(11-25-2016 01:33 AM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(11-25-2016 12:23 AM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(11-24-2016 11:48 PM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(11-24-2016 11:18 PM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(11-24-2016 11:08 PM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  No one "knows". Scientists are often wrong. Even when they "know" something.
Want "proof"?
We don't know

Of course science is sometimes wrong. That's the beauty of the scientific method. It goes where the evidence leads. When new evidence suggests a different truth, it changes its mind.

Science never makes claims of absolute truth. It only claims truths that are supported by a preponderance of evidence. It works in the long run because it lets the evidence lead to the truth.

Religion, OTOH, makes initial claims and rejects evidence that doesn't support the claim while accepting the evidence that does. That process is disingenuous at best.

You are absolutely right. But you fail to understand faith. Even people who are not religious by the common definition look for meaning in life. Some worship 'Mother Earth' for goodness sake. Many things cannot be explained by physical science. You can choose your own path and that is is beautiful thing about this existence. No need to call people who choose to believe in religion ignorant or stupid. Many of the very scientists you undoubtedly consider geniuses believe in a 'divine hand'. I remember one geneticist saying the odds were greater that a tornado plowing through a junkyard would assemble a fully functional 747 jet than DNA simply being formed from chemicals boiling around in some primordial soup. The facts if you want to believe them is that we simply do not know and since science tells us we can't go back in time we will never 'KNOW'.

I understand faith to be believing without corroborating evidence. I try to avoid that.

I don't recall stating that religious people were ignorant or stupid. I said they were irrational on that particular subject.

You are right that many things can't be explained. So why do you attempt to explain it with "God did it"? Instead, just say "I don't know". That's what science does.

So you put your faith in science. You to worship something. Many including the likes of Elon Musk believe with some certainty that we are living in a hologram. Your scientists are developing experimental equipment and theoretical experiments to test that theory in the near future. So I ask you, if they are right, who created this hologram? There are also theoretical physicists that say soon there will more sentient beings living in computer simulations than humans living in 'our world'. And these beings will have no knowledge of us. Who do you think they will worship?

I don't have faith in science. I have confidence in the scientific method because history has borne it out. Scientific models like the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution and Germ Theory make accurate predictions about nature and they do so much more accurately than anything else.

I would hope those simulated sentient beings would worship nothing and only hold rational beliefs, whatever they may be. Until they were to find evidence of us, it would be rational for them to believe only what they could prove.

As an atheist, I simply reject the claim that there is a god. I also reject the claim that there is no god. I do so because neither claim has been supported by empirical evidence. While I know that one of the claims must be true, it is irrational to believe either until it is supported by empirical evidence.