How do you distinguish between the belief in God and the occult?

[Free Thinker]

Quote from Epic:

LOL, that is a gross exaggeration and you know it. You've just suggested that everyone who believes in God, also believes in your opinion on what the bible is. Then you suggested that a belief in God eliminates the desire to understand our universe.

Your prejudice is astounding.

why would a creationist have a desire to search for the natural beginnings of the world if he believed that "god did it". and if he did search and found evidence that counteracted what he believed what would he do?
you lack of critical thinking skills are astounding.


"if conclusions contradict the word of God, the conclusions are wrong no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."biology textbook printed by conservative Christian publisher Bob Jones University Press

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from Epic:

Yes, always and necessarily. Any previous evidence must have been gathered during a previous experiment. You are then using the prior conclusions as new assumptions. "We are going to assume that the prior assumptions were correct and that the test methods were valid. If we make those assumptions, based on the prior conclusions we now hypothesize that...."

I think you're exaggerating the extent to which creationism begins with a conclusion, and under-emphasizing the extent to which non-creationists do the same.

Both are assumptions, but both are equally valid from our current point of understanding. IMO, the following statements are equally ludicrous.

"Nothing in our universe existed until suddenly a massive explosion resulted in a separation of space, time, and matter."

"Nothing in our universe existed until God instructed everything to organize."

In both cases, what existed before nothing existed?

is god nothing? what created god if nothing existed before?

 

[Epic]

Quote from Free Thinker:

why would a creationist have a desire to search for the natural beginnings of the world if he believed that "god did it". and if he did search and found evidence that counteracted what he believed what would he do?
you lack of critical thinking skills are astounding.


"if conclusions contradict the word of God, the conclusions are wrong no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."biology textbook printed by conservative Christian publisher Bob Jones University Press

Again, you are lumping all believers in God into your definition of what a believer in God is.

Are there creationist who fit that profile? yes.
Are there scientists who manipulate data to support their biases? yes

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from Epic:

Again, you are lumping all believers in God into your definition of what a believer in God is.

Are there creationist who fit that profile? yes.
Are there scientists who manipulate data to support their biases? yes

yes and other scientist will cry foul and set the record straight. who, in the religious community, will ever say the bible is wrong and get it rewritten based on new evidence?

"Faith is a firm, stoic, and sacred conviction which is both adopted and maintained independent of physical evidence or logical proof. It is also an assumption of absolute accuracy and inerrent authority which must never be questioned. Science, on the other hand, is a matter of skeptical inquiry, in which nothing is sacred, and where even authority opinion is suspect. Its an objective method of measurably or verifiably improving our understanding of physical nature in practical application, or mathematics, or through experimentation and observation, and proposing falsifiable hypotheses explaining the facts in a theoretical framework to be subjected to a perpetual battery of critical analysis in peer review. Science parallels the rationalist perspective in that 'belief' should be tentative, conditional, and restricted only to that which is directly- supportable by logic or evidence; that, while many things may be considered possible, nothing should be positively believed unless positively indicated via the scientific method, and all assumptions must be questioned. In short, scientific methodology is the antithesis of faith, opposites in every respect."

 

[Epic]

Quote from Free Thinker:

is god nothing? what created god if nothing existed before?

Exactly!

Where did the matter come from that was present during the big bang? Or if string theory is correct, and two universes collided to create ours, where did those two come from?

It's the same question.

 

[Epic]

Quote from Free Thinker:

yes and other scientist will cry foul and set the record straight. who, in the religious community, will ever say the bible is wrong and get it rewritten based on new evidence?

Are you joking? Why do you think there are so many religions? Religious people cry foul just as frequently as non-religious.

Again, you are making it very obvious that you have a specific axe to grind with Judeo-Christianity. You obviously pride yourself on being a "free thinker" but i guess when it comes to the idea of God, you throw that out the window?

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from Epic:

Are you joking? Why do you think there are so many religions? Religious people cry foul just as frequently as non-religious.

you think? most christians still carry a textbook last revised in the 1600s. the king james bible.

For three hundred years now, the Christian astronomer has known that his Diety didn't make the stars in those tremendous six days; but the Christian astronomer doesn't enlarge upon that detail. Neither does the priest.
Samuel Clemens- Letters from the Earth

 

[stu]

That is certainly not the basis of science. Verification is quite the contrary of assumption.

However, the making of simplistic assumptions on behalf of atheists, IS what theists do a lot of.

Quote from Epic:

Never said anything about Jesus having something to do with science.

EVERYONE makes assumptions about their world. That is the basis of science. For the atheist...

1) I assume that I exist.

2) I assume that my perceived world exists.

3) I assume that this world didn't just spontaneously come to exist in its current state.

4) I assume that a creator does not exist, and was not the driving factor in the existence of my world.

4) Therefore, my hypothesis is that....

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from Epic:

Exactly!

Where did the matter come from that was present during the big bang? Or if string theory is correct, and two universes collided to create ours, where did those two come from?

It's the same question.

so since science does not yet have all the answers you stop learning at "god did it"?

"science is giving christians new and interesting gaps for them to cram their ever-diminishing god into – but the inevitable effect of that is to make the god they’re arguing for the nebulous existence of so far removed from the god of the bible as to make it a completely separate entity"

 

[Epic]

Quote from Free Thinker:

you think? most christians still carry a textbook last revised in the 1600s. the king james bible.

For three hundred years now, the Christian astronomer has known that his Diety didn't make the stars in those tremendous six days; but the Christian astronomer doesn't enlarge upon that detail. Neither does the priest.
Samuel Clemens- Letters from the Earth

You must not be very familiar with the various forms of Christianity. There are many Christians who are neither young-earthers, nor do they believe that the suggested 7-day creation was accurate or literal.