God wins!!

[Kynaros]

What the heck? Are you being serious? Have you no grasp on history? Please tell me this is a genuine mistake...

Yes, my bad. I read this somewhere else; turns out I was wrong. Luckily Galileo wasn't burned alive, he was only threatened with torture & death.

No matter how open-minded an atheist thinks he is, he will more than likely never be open to the possibility of a creator. He thinks it is bad for science, yet he is so bereft of rational thought at this point that he does not realise that God is outside of the realm of the natural sciences. Hence God does not impede on, or "crash the party" of, science. Both are compatible. This is pretty easy to fathom for a rational being.

How convenient is it that none of your claims can be verified or put to the test? Would you like to describe what exactly it is that your God does then? What effect does he have on this universe? Did he really create the world in 7 days or did he use the long and drawn-out natural processes like evolution in order to make us think that he isn't needed for anything to work?

[touchingcloth]

So what exactly am I missing here? Does God not have an effect on this universe at all? Are you guys really saying that there is not at least one thing in nature that a Christian will ascribe to God? If so, is that person still a Christian? Take a look at medical miracles: "the doctors were baffled, we can't explain it, it's a miracle". A Christian would ascribe this work to God, a non-theist would look for an alternative naturalistic explanation.

Christians have the ability to do science just as well as everyone else. But when it comes to the kind of complete objectivity that science requires, people who subscribe to the revealed religions won't always have that, is all I'm saying.

If someone's methods are sound, then what the hell difference does it make whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, atheist, whatever?

Science doesn't require objectivity of practitioners, only objectivity and transparency in methodology.

[DannyM]

How can God be bad for science if there is no such thing as objective morals to base that standard of thought upon concerning what makes bad - wrong?
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Ah now there's a question! So of course there should be no problem then?
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[Kynaros]

If someone's methods are sound, then what the hell difference does it make whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, atheist, whatever?

Uhm, because their world-view, strangely enough, affects their view of the world? They can use the same methods as everyone else but they might come to a different conclusion. See my medical miracles example.

But like I've said multiple times, sure, if they can remain completely objective then no, it does not matter.

[DannyM]

Yes, my bad. I read this somewhere else; turns out I was wrong. Luckily Galileo wasn't burned alive, he was only threatened with torture & death.

Wrong! Galileo was NOT threatened with torture and death; care to provide a reliable source for this claim? Galileo was certainly detained but, as befitted his status, he was given his own rooms and servants. (Does this sound like a situation in which he would be "threatened with torture and death"?) When he returned home - with his pensions from the church fully intact! - he continued to write, unimpeded by the authorities, with his reputation and character unblemished. It's not the convenient mythical story you've been fed, but it is nonetheless the truth.

How convenient is it that none of your claims can be verified or put to the test?

What claims? You're jumping the gun a bit aren't you?

[Kynaros]

Wrong! Galileo was NOT threatened with torture and death; care to provide a reliable source for this claim? Galileo was certainly detained but, as befitted his status, he was given his own rooms and servants. (Does this sound like a situation in which he would be "threatened with torture and death"?) When he returned home - with his pensions from the church fully intact! - he continued to write, unimpeded by the authorities, with his reputation and character unblemished. It's not the convenient mythical story you've been fed, but it is nonetheless the truth.

http://library.thinkquest.org/22584/temh3003.htm

"Finally, in 1633, one year after his publication of a book that supported the Copernican theory, Galileo was summoned to appear bofore the Inquisition, and there an ill and an old man forced under the threat of torture, to recant his scientific findings. "

What claims?

That God exists and chooses not to impede on the natural world. You seem to know alot about what a supreme creator of the universe would do. Kind of arrogant, but I digress. Anyway, Christians tell me that God actually does have an effect on this world. You can read the bible if you don't believe me. What makes your claims better than theirs? Apart from "you can't prove it's not true".

[Gman]

No we do have an idea... If you said that an intelligent designer did it, wouldn't you be curious to know how he did it like how naturalism may have done it? Basically you just go back to doing science again although the different philosophical premises or alternatives have changed. It really doesn't matter.

While I admire this sentiment, there are few theists who would actually adhere to this. Every single creationist out there does not adhere to this idea. When you have the idea of a Creator, digging deeper is not something you would naturally want to do, since you believe in a Creator in the first place for his explanatory power. HE created the universe. HE created life on Earth. The fun in religion is having all the answers. God is a "catch all answer". You only have to look back at history to see how religion has impeded science: Galileo and Bruno were burned at the stake for suggested ideas that contradicted current doctrine.

While it's great that there are theists who don't let their life philosophy impede them from questioning everything all the time, no matter how open-minded a theist is, he will more than likely come across a point where he chalks something up to God, which is bad for science.

This argument comes up all the time.. This is a copy and paste from another section...

"Many say that belief in God is just an argument from ignorance, you can't prove that it's not true so it must be true. This is the classic God of the gaps argument. We don't know how it works yet so we say God did it. But we see this true with Darwinism all the time also with the origin of life, the origin of the phyla, the decent of man, in other words we don't know how it works yet, but we are going to say that evolution did it. So there is no difference between God of the gaps and evolution of the gaps. We say it's not testable; clearly you can't take bunch of non-living chemicals, expose it to the right conditions and get a cell to come out. It's something that took place in the past, we can't test this. We can't take a reptile, and expose it to radiation or gama rays, and get it to grow feathers. Basically God and Darwinian evolution are not technically testable.

This is not science vs religion, this is a battle between two different fundamental philosophies. Two different world views. "

[DannyM]

http://library.thinkquest.org/22584/temh3003.htm

"Finally, in 1633, one year after his publication of a book that supported the Copernican theory, Galileo was summoned to appear bofore the Inquisition, and there an ill and an old man forced under the threat of torture, to recant his scientific findings. "

Oh dear. I asked for a credible link- you gave me dross. I'll play ball though. From your link:

"All his life. Galileo was a religious man and a devout Catholic. Accordingly, it distressed him to find the views to which he was irresistibly led by his observations and reasonings as a scientist condemned as contradicting the scriptures of the Church, of which he considered himself a loyal member. He therefore felt compellen to reason for himself the relation between science and scripture. Many scientists have, from time to time, found themselves in this position. It occurred, for example, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when difficulties were felt in reconciling Darwin's theory of evolution with the Biblical account of the creation of living things. "

Have you even read the history of Galileo and Copernicus before him? By far the biggest fear for both men was the ridicule of their fellow astronomers, who were almost to a man Aristotelian astronomers. Copernicus, when he finally published in 1543, wrote a dedication to Pope Paul III expressing his fear that he would be "hooted off the stage" and admitted that "the scorn which I had to fear on account of the newness and absurdity of my opinion almost drove me to anandon a work already undertaken." And guess what? His views were, indeed, rejected by the Aristotelian astronomers, but his book circulated for seventy years WITHOUT condemnation by the church!

Galileo feared the same fate and was afraid of being treated similarly by the Aristotelians. In a letter to Kepler, August 4, 1597, he told him how he was "frightened by the fate of Copernicus himself, who is of an infinite multitude...(fro such is the number of fools) an object of ridicule and derision." The "fools" were he spoke of were not Inquisitors but his fellow astronomers, especially Aristotelians in the universities.

You really should do some research of your own. A very good book with an indepth analysis on this very issue is by Philip J.Sampson, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity & Western Civilisation.

That God exists and chooses not to impede on the natural world. You seem to know alot about what a supreme creator of the universe would do. Kind of arrogant, but I digress. Anyway, Christians tell me that God actually does have an effect on this world. You can read the bible if you don't believe me. What makes your claims better than theirs? Apart from "you can't prove it's not true".

You are misrepresenting me, but this doesn't surprise me. I said God doesn't impede on the natural sciences. Are you suggesting there exists some natural scientists who are complaining God is impeding their work? My point was clear: God is not a hindrance on the natural sciences. Are you willing to claim the He actually IS a hindrance? What is arrogant is you thinking you can come on here, give me a bogus link on the Galileo story, without even doing any independent research. Did you think we were that thick?

[Kynaros]

Oh dear. I asked for a credible link- you gave me dross. I'll play ball though. From your link:

"All his life. Galileo was a religious man and a devout Catholic. Accordingly, it distressed him to find the views to which he was irresistibly led by his observations and reasonings as a scientist condemned as contradicting the scriptures of the Church, of which he considered himself a loyal member. He therefore felt compellen to reason for himself the relation between science and scripture. Many scientists have, from time to time, found themselves in this position. It occurred, for example, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when difficulties were felt in reconciling Darwin's theory of evolution with the Biblical account of the creation of living things. "

Have you even read the history of Galileo and Copernicus before him? By far the biggest fear for both men was the ridicule of their fellow astronomers, who were almost to a man Aristotelian astronomers. Copernicus, when he finally published in 1543, wrote a dedication to Pope Paul III expressing his fear that he would be "hooted off the stage" and admitted that "the scorn which I had to fear on account of the newness and absurdity of my opinion almost drove me to anandon a work already undertaken." And guess what? His views were, indeed, rejected by the Aristotelian astronomers, but his book circulated for seventy years WITHOUT condemnation by the church!

Galileo feared the same fate and was afraid of being treated similarly by the Aristotelians. In a letter to Kepler, August 4, 1597, he told him how he was "frightened by the fate of Copernicus himself, who is of an infinite multitude...(fro such is the number of fools) an object of ridicule and derision." The "fools" were he spoke of were not Inquisitors but his fellow astronomers, especially Aristotelians in the universities.

You really should do some research of your own. A very good book with an indepth analysis on this very issue is by Philip J.Sampson, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity & Western Civilisation.

Way to ignore the direct quote I gave where it says he was threatened with torture & death. Instead you quoted some unrelated paragraph. I have to admit, I'm convinced now. <_<

Here's another source: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 8383669FDE

What is arrogant is you thinking you can come on here, give me a bogus link on the Galileo story, without even doing any independent research. Did you think we were that thick?

Hilarious. I think it's about time you started giving me some sources for your fanciful claims before you take the high & mighty attitude. And apologist websites/books won't count.

Are you suggesting there exists some natural scientists who are complaining God is impeding their work?

Uhm, yes? The religious ones at least. How many "medical miracles" stories have you heard? God doing anything at all would be him infringing on the natural sciences, since the laws of physics are supposed to be the same everywhere, and a miracle would cause that to not be the case.

But we see this true with Darwinism all the time also with the origin of life, the origin of the phyla, the decent of man, in other words we don't know how it works yet, but we are going to say that evolution did it. So there is no difference between God of the gaps and evolution of the gaps. We say it's not testable; clearly you can't take bunch of non-living chemicals, expose it to the right conditions and get a cell to come out. It's something that took place in the past, we can't test this. We can't take a reptile, and expose it to radiation or gama rays, and get it to grow feathers. Basically God and Darwinian evolution are not technically testable.

Evolution in the lab has already occurred via Drosophila flies. Scientists can make a new species that cannot mate with the old one. This basically boils down to the fact that fundamentalists refuse to accept that this can effect species over billions of years to produce more dramatic changes than we've seen in the lab.

[zoegirl]

I know they have done research showing Drosophila flies that *choose* not to mate with other populations after several generation raised on different media.

Please provide a link showing more than just mate choice. I would like to read it.

Kynaros, you are providing a false dichotomy. There are plenty of Christian scientists (see http://www.asa3.org/) who engage in research, who fully acknowledge God and who are understand a relationship between His presence, His interaction and sustaining of the creation as well as a role that we can have in investigating His creation.

You bring to the table here your biases and your ignorance of Christians out there who are active in research. It may seem mutually exclusive, but it is perfectly fine to have as your worldview that God is behind it all. Doesn't negate understanding how.

[zoegirl]

Kynaros,

Check out this link

http://books.google.com/books?id=I6xWiV ... q=&f=false

Should get you directly to chapter 7 called Religion and God. It's a short read but very interesting.

Uhm, yes? The religious ones at least. How many "medical miracles" stories have you heard? God doing anything at all would be him infringing on the natural sciences, since the laws of physics are supposed to be the same everywhere, and a miracle would cause that to not be the case.

Surely the God of His own universe can interfere when He feels needed?!?!? I am in no way saying that these are true miracles (as I think that the term has been overly applied) however, that doesn't negate their validity.

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

If someone's methods are sound, then what the hell difference does it make whether they are Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, atheist, whatever?

Uhm, because their world-view, strangely enough, affects their view of the world? They can use the same methods as everyone else but they might come to a different conclusion. See my medical miracles example.

But like I've said multiple times, sure, if they can remain completely objective then no, it does not matter.

This makes sense. I wouldn't want to be a passenger of an airliner whose crew was composed of suicidal jihadists.

FL
Fly Air Muhammad! You'll get a BANG out of it!

[touchingcloth]

No we do have an idea... If you said that an intelligent designer did it, wouldn't you be curious to know how he did it like how naturalism may have done it? Basically you just go back to doing science again although the different philosophical premises or alternatives have changed. It really doesn't matter.

While I admire this sentiment, there are few theists who would actually adhere to this. Every single creationist out there does not adhere to this idea. When you have the idea of a Creator, digging deeper is not something you would naturally want to do, since you believe in a Creator in the first place for his explanatory power. HE created the universe. HE created life on Earth. The fun in religion is having all the answers. God is a "catch all answer". You only have to look back at history to see how religion has impeded science: Galileo and Bruno were burned at the stake for suggested ideas that contradicted current doctrine.

While it's great that there are theists who don't let their life philosophy impede them from questioning everything all the time, no matter how open-minded a theist is, he will more than likely come across a point where he chalks something up to God, which is bad for science.

This argument comes up all the time.. This is a copy and paste from another section...

"Many say that belief in God is just an argument from ignorance, you can't prove that it's not true so it must be true. This is the classic God of the gaps argument. We don't know how it works yet so we say God did it. But we see this true with Darwinism all the time also with the origin of life, the origin of the phyla, the decent of man, in other words we don't know how it works yet, but we are going to say that evolution did it. So there is no difference between God of the gaps and evolution of the gaps. We say it's not testable; clearly you can't take bunch of non-living chemicals, expose it to the right conditions and get a cell to come out. It's something that took place in the past, we can't test this. We can't take a reptile, and expose it to radiation or gama rays, and get it to grow feathers. Basically God and Darwinian evolution are not technically testable.

This is not science vs religion, this is a battle between two different fundamental philosophies. Two different world views. "

God and evolution not testable?

Depends on you definition of God really. If someone says "God created the world 6,000 years ago" then we can agree that that's a testable claim about God. If someone says "all species are related to each other by way of a single common ancestor" then that's also testable. Both statements assert something that can be falsified with the right evidence.

[DannyM]

[Way to ignore the direct quote I gave where it says he was threatened with torture & death. Instead you quoted some unrelated paragraph. I have to admit, I'm convinced now. <_<

Here's another source: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 8383669FDE

Your link was entirely bogus; what do you expect? You clearly just scratched around for any old source to support your predisposition. Galileo WAS NOT EVER threatened with torture and/OR death; you are clearly stuck in an atheistic time warp; true scholarship had long ago debunked this nonsensical tripe.

Hilarious. I think it's about time you started giving me some sources for your fanciful claims before you take the high & mighty attitude. And apologist websites/books won't count.

I gave you the name of a very good book, which carries with it an extensive bibliogrophy in support. You'd do very well in life to read books and make informed judgements rather than hastily scrathing around, linking me up with ill-informed nonsense. Now, read these links through; one or two are quite extensive, but they are all very clear and concise. Treat yourself to the truth...

http://article.nationalreview.com/26661 ... h-goldberg

"Yes, Galileo was eventually found guilty of heresy. But his problems stemmed first and foremost from jealous fellow-scientists. Galileo's first muzzle was one he put on himself. In 1597 he wrote a letter to Johannes Kepler (the first big Copernican and discoverer of the three laws of moving planet stuff). In the letter, Galileo told Kepler that, yeah Copernicus got things right, but he thought the Aristotelian academic establishment would have a cow if he said so publicly... The head of the Inquisition was a Galileo supporter, who hoped to get the whole thing over with quickly by just giving him a formal reprimand. Unfortunately, rabble-rousers and opportunists turned the heat up. The trial is very complicated but the result was that Galileo got house arrest, which is where he did all of his research anyway. He was permitted to correspond with any scientist he wanted and he wrote the Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences while under the Man's thumb."

http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDS ... lileo_myth

"Galileo Was A Victim of Torture and Abuse: This is perhaps the most recurring motif, and yet it is entirely untrue. Galileo was treated by the church as a celebrity. When summoned by the Inquisition, he was housed in the grand Medici Villa in Rome. He attended receptions with the Pope and leading cardinals. Even after he was found guilty, he was first housed in a magnificent Episcopal palace and then placed under “house arrest” although he was permitted to visit his daughters in a nearby convent and to continue publishing scientific papers."

<<You'll also find that the author briefly address the Huxley "Put-Down" myth in the famous Huxley/Wilberforce debate. I have further reading material on this, so just ask and I'll provide you with some.>>

http://www.ips-planetarium.org/planetar ... lileo.html

"Unfortunately, history does not support such a picture. Galileo may not have been guilty of heresy, but he was guilty of several other things: (l) some of his scientific "facts" were wrong; (2) he claimed to have proof when no proof existed; (3) he was unaware of Kepler's exposition of planetary motion, though Kepler's book was in his own bookcase; and (4) he had made enemies—bitter enemies—quite needlessly... Nor was the Roman Church the main villain in the piece. Galileo's real enemies were the university professors. They, quite understandably, resented Galileo's outright rejection of their revered Aristotle, whose concepts constituted almost everything they taught. And they fumed at their inability to answer Galileo's arguments rationally. For twenty years they debated him and lost. Eventually, when Galileo embraced Copernicism, they were able to enmesh the clerics in their battle."

http://www.traditioninaction.org/Histor ... lileo.html

"Pope Urban VIII only broke his good relations with Galileo when the latter wrote the book Dialogo, or Massimi Sistemi, in which he tried to ridicule the Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy in dealing with the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Only then, in 1633, did the Pope deliver him to be judged by the Holy Inquisition for the second time... He was judged and politely obliged to abjure his errors. Galileo himself acknowledged that he was treated indulgently by the Inquisition throughout the affair. The condemnation prescribed prison, but it was not put in practice. He passed the year 1633 with the Archbishop of Sienna. Afterward, he was allowed to live in the beautiful villa Arcetri, near Florence, where he soon recovered entire liberty. He was never prevented from pursuing his studies and investigations in science."

Are you suggesting there exists some natural scientists who are complaining God is impeding their work?

[Uhm, yes? The religious ones at least. How many "medical miracles" stories have you heard? God doing anything at all would be him infringing on the natural sciences, since the laws of physics are supposed to be the same everywhere, and a miracle would cause that to not be the case.

None of this is "infringing" on the natural sciences; you're truly paranoid. If a scientist is also a Christian, and he believes some thing to be the work of God, then how does this "infringe" on the natural sciences when the natural sciences are not being impeded, restricted, or hindered in any way? You clearly DON'T BELIEVE that God exists, and therefore you do not subscribe to any notion of God "doing anything," right? So why are you like a frantic dog, chasing its tail around and around in a circular frenzy?

[Gman]

God and evolution not testable?

Depends on you definition of God really. If someone says "God created the world 6,000 years ago" then we can agree that that's a testable claim about God. If someone says "all species are related to each other by way of a single common ancestor" then that's also testable. Both statements assert something that can be falsified with the right evidence.

Not exactly.. As an an example the creation of life. We can't produce life in a lab by mixing a bunch of chemicals together, nor have we witnessed creation of life in that sense supernaturally. It's not saying that nothing is testable, surely there are some things we can test, but others seem to be on the outside of science.