Science is limited

[livingwordlabels]

Science, by definition, can only accept something which can be proven or tested in some way. It is therefore limited to making conclusions about physical things.
I'm not saying this limitation undermines science as a valid and extremely useful source of knowledge. However, what does undermine its reliability is when people use it to make assumptions and conclusions without acknowledging this limitation.

For example, when people try to use their scientific way of thinking to decide whether God exists or not. God is spiritual, not physical - a concept completely alien to science.

Also when people use only what they can observe to explain how mankind was created. This inevitably fails, as they have to limit life to something physical and we get the absurd idea of life evolving out of matter. The Bible offers us a more plausible explanation - that God created man from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life. If we believe the Bible, we can see that humans are spiritual as well as physical.

My conclusion? If you want to understand God, how we were made, our purpose for living, our relationship with God and even our future, then you need something more than science.

[10CC]

[Replying to post 178 by 10CC]
Let me rephrase:

P1. All strictly human endeavors are limited
P2. Science is a strictly human endeavor
C1. Science is limited

Now with respect to your proposal, most people would argue that the whole point of any religion is that it is not a strictly human endeavor; somehow, and in some fashion, the Divine is associated with the purpose and practice and rationale of the religion. To the extent that this is the case, your P2 is flawed, thus rendering your argument invalid.

Well there can be no doubt that humans claim a divine association is related to religion, in fact all religions past present and future, this alone is more than enough reason to completely discount any and all such absurd claims.

Therefore my argument stands and your objection is denied.

[JohnA]

He claims Science is limited, but he can't even formulate a valid argument. And you say I lack coherency.....

[10CC]

He claims Science is limited, but he can't even formulate a valid argument. And you say I lack coherency.....

I'll try again.

You make the same claim I do regarding Edu's argument and then sling off at a tangent attacking me for a comment I made about some of your arguments in another thread I think.

It would be like me wanting to punch up the kid I punched up 50yrs ago because I still don't like what he said.

It would seem from the first part of your statement that you agree with what I had said, why then did you attack me in the comment you made?

You seem to attack people you agree with on subject A because they have disagreed with you on unrelated subject B.

I agree with some of the arguments made by theists on this forum, I disagree with some of the arguments made by non theists on this forum and I'm prepared to argue with and for in those cases, but I don't agree with what a theist says and then attack him/her for something unrelated in another discussion.

That's it for me. I won't convince you that I don't hate you, but I've tried.

[JohnA]

He claims Science is limited, but he can't even formulate a valid argument. And you say I lack coherency.....

I'll try again.

You make the same claim I do regarding Edu's argument and then sling off at a tangent attacking me for a comment I made about some of your arguments in another thread I think.

It would be like me wanting to punch up the kid I punched up 50yrs ago because I still don't like what he said.

It would seem from the first part of your statement that you agree with what I had said, why then did you attack me in the comment you made?

You seem to attack people you agree with on subject A because they have disagreed with you on unrelated subject B.

I agree with some of the arguments made by theists on this forum, I disagree with some of the arguments made by non theists on this forum and I'm prepared to argue with and for in those cases, but I don't agree with what a theist says and then attack him/her for something unrelated in another discussion.

That's it for me. I won't convince you that I don't hate you, but I've tried.

Your first paragraph makes no sense. I debated him before you came along.
You are also wrong about this arg a and b. I told you, I hate it when people claim to know my beliefs without me stating it. Please stop doing it.

Actually, you attacked me first, twice in fact. Think you got a warming or comment for the first attack. I just responded, with a post not as well written, but with no back hand insults like yours.
And yes, I agree, not all atheists or non theists on this side are coherent. Some of them make the worse arguments, embarrassing if you ask me.
So I guess your issue is with my posts, not me. Am not sure when I divorced myself from my posts. I never got that settlement.

[10CC]

He claims Science is limited, but he can't even formulate a valid argument. And you say I lack coherency.....

I'll try again.

You make the same claim I do regarding Edu's argument and then sling off at a tangent attacking me for a comment I made about some of your arguments in another thread I think.

It would be like me wanting to punch up the kid I punched up 50yrs ago because I still don't like what he said.

It would seem from the first part of your statement that you agree with what I had said, why then did you attack me in the comment you made?

You seem to attack people you agree with on subject A because they have disagreed with you on unrelated subject B.

I agree with some of the arguments made by theists on this forum, I disagree with some of the arguments made by non theists on this forum and I'm prepared to argue with and for in those cases, but I don't agree with what a theist says and then attack him/her for something unrelated in another discussion.

That's it for me. I won't convince you that I don't hate you, but I've tried.

Your first paragraph makes no sense. I debated him before you came along.
You are also wrong about this arg a and b. I told you, I hate it when people claim to know my beliefs without me stating it. Please stop doing it.

Actually, you attacked me first, twice in fact. Think you got a warming or comment for the first attack. I just responded, with a post not as well written, but with no back hand insults like yours.
And yes, I agree, not all atheists or non theists on this side are coherent. Some of them make the worse arguments, embarrassing if you ask me.
So I guess your issue is with my posts, not me. Am not sure when I divorced myself from my posts. I never got that settlement.

whatever.

[otseng]

Actually, you attacked me first, twice in fact. Think you got a warming or comment for the first attack. I just responded, with a post not as well written, but with no back hand insults like yours.
And yes, I agree, not all atheists or non theists on this side are coherent. Some of them make the worse arguments, embarrassing if you ask me.
So I guess your issue is with my posts, not me. Am not sure when I divorced myself from my posts. I never got that settlement.

whatever.

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[Cathar1950]

Go out and talk to any devout Christian, I guarantee you that they are not believing just because they want to avoid going to hell.

Of course they won't be because they believe they are saved and going to Heaven. If you believe you are going to Heaven why would you fear Hell? That doesn't mean that it wasn't the fear of Hell that led them to becoming Christians in the first place.

I bet you that if they start to lose their faith then the fear of Hell will become a big factor.

it seem less confusing to have a number of irons in the fire than one iron in many fires...
How would one really understand the limits of science or even claim its limited unless you know everything? And then it seems to be our limits not the limits of science.
Science is knowledge and understanding and not to be understood by a limited understanding of the tools and methods created to gain knowledge and understanding.
As I was reading through the threads and topics trying to catch op I recall, with humor, someone claiming that it is beyond the scope of science about the origins of the universe as if their limited understandings and possible understandings of the Divine provided them with better answers when in fact the provided more questions then answers and replaced arguments with bare assertions.
We can eliminate the assertions that are nonsense and science and reason have pretty good tool for looking at the rest.

[bluethread]

Go out and talk to any devout Christian, I guarantee you that they are not believing just because they want to avoid going to hell.

Of course they won't be because they believe they are saved and going to Heaven. If you believe you are going to Heaven why would you fear Hell? That doesn't mean that it wasn't the fear of Hell that led them to becoming Christians in the first place.

I bet you that if they start to lose their faith then the fear of Hell will become a big factor.

it seem less confusing to have a number of irons in the fire than one iron in many fires...
How would one really understand the limits of science or even claim its limited unless you know everything? And then it seems to be our limits not the limits of science.
Science is knowledge and understanding and not to be understood by a limited understanding of the tools and methods created to gain knowledge and understanding.
As I was reading through the threads and topics trying to catch op I recall, with humor, someone claiming that it is beyond the scope of science about the origins of the universe as if their limited understandings and possible understandings of the Divine provided them with better answers when in fact the provided more questions then answers and replaced arguments with bare assertions.
We can eliminate the assertions that are nonsense and science and reason have pretty good tool for looking at the rest.

What you are referring to is deductive reasoning. That is not limited to science and science does not always employ deductive reasoning. Based on deductive reasoning, when one can not identify the proximate cause of the unpredictable movement of items in an empty house, one could conclude that the house was haunted. Science and reason are not interchangeable. Science serves as an empirical check on reason and reason adds continuity to scientific observation and experimentation. Though the two are closely related they are not inextricably linked.

[Star]

Based on deductive reasoning, when one can not identify the proximate cause of the unpredictable movement of items in an empty house, one could conclude that the house was haunted.

No, you have this backwards. This is inductive reasoning. An item moving in an empty house isn't reason to deduce it's haunted. Objects can move due to a wide variety of non-ghostly causes. You induced a haunting through the lens of your pre-suppositional faith-biased worldview.

As an evidence-based thinker, I would approach this problem much differently. If I didn't know how an item in my house moved, I would just say, "I don't know." I could be lazy, and try to act smart in the absence of intelligence, and pretend I logically deduced that aliens, ghosts, or elves did it, but that wouldn't make sense. Pretending to be logical doesn't logical make.

[bluethread]

Based on deductive reasoning, when one can not identify the proximate cause of the unpredictable movement of items in an empty house, one could conclude that the house was haunted.

No, you have this backwards. This is inductive reasoning. An item moving in an empty house isn't reason to deduce it's haunted. Objects can move due to a wide variety of non-ghostly causes. You induced a haunting through the lens of your pre-suppositional faith-biased worldview.

I said one could conclude, not one must conclude. I also made no statement regarding what I would conclude. My point was that science and reason are not equivalent. Often science accepts the best guess, when there is insufficient empirical evidence. This is because we must make decisions often without sufficient empirical evidence.

As an evidence-based thinker, I would approach this problem much differently. If I didn't know how an item in my house moved, I would just say, "I don't know." I could be lazy, and try to act smart in the absence of intelligence, and pretend I logically deduced that aliens, ghosts, or elves did it, but that wouldn't make sense. Pretending to be logical doesn't logical make.

Then you disagree with Sherlock Holmes? "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".