How do you think Humans came to be?

[Officer of Engineers]

I can sort of see where you are coming from but this narrow field of research you are using as an example is very much the exception to the rule.

Hardly, it is the definition of the universe. I don't see how this is an exception but the theory of everything.

Are you suggesting that all scientific discovery should be abandoned because of the failure to establish this M -Theory ?

I'm saying at some point, science is religion.

Religion is ALL theory based on superstition and mythology after all certainly not maths !

Yeah, have you seen another universe?

[highsea]

I like the Mayan version.

At first there was only sky above and water below. The gods Sovereign Plumed Serpent and Heart of Sky spoke together, joined their thoughts, and conceived of creation.

Simply by their word, they brought it forth. First they created and formed earth and vegetation; then they created animals and gave them homes. They told the animals to speak and gave them different cries, but the animals didn't speak like people. So the animals were appointed to serve by their flesh being eaten.

The gods tried making a human body out of earth and mud, but it could not turn its head, and it crumbled in water, so they gave up on it. Next they created manikins out of carved wood. These people talked like men, and they multiplied and populated the earth, but there was nothing in their hearts, and they did not remember their creators. Heart of Sky devised a flood for them. A rain of resin came from the sky; animals attacked them, and even their cooking pots and grinding stones turned on them. The manikins were destroyed, but some of their descendants are today's monkeys.

Finally, just before the first dawn, before the sun and stars appeared, four men were made from corn meal and water. These people saw everywhere and understood everything, and they gave thanks for being made. The creators thought the people would become like gods themselves, so they clouded the men's vision to its present state. Four women were made next, and these eight people became the parents of the Quiche people.

[highsea]

I'm saying at some point, science is religion.

Technically speaking, cosmology isn't science. It doesn't make predictions that can be tested.

[ArtyEngineer]

My Belief (The Church of ArtyEngineer)

As someone who trusts scientific theory and our current understanding of the creation of the universe and the evolution of life on this planet and also as someone who believes in God (The Christian one) I spent many years trying to reconcile these two almost mutually exclusive philosphies!!!!

As kid who was packed of to sunday school EVERY sunday I always was so confused about things like the dinosaurs, Noahs Ark, the whole genisis story basically didnt make sense to me.

I was forever asking my sunday school teachers awkward questions about the dinosaurs, and how could all the different races come from just 2 people adam and eve. I finally one sunday asked our Minister, and he gave me an answer that worked for me for a long number of years. He said, when god created Adam he made him as a man, however if a doctor today was to examin him the moment after he had been created he would not know that that had just happened. God made him with a "History of growing up" built in. Which he said was teh same for teh world. God made the world with a "History built in".

That was a very satisfying answer for me as a Kid. As I got older and started to understand about "Faith" a bit more it began to make even more sense. Faith by definition is "Belief in the absence of Proof". What that means is that there is NO WAY we can Prove that God created the world, if we could then it pretty much negates teh fundamental tennet of the Christian Religion which is "Faith"!!!!!! Thats why I laugh when I hear folks claiming to be able to Prove the Earth is only 6000 years old by some means. It shows me that they dont really understand the religion the are professing to uphold.

I have further refined this concpet to the popint where I now think our current understanding of the universe is true, all the way from the big bang to where we are now, but simply that thats how God intended things to unfold. I believe the Creation stories were "Provided" to give early man some rational as to how he got there until such times as we developed intellectually and scientifically to start to understand for ourselves how things have came about.

This is what works for me :)

Regards

Arty

[Black Prince]

The vast bulk of scientific discovery is provable in the real world and it is advancing every day. Our knowlege is far from complete but it certainly is more credible than Medieval scriptural texts in its explanation of the world around us and can be established using many empirical methodologies.

99% or more of science to date is certainly NOT faith based whereas 100% of religious belief is. I'll take truth over faith any day

[Officer of Engineers]

Technically speaking, cosmology isn't science. It doesn't make predictions that can be tested.

That's only because we can't build stars and black holes and galaxies to test them out.

[Officer of Engineers]

The vast bulk of scientific discovery is provable in the real world and it is advancing every day.

Explain the speed of light in relation to Newton's Laws.

[highsea]

That's only because we can't build stars and black holes and galaxies to test them out.

I should clarify- I was referring to cosmology in the context of M theory. There is observational cosmology that is science. So obviously we can observe black holes and galaxies, and make predictions based on those observations..

Theoretical cosmology is theoretical by nature, and isn't testable. There are no observational data that we can use to argue the theory. Using M theory to unify the string theories is a nice mathematical excercise, but that's about it.

Even the string theories that it attempts to unify are highly theoretical themselves.

Which is why General Relativity + Quantum Physics is still called the "Standard Model". :)

[Black Prince]

. Faith by definition is "Belief in the absence of Proof". What that means is that there is NO WAY we can Prove that God created the world, if we could then it pretty much negates teh fundamental tennet of the Christian Religion which is "Faith"!!!!!!

Arty

For me to do that I would have to shut down the cognitive and reasoning side of my brain. I could not square that with any premise I could rationalise in any way. For me its humanities duty to challenge irrationality using reason in order to advance. Look what happened to us in the dark ages when for 1000 years religious dogma blighted mankinds advancement for fear of god and being branded a heretic which was often tantamount to a death sentence in those days.

I'd like to think that the initial tolerance and later flourishing science during and after the renaissance has been primarily responsible for our emergence from such dark times. It required the rolling back of religious dogma for this ever to happen. Sadly such militant intolerant religious dogma seems to be advancing again outside Europe.

[Black Prince]

Explain the speed of light in relation to Newton's Laws.

Go online and find out. I'm not a scientist

Try doing the same with religious theologies and you wont get very far

[Officer of Engineers]

Go online and find out. I'm not a scientist

Ah, so you take it on faith.

Try doing the same with religious theologies and you wont get very far

Like what you've just done with Newton's Laws.

[Officer of Engineers]

Theoretical cosmology is theoretical by nature, and isn't testable. There are no observational data that we can use to argue the theory. Using M theory to unify the string theories is a nice mathematical excercise, but that's about it.

Even the string theories that it attempts to unify are highly theoretical themselves.

I call it religion at this point.

Which is why General Relativity + Quantum Physics is still called the "Standard Model". :)

Works for me but I see the need to explain more than what the Standard Model states instead of taking it as is. Like you said, Gravity is a weak force. Now, why you have to find out why it is a weak force is beyond me.

[Black Prince]

Ah, so you take it on faith.

Like what you've just done with Newton's Laws.

Like I said I'm not a scientist.

It follows by that reasoning you have to be a priest to be religious ?

So I take you believe that because science cannot yet explain everything it can be discarded as flawed ?

And so by inference Medieval dieties and scriptural texts fill in the gaps so to speak thereby invalidating science with thier more 'rational' vision ?

Why must a supernatural diety have to exist to account for everything we cannot yet explain ?

[Blademaster]

All those physics laws, newtonian laws, Einsteinian laws, darwinism, and evolution, the ones that makes us understand about nature, I firmly think they are part of God's plan. Every time we learn how nature works, how cosmos work, we glimpse further into God's infinite plan.

For every discovery made, every finding made, every theory proved, I grow more awe in of God's plan and his eternal wisdom.

Science does not mean the absence of faith. It only goes to prove faith. They are not mutually exclusive, at least for me.

[TTL]

I'm saying at some point, science is religion.

Ah, so you take it on faith.

But Sir there is a fundamental diffrence between the belief systems of science and religion. In religion the accepted doctrine is dogma. It is absolute and unquestionable truth. In stark contrast the best scientist is the one who constantly suspects the truth of even the most established theorems.