Monday, December 21, 2009

thought of the day.360

We can’t answer the question of whether or not a god exists, but we can answer the question of whether or not there is any evidence of one. That answer is a shout from the rooftops, NO!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

How did the universe come into being?

john evans said...

Wish I knew! But we are learning more all the time. Just saw this today...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1236882/Dark-matter-discovered-Scientists-believe-elusive-particle-makes-90-Universe.html

Unknown said...

Maybe I'm highly immature, but am I the only one that giggled at the use of the acronym WIMP? :)

But even if the dark matter is the missing matter of the universe, how did that come into being?

john evans said...

Gotta giggle at that!

Again, we don’t know how the dark matter came into being. But that does not mean that we should fill that gap in our knowledge with “God”.

john evans said...

Merry Christmas Eve, Kelsie!

Unknown said...

Well, if I don't know the answer and I fill it in with God, and you don't know the answer so you fill it in with science, why is mine so anti-intellectual and yours isn't? Both of us have faith in our respective beliefs - I know atheists don't like to say that you have faith, but if you're gonna be honest with yourself, you do have faith that science will answer something it has not yet. That's faith.

john evans said...

I don’t fill the unanswered questions with science. I don’t fill them with anything. They are left unfilled.

I think you are misusing the word faith a bit. I believe the best way to understand reality is through evidence. That is not faith. That is the opposite of faith.

Faith is believing something about reality without evidence to support it.

I will say that I do have confidence in the scientific method. I think it is the best method we have for understanding the universe. I do recognize that humans do the science and humans are very limited creatures so in that sense, science is only as powerful as we are (or the technology we create).

Unknown said...

I think I've heard you say before that you believe that science will come up with an answer to certain questions, "someday".

I'd call that faith. It has not happened yet. You do not know if it will happen. But you believe it will. Unless you've come back from the future in a time machine and they've discovered the answer to these questions (and, apparently, invisible pink unicorns!), then you are believing without proof beyond a doubt that it will.