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Originally Posted by willravel
When something runs against the laws of physics it must be more complex than physics if it's real. Also, as Dawkins has said, anything that knows what god knows and can do what god does must be complex. A designer must have at least as much information as what he designs. The maintainer must have power over that which is maintained. That's the complexity.
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Will, when something runs against the laws of physics, it means that the laws of physics are either wrong or that they are being misapplied. Complexity has nothing to do with it. And if dawkins really claimed that anything that knows what god know and can do what god does must be complex then he is making claims without evidence. The fact, and any
scientist would tell you this, is that we aren't in a position to comment about the nature of a god, scientifically, because we have no clue what that nature is. Speculation is fine, but it would seem to me that if your whole perspective is based on the idea that unsubstantiated speculation is bad, as apparently yours is, you should probably avoid engaging in it.
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Asking someone not to question is telling them that understanding something isn't necessary. From a theistic framework, I guess it's fine (ignorance is bliss?), but for someone seeking answers (someone who would ask the "why" questions, it's like turing them away when they need help with answers.
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So you're saying there's an important difference between telling someone that we don't know what happens when we die so they shouldn't believe in anything and telling them that as long as they don't deny the validity of things for which there is evidence then there's nothing wrong with believing whatever they want to believe when it comes to death? I guess. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me, and i'm not sure where ignorance comes in, since ignorance would seem to imply that you know something about the afterlife and the folks who don't see things your way are doing so out of ignorance.
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Working within a framework is like playing in the sandbox. It's fun, and it helps you to understand the sandbox, but it ignores everything outside the sandbox. Everything else that may help you understand the sandbox better—knowing that the sand comes from a beach and the wood is from a forest, and that you can purchase a sandbox from places or build one yourself—is unattainable lest you work outside the framework. I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with the framework per se, but the lack of perspective can ultimately be self defeating if you are honestly seeking a full knowledge.
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"Full knowledge"? What does that mean? If you're going to define knowledge only as something that can only be derived through scientific means, then of course you're going to question the validity of any other kind of knowledge. I don't share your definition.
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I think the point of divergence lies above: "It is also important to be able to make sense of things that can't be evaluated in the context of the scientific method." Because there is no evidence to suggest anything exists that's beyond the scope of the scientific method, why would one try to make sense of anything by dropping it? I mean science can't break down. Mistakes in science break down all the time—hypothesis' that turn out to be wrong, for example—but science didn't break down. Human fallibility broke it down. Science is simply systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation (www.dictionary.com). Science is the explanation of what is. Explanations that are wrong aren't science.
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Will, i know what science is, and i know that it isn't present in a lot of the claims that you make about it. It can and will break down. There are many things that it is at a complete loss to explain, there are even some things it has proven itself to be unable to explain (heisenburg uncertainty) and, depending on how you look at godel's incompleteness theorem (hawking thought it a persuasive argument against the existence of a unified field theory), there have to be a lot of things that it will never be able to consistently account for.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
The question is can you look at your own world view and find your wacky spots? I'd like to think I can, but who knows, people have been willing to die for theirs so finding them might be beyond what a lot of people can do.
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*ahem* libertarianism *ahem*
