Ok I really want to have this discusson. So lets get down to brass tacks. Lets get some definitions going and set up some theory.

Science: any knowledge or trained skill used to discover and uncover the physical world around us. To include both Natural sciences, the study of the natural phenomena and Social sciences, the systematic study of human behavior and society.


Religon: To incompass Spirituality, Faith, ect ect ect... a concern with matters of the spirit, both orginized and non-orginzed religon, the emphasis of spirituality is often on personal experience.

Now... here is the theory I submit, Science and Religon can co-exsist. They have the same goal, the persuit of the 'truth'. Sciance truth being the understanding of the world around us, and religon the understanding of our position in the world around us.

There are not complete definitions are not complete, I pretty much just made them up off the top of my head. Any one, please feel free to improve upon them. But let the debate begin.

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/Central Florida Astronomical Society

Personal Religion:

A man is really hungry
He sits on the riverbank
And he wishes up his dinner
A fish swims up and strands itself on the shore
The man eats the fish
A convert to Personal Religion is born
...cc

Exactly - it is faith. It isn't proven.
Science requires proof.

you sure of that? there seems to be a lot of theory in Science.

Mr. Stull,

The word 'Theory' in science and philosopy doesn't mean what most people think it means. 'Theory', in these senses, is a broad description of reality (in science it also implies that predictions can be studied). This usage of 'theory' as a word, means a great collection of facts culminating in 'grander' understandings of truth (ie understanding of reality).

A true theory (yes, theories may be demonstrably TRUE or FALSE} are provable and are subject to categorization as such.

A 'theory' that a giant cow manufactured the moon through its milk into cheese with the divine butter churning goddess's help is not on par with the THEORY of gravity that expresses the moon's motion about the earth. All truths are subject to revision, but once a thing is KNOWN to be true, it can only be improved upon, updated, revised, expanded upon.

And before you ask the next question ----"WHO decides whast's true?" I'll answer it. Any rational entity can using Reason, Logic, evidence.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Exactly - it is faith. It isn't proven.
Science requires proof. Without proof, it is not science. Please axplain how the both can exist in harmony. That's utter bullshit. It's like saying your freezing snowball is also as hot as a red charcoal briquette from the grill.

Chuck, the areas in question do not overlap. I am not saying that an apple is an orange.

My belief is that the majority of the problems that exist between your 'science is all' and those of the 'religion is all' points of view occur because both sides of the argument have either forgotten or never learned that the questions that are explored by religion are those of motivation, and the questions explored by science are those of method. In other words, religion asks why and science asks how.

Now, this is interesting. Religion does ask 'WHY'...and science does ask 'WHAT' and 'How' ('how' is my insertion of view in addendum to yours). As I stated above, religion is better viewed, for purposes of definitional clarity as a protophilosophy...or if you prefer a 'philosophy in full'; a point to be debated later I would hope.

I've said this before but it needs to be restated: Science will teach you how to make an H-Bomb and what it does when it detonates, but science won't tell you, or equip you with the knowledge of whether or not to detonate it in London....or NYC....or anywhere or for which government. Philosophy, and its specific branch, ethics will. That's what the science of ethics is all about. Which of course is dependent upon the science of epistemology. And without reality (rational Metaphysics) there's no point in discussing any of it.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

there seems to be a lot of theory in Science

Of course there's theory - investigation of theory is what leads to established scientific fact.
Take religion for example. You have your theory that god exists. I can demonstrate how everything we see didn't need a god to start or create it all.
As I demonstrate these facts, your theory of there being a god (that theory being in your bible) is shown to be weaker and weaker with each disproof. (In order to combat this weakening, you have to change your interpretation of your theory, and decide that now your theory is not spelled out 'literally' but instead 'metaphorically.')
The science theory of the big bang is shown to be stronger and stronger as investigations and experiments bring in results over the decades.
At one point, the theory is so strongly supported by evidence, that we can accept it as proven fact. This proven fact is not a sacred truth, however. (That is religion's purvue). This proven fact could yet be disproven.
Just because people don't like facts changing on them doesn't mean you reject what has been found; oh it must be wrong because it keeps changing!
Since when does someone's exasperation have any bearing at all on what reality is?

You also make an error of assumption, or we could also call it self-definition (you decide what things are, when they are otherwise):

religon the understanding of our position in the world around us.

No. It isn't. Religion is a personal interpretation of your position in reality, and indeed of that reality itself (read your genesis. read your bible facts quiz and creationism quiz I linked you to.)
Science also has an investigated position for humans in the world around them. It knocked Earth out of it's center-of the universe position some few hundreds of years ago - despite extreme resistance from the church.
It demonstrated how humans evolved from ape ancestors 150 years ago. Again, with extreme resistance from the church, which somehow brickheadedly continues to this day.
It demonstrated how diseases can be cured, and are in fact not the scourge of 'god', but are infact, other life forms that parasitically prey upon much larger ones. Some religions indeed reject these facts, and advocate prayer instead of medicine treatment. Well, Darwin does get to triumph here. Idiots who would rather pray will probably end up dead, and we can improve the intelligence curve for the next generation if we're lucky.
Science gives you all the morality and ethics you need through one simple precept: Darwinism. If you want to be successful, you must maximize your genetic potential by being an upstanding and law abiding member of your society: you can't breed and raise young very well if you are in prison
or dead. You are part of the human race. You must do your best to ensure the human race survives, because we all need genetic diversity, and we all need a social group of other humans. To achieve the wonders we have achieved so far it has taken millions of people working towards common goals for decades and even centuries.
This is all you need. There is no need for religion in any of that. How can I exist and live well and effectively without any religion at all if religion is sooooo true and indespensible? But go see what happens to you when you live solely by religion alone and reject all that science has ever produced.
You would have to wander into the desert, and pray for your survival. Pray. Pray to your god. See how long you'll last.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

btw, science and religion do NOT co-exist peacefully. Science has disproven so many tenents of religion it is just sad that anyone would pay any attention to religion ever since.

Science pretty much ignores religion. It has nothing in common with religion. People who make them co-exist in their heads are deluding themselves with false thinking.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Chuck, I agree with most of what you just stated but vehemently disagree with at least 3 major assertions you made.

1. Science cannot give man an ethical framework regardless of Darwin or anything else. Once you discuss the topic of ethics you're clearly and unmistakebly in the realm of philosophy by definition. Period. There is in philosophy what we call the 'science of ethics' but it is a science of a certain type that does regard reality as its final arbiter. I suppose you could argue a 'workaround' argument here that would require subtelty but I know you have a penchant for not seeing eye to eye with me on what philosophy actually IS in reality.

2. No, once something is proven or accepted as fact within a given (and highly complex) framework of evidentiary standards and logical structure it cannot be 'disproven', Only expanded upon. You stated this same thing above then contradicted yourself.

3.

This proven fact is not a sacred truth, however. (That is religion's purvue

No, that is absolutely an inversion of the truth. When religion claims thru their RELIGIOUS means that which contradicts what the rational man is able to know there is nothing 'sacred' about it. There's a temple of reason after all; it has nothing to do with the counterfeitters in religion that attempt to claim that title.

Other than these points, I agree with you.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

(waving paw) Bah!

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Account frozen...

Thanks for reducing what everyone had to say to just a good lay...and we all love a good lay....ther'es nothing smoother on the mind and in the body

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

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Reality Internet Personality

ES...Why was this moddedl"?


I found it hilarious......

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

ES...Why was this moddedl"?


I found it hilarious......

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

ES...Why was this moddedl"?


I found it hilarious......

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

All you need to know about religion from the True Christians(tm)...

Landover Baptist Church

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All you need to know about religion from the True Christians at the Landover Baptist Church...

LOLOLOL...you're killing me, man...killing me! heheee

I've linked to landover baptists' quizzes loads of times. Yet the religious around here seem to ignore it. I wonder why that should be?
I also wonder why a few of MY posts get deleted as obscene, when other MORE obscene posts stay up around here? hhhmmmm......
Not that I mind those other posts.

So Rob, we gotta define what's what I guess.
If you agree that the differnece between philosophy and science is that science uses a lab, then why wouldn't science have a valid branch that it ethics? Both philosophy and science would put forth a theory, philosophy would 'prove' it by thinking it through carefully, while science would prove it with various studies, most of which would involve altruism, punishment experiments, etc. Which I should remind you, have been done for decades. Simple science equation: if I harm others for my own pleasure, then the group called 'society' will find me and lock me up so I can no longer harm them. Ergo, don't harm them if I want to stay free. Where is philosophy being the only possible view in that? I also don't see any subtlety in it, because, as most people here know, I have none.

Thins that have been proven could indeed be disproven - science has NO sacred truths. Will gravity be disproven? It is highly unlikely. Is it possible to disprove gravity? It is conceivably possible - perhaps what we take to be gravity is not gravity at all, but the inversion of some kind of pushing force from outside the universe. Then we will have proven gravity to actually be 'ytivarg'. Is it likely? 99.99999999999999999% NO. So we can consider it as a reasonable fact.
But the point is that science is self-correcting. There are NO sacred truths. The problem is that most people then get frustrated and then go on to say "Well, if it can't even give an answer without changing it, then why even do it?" And they then turn to their bible for a sacred truth. Well, the universe doesn't depend upon our sense of frustration to define itself. If we happen to be correct for what is really out there, great! If not, then we work at it until we get the final answer. I think our common point is that our reasonable fact of gravity isn'tdisproven by a fantasy book that says Yeshua of Nazareth ascended into heaven, or walked on water, or Superman flew up into the sky.

For the last part, I meant that religion is the 'pursuit' that is full of 'sacred truths'. The world was made in six days! Ah ah ah! Can't touch this! It's a sacred truth! Geology has it WRONG!D'uuuhhh!
Noah put, in

A single day,... an average of 1,157 animals boarded the boat every second (100,000,000/24hours x 60minutes x 60seconds)

Ah ah ah! Can't touch this! It's a sacred truth! All those DNA studies are lying!D'uh!

Sorry if I mislead when talking about 'sacred truths'.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

jesusland. formerly USA. heh heh heh

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Chuck,

Perhaps it would be best if you phrased your question about ethics and science a bit more concisely for me. I'm feeling 'slow' today. As for the rest of your responses to mine, it seems as we've clarified those. Only the ethic/science question remains.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!