Many atheists despise religions and faiths, saying that they have no evidence of support. However, they admire science, they believe everything science says, including evolution which has weak support and could not explain many questions too. And, from time to time, many scientific theories were proven wrong due to new discoveries. Those wrong theories, before abandoned, were actually held true and believed by atheists, being used to attack religions. But these theories were somehow wrong. Therefore, Science is not absolute, it is a pursue of truth, but is not truth itself. Science only can tell us what and how things work, but it does not explain why.
Show me how Evolution has weak support. It has extremely well covered strong support. You are making false claims in order to validate a position you believe in, yet if we test your claim, we can show you very strong support for evolution and answer your questions. Secondly, atheists do not "believe" everything science says, many atheists accept the validity of strong support of evidence. And if they were superstition and religious dogma, that would never have happened. In science, it's encouraged to increase the accuracy of theories. In religion, it's forbidden and it's better to talk badly about the scientists that show their dogma to be in error and deny that it is in error. Nonsense- why don't you provide details to support your many ignorant claims instead of just stating them as fact? Agreed. But science does not claim it is an absolute truth. Religion does. It can explain quite a lot of "why" questions. But many "why" questions are based on false premises.
Not always do they agree with science but for the most part they do depending upon which branch of science you are discussing. At least the weak support, to you, is better than only a belief that a supreme being created everything who cannot be found but must be around because some book tells you that it is there. Most religious books have no facts to back up anything that they say, only wanting to make you believe that what they tell you is true. Most sciences have facts to support them to establish a foundation on which they build empirical evidence on which their claims are based. Although to you those facts are weak they are facts non the less as comparired to no facts that religions have to support their beliefs. So you want to think that religions are full of facts, just present one, other than what someone wrote , that a supernatural power exists that controls everything and everyone in the entire universe.
"Science only can tell us what and how things work, but it does not explain why." What does explain "why"?
That's not true, though anybody can be superstitious. Society needs a foundation of honesty and truth. Religions try to create their own reality. Science doesn't do that by definition; its purpose is to discover reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
Try explaining "why" the sky is blue without falling back upon "how" the sky is blue. PS - if you start explaining what it is that makes the sky look blue you never explain why this is the case. IOW its a common error of the literal minded to think tagging "what" information to "why" information = "how" information
Exactly- this is an example of where and how "why" is a false premise. You can answer how it appears blue, but cannot ask why it appears blue without an unreasonable assumption about who would make the "why" in the first place. In this case, saying science cannot answer the "why" is like saying science cannot measure a Unicorn.
its only unreasonable inasmuch as one tenders god as unreasonable. IOW if one accepts god as a given, "why is the sky blue" is no more unreasonable than "why is he wearing a blue t-shirt on the train" (which is also another why question science cannot answer)
Agreed. Actually, the question about why a man chose a blue shirt to wear can be answered quite well scientifically. Science cannot answer why God chose to create something, however, because the question presumes an unprovable premise.
I'm sure you will find a lot of opposition to these ignorant statements. Scientists can be superstitious, that is true, but science is not. The scientists at NASA all ate peanuts when the recent Mars Rover took off... for luck. But the process of engineering and science was not itself superstitious. No one believes everything that science declares on faith, that's not how it works. Proving theories wrong is how science works. Even those wrong theories were better explanations than religious ones, because those wrong theories were based on a deeper understanding of the world than any ancient Jew could have thought up. Science is always getting better, religious explanations are fixed in their errors. Science does not determine truth, it never did. It's simply the best model of reality that can be developed given what we know at the time. Science can, however tell us why. Why is the sky blue? I would have to explain why the atmosphere absorbs every other wavelength of light except blue. Why is the atmosphere there? I could tell you how it probably formed including the way life generated oxygen, the way the planet formed out of a dust cloud... How far back do you want to do? The how is the why. Why is anything here at all is the basic question. Religions have an answer but having an answer is nothing if it's just a guess. It's better to admit one doesn't know, that is the beginning of knowledge.
You've said in a lot more detail a lot of what I said and should appear later when my post gets approved, unless it got lost or something.
science "believes" itself at least partially wrong and incomplete, otherwise testing should just stop and we could just make mathematical models for all further developments. So in this sense, science has a humility which much religion does not. I think science itself would be quite happy to say it often makes incorrect statements, but eventually figures that out and revises them. I agree that "why" is an existentialist question, not a scientific one, because philosophy is not a science. You can't do an experiment to tell us what is evil or not evil, or why we should apply a particular symbol to a particular event. The issue you have here is with people who claim that science is something other than what it claims to be.
That's not entirely correct. Many atheists reject religions/faiths because they are not true. Many atheists despise religions/faiths because they work against truth and / or promote destructive behavior. I would speculate that most (if not all) atheists understand that a lot of the knowledge that comes out of science is tentative. Additionally, evolution just is and arguments against it are irrelevant... the theoretical aspect of evolution only applies to the details of it's operations. The phenomenon is 100% demonstrated. I suspect that not understand the latter is likely due to an educational gap on the subject. Also, if something doesn't answer all your questions, that "gap" of knowledge doesn't all of a sudden mean that "god did it". It actually means that "nobody knows yet" (or in some cases "you personally don't know yet" or "you personally don't understand yet"). It is true that many scientific theories are demonstrated as being partially or fully incorrect and require revising or replacement. That's a wonderfull thing about science, it is self correcting. I am not sure what scientific theories that were incorrect in the past were used to attack religion. Could you elaborate? Science is a process to understand reality. You mean like "why is the sky blue?". Of course science explain's why. I think what you mean is that science doesn't explain question's of intent applied to non-life forms. For example, if I ask "why did the rain decide to come out today?", I am asking an invalid question because rain is not a life form.
history indicates otherwise. The only difference is that the currency of religious change is a more cultural coinage than an institutional one (and hence changes occur over a longer period of time)
Science is ok. the problem is the pompous called scientists , were they should be humble because they know so little in what is to be to learn . They argue their error are been corrected all the time and thet is what science is . example if you know so much the why do you have to be corrected whit new information ? Do we know anything about consciousnesses, not , but we dismiss it and we equate with superstition. and so on.
Really? Of course, they'd never think of asking the man who wore the blue shirt; and even if they did, they wouldn't believe him. Asking and replying to why-questions is actually a power game.
What about religion could possibly be self-correcting, even on principle?? If religion comes straight from God, there is nothing to correct to begin with. And if it doesn't come from God, it can't rightfully be considered religion.
I wasn't referring to asking him. Although... I guess that is an option. I was thinking along the lines of what influences and physical processes were involved in the actual decision.
You *guess* asking him is an option? Right. Because an externalist approach to assessing a person's motivations is the most adequate way to go. Wife: "Honey, why do you never tell me that you love me?" Husband: "Let's ask the scientists!"
