How do your religious beliefs impact your views on medicine if at all?

[Loon]

Two more points to tack on here:

Re: religion and scientists: I heard a talk that discussed this issue. It seems that religiosity tends to decrease as a person's educational attainment increases and as their field gets "harder" (not as in "more difficult," but as "hard science": physics being harder than biology, which is harder than psych, which is harder than sociology). Something like 90% of the general population is religious, but only 7% of members of the National Academy of Sciences profess any religious belief. Alas, I don't have the cites handy and can't find an excerpt on YouTube, even though other parts of the same talk are pretty easy to find.

Re: proving the origin of the universe:
The argument seems to be coming down to "religion has an explanation and science doesn't, so religion must be right." That's not correct, however. Just because we haven't yet come to a solid conclusion via the scientific method does mean that we cannot or will not come to a conclusion. Everything that we have discovered through science was once unknown.* It also doesn't mean that we can give any credibility to explanations from other sources simply because those explanations have been proffered.


* And in some cases, these things we have learned have directly contradicted the Bible. For example, we know that rainbows are light split by water droplets in the air acting as prizms. The Bible explains rainbows as God's promise not to douse the planet again. Of course, there's nothing to say that god didn't alter the physics of light and/or water to allow the rainbows to form as a symbol of his commitment, but we do have an explanation that doesn't require God.

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[Chemdude]

Evolution is much more than an assumption at this point. There's endless data supporting this.

The nature of science is to hypothesize. If you consider history, many phenomenons have been answered by science over time. With the rate of human advancement and understanding I don't see why it would not be feasible to say that someday this origin phenomenon will be answered in theory. The Big Bang theory isn't a fact either but you're telling me with your scientific background that it's not a very plausible explanation? I'd love to see the mechanism for "Poof here is a planet". An explanation is inevitable........people swore the earth was flat for godsake.


Here's an equally poor question for you: If god made the world in some finite time span, why has the universe been proven to still be expanding?

I suppose that 7 days should have been made a sideways 8.

I think you misunderstood me. I was not talking about evolution. Assume that everyone believes in evolution. Even if evolution did occur, that does not necessarily mean that it was spontaneous. Even if the Big Bang did occur, it also doesn't necessarily mean that it was spontaneous. The occurrence of evolution/big bang does not disprove the presence of God.

My Question is: Assuming that all the scientific hypotheses regarding the development of "life" are correct, how did the matter/substance of this "life" originate?

In regards to your question: God created the universe. The universe is expanding. These two statements are not contradictory. Regardless of whether the universe is contracting, expanding or static, God created the universe.

 

[Chemdude]

Just curious... what university do you attend and what is your major?

So if evolution does not exist, how do you explain antibiotic resistance? And, the corollary, will you treat your patients with first generation antibiotics because you do not "assume evolution actually occured"? Surely you don't believe that evolution is an assumption. I think you would be hard pressed to find any respectable scientist who did or even considered it a matter of belief. That is the beauty of science. It is testable. So test it. See for yourself if natural selection and sexual selection affect the genotype/phenotype of progeny in a population. For those of us who actually work in settings where we see evolution occur everyday, this is laughable.

Or don't believe me. Here: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6024

That is as reputable a source as you can find. Read it. See for yourself if it is an assumption.

Now that we have made it out of the 19th century...

The argument that you are hinting at with the is based on the predication that the NUMEROUS hypothesis based on experimental evidence dating back to Miller from the 1950s don't come out statistically promising. So look at the numbers for yourself.
http://darwin.uky.edu/~sargent/EvolutionFAQ/probability2.htm

If you disagree... that is your right. But to think that it is less possible than the religious explanation which offers the idea that god always existed but the universe can not possibly have always existed is a twisted argument logically.

Or perhaps you don't believe anything regardless of "science", in which case, why medicine? Perhaps you should consider this before you apply, as a adcom may tear into you a bit. Especially if he/she is one of the countless scientists who work everyday in the REALITY that is evolution. After a formal education, you can not really believe that right? You were just saying that to see a reaction, surely.

If you would like, I can point you in a direction for your "assumptions". I know several people who have put their lives to this line of work and I think it may be of some benifit to talk this over with them before you try to influence others.

I'm a chemistry major and I go to a large public university in the Midwest.

I think you misunderstood me as well. Even if evolution did occur, it did not happen spontaneously.

 

[Cp22kjer]

I think you misunderstood me. I was not talking about evolution. Assume that everyone believes in evolution. Even if evolution did occur, that does not necessarily mean that it was spontaneous. Even if the Big Bang did occur, it also doesn't necessarily mean that it was spontaneous. The occurrence of evolution/big bang does not disprove the presence of God.

My Question is: Assuming that all the scientific hypotheses regarding the development of "life" are correct, how did the matter/substance of this "life" originate?

In regards to your question: God created the universe. The universe is expanding. These two statements are not contradictory. Regardless of whether the universe is contracting, expanding or static, God created the universe.

I see what you're saying. We have fundamental differences that make this discussion more difficult. I'm not under any presumption that even IF there was a God-----he made everything. Therefore it's tough to discuss this any further.

 

[Bearferret]

Forthegood: There's a point you made earlier that you're an agnostic, and not an atheist, because you're not 100% sure that there's no god. I'd just like to point out that us atheists aren't 100% sure either - no one is. There's a prevalent idea out there that atheists are extreme, "devout" non-believers, professing to be certain of the non-existence of a deity, and I'd just like to do what I can to dispel that notion. Atheists are simply people who don't think there's a god.

From here on out, I think I need a disclaimer: I am not trying to offend anyone's religious views, nor am I actively trying to convert anyone. I'm merely looking at a couple of arguments I've seen in this thread from as logical a standpoint as I can. Please don't take offense.

Chemdude (I think it was you, anyway): you made a point earlier that, no matter which position you take, it requires faith. I take exception to this. "Faith" is defined as "firm belief in something for which there is no proof." Not believing in god doesn't require any faith at all - I have posited nothing that doesn't have evidence behind it. Trusting in the truth of evolution and the big bang, while understanding that we don't have the whole picture yet, does not require faith, as there is substantial evidence that points to the truth of both of these theories. I don't claim to know how the singularity before the big bang came to be, though - and again, I haven't proposed anything that requires faith of any kind; I just have acknowledged that I don't know.

With regards to the creator/created issue, and god existing in a realm outside of our conception of space and time: while this explanation does successfully skirt the whole "who created the creator" issue, it doesn't really help the case for a god, for two reasons: one, you've just needlessly complicated your hypothesis, and, if we're aiming for the simplest reasonable hypothesis, which I think we should be, you've just made your proposition even less believable; two, and I think this is more important, there is no more evidence to support it than there is for any hypothetical explanation for the beginning of the universe that I could come up with that invokes a separate reality, and there are an infinite number of such explanations I could come up with, and I could make them mutually exclusive, too, if I wanted. So just by running the numbers, the existence of such a god is infinitely improbable. Much less probable, for instance, than my getting struck by lightning three times in the next ten seconds (it's a beautiful, cloudless day, by the way, and I'm inside).

Aaaaaand back to the disclaimer: I don't believe there's a god because there's no evidence to suggest that there is a god, and based on the evidence that we have, the probability of a god existing is very, very low. HOWEVER, those of faith shouldn't take offense at me saying this: it's true - but it shouldn't matter. Again, faith is firm belief in something for which there is no proof. It is, by its very nature, not a logical proposition. So logical arguments against it should not make you mad. I hope.

And lastly, I apologize if this has bothered anyone. In addition to being potentially offensive, I realize that, especially on message boards, I can sometimes come across as a pompous ass. Know that that's not my intention.

 

[RySerr21]

Ok. If we assume evolution actually occured, then how did the universe come to be? Scientists have been trying to come up with a hypothesis regarding the "origin" of life for ages; sadly, not one hypothesis is based on fact.

so your argument is "Scientists have not definitively proven how the universe came to exist, therefore by default it must have been created by God?." Did I get that right?

 

[Forthegood]

Bearferret: Sorry about that. You are very much right about atheists, perhaps my language was too forceful. I was just trying to show some sort of category to separate the two sometimes difficult to distinguish groups. People always press this issue, and you are right that it is not so simple a distinction.

I agree with all 3 posts above... and I would also say that I do not think that what Chemdude is proposing is more than he just said. He is just saying it does not RULE OUT a God, he does not necessarily mean that it RULES IN God. Subtle distinction maybe, but to further his point it is justified in that the evidence supports neither way.

Unfortunately this distinction, if looked at in historical context, is one of many throughout history posed by religious followers. And, in due time, when science describes it in enough detail for the non-science-specific community (the Church proper) to show that it indeed does not support a creation instance by God (the foundation is in place and has been growing for 15 years) then the religious people will move on to the next thing that science has yet to explain adequately.

This cycle will continue. And it is a good thing, because such need for fact seems to actually be DRIVEN by religious people who stubbornly refuse new theories until it is set in stone fact.

That being said, it is an argument that is futile, as time has and will show, science always wins the war. Look at the history of human religious belief. Science and religion are inversely correlated, and science is increasing at exponential proportion...

 

[Chemdude]

so your argument is "Scientists have not definitively proven how the universe came to exist, therefore by default it must have been created by God?." Did I get that right?

Nope.

"Science" says that the coming of the universe was spontaneous and was not directed by a "greater being". I find it hard to believe that all that surrounds us, with all its complexity, could have developed spontaneously. Think about the conditions that are required to maintain "life". All these conditions couldn't have been present at the same time without direction.

The probability of me getting a 100%(by guessing) on a 25 question(5 possible answers) multiple choice exam is (1/5)^25-->extremely small number. Comparatively, the probability of having all the required "life" conditions being found at the same time spontaneously would be infinitely small.

 

[Chemdude]

Bearferret: Sorry about that. You are very much right about atheists, perhaps my language was too forceful. I was just trying to show some sort of category to separate the two sometimes difficult to distinguish groups. People always press this issue, and you are right that it is not so simple a distinction.

I agree with all 3 posts above... and I would also say that I do not think that what Chemdude is proposing is more than he just said. He is just saying it does not RULE OUT a God, he does not necessarily mean that it RULES IN God. Subtle distinction maybe, but to further his point it is justified in that the evidence supports neither way.

Unfortunately this distinction, if looked at in historical context, is one of many throughout history posed by religious followers. And, in due time, when science describes it in enough detail for the non-science-specific community (the Church proper) to show that it indeed does not support a creation instance by God (the foundation is in place and has been growing for 15 years) then the religious people will move on to the next thing that science has yet to explain adequately.

This cycle will continue. And it is a good thing, because such need for fact seems to actually be DRIVEN by religious people who stubbornly refuse new theories until it is set in stone fact.

That being said, it is an argument that is futile, as time has and will show, science always wins the war. Look at the history of human religious belief. Science and religion are inversely correlated, and science is increasing at exponential proportion...

Yes. Science has defeated religious belief many times, but who said that all religious belief is based on a godly revelation? In fact, certain religious beliefs often contradict other religious beliefs.

 

[DrYoda]

Nope.

"Science" says that the coming of the universe was spontaneous and was not directed by a "greater being". I find it hard to believe that all that surrounds us, with all its complexity, could have developed spontaneously. Think about the conditions that are required to maintain "life". All these conditions couldn't have been present at the same time without direction.

The probability of me getting a 100%(by guessing) on a 25 question(5 possible answers) multiple choice exam is (1/5)^25-->extremely small number. Comparatively, the probability of having all the required "life" conditions being found at the same time spontaneously would be infinitely small.

There are trillions of stars/planets each one could be looked at a single attempt of of nature trying to randomly get it right.

Which leads me to a question: How does everyone's religious beliefs mesh with the idea of God perhaps having created other intelligent life forms somewhere else in the universe.

 

[Forthegood]

Again, I defer you to an expert on the subject. http://darwin.uky.edu/~sargent/EvolutionFAQ/probability2.htm

READ IT THIS TIME! I promise it won't take but 5 minutes, and it will save us all hours of useless typing.

Then, after reading it, if you propose a reasonable error, we will discuss that. But going in circles over the "probability argument" is useless. Doing the math, I am sure you will see that such an argument holds no validity.


And Chemdude: So we both agree that some religious beliefs have been challenged and overturned by scientific argument. Christianity being the major... the only major religion I see not being overturned is Hindu and some sects of it. And that only pertains so much as the belief in a God is not necessarily a belief in an entity other than the universe as a whole.

In that case, what beliefs are from God and what are not? I must here assert that if a revelation was truely from God , as C.S.Lewis put it, "every sentence would have to smell of heaven". Please point me in the direction of such infallibility, because after formal education on the history and makeup of the bible, it is certainly not in there.

 

[Bearferret]

Nope.

"Science" says that the coming of the universe was spontaneous and was not directed by a "greater being".

I'm not sure that science does say this explicitly. It doesn't say it absolutely wasn't directed by a greater being. It just doesn't say that it was.

I find it hard to believe that all that surrounds us, with all its complexity, could have developed spontaneously. Think about the conditions that are required to maintain "life". All these conditions couldn't have been present at the same time without direction.

You're meshing two things together - the beginning of the universe and the beginning of life on earth. At the instant after the big bang, all those conditions necessary to maintain life almost certainly weren't present. They developed over time; I don't think any scientist worth his salt has ever said that all that surrounds us developed spontaneously. The beginning may or may not have been spontaneous, but the rest has been a process, with each step building upon the last.

The probability of me getting a 100%(by guessing) on a 25 question(5 possible answers) multiple choice exam is (1/5)^25-->extremely small number. Comparatively, the probability of having all the required "life" conditions being found at the same time spontaneously would be infinitely small.

Not infinitely small. That sort of low probability is reserved for likelihoods which have a truly infinite number of equally or more likely alternate possibilities. But that's semantics, for the most part. You're right; the probability of a planet having all the required conditions for life at the same time is VERY small. Perhaps one in a billion? One in a trillion? Smaller? That's okay - there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, most of which probably have orbiting bodies. So how many planets or orbiting bodies are there in the universe? An arbitrarily large number. Enough so that, even if the chances of life developing on a given planet are, say, 1 in 100 trillion, it's almost a certainty that it'll happen somewhere, and likely on more than one planet.

 

[DrYoda]

because after formal education on the history and makeup of the bible, it is certainly not in there.

Formal as in Catholic school, or as in theology degree/classes?
Don't feel obligated to answer, I'm just not sure of the proper definition of formal (if there is one).

This cycle will continue. And it is a good thing, because such need for fact seems to actually be DRIVEN by religious people who stubbornly refuse new theories until it is set in stone fact.

That being said, it is an argument that is futile, as time has and will show, science always wins the war. Look at the history of human religious belief. Science and religion are inversely correlated, and science is increasing at exponential proportion...

I don't think religion and science need to necessarily be at war. A few people on the extremes may view it that way, but I think it's pretty easy to combine the two. I don't belive in God, but if you take the view that God is hands off, or at least doesn't actively control everything it can work. This leaves the mechanisms uncovered by science in place, it only requires the acceptance that a deity got the ball rolling.

Really, the orgin of the universe is the only few place I can think of where science and religion can easily contest each other, because it can't be observed, only therorized about. Everything else is just a mechansim that has a hard and fast answer that can be observed, which if disbelived can lead to what you described.

I do agree with your point that everything may one day be discoverable. But it seems to me the start of everything as we know it would offer some very unique obsticals, which could very well prove to be physically impossible.

 

[Loon]

I see what you're saying. We have fundamental differences that make this discussion more difficult. I'm not under any presumption that even IF there was a God-----he made everything. Therefore it's tough to discuss this any further.

This is a critical point in a discussion like this. When discussing values or religion or the like, the discussion can be fruitful until the point of disagreement is reached (in this case, Cp22kjer's "fundamental differences"). I think this is actually the point of a (rational) discussion. You can learn a lot about the other person and other people in general by seeing what your fundamental differences are.
I had a similar moment reading Chemdude (or Chemist0137? I got lazy with the names. Sorry ) saying that cloning or the like couldn't happen because it would reveal evil in the world and that would prove a flaw in God's design, which clearly can't exist. Regardless of my beliefs in god or no god, I don't beleive the universe is perfect from a human point of view, if at all.
Of course, this doesn't mean that discussion should stop. It just means that the best part of the discussion has likely past. Though it can be fun to go through and see what else follows from that belief.

There's a prevalent idea out there that atheists are extreme, "devout" non-believers, professing to be certain of the non-existence of a deity, and I'd just like to do what I can to dispel that notion. Atheists are simply people who don't think there's a god.

I want to tack on to this, while it is in fact true, that there are plenty of atheists who do fit the "devout non-believer" stereotype. Tragically, these are the most visible atheists, often by dint of being loud and obnoxious. One of the current/ongoing issues in the humanist community is whether this sort of thing is helpful or not.

By the same token, the people that are usually the target of anti-Christian sentiment are usually the loud and obnoxious ones, like tv preachers. At least in the atheist community, this draws a lot of attention and tends to get all Christians painted with a broad, unflattering brush. It works both ways (and many more ways when you look at all the other religions out there).

 

[Chemist0157]

Which leads me to a question: How does everyone's religious beliefs mesh with the idea of God perhaps having created other intelligent life forms somewhere else in the universe.

Just for fun, I'll talk about this! Christians get their stuff from the Bible so I'll just use that as a source since in this matter, we're just talking about how other life forms mesh with out faiths. The Bible is an account of man and God's interaction with him. As far as I know, the Bible does not explicitly say, "There is no life on other planets" or "Earth is all there is." However, there is no indication from the Bible that there is life on another planet so really nothing can be concluded strictly from the Bible.

Some Christians do believe there is other life, but they have no real reason to think so, just as I have no reason to think there is not. I think a certain evangelist, maybe Billy Graham, does think there is other life.

Even if there was, it wouldn't have any impact on Christianity.

 

[Forthegood]

Good point. What i meant by that is education not specifically from a point. Seminary school or theological degrees in general paint a picture... but it is guided. This is classical religious education. What I am referring to is not what the book says, but the history surrounding it and the literal history and translatino of it. So, the larger picture, taught at any university level on the culture and history of the period.

Not that I think theologians being taught in a guided way is wrong. Quite the opposite, it is reasonable and would be ridiculous not to.

That aside, as a member or the atheist/agnostic group, I hope that there are other forms of sentient life. Hopefully more intelligent, and intelligent enough to never come visit our little blue planet, because we would probably try to kill them.

 

[goldenwest]

Not infinitely small. That sort of low probability is reserved for likelihoods which have a truly infinite number of equally or more likely alternate possibilities. But that's semantics, for the most part. You're right; the probability of a planet having all the required conditions for life at the same time is VERY small. Perhaps one in a billion? One in a trillion? Smaller? That's okay - there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, most of which probably have orbiting bodies. So how many planets or orbiting bodies are there in the universe? An arbitrarily large number. Enough so that, even if the chances of life developing on a given planet are, say, 1 in 100 trillion, it's almost a certainty that it'll happen somewhere, and likely on more than one planet.

This is hauntingly bad math that just throws around "large" numbers like million, billion, and trillion without citing sources.

Since 1979 reputable scientific journals no longer accept articles that cite the origin of life as rising from random reactions over billions of years. "Confirmed evolutionists agree that you just cannot win if the classic concept of randomness at the point molecular level of DNA is the driving force behind the mutations. The time is just not there.

Mathematical probability-

• Marcel P. Schutzenberger of the University of Paris calculated the probability of evolution based on mutation and natural selection, concluded that 'there is no chance (<10^-1000) to see this mechanism appear spontaneously and if it did, even less for it to remain.'
• Molecular biophysicist Harold Morowitz calculated that if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions would be 10^-100,000,000,000.
• Astrophysicist Edward Argyle calculated the probability that even a simple organism arose on the early earth by chance. "It would seem impossible," he wrote, "for the pre-biotic earth to have generated more than about two hundred bits of information," an amount that falls short of the six million bits in E. coli by a factor of 30,000.
• Writes John Horgan in Scientific American: "Some scientists have argued that, given enough time, even apparently miraculous events become possible--such as the spontaneous emergence of a single-cell organism from random couplings of chemicals. Sir Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer, has said such an occurrence is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard. Most researchers agree with Hoyle on this point.
• Physicists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds that all the functional proteins necessary for life might form in one place by random events as one chance in 10^40,000. They concluded that this was "an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."
• Thomas Huxley, in apparent support of the "time solves everything" thesis, once said that six monkeys typing randomly for millions of years would eventually type out all the books in the British Museum. Calculating the actual number of permutations of letters, line, and pages in the 700,000 books in the British Museum in Huxley's time, David Foster concluded: "Huxley was hopelessly wrong in stating that six monkeys allowed enormous time would randomly type all the books in the British Museum when in fact they could only type half a line of on book if they type for the proposed duration of the universe."
• A simple calculation, explains physicist Schroeder, can show that the likelihood of producing any particular sonnet of Shakespeare by random typing is about one chance in 10^690. "The statistical improbability of pure chance yielding even the simplest forms of life has made a mockery of the theory that random choice alone gave us the biosphere we see."

Randomness is a non-starter, not a solution.

I have read Forthegood's link, and disagree with a few major points. Indeed for a deck of cards the sequence of 52 laid out cards is 1/52; however, in the case that only one sequence of cards is correct the rules of multiplied sequential probability apply. Without going into this much more I will just say that I am not trying to prove it impossible, just highly... highly improbable. Personally, I feel a belief in those improbabilities takes some measure of faith. If you don't like the word "faith" I can force you to like it. We all have some measure of faith by just looking at the most practical of things. Unless someone is sitting in a corner repeating over and over "I think therefore I am" they cannot claim to have no faith.

 

[RySerr21]

I'm not sure that science does say this explicitly. It doesn't say it absolutely wasn't directed by a greater being. It just doesn't say that it was.

You're meshing two things together - the beginning of the universe and the beginning of life on earth. At the instant after the big bang, all those conditions necessary to maintain life almost certainly weren't present. They developed over time; I don't think any scientist worth his salt has ever said that all that surrounds us developed spontaneously. The beginning may or may not have been spontaneous, but the rest has been a process, with each step building upon the last.

Not infinitely small. That sort of low probability is reserved for likelihoods which have a truly infinite number of equally or more likely alternate possibilities. But that's semantics, for the most part. You're right; the probability of a planet having all the required conditions for life at the same time is VERY small. Perhaps one in a billion? One in a trillion? Smaller? That's okay - there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, most of which probably have orbiting bodies. So how many planets or orbiting bodies are there in the universe? An arbitrarily large number. Enough so that, even if the chances of life developing on a given planet are, say, 1 in 100 trillion, it's almost a certainty that it'll happen somewhere, and likely on more than one planet.

You sound like richard dawkins! I love it.

 

[Flushot]

This is hauntingly bad math that just throws around "large" numbers like million, billion, and trillion without citing sources.



I have read Forthegood's link, and disagree with a few major points. Indeed for a deck of cards the sequence of 52 laid out cards is 1/52; however, in the case that only one sequence of cards is correct the rules of multiplied sequential probability apply. Without going into this much more I will just say that I am not trying to prove it impossible, just highly... highly improbable. Personally, I feel a belief in those improbabilities takes some measure of faith. If you don't like the word "faith" I can force you to like it. We all have some measure of faith by just looking at the most practical of things. Unless someone is sitting in a corner repeating over and over "I think therefore I am" they cannot claim to have no faith.

You can force him to like the word faith? I don't understand this. Can you put faith into statistics?

If a doctor told me I had a 99% chance of dying from the progression of a disease, that still means I have that 1% chance of living. If I survive, it isn't faith or luck or a miracle. I just beat the odds; I got that 1%.

I don't think faith is practical because of what it stands for: belief without evidence. I don't have faith in this surgery, drug, etc. I have numbers.

 

[goldenwest]

You can force him to like the word faith? I don't understand this. Can you put faith into statistics?

If a doctor told me I had a 99% chance of dying from the progression of a disease, that still means I have that 1% chance of living. If I survive, it isn't faith or luck or a miracle. I just beat the odds; I got that 1%.

I don't think faith is practical because of what it stands for: belief without evidence. I don't have faith in this surgery, drug, etc. I have numbers.

That's not what I'm saying. The crux of that point was the Cogito ergo sum. Nothing is certain. What I'm saying is that even if all you rely on is science you are having some faith that the scientific worldview is indeed correct and that it's the best explanation for the reality we experience.

 

[Chemist0157]

You can force him to like the word faith? I don't understand this. Can you put faith into statistics?

If a doctor told me I had a 99% chance of dying from the progression of a disease, that still means I have that 1% chance of living. If I survive, it isn't faith or luck or a miracle. I just beat the odds; I got that 1%.

I don't think faith is practical because of what it stands for: belief without evidence. I don't have faith in this surgery, drug, etc. I have numbers.

I don't agree with this definition. Belief without evidence? Then you wouldn't ever be able to exercise your faith or grow your faith. In terms of the Bible, faith is really just trusting God and His Word. I have my own experiences and that of others; if nothing ever came from believing in Christ, why would I ever continue to do so? In these kinds of discussions, I don't normally bring up things like answered prayer, etc. because alot of people just roll their eyes at that sort of thing. But observation of events is evidence. Anyways, what I'm saying is faith in Christianity is a trust that has been built over time.

I think what goldenwest was saying that at those kind of odds he listed, one would have to take a leap to believe they won against those kinds of odds.

 

[Chemdude]

Again, I defer you to an expert on the subject. http://darwin.uky.edu/~sargent/EvolutionFAQ/probability2.htm

READ IT THIS TIME! I promise it won't take but 5 minutes, and it will save us all hours of useless typing.

Then, after reading it, if you propose a reasonable error, we will discuss that. But going in circles over the "probability argument" is useless. Doing the math, I am sure you will see that such an argument holds no validity.


And Chemdude: So we both agree that some religious beliefs have been challenged and overturned by scientific argument. Christianity being the major... the only major religion I see not being overturned is Hindu and some sects of it. And that only pertains so much as the belief in a God is not necessarily a belief in an entity other than the universe as a whole.

In that case, what beliefs are from God and what are not? I must here assert that if a revelation was truely from God , as C.S.Lewis put it, "every sentence would have to smell of heaven". Please point me in the direction of such infallibility, because after formal education on the history and makeup of the bible, it is certainly not in there.

I read the Edward Kirshner thing and it seems like he is falsely incorporating elements of truth into his proof.

Like this part:

Similarly, if you shuffle a deck of cards and then lay them out in sequence, whatever sequence of 52 cards you lay out has a probability of 1/52!, which is roughly 10-68. So improbable sequences of events happen all the time.

Obtaining a random sequence would NOT be improbable. When you shuffle a deck of cards you are expecting a random sequence to occur. Although the probability of getting a specified sequence is 1/52!, the probability of getting a random sequence is 1/1(you will always get a sequence).

In other words: If you gave me a deck of cards and told me to shuffle out a specific sequence, that would be highly improbable. On the other hand, if you told me to shuffle out any sequence, that is definitely probable.

The conditions required for life (distance from the sun, properties of water, etc.) are a specified set of required conditions. If any one of these conditions were to be changed, then life could have not developed. This is much different than shuffling a deck of cards and expecting the occurrence of a random sequence. The presence of all these specified conditions at once is HIGHLY improbable.

 

[Chemdude]

Again, I defer you to an expert on the subject. http://darwin.uky.edu/~sargent/EvolutionFAQ/probability2.htm

READ IT THIS TIME! I promise it won't take but 5 minutes, and it will save us all hours of useless typing.

Then, after reading it, if you propose a reasonable error, we will discuss that. But going in circles over the "probability argument" is useless. Doing the math, I am sure you will see that such an argument holds no validity.


And Chemdude: So we both agree that some religious beliefs have been challenged and overturned by scientific argument. Christianity being the major... the only major religion I see not being overturned is Hindu and some sects of it. And that only pertains so much as the belief in a God is not necessarily a belief in an entity other than the universe as a whole.

In that case, what beliefs are from God and what are not? I must here assert that if a revelation was truely from God , as C.S.Lewis put it, "every sentence would have to smell of heaven". Please point me in the direction of such infallibility, because after formal education on the history and makeup of the bible, it is certainly not in there.

This is where the religions differ. Personally, I can tell you that Islam does not contradict any element of "proven" science. For example, the Quran(introduced 650AD) stated that the Earth was round. Also, There are clear verses in the Quran which refer to the Big Bang:

(Quran 21:30)
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?

EDIT: I just wanted to note that the Quran was compiled 1450 years ago. The "Big Bang Theory" was introduced in the early 1900's.

 

[Bacchus]

The Big Bang Theory originated later than the Quran because no understanding needs to take place to create a religion. You formulate ideas, put them into words, and religion is born. We did not have the capability to even fathom a Big Bang Scenario until we understood chemistry and physics. That understanding developed over time.

 

[Chemdude]

The Big Bang Theory originated later than the Quran because no understanding needs to take place to create a religion. You formulate ideas, put them into words, and religion is born. We did not have the capability to even fathom a Big Bang Scenario until we understood chemistry and physics. That understanding developed over time.

The three monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam view their holy books as God's revelation. So in a "believer's" eyes, these books were not formulated by human beings, but are the infallible words of God.

 

[Bacchus]

The point still stands of why the BBT came later.

 

[Flushot]

I don't agree with this definition. Belief without evidence? Then you wouldn't ever be able to exercise your faith or grow your faith. In terms of the Bible, faith is really just trusting God and His Word. I have my own experiences and that of others; if nothing ever came from believing in Christ, why would I ever continue to do so? In these kinds of discussions, I don't normally bring up things like answered prayer, etc. because alot of people just roll their eyes at that sort of thing. But observation of events is evidence. Anyways, what I'm saying is faith in Christianity is a trust that has been built over time.

I think what goldenwest was saying that at those kind of odds he listed, one would have to take a leap to believe they won against those kinds of odds.

Ok, so this is pretty much what I'm saying. The thing about faith is that, like an opinion, it isn't anymore correct or incorrect than another form of faith. This is because it does not have empirical evidence.

If my religion or faith stated that 1+1 = 3, that would be wrong. It's not an opinion; it's just flat out wrong because it can be proven wrong. But, if your faith says you can gain wisdom, hope or what have you from God and grow as a person, yeah, I can't say that's wrong.

I also didn't mean for that statement to imply that you cannot gain anything from faith, in the same way you can gain something from opinions. If you switched political parties, you might gain something at a personal level that you didn't have before. Nothing wrong with that.

I feel that we can share our thoughts on religion in the same way we share our opinions. Opinions can be reinforced by some facts, but they are never truly facts or hard evidence. If I said that the new Guns and Roses album sucks, that will never be 'truth' because it's just how I feel. We can debate about it, sure; but I view your faith as an opinion. I respect it, but I don't consider it absolute truth or fact.

 

[VneZonyDostupa]

The three monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam view their holy books as God's revelation. So in a "believer's" eyes, these books were not formulated by human beings, but are the infallible words of God.

I was under the impression the books were god's words as written by man, thus inherently flawed.

They were also later translated by man. Translation is a well-known source of literary/interpretational error. Pinksy wrote a great essay on this relating to the first canto of the Divine Comedy.

 

[Bearferret]

This is hauntingly bad math that just throws around "large" numbers like million, billion, and trillion without citing sources.

I'm pretty sure the math is fine, because there's hardly any math there. Of course I didn't cite sources, because the numbers themselves are far less important than the concept: an arbitrarily small probability becomes probable if you have an equally arbitrarily large number of chances.

I have read Forthegood's link, and disagree with a few major points. Indeed for a deck of cards the sequence of 52 laid out cards is 1/52; however, in the case that only one sequence of cards is correct the rules of multiplied sequential probability apply. Without going into this much more I will just say that I am not trying to prove it impossible, just highly... highly improbable. Personally, I feel a belief in those improbabilities takes some measure of faith. If you don't like the word "faith" I can force you to like it. We all have some measure of faith by just looking at the most practical of things. Unless someone is sitting in a corner repeating over and over "I think therefore I am" they cannot claim to have no faith.

This last bit doesn't seem clear to me - please explain in more detail.


As an aside, most of the calculated probabilities you quoted seemed irrelevant to the question, as they almost all made the same assumption that many people do: that everything necessary for life must have developed at the same time, spontaneously.

 

[Bearferret]

That's not what I'm saying. The crux of that point was the Cogito ergo sum. Nothing is certain. What I'm saying is that even if all you rely on is science you are having some faith that the scientific worldview is indeed correct and that it's the best explanation for the reality we experience.

I guess this is something of an explanation, although I'm still unclear on the logic of your position.

However, and I think this is important, there's a difference between "science" and the "scientific worldview." Personally, I think the "scientific worldview" is a term that religious people made up in order to make it seem like science and religion are on equal logical footing - basically another iteration of the old "it's only a theory" line. However, I freely admit that I'm unfamiliar with the details, so please fill me in if you think it's necessary.

This does remind me of another conversation I've had, though, where someone posited that no matter which position you take, your position has to be based, at some level, on some basic assumptions, and to him, that constituted "faith." I agreed with him on the assumptions part - any perspective has assumptions rigged into it, some more obvious than others. But what's nice about using reason and science as your guidelines is that the only assumption you need to make is that our observations of the world around us provide us with a reasonable facsimile of the way the world really is. Once you make that assumption, the scientific method and logical deduction do the rest - everything else falls into place. Surely that's a smaller assumption than those required by any faith-based religion? What's more, our experience suggests that our assumption has been a very good one; reliance upon it has yielded overwhelmingly positive - and verifiably truthful - results. Trusting to that assumption isn't "faith," as there's a mountain of evidence to suggest that it's true.

 

[Loon]

I was under the impression the books were god's words as written by man, thus inherently flawed.

Some sects of Christianity view the bible as the living word of God and thus as in fallible despite being written in fallible, human language. Islam views the Koran (which is precisely the Arabic revealed to Muhammed, not any translation or alteration of it) as the infallible, perfect word of God. Any translation is generally thought to be a decent approximation, but imperfect. I think most English copies of the Koran are titled something along the lines of "The meaning of the Koran".

Oddly, I have the least to say about the religion I was raised with, Judaism. The Torah is the revealed word of God, but I don't recall if there are any allowances for "well, this is all your human minds can comprehend."

 

[Chemist0157]

That's why over the past few years, there has been much greater effort on literal translation, rather than easy "readability." Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bible scholars and translators have been able to produce really good translations of the ancient Hebrew and Greek. Of course, the best thing would be to learn Hebrew and Greek, but I've also heard that the Spanish Bible is very good too. Overall, English is a pretty crumby language when it comes to translating really anything because of the limits we have on some words. The translation process has been somewhat cyclical because back in KJV times, they focused on literal translation but nowadays it's hard to read. So they made translations like the NIV so it would be easy to read, but since you lose some of the depth that way, the NASB and ESV have really become the post popular. If one wants to seriously study the Bible, it's good to have multiple translations open.

 

[bobsagat]

It seems like every thread on religion degenerates into an argument on the existence or the merit of belief in the existence of God. So here's something that should clear things up once and for all:

 

[DrYoda]

This is where the religions differ. Personally, I can tell you that Islam does not contradict any element of "proven" science. For example, the Quran(introduced 650AD) stated that the Earth was round. Also, There are clear verses in the Quran which refer to the Big Bang:

(Quran 21:30)
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?

EDIT: I just wanted to note that the Quran was compiled 1450 years ago. The "Big Bang Theory" was introduced in the early 1900's.

Creation through seperation is actually a fairly common theme in religion. Both Theogony (greek mythology) and Genesis credit separation/differentiation for the creation of the world as well.