Okay, this is going to be mostly in response to recent comments from my uncle on this post, this post, and this post. But first, I'm going to apologize for not posting for a long time. My computer died on me, and so I have to hit up libraries to get online--or use my iPod, where typing is all kinds of fun.
Anyway, on to the response. Firstly, the main reason I post on this blog is so I can sleep at night. If I don't get thoughts down in some form, my brain gets locked on them, and I can't get to sleep. The secondary reason is to let my friends know what I'm up to. So the primary and secondary audiences are mostly--if not all--Christians. So, people who would agree with that kind of thing--just like anywhere else on the internet that uses first person pronouns--and therefore, it's going to look wrong to people who disagree.
Now as to the specific posts. The first thing I'm going to address is from the second linked post--where he wonders what the "impossible that had to happen" was. At this point, I wasn't aware of the possibility of a chiral anomaly. The impossible was the breaking of the conservation of baryon number. Now as near as I can tell from that (and I will admit that that dense wall of quantum mechanics-speak is unintelligible to me and makes my head hurt, so I may be wrong) we don't have evidence showing that that has happened (other than the fact that we exist) so they're only hypotheses--again, unless I'm reading that wrong. And if I'm wrong, I won't say the old "it's only a theory," because I think that people who say that should be dragged to a dictionary, be forced to read the scientific definition of "theory" out loud, then smacked across the face with the dictionary. Like I said, I might be wrong, and if I am, then I'm wrong. I am human, after all.
As to the "argument from ignorance" complaints.... Yes. Exactly. I made logical fallacies. I didn't actually prove the existence of God. I am of the opinion that God cannot be proven or disproven logically--if He could, the debate would have been over long ago. Unfortunately, it may appear that I was trying to prove His existence. The main reason for those posts is that I get frustrated when atheists go in and point out internal inconsistencies in the Bible, and acting as if science has all the answers. There are still holes in science--and in my opinion, there always will be, but that's just my opinion. Now, my belief is that the inconsistencies in the Bible are due to human error--a common factor no matter what field you look at.
As to whether or not scientists should give up because I don't think they'll figure everything out, of course they shouldn't. They should continue trying to increase our knowledge of the universe. And yes, for the most part, the holes have been getting smaller, but we've also found new ones--quantum mechanics vs. classical physics, for example. It's my belief that as they find answers to the current issues, they will find new holes in understanding, so that no matter how long our species survives, we will never have a complete understanding of things in science--only my opinion. Should that be taught in schools? Only the part that there are currently gaps in our understanding--God should only be mentioned in religious studies or biblical studies courses, since it's not science--at most. Show the gaps, talk about experiments that are attempting to close them, that's it.
Anyway, I'm bored with this, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to close this out and head home.
Wow, there's so many things, it's hard to decide where to start. I just hope that I am able to cover everything.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, just because we don't understand something, doesn't mean that we have to latch onto any unproven idea to explain. Saying that we don't know allows us to explore several ideas, that might explain the phenomena. Scientist follow the evidence, and as long as the evidence supports an hypothesis, they will continue to follow it. once the evidence contradicts an hypothesis, the hypothesis will either be modified or discarded.
Next, you now admit that you were using logical fallacies. Did you realize it at the time, or did you become aware of it when someone pointed it out to you. You encouraged your readers to go out and ask about, at least one of your logical fallacies, but when you yourself had the opportunity to ask about it, you declined, to bring it up. I am inclined to believe that you knew it was a logical fallacy, and you didn't want to have one of your arguments tore to shreds in front of your peers. If I'm wrong about this, please correct me.
I never even suggested that you were trying to prove god, let alone had proven god. If you re-examine the original posts, I think you would agree that you were presenting them as evidence for your god hypothesis. Using logical fallacies doesn't strengthen your hypothesis, and, knowingly, using them weakens your position.
"God cannot be proven or disproven logically." Neither can The Matrix, or the the entire Universe was created as is last Thursday. Just because we can't disprove them, does that mean we should start living our lives as though they are true? My opinion is no. We shouldn't start treating an idea as true until we have sufficient evidence to support the idea.
"if He could, the debate would have been over long ago." Really, there are flat Earthers out there, there are geo-centrists out there, there are Holocaust deniers out there, there are moon landing deniers out there. These are just some of the things which have been thoroughly proven, for which there are still people who would debate the reality.
To be continued...
...continued from previous comment.
ReplyDelete"God cannot be proven or disproven logically." This is true of the deist god or some "wibbley-wobbley" ill defined god. Well defined gods, make specific claims about reality, and these claims can be put to the test. In every case that I'm aware of, specific god claims have always been shown to be inconsistent with reality.
"and acting as if science has all the answers." Science doesn't have all the answer, but it is the only method we have for determining what are the right answers. If you know of another method I'd love to hear about it. Of course we'd have to subject it to the scientific method first in order to determine if it's reliable.
Inconsistencies in the Bible. Inconsistencies means errors. What method do you use to determine which parts are correct and which parts are in error? Why not chuck the whole thing out and use a reliable method to determine what to believe?
Consider all the things that you have done in the past several years, because you believed it was your god's will. For example picking up and moving to a different city; actively trying to recruit other people to believe the things you believe; and now taking a trip to China, all because you're convinced that it is your god's will. Now consider how far would you go if you're convinced that it's your god's will. Rape, murder, and torture have all been justified as "god's will".
"Anyway, I'm bored with this", I'm sorry that my attempt to engage you and challenge your beliefs is so boring. If you'd rather live in an echo chamber free of criticism, then perhaps you should create an invitation only blog, or not put up posts that are deserving of criticism.
Well that's all I have, but I'm certainly not bored with this. I hope I was able to cover all the points that I wanted to get to, but I'm almost sure I'll think of something I forgot later. There were a lot of point to cover.