Ten Commandments

[Thorne]

In answer to your question, I don't know: clearly either the "evidence" or the "dream" is wrong. Who is to say which?

My money's on the evidence. There's no evidence that the dreamers even have a clue.

What I asked was, what's the difference between a truth you discover through research and the very same truth if you are told about it?

The difference is that a discovered truth is one you've learned for yourself. You know it's true. A truth you are told about, even if it's the same truth, requires you to have faith in who is telling it. I prefer to trust myself.

Then you agree that both science and religion rest on similar, if not the same, foundations, and therefore deserve each other's respect?

I do not! The foundation for science is always, "We don't know! Let's find out." The foundation for religion is always, "God(s) did it, so shut up and accept it." Religion is not interested in the truth and, in the more conservative sects, actively discourages the search for truth.

Take evolution, for example. It is a scientific theory, not an absolute fact.

Evolution is a fact. It has been proven in numerous species. The mechanisms of evolution are theories, describing how we think evolution works. It's like gravity. We know it's there. Gravitational theory explains how we think it works.

Intelligent Design is an equivalent theory which finds support among those fundamentalists and which does take account of the evidence.

No, it denies the evidence in favor of the God hypothesis. ID is just whitewashed creationism, as was shown in the Dover, PA case.

As one fundamentalist says, if you cleared a space in your garage, how long would you have to wait until a Mercedes materialised out of nothing in that place? A day? A year? A thousand or a billion? What about "googol" years (not sure if I have used that correctly). Surely there's a chance that something, even if not a Mercedes, will materialise out of nothing in that time, isn't there?

Well, you're going to need one hell of a big garage. Packed to the rafters with hydrogen. Then compress that hydrogen to form stars. Lots and lots of stars. The stars will form elements heavier than hydrogen in their cores and, when they "die" will scatter that material all over the garage floor. Do that enough and you'll build up enough chemicals to form the building blocks of life and, eventually, life itself. I estimate it will take about 13 billion years before you get your Mercedes.

Or is it more likely that, if, at any time a Mercedes does appear in your garage, someone with the powers to do so put it there?

Yeah, they're called "used car dealers" and they're less trustworthy than gods.

And why should that be a problem for you? You clearly expect religions to accept scientific proofs when they are discovered - as do I - but if that still leaves areas where science has no answer, and religion does, then it remains possible that the answer is right.

The problem is that religion doesn't claim that the answer is POSSIBLY right, but that it is ABSOLUTELY right.

Likewise if one day, science peels back the veil between the Big Bang and the Before, and find a little old man with a long beard and sparks coming out of his fingers, while over in the corner hangs a red suit he only wears once a year, then I expect the atheists and agnostics who base their denials and doubts on the absence of proof to immediately recant, and crawl on their hands and knees to the Vatican City where they can confess the error of their ways and surrender themselves into the loving arms of Mother Church (or if it's a Hindu, Farsi, Norse or other god, to do whatever is appropriate in that case).

But again, you're assuming that the little old man is divine, even supernatural. The "fact" that he has fingers and a beard and wears a red suit tells me he's not.