My YEC Evidence Challenge

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

No I'm not. Stop trying to twist what I'm saying.
Reread what I wrote: Facts are true to the extent of what our knowledge can uncover. Until we find more facts that reveal how the universe works, we merely work with the facts that are the best ones that work.
This isn't about choosing facts that we like. It's about working with the facts that we have.

@Everybodyknows, I'm waiting on you to reply to this post I made in reply to your post.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

I never said it's completely useless, it's useful when used within it's limitations. Relativity explains things even better but it is still known to have its own limitations, that is we know it's not the full picture. We don't have the full picture yet and maybe we never will. What I'm really saying is we don't have the full truth even though we may have edged a little closer towards it.

I think I can hit on a point here to highlight the topic of this thread - In matters of Science, how much better is Religion (yours or otherwise) at getting a satellite into orbit (let alone a correct orbit)?

If God is God then he is 100% truth and knows all truth. Verifiable observations only point us in the direction of truth but we are unable to know the full truth trough them. Science can never give us certain truths, even though it is useful, but we can choose to trust in the creator who knows all.

No, but you are human and have the ability to chose to lie. God cannot lie, it is his unchangeable nature, he is who he is and cannot be anything other.

The bible is the word of God and makes perfect sense from God's perspective, even if it can confuse us when we try to understand it with our limited minds.

Okay, I've never seen God, so even if you're correct, I have no way to verify anything existent in reality against God's 100% truth. This is as good as being non-existent as far as our scientific endeavours go. All the trust in a Creator is for naught if I can't get verifiable data back. (and no, confirmation bias, good luck & warm fuzzy feelings aren't verifiable). That God's word makes perfect sense from his perspective, but every human who has access has their own unique (faulty?) interpretation of it is as good as not having any data at all. The Scientific Method would call this the null hypothesis.

So, to summarise our conversation so far:

• Humans are fallible in both the Scientific Method and in interpreting their respective religion's holy books.
• God's Word is 100% truth, but has to be interpreted by fallible humans - currently there isn't a method to verify interpretations against an original effectively
  
• Human interpretations of the Bible vary. Christianity enjoys tens of thousands of denominations (and growing) due to incompatible interpretations
  
• The Scientific Method is a process that strips away much of the presumptions and failings of humans while searching for answers about reality
  
• The Scientific Method allows other humans to collect data and rerun experiments - these experiments can be verified against the original
• If the rerun experiments using the scientific method are concordant with each other, theories can be formed and ongoing testing against it continue
• Unlike bible interpretations, we have demonstrable success in narrowing in on facts and have theories that are useful and predictive and which has led to great success in knowledge, progress & technology for humanity
  
• Religion and God are Supernatural and therefore out of the Scientific Method's ability to examine.
• God either can't be measured or has no measurable impact in Reality, where the Scientific Method is hands-down the best method of finding out facts about our universe
• God is the creator of this reality (universe) and his handiwork is an excellent research topic for the Scientific Method

Again, I have to ask, Given the success of the Scientific Method, why would Young Earth Creationists prioritise their probably fallible interpretation of the Bible over knowledge of God's creation through scientific theories that have withstood the test of time, being verified again and again as effective and useful?

 

[AV1611VET]

Bugeyed, do you mind addressing post 114? thank you.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Bugeyed, do you mind addressing post 114? thank you.

<thought>.... did I miss something??</thought>

Why are you letting him derail your own thread?

Oh! LOL! - I agree he can be distracting, but I can tolerate an aside from time to time... Some people understand things differently to others, so a little deviance is okay if it helps them understand. I'm not sure AV could ever be redeemed tho...

 

[AV1611VET]

<thought>.... did I miss something??</thought>

Oh! LOL! - I agree he can be distracting, but I can tolerate an aside from time to time... Some people understand things differently to others, so a little deviance is okay if it helps them understand. I'm not sure AV could ever be redeemed tho...

Well, I asked, didn't I?

 

[Everybodyknows]

Sorry for the delayed response, I'm getting hit with a lot of replies.

Facts are true to the extent of what our knowledge can uncover.

I agree up to the point of "facts are true" the rest of your statement is a disclaimer that you are not really certain in the things you call facts. In that case I would prefer to call them reasonable assumptions rather than something that is certain beyond doubt.

Until we find more facts that reveal how the universe works, we merely work with the facts that are the best ones that work.

So we make some assumptions based on our best knowledge, with full knowledge that we don't yet have all of the facts and that our assumptions could be wrong. Excuse me for not taking these kinds of 'truths' to seriously. By what criteria are you even selecting the 'best' facts? Why are you even selecting facts at all? If it's a fact it should fit in with your theories.

This isn't about choosing facts that we like. It's about working with the facts that we have.

You seem to contradict yourself here when in your last sentence you say "we merely work with the facts that are the best ones that work".

 

[Everybodyknows]

The existence or not of a literal eternal hell is quite a big deal is it not? Whilst you don't accept it, a lot of Christians do believe in such a thing. I'm just plucking a figure out of the air but if it's 50% who do and 50% who don't (maybe 30% / 70% or whatever, it doesn't matter) what does that tell you about the 'truth' provided by the bible?

There are things in the bible that just aren't fully revealed to us. A full understanding of what happens exactly in the afterlife is one of those things, probably because these things are incomprehensible to our temporally constrained minds. We don't know the exact nature of heaven or hell. We are only given enough for us to understand that there is a way out from this world of suffering if we choose it. We could well already be in hell. The Bible doesn't tell us everything about everything, just enough of what we need to know to find God.

 

[Dave-W]

According to Pat Robertson in his book: The Universal laws of God that we read in our Bible are just as sure as the laws of the Cosmos that science attempts to understand.

The Law of Moses is NOT a "Universal" law, no matter what Robertson or anyone else says. It was a unique covenantal agreement with ethnic Israel. (The Jews)

We have a covenant relationship with God. IF we do our part of the covenant then we can be sure that God will do His part.

And that is according to the New Covenant; not "The Law" as you indicated in your earlier post.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

A fact is a bit of data that is indisputably correct.

Hmmmm...

I'll agree with the part that says "a bit of data".
Data can be wrong, though.

Science can study things in the physical world that are easily seen, felt, heard, tasted or smelled

Really?

I don't think that things like atoms, electrons or even germs are "easily seen, felt, heard, tasted or smelled"....

If it can be measured, science is on it.

Yes, things with manifestation and / or measureable effects, to be more exact.

Some things, however, cannot be measured by the scientific method. Some things are supernatural in nature.

If they can't be measured (ie, they don't have any measureable manifestation or effect), then how can it be differentiated from non-existant things?

There's this old saying that says "the undetectable and the non-existant, look very much alike..."

Let's take Joe Demon. He's walked the earth for a few thousand years invisible to man. However as an existing being he is comprised of energy which can be observed by thermal image photography or infra red. These images are usually anomalies; frequently very hard to distinguish as anything other than orbs. This makes since because the entity has no physical body and with an orb energy is evenly massed from the center. We CAN capture fluctuations in energy fields. These energy fields can also draw heat energy, which explains why a room can suddenly chill.

Maybe you should stick to real-life examples, instead of imaginary things.

The problem with studying the supernatural is that it is invisible.

Or so it is claimed.
I'll refer you back to that old saying I mentioned above...

You never know where to point the instruments. You can't anticipate a visitation, so results are very inconsistent. There's no real way to move this study into the "hard science" realm because you can't study a passing fluctuation on heat energy in depth and conclude that it is anything more than an anomaly. Thus, paranormal investigation is given little credibility.

Not just the investigation thereof. The thing itself also.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

I'm not answering for Warden of the Storm, but....

So we make some assumptions based on our best knowledge, with full knowledge that we don't yet have all of the facts and that our assumptions could be wrong. Excuse me for not taking these kinds of 'truths' to seriously. By what criteria are you even selecting the 'best' facts? Why are you even selecting facts at all? If it's a fact it should fit in with your theories.

You seem to contradict yourself here when in your last sentence you say "we merely work with the facts that are the best ones that work".

They're all facts - it's the Theory that has to fit the facts, so it's only a selection to work within the theory. For example, you made mention that Newtonian Mechanics isn't as accurate as Einstein's Theory of Relativity, yet we can still use it to make useful predictions to put satellites into orbit & send probes to the edge of our solar system and beyond. Einstein's Theory of Relativity is concordant with many more facts, and works very well for the facts we observe that Newtonian Mechanics didn't fare well at - such as the procession of Mercury, and our observations of distant galaxies billions of light years behind other galaxies billions of light years away, etc. Of course, as you rightly point out, Einstein's Theory of Relativity can't be applied to Quantum Mechanics, so it simply doesn't get applied to verify those facts and observations. That said, our scant knowledge of Quantum Mechanics has afforded us the Microprocessor, Quantum computing is now viable and we can entangle particles & measure their states, heck, we can even teleport particles too!

In short, it's the Theory that is limited and therefore necessarily limits the facts we can apply to it, and it hasn't impeded us us in our pursuit of more knowledge in the least! In fact, these setbacks from points of fact that don't correlate have opened up entirely new fields of science previously unknown to us & enabled us an entirety of new knowledge & technologies as a result!

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Sorry for the delayed response, I'm getting hit with a lot of replies.

I agree up to the point of "facts are true" the rest of your statement is a disclaimer that you are not really certain in the things you call facts. In that case I would prefer to call them reasonable assumptions rather than something that is certain beyond doubt.

So we make some assumptions based on our best knowledge, with full knowledge that we don't yet have all of the facts and that our assumptions could be wrong. Excuse me for not taking these kinds of 'truths' to seriously. By what criteria are you even selecting the 'best' facts? Why are you even selecting facts at all? If it's a fact it should fit in with your theories.

You seem to contradict yourself here when in your last sentence you say "we merely work with the facts that are the best ones that work".

The fact that you call facts 'assumptions' really just shows me that you really don't understand science.
And to be honest, @Bugeyedcreepy I don't mind you answering for me since you have basically said what I would say.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Why do you keep moving the goalposts? You said yourself that 'To understand the truth of the bible you have to accept the fact that the bible is true.' This type of faith lead-in can lead anyone to any religious or spiritual belief.

Those who humbly seek truth are lead to it, those that pridefully trust their own intellect lead themselves away from truth.

The reason the Scientific method is effective is because it does away with as many assumptions as possible and begins investigation from there. This is why Christian Scientists come to the same conclusions in matters of Science as do Muslim Scientists, Hindu Scientists, Atheist Scientists, etc. Critical thinking is an important tool that every person should be familiar with. To come back on point, the Scientific Method and the results of this process has demonstrably progressed all of humanity to much higher levels of health and well-being, quality of life and an exponential curve of technological achievement than any religion ever has, by pretty much any measure imaginable.

None of the questions from our scientific endeavours have ever been answered by religion, unless of course you've already subscribed to that belief system. Science has answered a very large portion of our existence and how we got here, so unless you're complaining that Science doesn't answer your faith based questions how you like, you're not in touch with exactly how much we do know about reality. We know quite a lot about our world and the universe it's in, and our collective knowledge and ability to acquire it is getting better and better as time goes on.

What does the scientific method have to do with it? We are talking about religious beliefs. Science can only reject all spirituality, and it must in order to be science. Don't get me wrong, I like science and allow it to do it's job, but it is just one subject area of knowledge and never can explain all truth. Methodological naturalism is the underpinning philosophy of science, as such science is the study of nature through physically testable and repeatable natural phenomena. Just like mathematics is the study of the properties and relationships of numbers, and literature is the study of writings. For this reason we don't study Dickens in the maths classroom, or Bach in the chemistry classroom.

Science is just one aspect of human knowledge and experience. What you seem to subscribe to is what I term as Scientism, that is treating science as a quasi-religion that you believe can fully answer all the deepest questions of our existence. It's only the study of nature through nature, it can only inform us of the properties of physical things. It can't tell us anything about poetry, music, art, morality, ethics, etc... yet all these are essential parts of the human experience. I prefer not to limit myself to a science only viewpoint, nor do I see why this dualistic science vs religion ideology you hold is necessary or productive. Science is just one aspect of a suite of things that my worldview is informed by.

 

[Everybodyknows]

The fact that you call facts 'assumptions' really just shows me that you really don't understand science.
And to be honest, @Bugeyedcreepy I don't mind you answering for me since you have basically said what I would say.

How do you define a fact? How much uncertainty do you allow before you begin to call it something else?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

How do you define a fact? How much uncertainty do you allow before you begin to call it something else?

Since I've yet to see you give an example of fact, why should I give you a definition of a fact?

 

[Everybodyknows]

Since I've yet to see you give an example of fact, why should I give you a definition of a fact?

Because I ask nicely. So pretty please with sugar on top give me a definition.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Because I ask nicely. So pretty please with sugar on top give me a definition.

No, as I said, since you've not given me your definition of a fact, then I'm not giving you my definition of a fact.

 

[Everybodyknows]

No, as I said, since you've not given me your definition of a fact, then I'm not giving you my definition of a fact.

a thing that is known or proved to be true.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

a thing that is known or proved to be true.

Fact
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth.

2. something known to exist or to have happened.

3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true.

4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Fact
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth.

2. something known to exist or to have happened.

3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true.

4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened.

4 is a little weak

 

[AV1611VET]

Fact

Four definitions, and with the exception of the first one, their verbs are past tense.

Is it a fact that Jesus is coming again to set up His millennial kingdom?

If not, then those definitions of "fact" can take a hike.