... on Religion and Science

My initial comments on a video I am not linking to (by TheThinkingAtheist).

• Claim 1: science previous to Aristotle and Eratosthenes thought the earth was flat.
  
  Well, maybe there was not so much scientific theory about either flatness or roundness before them:
  
  
  • like there was some tradition of flatness, simply as extension of flat (not really but kind of) countries known
    
    
  • there was also some hunch this was wrong due to Phenicians observing sailing ships out of harbour.
  
  
  
• Claim 2: medical discoveries.
  
  
• Claim 3: science harnessed electricity.
  
  Well, science was not having alternative and less accurate theories about electrons or bacteria before the discoveries.
  
  
• Claim 4 and 5: human genome and space exploration.
  
  Now, here we are dealing with things partly not quite true.
  
  Human chromosome 2 is not simply two chimp chromosomes glued together in previous telomeres now serving as centromere. There are thirteen major scale and 100,000 smaller scale "mutations" involved between them.
  
  Meaning identity is less than clear. And so also for Heliocentrism.
  
  
• Claims 6, 7, 8: relativity, nature of light, laws of motion.
  
  The last of these do not tell us how motion originates, but leave lots of people (not even all of the atheist) convinced that the laws of physics act like a spring in a clockwork. They rather act like the configuration of cogwheels in it - motion still has to be provided.
  
  Relativity is probably a Heliocentric mistake.
  
  Nature of light is speculative and theories change.
  
  
• Claim 9: science is responsible for the invention of X.
  
  Sure. But are the scientific principles involved in X exactly those and as little understood or testable as those involved in:
  
  
  • large scale evolution (microbe to man)
    
    
  • modern cosmology
    
    
  • modern theories of mind plus modern psychiatric diagnoses?
  
  
  If so, they would not have resulted in pretty reliable inventions.
  
  
• Claim 9 item z: birth control.
  
  Now, that is an evil. Even barrier methods are against the natural finality of sexuality. But pills also kill. If a pill is taken just after conception, it functions as a very early abortion.
  
  
• Claim 10: compare with religion.
  
  Well, first picture from "religion" was stained glass. Arguably better than TV.
  
  Then when you started about religion, you took a non-religious tune.
  
  You used the religious one to gild what you said about space exploration.

Answers by one Alarios711 and my responses

On my comments on claims as enumerated. (As you may notice, I am linkingto him).

Alarios711 (claim 9 item z)

Oh ... please.

OH MY GOD I KILLED A SMALL AGGREGATE CONSTITUED OF APPROXIMATLY 4-24 cells. Don't masturbate you are killing billions .... :-/.

And yes it's pretty much the same potentiality for life at this stage. Nothing. Birth control liberates women sexualy so they, too, can enjoy sex with their partner (without condom). And they regulates their period and make them bearable for some.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No.

4 - 24 cells of an embryo (or even just the first of them) has the complete genome of a new human person. We believe that when that has happened, God also has created its soul.

Masturbation is certainly wrong, but the cells that are killed therein have half the genome of the man. Exactly as those killed in nocturnal pollution.

In the case of ovula killed by ovulations without fertilization (leading to menstruation) it is half the genome of a woman.

Getting pregnant regulates periods and make them bearable.

It also involves getting children which will make old age bearable (usually). For both the mother and the father (usually).

Sexual liberation has led to the penury of old age pension funds over more than one European country. Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, and I think Greece too. Last two countries treated as m o l [=more or less] bankrupt. Sw, Ge, Fr take measures that will aggravate the problem as well as being hateful in the immediate.

Alarios711

Your analysis is 200 miles off.

The problem with pensions now is the direct result of the post WWII baby boom. Cause people just didn't care and made tons of children (yay).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The problem with baby boomers getting old is not that their is too little land in the Western World to feed them.

The problem is they did not themselves make sufficient children.

Alarios711

Yeah great idea.

Let's do 4-5 (average from the babyboom) children per household and flood the earth in less than a century. It's the solution, and what's amazing is that the planet has unlimited ressources.

No, sadly we will suffer the consequence of the massive birthrate from 1950 and we gotta hold on until the ratio old/young is stabilised again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"we gotta hold on until the ratio old/young is stabilised again."

Sorry, but the "holding on" is precisely what upsets the balance between young and old.

No human society has ever reproduced itself to above the food resources previously available. Sometimes food had become unforeseeable less available (like potato famine), but no human society has ever reproduced itself past feeding possibilities.

Alarios711 (claim 9)

You are comparing applicable technology to very large scale and way more complicated theories. How does that even compare ? And based of what we already found, we can safely assumes we will find these answers if we keep refuting, criticising, reworking these calculations and hypothesis.

But yeah, simpler to let all that to big man in the sky.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"How does that even compare ?"

Well, the video wanted us to trust very large scale and way more complicated theories because of applicable technology, didn't it?

Alarios711 (claims 2 and 3)

What ?

That doesn't mean anything. And for the reminder, the early scientists that worked on modern medicine and electricity were branded as heretics and hunted by the clerge.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Read up on Medieval History in real books about Medieval History.

Not in outdated or Communist books on "History of Science."

Real heretics could say things like "Satan created the world"* or "marriage is wrong"* or "Jesus wanted noone to have a sword or political power"**, which statements hardly bring any medical or electrical discoveries to mankind.

* Albigensians.

**Albigensians AND Valdensians.

Alarios711

Communist books ? What ?

Dude you are out of reality. I'll stop the argument here you are crazy.

(I m a history major BTW)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

History major?

At what University?

You were just saying that heretics included research into medicine (like that done by Paracelsus, a Catholic in good standing) or into electricity (like that done by Volta, also a Catholic in good standing), and you claim to be a history major?

What university?

You deserve any PhD no better than Kent Hovind did his (and yes, he was off on historical matters).

OK, you tell me what books, I will look into if they are Communist or outdated.

Alarios711 (claim 1)

Well that's the very begining of the scientific method, observing and deducting hypothesis.

"wait that ship is sinking into the horizon, maybe we are on a huge ball".

That is already the opposite of religion faith. Your arguments in these comments are pretty much all very dumb. The one about killing babies made me cringe.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

That is already the opposite of thoughtless assumption.

I do not categorise religious faith as such.

As you said it was "the beginning" of the scientific method, you admitted that what was before that was not "science" but rather "not paying attention."

Which makes my point that where science has been reshuffling theories it is maybe not on as firm a ground as here.