Jeff Bristow dot COM - Latest Comments in Religion VS Science

Re: Religion VS Science

revmatt — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:44:04 -0000

In the absence of god life is pretty meaningless isn't it. No absolute truths. Only what people or society believes is right and wrong. The fact is that the morality in the world is a factor of gods grand design. Evolution is a religion and always will be. You have to believe there is no god. You put man in his place and you end up with a world like today where all it's moral structure is crumbling. If man makes the rules we are in real trouble. Our nation was founded on the premise that all men were created equal. Endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Where do rights come from if not from god. Well you say they come from mans opinion. Might makes right. What a frightening world it would be without a god. Hitler knew that world and considered christianity to be the most fatal seductive lie ever created. Why? because if god created us then he cares about us. We have certain rights that cannot be taken away and he makes the rules. The real reason people don't want to believe in god isn't because of science, but it is because they want to continue living their lives in the belief they will never have to answer to anyone about how they live the life god gave them. Repent, turn from your sins, god loves you. Experience his love and fogiveness. Your life doesn't have to be empty and meaningless. You aren't a product of random chance. You have a purpose. Don't throw it away because you are too proud to say you need the lord. He sent his son to die on a cross for you and me and all who chose to accept his unbelievable gift, to pay for our sin debt. He loves you so much, don't throw that away. click this link it explains it all. please take the time to click it, it will change your life. ------

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Re: Religion VS Science

Jeff — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:01:10 -0000

"stop acting and preaching to others as if it was fact"

Is this not what you are doing? You are here to let me know that what you are saying is right, and that I am wrong. That your message is fact and that mine is not.

Interesting double standard.

So it appears that this is what you would have me do: Instead of telling people that there is a God, that he has communicated a message to us through Jesus Christ and it is an amazing message of how much God loves us, I should just keep it to myself? In fact I shouldn't even tell people that I believe in God because I am unable to prove it suffeciently for everyone who could be in my audience.

I should simply ignore all that I have read and observed in my life. I should ignore how God has changed me. Simply because someone may not like that I believe what I believe?

This sounds absurd. You ask me not to preach, yet you are preaching to me about how wrong it is for me to be a Christian and also tell others what I believe.

Again interesting double standard.

Re: Religion VS Science

Mark — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:29:39 -0000

As an agnostic, I agree with virtually everything you say. I even believe that a higher power likely controlled the construction, if not the rules of the observable universe as we know it.

But to blatently claim that a god, of which 0 proof is given, is fact is absurd. For all you know, god is a fat alien kid, and our universe is a high school chem lab experiment in a petri dish.

You have a faith in what you beleive in. I applaud that. No doubt it has dictated how you have lived your life. Hopefully, you'll never lose that faith and everything you have believed in will be true.

But ... since you have no proof of that faith, stop acting and preaching to others as if it was fact. It is not fact by your standards or mine. It is faith.

Good luck with that by the way...

Re: Religion VS Science

Jeff — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:10:37 -0000

Lets go back to "The Scientific Method".

The Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical, measurable evidence, subject to the principles of reasoning.

Science can only make claims on what have been measured and observed. The Christian in this story and the rest of the class have not observed that the professor has a brain. Therefore the scientific method is unable to verify nor prove that this is a fact. The humor in this is that we do know the professor has a brain. Based on precisely what you have claimed. But by stating this as fact we have stepped beyond the bounds of using science, since science is unable to prove this claim without additonal observation (for example cutting open the professors skull). So this story is not based on any assumptions, it merely uses the Scientific Method to form a proof, which is not true. The Scientific Method operates on the assumption that everything can be measured and observed, and even duplicated. This method does provide an excellent framework to observe and learn about our world, but it is nevertheless a flawed system since it can come to false conclusions.

Now on to "Your Moral Laws". Morality is something that is not a learned phenomenom. We all know when something is right and when it is wrong. It is ingrained in us. You can look at people from all over the world and observe this in how the majority of people behave. When people behave outside of those boundries there are often laws created to provide consequences for wrong behavior. Your argument would say that I can come to your house and eat you if I were to find this as an acceptable form of behavior. yet you would then say I am wrong, because it is now affecting you and not someone else. Morality is simply knowing what is right and what is wrong. Nothing more complicated than that, and it has nothing to do with laws (which can change from culture to culture). The question then is why do the majority of people have the same basic set of morals? Is it learned from parents? Is it genetically encoded into us? is it learned from society? This is where science does not yet have a clear proof. But since people know what right and wrong are they have created laws to provide a framework of common rules so that socity can continue since people continue to do wrong. I am glad that the majority of society does not rely on only the Scientific Method, but also on what is called common sense.

Now it is obvious that the Scientific Method is unable to prove the existance of God. Because you are unable to measure him and observe him. Yet this does not prove that he does is non-existant. Which is why you can go back and forth forever when a Christian and non-Christian who uses the Scientific Method discuss the existance of God. The non-Christian will only allow the Christian to use his method, and the non-Christian only asks for proof, yet does not use the Scientific Method to prove that God does not exist, as he or she claims. This is because the Scientific Method is not able to make such a claim a proof, because as is pointed out in the story above, if you can observe something you can prove it. So to observe the brain is to prove it exist. Thus to observe God is to prove he exists. So the only way to provide the necessary proof in both situations proves fatal for either the professor or the non-Christian. Therefore, when your exclusive premise is based on a method that has limits in what it can conclude you will obviously get incomplete results.

It is in this case that we make assumptions based on what we have measured and observed. This is how we can conclude that the professor has a brain, not through the scientific method but through assumption. I ask you to look around you, go outside. Look up at the stars. Listen to the birds. Watch the intricate and complicated interactions between animal species. Observe how complicated the universe is, how beautiful it is. What can you assume? That this is all random, or that it is all designed. The choice is ours to make based on what we observe and the assumptions we can make based on our assumptions.

Re: Religion VS Science

Mark — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:18:57 -0000

Oh please, could that be more contrived?

First off, near the end of this story, the "christian" claims the professor has no brain. Yet we can easily determine this, by cutting him open. So the story makes a claim that he cannot have a brain, becuase we cannot observe it? Since scince may not have a way of observing the brain, WITHOUT killing the subject (yet, and not totally true either, MRI', xray, fiber cameras, aka technology is erasing this limitation slowly) that does not assert that we cannot prove he has a brain. I'd just prefer to make an assumption since A) we have proven that humans have brains B) brains control our bodies C) no human is able to live without one. this assumption is no great leap, and is made to preserve the life of our professor. So yes he has a brain.

Stupid story, based on a flawed premise.

So let's talk about morality for a second.

I kill some one, thus you would perceive me to be immoral. I'm immoral, becuase you believe that your set of "moral laws" apply to me, thus I'm immoral.

What if my "Moral laws" state that killing is an acceptable form of survival (I'm hungry, you look good to eat). Am I still immoral? What we'ere talking about here is perception. You perceive me to be immoral on a set of rules, you made up. Oh sure, you got them from god. Prove it? Morals are perception, and everyone has a different set of them. Are laws are based on a common set of morals, so as to make a common set of rules that we can live with in a society.

I could go on and on, but alas I have no time. I must continue writing code on this computer. Of course, if science were truly flawed, we wouldn't have a computer would we. Maybe god invented it?