[dr2005]

Originally Posted by Xujhan

We've had this argument at least three times now, so I hope you'll forgive me for just laying out the abridged version. Consider my responses stock; god of the gaps (which is what I was specifically responding to), religious scientists are successful because of science not religion, and a huge grab-bag of creation myths. I think Exodus is my favourite no-way-in-hell-did-that-actually-happen religion tale though, at least for now.

If you seek to point out the flaws of "god of the gaps" (which I agree is not a convincing argument), please refer to "god of the gaps" in the first place. I'm a fervent advocate of calling a spade a spade, for want of a less tired analogy, and making sweeping statements such as "religion doesn't present any argument" to make such a point is not only fairly wide of the mark, it just comes across as clumsy. Your religious scientists response meanwhile does nothing to reconcile the inherent contradiction which arises by placing science and religion at constant loggerheads, while flaws in creation myths go no further to disproving religion than flaws in Newtonian mechanics go to disproving mechanical engineering (which still uses Newtonian principles for the majority of its endeavours as neither general nor special relativity have much application).

Originally Posted by Xujhan

And forgive me, but the "that's only your opinion, you can't prove it" is possibly the most infuriatingly obnoxious tactic I know of. Perhaps it's just my personal pet peeve, but the limitations of English mean it's impossible to accurately notate which of the things you are saying are opinions and which you claim as fact without making everything you say messy and unreadable. If you want clarification on what my claims are, ask, dammit. Every time you assume one way or the other, god kills a kitten.

Forgive me in return, but I would request that you actually read what I write instead of inserting words at your own discretion. Never at any stage did I say "that's only your opinion, you can't prove it" - what I actually said (and I will admit to some frustration at having to point this out, as I am of the opinion you are a very intelligent person) is that your opinion and objective fact are not interchangeable. That's it. No "you can't prove it", just what is in bold above. I will admit the error of making inferences regarding your opinion and hold up my hands on that one - I did so merely based on logical extension - but if the impression is given that something is being passed off as objective fact when its status as such is questionable, then I have the right as a respondent to raise that issue. I apologise if it came across as what you state in your post, as that was not and never has been my intention, but in return I would ask that if you seek to criticise me (which by all means you are welcome to) you do so based on what I actually write. Otherwise we may as well be talking about the relative merits of grapefruit in nuclear reactors or something equally absurd and off-topic.

On a slight tangent, the kitten line did make me chuckle.

Originally Posted by Xujhan

Without wishing to be rude; if you want to debate the particulars of the Higgs Boson, find a physicist. I don't pretend to be anywhere near informed enough to have a meaningful opinion one way or the other on the subject. As a general response though: science isn't omniscient. Often you need a hypothesis to test for, and sometimes those hypotheses are wrong. Pholgiston comes to mind as an example. This doesn't detract from the value of science, it simply means that sometimes patience is requied to find an explanation that will stand the test of time.

The Higgs boson reference was more aimed at the "demand evidence first" approach you described as opposed to trying to demonstrate the limitations of science. There are a multitude of theories and a large body of research which inherently relies upon the existence of the Higgs boson (the Large Hadron Collider being a good example), yet as such the evidence for it is scant and there are some unresolved difficulties on the mathematical side. All I was saying is that "demand evidence first", while sounding good and logically consistent, does not always reflect the reality of scientific enquiry.

Originally Posted by Xujhan

If you call yourself Christian, I think it's fair to say that you're more than just "open to the possibility" of it being correct. Heck, I'm open to that possibility, I just view it as a vanishingly small probability. It occurs to me that for all the time you spend on this forum, I know very few of the particulars of what you actually do believe. I'd be interested to see you lay them out for similar scrutiny sometime.

I am more than happy to lay out my beliefs for scrutiny in future, if such scrutiny is desired. I have refrained from doing so up to this point as I was of the opinion it would come across as shameless self-promotion or soapboxing. If it is something which may form the basis of a constructive debate, however, I will happily do so. On the first point, I believe you may be quite surprised by the answer - it is a mistake to assume that Christianity requires anything approaching proof beyond reasonable doubt or even significantly over the balance of probabilities.

Originally Posted by Xujhan

I think I'm going to go and let my blood pressure settle down. ;>> I hope I haven't too gravely hurt anyone's feelings; I recognize that this was more strongly worded than most of my posts. I tend to get worked up very easily about this topic in particular; see my signature to understand why.

No hard feelings and apologies for any part played by myself in pushing up said blood pressure. Hopefully the above hasn't had the same effect!