The Co-existence of Science and Theology

11/26/2007 03:47:43 PM · #676

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

1) Belief does not need to be irrational. Belief in God does not need to be irrational either.

It doesn't need to be... but it be. Acually, I take it back, as one of those "explicit" atheists, I can only conclude that belief in gods is universally irrational.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

One can conclude a Supreme Being exists based on rational argument.

I'd like to see you try. :-) I for one haven't heard a rational argument yet. The most realistic argument I've heard is "Pascal's Wager", and that's not only irrational, it's completely wimpy.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Arguing about whether or not theology counts as a branch of philosophy is not worth our time.

The time gets wasted when, after much arguing, it is discovered that a weak definition of terms has governed the preceding conversation, and you have to start from scratch. Instead of dismissing valid objections to definitions of terms, these have to be sorted out. For example, I for one don't accept your definition of theology as "philosophy, but with the rational bits."

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

We assume (on faith) that there is not an impregnable barrier of concrete between us and the answer.

11/26/2007 03:56:12 PM · #677

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

It's the same chemical. Offer a hit of crack to a coke user or vice versa. They won't refuse in either case and they'll get the same high.

They are different and absolutely not interchangeable and are not remotely the same high.

And yeah, the crackhead won't snort and the cokehead won't smoke.

You're just wrong on this.

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

First of all, you assume that harsh prison sentences have an effect on drug use and that's simply untrue. The "War on Drugs" has been a total failure. In any case, if someone has a problem with chemical addiction, locking them in prison for a decade or two is NOT treatment.

Jail is a deterrent.

The war on drugs is aimed at suppliers, not users, and some drugs are absolutely worse than others.....and as far as being ineffective, yeah, but that's because of the demand.

NO drugs are good, and once the door is open, who knows where it'll end......each person is different.

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

For that matter, why should drugs be illegal for adult usage at all?

Oh, I *SO* love this argument! Hey, let's just legalize it all, tax it, let the addictive types kill themselves off in some kind of natural selection, and get on with it while retrieving record revenues from the taxation of the sh*t.

Yeah.....good idea!

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

Why should any person in a supposedly free society have the right to tell another person above the age of consent that they cannot use a certain drug to feel better, even if it is a self-destructive behavior?

I dunno, dude......why is that?

Maybe 'cause it's the next best thing to routing it all off the planet?

The problem is, drugs seriously have their place in the right field.....unfortunately, there are too many people that get exposure to them and access when they shouldn't.

You want your kid to have access to anything he wants legally when he turns 18?

Were you wise enough to make intelligent choices when you were 18?

Hell, I'm not NOW, and I damn sure didn't make a bunch of wise ones previously without even starting in on drugs, alcohol, women, cars, etc.

11/26/2007 03:59:50 PM · #678

Originally posted by cheekymunky:

Forgive me, I thought his views on religion etc. were quite well known. Even though it was a lot harder in that time, from letters to his friends it seems fairly clear he was an atheist.

There is an excellent book about if you want to read around: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America

I'm pretty sure you are wrong. I believe Jefferson was a deist. That is, he believed in God, but not a personal one as found in Christianity. The watchmaker who winds his watch and lets it go is a more apt analogy.

11/26/2007 04:06:35 PM · #679

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
One can conclude a Supreme Being exists based on rational argument.

I'd like to see you try. :-) I for one haven't heard a rational argument yet. The most realistic argument I've heard is "Pascal's Wager", and that's not only irrational, it's completely wimpy.

Well, I challenge you to read the first two books of Mere Christianity (that's a link to the text) by CS Lewis. It should really only take you about 30 minutes, so I'm not asking too much. I think atheists should find it interesting as Lewis is highly intelligent and one of the few people I know who deduced his way from atheism to God (not an easy thing to do, eh?).

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

We assume (on faith) that there is not an impregnable barrier of concrete between us and the answer.

I think the assumption is not based on faith, but on the fact that there is no quantifiable question yet faced by humanity that cannot be attached to a theory which offers an explanation. This includes deceptively simple questions previously the exclusive pervue of religion, such as, "Where did we come from? How did the universe begin? Why are human beings altruistic?" And so on. [/quote]

Where did the Big Bang come from?
Why do I love my wife?
If one must steal to feed his family, should he?

I don't think those are answers that a "theory" (ie. a hypothesis which makes testable predictions) can easily be attached to.

Message edited by author 2007-11-26 16:07:17.

11/26/2007 04:19:56 PM · #680

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Is this the same guy who wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia"?

Message edited by author 2007-11-26 16:21:05.

11/26/2007 04:20:26 PM · #681

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
It's the same chemical. Offer a hit of crack to a coke user or vice versa. They won't refuse in either case and they'll get the same high.

They are different and absolutely not interchangeable and are not remotely the same high.

And yeah, the crackhead won't snort and the cokehead won't smoke.

You're just wrong on this.

Experience says otherwise.

The crackhead may not snort, but he'd eagerly take the powder and smoke it. And it doesn't take much persuasion to get a desperate cokehound to smoke and once they do, they'll never go back.

11/26/2007 04:23:01 PM · #682

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

You can't smoke the powder, and no, most cokeheads will absolutely NOT smoke it.

It's usually a combination of fear and disdain that keeps them from it.

Crack is worse than coke, it's really the last stop on that train.

It's different than the people who use pills and those who are meth-heads and those who shoot dope.

There are quite a few cokeheads who've gotten away from it without the level of desperation and addiction that crack gets you.

It's nowhere near as addictive as crack/basing, and there is a distinct line between the two that in most cases is a large, and conscious step when it's made.

Message edited by author 2007-11-26 16:32:57.

11/26/2007 04:23:44 PM · #683

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
First of all, you assume that harsh prison sentences have an effect on drug use and that's simply untrue. The "War on Drugs" has been a total failure. In any case, if someone has a problem with chemical addiction, locking them in prison for a decade or two is NOT treatment.

Jail is a deterrent.

The war on drugs is aimed at suppliers, not users, and some drugs are absolutely worse than others.....and as far as being ineffective, yeah, but that's because of the demand.

NO drugs are good, and once the door is open, who knows where it'll end......each person is different.

Hasn't deterred drug use much yet.

The war on drugs may be promoted as targeting suppliers, but look at who's in jail. It's not the suppliers, it's predominantly the little guys, the users, punished for their illness.

11/26/2007 04:25:43 PM · #684

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Experience says otherwise.

The crackhead may not snort, but he'd eagerly take the powder and smoke it. And it doesn't take much persuasion to get a desperate cokehound to smoke and once they do, they'll never go back.

You can't smoke the powder, and no, most cokeheads will absolutely NOT smoke it.

I guess your experiences are different than mine, but I say otherwise.

I know what I've seen. Sorry.

11/26/2007 04:33:21 PM · #685

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
For that matter, why should drugs be illegal for adult usage at all?

Oh, I *SO* love this argument! Hey, let's just legalize it all, tax it, let the addictive types kill themselves off in some kind of natural selection, and get on with it while retrieving record revenues from the taxation of the sh*t.

Yeah.....good idea!
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Why should any person in a supposedly free society have the right to tell another person above the age of consent that they cannot use a certain drug to feel better, even if it is a self-destructive behavior?

I dunno, dude......why is that?

Maybe 'cause it's the next best thing to routing it all off the planet?

The problem is, drugs seriously have their place in the right field.....unfortunately, there are too many people that get exposure to them and access when they shouldn't.

You want your kid to have access to anything he wants legally when he turns 18?

Were you wise enough to make intelligent choices when you were 18?

Hell, I'm not NOW, and I damn sure didn't make a bunch of wise ones previously without even starting in on drugs, alcohol, women, cars, etc.

Your vehement opposition to the idea clouds your judgment.

I never claimed we shouldn't try to help addicts quit or rehabilitate, only that drug use should not be criminalized. It should be treated like alcoholism, and treatment doesn't come from locking people in a cell with murderers, rapists and violent felons.

Maybe we should make alchohol illegal too? Hmmmm I seem to remember something about a "Great Experiment" that didn't go so well.

11/26/2007 04:37:03 PM · #686

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

I guess your experiences are different than mine, but I say otherwise.

Obviously.

You can not smoke the powder, it doesn't work.

You have to combine it with something else and cook it.

11/26/2007 04:51:51 PM · #687

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

Your vehement opposition to the idea clouds your judgment.

You think it would demonstrate good judgement to legalize recreational usage of any and all drugs?

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

I never claimed we shouldn't try to help addicts quit or rehabilitate, only that drug use should not be criminalized. It should be treated like alcoholism, and treatment doesn't come from locking people in a cell with murderers, rapists and violent felons.

It's certainly an imperfect system, yet without it being illegal, there'd be no deterrent whatsoever.

No, I don't think some kid that got popped through a routine traffic stop should be thrown in general population with father rapers and mother stabbers, but I also don't see how the guy that's bringing in kilos of crack is much different from a cold-blooded killer.

The effectiveness and attrition rate of treatment is a whole 'nother thing, too. With the way that rehabs blow you out in a set amount of time in this day and age because insurance only pays X dollars is a crime in itself.....and hey, let's face it, there's very little profitability for the rehab center on a one-time fix.

Most of the people I know that have been through rehab have hit at least two or three of them and some many, many more.

11/26/2007 05:09:41 PM · #688

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Where did the Big Bang come from?
Why do I love my wife?
If one must steal to feed his family, should he?

Note that I purposefully qualified my remarks by saying that science (theories) require "quantifiable" questions. Those are not quantifiable questions.

I'll read Lewis' text tonight. I hope you'll keep that in mind when I challenge you to read texts by well-known atheists. ;-)

11/26/2007 05:17:32 PM · #689

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Where did the Big Bang come from?
Why do I love my wife?
If one must steal to feed his family, should he?

Note that I purposefully qualified my remarks by saying that science (theories) require "quantifiable" questions. Those are not quantifiable questions.

I'll read Lewis' text tonight. I hope you'll keep that in mind when I challenge you to read texts by well-known atheists. ;-)

The first is quantifiable. There IS an answer. How about "What did I eat for dinner on 9/19/1984?" That has a quantifiable answer.

But what is your point? Even if all quantifiable questions can only be answered through science (and I disagree), who cares? There are lots of non-quantifiable questions which are very important to humans across the globe.

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

11/26/2007 05:19:03 PM · #690

Originally posted by Louis:

I'll read Lewis' text tonight. I hope you'll keep that in mind when I challenge you to read texts by well-known atheists. ;-)

If it is easily accessed and doesn't take too much time. Sure. I've read some already. I will admit though, Dawkins drives me up the wall. His extreme positions, in my opinion, take him away from rationality.

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

11/26/2007 06:37:42 PM · #691

Can science and religion co-exist? I think the more interesting question to ask is why does religion want to? Is it because it now fears for it's survival in the information age? After all we haven't seen the results of this information explosion and what impact it will have on our children and our children's children and so on and so forth. What happens when the poor and uneducated, that is most of religion's backbone, get equal access to this information and not have it restricted as is the case in many countries today? What happens when a new mind comes to born and is met with all this information like a rush, completely unfiltered? Can God's word compete in such a realm when it doesn't have the exclusivity to work with, the backstage pass if you will? Perhaps maybe this is why religion seeks co-existence today and why it tries to wedge itself into things it is not. Perhaps one should be asking can religion survive just being religion, faults and all?

Message edited by author 2007-11-26 18:38:00.

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

11/26/2007 06:43:56 PM · #692

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Your vehement opposition to the idea clouds your judgment.

You think it would demonstrate good judgement to legalize recreational usage of any and all drugs?

It would demonstrate that we live in a free society. I'm not saying it should not be regulated and controlled, but simply being an addict or possession of drugs should not be a crime. The simple fact is that most "drug related" crime is not due to an addict going on a drug fueled rampage, the crimes are committed to get money to buy drugs. People should be held accountable for offenses against others, just as they are with alcohol.

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
I never claimed we shouldn't try to help addicts quit or rehabilitate, only that drug use should not be criminalized. It should be treated like alcoholism, and treatment doesn't come from locking people in a cell with murderers, rapists and violent felons.

It's certainly an imperfect system, yet without it being illegal, there'd be no deterrent whatsoever.

No, I don't think some kid that got popped through a routine traffic stop should be thrown in general population with father rapers and mother stabbers, but I also don't see how the guy that's bringing in kilos of crack is much different from a cold-blooded killer.

The effectiveness and attrition rate of treatment is a whole 'nother thing, too. With the way that rehabs blow you out in a set amount of time in this day and age because insurance only pays X dollars is a crime in itself.....and hey, let's face it, there's very little profitability for the rehab center on a one-time fix.

Most of the people I know that have been through rehab have hit at least two or three of them and some many, many more.

Unfortunately, it is the kid who gets popped through a routine traffic stop that goes to jail. Rather than show people with addictions some compassion, they get processed through the courts and sent to jail.

The threat of criminal prosecution is simply not effective. Local, state and federal governments spend billions upon billions on law enforcement activities pursuing, prosecuting and jailing small time drug offenders. Yet, there is little effect on addiction rates. Sure maybe one drug will drop, but another one will rise up. There's a decline in crack, but meth has shot through the roof.

The amount spent on rehabilitation for addicts and educating people, especially kids, about the dangers of drugs is so small in comparison that it's almost negligible.

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

11/26/2007 07:02:26 PM · #693

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

They make up about 50% of the US jail population according to one stat I saw a while back. I think it's safe to say it's not a deterrent just a means of control.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

11/26/2007 08:37:31 PM · #694

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

But what is your point? Even if all quantifiable questions can only be answered through science...

I never said that. I said the following in response to your suggestion that in the abscence of answers, science makes assumptions which require "faith":

"I think the assumption is not based on faith, but on the fact that there is no quantifiable question yet faced by humanity that cannot be attached to a theory which offers an explanation."

Obviously, science can't tell me what I had for dinner thirty years ago. (Yet.) This to me is not a testable question, and is therefore not "quantifiable". Same for big bang origin.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

11/26/2007 09:00:28 PM · #695

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Well, I challenge you to read the first two books of Mere Christianity (that's a link to the text) by CS Lewis. It should really only take you about 30 minutes, so I'm not asking too much. I think atheists should find it interesting as Lewis is highly intelligent and one of the few people I know who deduced his way from atheism to God (not an easy thing to do, eh?).

Is this the same guy who wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia"?

The same guy, yes. And a noted intellectual of his time. Well worth reading.

R.

EducatedSavage

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II

11/26/2007 09:04:32 PM · #696

edited - I can't follow this discussion quickly enough to be contributing!

Move along, nothing to see here....

Message edited by author 2007-11-26 21:23:05.

11/26/2007 10:15:26 PM · #697

Originally posted by Louis:

"I think the assumption is not based on faith, but on the fact that there is no quantifiable question yet faced by humanity that cannot be attached to a theory which offers an explanation."

Obviously, science can't tell me what I had for dinner thirty years ago. (Yet.) This to me is not a testable question, and is therefore not "quantifiable". Same for big bang origin.

You are either being circular or self-defining or both.

1) Science can answer all testable questions
2) All quantifiable questions are testable
3) Science can answer all quantifiable questions

I guess that's not circular, but you are just using "testable" and "quantifiable" as complete synonyms and thus I agree with you. However, I don't think you are saying much. To me you are merely saying "all questions which could be answered by Science could be answered by Science."

I'll go back to the example of the anthropic principle. Currently there are at least 2 non-scientific answers (multiverse, design by a supreme being) and zero scientific answers. I'm even unaware of any scientific theories. Does this qualify as something scientists are currently taking on faith? (either faith that an answer is forthcoming or faith than an answer falls outside the scientific domain).

Maybe you are saying (and I'm trying to figure it out not put words in your mouth) that since we have had so much success answering questions with theories in the past we should assume the same thing will happen here (thus requiring very little "faith"). To that I'd point to my sand analogy. When digging toward the concrete barrier every scoop of sand looks like the last and doesn't give a hint that you are getting closer to the barrier. As financial institutions are apt to say, "past performance does not indicate future earnings".

11/26/2007 10:28:13 PM · #698

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

You are either being circular or self-defining or both.

You said: science sometimes requires that untestable assumptions be made in order to draw conclusions, and likened it to the "faith" of the god believer.

I said: Wrong, because there are no questions about the universe that have been asked that cannot be answered with scientific theory. In essence, mine was a simple refutation.

If you suggest that big bang origins and ancient dinners account for those burning questions in the world that indeed do require of science faith, my answer is that ultimately, those are not scientific questions. There is no practical, repeatable testing that could possibly be done around any theory involving those questions.

Beyond this, I've said nothing else.

11/26/2007 10:44:57 PM · #699

I've read the Lewis text. Trying my best not to be too flip, my response is, "And?" I admit to having read parts of this text before rehashed by others, but I have come across nothing new. I also admit to having a difficult time discovering how Lewis reasonably deduced that Christianity was "better" than atheism, as you suggested. He makes the same unreasonable leaps and untenable connections and irrational assumptions that anyone with faith must make, intelligent or not. He has the same tired baseless prejudices about issues such as sex (from Book III). I really find this text to be more of an apologist treatise than a reasoned essay.