Posted by Tyler Bradley on January 09, 1997 at 10:35:10:
In Reply to: Re: GOD...defined posted by Amanda on January 09, 1997 at 08:53:22:
:
: It looks like I didn't explain myself well here again. Forgive me - I'm not choosing my words carefully.
: I'm well aware that we can neither prove of disprove God's existence - what I meant, in my point of view, was that the evidence appears to sway towards the unlikeliness of His existence. I don't mean just scientific evidence and our present knowledge in it but also our present knowledge in the fields of history, prehistory, cultural anthropology, human psychology and that of comparative religion.
: I'm also aware that all truths, all facts are 'provisional' but when the truths are based on observation, facts, experimentation etc... as opposed to revelation, heresay and an inspired book - my beliefs are formed from the former type.
: In my opinion, the supernatural is being swept out of the universe in the flood of new (and old) knowledge of what is natural.
Well, generally agreed. But I would challenge you to either explain or outline a path to same to address the questions that I'd posed.
"Why is there life, as opposed to none?"
"Why is there anything at all?"
And the additional questions of:
"If the universe is the answer, what is the question?", as Leon Lederman puts it.
"Why are there only two charges in the universe (+ and -), as opposed to one or three?" For that matter, just what is a charge in an operational sense?
"Why the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the sciences?"
"Why is life, as we define the concept, inherently biological?" Why not mechanical, or even non-corporeal?
I do agree that history has demonstrated repeatedly that what one day is considered to be unexplainable, magical or unthinkable is thinned as time goes by. And I do think that science is far reaching, but is not the endpoint of all knowledge. Science will never be able to predict emotional, interpersonal, and creative thought. Science will not explain how Beethoven would have finished his 9th Symphony, or Mozart his Requiem. It just will not ultimately explain all, as Richard Dawkins would have it. I am skeptical.