our current crop of atheistic believers in science do have faith in their perception and measurements and logical principles as a set they ferverntly believe to be "science". I'd say it's a kind of "blind" faith that disallows any other possibilities. . . . .
Multiverse - Higgs boson - String - Anthropic Principle
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our current crop of atheistic believers in science do have faith in their perception and measurements and logical principles as a set they ferverntly believe to be "science". I'd say it's a kind of "blind" faith that disallows any other possibilities. . . . .
MVP
Well-Known Member
Well, since English is not my first language I may not know what other meanings of word "faith" is. To my understanding it is confidence or trust in deity, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion. Or trust in something what may happen in the future but we have no proof? For example - can I say that I have faith that Corbin will be fired one day? Does it equal "I hope/trust"?
PKM.. what have you done?!?!
I'm enjoying it. Like I said in post #1.. a nice break from groundhog day.
Babe vs Siro
Black Sword vs AKMVP
This will be fun...
Black Sword vs AKMVP
This will be fun...
A very fair point to make. A lot of people use the word "faith" quite exclusively in relation to a belief in a "God" defined by some religious tenets. You're within your rights to do so.
I think the English dictionaries all allow some other uses, such as mine, as well. I used the word in a more general sense as "reliance on a belief held to be true" while sorta calling science and human knowledge as a whole something that is continually progressing or changing in response to new findings by ongoing researchers, sorta taking scientific fact off the pedastal of absolutism and equating it roughly with other kinds of human belief systems which are also changing as people find other ideas to include in the set of much-loved but mutable "truths".
Since I don't closely follow even the LDS Church's mutable doctrines on the character, personhood, and identity of "God", preferring my own, I'm probably using the term "God" to mean whatever it will mean one day when we actually have a common experience of knowing and even being in the presence of "God". Until then, I think it's fair for all of us to have some freedom in using the word to fit a concept roughly corresponding to whatever it is we owe our world and/or universe to. . . . . who knows, maybe some Vernadskyesque fundamental force of nature, even. Wouldn 't hurt us humans to spend a little time explaining our use of terms in this discussion. . . . .
I don't know many people who seriously think science to be the absolute unchanging truth. I realize that your generalized definition of faith requires such view of science, but if we're playing a word game, you can define anything generally enough as to become applicable to whatever argument you're making. Science, like I already asserted several times, is the best explanation for a series of observations, for the time being. Of course there need be standards of how to pick one theory over another, but those standards must lie within consensus reality. That is why the scientific method does not contain criteria such as "conforming with this guy's strong feelings", or "evoking the greatest amount of spirituality". Many do not share that view of reality, and unless one can display the validity and relevance of one's faith, it shall remain only pertinent to the holder of that faith. We can all agree that naturalistic mechanisms are part of our shared reality, and that they do explain an incredible number of phenomena. Does that introduce an element of faith to science? Maybe. I couldn't care less about faith so loosely defined. I am more interested in the one that causes people to reject obvious and overwhelming evidence in order to keep the worldview they acquired in their youth.
OK I'm not a scientist or a philosopher, but I just want to point out something:
- What is Science? Is science not simply a set of theories and laws derived from our observation about the Universe? (i.e., we know that the gravitational pull on earth is constant because each time we measure it, the number remains the same).
- However, when one wants to understand the origin of the Universe, one has to investigate the conditions which "existed before the Universe".
- Is this then not where the limitations of Science is reached?
- How can we use our observations from this particular Universe to make inferences/theories/predictions about the conditions which existed before this Universe came to be?
That sounded like a big leap of faith if you ask me....
The Black Swordsman
Well-Known Member
I don't believe in a flying winged horse, it is found no where in the Qur'an.
I learn towards Max Planck's definition of faith as "a working hypothesis."
To an atheist the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody
Science is the human activity where previously unanswered questions are probed through systemic methods based on logic and rationality. Experiments and observations allow the creation of theories. Those theories offer predictions, such as the constancy of gravity. So no, we don't know gravity is constant because it is so each time we measure it. We know it's constant because the best theories that explain the mechanics of its workings predict that constancy. If observations were to contradict the predictions, then we must evaluate the details of the explanatory theory.
Spend a couple of minutes evaluating what you said, and you'll find the mistake in your logic. We did not actually see the big bang happen. It happened BILLIONS of years before we even existed. Yet, we are able to extrapolate the likelihood of that event based on the current state of the universe. Similarly, one can hypothesize extra-cosmic conditions that can give rise to big bangs. Mathematics are incredibly powerful and sophisticated, and they are perfectly capable of examining such abstract concepts.
So the conditions that existed before the big bang are just as much the realm of rational inquiry as the conditions that lead to a tornado. In fact, ALL achievable answers lie within rational inquiry, since no other method has shown to do anything. After all, we had your religion, and others like it, for tens of thousands of years. And in a few hundred years of science, we managed to surpass the achievements of our forebears a million times over.
And why should it be any other way? Why should there be a cut off point where serious study is no longer sufficient, leaving unjustified random feelings as our tool of choice to solve unanswered riddles?
In short, can rational inquiry find a solution to every problem? Maybe, or maybe not. But if science can't find an answer, then nothing can. That is a simple fact, since the alternatives lack a convincing meaning outside of their faith-baseness.
This post is intended to add to the discussion in general, so don't feel obligated to respond point by point.
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