Freedom of Religion

[genkaus]

You are totally wrong Genkaus.
You are assuming way too much about what you think you might "know".
You have placed complete and absolute FAITH in a picture of science and scientific inquiry that I'm simply not prepared to accept. It's that simple.
You claim to have an "axiom" that is so "obvious" that it cannot possibly be denied.

What are you arguing against? Did you even read the posts? I haven't mentioned either science or scientific inquiry for atleast last four pages and I doubt I based my arguments on those before.

Complete and absolute faith in science? I have no such thing. Scintific method is not perfect. If it was, it wouldn't need to be self-correcting.

I say, that's utter hogwash. That is nothing more than your own personal opinion.

Proof of my Assertion:

I can prove to you right here and now that the knowledge of science is nowhere near as "air-tight" as you have apparently been misguided to believe.

Shouldn't you atleast bother to learn my opinions before criticizing them? I don't believe either scientific knowledge or the scientific method to be airtight and I dare you to find a place where I said so.

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Let's start at the very beginning of the "creation" of the universe (or whatever you'd like to call it). And exam in detail what science actually KNOWS for SURE.
Don't worry, we only need to exam the first few milliseconds of this scientific theory to recognize that sciences can't be SURE about anything.
What is the best current theory that science has to offer about the creation of the universe?

The Inflationary Hot Big Bang Speculation:

How does this speculative theory work?
Well first science speculates that the universe began as an infinitely dense, infinitely hot, and infinitely small "singularity".
And that this infinitely dense singularity actually EXPANDED OUTWARD.
Well, to begin with, that's a blatant violation of the laws of physics right there.
Physics states that when things become extremely dense they fall in upon themselves and and collapse to form black holes from which even light itself cannot escape.

Yet if we are to believe the Inflationary Hot Big Bang Theory we must believe that this infinitely dense singularity that gave birth to our universe actually EXPANDED OUTWARD.
Violating the very physics that says that it should become a supermassive blackhole.
So this scientific "theory" already requires that we violate the very laws of physics to even propose this theory in the first place.
It's pure speculation. It's nowhere close to being a confirmed fact that this is how the universe began.

So because of this problem (and actually many other problems) we had to invent an idea of "Inflation".
Inflation is the idea that anti-gravity (or something like anti-gravity) must have taken hold to expand this primordial singularity OUTWARD.
That is total speculation and requires physics that has NEVER BEEN OBSERVED.
In fact Inflation Theory requires the existence of a hypothetical "Inflaton Field" (a form of quantum field as of yet undetected)
It's basically pure speculation.

Sure, this speculated theory promises to explain quite a bit if it pans out, but that's irrelevant.
Right now it's just a GUESS.
Moreover, it's not even the only GUESS.
Science has more guesses to offer!

M-Theory, yet another Scientific Speculation for Creation:

Hey, let's not worry too much about the Inflationary Hot Big Bang Theory, science has other speculations to offer!
Another theory that is in the works, is called M-Theory, it's actually a highly-evolved version of String Theory.
M-Theory speculates that there never was a singularity at the start of creation.
And there is not even any need to speculate that anything "inflated".
M-Theory speculates that the universe is actually a "Brane" (or membrane) of sorts.
In fact it speculates that there might be infinitely many unseen and undetectable such "Branes".
It claims that two such "Branes" collided and gave rise to a result that would produce precisely the same things we see.
The result of two "Branes" colliding would appear precisely as though a singularity had popped into existence and inflated.
In fact, the math of M-Theory shows that it would also produce precisely the same microwave background radiation.
So we can't "RULE OUT" M-Theory, neither can we "RULE IN" The Inflationary Hot Big Bang theory.

Would you like even more Speculative Scientific Theories?:

If both the Inflationary Hot Big Bang theory and M-Theory fail to pan out, we can always fall back on at least one of the following two theories:
Loop Quantum Gravity - A theory that some scientists are still actively considering in remote laboratories around the world.
Twister Theory - Proposed by Roger Penrose. I confess to not know a whole lot about this theory, it seems a bit "twisted" to me.
And there are even other theories.
Scientists never seem to run out of speculations.

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In short, we have no fucking clue what the hell is going on.


And what about TIME itself?:

Ask any honest physicist to describe to you in detail the current scientific understanding of time and do you know what they will say?
Well, if they are truly honest about it they will confess that we have no frigg'in clue what the true nature of time might even be.
There are far more scientific speculations about the nature of time that I could possibly list.
None of those theories has enough evidence behind it to even become a popular theory.

Sure, we have General Relativity and that describes the "behavior" of time within the scope of an abstract notion of "spacetime".
But that kind of temporal description is fleeting and truly only describes the relative perspectives of various observers.
In short, it's not even an absolute concept. It's a relative concept. Which is the whole point of Special Relativity.
Paul Davies once wrote a book called "About Time". If you think we understand time you should read that book.
There are probably other books that address these topics even better.
Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" actually focuses on the evolution of spacetime and General Relativity.
Paul Davies addresses the obvious need for a totally different kind of "time" as well.
A kind of "time" that science hasn't even begun to be able to comprehend.

In fact, many physicists believe that all "points" in time exist simultaneously.
In other words, all of the past, and all of the future, must necessarily exist simultaneously and be just as "real", as what we perceive as "the here and now".
Why? Well, because Einstein's General Relativity seems to demand it.
Einsteins General Relativity demands that everyone's "now" is unique and malleable.
According to Einstein's theory there cannot exist an "absolute now" like used to be believe in Newton's Classical Speculative Physics.
And it certainly appears that since there cannot be an "absolute now" then it must follow that all "nows" must necessarily simultaneously exist.
They must exist in some "loftier" concept of "time" that we can't even begin to wrap our "rational minds" around.

In short, science has absolutely no clue what time is, or how it works.
For all science knows, time is an illusion of some grand "now" that we each perceive differently according to the rules of General Relativity.

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Science has No Fucking Clue what the Hell's going on?:

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Ignoring this extended rant because, well, the gaps in scientific knowledge were never the point of discussion. However, if you are basing your belief in spiritual essence of reality upon these gaps, then you are guilty of a variation of "god of the gaps" argument.

You keep acting like I should accept your feeble limited "axioms" like as if you have some basis to proclaim their worthiness.

No, I'm saying that if you don't consider them to be true, then show me any statement of knowledge that does not presuppose their validity.

I say bull shit.
Science can't even make the kinds of claims that you seem to think that you can make.
Science is not the GOD that you have evidently made it out to be in your own personal imagination.

Once again, in this case, science is is irrelevant. In fact, science itself presupposes the validity of these axioms. To use scientific method to somehow prove these axiom would make me guilty of fallacy of circlar reasoning.

Sorry, but you have absolutely no grounds to arrogantly stand there and accuse me of being "irrational".

Yes, I do. Its called epistemology.

If you are under the delusion that you actually KNOW something, then it's you who is being totally "irrational".

Says the person who takes pride in lack of knowledge.

It's as simple as that. Your claim that science actually "knows" anything is totally ungrounded.

Find the place where I ever claimed that science knows everything. I'm assuming that "anything" here is a typo, since otherwise, you'd be claiming that the entire body of knowledge that has been built by science is false.

I would suggest that you are totally naive to even fall for such nonsense.
Who taught you that in the first place?
If you got that idea from some college I'd suggest going back and demanding a full refund of the tuition.

Now open your eyes and read my words for once.

We are discussing gnosticism vs agnosticism regarding non-physical spirits, i.e. something that is not a part of the natural world. Clearly, since science can only examine what is within the natural world, this automatically falls beyond its scope. Science cannot say anything about it.

Therefore, to judge the subject, we have to look deeper. We have to look towards epistemology - the study of what knowledge is and how it is acquired.

Since you brought up science let's see how epistemology applies to it. What premises science assumes to be true in order to give us the answer? Science is a completely a-posteriori field. The critical elements of the scientific method are observation, hypothesis formation, prediction (or logical deduction) and experimentation.

The second and the third require that humans be capable of reason. The first and the fourth require that reality as we see it should exist objectively, i.e. independently from any consciousness. This is the concept of "primacy of existence".

Let's focus on the second part. If reality has a spiritual essence, then it depends upon that spirit. Similarly, if witchcraft works, then reality is changeable simply by conscious will. In either case, facts do not exist independently from consciousness and therefore they are subjective rather than objective. In this case, neither your observation nor experimentation have any validity. Thus, the entire body of science falls flat on its face and loses any reliability.

Here's where your irrationality comes in. You claim that since science your belief in spiritual essence or witchcraft does not contradict any scientific findings - since they cannot, by their very nature of unfalsifiability, cannot be contradicted by any scientific findings - these beliefs are compatible with science.

You never took the time to understand the very premises that make science valid and applicable in the real world. You never understood that your beliefs belie the very foundations science is built on and therefore your beliefs and science cannot be compatible. Either you believe in the validity of science (flawed as it is) or you hold your beliefs to be true. If you believe both at the same time, you are being irrational.