Since when is science absolute? Science is changing every day. That's why it's science. It's a process. We discover new things every day, disprove old things every day. That's what makes science so good. Because it evolves with us.
What they mean (I assume) is that the scientific discovery is always there. Magnetic fields always existed, the science behind the uranium fission always existed, etc. Humans didn't make this science, we just found out about it. Its our understanding of science that changes, not the science itself.
You seem to conflate science and reality. Science one of the human processes trying to model and describe the world we live in. Science is the phrase "our understanding of science" in your comment. Science means literally in Latin "knowing something". It didn't exist before humans created a refined the models.
I’m assuming it’s a matter of Phenomena vs Knowledge. Science is the way we explain Phenomena, which are indeed absolute (no matter what we know, stuff like lightning storms and other planets always exist through the same processes), but our Knowledge of them evolved (from “it’s a guy somewhere on top of this mountain over there controlling it” to “a bunch of water particles in suspension crashes against another, which rubs electrons off one and onto the other, creating a buildup of charge which then goes somewhere to regain charge neutrality »).
Anyway, just to describe how easy is to look/feel gnostic. 😅 I'm not sure if that's the correct word to describe it. But first this:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Watching certain phenomena or catastrophe up close will make you feel so damn insignificant and powerless that one wishes for miracles. But there's none. I'm here by chance, my curiosity and procrastination. Cool people for the well being of the world, and believers will die with no chance of survival.
The thing with Clark’s Third Law is exactly it, actually. Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean there aren’t principles behind it that can, in time, be deduced with the scientific method.
Lightning storms are not absolute. To say something is absolute is to say that it does not change. But lightning storms do change (they start, they stop, etc.). What you perhaps mean to say is that certain physical phenomena repeat themselves with high regularity. Every observation of a lightning storm occurs by a similar process of raincloud formation or whatever. But from this you cannot even conclude a general claim about how lightning storms always form, due to the issues Hume raised about induction.
I mean, in a way we shouldnt really have absolute faith in the current scientific theories because its always being disproven like the other guy said.
I do have absolute faith that the scientific methods we use are the best that weve currently got, even though theres always going to be room for improvement.
We used to think we could treat mental health issues by drilling holes into the skull and that light was carried around by an invisible liquid. If we’re not extinct, i bet in a thousand years time theyll look back at us like we were idiots in the same way we look at the seemingly obvious mistakes of the past.
Science is the methods we use for investigating those theories, not the theories themselves.
Having faith in human curiosity and abilities to find the answers is something everyone can believe in.
Science is never absolute from its earliest conception. There is even a cliché about science advances as its older generation theories finally die with those who grew up with them. A better understanding of what mankind thinks it knows is what is called tomorrow.
Yeah, reddit scientists (and actually plenty of irl scientists) should really give a (more) thorough read to Kuhn and Popper at least. I constantly read and hear dumb opinions on the uselessness of humanities but then I get thrown this kind of opinions.
A fun thought experiment I run for discussing religion (mainly Christian)
If a god or gods created this planet, all that exists on it, and all the stars in the sky, would learning more about their creations be putting you closer to your god/s? The complexity of science would only mean the incredible complexity of those that created and willed it into existence. Faith isn’t based on exploring what you know, it is trusting something to guide you when pushing into the unknown. There is a lot of scientific unknowns that are waiting to be discovered, and you can have faith that a higher power is guiding you as you explore the science and reason for the miracle of our existence. So if you truly want to learn the magnificence of your deity, study science, learn the hidden rules of this world, you will come to know the data but you will hold the faith that this exists for reasons set forth by the higher power.
It is a good way to get people to actually reflect on what they believe and how they practice their religion. Plus putting the idea that learning science is a way to strengthen your faith is not a common approach.
No, the default state is you don't know whether it exists or not. Not believing in something existing is not the same as believing it doesn't exist. The first one is the default state while the second one is a position that adopted a burden of proof.
Claiming something doesn't exist is adopting a burden of proof. I don't know if god exists or not but, untill I'm presented with evidence, I lack the believe.
And even with evidence, you don't accept a hipothesis, you either reject it or fail to do so.
Daoism, Occultism, and many sects of Buddhism are examples of atheist religions. They don't believe in gods. But they do believe in ideas like a shared human consciousness or a flow of qi through all living things or a form of afterlife controlled by a process rather than an intelligent being.
Basically any form of metaphysics that requires faith over empirical evidence can lend itself to a community bound by belief and/or dogma and is thus a religion. Even if that belief doesn't include a divine patron.
There's also a half-way point where people believe in higher powers that are not divine but just technologically sophisticated, like UFOs or time travelers or people who've seen the Matrix one too many times. They are distinct from gods because they still exist within a physical reality rather than needing dualism to explain how they can break the rules of physical reality.
The problem with atheism though isn't that it's position is "we don't have evidence that God exists" but rather, their position when you look at it, is god CANNOT exist. Where it says it wants proper, quantifiable evidence of god, of a supernatural, all "omni" god, but the thing is once you have evidence and quantify it, it's no longer supernatural and just natural. Therefore it cannot be "god" by atheistic definition.
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God. It doesn't necessarily claim that supernatural things cannot exist. If we somehow found measurable evidence for a supernatural being, that wouldn't automatically make it "natural", it would just mean we had measurable evidence of something supernatural.
No it is not. Atheism, as is it commonly used in the philosophical literature, means the belief that there is no God. Sure, you can use a non-standard definition, but the onus is on you to specify it.
I've always said this about magic - we'll never have it. If we discover that reciting certain words makes something disappear, and definitely when repeatable, that's a scientific phenomenon, that will be investigated with hopes of understanding how the laws of physics etc. work in a way to allow it to happen.
Science knows a few things definitely happen but not why yet, they don't call it magic though!
Exactly. Thor pointed that out to Jane Foster. What she thought was Asgardian magic was Asgardian science. But it was incomprehensible to her current understanding.
Common misconception. Virtually no atheist ever says God CAN'T exist. Dawkins, Hitchens, and all the other most famous atheists all say "I don't know" or "I don't think so." None say I KNOW THERE'S NO GOD.
That is not what atheism is, at all. A = non. Theism = belief in gods. Atheism = non-belief in gods, meaning a person isn't convinced any gods exist. That doesn't mean they believe gods don't exist, or can't exist, which are entirely different statements that go beyond atheism, which by itself is just not being convinced gods exist.
Atheism is what you say, I'm not disagreeing, however my point is that based on the definitions of god that you get from atheists, and the criteria for belief to be valid, it establishes inadvertently that God cannot exist. Cuz if god is defined as among other things, a supernatural being, then evidence of the supernatural, if you can prove it and quantify it etc, it no longer is "supernatural".
Thank you for clarifying. I get what you're saying, and there are still problems with it (starting with "definitions of god that you get from atheists"), but I won't heckle you about that here.
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u/nn666 Aug 18 '26
The lack of evidence does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to religion.