JackC

If you're just going to make things up, there's really no point in carrying on is there.

I've highlighted the important bit for you. Liquid water exists over a very small temperature scale so planets and moons in an orbit that can maintain a temperature within this scale are the likeliest candidates to be capable of bearing life similar to our own. The reason this is the only planet we can prove hosts life is the next nearest candidate is 20 light years away and I don't know anyone who can see that fecking far. If you want to criticize science go right ahead but please, at least have the courtesy to criticize science for what it actually is.

Rubbish. You don't need faith. A simple "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer. In fact, unless you have some evidence to indicate a decision one way or the other, "I don't know" is the only answer you can give. No amount of faith will ever change that. What your gut says is just an emotional response that is totally useless as an indicator of truth. If the worlds population used their heads instead of their guts, we'd all be much better off.

Maybe not but you seem to take great delight in pointing them out at every conceivable opportunity. And it is indistinguishable from it's own non-existence. Heaven should be a blast then.

I laugh in the face of your feeble threats. haha. Seriously though, life without gods grace... I'm not seeing the downside. I mean it's not like I missed anything so far.

I am confident that the only censequence of my decision is freedom from living with an illogical and mind bogglingly bizzare philosophy.

^^ Yup, arguments like that are why I'm an atheist.

Thank you for not reading my post.

Although we can wind the clock back (so to speak) and take a glimpse at the origin of the universe, or close to it, we can never look beyond. In fact, what happened before the big bang is itself a meaningless question. The universe which is all that there is: space, matter, energy, even time itself , all the evidence for everything we can ever know started with the big bang. Now we have very good reason to suppose the universe started with a bang. If we look at the universe, it's expanding roughly uniformly in every direction. If you go backwards in time, the universe must have been smaller than it is now. Even the energy signature of the big bang, the cosmic microwave background, is observable with a suitable radio telescope. Each and every little piece of evidence, from the constant speed of light to the interaction of sub atomic particles has been looked at and theories have been devised to try and bring these observations together. All these theories have to be consistent with each other and themselves but more importantly, they have to be consistent with observation. It is precisely because we have measured all the little things so carefully, that we can make predictions about the bigger things and even measure them too. So we have a pretty good handle on the universe and it's origin. Not perfect but pretty good. Contrast that with the origin of God. We know absolutely nothing about that, lots of contrasting theories but absolutely no evidence. Hell, we can't pin down whether he even exists. So I think on balance, the origin of the universe is fairly defensible, and we can definately defend its existence. With God, we can't succesfully defend either.

http://feedblog.org/2007/05/04/40-of-republican-presidential-candidates-do-not-believe-in-evolution/ This is a joke right? Cos I don't get it.

A persons particular brand of catholicism is neither here nor there. The Bible does try to explain the beginnings of the universe, it's right there in black and white independent of someones ability to ignore it. Maybe I got NOMA all wrong, I thought that given the name, it was about two different subjects actually not overlapping and therefore existing comfortably side by side. It turns out NOMA is all about conveniently ignoring the overlaps even when they are staring you in the face. If you take the slow speed approximation to relativistic mechanics you get Newtonian mechanics. So applying NOMA here is equivalent to saying relativity does not overlap with the slow speed approximation of itself. That is obviously absurd. Can I apply NOMA to the Bible and the idea of morality? I assume you don't condone the actions described in Leviticus 18:22 so I would say it's a fair bet that even though the Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death, you apply NOMA and ignore it. NOMA isn't about two subjects not overlapping, it's about ignoring the one you don't like.

Not necessarily. Infinity isn't necessarily ilogical but it can lead to some illogical conclusions if you're not careful. Or you can say "I don't know if there are worlds beyond we can see through current technologies, but it would be nice to try and find out". Dunno. As far as I can see, faith (ie belief without, or inspite of the, evidence) is a undesirable trait and should be avoided.

Take omnipotence. Can God create a rock that he can't lift? That is a logical impossibility and the only way around it is to say omnipotence means anything logically possible. Take omniscience. Can God know what it is like to be ignorant? If he knows everything then he can't be ignorant of anything. If he knows what it's like to be ignorant then he must be ignorant of something and therefore can't know everything. Everytime you come up against one of these oxymorons, and there are lots of them, you have to limit gods powers a bit to avoid a logical contradiction. So a truly omnimax god is a logical absurdity like a square circle. So you have two alternatives, either God isn't truly omnimax or you abandon logic. Of the two, logic just seems more useful.

Not really. To take one of your earlier examples. a - Joe is a carbon based organism whose phenotype is based on expression of the DNA he inherited from his parents, and modified by the environment he was raised in. b - Joe is a devout catholic. You say these two attributes are non-overlapping and for the most part you are right. However, there is one area where they do overlap. Namely, Joe's Catholicism and the environmental pressures he experienced during his formative years. So for this example, NOMA is of limited use. Similarly, the Bible may not explicitly talk about electro-weak theory but on a fundamental level, a universe that is subject to the whim of an omnipotent being may be expected to look significantly different to a universe which is not. This is where religion and science overlap. If the Bible is just another fictional tome then you're right, it doesn't matter a jot. But as soon as you start to claim the Bible is not fiction, that it contains the truth about an omnipotent being who lords it over the universe then your claim breaks down. This is because the universe with this being will be fundamentally different to a universe without and that difference is a scientific difference. Depends what you're doing. If I'm working out the trajectory of a rock to lob over my neighbours fence to land on his yapping dog, then Newton is fine. If I'm looking at the structure of an accretion disk surrounding a white dwarf then Newton is not fine. This is a completely flawed analogy though. I know the limitations of Newtonian mechanics, so I know specifically when they are valid and when they are not because it's all testable. With the Bible, everything I can test comes up wrong so how can I have any confidence in the untestable bits? NOMA just ignores the fact that the testable bits turn out to be rubbish and says that has no bearing on the truth of the rest. I say it does.

I must admit, I only hear my dytter in freefall about 50% of the time. Usually I only notice it when it continues to scream after I've deployed. Do ear plugs help that at all?

So what method do we use to figure out if we should believe it? What method did you use? No science or analytical thought, that's cheating.

The Bible is not simply a sonet, it claims to hold actual truths about the universe we live in, just like electro-weak theory. Therefore science and religion overlap and should either be reconsiled or one must be revised. People actually try to foist creationism into science class so it's blatantly obvious that on a practical level at least, science and religion overlap. NOMA just denys that they do and that's why it's flawed.

Yes, that's why I have a PhD is quantum field theory. And there is a very good reason for postulating the existence of dark matter, it wasn't just a wild assed guess. If the Bible is simply the musings of some neolithic tribesmen then I agree, some incoherence is fully expected. If on the other hand, the Bible is the result of divine inspiration, I would expect it to stand up to quite a bit of scrutiny and be essentially correct in the areas that can be tested. After all, the central claim of the Bible (god exists) is the biggest claim possible and therefore requires a proportionate amount of evidence before I'll believe it. Dark matter also requires plenty of evidence before I'll believe it.

Can you explain what you mean by that please? I always thought that "scientific reality" and just plain old "reality" were the same thing, science was just an investigative tool. So I would see your suggestion as an assertion that religious tradition is not the same as reality, ie religion is not related to that which is real. Is that what you meant?

Not really, the two quite obviously can't be reconciled. You get round that by conveniently ignoring the overlaps or denying they even exist, I realise they do overlap and therefore both cannot be correct simultaneously. EDIT: no scratch that, I can't even figure out what you believe. If God didn't actually stike vengence on planet earth and order the saving of two of everything on a big boat then what the hell is the Ark story about?***

Ooops. My appologies that came out wrong, it wasn't directed at you personally, just that in general I cannot see how someone can believe two conflicting theories simultaneously without compromising something along the way. NOMA is the mechanism by which that compromise takes place. Or as much as you believe the film "Saving Private Ryan"? It seems fair to recognise that there is some truth in the history books because we have physical evidence to back up the stories. That is not the case with god though, so what justification for belief?

Not necessarly. Square circles cannot exist by definition. Married bachelors cannot exist by definition. Onimax entities are similarly illogical. You'll have to flesh that out a bit if you want it reasonably discussed. Blues, Dave The concept is simple, an omnimax god (omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient) is a logical absurdity and like square circles cannot exist by definition. The possible existence of lesser gods is not affected.

Fundamentally you can't believe the Bible's creation theory and simultaneously believe in big bang cosmology. Either you are an intelectually dishonest cosmologist or you are a hypocritical Christian. If you throw out literal readings of some parts of the Bible because they cannot be reconciled with empirical data, you're going to have to do some serious explaining if you want to keep other absurdities. What do you mean "believe" in Sesame Street? This makes no sense. What?!!!?? OK you're going to have to explain to me on which planet does a logical flaw depend on how flawed you decide to make it. A logical flaw exists independent of whether you personally care to ignore it or not. If the Bible were just poetry for entertainment, you might have a point. Is the Bible merely entertainment to be taken no more seriously than "The Raven"? Does "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" claim to be the divine truth? Do people campaign to get "Jabberwocky" taught in schools as an alternative to evolution? Are you suggesting that anyone who cannot differentiate religious doctrine from reality does not understand NOMA?

I try not to but it's a compulsive reaction to bullshit. It's a waste of time though. Facts are irrelevant and logic doesn't apply in matters of faith.

Again with this non-overlapping magisteria rubbish. You seem to think that it is possible to be both a creationist and a big bang cosmologist because they are different areas of study. That's utter rubbish. Both are theories on the origin of the universe and therefore they must overlap. One cannot simultaneously hold the view that the universe was created "as is" in six days and it also developed over billions of years following the big bang. In your example, Joe's Catholicism is a direct result of his social environment. The two are most definately related and any study of the effects of social enviroment on human developement must take that into account. Non-overlapping magisteria is a flawed concept.