Science does change over time but in the direction of achieving a greater understanding of the world around us. Religious explanations tend to become even more implausible over time as science fills these gaps.
I understand that. I only reply to him because I don't respect him talking to people like they are stupid and that he is better than them. If he is trying to "educate" them, then degrading them isn't going to help.
Which is why science from as recent as 100 years ago is laughed at today people think they're so smart, but perspective is a b!tch
Science knowledge is cumulative, just because we know more than Newton does not mean he is not one of the smartest people of all time. Maybe after WWIII we can go back to reinvent science again.
That is the whole point of science. You have theories that get proved or disproved and new theories are made. Science is continuously improving. That is why we have cell phones and other modern tech today. I don't even know what you are arguing.
People who work hard don't deserve their success, got it. There is no both sides. Science is always striving to find new evidence to prove or disprove old theories. Faith is just...is.
Thanks for posting this! I see you would like to discuss Puritan work ethic and the metaphsyical implications thereof. I'm very interested to hear more. Perhaps you have some leaflets for me?
Maybe. That does seem to be the default response to atheists though "you're being rude/condescending by exxpressing your beliefs" in a way that it rarely is for the religious.
Once again people need to look at the context that they are dealing with. Religion get's into trouble when they dogmatically cling to a view of empirical reality that is easily disproven. At the same time science get's into trouble when it is used to justify a reductivist view of existence as being nothing more than empirical and materialistic. Science if great for developing technology and for understanding the material existence but it isn't about understanding meaning. As I said in the cosmic inflation thread science can explain through a long change of causality how I came to be but it can't explain why I am here. Is there a purpose to my existence beyond just passing my genes on? Will I exist after I die? I'm also going to point out that there are many religions and the religious who are not dogmatically clinging to scriptural views. There are many Christians who accept the theory of Evolution and in many ways modern science parallels Buddhist and Vedic views of cosmology. These debates frequently end up with critics of religion putting forward the most fundamentalist views to bash the religion without understanding why people are in the religion. For example I doubt most people are Christian because they believe in Young Earth Creationism. From my understanding that is only small minority of Christians that do.
If you declare science "off limits" for these questions I guess you can say that. The anthropic principle (which I used to hate, but now I get a lot more) does tend to shed light on the first one, the second one seems to be "no" at least - there's not a ton of evidence. Point is - I don't think religion does any better of a job at explaining the "why" than science, and frankly, does a lot worse of a job in many instances.
The scientific method isn't really set up to answer those type of philosophical questions. This isn't a knock on science just recognizing the limits of what it is. I mean how would you set up an experiment to determine the meaning of life? The anthropic principle isn't something that can be proven, or disproven, in a falsifiable way that would make it a scientific theory. It is really more in the realm of philosophy and almost religious in a Buddhist sense regarding the relationship of individual perception. You are falling into the frequent problem of looking at the answers versus the process. It is the same as another poster mocking science by bringing up science from a 100 years ago. This is as I said that critics often take the most fundamental view of a religion and portray it as unchanging to mock the religion, or the idea of religion, as a whole, such as attacking all Christianity through Young Earth Creationism. For most Christians Young Earth Creationism isn't really very important and most don't even accept it. For that vast majority of those who are religious they can reconcile scientific views with the overall view of their faith. It is only the absolutist who insist it must be all or nothing. Religion as a quest for spiritual meaning is what is more important than whether the earth was created 6,000 years ago or 4.5 billion.
The reason religions deny science is that they base their moral authority on the absolute truth of their myths, in Christianity, the fact that The Bible is the recorded word of God. They are boxed in by their dogma, that it is the absolute truth and have to defend it at all costs.
I do have them but those are for sane people only And they believe the Bible is the recorded words of God because....?
That's an interesting quote coming from an astronomer. I wonder if he's referring to the theory of gravity that we know is incorrect/incomplete because it doesn't explain the orbit of Mercury or the gravity of compact objects (Newtonian), or the theory of gravity that is almost certainly incorrect/incomplete because it is fundamentally incompatible with quantum theory, one of the most well-verified theories in the world (General Relativity).
Something being incomplete does not make it a non-fact. Gravity is also well-verified, as is evolution.
