Faith and Science

[muriel_volestrangler]

80. "hoped for" and "not seen" - so that is *not* what BigRig was saying

The facts from science given as examples are not just "hoped for" and "not seen". They are seen. People experience the delays in satellite communication. People who design computers take the speed of light, ie the speed an electromagnetic wave or pulse propagates, into account because one cycle of 1 GHz is equivalent to 30 centimetres.

Everyone knows that thousands of scientists have repeatedly measured the speed of light as best as they can, and told others how they did it so they can check as well. Our fundamental units of measurement are based on the speed of light. We know that the modern world functions because we have shown it, time and again.

While the size of the galaxy is not widely known, and may well be 'incomprehensible' to normal thinking, it doesn't actually change our behaviour. If the many scientists who have come up with a figure for it are all significantly wrong, and it is, say, 10 times bigger, then our normal behaviour won't change when we find out. But the claims for religions are supposed to inform our morals and our lifestyle. They make grandiose pronouncements about the fundamental nature of reality, and tell people what they should do as a result, but they don't have the reproducibility of science. Major religions disagree about the major ideas.

The trust in science is fundamentally different from faith in religion. Trust in science is more like trust in geography - you may never meet someone who has been to Gough Island in your life, but it's not a question of 'faith' if you reckon that the information you get from that Wikipedia link, or a Google search, is roughly accurate, or the basic fact of Gough Island's existence.