Bruce : I know, but isn't that the church that 'fathered' a lot of our current religious communities? (Here in the States, I mean). This was just a thought that occurred to me as I was reading the posts in this thread. I'm still always baffled...just like Flint is, by how difficult is to get people off religious dogma even when it cant be substantiated or goes against what is considered common knowledge now (like that the Grand Canyon is only 4,500 years old).

Jinx: I stand corrected..:o . I was close...though. :p

Hey ya'll I must recant. I've made a grave error, the experiment that I had in mind in my post is the "Double Slit Experiment."

My apologies. I'm getting old, and have been blown up one too many times.

Hi guys! It's been a long time.

I really must disagree with the sentiment that religion and science can peacefully coexist. They are mutually exclusive. The reason is, they both speak to the same thing: to answer questions about the nature of the universe. This is the reason they are so frequently at odds.

The only reason for religion is to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. The so called "God of the Gaps". Anytime there is a gap in knowledge, just plug in God.

Even the existence of God himself is a scientific hypothesis that could be proven if he actually existed.

To those who would suggest that God created everything, I would ask, who created God? Any being powerful enough to create a universe must necessarily be more complex than that universe himself. So, where did he come from? If the universe must have been created because it's complex, well God would have to be complex to, so who created him? All this does is attempt to answer a mystery with a mystery. Why not just say you don't know, or fill the gaps in your knowledge in with provable facts?

Oh! And just to hit on Flint's point on the Neatherthals, I don't think there is concensus among Physical Anthropologists that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens ever came into contact. Although their fossils are found in the same regional area within the same timeline, the dating method they use only has a certain time resolution. So, when the weather changed, the Neatherthals could have moved north on their own, and then the Homo Sapiens could have moved in a few years later. As far as I know, it wasn't proven that they ever saw each other. It's only circumstantial evidence. Interesting nonetheless.

Not "could be proven if he actually existed"

But "would be proven if he actually exists"

That, I think, would be a proper statement of the scientific method. Otherwise, you're putting the conclusion into the hypothesis.

Well, I didn't mean to say I was stating a hypothesis, just that one could be formed.

OK here's the hypothesis: "God exists".

Go to it!

Ya, too bad he doesn't exist. If he did, there'd be evidence of it and it could be proven.

In any system there are statements that are true that can not be proven.

Such as?

Yer a Pooopy Head !!

cchttp://www.research.ibm.com/people/h...n00-goedel.pdf

r.j I've read that paper, and I think they made a fundamental error in using the "0" symbol. See here for further discussion.

Well you can't prove a negative, so you can't prove God doesn't exist.

We appear to be no further along this problem.

:corn:

page marker

Yes, but through the reformation and subsequent splits, the church isn't The church anymore.
Probably lack of education and laziness.
Coberst expounded on the value of a "quest for disinterested knowledge". There is a whole lot of people that aren't interest in learning anything besides the sports scores, or what time Wheel of Fortune is on, if it doesn't relate to their job.

There is the problem that scientific knowledge is a moving target, constantly being updated, often changing what they previously thought was true. If you just catch the headlines, it can lead to confusion and mistrust of the scientific community.
For example, I'm hearing a lot of that about Global Warming. People saying, hey they said global cooling was a problem, then warming is a problem... those scientists don't know shit.

Oh, and juju works for the devil itself. :lol2: