Quote Originally Posted by Shaded View Post
This.. as a former engineering student, I just can't let die. There were more than just engineering barriers to cross here. There were some theories, quite well spread and believed, that breaking the sound barrier held a lot of stigmas, and after that fashion, that's nothing more than a perception of a fear of the unknown. But I'd rather ask what you'd think of my last statement. "Truths are not Gravity" More out of morbid curiousity than anything else, Rhabbi.

Note, disclaimer. It has been my belief since I can recall that religion and science are seperate schools of thought. One can seperate and pursue one without pursuing the other.
First, to answer your question about your assertion that truths are not gravity, I would guess that would depend on how you define truth. Gravity is truth, as I am sure you will agree. We can use other truths to modify the results of gravity's effect on us, but it is still there, we can never escape it.

In the same way we can sometimes modify the effect that truth has on us by using other truths to compensate. Truth though, is universal despite what the relativist have been arguing for centuries. We have been listening to these arguments since our earliest history, yet the world still continues to operate on the principles that exist outside of their reality. Why is that? because Truth is Gravity," that is, it is universal. We can choose to ignore it but we still suffer the consequences of it.

Relativism will never be anything more than a school of though among ivory tower intellectuals because it does not work in the real world. As an engineering student you must realize this, unless you are rejecting the empirical evidence around you.

As for breaking the sound barrier being a scientific advance as much as an engineering one, this comes from a misunderstanding of what a scientific theory actually is. At the time of Galileo science had already demonstrated not only that the Earth was round, but had measured the diameter of it. This had been done centuries earlier by the Greeks. Yet scientific belief ran counter to this because of the teachings of the schools that taught that the theory that the Earth was flat.

Scientific beleif at the time said that we could not pass the sound barrier, yet engineers went ahead and did it because they were the true scientists and were willing to challenge unfounded guesses.

Aerodyanmics told us that the bumble bee could not fly because the weight to lift ratio of their wings was to small. Did this mean that the bee ignored truth? No, it meant that the theory was wrong, and we now understand that lift can be increased by changing the aspect of the wing and the speed at which it moves through air.

There are no contradictions. If you think you have a contradiction, check your premises, one of them is wrong.

As for your beleif that we can study science and religion seperately, I woulod agree. But does that mean we cannot study them together? That is the question that truly needs an answer.