(June 8, 2011 at 2:55 pm)eric209 Wrote: You try to dismiss real and very carefully done scientific work by equivocating it to assumptions made before the scientific method was discovered. You try to safeguard your statements by use emotional words like "seems to me". You dismiss science with these vague emotive phrases then purport that since the theory's of science are subject to revisionism that they are as equally true or untrue as supernatural or mythological sources.
You are trying to use "Argument from authority" in a phrase where Einstein was talking about music to devalue empirical data. The whole point of asking for any empirical data for god is because there has been none so far. There is empirical data for music it just has little value. This is a false dichotomy on your part.
tl;dr
The complete lack of empirical data is not the same as empirical data having little value.
I am not dismissing scientific method or work. The 'flat earth example' I took from your post as a point of discussion. I could have used more up to date examples. Up to the mid 1900s it was widely held by the scientific community that the problems of physics had been largely solved. It was thought that the universe was deterministic with deterministic laws. At that time, it would have been considered a minute possibility that, in fact, the world is non deterministic. However, now we know with 100% certainty, that it actually is the latter. It was also believed, that the probability that Isaac Newtons theory of gravity was wrong was a remote possibility - now we know it was wrong, not just empirically but its fundamental principles. I could go on with endless examples - but these are exactly the same as tha 'flat earth case'.
There is, currently, no empirical data for dark matter, dark energy or the seven of the eleven dimensions of string theory - all leading scientific ideas. Are we supposed to assume that these ideas are somehow unlikely or remote?
Finally, I have not made any reference to any supernatural sources in my posts - this is an assumption that you have made. If God exists as a being/entity in the universe, I would expect it to be part of the natural universe possibly (or maybe not) open to empirical proof. I am saying that, at this point in history, judging from our previous performance, it seems unlikely that we are at the edge of knowledge and ,therefore, we cannot deduce the probability of God's existence from current empirical measurement. I am wary of leaping to conclusions from such a weak position, namely, the full weight of Humakind's historical errors.
