tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36939759.post4621979052681206447..comments2024-01-17T07:03:57.842+00:00Comments on The Mad Ranter: Science needs no GodFlipChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09449939046593105926noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36939759.post-11852817251164618202010-09-08T14:36:04.357+01:002010-09-08T14:36:04.357+01:00Not gone yet then :-)
Again yes I have no problem...Not gone yet then :-)<br /><br />Again yes I have no problem with proceeding along those lines, provided you don't conflate 'the way we describe things' with 'the way things are' which sadly a lot of non-scientists (and sadly some scientists) can do leading to much confusion.<br /><br />Full quote "Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics." IOW it's moribund not extinct in a similar way that Latin is a dead language.<br /><br />As to the negation argument, it did leave me absolutely speechless for a moment I really couldn't believe that it was being offered as if it had some sort of validity.FlipChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09449939046593105926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36939759.post-10535539968730503862010-09-08T14:16:59.054+01:002010-09-08T14:16:59.054+01:00By proceeding 'as if it all makes sense' w...By proceeding 'as if it all makes sense' we have got to the advanced state of understanding we have arrived at today and this is basically through following a path of causality. I think we have to take that as a given, or faith if you like, at least in the world of the macroscopic. If we don't we are veering off onto the well worn philosophical question of 'is the world created by our minds'. Which brings us neatly to Stephen Hawking's recent pronouncement that philosophy is dead, which nicely illustrates the limits to his massive brain. Finally I find it astounding that someone used the 'negation' argument on you, which to me shows that the biggest obstacles to people believing in God/Deity/Something Else isn't Dawkins/Hawking/Science but the religious themselves.Jon Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17097924874623877106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36939759.post-43814166250548184032010-09-08T09:09:57.446+01:002010-09-08T09:09:57.446+01:00"causality is fundamental to all natural scie..."causality is fundamental to all natural science" is that because it is fundamental or just because that's how how minds view the world? The fact that once we get to the quantum level things get weird suggests that it might be our perception of reality rather than reality itself. In which case it really is faces in the dark.<br /><br />From a science point of view we have to proceed as if it all makes sense, but even scientists agree that the 'rules' we apply at this level may not correspond to what actually happens.<br /><br />I agree with you on the morality point, the problem is that it is so intertwined with religion in our culture that it's difficult to separate or even use non-loaded language to discuss.<br /><br />For proof by negation, again I agree with you which is why I shoot it down so quickly. I'm not creating it to bash the religious these are all arguments I've seen or heard being used to defend the existence of God; indeed that final point was something someone attempted to use on me as a rejoinder and offered in sincerity.FlipChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09449939046593105926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36939759.post-40279433878392697742010-09-07T19:39:36.853+01:002010-09-07T19:39:36.853+01:00I'm reluctant to reply here especially as i...I'm reluctant to reply here especially as i'm going on holiday in the next few days but what the hell (no pun intended). I agree with your first point but not the second. The whole point of pattern matching is indeed cause and effect which is pure rationality. It is this that has made scientific laws comprehensible to us. To then pull up the draw bridge at the final hurdle and say we should stop asking 'why' to me is disingenuous. Yes something can happen for no reason in quantum mechanics but causality <br />is fundamental to all natural science so we cannot write it off with an analogy of faces in the dark. I'm not saying that there MUST be a cause but to accept that things happen with no cause as your default position is really to reduce your arguments to almost nothing more than a bare assertion fallacy. I'll skip over the third point for times' sake and go to the 4th. Here I find both atheists and the religious wrong in discussing morality in religious (or rather 'God') terms. For me morality is temporal and can be rationally explained. It has nothing to do with God (whatever that may be). Finally proof by negation - I think this is a terrible argument...on your behalf. This is a Dawkinsism to provide entertaining TV. The reason being I have never heard an intelligent religious person use this argument as it is self evidently ridiculous. A straw man argument,as someone else said, to bash the religious.Jon Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17097924874623877106noreply@blogger.com