It's false and misleading to try and portray them as equivalent. A sceptical empiricist does not believe in certainties unless they are true by definition (e.g. 1+1=2). Whereas a religious believer believes in certainties when there is little or no evidence at all to support them, and even if there is a lot of evidence against them. No one with a modicum of knowledge about philosophy of science thinks that the physical sciences "prove" anything. They are simply a working estimate based on current knowledge, employed to understand and use nature and the universe to our benefit. A sceptical empiricist simply states his knowledge as a probability estimate based on sense-data and any inferences that can be made from them. That theory has no holes or assumptions because he recognises that both the sense-data inputs, and the working hypothesis of induction may both be false. That is about as much of a polar opposite to faith-based belief (which is driven by emotions rather than deductive logical reasoning) as it is possible to get. Compare this to the mindset of a believer. Look at this thread for the perfect example - people making the argument that something as complex as man could not have arisen by chance, therefore there must be a designer. That's a classic example of overconfidence without sufficient supporting evidence. First of all, even if god appeared before our eyes and told us that he designed the universe, that would not provide *certainty* that he exists. Our senses could be deceiving us, we could be hallucinating, someone else could be creating an illusion to fool us etc. Yet here we have an argument that claims certainty (not just high probability, but 100% confidence), and the only evidence is the claim that man could not have arisen by chance. No statistical significance testing to see what the odds of complexity arriving by random chance are; no examination of the possibility that an unthinking system of natural selection with a quasi-random evolutionary component could have resulted in this. And yet despite this, a mere query of an alternative explanation is providing *certainty* to them. This is completely illogical. Let us be clear here - even if it were proven beyond all doubt that evolution does not occur, even if it were proven beyond all doubt that random chance has never before in the universe been able to lead to complexity, this would still not give sufficient confidence to be *certain* about any theory of creation at all. It would simply mean we had probably eliminated one or two potential explanations. That is all that can be logically inferred from it. If even repeated sightings of god himself cannot give us 100% certainty that he exists, then no sightings plus no actual proof of intelligent design cannot do this. And, since there has yet to be an actual disproof of evolution or the possibility of natural selection or random chance leading to complexity, we are not even in the position of having dismissed several plausible alternative theories. Given all this, to believe in absolute certainty that god exists, is clearly not justified by any reasoning process or evidence. The most plausible alternative explanation is that people believe for emotional reasons first, and then look around for arguments to rationalize what they want to believe anyway, just like a defense attorney comes up with arguments that may sway the minds of a jury, more than actually trying to find out if his client is innocent or guilty. No doubt many atheists do this too, however, that does not imply anything at all about people following a sceptical empirical approach to belief formation. Sceptical empiricism and faith-based belief are polar opposites. The former has worked well as the foundation of scientific knowledge and progress. The latter has worked appallingly, giving us numerous totally disastrous assumptions and flawed theories about reality. It is pretty obvious which is more likely to be useful and correct. Anyone using faith as the basis of their belief is most likely committing a major thought error. Anyone using empiricism, tentative assumptions based on evidence and logic, cannot possibly be *certain* that god exists. The absolute most that can be assumed, given our current state of knowledge, is that he might. I am not aware of a single monotheistic religious person who goes around practicing their religion on the basis that there is a reasonable chance god might not exist and their beliefs might be totally wrong, something that *any* rational person is always aware of as a possibility.
Yes of course. A "fact" is merely a theory that, so far, has apparently been confirmed repeatedly by past evidence from the world. Nothing says that it cannot be overturned by a counterexample tomorrow. A huge number of scientific theories have been contradicted after their formation. That is the nature of science - it is simply an ongoing attempt to improve human knowledge based on a tiny fraction of the universe's potential data inputs, and our very limited ability to infer and test various explanations and processes potentially driving them. But what is the implication of this? Science already knows all this full well - see Popper, Kuhn, Feyarabend etc. Philosophers were making this point over 2 millennia ago. What is strange is that some religious people think that this forced acceptance of radical uncertainty is an argument in their favour. On the contrary, the fact that all we have, and probably all we ever will have, are THEORIES about the universe, means that we can never be certain about anything (except terms that are true by definition). If we cannot be certain about anything, then for sure we cannot be certain about the existence of an entity that has never been seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted, and has left no physical evidence of existence, despite apparently existing for at least as long as the universe itself.
I think you have a mistaken view on things here. The universe is not governed by "the laws of physics" or by science. Rather it's the other way round. When the universe does something that contradicts the laws of physics of any other science, it is the latter that have to change, not the former.
I had an uncle with a Ph.D in chemistry that once said: "Anyone who thinks all this (world,life) just evolved is a GD idiot" (paraphrased, it was a long time ago). He was NOT the least bit religious in any way shape form or fashion. Obviously just one guys opinion, but I've never forgotten his comments. (I have no real idea myself and don't claim to know) Does this mean Stewie won't be posting his law of physics that allows for <s>something</s> a universe to appear out of nothingness? I was really looking forward to seeing that one.
Sceptical empiricism and faith-based belief are polar opposites - on the contrary. Some people's belief may conflict with sceptical empricisim, but many great scientists in the past and even today are believers. You have to know the difference between observed fact and belief. If you do you have no problem being a sceptical empiricist and believer. I problem have a a more difficult time being a lawyer unwilling to accept anyone statements without evidence and being a believer than a physicist would have being a believer. Few mainline Christians think the earth is only 6000 years old, in fact many of us understand that date was arrived at by a 17th century Catholic monk who knew he was missing generations. We understand that a lot of creating could of gone on before the first nightfall. We are aware that time depends on the observe and therefore 24 hours or a week mean could be billion of years depending on the observers. For years we kept faith and science separate... we had to listen to off their rocker atheists say their is not evidence of God. So now, when we see some many scientists stating that our universe looks incredibly designed... we say hey... we have some evidence. We do not conclude that is proof of God. We call it evidence.
I don't think I suggested anywhere that the universe is governed by the laws of physics. However I'm sure you will agree the fundamental laws of nature as explained and therefore represented by the laws of physics, have been understood enabling vast amounts of applied knowledge through Newton to Einstein (with adjustments yes, but no earth shattering changes) to this day. My only point has been in that regard, those same physical laws allow for a universe to begin from nothing.
I don't really have any argument with what you said. But religion as we see in the world today always has too much dogma. We're supposed to accept this stuff as truth because 'someone said so' or 'it's written in the bible' or the koran the book of mormon. There's a lot of messed up shit written in those books too. On what basis am I supposed to side with one teaching and code over another? I think it's ridiculous. Worst of all religion tries to quash this beautiful search for knowledge. That Charles Darwin is vilified by Christians is an injustice. He is the perfect embodiment of every man who struggles to rectify his intellect and his search for truth, with the appeal to do the 'good' thing and follow religion. His was a fascinating life and I think all of us could relate to his dilemma.