CIVIL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION: The "Science -vs- Religion" debate...

[CathyInBlue]

The dichotomy is what we know via diligent application of the Scientific Method versus any and all other ways of "knowing". You either used the Scientific Method and are discovering science, or you're not. That's not a false dichotomy.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

It's truth until you or someone else proves that it's not the truth using the Scientific Method. The only alternative is to simply abandon science and the ability to make accurate predictions about the universe altogether and let religion and superstition reign.

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the Big Bang lately?

 

[hoosierdoc]

Actually science works that it's NOT truth until it's proven to be.
just curious, did you study with Bill Nye?

It's truth until you or someone else proves that it's not the truth using the Scientific Method. The only alternative is to simply abandon science and the ability to make accurate predictions about the universe altogether and let religion and superstition reign.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Yes. The CMB has been observed, quantified, mapped, and generally analyzed numerous times over a long time span, and it has never ceased to be there when anyone looked. We are constantly peering farther and farther into it and to date, observations continue to be consistent with the Big Bang Theory.

 

[CathyInBlue]

You prove that existing truth is not truth by proving that something else is a better truth using the Scientific Method. Perhaps I was not as clear as I could have been about that.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Yes. The CMB has been observed, quantified, mapped, and generally analyzed numerous times over a long time span, and it has never ceased to be there when anyone looked. We are constantly peering farther and farther into it and to date, observations continue to be consistent with the Big Bang Theory.

So no....

 

[BugI02]

..... "p.s. How do you explain crystallization (organization) in a universe ruled by entropy? When everything cools down, perhaps another cycle starts. This is more philosophy, poetry, than science. But, I have 'faith' in it." ....

You may be misunderstanding the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which is germain to discussing the direction towards which a systems total entropy moves. The law deals with an isolated system, the size of which can be as large as the total universe but needs only be isolated and taken as a whole. Your example of crystalization actually violates this stricture. If you cool a substance to induce crystalization you have removed entropy/disorder from that system (the heat you drew off to induce crystalization) and more importantly you are not considering this removed heat as part of the original system if you want to cite this as evidence of negative entropy. Entropy in microcosm can be increased by inrevention from outside the system in question, but then you have to expand your definition of the system under examination to include this outside influence in order to meaningfully speak to the the total entropy of the system. At the limit, considering the universe in total, the TOTAL entropy of the system can only increase.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

It's truth until you or someone else proves that it's not the truth using the Scientific Method. The only alternative is to simply abandon science and the ability to make accurate predictions about the universe altogether and let religion and superstition reign.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not let science explain things that science can explain (or explain until it's no longer explained), and let religion explain that which religion explains (and probably cannot be proven by scientific methodology) to the satisfaction of the practitioners of both? Don't believe there's an afterlife for example? That's cool. You don't have to. It harms no one. Don't believe the earth is eleventy-billion years old? That's cool. You don't have to. It harms no one.

 

[eldirector]

@DoggyDaddy - because false dichotomies are fun? Without them, this thread has no purpose?

 

[Denny347]

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the Big Bang lately?

Parts they are trying to replicate, we are prodding the very edge of what we know about the universe.

 

[eldirector]

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the Big Bang lately?

The "bang" itself? Almost, but not quite. The major tenants of the theory? Yes, of course. That is how it became a theory.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

The "bang" itself? Almost, but not quite. The major tenants of the theory? Yes, of course. That is how it became a theory.

Than, my good man, it isn't science.

 

[BugI02]

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the Big Bang lately?

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the ministry of Christ lately? Wouldn't go there

 

[eldirector]

Excuse me? How do you figure?

 

[ChristianPatriot]

The double-speak is just mind blowing.

"We haven't proven God exists yet, therefore He does not ."

"We haven't proven the Big Bang yet, therefore we will teach it to everyone as science."

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Anybody observed, measured, and repeated the ministry of Christ lately? Wouldn't go there

Ah, so what you're saying is you can't prove history with science, but we can prove the beginning of history with science.....is this thing on?

 

[CathyInBlue]

A) Science is not just about what we know, but about how we know it. If you "know" something, but didn't use the scientific method to learn it, then it's not science. It might be religion. It might be history. I don't know precisely what any given piece of non-scientific knowledge may be, but I can know that it's not science.

B) I've never heard of the science of human death and experience of same by the person so affected being taught in a public school science classroom. I see no reason to discuss issues of an afterlife when there has here to fore been no discussion of teaching about the afterlife in a public school classroom.

C) If you do not believe the age of the Earth is precisely what the best geologists and paleontologists and cosmologists and planetologists have calculated the age of the planet Earth to be to be a good scientific citizen? No. Not if that precise age of the planet doesn't affect your ability to make good decisions and predictions. However, if you are attempting to support an outfit like the Creation Museum in KY and are deliberately making statements of fact that are not just orders of magnitude different from the established age of the planet, but deliberately so in order to spread the unscientific ideas of religious zealots, then I view that as a serious problem for the scientific literacy of generations of this country's citizens.

 

[ChristianPatriot]

Excuse me? How do you figure?

Almost observed, measured and repeated isn't the same as observed, measure, and repeated.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

@DoggyDaddy - because false dichotomies are fun? Without them, this thread has no purpose?

That's true. Or is it? Hmmm...

 

[eldirector]

Almost observed, measured and repeated isn't the same as observed, measure, and repeated.

I gather you are not able to describe the Big Bang Theory (not the TV show, the actual theory as it stands today)? Not asking if you understanding it, or accept it, but just describe it. Describe the observations that led to it? The Hypothesis used to test it? The predictions we have since made and tested?

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Some appear to be arguing that, no, it does not.