Subject:
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Re: We're being attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of culture!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:01:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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1539 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
>
> > > Science doesn't need to answer question for which it doesn't have enough
> > > evidence to address. According to the Big Bang Theory, one cannot ask what
> > > caused the Big Bang or where the Big Band came from, because (according to the
> > > theory), all scientific laws break down at the Big Band. One cannot ask what
> > > came before because the question doesn't make sense.
>
> First of all, let's address this "Big Band" issue. I don't have much fondness
> for Lawrence Welk, but I guess Glenn Miller's okay. And Guy Lombardo? Don't
> get me started...
>
> > Therefore science cannot encompass everything. That stated, something must
> > exist outside of science.
>
> Not so fast! "Outside" is a dangerously tricky word in this context, since all
> bets are off as soon as we exit the natural universe (ie., we have no basis for
> making any one claim over any other regarding things "outside" the universe).
> Something *may* exist independent of the universe, but we can't possibly have
> any reasonable access to it. Even "intuitions" or "gut feelings" or "writings
> on my heart" aren't sufficient, when you get right down to it.
>
> > Let that something be God.
>
> But even that statement is just assuming a conclusion based on non-evidence,
> with no more weight than "let that something be me" or "let that something be a
> magical ham and cheese sandwich." Since we can *by definition* have no evidence
> of this hypothetical extra-universal phenomenon, it basically comes down to
> aesthetic preference. One says, in essence, "it is preferable to me that God
> (rather than some other force) is the force outside the universe," but that
> claim has no more validity or verifiable likelihood than any other.
>
> I've been searching but I can't find the thread in which you acknowledged that a
> God consigned to ever-decreasing realms of scientific ignorance is indeed an
> unworthy God. But that diminution is what you're doing here. It's worse, in
> fact; you're drawing a line in the cosmological sand that God dare not cross.
>
> Dave!
I will state again that my God isn't the 'god of the gap', so you don't have to
go looking for it.
Furthermore, I didn't consign 'God' to whatever science cannot answer. If
that's the interpretation then I didn't make my point clear.
Let's look at the inherent nature of science--as pointed out by Lenny, science
cannot answer everything--there will be things that exist outside of science.
As you stated, these things are, by their inherent nature, inexplicable to
natural sciences and we cannot have, as you stated, "any reasonable access to
it". I will fully endorse that.
Reason, by its inherent nature, is based on the observations of humanity and the
deductive capabilities thereof. Reason, science, deductiion, and even intuition
and such, are therefore 'regulated' by the physical universe.
I would have no problem stating emphatically that all that there is to know
about the physical universe in which we inhabit has the potential to be
'discovered' and 'explained' and understood by the scientific method or
derivatives thereof.
That said, I believe that there is something outside of science, and I do not
believe it to be a big block of cheese, for that would be explainable by science
and therefore not outside of it.
So agian I reiterate my view--God exists--whether it be the Christian God, or
Buddha or whomever, matters not (in the grande scheme of things) I believe that
He (for a better pronoun than 'it) exists in a space and time untouchable, and
undiscoverable by the scientifgic method due to His one with infinity. By the
very idea that we are finite creatures living in a finite physical universe, the
idea that we can understand and comprehend infinity, to it's full 'infinite'
degree, is absured.
So, for me, since I know that science cannot answer everything, and you know
that to be true as well--all semantics aside as to what it can or cannot
answer--something must be 'beyond' science. I do not beleive in a 'blind
watchmaker' for that goes against the physical laws of the universe, what with
entropy and all. The premise that when you dump a crapload of building goods
into a field repetitively and keep the parts that may someday make up a house
for the subsequent dumping until a house shows up in the 'final dump' is, again,
patently absurd because there would have to be someone with intelligence that
has the 'blueprint' of a house and can see how these 'pre' pieces would fit in
properly. It just doesn't wash.
The world, and the humans on it, is just a little too perfect to have happened
over billions of years due to a confluence of random events and working against
the universal law of entropy--there are too many, what I would like to call
'french verb variations'
My old science teacher used that expression when he said, 'here's the theory,
but, like french verbs, there's always exceptions'. One little example, and I
will nto hang my entire arguement on it, but one little example is that almost
every physical substance made of molecules in the universe (that we know of)
continually decrease in volume as the temperature decreases. Very few
substances don't follow that rule, one of which is something we use every day
and in many ways--water. Water is its most dense at 4 degrees celcius until you
get way down there towards 0 degrees K. And that's a good thing for us because
if water didn't act this way--being its most dense at 4 degrees C, we wouldn't
be here. Some reason I can't remember why but it deals with freezing and
thawing of river beds and other things--no time to look it up and all.
But the point is that I think it's rather ironic that water, the single thing we
need the most to make us into the beings we are has this 'property' that thumbs
its nose at all the other molecules where temperature is concerned. It's just
somethign that made me go 'Hmmm..'
To be sure, when looking at the graph back in grade 13 where they had other
molecular denisties and temperatures graphed, there was another that I can't
remember readily that also has a slightly wacky interrelationship with
temperature, but agian, parenthetical to the debate.
Bottom line, for me anyway, is that, even though I accept the premise of the
evolution theory, it's too perfect to happen randomly, without some sort of
guidance, either by a creator who set things in motion and walked away (a la
bline watchmaker) or by a creator who can influence the creation on such a level
to remain undetectable by the creations.
Whatever the case may be, I find it to be hypocritical when people say "We know
that there are things that science can never answer" and then go on to say
"You're faith in God is delusional". If there are things outside of science,
then let those things be God and don't think that those that do believe are
somehow less intelelctual than those that don't.
Dave K
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