I guess this writing disturbs me the most. It suggests the same old saw: "I am the truth, because I follow whatever … etc.
What if your methods are not correct? Not flexible enough?
Not advanced enough to cover all the possible knowledge that might be encountered in the universe?
Observe the observer.
Love
There is a difference, lekatt. I have studied religion and God.
The very idea that you would not be surprised to find “an alter to science” at my workplace proves the point that you are clueless on this better than any thing I could have written. You sound like a “great conspiratist” with lines like that.
There is no directly competition between faith and science. The only way you could keep insisting that is because you don’t know what science is.
You probably see the competition, because people can use science to point out how stupid ideas are that people attach to faith that have no business being there.
If people would put an end to that sorry practice, you would not see science in the light that you do.
Science is a learned skill, a way of thinking. It is much like learning to play an instrument or make art, or playing chess. Some people have more talent for it than others. As you can see, about the only thing the other skills have in common is that they are learned skills that require some talent to be good at it. Otherwise, completely dissimilar. Would you accuse people who know how to write music of having an alter to their trombone in their house or workplace? How about an alter to a chessboard, or a set of paintbrushes?
Learning how to use pen and ink enables you to make art. Learning composition or how to play an instrument allows one to make or perform music. Learning how science works, allows a person to figure out how things work. There is no more to science than that.
The reason you so disrepect it, is probably because you know so little about it. The benefits to you are more obviously tied to a source, that is they have a “face”, when you enjoy a beautiful song, or painting. You may not have any idea how they are were done, but you can appreciate the artist.
And the biggest reason is that science shines a bright light on alot of cherished rubbish that is held by ignorant people.
If you want to know if science is right or wrong on any of these things, you are free… no encouraged… to check for yourself. Every bit of information on how the answer was figure, or task accomplished is completely detailed and publicly available. There is no excuse to attack a subject that is so completely transparent to anyone who cares to look and be so ignorant of it.
If I did not know the contents of the bible, religious beliefs, and a good deal of world history (very important to having an informed opinion on religion and God), I would not pretend I had an opinion that was worth airing.
Well, aside from the charge of navel-gazing that I will refrain from leveling at Socrates, I will note that we only know anything about him because one of his students set out to establish what we do know (or should know) and wrote down lots of things to be known.
There is a difference between the examination of one’s life and actually living it. Whatever else can be said of Socrates, he did actually engage in living–something that required him to “know” what food or water was safe to eat, how to handle weapons to avoid death in battle, how to take shelter from the weather, etc.
You are the one who confuses the false dichotomy of introspection vs praxis on the one hand, while attempting to force belief into science on the other.
It would seem that you should take some time out to figure out what you really want to say, because you are portraying yourself as someone who is simply too confused to participate.
Go back to the beginning of this thread. Identify a genuine position to hold or to oppose, think it through, then come back with a statement.
Which would of course apply to your argument as well, which creates a bit of a problem since it seems both sides does not know anything.
I think the point ol Plato was making, that you are missing, is that only by admitting that you don’t know anything can you start the search for those answers. The admission of ignorance allows you to approach it and approach that knowledge. Allowing yourself to fall into a “I know all the answers” mentality does not allow for a motivation towards learning. Since one things they know it all. So let me say this;
SCIENCE DOES NOT CLAIM TO HAVE THE ANSWERS. Only possible explinations. A glaringly obvious point you are either missing, or deliberately avoiding. (which would make you a troll)
Personally I think you fall into the same trap you are unknowingly accusing those that uphold science of- falling into thinking you have the answers. You think you have found the wellspring of knowledge and have bathed in the wellspring of ultimate wisdom, and thus reject, blindly, anything that contradicts it. You have closed your own mind, and fallen for that which plato warns us about, and turn around and try to make the scientists look like the ones. A bit of a Freudian twist that I find pretty interesting. So, tell me about your Plato…
Any time one claims they are right and no one else can be.
Any time one claims their method is true and others are wrong.
Any time one thinks only they are the true and belittles others, I am including religion here, then they are worshipping themselves and the methods they use.
I believe the way to knowledge is the humble path, considering all thoughts and ideas equally.
Science is to be commended for a lot of advances, but science is not God, and God is not science. They can live in peaceful respect for each other.
Love
Lekatt, you don’t have to tell scientists about how we’re all just primates and that we can’t ever REALLY trust our conclusions. 99,9 percent of all scientists know this already, and in many cases that’s why they are scientists!
The entire point of science is to recognise that we’re just humans, that we’re fallible, and to remove as much as possible of human error; e.g. by using things like peer review on a massive scale, constantly repeated experimentation, sharing of all the data you’ve found, and creating an environment where scepticism is a virtue and disproving a current theory will give you as much respect and fame as coming up with a new one.
It’s true that human error still is there, and I don’t think anyone is denying that either. But the point is that while science may always be partially incomplete, it’s still the closest you’ll get to The Truth during your brief existance on this planet.
If you talk about how science is just a religion, you’re essentially throwing away the hard work of untold tens of thousands of researchers, many of whom who have devoted their lives to finding out about some seemingly insignificant property of the universe – only because you think that it requires as much faith to accept their emprical conclusions as it does to accept any ancient myth.
And I say that as a Christian.
Yes, and I am sure they are superior intelligence science people.
You prove my point exactly.
What you say here is conjecture. If the data is incomplete, how can you compare it with anything that just might be truer.
I do not think science is a religion, but I do think its followers treat it like one. Big difference.
You miss my point completely here, I do have faith, but not blind faith. I like to see evidence.
Love
No. You, once more, miss the actual point, completely. scotth is referring to people who deny the evidence of science when they claim that dinosaurs lived contemporaneous with humans or that the Grand Canyon was carved out in a few days by the receding waters of the Great Flood. When scientists point out the facts that demolish those claims, some stupid people insist that their beliefs are superior to science.
You have created an enormous straw man that you claim is the advocate of science and you continually demolish arguments that we have never made.
And who has made such a claim, based on scientific evidence?
What evidence of science, you mean the assumptions made based on observed data in the present and transfered to all times and all ages.
OK, if it works for you, but you calling people who disagree with you stupid, continues to prove my original point, whatever that was.
Love
I have called no one stupid.
However, if you are claiming that you can no longer remember your original point, I may be willing to make a future exception.
You purport to support the notion of philosophy; you really need to read some Hopper. In science, one does not infer that an event represents all events for all ages.
Sorry, but I think you meant Popper.
No No, Hopper Is Popper’s brother. 
You are begining to sound really desperate. You know what’s funny about the Socrates qoute? You didn’t write it.
I think your misunderstandings of science, that others have pointed out, should clearly reveal to you that you need to learn more about the subject before you begin to cast aspertions.
I do not “worship” science, I do not even know how that is possible. I worship the Christian God-not because I believe in every word of some error ridden book. Personal experiences, that probably mean nothing to you, have shaped my life.
With that said, I will no longer justify my worship to you. I don’t think it would do any good. I think that you feel you are being attacked, when in reality, your ideas about science are.
There are a lot of people here on this board who work in a science related field, and your misunderstandings of science is probably irrating them.
Science is not a bogy-man. It is a way to reliably see the world. No one, except you, has claimed that it is infallible.
By the way, when I said irrating before, I should’ve wrote “provoking them to respond”, which is probably more accurate.
When someone disagrees with you it is natural to say they don’t know “whatever” the subject is, I do it myself all the time.
Science, like religion, is not infallable. I guess my main objection is the way science is held up as a know-all, cure-all panacea for our society. I do not deny the contributions made, but would like to see more open-mindedness. More credit given to the individual instead of the institution.
I don’t know how my knowledge of science compares with others, but I have work in labs and on projects.
Personal experiences shape all our lives, the largest for me was my near death experience, not recognized by most scientists as being real. But very real for me.
I would like to hear more about peoples personal experiences than about the glory of science.
Love
I’m just lucky I misstyped the first letter as an H rather than the third letter as an O. Yeah, I meant Karl Popper.
Oh, and just to nudge lekatt in the right direction:
You might want to look over The Karl Popper Web site (although Lib might be able to point to a better one) that includes this introduction:
It would be much more healthy to be interested in hearing both.
Science is just like a murder mystery.
You might think the butcher did it. He had the means and the motive. Everything looks beautiful until you find out that he is on video tape in a gas station 100 miles from the scene of the crime at the time the crime happened. Boom, he is eliminated as a possible answer. It doesn’t matter that the dead guy was having an affair with the butchers wife. All that is now meaningless. You have proof that he didn’t do it. Move on to the next guess.
Maybe your next idea is that the baker did it, or even that the butcher paid someone else to do it. Investigate those ideas. Look really close to make sure that it really was the baker in the videotape. But, failing a successful effort to show that it wasn’t the baker in the tape, he must be eliminated as a possible direct suspect.
Modern investigative techniques in crime carry nearly all the hallmarks of good science.
YEC’s say the earth is at most 10,000 years old, the whole universe in fact. That is a scientific idea. It is testable and falsifiable. If the universe is that young, it would leave extremely obvious evidence if you know where to look. We’ve looked in those places. A 10,000 year old universe is positively ruled out. No way, no how. A young universe is not our “suspect”.
The moron with the “malachite man” stuff has the same problem. He says he has old green bones that that are 150,000,000 years old. The evidence:
The killer for this idea:
Malachite man is false as a theory. Time to drop it.
If you want to argue with any of it, the data is FULLY available for your review. The techniques used to determine everything is fully available for you to learn.
Claims of “it doesn’t sound right”, or “it doesn’t feel right” are meaningless. There are many discoveries made by science that were extrememly surprising to the people making them. The people doing the investigation had much simpler ideas in mind or satisfying explanations. But, they were eliminated. What is left, is what is left.
If you disagree with any of it. Learn enough about to challenge it. One of two things will wind up happening.