Gallup Poll: 4 in 10 believe man created by God 10,000 years ago

**LX_Emergency** · 01-04-2011, 07:17 AM

@Xman
My point wasn't on religion versus science. It was on the concept of faith. Which you've just clearly shown you've entirely ignored and picked out the only thing you don't like about it. Which is that is counts for everything, wrapping science in the same boat as religion. I didn't say that religion is more valid. What I do say is that unless you're an experimental physisyst (spelling anyone?) you're going to have to take a large number of the laws of physics on faith. Because especially the first time...you have no proof of your own. If you're not a biologist then you're going to have to take a number of biology principles on faith because let's face it...you didn't do or see the experiments and you're just going to have to take the scientist's word for it.

I also noticed that the word faith is once again completely misused and (seemingly) misunderstood.

Non-religionists often imply that anyone who believes in a God has faith. Religionists often better understand that someone who believes in a God has belief.
Someone who acts as if there's a God has faith. MASSIVE difference.

**gugi** · 01-04-2011, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

What I do say is that unless you're an experimental physisyst (spelling anyone?)

me, me me - physicist, it's two letters difference and that 'c' is actually pronounced as 's', the first 's' is pronounced 'z' and the last 's' is pronounced 's'. I always knew English makes perfect sense

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

you're going to have to take a large number of the laws of physics on faith.

I disagree, experimental physics doesn't make any difference, nobody is capable of repeating every single experiment. But if that's the defining criterion, you'll have to go all the way to defining an 'observation' and then you don't really fare any better, as you'll have a philosophical problem.

But I think you're setting up a false comparison, based on poor criterion.

In my opinion the qualitative difference between science and religion is that religion has immutable postulates, while in science nothing is sacred and everything must be constantly challenged, reverified, refuted and reestablished. But at any given moment in science there are postulates or axioms that everything is based on, just not the 'rock solid foundation' that a religion is supposed to have, and that's what paradoxically gives science its strength. It's not 'facts' that must be taken by faith, but a process of improvement to our understanding. And the only advantage it has is that it has demonstrated to be more effective and efficient than anything else.

**LX_Emergency** · 01-04-2011, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by gugi

me, me me - physicist, it's two letters difference and that 'c' is actually pronounced as 's', the first 's' is pronounced 'z' and the last 's' is pronounced 's'. I always knew English makes perfect sense

Thanks, no matter how muuch I write/speak it....sometimes I just can't grasp it right...probable because I already speak Dutch, German, a little french and I'm learning spanish...I wonder if I start mixing them up.

I disagree, experimental physics doesn't make any difference, nobody is capable of repeating every single experiment. But if that's the defining criterion, you'll have to go all the way to defining an 'observation' and then you don't really fare any better, as you'll have a philosophical problem.

That's what I've been saying. Thus believing that you have a possible explanation and acting upon that explanation requires faith. As you cannot possible with 100% certainty confirm that you are right. There will always be the tiniest granule of doubt....which is the part that faith bridges.

But I think you're setting up a false comparison, based on poor criterion.

In my opinion the qualitative difference between science and religion is that religion has immutable postulates, while in science nothing is sacred and everything must be constantly challenged, reverified, refuted and reestablished. But at any given moment in science there are postulates or axioms that everything is based on, just not the 'rock solid foundation' that a religion is supposed to have, and that's what paradoxically gives science its strength. It's not 'facts' that must be taken by faith, but a process of improvement to our understanding. And the only advantage it has is that it has demonstrated to be more effective and efficient than anything else.

Everything has to be taken by faith, be it facts, a process, or someone's intentions.

Interesting. Small change however. I'll make a small correction to illustrate my point.

The qualitative difference between science and religion SHOULD BE that MOST religionS haVE SOME immutable postulates, while in science nothing SHOULD BE sacred and everything must be constantly challenged, reverified, refuted and reestablished.

What you're displaying here is the ideal of science whilst at the same time you're looking at the reality of MOST religions. So your comparison is slanted as well.

You see, as you're right that science SHOULD BE gradual improvement. In general that isn't the face it presents to the world.

In that same breath....those things covered by religion that are alsso covered by science are no more than a smaller footnote in religion (creation etc)....whilst things featured in science that are also covered in religion (such as morality, the path to happiness etc) are but a mere footnote in science.

I agree that in science the goal is gradual increase towards truth. However that is not the way the scientific community present's it's face to the "non enlightened". Things are presented as scientific FACTS, not the "working theories that we at this moment take to be true because everything we've seen so far says so".

At the same time SOME religions/religionists focus completely on those things that should not be important to them.

God wouldn't care if you were misstaken about the creation happening the way you think it did. However he WOULD care about the way you treated those that don't agree with you.

And so the major part of the "advocates of science" focus on those things that play only a minor role in religion and because of that proclaim it to be bogus and of no worth.

However you take it though. Whenever you take something that has not bee proven to you personally and apply it....that requires faith. Be it in the person that taught you, or a concept that you believe came from God....be it a commandment that came from your wife/dog/sacred toast with the virgin mary in it.

Faith is not a concept that is part of religion alone. It's the acting on something that you believe and trust to be true. And when/if/ proof comes...your faith in that person/concept/company/God/toast increases and you're more likely to act on that/them the next time.

Once again, I'm not saying science and religion are the same thing. Merely that they both (as is every action in this life) are based on the concept of faith.

**gugi** · 01-04-2011, 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Once again, I'm not saying science and religion are the same thing. Merely that they both (as is every action in this life) are based on the concept of faith.

Well, I would think it's obvious that one constantly acts on something they 'believe to be right' and it may not be so. I view it as a rather banal fact of life and don't particularly care if it's the same kind of faith that a religious person is supposed to experience. See, to me when comparing two frameworks that yield completely different outcomes, the differences are more important than the common things, because after all I'm interested in the fact that the outcomes are different.

I don't agree that my comparison is between 'an ideal' and 'a practical implementation', thus flawed. I am talking about the ideal concepts in both cases. I think the very idea of religion necessitates a postulated absolute truth, which can not be challenged or changed. At least that's the case with the top religions, including the no.3 Hinduism where despite the lack of single doctrine there is still postulated truths. That's not how science works at all. It doesn't seek a truth, it seeks a better description of the material world, not necessarily gradual, could be via singularity. The only criteria is predictive power. And that's where most religions fail by design. An omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign deity, far superior to humans is synonymous with unpredictable.

And of course I can not disagree that especially in US a lot of religious people seem to have horribly misplaced ideas about the role of their religion. Some think it calls for political changes, others think it's the source of knowledge. It is probably a source of moral for some, and then there are those who go on to extrapolate that it is the only possible source of moral.

I don't know whether science will ever be able to address the problem of morals. Certainly there are scientific experiments on the matter, but it's not a well developed area. One thing that is well established is that the moral decisions one makes can be biased by say speech, drugs (done for thousands of years), light, magnetic fields, surgery, etc., so that means it is something that can be quantified and examined in a scientific manner and is not reserved exclusively for the domain of religion.
Whether somebody else believes my morals are a result from God secretly working in my life, my upbringing, my genetics, or just the solution of Maxwell's equations with the boundary conditions of my brain, as long as they leave me alone, it probably doesn't affect the particular moral choices that I make.

Finally I think that anybody who is presenting science as 'facts' or 'truth', instead of as a process to develop temporary theories with predictive power, doesn't know what they're talking about.

BTW I'm sure you've see it before but here's a humorous take on the euro-english: Aha! Jokes > Fun Pages > Converting to Euro English!

**LX_Emergency** · 01-04-2011, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by gugi

Finally I think that anybody who is presenting science as 'facts' or 'truth', instead of as a process to develop temporary theories with predictive power, doesn't know what they're talking about.

BTW I'm sure you've see it before but here's a humorous take on the euro-english: Aha! Jokes > Fun Pages > Converting to Euro English!

We sure use a lot of words to say we agree.

**NYCshaver** · 01-04-2011, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

God wouldn't care if you were misstaken about the creation happening the way you think it did. However he WOULD care about the way you treated those that don't agree with you.

How would anyone know that?

If anything it would seem from the evidence that if there is a god he doesn't care about humans at all.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Faith is not a concept that is part of religion alone. It's the acting on something that you believe and trust to be true. And when/if/ proof comes...your faith in that person/concept/company/God/toast increases and you're more likely to act on that/them the next time.

Once again, I'm not saying science and religion are the same thing. Merely that they both (as is every action in this life) are based on the concept of faith.

They aren't the same kinds of faith. Religion requires blind faith. You have to believe god exists without any evidence.

You don't need blind faith in science. It might be difficult but you can reproduce the results claimed by science and verify them yourself.

I'm sure most rely on faith with regards to science. Faith in the scientists that they are not deceiving the public.

**volleykinginnc** · 01-04-2011, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by NYCshaver

How would anyone know that?

If anything it would seem from the evidence that if there is a god he doesn't care about humans at all.

They aren't the same kinds of faith. Religion requires blind faith. You have to believe god exists without any evidence.

You don't need blind faith in science. It might be difficult but you can reproduce the results claimed by science and verify them yourself.

I'm sure most rely on faith with regards to science. Faith in the scientists that they are not deceiving the public.

When you make a statement like this make sure you distinguish between science that is repeatable like gravity and things that are not or at least cannot be reproduced like evolution. The problem that scientist and evolutionists will always face is that theories are simply to outlandish for any intelligent person to believe is possible by mere chance. Unfortunately, their best response to this, instead of looking at all of the evidence and making a determination if an intelligent designer is behind it say that the mere fact we are here proves that it all happened despite the odds.

I think to believe in unaided evolution requires not only blind faith but intellectual suicide. There are major difficulties in this theory and trying to explain the origin of DNA code and complex adaptations like vertebrate limb and reptilian hard-shelled eggs. The only answer given by these experts is how important it is to the species but not how they were developed as every mutation we see today dies off in 1 generation and is not a working adaptation.

Another important thing you should be aware of is that you don't have to believe in a God to think that unaided evolution is entirely impossible. Most evolutionists try to make you think otherwise by lumping those who believe in their improbably theory and "religion" which is neither fair nor accurate.

I would challenge each of you to research both sides and determine which way does the evidence point rather than puke back what your professor told you in whatever liberal school you graduated from.

**gugi** · 01-04-2011, 06:59 PM