The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #100330   Message #2032106
Posted By: Mrrzy
21-Apr-07 - 02:51 PM
Thread Name: BS: New things about atheism
Subject: RE: BS: New things about atheism
There are fundemental errors in the above, Little Hawk, that surprise me in you, I wouldn't have thought you'd stoop to such silly semantic arguments, even should you run out of sensible ones.

The definition of theory is NOT something which isn't known for certain, for starters. It's the same thing as Model, or Framework, or "way of putting all existing data into a coherent sentence humans can understand." You see colors because of electromagnetic theory. Gravity (as in, the theory of gravity) is a fundemental fact, not something we aren't sure is happening. Plate tectonics is the theory which explains earthquakes and volcanoes. 2+2=4 is an element of mathematical theory. Again, all scientists are discussing is how the theories work, not whether they are true or not. All of these, including evolution, and well-established facts of nature. Using Theory with evolution but not with anything else that is physical fact, is a propagandic trick of the anti-reality part of the religious right and I am surprised by you using it.

"When all the data point in the same direction it isn't a suggestion any more."

When people are already inclined to only look in one direction, it's surprising how all the evidence seems to point that way. They find exactly what they go looking for. The same is true of people who think the Bible is the literal word of God. They think that all the evidence points in the same direction too...they direction THEY want it to. ;-) Again - this just as much misuse of the word Evidence as of the word Theory, above, and it is beneath you, I would have thought. You know perfectly well that there are no scientific data, actual physical evidence, empirical data, facts, that are better explained by invoking the supernanatural (whether the biblical explanation or other) rather than the natural<.b> laws explained by physics, chemistry, and psychology.

Fossils are not equally well explained by the Biblical account of the Flood than by the paleoscientists' theories.

Again, my conclusion that if there are supernatural forces they are not involved in nature is based on reason, and I am completely open to the idea that there may well BE supernatural forces/entities outside of nature, but I live in the natural world where there aren't any. I agree with you that it's a fun philosophical question, what is outside/beyond the time and space in which we do live, but there really is no need of that hypothesis within the natural world.
It may not be a Truth, but it's Reality, and I think it's time people learned to deal with it.