(September 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm)Blackrook Wrote: Science cannot explain everything. For example, science cannot explain why humans have a conscience.

Neither can you. Luckily, science provides a framework that lets us investigate and possibly find out someday.

(September 24, 2014 at 4:35 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote:

(September 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm)Blackrook Wrote: Science cannot explain everything. For example, science cannot explain why humans have a conscience.

Neither can you. Luckily, science provides a framework that lets us investigate and possibly find out someday.

When will that day come? Will you say the human conscience is nothing more than an illusion created by chemicals flowing through our brains? Is there anything that is not purely material? If there is no spirit, then what distinguishes a human being from any other object, like a rock, a tree, or a fire hydrant?

(September 24, 2014 at 4:43 pm)Blackrook Wrote:

(September 24, 2014 at 4:35 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Neither can you. Luckily, science provides a framework that lets us investigate and possibly find out someday.

When will that day come? Will you say the human conscience is nothing more than an illusion created by chemicals flowing through our brains? Is there anything that is not purely material? If there is no spirit, then what distinguishes a human being from any other object, like a rock, a tree, or a fire hydrant?

If you can't tell yourself apart from a tree without god, then I'm sorry.

(September 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm)Blackrook Wrote: Science cannot explain everything. For example, science cannot explain why humans have a conscience.

Oh great, another argument from ignorance. Science explains a hell of lot more than any dumbass religion.

2000 years ago, science couldn't explain much of anything.

Meanwhile, any religion STILL can't differentiate between shit and shinola. No religion can explain anything.

If all religious thought, writings and supposed "knowledge", were to completely disappear tomorrow, the world will be no different.

Laughable.

Science may not be able to explain the shameless lack of conscience that apparently exists among the Catholic laity that they would continue to support an institution that has engaged in a decades-long criminal conspiracy to cover up systematic child abuse and rape.

But I suspect science will have much to say about the existence of the human conscience as such. Hint, dumbass: we are a social species with empathy and a capacity for shame. That strikes me as a much better starting place for a serious investigation than Yahweh or Jiminy Cricket.

(September 24, 2014 at 4:43 pm)Blackrook Wrote: When will that day come?

My guess is when we fully understand the brain.

Quote: Will you say the human conscience is nothing more than an illusion created by chemicals flowing through our brains?

I believe the chemical processes and how they network are very important as well, not just the chemicals there.

Quote: Is there anything that is not purely material?

Yes. Actions and processes are not purely material.

Quote:If there is no spirit, then what distinguishes a human being from any other object, like a rock, a tree, or a fire hydrant?

So did you shit in your cereal bowl instead of the toilet? Because neither of those have spirits, so they must be indistinquishable.

I'm personally a great admirer of Stephen Hawking, but i believe him to be somewhat biased when it comes to theological positioning, which i don't particulary blame either way. But anyway, science does not have absolute knowledge about the universe to infer if there is or not a god, science does not, at least yet, give any full explanation for our existence, unless you "believe" in certain hypothesis, which is kind of contradictory for someone claiming to be "sceptic".
The fact is Hawkings has for a long time been a known anti-theist at least in his readings and speechs, as well as his "beliefs" of how the universe might work. So i'm actually surprised as for why this seems to be news.

(September 24, 2014 at 5:37 pm)Madness20 Wrote: science does not have absolute knowledge about the universe to infer if there is or not a god, science does not, at least yet, give any full explanation for our existence, unless you "believe" in certain hypothesis, which is kind of contradictory for someone claiming to be "sceptic".

Having beliefs and being a skeptic are not contradictory at all.

Being a skeptic means that you critically examine claims, you weigh evidence, you come to hold a position based on that evidence and examination, and you are willing to change you mind based on better, more in depth, more refined evidence that may come to light, even if it contradicts a previously held belief.

(September 24, 2014 at 5:37 pm)Madness20 Wrote: I'm personally a great admirer of Stephen Hawking, but i believe him to be somewhat biased when it comes to theological positioning, which i don't particulary blame either way. But anyway, science does not have absolute knowledge about the universe to infer if there is or not a god, science does not, at least yet, give any full explanation for our existence, unless you "believe" in certain hypothesis, which is kind of contradictory for someone claiming to be "sceptic".
The fact is Hawkings has for a long time been a known anti-theist at least in his readings and speechs, as well as his "beliefs" of how the universe might work. So i'm actually surprised as for why this seems to be news.

Why would I have to believe any particular method of how life originated? What is wrong with saying I don't know?

Rational people try to base their beliefs on sceptical foundations. There's a world of difference between being sceptical and being cynical.