Thread: Deists and scientists: why not together?

Originally Posted by kowalskil

I would not say so. Logic, as previously stated, is based on "self-evident" assumptions. Mathematicians call them axioms. Theological justifications are like those in mathematics, not like those in science. The name proof belongs to mathematics.

Validations of claims in science is very different; they are based on experimental data. Scientists also use logic/mathematics. But their mathematically justified claims are not as reliable as claims based on reproducible experimental data. Claims about big bang, etc., made by theoretical physicists, are speculations. I have no idea what kind of experiments are needed to either confirm or refute them.

No attempt to use formal logic to prove the existence of god has ever been successful. The famous of these is St. Anselm argument ( the ontological arguments) and since then there has been many variations on the theme. Validations in science may be of an observation/experimental nature but these described in rational statements that are themselves logical constructs. To be a mathematics one must of necessity be a Platonist and mathematical objects though abstract are spoken of of real entities. A four dimensional cube is as real as a 3 dimensional cube to a mathematician.

Instruments like the Large Hadron Collider are used to test TOEs ( theory of everything)

I recall reading about scientist frequently testifying in U.S. courts during the 1800's, about the insanity or other behavioral or personality traits of defendants, based upon results from measuring their skull. The jaw structure of a man could tell you a lot about his inclination towards certain criminality apparently. And this was all taken quite seriously - in both science and courts.

Then we go into the early 20th century with the whole eugenics movement, not a little bit responsible for sending the world to war the second time. Big on the list of eugenics was abortion, something which contemporary society has embraced from their Nazi forebears, so, we occasionally read about the need to reduce future criminals among racial minorities and the future impoverished among whites, by increasing abortions within those populations that fall within a statistical range.




Now, Marie Baily, did not need the rationale of science to come to her own decision of what is real and "ancient and ever new" as St. Augustine put it in his Confessions, that autobiography written as a prayer. Nor could Nobel laureate John Eccles medical science explain it. In the end like a gambler that understands the odds, he let the primitive faith of Marie Baily persuade him on his death bed. If being smart leads to eternal damnation in hell, then I guess it's better to be f___n stupid. So says the n____a that has never won anything betting, but also too scared to bet the entire house on one hand.

1. Catholic Culture : Library : Two Lourdes Miracles and a Nobel Laureate: What Really Happened?

The author is the winner of the 1987 Templeton Prize. The following is the annual Joseph M. Gambescia lecture given at the conclusion of the 19th World Congress of FIAMC and the 67th Annual Meeting of the Catholic Medical Association, September 13, 1998.



The Nobel laureate is, of course, Alexis Carrel (1873-1944). He received the Nobel Prize in 1912, for his work in vascular anastomosis. Four years ago the joint authors of an article in Scientific American1 credited Carrel with having initiated all major advances in modern surgery, including organ transplants. In the 1920s he was a chief celebrity of New York City. Important visitors vied with one another to be admitted to his labs at Rockefeller University. They wanted to see a piece of tissue from the heart of a chicken embryo which Carrel kept alive from 1922 on in a special solution. It became a journalistic cliché to claim that Dr Carrel was on his way to discovering the secret of immortality.

Carrel had a brush with immortality in another way. This happened when he witnessed at close range a miraculous cure in Lourdes. In fact, he witnessed two such cures. The second took place in 1910, when he saw the sudden restoration of the sight of an 18-month-old boy who was born blind.

By far the more famous of the two cures is, of course, the first. It took place on May 28, 1902. It is known as the Marie Bailly case. Indeed it is so famous that it is not possible to write on Carrel without discussing it, however briefly.

Carrel could not help registering that she was cured. What will you do with your life now?Carrel asked her. I will join the Sisters of Charity to spend my life caring for the sick, was the answer. The next day she boarded the train on her own, and after a 24-hour trip on hard benches, she arrived refreshed in Lyons. There she took the streetcar and went to the family home, where she had to prove that she was Marie Bailly indeed, who only five days earlier had left Lyons in a critical condition.

Incidentally, neither of those miraculous healings was recognized by the Church. The second, the miraculous healing of the 18-month old baby boy, was probably never put forward for Church approval, a long and arduous process. The other, the Marie Bailly case, was repeatedly discussed at various levels by the Medical Bureau in Lourdes and finally in Paris at its highest or International Committee. The year was 1964. A decision was made against the miraculous nature of the cure. The reason?

One's first reaction to this may be that it is self-defeating to be so careful in excluding the possibility of an error. But this is the kind of caution which the Church has always demanded from doctors as they are consulted in evaluating cures that appear miraculous.

There is a story, a true story, that takes us back almost three hundred years, to Rome. A young English aristocrat arrives there and establishes contact with someone high in the Vatican. He wants to know what really happens when miracles are being approved by the Church in support of beatifications and canonizations. He is convinced that Rome carelessly admits any sudden cure as a miracle. In response, his contact in the Vatican gives him a thick dossier about a miraculous cure recently submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

The aristocrat goes home, studies the dossier and a few days later hands it back with the words: This most certainly was a miracle. The Vatican man, still Monsignore Prospero Lambertini and not yet Pope Benedict XIV, replies with a dry smile: the case has already been rejected.3

The-Third-Miracle - Movie Trailers - Preview - NYTimes.com

Rationally investigating intervention by the supernatural. There is at least as much "reasoning" involved in this kind of faith as there is in listening to a man with academic letters behind his surname tell you what color of hair, eyes, and gait you like on a woman after he's finished measuring your head.

Originally Posted by Iggi

To be a mathematics one must of necessity be a Platonist and mathematical objects though abstract are spoken of of real entities. A four dimensional cube is as real as a 3 dimensional cube to a mathematician.

Is this a 4d cube?

Originally Posted by Blood

Is this a 4d cube?

A rotating hypercube is a fairly good representation of the mathematics.

Originally Posted by elite

It's impossible to prove anything with absolute objectivity, science works based on the assumption that math is reliable, but it could not be after all. We consider it reliable because it has worked countless of times to solve a wide variety of problems under a large number of circumstances. Thus scientists conclude that gravity and math, for all intended purposes, works as a basis for further scientific assumptions.

It could however, be proven that gravity either does not truly exists or works in a different way than expected. Theories are revised, experiments are made, and life goes on as usual. That's how the scientific method works, because it runs on the assumption that objectivity does not exists. Only someone who does not know what the scientific method is would ask you for absolute, certain proof on anything.

That is true; unlike mathematicians and theologians, scientists are always willing to revise what has already been accepted. Scientific truth is based on experimental; it is not declared to be eternal.

Mathematical and theological conclusions, on the other hand, are based on logical proofs, not on experimental data. They are abandoned only when logical mistakes are found in derivations. They are declared to be eternal.

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State university, NJ, USA

Originally Posted by I-FLUX

...
Religion are also incompatible with ethical views in world of ethics. ...

Religion = theism + much more. That is why I am not using the term "religion" in this thread. Discussing theism versus atheism should be much easier than discussing religions, or political exploitation of theism. These are interesting and important topics. But it would probably be better to discuss them in separate threads.

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State University, NJ, USA
.

The one is irrational, the other is rational.
Opposites don't mix.

Originally Posted by Mystery

The one is irrational, the other is rational.
Opposites don't mix.

Rational and irrational people (and writings) can be found everywhere. As a group, theologists have been as rational as scientists, in their own fields. The irrationality appears when theologists refute scientific claims (such as the age of the earth) by using theological methodology of validation, or when scientists refute spiritual claims (such God's existence) by using scientific methodology of validation. That was my main point.

Ludwik

Asking an atheistic scientist to discuss religion might be compared to asking an entomologist to discuss Kafka's Metamorphosis. The entomologist would tell you that such a change as experienced by Gregor Samsa is impossible, that the kind of insect described could not exist, and that the entire tale is illogical. However the reader who accepts the first premise, that Samsa did indeed wake to find himself turned into something very like a giant cockroach, will find nothing illogical in the consequences of that change as described in the remainder of the story.

So too the believer who accepts the first premise, that God exists, will find the consequences of that existence logical and consistently believable, while the non-believer who fails to accept that first premise will fail to see the logic in any religion's system of beliefs.

Thus both the believer and the non-believer can be seen as rational beings.

Originally Posted by garza

Asking an atheistic scientist to discuss religion might be compared to asking an entomologist to discuss Kafka's Metamorphosis. The entomologist would tell you that such a change as experienced by Gregor Samsa is impossible, that the kind of insect described could not exist, and that the entire tale is illogical. However the reader who accepts the first premise, that Samsa did indeed wake to find himself turned into something very like a giant cockroach, will find nothing illogical in the consequences of that change as described in the remainder of the story.

So too the believer who accepts the first premise, that God exists, will find the consequences of that existence logical and consistently believable, while the non-believer who fails to accept that first premise will fail to see the logic in any religion's system of beliefs.

Thus both the believer and the non-believer can be seen as rational beings.

Wow. Without sarcasm I would like to say this is about the most intelligent comment I have read on any of the threads related to religion on this board. I tip my hat to you, sir.

Originally Posted by garza

Thus both the believer and the non-believer can be seen as rational beings.

I don’t quite follow how anyone who could possibly accept the premise that a fictional character is actually not a fictional character but a real person who turned into a real giant cockroach could be seen as a rational being by actual rational beings.