Elysium said:Tell that to the evangelicals please.
Pat Robertson doesn't represent the views of the world's Christian community any more than Rush Limbaugh represents that of the Republican Party.
Elysium said:Tell that to the evangelicals please.
Aneas said:Consider these "tests" you mention. They are based solely on what we view as fact through our limited sensory perception. Based on this perception, we make assumptions and work to prove them. Next consider that our limited perceptions only afford us a fraction of the actual data upon which to base our proofs. We can come to conclusions that make perfect sense and appear to bear out through our limited means of testing, while still being incorrect.
The difference? We've been unable to produce enough "reliable" data where spirituality is concerned for it to even be considered a legitimate concept by those who base their beliefs on "facts", as spirituality is not a science. It is intangible and subject to nothing we can measure or reproduce. Discounting it is akin to deciding that nothing that we don't understand or can't explain or even describe could ever exist.
I like the one particular scene from the movie, "Contact" (from memory):
Did you love your father?
Yes. Of course.
Prove it.
Just because you can't prove it, doesn't make it an untruth.
Also for the record, The Bible is not meant to be taken literally. It is a collection of real accounts from the perspectives of many different people told through narrative, metaphor and imagery, just like many other forms of literary art. The parables are there to learn from and live by, but, for example, the world is most certainly more than five thousand years old.
Still, I do believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and no differences in that regard have any effect on my attitudes or impressions toward those who don't share my own.
Wiz said:What is this data that we can't perceive? You don't know? That's because you are making shit up and passing it off for truth.
Aneas said:I merely stated that we don't know everything and that we are limited to our own human awareness and sensory perception. We can't even know how close we are to knowing it all. Seems to me that leaves all kinds of possibilities that we are unable to prove or disprove.
I really don't understand why this riles you so, but no matter. My apologies for offending. That really wasn't my intent.
Wiz said:That's great, but completely irrelevant. That we do not know how close we are to understanding it all has no bearing on the general effectiveness of science vs making crap up.
It riles me up because of people like you who celebrate ignorance and pretend as though all the great scientific achievements of mankind have a comparable impact on society and our lives to what some cult leader spouts off about how god abhors pancakes and those who eat it go to hell.
Aneas said:No one is celebrating ignorance. I'm not uneducated with regard to my spirituality. I just have no means of proving its basis to you. I can't prove what I feel in my heart. No one is discounting science. The scientific method has had an incredible impact on our lives and our understanding of the world around us, to say the *very* least. I love science. I merely know that it is not capable of explaining or even observing all things.
Science and spirituality are completely seperate concepts. I don't see why anyone would honestly think that it should be possible to *prove* the principles of one by applying the methods of the other.
That's my take, plain and simple. Now you can continue to misinterpret and misconstrue it all you like.
"Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind." ... Albert Einstein
Aneas said:No one is celebrating ignorance. I'm not uneducated with regard to my spirituality. I just have no means of proving its basis to you. I can't prove what I feel in my heart. No one is discounting science. The scientific method has had an incredible impact on our lives and our understanding of the world around us, to say the *very* least. I love science. I merely know that it is not capable of explaining or even observing all things.
Science and spirituality are completely seperate concepts. I don't see why anyone would honestly think that it should be possible to *prove* the principles of one by applying the methods of the other.
That's my take, plain and simple. Now you can continue to misinterpret and misconstrue it all you like.
"Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind." ... Albert Einstein
iaeolan said:
Waldoff said:FSM is a crock of bullshit.
The great teapot in the sky is the only true god.
Not a whole lot actually, they have just been modified with new understanding. Newton's law of gravity was generally correct, but had it's flaws. These flaws were corrected in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and this is generally the same for most scientific theories. Only very very rarely do theories get completely thrown out, and I actually can not come up with one at this time in modern history. Maybe the Ether theories of a hundred years ago.Abismo said:I can't help but get in on these discussions when I see problems with both sides. I'd like to start with the Atheist and Science side. Any of you want to tell me how many former scientific beliefs have been overturned from new/updated experiments proving something different?
Yes, it is a giant conspiracy :tinfoil:Abismo said:Have you done the countless experiments that you are told about? What about evolution, you only know as much as scientist will tell you? Who says they aren't just saying a lot of crap just to have an income? I'm not saying this for a lot of science which is mostly the obvious.