- Anything Else -

Robert, have you actually engaged your wits yet?

Posted by: Gideon Hallett ( UK ) on December 02, 1999 at 15:47:13:

In Reply to: Hang on, bir daka. posted by Robert on December 02, 1999 at 00:23:36:

: Floyd, dear friend,

: : False. As Gideon has REPEATEDLY pointed out to you, science, unlike dogma, is open to change. In fact, evolutionary theory is constantly developing and offering a more and more accurate picture of the past. There is no religious aspect to this, it does not require faith and, once again, "evolution" is not about the beginning of the world. Please try to get that into your head.

: Hang on now. To include the possibility of a Creator in the discussion of science is not "dogmatic". To necessarily EXCLUDE the possibility of a Creator in said discussion is, in fact, dogmatic.

Straw man.

Science can never say "God doesn't exist"; and no scientist is in the position to say so. Neither Floyd nor myself have ever said that.

Science deals solely with the observable and measurable and falsifiable world. This makes it very good at describing the measurable world; you can go skydiving in the knowledge that the laws of physics are a pretty good model of the physical world.

Religion is necessarily founded on an unprovable; a God; this is antithetical to the scientific model and thus religion and science cannot mix. Science does not say "God doesn't exist"; science says "There is no way to prove God using logic and first principles".

Evolution is an ongoing process; it is a physical process a measurable process and not one that rests on any unobservables; thus it is a scientific process; not a religious belief.

You can test for evolution in much the same way that you can test a chemical solution for metals; it's measureable.

: As an example, perhaps Christ lives in extra-dimensional space/time. We would not have the capability to measure in those dimensions, we wouldn't be able to observe them either. However, that in and of itself does not exlude the possibility of their existence.

Perhaps God is also the Devil?; it's as unprovable a statement as your statement above. As a physical scientist, I work to describe the measureable and I work from first principles; that which can be observed directly and that which can be demonstrated to others regardless of their scepticism.

: I think Christ demonstrated extra-dimensionality when, in a glorified state, He passed through a wall in the upper room. A study of vector curling (Stokes and Green) shows that this is mathematically possible,
Really? I studied both Stokes' Theorem and Green's Theorem in University. Both of them are basic proofs in vector calculus; neither of them make any recourse to "extradimensionality"; they are pure maths.

Quite what you mean by "vector curling" is unclear, since you don't appear to understand what it is about. The curl of a vector field is simply the cross product of the partial differentials of the individual components of that field in the i, j and k axes.

: albiet difficult to envision for us limited 3-D space and 1-D time frame beings.

I can take it to n-dimensional space-time, if you like, Robert; some of the tensor algebra I've had to deal with in relativistic mechanics has been really fun; but it doesn't alter the fact that vector algebra is just an abstraction of the physical world derived from first principles; it is falsifiable and therefore science.

You simply cannot use physical phenomena to derive proof for the existence of God; or the evidence supporting evolution would disprove God.

: Floyd, don't be dogmatic. Free up your mind. The joy and the happiness of the Holy Spirit awaits you. And yes, I can give you no physical measurements on how big That really is.

So stop trying to use physical measurements to back up your beliefs; your lack of understanding of them is pretty obvious.

Just admit that your faith is entirely founded on the unmeasureable and unprovable; and admit that you can never prove the existence of God to anyone else.

Oh; and you've not responded to the little contradiction I showed you on the 19th; I quote

"Robert;
: I nor anyone else could ever "prove" God, or he wouldn't be God.

...

: NOW belief comes in. God had to tell him these remarkable things. The Bible couldn't be a man-made product.

Gideon: If the Bible isn't a man-made product, then it provides proof of God. Since you've already said God can't be proved by you or anyone else, you are contradicting yourself. Either the Bible is not ultimate proof of God, or God doesn't exist. Your choice."

Gideon.


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