Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.

[NorthernMonkey]

8 years...and counting, working within the non-Jewish world to be exact. I never said that the Orthodox Jewish community doesn't have problems, only less, much less, than secular Jewish communities. As for the non-Jewish, mostly Chrisitan world, that I work with...holy moly, my clients, not unlike many on this bb, have horror story after horror story about their Christian upbring.

If you weren't religious I would consider your quoted findings to hold truth - as you are, however, I think they are best left dismissed as one can never be sure of your religious bias.

[forge]

Doesn't mean there is a scientific explanation either, therefore it's a moot point.

Not arguing, just presenting questions to both sides of this great debate.

You're quite right. And it's healthy to present both sides of the debate.

What I'd like you to do now is cite a single example of some physical, observable reality (a sunset, for instance, would qualify; 'beauty', as I've discussed, would not) which, at some point in the past, we did not understand, which we now do understand, which was NOT explained by science.

We'll be waiting a long time, indeed. Scientific theories are falsifiable by their nature, and MANY scientific theories have been falsified (Newton's Laws of Motion, for instance, were falsified by Special Relativity; Newton's Law of gravitation was falsified by General Relativity). But at no time in the past as a question about physical reality been answered by anything except science. This is SO well established that I have "faith" (which, as I've explained, is in no way related to religious 'faith') that it will continue to happen.

Is it fair to restrict the question to physical (or quantifiable) realities? Surely we should also consider the unquantifiable? I think you'd find the post I linked a few posts back an interesting read - it doesn't necessarily reflect (or not reflect for that matter) my views, but it's still a good read.

yes - I agree here - I think it's totally feasible there is a side to the universe that will always be beyond our comprehension in our present state of perception

[edge100]

...[

Forge, you raise some excellent question, to which I have (hopefully) excellent answers. Unfortunately, it would take another 62 page thread to go through all of this.

Suffice to say that:

(a) natural selection is not chance
(b) cells CAN sense (and respond to) their external environment (Google: epigenetics)
(c) no one knows who "put" DNA there; this is a different question entirely.

I would very much like to go more in depth in this subject, and perhaps that will be the topic of the book I keep intending to start. Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now.

I'm not trying to avoid the questions; far from it, they're great questions. But for now, you'll have to accept that there are reasonable answers to those questions. You'll just have to take this on faith...............

[knotkranky]

who put the DNA there? could a single cell organism really have had the savvy?

truly incredible and beyond proof for now. But, it's the word "who" that I have a problem with.

[NorthernMonkey]

maybe god doesn't have any arms.

Maybe not, but he's definitely an old bloke with a big white beard, I've seen the pictures.

[forge]

There's no disproof needed. I'm looking for proof FOR, not AGAINST. It is impossible to prove a negative. You can dream up an infinite number of things for which there is no proof AGAINST (god, celestial teapots, flying spaghetti monsters, etc). But what is the evidence FOR the literal existence of god? Nothing. What is the evidence FOR the scientific, rational explanation of all physical things? About 10000 years of history.

Your words sound very much like NOMA to me. If you're trying to appease religious people by claiming both reason and faith bring something to the table, you're doing well. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a single shred of evidence to suggest that, when considering the literal nature of the universe, that religion brings anything at all of value to the table (the admittedly 'comforting' nature of religious communities is irrelevant here).

can I also clarify - I think the openness to there being some kind of "god force" or more precisely intelligence in the universe is not neccessarily contradictory to this belief in science's ability to prove things - science could well meet god in the future!

really what I am doing in my botched understanding is no different to what a scientist does - hypothesizing

the speculation that as there is so much unanswered that there could well be things which are consistant with things religious people "believe" that are also consistant with science

I can see alot of this debate has been based on the normal situation where the religious viewpoints are clearly defined and it's then religion vs science

but the points I'm making are more along the lines of "what is god? how do you quantify it? is there really an intelligence beyond our perception or understanding behind life?"

and these are all questions, science has definitely shown alot of things, but there are an awful lot of things it hasnt

[NorthernMonkey]

Have I that it's said it's the children I feel sorry for yet?

Seyser, you're foaming-at-the-mouth rants sound much more sincere than your John Lennon-esque sentiment about "the children". Needless to say, the children in my synagogue laugh, hug their moms and dads, pray, run around...having a grand ol' time. Save your sorrow for the inner-city kids who are smoking meth, selling their bodies, and generally have no hopes beyond their next fix. The religious kids...the one's I know...are doing very well.

I hope that was tongue-in-cheek shtreimel. Otherwise...

[knotkranky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfRkcJ0BLS0

[forge]

[quote="forgeactually, I've known a bit about astrology for about 15 years and it's staggering how often it gels

Except that astrology follows obvious rules following only stars we can actually see that conveniently are grouped into 12 "signs" that convinently fit our months of the year.

Astrology is the single best piece of evidence to suggest that humans are spectacularly good at seeing patterns, and spectacularly bad at interpreting them.

it's quite unfortunate that astrology gets lumped in the newspaper horoscope realms of fiction

I first became interested because I was amazed at how often my mother could pick things about people based on it

I learned the basics at 16 so it's just in there now, but if it was ever something you were interested in exploring you might be surprised just how often it can work

like I said, I dont know how, just that it seems to

maybe one day I'll write a paper on it and properly research it for any other plausable explanations

[NorthernMonkey]

There's no disproof needed. I'm looking for proof FOR, not AGAINST. It is impossible to prove a negative. You can dream up an infinite number of things for which there is no proof AGAINST (god, celestial teapots, flying spaghetti monsters, etc). But what is the evidence FOR the literal existence of god? Nothing. What is the evidence FOR the scientific, rational explanation of all physical things? About 10000 years of history.

Your words sound very much like NOMA to me. If you're trying to appease religious people by claiming both reason and faith bring something to the table, you're doing well. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a single shred of evidence to suggest that, when considering the literal nature of the universe, that religion brings anything at all of value to the table (the admittedly 'comforting' nature of religious communities is irrelevant here).

can I also clarify - I think the openness to there being some kind of "god force" or more precisely intelligence in the universe is not neccessarily contradictory to this belief in science's ability to prove things - science could well meet god in the future!

really what I am doing in my botched understanding is no different to what a scientist does - hypothesizing

the speculation that as there is so much unanswered that there could well be things which are consistant with things religious people "believe" that are also consistant with science

I can see alot of this debate has been based on the normal situation where the religious viewpoints are clearly defined and it's then religion vs science

but the points I'm making are more along the lines of "what is god? how do you quantify it? is there really an intelligence beyond our perception or understanding behind life?"

and these are all questions, science has definitely shown alot of things, but there are an awful lot of things it hasnt

To quote Edge...'Bingo!'

[forge]

...[

Forge, you raise some excellent question, to which I have (hopefully) excellent answers. Unfortunately, it would take another 62 page thread to go through all of this.

Suffice to say that:

(a) natural selection is not chance
(b) cells CAN sense (and respond to) their external environment (Google: epigenetics)
(c) no one knows who "put" DNA there; this is a different question entirely.

I would very much like to go more in depth in this subject, and perhaps that will be the topic of the book I keep intending to start. Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now.

I'm not trying to avoid the questions; far from it, they're great questions. But for now, you'll have to accept that there are reasonable answers to those questions. You'll just have to take this on faith...............

oh dude - if you really do have any kind of reasonable explanation for (c) then please do at least attempt to summarise - that's what Bill bryson has done in this book with all of the subjects of science and just these simple summaries are often enough to get you chewing on the problem until you start to get it for yourself

for now at least, when I get time later the epigenetics wikipedia multiple tabbed browser tangent should waste a few hours tonight!

[shtreimel]

Why do they need cement barriers? And why was there a battle in Lebanon?

is it anything to do with differing gods perchance?

Uh, no:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israe ... n_conflict

[NorthernMonkey]

Why do they need cement barriers? And why was there a battle in Lebanon?

is it anything to do with differing gods perchance?

Uh, no:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israe ... n_conflict

'This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Please discuss changes on the talk page or request unprotection. Protection is not an endorsement of the current version.' - your reference is dismissible for now.

[shtreimel]

Why do they need cement barriers? And why was there a battle in Lebanon?

is it anything to do with differing gods perchance?

Uh, no:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israe ... n_conflict

'This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Please discuss changes on the talk page or request unprotection. Protection is not an endorsement of the current version.' - your reference is dismissible for now.

Look...if you don't know your Middle East History...what can I tell ya. The Israel/Lebanon nonsense is about land (though before that it was about IDF vs. PLO - 70's-80's). You're gonna have stretch this one pretty far to place the blame on You Know Who. But sure...the raison d'etre of Israel is Biblically based.

Middle East debate fiasco begins in 1, 2, 3.....

[b0unce]

456778949803940982

But sure...the raison d'etre of Israel is Biblically based.

what a farce that is...smokescreen comes to mind...
anywho, let ye who speak of israel read this
and comment...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_De ... on_of_1917