Is there a God?

[Narnia]

Perception of life may be subjective but that does not mean that the essence of life changes as our view of it does. In the same way that a thirsty person may value water more than someone who isn't thirsty, it doesn't change the composition of water.

[Jeremy]

I think rahrahrah means that you can't be sure of what you can't observe. Everything else - the stuff we are told by science/religion/philosophy - may or may not be true.

(not sure I totally agree, but that is what I think he means)

[M.J.]

I think yes but not in the may that most people think :)

[Ridgley]

It?s funny when people say, there is no god but when something tragic happens in our lives he is the first person we call out to.

Just wondering if that is a natural reaction to do.

[SeanMacGabhann]

do they? If i keel over of a heart attack, I'll be calling for medical care not a god

chilean miners thanked god when they came out but they may well be already religious. It was still science that got them out of a mine tho

[Narnia]

i wonder if the Chinese miners will be thanking science so much?

[silverfox]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> >

> do they? If i keel over of a heart attack, I'll be

> calling for medical care not a god

>

> chilean miners thanked god when they came out but

> they may well be already religious. It was still

> science that got them out of a mine tho

The fact is in times of trouble people do call on the idea of a god. Your doctor, Sean, is a secular god. He/she may save you.

As for science getting the miners out of that jam I think you misunderstand what the world has just witnessed. If by science you mean a pulley wheel and a drill then so be it. The miners survived by means of old fashioned pulling together and a sense of order. If anything 'science' has learned from their ordeal - not least Nasa, who have studied them so as to plan trips to Mars etc.

[Huguenot]

Ha ha, very good Silverfox, that good old 'gut feel' eh?

*Chortles*

'Science' provided the tools. Everything. The forge, the steel, the carbon drill bits, the hydrocarbons that turned the motor, the nylon overalls, the planned diet. To think otherwise is quite simply blind. Stupid, in fact. Doof, hand to forehead stuff.

In fact, why don't you read about it. Get yourself an education. Here's Wallace Carothers, the scientist who invented Nylon. Here's Sir Henry Bessemer, the metallurgist who pioneered modern steel through the application of science.

Here's physicist Nicolas Sadi Carnot who worked out the theory for an internal combustion engine. Here's Ignacy Lukasiewicz the chemist who invented a refining process to give him the fuel to run it.

You silly man.

Quite simply, silverfox, you are so blinded by your prejudice that you cannot accept that every inch of your existence is down to the 'science' of other people. You take it all for granted and you are ungrateful. Patently ridiculous, and an insult to everyone who worked so hard to make your life easy.

'Industry' (in the sense of combined effort, like ants) provided the infrastructure.

"by means of old fashioned pulling together and a sense of order" this, with all due respect, is a load of romanticised blart. Complete fecking bullshit. A bit of old fashioned British backslapping that 'made this country great' etc.

[mockney piers]

"your doctor ... Is a secular god"

That's probably the weakest attempt at equivalency ive ever read. Smacks of desperation.

Perhaps if i attributed all doctors' results to mystical powers then it might carry some weight, but it isn't is it, it's all....err.....science.

Right I'm off to pray to annaj, plus I've a surfeit of chickens to sacrifice to her.

[Brendan]

As a philosophical point you really can?t compare science to religion.

[mockney piers]

Faith healing works on faith, so you can just about get away with comparing religion to alternative therapy; though I doubt many of them think it is divine powers, more esoteric ones, or maybe something about Gaia, which vie yet to work out whether this is an anthropormiphasation of our planet and ecosphere, or a genuine attribution of a soul as such to it.

[silverfox]

Wow Huguenot, the hangover must have been a stonker this morning looking at that lot.

What on earth are you babbling on about? Do you think the 33 miners gave a fig about the combustion engine or ladies nylons while their bellies were aching with hunger in the first 17 days? They got on with the fight for survival, something that comes from inside their heads and the fibre of their characters. Something I hope Huguenot, you will never have to go through lest your 'faith' in science is challenged.

[SeanMacGabhann]

So atheists wouldn't have survived, silvefox? You seem to be suggesting they lack mental strength and fortitude?

[HAL9000]

Silverfox has a point - the will to survive is a well-documented factor: whether it is inspired by science or faith is irrelevant, IMHO.

[Jeremy]

Surely if you believe in Heaven and all that, the survival instinct would not be as strong?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Quite - and yet it's God who gets thanked. Go figure

[mockney piers]

So if we extrapolate logic from Silverfox's theories, was it all a test of faith then?

And the punishment for a lack of faith would have been madness or death?

Forgive me for saying so but He's not a very nice deity is he.

[silverfox]

It is not uncommon in the wild to see baboons inserting stalks of grass into ant-hills. The ants crawl on the straw that is invading their nest and the baboon withdraws the straw and enjoys a nutritous little snack. There's no science involved here. The baboon is using its wits and a tool to achieve an objective.

Now, assume a careless tourist on safari drops an object. Let's say a pen. I doesn't matter what its made of, plastic or metal. That pen will have been crafted, designed, manufactured, using modern efficient processes, at a factory powered by fuel and so on. The fact that its production is possible may be the combined result of numerous scientific, technological and engineering discoveries and breakthroughs stretching back to the dawn of the Summarian civilisation. The baboon picks up the pen, inserts it into the ant-hill and gains another snack.

Now, what is the observer to make of this? Has the use of the pen been some scientific, evolutionary breakthrough equivalent to the mysterious monolith in the film 2001? Or, more rationally, did the baboon simply use it as a tool in the same way the stalk of grass was used?

Back to the rescue of the Chilean miners. People pulling together using their skills and ingenuity use a range of tools available to them to release 33 trapped miners. This is seen in some quarters as a rescue by science, not by people, as if 'science' is some autonomous existing entity that operates independently of humans. It was the drills, pulleys, cables, generators that saved the miners. Man was a by-stander.

Woe betide anyone who questions the pre-eminent and superior role of science here. You will be 'Chortled' at, accused of being prejudiced, silly and sworn at. People will misconstrue what you have actually said, it smacks of desperation they'll say, it implies attacks against athiests.

It's simple really. The rescue of the miners was an uplifting triumph of mankind over adversity. It lifted the spirits of millions. It went to the heart of what it is to be human. Killjoys can't see that.

Edited to answer Sean's question.

Nowhere have I suggested this rescue had anything to do with a god. You are all bringing your preconcieved assumptions to bear on this. Of course atheists could have survived depending on their mental strength and fortitude. And before anyone

jumps to conclusions, my example of baboons isn't an attack on athiests. Athiests are perfectly capable of sticking straws in ant-hills.

[mockney piers]

I have no idea what your point is.

But the use of a sticksome things to get at ants by various primates is science in action. In fact " There's no science involved here. The baboon is using its wits and a tool to achieve an objective" is a pretty good description of the scientific process isnt it? It is a learned skill originally created by empirical observation and preserved as communal knowledge by social cohesion.

Are you saying it was built into baboons by God on the fifth day, just asking as I'm struggling to see anything to do with God in your analogy. Though you should be aware that this behaviour in baboons exists only in some communities not intrinsic to baboon kind. The same is true of other primate species, though learned behaviour and understanding cause and effect does exist in non-primate species too, we're just better at it than most and Homo Sapien is particularly adept.

Inference of attacks on atheists is pure straw man, you are the only one claiming it is.

If faith helped the miners then good for them, it was still drills winches and engines that got them out of the hole though wasn't it, or am i missing something?

[Huguenot]

You're just wrong again, our baboon is very much using science.

Here's a useful definition: "Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world."

The baboon knew that the ants were in the hill, he hypothecated tht if he could insert a tool into the hill he could access the ants, he experimented until he found the right piece of grass.

When the baboon saw the pen, he recognised the characteristics it shared with the grass, and concluded that it would achieve the same goals. He tested it, and proved it to be so.

Your point about the miners is nonsense, you're trying to equate 'concepts' like adversity, with 'process' like science.

Besides, you're now moving the goalposts. The question was who or what saved the miners - God or science. The answer is science. God was noticeable by his lack of heavy industrial plant. He did however, have plenty of rather ineffectual platitudes.

[Huguenot]

Cross post

[silverfox]

I repeat Mockney. Nowhere have I said this rescue is anything to do with a god. All I did was state a fact that in times of trouble people call upon or turn to God, a god. I was agreeing with Ridgley's generally accepted observation. The rest of what I'm supposed to have said has been made up in your own heads. Not content with inventing what I am supposed to have said, you Mockney are now trying to extrapolate theories from words that you attribute to me.

Fascinating behaviour.

[mockney piers]

I'm forced to do so because it was impossible to discern what point you were trying to make with the baboon/pen analogy.

As regards the miners point, indeed I saw that the original intention brought up was that in times of adversity people turn to god.

Fine. The old truism 'there are no atheists in foxholes' would probably have sufficed, but like all cliches, though it may be grounded in much truth it isn't the whole story by any means. To attribute the ability to mentally triumph through adversity exclusively to the religious is disingenuous, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of atheists in foxholes, though I doubt many of them are especially happy about it, but then I doubt anyone would be.

[silverfox]

During the rescue of the miners there was a lot of talk about God, faith, battles with the devil and so on. As Sean rightly said, many of the miners were religious and so naturally they would have thanked God. Notions of the devil being in mines is also, I understand, embedded in the folklore of miners throughout the Andes. We were observers on this particularly Chilean event, not necessarily understanding the cultural background, but nevertheless able to understand the universal themes of struggling against adversity.

Personally I haven't stated or implied that faith or God had anything to do with the rescue or survival. Others appear happy to do that on my behalf. What I have said is that it was humans that released the miners. Science did bugger all on its own. Drills don't drill themselves, winches don't winch by themselves. Men harnessed the products of science, the tools to effect the rescue. Science rescued nobody.

Now, we're being told, baboons are quasi-scientists, examples of science in action, using empirical observation, setting up hypotheses, testing them, and proving theories. Let's hope a careless tourist doesn't drop a calculator lest Mr Baboon disproves relativity then we'll all be in trouble.

[mockney piers]

I'm really not sure how to take you silverfox, are you just messing with us and I'm missing your tongue firmly in your cheek?

If I'm not then can I actually get a definition of science from you?

It's not a force in and of itself or a rival god of some sort. You seem to be mistaking it for such; a modern day Baal if you will.

If I am then I apologise for being a bit slow and humourless, lets blame it on my headcold.