Say it ain't so ?
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For my Christians Friends
- Thread starter nyxtrader
- Start date
Say it ain't so ?
Quote from Turok:
V00:
>Better yet, show us how one can use the scientific
>method to prove that love exists.
I'm game -- first we must agree on a definition of "love".
I'll give you the first pass.
JB
Can we agree on any of the definitions in a published dictionary ?
If, so then pick one.
Quote from volente_00:
Say it ain't so ?
Well, I'll say this about that because I'm not exactly sure what Max is referring to. He might be speaking epistemologically.
Science is all about "evidence", particularly since that is the key that separates science from religious "belief" -- Science requires evidence. Religious belief does not. Science is based on direct evidence -- objective things which can be observed or experienced...
But check this out....
Observed or experience by anyone!
Religious belief, at least Christian belief, appears to be in large part based on things which were reportedly observed or experienced indirectly and subjectively, but only by a select few people, namely the authors of the bible. Religious followers simply have to have faith in such received wisdom.
But scientists don't have to take scientific facts (and theories) on faith. If they are skeptical, they can check the facts themselves. In fact, they are encouraged to check the facts for themselves, to see for themselves, to repeat the observation. That's how science works (peer review). It seems to me that this indicates that scientists DO NOT simply take their facts on faith, and therefore scientific facts (and theories) are NOT a matter of "belief." Their speculations might be. But their speculations are a continuance of and built upon things that are proven.
Oh yeah, I mean I guess one could point to the purely philosophical and epistemological questions of "believing what you see", or taking as fact that which you directly observe. And yes, one certainly should be careful when making observations and coming to conclusions about exactly what one has observed. But if we can't take as fact something which we directly observe (especially when others carefully make the same observation and come to the same conclusion), then, well, what do you suggest? We might as well give up looking around at all, huh?
No, I think we CAN rely on the factuality of things which we directly observe, particularly when we are very careful in our observations.
That said, can a god exist? There is the possibility. But what theist rests on just the possibility? For the most part, they take the existence of God as factual irrespective of any testable, observable, objective experience. And what's more, they don't all agree but offer conjecture to support their disagreements between one another. Well except for the deeply ecumenical types.
Quote from DerekD:
Does love exist? Well, it's more than just a concept. We can see it manifested in the material world.
What is Love?
(Baby don't hurt me. Baby don't hurt me, no more.)
Seriously though since love is subjective we'd first have to narrow down an objective definition of love. We can do that by sampling what people individually determine what love is then find what is baseline common among all the various definitions.
We'd have to be specific about the relational love we're trying to test for. Let's take love between two people to the exclusion of others. We would then need to analyze its supposed stages such as lust, attraction, and attachment. At each of these stages we'd want to see what happens biologically. We want to make certain that there is a uniqueness that we can associate with what we are testing for in order to define it properly.
Anyway, what we find is that there are certain unique chemical reactions (various hormonal levels, brain chemical set levels, and certain protein molecules levels) at each stage of what people have defined as love and what we objectively (for the purpose of experimentation) defined as love. So now we know that what we call love has a biological manifestation at each of its various stages. In other words, we know scientifically that "love" exists and is not just some ethereal concept like spirituality.
With this knowledge, we could someday soon detect if someone is actually in love or lying about their affections.
The other thing... so you think science is a theoretical explanation of a phenomena? Lets' take the phenomena called gravity. While we may not know exactly what it is, we sure can test for it and more importantly, predict it's affect.
Can we do that with religious assertions?
Opinions from a sample is hardly what I would consider using science to prove existence of something. How would this be any different than taking a sample's opinion on whether God exist ?
I'm sure if you take a sample and test people on sundays who just left church and those who do not believe in a higher power you will find some correlations in those same levels. Perhaps as simple as checking dopamine levels between the two groups.
Quote from volente_00:
Opinions from a sample is hardly what I would consider using science to prove existence of something. How would this be any different than taking a sample's opinion on whether God exist ?
I'm sure if you take a sample and test people on sundays who just left church and those who do not believe in a higher power you will find some correlations in those same levels. Perhaps as simple as checking dopamine levels between the two groups.
Who said anything about proving God exists?
The question wasn't prove god exits but prove love exists. It's been done already and continues. Thought tha'd make you... happy.
Quote from DerekD:
Well, I'll say this about that because I'm not exactly sure what Max is referring to. He might be speaking epistemologically.
Science is all about "evidence", particularly since that is the key that separates science from religious "belief" -- Science requires evidence. Religious belief does not. Science is based on direct evidence -- objective things which can be observed or experienced...
But check this out....
Observed or experience by anyone!
Religious belief, at least Christian belief, appears to be in large part based on things which were reportedly observed or experienced indirectly and subjectively, but only by a select few people, namely the authors of the bible. Religious followers simply have to have faith in such received wisdom.
But scientists don't have to take scientific facts (and theories) on faith. If they are skeptical, they can check the facts themselves. In fact, they are encouraged to check the facts for themselves, to see for themselves, to repeat the observation. That's how science works (peer review). It seems to me that this indicates that scientists DO NOT simply take their facts on faith, and therefore scientific facts (and theories) are NOT a matter of "belief." Their speculations might be. But their speculations are a continuance of and built upon things that are proven.
Oh yeah, I mean I guess one could point to the purely philosophical and epistemological questions of "believing what you see", or taking as fact that which you directly observe. And yes, one certainly should be careful when making observations and coming to conclusions about exactly what one has observed. But if we can't take as fact something which we directly observe (especially when others carefully make the same observation and come to the same conclusion), then, well, what do you suggest? We might as well give up looking around at all, huh?
No, I think we CAN rely on the factuality of things which we directly observe, particularly when we are very careful in our observations.
That said, can a god exist? There is the possibility. But what theist rests on just the possibility? For the most part, they take the existence of God as factual irrespective of any testable, observable, objective experience. And what's more, they don't all agree but offer conjecture to support their disagreements between one another. Well except for the deeply ecumenical types.
Science requires just as much belief as religion. A lot of theoreticals have to have faith placed in them before you can believe in science. Science advances are made through belief in possibilities. It is one of the common backbones that allows it to keep growing. If scientist did not believe in possibilities, then why would there be any reason to strive to make advances in the field? The world is not black and white. There is no right or wrong answer here. To say that something is impossible, contradicts what science is all about. Skeptics once thought nuclear power would never exist yet those who thought it was possible made it happen.
As for testing for God, well, prayer was mentioned in the thread.
To make it easy, we'll do it old school style.
We'll pick a location that we monitor by video, infrared and night vision camera. In the monitored area, we'll draw several 12ft diameter circles. In the center of these circle, we put out a 3 ft diameter carpet.
We will set the duration of this experiment to be 3 days in length for each set of believers.
Then we get a bunch of believers from the various faiths to pray this prayer during the day only (Let's say at noon):
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning but the ground in the circle be dry."
Let's say we come back tomorrow morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet for a few groups, dry for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a dry carpet.
Then following on to noon we assemble the same bunch of believers
So this next day we get the same bunch of believers to now pray this prayer:
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be dry in the morning but the ground in the circle be wet."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed dry for three groups, wet for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a wet carpet.
Now we're down to three religions; let's say it's Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Well, pretty impressive so far. Definitely cause for further investigation. So we assemble these last groups at noon and ask them to pray this prayer:
"God show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning and the ground in the circle be wet also."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet along with the area inside the circle for Christianity and Judaism, dry for the Islam. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering. And there was no rain.
And you said we couldn't test for God...
To make it easy, we'll do it old school style.
We'll pick a location that we monitor by video, infrared and night vision camera. In the monitored area, we'll draw several 12ft diameter circles. In the center of these circle, we put out a 3 ft diameter carpet.
We will set the duration of this experiment to be 3 days in length for each set of believers.
Then we get a bunch of believers from the various faiths to pray this prayer during the day only (Let's say at noon):
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning but the ground in the circle be dry."
Let's say we come back tomorrow morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet for a few groups, dry for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a dry carpet.
Then following on to noon we assemble the same bunch of believers
So this next day we get the same bunch of believers to now pray this prayer:
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be dry in the morning but the ground in the circle be wet."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed dry for three groups, wet for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a wet carpet.
Now we're down to three religions; let's say it's Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Well, pretty impressive so far. Definitely cause for further investigation. So we assemble these last groups at noon and ask them to pray this prayer:
"God show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning and the ground in the circle be wet also."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet along with the area inside the circle for Christianity and Judaism, dry for the Islam. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering. And there was no rain.
And you said we couldn't test for God...
Quote from volente_00:
Science requires just as much belief as religion. A lot of theoreticals have to have faith placed in them before you can believe in science. Science advances are made through belief in possibilities. It is one of the common backbones that allows it to keep growing. If scientist did not believe in possibilities, then why would there be any reason to strive to make advances in the field? The world is not black and white. There is no right or wrong answer here. To say that something is impossible, contradicts what science is all about. Skeptics once thought nuclear power would never exist yet those who thought it was possible made it happen.
I think you have it all backwards. I'm referring to the last part in particular. Scientists knew nuclear reactions existed. They just weren't sure that we could harness the energy. There is a difference between that and what you are positing. They OBSERVED nuclear reactions. They figured what would be required in order to replicate it. They tested it until successful. They learn about what's possible THROUGH observation.
Scientific advancement is NOT made by a belief in what's possible. But rather made by observation and stumbling upon something while observing another.
Take the speed of light for instance. It was observed and later tested that light (photons) travels at a certain speed. Electrons also travel at that speed. What might be possible is having a ship travel near that speed given the other things we observed about the relationship between input energy and output power. You cannot meet 100% efficiency in this universe, only approach it.
See what I mean?
Quote from DerekD:
As for testing for God, well, prayer was mentioned in the thread.
To make it easy, we'll do it old school style.
We'll pick a location that we monitor by video, infrared and night vision camera. In the monitored area, we'll draw several 12ft diameter circles. In the center of these circle, we put out a 3 ft diameter carpet.
We will set the duration of this experiment to be 3 days in length for each set of believers.
Then we get a bunch of believers from the various faiths to pray this prayer during the day only (Let's say at noon):
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning but the ground in the circle be dry."
Let's say we come back tomorrow morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet for a few groups, dry for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a dry carpet.
Then following on to noon we assemble the same bunch of believers
So this next day we get the same bunch of believers to now pray this prayer:
"God (or whatever they address it by), show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be dry in the morning but the ground in the circle be wet."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed dry for three groups, wet for the others. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering.
We eliminate the religions who show a wet carpet.
Now we're down to three religions; let's say it's Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Well, pretty impressive so far. Definitely cause for further investigation. So we assemble these last groups at noon and ask them to pray this prayer:
"God show us you are real. Let the carpet in the circle be wet in the morning and the ground in the circle be wet also."
Let's say we come back the following morning and find that the carpet is indeed wet along with the area inside the circle for Christianity and Judaism, dry for the Islam. And video surveillance doesn't show any evidence of tampering. And there was no rain.
And you said we couldn't test for God...
Actually you are testing whether there is a correlation between prayer and water. Interesting how you rule out rain. Why can't a higher power send the water naturally ? I personally don't know of anyone who actually prays for supernatural things to happen. Do you ? I believe that prayer has to be realistic to work. One can't pray to get turned into a monkey and then wonder why his prayer was not answered.