re: #378 b_sharp

They may have answers, but their answers certainly don’t fit in with the known physical properties and constraints of our universe. Believing that particular narrative is definitely a matter of faith, because there is nothing rational about it.

Agreed. It is an article of faith.

We have no way to prove 100% that the Bible is not the word of god any more than we can prove 100% that there is no god.

Also agreed.

However, we have the same probability of proving there is no invisible giant 100m tea cup orbiting the Earth, yet no one that I know would seriously believe there is a tea cup that size orbiting Earth.

Also agreed (although I prefer the flying spaghetti monster).

That’s because what we know of our physical environment would not support a 100m invisible orbiting tea cup. We have the ability to boost objects into space, we also have the ability, and the paranoia, to observe everything any country does boost into orbit. No human country has placed an extra, extra large tea cup into space. We also know how other humans think, and can see no reason to place one into orbit. There exists no evidence for an ancient culture that had the technology to put anything into orbit.

All, obviously true. But keep in mind that the article of faith that the bible is the word of god lays the groundwork for a logical extension that anything that has not happened, or which does not seem probable, does not disprove the starting premise.

It isn’t as easy, because part of the mythos is that their god is beyond the limits of our physics, but anything proposed by humans as proof of god can be shown to be either wrong or explainable by simpler means.

Simpler than the basic, simple assumption that god is all powerful and controls everything? That seems to me like the mother of all simplicities.

As far as having faith in science itself as a way to gain reliable evidence, it too has been ‘proved’ as the best method available. I’ll trust that it works until shown otherwise.

As will I. But I recognize it as trust in a belief, and ultimately an article of faith. There is much in the world for which science has no real explanation. There is much in the world which defies known science. And there is much that scientists currently believe about the world which is in pretty strong contrast to what was “known,” scientifically in the past.

Don’t get me wrong - this isn’t the denier meme that “Scientists thought that the Earth was cooling 40 years ago.” As it turns out, it was a minority of scientists who proposed those hypotheses, and many of them weren’t climate experts. In such situations, it is the exception that proves the rule; but recent scientific discoveries undermine much of what we have previously regarded as scientifically established fact.