Translation: I have absolutely no counterargument or meaningful addition to this discussion, so I will revert to swearing and personal invective in some vain hope no one will notice. I am insecure and unwilling to admit when I am wrong.
Translation: I don't like being attacked for my person. Feel free to argue with my ideas. I was wrong, though. I should never have descended to this level of response, and for that I apologize.
Translation: PLEASE, please, please, take the lights off me.
I have no reason to counter your arguments, nor does anyone else. Your Jesuitical mouth has again over-run your peanut brain, so it is pointless to respond. I had forgotten you and your continuing asininities were the reason for filtering you before; unfortunately, my present set up doesn't allow filtering, so I'll have to apply that hardest to use of all filters, will power.
Ta, twit.
Tim Daneliuk wrote: ...
Well, if it were to be such perfect knowledge then it would also be able to ascertain the existence or not of the outside influence--ergo, all would be known including root cause.
It may also turn out, that the root cause is, indeed, buried in the randomness of quantum theory.
Then again, more realistically, it's likely we'll continue delving indefinitely.
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In contrast to Tim's answer, I think it has far more to do w/ the actual purpose and content of the two documents themselves -- the Declaration is prose and intended to be persuasive of the righteousness of the cause where as the Constitution is a legal document and therefore staid and much more precise.
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Thank you for demonstrating *my* premises... Enjoy *your* religion...
No Sir (or Ma'am as the case may be) - for the following reasons:
Note 1: Science - by it's design and method is innately limited to those things which can be known by means of the sense/reason process, as filtered through the rules of logic. Once you leave sense/reason and/or abandon logic, it *may* be "true" but it is not science, nor can science comment upon it. This is where the Intelligent Design people get in trouble, BTW - they take a big jump that is outside the methods of science (a jump with which I at least partially agree), but then demand it be recognized as "science". Good manners demands that we all admit the limits of any system of knowledge we're currently using. I fault the IDers for this but I also fault the science worshipers for assuming everything else is crap.
Note 2: Goedel pretty much demolished the idea that *any* logical system can be internally consistent AND complete. In effect, using logic, you *cannot* "ascertain the existence or not of outside influence". This drove mathematical logicians mad when it was first demonstrated within mathematics. Science folk - especially those who are laypersons interested in science without the requisite mathematical background - often don't get how this translates into the limits of knowledge for *any* logic-based reasoning system, including science itself.
For instance, a perfect science would take us all the way back to the Big Bang (or before that if there was a "before"), explaining all the minutae of how it worked. But even perfect science could not meaningfully comment upon whence the matter and energy that comprised the "First Event" came from. It's an interesting question because science does inform us that matter and energy can be exchanged but not increased. So ... where did it come from? Who/what made it happen? Why do the rules of quantum physics (to the extent we understand them), cosmology, etc. work the way they do. Once you step up a level from the mechanical details you discover: a) Science has no voice in these existential/ontological questions and b) They are pretty dang interesting questions.
Even so, how things got to be quantum/random is a question science cannot answer.
Probably, and that is as it should be. The search for knowledge is a very good thing for we humans to undertake. I just rebel at the idea that there is only *one* meaningful way to know things, that's all...
Very few Christians believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and apparently neither does Huckabee .....he does however believe in a creative process if I may quote.
"We shouldn't indoctrinate kids in school," he said. "I wouldn't want them teaching creationism as if it's the only thing that they should teach."
Also, students should be given credit for having the intelligence to think through various theories for themselves and come to their own conclusions, he said.
He said it was his responsibility to teach his children his beliefs though he could accept that others believe in evolution.
"I believe that there is a God and that he put the process in motion," Huckabee said.
The former Arkansas governor said about the evolution question: "I'm not sure what in the world that has to do with being president of the United States."
Oddly in the creator Vs evolution debate generally the evolutionists are intolerant, wish absolute control of the message and generally ridicule contrary views...surely not a path to great science.....Rod
You may be right... I wasn't there, and after considerable reading in the matter, I don't know for sure and can only guess. But there is indirect evidence of the Framers being deeply influenced by their faith traditions - even if it was a sort of generic faith for many of them. References to Divine providence litter their letters and writings. Their appointment of chaplains to pray at the beginning of legislative or other deliberative sessions is a big hint.
Certainly some of them (Sam Adams, John Adams) were very up front about their religious faith and how it influenced their law making. If they were alive today, some of the people on this thread would be complaining bitterly about how "John Adams talks to God, what a loon..." or words to that effect.
This thread got to this point because atheists have a couple problems in liberal Western culture and it makes many of them angry:
1) The culture was not founded on pure secularism and this is historically irrefutable. 2) The worst abuses of government has been in places whether those who govern either flatly oppose any sort of religious faith. As I noted elsewhere in this thread, Stalin is a poster child for what happens when you don't believe any moral boundaries exist. He alone makes the next two or three in the Top 10 Evil Hit Parade look like rookies. Mao - another atheist - is not far behind. Any one of these did more harm than all the excessive of every religion before- or since. But that doesn't stop a good number of atheists from blaming faith for the world's problems 3) A good many atheists I've spoken with cannot make the distinction between a *sufficient* form of knowledge and a *complete* form of knowledge. Science is sufficient for a great many things, but it is complete. It simply cannot address a bunch of questions we humans find interesting. I cannot because of the nature of how scientific knowledge is acquired and tested. This claim, too, is mighty irritating to atheists.For the record, I do not think government is well served by having it become a theocracy. I similarly have no desire to convince atheists that my views are right. I just tire of listening to them blame people like me for all the world's sins, when it has been much moreso people like them that have been the real culprits. Some of the asinine comments seen here as regards to politicians who openly express their faith (politicians, I might add, whose ideas I almost entirely disagree with) are yet another example of these bad manners.
Err, that is, it is "not complete".
Tim Daneliuk wrote: ...
Well, it appears it just "is" -- read Hawking, Greene, etc., ..., for about the best common explanation of what we now understand.
As for "why" it works as it does, it's getting to appear more and more that "because it can't work any other way" is a reasonable approximation.
That's still open...see above.
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Its called fantasy land. If you knew anything about science (based on your position in this discussion I conclude you know very little) you would know that science is not always perfect and comes with error bars. The educated in the art accept these error bars and work within its limitations.
While we are making crazy assumptions lets include these as well: Assume the earth is 6,000 years old. Assume man and dinosaur walked the earth at the same time. Assume evolution is unfounded.
If we assume the above to be true (including your assumption) then I am at a loss.
And religion fills in these gaps for you. I'm happy for you. Another score for "The God of the Gaps". The gaps by the way are getting smaller and smaller every passing year.
Again. I'm glad that religion can fill in the "Gaps" for you.
Ok since you brought up first cause, let me ask you a few questions. If religion answers 'first cause' then did God always exist ? What 'caused' God? The "first cause" notion reflects ignorance of the scientific method. Theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent, empirical validation of ones scientific conclusions.
Sounds like a plan Timmy.
I wasn't really asking a question Timmy, I was giving you an example of how science could answer "Why is it here" type questions. Questions you stated science was not capable of doing. I do not accept nor desire answers to questions that are purely metaphysical in nature. I know, you require them.
Straw man.
Were you sleeping?
Do you have any more anecdotal observations for me Timmy?
Thank you. Are you collecting a tithe?
Uh, Charlie, would you care to define "deist" for us. I think it does not mean what you think it means.
Seems that every time some politican has tried to cram intelligent design down the taxpayers' throats he's gotten fired for his trouble.
Personally I don't care if somebody thinks that he's talked to by God as long as God is telling him good stuff. Unfortunately Bush doesn't seem to be getting advice of the same quality as that vouchsafed to Jehanne du Lis.
Many people seem to confuse what science _has_ done with what science _can_ do. We're a long, long way from hitting the limits. Maybe there _are_ questions that it can't answer. If so, I'd wait until we knew enough to allow it to take a solid whack at them before I dismissed its ability to do so.
Or "one was written by a fired up revolutionary and the other was written by a committee"?
That, too... :)
Yep. And the only rational answer to those questions is "I don't know", an admission the human species has always been loath to make.
Not those who have questions, just those who have "answers" based on nothing but their cultural bias.
What do I mean by cultural bias? There are approximately 20 major religions on the Earth. At least 19 of them are wrong. But few people ever seriously investigate any religion other than the one of the culture they grew up in. That gives them at best a 5% chance of being right :-).
IOW, Tim, if you'd grown up in Tibet, you'd probably be defending Buddhism with just as much fervor as you now defend Christianity.
Possibly, but I suspect they were just the group that best meshed with yuor worldview.
Of course - that's the only possible answer given the constraints that are baked into the scientific method. It's like saying, "I'm deaf so music must not exist".
That's a fairly poor "explanation" at best, and certainly begs how one could be so certain that there are no other possible combinations that might work. Some of this is undoubtedly because there is more science to be done. Some of this is because too many rational people sneer at metaphysics as irrelevant - to their detriment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Daneliuk snipped-for-privacy@tundraware.com PGP Key:
It's turtles, all the way down!
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
And if you knew anything about science you'd grasp the notion of a thought experiment. Boundary condition analysis and the creation of artificial boundaries for the purpose of understanding the limits of how a system works is a time-honored method of doing both mathematics and science. As I have done both - academically and professionally at one point or another in my career, I'd say you haven't a clue what you're talking about here.
You are being argumentative for its own sake. The statement "Assume " is a common and very useful intellectual construct when doing research, mathematics, or analysis. Something with which you've evidently never become acquainted.
You are so buried in the mechanical details it seems you don't understand the question, let alone the breadth of possible answers. Suffice it to say that the "gaps" that are going away are all in the minutae and mechanical detail that science is quite wonderful at studying. The gaps at the metaphysical and first cause level cannot be circumscribed by science - in mathematician's terms science is too "weak" as system for that.
Where - at any point - did I mention religion? I have certainly argued for something more than just science as a way to know things and I affirm the importance of faith, but religion is a human organizational tool which has little or nothing to do with this conversation ... except, perhaps, to act as a strawman whipping boy for you.
There several possible answers to your question:
1) The universe we observe does not actually exist - it is an illusion. 2) The universe does exist, but we cannot meaningfully examine it. As a practical matter, this is the same thing as 1). 3) The universe exists and is itself infinite in material, energy, time and space. This one is unlikely given our current understanding of physics. 4) The universe we see was brought into existence by something/someone. That something/someone is itself eternal OR it too was created by something/someone. By means of (mathematical style) induction, we conclude that there is either an infinite depth of creators (The "Turtles All The Way Down" theory) or at some point the induction ceases and there is an ultimate creator that transcends time/space.NONE of these possibilities can be effectively by science. But ALL of them are, in fact, possibilities. This inability to speak to the questions is no some lack of sufficient science, it is innate to the method.
Doesn't it bother you even slightly that the method you worship so devoutly is tongue-tied on the most important question humans have: How did we get here? Not "How did we become human?", but "How did we - all of us living things - come to inhabit this location with these conditions at this moment in the history of the universe?" "How is it that the 'rules' of physics are as they are?" "Why are the various physical constants and the recurring presence of pi and e so evident everywhere?" According to you, it's just magical.
"If I cannot mangle the question into something that science can address, I will demean the question or otherwise try to avoid it."
"I am deaf, so there cannot be music."
You did no such thing. You provided an example of a very mechanical process. I asked an ontological question, you gave me auto mechanics.
I "require" nothing. I just don't have my fingers in my ears screaming "I can't hear anything". I merely admit the probability that the universe of True Things is far larger than the universe of True Things Science Can Figure Out. It is ironic that you exhibit zealotry that would put the most out-there religious but to shame in your intense desire to only admit science as a source of valid knowledge. It's heartwarming to see.
No so. You throw the "Bible rigid Christians" in my face as if a) You actually understand what they thing (which I seriously doubt) and b) They are the only possible expression of faith. Talk about strawmen...
No. I got pretty much straight As in all these classes (science, math, and theology). I went on to do graduate work in a fairly abstruse area of mathematics and did Ph.D. coursework in that same area. In that same general timespan, I spent several years doing applied research wherein the entire body of my work involved nothing but the scientific method and statistical reduction of the results. 'That good enough for you? (No doubt your extensive reading of National Geographic and Scientific American makes you are more credible commentator...)
You can try to attack me all you like, but you have a gigantic hole in your theory of knowledge. You wish to limit yourself to one (very important) way of knowing things. When I point out that there are other things to be known, you dismiss them as unimportant, irrelevant, or plain foolish. Why? Because your pet system cannot cope with the questions. This is called "intellectual dishonesty".
The reason metaphysics ever got any traction in philosophy was because people - way brighter than you or I - figured out a long time ago that these questions mattered. Now we have science groupies - not actual scientists, many of whom are people of devout faith - bent of telling all the rest of us that it is only science that matters because these other questions are too hard/abstract/unapproachable with their "Swiss Army Knife Of Knowledge". It's dishonest and puerile.
You'll notice that I have never assaulted the value and facility of science. In its appropriate domain, it is the best way we can find things out - at least so far as we know today. But I am not silly enough to think it will remotely be able to answer every important question in my life/culture/society.
Many, but the most important thing is that you wouldn't respond this vigorously if you weren't worried that there just *might* be some validity to my argument. That's good. Perhaps it will drive you to learn more than you could ever imagine.
No. I hope I am kicking out the bricks in your teetering, if self-satisfied, understanding of how we actually know things.
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