[manoj]

god does not play dice with the cosmos.he plays chess


manoj

[Digital Distortion]

Hi all...I am new to this web site..I found it through google....so science does not prove we were all created..How..Are you closing your eyes to good science and practice..Have you not read anything from Dr. Carl Baugh, or Dr. Lee Lorenzen..How about Berry Setterfield  Lambert Dolphin..Hmmmm...man just appeared here..huh..I can see how you would not know who any of these people might be...as we all have the choice to choose our teachers...hmmm...choice..what an interesting word huh..All of life is about establishing relationships with other people and searching out knowledge....How is that different with our Creator..If you dont talk with someone or ignore them, its for a reason right..What about the God of the Bible..Have you ever truly sought his spirit out..Have you ever wanted a relationship with him..Who else could tell you more about the this life and the universe than him...Not a man!..God is not a man that he should lie...
 "Truth is not created, it is only discovered."

[Donnah]

quote:Originally posted by Ylide

Welcome to the world of religion.  It doesn't have to make sense, it's faith!  

Chris Rock said it best in Kevin Smith's movie Dogma when he said that beliefs are what cause problems with mankind.  You can't change a belief, even in the face of opposing evidence.

That is, you can't change anyone else's belief.

"Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms." - Audrey Hepburn

[kjahafa]

Religion is a commonality of beliefs. The knowledge we seek is found within ourselves(Book of Thomas). The sand is the same as the earth as the moon as the sun as the universe...a single entity with multiple processes. Science explains some of these processes but never their beginnings where matter ends. For those of you religious fanatics: The creator is everything and religions are of human culture.

[rabeldin]

Unfortunately, Christianity is our most intolerant religion. You can find a number of exclusivist proof-texts if you want to. Actually, I think that the ease with which Christian sects multiply and mutate is Christianity's least attractive feature.

R A Beldin,
Improbable Statistician

[ZERO POINT]

[xx(]

HERE'S ONE FOR YA!!

I DO NOT FEEL OBLIGED TO BELIEVE THAT THE SAME GOD WHO HAS ENDOWED US WITH SENSES, REASON AND INTELLECT HAS INTENDED US TO FORGO THEIR USE. **BY, GALILEO**

SMART MAN THAT GALILEO, I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF

HUH?

[DocN]

Scientists need to speak "science" which is mathematics.
Doc

[xpowderx]

Im still trying to comprehend the mathematical equation for inf-probabilities.. For some reason mathematics could never give me such a answer! :-D

So im guessing the "inf" is used in replacement of"I dont know "
While many of us may brainstorm on the ideas and theories that we create, it still comes down to the basic 1,0. To unlock 1,0 will be to unlock the key of life :-D

[Mjhavok]

Richard Dawkins is an atheist and so am I.

[eric l]

Being a scientist does not prevent one from believing in God, or Allah, or the Supreme Being, or the Creative Force or which ever name you might imagine for Him or Her.  But it will problably prevent one from forcing that belief upon others !  
Scietists are trained in doubting - Descartes even started his whole philosophy by that, and concluded that he could not doubt the fact that he was doubting.  From that certitude he built up a complete system.
But in chemistry for example, we are aware that in a given mixture many reactions can occur at het same time (alcohol can be oxidized to acid, but also to carbon dioxide and water) and conditions will determine which reaction prevails - without completely excluding the other reactions.
A scientist who believes in God (or any of the others) will always be aware that this belief is only one of the possible answers to the "fundamental questions."  Which of course is also valid for the scientist who does not believe. And within this belief or disbelief, the scientist (like everyone else) should start to build his set of rules on how to behave in this world, with or without a hereafter.

[Mjhavok]

If you think rationally it's hard to believe in god. It demands faith and belief in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Steven

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Mjhavok
If you think rationally it's hard to believe in god. It demands faith and belief in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

What has belief and thought got to do with each other.

Thought, by its nature is rational; but thought can only follow from premise, which sometimes cannot be rationalised.

I am also an atheist, and do not believe in God; but I also recognise that as a human being I am more than a mere computer, I have an irrational side to me as well, a side that is a prerequisite for being human.

George

[eric l]

The difference between science and religion or belief is very close to the difference between cause and reason.
There is definately a cause for my being around :  it is something my dad and my mom did years ago.  But this does answer to the question "is there a reason form my being around?".
Even to a scientist it is difficult to accept that there is no reason or no purpose in his/her being around.  Religion or belief can be helpful in finding an answer to that.
Newton saw his scientific work as something to support his theology.  Although I do not follow him in this, I can not see it as a contradiction either.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by eric l
The difference between science and religion or belief is very close to the difference between cause and reason.
There is definately a cause for my being around :  it is something my dad and my mom did years ago.  But this does answer to the question "is there a reason form my being around?".
Even to a scientist it is difficult to accept that there is no reason or no purpose in his/her being around.  Religion or belief can be helpful in finding an answer to that.
Newton saw his scientific work as something to support his theology.  Although I do not follow him in this, I can not see it as a contradiction either.

There are many questions that religion seeks to answer that science cannot ( Religion asks questions both regarding 'why' as well as 'who', while science concentrates on 'how'.), but rational logic will make it obvious that the fact that you can formulate a question does not automatically mean that an answer exists for that question.

I could ask “what is the last decimal digit in the square root of 2?” - the question can be asked, but since the square root of two is an irrational number, it has no last digit, and so the question cannot be answered.  This inability to answer the question is not a constraint of human intellect, but a limitation upon the domain of the question.  It is akin to the problem of trying to create a set of all things that do not belong to a set.

I do agree that historically most pre-modern (as well as some modern) scientists were very religious, or at least superstitious (and often both).  There is nothing in religion that precludes good science (excepting a few extremists who insist that if the answer science comes up with violates their own narrow ideas of religion, then science must be wrong – but most scientists can separate the domains of religion and science sufficiently that this does not become a problem).

George

[Mjhavok]

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

quote:Originally posted by Mjhavok
If you think rationally it's hard to believe in god. It demands faith and belief in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

What has belief and thought got to do with each other.

Thought, by its nature is rational; but thought can only follow from premise, which sometimes cannot be rationalised.

I am also an atheist, and do not believe in God; but I also recognise that as a human being I am more than a mere computer, I have an irrational side to me as well, a side that is a prerequisite for being human.

George

You can have an irrational thought easily. In my opinion a thought isn't inherently rational just because it's a thought. People do irrational things all the time although at the time they may have thought it was rational.

I do believe that rational thinking and believing in god are difficult to merge but some people do it. They are totally rational in their job but believe in god. It's like they have a seperate part of their brain that rationality can't enter.


Also can I just state that I didn't mean you have to be an android not to believe in god. I just mean if you think about the existence of god in a rational manner it doesn't hold up.

Emotions do make us human but they don't have to make us believe in anything without proof just because it makes us feel good.

I am a bit pasionate about this subject as I believe it causes alot of harm in the world.

Steven

[Mjhavok]

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

quote:Originally posted by eric l
The difference between science and religion or belief is very close to the difference between cause and reason.
There is definately a cause for my being around :  it is something my dad and my mom did years ago.  But this does answer to the question "is there a reason form my being around?".
Even to a scientist it is difficult to accept that there is no reason or no purpose in his/her being around.  Religion or belief can be helpful in finding an answer to that.
Newton saw his scientific work as something to support his theology.  Although I do not follow him in this, I can not see it as a contradiction either.

There are many questions that religion seeks to answer that science cannot ( Religion asks questions both regarding 'why' as well as 'who', while science concentrates on 'how'.), but rational logic will make it obvious that the fact that you can formulate a question does not automatically mean that an answer exists for that question.

I could ask “what is the last decimal digit in the square root of 2?” - the question can be asked, but since the square root of two is an irrational number, it has no last digit, and so the question cannot be answered.  This inability to answer the question is not a constraint of human intellect, but a limitation upon the domain of the question.  It is akin to the problem of trying to create a set of all things that do not belong to a set.

I do agree that historically most pre-modern (as well as some modern) scientists were very religious, or at least superstitious (and often both).  There is nothing in religion that precludes good science (excepting a few extremists who insist that if the answer science comes up with violates their own narrow ideas of religion, then science must be wrong – but most scientists can separate the domains of religion and science sufficiently that this does not become a problem).

George

I totally agree with this


Steven

[jolly]

The majority of past scientist believed in God! I'm talking pre-Darwin! But even Darwin himself was a priest!

Decartes and Hume, both believed in God!

Newton certainly believed in god!

Einstien, frued, and Marx were all Jewish! and I think to a degree all believed in God your first post about Einstien shows he did! and Marx really attacked bad religion- not god!

But I think you'll find historically the majority of scientists, and thinkers believed in god!

[jolly]

sorry quotes:

Hume:

"whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence, it being absolutely impossible for anything to produce itself or be the cause of its own existence.

In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing an infinite succession, without any ultimate cause at all, or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause, that is necessarily exsistent:

Now, that the first supposition is absurd, may thus be proved. In the infinite chain or succession of causes and effects, each single effect is determined to exsist by the power and efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded; but the whole eternal chain or succession, taken togther, is not determined or caused by anything:

And yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exsist in time.
The question is still reasonable why this particular succession of causes exsisted from eternity, and not any other succession, or no succession at all?

If there be no necessarily exsistent being, any supposition which can be formed is equally possible; nor is there any more absurdity in nothing's having existed from eternity, than there is in that succession of causes which constitutes the universe.

What was it, then, which determined something to exist rather than nothing, and bestowed being on a particular possibility, exclusive of the rest? External causes, there are supposed to be none.
Chance is a word without meaning. WAS IT NOTHING? but that can never produce any thing. We must, therefore, have recourse to a necessarily existent Being, who carries the reason of his existence in himself; and who cannot be supposed not to exist, without an express contradiction.

There is, consequently, such a Being-that is, there is a Deity"(A GOD).

Well you wanted a quote- bit long but relates!!!! 

[Bored chemist]

As far as I can see the big bang is cited as an exception to
"it being absolutely impossible for anything to produce itself or be the cause of its own existence. "
It did cause itself, or at least there is no way of knowing what caused it.
At that point you can always accept that the big bang is just as much an article of faith as the existence of God. Personally, I think that a random impersonal explosion of existence is intrinsicly more plauseible than a complicated God with, for example, a form to create people in the image of.

[jolly]

Well thats very nice for you Bored; who you arguing against me or hume?