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Forums - General Discussion - Which Is A Bigger Threat To Humanity? Science Or Religion?

palou said:
In the modern day, neither is a major threat.


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bdbdbd said:
o_O.Q said:

many people believe the same argument could be leveled at humans with regards to technology

its not that technology itself manifests the driving force that causes harm but they'd argue that we haven't been responsible enough to use it properly without significant adverse effects

just like a gun by itself doesn't pick itself up and shoot people

You're right. It is religion that makes people to do that.

"You're right. It is religion that makes people to do that."

but atheists kill people too right?



o_O.Q said:
bdbdbd said:

You're right. It is religion that makes people to do that.

"You're right. It is religion that makes people to do that."

but atheists kill people too right?

Sure, but atheism doesn't tell anyone to do anything, arf. Their motivation comes from different sources, arf.



Intel Core i7 8700K | 32 GB DDR 4 PC 3200 | ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming | RTX 3090 FE| Crappy Monitor| HTC Vive Pro :3

SpokenTruth said:
o_O.Q said:

i'm not saying that's the case all the time but clearly when the (1) laws of physics are broken and need to be (2) rewritten for something to be verified ( as is the case with singularities ) then there is (3) some degree of faith involved

the hypothesis i believe is that singularities are points in space where gravity/mass become infinite

There is so much wrong with this one comment.

1. It doesn't break the laws of physics. We simply don't have a law written to correctly quantify them yet.  No different than needing to add onto Newtonian physics to correctly quantify quantum mechanics.
2. They won't be rewritten but added to.  Think of it like a new chapter rather than a whole new book.
3. That doesn't require faith.  That requires more study.  To simply, we know 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + X = 20.  It doesn't take faith to know we must solve for X.

o_O.Q said:

"I think you'd be hard-pressed to defend the claim that technology is intrinsically harmful to the planet and people"

nuclear waste? oil spills? fertilisers? CO2 emissions? etc

Those are not intrinsic factors of technology in itself.  I get what you are trying to say but you worded it incorrectly.  A technologically developed product can result in nuclear waste but technology itself is not nuclear waste.  A technologically developed product can result in CO2 emissions but technology itself is not CO2 emissions.  Oil spills are neither a byproduct of a given technology nor is it a technology itself.  They are the result of human error.

 

"1. It doesn't break the laws of physics."

anything that is infinite does not fit into our current physics laws in a way that  can be applied to the real world

 

"They won't be rewritten but added to."

you can't know that for certain since they might have to rethink certain aspects as they move forwards, that's a possibility... or they may just realise that they don't exist...

 

"That doesn't require faith."

to me it does when you don't even have any evidence that they exist, which they don't

 

"Those are not intrinsic factors of technology in itself."

of course they are, they come directly from the technology we use

the technology we use takes raw materials and in order to produce certain products waste is always produced

 

"I get what you are trying to say but you worded it incorrectly.  A technologically developed product can result in nuclear waste but technology itself is not nuclear waste."

this is a strawman, i at no point said that nuclear waste all by itself is literally technology

 

"technology itself is not CO2 emissions"

again this is a strawman, i at no point said that CO2 all by itself is literally technology

 

"Oil spills are neither a byproduct of a given technology nor is it a technology itself.  They are the result of human error."

again this is a strawman, i at no point said that oil spills alone are literally technology

Last edited by o_O.Q - on 15 January 2018

OhNoYouDont said:
o_O.Q said:

"ANY consequence resulting from technology use is EXTRINSIC as it does not concern the nature of what the thing is"

the definition of extrinsic is as follows

"not part of the essential nature of someone or something; coming or operating from outside"

" not forming part of or belonging to a thing"

 

if you can't see how hilariously stupid your argument was now... we might as well put a stop to it here

to put a finer point on it, pollution for example does not come from a source outside of technology, it is a derivation of technology

 

intrinsic : "Of or relating to the essential nature of a thing."

anyone who understand what technology is understands that an ever present part of technology is waste

that's where the concept of "efficiency" comes from and no machine is 100% efficient there is always some percentage of the input that comes out as waste and that waste almost always is harmful to people and the environment

 

"Stop embarrassing yourself."

lmao right back at you

Read those definitions again, slap yourself in the face for your intransigence and then get a clue. Is this guy seriously this incompetent? His own definitions establish his extra chromosome. FFS

 

"intrinsic : "Of or relating to the essential nature of a thing.""

waste is a part of the essential nature of technology... lol were you not aware of that?

dunning-kruger indeed lol



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Both maybe. In the distant future religion may be out of practice for the majority of people so it could be science.



pleaserecycle said:
o_O.Q said:

"The researchers themselves are not using faith or belief.  "

i'm not trying to make this a general thing i believe of researchers but i do think that in terms of topics like the supporting evidence for singularities there is some degree of faith involved

faith in the idea that they eventually will come up with evidence that does not exist yet

 

Faith, specifically in Christianity, is rooted in the understanding that God has a plan that absolutely defines the past, present, and future.  Fundamentally, science attempts to put the control in human hands.  Even negative results from a study can positively contribute to the progression of science because future researchers will have one less option to consider.  Faith need not apply when both negative and positive results are beneficial.  

o_O.Q said: 

"I'm sorry, but you're misinterpreting singularities.  They do not break physics; they just mean that we need to update that specific part of our model."

the evidence required to update the model doesn't exist yet though

furthermore from what i gather they don't even know if they will be able to manifest the evidence... maybe its possible that the model they have has problems they are unaware of? maybe it needs to be reworked in a way that excludes their current theory for singularities? that's possible also

 

No, the evidence already exists.  A mathematical or physical inconsistency, such as infinite density at some point in time, warrants the search for a better model.  Every model that we use across physics and other sciences can, at most, be considered the best model we currently have and not the final, complete solution.    

o_O.Q said: 

"in the case of the Big Bang singularity, we need to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics.  The model itself works well for what we can currently observe.  "

but aren't we only able to see 3% of the universe around us anyway? don't they just call the rest dark matter? doesn't that imply that there's still a lot of work to be done?... i might be out of my depth here, i'll concede that

 

Cosmology is still a relatively new field and there are so many advancements every year that textbooks quickly become insufficient.  It's crazy because so many other fields have been (essentially) untouched for hundred of years.  

o_O.Q said: 

"A model that violates the conservation of energy would most likely break physics if it accurately represented physical observations."

singularities represent areas with infinite energy don't they? since mass is infinite... does that not break the law of conservation of energy?

again i'm not an astrophysicist so i'm just pitching a question as a layman in this field

It's an infinite density.  In a nutshell, the density of an object is equal to the mass of the object divided by the volume of the object.  When the mass of an object or system is constant, we can see that the density will decrease as the volume increases.  The mass of the universe is constant and the volume is increasing (the expanding universe), therefore the density must be decreasing with time.  As you can imagine, if we go backward in time the density will increase indefinitely because the volume will keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.....

In the off chance that a model violating the conservation of energy passes peer review, it will swiftly be retracted in the next cycle.  Noether's theorem shows that the conservation of energy is not dependent on time or space; it will remain valid anytime anywhere.  If at some point we find an exception to the conservation of energy (which is possible, but not plausible) then we would need to entirely rewrite physics.  

And just to comment on one of your points with Pemalite:

o_O.Q said: 

"Prove it. Provide evidence. "

http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_blackholes_singularities.html

In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.


In a subsequent paragraph of the same link, it states:

"The existence of a singularity is often taken as proof that the theory of general relativity has broken down, which is perhaps not unexpected as it occurs in conditions where quantum effects should become important. It is conceivable that some future combined theory of quantum gravity (such as current research into superstrings) may be able to describe black holeswithout the need for singularities, but such a theory is still many years away."

The laws of physics are not broken.  We just do not have any physics that describes what's happening in that very small scale.  There's a big difference between being broken and not being the best tool.  I wouldn't call a phillips-head screwdriver broken just because it can't turn a slot screw drive.  We can either chisel away parts of the screwdriver to make it work or find another tool.  But the phillips-head screwdriver is not broken.  

 

"The laws of physics are not broken.  We just do not have any physics that describes what's happening in that very small scale."

broken in this sense means that we're going beyond the bonds of what we currently know and that singularities do not fit into what we know in a practical sense

 

" As you can imagine, if we go backward in time the density will increase indefinitely because the volume will keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller....."

i get that but its not something that can be practically dealt with currently, that's what i'm saying



Peh said:
o_O.Q said:

"You're right. It is religion that makes people to do that."

but atheists kill people too right?

Sure, but atheism doesn't tell anyone to do anything, arf. Their motivation comes from different sources, arf.

well i'm just making the point that atheists aren't bastions of moral virtue



o_O.Q said:
Peh said:

Sure, but atheism doesn't tell anyone to do anything, arf. Their motivation comes from different sources, arf.

well i'm just making the point that atheists aren't bastions of moral virtue

No one made the claim that they are, arf. You attacked your own strawman, arf. How about attacking what bdbdbd said, arf.



Intel Core i7 8700K | 32 GB DDR 4 PC 3200 | ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming | RTX 3090 FE| Crappy Monitor| HTC Vive Pro :3

Peh said:
o_O.Q said:

well i'm just making the point that atheists aren't bastions of moral virtue

No one made the claim that they are, arf. You attacked your own strawman, arf. How about attacking what bdbdbd said, arf.

i didn't say anyone said so... so i'm not attacking a strawman... i'm just saying that atheists aren't bastions of moral virtue in response to the point that was made about religions influencing people to cause harm

and some religious people would make the point that without the grace of god atheists fall into temptation from the devil

atheists can't disprove that claim