What is the purpose of science? Why do many people outside of religion believe in the scientific process?
It all comes down to this: evidence.
Most religion can be given to us through anecdotal evidence. Someone has an 'experience' a story they share. This story attempts to explain something. We believe that something usually on the basis of the person's character telling the story.
But really, that story, or anecdotal evidence, is a very small amount of evidence. That's why most reasonable people do not believe in stories. It's not that they are inherently false, it's just that the amount of evidence is not very large. Without a lot of evidence, reasonable people do not believe it.
That's where the scientific method comes in. This method is more believable because it creates massive amounts of evidence, which is more believable to reasonable people than a story. Not only that, but anyone can preform the same test to see if they get the same evidence. If many people across many different spectrums receive the same evidence, then that is something one can reasonably believe in.
Science can be wrong. Science is simply the means of gathering evidence in an attempt to explain something that happens in life. They believe there to be a cause, they test this belief multiple times, and that evidence results in a conclusion about how that thing happened.
Things change, more evidence arises, sometimes in contrast to the previous evidence, and so people will alter their belief based on the evidence.
This is reasonable.
What is not reasonable is a belief in a story with no evidence whatsoever. It is not reasonable to believe in something without any evidence for that thing's existence. If you claim something, but you have no evidence to support your claim, it would be unreasonable to believe in your claim.
People that believe in religion make many interesting claims. However, they only support their claims with stories. This is why reasonable people will not believe your claims, because there is no evidence to support them. And reasonable people only believe something if there is evidence for its existence.
Science is just a better way at getting more evidence to support claims.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Thoughts on Prayer
When you pray, it's usually because you have a belief that when you speak words out of your mouth, this will alter the physical world to your advantage. My question to you is this: how do your prayers change physical properties. What is the exact process of change?
When you pray, you believe that this 'prayer' will change the world we live in. And by many accounts of peoples' belief in this magical process, this speaking of breath somehow alters the physical world.
So let's test this process. Let's see if it really is what you think it is.
1. Get a glass of water. Pour water into the glass until it is half full. Now get a magic marker, and write a letter P on the glass. Now for 1 week, pray for that glass of water to go to a third world country where they do not have enough clean water to drink. What happens to the glass of water?
2. For the next experiment, buy a steak from a grocery store, sams has some decent meat. Take that meat home and let it sit out for 1 month in a garbage bin (this is to avoid the smell). Now, with you sitting on your knees over the meat, pray to your god that the meat will become edible. Now eat the meat. What happens?
Make sure to carefully record the words that you breathed from your lungs and the corresponding physical alterations to the glass of water and the rotten meat. What changed? Did anything change at all?
If prayer is not used for this type of thing, why not? Why is prayer limited to things that cannot be measured? If someone tells you to do something, and then says the the something you do is good, but cannot be measured in any physical way, does that raise some alarms in your head as to the veracity of this process?
Here is a thought experiment:
1. Imagine a town of 1000 people. In that town, there is 1 homeless person that is starving. The 1000 people in the town decide to do something. They decide to pray that the man be full and have nourishment. There are no other people in this town but the 1001. No one else is there. If those 1000 people continue to pray for 30 days, but take no action whatsoever (because this is the point of prayer, to get one's god to act on their behalf). What will happen to that 1 homeless man?
When you pray, you believe that this 'prayer' will change the world we live in. And by many accounts of peoples' belief in this magical process, this speaking of breath somehow alters the physical world.
So let's test this process. Let's see if it really is what you think it is.
1. Get a glass of water. Pour water into the glass until it is half full. Now get a magic marker, and write a letter P on the glass. Now for 1 week, pray for that glass of water to go to a third world country where they do not have enough clean water to drink. What happens to the glass of water?
2. For the next experiment, buy a steak from a grocery store, sams has some decent meat. Take that meat home and let it sit out for 1 month in a garbage bin (this is to avoid the smell). Now, with you sitting on your knees over the meat, pray to your god that the meat will become edible. Now eat the meat. What happens?
Make sure to carefully record the words that you breathed from your lungs and the corresponding physical alterations to the glass of water and the rotten meat. What changed? Did anything change at all?
If prayer is not used for this type of thing, why not? Why is prayer limited to things that cannot be measured? If someone tells you to do something, and then says the the something you do is good, but cannot be measured in any physical way, does that raise some alarms in your head as to the veracity of this process?
Here is a thought experiment:
1. Imagine a town of 1000 people. In that town, there is 1 homeless person that is starving. The 1000 people in the town decide to do something. They decide to pray that the man be full and have nourishment. There are no other people in this town but the 1001. No one else is there. If those 1000 people continue to pray for 30 days, but take no action whatsoever (because this is the point of prayer, to get one's god to act on their behalf). What will happen to that 1 homeless man?
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