I think all roads lead to that its a mystery. Even religion has some compartments set aside for mysteries like the mystery of the trinity. When you invoke the term God, its the same as saying you've reached the end to enquiry but questions don't stop due to some self appointed authorities insistence. As a matter of fact somehow you get more answers from questions, the journey IS the destination. Being cocksure is more of a personality thing than legitimately representing the vanguard of science
a thinking person would look at how both sides came to their conclusions. the religious believe their version because some superstitious sheep herder wrote it down in a so called holy book thousands of years ago. there is no evidence to support it. the scientific verson comes to its conclusions based on hundreds of years of scientific observation and testing. are both ideas really equally valid? "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Isaac Asimov
Yes, but after they make an emotional decision about (among other things) what can be considered "evidence" or not.
You think with the laws of physics (yes I know you don't like the fact), mathematics and gravity allowing for a universe from nothing on one hand , and a childlike imaginary invisible friend abstract concept in the form of a fanciful deistic creator with nothing in support but wishful thinking on the other, "One is no more or less plausible than the other." !? Good luck with that one. Science has a long history of solving mystery . Religion a long history of depending on it..
you have made this statement a lot. do you understand the concept of evidence? true evidence has emotion removed from the equation.
The decision of what is "true evidence" is a necessarily arbitrary one--it's emotional, what "feels" right.
no its not. exactly the opposite. that is why science uses peer review. what you may feel is evidence has to pass the critical review, based on testing, of people who disagree with you. what you are describing is psudoscience. not real science.
Which tests that the methodology and conclusions are consistent with scientific validity, which is defined by people. There is no force which commands that people accept the scientific worldview (and only that worldview); if there were we would not be having this argument. Thus, it is an entirely human, ie. arbitrary, decision.
Pretty much what I tell my brother in law who's a minister of a small congregation of christians. "But they were primitive people" I try to tell him. Can't very well expect him to just drop everything and change his life. He tells me the Bible ought to be interpreted metaphorically which I still have problems with. His church does alot of good works around communities with feeding down on their luck people who's kids died and houses burned down etc. Decent people to be sure so I'm not going to denigrate them for their beliefs. Those things can be done w/o the baggage and onto more progressive pursuits that add to civilization. Even w/o religion I doubt all of a sudden the population of Earth are going to become PHD's and rescue Africa from poverty and solve all our problems maybe at least not contribute to them.
we accept the scientific world view because it answers the question we are faced with. science is the application of reason to questions.