In actual fact I would go further and invoke scientific fashion and the influence of funding. For example, I have heard people say several times that they will address their project to Global Warming and piggy back what they really want to do on the back of it. It is a shame, but it is all perceived to be a part of the game. I have also spoken, for example, to climate modellers who freely admit taking grants for micro or local environments when they are far from confident that their macro or general models work sufficiently well. Again it is all perceived to be part of the game and, in the case of modelling, much cheaper than doing ''old fashioned'' science.

* Please do not take this post as a critique of anthropocentric climate change, but rather an illustration of what I may call the scientific process rather than the scientific method.

I would like it made clear I don't have an emotional reaction against God or Christianity or Jesus Christ, Superczar (where's frilly knickers and a playtex bra); but I do think that certain people are trolling the forum, all I'm doing is trying to have as much fun with this as other people seem to be having. Is Job 16 available or hasn't she released it yet. She done that with all the Harry Potter books as well.

But, is this truly representative of the scientific process as a whole, and is all of this bad? For instance, many valid advances in science are done in university but grads and undergrads with marginal connection to these compromising forces. In other countries, scientific research is funded using different methods, giving private interests less influence. Finally, I'm confused about your climate model example, what is the problem? It is common that smaller systems (local environments) are easier to model that larger (global) ones. It's important to see the flaws in a system and try to fix them though, and maybe we should think about the different influences at work in science, but a pure, unbiased science is as illusory as the 'true' message of scripture.

@ kol, on your major point I think that we rather agree. Science is a human creative process with all of the baggage, mostly good but some bad, that implies. It is not wholly a dispassionate elevated search for the truth which is intrinsically superior to other forms of searching for the truth. Yes, including what I might describe as spirituality.

On your subsidiary point lets agree to differ. My view, however, is that unless one understands, for example the dynamics of the monsoon to a level where results are reproducible, it is useless to try and understand the constraints of aspect in a Nepalese mountain valley. With this topic one must start with the macro foundation and move on to the micro detail. However, the grant money is now focused more and more on the micro-environment and its cheap computational modelling. If you were an academic in this field what would you do?

But what if one of the main points of a spiritual search and maybe the primary point is to decouple yourselves from your agendas. Whether you believe this is possible is one thing but Buddhism certainly states this as a goal.

@ Fulhamish, I found the article I was looking for, it's "Cognitive Science" by Paul Thagard. About half way through, he talks about Theory development and explanation, in particluar, how different disciplines, with focus on different scales (molecular, neural, psychological and sociological) explain the same observation differently. His point is that no one is right, but taken together they make a complete explanation. My advice, for what it's worth, is to try to show the short comings of the micro models, and demonstrate how otherwise unexplained phenomena are made clear when coupled with these macro models.

@ Greysoni, we can ask these what if questions all day, but do we have reason to think that this IS the main point. It seems that much work has been done historically to try to gain this unbiased perspective from which to pursue the truth, and each has failed, and quite awfully. Why should we think this is the goal if it looks, by all appearances, to be impossible.

@ kol, of course we are all searching for the unifying theory of everything, and it would be terrific to understand the macro motions of the heavenly bodies with the micro Heiesenberg uncertainty principle. I suppose in science we are all a mixture of idealists and pragmatists, another human trait?

@ Fulhamish, that's totally true, but in environmental modeling, this is completely feasible. I thought you were talking about climate modeling specifically, and the gap between macro/micro climate modeling isn't nearly as great as between quantum physics and astrophysics.

@ kol I was addressing your generic point on the Thagard book. On climate change specifically I still disagree too I am afraid, but as I said as we agree over so much else, lets agree to differ on this comparatively small detail.

Because very few make it there if religious texts are to be believed. I know it is stretch for anyone who has thought about the possibilities of true objectivity to believe that such a thing can exist. If someone were to tell you they have reached that destination a definite "yeah right" would echo in anyone's mind. It is an interesting part of Buddha's story that after he reached enlightenment he really didn't believe that anyone was going to get what he had to say.
I think an interesting discussion would be what preconditions would have to exist in order for someone to reach such a goal. What would he have to do, how would his perception have to change.
I think everyone is making great points btw.

I think many of those who want to troll this thread would do well to read Againesis 19:4 Google it if you don't own The Last Testament. ;-)

Did Fulham bother to read the rest of the quote he took out of context, or was he just looking for an excuse to trot out Francis Collins for no reason?

"Here is how Francis Collins, with more science in his little finger than all of our efforts combined, sees it:"

Who cares what Francis Collins sees. You appeal to the same three Fulhamish approved (meaning Christian) scientists in every thread, while smearing everybody else as 'having an agenda'. Apparently wanting to interject Christianity everywhere isn't an agenda.

The sole criteria for being a brilliant scientist in Fulham's view is to be a Christian apologist. Everybody else has some kind of ulterior motive, am I right?

"As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan."

And yet 'Christianity' didn't & doesn't explain any of it. You can just give credit to god for every discovery made by the scientific process, but that doesn't mean 'god' had anything to do with it. It's pure wishful thinking on Collins part. For all his brilliance, it is interesting that Collins hasn't provided us a single solitary piece of evidence that supernaturalism has anything to do with the physical world. It explains absolutely nothing.

""What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?""

These are fake questions. Christians are very good at inventing fake questions to find the 'answer to', and then declaring "Aha, naturalism has no answer for this! Therefore god is real".

", that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds."

We're all chomping at the bit to hear a single effort at making a purely rational case. None is provided. You give us these dumb quotes, and it provides no information whatsoever.

"As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.""


Dogma? Nice word choice for someone with no 'agenda'. Christian dogma is an assertion based on no evidence and no nationality, how is it less daring than a view that calls for just a modicum of evidence that anything supernatural exists.

Somebody needs to explain why, despite the complete absence of evidence of this omniscient god who supposedly intervenes in our affairs all the time, despite theistic accounts of the physical world being 0 for 500,000 in terms of its predictions and explanations being true, we should continue to even entertain the thought, just because somebody made it up?

"But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God."

So much for the "purely rational" case for theism. In the end, you have to resort to subjective mysticism, because that's all you can cling to at this point.

"It is not arrogant on the part of us if we say "God did it and we are too stupid etc to claim any higher wisdom than this. ""

No, it's just a celebration of ignorance. Making the absurd claim that the answer this complex question was solved 6,000 years ago by a bunch of nomads in Persia, and we can't know the real answer so we should stop trying.

Religion wants to halt the expansion of knowledge.

Cloister writes "It's rather arrogant of us to think that we can have any certainty of the actions of a being capable of creating the universe, whose existence is not even clear to us. It implies a delusion of understanding of the universe that is supremely arrogant."
Cloister, it's not a delusion if it's true, and it's not arrogant if it's an undeserved gift.

Greysoni plus 2 for this one: "Science is THE tool for studying the measurable universe it just loses it's way when it reaches beyond that."

Today's Bible reading is John Chapter 12,
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=12&v=1&t=NLT#1
in which the crowd says to Jesus, "We understood from Scripture [fn] that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?"
and Jesus replies, 35 ...“My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going. 36 Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”

Yet your god supposedly intervenes & created the measurable universe so there should be some evidence of it.

Let me say, this Judas guy seems pretty cool. Using resources to feed people instead of wash feet is an idea I can get behind. John doesn't seem to care for him, though.

Putin33, seriously, look up Againesis 19:4.

No kidding, supposedly this cartoon "Jesus" was a friend of the poor yet he anointed himself with expensive perfume, which led to Judas turning him in.

" “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. "

Seems like Mujus forgot about this passage.

Why, Putin? Did Mujus pray publicly? Did I miss something?

Well, John's Jesus seems to have other stuff on his mind. Or maybe he's just being practical. This is just one incidence, so it's not really a trend. Nobody freak out now.

Also, semck, I think you're misinterpreting. And there's a general rule in interpretation that when you can interpret something two ways, and one of them implies that the writer wrote nonsense, and the other doesn't, you should opt for the latter.

I realise the great and fabulous importance of the Bible, what would some people be without this?
If they didn't believe in a simplistic idea how confusing would life be for them, how frightening would it be to have to deal with reality as it is, just like the majority of people do.
I don't want these people to be proved wrong otherwise what would they have to live for, there would be a lot of lost souls wandering around confused and disappointed, a bit like the guys this year who gave away all of their earthly possessions because they thought the world was going to end, sad misguided individuals.
That's why I support and respect peoples views no matter how nuts whole hazel nuts they are.
So when I ask the trolls and the zealots questions I'm just teasing because I know they have no answers, but if we all believed in nothing where would we get our inspiration from.
So to the arrogant people trying to save us, they are just actually trying to save themselves, give us a break guys and go save yourself somewhere else because if intelligent people need the help of a God, are they really going to seek it by sifting through your bullshit on a diplomacy website.
To help you people searching for some personal salvation a few words of wisdom from the book of Nigee:
It is not important what you believe, only that you believe.
What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Nigee can you ask me some of those questions that we "zelots" can't answer? I completely understand your views and rejection of christain's views, as I've had many of them myself, but I would like to try and answer your questions the best I can.

Nigee, if you think it's bs, then ignore it. If you want to talk about it though, people will be more likely to speak with you as an equal if you refrain from calling their posts "b--t."

I do not buy into the idea that science and religion are at odds. There are certainly people on both sides who seem bent on the idea that they are, but the idea is implausible to me simply because so many notable scientists have been Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc. There is nothing inheretly atheistic about the discipline. Even William of Ockham (Occam's Razor) was a conservative theologian. My suspicion is that it's in the best interest of atheists to characterize us as primitive, backward, superstitious, science hating trogs, but as I said earlier. The more I see it the less it adds up with my personal experience on the subject. I simply don't see Newton, Pastuer, Mendel, Dobzhansky, and the many other excellent scientists who were also Christians as anything like that.