Quote Originally Posted by lstsl View Post
Summary: Spinozan deist. Fair enough?

I don't know what that means?

....

Only this: people believe in atoms, something they cannot directly experience for themselves, because they go to school where they are told that atoms make up everything. People who go to church are told that God (something they cannot directly experience) makes up everything. What's the difference? Scientists now occupy the position preists and clergymen did in the past, why won't they become corrupt and use their new positions of power to gain more power? Everybody acts like scientists are saints (hahaha, I made a funny!), but their motives aren't necessarily pure. Today, science is an industry and there is money to be had. If the difference between despotism and millions of dollars is fudging your test results a little... kah-CHING!!!
First, Spinoza's God is basically the universe itself.

And, to add to Thorne's post, about the verifiability of atoms, I'd like to mention something about science itself.

It's called peer review. Getting published in science is like running a gauntlet. It is notoriously difficult. If you fudge your test results, your vicious peers will find out and they will roast you over an open flame. I worked on an experiment designed to disprove Einstein's relativity. Einsein, the man is considered something of a science God, not just a saint. And we felt we were paying the man respect by trying to show he was wrong.

There is no comparisson between the scientific community today and the religious community of old. None at all.

To us, nothing is sacred. We challenge everything. We call everything into doubt.