The Black Vault

humphreys wrote:How many computers do you know that were built by prayer?

In response to that I refer you to Alan Shepherd's prayer.
Alan Shepherd's Prayer
By the way, you should read the article. The reason the US was able to make such progress in space was because of nationalism, period. Without nationalism our country stagnates. Not to get off topic.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:

humphreys wrote:That's because no one can live without doing science, in some sense. You either accept science and religion, or just science. A life without religion is possible, but a life completely without science isn't.

You are comparing 2 things that don't go together. Our perceptions and beliefs are not a simple derivative of the laws of physics. We can live without a belief in science, did for thousands of years. You can live while rejecting religion but that's not the point. It not about what we can do, but what we should do.

You can live without believing in science, but you still do it.

Everyone does it.

We have established that science is necessary, whether we like it or not we cannot live without it, but why do we need religion? I get by without it, it is not a necessity for everyone as science is (in some form, anyway).

CodeBlackv2 wrote:This is nothing more than acknowledging that we respond to input and learn. That says nothing about religion or science. Science and religion are both philosophies.

Science in its most basic sense is input and learn. Observe, predict, test, that's how we all learn. We all do science.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Um, no that is wrong. Science is a philosophy. The fact that we can make something work does not "prove science".

Computers and the like are based on sound scientific principles. Only by learning how the Universe works through science can we build such machines, if science did not work, computers would not work.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:I don't know what you mean by that. The universe operates by a set of rules. Neither science nor religion is proved or disproved by that. Religion says that God created those rules. Science has no answer to that question.

There is no evidence it is a question that need answering.

The Universe acts in a certain way, we learn how it acts through science, and through that knowledge we create computers, that is proof that science is working.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:No, science admits that everything they say is based on at least some assumptions. Sounds like you are arguing the opposite side now. If QM seems kooky then that implies the science is wrong or at least incomplete, which it is, in the case of QM. And scientific assumptions have been wrong many times. The whole basis of science is that the final explanation should not seem kooky. Kooky = defies explanation.

That is not the basis of science at all. Science does not dictate that the Universe must not be "kooky", whatever your definition of that is. What I take it you mean by "kooky" is things like action at a distance, and things being in two places at once. Science does not assume such things are impossible, common sense and logic does, but not science. The goal of science is to figure out how the Universe works, however kooky it may or may not be.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:

humphreys wrote:

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Christianity finds itself in a perpetual soccer match and the other team gets infinite free shots.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Man, where have you been the last 20 years? The entire left wing intelligentsia, the film industry, the television industry, the entire mainstream news media, the public school system, the democrat party, and just about every pop-tard in the US has bashed Christianity for decades, and society has not demanded it stopped. Hell, even SNL has had skits about this since the 80's.

Perhaps religion is worthy of ridicule? Beliefs held without evidence surely are.

I'm not going to do the endless re-quote thing..

I think you may be mis-defining "science". The fact that the universe follows rules really says very little. And it sounds like you're saying that if what science says flies in the face of logic, common sense, and every other system of human understanding, that its ok with you. Wow, that sounds like a religion. Questions need to be answered because they are asked. That's all the evidence you need. Now you're saying we should not ask questions? Man, you're getting dangerously close to Vatican City. Treating science as a religion does harm to both.

Living is not "doing science". And just because science gets a few things write does not mean its the sole proprietor of truth. Once again, black robe territory.

I'll bet if you were an architect, you'd only draw rectangles because that's all we need. Not very artistic. I've seen a lot of "ultra-modern" (whatever that means) buildings in the northeast that are nothing but rectangles, ugly. Go to Massachusetts. Every building looks like a barn. Who wants to live in a world without art?

humphreys wrote:I dunno how you messed that quote up, but that was from me not at1.

Imperfections in computers are more down to human error while building them and problems with the parts themselves than the theory behind how computers work. If science did not work computers would not function at all.

How many computers do you know that were built by prayer?

To address the quote thing, I Highlight the quote line, and hit the quote button, somehow it has been automatically placing the name wrong, Its happened several times, so It must be something I'm doing wrong it the quoting program.

I was not referring to computer glitches or computer malfunctions, or the mechanics of computers, you miss my point as ususal. You stated we could not live without science. Mechanically speaking Howerver, they also are not perfect, have unexplained glitches, and a number of malfunctions, fail often, and are easily corrupted by viruses.

The Impact of computers and computer technology to humans, plus many other science related advances of man, have not always been for the better for humans. That is what I referred to with the computer age we live in, how it has negatively impacted an entire generation, and will affect the generation of your young son, in more detrimental ways. Some people claim more wars are started over religion, you could argue all wars begin due to the advances in science.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Neither God, nor Mother Nature, nor Science, nor anything else guarantees our safety. A belief in God does mean that we should site idly by as we are destroyed. Nobody is suggesting that, except Hollywood and a few fringe cults.

Either the universe was made for us - intelligently designed with us in mind - or it wasn't.

It's pretty obvious it wasn't. Humans, like any other animal - indeed, like the vast majority of life that has gone extinct on this barely hospitable planet in a solar system that otherwise isn't hospitable at all and dependent on a dying star in a gigantic galaxy on its way toward another galaxy in a universe destined for entropic heat death - aren't objectively special. Our value is subjective.

This world wasn't made for humans. Nothing here has been made for humans except what humans have devised for themselves in their terrible struggle to survive and master nature.

And human extinction won't upset any divine plans. Because there are none.

That is not the basis of science at all. Science does not dictate that the Universe must not be "kooky", whatever your definition of that is. What I take it you mean by "kooky" is things like action at a distance, and things being in two places at once. Science does not assume such things are impossible, common sense and logic does, but not science. The goal of science is to figure out how the Universe works, however kooky it may or may not be.

Seems to me that he/she doesn't even know what she/he's talking about.

CodeBlackv2 wrote:Who wants to live in a world without art?

He doesn't seem to know much about art, either.

Anyways, it's a false choice. Humans are creative. We're storytellers, for example. Any anthropologist will tell you human history is full of stories that try to explain things. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the variety of mythologies humans have produced. It may help uncloud your thinking.

Art is one way that humans invest meaning and value into existence. They do that because there's no one else doing it for them. Still, art is not objectively meaningful. It is subjective, like beauty.

Science is objective. It relies on evidence and rigorous methodology. It's not the fault of science if our myths don't hold water when science is applied to them.

It's just the nature of the beast. Stories are artifacts of imagination, reflecting our hunger for meaning. So we invent meanings.

Science is a self-refining search for truth that does not assume anything beyond the evidence.

One could say that reality is a work of Art. As has been said before, art implies artist.

at1with0 wrote:One could say that reality is a work of Art. As has been said before, art implies artist.

Is the Artist real? If so, that is a reality which was not created. If that hypothetical reality needed no absolute point of creation or beginning, then it is possible actual reality would not require such a creator. Instead, there could be a system of variances and interplay causing transformations under naturally-evolving parameterization.

It might even be innately unstable. "Creations" would tend to fall apart, especially complex ones. The longer anything exists in a specific way, the greater the likelihood that it will succumb to universal forces to be broken down and re-processed as a kind of "sedimentary" ubiquitous existential element.

That might also help explain the relatively chaotic conditions (such that self-aware lifeforms find themselves embedded within) that also tend to settle into loosely-ordered patterns which can be manipulated or even undone.

Codeblack, I am not misdefining science, you are equating it solely with "The Scientific Method" as done by professional scientists with test tubes and bunsen burners, but science itself in its most basic sense is a system of learning things about the world through repeated observation and experiment, and that we all do.

I bet you use scientific thinking every day.

if what science says flies in the face of logic, common sense, and every other system of human understanding, that its ok with you.

Of course. We're just simple humans, why should our assumptions about how the world should work dictate reality? Reality doesn't care what we think, it is how it is. Our minds should attempt to work within the framework of reality, not define it and put it in a neat little box so that it makes proper sense to us. You are trying to limit reality to what we can understand and make sense of based on our preconceptions.

Wow, that sounds like a religion.

Putting observation and experiment above feelings and intuition is practically the opposite of religion.

Taking reality for what it is no matter how wrong it feels, or how pessimistic it is, or how it goes against our common notions of logic and so on is as "unreligious" as it gets. 'Truth above all', essentially the mantra of science.

Now you're saying we should not ask questions?

Wow, what? Nothing I have said even remotely suggests we don't ask questions. I have no idea where you got that idea. Every scientific advancement comes from asking questions, like "why did that apple fall?".

Who wants to live in a world without art?

No one is asking us to. Science is about determining objective truth through a certain methodology, art is something else entirely. Since art is not trying to dictate truth, as religion does, it is not at odds with science in any way and is irrelevant to this discussion.