How sure are you of your belief/non-belief in a god?

[leviramsey]

But no. Apparently they REALLY know no more than the Reverend Joe Soap, celebrated tele-evangelist.

They both make the mistake of pretending that they know anything...

(which I guess makes me the ultimate agnostic...).

[leviramsey]

Actually, this is a valid point. Much of the deeper side of science is almost impossible for the average joe to understand. So, yes, we DO have to take it on trust to a large extent, so I can see where you're coming from.

I dunno, I think with the right reading the average joe can understand just about anything. There's not really anything that makes a scientist more able to understand something than a non-scientist, we all have the same brains. As long as you don't dive too deep too soon and slowly work your way down the more complex subjects one piece at a time they open up quite nicely.

Given the right missionary, you can convince anyone to believe in God (or a Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you prefer).

Even if you're not the average joe (e.g. if you're my Nobel laureate cousin), you're still going on trust/faith, namely on the conjecture that the universe has any consistency at all.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

Small Heath fans are allowed to reproduce, can anyone really tell me god exists in any form now ?

[TheDon]

At one point in history, science "proved" that the Earth was the center of the universe. That theory was accepted for years and years.

Enough said really.

I don't think it ever did?

Man thought the earth was the center of the universe, they had no proof other than their own opinion. It wasn't a scientific fact. As soon as man started looking into it they realised it wasn't.

Don't confuse claims of knowledge with scientific proof.

[TheDon]

Actually, this is a valid point. Much of the deeper side of science is almost impossible for the average joe to understand. So, yes, we DO have to take it on trust to a large extent, so I can see where you're coming from.

I dunno, I think with the right reading the average joe can understand just about anything. There's not really anything that makes a scientist more able to understand something than a non-scientist, we all have the same brains. As long as you don't dive too deep too soon and slowly work your way down the more complex subjects one piece at a time they open up quite nicely.

Given the right missionary, you can convince anyone to believe in God (or a Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you prefer).

Even if you're not the average joe (e.g. if you're my Nobel laureate cousin), you're still going on trust/faith, namely on the conjecture that the universe has any consistency at all.

That's entirely different, that's brainwashing as you can never put forward a testable claim that God exists, you can only put forward circumstantial evidence.

Science on the other hand is built upon testable truth claims. You can tell someone something is true, or you can show them. Now the reason behind why something is true is where things start taking on elements of faith, but that something is true is not open for debate. For instance, evolution is true, it's a provable fact. What drives that evolution however, is open for debate. Hence how "the theory of evolution" is a theory, but evolution itself is a fact.

Now, the last part of that, is very true. We have to assume that the universe has consistency else science is pointless, and so far, the universe has been pretty consistent (but that doesn't mean it always will be). A truth claim is only true for the moment it is made, and past experience doesn't dictate future events. If you drop a ball and it falls to the ground it doesn't prove that it'll always happen. If you drop it a million times it still doesn't prove that it'll always happen, it just proves that it happened for those million times, the next time it might not, and you'll never have 100% certainty that it'll fall to the ground.

[mjmooney]

ClaretMahoney, your scepticism does you credit. It means you're halfway to being a scientist - and puts you well ahead of the religious fundamentalists.

Sceptisism is the very foundation of the scientific method - take nothing on trust, but demand to see the evidence.

My favourite character in the Bible is Doubting Thomas - he should be the patron saint of scientists. While all the other disciples accepted immediately that Jesus had been crucified and risen from the dead, Thomas was sceptical - he demanded to see the wounds. Once he'd examined them, he was satisfied. It's a great story. But of course we are told by the church that Thomas was bad to have taken this stance. The other disciples got brownie points for simply having blind faith.

To clarify my earlier post, I did not mean to suggest that the average layman cannot understand scientific theories. Of course he can, if he is willing to make a bit of effort. The bookshops are full of good "popular science" books (I've read lots of them myself). And I recommend this wholeheartedly - it can be truly exciting and inspirational. But the pop science books are often - by neccessity - approximate explanations, using analogy; most of us will never get down to the real nitty-gritty, the hard maths, where the REAL proof lies. Despite this, I've seen enough to have trust in the scientific method.

I can see what CM was getting at with the "sun round the earth proof". But this was really from the pre-scientific era - it was known as "natural philosophy". People like Aristotle worked purely on general observation and induction - what today we call "thought experiments"; still a useful approach, but only a start. They didn't have the tools to test their hypotheses.

After the scientific revolution of the 17th Century, something significant happened, and the approach still holds good. Science is not just about "having an idea". Sure, clever people still have flashes of insight, but that's never enough. The 1% inspiration HAS to be backed up by the 99% perspiration.

This is where religion is different. It seems to be perfectly acceptable for religious "thinkers" to simply make unsubtantiated (and unprovable) statements - "God created the earth in seven days"; "the Pope is infallible"; "homosexuality is a sin and will result in being sent to eternal hell"; "Jesus rose from the dead". Apparently, these can be derived from a self-contradictory set of folk tales gathered in some ancient scrolls. Hey ho. If people want to buy into that (for whatever reason), fine, that's their right.

But PLEASE don't pretend that these two opposing approaches to understanding are of equal merit and validity.

[Risso]

Religious people are also right wing, lazy, retarded virgins. Claretmahoney said so on the other thread!

[Jon]

Religious people are also right wing, lazy, retarded virgins. Claretmahoney said so on the other thread!

virgins or adulterous.

2 sides of the same coin.

does Dubya fit this profile almost exactly? (don't think he's cheateed though)