However, this doesn't take away from the point of the discussion that introducing mysticism into areas of scence that are yet to be fully explained as a stop-gap "solution" is not an acceptable mode of scientific progress. The common trick that's played by these proponents of the 'theology of the fringes', involving vagueness of terminology and inappropriate usage of concepts, is as follows:
1. First, they make the presumption or the implication that science knows or can explain everything.
2. Next, they pick and choose those areas that are still insufficiently explored, and demand an explanation for them. This was what was being done when the earlier poster attempted to bring in not just a deity, but a deity of his / her choice, to pose as if that deity is the solution to the incomplete understanding of the position-momentum uncertainty - a classic case of introducing a god-of-the-gaps.
To such proponents, the tactic to be employed to counter their "reasoning" is simple. Make them climb down from the vanguards of scientific knowledge, and instead force them to go into the doctrinal and scriptural basics of their faith, straight to the definitional roots of their deity(s). To these proponents, I ask that they answer questions such as these:
Firstly, if their adopted deity(s) is (are) beyond the realms of time and space, then it implies that time has no influence over it (them) - in essence, it is (they are) timeless and has / have existed forever. Since the beginning of anything requires a transformational change from the moment of non-existence to the moment of existence, so too must the beginning of even the process that leads to creation, undergo a period of change. The present Universe (and they assume is the only universe) had a finite 'beginning', they believe. This implies that this Universe also was once under the realm of non-existence. Now for the deity to have begun the process of creation, it must have undergone a transformation, or change, from within the realms of its timeless existence, to the period of change that occurred when it decided to create. Since change implies time, how then is this deity existing in a timeless realm?
Secondly, and this is more specific to the religions under consideration, if you believe in the deity of the Old Testament, and also believe the deity to be the source of all morality, then what happened during the moment when this deity ordered for the son of David to suffer a week-long illness and then perish, for no fault of its? Additionally, how was it moral for the same deity to order for the slaughter of the Amalekite children and infants as detailed in 1 Samuel 15:3?
These are merely examples of forcing such introducers of the gods-of-the-gaps to reconcile the contradictions of their own adopted religions. To them, the choices available are as follows:
1. Reconcile with the contradictions by means of logical arguments.
2. Adopt the an agnostic, or at best, a deistic concept for the god they introduced to fill in the apparent gap.
James,
That’s a lot of words about religion from a guy who’s supposed to be talking about science.
I came to dislike Darwinism for the same reason one of my compatriots here did. I read Darwin’s The Descent of Man.
Why have religious reasons for genocide when there are perfectly good scientific ones?
I always wondered why Australians were so enamored of Darwin and his ideas of white superiority. It’s the best scientific reason to shove some aboriginals off the planet.
Just like it will be the best reason for the Marxists to shove the Christians off the planet.
After all, if sexual preferences are genetic, so are practically all other preferences, including religious ones. Why else bother hypothesizing a “God gene”? Tie religion to genetics, declare the Christians incapable of deconversion because theism is inborn, and start eliminating them so they stop using up undeserved finite resources. The fit survive, the slovenly unfit stupid God botherers don’t.
Right?