Science

Yeah, if you challenge a scientific assumption, and you can back up your challenge with data, and it's verifiable, you win a Nobel Prize and everyone has to change their textbooks.

If you have a new divine revelation, and you challenge your community's religious authorities, you either have to start a cult, or you are labeled a heretic, and nothing fundamental to your religion ever changes.

Any definition of "religion" expansive enough to include science would also include fly tying and stamp collecting.

<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:tahoma,verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Can they prove it?"</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:tahoma,verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">They can't prove it anymore than you can prove that 2+2=4 or that I can prove that Paris, France exists. </span></p>

<p>I've never been to Paris, so how can I prove it exists?</p>

"When someone says, "trust the science" they are always using that to tell someone that does not agree with them to blindly agree with them."

Who says that? The only one saying "trust the science" around here is Flip... and he's trying to be funny.

I never trusted any of their so called science.

<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Science has to be shown and survive challenges to be accepted."</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Religions have survived challenges for 1000's of years.</span></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="open sans, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">Remember, my position is that science is a religion, so anything you say about religion applies to science since it is a religion.</span></font></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="open sans, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">What I see is that the large majority of people are not challenging science. </span></font></p>

<p>When someone says, "trust the science" they are always using that to tell someone that does not agree with them to blindly agree with them.</p>

Isn't science more like the opposite of religion?

Science has to be shown and survive challenges to be accepted.

Do you believe they really are having conversations with God? If so, why? If not, why not?

How can you ever know if they are or not? It's not verifiable.

Because if a scientist says they have new data and they can't back it up, we ignore those people. In religion, those people can create a whole new religion.

Can they prove it?

Are we still to believe and follow the science on both the fake Virus and killer shots? Remember we were to to follow their science. Just asking.

Mickey

<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">But you don't have the divine inspiration given to Muhammad. You haven't spoken to God in person like the Apostles supposedly did."</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Once again, I do not agree with these statements. Muhammad was a prophet. A man inspired to be a teacher of the will of God. Anyone can do that. I have quite a few relatives that say they have spoken to God and he has spoken to them. </span></p>

"That is completely untrue! You don't understand religion. I have access to the same book they have."

Can we verify any of the supposed facts presented in the Gospel of Luke? Sure, you have access to those books, but do you have access to the data? No. We don't even know who wrote the four Gospels. They're all anonymous.

"I'm assuming that their position is that science is not a religion. Can they convince me of that?"

Your assumption might or might not be correct. You'd have to test it. First, it would probably be a good idea to define "they." Because science is a process, not a conclusion.

But I think nearly everyone, without recourse to science, can answer your question with a sincere "no," because you're no more amenable to the notion that science is not a religion than Andrew is to the fairly easily provable "the earth is not flat" contention.

Religion is about disseminating received truth, which must be considered to be true even if it's disproven.

Science is about disseminating discovered truth, but it's only considered to be true until it's disproven, and the basic tenets of science demand that everything is tested to make sure it is true.

You might say that no religious leader has ever claimed to have knowledge you don't have access to. But you don't have the divine inspiration given to Muhammad. You haven't spoken to God in person like the Apostles supposedly did. You don't speak with the authority of God like the Pope does. So yes, there are some religious leaders who have access to information you can't get. Even in nontheistic religions like Scientology, you've got an inspired author who claimed to have access to information that no one else had. Otherwise, we wouldn't know about Xenu, the Galactic Overlord, who dropped spacecraft full of souls into volcanos and blew them up with atomic bombs. Nobody else but L. Ron Hubbard got that information.

The thing about all of this is, Science has not been real science in many decades, And that is fact.

Mickey

"So it sounds like to me that you just have faith that it will be so far in the future that you don't have to worry about it."

No. There is evidence that the sun has efficient fuel to last until long after I am dead.

So, as long as I live, the sun will rise in the east every morning.

<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">See, this is the kind of silly response that makes us not want to engage in this kind of circlejerk."</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">What is silly about it? As per science, is the sun going to last forever or not?</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">If it isn't going to last forever, then one morning you or someone else will be wrong.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">There is a video on YouTube showing Betelgeuse with a countdown timer of it going supernova. I watched the whole thing one time. When the timer gets to zero, it resets to 30 minutes and starts over on a loop. LOL. I suppose that one day it will correct (Within 30 minutes). <br />
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Scientists can't even agree on how far away Betelgeuse is. How far away it is will determine when we see it go supernova.</span><br />
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"You trust the sun will rise everyday" this is not a trust but a truth...it is the truth the sun will rise until there is no more sun...no trust or faith required

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">"I could invest all my time and money and never have access to what religious leaders and holy books claim to have: divine inspiration."</span></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="open sans, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">That is completely untrue! You don't understand religion. I have access to the same book they have. I have never, ever had any religious leader tell me that they had some access to God that I don't have. I can look at the evidence and make my own decision, just like I can with science. </span></font></p>

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“ I default to trusting everything until someone or something gives me reason not to trust them any longer.”

And that’s the difference between a skeptic and a contrarian.

There’s a Nigerian prince on the phone, Wayne. He says he’s got a deal for you.

“ You trust the sun will rise everyday, but science says that one day the sun will burn out and it will no longer rise. So it sounds like to me that you just have faith that it will be so far in the future that you don't have to worry about it.”

See, this is the kind of silly response that makes us not want to engage in this kind of circlejerk.

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px"> "If you trust someone or something, you do so because of past experience."</span></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="open sans, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">Now we are getting somewhere. I completely disagree with your definition of trust.</span></font></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="open sans, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">I default to trusting everything until someone or something gives me reason not to trust them any longer. </span></font></p>

<p>You trust the sun will rise everyday, but science says that one day the sun will burn out and it will no longer rise. So it sounds like to me that you just have faith that it will be so far in the future that you don't have to worry about it.</p>

Faith differs from other forms of belief in that the purest form of faith is belief in the absence of or despite evidence.

"Faith is believing in something or trusting that something is true and having a high confidence of that."

Ok.

Now define science.

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">"Please define faith. What does it mean to you?"</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Faith is believing in something or trusting that something is true and having a high confidence of that. I believe that 2+2 = 4, but I don't recall enough math to prove it. Go to some math forum and you can find people arguing about 2+2=4. If people can't agree on something that seems so simple, what do you think is going to happen when discussing something much more complex, like climate change or the spread of disease. </span></p>