Let's analyze "Defeaters: The Problem of Science" - a sermon by Joe Coffey

[stahrwe]

The thing I object to is the idea that if someone is a theist it automatically disqualifies them from using scientific evidence to bolster their world view.

Welcome jcoffey. I believe that at the center of this debate is a lack of distinction between science and faith. This statement of yours is contrary to how science works. Science doesn't have an agenda to bolster or support anything. If it does you are no longer in the realm of science. Humans are frequently biased, but the scientific process is not. Science starts with evidence and attempts to explain that evidence with theories and then proceeding with testing of those theories. In fact, science, which deals with the natural world, doesn't address the question of a supernatural God at all. Sometimes God is invoked when there is a gap in our knowledge, but this is fallacious thinking. There are many instances in history where science has provided natural explanations to what were previously thought to be supernatural phenomenon.

Again, this goes back to what is science and what is faith. I'm an atheist, which means simply I am without belief in God because there is no evidence to support such a belief. Those who believe in God are not relying on evidence but on faith. I really think it is as simple as that.

As I stated in the loss of faith discussion:
The problem with your concluding statement is that faith has already been held up to reason with mixed results. Admittedly there are some who have found 'reason' a reason to reject faith while there are many others who have found faith and reason not only compatible but interrelated. The conclusion is that, as with many things, the result depends on the assumptions one operates under. Those assumptions include science. It is arguable at the moment that the majority of the scientists subscribe to a world view that rejects faith. I have made the point that such a limitation demonstrates that science is inferior to religion because religion can encompass science but science cannot encompass religion. As for the current state of science I believe that many scientists are experiencing a schism. On the one hand they must reject the concept of a creator but on the other hand, fields such as cellular biology are demonstrating that the cell is far more complex than imagined. As Coffey pointed out in the video the cell is a factory with constant activity taking place. The problem for the scientist is that there is a line scientists cannot cross and remain viable in the community.

[stahrwe]

Welcome J. Coffey.

Stahrwe
YEC
Evangelical

[jcoffey]

Geo makes a good point. Would it be accurate to say we can employ science to provide evidence or a rationale for our worldview? It seems that most of the people on this blog are not theists. Would you consider yourselves to be naturalists? Did the evidence of science make you a naturalist or has science helped confirm that position? My working premise with myself and with most people is that we are heart and brain. No one makes a decision or comes up with a world view solely with their head and cold intellect. Neither does anyone come up with a world view soley on the basis of emotion. Here is a question, in your opinion can I love both science and God?

[Chris OConnor]

This has all the makings of a great conversation. Please everyone keep it civil and friendly. Consider us all as friends sitting down for a quality conversation over coffee...with Joe Coffey. I have to admit I love that name.

I am fighting a pretty bad cold right now and am busy taking care of my wife who is even sicker. So bare with me if it takes me a bit to respond.

[President Camacho]

Joe, thank the Lord on High that you are here to represent the truth. This website is shared by those who believe and those who don't. Please explain how science is wrong to believe in and without Jesus, people will burn for eternity.

[Chris OConnor]

President Camacho, I think you might have heard Joe wrong in the video. Early in the video he was trying to explain to the audience how nonbelievers make assumptions about believers, namely that they are completely ignorant of the science involved and that they are all preaching damnation and hell fire. I don't recall Joe actually preaching damnation and hell fire.

[johnson1010]

My disbelief in the supernatural is not born of emotion.

From a purely emotional standpoint, nothing could be better than living forever with all of our loved ones after we die, in a paradise designed by the creator of all things. But it doesn't make any sense, and i find that i am unable to lie to myself that this is the case.

It is not very satisfying, to realise that you are an animal, not a foundational pillar of existance. To know that six hundred years after you are dead, nobody will have any idea you were ever alive, or if they do, they will only know you through proxy.

But the truth is available to us, and it is possible to know. Living a lie might feel good in the short term, but it is a lie. The consequences of this lie have proven far ranging, much more than simply being wrong about what happens after death. It extends to cultural behaviors, wars, the treatment of minorities and women, limitations on our ability to deal with disease, and a strange optimism that we can destroy the planet as we see fit... god will provide.

I believe that you do love both science and religion. The problem is where these two loves of yours intersect, what will you rely on?

History shows that the religious will rely on an ancient document written by dubious authors for whom a wheel barrow woud have been a life changing leap in technology.

Taking the bible over readily available evidence, which presents a unified wall of rebuke to the fairy tales in that document, represents a fundamental flight from reality. The ability to accept magic as a plausible explaination where there are real answers available. When you are talking about things like evolution and the age of the universe, you are talking about a foundational pieces of knowledge with limitless implications for our technology, quality of life, and the wellfare of our planet.

Taking the bible over these empirical data sets necessitates that you disregard that data so that your world view, in which a favored fairy tale is real, blinds you to the real state of the world.

The importance of that should be self evident. That is what religion has historically been about. Trying to gain a true understanding of the universe. That was all that was available to people before we began to really examine the world and see it for what it is. The problem is that the fables we told to explain our world took on a personal meaning for us independant of the phenomena they were meant to explain, and now those stories are more important than the life they were meant to keep safe.

Where reason and magical thinking intersect, we should choose reason. In this country especially, with access to tremendous military might and weapons capable of obliterating whole cities on the other side of the planet, reason must guide our decisions. Magical thinking will betray us.

[johnson1010]

Jcoffey has been completely reasonable, polite, and inquisitive. I can find no harm in that.

[Dexter]

Mr. Coffey, I respect you for coming on here to address your critics. I have to say, even though I disagree with a lot of your points, you seem more interested in engaging the scientific world view than most preachers I have seen (an admittedly small sample, but still)

[stahrwe]

History shows that the religious will rely on an ancient document written by dubious authors for whom a wheel barrow woud have been a life changing leap in technology.

For some reason most people believe that life in the first century resembled a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Your statement above demonstrates that you hold the same prejudice. In fact the Jews were highly educated and the ancient world was much more technologically advanced than you imagine.

As an example, most people are unaware of the first 'railroad's' location.

Over six hundred years before the birth of Christ the Citizens of Corinth constructed what some consider the world’s first railroad. For centuries before that there had been a portage across the 4 mile wide isthmus using wooden log rollers which saved mariners a dangerous several hundred miles of sailing around the Peloponnesian Peninsula with its dangerous headlands such as the Cape of Matapan and the Cape of Malea. Construction of a granite road with grooved “tracks” in which large wooden flatbed cars carrying ships and their cargo were pulled by slaves or draft animals was carried out by Periander, the Second Tyrant of Corinth. His initial vision had been a canal, but the depth of the excavation, and fears of flooding inspired by “experts” of the time led to settling for the Diolkos, or portage across. The usefulneess of this granite railroad, although a fantastic feat of ancient construction, was limited by the lifting capacity of ancient cranes, and was only useful for small to medium craft, many of which had to be unloaded of cargo which would then be moved across on a separate car.

Although built in 600 B.C. the Diolkos remained in use until about 900 A.D., and moved ships for the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Venetians, and many more. The space between the grooved tracks in the granite is a consistent 1.5 meters. This measurement bears a striking resemblance to the 1.435 meters later adopted as standard gauge rail by modern railroads. If one accepts the categorization of the Diolkos as a railroad its Millennia and a half of service is a railroad record that will not be soon or easily surpassed. In this respect grooved granite track almost certainly has a distinct advantage over iron or steel as far as maintenance and durability concerns go.

The Diolkos served a vital role to several early Western civilizations
Read more at Suite101: The Diolkos, an Ancient Railway: Does the world's first railroad date to 600 years before Christ? http://www.suite101.com/content/the-dio ... z150vlQjNN

Ships would sail to Corinth, unload their cargo. The ship would then be lifed out of the sea with a crane, set on a cart and moved across the istmus to the other side where the ship was relaunched and the cargo reloaded. Does that sound like a society for whom the wheelbarrow would be a life change leap in technology?

Be careful not to believe too much in what you have believed.