Quora.com question: Does science really require faith like religion?
“Anybody who has seriously been engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with… Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. That is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are… Read More
What are the darkest secrets of science?
The above question was posed at a forum at Quora.com. Below is a copy and paste of my answer:
The darkest secret of science is that the science of one age becomes the myth or pseudo-science of the next. Biologist Lynn Margulis, winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal for Science, put it best in her book What Is Life?:
…Science is asymptotic. [“asymptote”… Read More
Materialism is the philosophy (in which atheism is almost always grounded) which states that the concept of God is absurd because everything is ultimately material in nature, and God is an immaterial entity.
But philosopher Douglas Groothuis demonstrates how materialism melts when exposed to scrutiny, much as the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of OZ melted when exposed to water:
Truth, Propositions, and Materialism… Read More
“We don’t know how life came to exist, so let’s just give up and assume that God did it!” Atheists are fond of portraying theism as the God of the gaps, or a means of filling in gaps in current scientific knowledge. But, quite to the contrary, what we currently know about biology leads inexorably to the conclusion that life was created by a mind (read: God). Geneticist Francis Collins,… Read More
What is the cause of the origin of the universe? Perhaps every thinking person has pondered this question at some point. The natural universe (which includes the properties of space, time, matter, and energy) came into being at the cosmological event known as the Big Bang. Because it is a logical absurdity to suggest that something can cause itself, the cause of the universe must necessarily be spaceless, timeless, immaterial,… Read More
One can learn to recognize false atheist beliefs by taking a lesson from poker: Top poker players become successful in part because they develop an ability to recognize non-verbal cues made by their opponents known as “tells.” A nervous facial tick, for example, may likely be a “tell” that a poker player is holding a weak hand and is bluffing. Similarly, false doctrines often give themselves away with the “tell”… Read More
Materialism is the philosophy (in which atheism is almost always grounded) which states that the concept of God is absurd because everything is ultimately material in nature, and God is an immaterial entity.
But philosopher Douglas Groothuis demonstrates how materialism melts when exposed to scrutiny, much as the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of OZ melted when exposed to water:
Truth, Propositions, and Materialism… Read More
“We don’t know how life came to exist, so let’s just give up and assume that God did it!” Atheists are fond of portraying theism as the God of the gaps, or a means of filling in gaps in current scientific knowledge. But, quite to the contrary, what we currently know about biology leads inexorably to the conclusion that life was created by a mind (read: God). Geneticist Francis Collins,… Read More
What is the cause of the origin of the universe? Perhaps every thinking person has pondered this question at some point. The natural universe (which includes the properties of space, time, matter, and energy) came into being at the cosmological event known as the Big Bang. Because it is a logical absurdity to suggest that something can cause itself, the cause of the universe must necessarily be spaceless, timeless, immaterial,… Read More
One can learn to recognize false atheist beliefs by taking a lesson from poker: Top poker players become successful in part because they develop an ability to recognize non-verbal cues made by their opponents known as “tells.” A nervous facial tick, for example, may likely be a “tell” that a poker player is holding a weak hand and is bluffing. Similarly, false doctrines often give themselves away with the “tell”… Read More