Author Topic: Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down  (Read 2445 times)

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Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down
« on: May 14, 2012, 11:32:56 AM »
One of the favorite apochryphal jibes against creationists/intelligent design advocates is the story of the old woman who, refusing to accept the latest scientific theory chastises her scientific theory lecturer that the world actually sits atop the back of a giant turtle. When the lecturer wants to know what the turtle sits upon the old lady announces that it is turtles all the way down. In other words, she is so sold on her pre-inquiry idea that even reason must give way long before observation can make itself known.

Much of this stems from the "God of the gaps" fallacies sometimes offered by theists and sometimes unfairly assigned to them. Sometimes a theist will say, "We find dinosaurs bones because God created them to test faith in His creation" and thus make God a liar Who is deliberately tempting His creatures. However, sometimes the God of the gaps is slapped at those who reject evolution because the evolutionists know they are in no better position to explain why dense-boned, low-hemoglobin reptiles would become thin-boned, high-flying birds. Apparently, it's too unscientific to say, "I dunno" so science is improved by, "Because you're stupid, that's why!"

Recently, there were several articles published that the laws of the universe seem to be shaped in such a way as to allow the universe to spontaneously burst into being.

What the article neglected to mention is where those laws come from.

I suspect some time in the future that question will be answered but then we'll be asked about where that particular turtle arose...and so on. Chemistry gave way has revealed particle physics which gave way to quantum physics which gave way to the postulations within the most recent articles. We're only 4 turtles down in the stack and science seems content to call it good enough.

In fact, I expect it to be phenomenological turtles of science all the way down.

And it's religion makes me think this.

If religion be true then we know 2 things: first, God intended His highest physical creatures to be free in every sense of the word and; second, He intended them to live for eternity.

If there were a God who filled in gaps humanity would never be free. At some ultimate point all reality would be contingent the will of the Creator. Thus, nothing would be free of His ultimate influence. Those dinosaur bones really would be the product of His ideas imposed upon His subsequent creations. If man is to be free then God must have created such a world that it is, for all intents and purposes, it's own self-sustaining system. That an observer would decide that self-sustaining is evidence of self-creating and godless speaks more of the presuppositions and desires observer than his observation.

But is a God could be found who set in motion a creation that could wholly separate itself from His own being you would find a magnificent spectacle. Imagine a Life that would continue on even if the Life-Giver removed Himself completely...or died, nailed to a tree.

Moreover, man was meant to be free enough to explore the world in which he found himself. He was not meant to die ergo he was meant to have for Eternity; not in idleness but of the business of taking dominion. He was meant to tend and to properly tend he must survey. Nothing was hidden from him; even the Forbidden Fruit could be handled because it was meant to be watered. Could anything be beyond the inspection of an unfallen and equally unrestrained Adam? If Adam could peer beyond galaxies and deeper than quanta would he find walls with signs tacked-on claiming, "Here is God, you can go no further" or would one dazzling phenomenon after another open themselves to his senses? They only difference between the Psalmist and meteorologists, geologists, biologists, psychologists and astronomers is the latter group suffers from a self-imposed poverty of language.

There is no sin in ignorance, especially scientific ignorance. On the contrary, it is the humble admission of ignorance that should serve as the impetus of scientific inquiry. Pride, self-deifying pride, is the only real sin; it is The Orginal Sin. The refusal to admit ignorance is a symptom of just this sort of pride; damning another man's ignorance is another. The sin that blasphemes God as some sort of arbitrary gap-filler is exactly this sort of sin but a scientist that denies the reality of the endless stack of turtles is surely no better.
According to the Bible, "know" means "yes."

Offline vesta111

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Re: Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2012, 04:27:44 PM »
One of the favorite apochryphal jibes against creationists/intelligent design advocates is the story of the old woman who, refusing to accept the latest scientific theory chastises her scientific theory lecturer that the world actually sits atop the back of a giant turtle. When the lecturer wants to know what the turtle sits upon the old lady announces that it is turtles all the way down. In other words, she is so sold on her pre-inquiry idea that even reason must give way long before observation can make itself known.

Much of this stems from the "God of the gaps" fallacies sometimes offered by theists and sometimes unfairly assigned to them. Sometimes a theist will say, "We find dinosaurs bones because God created them to test faith in His creation" and thus make God a liar Who is deliberately tempting His creatures. However, sometimes the God of the gaps is slapped at those who reject evolution because the evolutionists know they are in no better position to explain why dense-boned, low-hemoglobin reptiles would become thin-boned, high-flying birds. Apparently, it's too unscientific to say, "I dunno" so science is improved by, "Because you're stupid, that's why!"

Recently, there were several articles published that the laws of the universe seem to be shaped in such a way as to allow the universe to spontaneously burst into being.

What the article neglected to mention is where those laws come from.

I suspect some time in the future that question will be answered but then we'll be asked about where that particular turtle arose...and so on. Chemistry gave way has revealed particle physics which gave way to quantum physics which gave way to the postulations within the most recent articles. We're only 4 turtles down in the stack and science seems content to call it good enough.

In fact, I expect it to be phenomenological turtles of science all the way down.

And it's religion makes me think this.

If religion be true then we know 2 things: first, God intended His highest physical creatures to be free in every sense of the word and; second, He intended them to live for eternity.

If there were a God who filled in gaps humanity would never be free. At some ultimate point all reality would be contingent the will of the Creator. Thus, nothing would be free of His ultimate influence. Those dinosaur bones really would be the product of His ideas imposed upon His subsequent creations. If man is to be free then God must have created such a world that it is, for all intents and purposes, it's own self-sustaining system. That an observer would decide that self-sustaining is evidence of self-creating and godless speaks more of the presuppositions and desires observer than his observation.

But is a God could be found who set in motion a creation that could wholly separate itself from His own being you would find a magnificent spectacle. Imagine a Life that would continue on even if the Life-Giver removed Himself completely...or died, nailed to a tree.

Moreover, man was meant to be free enough to explore the world in which he found himself. He was not meant to die ergo he was meant to have for Eternity; not in idleness but of the business of taking dominion. He was meant to tend and to properly tend he must survey. Nothing was hidden from him; even the Forbidden Fruit could be handled because it was meant to be watered. Could anything be beyond the inspection of an unfallen and equally unrestrained Adam? If Adam could peer beyond galaxies and deeper than quanta would he find walls with signs tacked-on claiming, "Here is God, you can go no further" or would one dazzling phenomenon after another open themselves to his senses? They only difference between the Psalmist and meteorologists, geologists, biologists, psychologists and astronomers is the latter group suffers from a self-imposed poverty of language.

There is no sin in ignorance, especially scientific ignorance. On the contrary, it is the humble admission of ignorance that should serve as the impetus of scientific inquiry. Pride, self-deifying pride, is the only real sin; it is The Orginal Sin. The refusal to admit ignorance is a symptom of just this sort of pride; damning another man's ignorance is another. The sin that blasphemes God as some sort of arbitrary gap-filler is exactly this sort of sin but a scientist that denies the reality of the endless stack of turtles is surely no better.

My faith teaches that the Dove is the the way to go.  The dove has two wings, one is science the other is religion.    The Dove cannot fly on one wing, needs both wings to fly.------

So the dove to fly needs both wings to fly, to get a balance of both wings to get up in the air. a balance of both science and faith to become air born.   

Offline DumbAss Tanker

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Re: Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2012, 08:59:58 PM »
Quote
Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down

Damn', I knew it!!!
Go and tell the Spartans, O traveler passing by
That here, obedient to their law, we lie.

Anything worth shooting once is worth shooting at least twice.

Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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Re: Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2012, 08:43:56 PM »
The procession of turtles continues apace:

Quote
The Higgs, which until now had been purely theoretical, is regarded as key to understanding why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give all objects weight. The particle's existence is considered fundamental to the creation of the universe.

"One question is that now that we know there is this all-permeating Higgs field ... where did it come from?" asked Solomey, the director of physics at Wichita State University since 2007. "How does it act? Maybe once we know that we can start to use it."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/04/155044/higgs-boson-discovery-opens-new.html#storylink=cpy
According to the Bible, "know" means "yes."

Offline vesta111

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Re: Science Discovers It Really Is Turtles All the Way Down
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2012, 07:05:08 AM »
The procession of turtles continues apace:


Poor Higgs, all these years waiting to  :tongue: those who believed no way and made no move to find out if he was correct or not in his theory's.

It is said the Scientist went bonkers when some of his Peers renamed his theory as the God Particle. I am so glad Higgs has lived long enough to say ---Told you so.

Far as the Dinosaur bones, try to explain a shark to those that live in the desert,    drag them out to the Ocean and show them a shark they can see with their own eyes.   They will head home and no one will believe them.

We have to be careful that the dark ages of Europe in science and religion do not reoccur, all ways been a fight between science and religion, nothing new  until some smug creeps pull a Pilthdown Man in either way of life.