Existence of God v Science ( Locked) (655)

dazzling_dave: Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. There are religious fanatics that think that science is evil and there are also science fanatics that think religion is evil. The more science figures out the workings of the universe, the more they prove the existence of God.

The problem with some scientists is that they close their minds to the possibility of a Creator. How can one be objective when one takes a possibility out of the equation?

diogenes: Sensory information, is the most mechanical foundation of our existence, and is also highly subjective. It is a creative interpretaion of physical data that is largely invisible to the conscious mind. Knowing about it doesn't help. Most perceptual illusions persist in spite of being explained.

We might expect that science with all of it's high powered measuring instruments, can perceive reality objectively. Most of us respect the power of science, whether or not we value it. Science is held up to the world as a representative or ideal of objectivity.

Our faith in the objectivity of science may be misplaced. All science could be said to be a subjective enterprise. As we are learning that in many ways subjectivity affects science, we are almost forced to conclude that all human experience must be subjective. Many philosephers insist that objective reality, if it exists remains unknown, maybe even unknowable to humans.

Science is really only a value system. What it calls "objectivity": detachment, analysis, prediction and control...these things are really just a statement of values. They are a bias in favor of a certain attitude toward knowledge.

Suppose you met someone who said, "The best way for me to know you is to remain aloof from you. I will break you to pieces and alalyze your parts. I want to examine the little facts of your life with a computer. In this way I will learn how to predict your every move. In addition to this, in order to prove that I have indeed obtained this real power of knowledge over you, I will gain total control over you, and make you behave as I choose." Would you rush to become close to this person? You'd probably laugh at them or be horrified. Yet this is precisely the approach that science takes toward nature.

Still science does not touch reality bare handed. Instead it uses the gloves of its theories, and the glasses of its concepts to examine it. Wooo Hooo! now it's really getting mind boggling....because we only assume that science deals with facts, but the facts of science are really theories. Gravity, magnetism, energy, electricity, atoms, and other terms aren't actual facts. They are ideas. There is no such thing as electricity, or gravity. Those are shorthand terms for describing how certain aspects of the world behave. They are concepts that were developed to explain the sensations and experiences of scientists. They are stories that science has invented about nature.

The facts that science seeks are based on the theories that they hold. The fact isn't even noted without the theory to make it meaningful in the first place. The history of science is full of new discoveries coming from facts that had always been ignored as irrelevant. Scientists are like the rest of us...they see what they are looking for, and ignore everything else.

Konigsberg:
“There is no scientific basis to intelligent design.” Science is concerned with the natural world, while intelligent design supposes an agent independent of the natural world.