Atticus
As far as I see, it IS a modern religion.
And a very strong one.
The very idea of "only scientific is applicable", while rejecting the very possibility for "scientific" to be WRONG (for whatever "unscientific" reason), proves it.
This is not what Atticus meant, though (I feared you would come up with this the moment I read it). Scientists very much acknowledge that they could be wrong and science provides a mechanism to prove them wrong. It's actually the inherent property of all that is science, and what is ultimately setting it apart from religion.
That's the part you don't get.
Science basically became a worship of human intellect, while much less a quest for truth.
Only because you can apparently only think in terms of worship this claim doesn't become true.
I'll get now another barrage of how "everything scientific gets double-checked etc" - but I'm not disagreeing with tested and already applied things.
Yes, because somehow you must rationalize the fact that you're sitting in front of a computer and communicating through the internet which
all has been made possible by science and the scientific method. So you need to establish an artificial difference between "applied science" (i.e. the stuff that actually gives you benefits) and the vaguely defined other science, where you can't really say where it's different except that you don't like what it says because it happens to contradict your favourite myths. While in fact,
they are the same thing, and you can't separate them.
I'm totally against taking working ideas as a proof for extrapolating their extensions.
As of "religion is bs, cause it's unscientific" - exactly my point: you have no way to KNOW what really happened, you just ASSUME (according to your SCIENTIFIC necessity) - and reject anything, which doesn't conform to being SCIENTIFIC.
You act is if you have to directly observe everything to know that it happened. I think we should abolish the CSI and the whole criminal investigation process, too, then?
Actions and events have consequences. If the consequences a hypothesized event would have are not there, it's safe to assume it hasn't happened (which is the case with the great flood, for example). Similarly, if the consequences a hypothesized event would have are actually there, it's acceptable to assume it happened, for the moment.
Short: events have causal relations. Do you want to deny that?
And by the way, you will find no scientist who says "God doesn't exist" as a scientific claim (there are of course those who hold this as a personal belief). Why? Because it's a not falsifiable claim and thus not scientific.
Again, you BLEND together two different things, when you say SCIENTIFIC:
1. Truly scientific TESTABLE/WORKING ideas.
2. PSEUDO-scientific UNTESTABLE ideas.
You claim, that since 1. is based on many people double-testing each other, then 2. is also true, cause "many people double-checked also those ideas".
What you tend to ignore, is that you CAN'T "check" something uncheckable.
The 1. is based on FIRST checking, LATER implementing it as WORKING.
Now, even if the part of "evolution" that belongs to 1. is being used today (genetics etc.), this still doesn't PROVE the ACTUALITY (factual historical events) that TOOK PLACE during the period of 2.
What I'm trying to say, is that even if the THEORY is working, it still is no proof for ACTUAL events that took place at the time which CAN'T be verified.
Things that are pseudo-science: Homeopathy, Energy Healing, Astrology, Young Earth Creationism.
Things that are not pseudo-science: the Theory of Evolution, the Theory of Relativity, the Geological History of Earth ....
Both categories, by the way, make claims that
are checkable. The difference is that the claims of the former have been refuted by observations and evidence, while the latter haven't been refuted yet.
And your following argument doesn't make sense.
You even admit that the theories are working! What else can you expect of a theory? How can a theory that works not align with the actual events that happened? Remember what I said previously about causality and the consequences of past events that exist today.
A very simple example:
You see a brick wall 0f 1000 bricks TODAY.
Everyday, during the past OBSERVED 500 days, a guy was coming and ADDING a brick to it.
Thus, you OBSERVABLY know, that 500 days ago the wall was 500 bricks high and it grew at the 1 brick/day STEADY rate.
Now, CAN you extrapolate it backwards, and say that this wall MUST be 1000 days old, with that same steady growth pace?
NO!
Cause on the day -501 someone BROUGHT a 500-brick wall and put it there!
Can you check it/ know it?
No way, you could only observe it since the NEXT day.
Another example:
You see a huge tree.
You know the rate of tree growth.
Can you be SURE, that this tree was PLANTED here at your calculated time?
Again, NO!
Maybe it was brought here already mature and then replanted.
Can you check that?
Again and again, NO!
"Scientifically", this tree is "this-math-age" old, but factually, it's NOT.
I'd have to cut this quote so my answer doesn't appear unimportantly small, but I want to keep it in all its ridiculousness, so I'll have to resort to increased font sizes:
This is not how science works and if you have to resort to such strawmen your position clearly doesn't have much merit.
Now, our WORLD:
You have only "scientifically" observed it for quite a short period, maybe few centuries.
OK, you can extend the KNOWN history to a few thousands.
But you definitely have no VERIFIED history of what was a million years ago.
No, you extrapolate, that since during the past 200 (or 2000) years, no "unnatural" cataclysms (that altered the very NATURE) took place - THEN THEY NEVER TOOK PLACE.
And you call this "scientifically" proven, since no one "scientifically" disagrees with it.
Your mistake is to ASSUME that we can TRACK such changes.
But CAN we?
We can only SEE, what's TODAY.
Thus, all what we "scientifically deduce" from what we "see" in the past, can only be understood in the terms of TODAY, the KNOWN ones.
But you can't be sure, that this even APPLIES to the past beyond the TRACK RECORD.
Again, by seeing a mature brick wall or a tree, you have no way to find out, what truly happened with it in the UNOBSERVABLE past.
Whether it was built/replanted "mature", is beyond you CAPABILITIES to check.
Again, do you want to abolish criminal investigation on this reasoning? Because it's the same principle in action: observe the consequences that exist NOW, and refute the hypotheses that are inconsistent with these consequences.
Are you seriously implying that if there was a "cataclysm" (like the great flood, perhaps?) in the past, there would be nothing left on this planet than has been caused by this cataclysm?
So you use another "scientific" ASSUMPTION, the "Occam razor", which declares: "It is a principle urging one to select among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect."
I'm sorry, but that's CHILDISH!
The hatred religious people have for Occam's razor has always amazed me, since it was a medieval scholastic who popularized its name and actually applied it to theological questions.
I don't know what you really can say against Occam's razor. If a set of assumptions is sufficient to explain something, you have a valid explanation, and that's all that science strives for.
Note that Occam's razor doesn't say anything about the factual truth of the alternative hypotheses.
And is it, in your opinion as a religious person, possible to explain the universe without God? I don't think so. So, you have actually applied Occam's razor yourself, by not ruling out God as an explanation. The only contention appears to be whether God is a necessary explanation, not if Occam's razor applies.
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