Can we trust secularism?

[JohnB445]

In a sense like this.

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

Or just don't part with the secularist views on religion and morality? And take the rest secularism has to offer, like education?

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

How do they even come up with this stuff?

Most likely you don't yet want to know.

They sure don't want it told.

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

Whoever has faith in mankind or society, has already failed.

 

[mark kennedy]

In a sense like this.

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

Or just don't part with the secularist views on religion and morality? And take the rest secularism has to offer, like education?

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

Learn what you can about the math, absorb what you can from the research, but they don't have a definitive way of discerning the moral and religious aspects of faith, know the difference.

 

[Zoii]

In a sense like this.

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

Or just don't part with the secularist views on religion and morality? And take the rest secularism has to offer, like education?

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

You can kiss a career away in a lot of things if you think mathematics, physics and chemistry are false.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

In a sense like this.

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

Or just don't part with the secularist views on religion and morality? And take the rest secularism has to offer, like education?

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

I have pondered these same questions in the past. It led me to declare that what is written in the Bible is absolute truth, and science relative truth.

 

[mark kennedy]

You can kiss a career away in a lot of things if you think mathematics, physics and chemistry are false.

Who seriously thinks that?

 

[JackRT]

Someone with an open mind sees something happening in the natural world and thinks deeply about it. After long thought she comes up with a "I think it might have happened like this." This is what is called an hypothesis --- it might also be called an "educated guess". This forms the basis for further observation and experiment. After time the hypothesis looks better and better and begins to be regarded as a theory but not quite. A good theory must be falsifiable. So after some further thought about her theory she uses it to make a prediction about something that has never been observed before. This will be the basis of a brand new experiment. If the prediction is falsified, the theory will either have to be modified or rejected outright. This has happened many times in science. If the prediction is confirmed by the experiment then we now have a solid theory. This does not mean that it is set in stone because this process of prediction, experiment and confirmation will continue. A theory can never be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt because in science it is impossible to know absolutely everything about anything. However a theory can be disproven because there always remains the possibility that at some point in time something will be observed that will negate the theory. So, in short, in science theory is as good as it gets. I should add a caveat concerning the term “experiment”. An experiment can be a carefully controlled test in a laboratory or in the field but some tests can only be done by direct observation in nature.


Both the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution are very well established major theories, with enormous levels of verification and evidence. The ToE is stronger, probably, than the BBT, but it's sort of like saying 'steel is fairly strong but titanium alloy is stronger' - either one will serve for tableware with no danger of failure due to stress. At this point there are no known major issues with either theory. Details to be filled in? Yes. Serious difficulties? No.

 

[Pethesedzao]

In a sense like this.

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

Or just don't part with the secularist views on religion and morality? And take the rest secularism has to offer, like education?

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

We don't have the time to throughly look through everything to see if it's true, so we just take it by faith?

Put not thy trust in the princes of Secularism.

 

[Dave-W]

Who seriously thinks that?

Someone who has to have first hand proof of everything.

 

[mark kennedy]

Someone with an open mind sees something happening in the natural world and thinks deeply about it. After long thought she comes up with a "I think it might have happened like this." This is what is called an hypothesis --- it might also be called an "educated guess". This forms the basis for further observation and experiment. After time the hypothesis looks better and better and begins to be regarded as a theory but not quite. A good theory must be falsifiable. So after some further thought about her theory she uses it to make a prediction about something that has never been observed before. This will be the basis of a brand new experiment. If the prediction is falsified, the theory will either have to be modified or rejected outright. This has happened many times in science. If the prediction is confirmed by the experiment then we now have a solid theory. This does not mean that it is set in stone because this process of prediction, experiment and confirmation will continue. A theory can never be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt because in science it is impossible to know absolutely everything about anything. However a theory can be disproven because there always remains the possibility that at some point in time something will be observed that will negate the theory. So, in short, in science theory is as good as it gets. I should add a caveat concerning the term “experiment”. An experiment can be a carefully controlled test in a laboratory or in the field but some tests can only be done by direct observation in nature.


Both the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution are very well established major theories, with enormous levels of verification and evidence. The ToE is stronger, probably, than the BBT, but it's sort of like saying 'steel is fairly strong but titanium alloy is stronger' - either one will serve for tableware with no danger of failure due to stress. At this point there are no known major issues with either theory. Details to be filled in? Yes. Serious difficulties? No.

No wait, you go into an elaborate rant about empirical then abandon the concept in your actual argument. The Big Bang is simple a model of the universe based on the fact that it is expanding, projected backwards in a mathematical model. You appear to think the Big Bang is somehow opposed to God created the heavens and the earth but that's ridiculous. All we know about the creation of the heavens and the earth is that it was 'in the beginning', it could have been thousands, it could have been billions of years ago. That said, there is no such thing as a theory of evolution, evolution is a phenomenon in nature, adaptive evolution is a well established fact that no one, including creationists any long question. What your calling evolution isn't that phenomenon, it's an a priori assumption that all the origins and development of life from the primordial seas to this day is explained by exclusively naturalistic processes, that is so far removed from the truth it boarders on a modern mythology.

There are no experiments that explain the origin of life. There have been several that attempted to do so, all have failed to produce life from a nonliving primordial environment. That doesn't even begin to unravel the puzzle of the hominid fossils that produce wild speculation leaving us with pure conjecture to explain the origin of the human brain from that of an ape.

 

[mark kennedy]

Someone who has to have first hand proof of everything.

You know the thing that encourages me in my studies of these things, which is highly limited I admit, is that science and theology are impervious to the nature of this kind of a debate. No one is denying chemistry and physics, creationism is an attempt to actually look at empirical evidence and come to an intelligent reason why the doctrine of creation can be reconciled with science as a model of natural history. First hand proof of everything exists only in the mind of God, some day you will learn just enough from God himself to realize there is a vast amount of knowledge concerning origins that is too much for you. I hope you enjoy that encounter more the Job did.

 

[Radagast]

I go to math class, and learn a calculus formula. What if everyone is deceived and the formula is wrong, and then later the formula ends up causing problems later on for scientists.

If it's a good math class, they walk you through the proof of the formula, so you can check for yourself.

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist? What if they were wrong and hydrogen has 2 electrons not 1.

How do they even come up with this stuff?

Again, in a good science class, they should be explaining the evidence.

There's a lot of evidence.

 

[mark kennedy]

If it's a good math class, they walk you through the proof of the formula, so you can check for yourself.



Again, in a good science class, they should be explaining the evidence.

There's a lot of evidence.

Have you ever seen the proof for A-squared, plus B-squared equals C-squared? The average person is privy only to the product, unless you are into higher math.

 

[Radagast]

Have you ever seen the proof for A-squared, plus B-squared equals C-squared? The average person is privy only to the product, unless you are into higher math.

They walked us through it in school. There was a time that every educated person knew the proof. Indeed, in the early 20th century, it was part of the math that everybody did in school.

From the biography of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679): "He was 40 yeares old before he looked on Geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a Gentleman's Library, Euclid's Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 El. Libri 1 [A-squared, plus B-squared equals C-squared]. He read the proposition. By ***, sayd he (he would now and then sweare an emphaticall Oath by way of emphasis) this is impossible! So he reads the Demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a Proposition; which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps [and so on] that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that trueth. This made him in love with Geometry."

The quality of math and science education in the US is obviously worse than I thought. The heart and soul of math and science is proving and demonstrating things.

 

[Radagast]

I was asking questions how do they know atoms exist?

This was the hot question around about 1900. Enough proof was assembled to convince even the toughest sceptics.

 

[Radagast]

Have you ever seen the proof for A-squared, plus B-squared equals C-squared?

Here is a visual animation of it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Pythagoras-proof-anim.svg

 

[Zoii]

Who seriously thinks that?

That was the OPs concern - that he can't take for granted what he is taught re maths & Science.... he used the number of electrons around Hydrogen as an example. Seriously if you try to occupy a career with that notion..... you won't have a career

 

[Zoii]

Put not thy trust in the princes of Secularism.

Well you must be trusting it - you just typed a post on a computer and used the internet - all of which means you are trusting science

 

[mark kennedy]

They walked us through it in school. There was a time that every educated person knew the proof. Indeed, in the early 20th century, it was part of the math that everybody did in school.

From the biography of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679): "He was 40 yeares old before he looked on Geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a Gentleman's Library, Euclid's Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 El. Libri 1 [A-squared, plus B-squared equals C-squared]. He read the proposition. By ***, sayd he (he would now and then sweare an emphaticall Oath by way of emphasis) this is impossible! So he reads the Demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a Proposition; which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps [and so on] that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that trueth. This made him in love with Geometry."

The quality of math and science education in the US is obviously worse than I thought. The heart and soul of math and science is proving and demonstrating things.

I was talking about the mathematical proof for the Pythagorean theorem. It was proven back in ancient Greece which Pythagorean is famously well known for, a disciple of that school Euclid produced an encyclical called Elements that is the basis for geometry and trigonometry to this day. I was talking about proofing something, as compared to using an existing science or technology.

Science education is on the decline in this country but basic reading comprehension is even worse.

 

[mark kennedy]

Here is a visual animation of it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Pythagoras-proof-anim.svg

I don't need one, I've seen them, President Garfield even did one, it's harder then you might think. As usual, you missed the whole point running off on tangents.