IIRC, "gnosis" in ancient Greek doesn't necessarily imply spiritual matters, but rather is an type of knowledge that is attained through experience or perhaps is inherent/instinctual. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it's the sort of knowledge that you have when you just know, and you get that know-y feeling you get when you know something. It's a type of knowledge that's less analytical and more intuitive.
So Im not an etymology expert, but I'd guess that at some point some philosopher talked about having an intuitive knowledge of God, and that got labelled "gnosis" and so those who claimed to lack such knowledge got labelled "agnostic". However, the attachment of gnosis to spiritual matters is already an alteration of meaning, so as someone who prefers that definition I'm not sure it makes sense to get snooty about someone else attaching a different meaning.
Anyway, I would guess that the technological sense actually came from the religious sense. "Agnostic" has come to mean something more than simply "someone who claims not to have gnosis [about God]," and has come to mean something like "someone who claims to not know about God's existence, claims that it is impossible to know, or perhaps doesn't even care to know". My recollection (if someone actually knows better correct me) is that "agnostic" first took a non-technological sense of "not caring to know" about something, in the sense that "it doesn't really matter", and then later that meaning was applied to technology. So when you say an application is "platform agnostic", in a sense you're claiming that the application doesn't know or care what platform you run it on.
Meh. For ebooks, I'd say modern HTML is overly-complicated. If you were going to use HTML, you'd want a customized version that took away anything not relevant to ebooks (e.g. forms) and then add back in special ebook features (e.g. better pagination support). So really what you'd be talking about is some kind of XML that has been optimized for ebooks and, for familiarity's sake, resembles HTML. AFAIK that's kind of pretty much what EPUB is. May as well use that? Some people are already using it, which makes things easier.
Right. The fact is, you can make a reader that reads multiple formats, so that's not *really* the problem. I mean, creating hardware or software to read the books is a hell of a lot more convenient when you've standardized things, but the real problem that makes vendor lock-in an issue is DRM.
If they really wanted to avoid the mistakes of the music industry, they would drop DRM immediately and move towards making extremely convenient distribution, storage, and backup. That's how you maintain some measure of control. If they don't do that, then I almost feel like they can't complain when they're left without a functional business model.
Nope. It doesn't account for differently-sized screens with different aspect ratios, nor the desire for differently-sized text. PDF is really designed for a set display size.
Santa Claus: Insofar as he's supposed to be a real guy in a real place, he becomes subject to the realm of science. You can fly over the north pole looking for him. You can set up a camera in your house to see if he comes down the chimney and leaves presents. He's not a good comparison.
UFOs: Same kind of deal. They're supposed to be real physical things, so they should be within the realm of scientific study. In fact, part of the problem with UFOs is that there's a whole lot of evidence about UFOs; it's just not terrifically god or reliable evidence. Well... I take that back: In some cases there has absolutely been good evidence of Unidentified Flying Objects. But they're unidientified, so we don't know what they were. Weather balloons? Airplanes outside of an approved flight path? Secret government planes? Who knows. It's actually not that interesting.
FSM: As far as I know, that's still supposed to be God. So yeah, I guess God is not really different from the FSM, except that the FSM was imagined as a mock-God to make fun of people's conception of God, so whatever.
God, on the other hand, is something that people have a lot of different conceptions of, and many of them fall completely outside the realm of what science can describe. For one thing, you have to ask yourself what you mean by the word "existence". Our concept of "existence" tends to imply physical existence in a time and place. If God is supposed to be a guy who "exists" in some time and place in the universe, then science can begin to approach the issue of his existence. Otherwise...? Not really.
Regardless, I don't think anyone is asking you to "disprove" the existence of God-- at least not genuinely. "Believers" are happy to believe; "atheists" are happy to disbelieve; "agnostics" are happy to plead ignorance. It's a rare person who actually thinks about the issue in a meaningful way.
Yes, exactly! It can make the flood less and less likely. Essentially, you pile up evidence, and either it's compelling and convincing or it's not. But the scientific method never really *proves* so much as it reveals one theory to be far more likely than other known theories. Then there's always the possibility of a theory no one has thought of yet...
It seems like you have a limited view of the concept of "understanding". I guess we may as well have stopped physics right after Newton because we don't actually encounter Relativity 99.99999% of the time. Let's forget that people are actually working on quantum computing, and that nano-materials have the possibility to drastically change the way we live. We don't even know what "dark energy" is, but god knows it can't be useful because I don't encounter it often. Or maybe we're encountering it all the time and "dark energy" is a necessary component of even the most basic physics we take for granted. We wouldn't know because we don't understand it yet.
I started out thinking maybe we'd agree, but you're making me sad. You're saying "screw actually understanding things, I have enough knowledge to live my life." It's ultimately the same attitude you're railing against with religious folk, which means for you "science" is just a big club to beat someone over the head with.
So you work in this field? I've wondered about tests like these (I've seen a few) and whether psychologists ever do tests to try to correlate the results (which as you've noted are about perception) with reality. Like have you ever give the test to someone to answer about himself, and then given the same test to that person's friends and family to answer about the person?
Not that friends and family would give you an absolute answer either, but I'd be curious to know whether these perceptions tend to correlate to anything at all.
There are still rather big topics about the universe that aren't explained. We still don't really understand dark matter and dark energy. We don't complete understand black holes. We don't completely understand quantum mechanics. Even in cases where we understand laws of physics, we don't know why those laws are what they are. And that's just physics. There's biology and psychology and lots of things that we don't fully understand.
and reread my claim that "it's crazy out there". I'm specifically acknowledging that things are consistent and predictable, but claiming that the universe is still crazy and absurd.
Well I can actually see that sort of thing as causing a lack of real empathy. You get fed up with people being coddled, and when someone finally feels the consequences for their actions, there's a part of you that thinks, "it's about damn time!"
On the other side there's the Ayn Rand neocon capitalism-as-morality stuff which is opposed to that sort of coddling and believes that people always get what they deserve. This doesn't encourage empathy either, because those people are prone to assume that people who suffer have brought it on themselves.
Plus a lot of younger people have been raised to think that you can't help people, they can only help themselves. You can't make someone happy, only they can make themselves happy. Part of that whole new age pop psychology is that it implies that sadness is a sign of perrsonal weakness, and that "good people" can just make themselves happy all the time.
Another problem that i have with tests like this: I would guess that people are more likely to select the answer that they think they're supposed to select rather than the one that's actually true. Even giving this test the benefit of the doubt, it's more a test about whether young people like to claim they're empathetic than whether they really are empathetic.
Well let me start outbysaying that I'd agree that most "believers" have a pretty poor understanding of theology. But then I'd also say that most pro-science atheists have a pretty poor understanding of science. I guess I'm claiming that if you had a good understanding of either one, you'd know that each has some limits on the certainty of knowledge it can provide.
At the very least, the Christian Bible is a set of brilliant spiritual poems and stories which teach humility, wonder, reverence for the inexplicable and unknown, and provide a suggested set of tenants for good behavior. On the other end of opinion, those stories and poems are believed to be "the word of God", and we know what belongs in that set of books based on the wisdom of priests and rabbis without necessarily knowing how those decisions are made.
Similarly, science is at the very least a set of philosophically-grounded methods and principles for developing sound theories about the world around us. On the other end of opinion, science is a set of indisputable knowledge that has been "proven", and we know what belongs in that set of knowledge based on trust of "scientists" without necessarily understanding the ideas ourselves.
Well, no, I don't think it's irrelevant to the point I was making. Though it is entirely possible to develop a moral framework without a religion or God, many religious people don't see how it's possible. As a result, when if you ask them to accept that there is no God, many of them will understand you to be asking them to also accept that there is no morality.
This accounts for some of the misunderstanding and frustration on both sides. Atheists tend to think they're merely asking religious people to give up a emotionally comforting "imaginary friend". Religious people believe they're being asked to give up an entire way of life and embrace a volatile world of moral relativism.
So I'm pointing out that both points of view have some kind of merit, but it's not quite as simple as all that.
I don't think we've seen that science properly explains 99.99999% of the universe. Perhaps 99.99999% of the universe that you can claim has been explained was explained by science, but I don't believe that 99.99999% of the universe has been explained.
I think that the past is absurd and ridiculous. We just happened to have lived through so much absurdity that we accept it. And perhaps I might grant that the universe has been absurd and ridiculous in a consistent way, and that it's fair to assume that it will continue in the future to be absurd and ridiculous in the same way. But really, have you looked around? It's *crazy* out there.
Take your example of gravity: The scientific method might lead you to conclude at one point that, if you drop something, it should fall onto the floor. That's a fine and sensible theory. You can formulate complex and detailed mathematical descriptions of how it falls onto the floor, and it's still just a fine and sensible theory. No matter how much science you do, you'll never really prove that "unimpeded, all things fall to the floor, always." Gravity may one day reverse itself. Or gravity may function entirely differently in a different part of the universe...
And say, what do you know, it does! if you're on the moon and you release something, it does not fall to the floor, it falls to the moon. On further examination, you may actually discover that the object doesn't fall toward the floor or the moon, but that matter bends space-time. Further iterations of the scientific method may lead you to an entirely new understanding with new and refined theories.
If we follow this commonsense reasoning, which lies at the very heart of the scientific approach, any rational or scientifically-minded person must conclude that there is probably no god.
I think that right here you're making an assumption that is the crux of your argument, and many religious people would disagree with it.
Often the philosophy really is the reason for the discord
I'm going to have to personally disagree with you on this one. I might agree that the original root of the discord is in some philosophic debate, but what people are actually doing is usually not philosophy. Running around town yelling, "I think therefore I am!" at people doesn't make you a philosopher, nor does telling all your friends that you hate everyone who thinks a seal might be a deformed quadruped.
Are you arguing with me somehow? You're right that "When it comes to ethics, morality, community, and spirituality, science is no replacement for religion at all." because as I said, "science is more about trying to understand "what things are" which all by itself does not tell you "what things should be".
However, "it is perfectly possible to have morality without subscribing to the particular dogmas of [insert religion here]." You don't even need a "god" per se, but you need some kind of guiding principles and a belief that there's such a thing as "what things should be".
The scientific method only really requires you to discard unfounded views regarding the subject you're studying. If I'm studying... meh, let's say chemistry. If I'm studying chemistry, I don't necessarily need to doubt the number of dimensions that we live in (though I suppose I might if my research involved a lot of quantum effects). If I'm studying particle physics, I don't need to prove that Joe is my best friend. If I'm studying cancer growth, I don't need to ask myself whether I truly love my mother as part of those studies. And in no case, when I'm studying science, do I need to prove whether or not God exists.
The only reason to try to figure out whether God exists in a scientific study is if I'm trying to come up with a "science of God". And doing that would be a bit silly, in my opinion. Science doesn't have any business trying to study "god" as a real entity than religion has in trying to explain particle physics.
So rest assured, you can be a scientist and a believe in the scientific method and still have a concept of God. If you're a scientist, you may also continue to feel secure in your belief that you really do love your family, that your friends are not all figments of your imagination, and that the ground beneath your feet is solid. That's right, the ground beneath your feet is solid. Even though we all know that, scientifically, it's not "solid", it's mostly empty space between the protons and the electrons and your experience of "solid" is just electrons repelling each other and not physical objects touching, the ground beneath your feet is still solid.
The unfortunate fact is that scientific method can't really exactly *prove* that there was no flood 4,000 years ago. You can hypothesize "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in the fossil record," and then you can test to see if that shows up. Or you can attack it from another angle and say, "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in everyone's DNA showing that we trace back to only a couple ancestors 4,000 years ago," and then you can test to see if that works out too.
And in that way, you can pile up loads of evidence that supports the theory that "there was no flood", and you can pile up evidence that shows the theory that "there was a flood" is completely unsupported. However, in each case, you're starting from a sort of logical premise that can't be thoroughly proven. For example, "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in the fossil record," assumes that the flood would cause certain things in the fossil record. It assumes that we understand how to read the fossil record properly. It assumes that there was no other strange even 4,000 years ago that we didn't hear about and don't understand which might have mitigated the effect of the flood on the fossil record.
Now all in all, those are pretty fair assumptions, and the scientific method is a strong method for suggesting which theories we should believe and which theories we should disbelieve. However, let's not pretend that there has never been an instance where something that has been "scientifically proven" has at some point later in time been "scientifically disproven"-- or vice versa.
I think part of what wrangles a lot of people about evolution-deniers so much is that, in a sense, they have a point. It is "just a theory". However, it's a very well supported theory, and though is may be changed and refined and even overhauled as time goes on, I think that some of the core ideas (including that we evolved from more primitive animals) are impossible to doubt by an open-minded person.
Scientific method can, however, disprove a particular theory about God
Not entirely. For one thing, the scientific method never really claims to bring about absolute and indisputable truths. It's more like a method for finding sensible and useful theories. The scientific method can build support for one theory or show another theory to be unsupported by a set of knowledge and data. That's about the extent of its power.
Plus, if there were an all-powerful intelligence controlling the world, it's true that he could make your data say whatever he likes. Of course, if you subscribe to that vision of a god, one who goes around planting fake evidence and deceiving us, then I hardly see the point in trying to understand anything.
I think some of the conflict actually has nothing to do with science or God per se, but it's much more about people wanting to argue with each other for one reason or another. I hate to use this terminology, but it's a "culture war".
It's someone saying, "I don't like they way you live your life. I don't like the way you talk about thinks or think about things, and I feel threatened by the decisions you make, so I'm going to get together with my like-minded friends and argue talk about how you're a horrible person."
It comes from both camps. Sometimes it's because the one side is genuinely threatening to the other, but often enough, I think it's just because of the nice little ego boost that comes from calling someone else stupid. Plus, it's very upsetting for some people to admit that they might not understand something. For someone to say something you don't understand, to admit that you don't understand, and then to admit that they might not be wrong-- for some people that is in itself a terrifying threat.
The real deal is that the scientific method can never really disprove the existence of God, so there can be no genuine conflict between science and the belief in God. And none of the major religions actually command you to be petty and ignorant and to disbelieve your experience. All the pettiness on both sides are just people being petty. There is no battle between God and science.
No, science is more about trying to understand "what things are" which all by itself does not tell you "what things should be". Still, it is perfectly possible to have morality without subscribing to the particular dogmas of [insert religion here].
Android phones have widgets that can be made to show any kind of information, but you can't have the widgets display when the device is locked. In some sense, this is reasonable; the point of locking your device is generally so that people can't see or get to your personal information. Still, it would make sense to allow people to display some set of information when locked, if they choose.
Lots of fonts have that problem. Some also have the problem where l (lowercase L), I (uppercase i), and/or 1 (the numeral) look pretty much the same. But those are kind of common problems that can be fixed and have been addressed in many fonts. It doesn't seem like this package is aimed at that, but rather aimed at providing special notation for math/science/engineering publishing.
There is no polite way to tell someone that the science directly conflicts with the religious/political/social tenets that they've been taught were sacred since they were a child. It's not the understanding that's the problem. It's the *implications* that people have a hard time accepting.
I also think there's another side of that problem that people fail to consider: It's often not the bare fact of "what something is" that people are afraid of losing, but the "how do I lead my life" implications that go along with it. Religious people aren't just upset because you're telling them that their imaginary friend isn't real, but because you're simultaneously telling them that they can't rely on any of their beliefs or any of their existing moral/ethical views. It occurs to them that you're saying, "Every single thing that you think is wrong, and the life you're living is bad."
In a religious person's mind, arguing that God doesn't exist is essentially arguing that their entire community and social support network is stupid and meaningless. The 10 commandments mean nothing, so it's fine to murder and steal. Jesus was just some guy, so when he instructs you to be humble, there's no real reason for listening to him. You're turning that person's world upside-down, and it's no wonder that they argue back.
And I know, dear atheist reader, you think the whole thing is silly. After all, you an have morality without God, right? Well, part of the problem is to a lot of religious people, they don't know how far the questioning needs to go. It's kind of like if I built a house out of wood, and you said, "wood is no good, you should use steel." That may be true, but I'd need to tear the whole house down and rebuild to rectify it. And it's possible that I could tear my house down and rebuild it with steel, only to find that the wood house was better.
A lot of people aren't ready or willing to tear their own religious lives down in the hopes that rebuilding their lives with "science" will be better.
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IIRC, "gnosis" in ancient Greek doesn't necessarily imply spiritual matters, but rather is an type of knowledge that is attained through experience or perhaps is inherent/instinctual. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it's the sort of knowledge that you have when you just know, and you get that know-y feeling you get when you know something. It's a type of knowledge that's less analytical and more intuitive.
So Im not an etymology expert, but I'd guess that at some point some philosopher talked about having an intuitive knowledge of God, and that got labelled "gnosis" and so those who claimed to lack such knowledge got labelled "agnostic". However, the attachment of gnosis to spiritual matters is already an alteration of meaning, so as someone who prefers that definition I'm not sure it makes sense to get snooty about someone else attaching a different meaning.
Anyway, I would guess that the technological sense actually came from the religious sense. "Agnostic" has come to mean something more than simply "someone who claims not to have gnosis [about God]," and has come to mean something like "someone who claims to not know about God's existence, claims that it is impossible to know, or perhaps doesn't even care to know". My recollection (if someone actually knows better correct me) is that "agnostic" first took a non-technological sense of "not caring to know" about something, in the sense that "it doesn't really matter", and then later that meaning was applied to technology. So when you say an application is "platform agnostic", in a sense you're claiming that the application doesn't know or care what platform you run it on.
Meh. For ebooks, I'd say modern HTML is overly-complicated. If you were going to use HTML, you'd want a customized version that took away anything not relevant to ebooks (e.g. forms) and then add back in special ebook features (e.g. better pagination support). So really what you'd be talking about is some kind of XML that has been optimized for ebooks and, for familiarity's sake, resembles HTML. AFAIK that's kind of pretty much what EPUB is. May as well use that? Some people are already using it, which makes things easier.
Right. The fact is, you can make a reader that reads multiple formats, so that's not *really* the problem. I mean, creating hardware or software to read the books is a hell of a lot more convenient when you've standardized things, but the real problem that makes vendor lock-in an issue is DRM.
If they really wanted to avoid the mistakes of the music industry, they would drop DRM immediately and move towards making extremely convenient distribution, storage, and backup. That's how you maintain some measure of control. If they don't do that, then I almost feel like they can't complain when they're left without a functional business model.
Nope. It doesn't account for differently-sized screens with different aspect ratios, nor the desire for differently-sized text. PDF is really designed for a set display size.
Sheesh, do you really want a response here?
Santa Claus: Insofar as he's supposed to be a real guy in a real place, he becomes subject to the realm of science. You can fly over the north pole looking for him. You can set up a camera in your house to see if he comes down the chimney and leaves presents. He's not a good comparison.
UFOs: Same kind of deal. They're supposed to be real physical things, so they should be within the realm of scientific study. In fact, part of the problem with UFOs is that there's a whole lot of evidence about UFOs; it's just not terrifically god or reliable evidence. Well... I take that back: In some cases there has absolutely been good evidence of Unidentified Flying Objects. But they're unidientified, so we don't know what they were. Weather balloons? Airplanes outside of an approved flight path? Secret government planes? Who knows. It's actually not that interesting.
FSM: As far as I know, that's still supposed to be God. So yeah, I guess God is not really different from the FSM, except that the FSM was imagined as a mock-God to make fun of people's conception of God, so whatever.
God, on the other hand, is something that people have a lot of different conceptions of, and many of them fall completely outside the realm of what science can describe. For one thing, you have to ask yourself what you mean by the word "existence". Our concept of "existence" tends to imply physical existence in a time and place. If God is supposed to be a guy who "exists" in some time and place in the universe, then science can begin to approach the issue of his existence. Otherwise...? Not really.
Regardless, I don't think anyone is asking you to "disprove" the existence of God-- at least not genuinely. "Believers" are happy to believe; "atheists" are happy to disbelieve; "agnostics" are happy to plead ignorance. It's a rare person who actually thinks about the issue in a meaningful way.
Yes, exactly! It can make the flood less and less likely. Essentially, you pile up evidence, and either it's compelling and convincing or it's not. But the scientific method never really *proves* so much as it reveals one theory to be far more likely than other known theories. Then there's always the possibility of a theory no one has thought of yet...
It seems like you have a limited view of the concept of "understanding". I guess we may as well have stopped physics right after Newton because we don't actually encounter Relativity 99.99999% of the time. Let's forget that people are actually working on quantum computing, and that nano-materials have the possibility to drastically change the way we live. We don't even know what "dark energy" is, but god knows it can't be useful because I don't encounter it often. Or maybe we're encountering it all the time and "dark energy" is a necessary component of even the most basic physics we take for granted. We wouldn't know because we don't understand it yet.
I started out thinking maybe we'd agree, but you're making me sad. You're saying "screw actually understanding things, I have enough knowledge to live my life." It's ultimately the same attitude you're railing against with religious folk, which means for you "science" is just a big club to beat someone over the head with.
So you work in this field? I've wondered about tests like these (I've seen a few) and whether psychologists ever do tests to try to correlate the results (which as you've noted are about perception) with reality. Like have you ever give the test to someone to answer about himself, and then given the same test to that person's friends and family to answer about the person?
Not that friends and family would give you an absolute answer either, but I'd be curious to know whether these perceptions tend to correlate to anything at all.
There are still rather big topics about the universe that aren't explained. We still don't really understand dark matter and dark energy. We don't complete understand black holes. We don't completely understand quantum mechanics. Even in cases where we understand laws of physics, we don't know why those laws are what they are. And that's just physics. There's biology and psychology and lots of things that we don't fully understand.
and reread my claim that "it's crazy out there". I'm specifically acknowledging that things are consistent and predictable, but claiming that the universe is still crazy and absurd.
Well I can actually see that sort of thing as causing a lack of real empathy. You get fed up with people being coddled, and when someone finally feels the consequences for their actions, there's a part of you that thinks, "it's about damn time!"
On the other side there's the Ayn Rand neocon capitalism-as-morality stuff which is opposed to that sort of coddling and believes that people always get what they deserve. This doesn't encourage empathy either, because those people are prone to assume that people who suffer have brought it on themselves.
Plus a lot of younger people have been raised to think that you can't help people, they can only help themselves. You can't make someone happy, only they can make themselves happy. Part of that whole new age pop psychology is that it implies that sadness is a sign of perrsonal weakness, and that "good people" can just make themselves happy all the time.
Another problem that i have with tests like this: I would guess that people are more likely to select the answer that they think they're supposed to select rather than the one that's actually true. Even giving this test the benefit of the doubt, it's more a test about whether young people like to claim they're empathetic than whether they really are empathetic.
Well let me start outbysaying that I'd agree that most "believers" have a pretty poor understanding of theology. But then I'd also say that most pro-science atheists have a pretty poor understanding of science. I guess I'm claiming that if you had a good understanding of either one, you'd know that each has some limits on the certainty of knowledge it can provide.
At the very least, the Christian Bible is a set of brilliant spiritual poems and stories which teach humility, wonder, reverence for the inexplicable and unknown, and provide a suggested set of tenants for good behavior. On the other end of opinion, those stories and poems are believed to be "the word of God", and we know what belongs in that set of books based on the wisdom of priests and rabbis without necessarily knowing how those decisions are made.
Similarly, science is at the very least a set of philosophically-grounded methods and principles for developing sound theories about the world around us. On the other end of opinion, science is a set of indisputable knowledge that has been "proven", and we know what belongs in that set of knowledge based on trust of "scientists" without necessarily understanding the ideas ourselves.
Well, no, I don't think it's irrelevant to the point I was making. Though it is entirely possible to develop a moral framework without a religion or God, many religious people don't see how it's possible. As a result, when if you ask them to accept that there is no God, many of them will understand you to be asking them to also accept that there is no morality.
This accounts for some of the misunderstanding and frustration on both sides. Atheists tend to think they're merely asking religious people to give up a emotionally comforting "imaginary friend". Religious people believe they're being asked to give up an entire way of life and embrace a volatile world of moral relativism.
So I'm pointing out that both points of view have some kind of merit, but it's not quite as simple as all that.
Well a couple of quibbles:
Take your example of gravity: The scientific method might lead you to conclude at one point that, if you drop something, it should fall onto the floor. That's a fine and sensible theory. You can formulate complex and detailed mathematical descriptions of how it falls onto the floor, and it's still just a fine and sensible theory. No matter how much science you do, you'll never really prove that "unimpeded, all things fall to the floor, always." Gravity may one day reverse itself. Or gravity may function entirely differently in a different part of the universe...
And say, what do you know, it does! if you're on the moon and you release something, it does not fall to the floor, it falls to the moon. On further examination, you may actually discover that the object doesn't fall toward the floor or the moon, but that matter bends space-time. Further iterations of the scientific method may lead you to an entirely new understanding with new and refined theories.
If we follow this commonsense reasoning, which lies at the very heart of the scientific approach, any rational or scientifically-minded person must conclude that there is probably no god.
I think that right here you're making an assumption that is the crux of your argument, and many religious people would disagree with it.
Often the philosophy really is the reason for the discord
I'm going to have to personally disagree with you on this one. I might agree that the original root of the discord is in some philosophic debate, but what people are actually doing is usually not philosophy. Running around town yelling, "I think therefore I am!" at people doesn't make you a philosopher, nor does telling all your friends that you hate everyone who thinks a seal might be a deformed quadruped.
Are you arguing with me somehow? You're right that "When it comes to ethics, morality, community, and spirituality, science is no replacement for religion at all." because as I said, "science is more about trying to understand "what things are" which all by itself does not tell you "what things should be".
However, "it is perfectly possible to have morality without subscribing to the particular dogmas of [insert religion here]." You don't even need a "god" per se, but you need some kind of guiding principles and a belief that there's such a thing as "what things should be".
Are we arguing? I can't tell.
The scientific method only really requires you to discard unfounded views regarding the subject you're studying. If I'm studying... meh, let's say chemistry. If I'm studying chemistry, I don't necessarily need to doubt the number of dimensions that we live in (though I suppose I might if my research involved a lot of quantum effects). If I'm studying particle physics, I don't need to prove that Joe is my best friend. If I'm studying cancer growth, I don't need to ask myself whether I truly love my mother as part of those studies. And in no case, when I'm studying science, do I need to prove whether or not God exists.
The only reason to try to figure out whether God exists in a scientific study is if I'm trying to come up with a "science of God". And doing that would be a bit silly, in my opinion. Science doesn't have any business trying to study "god" as a real entity than religion has in trying to explain particle physics.
So rest assured, you can be a scientist and a believe in the scientific method and still have a concept of God. If you're a scientist, you may also continue to feel secure in your belief that you really do love your family, that your friends are not all figments of your imagination, and that the ground beneath your feet is solid. That's right, the ground beneath your feet is solid. Even though we all know that, scientifically, it's not "solid", it's mostly empty space between the protons and the electrons and your experience of "solid" is just electrons repelling each other and not physical objects touching, the ground beneath your feet is still solid.
Yeah, I see what you're saying, but...
The unfortunate fact is that scientific method can't really exactly *prove* that there was no flood 4,000 years ago. You can hypothesize "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in the fossil record," and then you can test to see if that shows up. Or you can attack it from another angle and say, "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in everyone's DNA showing that we trace back to only a couple ancestors 4,000 years ago," and then you can test to see if that works out too.
And in that way, you can pile up loads of evidence that supports the theory that "there was no flood", and you can pile up evidence that shows the theory that "there was a flood" is completely unsupported. However, in each case, you're starting from a sort of logical premise that can't be thoroughly proven. For example, "If there was a flood 4,000 years ago, we should see [such and such] in the fossil record," assumes that the flood would cause certain things in the fossil record. It assumes that we understand how to read the fossil record properly. It assumes that there was no other strange even 4,000 years ago that we didn't hear about and don't understand which might have mitigated the effect of the flood on the fossil record.
Now all in all, those are pretty fair assumptions, and the scientific method is a strong method for suggesting which theories we should believe and which theories we should disbelieve. However, let's not pretend that there has never been an instance where something that has been "scientifically proven" has at some point later in time been "scientifically disproven"-- or vice versa.
I think part of what wrangles a lot of people about evolution-deniers so much is that, in a sense, they have a point. It is "just a theory". However, it's a very well supported theory, and though is may be changed and refined and even overhauled as time goes on, I think that some of the core ideas (including that we evolved from more primitive animals) are impossible to doubt by an open-minded person.
Scientific method can, however, disprove a particular theory about God
Not entirely. For one thing, the scientific method never really claims to bring about absolute and indisputable truths. It's more like a method for finding sensible and useful theories. The scientific method can build support for one theory or show another theory to be unsupported by a set of knowledge and data. That's about the extent of its power.
Plus, if there were an all-powerful intelligence controlling the world, it's true that he could make your data say whatever he likes. Of course, if you subscribe to that vision of a god, one who goes around planting fake evidence and deceiving us, then I hardly see the point in trying to understand anything.
I think some of the conflict actually has nothing to do with science or God per se, but it's much more about people wanting to argue with each other for one reason or another. I hate to use this terminology, but it's a "culture war".
It's someone saying, "I don't like they way you live your life. I don't like the way you talk about thinks or think about things, and I feel threatened by the decisions you make, so I'm going to get together with my like-minded friends and argue talk about how you're a horrible person."
It comes from both camps. Sometimes it's because the one side is genuinely threatening to the other, but often enough, I think it's just because of the nice little ego boost that comes from calling someone else stupid. Plus, it's very upsetting for some people to admit that they might not understand something. For someone to say something you don't understand, to admit that you don't understand, and then to admit that they might not be wrong-- for some people that is in itself a terrifying threat.
The real deal is that the scientific method can never really disprove the existence of God, so there can be no genuine conflict between science and the belief in God. And none of the major religions actually command you to be petty and ignorant and to disbelieve your experience. All the pettiness on both sides are just people being petty. There is no battle between God and science.
No, science is more about trying to understand "what things are" which all by itself does not tell you "what things should be". Still, it is perfectly possible to have morality without subscribing to the particular dogmas of [insert religion here].
Android phones have widgets that can be made to show any kind of information, but you can't have the widgets display when the device is locked. In some sense, this is reasonable; the point of locking your device is generally so that people can't see or get to your personal information. Still, it would make sense to allow people to display some set of information when locked, if they choose.
Lots of fonts have that problem. Some also have the problem where l (lowercase L), I (uppercase i), and/or 1 (the numeral) look pretty much the same. But those are kind of common problems that can be fixed and have been addressed in many fonts. It doesn't seem like this package is aimed at that, but rather aimed at providing special notation for math/science/engineering publishing.
There is no polite way to tell someone that the science directly conflicts with the religious/political/social tenets that they've been taught were sacred since they were a child. It's not the understanding that's the problem. It's the *implications* that people have a hard time accepting.
I also think there's another side of that problem that people fail to consider: It's often not the bare fact of "what something is" that people are afraid of losing, but the "how do I lead my life" implications that go along with it. Religious people aren't just upset because you're telling them that their imaginary friend isn't real, but because you're simultaneously telling them that they can't rely on any of their beliefs or any of their existing moral/ethical views. It occurs to them that you're saying, "Every single thing that you think is wrong, and the life you're living is bad."
In a religious person's mind, arguing that God doesn't exist is essentially arguing that their entire community and social support network is stupid and meaningless. The 10 commandments mean nothing, so it's fine to murder and steal. Jesus was just some guy, so when he instructs you to be humble, there's no real reason for listening to him. You're turning that person's world upside-down, and it's no wonder that they argue back.
And I know, dear atheist reader, you think the whole thing is silly. After all, you an have morality without God, right? Well, part of the problem is to a lot of religious people, they don't know how far the questioning needs to go. It's kind of like if I built a house out of wood, and you said, "wood is no good, you should use steel." That may be true, but I'd need to tear the whole house down and rebuild to rectify it. And it's possible that I could tear my house down and rebuild it with steel, only to find that the wood house was better.
A lot of people aren't ready or willing to tear their own religious lives down in the hopes that rebuilding their lives with "science" will be better.