A Comment

My first response begins with your second paragraph. I think you miss read what I was trying to say (or I miss typed). I was not saying that science needs to prove there is no god, I was saying that this question is what it is asked to do, and that is not fair. It can't be done was the point I was getting at. Your point about the null hypotheis was what I was trying to make. That there is a disconnect with science and the philosophy of religion.

Ok, sorry I miss quoted you. Let the record show that Jeph made the sudoku comment. I think we are both in agreement here. I may have cleared up my point in this paragraph. The first paragraph was used to build the point in the following. I'm sorry I was confusing.

I must be hitting something here Jeph, because your next critique was kinda harsh, but not when you see that I was not making the point you thought I was. The point I was trying to make is that these things very closely related, trust in the process and faith. You are right, they are not the same, but they are similar. I was stating this to show two things. The first is a basic assumption some uneducated make: science is infailiable. Included in the lecture that inspired the original post was a talk of when science fails. You may forget Jeph that psychology, an arguable soft science, is a science. I understand the basics, I have to use them. I was pointing out that science does not answer everything, and some people hide behind that as some hide behind religion. The second point was a "see we are not that different". I think this point may be explained better talking about my final paragraph.

Well, I guess I will start by saying sorry for writing my conclusion poorly. I don't think I made the points I was going after, but I have to dispute some things that you said. First, science is a category. It is a category of tool that we use to describe and explain the observable world. This is a category. What is immune to this, nothing is immune, just not testable(yet in some cases). There are things that we do not know about, that is where theoretical science comes in. The mind, for example, is still a huge mystery. We know a lot, yes, but we dont know all that much (anti-depressants for example, but that is a later discussion). I think there are also questions about human nature that we do not know. We make hypotheses about why, but causality in human actions and emotions are hard to figure out. They are not immune to science, but science has no tool sensitive enought, (agian yet). Faith is like this, science can help us make guesses, but the fact is, maybe the main fact of what I was writing was that it is a philosophy. I thought the idea of this blog was to discuss faith with challenging ideas. Saying that we must only use science for the concept of god is using the wrong tool. It is like taking a ruler to see how how much I weigh. (160 by the way). Science is great, I'm a fan, but I think in the same way you are angry about people saying "we won't ever know, you have to have faith", I am angry with people saying, "science is right, there is no god" A better statement is that there is no measurable god. Or maybe that our measurements are not to the point that they can measure god. Again with psychology (a science) one can talk a lot about observable behavior, but not know the cause of this. God is more of a "cause" type question. Something to be addressed in a different way than the scientific method. How do we know there is a god? Measureably, maybe there is no way. But in the same way as psychology one can look at the observable; changed lives, people acting not out of self intrest, maybe even that potential of man itself, and ask the questions "why?" what is the reason for it. What is the cause. Now I know one may bring up humanist ideas here, but there are other things, people dont always act in a humanist theory manner, there needs to be thought put into the deep casuality of different human acts. Again this may be too large for what I'm trying to say at this moment, and I'm guessing I'm not putting it exactly how I want.

I'm sorry I was not clear in the first post Jeph, and this may have made it worse. The fact is science is not the be all end all. I think that is just as arrogant as a Christian saying "just have faith" They are different (one of my original, but not well put, points of the first post) but there is an overlap that should breed more sensitivity to why faith is here, and maybe even show that it is not outlandish to think of a god. Science is not the answer to all of humanities troubles. If that were true than the closer we get to knowing about the universe the closer utopia is. (that may have been the second point of the orignial post).