You'll have to excuse my cherry-picking of the replies. I just spend 30 minutes having to respond to every statement someone said and, quite honestly, It's rather draining.
Yea, thanks for cutting it down, it was getting a little out of hand
When the secular scientific community disagrees, I guess I'll deal with it then.
Are you saying the secular scientific community currently does not and has not disagreed on things? I'm not sure if this is what you're implying but if that's what you're implying then that is really insane.
Examples of scientific theories that have caused widespread and divisive debate throughout the scientific community (both secular and non-secular members) include:
1) continental drift theory; first proposed in 1912 and hotly debated well into the 1950s.
2) the theory of symbiogenesis; first proposed in 1966 and debated with much disagreement until the late 1980s.
3) the theory of punctuated equilibrium; first proposed in 1972 and still being debated to this day in many evolutionary biology circles although becoming more and more accepted with time.
4) the theory of the quantization of light; first proposed in 1905 and not well accepted until the late 1920s
These are three examples among many of hotly debated topics in which scientists could not form a consensus. I know that the continental drift theory was especially rejected as nonsensical and foolish by a wide majority initially and it took a surprisingly large body of evidence before the naysayers were silenced.
Do you think that the secular scientific community always forms a unified consensus? And, just as a note, it is self-evident that the
secular scientific community would be in agreement on the existence of God because secular denotes non-religious and non-spiritual. But the
secular scientific community is not the whole scientific community. And I thought we were talking about the whole scientific community not just the section of the scientific community that happens to agree with you. That would be like a Christian saying, "Well, the whole Christian scientific community forms a consensus that God exists. So there." I find this diagram helpful:
Scientists, Atheists, Theists, and Pantheists
A person of any belief system can be part of the scientific community. You just generally need publications, a PhD and generally you must be employed at an academic institution.
Of course it does.
It also has to be able to be perceived and interpreted by everybody else before it really becomes demonstrable proof.
So if something cannot be perceived by one person but can be perceived by a vast majority of other people, then the entity has no demonstrable proof that it exists? This seems like a strange contradiction to the idea of scientific consensus that you stand by.
Never said that I do.
Subjective as it ever was, science agreed on the law of gravitation, because we can all test it out if we want to.
I'm not sure what your point is. How is subjectivity related to consensus? Just because a group of people reach a consensus doesn't mean they are being objective. It may just mean they are all being subjectively biased in the same way. The scientific community once agreed that Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation was a completely accurate description of reality. This is no longer the case. So, at the time when the scientific community agreed on the law's absoluteness, they were just all being subjectively misled in a similar way due to the limitations of the time. Just because they did agree doesn't mean they were right or objective.
The law is an approximation that is useful in most practical applications under the correct conditions. It is not absolute and it is not universal. "Newton's Law of
Universal Gravitation" is a misnomer and a historical relic that is extremely misleading. See
Gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, then, Christians say, "Here is the conclusion, what observations and interpretations of data can we find to support it?"
Did you read my entire response to this part? I addressed this in my last post.
Sure does.
One you can prove, one you can not.
I'm assuming you're talking about causation here. You're saying that in the hammer example you can prove the cause was the hammer while in the chilly example you cannot prove the cause was God because there are other potential causes. I agree with you. The cause of the chilly cannot be proven.
But both experiences actually happened, right? I don't think you're saying that the hammer example actually occurred because it involved physical, repeatable pain while the chilly example didn't actually happen because it involved non-physical, non-repeatable emotion. I don't think this is what you're saying because if a person experiences a sensation, its difficult to logical claim, as an external observer, that they didn't really experience that sensation.
It sure is your own actual experience.
Whew! Thank goodness I'm not hallucinating it all
It's a pity that God can't demonstrate himself in any other ways than love... oh wait, he can, he just said he won't.
Fear not, he explained why he won't, so you're covered. No moving mountain or making things disappear and reappear, in front of a massive crows of believers and non-believers.
His circular logic treats him well.
Yea, it'd be nice if God made himself more apparent. Perhaps it is more of a pity that we rely so much on logic and value objectivity so much that we miss the virtuousness of faith and the value of subjectivity.
Hypocritical or not, it makes no difference.
How about you prove yours?
I have never set out to prove my reality as true. I am quite agnostic. My reality may be wrong. I place as much faith in my senses and experiences as possible. Deep down I have an inner conviction about my beliefs but I first try and remind myself of my limited, subjective nature and the unlikelihood that I have anything figured out and secondly I firmly recognize that my reality and beliefs cannot be logically justified. So I do not try and prove them. My apologies if you expected a logical proof.
Remember that kid in grade school? The conversation went something like this:
1st kid - "You're a gonorrhea!"
2nd kid - "No, you are!"
1st kid - "You don't even know what that means!"
2nd kid - "Oh yeah, well what is it?"
1st kid - "I don't have to tell you!"
Either the 1st kid does know, but won't tell or doesn't know.
Same goes for the 2nd.
And nobody proved anything.
(I swear, if you avoid this by saying something similar to "kids say such mean things" or make some social commentary related to religion, I'm gonna be sick...)
You're right, nobody did prove anything. And nobody can 'prove' anything about their reality. Neither you nor I nor anybody. So why do you place the burden of proof on others?
I feel like I missed the point of this analogy maybe? I don't see how it could any way lead to a social commentary related to religion.
Then again, I hear a lot of assertive and baseless claims myself.
Not sure what you're referring to here. The existence of God?
More curious as to how it would have panned out.
Also not sure what "it" you're referring to.
