Atheism makes you smart, but don't take my word for it...

#101
#101
JZVOL said:
See as a believer I believe Jesus is the ultimate key to science, not that science is the key to God.

If God created the Earth using evolution or by speaking it into existence He holds the key.

Therefore I would expect science and archaeology to validate His existence and to this point how has either field proven otherwise?
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I have heard too many arguments about how carbon dating must be fake to see how one could hold up archaeology and sciences as a net gain for proving Christianity. The old "Did the dinosaurs just miss the boat" type arguments come to mind.
 
#102
#102
rjd970 said:
A booming voice from the sky or a burning bush would be a good start, and he's done it before. This isn't a smartass remark, I am being serious. Why not show conclusive proof? Because "faith" is the important part? I mean, if faith is so important and central to being a Christian or anything else, then I rest my case.
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I don't understand why if faith is the key, why everyone is so quick to try and point to "evidence" that the Bible is 100 % fact, or proof that there has to be a higher power. If it is by faith alone, there shouldn't be any proof...?
 
#103
#103
rjd970 said:
A booming voice from the sky or a burning bush would be a good start, and he's done it before. This isn't a smartass remark, I am being serious. Why not show conclusive proof? Because "faith" is the important part? I mean, if faith is so important and central to being a Christian or anything else, then I rest my case.
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All thinking Christians wrestle with the same issues, but still choose, rationally I might add, to believe that a greater power set this all in motion from nothingness.

I don't pretend to know the answer to your question. Those that do, I find annoying as all hell.
 
#104
#104
volinbham said:
one of your favorite games. How about this one:

what evidence would it take to prove wrong your belief that "science can explain all"?
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The discoveries by humans over the last 200,000 years is pretty strong evidence we are continually improving our knowledge. And in the 20th century the curve has gone exponetially upward.
 
#105
#105
IPorange said:
That is a generalization. Certainly many atheists have their own dogma and have "faith" in aspects of scientific theory, but not all. Some simply can't accept something without evidence, and are sold on neither unproven scientific explanations, or unproven religious ones.
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so since they can't accept it, do they assume this existence is a dream?
 
#106
#106
rjd970 said:
A booming voice from the sky or a burning bush would be a good start, and he's done it before. This isn't a smartass remark, I am being serious. Why not show conclusive proof? Because "faith" is the important part? I mean, if faith is so important and central to being a Christian or anything else, then I rest my case.
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Your examples call for a specific type of Creator.

Your faith appears to be in the unlimited potential of a falsification-based scientific method to explain all. Anything that can't fit within that approach to uncovering "truth" is deemed pure faith and thus akin to superstition.
 
#107
#107
rjd970 said:
The discoveries by humans over the last 200,000 years is pretty strong evidence we are continually improving our knowledge. And in the 20th century the curve has gone exponetially upward.
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let's not forget that most discoveries have been proven dead wrong, especially those rooted in disproving a greater power.

We're never coming to a conclusion about a greater power vs. randomly generated conscience and life, Regardless where science goes.
 
#108
#108
BigPapaVol said:
so since they can't accept it, do they assume this existence is a dream?
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That's a bit on the nihilistic side. No, I am saying they just muddle around without any sort of belief in origins. Not believing or accepting something isn't always the same as not believing or accepting the possibility of something.
 
#109
#109
rjd970 said:
The discoveries by humans over the last 200,000 years is pretty strong evidence we are continually improving our knowledge. And in the 20th century the curve has gone exponetially upward.
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Completely insufficient. It simply means we are ramping up knowledge within the realm of what man can know using the scientific method.

It certainly doesn't preclude an immense amount of events/phenomena/states etc. that aren't determinable using this mindset.

Here is your leap of faith. It is a human-centric view that we are the top of the food chain in the universe and our ways of knowing are completely capable of uncovering all.
 
#111
#111
IPorange said:
That's a bit on the nihilistic side. No, I am saying they just muddle around without any sort of belief in origins. Not believing or accepting something isn't always the same as not believing or accepting the possibility of something.
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but sounds like you described for me nihilistic people.
 
#113
#113
BigPapaVol said:
let's not forget that most discoveries have been proven dead wrong, especially those rooted in disproving a greater power.

We're never coming to a conclusion about a greater power vs. randomly generated conscience and life, Regardless where science goes.
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Yes, but the general trend has been a steady gain up the slope to certainty.

By all accounts, physics was thought to be a dead science at the turn of the century. We knew everything we needed to. We had Newtonian equations that could predict motion, planetary orbits, and measure forces. We knew everything we needed to know. Then a guy named Einstein shows up and says all of that is really a special case, here is a theory that explains everything, in all cases. Darwin comes up with a theory that while has problems as of yet, still presents a pretty compelling case of our origins. The sound barrier was impossible to break. DNA could never be mapped. The list goes on.

Point being, saying that randomly generated conscience and life can never be explained is wrong. It may take 100's of years to explain, it may be discovered tomorrow. But given the track record and knowledge humanity has gained thus far, I don't know how one can reasonably take anything off the table.
 
#115
#115
rjd970 said:
Y
Point being, saying that randomly generated conscience and life can never be explained is wrong. It may take 100's of years to explain, it may be discovered tomorrow. But given the track record and knowledge humanity has gained thus far, I don't know how one can reasonably take anything off the table.
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Saying it can never be explained is as wrong as saying it eventually will be explained. Both are huge assumptions. That's the point.

You yourself are taking off the table the notion that it can never be explained via science.
 
#116
#116
rjd970 said:
Yes, but the general trend has been a steady gain up the slope to certainty.

By all accounts, physics was thought to be a dead science at the turn of the century. We knew everything we needed to. We had Newtonian equations that could predict motion, planetary orbits, and measure forces. We knew everything we needed to know. Then a guy named Einstein shows up and says all of that is really a special case, here is a theory that explains everything, in all cases. Darwin comes up with a theory that while has problems as of yet, still presents a pretty compelling case of our origins. The sound barrier was impossible to break. DNA could never be mapped. The list goes on.

Point being, saying that randomly generated conscience and life can never be explained is wrong. It may take 100's of years to explain, it may be discovered tomorrow. But given the track record and knowledge humanity has gained thus far, I don't know how one can reasonably take anything off the table.
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and it's senseless to me that someone would put everything on the table.
 
#117
#117
volinbham said:
Completely insufficient. It simply means we are ramping up knowledge within the realm of what man can know using the scientific method.

It certainly doesn't preclude an immense amount of events/phenomena/states etc. that aren't determinable using this mindset.

Here is your leap of faith. It is a human-centric view that we are the top of the food chain in the universe and our ways of knowing are completely capable of uncovering all.
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Now your changing the game. Your question was this:

what evidence would it take to prove wrong your belief that "science can explain all"?
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I answered it with respect to science, in which case its track record speaks volumes. Now you're saying what about other phenomenons that can't be explained by science.

How do you know what events/phenomena/states can't be explained by science? Simply stating it as a rule of the game doesn't mean anything. I'm sure at one point humans of like minded thinking that something like the sun could never be explained. Certainly this is true with things like the plague, or rain dances.

The only "leap of faith" I am taking is that based on what we have accomplished thus far, there is no reason to believe that eventually we won't get to a point where everything makes sense from a rational point of view.
 
#119
#119
volinbham said:
Saying it can never be explained is as wrong as saying it eventually will be explained. Both are huge assumptions. That's the point.

You yourself are taking off the table the notion that it can never be explained via science.
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I absolutely am not. I would just like to see some evidence that other methods work, at the very least, to the same degree science has.
 
#121
#121
I would be interested to hear what the Darwinists/atheists/agnostics think the 4 or 5 most compelling facts are that support their stances.. there are some biological/biochemical advances in research that provide problems for evolutionary theory... e.g. irreducible complexity ... what are some areas of research that bolster your side of this debate?

I'm not an expert on this at all... it just seems that every discussion like this comes to a standstill at some point...
 
#122
#122
rjd970 said:
The only "leap of faith" I am taking is that based on what we have accomplished thus far, there is no reason to believe that eventually we won't get to a point where everything makes sense from a rational point of view.
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there is also no reason to believe it to be true. None whatsoever.
 
#124
#124
rjd970 said:
Yes, but the general trend has been a steady gain up the slope to certainty.

By all accounts, physics was thought to be a dead science at the turn of the century. We knew everything we needed to. We had Newtonian equations that could predict motion, planetary orbits, and measure forces. We knew everything we needed to know. Then a guy named Einstein shows up and says all of that is really a special case, here is a theory that explains everything, in all cases. Darwin comes up with a theory that while has problems as of yet, still presents a pretty compelling case of our origins. The sound barrier was impossible to break. DNA could never be mapped. The list goes on.

Point being, saying that randomly generated conscience and life can never be explained is wrong. It may take 100's of years to explain, it may be discovered tomorrow. But given the track record and knowledge humanity has gained thus far, I don't know how one can reasonably take anything off the table.
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Yet there is no cure for the common cold.
 
#125
#125
There is always going to be the next level of complexity or the next level of minutia that will be just beyond current human understanding. I don't think that will ever change. In the space of unknown, some people will always see God and others will just see the next challenge.
 
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