Faith and Science

[Deconi]

Deconi, if it is false, can you show us how it’s done? Is it a biblical passage the gives us the boiling temperture of water at 12,000 feet?" Is this a doctrinal matter? Or a conclusion drawn from sacramental or moral theology?

StAnastasia

It is a fallacy and a cop out to keep singing science cannot prove the existence of God!

Does the man of religion who boils water at 12,000 feet above sea level to determine the point, find a different boiling point to the scientist?

Is it your idea that theology be confined to philosophical thought and scriptural interpretations?

Why?
Does not theology illuminate the revelation that what we see, and do not see, have a Maker?

Spare a thought for some who understand that science illuminates revelation! And whilst multitudes inject their opinions and selfs into the ‘examinations’ of the evidence, sometimes tainting their interpretations, there are those who see the Conclusion in the distance.

Science disciplines theology.
Theology disciplines science.

Both illuminate The Subject they speak to.

 

[cassini]

i look forward to any proof you may have of geocentrisms validity in the light of modern observational technology.

Warp. for the last time, God created the universe in a manner that He, and only He can know for certain. And only if He tells us which order is the true one, could we ever know. This He did, in the Scriptures.

The universe is a lot of space with bodies inside it. Indeed this is one factor never explained in the Big Bang scenario. How can space be created from an atom? If you have it all figured out without God warp, answer me that?

Man has come to the right conclusion that unless one knows for certain of one of these bodies is at rest, then all movements are relative.

That said, some of these relative motions can be figured out by man. We can say for certain that the planets orbit the sun and the moons orbit their respective bodies. This fact was inserted into a geocentric model by Tycho de Brahe so can be catered for in either a G model or H model. But the relationship between the earth and sun cannot be established with certainty, nor the rotating relationship between the earth and stars.

It is these two essential part of relativity that you heliocentricists cannot get into your heads. You all think you can say the earth moves relative to the sun and rotates relative to the stars. You go along with all the so-called evidence for H proposed throughout the ages.

Geocentricists acknowledge that because of the universe’s relative nature man cannot establish for certain if it is G or H. There is however a body of evidence that FAVOURS G over H.
The first evidence we have is that we see its reality by way of having been created on earth. Is is likely God would have ‘deceived’ us, I say no. Rather He did so for a reason, all those reasons that were inserted in the doctrine on geocentricism built up by the Fathers and completed by St Thomas Aquinas. Was it likely God would have allowed such an understanding of Him, the universe and the Scriptures to be, knowing it would all come crashing down if proof for H were to be found. As regards empirical evidence, well the Airy test and the M&M test threw a large spanner into the so-called H proofs, but it has to be admitted these do not prove G either.

So, for the geocentricists it all comes down to a matter of FAITH for their certainty. We know God knows. We believe God revealed it G in the Scriptures. Not once are the Scriptures ambiguous. We find the Church defined and decreeed it so in 1616 and 1633. We believe God is not restricted to the limits of human knowledge, but as is evident in many cases in Nature capable of designing the workings of the universe in ways man may well never discover (How does gravity work? How do electromagnetic effects pass through space?) Many Hs for example restrict God’s revolving universe because they say stars cannot travel faster than the speed of light. But nothing is impossible to God. Maybe it is the firmament of space that revolves taking the stars with it. like a goldfish bowl can turn around with the fish moving not at all. Who knows?

The emergence of modern geocentricism came as a result of taking the fact of relativity to its proper conclusion. If it is truly impossible to assertain the true relationship between the sun and earth, then the history of the ‘Copernican revolution’ had to be examined to see where and how they ‘proved’ heliocentricism. The search had to be thorough and low and behold every so-called proof turned out to be no real proof at all.

For me, this debate has been priceless, for I now have evidence that no matter how intelligent a heliocentricist - and I acknowledge all on this forum are intelligent people - the grip H has on the mind is impossible to break through. But I thought that a Catholic forum just might be different than the secularist ones in that the faith and grace that supposedly permeates through those of us loyal to the Catholic faith would be the instrument in getting some to reconsider the question on shall we say supernatural grounds. I hoped that some would say, well if it is beyong man’s ability to show whether G or H, then why not side with the Church that officially defined and declared G to be the truth of the holy Scriptures we all profess is divinely guided.

But no, not one even considered the option.

 

[The_Barbarian]

It is a fallacy and a cop out to keep singing science cannot prove the existence of God!

It’s a fact. The scientific method is too weak to handle the supernatural.

Does the man of religion who boils water at 12,000 feet above sea level to determine the point, find a different boiling point to the scientist?

Depends on whether or not he uses science to do it. If he looks it up in his scripture and believes, then he uses a different method.

Is it your idea that theology be confined to philosophical thought and scriptural interpretations?

Rather, science is limited to the physical universe. As the Pope has said, those who try to extend it beyond are in error.

 

[StAnastasia]

It is a fallacy and a cop out to keep singing science cannot prove the existence of God! But you haven’t yet used science to prove God. Does the man of religion who boils water at 12,000 feet above sea level to determine the point, find a different boiling point to the scientist? Is it your idea that theology be confined to philosophical thought and scriptural interpretations? Why? Does not theology illuminate the revelation that what we see, and do not see, have a Maker?
Science disciplines theology.Theology disciplines science. Both illuminate The Subject they speak to.

(1) You haven’t yet used science to prove God.

(2) The man of religion boils water, but God does not proclaim the temperature to him through divine revelation.

(3) I don’t understand what you mean by theology being “confined to philosophical thought and scriptural interpretations.”

(4) I don’t understand “theology illuminating revelation.” Usually we speak of revelation illuminating. Theology is merely rational discourse about religious claims, or “God talk.”

(5) What do you mean by saying “Science disciplines theology. Theology disciplines science.”?

StAnastasia

 

[grannymh]

grannymh (Where do you guys and gals get your titles?) here is a little info on Pluto:

Finding Pluto

Dear Cassini,

Just a quick note to make sure you know you are appeciated.

Not only did you present info on Pluto, you have provided one of the ways science works. This is very valuable for me personally. Whenever I am with my tiny grandchildren, I find a way of experientially showing them how science works without ever mentioning the word science. Now I have an actual example of science discovering and continuing to discover to use when they get older. I can begin by saying "when I was young…
and ending with “There is still more which you can discover!”

I must have a funny relationship with science because truthfully when I head about Pluto, and especially not hearing the whole story, I actually worried about Pluto as if the planet were a friend.

Then when I never saw a follow-up story… I thought maybe Pluto was back in the planet club or maybe the planet club folded.

Of course you can laugh. I laugh a lot with my grandchildren so that they can become comfortable with the universe.

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[cassini]

Thanks grannymh, much appreciated, Once I declare I am a geocentricist everything I say is usually ridiculed after that…

There is no real mystery in science, especially in astronomy and cosmology. When I began to study the ‘proofs’ that supposedly showed the Church was in error, I feared I did not have the intellect of my brother, who incidentially many years ago qualified as a Professor of Quantum Physics in a Canadian University. (He gave it up one year later (after ten years study) telling me he has suddenly come to the conclusion it was ‘the greatest nonsense ever invented by man’). Soon into my investigation I realised that this subject is only MADE look difficult, but with a little effort it is not that difficult to comprehend. Even Einstein’s stuff is understandable if one has an honest teacher.

 

[Namesake]

…Professor of Quantum Physics in a Canadian University. (He gave it up one year later (after ten years study) telling me he has suddenly come to the conclusion it was ‘the greatest nonsense ever invented by man’). Soon into my investigation I realised that this subject is only MADE look difficult, but with a little effort it is not that difficult to comprehend. Even Einstein’s stuff is understandable if one has an honest teacher.

“Nobody understands quantum theory.”
Richard Feynman

 

[grannymh]

“Nobody understands quantum theory.”
Richard Feynman

Dear Namesake,

In the spirit of “faith and science”

I read on the net that the metaphysics of scholastic thought, St. Thomas Aquinas and friends, is now obsolete due to modern physics.

Is quantum physics or theory the modern physics mentioned above?

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[cassini]

“Nobody understands quantum theory.”
Richard Feynman

Good quote namesake. Actually it was in quantum mathematics that my sibling reached the height of Professor. By ‘this subject’ (see above) I meant astronomy and cosmology of course.

 

[cassini]

Dear Namesake,

In the spirit of “faith and science”

I read on the net that the metaphysics of scholastic thought, St. Thomas Aquinas and friends, is now obsolete due to modern physics.

Is quantum physics or theory the modern physics mentioned above?

Blessings,
grannymh

If I may be permitted to give an answer here. As I understand it quantum theory is the theory of an atom. Quantum physics is the theoretical physics of an atom. Quantum mathematics is the mathematics that investigates and calculates the theoretical workings of an atom.

But be aware that an atom is so small that no microscope is able to see inside one. So everything they say and claim to have been ‘confirmed’ by experiment is no more than an extention of a theory. In other words modern science actually knows nothing about an atom except its effects. They know if you do something to one a certain thing happens. But how and why it happens is still a mystery known only to God.

But here is where quantum is mostly used for propaganda: The Big Bang theory is that there was once the mother of all atoms that suddenly exploded giving rise to all the space and matter in the universe. It arose from another disputed theory, that the universe is expanding outwards. Now if this is true and one extrapolated backwards all would converge back into one super atom at the beginning of time.

Now, thanks to quantum theory, this first atom can come under the direction of quantum happenings. All this in turn leads to more theory, theories that have resulted in an industry of cosmologists getting billions of dollars to investigate this THEORY even further. All the time while people starve on earth.

You can see then that modern physics - if quantum physics - did not eliminate the metaphysics of St Thomas Aquinas.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

The universe is a lot of space with bodies inside it. Indeed this is one factor never explained in the Big Bang scenario. How can space be created from an atom? If you have it all figured out without God warp, answer me that?

how did you get that idea. you are confusing me with the atheists, i think G-d did it all.

Man has come to the right conclusion that unless one knows for certain of one of these bodies is at rest, then all movements are relative.

that doesn’t help you with modern observational technology we can see that even other star systems are heliocentric. we can account for all the relative motion too, otherwise we couldn’t have sent probes all over the solar system accurately. that idea is patently false now in application.

That said, some of these relative motions can be figured out by man. We can say for certain that the planets orbit the sun and the moons orbit their respective bodies. This fact was inserted into a geocentric model by Tycho de Brahe so can be catered for in either a G model or H model. But the relationship between the earth and sun cannot be established with certainty, nor the rotating relationship between the earth and stars.

It is these two essential part of relativity that you heliocentricists cannot get into your heads. You all think you can say the earth moves relative to the sun and rotates relative to the stars. You go along with all the so-called evidence for H proposed throughout the ages.

we understand, its just wrong now. other star systems rotate around their stars. you are counting on hundreds of year old ideas to defy what we can now witness, its like you are telling us the sky is orange, no matter how many times you say it we can see it isn’t true.

So, for the geocentricists it all comes down to a matter of FAITH for their certainty. We know God knows. We believe God revealed it G in the Scriptures.

thats the problem, that is not what the Roman Catholic Church believes. by differing with what the church believes you make us all look foolish, you give our enemies ammunition, you should stop.

if you care to do this for fun you could join the flat earth society, but there are people who come here and will be turned away from the faith because they may take you as a serious representation of Catholicism, and though you seem to believe that is alright, it works at cross purposes with the church. you are working against the church. no matter your purpose that is wrong

The emergence of modern geocentricism came as a result of taking the fact of relativity to its proper conclusion. If it is truly impossible to assertain the true relationship between the sun and earth, then the history of the ‘Copernican revolution’ had to be examined to see where and how they ‘proved’ heliocentricism. The search had to be thorough and low and behold every so-called proof turned out to be no real proof at all.

yeah, 400 years ago. but we bnow have all the evidence to the contrary.

For me, this debate has been priceless, for I now have evidence that no matter how intelligent a heliocentricist - and I acknowledge all on this forum are intelligent people - the grip H has on the mind is impossible to break through.

what grip on the mind? it is purely a matter of evidence. its not a cult, we can actually observe these things now.

But I thought that a Catholic forum just might be different than the secularist ones in that the faith and grace that supposedly permeates through those of us loyal to the Catholic faith would be the instrument in getting some to reconsider the question on shall we say supernatural grounds.

how are you more loyal a Catholic because you deny the obvious? no one in the church agrees with you, most especially the Papal Academy on the Sciences. the church does not agree with you, so how does that make you more loyal?

I hoped that some would say, well if it is beyong man’s ability to show whether G or H

it is not beyond mans ability, we can now physically observe the fact of heliocentricity from our own space probes, and from the heliocentricity of other star systems.

then why not side with the Church that officially defined and declared G to be the truth of the holy Scriptures we all profess is divinely guided.

But no, not one even considered the option.

because the church made a mistake, they were flat out wrong.

it is not a matter of faith or morals, and regarless of the opinion of 400 year old dead men it never will be.

now i see that you only deny H because you are unwilling to admit the church made a mistake in matters of science.

 

[ricmat]

“Nobody understands quantum theory.”
Richard Feynman

And he won the Nobel prize in physics.

If only other scientists were as honest.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

And he won the Nobel prize in physics.

If only other scientists were as honest.

may be we should just use the average of all the quantum effects as the base level of understanding. in other words ‘observable reality’ that way we avoid the confusion among the competing interpretations of quantum theory.

maybe thats a little simplistic, but it seems like it would be effective.

 

[grannymh]

may be we should just use the average of all the quantum effects as the base level of understanding. in other words ‘observable reality’ that way we avoid the confusion among the competing interpretations of quantum theory.

maybe thats a little simplistic, but it seems like it would be effective.

Dear warpspeedpetey,

I did get an answer to my question (in previous posts) about whether or not quantum theory would make St. Thomas Aquinas and metaphysics obsolete. However, your phrase “observable reality” gives me another perspective. Could “observable reality” replace the metaphysical view of substance and accidents?

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[StAnastasia]

Dear warpspeedpetey,

I did get an answer to my question (in previous posts) about whether or not quantum theory would make St. Thomas Aquinas and metaphysics obsolete. However, your phrase “observable reality” gives me another perspective. Could “observable reality” replace the metaphysical view of substance and accidents?

Blessings,
grannymh

grannymh, you ask an interesting question. If “substantia” is in principle the unobservable substratum of the observed reality made visible and tangible through “accidents,” I don’t think there is an equivalent concept in modern physics. I don’t know that the idea of “transubstantiation” is intelligible outside the concept of Aristotelian metaphysics. Whether Aristotelian metaphysics is inseparable from Aristotelian physics is a question worth discussing.

StAnastasia

 

[Namesake]

may be we should just use the average of all the quantum effects as the base level of understanding. in other words ‘observable reality’ that way we avoid the confusion among the competing interpretations of quantum theory.

maybe thats a little simplistic, but it seems like it would be effective.

Feynman also said something to the effect that it doesn’t matter how good your theory sounds, if it doesn’t match up to the experiment it isn’t valid. Something like that.

He was a true genius in our time.

Some people here could use a good dose of Feynman to better appreciate science, and life in general.

 

[grannymh]

grannymh, you ask an interesting question. If “substantia” is in principle the unobservable substratum of the observed reality made visible and tangible through “accidents,” I don’t think there is an equivalent concept in modern physics. I don’t know that the idea of “transubstantiation” is intelligible outside the concept of Aristotelian metaphysics. Whether Aristotelian metaphysics is inseparable from Aristotelian physics is a question worth discussing.

StAnastasia

PLEASE, please discuss. Thank you.

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[hecd2]

From this Discovery Institute web site:

intelligentdesign.org/education.php

I am afraid your are naive if you take this at face value. What do you know about the history of Kitzmiller v Dover?The “Teach the Controversy” tactic is a political step designed to move the agenda to the point where they hope ID (creationism in disguise) can be taught alongside science in science class. It is clear that that will not be allowed to happen in the current climate, particularly after Dover, so the current tactic is to pretend there is a scientific controversy about evolution and common descent and to demand that that controversy be taught in class in the interests of fairness and open-mindedness. In fact, there is no significant controversy about the fundamentals amongst the scientific community to teach - the consensus amongst the tens of thousands of working biologists in thousands of labs around the world in favour of the fact of evolution is as strong as the the consensus in favour of General Relativity or EM theory or the germ theory.

In order to do so, they have put on a thin costume of science activities and language, in the hope that people can be persuaded that a “transcendent supernatural being did it” is an alternative scientific hypothesis. I assume this is the group of YECers that you are talking about, but they are not all YECers, and although they might have appropriated the name of ID, they are pushing what most people, including me, think of as ID.

It doesn’t appear to be the Discovery Institute. Yes, I’ve read the so called “wedge document.” Have you read their response? It is on their web site.

It is absolutely the Discovery Institute, packed from top to bottom with people who have no interest in figuring out how the natural world actually works, and only too ready to pervert their learning to promote the religiously-motivated solution they already have for the question of the diversity of species - that “God-did-it” - not in the sense of a complementary explanation to the natural one such as theistic evolutionist might hold, but as a strictly competing alternative. The answer God did it as a cause for a natural phenomenon is simply not welcome in science and it never has been.

But no matter what the personal motivations of ID folks might be, religious or not, if they do science with the proper method and interpretation, then why not teach it as science?

Well some do publish science papers that are nothing to do with ID. But I think your question is to do with ID, and my answer is, if the work meets the normal standards of science (and one of those standards is that it does not include magical explanations) and it’s published and validated by a consensus of the entire community of scientists from Tokyo to Seattle, then it could be taught in science class. However, so far, in all the time they have been going, they haven’t done any that supports the ID hypothesis - and that’s because they are not motivated to do science. If they were, they’d sweat and sweat, like the rest of the scientific community, till they discovered something significant before blowing their trumpets - instead they are trying to deafen policy makers from state education boards to the Vatican with their trumpets today.They are motivated to try to prove a pre-determined religious position - they have the answer in advance, and they are looking for the evidence to support it. That’s not doing science, it’s abusing science.

But finding the root cause or underlying factors doesn’t impinge on religion. Of course God did it (from the religious perspective). After all, who designed the laws of nature to work like they do.

I understand that is what theists think, and that’s fine. I have said so several times in the last 48 hours. It’s an underlying world-view. But it doesn’t tell you why worker ants and bees are willing to sacrifice their chance of reproduction for the society, or what causes the observed orbits of the planets, or why apoptosis fails in cancer, or predict the the results of tests of Bell’s inequality, or develop an understanding of the lives of Neaderthals in Europe in the Eemian interglacial.

Again, I’m not aware of anyone who says that God did it and that’s that - no further research required…

Of course they are not as politically stupid as that. But, this *is *the objective of ID: to *replace *the natural explanation for the diversity of species (ie evolution) with a religious one - God did it, in science.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Yes.

The monkey/typewriter thing seems to have started out as an attempt to explain how random mutations, plus natural selection could account for evolution, and/or abiogenesis.

Really? Could you give us a quote to support that? Because anyone who uses it for that purpose, doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. Darwinian evolution is specifically not based on randomly generatinbg things until you get your predetermined sequence… Perhaps it was originally used by a particularly ignorant creationist.

You’ve got so much time that everything and anything can occur. The multiverse theory is based on the same argument as the monkeys. If you have enough of them, eventually one will accidentally and randomly “come out right for life” - or in the case of the monkeys, the works of Shakespeare.

Yes, it’s a closer analogy to the multiverse hypothesis.

I’d be more impressed if instead of tracking 2 current species back to some presumed common ancestor, you could take 1 current species and track it back to a known ancestor.

Well, scientists’ objective is not to impress you. Believe it or not, demonstrating the fact of evolution or common descent forms no part of biologists’ research objectives; it’s a settled issue in science. What we know is all compatible with common descent *including *the fact that the known rates of mutation are sufficient to explain the genetic distance between species - there is no discrepancy. Plus where we have observed speciation genomic work is underway, eg:
Kocher, Adaptive Evolution and explosive speciation: the cichlid fish model, Nature Reviews Genetics 5, 288-298.

But the response I get when I ask for this is usually something like “Evolution did it, somehow. And we know that evolution did it because here we are!”

I’m interested. Does it actually make you feel better to trivialise and misrepresent the evidence for common descent?

Here, why don’t you read this: there are five sections:
evolutionpages.com/Mouse%20genome%20home.htm

Alec

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Dear warpspeedpetey,

I did get an answer to my question (in previous posts) about whether or not quantum theory would make St. Thomas Aquinas and metaphysics obsolete. However, your phrase “observable reality” gives me another perspective. Could “observable reality” replace the metaphysical view of substance and accidents?

Blessings,
grannymh

what answer did you receive? i would think that Aquinas would be true regardless. no matter the effect, there must be sufficient cause for it to occur, i would think this applies to all matters quantum.

we know that there is really only one substance, energy, and that all other observable phenomenon are varying functions of that. in that way the substance is no different than the accident.