Science & Religion

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SGWessells said:
Come on, Buff, you know better than that. You yourself wrote that if God were as cruel as the OT portrays him as being, we would have to give up inerrancy. In the fourth century, many Church fathers took the 6 day creation of Genesis literally; now, only a few die-hard crackpots on the lunatic fringe do. During the Reformation, splinter groups proliferated, with their own interpretations. Catholics insist that the Church has the correct interpretation, which would not be necessary if the Bible could be understood by every ploughboy, as Luther claimed, but even the church has repeatedly changed its mind as well.
The difference between the changes of science and those of revelation is that science has a way to confirm which changes fit our current observational knowledge; and that later changes do not always cancel out earlier ones; sometimes they build on them, as Sandage built on Hubble, Peebles on Sandage, and so on. Shoulders of giants. And yes, Aquinas built on Aristotle and Augustine, and so forth, but there is no way to confirm any theological speculations by experiment. Theories keep being recycled. But nobody is trying to revive Phlogiston or the Luminiferous Ether.
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Where did I write that?

Are you sure? New Foundation Physics

http://www.16pi2.com/joomla/images/stories/aether_unit2.jpg

http://www.16pi2.com/joomla/images/stories/dualtorus.gif
 
SGWessells said:
For example, how many have posted on this and other threads complaining that materialism leads to a meaningless universe with no morality, a complaint based on emotion and irrelevant to truth?
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It is a rational refutation of materialism because meaning and truth cannot be explained scientifically - nor can logic and the principles of knowledge to which science is subservient.…

Science also presupposes metaphysical facts such as the validity of reasoning and the intelligibility of the universe.
Unfortunately, the method used in none of those fields offers the safeguards that science enjoys against subjective bias and determining beliefs from emotional need rather than, or in addition to, reason and evidence.
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All knowledge is based on inference except knowledge of our thoughts and perceptions which are our primary data.
 
SGWessells said:
If the Bible were just “outside” our current knowledge, you might have a point (though to confirm its truth, it would have to be brought “inside” at some point, wouldn’t it?). But Genesis is not just “outside” our knowledge, it is, taken literally, completely opposed to and contradictory of it. The problem isn’t the parts that are hard to understand; the problem is the parts that are easy to understand, and completely wrong.
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The eyewitness writings of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is easy to understand, completely right, and the most certain event in all antiquity. But perhaps even all the evidence under the sun would have a difficult time persuading some atheists of the Truth of God; and not because the world lacks enough evidence, or because the Bible is filled with imagined contradictions, but because accepting the Truth of God does change lives, which may inspire a change in lifestyle, an event that some atheists aren’t wishing for.
Your space travel analogy doesn’t work because science is a growing field, in which new knowledge is added every day, which modifies what went before. Some who want certain, thus unchanging, convictions, think this is a flaw, but it is how knowledge grows. However, the Bible is closed and nothing can be added except more absurd interpretations.
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I think that the space-travel analogy does work. In the past people believed that things like man-made flying machines, computers, instant messages, etc., were just fictitious stories, something out of Jules Verne; even so, that does not change the truth that flying machines, computers, and instant messages always had the possibility of existence. Atheists may believe till the cows come home that the reality of God is just a fictitious story, but their belief does not affect the Truth of His existence.
 
levinas12 said:
Yes and no.

Your recognition of truth in areas other than science does clarify matters. And I would agree that science has its own integrity.

But I’m afraid I’m going to say something provocative.

Scientific truth is not ultimately satisfying. The discovery of,quarks and photons is mind-blowing. But a quark does not explain who I am, or who you are. And a photon does not account for the “good” and the “beautiful”.
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Whether truth is “satisfying” or not seems irrelevant to the main question, which is: offered an unsatisfying reality, what do we do? Hold our noses and swallow, or take refuge against a sea of troubles behind a myth that makes us happy? I have struggled with this all my life, bouncing back and forth between true but depressing and false but satisfying. My current phase is the former. Whatever we decide, it seems obvious that the degree of satisfaction a belief gives has nothing whatsoever to do with how true it is, only with how true it is believed to be. Another depressing truth is that the more a philosophy satisfies, the less certain we can be that it is true, for two reasons. One is our desire for it to be true influences our readiness to accept and defend it; the other is that such philosophies or religions are not generally amenable to the kind of certainty science offers. They depend on reason, intuition, prior programming, and other factors more vulnerable to subjective bias. That is why I tend to distrust such solutions to the extent that they attract me. If I believe something that depresses me, at least I know I’m not fooling myself in order to feel happier.
For the record, I have loathed and avoided science most of my life, except for occasional brief forays into popular physics. I am a poet and painter who feels much more at home in the realm of art and literature than physics and chemistry. But my pesky mind won’t let me alone. It insists on questioning every religion I adopt – and there have been several – until I either justify it or leave. This pattern has made me very skeptical of religious claims, since I have at one time believed them all passionately myself, and used similar arguments to defend them.
I also note that the truths of art and culture are more metaphorical, wispy, and elusive than those of scientific precision. This makes them fun to play with, but maddening as a guide to reality. Just when the secret is about to be unveiled, it slips away, or Oz the Great and Powerful turns into a little man behind a curtain pushing buttons and pulling levers. Now that’s depressing.
 
Al_Moritz said:
Blinded by Scientism:

thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174

Recovering Sight after Scientism:

thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1184
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From the first part: " For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle."

The scientific method poses hypotheses and makes predictions based on what may be expected if they were true. It then repeatedly tests those predictions by experiment, and adopts those to the extent to which they are confirmed by the results. If the philosophical assumptions Feser mentions are regarded as hypotheses, then the repeated confirmation that the objective world exists outside our minds is shown by the technological results. Ditto the causal regularities. The ability of the human intellect to " uncover and accurately describe these regularities" is proved by its doing so. Thus there is no circular argument.

I read Feser’s book and found it interesting but a mite desperate. There has been a rather substantial growth of knowledge since Aristotle.
 
SGWessells said:
Whether truth is “satisfying” or not seems irrelevant to the main question, which is: offered an unsatisfying reality, what do we do? Hold our noses and swallow, or take refuge against a sea of troubles behind a myth that makes us happy? I have struggled with this all my life, bouncing back and forth between true but depressing and false but satisfying. My current phase is the former. Whatever we decide, it seems obvious that the degree of satisfaction a belief gives has nothing whatsoever to do with how true it is, only with how true it is believed to be. Another depressing truth is that the more a philosophy satisfies, the less certain we can be that it is true, for two reasons. One is our desire for it to be true influences our readiness to accept and defend it; the other is that such philosophies or religions are not generally amenable to the kind of certainty science offers. They depend on reason, intuition, prior programming, and other factors more vulnerable to subjective bias. That is why I tend to distrust such solutions to the extent that they attract me. If I believe something that depresses me, at least I know I’m not fooling myself in order to feel happier.
For the record, I have loathed and avoided science most of my life, except for occasional brief forays into popular physics. I am a poet and painter who feels much more at home in the realm of art and literature than physics and chemistry. But my pesky mind won’t let me alone. It insists on questioning every religion I adopt – and there have been several – until I either justify it or leave. This pattern has made me very skeptical of religious claims, since I have at one time believed them all passionately myself, and used similar arguments to defend them.
I also note that the truths of art and culture are more metaphorical, wispy, and elusive than those of scientific precision. This makes them fun to play with, but maddening as a guide to reality. Just when the secret is about to be unveiled, it slips away, or Oz the Great and Powerful turns into a little man behind a curtain pushing buttons and pulling levers. Now that’s depressing.
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If you don’t make it as a poet or a painter, you should be a writer of some sort. Your past few posts have been excellent. 453 was top notch. I don’t have anything to add to the discussion at this point but I just wanted to say kudos. 👍

Though I’m sorry to hear you find the truth depressing. :console:
 
SGWessells said:
From the first part: " For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle."

The scientific method poses hypotheses and makes predictions based on what may be expected if they were true. It then repeatedly tests those predictions by experiment, and adopts those to the extent to which they are confirmed by the results. If the philosophical assumptions Feser mentions are regarded as hypotheses, then the repeated confirmation that the objective world exists outside our minds is shown by the technological results. Ditto the causal regularities. The ability of the human intellect to " uncover and accurately describe these regularities" is proved by its doing so. Thus there is no circular argument.
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Yes, you have a point here, even though the issue of " the repeated confirmation that the objective world exists outside our minds is shown by the technological results" is a bit more complicated than you suggest. But apart from that the article as a whole is very good.
I read Feser’s book and found it interesting but a mite desperate. There has been a rather substantial growth of knowledge since Aristotle.
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What does growth of scientific knowledge have to do with metaphysical arguments?

You again fall into the very trap of scientism that Feser warns against.
 
shoe said:
The eyewitness writings of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is easy to understand, completely right, and the most certain event in all antiquity. But perhaps even all the evidence under the sun would have a difficult time persuading some atheists of the Truth of God; and not because the world lacks enough evidence, or because the Bible is filled with imagined contradictions, but because accepting the Truth of God does change lives, which may inspire a change in lifestyle, an event that some atheists aren’t wishing for.

I think that the space-travel analogy does work. In the past people believed that things like man-made flying machines, computers, instant messages, etc., were just fictitious stories, something out of Jules Verne; even so, that does not change the truth that flying machines, computers, and instant messages always had the possibility of existence. Atheists may believe till the cows come home that the reality of God is just a fictitious story, but their belief does not affect the Truth of His existence.
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If we had unquestionable eyewitness writings of the life and teachings of Jesus, they would be handy. But that word “eyewitness” implies an assumption which many modern scholars have questioned. That is a thread to itself.
But you, om the other hand, I presume have no eyewitness evidence of what motivates atheists to reject God, unless you’ve read, as I have, some of their testimonies. What I find there is an inability to resolve the contradictions or explain the nonsense of the Bible. Since you’ve called tham “imagined contradictions,” that means you have not even recognized the strength of the challenge they pose to Christian faith, which other ex-Christians as well as myself have been unable to meet. But just for fun, explain to me how the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke can be reconciled without any contradiction. Then tell me whose account of what the disciples did right after the resurrection is correct, because they can’t both be right.

Your space travel analogy has its conclusion jury-rigged into the examples you present. Since they all happened, it gives your conclusion a false plausibility based on the fact that you picked things people imagined which later came true. But people also once imagined there were canals on Mars built by intelligent Martians, and that life was possible on Venus. We now know both of those imaginations are impossible. So where does that leave your analogy?
I also am unsure what your point is. If it is that science is able to anticipate later discoveries, well, nobody disputes that. If it is that people once thought we could never land on the moon, but we did, therefore people who think God doesn’t exist are equally wrong, you are comparing apples and hedgehogs. The two are not comparable, because the moon landing can be achieved and confirmed by science and its technological offspring, but God cannot be so proved, as Christians have always insisted. If such a God existed, of course denying his existence wouldn’t make him go away; but by the same token, if that God does *not *exist, insisting that he does will not make him real. That argument applies to you as much as to the atheist.
 
Al_Moritz said:
What does growth of scientific knowledge have to do with metaphysical arguments?

You again fall into the very trap of scientism that Feser warns against.
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Sorry, but where did I specify “scientific” knowledge? If you’re saying that no progress in metaphysical knowledge has been made since Aristotle, then I agree that metaphysicians need to get busy.
 
SGWessells said:
If we had unquestionable eyewitness writings of the life and teachings of Jesus, they would be handy. But that word “eyewitness” implies an assumption which many modern scholars have questioned. That is a thread to itself.
But you, om the other hand, I presume have no eyewitness evidence of what motivates atheists to reject God, unless you’ve read, as I have, some of their testimonies. What I find there is an inability to resolve the contradictions or explain the nonsense of the Bible. Since you’ve called tham “imagined contradictions,” that means you have not even recognized the strength of the challenge they pose to Christian faith, which other ex-Christians as well as myself have been unable to meet. But just for fun, explain to me how the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke can be reconciled without any contradiction. Then tell me whose account of what the disciples did right after the resurrection is correct, because they can’t both be right.
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You’re right. This was a thread in itself but in that thread people insisted that there is more evidence about the life of Jesus than the life of Julius Caesar. There were never any written eye-witness accounts by any historians, scholars, philosophers or whoever, that ever wrote ANYTHING about Jesus while he lived. You would think that if he healed thousands and performed so many miracles that at least one historian would mention him. Josephus who people like to mention was BORN 30 years after Jesus died. There are no writings by Jesus while there are by Caesar.
The Gospels were written 2-3 generations AFTER Jesus died.
They contradict each other but the truly faithful don’t accept the contradictions as contradictions.
It’s funny how people can deny the evidence of evolution but believe shady evidence like the Gospels.
 
Lui said:
You’re right. This was a thread in itself but in that thread people insisted that there is more evidence about the life of Jesus than the life of Julius Caesar. There were never any written eye-witness accounts by any historians, scholars, philosophers or whoever, that ever wrote ANYTHING about Jesus while he lived. You would think that if he healed thousands and performed so many miracles that at least one historian would mention him. Josephus who people like to mention was BORN 30 years after Jesus died. There are no writings by Jesus while there are by Caesar.
The Gospels were written 2-3 generations AFTER Jesus died.
They contradict each other but the truly faithful don’t accept the contradictions as contradictions.
It’s funny how people can deny the evidence of evolution but believe shady evidence like the Gospels.
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Yes, people can twist reason into incredibly painful contortions to defend their favorite ideas. There’s a whole apologetics industry devoted to providing pat answers to all the objections that have been raised in history. The answers didn’t have to be very convincing after a rigorous analysis, and usually weren’t; they just had to be plausible enough to provide an excuse to sweep the objection under the rug. I’m very familiar with that road, which may be why I get so exasperated when I see others trotting out the same old answers I fell for in the past.
 
Buffalo asked, “Where did I write that?”

:eek: Abject apologies; it was someone different on another post. His views were similar, so I got you two confused. Mea maxima culpa. :imsorry:
 
Lui said:
It’s funny how people can deny the evidence of evolution but believe shady evidence like the Gospels.
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It’s incredible how people can deny the evidence of the Gospels which teach us how to live according to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity yet they readily swallow NeoDarwinism which purports to be a metaphysical theory, has no moral significance and is rejected by many biologists… :rolleyes:
 
samiam1611 said:
Though I’m sorry to hear you find the truth depressing.
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It’s hardly surprising because the anti-religious crew have opted for a philosophy of despair. There’s nothing to look back to, into or forward to when you have blind, unquestioning faith in the hypothesis that we are just sparks in the dark… :rolleyes:
 
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