Dinosaurs are not real :(

Castiel said:
When I first quoted the study early in the thread I did add the proviso that when comparing to Europe we would need to take the increased secularism in Europe into consideration.

As far as disciplines go, the study does differentiate between Natural and Social Scientists and the questions were put to members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which is a reputable association which should not have any innate pro-religious stance amongst it's membership.

Another study makes much the same conclusions...



we also have to be careful on how we frame the question and what definition and context we are putting on the question.





I would support the fact that Scientists are less likely to be religious and less likely to hold a belief in a particular definition of God, however that is some way from stating that Scientists are mostly Atheists or that as Bhavv keeps repeating that Intelligence leads to Atheism. Because the statistics simply do not hold those propositions to be true. I would (with some reservation) be more likely to agree with the statement that Increased Intelligence leads to Agnosticism.




This is interesting, because I too know a disproportionate amount of scientists (I live with two for a start) and when asked the question "Do you believe in God" invariably the answer is "By what definition" and rightly so.

If we look at your examples....If we define God as being the Flying Spaghetti Monster or A Pink Elephant in Space then we can determine a probable likelihood to some degree of certainty.....this is because the proposition has specific definitions as to what we are considering to be true....and as such the probability would lean toward an atheist position. On this I think we can agree.

However, if we defined God as being the Universe itself with, or even without, a sentience that we cannot currently determine then the probability is somewhat more difficult to ascertain...so the answer to the proposition would lean toward the agnostic position....we simply do not know.

This is the problem with trying to apply scientific methodology to an unfalsifiable proposition...so much depends on how that proposition is defined and how many assumptions can be made as to it's likelihood. This is why Science and by implication the professional opinion (as opposed to a personal opinion) of Scientists logically and rationally should follow an agnostic approach to the question "Is there a God".

This should be the default position until such time as a falsifiable definition of God can be universally applied.
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The problem is also that a great many scientists were indoctrined as christians and in adulthood never felt the need to stop being a christian and stop attending church, even though they beleive entirely in science.
So asking American scientists if they beleive in a God wont get you very interesting answers. The only true test would be to get tens of thousands of babies, lock them up in a sealed black-box without outside contact and raise them as scientists with no knowledge of outside religous beleifs. I doubt very many of them on their own accord would develop a natural beleif in a God when they learn scientific explanations for the universe.
 
D.P. said:
There is a lot of evidence for the Big Bang, read some astrophysics journals to find scientific evidence.
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Not quite what Biohazard asked, what he asked for was evidence on how it occured not if it occured. The how is pretty much an unknown.
 
D.P. said:
The problem is also that a great many scientists were indoctrined as christians and in adulthood never felt the need to stop being a christian and stop attending church, even though they beleive entirely in science.
So asking American scientists if they beleive in a God wont get you very interesting answers. The only true test would be to get tens of thousands of babies, lock them up in a sealed black-box without outside contact and raise them as scientists with no knowledge of outside religous beleifs. I doubt very many of them on their own accord would develop a natural beleif in a God when they learn scientific explanations for the universe.
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Not that that is particularly related to anything I said.....it also assumes that Science and Spirituality are incompatible, which they are not. It also ignores examples of Scientists and other highly educated individuals who, for whatever reason develop a belief from a position of atheism or agnosticism.

As any scientist will tell you, and if you are indeed a scientist you should know yourself, we approach the World and Universe as it is, not how we would like it to be.

I would be wary of attributing any particular conclusions based on limiting the knowledge or experience of the individual....limiting the worldview and experience of an individual will invariably bias them into the limitations that you set.....the only true test would be to give them equal access to all world-views from a base of total ignorance of all worldviews and let them make their own mind after conducting their own investigations....that would be preferable to adding artifical bias toward one world view at the expense of another.
 
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Castiel, out of interest what's your background? You make some interesting points and you seem to have done loads of research etc Your posts are very interesting! And can you please explain to me how science and spirituality are compatible? In my opinion spirituality means that you accept that we have souls. Science would suggest than anything representing a soul would simply be brain function, purely electrical and chemical signals.
 
RDM said:
Not quite what Biohazard asked, what he asked for was evidence on how it occured not if it occured. The how is pretty much an unknown.
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That’s akin to pulling the race card though, someone can’t put forward a decent argument so call it racism :p Yeah it’s not the same thing but it’s on the same principal.

Nobody will ever know exactly how our Universe came about from the big bang out of nothingness although there are a number of theories all of which are quite sound but existing evidence and observed evidence suggests it did. We even know that there are particles that appear and disappear from thin air randomly and then there are particles that can pass through all known matter. Those aren’t just theories, those are observed things.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Castiel, out of interest what's your background? You make some interesting points and you seem to have done loads of research etc Your posts are very interesting! And can you please explain to me how science and spirituality are compatible? In my opinion spirituality means that you accept that we have souls. Science would suggest than anything representing a soul would simply be brain function, purely electrical and chemical signals.
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To be fair that is a whole different discussion, but I will try to give an opinion as succinctly as I can....

Science and spirituality are essentially both the search for truth, one seeks the truth in the nature of the physical world, the other seeks the truth of the nature of our own conciousness...in this regard they are not in conflict.

Science deals with testable hypothesis, Spirituality deals with the esoteric and again are not incompatible, they are generally just not related to each other, which is not the same as being incompatible with each other.

In fact if Science was able to explore the mind of the individual as it can the realms of the material world then I feel that it would discover an entirely new worldview, one which encompasses both the scientific and the spiritual and would give us some amazing insight into both our physical as well as our conscious being.

The two, when they do overlap are almost a contrast and compare, rather than opposing views in conflict with each other.

I am always open to new ways of thinking, or testing how we think....in this regard I am a free-thinker, not particularly entrenched in any particular world-view. I find that is the most objective way I can address my own questions about life, existence and the universe we inhabit. We just know so little and the questions so vast that it is unwise to entrench yourself in any specific perspective, be it a spiritual one or a scientific one.....
 
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mrk said:
That’s akin to pulling the race card though, someone can’t put forward a decent argument so call it racism :p Yeah it’s not the same thing but it’s on the same principal.
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How is it even remotely close? Admiting we just don't know how the universe came in to being is just being honest. I am not for one moment suggesting that just because we don't know "God did it" all I am suggesting is "We don't know how the big bang started".

mrk said:
Nobody will ever know exactly how our Universe came about from the big bang out of nothingness although there are a number of theories all of which are quite sound but existing evidence and observed evidence suggests it did. We even know that there are particles that appear and disappear from thin air randomly and then there are particles that can pass through all known matter. Those aren’t just theories, those are observed things.
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I am not so sure, I would hope that some day, possibly in the distant future, we will discover how the universe came about.
 
stoke1863 said:
Just been chatting to this american guy at work from Denevr who is very very relgious.
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Just out of curiosity, which religion?.

bhavv said:
It doesnt mater how any such evidence is presented.
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I think it does matter in many ways, without evidence we have to rely upon what others say.

Metalface Mark said:
They are both well educated intelligent people (well, my sister is anyway), anything that cant be explained is explained as a test of faith.
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So when evolutionary scientists claim something came fom nothing does that make it scientific or is faith involved?.

bhavv said:
Prove to me how miracles, and such miraculous childbirths are real.
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I don't think any human can, the same way no evolutionary scientist can prove we evolved from none living matter or that there was absolutely nothing and then by random chemical accidents all of a sudden there was something.
 
As much as I am loathed to re-enter this thread...

Kedge, evolution explains biodiversity, which is the diversity of life we see before us today.

It has nothing to do with the origins of life. Evolution doesn't suggest an answer for this - we don't know. However, it does suggest that one of the earliest of life forms was a single called organism and that other life forms eventually evolved from this.
 
Nitefly said:
As much as I am loathed to re-enter this thread...

Kedge, evolution explains biodiversity, which is the diversity of life we see before us today.

It has nothing to do with the origins of life. Evolution doesn't suggest an answer for this - we don't know. However, it does suggest that one of the earliest of life forms was a single called organism and that other life forms eventually evolved from this.
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With Kedge you are literally wasting your time, he has been told this so many times that for him to still make the same mistake means he must be deliberately mispresenting it.
 
Raikiri said:
It's very nearly been done.

http://www.livescience.com/3214-life-created-lab.html
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It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on. The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose.

They created molecules haha!, what from nothing? :D

Keep chewing but mind they don't get trismus :D
 
RDM said:
With Kedge you are literally wasting your time, he has been told this so many times that for him to still make the same mistake means he must be deliberately mispresenting it.
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Indeed.

Kedge is a perfect example of a singular entrenched world-view that cannot respond to new truths from outside that entrenchment.
 
RDM said:
Not quite what Biohazard asked, what he asked for was evidence on how it occured not if it occured. The how is pretty much an unknown.
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No,the how it occured is also relaively understood. The whole physical process is what astrophysistis study and search for evidence for. No on searches for proof that it hapened because it is accepted by the scientific community that it did happen.


I expect what you want to ask is the WHY question? Science doesn't try to anser why the univers was created, only the how.
 
D.P. said:
No,the how it occured is also relaively understood. The whole physical process is what astrophysistis study and search for evidence for. No on searches for proof that it hapened because it is accepted by the scientific community that it did happen.


I expect what you want to ask is the WHY question? Science doesn't try to anser why the univers was created, only the how.
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I was still under the impression that what caused the big bang is still pretty much a mystery?
 
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