Religion II

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Life may indeed HAVE a "purpose", but...how is man ever to agree on what that purpose is? We are all different, and so are our opinions. Correspondingly...won't our "life-purposes" be different as WELL?

Are we all really different if we share one nature, human nature?

[Light]

Originally Posted by Actor

First, atheism is not based on life having no purpose but on the fact that there is no evidence for the existence of a deity.

There is no evidence for many things science cannot explain, yet they exist. Just because you can't see or know something at this point in time, does not mean it does not exist.

[Greyfox]

Originally Posted by Light

There is no evidence for many things science cannot explain, yet they exist. Just because you can't see or know something at this point in time, does not mean it does not exist.

Well said.
The Universe is far more of a mystery than Actor would have us believe.
We know virtually nothing about it in comparison of what remains to be known.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Light

There is no evidence for many things science cannot explain, yet they exist.

How about a few examples, at least one, of "things science cannot explain, yet they exist".

[Light]

Originally Posted by Actor

How about a few examples, at least one, of "things science cannot explain, yet they exist".

Is this a real question? Your question presumes we know everything about all we see. But I'll amuse you with a few examples.

1) In the 1990's scientists discovered that 95% of the universe is invisible and cannot explain it. Most scientists now agree that dark matter and dark energy make up about 95% of our universe. Dark matter and dark energy are called dark because we cannot see or detect it right now with the technology that we have. We only know that it’s there because of its affect on other things in our universe that we can detect. Other than that, it is a complete mystery.

2) The link between man and ape is absent. Science cannot find our lost common ancestor.

3) How the brain creates consciousness or the mechanism that does that has yet to be found.

I could go on but here is one that even surprised me on 60 minutes this last Sunday. The first words from the narrator were:

"We cannot explain what you are about to hear. Science doesn't know enough about the brain to make sense of Alma" Enjoy:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-12-...age-is-mozart/

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Light

Is this a real question? Your question presumes we know everything about all we see.

That is the presumption that your statement in #4427 seems to make.

Originally Posted by Light

There is no evidence for many things science cannot explain, yet they exist.

This statement seems to declare that a proper test of the validity of science is that it be able to explain everything known to exist. Maybe that is not the intent of your statement. In any case it is poorly worded. There are two clauses, the first being "There is no evidence for many things science cannot explain." The conclusion I would draw from that alone is that you think if there is no evidence for something then it does not exist. But this is contradicted by the second clause "yet they exist." I asked for at least one example in hopes of a bit of clarity.

For the record, science does not claim to be able to explain anything without knowing it exists. Further, science does not claim to be able to explain everything known to exist. You seem to have advanced the "god of the gaps" argument.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Light

1) In the 1990's scientists discovered that 95% of the universe is invisible and cannot explain it. Most scientists now agree that dark matter and dark energy make up about 95% of our universe. Dark matter and dark energy are called dark because we cannot see or detect it right now with the technology that we have. We only know that it’s there because of its affect on other things in our universe that we can detect. Other than that, it is a complete mystery.

That is true of everything, not just dark matter. Sight detects light, nothing else. Hearing detects sound waves, nothing else. Smell detects gaseous molecules, nothing else. Taste detects chemicals, nothing else. Touch detects pressure, nothing else. These are brought together by our brains. Dark matter was ultimately detected by our brains. That's it.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Light

2) The link between man and ape is absent. Science cannot find our lost common ancestor.

Wrong. They have found it. Try to keep up.

Originally Posted by Light

3) How the brain creates consciousness or the mechanism that does that has yet to be found.

The words "yet to be" are key.

Originally Posted by Light

I could go on but here is one that even surprised me on 60 minutes this last Sunday. The first words from the narrator were:

"We cannot explain what you are about to hear. Science doesn't know enough about the brain to make sense of Alma"

Nothing new here. The program could have been about Mozart but I guess CBS thought Alma would draw a bigger audience. Again "yet to be" is key.

[Light]

What is your point? To be argumentative? Are you so naive to not realize your own life is a total miracle and not random. That science cannot explain that. That in an average ejaculation there are 250 million sperm and only 1 will fertilize the egg that became you. Do you think you are a total accident? A freak winner of a sperm race for the egg. Is that what you reduce life to? Mere biology and chemistry? And what created that biology and chemistry? Something science also cannot explain.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Light

What is your point?

What is yours?

Originally Posted by Light

To be argumentative?

Do you expect to participate in a thread titled Religion not get some arguments?

Originally Posted by Light

Are you so naive to not realize our own life is a total miracle and not random.

Are you so gullible as to believe that a bunch of primitive, desert dwelling sheepherders had all the answers?

Originally Posted by Light

That science cannot explain that.

Yes, it can.

Originally Posted by Light

That in an average ejaculation there are 250 million sperm and only 1 will fertilize the egg that became you. Do you think you are a total accident? A freak winner of a sperm race for the egg.

Yes. That sums it up.

Originally Posted by Light

And what created that and chemistry? Something science also cannot explain.

Yes, it can.

Are you going to answer my question?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Actor

The words "yet to be" are key.
.
.
.
Nothing new here. The program could have been about Mozart but I guess CBS thought Alma would draw a bigger audience. Again "yet to be" is key.

But when Boxcar uses "yet to be" to explain the unfulfilled promises of the bible...you consider that an unsatisfactory response.

By the way...how long will it take for "science" to tell us if coffee is good or bad for us? Is the jury still out on whether or not a high-protein diet is really beneficial for us...or are these matters too "mundane" for science to bother with? I was watching a program the other day, where two Ivy League-educated doctors were discussing "health and wellness". One doctor recommended that we chew each bite of our food at least 20 times, in order to properly liquify it before swallowing. But the other doctor quickly disagreed...by saying that such a practice would deprive the stomach of the necessary work that it must do during the digestion stage.

At least religion is confused about matters of the "spirit"...

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Are we all really different if we share one nature, human nature?

Of course we are all different. If this thread has proven anything...it's the fact that there is great difference even among CHRISTIANS.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Actor constantly takes inconsistent positions , which allows him to continually mock Christianity via mocking boxcar.

Has Actor ever given you an answer with substance to your queries?

When asked if the view that science offers the only avenue for knowledge about the real world (scientism), could itself be established by the scientific method, Actor retreated to the theory of solipsism, with the implication that Boxcar exists only in Actor's mind.

On the heels of that, however, we are treated to the steadfast pursuit of the theory that the historical Christ wasn't real.

Add a dash of the mistaken impression that in "mocking" Boxcar, Actor mocks the representative Christian of two millennia, rather than like Boxcar, actually managing to ignore the first 1600 years of Chrisitianity, and you have to enter the discussion with entertainment as a significant motivation, rather than edification.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by Actor

How about a few examples, at least one, of "things science cannot explain, yet they exist".

Larry King: "What still mystifies you about the universe?"

Stephen Hawking: "Why do the universe and all the laws of nature exist? Are they necessary?"

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

Larry King: "What still mystifies you about the universe?"

Stephen Hawking: "Why do the universe and all the laws of nature exist? Are they necessary?"

"Something unknown is doing we don't know what." -- Arthur Eddington...when asked to explain the "mysteries of the universe".