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A law and a theory are not related. Theories do not evolve into laws with more proof.

Actually, that's exactly how it works. Here's a quick rundown of the scientific method for those who don't know. First an observation is made of natural phenomena, ex an apple falling from a tree. Second a scientist forms a hypothesis to explain said phenomena, ex a force called gravity causes any two objects of mass to be attracted to each other at a fixed and calculable rate of acceleration. Third the hypothesis is tested and when sufficient evidence is gathered it becomes a theory. Fourth once the evidence overwhelmingly proves that the theory is universally correct it becomes a law. The final testing of Newton's law of gravitational attraction brought to you by the Apollo 16 moon landing. The idea that theories and laws are unrelated and that theories are absolute fact is one of biggest things that makes arguing with atheists online infuriatingly impossible. If you don't know the basics of the scientific method how can you possibly claim to follow logic and science over faith? You're still taking "science" on faith and allowing others to tell you what you should believe.

And in every time period, the more educated and smarter people were the least likely to hold religious convictions (note: this doesn't exclude theistic beliefs). Dogma has always been known to be bogus.

I'm not debating dogma because dogma is not religion. Dogma is a weapon those in power within religious organizations use to control others. It's no different than dictators changing laws to keep themselves in power or people using abuse to control their spouses/children. None of my posts have supported dogma, and a few of my posts in this thread have actively distanced myself from dogmatic practices.

@HahiHa Once again I'm not trying to argue the theory. That's an issue for another thread. But for those experiments to prove life can form they would have to actually form life without intervention. So far all they've done is form a limited number of organic chemicals (in lab conditions that aren't necessarily applicable to real world conditions even on primordial Earth) and each experiment with different environments have formed different specific chemicals. There was one that only produce adenine. It produced it in fairly large amounts, but it was still only 1/4, not including the biopolymers that hold it all together, of the chemicals necessary to form DNA. Those experiments are all treated as proofs of concept, but they're too limited in quantity and diversity of organic chemicals to legitimately prove the concept of abiogenesis. That is the point of me bringing it up. The so called &quotroof" fails to genuinely prove anything and the theory fails to live up to the standards of being, as Fish so loves to call it, absolute.

And I made an equally reasonable analog to that statement.

No, you just said "No". You did not provide an argument, you did not counter my argument... You know what? I'm done arguing about this. Either learn to debate or don't bother replying because from now on anytime you just say "No" or "You're wrong" or something else in that line without any counterargument I'm just going to take it as "I don't have a way to argue with what you said but I don't want to acknowledge it."

and has already been challenged by HahiHa; a challenge which has been conveniently ignored.

Conveniently ignored? HahiHa challenged my statement based on rationalwiki's statements that Einstein and Darwin were agnostics (here's a quote from you on Einstein's beliefs "Einstein was a spinozan pantheist/immanentist.&quot which I have addressed and the statement that "it was normal to be religious and ridiculous to be agnostic or atheist, so likely some testimonies of religious views, may not have been completely honest." Since no one can prove whether those statements were honest or not, and even HahiHa is recognizing in his challenge that religious beliefs were far more common in the past, I have no reason to doubt that on some level these reportedly religious people were religious.

Unfortunately, many aspects of cosmology and quantum physics are completely untestable

If a theory cannot be tested then it cannot be falsified and is therefore not a real theory.

The idea that theories and laws are unrelated and that theories are absolute fact is one of biggest things that makes arguing with atheists online infuriatingly impossible.

You're correct that those who say that theories and laws are unrelated are wrong -- in other words, they are related. But this:

Fourth once the evidence overwhelmingly proves that the theory is universally correct it becomes a law.

Is false. Laws aren't more proven than theories. Instead, they function differently. Laws are descriptive. They describe certain things about the world. So Newton's Laws of Gravitation tell us how two bodies interact given their respective masses and their distance. And this is something that applies under those same conditions throughout the universe.

A theory, on the hand, does the explaining. So Newton's Laws tells us that 2 objects are gravitationally attracted towards each other. A theory of gravity would tell us why.

In short - laws tell us what's going on. Theories tell us why. So there is a link between the two as theories explain laws.

On a side note (and yes, this is just me being pedantic), the video you linked to is of Apollo 15 and they are confirming Galileo's claim that objects in a vacuum fall at the same rate. This is commonly (though incorrectly) thought to have been his leaning tower of pisa experiment, though in actuality he reached his conclusion through means of a reductio.

In any case, I'm not sure what relevance of theories/laws is to the discussion. Just trying to clear up some misconceptions.

Many people don't get this, but many things on the bible are metaphors.

There's no indication what's supposed to be a metaphor or not. The entire book is up to personal interpretation. It's a terrible basis for anything, moral or theological.

Depends on the theory.

No it doesn't. Law and Theory are separate classifications. Laws don't turn into theories and theories don't turn into laws. Theories might involve laws in the same way a car uses combustion or batteries, but there's no theory that can become a law.

I am sorry but what do you mean? Yes there is no such thing. So?

What perfect, benevolent and all knowing deity creates a world where suffering and cruelty are required to function? If you want to make the argument of original sin corrupting his creation...

If Man Obeyed God

Actually, that's exactly how it works.

You don't know how it works, because it's not.

This might help explain it to you.

dogma is not religion

I disagree. Religion IS dogma. It's the following of a belief regardless of evidence or contradiction at the insistence of its followers that it is the absolute truth. Religion dictates certain beliefs, and while individual people follow it in their own ways, religion itself is dogmatic by nature.

The so called &quotroof" fails to genuinely prove anything and the theory fails to live up to the standards of being, as Fish so loves to call it, absolute.

HahiHa challenged my statement based on rationalwiki's statements that Einstein and Darwin were agnostics (here's a quote from you on Einstein's beliefs "Einstein was a spinozan pantheist/immanentist.&quot which I have addressed

Since no one can prove whether those statements were honest or not, and even HahiHa is recognizing in his challenge that religious beliefs were far more common in the past, I have no reason to doubt that on some level these reportedly religious people were religious.

Those experiments are all treated as proofs of concept, but they're too limited in quantity and diversity of organic chemicals to legitimately prove the concept of abiogenesis. That is the point of me bringing it up. The so called &quotroof" fails to genuinely prove anything and the theory fails to live up to the standards of being, as Fish so loves to call it, absolute.

No, you just said "No". You did not provide an argument, you did not counter my argument...

Every theist that ever existed in any field of science has denied the existence of any supreme being at least twice. Prove me wrong.

Either learn to debate or don't bother replying because from now on anytime you just say "No" or "You're wrong" or something else in that line without any counterargument I'm just going to take it as "I don't have a way to argue with what you said but I don't want to acknowledge it."

Since no one can prove whether those statements were honest or not, and even HahiHa is recognizing in his challenge that religious beliefs were far more common in the past, I have no reason to doubt that on some level these reportedly religious people were religious.

If a theory cannot be tested then it cannot be falsified and is therefore not a real theory.

In any case, I'm not sure what relevance of theories/laws is to the discussion. Just trying to clear up some misconceptions.

But I did not find any mention of Fish saying a theory was absolute. On the contrary, he specifically said that "1 Laws and theories can both, hypothetically, be falsified.".

Those experiments are all treated as proofs of concept, but they're too limited in quantity and diversity of organic chemicals to legitimately prove the concept of abiogenesis. That is the point of me bringing it up.

- Deep space branching molecules

- Murchinson meteorite (this one is particularly interesting)

- Organic molecules in Titan's atmosphere

It gives us an additional source of organic compounds: space. Some organic compounds arrive on Earth on meteorites and are then readily available for abiogenetic processes.

Which is why we don't call those theories.

You posted that as a direct response to my statement regarding the relationship between laws and theories, and aspects of theories that make me highly critical of them. If the "aspects" you were talking about weren't theories then I'm a little confused as to why you brought it up.

I can't stress enough that a theory which does not prove anything HAS NOT FAILED.

And I can't stress enough that I'm not here to debate scientific theories. While, yes, I do find many of the theories favored by the modern scientific community to be highly questionable and of suspect support this thread isn't about science. This thread is about theism and atheism and this constant back and forth about the specifics of theories started with twilight saying

And your argument is a typical relgious argument countered a gazillion times, namely "you can not disprove it therefor I believe it", what is of course a false standpoint,as the scientific base is always "I don't count with it unless reason arise for to do so"...

...Religion is of course not "just a story". It is ancient superstition based on insufficient evidence to keep together and control people while promising there are answers to their questions. But instead of answering the questions, religion comes up with "just a story"(, and kills everyone who does no accepts it).
This is the understanding of religion by antropologist (and sociologists, and evolutionary biologists, and science in general).

Twilight is of the state of mind that science has sufficient evidence to prove that there is no God, or any other aspect of religious belief, and thus all religion is just a haven for idiots that don't understand science. I was providing cases in which science does not know everything and cannot be taken as irrefutable fact, as well as the role of religious people in the history of science.

But I did not find any mention of Fish saying a theory was absolute.

Apparently I did use the word absolute first, and I was using the literal definition of absolute. That's when Fish responded with this on 465.

Theories are absolute. If they were situationally dependent, they would only be laws. They are exactly as prestigious as I think they are.

That was just to nuance the way you were portraying them in the context of your post, making them appear more religious than they certainly were.

Like I said to Fish, I'm sorry if my post implied something that wasn't true. I wasn't trying to portray them as particularly religious but to counter twilight's concept of science and religion as mutually exclusive. In fact, most of the current debates seem to stem mostly from me countering twilight before I started ignoring his posts and other people arguing the specifics of those counters. Specifics that can be debated back and forth all day but aren't really a part of this thread.

On a side note (and yes, this is just me being pedantic), the video you linked to is of Apollo 15 and they are confirming Galileo's claim that objects in a vacuum fall at the same rate.

I was going by the videos description, but I knew it was one of the Apollo missions. Still, it was an experiment to prove something Newton posited as part of his thoery.

Is false. Laws aren't more proven than theories. Instead, they function differently.

Not a perfect source but this will do. It even has the section headed with "Scientific theories and laws" in nice big letters.

In any case, I'm not sure what relevance of theories/laws is to the discussion. Just trying to clear up some misconceptions

If you read this whole post, or a few of my other posts in this thread, you'll see that it really doesn't.

@Ishtaron

I don't know what to say, but you're absolutely right - this site describes the transition of theory into law. Here is the quote from the site:

"A few theories do become scientific laws (such as the law of gravity) and laws are generally considered to be without exception — though in fact even some laws have been modified over time after further testing found discrepancies."

I mean, I'm really at a loss here. As you already suggested, we've drifted beyond the scope of the thread, but the people who wrote this are being intellectually dishonest. It's sort of like saying that humans evolved from monkeys, which leads people to ask, "Then why are there still monkeys?".

I looked at some reviews of the site, but can't find very much. The authors (names' at least) have LinkedIn accounts as freelance writers. But I just don't know. This upsets me, but it's also the interwebs - so whatchagonnado?

The transition from Theory to Law is rare enough to be considered "blue moon special cases". While it's recorded to happen before, especially when there are mathematical axii involved, almost all theories stay theories. In fact, there are more theories that get bumped down to hypotheses than theories becoming laws.

While, yes, I do find many of the theories favored by the modern scientific community to be highly questionable and of suspect support this thread isn't about science

Theories are challenged every day by many independent Ph.D's, yet the event of a theory being dismissed to a hypothesis is a less-than-rare event

The most recent theory being dismissed to a hypothesis is likely the "Six Kingdom theory", which was bumped down and replaced by the "Three Domain theory". Juuust a little funfact.

As for the ruling on discussing science along with the main topic, I imagine this came about due to a confusion on how the Theory of Evolution came about and was established? Questions on the establishment of faith and Evolution are just fine-- we just cannot deviate too far to where we debate on something altogether different.

There's no indication what's supposed to be a metaphor or not. The entire book is up to personal interpretation. It's a terrible basis for anything, moral or theological.

Of course it is. But some things are at least for today's thinking minds obvious. Obviously god didn't cry for 40 days in a form of rain which wiped out nearly everything but Noah's Ark. Obviously the tree of knowledge was no apple. Obviously snakes don't talk. Of course, ages ago, religion was law and, as such, followed to the letter. For example, in the Old Testimony or covenant or whatever it is called, one of the 10 commands of God is (not on quote): "Before you act in anyway, remember the law". This was a classic example of such misinterpretation as the Pharesees made special wooden boxes which contained the law in written form and tied those boxes on their foreheads!

What perfect, benevolent and all knowing deity creates a world where suffering and cruelty are required to function? If you want to make the argument of original sin corrupting his creation...

As I am sure you know, according to Christianity, it was mankind's fault. The entire concept of Christianity is based on re-establishing spiritual contact with god.

Religion IS dogma. It's the following of a belief regardless of evidence or contradiction at the insistence of its followers that it is the absolute truth. Religion dictates certain beliefs, and while individual people follow it in their own ways, religion itself is dogmatic by nature.

No religion I know is dogma. Like @Ishtaron said before about Christianity, every religion compells believers to act and think in their own way. Simply religions sounds dogmatic due to the minority trying to enforce belief in god and adherence to the barriers of Religion. For example in buddhism, anyone can be a Buddha ( "enlightened&quot. The first Buddha is said to be named (don't know if I spell this correctly) Sidarta Gaoutama.

But some things are at least for today's thinking minds obvious.

Now they are. It was taught as literal fact before. Religion just cedes ground repeatedly and claims it's always been right, or tries to say that was what it always meant (Islam). This is hindsight.

Obviously god didn't cry for 40 days in a form of rain which wiped out nearly everything but Noah's Ark. Obviously the tree of knowledge was no apple.

And obviously a magic man doesn't exist in the way the bible describes it either. There's absolutely no reason to conclude he does.

As I am sure you know, according to Christianity, it was mankind's fault. The entire concept of Christianity is based on re-establishing spiritual contact with god.

I take it you didn't watch the youtube video, because there are some problems with the way God made this world in that case. He either expected mankind to sin, or was a terrible designer.

Like @Ishtaron said before about Christianity, every religion compells believers to act and think in their own way.

Oh. So the Holy Trinity isn't part of Catholicism. Or not using birth control. What about Jesus as the messiah?

Religion doesn't compel people to act and think their own way. They try to make everyone think the same and we end up with thousands of different denominations where people go to be told what they want to hear. Religion's problem is that people have their own ideas.

I was raised as a Christian. Not once, ever, was I told to think critically about religion. I was asked leading questions in Sunday School (where I would be told the "right" answer after "thinking"), and sermons tried to get me to think in the way they wanted. No one ever said or wanted me thinking that God wasn't real. What "religion" wants is to be believed as taught, and it's only okay to question so long as the answer is not heretical and doesn't end with, "I no longer believe."

Now they are. It was taught as literal fact before. Religion just cedes ground repeatedly and claims it's always been right, or tries to say that was what it always meant (Islam). This is hindsight.

And obviously a magic man doesn't exist in the way the bible describes it either. There's absolutely no reason to conclude he does.

Of course. But, in the first case, the way I get it, that WAS always what it meant. Like you said before, the entire book is up to personal interpretation. So pretty much, while there are metaphors, how everybody reads it is different, but the point is the same. Just misunderstood by the people for ages.

Oh. So the Holy Trinity isn't part of Catholicism. Or not using birth control. What about Jesus as the messiah?

I am not sure I understand what you mean but I'll try. Correct me if I am wrong.

Just a minor mistake: the holy Trinity is part of Christianity, not just Catholicism. Anyway, the holy Trinity is part of it. But the concept is left intentionally vague, as christianity, as a religion, was formed by people, who believed that some aspects of god are unkowable. About birth control, I disagree with the church's policy as well. Jesus as the messiah is a massive spiritual concept. You are compelled to think and act your way yes, but religion is formed around some basic ideas. Christianity is about mankind's fault in being "kicked out" of heaven and, as I've explained before, about reuniting man with god. The concept of Jesus as a Messiah is not that vague, but serves to reinforce the idea that man, has a part in losing spiritual touch with god.

Of course the question that arises and I haven't answered yet, is "Why did god make man an imperfect being?". Why did he make us vulnerable to temptation and suffering and sinnful by nature if that is true? Only to attempt to save us afterwards? But then, I suppose, according to Christianity, if He is omniscient and omnipresent, then he might understand why mankind has to "suffer". Of course, being omnipotent, would make him able to make us perfect beings from the beginning and skip the phase where we lose touch with Him.

Religion doesn't compel people to act and think their own way. They try to make everyone think the same and we end up with thousands of different denominations where people go to be told what they want to hear. Religion's problem is that people have their own ideas.

If that was the case with you, I feel sorry for you. I was raise as a christian but with a very liberal approach. Even in school, the teachers were open minded and available for a discussion. Of course, the priests exist to perform the rituals of a religion. That being said, no one sould treat their opinion as absolute truth, exactly because the book is up to personal interpretation among other things. Many priests and religious men get this (including the current pope, Pope Francis) and consider themselves cooperators of the other truth-seeking men, even non-believers.

For example I remember that my religious teacher in high school answered a lot of my questions about christianity and even other religions.

I am always glad when religious parents raise their children in a liberal way, that is, tell them to think by themselves and, even better, leave them the choice. And I know that many clerics will tell you to think about a specific topic and make your own mind (often in the hope to make you believe it). But that is just how some individuals practice their beliefs nowadays. Religion in itself is fundamentally dogmatic, and the liberal approach is relatively new, as far as I can judge. So when you say that...

So pretty much, while there are metaphors, how everybody reads it is different, but the point is the same. Just misunderstood by the people for ages.

Religion in itself is fundamentally dogmatic, and the liberal approach is relatively new, as far as I can judge.

First of all, this applies to Christianity and Islam (which is heavily influenced by Christianity).I cannot talk about HInduism but Buddhism was never dogmatic. It takes a much more liberal approach to the people's lives, though, the purpose remains the same (help other people, perform good deeds and hope to break the samsara by achieving the nirvana).

Now as for whether Christianity is dogmatic by nature or made dogmatic by religious authorities ages ago, it is a subject of much discussion. I haven't found any evidence about either the one or the other but, having read through parts of the Bible, I came to understand that the nature of this religion is not dogmatic (by the way this book was written). Of course that is only what I think!

Just misunderstood by the people for ages.

In other words, it's always been right, the billions of people who believed they understood it in their many different ways were just wrong in their interpretation. It's right, but everyone ever trying to figure out what is right has been wrong.

You're making a baseless assumption that it has a right answer.

I am not sure I understand what you mean but I'll try. Correct me if I am wrong.

My point is that religion teaches certain things. You said that it doesn't and I listed several things that are part of a certain religion.

Of course, being omnipotent, would make him able to make us perfect beings from the beginning and skip the phase where we lose touch with Him.

The most simple way around that issue is to drop one of the three traits ascribed to God. An imperfect god fits with what we see, although there's still not reason to assume one exists. If God was not benevolent, or not omnipotent, or not all knowing, it doesn't contradict with the errrors/evil he created and allows to continue to exist.

.I cannot talk about HInduism but Buddhism was never dogmatic.

Hinduism is, and I would be surprised if Buddhism wasn't. In Hinduism you have caste systems and what not, and Buddhism is closely related to Hinduism.

I came to understand that the nature of this religion is not dogmatic

You came to understand that you think what you believe is not dogmatic. Religion, as an organized belief system, is by definition dogmatic. It must be dogmatic because if it isn't there is no organized system of belief. Without tenants for the believers to follow (dogmas) you have a random group of people. Religion is dogma in a specific form.