| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Dave Oldridge" |
| Date: |
24 Aug 2004 07:09:37 AM |
| Object: |
Re: Can an Evolutionist Be a Christian? |
(William) wrote in
news:412b16a0.6122188@news-text.blueyonder.co.uk:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:20:51 +0000 (UTC), Dave Oldridge
<doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote:
(William) wrote in
[snip]
This is what I find puzzling about you, Dave. When you have your
scientific hat on you can debate any challenge to the scientific
method right out of the door. But then you stick you 'religious' hat
on and you are as unscientific as anyone else. Making the appeal to
Because, until science acquires the ability to test spiritual claims
and experiences, then I will rely on other methods...
Please explain what these other methods you have to test spiritual
claims (other than asserting that one is right and the others are
wrong).
Revelation, tradition, prayer, meditation, theurgy. All can be used to
some extent to test spiritual claims.
'faith' in this context is the same cop-out and abandonment of the
scientific method that the creationists make. Giving answers to
questions about the real world (eg, how life came into being) by an
appeal to supernatural causes which have to be taken by 'faith' is
totally against the principles of science. Particularly when it is
in
No it's not. It's not a "principle of science" that science can test
all knowledge. Science is specifically limited to the physical
universe.
The primary purpose of science is to filter out false claims about
reality. If a claim cannot be falsified then science cannot do much
You left out a very important adjective. It is PHYSICAL reality that
science filters out false claims about. Science cannot say much about
non-physical aspects of reality.
--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667
A false witness is worse than no witness at all.
.
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| User: "LawsonE" |
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| Title: Re: Can an Evolutionist Be a Christian? |
24 Aug 2004 07:29:31 AM |
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"Dave Oldridge" <doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote in message
[...]
You left out a very important adjective. It is PHYSICAL reality that
science filters out false claims about. Science cannot say much about
non-physical aspects of reality.
Consciousness is where "physical" and "non-physical" meet. A state of
consciousness, by definition, has physiological correlates. Establish those
correlates concerning "spiritual" or "mystical" states, and you can start to
study them scientifically.
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Can an Evolutionist Be a Christian? |
24 Aug 2004 10:42:09 AM |
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"Dave Oldridge" <doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns954F2B045B1B7doldridgsprintca@24.71.223.159...
telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in
news:412b16a0.6122188@news-text.blueyonder.co.uk:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:20:51 +0000 (UTC), Dave Oldridge
<doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote:
telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in
[snip]
This is what I find puzzling about you, Dave. When you have your
scientific hat on you can debate any challenge to the scientific
method right out of the door. But then you stick you 'religious' hat
on and you are as unscientific as anyone else. Making the appeal to
Because, until science acquires the ability to test spiritual claims
and experiences, then I will rely on other methods...
Please explain what these other methods you have to test spiritual
claims (other than asserting that one is right and the others are
wrong).
Revelation, tradition, prayer, meditation, theurgy. All can be used to
some extent to test spiritual claims.
I have to agree with you. The problem is that the mutually contradictory
results of these tests lead to the justified conclusion that spiritual
claims are nothing more than subjective human imagination at work.
If there were actual spiritual truths out there, one would expect a
convergence towards those truths if the testing methods were valid. Since we
don't see this kind of convergence, we can conclude that either spiritual
truths don't exist, or that those methods are not the way to discover them.
'faith' in this context is the same cop-out and abandonment of the
scientific method that the creationists make. Giving answers to
questions about the real world (eg, how life came into being) by an
appeal to supernatural causes which have to be taken by 'faith' is
totally against the principles of science. Particularly when it is
in
No it's not. It's not a "principle of science" that science can test
all knowledge. Science is specifically limited to the physical
universe.
The primary purpose of science is to filter out false claims about
reality. If a claim cannot be falsified then science cannot do much
You left out a very important adjective. It is PHYSICAL reality that
science filters out false claims about. Science cannot say much about
non-physical aspects of reality.
Is mathematics a science? If it is, you might have to re-think that claim.
I see science as a method of identifying and catagorizing consistencies in
our observations. Without consistency, there can be no claim to knowledge.
So far, physical reality seems VERY consistent. The rules of mathematics
result in consistencies as well. But spiritual claims seem to diverge
hastily from any consistency, which indicates that individual imagination
rather than objective observation is at play.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
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| User: "Libertarius" |
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| Title: Re: Can an Evolutionist Be a Christian? |
24 Aug 2004 10:00:32 AM |
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Dave Oldridge wrote:
telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in
news:412b16a0.6122188@news-text.blueyonder.co.uk:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:20:51 +0000 (UTC), Dave Oldridge
<doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote:
telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in
[snip]
This is what I find puzzling about you, Dave. When you have your
scientific hat on you can debate any challenge to the scientific
method right out of the door. But then you stick you 'religious' hat
on and you are as unscientific as anyone else. Making the appeal to
Because, until science acquires the ability to test spiritual claims
and experiences, then I will rely on other methods...
Please explain what these other methods you have to test spiritual
claims (other than asserting that one is right and the others are
wrong).
Revelation, tradition, prayer, meditation, theurgy. All can be used to
some extent to test spiritual claims.
'faith' in this context is the same cop-out and abandonment of the
scientific method that the creationists make. Giving answers to
questions about the real world (eg, how life came into being) by an
appeal to supernatural causes which have to be taken by 'faith' is
totally against the principles of science. Particularly when it is
in
No it's not. It's not a "principle of science" that science can test
all knowledge. Science is specifically limited to the physical
universe.
The primary purpose of science is to filter out false claims about
reality. If a claim cannot be falsified then science cannot do much
You left out a very important adjective. It is PHYSICAL reality that
science filters out false claims about. Science cannot say much about
non-physical aspects of reality.
===>Science can say nothing about things that don't exist. ;-) -- L.
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| User: "William" |
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| Title: Re: Can an Evolutionist Be a Christian? |
24 Aug 2004 08:25:43 AM |
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On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:09:37 +0000 (UTC), Dave Oldridge
<doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote:
telige@mail.clara.fl.com (William) wrote in
Dave Oldridge<doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote:
Because, until science acquires the ability to test spiritual claims
and experiences, then I will rely on other methods...
Please explain what these other methods you have to test spiritual
claims (other than asserting that one is right and the others are
wrong).
Revelation, tradition, prayer, meditation, theurgy. All can be used to
some extent to test spiritual claims.
OK, that identifies your methods. Please explain how these methods
test spiritual claims - and most importantly how they verify or
falsify spiritual claims (there are a lot of mutually contradictory
spiritual claims out there).
'faith' in this context is the same cop-out and abandonment of the
scientific method that the creationists make. Giving answers to
questions about the real world (eg, how life came into being) by an
appeal to supernatural causes which have to be taken by 'faith' is
totally against the principles of science. Particularly when it is
in
No it's not. It's not a "principle of science" that science can test
all knowledge. Science is specifically limited to the physical
universe.
The primary purpose of science is to filter out false claims about
reality. If a claim cannot be falsified then science cannot do much
You left out a very important adjective. It is PHYSICAL reality that
science filters out false claims about. Science cannot say much about
non-physical aspects of reality.
I think we are talking about all reality. If the supernatural and
spiritual realm are part of reality then that is the collective
reality I am talking about.
Again, if there is an aspect of reality that the scientific method
cannot test then how do you test it (ie, filter out valid claims about
it from the false ones). As in the world covered by the scientific
method, if claims cannot be verified or falsified then any claim is as
valid as any other.
William
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