Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [RELIGION] creation myths

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> But it seems to me that the whole subject of epistimology (how do we 
> know what we know) is not as easy as you make it out to be.  In 
> particular, if you really start thinking about what the scientific 
> method really is, you find that it cannot be rigorously justified any 
> better than any other method.  At the end of the day, you simply get 
> down to things like "it just feels right" or "it seems to work well so 
> far."

I'll agree that science is a belief system as much as any religion but 
I'll point out that it is a belief system based on an ongoing stream of 
very easy to spot evidence which I don't think is true of most 
religions. Every time you light a fire, operate any machine, cross a 
bridge, etc you're seeing firm proof that the scientific method is 
rigorously justified. For better or worse most other belief systems are 
based more on faith than evidence so they are more mystical and  
immeasurable than science. You can see 'it seems to work well so far' 
for science much more than for any other belief system.

But they don't have to be competiting belief systems in all cases. If 
your religion allows for scientific explanations to divine events then 
they are very compatible. It doesn't matter if God poofed the Universe 
into existence if he made it such that it operated by scientifc rules 
and would look like it was created by those rules. In that case the two 
beliefs should work fine together.

--
Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>
http://kavlon.org


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