(March 29, 2014 at 2:18 pm)Lek Wrote: If the scientific method is your only way of determining anything, you probably won't conclude that God exists. The problem is that you're boxing yourself in, setting arbitrary boundaries, and limiting your ability to perceive. You're saying that if science can't prove it, then it's not possible.
That's actually a misconception that seems to be perpetrated by the religious. Science says that if you can't demonstrate a claim, you have no justification for saying or believing it is true, not that it must necessarily be ruled out.
And it's not boxing yourself in. It's recognizing the frailty of the human ability to determine reality beyond empirical observation. It's accepting that our minds have limitations and refusing to fall prey to them. It's refusing to embrace anthropocentrism and emotionally loaded reasoning. What you see as limiting the ability to perceive is, in fact, an attempt to avoid the inherent pitfalls that come with perception. These aren't arbitrary boundaries. They are an acknowledgement of the weakness of the human brain.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
