What are your thoughts about science and religion?

[RebeccaFog]

apparently, it turns out that science is religion to some people. No one in particular. I'm making a general statement.

I find your statement to be non-falsifiable, and thus sinful, as it is written in the Gospel of Popper.  I damn your protons to entropic dissolution at the end of time, unless you repent your wicked ways!

Well, it'll happen anyway, but you'll feel better about it if you confess.

I'll never confess!  Newton lover.   

[vanessalaw]

I think evolution is a wonderful testament to God's power. Think about it for a second. If you're going to create a universe would you:
a. Create a universe that required your constant attention for anything to happened, and needed a tune up every few years, or:
b. Create a complex system that was self-sustaining and allowed life to flourish on it's own.

It would seem that a more accomplished God would create a more perfect system, one that didn't break down every few thousand miles...
And an all powerful, all knowing God. Phew, all creation would sign for centuries about the glory of what His hands had made!

[Kaitlyn]

If there is a God, he probably created the universe out of boredom, without knowing how it was going to turn out.  All the emergent behavior must be really fascinating when seen from God's perspective.

[cindybc]

Well I had Jack Benny for my dad and Lucille Ball for my mom. "hee, hee ,hee". But  truly though, when you have two unemployed comedians for parents and a sister who was a speed boat maniac, what do you expect their kid to turn out like. 

Cindy

[Sephirah]

If there is a God, he probably created the universe out of boredom, without knowing how it was going to turn out.  All the emergent behavior must be really fascinating when seen from God's perspective.

I dunno, maybe this God just wasn't paying attention.

God: 'What did you do this time, Jesus?'

JC: 'I... uh... made an unimaginably powerful singularity destined to explode and create a rapidly expanding universe.'

God: 'Now why, in the name of Uriel's underpants, did you do that?'

JC: 'Because you've been moping around here for all eternity and you looked really bored... so I thought it might be nice if you had a universe of followers to be the supreme deity over and have them worship you and fear you and praise you... and all that cool stuff!'

God: 'Okay, well I'll deal with that in a minute. But how did you do it? Your matter manipulation teacher says you're going to get an F in her class.'

JC: 'Oh... well... I pushed a button on the grill.'

God: 'The one marked 'time'?'

JC: 'Yup. I set it to eternity.'

God: 'Kids, I don't know why I bother sometimes.'

JC: 'Did I do wrong?'

God: *sigh*

JC: 'Pop?'

God: 'All I said was "Get the Father a bun and some holy toast"'

[cindybc]

Hi Nephie, your description on how God created the universe reminded me of a Walt Disney cartoon when Micky Mouse was dressed in wizards robes, even remember all the little stars in his robes, as he waved his magic wand around there were all these buckets of water with an army of mops carrying them into the basement of a castle and in the end there was a tempest and great waves and swells smashed all about, Mickey swimming for dear life trying to stay afloat, total chaos you know. But then the universe turned out to be all in harmony. Like the calm water after the storm with Micky still wearing his wizards robes, sitting in a wooden tub floating gently on a calm moonlight sea.

Well one good analogy deserves a companion.

Cindy

[tekla]

Science is open to new ideas, religion is not.  That and its a lot easier to fleece fools with religion than with science.

[lisagurl]

That and its a lot easier to fleece fools with religion than with science.

Over the years there have been many to put their lives for religion. You can look at a martyr as a fool for dieing for someone convincing them of a thing that does not exist or in the modern world the reason can be good or ridiculous but the fact that they spent there life for a inner goal might make them something.

Posted on: October 01, 2008, 03:36:42 pmThere is also pseudo science that religion calls creationism or look how the drug companies us ghost writers to write there studies for drug trails. Then there is the spiritual placebo effect.

[Alyssa M.]

Evolution is pseudoscience too, for a great many people. This, of course, is not a failing of the theory of evolution, but of the miserable state of education.

Relative ease of the methods aside, more people are "fleeced" today with (pseudo)science than (pseudo)religion, though religion has made a comeback.

[NicholeW.]

Lyssa, you have no idea how much money and time is offered up to those televangelists and radio-evangelists because you don't give them your time. OTH, most things we read show "NEW AND AMAZING BREAST BREAST HAIR GROWTH. FREE SAMPLE. ONLY $599.95 FOR THREE MONTHS SUPPLY!!" ads in Science and Discovery and Nature.

Nikki

[Suzy]

I was going to stay out of this and I really tried.  Science vs. Religion? That old thing again?  I'm perhaps the only person on here with degrees in both fields.  I'll just give you my take.

Science is what one can observe, measure, and repeat predictably.  Then and only then can valid conclusions be drawn from the data.

In my day I have done a lot of research into this including geochemistry (the study of the origin of the elements) and my specialty was paleontology.  I have done radiometric dating of the compounds in samples and I know the strengths and the real problems with that method.  I have spent years looking at how science can inform my own theory of the origin of the universe.

BUT:
Who among us was here when the universe was created?  Were we here to record it, to measure it?  Could we do it again?  Of course not.  Therefore, any theories about the origin of the universe, no matter how well informed, are at best either philosophy or religion, or both.  They are not and cannot be considered science.

Look at how our "understanding" has changed completely more than once in the last century.  I, for one, do not wish to change my theology to fit whatever scientific theory happens to be in vogue at the moment.

Kristi

[cindybc]

Hi Kristi hon, wow, I agree with you but for a different reason. I love discussing these kind of subjects  but either people don't understand what I am saying or ignoring my posts.  You needn't change any of your theories for any one else's. Theories are exactly what they are. Propositions on how certain thing behave. It is only a theory unless the results are consistent or repeated predictably like you have said. But then with only a small % of any scientific propositions are rock solid constant.

Theories of the universe are exactly that, theories made by the many as in expressing their feelings and ideas on how it may have all come about. Interesting I think, even though you will find as many varied theories as there are people thinking them.  I believe it can be interesting, well anyway better then watching TV.... hmmmmm unless your interested in politics.

OK now you may tell me to go blow it in the wind if you wish.

Cindy

[RebeccaFog]

Who among us was here when the universe was created?

I was. I am Star Stuff. I was a part of that event. I just don't recall it.

[lisagurl]

Who among us was here when the universe was created?  Were we here to record it, to measure it?  Could we do it again?

CERN will get us ever closer to that moment.

[cindybc]

I enjoy tossing this stuff around to much to quit.
OK unless already proven, one can re-write theories many different ways.

In the beginning *all that is* was in the premordial soup, or the super hot material that came forth from the big bang. Everything we see in the universe today and all that is in the air, on the surface and bellow the surface of our mother earth and all other planets in the universe as well whether life bearing or not is irrelevant. All was formed from this premordial soup, or to be more precise, within a very dense and massive ever expanding ball of superheated matter and energy. So in a matter of speaking we were there at the birth of the universe, the essence that would someday form a homicide thinking sentient intelligent being in the flesh from the spirit or essence.

I'm not a scientist I just read a lot of books and what ever information on just about anything I can get my hands on. I consider myself a tinkerer and inquisitive girl, is all. Cindy wearing a white frock, her hair done up in a bun, wearing owl glasses bows respectfully before her Bunsen burner.

Cindy

[lisagurl]

superheated matter and energy

What about the anti matter, dark matter and God particles? They create matter. It is not that there are answers, just questions. Not to mention the 11 dimensions that we have not been able to be measured yet. I would suspect much more that we do not know.

OK unless already proven,

As we learn new facts the old proved ones now have more questions challenging that proof.

[glendagladwitch]

Science = beneficial = good
Religion = harmful = bad

[cindybc]

Hi lisagurl, nice to see you and right on hon. What you listed and whatever other particles, masses and forms of energy, some with a powerful enough gravitational pull, such as super massive black holes that can actually warp or bend space and time as well as the dark energy and anti gravity as you mentioned possibly many other as yet undetected anomalies and enumerable other  energy sources existing of moving in and out of this time and space reality as well as through all dimensions, like cosmic phantoms in a fluid like space in all dimensions. 

Cindy

[Rowan_Danielle]

I don't have a problem reconciling science and religion.

When you get down to it, both depend upon faith.  Religion starts with faith.  Science requires faith that there is order in the universe, even in supposed chaos.

Problems occur when either side gets to thinking that 'We are right and you are wrong.'


Posted on: October 13, 2008, 01:54:55 pm

Take the idea of "Buy only locally grown produce".  If that gains traction, you can expect movement away from factory farms, which eliminates the economy of scale and lowers farming efficiency.  Overall expenditures on fuels, fertilizer, and other farm necessities will increase, diverting resources from other areas of production and raising prices.  More arable land will need to be devoted to farming to produce the same amount as before, with consequent ecological damage and increase in land prices.  Traffic on local roads will increase as food, fuel, and machinery shipments become more frequent.  Local & state taxes/tolls will increase to pay for road maintenance.  Carbon output may actually increase over the previous situation.  This sort of idea is a middle-class indulgence, not a policy prescription for "green living".

Unless you are in a place like California, with several climate zones in a relatively short distance, it will be unlikely that one will buy only local produce.  People would have to give up too many things in order to do so.

Now they might stick to buying local produce that can be grown locally as opposed to stuff grown on the other side of the world or on factory farms in places like California.  And if they have a bit of space available, they might try growing some of the produce on their own, using high yield techniques that favor hand treatment to high tech, high chemical handling.

I do wonder about the efficiency differences between local produce farms and factory farms.  Ignoring such things as quality differences, does a factory farm produce enough per acre to make up for the energy costs it takes to ship the stuff?

For that matter, would a well managed local farm that compensates for ecological damage and the overhead that goes into farming and delivery be worse or better than a factory farm that has larger transportation costs?

We're dealing with a spectrum that has well run factory farms being better than badly run local farms as well as well run local farms being better than the average factory farms.  To make an intelligent decision either way, we would need to come up with a full range of attributes on the advantages of either setup and measure each item.

That would make the decision based on science rather than faith.

[Margaret Ann]

I don't have a problem reconciling science and religion.

When you get down to it, both depend upon faith.  Religion starts with faith.  Science requires faith that there is order in the universe, even in supposed chaos.

Problems occur when either side gets to thinking that 'We are right and you are wrong.'

Well, no. Science requires only a belief that nature is organized by natural laws and that those laws are accessible to humans who seek them out. If you want to call that faith you can, but it is a belief that can be falsified by one example that it is wrong. All scientific theories are contingent on new evidence to the contrary. That never ends. There is no time period after which a scientific theory can be said to be "true" and unfalsifiable.

It's important to understand the philosophical difference. Scientists observe nature and then propose theories (generalizations) about those observations. If they hold up to scrutiny and testing over time and never are disproved then scientists believe they have discovered a generalization that can be used to predict the behavior of natural systems - which can be very useful like in preventing disease or improving the standard and quality of life.

A law or theory in science simply means that no-one has proven it wrong - yet. Science makes no predictions that it will never happen and in fact, much science tries to prove existing scientific theories and hypotheses wrong. Science can not prove that any scientific theory is correct and does not try to do so - although that will be the practical result of repeated testing that fails to prove it wrong as well as using it successfully over time to predict the behavior of natural systems. It can't fail once - ever.

However, if a religionist says that a supernatural being created the universe and everything in it - then the scientist would ask for evidence. Lacking that evidence she would conclude that the theory is not based in fact and is therefore not useful in predicting the behavior of natural systems - like the universe and everything in it. So far, the religionists have provided no independently verifiable evidence for their theory. Scientists still don't say however, that the theory of supernatural creation is wrong - just that the probabality of it being correct is so low that it has no value as a tool of prediction.

So, science never says it's theories are right and religious theories are wrong. It says "where's the evidence?". Those who claim to know God should be so humble.