Religion Thread

[fr0stbyte124]

That science is like religion is a false equivalency. Maybe to the layman, who doesn't know enough to verify the truth for themselves, (then again I've never been able to verify that Austraila is a real place). But in the scientific community the law of the land is that nothing is sacred. Every claim is met with scepticism, and only accepted when the rigor is analyzed and the results verified by others in the field, and every theory and physical law can be torn down and replaced with something else if the evidence supports the change.

The beauty of it is that you don't have to believe a damn thing, and are free to explore alternate theories. However, forcing the acceptance of theories which are unprovable is unproductive, even if it happens to be right, because it leads to a dead ends. Even if a theory or a law ends up being wrong, it can lead to new discoveries and a more complete picture of the universe if you aren't insisting that the contradicting discoveries are the thing that is wrong.

I have nothing against religion; there is a strong argument to be made that regardless of being right or wrong, its power to unify people has been critical to the growth of civilization. But unshakable beliefs have no place in science, just as mistrust is the enemy of religion. That said, I think both can coexist. That the earth is not 6000 years old or that life can change drastically over time does not invalidate the messages of altruism and living beyond the present.

Was Hitler a Christian?

Yes, but not a very good one.

[Iv121]

Well even in this aspect religion is identical to science. For us the common people religion is what they tell us (just like science) while for them it could contain facts or deeper truths that are not visible to us (just like the scientists) . Eventually both ways try to explain the world, they work the same, behave the same, it just happens that the "Science church" is bigger nowadays and so we accept it as the only truth but really science leaves a lot of gray areas that cannot be explained by us and nowadays we do have a tendency to refer to those gray areas as illusions and craziness. Are you going to believe a man who says he saw a ghost ?

[Prototype]

Different between science and religion, is science tries to draw conclusions from the evidence, and religion tries to draw evidence from conclusions.

[Iv121]

They both do it, the light's "nature" changes depending on what you want to measure, does it really change from the fact you use different tools to measure it ? Turns from waves to particles and the other way around ?

[Avenger_7]

Light has properties of both particles and waves, it isn't ever one or the other but always both.

[Prototype]

Actually it exhibits both wave and particle like properties, but then again, all particles have wave like properties, it's just we previously though of them as being separate, but now it seems like they are both parts of the same thing if that makes any sense.

All particles have wave properties, light has the most prominent because ethe actual particle has an infinitely small mass (otherwise it would not be able to travel at the speed it does)

[fr0stbyte124]

Well even in this aspect religion is identical to science. For us the common people religion is what they tell us (just like science) while for them it could contain facts or deeper truths that are not visible to us (just like the scientists) .

The difference for us common folk is that we can trust that what science presents us with is the community's very best understanding of how the world works, and that it is backed by experimental evidence and peer review, and that if something better comes along, it will change. You don't have to be able to derive the proofs yourself in order to trust that it has been verified as mathematically sound by those who can. Religion doesn't hold itself to the same standards of rigor, and that is fine for them, but don't confuse the two.

The wave-particle duality theory is widely accepted as the best explanation for explaining observed phenomena, and the real theory behind it is much more complicated than the general description. But even this has alternate theories, and as more evidence is observed, those theories can evolve. And for the record, in quantum mechanics, observation and interaction are mathematically identical, which is why the way something is observed makes a difference.

[Avenger_7]

Proto, you're wrong. Light has a definite mass. Just saying.

[Avenger_7]

Also, Iv, you're on the losing end of this argument.
You are trying to prove a point which cannot be proven but can be easily disproven. Although I won't say I can argue against the idea of a god, I will rip the heart out of your religious teachings without mercy.

For example, the story of creation is a logical paradox. Let's start by listing what we're initially told.
1) god is all powerful and all knowing.
2) god is benevolent.
3) god created Adam from mud.
Ok. Now let's get into the story. First inconsistency: god needed Adam's rib to create Eve. What? If he created Adam from mud, why does he need his rib? The second major inconsistency in the story is also the killer paradox: if god is all knowing and all powerful, he must have known what would happen with the forbidden fruit. This leads to one of two possibilities:
1)god is not all knowing and therefore not all powerful
2)god is put the tree there knowing what would happen, and is therefore malevolent for plotting the exile of man from Eden.
In either case, he is undeserving of worship. This doesn't disprove the book as a whole, just the part that was added to serve as a mechanism to better control the population.

[fr0stbyte124]

Proto, you're wrong. Light has a definite mass. Just saying.

It's kind of weird. There are two different sorts of mass called inertial mass (used in Newton's second law and gravity law), and invariant mass, which describes the energy of a particle that holds true for any reference frame. Newtonian physics get modified for relativistic speeds, so the two masses only match from a frame of reference where the particle at rest. And in the case of light, it gets really crazy. Bottom line is that light can neither be accelerated nor decelerated from adding energy to the photon, but it can be pulled by gravity and at the same time exerts a gravitational attraction of its own, albeit very weakly.

Like I said, weird.

[Avenger_7]

I'm just trying to keep things simple for the non-native english speakers :P

[Prototype]

Photons don't have mass, they have energy, mass and energy are interchangeable, but it is generally referred to as massless, and the energy is measured instead. Or at least that's what I understand.

How ironic, we are discussing science on a religion thread

[fr0stbyte124]

Sorry, that is might fault. I am not good at rhetoric.

Let's see... If God can do anything, can He make a boulder so big that He can't move it?

In order to make it profound, I will pretend it can't be answered with relativity.

[Avenger_7]

Photons don't have mass, they have energy, mass and energy are interchangeable, but it is generally referred to as massless, and the energy is measured instead. Or at least that's what I understand.

They most definitely have mass, I have to deal with them in school from time to time.

[CommanderKobialka]

but god could have every human
fair ,honest and pure
but he didnt

he chose to make us this way
[if he would exist]
and so if he/she would exist he/she would suck
and love other peoples pain
and pain of animals also

He wanted to test us and see if we were worthy of entering heaven when we died. If you knew anything about the bible AT ALL, it would be that Satan was the one who wanted everybody to be created fair, honest, and pure. When Jesus's plan was decided as better than Satan's plan, Satan rebelled.