Sure it is, but it goes further. Even if we experience something we bring our own preconceptions as well as our own selective conscious process to that experience. Experiences are interpreted and the bits our that our mind feels are important are retained. This is why you can get so many fundamentally differing accounts from witnesses to the same crime scene.
Yet to give this too much thought is to lose yourself in a whirl of relativism. We have to work with what we have or we are paralysed by indecision.
The whole “something out of nothing” argument is interesting but it lacks an analysis of the quantum implications (and i won’t pretend to understand those) of the universe existing in a singularity. Quantum mechanics have forced us to accept some things that would seem quite illogical on our classical scale of existence.
So if what we experience, we put our own spin on, then everyone experiences events differently, or maybe should say perceives them differently.
Where does that leave true knowledge?
Don’t understand the “something out of nothing argument,” or why it even exists, not logical. While I agree true knowledge might/can be illogical, then why worship logic? There must be a fault somewhere with it we haven’t yet found.
“The only true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing.” – Socrates
This saying is beginning to look more and more correct.
Why argue or debate or judge, when we are not working with true knowledge, non of us.
But you can rest assured that someone who tells you they have achieved this “true knowledge” probably hasn’t. I feel at least that anything new I learn about opens up even more questions that I hadn’t even been aware of before. I think that’s what Socrates might be getting at, the more you know the more you are aware of things you do not know.
I like “practical knowledge,” which doesn’t have to be some ephemeral ideal in order to be of use.
False dichotomy. The best poetry employs the head quite as much as the “heart” (if, by heart, one means only emotions). That is why it is poetry (with structure and form) and not simply crooning or wailing one’s pure emotions into the air.
I think most people would understand it as I wrote it.
Understanding is what matters, being grammatically correct comes in further down the list, after substance, meaning, etc.
Wow,
How can a christian allow science to make them feel better about their faith? I don’t because it’s just that, faith, and it stands with or wothout scientific support. Yeah, so what if the eath was 0.001 units closer to the sun we’d burn to a crisp, SO WHAT? that does not reinforce my faith towards god, and it should’t convince anyone. I absolutely hate it when christians base their faith on science, it’s dispicable and absolutely the opposite of what God wants for you and wishes to be to you. And i Would just like to point ou that the evolutionary theory in no way is scientific, look up the defintion if your not too lazy and I guarantee evolution will seem almost like a religeon. It is based on almost as much fact, if you will, as christianity. That in no way fortifies me as a christian or makes me think poorly of evolutionists, but it is interesting that many many evolutionists who have studies evolution versus christianity to the limit, often come out with no answers, other than evolution is just as much of a theory as christianity, regardless of the likeliness or the probability of either, it takes just as much faith to believe that there is a god to not believe in one at all.
PS… I know I am gonna get a genuine doper bash for this one, but that’s ok, and maube I am a hypocrit, but please try to find some truth in what I said.
Well, I’ve looked and looked, but I was nearly unable to find any truth, there.
I would certainly agree with “and it should’t convince anyone” because faith is not built on science.
However:
Evolution is not a religion.
Evolution is based on a wealth of more verifiable facts than Christianity (I say as a Christian).
Christianity is not a theory (in the scientific sense–I suppose one may theorize about its origins or continuation in an anthropological sense) so evolution cannot be “as much of a theory” as Christianity.
And while I will leave it to the skeptics, agnostics, and atheists to point out the problem with asserting that one needs to have faith that there is no god, you appear to have missed the very clear point that one does not have to deny (or fail to believe in) God to recognize the scientific validity (based on facts) of the Theory of Evolution (meaning the Theory of Natural Selection propounded by Darwin as elaborated upon and enhanced by various applications of new information regarding the Mendelian Laws of genetics along with many other scientific advances).
Other than that, welcome to the SDMB. May your sojourn be pleasant and may you learn much while you are here.
amazonian, how can you look at the world around you and doubt the validity of science. I imagine that if you get sick or have an accident you are quick to take advantage of the medical advances science has given us. You use the science behind the computer. You expect law enforcement to use science in their efforts. It is science that allows us to eat as well as we do. It is science that heats and lights our homes. Science gives us communication, (radio, TV, www, telephones, etc) with most of the people in the world. Science gave us the ability to move quickly and easily to almost anywhere almost whenever we want to.
Look at ourselves. We differ, physically, from the animals in the field only in details. Our brains physically function in the same manner. Our various glands secret much the same chemicals, which do much the same things. The skeletal system is similar. And the closer you come to h. sapiens the more pronounced these similarities become.
The great strength of science is two things. 1) It all hangs together. Scientists don’t sit around and make things up. They, for the most part, develope them based on what has previously been proven. It is a system, not a world of separate, unrelated factoids. 2) It lives on being proven or disproven. Everything is open to question, and is questioned until the validity of its assertions are proven or disproven. Proving a theory wrong does science no harm, happens all the time.
God, as I gather the creationists think, created a universe, populated it with intelligent, curious beings. He then stripped (or didn’t include it as he built the universe) of any sign that this is what happened. The universe was then (or at the time of creation) populated with a staggering array information that strongly suggests that creation didn’t happen. And to top it all off god will damn you to hell for eternity if you use the mind given you to investigate the world he set up to trick you with.
Just for fun look back over your post and subsitute the word God where you have written science. This is why science is becoming religion. It is being worshipped for itself. Science does this, and science does that, etc. All these statements are false.
Give the correct name to who made the medical advance or built the space ship. These are just people doing their job. I doubt many of them are thinking, “I am doing this in the name of science/God.” Quit trying to push science as a know-all, cure-all element of our society. We all contribute, we are all important, whether scientists or not.
Tell you what, lekatt. Why don’t you use Bible verses, prayer and visions from dreams to build a space ship, and I’ll assemble a group of scientists and mechanics to do the same. People who make medical advances and build space ships use science to do so, because it works. They are not worshipping science, they are using it as a reliable tool.
I can build houses, bridges and spaceships without the use of a god. Can you build any of these without the use of science?
Also, science is not a system of belief, it is a system of proving and testing. And that’s all I ask for, some proof.
In my first posting I made sure I didn’t use a capital “S” in science just to, hopefully, avoid the charge you made in your reply.
You’re quite correct in saying that we all play our part. The farmer in the field doesn’t need to consider the science behind the increased yield seeds and fertilizers to grow his crops. Without the farmer we either don’t eat or go back to a time when our lives were nothing but a search for enough to eat.
I don’t knock the contributions of anyone who contributes. Hey, I laughed my ass off at, “Police Academy.”
Exactly, putting religion on a par with science, because ‘belief’ is involved, is a false comparison. It is even a false juxtaposition.
There is no such thing as ‘Science’. There’s just a bunch of people trying to prove their particular hypothesis and others trying to disprove it.
Everybody is trying to answer the questions of why things are as they are. The difference is in that religion tries by seeking the answers in ancient texts, others by researching the actual object.
Yes, there is belief involved on my part, in believing an explanation. I don’t know the ins and outs of molecular biology.
But if someone offers proof in that field and he can replicate his findings and say ‘see, it works’. That is a totaly different kind of belief than blind acceptance of an ancient text that differs entirely from what the proof shows.
Stating that I ‘believe’ and you ‘believe’ doesn’t make both our views equal.
The persuit of science and understanding things through science are clearly not what you think they are at all.
You claim to owe your life to god. But I can probably prove to you that you litterally owe your life to science. And you don’t even bother to know anything about it.
Listening to you talk about science sounds just like a guy who wants to sound like he knows alot about cars. He’s says stuff like, “I need to have my muffler bearings replaced pretty soon, and I just refilled my halogen fluid in the head lights. And I just got these new tires that are zzz rated. They are guaranteed for up to 300 mph.” You clearly don’t have any idea what science really is. You’ve only been exposed to what you get as science, all to commonly, in primary school.
Science is nothing like a god or a religion. Science can only be described as “science”, just as music cannot be meaningfully categoried as anything else. It is a fundementally different activity from any other category of activity that we do as humans.
Science is nothing about memorizing what is true and false. And what the weights of different things are. There may be a bunch of facts that you do memorize in the persuit of science, but that is not what science is. Science is an organized systematic way of finding out the truth. What is learned is irrevelant. It is a method, a tool, an organized way of thinking.
Art is not science. Religion is not science. That doesnt mean there is a single thing wrong with them. They just aren’t science.
Science and religion only conflict when religion attempts to tread into areas of knowledge that science is designed to find the answers.
People who argue until they are blue in the face that “knowledge” is a relative term, that you can’t prove that you exist, and etc, aren’t living in the real world. The problem is, we do live in the real world, we use the fruits of science everyday. If you want to do anything in life, you have to start with what you know, not some non-sensical metaphysical BS about knowledge.
How is it useful at all, to say that “we know nothing”?
It’s true, you didn’t understand what I meant at all.
So I did the substitution for you.
I would not be surprised to find an altar to science where you work.
The words below were altered from their original state to prove a point. They are not as originally written.
**You soooo don’t get it at all.
The persuit of God and understanding things through God are clearly not what you think they are at all.
You claim to owe your life to science. But I can probably prove to you that you litterally owe your life to God. And you don’t even bother to know anything about it.
Listening to you talk about God sounds just like a guy who wants to sound like he knows alot about cars. He’s says stuff like, “I need to have my muffler bearings replaced pretty soon, and I just refilled my halogen fluid in the head lights. And I just got these new tires that are zzz rated. They are guaranteed for up to 300 mph.” You clearly don’t have any idea what God really is. You’ve only been exposed to what you get as God, all to commonly, in primary school.
God is nothing like a science or a religion. God can only be described as “God”, just as music cannot be meaningfully categoried as anything else. It is a fundementally different activity from any other category of activity that we do as humans.
God is nothing about memorizing what is true and false. And what the weights of different things are. There may be a bunch of facts that you do memorize in the persuit of God, but that is not what God is. God is an organized systematic way of finding out the truth. What is learned is irrevelant. It is a method, a tool, an organized way of thinking.
Art is not God. Religion is not God. That doesnt mean there is a single thing wrong with them. They just aren’t God.
God and religion only conflict when religion attempts to tread into areas of knowledge that God is designed to find the answers.**
Boy, you guys really do worship science. And I thought I might be exagerating a bit.
The quote below, still being taught, has stood for thousands of years. How long will your writing last?
“The only true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing.” – Socrates
Um, lekatt? Those of us who argue that science must not be subverted by or subjugated to religion generally make the same point that you appear to be now making, that belief and science are different and separate. So why have you spent the last few posts confusing the issue if you agree with us? (And I do love your missed substitution in this last sentence.)
Your claim that **scotth[/h] probably worships science is really far off the mark. I suspect that your views on the subject are the result of having never engaged in actual science. (And I am not claiming that no person has ever worshipped science; I am only noting that such people are rare and that none of them seem to be posting to this thread.)