Of course no one knows what the first cause was, or what form it might have. Even we atheists have to ackowledge that. But why does the name “God” have to be dragged into it? It’s an ancient, antiquated concept from a fanciful book written 2,000 years ago by people who didn’t have the first clue about the universe compared to what we know today, and just brings a mountain of unnecessary baggage with it that confuses everything. Give The First Cause another name that has no association with any of our religious fantasies and I bet we’ll all get along a lot better.
What does religion have to say?
What does religion have to say?
What does religion have to say?
If there were a single question religion could definitively answer we wouldn’t have a GD.
Many people believe in religions throughout their whole lives without ever thinking that they provide answers to question like these, and without religions providing answers to any question that those who are not co-religionists agree upon. (And they don’t either, or else we wouldn’t see a million sects emerging from differing interpretations.)
Science is not analogous to religion in any way, specifically because it cuts across belief lines. As the saying goes, medicine can cure you even if you don’t believe in it.
You’re righter than Cecil in insisting that science and religion are different, but you have no understanding of the limitations of either.
What’s the definition of “reasonable”?
- Who said I’m trying to give up on anything?
- Who are YOU?
I never mentioned religion in my post, you did – don’t try to put words in my mouth.
And NONE of you answered my main question – you only made ad hominem attacks on my character.
I want ANSWERS.
If Science has answers that pan out, I will accept them.
If Religion has answers that pan out, I will accept them.
The source of the answers is irrelevant.
To quote Boris Balkan in The Ninth Gate, “A wise skeptic never dismisses anything out of hand”.
I can freely admit there are some questions Religion cannot answer.
Can any of you admit there are some questions Science cannot answer?
I mentioned the various epistemologies of people that would argue against that proposition and if you subscribe to any of them, I’m afraid I can’t really argue with you because our approaches utilise different paradigms. Still, you appear to value rhetoric:
If science does not have an answer to a question, does that necessitate that religion does?
And how do you determine if a religious answer “pans out”? Is it by seeing what happens when you apply the “wisdom” of religion to a real world situation?
If so, isn’t that merely another form of empiricism? You take a hypothesis (in this case, a religious one) and test to see if it’s true. Hmmm … your method of judging the validity of religious teaching sounds suspiciously scientific … . 
Are there any questions Science cannot answer – yes or no?
I’m afraid I am going to have to say no. There are no questions that reasoning, logic, and the proper application of the scientific method cannot answer.
Obviously there are 267 quintillion questions that science cannot answer right now, or anytime in the foreseeable future. It’s overwhelmingly likely that there are oodles of questions that will never be answered by science–or even asked. Perhaps the human (or any other sentient) race will die out before scientific technique reaches the point where some questions can even be understood–much less answered.
Or perhaps we’ll just never get around to answering everything. Everything is a lot of things and scientists like to play softball and go to movies and fuck and eat just like the rest of us.
My point is: there are no questions that can’t potentially be answered by science at some point in time. However, right now, many things are so far beyond our understanding that science couldn’t even touch them until a new framework (of thinking) is developed which then enables us to conceive of another, even more incomprehensible (currently) framework, which leads to another totally novel framework… etc., etc.
If it can be sensed, it can be understood. But that doesn’t mean that it ever will be.
In any event, I prefer that we try to work these amazingly difficult problems out with rigorous human logic instead of just throwing up our hands and saying, “Gee… that’s a real stumper! How 'bout we just say God did it and call it a day?”
Almost certainly doesn’t exist, but I’m going on very little evidence at all in making that judgement, and I’m willing to say so. I’m basing that on “belief” alone. What do you base your judgement on? And whatever it is, what’s your point?
Evidence and inductive reasoning.
Any hypothesis that is unsupported by evidence has no explanatory value, and thus can be discarded. And since we can imagine literally an infinite number of unsupported hypotheses, most of them MUST be discarded if we are to be able to think coherently about anything. Otherwise we would drown in a sea of what-ifs.
Arbitrarily exempting one particular unsupported hypothesis from Occam’s razor (as agnostics do) is not intellectually coherent.
I think the only way one can convince someone of the truth of a particular proposition is by evidence. If the evidence cannot be directly shown to them, it can be recorded in a way that someone could replicate it, either by thought experiment or actual experiment if necessary and then the theory behind it can be discussed. That’s the ultimate arbiter and I’m very glad that it exists. How else can we decide between competing beliefs? We already have an extensive list of ineffective methods, such as appeal to popularity or ad hominem (murder being the ultimate in that regard).
Okay, here’s one for you: What is The Meaning Of Life?
(And no, I’m not asking about the Monty Python movie, I’m questioning the purpose of our existence.)
Any answer you give, even if it’s along the lines of “Life has no meaning”, will be completely subjective and personal, which is NOT at all Scientific, and is not based on any empirical “evidence” other than that you wish to use to try and prove your position.
If you want to label such a question/answer as “Religious” go ahead, but don’t try to pin that on me – I am simply asking a question. If you cannot answer such a question via the Scientific Method, then I have already provided at least one question that cannot be answered by Science.
Name one question that can be answered outside of science.
- Is there a God?
- What is the Meaning of Life?
- How can I be happy?
- Are subjective experiences just as “valid” as objective experiences?
- Does anything really exist outside of oneself or is it all a projection of their/your/my mind?
(I actually hate the term “Religion” but that is the term that is being tossed around here, so I will use it in my reply.)
The major difference between Science and “Religion” (or whatever you want to call it) is that Religion allows for subjective “evidence” whereas Science does not.
As an example, consider that you and I were to conduct an experiment to validate a specific theory…
If you and I arrive at different results, from a purely Scientific perspective it can be said the theory is invalid.
But from a Religious perspective, even if we arrive at different results, if your result “works” for you – meaning it applies to your specific circumstance at a specific point in your life – the theory is valid (for you) even if it might not be valid for me.
And as long as it continues to work for you, I would encourage you to continue following that theory until it stops working for you, even though it doesn’t work for me; a purely objective, Scientific adherent would try to convince you that you are wrong since they didn’t have the same experience.
Religion says “follow your Heart”; Science says “ignore your Heart”.
I think everyone should be allowed to follow their own path without ridicule, even if that path may not be “Scientific”, as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others (even Scientists) to do the same. Sadly, my experience has been that many people within both the Religious and Scientific Communities do not agree and simply want to impose their own value systems onto everyone else.
Major problem here. At first you appear to be asking if science can be used to answer a question, and then you restate it as if you want science to already have an answer to the question. There are an untold number of problems that science hasn’t solved yet, but in no way does this mean that science is incapable of solving those same problems in the future.
Actually, science says the heart is only one factor, and not a very reliable one at that. The heart misleads, the heart is fooled, the heart is a poor judge of character at times.
No.
At best you have offered a question that can not be answered by science at this time, and I am not sure that is even the case. Science has all the tools and methods of inquiry available to it that religion does–plus a whole bunch more that are actually useful for reasoning.
Of course, “science” doesn’t make much use of the religious “tools” because they are not very helpful, but there is no method of thinking/problem solving that exists that is unavailable to science–it simply discards the ones that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
The God of the gaps is ever diminishing. When people can’t discover a good reason, they look for a poor one. Just like alchemy preceded chemistry, astrology astronomy and creationism the theory of evolution by natural selection. It’s a major assumption that because one can’t discover a satisfactory comprehensive evidential answer for whichever question you choose to pose (science will never address the question of “How does water halve angry neutrons?” for example) that Bronze age texts written by goat herds will be superior.
I don’t deny the possibility that one can have a significant, numinous understanding of some particular event that is deeply meaningful… but that experience cannot be replicated in another being without relying on an objective currency, the real universal currency and language for all transactions, namely evidence. Otherwise there will always be an element of deceit or doubt involved in trying to convince an individual that one’s point of view is correct. For example, to the Christian there is a dichotomy between whether Jesus walked (unaided) on water and whether Muhammad flew on a winged horse. For the individual that believes in the constancy of physical laws, they both have one salient feature in common.
To put it another way, I agree that one can have a subjective personal relationship with God (well, I can assume that, without experiencing their conscious experience I can never know), but it’s a fairly large leap to claim that one has a right to set policy or educate one’s children into believing in a God that they have no experience of or evidence for*. For example, it is permitted in Islam to marry a Jewish wife under the assumption that the dominant male will be able to make her convert (and in politics class I remember hearing that the political views of a wife tend to gravitate towards her husbands in this patriarchal society…). Anyway, say there is a dispute about how the children should be raised. They both hold that the child should be instructed as to the existence of “G_d” and his prophets, that they should be circumcised at birth, that homosexuality is an abomination and they will not be permitted to eat pork. However, the husband goes further in one respect, saying the child should not be alowed to drink alcohol and the wife goes further in another, saying that the child should not be permitted to eat shrimp.
Anyway, they call on their deist friend to arbitrate (ignoring Surah 5:80, but we’ll assume they’re quite tolerant). However, the only way for the deist to convince them of a neutral view is if they use evidence based reasoning. The more they insist on the inviolability of their doctrine, the less able their deist friend is to help them. How would you propose we resolve questions that are apparently outside the realm of science?
- This is at the common and accepted end of the spectrum. Equally immune to evidence is whether or not God actually commanded Albert Fish to torture children.
Spam reported.
Colonial: Personal insults directed against other posters are NOT allowed in this forum. Please review the FAQ: Rules for Posting on the Straight Dope Message Boards and especially note Post #10 in that thread, the rules on insulting other posters.
I’m not issuing an official warning, partly because I’ve come to this so late, and partly because I suspect you meant it as a joke. However, personal insults directed at other posters are not allowed, not even as a joke. Please do not do this again.
To everyone else, I apologize for my delay in moderating this. Life’s been interfering with Message Board activity.