Science VS. Faith

[Leela]

I don’t know.

Present your evidence.

:shamrock2:

Hi CatsandDogs,

You said that “my beliefs are based entirely on evidence.”

I asked, Is there any evidence that would convince you that any of Catholic dogma is false?

When you said certainly, I assumed you meant that you could imagine evidence that would convince you that Catholic dogma is false.

I’m wondering what sort of evidence would convince you that the Catholic dogma of God’s existence and the inspired nature of the Bible are false?

Best,
Leela

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Hi CatsandDogs,

You said that “my beliefs are based entirely on evidence.”

I asked, Is there any evidence that would convince you that any of Catholic dogma is false?

When you said certainly, I assumed you meant that you could imagine evidence that would convince you that Catholic dogma is false.

I’m wondering what sort of evidence would convince you that the Catholic dogma of God’s existence and the inspired nature of the Bible are false?

Best,
Leela

The evidence that I have gotten that God is who God says He is is from God and confirmed by God’s Church.

The only evidence that would convince me that God was not God as God says He is would also have to come from God saying that He’s not who He has told me He was before, and He’d do that by direct revelation to me which was confirmed by His voice via the Church.

I have very little hope that you could find such evidence, but it’s certainly not (conceptually) impossible.

If you could show me that God’s infallible word via the Church is self-contradictory, then you would make me doubt God as God has told us He is is correct.

Good luck with that!

:shamrock2:

 

[buffalo]

The evidence that I have gotten that God is who God says He is is from God and confirmed by God’s Church.

The only evidence that would convince me that God was not God as God says He is would also have to come from God saying that He’s not who He has told me He was before, and He’d do that by direct revelation to me which was confirmed by His voice via the Church.

I have very little hope that you could find such evidence, but it’s certainly not (conceptually) impossible.

If you could show me that God’s infallible word via the Church is self-contradictory, then you would make me doubt God as God has told us He is is correct.

Good luck with that!

:shamrock2:

Actually it would be impossible - since God cannot deceive or be deceived.

 

[Leela]

The evidence that I have gotten that God is who God says He is is from God and confirmed by God’s Church.

The only evidence that would convince me that God was not God as God says He is would also have to come from God saying that He’s not who He has told me He was before, and He’d do that by direct revelation to me which was confirmed by His voice via the Church.

I have very little hope that you could find such evidence, but it’s certainly not (conceptually) impossible.

It sounds conceptually impossible to me for you to say that God would have to tell you that he is not God? If God came to you and told you that, that would be evidence that God actually does exist (and that he sometimes tells faslehoods), not that God does not exist.

If you could show me that God’s infallible word via the Church is self-contradictory, then you would make me doubt God as God has told us He is is correct.

Good luck with that!

Isn’t the whole Trinity concept self-contradictory?

Best,
Leela

 

[buffalo]

Isn’t the whole Trinity concept self-contradictory?

Best,
Leela

How so?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Actually it would be impossible - since God cannot deceive or be deceived.

That’s true (of course), but it IS possible that this thing that I’ve been taking as being God is just some demon, or “brain malfunction”, which the ACTUAL God (qua God) will inform me of being “not Him” and may inform me that the Church isn’t really His vehicle of communication to mankind.

Now, I check every “private revelation” against the Church for congruency, and I also check (as best I can) every infallible proclamation of the Church against the rest of “infallible public revelation” for any intra-magisterial self-contradiction.

I have yet to find any “intra-magisterial self-contradiction”.

I have found MANY errors in my own personal private revelation, of course, but that’s to be expected as I’m not “God’s Church”.

The point is that it’s not (conceptually) impossible that I’ve been duped by “the Church” into following some “entity” which isn’t the actual God, but only the actual God could provide that information, as to base the reality of reality on anything not-God is to incur the effects of recursive reasoning up one’s own backside ad infinitum.

:shamrock2:

 

[Leela]

Actually it would be impossible - since God cannot deceive or be deceived.

Hi Buffalo,

Evidence that would convince you that God does not exist may be inconceivable to you, but CatsandDogs has said that his beliefs are based entirely on evidence. Presumably such evidence is conceivable for him.

I’m not sure it is, since CatsandDogs says he would need God to tell him that God is not God? But for CatsandDogs to disbelieve God exists, he would have to believe God exists and told him so.

I’m now doubting that CatsandDogs beliefs are based on evidence?

best,
leela

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
The evidence that I have gotten that God is who God says He is is from God and confirmed by God’s Church.

The only evidence that would convince me that God was not God as God says He is would also have to come from God saying that He’s not who He has told me He was before, and He’d do that by direct revelation to me which was confirmed by His voice via the Church.

I have very little hope that you could find such evidence, but it’s certainly not (conceptually) impossible.

It sounds conceptually impossible to me for you to say that God would have to tell you that he is not God? If God came to you and told you that, that would be evidence that God actually does exist (and that he sometimes tells faslehoods), not that God does not exist.

You are of the mind that God doesn’t exist, but if He does exist He needs to prove to you that He does exist.

I am of the mind that God must exist, and the only question is whether the “voice” that I’m following is actually God or some counterfeit entity masquerading as God.

Why is your position any more valid than mine?

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
If you could show me that God’s infallible word via the Church is self-contradictory, then you would make me doubt God as God has told us He is is correct.

Good luck with that!

Isn’t the whole Trinity concept self-contradictory?

No. Show me how it is, in your mind.

:shamrock2:

 

[Leela]

Science needs to “dig” as deeply as possible, which is what the Church wants it to do, because the deeper an understanding of the universe we have the more understanding we’ll have as to why God created it as He did for us to live in and use,…

…but what “science” tries to DO with that science/knowledge MAY not be a good use of that science!

(Big) Science, like all other “temporal powers”, is free to govern it’s “territory” as it wishes, but when it fails to see itself as what it is and thinks itself “unbound” in it’s actions, not accountable even to God, then it becomes yet another satanic tyrant.

Religion is the ONLY thing that renders worthy and interesting MORAL conclusions. Science is the ONLY thing that renders effective and useful ENGINEERABLE conclusions

You fail to see what the essence of the respective realms of science and religion are.

Religion is about morality. Science is about everything BUT morality.

Science SEEMS to get MUCH the better of the deal, as it’s “realm” is apparently much greater, and sometimes, in those who take that “larger realm” to mean inherently more importance, the so-called “scientists” (religiously scientistic materialists as opposed to true scientists) are “persuaded” to a massive hubris which claims that all things not “governed by science” are fancifully nonexistent.

Do you have more of a correct understanding of the respective roles of true science and true religion now, and how either impinging on the other is a bad thing?

:shamrock2:

Hi CatsandDogs,

This reminds me of Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘NOMA’ or “non-overlapping magisteria”? Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse:

“To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists.”

This sounds fine, until you realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis? A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference. Either we have good reason to believe such a claim or we don’t?

NOMA doesn’t really work. Imagine that forensic archeologists discovered DNA evidence demonstrating that Jesus was born of a virgin mother and had no father. Should you dismiss the archeologists’ DNA out of hand: “Irrelevant. Scientific evidence has no bearing on theological questions. Wrong magisterium.”

Of course that would never happen. Religious people love scientific evidence as much as anyone else when it confirms what they already know. Ultimately there is only one magesterium–the available evidence?

Science in it’s most narrow sense is a particular way of knowing, and you are right to critique Scientism for saying that this is the only form of valid knowledge since that claim itself is not justified through the scientific method.

Science in its broadest sense includes ALL reasonable claims. If there were good reasons to believe that Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse, it would be part of our scientific understanding. But there aren’t, so it isn’t.

As for morality, I think there are lots of reasonable claims we can make about it that don’t require us to believe in gods. It is verifiable by anyone that love is more conducive to happiness than hate, for example. There is no reason why science can’t study morality and discover such moral truths.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi CatsandDogs,

Thanks you for having this dialogue with me.

You are of the mind that God doesn’t exist, but if He does exist He needs to prove to you that He does exist.

I am of the mind that God must exist, and the only question is whether the “voice” that I’m following is actually God or some counterfeit entity masquerading as God.

Why is your position any more valid than mine?

You are “of the mind that God must exist.” Is this claim based on evidence?

As for the Trinity:

Jesus is 100% human,
Jesus is 100% God,
Jesus is the Son of God

I see these ideas as contradictory?

Best,
Leela

 

[CatsAndDogs]

“To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists.”

This sounds fine, until you realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis?

How is it a scientific hypothesis? It IS a hypothesis, but it is de facto non-scientific as it involves God.

A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference.

How would it be different kind of (singular) UNIVERSE for the universe to be different from THE UNIVERSE?

There is one universe. It is what it is. If it is a creation of God, then it is as it now is. If it is not a creation of God, then it (still) is as it now is.

There is no, and can’t be any, difference between the universe and THE UNIVERSE (with the possible of the case in which it is spelled out)!

Either we have good reason to believe such a claim or we don’t?

I have good reason to believe God created the universe. You may have good reason that God didn’t create the universe.

I’d love to know how your reasoning is superior to mine!

NOMA doesn’t really work. Imagine that forensic archeologists discovered DNA evidence demonstrating that Jesus was born of a virgin mother and had no father. Should you dismiss the archeologists’ DNA out of hand: "Irrelevant. Scientific evidence has no bearing on theological questions. Wrong magisterium.

Of course that would never happen. Religious people love scientific evidence as much as anyone else when it confirms what they already know. Ultimately there is only one magsterium–the available evidence?

“Magisterium” means the teaching authority. The magisterium of “(material) physical evidence” is a “sub-department” (so to speak) of the Magisterium of the Church, for the simple reason that religious reasoning is a super-set of all reasoning which includes scientific reasoning.

Science in it’s most narrow sense is a particular way of knowing, and you are right to critique Scientism for saying that this is the only form of valid knowledge since that claim itself is not justified through the scientific method.

Science in its broadest sense includes ALL reasonable claims.

That is where you’re wrong.

Science is only the subset of claims which can be verified by material convalidation, meaning by checking one material thing against another to explain how they work together.

Claims of actual truth, which are axiomatically correct in every case, are never “reasonable” because they are not derived but revealed truths, and have nothing to do with science per se.

Science doesn’t deal with truth. It deals with workings. When something “works” it is a scientific fact, but it is not a truth because the entire circumstances of the “working” can never be utterly known (consider the “uncertainty principle”).

If there were good reasons to believe that Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse, it would be part of our scientific understanding. But there aren’t, so it isn’t.

Since that fellows flight is not part of truth as given to us by the Magisterium, it’s neither a “scientific fact” nor a “religious truth”.

As for morality, I think there are lots of reasonable claims we can make about it that don’t require us to believe in gods.

Are you a polytheist? Do you understand the vast VAST difference between polytheism and monotheism? Do you realize that atheism is simply neg-monotheism, and not anti-theism?

It is verifiable by anyone that love is more conducive to happiness than hate, for example. There is no reason why science can’t study morality and discover such moral truths.

Love is verifiable as having something more to do with happiness than hate precisely because that “verifying” isn’t scientific.

Love is not scientifically measurable, and is only capable of being “handled” by the application of natural law, which is a legal “technique” which requires an understanding of how to “listen” to natural law.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

You are “of the mind that God must exist.” Is this claim based on evidence?

Yes. God’s own (evidence).

God must exist because existence exists.

As for the Trinity:

Jesus is 100% human,
Jesus is 100% God,
Jesus is the Son of God

I see these ideas as contradictory?

Is that a question, or a statement?

My dog is 100% dog.
My dog is 100% cute.
My dog is the mother of all cuteness!

How is the Holy Trinity, or my dog, contradictory?

Both Jesus and my dog exist qua themselves. The fact that you have a problem seeing how things which we are authoritatively told are true are true is due entirely to your lack of research into how those things are true.

:shamrock2: ← St. Paddy’s “best example” of the Trinity’s truth

 

[Leela]

Hi CatsandDogs,

How is it a scientific hypothesis? It IS a hypothesis, but it is de facto non-scientific as it involves God.

God is not ruled out by science. Science just hasn’t found any evidence for God, and it’s not because it hasn’t tried. Prayer has certainly been studied extensively. The archaeologist who digs up Noah’s ark would be bigger than Indiana Jones. Scientists would love to verify any of the claims made by Christians.

Christians claim that God takes an active interest in human affairs. If this is true there will be evidence? Does God answer prayers, perform miracles? Then there must be evidence. Is God omnipotent, omniscient? Then we can imagine what the world would be like if that were true and compare it to the actual world.

I have good reason to believe God created the universe. You may have good reason that God didn’t create the universe.

I’d love to know how your reasoning is superior to mine!

If there were good reasons to believe a supernatural being created the universe, it would be part of our rational understanding of the universe–part of science. But it is not. It is my understanding that this is considered to be an article of faith to be believed without evidence. What reason do you have to believe that God created the universe?

I think it is reasonable to say, I don’t know how the universe began. It is not even clear that it makes sense to talk about the beginning of time since the word beginning assumes that time already exists.

That is where you’re wrong.

Science is only the subset of claims which can be verified by material convalidation, meaning by checking one material thing against another to explain how they work together.

It not that either of us is wrong, but it is a point of contention. We are both allowed to insist on our own definitions of science in debate. You seem to want to insist on a narrow view so you can continue attacking your favorite straw man: scientism. I prefer to talk about science as our best attempt to be intellectually honest–to distinguish what we wish were true from what we actually have good reason to believe Both definitions would be supported by the dictionary:

sci·ence
–noun

1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
   …

I suppose you don’t consider social sciences real sciences? Scientists can study any patterns, they don’t have to be measurable with any specific set of tools.

Claims of actual truth, which are axiomatically correct in every case, are never “reasonable” because they are not derived but revealed truths, and have nothing to do with science per se.

Science doesn’t deal with truth. It deals with workings. When something “works” it is a scientific fact, but it is not a truth because the entire circumstances of the “working” can never be utterly known…

I think we are always going to talk past one another to an extent? When you say that something means something, what does that mean? I see no difference in saying “what does this word mean?” and “how is this word used?” To me truth is a species of good. It is that which is good to believe. It is a property of sentences. To you, truth seems to be some sort of essence that you equate with God. I can’t imagine what is means to talk about truth when we aren’t referring to a statement that we are evaluating?

All of this is to explain that I don’t see how truth is never reasonable. Reasonable is a word we use to describe rationales that are convincing, and nothing is more convincing than the truth.

Are you a polytheist? Do you understand the vast VAST difference between polytheism and monotheism? Do you realize that atheism is simply neg-monotheism, and not anti-theism?

I’m just someone who does not want to pretend to know things that I don’t know.

I only believe in one fewer god than you do, and I find yours just as unconvincing as you find all the others.

Since that fellows flight is not part of truth as given to us by the Magisterium, it’s neither a “scientific fact” nor a “religious truth”.

I was trying to be careful not to offend anyone, but to be more to the point: You can insert any of the claims made about Jesus for “Muhammed flew to Heaven on a winged horse”? If there were good reasons to believe those things, they would be part of our scientific understanding of the world. If Jesus ever floats down from the clouds and demonstrates his superpowers, Christianity will stand revealed as a science. (I apologize if those words offend, that is not my intention.) The point is that we CAN know these things in a scientific way. We just don’t, because we have no evidence.

Love is verifiable as having something more to do with happiness than hate precisely because that “verifying” isn’t scientific.

Love is not scientifically measurable, and is only capable of being “handled” by the application of natural law, which is a legal “technique” which requires an understanding of how to “listen” to natural law.

I disagree that love cannot be verified scientifically. Again, you seem to be insisting that scientists can only use some particular set of tools? There are objective differences in the way someone behaves towards a person when they love them as compared to when they hate them. We can talk about such things scientifically.

Thanks for taking the time to correspond!

Best,
Leela

 

[Tellme_my_rites]

Albert Einstein is still considered the greatest Scientific mind of the modern era. He himself concluded after extensive research to try to prove the contrary, that there HAS TO BE A CREATOR. Now, how can those who hail science and the scientific field’s greatest disciple, completely ignore his research and conclusions about a Supreme Being?

No, science & faith are not opposed. For all those who turn to science for answers before faith I say: Why not consider Einstein’s observations & conclusions about the matter?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
How is it a scientific hypothesis? It IS a hypothesis, but it is de facto non-scientific as it involves God.

God is not ruled out by science. Science just hasn’t found any evidence for God, and it’s not because it hasn’t tried.

If “science”, which really means individual so-called scientists, has tried to find evidence of God, then “science” doesn’t understand what it thinks it’s looking for, as it will never find any actual scientific evidence of what there is no scientific evidence from.

Prayer has certainly been studied extensively.

Prayer can’t be studied scientifically in any way that would shed any light on it’s religious significance.

The archaeologist who digs up Noah’s ark would be bigger than Indiana Jones. Scientists would love to verify any of the claims made by Christians.

True Christians aren’t interested in bits of Noah’s Ark.

What are these (presumably) “scientific” claims “made by Christians” that you think Christians think are so important?

Christians claim that God takes an active interest in human affairs. If this is true there will be evidence? Does God answer prayers, perform miracles? Then there must be evidence.

Why must there be (what you call) [scientific?] evidence?

I know God answers prayers. What proof do you need, and what procedure do you use, to confirm that prayers are or are not answered?

Do you pray with faith, or do you put sensors on those who do pray?

I know God performs miracles. Why don’t you know that God performs miracles?

Is God omnipotent, omniscient? Then we can imagine what the world would be like if that were true and compare it to the actual world.

How can we imagine what the world be like if God is omnipotent (which implies omniscience)?

How can we imagine the “opposite”?

The actual world is as it is, and it is not possible to be otherwise.

If God is omnipotent then the world would be as it is. If God is not omnipotent, meaning God is nonexistent, then the world would still be exactly as it is.

What makes you think that you could possibly know this “difference” between a “God created” world and an uncreated world?

:shamrock2:

 

[Namesake]

Albert Einstein is still considered the greatest Scientific mind of the modern era. He himself concluded after extensive research to try to prove the contrary, that there HAS TO BE A CREATOR. Now, how can those who hail science and the scientific field’s greatest disciple, completely ignore his research and conclusions about a Supreme Being?

No, science & faith are not opposed. For all those who turn to science for answers before faith I say: Why not consider Einstein’s observations & conclusions about the matter?

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it”. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
I have good reason to believe God created the universe. You may have good reason that God didn’t create the universe.

I’d love to know how your reasoning is superior to mine!

If there were good reasons to believe a supernatural being created the universe, it would be part of our rational understanding of the universe–part of science. But it is not.

Actually, it is “hinted at”, which is the best that science (scientific reasoning) and the rest of us non-God folks, can do.

God is hinted at in there being an apparent “start” of the universe, the fact that entropy seems to be ubiquitous, and that there does seem to be an “ordering” principle at work in the entire universe.

That, plus the abjectly obnoxious idea of basing reality on the “sands” of an “evil infinity” (the idea of an ever existing universe extending infinitely past and future).

It is my understanding that this is considered to be an article of faith to be believed without evidence. What reason do you have to believe that God created the universe?

The existence of God, with all the implications which follow that existence, ARE simply to be believed or not believed, as there is no scientific evidence for either belief.

But God does leave proof of Himself, although that proof is not scientific.

The reason that I believe that God created the universe is that He has made it clear to me that only He COULD make that happen, because I understand what “God” means via His instruction.

I think it is reasonable to say, I don’t know how the universe began. It is not even clear that it makes sense to talk about the beginning of time since the word beginning assumes that time already exists.

I don’t know HOW the universe began, but it quite obviously has, and having done so, only God could have done it, also quite obviously!

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Are you a polytheist? Do you understand the vast VAST difference between polytheism and monotheism? Do you realize that atheism is simply neg-monotheism, and not anti-theism?

I’m just someone who does not want to pretend to know things that I don’t know.

I only believe in one fewer god than you do, and I find yours just as unconvincing as you find all the others.

You believe in the negative of the God that I believe in.

You find my God unconvincing because you don’t understand what “God” means.

You confirm that you don’t understand what “God” means when you say that there is a numerical “more” or “fewer” quantity of “gods” which supposedly exist.

Now, if you’d like some help with understanding what “God” means, do please ask.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Since that fellows flight is not part of truth as given to us by the Magisterium, it’s neither a “scientific fact” nor a “religious truth”.

If there were good reasons to believe those things, they would be part of our scientific understanding of the world.

But Christ, and that “flying on the horse” guy, are part of our understanding of the world. You just like to call all “legitimate” knowledge “scientific”, while the rest of us know better.

If Jesus ever floats down from the clouds and demonstrates his superpowers, Christianity will stand revealed as a science.

Wrong again!

He will be revealed to the rest of you as a TRUTH. I’m not so sure we’ll have enough time to analyze what just happened to publish any scientific papers on the matter!

But, the actual truth of God’s existence won’t change in the least by Jesus’ showing up to call an end to our little classroom.

The point is that we CAN know these things in a scientific way. We just don’t, because we have no evidence.

What things are you talking about that we can “know in a scientific way” but seemingly have no (scientific) evidence for knowing?

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Love is verifiable as having something more to do with happiness than hate precisely because that “verifying” isn’t scientific.

Love is not scientifically measurable, and is only capable of being “handled” by the application of natural law, which is a legal “technique” which requires an understanding of how to “listen” to natural law.

I disagree that love cannot be verified scientifically. Again, you seem to be insisting that scientists can only use some particular set of tools?

Science restricts it’s own “tool set”, doesn’t it? There is proper scientific method, and everything else, which is improper science.

The effects of love can be “patterned” and made observable so as to label it, but love itself can’t be “scientifically handled” other than to identify it so that that information can be “used” (as an engineering project)…

There are objective differences in the way someone behaves towards a person when they love them as compared to when they hate them. We can talk about such things scientifically.

Of course we can. But love is a truth, knowable as existing only by it’s being experienced, which is a gift (a revelation) from God, and only a matter of “science” in how it “fits” (works) in relation to other “things”, which is an “engineering relationship”.

Why study love as a science? To manipulate the “subjects of love” in some way so as to create what seems like a good idea to create. That is an “engineering”.

To be IN love is to know love as a truth, which is to discover WHY love is actually a good thing, which knowledge informs (governs) the “engineering project” of creating more love in the world.

The revealed truths govern the (revealed by “manual means” [ie natural law]) discovered facts so as to make more good and less evil in the world.

When the discovered facts are not tempered by revealed truths, evil has a propensity to proliferate.

:shamrock2: