Not the best analogy, 123. You are comparing an observation to a conclusion. I observe the vomiting, I may have observed the food eaten. But the cause and effect determination is not an observation, it's a conclusion. You might be able to precisely measure a wavelength, but would you say the three body problem wasn't 'hard' science because you can't make an exact measurement? I think the reason you are having a hard time articulating the difference is because there isn't the difference you think there is. The scientific process is the same with any science. Different tools are used, there's a different knowledge base, different formulas and models, but all of that still uses the same principles of the scientific method.
You're confusing exact vs precise with specific vs vague. Hard science treats specific things, like coordinates, whereas soft science treats more vague concepts. A person eating food and then getting sick is still an observation, forget the conclusion part. My initial argument with it still stands.
OK, let's see. You say, exact vs precise. I say observation vs conclusion. That is not the same thing as specific vs vague. You say, "Hard science treats specific things, like coordinates, whereas soft science treats more vague concepts." That's just not accurate. Vague concepts and hard science: Can you really not think of any examples? I can. Dark matter, dark energy, the singularity, the three body problem, quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, the double slit experiment (photon wave vs photon particle), quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat, butterfly wing flapping effect, ... Do you see these things as 'vague concepts' or 'specific things'?
Well, in my earlier post I had said exactly this, that specific experiments with specific data can be used by people to construct theories and concepts to help them understand the world. FYI, not all these examples listed apply to your argument really. Approximations aren't vague, they're tools with well defined limits. Schrodinger's cat is just a thought experiment, shouldn't even be on here, same as the butterfly wing thing, lol... Quantum mechanics is not vague, it is also a tool with well defined limits. But, this only supports my earlier point, that science is incomplete. Einstein didn't even believe in quantum mechanics. Dark matter, as far as I know, is still very elusive (that's different from vague, in my opinion). Point is, it never hurts to be a little unsure about things, even science.
Maybe if I get back to the initial issue, because you are otherwise not making your case as far as I can see about the lack of the applicability of science to my conclusion because it is 'soft science'. I don't think you've addressed the key point here, 123. If one applies the scientific process (method) to the study of the origin of fictional god myths, what is it you are objecting to when one draws the conclusion, one at a time, based on the evidence, that you are looking at human generated myth?
In my humble opinion, we have gone astray from the matter at hand. There was a jump made from this supposed binary code to the existance of God. Now we can argue all morning about wether or not this particular claim would support the Christian God, but I simply know too little about the finer details of Quantum Mechanics to say anything sensible about it. I will however plead my case against the existance of a Christian God: Spoiler Some Christians claim that the earth is closer to 6,000-10,000 years old as opposed to 4,54 billion years old. An acknowledgement should be made here from those Christians, and that is that all the scientific evidence points to an earth that is vastly older than what they believe. Here is something we've learned about the universe and it mismatches a biblical view or creation for that matter. Now there is a conflict there that needs to be resolved. Some people like to resolve it in favor of the bible, believing that it is absolutely right and simply ignore what actual evidence is presented. I find that to be absurd because it turns Christianity into a self-contradcitory proposition. So does the entire idea of a revelation in the new testatement. The Christian position, as far as I understand it, is one where there is a God who has an important message for menkind, and somehow he only reveals it to certain individuals, who then write this down. Thousands of years after these initial revelations we have to rely on copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors with no originals. A textual testimony to a miracle, like the loafes and fishes, can't be justified by any amount of textual reports. It simply wouldn't be sufficient to make us believe that this impossible event happened as described in the bible. Anything that would qualify as a God would clearly understand this and if it wanted to convey this information to people, in a way that's actually believable, would not be relying on text to do so. The Christian God isn't so smart if it actually wants to achieve its goal of spreading this information to humanity by relying on text. By relying on languages that die off and by relying on anecdotal testimony. None of these suffice as pathways to truth in modern society, and God should know this. Either God does not exist, or he doesn't care enough about those people who understand the nature of evidence, to actually present it. Now which of those possibilities seems more likely? Why would anyone believe anything on faith? Faith isn't a pathway to truth. Every religion has faith, yet if faith is your pathway then you can not, I repeat, can not distinguish between Christianity, Judeaism, Hinduism or any other faith-based religion. How comes that we all use reasion as a path to truth in every endeavour of our lives, yet when it comes to the ultimate truth -the most important truth some would say- suddenly, faith is required. and how does that reflect on a God who, we're being told, wants you to have this information. What kind of God requires faith instead of evidence? You might think I have faith about parts of my life but that isn't true. I merely have reasonable expectations based on evidence. I have trust, that has been earned and I will grant it tenatively. But I do not have faith. Faith is the excuse people give to explain something for which they do not have evidence. If someone can come up with something that I believe, and that I do not have evidence for, guess what I'll do? I will stop believing it. That, to me, is the nature of a rational mind.
Nothing. My problem is with the statement that science disproves the possibility that God exists, because it can't. "God beliefs" don't interest me one bit.
I find anything that cannot be disproved by science to be a dubious proposition. A god claim that was falsifiable would hold much more credibility for me than one that was not.
You continue to ask the wrong question, "Can one disprove the existence of gods?" That is not the question I claim science can answer. Spoiler The wrong question starts with an evidence lacking conclusion, "gods could exist", and seeks to look for evidence to support that conclusion. Invisible garage dragons could exist. But without any evidence to suggest they actually do exist, no one asks science to disprove that they exist or else we must leave the possibility on the table. No one uses the fact one cannot prove there are no invisible garage dragons to therefore entertain the possibility there are invisible garage dragons. The right question to ask is, "What evidence is there and what can one conclude from the evidence that does exist?" What we do have evidence of, are god beliefs. And there is overwhelming evidence that humans make up god myths. What's left is now the question, does anything other than human generated fiction account for god beliefs? Not only can you find no evidence real gods are behind god beliefs, myth after myth after myth can be documented with clear concrete evidence. The scientific process does not seek to prove or disprove anything, not the spherical shape of the Earth or the Big Bang. Science seeks the best fit to the evidence. And on the continuum of how sure one is about a conclusion, we often refer to scientific fact, even though technically any fact is subject to change should new evidence emerge. Thus one can say, it is scientific fact the Earth is spherical. It is not practical to continually point out the caveat, "but we don't use science to prove that fact." My claim is, there is overwhelming evidence humans invented god myths, and, there is no evidence of any other explanation (aka human interaction with real gods) for god myths. Ergo there is overwhelming evidence all gods are human generated fiction. The paradigm shift means changing the question from, "do gods exist" to, "what best explains the evidence?" The latter question is consistent with the scientific process and also answerable using the scientific method.
And again, your comments lead me back to my earlier response, in which I say I find this attitude amusing. You continually use the word "science" and "scientific process" as if it were some powerful entity. It's not. It's merely a wide range of scattered tools, some unified into theories, used by human minds to better describe and define the physical universe. The premises of God is that some entity or force presides outside of our understandable, physical world. Science cannot detect that. Define an invisible garage dragon? Does it have mass? Body heat? Does it breathe? Does it have brain waves? These are all physical quantities that our tools would be able to detect. What physical qualities does God, in its broadest definition, have, that we could be able to detect? The difference between a God, and Hogwarts or garage dragons is unique. I've been saying this entire time that science does not seek to disprove or prove anything, yet the Athiest argument seeks to insist there is no reason to believe in a supernatural being because of science. I'll tell you why this is an abuse of the "scientific method." The idea of God is all encompassing, and is used by believers to explain existence. Science, as I've said, is not a substitute for God. While the scientific method, in theory, might be infallible, "science" itself has turned into a canon. It consists of loosely related fields and subfields, which consist of many, many, findings from many, many people, many of which, disagree on all sorts of things. It's a bit like putting a bunch of people into a massive, pitch black gymnasium filled with objects, giving them each a tiny flash light and having them fully define that room. A unified theory might change my mind, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not saying there's any reason to believe in a supernatural being. I'm saying it's outside the scope of science, whereas anything else, dragons, hogwarts, you name it, is not. Hence the word, supernatural. Its a real question, you know, wether things always simply "were", or does we require some sort an immovable mover? Personally, I find it audacious when the average Joe or Jane goes around flaunting the "scientific method", proclaiming their dead certainty they know the answer to existence, one debated for thousands of years, when Dr. so and so spends his whole life in a lab without windows hunting for a particle or learning about an amoeba. Atheists ought to learn a little more humility.
I think this signals the end of productive exchange, 123. These underlying premises about the scientific process would take a huge effort to address and it is not likely to be productive. You and I view science very differently. I agree to disagree. There is no evidence for this while there is a lot of evidence for fictional gods. Can you articulate why Zeus and Pelé are fictional gods while some other god is not? This is where the irresistible force meets the immoveable object. We are not likely to move past this point. But I do respect you for the discussion we've had up to this point. I am sorry you want to label my simple evidence supported statement as lacking humility.
I have a master's degree in the SCIENCE of nursing. My education, experience and current occupation require that I have a very good understanding of science, the scientific process and scientific research. The current standard of good medicine is scientific evidence based medicine. I'm not sure how this answers the question I asked, but no worries, I don't need an answer.
As far as I'm concerned, and taking into consideration the speed of information spreading in that time, the religion spread pretty fast. Not even mentioning the first book to be printed to be Bible. Excuse me, but the spread by the means of text was - and still is - timeless. This is thoroughly untrue in principle. We are not shifting here from something tangible to something abstract that lacks evidence or that God wants you to be a blind believer and does not offer evidence or answers. That is a faulty way of thinking. Take this example: only you know what you've experienced. Only you know what this or that girl or boy told you in your youth years, who turned you down, how it is influencing you now. The point is that God leads a dialogue with you by what you've experienced. He does give you evidence if you look for it. The problem is, it is almost always deeply personal. Almost always it is difficult to tell the experience to other people, because to them the experience or how it came to be or how it did not come to be, is unimportant. God gives a lot of evidences only you can understand because only you know the context of your life. You might argue you know the context of your life already without God's help. May be. But it is only when you've found God that you start to see not only the context, but also the brilliance of your life. Where every word of your neighbour, every your step you took, everything you did, has lead you exactly where you've ever wanted to be, thus fulfilling both God's and your will. God is manifold and ultimate and has many ways. Could you do me a favour ? Try to find Him...once more... Untrue. I was lacking a f*ckton of evidences in my life. To such an extent other people would long have given up on God. Also, I used to lack faith. Once I had found faith, pieces of evidence came along... and they shone brightly as diamonds. I do understand now why this or that happened, but only thanks to faith I can see the genius in my actions, the genius I could by no means foresee. So, my case is exactly the opposite to what you're saying, sorry.
I'll have to look further into this. Interesting, but I am skeptical. Error-correcting code is based on abstract algebra, and binary number are just a different way of representing our normal base-10 numbers (binary numbers is a base-2 number system). In either case, no matter how much you dig into it, you'll never be sure. We use mathematics to measure, compute and make certain predictions, and we use mathematics to create models and we use mathematics to speak about the theoretical parts that are impossible to speak about in a precise manner using a "conventional" language. Mathematics is just a formal logic system based on the imperfect logic of the human mind, and mathematics only works because we assume in the foundations of mathematics certain things to be true without being able to prove them. See Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems for more on this. So yeah, I'll always be skeptical of the accuracy of mathematics and science, because when you get down to it, there's a certain level of faith involved, no matter how small.
