Debate

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

This is where we disagree. Through what we find in the Bible, I believe we can all understand the basics of truth; I also believe that there definitely is a final truth. I either ate the doughnut, or I didn't.

Sorry Daniel - but in my eyes you are trapped in words, language and the functioning of your brain here, and are attempting to claim an absolute truth for yourself.
This is the beginning of the slippery slope into the problems I mentioned above.

I personally find it completely viable to believe in a creator, as long as you understand it's an attempt to solve or depict something for yourself or your community but for heavens sake accept it's not necessarily the only answer to the question.

Interestingly enough the borderline for any sort of dogmatism has already been drawn in the second commandment by the author(s) of the bible itself:
Second commandment, abbreviated version: "You shall not make for yourself an idol"

But I'll drop out of the discussion here - it's degenerating into a lowly sandbox fight: "My sandcastle is more beautiful than yours ...".

Cheers
~Chris

[Bryan Conner]

This is where we disagree. Through what we find in the Bible, I believe we can all understand the basics of truth; I also believe that there definitely is a final truth. I either ate the doughnut, or I didn't.

That's what the Bible is for, to reveal God to us. No human knows it all, including the individual you quoted and me.

Which Bible are you talking about?  There are many versions...which are translated differently by Humans with different opinions.  Some translations were created to please a King who did not like what the previous versions had to say.  Even the modern churches can not even agree which Bible is authentic.  So, after thousands of years, if people can not agree on the authenticity and truth of a document, how can we be expected to believe the content of the document?   Do you have a picture of the original to share on this photography forum?  That may help us to understand. 

[Peter McLennan]

Uh oh.  I see a train wreck on the horizon.


Religions claim to have the answers and back up their answers with words. ("scripture")

Science asks questions, then backs up the answers with proof. ("facts")

[Bryan Conner]

I would like to make one thing clear.  I think that each person has the right to his/her own beliefs or lack of beliefs.  I am comfortable in my belief and also in my faith.  But, it is my belief and my faith.  I am not going to say that another person is right or wrong.  Time will surely decide that better than I can.  To each his own.  If a person wants to believe in God or the great spaghetti monster....I support them in their freedom.

[davidedric]

The essential difference?

Science is falsifiable, religion is not.

[Isaac]

How could nothing create something?

How could there be nothing?

Before the creation of my house, my house was non-existent.

Yes, there was a time and place in which your house was non-existent but other things existed instead. Again -- How could there be nothing?

I don't think your unbelief ... I think your objections come from not wanting there to be a God.

Please don't presume you know my beliefs. My objections come from the weakness of your reasons.

[Farmer]

A few things:

1. No scientists "believes" they hold the "truth".  The present the current best model that fits and explains observations and which proves to be useful as a predictor (that's simplified).  Real scientists love to find out there's something new or that they were wrong, because it means another piece of the puzzle has been revealed.  It's not offering truth, it's offering our best understanding and is always subject to review and change.

2. The presumption of "nothing" in the beginning is exactly that, a presumption without any evidence.  How do complex things form from simple things?  Chaos theory does a good job of explaining it.  The earth, as an example, is not a closed system since additional energy is being received from the sun (other starlight and other high energy sources are of no meaningful value by comparison) and as such, entropy doesn't apply.

3. The "debate" was pointless.  Ham has no interest in an actual debate - he just proselytises from an absurd interpretation of the Bible.  Most people of faith don't take such a literal view (and a handpicked literal view at that, ignoring anything inconvenient or that they don't like).  Faith and science are not irreconcilable, but Young Earth Creationism is utter bunk, from a scientific, theological or philosophical point of view.  It might seem relatively harmless, too, but it's the same line of thinking that leads to the likes of Westboro Baptists, which I think speaks volumes.

[mezzoduomo]

It's a shame that Christianity is so blighted by some of its adherents, something that I suppose curses all religions.

Emulate Christ, not Christians.

[BernardLanguillier]

The essential difference?

Science is falsifiable, religion is not.

Religion as a set of beliefs in a god may not be, but there is ample evidence that all material things aimed at supporting those beliefs, starting with books such as the bible, are, if not  a purposeful falacy, very far from being a credible source of knowlegde about the mechanisms driven our physical world.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Ray]

I recall once having a conversation with a  Jehovah Witness male who attempted to convert me to his religion. After a long diatribe from me on the subject of the unlikely existence of a God in reality, as imagined by the human mind, the man replied that he didn't think he would be able to continue living if he were to accept that there is no God.

The conversation ended there, but that comment stuck in my mind. We should accept the fact that often peoples' belief system, whether reasonable or not, is what gives their life meaning. Without it, or deprived of it, they might find themselves at sea and flounder.

I recently came across a few words of wisdom from Gautama Buddha, the nature of which surprised me because this advice, which I'm going to share with you, is reported to have been given about 2,500 years ago, although the historical accuracy of any event in the distant past which is recorded only by word of mouth, must be doubtful.

As the story goes, written down about 29 B.C.E in the Pali Canon, Gautama Buddha whilst travelling and teaching after his enlightenment, came across the village of Kesaputta in Northern India where he was greeted by a clan of people known as the Kalamas. These Kalamas were very skeptical people because they had experienced frequent visits form various holy men in the past, each offering different teachings which were often in conflict with what other holy men had said. The Kalamas wanted to know whose teaching they should follow and how they could be sure that one particular teaching was truer than another.

The Buddha's response is known as the Kalama Sutta. It grabbed my attention because I was astounded that this person, Siddharta Gautama, appears to have laid down the basic principles of the scientific method about 2,500 years ago.

Here it is. The Kalama Sutta, Angutarra Nikaya 3.65, Sutta Pitaka, Pali Canon.

1. Do not believe in something merely because it is reported.

2. Do not believe in something because it has been practiced by generations, or has become a tradition or part of a culture.

3. Do not believe in something because a scripture says it is so.

4. Do not believe in something because you believe a God has inspired it.

5. Do not believe in something because a teacher tells you it is so.

6. Do not believe in something because the authorities say it is so.

7. Do not believe in hearsay, rumour, speculative opinion, or acceptance to logic and inference alone.

8. Help yourself accept as completely true only that which is praised by the wise and which you test for yourself and know to be good for yourself and others.

Can't disagree. 

[wolfnowl]

Give it a few billion years and who knows what might happen (clue, do you know how long a billion years is?)

That depends on which side of the ocean you live.  In North America 1,000,000,000 is considered a billion. In England, 1,000,000,000,000 is considered a billion. Still, both are a pretty long time!

Mike.

[Jeremy Roussak]

That depends on which side of the ocean you live.  In North America 1,000,000,000 is considered a billion. In England, 1,000,000,000,000 is considered a billion.

Not any more, Mike. We've long since given up asserting any independence from you Yanks on this one.

Jeremy

[Farmer]

It's now an ISO standard, but it was originally used by French mathematicians and adopted in the US later (and then later became an ISO standard).

[Rob C]

I always believed in the following:

one million: 1,000,000
one billion: 2,000,000
one trillion: 3,000,000

I was never very good at maths, but always knew when somebody owed me money, which wasn't the same thing as getting paid. For that I should have been good at boxing.

;-)

Rob C

[stamper]

Quote Ray Reply#30

The conversation ended there, but that comment stuck in my mind. We should accept the fact that often peoples' belief system, whether reasonable or not, is what gives their life meaning. Without it, or deprived of it, they might find themselves at sea and flounder.

Unquote.

The best description of religion that I have read/heard is that it is a psychological crutch. Ray's statement encapsulates it precisely. 

[mezzoduomo]

It's pretty obvious to me that God is a creation of the human imagination. Such a concept can be useful in the sense that it gives people hope that there is something better in store for them after their miserable existence on this earth.

Sir Isaac Newton
Abraham Lincoln
Tolkien
CS Lewis
etc, etc....

What a bunch of miserable, backwards idiots.

[Rob C]

Sir Isaac Newton
Abraham Lincoln
Tolkien
CS Lewis
etc, etc....

What a bunch of miserable, backwards idiots.

Absolutely - they had no imagination at all.

Somebody mentioned a train crash; I think that we might be best accepting the principle of different strokes for different folks, and getting back to photography.

Rob C

[mezzoduomo]

Absolutely - they had no imagination at all.

Somebody mentioned a train crash; I think that we might be best accepting the principle of different strokes for different folks, and getting back to photography.

Rob C

If ever a thread begged to be closed after the first post, this is the one. 

[Ray]

Sir Isaac Newton
Abraham Lincoln
Tolkien
CS Lewis
etc, etc....

What a bunch of miserable, backwards idiots.

You forgot to mention Albert Einstein. 

We're all backward, compared with someone who is more forward. The most brilliant person you know is still an ignoramus on many aspects of knowledge. The combined knowledge and understanding of all the scientists in the world is not even sufficient to understand what 90% of the matter and energy in the universe consists of. They call it Dark Matter and Dark Energy because it's completely invisible, and so far undetectable.

In the case of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, I understand their religious views led them into error with regard to their scientific theories.

Newton's laws of gravity had a very obvious flaw when applied to the universe. If every object is exerting a gravitational force of attraction on every other object, then the universe should collapse onto itself, unless it is in a state of expansion, which we now understand to be the case.

Newton was obviously aware of the problem. His explanation as to why the universe was not collapsing upon itself was because God prevented it. God was holding all the stars and galaxies in their relative position to each other, in opposition to the force of gravity.

This idea of a static universe, apart from orbiting planets, moons and comets, was inherited by Einstein, who was also religious. Despite the fact that the maths he used in his first theory of relativity, Special Relativity, implied that the universe is expanding,  Einstein didn't believe it. He modified his equations to make them fit a static universe.

He later realised his mistake after Edwin Hubble made a convincing case that the universe is expanding.

There is also another area where Einstein's understanding appears to have been flawed as a result of his religious convictions. He had great difficulty in accepting the probabalistic nature of Quantum Mechanics and the uncertainty involved. He expressed his objection with the famous quote, 'God does not play dice.' Yet these theories of Quantum Mechanics have proved to be very successful. Hopefully we will soon have quantum computers operating at blazingly fast speeds. 

[Alan Klein]

There is a place for both science and religion.  It's not a matter of either or.  Science tries to explain the how and religion the why.  Each should stay out of the domain of the other.  We'd all be better off since our bodies, brains and spirit need both.