"You've just chosen a different religion, science"

[Vera]

(17-01-2013 07:55 PM)Rahn127 Wrote:  Gather together these three items









Ask your friends to identify them using their religion.

Using science you can run tests to discover what each one is.

Science has a wealth of information about the real world.



The first is charcoal, the second is sulfur and the third is potassium nitrate.



Now what can we do with these three ?

We can run experiments based upon what we know about each one.

After lots of testing, trials and errors, mixing combinations, etc etc, you could end up with this









No, not a quarter. It's black powder. Gunpowder. It's something science can produce through a lot of testing, trials and experimentation.

In that entire process of discovering what each item was and all the experiments, there were no rituals, no faith involved, no religion whatsoever. It's just observation of what we have in the real world and how they relate to each other. Science is a way of discovering something we didn't know about the world.



You'll never get gunpowder from praying or from reading the bible.

You only get answers about the real world through science.

I think I'm with Buddy Christ on this. Gunpowder? It's like giving theists a loaded gun, so to speak (wonderfully reasoned though)

[Aseptic Skeptic]

Let's not forget the many fun and interesting uses for gunpowder. Fireworks. Everyone loves fireworks. Excavation. Dynamite is basically the same thing and it's been used to blast mountainsides to clear the way for building roads, railroads, tunnels, etc. Mining. Yep, dynamite again, helping us gain access to all the other underground resources we love like gold and diamonds and a myriad others. Photography. Before flash bulbs, photographers used a tray of flash powder, not exactly the same formula as gunpowder but based on the same principles. Hunting. Yes, today, very few people get any significant part of their diet purely from hunting wildlife, but gunpowder has been around for centuries, and many of our ancestors did in fact rely on hunting for their sustenance. Entertainment. Sure, not everyone thinks sport hunting is a good idea, but it is legal and lots of people enjoy it. Medical uses. Yep, gunpowder has saved the lives of countless injured people when used for field cauterization, and not just in military application.

That's just off the top of my head.

So, yes, guns have been used to kill people. Gunpowder is a big part of that, obviously. But knives have killed people and we all still have lots of knives in our home. Dogs have killed people and we all love dogs.

My point is, hate the killer, not the tool he uses, especially when that tool has so many other beneficial uses. And tell that to any theists who decides to use gunpowder as a logical argument against atheism.

[Vera]

(18-01-2013 10:46 AM)Aseptic Skeptic Wrote:  Let's not forget the many fun and interesting uses for gunpowder. Fireworks. Everyone loves fireworks. Excavation. Dynamite is basically the same thing and it's been used to blast mountainsides to clear the way for building roads, railroads, tunnels, etc. Mining. Yep, dynamite again, helping us gain access to all the other underground resources we love like gold and diamonds and a myriad others. Photography. Before flash bulbs, photographers used a tray of flash powder, not exactly the same formula as gunpowder but based on the same principles. Hunting. Yes, today, very few people get any significant part of their diet purely from hunting wildlife, but gunpowder has been around for centuries, and many of our ancestors did in fact rely on hunting for their sustenance. Entertainment. Sure, not everyone thinks sport hunting is a good idea, but it is legal and lots of people enjoy it. Medical uses. Yep, gunpowder has saved the lives of countless injured people when used for field cauterization, and not just in military application.

That's just off the top of my head.

So, yes, guns have been used to kill people. Gunpowder is a big part of that, obviously. But knives have killed people and we all still have lots of knives in our home. Dogs have killed people and we all love dogs.

My point is, hate the killer, not the tool he uses, especially when that tool has so many other beneficial uses. And tell that to any theists who decides to use gunpowder as a logical argument against atheism.

Nah, I know it's useful. Just saying that their deluded, black-and-white minds being what they are, they'd jump at such a chance to "prove" how deeply sinful and inherently evil humans are (oh, and let's not forget sociopathic, that seems to be a favourite insult of theirs).

(Not too keen on fireworks myself though. People have them here every other day. They are loud and annoying.)

[Vosur]

(18-01-2013 10:46 AM)Aseptic Skeptic Wrote:  So, yes, guns have been used to kill people. Gunpowder is a big part of that, obviously. But knives have killed people and we all still have lots of knives in our home. Dogs have killed people and we all love dogs.

The difference is that neither knives, nor dogs exist for the sole purpose of destroying life.

[Birdguy1979]

(17-01-2013 11:51 AM)FICKLEish Wrote:  I've recently been told that since science can't truly prove anything and we frequently find new evidence to change our minds about previous scientific claims, that believing the scientific view of how the world began (etc) requires faith and is just another type of religion. I don't know what to say to that. It seems obvious in my mind that there is a distinction, but I'm not good at wording it in an argument. A little help please?

I normally try for making someone feel stupid. I start with asking if they own a computer or a tv. The answer is always yes. Then I ask what their computer and tv are powered by. The answer is of course electricity. I then state that we know how electricity through science. Religion has always fought science. If not for scientists with the balls to stand by what they learned, we would all thanks to religion believe that electricity is witchcraft. For doing something as simple as turning on the lights in my house, I would be burned for witchcraft under the old religious way of doing things. The argument normally stops there.

[Starcrash]

(17-01-2013 12:01 PM)FICKLEish Wrote:  I think the point was that if science has been wrong before, then science can be wrong now.

Yes, this is absolutely the case. When Christians slander us for not believing in absolute truth, what they're actually saying is that it would be uncomfortable to never be absolutely certain of anything -- and it is uncomfortable. So what? If you want to deal with the truth, that's simply one of the things that you have to face. Or you can believe in fiction with conviction and never face that discomfort -- and never be right, as well.

Scientists will point out that, even though science makes corrections, it's more of a "sharpening" or "focusing" rather than a 180. For instance, every time there's a new estimate for the age of the universe, it isn't because we simply change our beliefs but because our estimate gets better.

The example I heard is estimating how far away a local city is from where you're standing. You could probably guess within a few miles. If you measured it by driving your car, it would probably change your answer by making it more exact (to within a 10th of a mile). If you measured it with a tape measure, your answer would change to something even more precise to within an inch. Every time your answer is changing, but it's not because the methods that you used before were "wrong" (or that you yourself were wrong) but because they were less exact than tools now available to you.