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Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?

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thunder runner32
 
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 07:24 am
I think that many atheists have tried to redefine science, to try and prove there is no god. They say that they only believe in what they can feel and test, but if there is a god, how will they ever know?
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 16,151 • Replies: 414
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edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 07:27 am
Nobody's redefining anything. If you want to believe in God you are free to do so. It doesn't hurt science for anyone to be religious. What hurts science is if the religious want to subvert the truth to fit their faith based beliefs. That's the only area of conflict.
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Waldo2
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 08:34 am
...
Science was subject to religious review for many centuries and that did not yield any greater truth. In fact, there are many stories of how religion supressed scientific evidence that did not fit with the teachings of said religion.

There are still many scientists who subscribe to faith-based religions and yet they do not reject the scientific method. The scientific method is not biased against religion, it's biased against a lack of evidence. If no evidence can be gathered, measured, and made available for testing by others--then there is no basis for a scientific opinion on the subject.
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BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:00 am
Re: Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?
thunder_runner32 wrote:
I think that many atheists have tried to redefine science, to try and prove there is no god. They say that they only believe in what they can feel and test, but if there is a god, how will they ever know?


my definition of 'hell' is finding out, post expiration (not sure what the best before date is), that i was wrong

[mind you, i would not want to exist in a universe where there were a god!]
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BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:05 am
quoting, i'm not sure whom; the science of one society is the 'magic' of another - religion is the 'black magic' of a society that cannot resolve the conflict between fear, and knowledge.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:16 am
BoGoWo wrote:
quoting, i'm not sure whom; the science of one society is the 'magic' of another - religion is the 'black magic' of a society that cannot resolve the conflict between fear, and knowledge.


Interesting quote.

Is there a conflict between fear and knowledge?
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:30 am
Re: Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?
thunder_runner32 wrote:
I think that many atheists have tried to redefine science, to try and prove there is no god. They say that they only believe in what they can feel and test, but if there is a god, how will they ever know?


What particular God do you think some athiests are trying to disprove?

Science reveals for us, a world in which the machinations of a God are not necessary to give us what we see. But that alone doesn't disprove the general concept of God. It disproves the fundamental creation stories, and possibly the type of deity that would use such crude methods for creation, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of a spiritual concept of God.

I'm not even sure there are many athiests who reject the spiritual concept of God. More often, they reject the specific accounts of a particular God concept.
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BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:33 am
rosborne979 wrote:
Is there a conflict between fear and knowledge?


seeking knowledge is the best route to the mitigation of fear.
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 10:37 am
BoGoWo wrote:
rosborne979 wrote:
Is there a conflict between fear and knowledge?


seeking knowledge is the best route to the mitigation of fear.


This seems to imply that people want their fear. Otherwise they would simply seek knowledge.

Do they want their fear, or do many people find that a better route to the mitigation of fear comes from the comfort of faith in a higher power (a higher power which is viewed as "good")?
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BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 11:15 am
in the distant past, a 'healthy' fear of the dark has helped to keep us around to continue as a species (we can discuss the benefits/costs to the planet elsewhere), and in downtown L.A. it is still possibly a good thing; but fear of the supernatural, beyond being an effective way of keeping the masses in line, has no place in a modern, rationaly engaged society.

[and, besides, TV (the replacement) is more effective, and incorporates the selling of more than just bibles, and rosaries!]
0 Replies
 
Waldo2
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 11:31 am
...
I think it makes more sense to suggest that knowledge is scary. The more one knows, the greater the realm of the perceivable unknown becomes.

In other words: Only the enlightened know their ignorance. Maybe that knowledge is the source of fear. So, to resolve the confilct between knowledge and fear would mean to choose between happy ignorance or fearful knowing.

In the case I offer above, knowledge is the worst mitigator of fear. Blind faith is the great mitigator, and so many will choose it for the sake of contentment.
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BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 11:56 am
couldn't agree less; knowledge, even though it renders the unknown in bands of radiant colour, is invigourating, and represents our valiant climb out of the sludge of "belief".

[all i 'know' protects me from doubt; but, ignorance is the mother of 'belief']
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rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 12:06 pm
BoGoWo wrote:
couldn't agree less; knowledge, even though it renders the unknown in bands of radiant colour, is invigourating, and represents our valiant climb out of the sludge of "belief".


I'm sure you're correct in your case, but Waldo may be correct for others within the population (sometimes a great many others).

I'm not at all certain the most people find knowledge comforting, or even enjoyable. A great many people seem to want to do as little "thinking" in their lives as possible.
0 Replies
 
thunder runner32
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 01:35 pm
Wow, you guys jumped off topic in record time. Wink
0 Replies
 
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 01:59 pm
thunder_runner32 wrote:
Wow, you guys jumped off topic in record time. Wink


I think the following was on topic, but may have gotten lost in the shuffle...

rosborne979 wrote:
thunder_runner32 wrote:
I think that many atheists have tried to redefine science, to try and prove there is no god. They say that they only believe in what they can feel and test, but if there is a god, how will they ever know?


What particular God do you think some athiests are trying to disprove?

Science reveals for us, a world in which the machinations of a God are not necessary to give us what we see. But that alone doesn't disprove the general concept of God. It disproves the fundamental creation stories, and possibly the type of deity that would use such crude methods for creation, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of a spiritual concept of God.

I'm not even sure there are many athiests who reject the spiritual concept of God. More often, they reject the specific accounts of a particular God concept.
0 Replies
 
Nietzsche
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 02:00 pm
Re: Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?
thunder_runner32 wrote:
I think that many atheists have tried to redefine science, to try and prove there is no god.


Example?
0 Replies
 
drunkpunk
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2005 07:27 pm
Re: Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?
thunder_runner32 wrote:
but if there is a god, how will they ever know?


will any of us ever know? if you believe in God dont you think that in the afterlife it will be revealed to an atheist? i myself am atheist, but if there is a God, and im wrong then ill figure it out when i rot in Hell. all offered by religion is a blind faith in a God. Noone will ever know until death.
0 Replies
 
thunder runner32
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2005 07:22 am
I say this because, I know atheists, lots, who constantly are badgering theists.

Quote:
all offered by religion is a blind faith in a God.


Blind faith, really? My eyes are open, and I see the same thing that I do in church.
0 Replies
 
thethinkfactory
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2005 04:32 pm
edgarblythe wrote:
Nobody's redefining anything. If you want to believe in God you are free to do so. It doesn't hurt science for anyone to be religious. What hurts science is if the religious want to subvert the truth to fit their faith based beliefs. That's the only area of conflict.


I think Edgar has it partially right - but he has unfairly excluded those scientists that tend to see thier data (subvert the truth) to fit thier athiestic (faith based) points of view.

A case that has come to mind is when Stephen Hawking translated the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to mean that God could not be omnipotent. (If God used eyes to see things that might be true.)

As far as this question goes - when the scientific revolution hit Galileo and he decided that Aristotles final causes could not be observes empirically he did a very good job of defining religion out of science.

Science only accepts the five senses as being valid sensory perception - they also only accept repeatable and independantly verifiable evidence as evidence.

This seems to kick in the butt Miracles, mystical 'experiences' and the like.

Hume seems to have put a large nail in the coffin of religion and science ever getting along when he agreed with Tillitson's argument against transubstantiation that "A weaker argument could never destroy a stronger." - So evidence of say Christ coming back from the dead - would never be able to override the millions of times we have not seen this happen.

I think that empericism has defined itself such that religious evidence is simply not counted.

TTF
0 Replies
 
BoGoWo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 25 Mar, 2005 10:06 am
Re: Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?
drunkpunk wrote:
will any of us ever know? if you believe in God dont you think that in the afterlife it will be revealed to an atheist? i myself am atheist, but if there is a God, and im wrong then ill figure it out when i rot in Hell. all offered by religion is a blind faith in a God. Noone will ever know until death.


to any truly pensive person, god is simply a mispelled word with an 'o' missing; life is predicated on what one does, not what one says, or the creed by which one claims to live.

['belief' does not feed the hungry!]
0 Replies
 
 

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