'Scuse me, but didn't a Zen master once inform a student that 'zen is sh*t'?

U of M,

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Hence the great differences and importance between cause and correlation.

I don't know where the idea that it's a belief came from, but it's more like a rulebook than anything else.

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Herein, we agree wholeheartedly.

Well...I know what I will be researching next!

Foolsgold,

No...I believe in the scientific method simply because, to date, I don't think that anyone has developed a better tool to examine the real world. The scientific method is a device, a tool, and only as good as the user and the data provided to that tool.

One can give all sorts of subjective, anecdotal evidence to suggest this or that might be real...think of aliens and ghosts. Yet, no empirical...no verifiable...no repeatable...evidence exists to prove these things. So could they exist? I suppose. Do they exist? Probably not...no one's proved them yet.

Our best tool is our brain and logic. But I also recognize that I enjoy a good sunset on a personal level. That what is happening is light from the sun at the angle I am veiwing it is being refracted in the air by particulates so longer wavelength radiation seeps through...and I get a red, darker sky.

Does my enjoyment get messed up by a little knowledge? I don't know...I don't think about it....but I don't believe that pixies are throwing crap in the air as the sun goes around the earth so I get a cool thing to look at.

In a world where this method is abandoned, then we would be lost to people suing for hexes and the evil eye. If there was a cholera epidemic....then supernatural agencies are involved...and we don't need to ask, what is the cause? Or search for the source of the cause.

-B

Foolsgold,

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True, but I still pity anyone who tries to hold a belief against evidence.

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I agree with your sentiment, but not in its entirety. The reason being is that there is a whole range of unknowables and things that we must take on "faith" as we live our every day lives. And I am not talking about religious experience here.

What we know resides in the pervue of scientists. How we know what we know remains with the philosophers.

There are people I have met on this forum. And there are people I have communicated with on this forum. Many here that I have come to know despite no face to face contact, and yet I trust several of them. Why is that? Have they given me any reason to trust or to not trust them? The answer is no.

And I don't know exactly why, but I could, if I were willing to, list off people I would trust with a million dollars and a statement of my most embarassing moments.

Belief is a way to get past what we don't have enough data for. Trust is a belief, friendship is a belief, love is a belief. I have no evidence to share about these things, but I feel them and they are true for me.

Exploring the natural world and figuring out how the molecules in oursevles form is something that needs and requires science. The love I have for my wife...I know because I feel it and I offer no excuse or reason for it...except that I do have it. However, this is personal unto me and I do not impose this on others...so it is subjective and I recognize it as such. But I also see it as real and tangible for myself, despite evidence, or the lack thereof. And the funny thing is, I can explain this emotion, and you know what I am talking about.

-B



-B

B- I think you misunderstand my statement. I pity those who try to hold a belief against evidence.

"Pity" in the less condescending sense.

"Against" as in not "without evidence". And I agree with religion not being included in this group.

Perhaps you didn't know but I have a ridiculously unfounded idealistic streak .

Ok, maybe I did misunderstand you.

Idealism, if nothing else, I can appreciate. I'll offer a cyber hug!

-B