🚀 go-pugleaf

Virgil wrote:
> In article <1214552129.1522.3@proxy01.news.clara.net>,
>  The Natural Philosopher <a@b.c> wrote:
> 
>> rbwinn wrote:
>>> On Jun 26, 3:56?pm, "Dogmantic Pyrrhonist (AKA Al)"
>>> <alwh...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On Jun 27, 6:09 am, The Natural Philosopher <a...@b.c> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> W.A. Sawford wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, 26 Jun 2008, rbwinn wrote:
>>>>>>> On Jun 26, 5:05? am, RobertL <robertml...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Jun 26, 4:48? am, rbwinn <rbwi...@juno.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Jun 25, 7:27?pm, "Smiler" <Smi...@Joe.King.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Well, if no one proved it, then it was not proven. ? All you have done
>>>>>>> is to say it was proven without showing any proof or anyone who is
>>>>>>> suppsed to have done it. ?Atheists have said they have proven all
>>>>>>> manner of things. ?Almost always it turns out to be something some
>>>>>>> individual atheist put together that sounds good to other atheists.
>>>>>>> Robert B. Winn
>>>>>> I wasn't going to get involved in all this (unless it's Friday, which it
>>>>>> isn't) but I can't stand it any longer (sigh).
>>>>>> 'Atheists have said they have proven all manner of things.'
>>>>>> Well, what exactly have they claimed to have proved, and which atheists
>>>>>> have claimed it? ?Atheists don't actually need to 'prove' anything,
>>>>>> because there is not a shred of evidence that god exists in the first
>>>>>> place. The onus is not on atheists to prove the non-existence of god any
>>>>>> more than the non-existence of the ravening bug-blatter beast of Traal.
>>>>> Completely wrong. The concept of God is not a scientific hypotheis, nor
>>>>> a fact.
>>>>> So it can't be proven or disproven.
>>>>> Its simply a shorthand for 'all the wide and wonderful stuff we cant get
>>>>> a handle on; and feel scared by' more or less.
>>>>> Atheism isn't so much denying His existence, nor yet keeping and open
>>>>> mind on the subject (agnostic) its merely sidestepping the whole mess as
>>>>> something one can simply do without.
>>>>>> Show me some real evidence and I'll think about belief. Although actual
>>>>>> evidence would of course remove the need for belief in the first place...
>>>>> That's the whole point. Belief is a state of mind that has utility. Its
>>>>> a little bit of Wise-ardry. Headology.
>>>>> Wise-ards understand that believing in something is an action, not a
>>>>> statement about its existence, or lack thereof.
>>>>>> Wendy
>>>> Your "god" is yours. ?Different people have more or less
>>>> anthropomorphic ideas of gods. ?And the claim wasn't so much that your
>>>> god of gaps was disproven (that would be a misnomer, as you're
>>>> suggesting god is the stuff we don't know), but the literal biblical
>>>> god is provably false. ?The most obviously wrong points would be the
>>>> age of the universe, origin of species/types, and a world-wide flood.
>>>> There are lots of other smaller details that are contradictory to
>>>> reality as well, but could more easily be argued as lack of knowledge
>>>> by transcribers.
>>>>
>>>> Al- Hide quoted text -
>>>>
>>>> - Show quoted text -
>>> So scientists can be proven wrong by
>> Correct.
>>
>> Religious beliefs cannot be proven wrong, because they are  not a 
>> scientific theory: Since religion  predicts nothing that can be tested, 
>> its is never open to challenge on a scientific basis.
> 
> And while that sort of religious belief cannot be proved wrong by 
> science, it also cannot be proved right.
> 

*Nothing* can be proved right.

At best, we can say of any theory, that it hasn't been disproved..yet, 
although logically it COULD be.

Religion cannot be proved wrong *logically*: it has zero value as a 
scientific theory for that reason. It is scientifically *empty*.

> On matters of religion, as on many non-religious matters, science says 
> nothing. 
> 

It CAN say nothing. A atatement such as

'somewhere in some dimension, exist perfectly formed pink unicorns'

is so loose that it cannot be disproved: it pushes the burden of 
refutation so far beyind teh practical that it is empty in any nortmal 
context.


> However when the religious say that science is wrong, they usually have 
> no idea what they are talking about.
> 

The problem is that very few scientists understand what science is, 
either. They think that science can prove things right, that it makes a 
final statement about the nature of the universe: It does neither. It is 
simply a system of *predicting the future*. That is its value and 
ultility. That it produces reliable ways of doing things whose outcome 
is always the same.

Any more than most religious people understand what religion is.

Religion is rightly a way of *acting* 'as if' something that cannot be 
proved to exist, or disproved, were a fact. It is *a* way to proceed in 
the human condition of utter ignorance as to the ultimate nature and 
meaning - if any - of the universe.

If both scientists and religious people were to retreat into the 
humility that befits general human ignorance of the fundamentals of 
life, there would be no argument.



> E.g., creationists and intelligent design freaks.

Spiritual arrogance. That's all.

Coupled with a weak sense of self esteem that does not allow them to 
consider that the assumptions around which they base their whole 
existence, might be wrong.

For second rate scientists and religious people, the basis on which they 
act has to be assumed to be *factual*. They neither can stomach life as 
a process of behaving 'as if' some explanation or theory were in fact 
the real case, when it certainly may not be.


The whole of human knowledge is based on 'as if'.  It is 'as if' there 
were a force sucking us down onto the surface of the planet. It is 'as 
if' time passes in a smooth linear fashion, according to the way we 
remember it .

None of these is provable fact: Possible alternatives exist. Occams's 
razor is the tool we use to decide, not what is right,but what is 
functional and effective:  And sadly what s functional and effective in 
one worldview is obscenely complicated in another.

The creationists worldview is completely secure and simple: all mystery 
comes from God, he has his Word and his Rule book, and that is the end 
of the matter. Science, to the fundamentalist, is obscenely complicated 
and a complete violation of Occam's Razor.

Likewise to the scientists, the Big Bang explanation only needs ONE 
simple weird event to explain everything: broken symmetries account for 
everything, and anthropocentrism accounts for God. A supernatural 
intelligence than could carry out ALL the details of a creation such 
that to a scientist it *appears* that the big bang is the simplest 
explanation, is in Occam's words 'multiplication of entities (WELL) 
beyond necessity'.


I have no problem with either explanation. However where I do take 
issue, is those that would teach both as equally valid: they are not.

The Big bang is the logical extrapolation in a more or less linear 
fashion, of stuff that WORKS, that has passed test of refutation. 
Religion is, by its very nature, irrefutable, and has no predictive 
power. That is the primary difference.

Religion only predicts things in its essence about life beyond death, a 
state which it is not possible to test. One anecdotal account written up 
by four people some of whom were not there, in a cultural matrix of 
extreme political change and repression is hardly strong evidence.

If returning from the dead ere an every day occurrence, and all whop 
returned said 'yeah, right: there w god, and st peter, and all the stuff 
you expect' there wouldn't be any argument or religious wars either.