I think scientists going rogue and misappropriating sound science in service of questionable theology is more a problem than it is with atheology. Distinct from that is the too common tendency among physicists writing pop science to use cutesy, "deep" metaphors to explain hard physics in a way that will inevitably mislead a scientifically uneducated lay audience. But both those issues are off the ranch compared to what jskains was asserting. He's talking about scientists desperately coming up with implausible theories to avoid resorting to that most powerful hypothesis of all - God did it.
Sophocles wrote:So you don't actually have a problem with science at all. And no one is treating them like infallible gods, people just afford them the respect they deserve.
Stating it as a sentence rather than a question does not change anything.
Society has come to the position of taking everything science said as absolute fact, and has thus turned on Religion and use those so-called "facts" as weapons against the religious.
Again, who exactly is taking everything science says as absolute fact? Not the scientists themselves. Is it the way scientific findings are reported in the media? Because I can get on board with you there. But again, that's the media engaging in silliness, not science.
Is it disrespectful towards religion to observe that scientific findings are supported by evidence, while religious beliefs are not?
Is it more respectful to talk about non-overlapping magisteria, or some other compromise, as some scientists have done? Or is your idea of respect to grant religious beliefs the same validity as scientific findings?
I think scientists going rogue and misappropriating sound science in service of questionable theology is more a problem than it is with atheology.
I don't have a problem stipulating to that. theology has more proponents. But it is big business for both.
But both those issues are off the ranch compared to what jskains was asserting. He's talking about scientists desperately coming up with implausible theories to avoid resorting to that most powerful hypothesis of all - God did it.
I agree. I simply point out that unsophisticated position of Skains comes from an example such as Lawrence Krauss equivocating to the point of utter dishonesty in the name of science with cache.
The existence of God does not become a strong explanation for something by merely pointing out areas that science has failed to adequately explain.
And science doesn't have any warrant towards any materialistic or naturalistic explanation either. The God of the gaps, naturalism of the gaps, materialism of the gaps have all been guilty. It seems here that a materialism of the gaps is the culprit. Krauss (who is who Skains' OP is talking about, Quentin Smith even chastises Krauss) is attempting to use a gap in current science to take away any implication that cosmological arguments have for a beginning. That is filling in gaps that materialism needs, not the other way around.
mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell. -Michael Polanyi
"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
jskains wrote:It must be nice to just say "you're ignorant" without having to prove the point?
Boy the debate skills around here are plagued with laziness.
JMS
I wrote a full paragraph explaining why you offered an argument from ignorance. Calling an argument - say that HIV was clearly invented by the CIA because the SIV -> HIV evolutionary picture has too many holes for you - an argument from ignorance is not the same as saying "you're ignorant."
He didn't call you ignorant and he proved his point quite well. I think your ignorant as well but doing my best to agree with a small sliver of what you posted. This ain't easy with the table you set you know.
mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell. -Michael Polanyi
"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
He didn't call you ignorant and he proved his point quite well. I think your ignorant as well but doing my best to agree with a small sliver of what you posted. This ain't easy with the table you set you know.
mikwut
Just saying someone is ignorant is a cheap trick. Put down "Rules for Radicals" and stop using the section on Character Assassination to win an argument and actually try mature debate.
It might surprise you on how good you feel when you win a debate honestly without resorting to namecalling and insults.
JMS
Great Spirits Have Always Encountered Violent Opposition from Mediocre Minds - Albert Einstein
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell. -Michael Polanyi
"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
sock puppet wrote:The ethic in the scientific method is that all evidence, as a developing body of information, needs to be considered in formulating an explanatory theory. By contrast to closed-set information approaches, like religious dogma, the scientific method is a process open to view for all, and therein lies a valuable ethic. It is the same ethic that is behind the freedom of information laws.
I don't disagree. I was thinking more in terms of does science tell us "who to burn at the stake" if anyone?
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.