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Subject: 
Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 24 Oct 2006 02:04:43 GMT
Viewed: 
4578 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:

<snip>

  
   I think you missed my meaning. I meant scientists who are Christian, not “Christian scientists” as in... well, whatever that is....

I think you’ll find you’re quite mistaken there. I know plenty of scientists who are Christian and I’ve never noticed their views to be taken better or worse because of it.

  
   Of course there are many scientists who are Christian and are perfectly good scientists, they are the ones who consider the Bible as a source of religious revelation rather than of scientific fact.

That’s what I’m talking about. But even these scientists get “the look” for believing in anything that is beyond the scope of science.

That’s simply not true. I’m sure if you look through the Nobel Prize list you’ll find plenty of active Christians and members of other religions. The point is, as I said before, that these people separate their religious beliefs from their science, not because they have to, but because it would make them worse scientists if they didn’t.

That may be. I seem to remember reading something about the topic; perhaps I can do some digging around.

  
  
   --snip--

  
   OK, then let me restate. I see no more reason to posit the existence of a Creator than I do Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Christian God. It would seem the onus is not on me to disprove the existence of any hypothetical supernatural being someone might conjure up.

But the onus is on you to rationally explain how a universe suddenly just came into being. --snip--

No it’s not. The onus is on the person making the claim, not on the person disputing it.

Okay, then a rationalist is safe as long as he never asks the question WRT to the origin of the universe. Convenient. JOHN

As I said elsewhere in this thread there is overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang hypothesis. I wouldn’t call that conveniently ignoring the question, I would call that behaving like scientists and considering the evidence at hand and what hyptheses best suit them.

Yeah, I meant to address this elsewhere and forgot: I’m not talking about the Big Bang theory, which is entirely within the scope of scientific scrutiny; I’m talking about stuff that set the Big Bang in motion previously to the Big Event. That is outside the peruse of science. Don’t equate the origin of the universe with the Big Bang theory.

   And I think you’ll find that not only are there well developed theories but the search for evidence is very much encouraged. As a non “start-of-the-universe” scientist I find the amount of money and research time spent on the question ridiculous. It has minimal practical benefit and yet recieves a lions share of funding.

More to the point if I were you I’d be wary of the topic of convenience. I would have to say that explaining the origin of the universe by choosing to believe that some mythical creature created it and where your evidence is an old book is the height of convenience.

Any explanation you come up with will be just as speculative.

JOHN



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
 
(...) Tim, (URL) this> touches on what I was talking about. JOHN (18 years ago, 24-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
 
(...) Well, that's pretty unfair. That's like saying we NEED an answer, and if we can't come up with one, creationism is correct. If you go back to 500 BC and asked people why lightning happened, I'm sure they could come up with answers. But just (...) (18 years ago, 24-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
 
(...) I'd rather not know than get my answers from a pulp paperback from 2000 years ago ;) (...) I think you'll find you're quite mistaken there. I know plenty of scientists who are Christian and I've never noticed their views to be taken better or (...) (18 years ago, 24-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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