XKCD hits another one out of the park...

[darkstar3]

Some here will really enjoy this one...others need to be reminded...




You should totally visit the site: http://xkcd.com

[crikkett]

1. Reliance on science over all else is in itself is a spiritual belief system, by the way

And kind of a bankrupt one at that.

Flame away Discuss.
:hide:

[SurfingScientist]

2. That's not what science is. There is nothing else to rely on but superstition.

Science is the best current image of the world that we can come up with based on using critical thinking, logic, and the best quantitative experience and measurements that we have.

It is, by all means, our best possible image of the world. It is not a belief system. Its process is sometimes corrupted like anything humans do, but it questions itself and changes its statements according to new insight. It learns. Religion never does. It is locked in some dogma.

You seem to say that the scientific image of the world has some flaws and inaccuracies, and you are right. However you seem to imply that we have to rely on something else/ (higher?) that science.

The problem is, there is nothing else that can be proven to give us any better answers.

You may *choose* to believe that some mythical creature offers better answers, taken from an old book, written out of supernatural believes of a stone age people who did not have scientific insight and attributed all they did not understand to some deity. Seeking an intelligent action behind random events is a trait of the human brain and likely the source of much of religion.

Choosing anything but science to 'rely on' means you pick some random, unproven belief that makes you feel better - chances of this belief being accurate are low. In other words, you are kidding yourself because you don't like reality.

Please, don't call something 'bankrupt' that you obviously do not even remotely understand. That 'bnkrupt' system has saved many people I know, allows us to use the internet, got us to the moon and back, relieves pain and yields cures.

Calling science 'bankrupt' is damaging. Doing so because you either dislike that it tops your favorite deity, or because you don't understand it, makes you no better than these "Evolution is just a theory" people who taint textbooks in Texas.

[crikkett]

3. Do yourself a favor

& play devil's advocate: show that science is a belief system. Think of it as an experiment.

[SurfingScientist]

4. You know, that has been done.

And it is true that we might be terribly fooled. There is some chance that something out there aims to fool us, or that our bodies' and brains' perception do distort reality to the extent that we cannot know the truth.

However, science is repeatable. It works, by our experience. Deities or any other believes do not. People have been waiting for 2000 years for Jesus "I'll be back" Christ. Prayer may or may not help you. Antibiotics will.

Calling that 'bankrupt' is plain wrong. Also, you seem to imply there is something better. Could you elaborate...?

[onager]

9. Do the rest of us a favor.

Go get a fatal illness, and try to cure yourself with your favorite non-scientific belief system.

[toddaa]

22. Scientists have beliefs

But their job tends to ruin them.

[edhopper]

6. btw, you're completely wrong

And how do you think "science' is bankrupt?
Discuss.

[cleanhippie]

10. Absurd and laughable.

Try again.

[backscatter712]

11. BZZZZZZT!!!! Thank you for playing.

Science has this thing called evidence that backs it up, which is infinitely more than can be said about deity-based religion.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. Wow, just wow...

I keep asking myself why Americans are so scientifically illiterate. Your post answered my question for me - the cause is total and willful ignorance.

:eyes:

:shaking head and walking away:

[DeSwiss]

5. K&R n/t

[Sal316]

7. For some of us, this is the point.

Using what tools we've been given, yes, the sciences are tools, in order to heal the sick, feed the hungry, etc.

Somewhere along the way faith stopped being a living, breathing thing, a way of life, and turned into simple jingles and even more simplistic statements.....and that's just sad.

[darkstar3]

8. And faith is supposed to live how, exactly?

[Sal316]

12. As it says in James....

....faith without works is dead.

This is why scripture speaks over and over about how you'll "know" who this rag-tag group of believers are... you know, the whole "they'll know us by our fruit".

That being said, for thousands of years, starting in the Jewish tradition into the early Christian tradition, faith was a way of life. It sort of governed everything you did... how you interacted socially, one's responsibilities to the planet, to each other, how you conducted business.... essentially everything. It focused people outwards

Somewhere along the way, my best guess is about the 16th century with the invention of the printing press, "faith" became a bullet point listing of doctrinal positions. Something you could profess to, but not necessarily something that impacted every facet of your life.

This, the ancient view of faith (pistis), is something that is starting to come back around, particularly in the emergent movement. People are now starting to focus more on praxis instead of just doctrinal statements. The change, like any change within the church, is slow in coming and subject to intense opposition.

The big problem today, imo, is that the majority of American Christians are theologically stupid. Their theology is a mile wide and an inch deep and they've lost any and all contextual and cultural history of their faith.

For example, the issue of homosexuality. The verses often quoted don't mean what the anti-gay crowd think they mean. Contextually its not homosexuality in the context that we know it today. It has more to do with temple prostitution and, in some cases, child prostitution. Even in the NT, the words translated as "homosexual" don't appear in any ancient or 1st century greek gay literature (yes, there is such a thing). In fact, one of the words, arkenosite (sp?), is a completely made up compound word. If it was intended to mean what we know it is today, the words would root with paedo or pornea.

That's why its so frustrating when, despite all the evidence to the contrary here on DU, people still make blanket statements about Christians. It's willful ignorance and utter bullshit.

Are people like me in the majority? Nope. But there's a helluva lot more of us now than there were 10-15 years ago.

[darkstar3]

13. That's a lot of verbosity for what you think happened.

Unfortunately, I disagree with you.

You see, faith as you refer to it has ALWAYS been about bullet points regarding doctrine. "The Law" was what governed good Jewish behavior, and it could be found in the Torah and the Talmud. It's actually because Christianity forked so severely from Judaism that such faith-based governance of outward behavior went by the wayside. Look at the changes wrought between the early "church", the Catholic institution up to the Protestant Reformation, and Protestantism throughout the ages. We went from full faith-based governance, to "faith without works is dead", to "those Catholics are crazy for thinking you can work your way into Heaven." And through it all, people adhering to these various faiths did so by sticking to, for lack of a better word, bullet points of doctrine.

Has doctrine been misinterpreted, left by the wayside, and flat out ignored as time went by? Absolutely. That doesn't change the fact that doctrine has controlled faith since the beginning. Religion has always been about adherence, which is why it's such a draw to authoritarian personalities.

As for the vast majority of American Christians being theologically stupid, I would agree with you if I thought theology was a topic you could become smart in. Unfortunately, due to it's divergent, erratic, and often contradictory nature, I don't think anyone can be considered smart or stupid wrt theology.

[Sal316]

19. Perhaps I'm not explaining myself clearly enough...

When I talk about "bullet point" statements of faith, I'm referencing things such as this, and not The Law.

The Law, as found in the Torah and Talmud, is something completely different. Can it be seen as just a 'rule book'? Yes. But to do so is to discount the influence of the 613 mitzvot had on everyday Ancient Jewish life.

To many people today, it's just a simple list of "thou shalls and thou shalt nots". If it were that simple, then the story of the rich young ruler in the NT is superfluous.

In the Old Testament, the words most often associated with the concept of holiness are varying forms of the word qadash, which means “be holy, removed from common use.” Additionally, the noun qôdesh, or “holiness,” is used 469 times in the Old Testament. The context in which it’s used is “the essential nature of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred and which is thus distinct from the common or profane.”

On your last point, Aristotle and I will have to disagree with you. Theology has been considered the 'first philosophy', the pinnacle of human wisdom, and that from which everything that all sciences presuppose since Ancient Greece. Additionally, to dismiss theology as something you "can't be smart in" is to dismiss thousands of years of some of the worlds greatest thinkers, philosophers, and scientists.

[darkstar3]

20. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the evolution of faith & dogma.

On theology, however, you have engaged both in an argument from authority (or wisdom of the ancients, if you like) and a ridiculous attempt to place theology before philosophy in the evolution of thought. Once again, you have the cart before the horse. Formal theology derives from philosophy, just as religious faith derives from adherence to chosen dogmas.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

14. the same thing is happening with science

I have a serious doubt that most people who say believe in "science" are scientists. In the same way I have a serious doubt that most people who say the believe in the message of Jesus (or enter anything else...I'm not personally a Christian) are Christians.

Just like I don't claim to be a Christian, I don't claim to be a scientist - I took the minimum 3 science classes in college to get my liberal arts degree - wound up almost failing Biology (more due to the class atmosphere than through any fault of my own, I think), did pretty good in Astronomy, and did great in Nutrition. So make of it what you will. I don't have anything against science - I have a thing of people who simply say "science" in the course of an argument in an attempt to appear intelligent or gain a moral authority that they may not deserve.

But at the very base of it...a lot of kids growing up in school are taught their whole lives that "science means everything" without ever being taught or knowing anything more than the absolute basics. Can most people who believe in evolution give a clear explanation of Darwin's Origin of the Species? Have they read it? Probably not (or anything else of scientific importance), just like most "Christians" haven't read the bible. Most peoples conceptions of science don't go beyond their (relatively crappy) high school science classes, just like most Christians idea of Christianity doesn't go beyond their likely mentally defective sunday school teachers.

My best friend used to be one of these "lockstep atheists" too...she cut up a dead baby pig in high school biology, which was "fun", so science rocks.

It's a pretty simplified way of viewing things. The argument can also be made that biology itself is a somewhat conservative science - I don't really care to take a side on that point, but it's been argued.

On the other hand, on the more theoretical side, on the cutting edge side, you have cosmologists, astro and quantum physicists, people who, like the scientists of old, are continuously altering mankinds perceptions of reality. It's pretty easy to find people in these fields who are not so quick to doubt the idea of a *god*. I don't know what percentage of the field they make up - but I enjoy listening to their (dumbed down) lectures and reading their (dumbed down) articles, and it seems to be something that comes up often enough to legitimize my general statement.

And on the other hand, you have a lot of people (but not all) who aren't really scientists, amateur or professional, and like myself know very little about science, but simply are atheists because they think *science* says that there is no god, as if *science* is some deity in itself handing out judgments, and not a million people saying a hundred thousand different things.

[trotsky]

15. Um... whut? n/t

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

16. what's your specific question?

There are people who claim to believe in science who don't really know or care about science.

You have not met these people? It might be because I am on the younger side, that I see more of the people who are being raised.

They say "I believe in science."

But I do not think they know anything in science. Rather, I think they put their blind faith in some sort of corporate scientific institution that will solve all of their problems, while they continue to not really question anything about the world.

On the other hand, there are lots of scientists who are, rather than working in some corporate laboratory abusing animals and creating GMOs, are continuing to challenge human conceptions of the world and of the cosmos, and these people *tend* to not be as anti-theism.

Again, if you actually have a specific question it would be easier to answer...if your comment was just an attempt to make me look confusing and foolish, I apologize for replying to it...

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[darkstar3]

18. Oh yes, and "some people say..." n/t