Can I just ask:

[jeremyp]

Well, I wouldn't start with science, for a start.

That isn't what was asked. What would you start with?

As we all know science is consistent and reliable at discovering things and showing that what was previously believed to be deemed knowledge to be incorrect.

Science is effective because it doesn't regard making mistakes and then finding them out as a weakness.

I'm not sure that one can associate the term 'accurate' with science, as a result.

But you don't understand what science is, so why would your word carry any weight?

[Hope]

Did you pass any science subject?

At both 'O'-level and 'A'-level - before deciding to become an English teacher.

[Hope]

That isn't what was asked. What would you start with?

I agree that that isn't what was asked, but I thught I'd explain why I wouldn't start where many seem to feel they have to.  I'd probably start with experience of life. 

Science is effective because it doesn't regard making mistakes and then finding them out as a weakness.

So, in may ways, its very much like Christianity, where doubt and questioning is an important aspect of the faith.

But you don't understand what science is, so why would your word carry any weight?

Well, at its simplest, science is 'knowledge'.  At its most complex, it's 'knowledge'.

[jeremyp]

I agree that that isn't what was asked, but I thught I'd explain why I wouldn't start where many seem to feel they have to.  I'd probably start with experience of life. 

It looks very much like displacement activity to me. If you start off by explaining everything you wouldn't do, it'll take so long to get to the nub of what you would do, that we'll all have died of old age.

In reality, nobody believes you have an answer to the question because we have seen you avoid it so many times.

So, in may ways, its very much like Christianity, where doubt and questioning is an important aspect of the faith.

That's bullshit. Even Jesus looked down on doubt and questioning.

Well, at its simplest, science is 'knowledge'.  At its most complex, it's 'knowledge'.

Ah, as I thought, you do not know what science is. Thanks for the confirmation.

[Hope]

That's bullshit. Even Jesus looked down on doubt and questioning.

Citation required

Ah, as I thought, you do not know what science is. Thanks for the confirmation.

No, I'd suggest that you don't know what it is.  I was simply using a definition several scientists I know use whenever they are asked the same question.

[Rhiannon]

You know an incredible range of people, Hope. Atheists who go to church, scientists who disagree with all the other ones as to what science is, atheists who are against gay marriage for scienc-y reasons ...

[Hope]

You know an incredible range of people, Hope. Atheists who go to church, scientists who disagree with all the other ones as to what science is, atheists who are against gay marriage for scienc-y reasons ...

Well, I am X years old and have had dealings with a large variety of people as a result of the various jobs I've done, as well as the peple I have met through these folk.

[Shaker]

Well, I wouldn't start with science, for a start.

Great - that's what you wouldn't start with.

Now are you finally going to tell us what you would start with? "Experience of life" is too vague and wavy-handy - experience of what in life specifically?

As we all know science is consistent and reliable at discovering things and showing that what was previously believed to be deemed knowledge to be incorrect.

That's right. Where's the equivalent with religious beliefs? You claim that doubt and questioning are important elements of Christianity - how do you know if/when your doubts are resolved one way or the other and how do you know if/when your questions are answered? Remember that over in ScienceWorld these questions are easy to answer because there's a definitive methodology - where's yours?

We're not going to find out, of course, because although he seems to make a habit of often being in the right, JeremyP has scarcely written a truer sentence than the following:

In reality, nobody believes you have an answer to the question because we have seen you avoid it so many times.

*

I'm not sure that one can associate the term 'accurate' with science, as a result.

Good science makes testable predictions - if the hypothesis is put to the test and found wanting with regard to the data, it's not accurate. If it passes the test, it is.

[Hope]

"Experience of life" is too vague and wavy-handy - experience of what in life specifically?

Well, experience is something we all have, and in that sense, experience across a whole range of topics is very important as it provides us with a balanced outlook on life.  As such, I wouldn't rule out any experience, because that is simply limiting the scope of reality.  Sometimes those experiences will be positive, sometimes negative, sometimes neutral. 

That's right. Where's the equivalent with religious beliefs? You claim that doubt and questioning are important elements of Christianity - how do you know if/when your doubts are resolved one way or the other and how do you know if/when your questions are answered? Remember that over in ScienceWorld these questions are easy to answer because there's a definitive methodology - where's yours?

Well, there is comparison - so we are told to test a teaching or claim against what Jesus taught - meaning that when, for instance, the BNP effectively claims to be speaking on behalf of Jesus and Christians as far as their xenophobic doctrine is concerned (or that of the KKK, or that of generations of Imperial staff and so-called entrepeneurs who looked down their noses at their Indian/N.American/African/etc counterparts) people can/could compare their attitudes with those of Jesus.

The same goes for groups who claim Christian support for sexual behaviour that does not fit the teaching that sex should only occur within the context of a one man/one woman marriage.

Good science makes testable predictions - if the hypothesis is put to the test and found wanting with regard to the data, it's not accurate. If it passes the test, it is.

Until, of course, the test is seen to have been faulty, or the person/people concerned have fixed the results.  Or, new data is available that shows that what has been understood as accurate, isn't.

Interestingly, this is very similar to much of what has happened within Christianity over the years.  Certain influences have imposed attitudes on the Church, even though those attitudes run counter to the teaching of Jesus.  As people have begun to feel confident and therefore able to challenge these assumptions so those attitudes have either been seen to be erroneous or open to debate. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Science is not atheism.

[jeremyp]

Citation required

It seems I'll have to quote your own holy book to you. I'm surprised at how little you know of it.

Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

No, I'd suggest that you don't know what it is.  I was simply using a definition several scientists I know use whenever they are asked the same question.

Yes you claim to know a lot of experts in pretty much every field we debate in and yet you are still wrong so often.

Science is not knowledge, science is a method used to try to find knowledge. Science is having an idea and then (and this is the important part) testing your idea against the real World to make sure it is not false.

 

[Shaker]

Well, experience is something we all have, and in that sense, experience across a whole range of topics is very important as it provides us with a balanced outlook on life.  As such, I wouldn't rule out any experience, because that is simply limiting the scope of reality.  Sometimes those experiences will be positive, sometimes negative, sometimes neutral.

This stacks up as a lot of words that say nothing. You're dodging the point (unsurprisingly). Remember that the notion of experience came into this discussion at all because you claimed that it's an alternative to the scientific method in evaluating claims. Here's the nub of the conversation again, with the extraneous bits excised, so that you can see where this came from:

By all means furnish us with some other method of consistently, accurately and reliably knowing stuff.

Well, I wouldn't start with science, for a start.

That isn't what was asked. What would you start with?

I'd probably start with experience of life.

This makes it plain that you're stating something as bland and airy-fairy as "experience of life" (you) as "some other method of consistently, accurately and reliably knowing stuff" (me). But you haven't explained how.

Until, of course, the test is seen to have been faulty, or the person/people concerned have fixed the results. Or, new data is available that shows that what has been understood as accurate, isn't.

That's right, and in both cases there's a clear means of sorting the true from the false because there's a methodology at work - you know, that thing you claim to have with regard to your beliefs, claim to have posted elsewhere but here run a mile from.

[Sassy]

"God and immortality ... find no support in science ... No doubt people will continue to entertain these beliefs, because they are pleasant, just as it is pleasant to think ourselves virtuous and our enemies wicked. But for my part I cannot see any ground for either ... Persons are part of the everyday world with which science is concerned, and the conditions which determine their existence are discoverable. A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal, and that the organized energy of a living body becomes, as it were, demobilized at death, and therefore not available for collective action. All the evidence goes to show that what we regard as our mental life is bound up with brain structure and organized bodily energy. Therefore it is rational to suppose that mental life ceases when bodily life ceases. The argument is only one of probability, but it is as strong as those upon which most scientific conclusions are based." - Bertrand Russell

A load  of twaddle and means absolutely NOTHING in the great scheme of things.
I honestly cannot believe you reiterated something said by someone else, another human being and thought it carried weight.
You have your own views but to think that actually meant anything in the great scheme of things concerning an afterlife is simply rubbish.

[Sassy]

By all means furnish us with some other method of consistently, accurately and reliably knowing stuff.

Not that you will, obviously ...

Well I would say to science as far as the 'Afterlife' is concerned:-  "You first".

[Shaker]

Well I would say to science as far as the 'Afterlife' is concerned:-  "You first".

... in which case you, along with Hope, would be committing the negative proof fallacy (also known, much more appositely, as the Argument from Ignorance).

[Sassy]

That isn't what was asked. What would you start with?

Science is effective because it doesn't regard making mistakes and then finding them out as a weakness.

But you don't understand what science is, so why would your word carry any weight?

Hope. and his words would carry a great deal of weight. Because the answer to the 'Afterlife' from a faith prospective and the questions do not relate to any science.
So why do you think Science carries any weight concerning the Afterlife which Thrud asked about?

[savillerow]

Msg 62 " I honestly cannot believe you reiterated something said by someone else" Thats you, that is. I honestly cannot believe that after all the very fine points put to you over the months with science, logic, reason and just plain common sense you still waffle on with nothing in the kitty.

[floo]

Hope. and his words would carry a great deal of weight. Because the answer to the 'Afterlife' from a faith prospective and the questions do not relate to any science.
So why do you think Science carries any weight concerning the Afterlife which Thrud asked about?

The afterlife is only a faith scenario without any evidence to support it, whereas science can often prove its discoveries to be factual. Faith is stuck in a rut and doesn't alter its stance even when the odds on it being true, in the real sense of that word, are infinitesimal. Science isn't stuck in a rut, it is ever searching to improve our knowledge.

[Dicky Underpants]

Well, at its simplest, science is 'knowledge'.  At its most complex, it's 'knowledge'.

Well, that's the meaning of the Latin word scientia, from which the word 'science' derives. Just because words share a common etymology, does not mean that the modern meaning of a word is the same as the word from which it derives. The English 'embarrass' and the Spanish 'embarazar' share a common origin, but since the Spanish word means 'to make pregnant', you are advised not to think that their common etymology counts for much.

As has been pointed out, the modern meaning of the word 'science' is quite specific, and you do not appear to have grasped what that meaning is.

[Dicky Underpants]

I was simply using a definition several scientists I know use whenever they are asked the same question.

No, you do not know what the modern meaning of the word science is. As for the scientists using the vague definition you have given, (if indeed you have met any such), I doubt whether their opinions count for very much in the scientific world - or in the world of any informed intellectual exchange.

[Dicky Underpants]

Science is not knowledge, science is a method used to try to find knowledge. Science is having an idea and then (and this is the important part) testing your idea against the real World to make sure it is not false.

Can we just have a few people confirm that Jeremy is absolutely correct in his definition of science (and Hope hopelessly woolly) - even if it would be an argumentum ad populum?

[Dicky Underpants]

Science is not atheism.

Well I never!

[Hope]

Can we just have a few people confirm that Jeremy is absolutely correct in his definition of science (and Hope hopelessly woolly) - even if it would be an argumentum ad populum?

If I'm hopelessly woolly, perhaps the Oxford Dictionary is also hopelessly woolly:

1The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment:
the world of science and technology

1.1A particular area of science:
veterinary science
[COUNT NOUN]: the agricultural sciences

1.2A systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject:
the science of criminology

1.3 archaic Knowledge of any kind:
his rare science and his practical skill

[jeremyp]

If I'm hopelessly woolly, perhaps the Oxford Dictionary is also hopelessly woolly:

It should be clear to you that the first definition is the apposite one. Nobody uses 1.3 anymore.

[Brownie]

Science is not atheism.

No it isn't.  I was looking at the list of types of people that Hope has known and I too have known similar.  I'll add to that, scientists who are Christian.   A couple of scientists who were Christian and creationists!  I couldn't quite get my head around that one but they were, I knew them quite well and they were lovely but this particular issue was a blind spot.  They had friends, one or two of whom I met, who were also scientists and creationists and one who had taught biology but gave it up because the curriculum required him to teach evolution.  I must admit I couldn't understand it but there we are.  As we go through life we meet all sorts.  Part of life's rich tapestry.