<p>Hmmm…I get the gist of what you are saying.
As for me, I’m still trying to find a way for both science and religion to “coexist”. I’m not saying that if I choose to be religious, then I would throw away science. Or vice versa.
Just keep in mind that it’s not as black and white as you imagine it to be. I can’t define exactly what I believe in, but I’d rather not brand myself as an “Atheist” or a “Christian”. I view it simply as coming to terms with myself and being able to accept other religions/views while knowing what I stand for and why.</p>
<p>@fairy_dreams: EXACTLY! Conclusion: All religions are too extreme. Over. There has to be something. Some sort of possibilty of future co-existence… it’s all interconncected! lol. I sound like a conspiracy theorist…</p>
<p>i am god
and I declare that Buddism is the only true religion
ALL HAIL BUDDA</p>
<p>Returning to an earlier point; the idea that a cubic meter of vacuum is the same near Earth as near Andromeda is itself an assumption which is not verifible. The very metric may not be the same from point to point when the points are light years apart.</p>
<p>This is one resolution of the Fermi paradox; Intelligence never travels far from “home” because an alien space will not support/facilitate the processes that allow its sort of “life”. You travel a few lightyears from your evelutionary mileau, you die.(I would still like to try to do this. You can’t know until you go there and see.)</p>
<p>i believe that i cannot prove that there is or isn’t a higher power, but that in all likelihood, worldly religions are false. That said, I do believe in morality and live my life accordingly, for myself, others, and just in case :)</p>
<p>i still celebrate Christian holidays though, it’s just how I was raised. And i’m a baptized/confirmed Methodist.</p>
<p>@BigG, not really. Astronomers can observe lightyears away and can see that do indeed match here in the way things behave. The entire point of a scientific theory is that it can make reliable predictions, as a matter of fact it <em>has</em> to be able to make them in order to be considered valid. </p>
<p>Intellectual Nihilism is entirely pointless in the context of science. What we believe to be true is to be assumed to be true until it is proven false and once it is, it is discarded. Nothing can be proven unequivocally true so the opposite would never lead to anything constructive.</p>
<p>Astronomers observe things lightyears away (probably) and interpret the behavior of those things with the assumption that physical constants there are the same as here.</p>
<p>If you don’t make that assumption you have no basis for intepreting the data. That does not mean the assumption is accurate.</p>
<p>Religious people assume there is a God. Astronomers assume that what they see far away and presumably long ago, is subject to our here and now physical constants. Both positions require a “leap of faith”. </p>
<p>Assumption of truth is the basis for religion. Assumption of unversal replicabiity is the basis of science. </p>
<p>I am reminded of an ancient Heinlein passage. “Question; What color is that house?
Answer; This side is white.”</p>
<p>Universal reproducibility isn’t as universal as you’re insinuating. </p>
<ul>
<li>Newtonian physics is adequate enough to predict with considerable accuracy the movement of macroscopic objects within much of the universe.</li>
<li>Quantum mechanics (while still being worked on) is relatively adequate in dealing with the quantum world.</li>
<li>Electromagnetism is enough to deal with most objects with (and only with) a charge.</li>
<li>It is theorized that classical physics is HIGHLY INADEQUATE in dealing with the early stages of inflationary cosmology (the Big Bang). </li>
</ul>
<p>A good physicist would answer to your Heinlein question, “This side is white, but we must acquire a different perspective to ascertain the colors of the other sides. However, a small enough amount of people are quirky enough to have different colors on each side - enough to consider them outliers - so we can assume with a degree of accuracy that the house is white. The roof, however, is most likely a different color. Windows and doors, as well as their sidings and any hard blinds, are not included in this assumption. This postulation is a disposable one, and will be discarded as such if future information yields contradictory results.” </p>
<p>Everything requires a certain degree of faith. The scientific method tries to minimize it.</p>
<p>Plus, as spookyjeff said, if scientists were to be big babies about everything, like you are suggesting BigG, nothing useful would ever get done. Scientists would still be jerking off over “whoa what if our solar system is one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being.”</p>
<p>And creating an equivalency with the amount of assumptions needed to do science vs. believe in a religion is really really misleading. Assuming that c is the same everywhere is a lot less silly than believing that God wants you to get the tip of your dick cut off, not allow women to be clerics, etc. I may be a little biased because I am not very religious, but I think a lot of people–even those who are religious–would agree with me.</p>