No no noI doubt you'll read this reply, alas, but overall I more or less agree with your position. It's true that I'm saying 'Religion is not science', but I'm not then following it up with 'therefore it is wrong'. What I was trying to drive at is that drawing *scientific* conclusions out of religion is wrong -- unless it can produce testable numbers. Just the same as drawing religious conclusions out of science is straining what are, after all, sophisticated algorithms rather too far.
What science can tell is is how nature behaves. That doesn't mean that that's what nature *is*, just that that's how it behaves. Drawing conclusions beyond that is certainly a matter of faith.
Sorry for the antagonistic tone -- I study cosmology for a living, so I'm a bit more sensitive to claims that it's only as valid as a creationist theory than the usual nerd is.
(What science can tell is is how nature behaves. That doesn't mean that that's what nature *is*, just that that's how it behaves. Drawing conclusions beyond that is certainly a matter of faith.
Sorry for the antagonistic tone -- I study cosmology for a living, so I'm a bit more sensitive to claims that it's only as valid as a creationist theory than the usual nerd is.
boris the spider,
Sun 30 Aug 2009, 21:49,
archived)