You may ask "Which Universe Am I In?"

[ding]

I want to keep religion out of schools and government. That's why I care. However, the good news for many is that Christianity is declining in the US.

Because the militant atheist regimes of the 20th century were so wonderful?

 

[ding]

Then it seems fruitless to petition God for your personal desires, so yes I don't understand religion.

Then don't do it. Problem solved.

 

[Wuwei]

How exactly is saying, "Science is the study of nature to discover the order within nature so as to be able to make predictions of nature" mindless? How is saying that show a lack of intelligence or thought? I believe it was a thoughtful and an intelligent description of what science is.

If you ask me militant atheism is vacuous. It is mindless and thoughtless to condemn respect for others based on religious beliefs. Condemning respect for others based upon religious beliefs shows an incredible lack of intelligence.

I see why people call you a troll. You must have known I was only referring to your obsessive attempt to insert "cause and effect" into science. It is disingenuous that you now say "Science is the study of nature to discover the order within nature so as to be able to make predictions of nature" and deleting the phrase (i.e. cause and effect) .

 

[ding]

I see why people call you a troll. You must have known I was only referring to your obsessive attempt to insert "cause and effect" into science. It is disingenuous that you now say "Science is the study of nature to discover the order within nature so as to be able to make predictions of nature" and deleting the phrase (i.e. cause and effect) .

First you said it was vacuous. Which you never showed how it was mindless, thoughtless or unintelligent. Now you are claiming it's disingenuous because I removed (i.e. cause and effect). And you think I'm the troll? I must be the most clever troll in the world to ensnare you into my troll trap. Did I bait you into this argument? Or did read something I wrote and then decided to troll me for it?

If you want to believe that cause and effect is unscientific, please be my guest. But I'm going to keep believing that this is a logical universe where every effect had a cause and that these relationships are repeatable.

 

[Wuwei]

First you said it was vacuous. Which you never showed how it was mindless, thoughtless or unintelligent. Now you are claiming it's disingenuous because I removed (i.e. cause and effect). And you think I'm the troll? I must be the most clever troll in the world to ensnare you into my troll trap. Did I bait you into this argument? Or did read something I wrote and then decided to troll me for it?

If you want to believe that cause and effect is unscientific, please be my guest. But I'm going to keep believing that this is a logical universe where every effect had a cause and that these relationships are repeatable.

No you are not a clever troll. You are still using troll 101: strawman piled on strawman. Science is way beyond such simplistic concepts such as cause and effect. Those who are obsessed with it as a useful tool are usually trying to extrapolate it to "first cause" and say they have proven god, and then want to force teaching creationism in schools.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Those who are obsessed with it as a useful tool are usually trying to extrapolate it to "first cause" and say they have proven god

Yep.

And they absolutely will not allow their favorite toy to be taken away from them.

So don't waste your time.

 

[Wuwei]

Yep.

And they absolutely will not allow their favorite toy to be taken away from them.

So don't waste your time.

Yep. I have certainly wasted my time. He can now take his toy and go play with it by himself. I thought he was a bit dense, but it seems he is both dense and a troll.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Regarding the Big Bang as evidence for God is IMHO a matter of interpretation. Of course the "universe" in some form might have existed "prior to" the Big Bang, we don't know and likely cannot discover.

It's interesting to note that cosmologists regarded the universe as static, more or less unchanging at the macro scale. Einstein was even fooled by this and artificially tweaked his GR to include a constant because his theory actually predicted an expanding universe and he was upset because he expected it to predict a static universe.

He was elated later when observations started to suggest the universe was expanding.

One thing does seem clear and indisputable and that is that we can never use science, laws etc. to explain the presence of laws. A thing cannot serves as its own explanation (not in science anyway) so something other than law must be the explanation, I call that "will" or "intent" or perhaps "spirit" - something beyond or ability to materially perceive directly.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Regarding the Big Bang as evidence for God is IMHO a matter of interpretation.

False. Evidence is objectively defined. When something can easily be explained many other ways, it is not evidence.

By your logic, anything at any time can rightfully be called evidence of anything else at all, via interpretation. While you may indeed be capable of performing and allowed to perform such specious acts, you cannot rightfully call it evidence by any good standard.

Is the existence of my toaster evidence that a god created a universe destined to create toasters? Of course not.

Just because I choose to call it evidence does not make it so. It just makes me dishonest and incorrect.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

False. Evidence is objectively defined. When something can easily be explained many other ways, it is not evidence.

Yes evidence is objective but the interpretation, the attachment of meaning to the evidence is not it is subjective. Darwin himself is a superb example, he was one of the first to interpret observations of nature as a process "evolution" all of the evidence of nature was never interpreted that way before.

By your logic, anything at any time can rightfully be called evidence of anything else at all, via interpretation.

I do say that observational data "evidence" often has multiple rational interpretations, I've never said it has infinite interpretations, that it can represent "anything".

While you may indeed be capable of performing and allowed to perform such specious acts, you cannot rightfully call it evidence by any good standard.

Oh, this was going well until your argument slipped back into ad-hominem, I expected this but had hoped I was wrong.

Is the existence of my toaster evidence that a god created a universe destined to create toasters? Of course not.

Is it evidence of anything? might it be evidence of multiple possible things?

Just because I choose to call it evidence does not make it so. It just makes me dishonest and incorrect.

Evidence is something that plays a logical connective role in some explanation, some model. You cannot decouple evidence from interpretation.

Whenever we say "X is evidence" there is always a subject, something it is evidence for. One would never simply says "The toaster is evidence" and say nothing else.