What is the necessity of science?

Fanny Cradock

Morbert wrote: »

What? I can't relate that sentence to my post either. I have noticed an unfortunate trend on these boards of people responding to my posts with only vaguely related points.

Is that Boards.ie in general?

Morbert

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Why can't science be used to determine the standards or we should act going forward especially if future decisions are based on past experiences and learnings?

For the same reason it doesn't determine mathematical axioms or theorems. Standards are abstract, non-physical things. Once we have these standards, science can tell us when we should implement them. Sam Harris recently brought out a book "The Moral Landscape" discussing such cases. But the standards themselves most be adopted without any empirical evidence. A toy example would be whether or not it would be moral to destroy the earth. Is the destruction of all life morally good or bad?

Well actually artists mostly don't and I don't think they need to, but that's certainly not to say that he can't understand his choices using science(in fact it's the only way) and use science to recognise and augment his behaviour.

If an artist augments his behaviour to pander to current theories of behavioural psychology then, in my humble opinion, they are not practising art.

PDN

CerebralCortex wrote: »

If you already have the truth in one book science is redundant. You already have the answer as you guys claim, thus why need any other method? God did suffices for all questions. No?

No, not at all.

The Bible does not contain all truth on all subjects. It doesn't even contain all the truth on one subject. The Bible contains as much of the truth about our relationship with God as we need to know in order to be saved, and to encourage us to explore our relationship with Him further.

So, if I ask the question "How can I build an aircraft?" I am exploring a realm on which the Bible is silent. It does not purport to answer that question. No Christian I've ever met would ever suggest that "God did" is an answer to that question. To suggest that they would is really to construct a strawman of truly galactic proportions.

Morbert

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Is that Boards.ie in general?

I was specifically thinking of my posts in abortion threads and in "Bible and science" threads.

PDN

dmclean1842 wrote: »

Ok did God create the earth in 6 days? The bible says he did.

Moderating Instruction
Your interpretation of the Bible says he did. And if you want to discuss that further you take it to the Creationism thread.

Any attempt to derail this thread into a Creationism blind alley will result in infractions and/or bans. Do not attempt to backseat mod this or debate it inthread.

dcmraad

PDN wrote: »

No, not at all.

The Bible does not contain all truth on all subjects. It doesn't even contain all the truth on one subject. The Bible contains as much of the truth about our relationship with God as we need to know in order to be saved, and to encourage us to explore our relationship with Him further.

So, if I ask the question "How can I build an aircraft?" I am exploring a realm on which the Bible is silent. It does not purport to answer that question. No Christian I've ever met would ever suggest that "God did" is an answer to that question. To suggest that they would is really to construct a strawman of truly galactic proportions.

We can (as rational people) ask the question, without needing to regress to 3,000 years ago when we were ignorant uneducated peasants, waiting for a control structure to tell us what to do.

The bible is a collection of stories, re written over vast amounts of time by unknown peoples, and translated in a similar fashion as to require completely new bits to be made up and inserted at will.

The idea that omnipotent deities would need devotion, persecution, pain, and death from us to exist is farsical as a belief.

Zombrex

dcmraad wrote: »

The idea that omnipotent deities would need devotion, persecution, pain, and death from us to exist is farsical as a belief.

That may be but it is utterly irrelevant to the question of this thread. Please try not to derail the thread.

CerebralCortex

Morbert wrote: »

A toy example would be whether or not it would be moral to destroy the earth. Is the destruction of all life morally good or bad?

Depends on what kind of being you are, motivations, and goals you have. It's a fairly arbitrary answer depending on perspective. It would be bad for me to destroy all life or the earth because of my dependencies also because I know I'd be denying someone some experience, which I think to an extent has value to me but again for purely arbitrary reasons.

PDN

dcmraad wrote: »

The idea that omnipotent deities would need devotion, persecution, pain, and death from us to exist is farsical as a belief.

I agree, that would indeed be a farcical belief. However, since that is nothing close to what Christians believe it is irrelevant to this thread, or indeed to this forum.

Time for you to stop trolling.

dcmraad

PDN wrote: »

I agree, that would indeed be a farcical belief. However, since that is nothing close to what Christians believe it is irrelevant to this thread, or indeed to this forum.

Time for you to stop trolling.

That is exactly what most religious believe and you are being disingenuous.


Everything is a troll against you.

Fanny Cradock

dcmraad wrote: »

That is exactly what most religious believe and you are being disingenuous.


Everything is a troll against you.

Given that we are in the Christianity forum it really is neither here nor there what other religions believe - at least what they believe according to you. If you aren't trolling then you are misrepresenting Christianity and ignoring anybody who attempts to enlighten you.

Back on topic, please. Off topic posts will be deleted.

dcmraad

PDN wrote: »

Science can tell us little or nothing about God, sin, or salvation. Therefore, as Christians, we are grateful that we can learn about these things through revelation from God.

And how does god reveal them?

Wicknight wrote: »

If you can determine accurate knowledge about something you can't even observe or measure, surely it would be easier to, using the same methodology, find out accurate information about things we can observe and measure?

god reveals something to us, but he repeatedly does it using our own interpretation of what we think he meant to say, I think you are happier
that what you believe can never be proven.

Festus

God invented science and gave it to us as a necessity to invent new things.

if that cannot be understood this thread is pointless.



[31] dixitque Moses ad filios Israhel ecce vocavit Dominus ex nomine Beselehel filium Uri filii Hur de tribu Iuda [32] implevitque eum spiritu Dei sapientiae et intellegentiae et scientiae omni doctrina [33] ad excogitandum et faciendum opus in auro et argento et aere sculpendisque lapidibus et opere carpentario quicquid fabre adinveniri potest [34] dedit in corde eius Hooliab quoque filium Achisamech de tribu Dan [35] ambos erudivit sapientia ut faciant opera abietarii polymitarii ac plumarii de hyacintho et purpura coccoque bis tincto et bysso et texant omnia ac nova quaeque repperiant

PDN

dcmraad wrote: »

And how does god reveal them

Primarily through Scripture.

Btw, take this as a friendly warning from a moderator. Try to derail this thread one more time and I will kick your sorry ass out of the forum. I do hope that is clear enough for you.

Zombrex

Festus wrote: »

God invented science and gave it to us as a necessity to invent new things.

if that cannot be understood this thread is pointless.

Why is it a necessity for inventing things? What happens if you try inventing things with out science?

dcmraad

Snip!

Post deleted due to backseat modding.

dcmraad

So there we have it, science isn't necessary, god is necessary as that explains everything, its just a pity we cannot remove those from society that do not share our belief in god ... (like we use to be able to)

Turtwig

dcmraad wrote: »

I think you mean to say god did everything, any different points of view are irrelevent.

I don't think any Christian believes God did everything. Alot of stuff in this world is due to man's falling away from God. One question I want to ask, is if there was no fall from grace, do you guys think science would be necessary? I know extraordinarily hypothetical but the thrill of the chase is often more fun than the answer surely He wouldn't just cough up everything at once.:)

Fanny Cradock

Malty_T wrote: »

I don't think any Christian believes God did everything. Alot of stuff in this world is due to man's falling away from God. One question I want to ask, is if there was no fall from grace, do you guys think science would be necessary? I know extraordinarily hypothetical but the thrill of the chase is often more fun than the answer surely He wouldn't just cough up everything at once.:)

Have we even established that science is necessary?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Why is it a necessity for inventing things? What happens if you try inventing things with out science?

That's a very interesting question.

You actually end up with a situation like prevailed in China for centuries, where there were some great inventions (eg gunpowder, paper, a printing press etc) but little or no application of scientific method. I've read a number of studies where historians argue that in China principles that lay behind one invention were rarely applied to other problems.

Turtwig

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Have we even established that science is necessary?

Well the generally gist I got from you guys was that it was but then again I haven't read this entire thread.:o Surely I didn't get it that wrong?

Fanny Cradock

I'm just speaking for myself here. But I tend to think of necessity as being an absolute requirement. Can we actually say that about science?

CerebralCortex

Malty_T wrote: »

I don't think any Christian believes God did everything. Alot of stuff in this world is due to man's falling away from God. One question I want to ask, is if there was no fall from grace, do you guys think science would be necessary?

But that's an incoherency. Don't Christians believe the creator is omnipotent? If so how could he not have done everything?
In fact.

Malty_T wrote: »

I know extraordinarily hypothetical but the thrill of the chase is often more fun than the answer surely He wouldn't just cough up everything at once.:)

Ah wait I see what you did there?

PDN

CerebralCortex wrote: »

But that's an incoherency. Don't Christians believe the creator is omnipotent? If so how could he not have done everything?
In fact.

While we're in the mood for posting links try this one: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/omnipotent

Omnipotence means that God is all powerful - not that He did everything.

CerebralCortex

PDN wrote: »

While we're in the mood for posting links try this one: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/omnipotent

Omnipotence means that God is all powerful - not that He did everything.

Having unlimited authority means there is nothing done without aforementioned authority.

Fanny Cradock

And black is white, right? Not only are you arguing for the sake of it, you are also arguing against concepts you evidently haven't grasped.

CerebralCortex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

And black is white, right?

No.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Not only are you arguing for the sake of it, you are also arguing against concepts you evidently haven't grasped.

What? Omnipotence? It's fairly clear: "the state of being omnipotent; having unlimited power". In fairness I should really be talking about the necessity of science sorry.

Fanny Cradock

CerebralCortex wrote: »

What? Omnipotence? It's fairly clear: "the state of being omnipotent; having unlimited power". In fairness I should really be talking about the necessity of science sorry.

Not just omniscience - which has already been explained to you by PDN - but the basics of Christian doctrine.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Have we even established that science is necessary?

I'm glad someone actually finally raised that point.

Do you think science is actually necessary in the first place? I mean you believe God exists and is the Christian God and you didn't use science to establish that. Muslims who say that God wants Shi'a law don't say "and here is the scientific research to support this", but they still seem pretty confident of that statement.

Is science actually necessary?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm glad someone actually finally raised that point.

Do you think science is actually necessary in the first place? I mean you believe God exists and is the Christian God and you didn't use science to establish that. Muslims who say that God wants Shi'a law don't say "and here is the scientific research to support this", but they still seem pretty confident of that statement.

Is science actually necessary?

Necessary for what?

Science is not necessary to live happily on a desert island with a beautiful Fijian wife. But it is necessary if you want to get a man on the moon.