On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 9:54 PM, Mary Jo Sminkey <[email protected]> wrote: > But again, you are making a supposition that only a irrational person can > believe in God. Rationality does not mean one has to put all their faith > solely in what science can tell them. It means only that one uses their logic > and reason in how they view the world, rather than being guided solely (or > predominantly) by emotion. Frankly, I see people both religions *or* atheist > that are far from rational in their thinking.
I didn't say that people who are religious are irrational. I said that belief in God is irrational. No person is consistently rational or irrational. They may be generally one way or another but it is the belief in certain things which is rational or irrational that I'm talking about, not the people in general. If you define God as being a super-natural phenomena (which you have) and there can be no direct proof of this being's existence, then the belief in such a being is irrational. Which does not mean it is wrong. It just means that it has nothing to do with rationality. >> God is supposedly a being with certain >> defining characteristics. Why would it be laughable to say that you should be >> able to set up an experiment to explore the existence a being with >> those characteristics? > > Again, you are putting science into a box of explaining things it was never > meant to explain. Science is solely involved with the natural world. If there > *is* a supernatural being, science is not equipped to deal with that, because > that falls outside the box of what science looks at. A belief that the > natural world is all there must be because that's all science is equipped for > is just as much a leap of faith as a religious belief is. > Actually, *you* are putting science in a box. And that was precisely my point. Science (formerly Natural Philosophy and other names prior) has been repeatedly told to keep its nose out of X,Y and Z, that those things were beyond it's pervue and were not things which should be studied by the flawed hands and minds of rational people. The people that not-so-politely told scientists to butt the hell out were proven provincial and wrong time and again. Perhaps science can explain the existence of God. Perhaps not. I don't know and I'm pretty damn well sure that you don't either. >> It seems as foolish to say that anything >> is outside the realm of science as it does to say that science will >> inevitably explain everything. > > Again, these are simply not two sides of the same coin, they are totally > different coins. Science can *only* ever explain that which happens in the > natural world. The most it ever can do is show that something has a natural > explanation and therefore is not supernatural, but it by definition cannot > prove the existence or not of something supernatural. The natural world may > be all there actually is, but the fact that science cannot measure anything > else does not therefore prove nothing else is there. It's simply ludicrous to > even say that it could. > You seem hell bent on defining what science cannot, in your mind, do. Why is that? You believe. That's great. I've known many scientists who believe in God as well. They have had differing opinions when I asked whether they felt that God was something that could be studied scientifically. But even those who felt it probably couldn't be studied scientifically felt knew that they could easily be wrong, it was just their gut instinct. Again, I'm not an atheist. And I don't really care for most of Dawkins work on this subject. But why are you so adamant that science has absolutely no place here? Judah Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:308296 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
