You take it on faith, faith in your own reasoning and observational abilities, that God does not exist, or at least that he is something you do not have to be concerned about in your disbelief.
You take it on faith, you have faith in the testimony of other researchers, that the data and results that you read in scientific papers are legitimate, based on their reputation or the prestige of the journal it is reported in. (You don’t have time to replicate everything and certify to yourself that all is as reported.) That faith can be justified or shown to be false, but it is still faith for the time being.
[edit] …And even after you certify it to yourself, if you do, you still have to have faith in and believe in the adequacy of your own senses, reasoning and abilities. (Which again, for illustration, brings up the topic of synesthesia. Oh yeah, and dementia. )
Classes of exceptions, definitely. No one is likely to get away with plagiarism in a Cell, Science, or Nature paper. I’m talking about whether the results are likely to hold up over time.
I’ll leave it to you to puzzle out the difference between accepting the axioms of logic or math, and accepting that the universe was created in six days because a book says so.
@DaleCutler, @Faizal_Ali, and others - we’ve been through these sorts of tit-for-tat interactions several times lately, and they are beneficial to no one. It is also getting off topic again. Please make your replies less frequent but more substantial.
You would be talking to someone else by mistake, perhaps. The above is not descriptive of me. Notice the ‘Old Earth’ following my name. A more accurate acronym than OEC for me might be CACASE, Christian affirming creation and scientific evolution, because evolution does not and will not have all the answers, nor does MN.
Thanks @dga471. Everyone else, listen to him . I agree more substantive conversations are better. If you think you were making substantive contributions, think about how to expand it so as to encourage others to understand you.
@DaleCutler, @Faizal_Ali
The point isn’t to just respond. Can we respond in a way which actually builds understanding? For example, @DaleCutler, what do you mean by faith? You claim scientists are also using faith. What are the similarities between faith as it is used in religion and in science? Are they exactly the same kind of faith? Is faith and testimony exactly the same thing? What are possible ways they can be different, which is why @Faizal_Ali is not convinced of your point?
@Faizal_Ali, what do you think faith means? What are the axioms for an “epistemic system such as science”? I also don’t think you’ve really conclusively answered what is your personal justification for thinking racism is wrong. (Perhaps I’ve missed it, if so, I apologize.) Is it just a purely a subjective preference which happens to accord with the preferences of the society you’re living in?
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