[grip_daddy]

Scientists claim absence of God, they cant prove.

They claim presence of dark energy, black holes, wormholes, white hole, dark matter, etc...but again, they cant prove.

I would beg their consistency.

[Type R]

Ideas, theories arise slowly. Sometimes scientists have a growing suspicion. For example: -

* long before the relationship between electricity and magnetism had been confirmed, scientists suspected it.

* when no one would even think of the square roots of negative numbers, some people thought it was a viable avenue for mathematical research/development.

* Euclid's fifth axiom - two parallel lines don't meet and stay at equal distance from each other when measured perpendicularly - worried scientists for ages. It was later considered optional and other geometries were born, where parallel lines can cross each other once, can cross each other infinite times (think of the surface of a ball), may never cross but distance will vary (a ball again), etc.

However, there has to be some basis for a suspicion, which prompts research.

Belief in Dark matter is prompted by the fact that 85% of the mass of the universe as determined by gravitational pull is unaccounted for.

To say, "Scientists claim the absence of God" is inaccurate, it is too affirmative a statement. It would be better to say, "Scientists have not seen evidence that would logically lead to belief in a supernatural being."

To say "I have not seen evidence that grip_daddy was here" is very different from saying "grip_daddy was not here."

[grip_daddy]

Dark energy is something they cant prove. If they prove its existence, then all the classical and quantum sciences as so far known will have to be reconstructed. Just shows how basing reasoning on the so called scientific facts is foolish.

[Type R]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

Just shows how basing reasoning on the so called scientific facts is foolish.

Reasoning is based on axioms. Those axioms are flexible!

Some of these axioms seem quasi-demonstrable, eg the concept of a line: take a ruler and draw something on a paper and say, "hey that's a line." But how do you demonstrate a negative number??? It is just an inference (3 - 4 = -1), a deduction, ie in your mind only (at least for now). But science doesn't stop -- you can use these indemonstrable concepts to create practical technologies.

As I said, there are several geometries which are incompatible with each other. It has been proven that any system of moderate complexity will eventually reveal self-contradictions (Kurt Godel). That does not undo the system, since these things only exist in our minds anyway, as convenient perceptions and abstractions.

[grip_daddy]

Originally Posted by Type R

It has been proven that any system of moderate complexity will eventually reveal self-contradictions (Kurt Godel).

When this approach is used to explain apparent contradictions in the bible or religious thoughts, they are dismissed as irrational. Who said that the religious concepts are not complex?

[Type R]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

When this approach is used to explain apparent contradictions in the bible or religious thoughts, they are dismissed as irrational. Who said that the religious concepts are not complex?

The problem with religion(s) is two-fold: -

a) lack of even a flimsy base = superstition
b) lack to step-by-step reasoning

Lack of a base starts with the concept of a spiritual world, ie non-matter. Since humans are matter, and all our sense are material, once you start of by dismissing everything that a human know and can know (5 senses), the conversion is over before it starts. We are just supposed to listen to made-up stories and believe them (faith), with no frame of reference whatsoever.

Lack of reasoning is when someone jumps to conclusions.

Consider how a doctor works. You go for 1st visit, he looks at your eyes, mouth, throat, temperature, blood pressure then he gives you a medicine. He doesn't know for sure what you have. If you go back after 2 days saying "things are worse", he'll try another treatment. If you still go back, he may send you to a specialist.

What is the doctor doing? He is looking for evidence, but he has provisional theories based on scanty ideas. As he proceeds with tests, he narrows down. "Dark matter" is not a thing per se but a provisional theory to cover a gap in understanding.

If you proceed from what you see and know everyday, how can you logically arrive at a non-material being? Even if you arrive at a conviction of extra-material powers, how would you investigate the nature of non-matter since all your tools including mind are material? Is there one non-matter material or many? Are there infinite types of non-matter? Are they intelligent? Can they see each other? Where do you even start?

A frenchman and a maasai would need some common ground to communicate, they should learn a common language or talk via sign language. Matter vs spirit: no common ground. You can only imagine; that's why some religions have six headed goddesses.

[reggie_woic]

the religious reached their peak "once their book was completed".
scientists are evolving: speculating and then proving their speculations.

[ATLian]

BTW I'm always amused by the religious types who trash science. Yaani imagine a Christian who just came from his multi-storey office building, took a lift down, drove his car down a freeway blasting music on his IPOD, entered his nice air-conditioned house, put on the elec, removed food from the fridge and put it into the microwave, turned on his comp, logged onto the internet, and then wrote on Mashada that "science is crap". WTF? Just look at all the things you have through science that I named in the previous sentence, and see how ludicrous it is for that Christian to trash science.

Grip, I don't want to come across as condescending or patronizing, but you are clearly a sharp guy, based on what you write on Mashada. That's why it's sad to see you trash science only because it doesn't agree with your religion and god. I can understand if some other religious nutcase did that, but it's surprising coming from you.



Scientists claim absence of God, they cant prove.

Like Type-R says, science has never claimed that. Science just demands to see rational, empirical and logical evidence for any claim. Since there is absolutely no rational, empirical and logical evidence to prove the existence of any god, then of course science rejects it. But that doesn't mean that science says there is no god - it's just says that if there is a god, then the current evidence isn't sufficient enough to prove it.



They claim presence of dark energy, black holes, wormholes, white hole, dark matter, etc...but again, they cant prove.

It's interesting how there are millions of things that science has proven, yet you chose to trash science based on a cherry picked list of unproven things. Isn't that like trashing Jesus as a useless guy because of the time he lost his temper at the temple, while ignoring all the other good things he did?

Also, don't forget that there are many scientific theories that took man a while to prove. A lot of what Isaac Newton theorized about them days was only irrefutably proven last century. Does that mean that Newton's science was wrong for those years?

[ATLian]

Dark energy is something they cant prove. If they prove its existence, then all the classical and quantum sciences as so far known will have to be reconstructed.

What do you mean by this? If anything, once they prove it's existence, they will explain science better.



Just shows how basing reasoning on the so called scientific facts is foolish.

So what should reasoning be based on? A verse in a book written 3000 years ago by some men with an agenda about a god that may not even exist?

[ATLian]

It has been proven that any system of moderate complexity will eventually reveal self-contradictions (Kurt Godel).

Type R,

are you a scientist/mathematician/physicist? Just wondering because you have some very good math and physics knowledge. Science - and especially mathematics and physics - just jazzes the heck out of me. The guys I hold in highest regard are the theoreticians, those who came up with all the serious scientific theories just by thinking and questioning, like Newton and gravity ama Einstein and relativity.

What you refer to above - Godel's Incompleteness Theorem - is an amazing theorem.