tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post4088185445032290232..comments2023-10-20T02:08:39.524-07:00Comments on Atheism: Proving The Negative: 500+1: Bad Answers to a Good Question, part 1.Matt McCormickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17071078570021986664noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-41278030077086992372010-05-15T04:06:00.511-07:002010-05-15T04:06:00.511-07:00@Casey and the rest of the guys...
Everything that...@Casey and the rest of the guys...<br />Everything that's said is a reason to give it a second thought, but...<br /><br />Mostly, science turns out to be true, to really bring us closer to truth, and gives a practical use of it's inventions, while religion mostly turns out to be just another dogma, another unsupported claims, not based on single evidence. Many times science was proven to be wrong is some fields but it's encouraging that wrong things in science were unrevealed by... take a guess... Science and scientists, thank you.<br /><br />Remember, emperor has no clothes.Željko Tadić - zikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15867640032379101710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-79315808893481698242009-11-02T18:38:13.569-08:002009-11-02T18:38:13.569-08:00Hi Matt, yes, Caseys "devil's advocate&qu...Hi Matt, yes, Caseys "devil's advocate" - or in this case "god's advocate" question does reflect an objection raised by Christians quite often. The context Ive encountered it in is in dealing with creationists who state the whole "evolution is only a theory" bit. That is easy enough to deal with as it just comes down to a simple misunderstanding of the word theory, and the nature of evolutionary thought, but they often go on to say that because we don't know what information will become available in the future, there is no way of knowing whether evolutionary theory will be proved wrong, therefore as much faith is required in evolutionary theory as in religion.<br /><br />Of course, it's easy to see how you could drive a truck through the gaping hole in this "logic", and that it also destroys their own argument that faith is a virtue, but I would be keen to see how you would respond to this objection and Casey's.<br /><br />You mentioned that you wrote another entry dealing with this, but didn't mention which entry - Just wondering where you deal with it?Deloceanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04954222195147605379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-34861222799831728322008-12-08T00:38:00.000-08:002008-12-08T00:38:00.000-08:00Great comment, Casey. You've put your finger on a...Great comment, Casey. You've put your finger on another objection that I've been getting. I used your rendition of it to write another entry. Thanks. <BR/><BR/>MMMatt McCormickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17071078570021986664noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-60347661128171422322008-12-07T21:34:00.000-08:002008-12-07T21:34:00.000-08:00I've heard you talking about this with other stude...I've heard you talking about this with other students and professors but I'm still not clear personally on one objection. You may cover this in the next part and that's fine, but here it goes:<BR/><BR/>Caloric, Phlogiston, luminous aether, epicycles, flat earth, the four humors, four elements, etc. I could name 500 "dead" scientific theories. So why believe that String Theory is correct? Science accepts that Phlogiston could end up being correct but until we get new evidence then we are to reject it.<BR/><BR/>"But these were all supernatural claims which have failed"<BR/><BR/>And these are all natural claims that have failed<BR/><BR/>"But we have gained information each time, and we're closer to the truth"<BR/><BR/>The same could be said for religious claims coming closer to understanding God's true nature.<BR/><BR/>"But there are a number of rivaling religious claims, and historically religious figures didn't act as if everyone was getting closer to the truth"<BR/><BR/>There are, similarly, a number of scientific theories which rival each other currently and historically each proponent of a scientific theory thought they had it figured out to some extent.<BR/><BR/>"But science is supposed to get things wrong, it's built into the system"<BR/><BR/>Why not grant the same fallibility to religious claims.<BR/><BR/>Now, this does still pose a problem to the theist since this analogy suggests the theist should be confidant that their religion is right as much as a scientist is confidant that a particular theory is right, which is a significant blow to the extent faith should play.Caseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16673262998160500190noreply@blogger.com