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Dan_raven, I do not feel that anyone's science is attacking my God. I feel that some people's science is invalid science, because true science needs to include God. Do you catch the difference?
I do not attack evolutionists and uniformitarians for whatever they believe about God. It is their views of science that I attack. I contend that their science is incomplete, and their theories are formulated from selected data viewed with blinders on.
I am questioning their science, not their piety, which is not at issue.
[ December 13, 2006, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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quote:I feel that some people's science is invalid science, because true science needs to include God.
Do you accept that not everyone shares that definition of "true science," or accepts as an axiom that science must take God into account even if there is no observational evidence of His existence?
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How can you question their science, and not their piety, when your question is that they have left God out of science. Piety, by definition, is their belief in God. If they don't beleive in God than how can they put it in science?
Its like the Communists leader who swore that they had free and open elections every year. Of course, there was only one person you were allowed to vote for, but since you were voting you were free--even if not voting was a state crime.
This goes back to the suggestion that you are worshipping the God of Empty Spaces. That any bit of undiscovered, unknown science you automatically put God in. Why does gravity exist? God. Where is the missing link? God. Why does electricity flow from - to +? God.
So I ask, if we put this God in all science, do you also recommend we no longer look for answers that are not specifically God? Do we no longer look for theoryies on gravity unless the theory is "Because God wants it that way." Should we just save our money and not ask why? how? when? Should we pack up our telescopes and our microscopes? Aids, germs, typhoid and cancer are all simply God's will?
Ron you are suggesting replacing objective science with God, or a debate on who's God, but then say its not about Piety?
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quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: ...the "big statement" about how dinosaurs and man lived together.
Improbable.
That stuff under our feet, in which we grow our crops, took hundreds of millions of years to build up.
We're walking on and growing our food in dead plants and dinosaur turds. We're breathing gases produced by plants and dinosaurs. Luckily we've got the right combination.
God could have stranded a bunch of people, animals, and plants on a barren rock, surrounded by an atmosphere of randomly collected gases and then gone off to play golf...if he were in a hurry and didn't much care how the experiment turned out.
Even if you take God out of the mix, we've still got plants and animals laboriously terraforming a rock. Maybe man is just another terraformer whose purpose is to concentrate usable minerals on the surface of the rock for easy recovery the next time the mothership passes by.
Carl Sagan seemed to think that the rise of man was somehow rare and valuable in this lonely universe. But maybe we're just another lowly consuming and excreting organism, not fit for rescue from any flood or cataclysm.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Dan_raven, I do not feel that anyone's science is attacking my God. I feel that some people's science is invalid science, because true science needs to include God. Do you catch the difference?
I do not attack evolutionists and uniformitarians for whatever they believe about God. It is their views of science that I attack. I contend that their science is incomplete, and their theories are formulated from selected data viewed with blinders on.
I am questioning their science, not their piety, which is not at issue.
Have you ever studied science?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: true science needs to include God.
How about: "true devotion to God needs to include science?"
If God derives any sort of benefit from His devotees, wouldn't He benefit doubly so from His science-minded devotees?
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We must be patient however, when our science seems to conflict with our devotion to God. When this inevitably occurs, we cannot immediately conclude that the science is bad. Neither can we allow our science to detract from or diminish our devotion to God. We must have faith and hope that further investigation into both our science and our religious beliefs will ultimately resolve the conflict.
It is interesting that faith, hope, patience, and the inquisitive mind are attributes cultivated by both scientists and by the religiously devout.
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quote:It is interesting that faith, hope, patience, and the inquisitive mind are attributes cultivated by both scientists and by the religiously devout.
Well, it would be interesting if it were true, yes. I understand that they are cultivated by the devout people you know; but I think you are entirely unjustified in saying that these are a representative sample. Acknowledging the exceptions, most devout people do not encourage an inquisitive mind. And scientists do not, at least in my experience, cultivate faith and hope; why should they? (As scientists, that is. They may do so in their private capacity, of course.)
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The words faith and hope are not limited to application within a religious context only. I doubt that scientists are indifferent as to the outcome of their investigations. Their investigations have focus and direction, which implies faith and hope, in the broader usage of the words, which was my intended meaning.
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That scientists have hope for the conclusions of their investigation, is not at all the same thing as saying they cultivate hope. In fact, a scientist should, in principle, be completely indifferent to what he finds; while this is an ideal rarely achieved, it means that we do the exact opposite of cultivating hope.
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Achieving any repeatable result by means of scientific investigation fosters faith or confidence in the methods used.
Achieving the desired result fosters or reinforces hope.
I guess you're making a distinction between pure science and applied science.
Hope still applies in an even broader sense to pure science: "I hope I gain greater understanding through my investigation."
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Confidence, yes. Faith, no. Faith is belief without evidence; but you speak precisely of using evidence. That is the opposite of faith.
quote:Achieving the desired result fosters or reinforces hope.
Completely irrelevant to the question of whether scientists cultivate hope.
quote:Hope still applies in an even broader sense to pure science: "I hope I gain greater understanding through my investigation."
I refer you right back to my previous post:
quote:That scientists have hope for the conclusions of their investigation, is not at all the same thing as saying they cultivate hope. In fact, a scientist should, in principle, be completely indifferent to what he finds; while this is an ideal rarely achieved, it means that we do the exact opposite of cultivating hope.
Not my definition of faith. I'd say belief without evidence is ignorance.
I wouldn't say that the cultivation of hope is the objective of pure science, but rather the byproduct. The accumulation of understanding and knowledge through scientific means fosters hope that there is more to be learned, that we're not done yet.
I would like to get back to some fun questions:
1. Did someone create dinosaurs, and if so, why or to what end?
2. Could dinosaurs have survived cataclysmic events in the earth's history to a more modern time, and could there have been any human witnesses of living, breathing dinosaurs, and is there any historical or scientific evidence of humans and dinosaurs coexisting?
3. Can any of the many vague scriptural references to serpents and the like be linked to dinosaurs?
4. If the story of Noah and the ark can be taken as a reference to an actual event in the earth's history, what may or may not have survived such an event?
5. If the demise of dinosaurs and other creatures found in fossilized relics was by design, what was the timing of and reasoning behind that demise?
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Oh, and by "evidence" I assume you mean something that either directly or indirectly emits or reflects photons, produces sound waves, or presents an assemblage of atoms perceivable to the human senses of touch, smell, or taste.
I can accept that definition.
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1) Yes, they were designed in a lab, but got away and ate everyone on the island.
2) Yes. These are called Alligators Crocodiles and parrots.
3) The serpent in the Garden of Eden was really a Raptor. no wonder Eve listened to it.
4) Three things that were not on Noah's ark survived the flood. My pink unicorn named Butch, Chuck Norris, and Dippy the Umbrella.
5) Timing and reasoning? We don't need no stinking timing and reasoning. Ok. So it was due to the intergalactic ratings sweeps week.
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Chuck Norris? Did his stubbly beard trap plankton, which somehow kept him afloat? How would you explain Steven Seagal(also a dinosaur)? Where did he get that eyebrow?
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Dan, point 2 is actually pretty close to accurate, although alligators and crocodiles existed before dinosaurs and are therefore not descendents. But parrots almost certainly are. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Tom, I didn't say I ALWAYS know .. I said I know exactly what you meant. Theres a difference. HOWEVER: I did assume your intentions and I was wrong in that. I appologize.
Likewise, you assume creation scientist are INFERIOR to those you, personally, agree with. This is where I have issues.
I like a plethora of data. I don't subscribe to either dogmatically.
My point was simple. Children will ALWAYS be given a conflicting amount of information. The best we can do as a parent is to explain what we, the parents believe, (and why), and how XXXXXX believes this or how author XXXX believes this. More information isn't an evil. Brainwashing or trying to control information is an evil to someone like me.
I try to teach my children (most are adults now), to understand their source information and weigh that source.
Again, I'll appologize to Tom for assuming or misrepresenting him in ANY way. He and are and will probably remain on opposing sides of most issues. I do not wish to squelch his voice or opinions.
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Okay. People who have known me for a while know of my struggle, as an atheist, to raise children in a way that may actually result in their rejecting my own world view (for those keeping track, my oldest, Nikki [14] says she an atheist; the middle child, Charlene [9], despite being much more intellectual and scientific in her way of viewing the world, tends to believe that there is something in humans that continues on beyond death and may reincarnate. My five-year-old just wants to play with his X-Box and ignore our prattling.).
Now, if someone were to give my kids a book like that for a present, I would probably encourage them not to waste their time on it, but I wouldn't forbid them to read it. I'd sum up the argument it's trying to present, and given their extensive knowledge of natural selection and history, they'd probably reject it with a laugh (or maybe read it to mock it... they've got ornery streaks in 'em).
And I would definitely have a talk with the person who gave them the book about trying to subvert their education...
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quote:Likewise, you assume creation scientist are INFERIOR to those you, personally, agree with.
I assume that self-identified creation scientists are those who start with the assumption that creation as described in their scripture of choice happened, and then look for data that fits that conclusion while seeking to explain data which does not.
As a consequence, I believe they are "inferior" to other scientists who do not do this, regardless of whether or not I agree with the theories of these other scientists.
quote:Children will ALWAYS be given a conflicting amount of information. The best we can do as a parent is to explain what we, the parents believe, (and why), and how XXXXXX believes this or how author XXXX believes this.
My concern here is the depth of that explanation. How, for example, do I explain to Sophie exactly why I think the majority of the population of this country wants to believe in a Christian God? That's a conversation I'd rather save until I've first taught her how someone can properly evaluate an epistemology.
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David, I think it's great that you're raising your kids in a way that allows them to decide for themselves what they believe. That's the part of what Roseauthor said that I was agreeing with. No matter how difficult it may be for a parent to let their child choose, it's the only humane thing to do. You can provide them with a sense of what you believe without implying that they must believe the same.
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I sympathize with that, too. My fear, though, is that there are certain "toolkits" which are empirically better than others, and I DO want to make sure that my children understand how to recognize and apply those toolkits as necessary -- for exactly the same reason that I'd want my kids to grow up knowing the rules of English grammar, mathematics, and other things that we don't generally allow them to "decide for themselves."
If they use the correct toolkits to reach a conclusion I don't share, that's great. But I want to make sure, in the same way that I want to make sure they know the value of pi, that they know how and why certain toolkits are superior.
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I agree with that, Tom. I am very careful to equip my children with skepticism and the basics of empirical rationalism before allowing them to make their own decisions about information, and I do constantly converse with them about the information they're exposed to. It is exhausting, frankly, to be this sort of a parent, because you've got to stay up on every aspect of your kids' lives, but it is the best way to approach the dilemma we're debating in this thread.
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