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 18:48:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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1501 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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And this may be the crux of my problem with Science. Science categorically
denies the existence of anything it cannot investigate. It requires proof,
something that is categorically impossible to obtain outside the natural
universe. So, in essence, a god or gods cannot exist because they cannot
be proved to exist, which I find to be conveniently circular.
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“Where one cannot speak, there one must be silent.”
Here, we are confusing the scientific attitude with the attitude of scientists.
Science doesn’t take a stand on God, since the very idea, as you point out, is
beyond the scope of science. Most scientists are Naturalists, where they ignore
God as unnecessary.
Elves, trolls, unicorns, and fairies MIGHT exist. Are we to believe in them
because they fall into your circular argument above? That is, ‘science’ says
they don’t exist because science has no way to investigate their existance.
Maybe you could explain to me how a belief in god is fundamentally different
than a belief in a goblin?
I should also point out that science has come to accept things that it
originally thought was nonexistant, impossible, or occultic. Gravity, for one,
was originally rebuked because it was thought to be an occultic, magical force.
Positrons and antimatter was also refuted as untrue, until predicted by theory
and confirmed by experiment.
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The fact is that even if God appeared at the United Nations general assembly,
there would be people who wouldn’t be able to accept it, because Science
cannot handle such a concept.
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If ‘god’ appeared before the UN - it would severely change my definition of
‘god’ - as I don’t think ‘god’ would be able to appear. My sister, a Muslim,
also denies that god could appear in imperfect human form, which is her
rationale for disbelieving in the divinity of Jesus.
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But my original point (God = Event1) still
stands: Science cannot handle a concept of God, but it hypocritically accepts
the concept of the existence of all things without probing as to their
origins. The best proof of the existence of God is the simple existence of
stuff. Rationally, it had to come from somewhere (according to Science).
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Science doesn’t need to understand everything in order to understand anything.
As I understand, science is still figuring out how inorganic matter can turn
into life - but that doesn’t mean God did it. Or that life doesn’t exist.
And your argument, ‘God created everything therefore creation is proof of God’,
is twice as circular as the one you accused science of taking. I could just as
easily say ‘Nothing created everything therefore everything is proof of
Nothing.’
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Even if I accept the idea that stuff just always WAS, it is still equivalent
to saying that a Creator just always WAS (God = Perpetual Stuff).
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No it is not. This is the same form of your above argument - whatever qualities
of the world, God made them, ergo God exists. This is a fallacy.
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In my final analysis, it boils down to a discussion of semantics. But I
think that Scientists want their cake and eat it, too, by refusing to even
consider pre-Big Band era music (Therein one finds, among others, the music
of a Mozart:-)
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I don’t think that you can boil down the difference between theism and atheism
to semantics.
You are taking the stance that whatever explanation science provides for nature,
you can tack on “God did it.” This is not a logical argument, nor is it
supported by any evidence.
-Lenny
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