Do you believe in God?

[MrSmith]

My bold.

So you understand that there is a different mechanism here than simply taking something on faith. You clearly understand what proof is and how it's derived from the evidence presented through observation, experimentation, peer review etc. In other words, because you understand this mechanism and its openess and unambiguity that produces tangible, workable results you, from those experiences, trust that method. That's as far removed from faith as you could imagine.

Thank you for clarifying.

 

How would you define faith, to me its trust in someone or something.

 

If my life experiences had been different and I explained that I had seen things that lead me to believe that the bible was the word of God, would you be saying the same. My faith is science comes from my life experience and seeing the things that science as created, much the same as someone’s faith in the bible or Quran comes from their life experiences, I am sure many theists will claim to have seen things that lead them to believe In God.

Edited May 5, 2012 by MrSmith

[hannah25x]

Im not sure. Need some proper evidence before i make a judgement.

[RootsBooster]

Im not sure. Need some proper evidence before i make a judgement.

 

In that case, you don't currently believe.

[JFKvsNixon]

Life experience I would imagine, I have seen the proof of what science can achieve which leads me to trust what they say, providing it fits into what I already think, and I have witnessed the contradictions within religion.

I was brought up with religion and although I think some stories are based on true events, it didn’t lead me to a belief in God.

Whilst I don’t think the big bang was the start of the universe, it fits with what I already believe.

The fact that physicists claim to have created quark-gluon plasma from ordinary matter fits with my belief that the universe is infinite and as always existed.

 

An interesting point is that scientists certainly don't trust other scientists claims. Within science if a claim is unprovable, or an experiment unrepeatable it's not accepted until they can be proven or the experiment repeated vigourously.

 

Can i ask another question, do you believe the universe as we know it now to have always existed, and do you believe it to be infinitely large?

[splodgeyAl]

I'm sure that God was in the Bible long before the virgin Mary came along,

And virgin mother of the sons of gods were "around" before the bible.

[JFKvsNixon]

And virgin mother of the sons of gods were "around" before the bible.

 

That's certainly true.

[pininsho]

How would you define faith, to me its trust in someone or something.

 

I think somebody earlier in the thread said that you were conflating two different words. If faith were the same as trust and vice versa then why have two words? Just one will do. The difference is the context in which they are used and how clear you're trying to express yourself. I have trust in science because I understand how it works and the tangible results it produces, therefore no faith is required.

 

If my life experiences had been different and I explained that I had seen things that lead me to believe that the bible was the word of God, would you be saying the same. My faith is science comes from my life experience and seeing the things that science as created, much the same as someone’s faith in the bible or Quran comes from their life experiences, I am sure many theists will claim to have seen things that lead them to believe In God.

 

It's not just life experiences though. It's about being educated to the point that you have access to alternative information, ideas and thought processes which allow you to rate the likelihood of a claim being true. To claim that making decisions based on that metaphysical state is the same as making decisions based on nothing but the ambiguous interpretation of ancient scriptures is asinine to say the least.

[barleycorn]

Are you sure about that, I think they claim it could have come from a vacuum which isn't nothing.

 

Nope from nothing, zilch, nada...

 

I believe it derives from the Hartle-Hawking's no boundary proposal.

http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v28/i12/p2960_1

 

And is explained in Hawking's book "The nature of space and time"

Unlike the black hole pair creation, one couldn't say that the de Sitter universe was created out of field energy in a pre existing space. Instead, it would quite literally be created out of nothing: not just out of the vacuum, but out of absolutely nothing

 

jb

[barleycorn]

No... anyone who believes otherwise is a moron.

 

Thanks for you informed input.

 

jb

[MrSmith]

An interesting point is that scientists certainly don't trust other scientists claims. Within science if a claim is unprovable, or an experiment unrepeatable it's not accepted until they can be proven or the experiment repeated vigourously.

 

I agree, scientists tend not to rely on faith, but because I'm not a scientist I do, because I can't repeat their experiments, I just trust what they say some of the time.

 

 

 

Can i ask another question, do you believe the universe as we know it now to have always existed, and do you believe it to be infinitely large?

 

Yes I believe it’s infinite and in a constant state of change, so our small part of it could have experienced what is referred to as the big bang.