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Existence is meaningful,
that is a religious sentiment.

It exists precisely because God "watches over it".
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 0:51, archived)
Yet there is no proof for this and quite a lot of proof to the contrary.

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 0:52, archived)
absolutely to the contrary,
the Enlightenment with all its self-declared "rationalism" stated that space and time were absolute, that the laws of nature were entirely deterministic, that phenomena were all explainable in terms of this substance called "matter". All of this science has shown to be wrong. Space and time are relative, matter and energy are equivalent, particles are waves and vice-versa, and that with no medium to propagate them. It took decades for them to finally get over the results of the Michelson-Morley experiments, Atomism was finally proven and destroyed the idea of the continuity of matter, Kurt Godel brought logical positivism to a sorry end. Quantum Mechanics requires that the outcome of quantum events are not decided until someone observes them - and cosmology has declared that the universe is the result of a quantum event. Science can only comment on the utility of all this in terms of the predictability of phenomena. Metaphysically we are left with an enormous mystery, greater than the one that the Enlightenment originally set out to dispel.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 0:58, archived)
Ergo, God exists?
Science is humble about what it knows and doesn't know. It disproves itself often, that is its point. Do you not think it's a bit of a cop-out to just attribute everything we are yet to discover to a divine creator?
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:01, archived)
Except post-normal science, which is a more polite term than "self-serving propaganda".

(I helped save b3ta! The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:06, archived)
I hope science is humble now,
it certainly doesn't seem to have been to some people in the 18th century.

Yes that is a cop-out but that is not where I'm coming from. It's not just what's left unsolved so much as what has been solved and what it points to. Quantum Mechanics et al makes so much more sense when the Universe is conceived in terms of a sort of fiction inside the divine mind than it does in terms of absolutist material substance, this latter assumption having led so many astray and continues to do so.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:07, archived)
It was probably due to the repercussions of not believing in God that Science wasn't so sure of itself back then.
Doesn't religion also lead many more people astray in making them ignorant to science? I can't defend people who come to inaccurate scientific conclusions more than to say at least they are trying to come to a rational conclusion rather than substitute their ignorance for belief in a higher power.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:15, archived)
Various religions are guilty of various things,
but on the whole the case stating religion deliberately tries to obstruct science is massively overstated. Some fringe fundamentalists do that, on the whole most people don't take much notice, although I'm disturbed by recent developments in the U.S. as well the recent Muslim uptake of creationism.

I'm going to call you on your narrow definition of "rational conclusion" though. It seems to you it is necessarily only a rational conclusion if God isn't in it. Or "begging the question," to use the phrase properly.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:20, archived)
I'm not saying it deliberately tries to obstruct science but it nevertheless obstructs science.
And, to me, religion and God are fairly irrational so any conclusion would never include God, unless someone proved the existence of God.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:24, archived)
It doesn't obstruct science in principle.
Sometimes it morally disapproves of some kinds of experiments, and rightly so in my opinion. That doesn't make it opposed to knowledge of the natural world. On the contrary, quite a lot of good science was done in the Islamic world in the middle ages because of a Qur'anic commandment to "observe nature and learn", they were well ahead of the West in the field of optics, these are the unacknowledged Giants upon whose shoulders Newton stood.

But if you're going to decide that God is irrational from the outset then how am I to proceed? I can only say that it isn't really very scientific, or like the way philosophers tend to carry on. But Godel published a proof of God if you want to look at that.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:31, archived)
I'm of the opinion you really can't believe in both science and religion completely.
Eventually, one will clash with the other. I also don't believe you should be able to pick and choose which parts of a religion you believe in. Either you're all in or all out. Disregarding one aspect cheapens a belief in another aspect.

I can only say 'fair play' to anyone religious who helped to observe and learn nature but I don't doubt those conclusions would have been reached at some point, maybe even sooner than that if people weren't immediately attributing the existence of things to a higher power.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:36, archived)