I am gonna take a deep breath here and dive into the quagmire that is your synopsis and hope I bring clarity to the subject matter, if not, then I have been derelict in my duty as owner of this site in bringing order to chaos.
I think if you condense the stuff i've posted you could boil it down to a simple postulation,that is:
The word 'simple' and your posts are at the moment mutually exclusive in my head but I live in hope .....
When dealing with matters of mans connection with the ineffable,there are no theoretical rights or wrongs(past the elementary),providing that they are approached with an open mind.
'Man's connection with the ineffable' ????
To be honest Chris, I am not sure what you mean here; I don't think we have a connection as such, all we can do is try to understand the universe we live in and there are tools for this.
One is language and the other is mathematics, which of course, is merely another language.
The characters being numbers and symbols, the grammar merely the rearrangement of these in what are called functions.
To suggest 'there are no rights and wrongs past the elementary' is not correct, leastwise in my head it ain't.
We can of course attempt to choose to go down the reductionist road in scientific investigation, which of course most science attempts to do anyway, and we can get a pretty good handle on some of the phenomena we encounter.
If we take a look at biochemistry, and more specifically, the Krebs Cycle, it is an extremely complex set of chemical reactions, and could hardly be described as elementary, far from it.
Now, even though it is hugely complex, and involves a myriad of catalysed chemical reactions, we can understand it perfectly, every single step down to the very last adenosine triphosphate molecule that is liberated.
Your suggestion is wrong mate, nice try tho
The gist of what you've been saying to myself and others is that religious/spritual ideas cannot be supported by science (using a very narrow band of obvious examples).To a point i agree,but the difference in our positions is:
Chris, let me explain something mate, I only need to show you one black swan to refute the belief (faith) that 'All swans are white'.
My examples may be narrow mate but they blow your suggestion out the water.
Science only needs one contra-example to destroy any theory, that's how it's always worked, that's how theories are refined.
The predominant theme of your posts is that you measure the value of a mans religious/spiritual beliefs based on a premise that is absolutist:
Science tries to be absolutist, it has to be otherwise it cannot uphold the tenets it does.
Science must always strive to make 100% sure there is absolutely no room for speculation or doubt otherwise, scientific truth is always gonna be prone to its arch rival, the skeptic.
"if it cannot be observed using empirical scientific perspectives/logical reasoning, something cannot exist ,and therefore belief must be suspended.Science negates all religious ideas,concepts and ordinances therefore they are at odds,any suggestion to the contrary is a lie"
I don't know how you can say this mate, certainly not as a conclusion from anything I have written mate. Quantum mechanics is poorly understood but I don't deny its existence.
And you then go on to say (from that false premise) 'science goes on to negate all religious ideas' etc, well since it was a false premise, i don't really have to answer this now do I?
Or:
"if science or logic can't show it to exist,then its b0ll0cks".
You are repeating yourself here and my example above of quantum mechanics refutes this entirely.
My position is (as a man who loves science):
Well, my position is different, I love the truth, science is merely the tool I elect to use to try and understand it.
Others, the religious mob, tend to use faith but as I mentioned before somewhere, 'faith begins where knowledge ceases'.
"Empirical,objective yardsticks quickly become redundant when determining the value of intangible and subjective concepts such as belief in the mystical,science does not negate all religious ideas,concepts and ordinances and the two frameworks for understanding can complement and enrich each other on many levels."
It seems you have quote marks around this for some reason, anyways, I will answer anyway, Chris, just because science takes a back seat with intangibles such as love, hate, beauty and so on, this does not negate science, it merely gives it limitations AT THIS TIME.
And i have no problem conceding they do run parallel but that doesn't mean they have acquired equal status; to me, it just means, the intangibles are not understood yet, with 'yet' being the most important word.
Or :
"Using science/logical reasoning to try to say whether a man should believe or not....is b0ll0cks too".
If I look at a bunch of people who believe the earth is no more than 6000 years old (and there are hundreds of millions of these people around), I can quite easily state, they are a bunch of idiots who have allowed faith to completely undermine their quest for truth, coz lets face it here, all religions profess to be the sole guardians of the truth.
Science proves beyond reasonable doubt, we live on a lump of rock that is billion years old not thousands.
Bejeepers, I would be ashamed to align myself with any organization that thought we lived on a planet 6000 years old, it's plainly ludicrous and an insult to man's intelligence.
God gave us a brain, we use it, we unlock god's secrets and it yields certain truths.
Where the fcuk do these religions come from?
They don't come from God, they come from man, and ya know what Chris, I trust god's gift to me, in the form of curiosity and the ability he gave us to prize the truth away from nature (scientific reasoning) over man's creation of religion any day, it's a no-brainer for me, and anybody who believes otherwise, is equally a no-brainer !!!
I gave the examples of eminent scientists who had a deep understanding of the universe and its contents and still maintained/were inspired by,their beliefs in the esoteric/mystical.
Chris, of course they were, anything unknown can be described as mysitcal and it is the unknown that drives science, if we knew everything, there would be no science, so I don't know why you bother to mention this.
The two frames of reference (scientific/religious) presumably did not conflict (as recorded by many in that list)but rather perpetuated each other,demonstrating that they can both exist in harmony within a mans head/heart/soul rather than cancel each other out causing a situation where one frame of reference is rejected in favour of the other.
You seem to be confusing something here Chris and I had answered this before, just because those guys believed in a creator did not make them religious, religion and god are two different things.
You have once again packaged me up in a convenient position, a position I was never in.
Even so, your suggestion is skewed because as I said, you confuse the scientist's' belief in a creator, with people who believe in a religion.
Religion cannot exist in harmony, Christian or otherwise, all the time its basic tenets contradict what we know to be scientific truth.
In other words, if you wanna believe in a religion that subscribes to the notion the earth is but 6000 years old, good luck to ya mate, but don't ever try to tell me you are in harmony with science, you ain't, you are in harmony with a dollop of bullsh!t.
Not to mention it was also meant to dispute your at least inferred position that belief in the mystical is for "weak minded/emotionally weak individuals". Those men had a level of insight and understanding which was formidable in many senses, and could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as weak in the upstairs department.
These are examples in extremis granted,but serve to paint a picture.
You have misunderstood me entirely here, I never inferred this in the meaning of the word mystical as I used it.
Mystical can certainly describe those things scientists do not understand yet, I have used the word mystical in the context of things unknown, and this is exactly what drives science as I have said previously.
For you to the suggest I am saying, 'belief in the unknown is for weak minded individuals' is ludicrous mate. I am saying, anybody who believes in a religion that contradicts basic science is weak-minded and ignorant.
People do not embrace religion for scientific reasons, they believe it can give them the truth, they need it, they need something to believe in, we all do.
But when the quest for that truth and meaning takes you down a road that jettisons science and commonsense as if it were an apple core, and the people
still hang on in there, that is when I will condemn them, and rightly so.
Accepting the religious/ science contradiction isn't a matter of opinion, it never has been, it is a matter of religious bigotry and a need for man to belong and believe in something.
Ignorance and intelligence (lack of) can obviously bolster their position but a lot of the contradictions ain't rocket science, but they might as well be for the bigots.
Often,as in Einsteins case their scientific postulations and discoveries began to converge with their spiritual beliefs and assertions about the nature of the universe and its content.
I'm not sure how you could possibly frame Einstein's (and others) assertions concerning the nature of the universe in anything other than scientific curiosity, to suggest Einstein postulated time itself was a flexible concept whereas the speed of light wasn't, was never a spiritual position, it was a scientific one and as such, was proved (forgive my intended pun) in time.
I hope this finally puts to bed the problem of what I believe to be the truth of the matter when it comes to religious faith, god, belief, science and paintball
Have fun !
