Is science the best tool for finding out and learning about the universe? If you don't think it is, what do you think is the best tool? Can you explain how this alternative tool works?
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The Best Tool
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DaneaFL
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Well, if your goal is to distinguish things that are true from things that are just made up, then yes, science is the ONLY tool.
I think the problem is that a lot of people don't know what science is even though they use the scientific method all the time during the day without realizing it. They just forget to use it when it comes to certain things like religion.
The definition of science is "a system that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe."
If something isn't testable or predictive than it's not science and doesn't have any use for us in this universe.
The opposite of science, faith, certainly isn't testable or predictive of anything. Faith can't ever lead to knowledge because it requires you believe it WITHOUT knowledge.
If faith is your main source of knowledge, then you will end up having to believe contradicting ideas unless you pick and choose what you are going to have faith in... and that's just dishonest.
Example: If you have faith that fairies are real without any evidence, then shouldn't you also believe Bigfoot, ghosts, UFOs, and everything else on the same level of faith?
If the only requirement for something to exist is that you have "faith" in it, then everything is real by default. This is impossible of course.
Science, on the other hand, requires something to be observable and testable before it can be said to exist. This is the only way to determine if something is actually real or not.
Sorry if I rambled! I've been reading these forums for a couple days now... interesting stuff... just thought I'd jump in.
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J
Jazer
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Then most of the Bible can be proven to be true. Because so much of the Bible is a History book. The Bible talks about Ur, Babylon, Egypt, Jericho, Jerusalem. Places we all know exists. Archaeology was created by people trying to show us that the Bible is true and accurate.
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TheReasoner
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Ngh. That's not the way it works. Yeah, the bible mentions many cities that have existed and people who have lived. But that doesn't mean that when the bible says π=3 (1 Kings 7:23) that is accurate. It does not mean that when the bible says bats are birds (Leviticus 11:13-19) that is correct. It doesn't mean that when the bible says the earth is immobile and placed on pillars (tons of places) or covered by a hard dome (Job, for example) that this is so. It doesn't mean the earth is square though a literal interpretation demands that.
The bible does speak truth, yes. But it is not a science textbook, that much is plain as day. And it has always been. So why do you guys insist that it is through insisting that genesis 1 is to be read literally, genesis 2 to be ignored. Those verses earlier mentioned also ignored. Why is that? Is it not much more likely that you - who are human - have made a mistake? After all the interpretation you have is fairly new. And it is not held by most of christianity. Besides, it is inconsistent even when the bible is viewed alone without external influence. So... Why do you insist? Why is this a problem for you guys when it isn't for most of us believers?
I am trying to understand how you can call yourselves literalists, yet ignore so much of the bible. Also how you can say your view is the most accurate when it is without support in science, it is contradicted by the oldest churches and theological perceptions around AND it is inconsistent with the bible itself?
What exactly is your problem? Why do you keep insisting when there is no support for your position whatsoever?
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DaneaFL
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Sure... whatever parts of the Bible that can be shown to be accurate I'll believe... like the part about Egypt and Jerusalem existing. But when it also contains crazy things about talking snakes and a global flood, that's when it's accuracy is questionable. Just becuase some parts of something are true doesn't make the whole thing true. Example:
Once upon a time in New York City (that's a real place!), there was a high school kid (high school kids are real!) who was bitten by a spider (spiders are real too!) and got super powers that let him shoot web from his finger... (wait... what was that last part?)
Obviously you don't believe all of the Spiderman comic just because some parts are real do you?
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What about a Bible that contains sane things about a talking snake and a global flood? is Its accuracy still questionable?
If so, I'll take your post with a grain of salt, since you're making a Catch-22 (no win) situation out of it.
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Aspects of the physical universe, yes. The best tools for finding out about events in human history are often historical tools, which rely on written documents.
And for things outside the physical universe, like the objects of mathematics, science is very little help at all.
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DaneaFL
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not if you can prove that snakes can talk or that a global flood could make the rock layers we observe.
so you are saying that science can't prove math? then what are mathematical "proofs"?
Math is actually the only part of science that you CAN absolutely prove... we learned that in high school.
I think you are trying to say that abstract concepts like numbers are "outside the physical universe" and therefore not explainable by science. I think this is a misunderstanding of what science is.
Just because you can't literally see and touch it doesn't mean it's not science. You can test things without directly observing them. You can also use things to predict other things without actually physically seeing them. THAT is science.
However, some things like God can't be literally seen and touched either... that doesn't mean God doesn't exist. But when God can't be observed, tested, or used to predict anything, then we say god doesn't exist. because even if he did, it wouldn't matter to our universe.
i hate it when people say God is like math, they aren't physical things but they exist... cuz numbers can be proven... god can't be.
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Jazer
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Ok, the "serpent" "said". The word: "said" is used often in Gen Ch 1 when "God said" things like "let there be light".
Science has nothing to say one way or the other about that. Clearly the Bible does says: "the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die". Also we read "the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
I really do not know of anyone that understands what is going on here. According to Matthew Henry: "1. It is certain it was the devil that beguiled Eve. The devil and Satan is the old serpent (Rev. xii. 9)". So clearly we are told in the book of Rev who the serpent was. Do we want to spend our time trying to figure out the serpent when we got so many other things going on here?
Then you go to the flood and that is exactly what happens. People think they have it all figured out and science comes along and tells them they got it wrong and you have to go back to the drawing board and do it all over again. When it comes to Noah and his flood science helps us a lot to figure out what is going on. In fact science goes a long way to help us understand Eve. Because science tells us that clearly there were people around before 6,000 years ago, before the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden in Eden in the Euphrates river valley. Which is still a very rich farm land today. Why? Because of all the floods they have had there.
When you are talking about Science or the Bible there is a lot that we just do not understand or we just have not figured it out. Does it make Science any less true because there are things we do not understand or can not explain? I could read and study the Bible for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week for my whole life and I would just be starting to understand when my life was finished.
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And until I can prove it -- you'll deem it 'crazy' -- right?
Is everything that's pending-proof 'crazy' to you?
If so, then everything must be 'crazy' to you, because even an Internet scientist will admit that science doesn't 'prove' anything.
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And you won't find atheists saying that Egypt obviously can't exist because it appears in the Bible.
Yes, a lot of the Bible can be proven true. But when the Bible starts talking about global floods, talking snakes, magical creation, then this can't be proven true.
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When I hear people say "talking snakes", instead of "a talking serpent", I know they have much to learn.
It's best just not to respond.
(But that's up to you, of course.)
Didn't Paul warn us in the book of Galatians what can happen if someone puts an ess on the end of a word, making it plural?
Yet people today still quote Genesis 1:1 as: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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Jazer
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That is a big story and that is all you walk away with is a comment about talking snakes?
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-- Man, oh man.
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Jazer
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I go along with Science. Adam and Eve were historial people that lived in the Garden of Eden in the middle East 6,000 years ago. Science more exact the science of DNA and population genetics clearly shows us that this could be true. After all evolution is a science based on common descent and common ancestors. Adam and Eve are common ancestors for the Muslim and Hebrew people today. Of course to define what is a Hebrew could be quite a task to do. Just like science clearly shows us that a world wide flood could NOT be true. Noah's flood would have HAD to be what we call today a local flood. For me there are way to many Pacific Islands with way to much diversity for there to have been a world wide flood. Science clearly shows us that Eden was not the ONLY biodiversity hot spot. There were at least 20 different Eden in different parts of the world and the ocean. Because clearly Eden in the Bible was what Science now calls a "biodiversity hot spot".
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TheReasoner
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Evidently not. The universe is 95% "dark" to "science". Science can't even tell you where to find any "dark energy" or "dark matter" to play with in a lab. Science, as it's practiced today, actually has a relatively POOR track record in terms of "learning about the universe". It's pretty much "in the dark" to this very day.
I personally vote for "empirical physics".
The "difference" between "science" and empirical physics is that in empirical physics, you can't just "make stuff up" that will forever defy any sort of empirical validation in the lab. For instance, in "empirical physics", if one believes that "dark energy" did it, one is obligated to demonstrate that A) dark energy actually exists in nature, and B) it has some tangible effect on atoms in controlled experimentation. "Science" simply lets anyone point at the sky and claim "my invisible friend did it" as long as they throw in a little math.
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Jazer
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I go along with Science. Adam and Eve were historial people that lived in the Garden of Eden in the middle East 6,000 years ago. Science more exact the science of DNA and population genetics clearly shows us that this could be true. After all evolution is a science based on common descent and common ancestors. Adam and Eve are common ancestors for the Muslim and Hebrew people today. Of course to define what is a Hebrew could be quite a task to do. Just like science clearly shows us that a world wide flood could NOT be true. Noah's flood would have HAD to be what we call today a local flood.
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