Religion And Science

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Tristan, Aug 10, 2001.

  1. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    302
    The possibly null part of the post is something that the proof was addressing. The proof states that the "undefined domain" is necessarily not null. Therefore, something must exist in this undefined domain.

    I see what you were stating--we don't need to prove everything, just enough to make what Caleb says into an impossibility.

    The point wasn't that it is unknown, but that it is true, but unprovable. There is a difference. The sort of meta-proof showed that these things outside the provable realm would indeed be true.
     
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  3. Rambler Senior Member Registered Senior Member

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    sorry for butting in

    Dan,

    you wrote:

    "The point wasn't that it is unknown, but that it is true, but unprovable"

    That rings like an oxymoron (sp?) true but unprovable???
    If it is unprovable then it takes a leap of FAITH to make it true to the observer. And hence it is irrational.

    Cris' statement however is logicaly sound, if you cannot prove it you cannot know it, you can only assume and speculate.
     
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  5. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    Of course it sounds like it's crazy--otherwise it wouldn't be groundbreaking or at all interesting in a religion forum.

    Not necessarily. It could be something that we depend on for other truths--like some sort of root logic for mathematics. You can't prove it, but it is there and we depend on it for all our other provable answers.
     
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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Rambler, it's a necessity of Chrisitan faith

    Since everything they "know" they must necessarily take on faith, and observational reality be damned, it only makes sense if the faithful conclude that what they take on faith is the only reality.

    In the abstract and the metaphysical, this is fine, and why should anyone care? But when applied in reality, we see that such faith-called-knowledge only serves to hurt humanity, which discredits the religion in the eyes of anyone looking to figure out what's really taking place in the Universe.

    The service this brand of Christianity has done--even here at Sciforums--is amazing: it makes quite clear to observers and curious minds what the result of the faith is. People will watch and read and say, "I don't want to be like that ...." And that's one less soul choosing to hate the world through faith.

    thanx,
    Tiassa

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  8. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    2,279
    Actually it will remain unproven, rather than unknown.
    What knowledge exists may be undefined, indefinite, unacceptable to some, but not non-existent.

    It doesn't have to.

    One can simply state that a supernatural domain exists.
    One is either correct or incorrect.

    One then needs to obtain proof one way or the other.

    To deny that the supernatural exists, because you personally have not yet discovered prima facie proof of it, is foolishness.

    You cannot prove what your name is.
    You only have hearsay evidence and circumstantial evidence for it, yet you probably claim to know what your name is.

    You cannot prove to another person what the color "red" is, yet you probably claim to know it when you see it.
    For all you know, what you see as red, others see as what you call green.

    As a matter of fact, you cannot prove that numbers exist.
    You can prove that symbols for numbers exist.
    If you choose to give an example of numbers, such as "two pears", you will be able to prove that two pears exist, but not that "two" exists.
    At any given time during an attempted proof, you will only be able to prove that a written or spoken symbol exists, but not that the represented concept exists.
    There is no measurable evidence for numbers, yet we use them all of the time, and claim to know what they are.

    You cannot prove that a mathematical point exists, because it has no dimensions, cannot be observed or measured in any way, yet the mathematical point is known by all who study mathematics.
     
  9. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    302
    Having some sense of direction and purpose in life when everything is going down the toilet around you is better than the nothingness of the afterlife that atheists claim. Being able to pray when something rattles your soul is better than worrying yourself into heart disease, or drinking your problems away. A just judgement in the afterlife lets people have an out from the frustration of injustices of this world that never seem to end no matter how much people try.

    People cry out for meaning and what does science give them? Nothingness before the Big Bang, chaos in evolution, and nothingness after death. That is what lies within the physical stretch of the universe. This is where ideas that human life is meaningless and the only pursuit is pleasure for the short time that we are here find their root. <i>This is what is harmful to humanity.</i> Even the idea of an eternal judgement after death pales in comparison. Why? Because it is an idea--a philosophy that can never be proven to be right or wrong to the living here.

    Maybe I am an exception--or do you think that my mind has atrophied or have I suddenly become irrational because of my Biblical faith? I understand that people have valid and logical reasons for the ways that they believe--especially here on sciforums. It seems by your statement about people with faith, "hating the world" that you do not give people even that much credit.
     
  10. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    2,279
    *Originally posted by dan1123
    do you think that my mind has atrophied or have I suddenly become irrational because of my Biblical faith?
    *
    No.
    The rational simply looks irrational to the irrational.
     
  11. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    9,199
    Dan,

    No I don’t think so. That isn’t what Godel is saying. Godel doesn’t replace formal logic but extends it to the more complex issues where the conclusions can become ‘fuzzy’. Basic logic must remain sound since you are still unable to reach a deductive conclusion if any one of premises is invalid (i.e. not proven).

    The great disappointment for many advanced mathematicians was that when they realized they had reached that point of umprovability (or fuzziness) they found they were unable to proceed any further. The vast bulk of mathematics is provable and the unprovable components lie at the top of the pyramid.

    However, I’d be open to any examples you might be able to present.

    Cris
     
  12. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Dan,

    So people should develop personal goals and a purpose to their lives. But what has that to do with a wish for an afterlife? You are implying that the purpose for most people should be to reach an afterlife, i.e. die. Now if you can show that an afterlife exists and is a worthwhile place to be then I’ll agree with you. But until then you are simply proposing a dream and living your life in the hope of achieving a dream is a delusion.

    Yes I agree. Praying is a method of transferring ones troubles onto someone else. It is a form of escapism, a misguided belief that someone else will solve ones problems or make them go away. While problems are never solved directly through this mechanism the effect is to reduce personal stress and allow one to tackle the problems more easily. A more practical method is to learn one of the many mediation techniques that are available and hence make oneself less susceptible to modern stress in the first place. I chose TM back in the mid 70s because out of all the scientific studies conducted on meditation techniques this showed the greatest benefits. I always found it amusing when fellow meditators who were Christians said that they found their prayers far more effective after their TM sessions.

    Of course there are often incidents in ones life that one regrets and would like to be able to go back and undo. Memories of such incidents often cause great stress, continuous suffering and mental anguish. Being able to pretend that such problems will be resolved in an afterlife or can be actually reduced by prayer or belief in a deity, do have the real effect of reducing the anguish. This is simply a mental technique for rationalizing problematic memories. Non-religious people should be taught other methods for dealing with such problems and hence one reason why therapists and psychiatrists are so prevalent. Again a good meditation technique would be just as good if not better since most religions include and induce significant feelings of guilt.

    But believing in mythology does not offer reality. Many things in life are truly unpleasant and truth is often like that. Choosing to believe something other reality is self-deceit and self-delusion.

    Perhaps for many, especially the shortsighted and the lazy, but most of my life and many like me, is dedicated to creating a meaning to life. It might take thousands or millions of years and I might not survive to see its fruition. But this is our hope and is specifically non-fatalist, I’ll explain more in a moment. If you need a label for my then I am a Transhumanist – there are websites out there if you want to know more.

    This is where our perspectives depart seriously.

    The ultimate harm for humanity is its death. It follows then that the greatest good for humanity must be anything that ensures its survival. What does the religionist do to help ensure the survival of humanity? Nothing because he believes that there is something beyond death and sees no reason to make pointless efforts to extend survival while alive. This is the essential fatalistic approach of the religionist and why I see religions as representing one of the greatest evils that mankind has ever had to endure.

    Instead of hoping that there are gods and afterlives, all of which cannot be shown to exist, it makes more sense to remain skeptical of their existence and make every effort to improve and extend human life.

    Cris
     
  13. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    302
    Chris,

    I'll take the last thing first:
    In the post you are responding to I gave several ways that Christianity improves and extends the individual's life. Both in a way that one can cope with the world, and the philosophy that holds human life at its highest. But there are other ways in which Christianity has helped humanity's survival, like creating the first hospitals, and first institutes of higher learning, and beginning modern humanitarian organizations like the Salvation Army.
    I could just assume that you are fooling yourself as well, and that there is no real help from your meditation, psychologists, etc. If your form of argument is to assert that someone else's beliefs are not true, you might as well not even argue. However, you might trust the <a href="http://archinte.ama-assn.org/issues/v159n19/abs/ioi90043.html">American Medical Association</a> on the effectiveness of prayer at least.
     
  14. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    2,279
    *Originally posted by Cris
    The vast bulk of mathematics is provable and the unprovable components lie at the top of the pyramid.
    *

    I'll bet you can't prove that.

    That is the fly in the ointment of your life.

    Your actual proven knowledge is limited to the mathematical information you have collected via personal observation and hearsay evidence, either written or verbal, of the remainder.

    You actually have no idea how much mathematics there is in the first place.
    You have no idea how many mathematical theorems remain undiscovered as yet.
    You have no idea of the actual ratio between all provable and unprovable components of mathematics.
    You are assuming that the provable components outnumber the unprovable.
     
  15. synaesthesia Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    89
    "I'll bet you can't prove that."

    Yes, it's easy. To find such unprovable theroems you require fairly advanced mathematics.

    "You have no idea how many mathematical theorems remain undiscovered as yet.
    You have no idea of the actual ratio between all provable and unprovable components of mathematics."

    You are the only one who has mentioned such a ratio in any thread at any time. You're totally right but it's a red herring.
     
  16. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,279
    *Originally posted by synaesthesia
    Yes, it's easy. To find such unprovable theroems you require fairly advanced mathematics.
    *
    Reading ability is even better.

    Cris can't prove his statement.

    *You are the only one who has mentioned such a ratio in any thread at any time. You're totally right but it's a red herring. *
    Apparently, you don't understand what a pyramid is.

    And, of course, you are right, it is a red herring to me.
    But Cris is betting his life on it.
    It isn't a red herring to him.
     
  17. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Dan,

    The article on remote prayer was very interesting, I would have liked to view the entire article but I would have had to pay a charge. TM has been claiming something similar for the past few decades where a given geographic area has 1% or above of the population meditating. The FBI made the first discovery of this effect but I can’t find that article in the FBI archives they appear to have pruned much of their older archives.

    Anyway whether you are interested or not here are a few references to research on TM and its effects. I’d like to show more independent references but since TM now has its own universities most papers are now coming out of those institutions. But others might be interested in the references.

    I guess my point is that you don’t have to believe that TM works for it to work. And in this respect the heart patients in the remote prayer experiments, I guess, don't have to believe in prayer either.

    TM reduces high blood pressure. American Heart Association.

    From WebMD

    Reduced crime rates from FBI Statistics

    Description of scientific research on TM

    165 References to published papers

    Cris
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2001
  18. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    9,199
    Dan,

    Yes of course you are correct, but these institutions are now barely a dent when compared to the number of similar institutions that are not Christian controlled. Given the alleged high proportions of Christians one would have thought that more institutions would have been Christian influenced whereas the vast majority are secular.

    But I don’t really expect you to argue this point. If a Christian believes that his real life begins when he enters heaven then the very short duration of life on earth can only be viewed as a very brief transition period. I have heard many Christians say in times of trouble that trusting God will save them. My father described some of his fellow soldiers during WWII who would pray and then would be blown up shortly after. The Christian must view life on earth as relatively unimportant since it is the afterlife that is the real goal. Isn’t it?

    While I am sure that many Christians have that desire to help others, it can only be half-hearted in the long term since they must believe that the fate of anyone they are helping is in the hands of God. In other words they will stop short of doing the extra work and effort to push harder for the survival of fellow humans and humanity. That is the fatalistic attitude that annoys me so much. I strongly suspect that if that attitude had not been around we would have achieved cures for things like cancer centuries ago.

    Cris
     
  19. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Syn,

    Your opinion please.

    Godel’s proof is extremely abstract and from what I have read of the history of Godel there are few mathematicians who have heard of Godel. His proofs seem to be of only concern to those working on the leading edge of mathematics research, e.g. the tip of the pyramid. And since most of industry, electronic circuit design, computer design, physics, chemistry, etc. are all largely based on extensive use of mathematics, and some quite advanced, then I would reason that the bulk of existing mathematics has been proved. If not then much of modern life would start to crumble.

    Now I would agree that it is not essential for something to be proved before using it in a practical sense, but if there were many such instances then simple statistics would indicate that many practical applications would start to degrade, and that clearly is not happening. It follows then that most applied math is well understood and proven.

    Would you agree?

    Cris
     
  20. Rambler Senior Member Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    509
    Hi All, and sorry for dragging this up

    I just found it and didn't have a chance to respond before so I'll do it now, again my apologies to all...


    TONY (you wrote):

    "You cannot prove what your name is.
    You only have hearsay evidence and circumstantial evidence for it, yet you probably claim to know what your name is.

    You cannot prove to another person what the color "red" is, yet you probably claim to know it when you see it.
    For all you know, what you see as red, others see as what you call green.

    As a matter of fact, you cannot prove that numbers exist.
    You can prove that symbols for numbers exist.
    If you choose to give an example of numbers, such as "two pears", you will be able to prove that two pears exist, but not that "two" exists.
    At any given time during an attempted proof, you will only be able to prove that a written or spoken symbol exists, but not that the represented concept exists.
    There is no measurable evidence for numbers, yet we use them all of the time, and claim to know what they are.

    You cannot prove that a mathematical point exists, because it has no dimensions, cannot be observed or measured in any way, yet the mathematical point is known by all who study mathematics."

    TONY I can prove all of it...the only thing is we need to define what is sufficuent as proof...i.e. my name if I got you 12 idependent documents stating my name and Photo I would think that you would have to be quite stupid or ignorant to deny it has been proven.

    I can prove what the colour red is: it is a type of radiation found in the "visible" spectrum and it has a unique wavelength...this particular wavelength is refered to as RED light and hence is the identifier of the colour...we can be looking at any colour you can call it what ever you like but the fact remains it is a particular radiation with a measurable wavelength...I can prove it easily.

    As far as proving the existance of numbers goes...WTF??? They ARE symbols and nothing else so what do you want me to prove?? that there is a place in the universe where numbers live??? Or the CONCEPT of applying symbols to real world quantities??

    But lets get to the actual point at hand I can demonstrate all the things you've mentioned as a reality and accepted truth, I realise you may take an irrational exeption to my demonstrations however they would still be leaps and bounds closer to being accepted as a demonstratable reality then anything you have to say about your god. Shit Tony I'd be happy if you could come up with a few idependent (mutually exclusive if you like) accounts of christs life... I'm yet to see even one secular scrap of evidence that christ is anything more then a figment of your collective imaginations.
     
  21. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    2,279
    *Originally posted by Cris
    I strongly suspect that if that attitude had not been around we would have achieved cures for things like cancer centuries ago.
    *

    Of course, cancer cures are only needed if you have cancer.
    God has had a cancer cure for millenia, but those who don't believe it get cancer.

    *I would reason that the bulk of existing mathematics has been proved. If not then much of modern life would start to crumble.
    ...
    It follows then that most applied math is well understood and proven.
    *

    It does follow.
    The assumption is that "existing" and "applied" math forms the bulk of all math.
    It could well be that the bulk of all math has not yet been discovered.

    *Originally posted by Rambler
    TONY I can prove all of it...the only thing is we need to define what is sufficuent as proof...i.e. my name if I got you 12 idependent documents stating my name and Photo I would think that you would have to be quite stupid or ignorant to deny it has been proven.
    *

    All you would be giving me is 12 pieces of hearsay evidence.
    Furthermore, it would be hearsay evidence of what others call you, as opposed to what your name actually is.

    *I can prove what the colour red is: it is a type of radiation found in the "visible" spectrum and it has a unique wavelength...this particular wavelength is refered to as RED light and hence is the identifier of the colour...we can be looking at any colour you can call it what ever you like but the fact remains it is a particular radiation with a measurable wavelength...I can prove it easily. *

    So far, all you've done is proven that you don't understand the issue at hand.
    I wasn't talking about the location of the color red on the visible spectrum.
    I was talking about the appearance, to you, of the color red.
    You have no way of knowing what that color looks like to someone else.

    *As far as proving the existance of numbers goes...WTF??? They ARE symbols and nothing else so what do you want me to prove?? that there is a place in the universe where numbers live??? Or the CONCEPT of applying symbols to real world quantities?? *

    It's tough to understand, isn't it?
    Numerals are symbols; numbers aren't.

    *But lets get to the actual point at hand I can demonstrate all the things you've mentioned as a reality and accepted truth.*
    So far, you have demonstrated that you barely understand the concepts.
    You can't distinguish between numbers and numerals.
    You can't tell the difference between an electromagnetic wave and the appearance of a color.

    * I realise you may take an irrational exeption to my demonstrations however they would still be leaps and bounds closer to being accepted as a demonstratable reality then anything you have to say about your god. Shit Tony I'd be happy if you could come up with a few idependent (mutually exclusive if you like) accounts of christs life... I'm yet to see even one secular scrap of evidence that christ is anything more then a figment of your collective imaginations.*

    Let's wait until you figure out what colors and numbers are first.
     

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