Has Science been

@KellyJay said
We were talking about ignoring the origin of the universe and life as if the beginning was unimportant, the game of chess was used as example of not knowing the beginning didn’t stop us from understanding the game. I disagreed and said it was closer to a problem where we had to calculate the for the answer while not knowing all the variables.

Who do you think is 'ignoring the origin of the universe and life as if the beginning was unimportant.'? What 'variables' are you talking about? The only people who are 'ignoring' anything in this context are people who ignore the vast and proven body of scientific evidence which consigns religious beliefs to folklore and legend.

@Indonesia-Phil said
Who do you think is 'ignoring the origin of the universe and life as if the beginning was unimportant.'? What 'variables' are you talking about? The only people who are 'ignoring' anything in this context are people who ignore the vast and proven body of scientific evidence which consigns religious beliefs to folklore and legend.

It is the known that is not properly valued or identifiable due the lack of information on the beginning. You may assign any value or importance to any particular object or variable we see in the here and now, without knowing the historical nature of the whole everything is open to interpretation.

@KellyJay said
It is the known that is not properly valued or identifiable due the lack of information on the beginning. You may assign any value or importance to any particular object or variable we see in the here and now, without knowing the historical nature of the whole everything is open to interpretation.

How did God begin?

God did didn’t have a beginning, God is eternal.

Since you don’t know the beginning of God, everything you believe about God is open to interpretation. Including that there is a God, that God is eternal, that God ever spoke to man, that what was allegedly spoken to man was accurately recorded in the Bible , that God incarnated Himself and died on the cross to atone for your sins, that He came back and appeared to the disciples in bodily form. All that is interpretation and you call it anything you want, if you don’t know the beginning of God.

That’s how silly your argument is.

If you don’t know the origin, you can make one plus one equal 57 and call it addition if you want, it’s only interpretation.

That’s how silly your argument is.

We do not need to know how the first salt crystal formed to know how salt crystals form today, because the laws of chemistry don’t change.

@KellyJay said
It is the known that is not properly valued or identifiable due the lack of information on the beginning. You may assign any value or importance to any particular object or variable we see in the here and now, without knowing the historical nature of the whole everything is open to interpretation.

Your fixation on origins has an origin. It is historically and culturally peculiar. Buddhists have no such fixation on origins. The Hebrew myth recounted in the Book of Genesis is not their own. They encountered it while in exile in Babylon, and modified it to suit their own agenda. The Babylonians themselves got it from the Sumerians. “Enuma Elish” is the title of it.

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu/

It’s a story, nothing more. Not an explanation how the universe began. It’s no more plausible than the legend of Gilgamesh or Hesiod or the Upanishads or the Bagavad Gita or hundreds of other Bronze Age myths.

@moonbus said
How did God begin?

God did didn’t have a beginning, God is eternal.

Since you don’t know the beginning of God, everything you believe about God is open to interpretation. Including that there is a God, that God is eternal, that God ever spoke to man, that what was allegedly spoken to man was accurately recorded in the Bible , that God incarnated Himself and died on the ...[text shortened]... alt crystal formed to know how salt crystals form today, because the laws of chemistry don’t change.

God had no beginning, this is part of being God which is something you have no clue about with the universe, you can pick whatever you want to say about the universe there isn't anything one way or another that you hold yourself to for your definitions. The God of scriptures always was, is, and will be so God is in a category unlike everything He created. I have to go to scripture it can be interpreted any way anyone likes but like the universe which has a historical beginning the revealed Word is a revelation from God and God's meaning not our twisting of it is what matters.

Your argument is you want to make scripture and the universe out to be what you want them to be, and anything that doesn't allow for that you are opposed to.

@Indonesia-Phil said
Who do you think is 'ignoring the origin of the universe and life as if the beginning was unimportant.'? What 'variables' are you talking about? The only people who are 'ignoring' anything in this context are people who ignore the vast and proven body of scientific evidence which consigns religious beliefs to folklore and legend.

Please, you have repeatedly said that when asked to produce something you go silent, you have nothing.

@KellyJay said
God had no beginning, this is part of being God which is something you have no clue about with the universe, you can pick whatever you want to say about the universe there isn't anything one way or another that you hold yourself to for your definitions. The God of scriptures always was, is, and will be so God is in a category unlike everything He created. I have to go to s ...[text shortened]... rse out to be what you want them to be, and anything that doesn't allow for that you are opposed to.

What you call scripture is a hodgepodge of stories humans made up over a period of hundreds of years and cobbled together in the year 325 AD. God having no beginning is part of that story. All of it is open to interpretation, from yours to Martin Luther’s to the pope’s and on and on.

@moonbus said
What you call scripture is a hodgepodge of stories humans made up over a period of hundreds of years and cobbled together in the year 325 AD. God having no beginning is part of that story. All of it is open to interpretation, from yours to Martin Luther’s to the pope’s and on and on.

What I call scripture are 66 different texts written over 1500 years by over 40 different authors across 3 different continents in 3 different languages preserved in time by the dedicated people who copied the text faithfully translating them into several other languages across time and places that we can search them all for consistencies and inconsistencies it isn't an assortment of stories made up over some time it is a revelation from our Creator.

Everything from all human text and the universe is open to interpretation but that doesn't mean there are no correct interpretations and incorrect ones. Meaningless is what you push in everything from historical truths to the readings of any text because people can twist so we can know nothing because someone can twist it, therefore nothing is knowable according to your way of thinking.

@KellyJay said
What I call scripture are 66 different texts written over 1500 years by over 40 different authors across 3 different continents in 3 different languages preserved in time by the dedicated people who copied the text faithfully translating them into several other languages across time and places that we can search them all for consistencies and inconsistencies it isn't an asso ...[text shortened]... thing because someone can twist it, therefore nothing is knowable according to your way of thinking.

You confuse two different universes of discourse.

In the universe of discourse which is science, explanations, hypotheses, and theories, are subjected to peer review and continuous testing to determine whether they are compatible with observed phenomenon. If they are found not to be compatible with observed phenomenon, They are modified or discarded. Explanations, hypothesis, and theories, which stand repeated tests, count as knowledge. This does not mean we are infallible. It simply means we are open to new evidence and we are willing to revise.

In the universe of discourse which is religion, people make up stories. There is no pressure to test them for conformity with observed phenomena. People believe the most fabulous things in the universe of religion, and people put the most bizarre interpretations on these stories. Joe Smith claimed he found gold tablets under a rock in New York, an angel named Moroni instructed him how to translate them and then disappeared with the tablets. A patent fabrication, and yet millions of people believe every word of it. The stories you believe are no less bizarre and no more plausible. This is not the stuff of knowledge, but the realm of faith.

@moonbus said
You confuse two different universes of discourse.

In the universe of discourse which is science, explanations, hypotheses, and theories, are subjected to peer review and continuous testing to determine whether they are compatible with observed phenomenon. If they are found not to be compatible with observed phenomenon, They are modified or discarded. Explanations, hypothe ...[text shortened]... e no less bizarre and no more plausible. This is not the stuff of knowledge, but the realm of faith.

No if you’re applying different rules for these types of things when comparing them you are deliberately trying to push something. Reading any document can be misinterpreted meaning that the rules apply to all documents, not just scripture. Truth claims are either true or not, if something can not be falsified it is taken on faith. The writings reflect actual history or not, they reflect all the pertinent information about an experiment or not.

There are differences between science and religion but they are either presenting truthful claims or not, if the inferences are bogus conflicting with facts then there is a problem.

You claim facts that are nothing but inferences.

@KellyJay said
No if you’re applying different rules for these types of things when comparing them you are deliberately trying to push something. Reading any document can be misinterpreted meaning that the rules apply to all documents, not just scripture. Truth claims are either true or not, if something can not be falsified it is taken on faith. The writings reflect actual history or not ...[text shortened]... conflicting with facts then there is a problem.

You claim facts that are nothing but inferences.

Then how’s this for fact: if there really was a world wide flood which killed all human life save Noah’s immediate family, we would not be here. Inbreeding among such a small group leads to severe mental retardation and infertile offspring within six or seven generations. How do we know this? Because the laws of genetics have not changed. We are here, therefore, there was no literal flood which killed all humans except Noah’s immediate family. The Bible is simply factually wrong on this point.

@moonbus said
Then how’s this for fact: if there really was a world wide flood which killed all human life save Noah’s immediate family, we would not be here. Inbreeding among such a small group leads to severe mental retardation and infertile offspring within six or seven generations. How do we know this? Because the laws of genetics have not changed. We are here, therefore, there was no ...[text shortened]... killed all humans except Noah’s immediate family. The Bible is simply factually wrong on this point.

If you are going to take a passage from scripture then in context you should see that our lifespans were much longer so genetic variation would not have been bad like they are now.

@KellyJay said
If you are going to take a passage from scripture then in context you should see that our lifespans were much longer so genetic variation would not have been bad like they are now.

Nonsense; how long one lives has nothing to do with the genetic consequences of inbreeding. The consequences are the same whether one lives to be 50 or 500.

@moonbus said
Nonsense; how long one lives has nothing to do with the genetic consequences of inbreeding. The consequences are the same whether one lives to be 50 or 500.

The life expectancy at the beginning of creation was much longer, all the errors started degrading life began accumulating. The process was eroding and still is, with a larger population with a higher number of errors getting someone with a different set of errors gave a much better outcome than intermarriage ones, because families would more than likely share errors, making it easier for those errors to cause some problems not being balanced by a healthy mate with a different set of errors.

@KellyJay said
The life expectancy at the beginning of creation was much longer, all the errors started degrading life began accumulating. The process was eroding and still is, with a larger population with a higher number of errors getting someone with a different set of errors gave a much better outcome than intermarriage ones, because families would more than likely share errors, makin ...[text shortened]... e errors to cause some problems not being balanced by a healthy mate with a different set of errors.

Which does not mitigate in the least the fact that not all people on the planet today descendants of one family.