Forums → WEPR → Miracles

So replicate my statement of a hammer being at the bottom of the ocean.

And replicate my response.

So replicate my statement of a hammer being at the bottom of the ocean.

It wouldn't be the claim that needs to be replicated but how you got to the claim.

you need proof of some sort, but I forget how faithless you all are.

A Pissed-Off Apistevist

Of course, you need proof of some sort, but I forget how faithless you all are.

faith is no proof. even the definition of faith is "believe without evidence"

This just shows how untrustworthy you guys are.

Science REQUIRES skepticism, lest our technological developments get severely shafted and we go years without getting anywhere. If we are to trust this surely-verifiable source without any means of questioning, then we will accept this claim at face value, perhaps without much explanation. Where do we go from here? What if there is more to it than this that will surely broaden our understanding to develop technologies to enhance our human legacy?

So we become skeptical. "if we test this several times and we come up with the same results every time, then we'll sit down and call it relatively true." "BUT! If the results are something completely different, then surely there's something else that is the truth. So let's test this something different several times and see what we come up with."

This up there resulted in Heliocentrism, which developed modern Astronomy, which resulted in developed microscopes, which resulted in a better understanding of Microbiology, which helped develop vaccinations so your great-grandrelatives wouldn't die of disease.

Skepticism is key to Science and we question thousands of hypotheses and theories (scientific principles, NOT guesses) every day.

I made a second post to make it appear, but then I deleted it, thinking the post would stick >.>

Ah, but obviously you were inspired to do such an action, thus it's still a miracle!

I don't actually believe that the universe is random

Could you explain further by what you mean here?

This just shows how untrustworthy you guys are. Sometimes, you have to believe because someone said. Of course, you need proof of some sort, but I forget how faithless you all are.

To a degree, will will always have to "have faith" in another person's word. If your friend tells you that they bought a new video game, then you can argue that believing them will require a certain level of "faith". When scientists tell you about their research, you have to have a level of "faith" and take their word that they didn't lie in any of their notes, and everything they submitted for peer review is honest.

This means science is faith based! Right? If you want to argue that there's a small level of faith in science, fair enough, but you need to recognize that the level of faith put into science is NOWHERE near the level of faith put into religion! In fact, the reason we say science isn't faith based is because the level of faith requires is incredibly, incredibly, small - and to call science faith based at all is completely misleading and always seems to distract from what science really is.

To sum up the thought process behind the idea of science being faith based:
"I didn't witness God's existence first hand, I have faith. You didn't witness the science experiments performed by others, you have faith."

The thing you have to remember is that faith isn't an all or nothing deal. Faith is relative. You may not have seen scientists perform their experiments first hand, but you can view their research notes. You can also view the research notes of other scientists who have mirrored the experiment and see what conclusions they have come up with.

Let's divide faith into two categories.
1. Believing something based off (lack of) evidence.

If you believe in something, despite their being a lack of evidence, you rely on faith.

If you believe in something, because there is evidence, you do not rely on faith.

2. Believing the validity of someone's word.

With both religion and science, you must believe in someone's word. With a pastor preaching about Jesus, you must believe his words to be truth. With a scientist, you must believe they're telling the truth about their tests, or that their tests are reliable.

In both cases, you rely on a degree of faith. However, the amount of faith you have depends on how much evidence you find to support, or oppose, someone's claim.

Religion:
* You base your beliefs solely off of a person's hypothesis and personal, unsupported, opinion

You consider a hypothesis to be undeniable fact, even though there isn't evidence. This is completely based on faith.

*You must also believe a person is telling the truth.

You must also have faith that the person giving you your information is telling the truth. How faith based this is depends on how far you're willing to go to test this person's claims - if at all possible.

Science:
*You base your beliefs off of someone's word that is supported by evidence. The conclusion in which the evidence is put together comes from the scientific method - which is designed to be as impartial and accurate as possible.

Scientific views are not faith based. They are based off of what is thoroughly tested. A hypothesis isn't considered true unless there is evidence to support it. If there isn't evidence to support a hypothesis, then science doesn't recognize it as truthful.

In this aspect, science is not faith based.

* You must also believe the scientist is telling the truth. or that his tests weren't flawed.

This is where theists claim science is faith based. However, the level of faith at this level is minimal.

Yes, you must trust that the scientist is being honest, or that their research isn't flawed. However, scientists must submit their work to be peer reviewed. Then, their research must be published by a reputable source. Already, scientific claims must go through a process in which the experiment is heavily evaluated. Already, we have decreased the level of faith to a large degree - all you have to do is find a published article about the scientific claim and/or the research notes.

Furthermore, scientific experiments must be repeatable. When a scientific study is done, other scientists often recreate the experiments to see if they can come up with the same results. If the scientist comes up with the same results, then the original study is confirmed. If the results are different, then both studies are evaluated and more testing is done as to figure out which study is flawed.

So even though you do have to take a scientist's word that they performed their tests reliably, you can also do research on their project and see if it was published by a reliable source, look at the research notes yourself, or compare their experiment with experiments performed by other scientists.

So how do we know all scientists aren't conspiring together? Arguably, we can't be 100% sure, but we're fairly certain due to the fact that scientists are rewarded for discovering new truths, or debunking old ones. A scientist has far more to gain by disproving or advancing older theories than they do by merely confirming older studies to be true.

Scientists try to find flaws in older theories, or look deeper into them to find even more truths.

Watch this video to learn more about the scientific method.

The scientific Method Explained

I recommend you watch the entire video, but if you don't then at least watch 6:55 - 8:05. However, if you make other claims about the scientific method that are wrong, I may just have to relink the same video, so you may as well watch the entire thing.

The argument that science is faith based is misleading, there's almost no faith in science - only in believing the studies performed by scientists. Even then, this is hardly faith based, since you can always research the studies further and compare the experiments with other experiments.

Even when bad science does get published, the scientific method will make sure the bad science is brought to light - and eventually replaced with proper science that can be used to create better technology, medicine, and predictions of future events.

Let's divide faith into two categories.
1. Believing something based off (lack of) evidence.

If you believe in something, despite their being a lack of evidence, you rely on faith.

If you believe in something, because there is evidence, you do not rely on faith.

2. Believing the validity of someone's word.

I would have to say a better way to put it would be to say "you trust something". That something could be someone's word or in another classic example that your chair won't collapse when you sit on it. This does get into what is that trust based on though. With faith as in trust, we can and would be smart to rely on past examples to form an inductively reasoned position.

Almost all people with credentials X, Y and Z have shown to produce reliable work on those subjects.
Scientist A has credentials X, Y and Z.
Therefore, Scientist A is likely to produce reliable work on those subjects.

Now take this further. Scientist A says X. based on what we are able to induce of scientist A would it be reasonable to accept what he is saying as true until otherwise shown? Yes, because we know from the evidence that Scientist A can likely be trusted on the subject of X.

Since we are using a form of evidence to then induce something I wouldn't call that faith. Also it's worth noting that this trust is tentative. Which creates another striking difference between the to versions of "faith".

Far to often do the two definition of faith get equivocated to mean the same thing when they are quite different. This is why I don't like to call trusting something "faith".

If you argue that science is based on trust, and not faith, Christians will merely rephrase their argument, "Okay, fine, you trust science to be true. I trust God to be real." The words have changed, but the idea remains the same.

Yes it does seem to become a huge word game. I wonder if there is any way around it?

other scientists often recreate the experiments to see if they can come up with the same results. If the scientist comes up with the same results, then the original study is confirmed.

there is a minimum of researches (more then just 2) needed before a theory can be agreed on, right?

A scientist has far more to gain by disproving or advancing older theories than they do by merely confirming older studies to be true.

just a quick question for all the atheists that are interested in science:
wouldn't you love to be able to debunk evolution? a whole new world will open. =P

classic example that your chair won't collapse when you sit on it.

I do believe trust is a better word to use than faith. For one, Christians often have differing opinions on what faith means. For another, the word faith often implies trust that is blind.

if it's a normal chair, then i trust it is strong enough to hold me.
if it's some wonky chair, (and others say it is still strong enough) then i have faith it wont collapse on me. but i'm not trusting it.