Faith, hype and a lack of clarity

LGS - shouldn't you post your thanks to thetablet.co.uk for that original post ;)
 
JohnG said:
LGS - shouldn't you post your thanks to thetablet.co.uk for that original post ;)

I thanked the client who gave me the cutting in the foirst place instead. She has more where that came from
 
la gran siete said:
I thanked the client who gave me the cutting in the foirst place instead. She has more where that came from

It's better not to post them verbatim - try and summarise your thought on it and post them, maybe a few quotes, and a link to the original material .... its more interesting haveing a dialogue between fellow posters and their take on things. Plus thats a hell of a lot of text that could be linked to either from source or from another webspace that isn't going to add to the band width overhead of these forums. ( I know sometimes it's not easy when you get them in an email or pasted to you )
 
overkill said:
Intelligent design? Please, here we will get into a row. This is a dangerous (due the lobbying behind it) theory based on faith, which is fine, but has NO basis in fact or been qualified by the scientific method. However, in the US, and then no doubt over here then soon, 'they' are trying to foist it in us as a 'science' and a challenge to evolution. It is neither.

It is this sort of approach that does lead to labelling, and frankly with justice.

For example, I may not want my children to have a 'religious education', but by law they have to. Doesn't that infringe on my beliefs?

Last point first: only if you believe that your kids should have a huge gap in their knowledge of history, culture and the society they're growing up in :)

You misunderstand something fundamental to the other side of the debate: 'they' (i.e., people with a faith-based belief) don't have any regard for whether or not their beliefs are "qualified by the scientific method". That's the whole point ! They don't seek proof in scientific terms.

And yet we all have faith in "unknown" scientific facts don't we ? Ever seen an electomagnetic wave ? Yet you know they exist. We have faith that the science behind them is right and yet few people personally 'prove' them. DYSWIM ?

And, don't worry, we will not be getting into a "row" :D

Mike.
 
Flimber said:
Last point first: only if you believe that your kids should have a huge gap in their knowledge of history, culture and the society they're growing up in :)

You misunderstand something fundamental to the other side of the debate: 'they' (i.e., people with a faith-based belief) don't have any regard for whether or not their beliefs are "qualified by the scientific method". That's the whole point ! They don't seek proof in scientific terms.

And yet we all have faith in "unknown" scientific facts don't we ? Ever seen an electomagnetic wave ? Yet you know they exist. We have faith that the science behind them is right and yet few people personally 'prove' them. DYSWIM ?

And, don't worry, we will not be getting into a "row" :D

Mike.
To deal with the first point: Why should that happen? They have history lessons? These explain all they need to know, i.e. religious wars, burnings, corruption, bigotry (that still exists today from the same conflicts) division of society, cynical encouragement of ignorance, support for despots to keep the faith dominant, persecution, and of course in Britain, the civil war - a large part of which was down to religion. And all this fun without it being wrapped up in 'flummery'. ;)

RE is purely about religion. All the 'nasty bits' (see above) are left out, which is fine. Leave that that to the historians.

I understand perfectly where the other side of the debate is coming from. The whole point is exactly that. So called 'intelligent design' is being foisted on us an alternative, a 'scientific alternative', to evolution. If that's what you choose to believe, and the theory itself is full of holes, then fine. But, as above, keep it as 'faith' not attempt to decieve by labelling it as a science.

We don't have 'unknown' scientific 'facts'. That's the whole point here. Until it's been proved by the scientific method it isn't a fact. Hence even Einsteins theories (and more recently Hawkins) have been re-evaluated. He never claimed they were iron clad facts. You cannot act on 'faith' in science, unless you want to be criticaly torn apart later that is.

Row, who's rowing?:D ;)
 
overkill said:
To deal with the first point: Why should that happen? They have history lessons? These explain all they need to know, i.e. religious wars, burnings, corruption, bigotry (that still exists today from the same conflicts) division of society, cynical encouragement of ignorance, support for despots to keep the faith dominant, persecution, and of course in Britain, the civil war - a large part of which was down to religion. And all this fun without it being wrapped up in 'flummery'. ;)

Learning about Islam is, arguably very relevant to how we live today. No other subject at school is going to cover that.

overkill said:
RE is purely about religion. All the 'nasty bits' (see above) are left out, which is fine. Leave that that to the historians.

I understand perfectly where the other side of the debate is coming from. The whole point is exactly that. So called 'intelligent design' is being foisted on us an alternative, a 'scientific alternative', to evolution. If that's what you choose to believe, and the theory itself is full of holes, then fine. But, as above, keep it as 'faith' not attempt to decieve by labelling it as a science.

We don't have 'unknown' scientific 'facts'. That's the whole point here. Until it's been proved by the scientific method it isn't a fact. Hence even Einsteins theories (and more recently Hawkins) have been re-evaluated. He never claimed they were iron clad facts. You cannot act on 'faith' in science, unless you want to be criticaly torn apart later that is.

Row, who's rowing?:D ;)

Well, I actually never said that I believed in I.D. and I'm not going to defend it . That's how I know we aren't going to get in a row :)

But "we" do have "unknown scientific facts". We, the people. Not the scientists. That's what I was getting at. Ordinary people have faith in science. And scientists have faith that people have faith in them :)

Mike.
 
Flimber said:
And yet we all have faith in "unknown" scientific facts don't we ? Ever seen an electomagnetic wave ? Yet you know they exist. We have faith that the science behind them is right and yet few people personally 'prove' them. DYSWIM ?


Mike.

...... Light is an electromagetic wave ......

The fact that we can create them .. detect them with equipement .... use them to transmit information like TV, Radio etc, diffract them, refract them, do a world of calculations on them that always give the same values .... do school experiements on them ... and with a bit of help repeat all the experiementation documented in the 'theories' makes it a tad bit more tangeable to say we believe in electromagnetic waves than in some relegious belief.

I think the flawed statement you made is a pretty good example of the mistakes people use to justify relegious beliefs as being credible.
 
Flimber said:
But "we" do have "unknown scientific facts". We, the people. Not the scientists. That's what I was getting at. Ordinary people have faith in science. And scientists have faith that people have faith in them :)

Mike.

NO

You may not understand the concepts envolved, but the data, experiements, observations are there for ANYONE to make. You could take a course, readup on the subject, talk to people in the field and with some help work through what is used to prove what ever is being put forward.
( there are a few rare exceptions where cost or practicallity are envolved, but pretty much everything can be checked and double checked )

Saying we have faith in science is down to our own lazyness at not actually going out and checking for ourselves ......

....... with is FUNDAMENTALY different from having faith in something that has NO evidence, NO proofs, nothing to test but the word of someone else ..... which is relegious belief.
 
Ethics Gradient said:
...... Light is an electromagetic wave ......

Yes, but you should have realised that I was talking about the non-visible parts of the spectrum. In any event the illumination provided by the sun or by the flick of a switch doesn't prove electromagnetic waves.

Ethics Gradient said:
The fact that we can create them .. detect them with equipement .... use them to transmit information like TV, Radio etc, diffract them, refract them, do a world of calculations on them that always give the same values .... do school experiements on them ... and with a bit of help repeat all the experiementation documented in the 'theories' makes it a tad bit more tangeable to say we believe in electromagnetic waves than in some relegious belief.

Which I'll sweep aside without comment :D I wrote of the faith ordinary, everyday people have in science.

Ethics Gradient said:
I think the flawed statement you made is a pretty good example of the mistakes people use to justify relegious beliefs as being credible.

A pretty good example of trying to make anything stick by association ? :) I think it's a very poor, even non-applicable example of such :)

Cheers,
Mike.
 
Ethics Gradient said:

YES :D

Ethics Gradient said:
You may not understand the concepts envolved, but the data, experiements, observations are there for ANYONE to make. You could take a course, readup on the subject, talk to people in the field and with some help work through what is used to prove what ever is being put forward.
( there are a few rare exceptions where cost or practicallity are envolved, but pretty much everything can be checked and double checked )

Saying we have faith in science is down to our own lazyness at not actually going out and checking for ourselves ......

Which subset of ordinary people do you have in mind ? And why are you limiting yourself to it ? I'm talking generally. You know, 'man in the street' kind of thing. There's a chap who lives over the road from me. He's 76. Never done an experiment in his life. Left school at 16, did an apprenticeship etc. He flicks a switch. His electric fire comes on. If some professor tells him that's got something to do with electrons which we can't see is he going to put up an argument ? Or have faith that the boffin knows his stuff ? He could check but he doesn't; he feels no need to; he's got a little bit of faith in science :D

Ethics Gradient said:
....... with is FUNDAMENTALY different from having faith in something that has NO evidence, NO proofs, nothing to test but the word of someone else ..... which is relegious belief.

I see what you're saying but the evidence required for religious belief by religious believers isn't derived scentifically by easily scrutinisable "evidence" or "proofs". It's not like that. If you're hoping for me to elaborate I promise you I'm not going to. Someone else can go for that.

Mike.
 
Flimber said:
Learning about Islam is, arguably very relevant to how we live today. No other subject at school is going to cover that.



Well, I actually never said that I believed in I.D. and I'm not going to defend it . That's how I know we aren't going to get in a row :)

But "we" do have "unknown scientific facts". We, the people. Not the scientists. That's what I was getting at. Ordinary people have faith in science. And scientists have faith that people have faith in them :)

Mike.
Actually, history is again the best way to learn about Islam. That way you still get the facts without the flummery. You will also get an insight into why modern Islam has gone the way it has in so many countries.

Ordinary people have faith in science? Nope. We just don't have time to investigate further. Scientists have faith, that people have faith in them? Is that why they are constantly (and increasingly) expected to justify what they say and do? Unlike their religious opponents.

We know electricity works because we are taught from school how it does, and even when we haven't, we are shown by the media exactly how it functions. If we don't know, and we need to know, we now question, something 'faith' never encouraged us to do. At least in the positive sense anyway.
 
Flimber said:
YES :D
He's 76. Never done an experiment in his life. Left school at 16, did an apprenticeship etc. He flicks a switch. His electric fire comes on. If some professor tells him that's got something to do with electrons which we can't see is he going to put up an argument ? Or have faith that the boffin knows his stuff ? He could check but he doesn't; he feels no need to; he's got a little bit of faith in science :D

The whole point you seem to be missing .... is that he could if he was so inclined ... as others have done ... and not just what one or two people have done, but millions. School kids, engineers, anyone with the remote inclination to do so .... and its there to just go in the library.

where as relegious faith as no proof what so ever that can be tested in any way shape or form.

You arguement is much the same as me having faith that it is raining outside because someone has come in dripping wet and told me it is so ..... I can if I choose go and take alook outside for myself.
THAT is like science.

If you said that there was an alien ship orbiting earth that had a special shield that stopped it being detected by us in any way shape or form, and that they transmit undetectable beams into your brain while you sleep that randomly make you forget where you left the car keys, or to pick up that perscription before work...... and I just have to accept it as true.
THAT is like relegious faith.

If one or two people believe in that alien space ship with the memory beam they are crack pots.
If millions do, then it's faith and the spirtitual side of humans. It should be treated with respect and have laws setup to protect its believers from riddicule and predjudice and aren't scientists sooooo full of themselves etc etc.
 
I don't see why people shouldn't believe in God if they want to. The problem is always people who engage in conflict in the name of religion. The trouble in NI is often cited as being of religeous origin. More accurately, religion is a convenient label used by both sides, and, the world, to distinguish two political ideologies. There is quite a lot of overlap and blurring......many Catholics are content to remain British, many Protestants would be happy enough being part of the Republic. It is not simply a religeous issue, but is almost always cited as one. Even if a conflict were being waged in the world on religeous, how many of the combatants would really be following the true teachings of their religion?

As far a science goes, many of the most respected scientists were and are deeply religeous, such as Einstein. Stephen J Gould, a world acclaimed expert on Darwinism was profoundly religeous. If people such as these can square their scientific knowledge with a belief in God, then surely those with little or know knowledge should be allowed the same privilidge? My experience has been that it is generally non scientists who are most vociferous in their objections to belief in God.

Scientists do, of course, have to have faith in their science, whether it be wave-partical duality or the strange world of quantum mechanics. Theyplace faith in their equations and explanations of the world and the universe as they currently understand it, a faith which (in a good scientist) is malleable in the light of new evidence and proof of new ways of describing the universe. Religion, then, to the believer, could just be treated as a way of desribing the universe and how it works. Maybe if science can provide a better alternative, they may desert the churches, mosques etc in droves. Maybe they won't...who knows. But until science can better account for the universe, maybe they see it as the best explanation that is currently available.

Just a last point, to Ethics Gradient.....

The issue of the Catholic church and condoms in Africa is, I feel, a bit misleading. It is often cited as the way relgion can do damage. Firstly, I agree totally that Africans should use condoms to help prevent the spread of Aids, and I have no religious beliefs myself, nor do I think I believe in God ( though I haven't spent much time thinking about it), but the condom situation intrigues me. The theory seems to be that the Africans aren't using condoms because the Catholic church forbids it, yet they seem to feel free to indulge in the sort of promiscuous sex that leads to the spread of Aids. I just wonder why they cherry pick Catholic doctrine this? Could it be, perhaps, that not wearing condoms fits nicely with their cultural and sexual proclivities, while keeping sex within marriage does not? For that reason, I see the issue as a bit of a red herring.
 
bjd said:
Just a last point, to Ethics Gradient.....

The issue of the Catholic church and condoms in Africa is, I feel, a bit misleading. It is often cited as the way relgion can do damage. Firstly, I agree totally that Africans should use condoms to help prevent the spread of Aids, and I have no religious beliefs myself, nor do I think I believe in God ( though I haven't spent much time thinking about it), but the condom situation intrigues me. The theory seems to be that the Africans aren't using condoms because the Catholic church forbids it, yet they seem to feel free to indulge in the sort of promiscuous sex that leads to the spread of Aids. I just wonder why they cherry pick Catholic doctrine this? Could it be, perhaps, that not wearing condoms fits nicely with their cultural and sexual proclivities, while keeping sex within marriage does not? For that reason, I see the issue as a bit of a red herring.

... because a large portion of Africans are catholics ( aprrox 14% ) .... and there have been many reports, documentaries and articles showing the senior members of the catholic church in Africa states telling their flocks not to use them, and out and out lies like how condoms are more dangerous.

.... thats why.

"Could it be, perhaps, that not wearing condoms fits nicely with their cultural and sexual proclivities, while keeping sex within marriage does not?"

.... their cultural and sexual proclivities .... yes , because they obviously aren't as moral, upright and civilised as us Europeans ...... *cough* ... can any one say slippery slope to racism ....

People are pretty much the same the world over when it comes to sexual drives and needs .... what is different is poverty, education and religious influences.
In particular, the African Christain churches are seemingly far more orthodox in their approaches to their religion -- just look at the issue of female clerics and homosexuality in the Anglican churches .... it is the African churches that are primarliy the main opponents.

Try living in on a content that has 14% of its population being told not to wear contraception because it is a sin against God, where poverty is rife and education is poor, where religion is a powerful political force, and people are people when it comes to sex.
 
Flimber said:
Yes, but you should have realised that I was talking about the non-visible parts of the spectrum. In any event the illumination provided by the sun or by the flick of a switch doesn't prove electromagnetic waves.
Sorry mate, but that is pretty bad.

We use x-rays, we use nuclear power (gamma rays)

We listen to the radio (radio waves), obviously not directly, but the radio waves are recoded into sound by the radio receiver.

I don't understand what point you were trying to make there, but you have made yourself come across rather silly i'm afraid. :D
 
Ethics Gradient said:
... because a large portion of Africans are catholics ( aprrox 14% ) .... and there have been many reports, documentaries and articles showing the senior members of the catholic church in Africa states telling their flocks not to use them, and out and out lies like how condoms are more dangerous.

.... thats why.

"Could it be, perhaps, that not wearing condoms fits nicely with their cultural and sexual proclivities, while keeping sex within marriage does not?"

.... their cultural and sexual proclivities .... yes , because they obviously aren't as moral, upright and civilised as us Europeans ...... *cough* ... can any one say slippery slope to racism ....

People are pretty much the same the world over when it comes to sexual drives and needs .... what is different is poverty, education and religious influences.
In particular, the African Christain churches are seemingly far more orthodox in their approaches to their religion -- just look at the issue of female clerics and homosexuality in the Anglican churches .... it is the African churches that are primarliy the main opponents.

Try living in on a content that has 14% of its population being told not to wear contraception because it is a sin against God, where poverty is rife and education is poor, where religion is a powerful political force, and people are people when it comes to sex.

Racism??? Now where is that apparent in what I said. I used the African example because it was in response to a post regarding Africa....had I responded in the same way to a post regarding a "white" nation, would that have been racist too??
You seem to be intent on starting an argument rather than responding to what I said. I merely pointed out that it seems strange to me that they would choose to adhere to one particular doctrine while signally ignoring others.
 
Games Guru said:
Sorry mate, but that is pretty bad.

We use x-rays, we use nuclear power (gamma rays)

We listen to the radio (radio waves), obviously not directly, but the radio waves are recoded into sound by the radio receiver.

I don't understand what point you were trying to make there, but you have made yourself come across rather silly i'm afraid. :D

None of the things you've mentioned prove anything about "waves" or demonstrate proof of electromagnetic forces to the average person !!! That's the point !!!
 
How so?

If you are being serious, you are the only person in the world that denies the existance of electro-magnetic waves.
 
The issue of the HIV/Aids epidemic in Africa is a tricky one, while I would agree that lack of education and poverty are probably the defining reasons for this, I would also suggest that cultural differences and sexual proclivities do not help. The thing I find most telling, if it is indeed true, is the influence of the Catholic church and its apparent abhorrence of the condom. To instruct/teach its followers that condoms are against God seems a failing of Religion.

If there is a God (and I do hope there is), I am fairly sure that He/She (lets not be sexist as well) would advise precaution, however, this in turn raises the argument, "What kind of God would create a disease that etc etc?" and that in turn brings the argument back to faith and whether or not you believe !
 
Flimber said:
None of the things you've mentioned prove anything about "waves" or demonstrate proof of electromagnetic forces to the average person !!! That's the point !!!
I don't really know what point you're trying to make, here, Flimber - there are so many wrong assumptions in what you're saying that I hardly know where to begin.

Well, let's see:

1) Science does not deal in concepts like "fact" and "proof". There is no "proof" that light is a wave, nor could there ever be, because the only arena in which it is meaningful to talk about "proof" is pure mathematics.

2) Furthermore it is profoundly unscientific even to talk about there being evidence that "light is a wave". Science does not explain anything, it merely tries to find useful ways of modelling it. Saying that "light is a wave" is actually short-hand for saying "we can take a type of mathematics that was originally developed to model and predict the behaviour of waves in matter, and use it to model and predict the behaviour of light."

3) As we all know, there is such a thing as "wave/particle duality", so it is not even valid to say "light can be modelled as a wave" - instead one should say "under certain conditions light can be modelled as a wave and, under other conditions, it can be modelled as a collection of particles." (In fact, one can carry on elaborating statements like that for quite some time, but I really don't want to get into Quantum Electro-Dynamics).

4) To suggest that being a proponent of a particular scientific theory somehow resembles religious faith is... I just really don't have words to describe how crazy that comparison is. For starters, scientific theories (as I already said) are not theories about what is "true", they are simply theories about what type of mathematical model can be used to simulate reality with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

On top of that, any scientific theory is derived by looking at experimental evidence, and will be rejected out-of-hand if its predictions disagree with experimental observations. Any theory is also subject to constant challenge and revision: it is used to make predictions, and those predictions are then tested experimentally. If experiment agrees with theory, the theory stands. If not it is abandoned.

Religious faith, on the other hand, is, by definition, belief without evidence, or (in many cases) belief despite a huge weight of evidence that directly contradicts that belief. Religious faith is believing that the world is only about 6000 years old and that all plant and animal species came into being 6000 years ago in exactly their present state - never mind that every available piece of evidence suggests this isn't true: if you have faith, you believe it anyway.

Religious faith and the advancement of a scientific theory are polar opposites: the scientific approach collects evidence and then tries to develop a theory that fits the evidence; religious faith at best attempts to shape the evidence to fit the theory - it begins with the conclusion.

It even (as Dawkins points out) makes an active virtue out of believing things for which there is no evidence whatever - people are rewarded by God for the "strength of their faith": the less evidence they need to believe something, the more admirable they are.

5) If you're asking "does a normal person ever observe anything which is the result of light behaving in a wave-like fashion?" the answer is yes, of course they do, all the time. Every time you look at the underside of a CD or a DVD, for example, and you see the rainbow colours made by the light reflecting off it you're looking at the result of an interference effect, which (in classical physics) indicates that you're looking at something behaving like a wave.

6) When you talk about the average person on the street having "faith in boffins", you're using the word "faith" in a completely different context. You're using it there to mean "trust" - trust in the abilities and motivations of a group of people. That bears no resemblance at all to "faith" in the religious sense meaning "belief in the absence of evidence".
 
bjd said:
The theory seems to be that the Africans aren't using condoms because the Catholic church forbids it, yet they seem to feel free to indulge in the sort of promiscuous sex that leads to the spread of Aids. I just wonder why they cherry pick Catholic doctrine this? Could it be, perhaps, that not wearing condoms fits nicely with their cultural and sexual proclivities, while keeping sex within marriage does not? For that reason, I see the issue as a bit of a red herring.
Practical example:

1) Husband sleeps around and contracts HIV.

2) Wife knows he has slept around but cannot divorce him because she is a good Catholic, and cannot ask him to use condoms, because she is a good Catholic.

3) Wife contracts HIV - another innocent person killed by religion.

It's actually quite common in 3rd world countries for priests to tell women that they are committing a sin against God if they refuse to have sex with their husbands any time the husbands feel like it, too....
 
Excellent discussion

Dawkins may believe that science religion are in conflict with each other but their histories are very much intertwined in the same way they have been with politics and many other areas.

As for facts, aside from the technical issues described by NicolasB, facts have a habit of changing over time
 
Ethics Gradient said:
It's better not to post them verbatim - try and summarise your thought on it and post them, maybe a few quotes, and a link to the original material .... its more interesting haveing a dialogue between fellow posters and their take on things. Plus thats a hell of a lot of text that could be linked to either from source or from another webspace that isn't going to add to the band width overhead of these forums. ( I know sometimes it's not easy when you get them in an email or pasted to you )
Not sure entirely what you mean but I take your point that the artcle is a bit longwinded and maybe I should have summarised it a bit. Then again I wanted to see what people's reaction would be and so far it has been interesting .
 
NicolasB said:
I don't really know what point you're trying to make, here, Flimber - there are so many wrong assumptions in what you're saying that I hardly know where to begin...

Begin with reading and re-reading what I wrote until you understand that I am saying that 'religious' people do not have to conform to a scientific standard of 'proof' in order for them to believe something. Simple.

Mike.
 
Flimber said:
Begin with reading and re-reading what I wrote until you understand that I am saying that 'religious' people do not have to conform to a scientific standard of 'proof' in order for them to believe something. Simple.
Well, yeah - and that is precisely why religion is so dangerous, and precisely why an adherence to the scientific method is so vastly preferable.

I'm glad you agree. :devil:
 

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