Science and God

Quote: FrGamble

Science and religion have no beef with each other.

I'm not so sure about that. Science has a great deal of trouble with pseudo-sciences. I'm not classifying religion as one, but it does center around a non-existent entity. That's analogous to the pseudo-sciences which center around fallacies or falsehoods.

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.. the Globetrotters don't lose to the Generals.

The Generals are due!!

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As far as disproving the Judeo-Christian God, hasn't the science of history already proven that Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught some 2,000 years ago and that He was crucified by the Romans.

You know, I've always assumed so. This would mean the existence of at least one independent account of Jesus' teachings contemporaneous, or nearly so, with either his life or that of the Gospel authors. Or at the very least some supporting evidence related to that.

I don't know that there is one. Neither Mike Duncan nor Edward Gibbon even mention one when discussing Christianity in the context of the Roman world. Duncan mentions Jesus first off at the time of Augustus, but says he had no significant influence on Rome for another few centuries.

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This small group of people beginning from an upper room in Jerusalem transformed the world in a way that defies explanation to this very day. These are just established facts.

You know, one way to explain a plain fact is to consider the people involved. The way this makes full sense and is not even surprising is to think of the first Christians not as Christians but as fanatical Jews.

Judea was one of the most persistently troublesome province of Rome at the time, though not as far as religion was concerned. Even the Roman emperors were wary of causing trouble there. How wary? At one point in time, the tyrant Caligula ordered statues of him to be placed in every temple in the Empire so his subjects would worship him. The Roman governor of Judea talked him into excluding Jewish temples from this requirement.

This regards average Jews. Fanatics, like the zealots at Masada, were ten times as stubborn and much more combative in their approach to outsiders.

Quote: FrGamble

I am not worried about science discovering something that could blow apart my faith

As well you shouldn't be. Because god
doesn't exist, there is nothing to blow
apart. Don't you see that? The concept
of god will always survive anything, you
can't destroy something that's not there.
You can only keep inventing more stories
about it.

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This small group of people beginning from an upper room in Jerusalem transformed the world in a way that defies explanation to this very day.

Lol, you really love the melodrama. It took
hundreds of years and a ton of urban legends
to get the ball rolling on Christianity. You
act like it happened overnight. History is never
what was written in the history books, and
religion is never EVER what was written. It
was a very long haul from that upper room (if
there even was one) to the time of Constantine.

Quote: Face

I wonder if science can't disprove God, at least your Judeo-Christian God.

It can't.

Scientific theories make predictions. That's how they are tested. For example, Einstein's General Relativity predicts massive objects, such as stars, can bend light in such a way as to act as a lens to observers in the right place (gravitational lensing). This can be tested, and in fact it has been.

Religion and/or God don't make predictions. There are prophecies, but that's not the same thing. There's nothing to test to either validate or disprove any god.

Quote: Nareed

There's nothing to test to either validate or disprove any god.

And that's why the god myth will always
survive anything thrown at it. I keep
using this example because it's a good
one. Nobody will ever be able to prove
or disprove that unicorns once existed.
There might be evidence pointing to
their nonexistence, but there will never
be proof. Same with god.

Like somebody said, we can't prove tobacco
can kill you. But a mountain of evidence
points in that direction. Which still isn't proof.

Quote: Nareed

It can't.

Scientific theories make predictions. That's how they are tested. For example, Einstein's General Relativity predicts massive objects, such as stars, can bend light in such a way as to act as a lens to observers in the right place (gravitational lensing). This can be tested, and in fact it has been.

Religion and/or God don't make predictions. There are prophecies, but that's not the same thing. There's nothing to test to either validate or disprove any god.

But why? I mean, things of this world have been attributed to the gods. How do we know Ra doesn't exist? Well, science has told us what the sun is and why it looks to be going round and round. How do we know the Great Spirit doesn't exist? Well, because we know what people are made of, and it doesn't include clay. I can see that it can't prove there is no generic god, but specific things have been attributed to the Judeo-Christian version, things which science has a shot at. When those things are proven to be little more than random happenstance, what happens to the Christian myth? What happens if we find we can make life from non-life? Or that matter can just come to be? Or what happened before the Big Bang?

Quote: Face

what happens to the Christian myth?

The base of the myth can never be
changed, that Jesus died for our
'sins', whatever the heck that means.
It will still be around 2000 years from
now, no matter what science has
discovered. There will always be people
who need to follow something, no matter
how convoluted it sounds.

Look where the Church was 500 years ago,
it's power was unimaginable. Now it's
closing schools at an alarming rate, some
of the dioceses are going bankrupt over
lawsuits filed against molesting priests.
New young nuns are almost gone from
the ranks. There are more nuns over 90
than than nuns under 60. There is a drastic
shortage of new priests all around the
world. The power of the Church is almost gone,
as it should be. But it will survive, make no
mistake about that.

Quote: Evenbob

The base of the myth can never be
changed, that Jesus died for our
'sins', whatever the heck that means.
It will still be around 2000 years from
now, no matter what science has
discovered. There will always be people
who need to follow something, no matter
how convoluted it sounds.

Well, that's fine. I wouldn't say I want it to go away entirely. What I do want, and have been blessed to see within my lifetime, is people questioning it.

There is a lot of good in Christianity. I've said it before; Jesus was a great philosophizer, and many of the lessons within are noble and just. I just hate the bullshit associated with it, the stuff that allows men to control and exert power. Like you said about the Eastern religions, they don't have that. They might have some kooky ideas, as all religions do, but their base foundation is be good, do good, be free and at peace. And if you don't? Try again tomorrow. There's no "do so or else", no "burn in hellfire", no goddamned Joel Osteen types pillaging with impunity, no hate cast on those of unorthodox sexual desires.

Perhaps as things continue to be chipped away, those who have followed unquestioningly (like your fam and my peers), will finally have cause to question, and will find a better way.

Quote: FrGamble

Science is the sure foundation or the launching pad from which reason can blast off into the unknown. If your philosophy or religion is not supported by science (I'm looking at you Mormons) then you're foundation is off kilter and you might blast off in the wrong direction.

Can you elaborate on how the Mormon faith is any less scientific than Catholicism?

Quote: Face

How do we know Ra doesn't exist?

Yes, how do we know it? ;)

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Well, science has told us what the sun is and why it looks to be going round and round.

Oh, but the death of Amun-Re in the West was merely symbolic! A metaphor. Of course the Sun does not traverse the underworld at night, nor is it reborn every dawn in the East. But it had to be explained that way to the ancients in Kemet, because they lacked the knowledge and vision to understand the real truth.

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How do we know the Great Spirit doesn't exist? Well, because we know what people are made of, and it doesn't include clay.

That's a metaphor for the primordial mud where life may have first originated.

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When those things are proven to be little more than random happenstance, what happens to the Christian myth?

Metaphor, symbolism, had to explain it that way a the time, you were meant to discover the real truth by yourselves, etc.

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What happens if we find we can make life from non-life?

Ah here philosophy and logic are very useful: We may be able to create life from scratch someday, but that doesn't mean we'd have been capable of doing so under the condition where life first arose, or that the god Khnum didn't do it first in the primordial mud.

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Or that matter can just come to be? Or what happened before the Big Bang?

The Great Maker set it up so.

Quote: Face

There's no "do so or else", no "burn in hellfire", no goddamned Joel Osteen types pillaging with impunity, no hate cast on those of unorthodox sexual desires.

IMO the root of that lies in the idea that belief is necessary for "salvation." Once you dictate what people should believe, or have to believe (depending on the period), and can label a different belief or a lack of belief ipso-facto as "wrong" or "sinful," you gain a great deal of control over people.

Power doesn't just corrupt, it demands to be used. Some of the greater personages in history are those who amassed or were given great power, but used it sparingly. Even greater are those who did not use such power mostly to maintain their power.