there were as theists, if the goal was personal irresponsibility. The facts are however that atheists are arguably more moral in certain areas than theists are, and I speak as a theist myself. The reason for this is probably due the overabundance of rules and regulations of many a religion, which works against personal responsibility in practice but doesn’t speak to the intent of the practitioner, which is about personal responsibility. Your over simplify to the point of distortion.

48

Talking with a nonbeliever...

by suavojr in

in my search for the truth and the burning desire to become free from all forms of dogma and wishful thinking.

i have approached my first crossroads in my life, should i continue to believe in a god or not?.

currently i am leaning toward agnosticism, but all the suffering in the world, all the loss and pain in my own life makes it hard for me to simply let go of the idea and hope that at the end justice will prevail, that one day god can make it all good.. .

Seraphim23

Well we have different viewpoints galaxie. Some silly stories actually do happen but I understand that my words are anecdotal and of no use to many.

48

Talking with a nonbeliever...

by suavojr in

in my search for the truth and the burning desire to become free from all forms of dogma and wishful thinking.

i have approached my first crossroads in my life, should i continue to believe in a god or not?.

currently i am leaning toward agnosticism, but all the suffering in the world, all the loss and pain in my own life makes it hard for me to simply let go of the idea and hope that at the end justice will prevail, that one day god can make it all good.. .

Seraphim23

Galaxie it may not be the limits of the brain, in that a bigger one might be better but of cognition and understanding itself. Your view that god will become a silly irrelevance is naïve in my view because of the ideas philosophical underpinnings. It actually works quite well as an idea where pure reason fails because pure reason becomes increasingly circular the deeper it attempts to go in answering questions of a profound nature. This fact won’t change no matter how far science progresses, for science is based on that which is understood without interpretation. Increasingly however it requires interpretation which is an issue for science as it shows it has an innate limitation. This gap is not of the same order as filling in previously unknown intermediate parts of natural processes in a formal way that were previously put down to an intelligent being moving stings invisibly. It is way more fundamental than that because it’s about valid questions regarding the underpinnings of science and the scientific method itself.

Humans and all intelligent life have a finite amount of time in this universe and science no matter how good will, or can prevent this fact. In the meantime it won’t be science that solves our human issues but the human heart because science cannot prevent greed, cruelty or even tyranny. These things will show the limits of science as well. Science is the future of mankind IF…….but what about freedom to do good or bad?

48

Talking with a nonbeliever...

by suavojr in

in my search for the truth and the burning desire to become free from all forms of dogma and wishful thinking.

i have approached my first crossroads in my life, should i continue to believe in a god or not?.

currently i am leaning toward agnosticism, but all the suffering in the world, all the loss and pain in my own life makes it hard for me to simply let go of the idea and hope that at the end justice will prevail, that one day god can make it all good.. .

Seraphim23

Cofty you must believe that knowledge is finite then in that case, if the gaps are ever shrinking. The time will come when all things are known if this is a linier progression as implied. I doubt it is that simple somehow.

However my point is that science won’t explain science as it’s predicated on what already exists from a starting point beyond which it’s not science anymore if science is itself considered something that can be comprehended. Increasingly in my view, science is showing up gaps in comprehension as opposed to increasingly illuminating them. Some of these gaps go by the name science but they are a different beast entirely as they cannot be understood cognitively, rather interpreted. Other gaps don’t even get into what can be called science at all because they represent the breakdown of what is apparently known and called physics. Singularities represent one example. Science can only be done at all with things that already exist but the foundation for existence itself is another matter entirely. Two logical options are ever present; an infinity of steps going back forever which challenges the common sense view of time to breaking point, or something from something that doesn’t exist because it is nothing. Both are beyond science and even arguable reason. Good luck with the shrinking gaps but there will always be more than enough room for a god is one want to put it in, a seemingly infinite amount of room in fact.