Faith in Science as Ridiculous as Faith in God.

I don't understand where you are coming from DeBunny. Science at it's core is scepticism, faith is the complete opposite. How can one have faith in scepticism? It's a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron if you will.

DeBunny wrote: »

Fair enough, but, we know that chromosomes form into shapes, it is still not known how this happens

Yes it is. We know exactly how DNA is packaged (in the sense that science can know anything "exactly").

Whoah boy this could be interesting.

First of all DeBunny, it's important to note that there is no connection between any atheists. We don't have a Bible or a Pope or any ties at all really. If one atheist says something stupid then the only person you can hold that against is that atheist (as opposed to if the Pope says something you can hold his Bishops responsible if they continue to support him).

Most of what you've said seems to stem from confusion. Let's see if we can clear some of it up:

Faith: Believing something in the absence of, or contrary to, evidence ("There is a magic fairy in my hat!").

Confidence in something: Believing something is likely to be correct based on a previous track record and the sound principles it follows ("The sun will rise tomorrow!" or "My wife won't stab me while I'm making breakfast.")

I, and the majority of atheists and reasonable people, have confidence in the scientific method. Bear in mind that science is not a body of knowledge, it is a tool by which we update and correct that body of knowledge. We don't claim science knows everything, or that it will ever know everything. However, if we encounter a question like "Why does this thing go like this?" or "How did that get there?" we have confidence that if that question is ever to be answered it is likely to be science that will explain it. Time and time and time again we have seen throughout history that religious thinking leads to answers that are false (but often comforting), and that it takes a good dose of diligent science to prove them wrong. But of course, scientists have made mistakes. But what we see time and again is that whenever a scientist has been proven wrong, it was another even harder working scientist who got the right answer.

When it comes to the really difficult questions such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" or "What is subjective consciousness?" we might never have an answer, and I'm happy to admit that. I'm certainly not going to do what a religious person does and give an answer that amounts to "It's magic!"

We don't have faith in science. But in a world where most questions have one correct answer and an infinite number of incorrect answers, I think it is reasonable to trust the system that is most cautious. That's science.


Next time you run into an atheist claiming that science either knows everything or will definitely some day know everything (I suspect it would be the first time, but I digress) you feel free to tell them they're an idiot, because the first is false and the second is unlikely.