bioazer

It's not the fact that you've never eaten ice cream before. It's the fact that you know that you've never eaten ice cream before.

Of course it's not logical to think that God, an omnipotent, omniscient being (portrayed commonly as a flying dude with a beard) created the earth and plunked a bunch of animals down on it. My point is, it's impossible to know for sure that one thing is true and another is false. That's all. I am arguing against them for the sake of the argument because I am trying to have a philosophical discussion and look at things from a more objective point of view. If anyone had said, "Yes, I know that god exists" or "Yes, I know that when we die we get magically spirited away into the sky and live forever", I would ask them, "Really? How?"

dimreepr: Yes. I was trying to simplify. Let me explain exactly what I mean-- I probably wasn't too clear earlier. 1. Information is taken in by an individual. This is input. 2. The individual narrows down choices based on past experiences/culture/genetics, etc. You don't think about this process. If you don't like strawberry, you just don't have strawberry as an option. If you've never eaten ice cream before and it's outside of your comfort zone, you don't get ice cream. This is bias. 3. The processes in the mind are affected by the fact that humans are irrational beings. Some randomness occurs. You might argue that you could still choose to get ice cream even if you've never had it before, of course. Most people do. But in that case, your choice would be determined by the fact that you had never eaten ice cream before.

Phi for All and Strange: Thanks for your comments. They are completely valid and I apologize if I sound at all presumptuous or like a crackpot, though I probably am both of those things. Please realize that I acknowledge completely that I may be wrong. I'm not attached to this argument except in theory, and I really want to know what you think. Strange: So you say that you've seen the force of gravity with your own eyes? How do you know that particles with mass don't just exert a force on each other because divine forces command it to be so? How have you seen evolution with your own eyes? How do you know that mystical cosmic forces didn't just put animals on Earth, more or less as they are? (Sorry, don't take that personally. I also believe in evolutionary theory and in physics. This is just for the sake of the argument.) Phi for All: My bad. I should have been clearer. I should have said, "Both science and religion are built on axioms that we assume to be true, such as (respectively):..." I didn't mean to say that science assumes god to exist.

If we have no input, we can't make choices, can we? If I could choose between strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate, but I don't know that ice cream exists, I can't choose between the three flavors. Obviously then to some extent our choices are defined by our input. Say there was a floating consciousness with absolutely no knowledge at all but for the ability to make choices and an innate and endless love of frozen desserts. It has no preference for flavors. I present it with STRAWBERRY. With the ability to choose strawberry or nothing, it choses the strawberry, because any quantity of ice cream is better than no ice cream. (You might do something different, but you have extra knowledge of the situation. All the floating brain knows is that a. it likes ice cream and b. it can choose strawberry or nothing.) But what if there are three flavors to choose from?* The consciousness likes them all equally, but it can only choose one. It realizes that not choosing between the three flavors is the same as choosing nothing. The only problem is that there's no way to actually choose randomly between them. Having no appendages, the mind can't exactly roll a die or choose out of a hat.* If you or I were in this situation, however, choosing between three flavors that we like equally, most of us would have no problem. We'd just call out whichever one we were in the mood for, or just whatever came to our mind first. This means that there's an element of randomness in our decision. I propose, therefore, that human decisions are information input + bias + an element of randomness which we are unable to control. Choosing between two shirts, you may think, "I choose the red shirt" and feel happy because you made a decision without your parents' help. But why did you choose the red shirt? If you didn't actually care about the color, how did you choose? That's the flaw/random element. *This example, originally using a donkey and two bundles of straw, is centuries older than me, and thought up by someone much smarter than me.

How do know that the laws of physics exist? A scientist might say' through observation'. But have you actually seen the process of evolution with your own eyes? Have you seen the force of gravity? How do we know that God exists? A theologist might say 'through observation'. But did you see the creation of the Earth with your own eyes? Have you seen angels? How do we know that anything exists? There's no absolute way to know that the universe around you is real. Both science and religion are built on axioms that we assume to be true, such as (respectively): An object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest. God is infinite. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. The universe was created by divine power. But you can't know that God is good or that if A=B, then B=A other than through speculation. At most, you can use your own flawed physical senses to make observations about the universe, but our senses are really just there to organize input information in a way that we can understand and give us something that is far from an objective observation. You might argue that science is based more on direct observation than religion. This is not necessarily true. Let's say that I know nothing of science or theology (which is fairly close to reality, anyways). I see a girl standing in a field, and she is struck by lightning. Seeing this, I might think, "Hmm. I was not struck by lightning. Why? Well, I think that I am a good person. People I know the me that I am a good man. Maybe she is a bad person, and that is why she was struck by lightning." Or, I might think, "Hmm. I was not struck by lightning. Why? Well, that girl was standing in a field. I am standing under a tree. Maybe she was struck by lightning because she is out in the open." Perhaps not the greatest example, but I think that it can be applied to most things upon which religious and scientific minds have disagreed. The point is: not only are observations flawed, but any two people could reach totally different conclusions from the same observations. So, back to the question asked by the thread starter. Are science and religion in conflict? Another way to phrase it would be, Can the basic axioms of science be true if the axioms of religion are as well? The question seems to assume that there is absolute, objective truth which humans can access; but truth appears to be entirely subjective-- or, if not, we have no way of being certain that we can access the absolute truth. Reality is an personal experience. Therefore, my answer to the thread starter would be that they are only in conflict if you think they are. (Personally, I believe in science, because it seems to be a more detailed and accurate model of reality.)