Science is a tool that can be abused!

[_spotlight]

No one knows the true age of the earth or the universe. What is promoted is, if point A is true then point B is possible --- followed by C... There is no way a finite mind can understand the infinite without a revelation.

And I totally agree, it is foolish to base one's view of life on things that are constantly shifting. And Uniformitarianism and evolutionary thought have never remained unchanged. Only the Bible has remained constant.

"Sage" advice from a mind that can't comprehend the implications of permafrost 4,920 feet deep.

"All the gods and heavens and hells are within you." - 13 Hours, the movie.

[_spotlight]

Christians still cling to the opinion that their Bible is infallible. They delight in telling us that the Bible is the inspired word of God, even though it’s well documented that the Bible contains more than 400 contradictions, not to mention that it reflects the Bronze-age morality of the time.

Well, here comes science to kick religion in the nuts once again: the Jews were never slaves in Egypt!

It turns out that there is no archaeological evidence of any kind relating to a separate settlement of religious people in Egypt during that time. There is also no evidence of any kind relating to a mass migration across the Sinai Peninsula.

If things did indeed happen as it says in the Bible (and the Torah), there would have to be some archaeological evidence. But there is none.

Further, there is no evidence of any kind that Egypt even used slaves, and certainly no evidence that they enslaved an entire nation. The workers that built the pyramids are known to be well payed Egyptians. The pyramids weren’t even built in the right time period, being 800 to 2,000 years older than the supposed “Exodus”.

The same techniques used to track the migration patterns of ancient humans by examining DNA also show that there was absolutely no procreation between ancient Egyptians and ancient Israelites during the time that the story was supposed to have taken place. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if an entire nation was enslaved for hundreds of years, surely there would have been some inter-breeding.

In short, this story never happened.

And this isn’t even “news” – of course, the scientific community is across the subject, but even conservative Jewish sources admit that there is no evidence (but they still have faith! And some stuff about metaphors and such…)

To drive the point home, I’m even providing sources for you (although, a quick Google search could give you dozens more…)

Basically, everyone in the know admits that what is written in the Bible and Torah simply didn’t happen, not at all, not even the non-supernatural, core plot…

http://www.religiouscriticism.com/Bible ... -in-egypt/

[_Themis]

After perusing some of this thread, let me have a stab at what the believers are trying to say about science:

The real difference between science and religion is that one of them just makes things up. Can you guess which one?

[_The CCC]

After perusing some of this thread, let me have a stab at what the believers are trying to say about science:

The real difference between science and religion is that one of them just makes things up. Can you guess which one?

Tell me about the Ether that pervades the universe.

[_SteelHead]

It is the medium composed of the spirit of the holy ghost?

[_spotlight]

Tell me about the Ether that pervades the universe.

It was thought that Ether aether was a medium necessary for light to travel in. So a way to test the idea was devised to ascertain whether or not it was a fact. The test results came back negative. This is the way we learn more about the nature of the real world and it is not making stuff up. It is exploring and testing stuff to find out what is vs what is not. As we learn more we build upon the knowledge already gained and refine our models to fit ever greater amounts of gathered data.
What changed? Nothing was overthrown. What was true about the world prior to this discovery was still true about the world after the discovery. What was added was the fact that the speed of light was a constant in any moving frame of reference. New models of light would have to take this new knowledge into account while simultaneously retaining our old knowledge of the behavior of light. As a result new models would account for the new knowledge and reduce to the same predictions as the old models.

We keep our models as concise as possible to just cover what we know about the world around us.

Take the Ideal Gas Law as an example. PV=nRT.

It is a good approximation of the behavior of many gases under many conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law

Next consider the Van Der Waals equation.

It can be viewed as an adjustment to the ideal gas law that takes into account the non-zero volume of gas molecules, which are subject to an inter-particle attraction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_equation

It is a bit more complicated than the Ideal Gas Law. But does it overthrow the it? Not really. It extends it so that it applies to more situations than before. Both will predict the same results for the vast majority of circumstances. The former is simpler and so is still used where the more accurate form is not needed.

[_Themis]

It is the medium composed of the spirit of the holy ghost?

So CCC, how do we go about testing this one in a scientific way?

[_Gorman]

Gorman,
Newtons theories and laws are still used, taught and preached every day. Methinks you never took a physics class. Newtonian motion is the basis for classical physics.


Wait ...

Aren't you a physicists?

I'm pretty sure I explained this to you before, but maybe a refresher is necessary.

It sounds as if you haven't taken anything above freshman-level physics. Yes, Newtonian Mechanics is the basis for classical mechanics. But classical mechanics is dead wrong. It was shown to be wrong 100 years ago or so. Yes we still use lots of classical mechanics as a short cut, but that doesn't make the theory right, it just makes it useful.

You seem to be conflating theoretical science and applied science. Applied science tells us what happens. Theoretical science tries to tell us why. Applied science rarely changes. When people say science builds on top of its past, they are talking about applied science. Theoretical science is wrong all the time. Theories are disposed of every few generations. That is just a historical fact. Applied science has relatively little to say about god or religion. Theoretical science tries to say very much about god and religion. Luckily for the religious people, theoretical science has a relatively poor track record.

[_Gorman]

my degree is in space physics

The study of plasmas in earth's upper atmosphere? Or did you mean astronomy, astrophysics, or cosmology?

The study of plasmas in earth's upper atmosphere.

[_Gorman]

Heliocentrism is overdue to be overthrown then don't you think?

It is interesting you use this as an example, because Heliocentrism was proven wrong in the late 1800s or so. Modern science no longer believes in Heliocentrism. The Sun is not the center of the Universe. Modern science believes there is no fixed center of the universe.

You may chuckle or think that I am straining at gnats, but this is a serious issue. My understanding is that rejecting Heliocentrism was a relatively difficult thing for scientists to swallow that took a long time. Yes, much of the applied science observations with Heliocentrism were correct and continued on in our current theories, but the basic theory (the thing everyone based their reasoning on) was flat out wrong.

It is tempting to think that throwing out these old theories was trivial, or that it should be obvious, but this is not the case. It is only obvious to us because we were trained with the new paradigm. Just as the people who live 100 years from now will wonder why it was so difficult for scientists to throw out Quantum Mechanics or the Big Bang. Look at epicycles and Geocentrism. Scientists are willing to throw all sorts of math-based patches at a theory long before they are willing to toss the theory out and start over.