It's a public forum, anyone is free to respond and participate. That's the point of a forum.
All of the incidents you list require an immaterial component and you are trying to say they do not. Hence - no point made.
What will we replace religion with?
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
All of the incidents you list require an immaterial component and you are trying to say they do not. Hence - no point made.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
That's not what he said moron. He said religion tends to make claims about the immaterial. Last I checked all the miracles listed in the Bible were claims made about what happens in the material universe. Next time read the quoted post first.
That is the essence of the religious problem. They have no method to support their claims. They would have to show there is something outside the physical. At this time we have no reason to believe there is anything other than physical. Science remains silent on any claims outside of the physical, it has no evidence. However, we should not assume that something more is necessarily impossible.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
You said religion tends to only make claims about the immaterial. I just showed you it does not. It is irrelevant whether those claims are true or false. The claims are about what happens in the material universe. You've been refuted.
And all those physical manifestations require a supernatural cause, right? And supernatural is necessarily immaterial. IOW all your claims for miracles are claims about an immaterial cause.
I would tend to agree, which is why the only evidence I can offer is anecdotal (subjective experience) and sociological (such as correlate benefits of religious participation).
I'm surprised MR went off the hook on you. I really like the way you think, the way you express yourself, the way your posts appeal to the reader's intelligence.
I find the style far more effective than the more often seen adversarial approach. As for MR - I don't know the member history here but it is easy to ignore inappropriate comments and simply focus on the topic.
To put it another way, I don't know why anyone would conclude that your ideas express the persona of a moron. The several posts of yours I've read today are exactly the opposite.
I agree with you on appropriate speech. I would like to think everyone could speak with that same clear objectivity you are using, but that's not the case. The interactions sometimes deviate too much from those ideal conditions. We have a fairly constant stream of cranks and trolls, plus well intentioned people who revert to infantile personality types when they are corrected (as may often happen in technical threads). The rest of the conflict is of the Culture War variety, which spans just about every forum. That tends to pit the objective geek, supporting liberal themes, against the right-leaning folks who tend to be both illiterate in the topics at hand and lacking in the interpersonal skills needed to listen and learn when it's been shown they are contradicted by the evidence. We've seen this same breakdown in decorum, and in ethical conduct even, on many fronts in the world stage, from heckling the President to perpetuating deliberate lies, such as several of the more striking kinds of character assassinations of Obama, Kerry, Gore, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and so on. A lot of similar unethical thinking errors have penetrated the folks who come here to wage war against science and academia. For them, depending on the individual, I think we tend to start out assuming nothing, extending that same decorum, understanding that things may go downhill when the crank comes out of the closet. Just recently I've had occasion to take the gloves off in many encounters will trolls (there are 5 previously permabanned members trolling the science threads). In each case these are folks attacking science in the manner of ICR pseudoscience hacks---only without overtly declaring any such religious motivation. For them I have no qualms about launching ad homs once they've crossed the line, since at that point it's pretty clear the person has no intention of using the site for the benefit of engaging thoughtful dialogue, but to irritate people, hijack threads, preach, etc. My intent is to pressure them to leave us alone and to give the mods reason to send them on their way.
Just some thoughts of mine. I mainly wanted to give credit where due. I think most of us come here expecting to encounter someone like you, only to be drawn into the melee with the trolls, mostly in hopes of rooting them out. So it's refreshing when that well-centered voice of reason comes along.
The chances of the origin of everything being caused by a ''supernatural'' agency, is more likely than it not being.
Science is powerless to ascertain whether this claim is true or not, without resorting to, at best educated guesswork, or faith (reasoned or blind).
jan.
It is YOU and anyone else who believes as you do that must demonstrate "supernatural agency", because science does not care about that claim in the least as it is far too busy explaining how the universe actually works.
If it could be demonstrated it would be in the domain of the ''natural science is all there is'' brigade, plus, science is a word that means ''knowledge'' (to know), it is incapable of caring about anything.
Aside from illogical notions like something can come from nothing (chortle! chortle!), or nature bringing herself into being, what's the alternative, thus far, when it comes to the origin of the material world?
jan.
How do you know that space is nothing?
Not true. There are several naturalistic and plausible explanations for the origin of the local universe, therefore to resort to the supernatural is illogical and invalid.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
"Something" can indeed come from nothing, so long as its total mass and energy = 0. Otherwise we violate the law of conservation of mass and energy. The universe has net mass and energy = 0 (exactly the same quantity of matter and antimatter, etc.), so it did not violate any natural laws by springing into existence.
What it boils down to is the emergence of organization where there was none a moment earlier, and this is specifically allowed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It says that entropy tends to increase over time (meaning that organization decreases), but spatially and temporally local reversals of entropy are possible. Not only are they possible, but there is no limit on the magnitude of the reversal.
An entire universe suddenly popping into existence (i.e., the Big Bang) is nothing more or less than a local reversal of entropy. In the billions of years since our universe appeared, it has been getting colder and slowing down--in other words, its organization is decreasing.
From what I've read, apparently it's unlikely that it will actually collapse back on itself, with all the matter and antimatter canceling each other out, and revert to the "nothing" that existed before the Big Bang. But it will continue to become colder and slower, increasing entropy in abidance with the Second Law.
And there's no reason to assume that other universes have/are/will not pop into existence. The Second Law places no limit on the number of times a temporary reversal of entropy can occur.
What about the ''origin of everything''?
Are there ''naturalistic'' and 'plausible' explanations?
jan.
If it can't demonstrated, then there is no way you could possibly know anything about it let alone agree with it, you live in the natural world like the rest of us.
But, that's exactly what your view is, that God created something from nothing (chortle! chortle!)