"... all hold to a faith of one kind or another. The scientist has faith in his science that one day it will reveal the answers to the riddle of the universe, life and everything and the religious has faith in his religion to do the same."

Ah yes, Maximus, but at least the scientist will still be alive to tell the tale.

First define your terms … I’ve been called an idealist, not because I think of the world as an idea, but because I believe that humans can be better than they often are, that qualities of love, compassion and trust can be more prominent. And I’ve found that this can be so, not through blind faith but through a process of self-observation that can be described as scientific. This is “evidence based”, but it’s not a “belief”. We have a belief when we hold something to be true without being sure of the facts; when the facts are known, that’s reality, not a belief.

Most scientific understanding is based on observation of externals, although nothing we observe is actually external. We experience external phenomena at our sense doors, through the interaction of visible spectra with our eyes, audible waves with our ears, tangible objects with our skin, etc. Physicist Louis Alvarez got the Nobel Prize when after 20 years of experimentation with a “bubble chamber”, he measured the rapidity with which sub-atomic particles arose and passed away. But people I knew who visited him reported that this knowledge didn’t change him as a person. By contrast, the Buddha 2500 years earlier observed the same phenomenon within his own mind and body and became enlightened, free from the causes of misery, free from craving, aversion, ignorance and delusion. His process was a scientific one – detached observation of reality as it manifested from moment to moment within his own mind and body, with a highly developed concentration which allowed him to see at the deepest level. He showed how my ideal could be realised, with no resort to real or imagined outside forces, beliefs or ideas. No “astrologists, fortune-tellers and assorted charlatans” or pre-ordained plans involved.

I met and admired Bertrand Russell; but after I learned and benefited from the practice of introspection taught by the Buddha, I felt sorry for him, that he had been limited to the realm of rational thought without being able to develop the wisdom which comes only from deep observation of the reality within. (349)

John,

Thanks for your article.

Similar to what others have written, my main difficulty in accepting a purely scientific approach to life is the inability of science to answer some of the fundamental questions of life. For example, science can't provide an answer to why we consider humans to be of greater worth than other animals nor can it assist us in determining the ethical status of our actions.

For these questions people can look to philosophy and embrace some philosophical theory for their answers. However the theory which they select will be no more provably correct than the answer given by a particular religion. An atheist could easily provide reasons why they consider their philosophy to be superior to other philosophies and religions, but they will not be able to provide any scientific support for why their reasons are valid.

Science has its limits. All people rely on claims about reality and morality that can't be proven or disproven scientifically. For some people these claims include an omnipotent being.

Greg.

Yes Mark Richardson, religion is not testable by scientific means. Which is why it is just as credible to assert that the universe was created by fairies as it is to assert that it was created by a God. All religions are just as “in”credible as each other.

As John Warren wrote “the material basis of science is that any idea, hypothesis or theory (and there are many of them, good, bad or indifferent) is not accepted into the useful body of scientific knowledge until it has been applied in practice and shown to work. If it works it’s true, at least until a situation is found in which it doesn’t work and it must be revised.”

Science doesn’t, and does not expect others to, blindly believe anything. Anything which is “accepted into the useful body of scientific knowledge” has been tested and can be verified and reproduced. If better knowledge comes along, then that “useful body of scientific knowledge” is revised.

As far as science is concerned, there is no God or other supernatural being until it can be proven otherwise. Until it is, the God theory is just another hypothesis. Those who come up with the God theory are welcome to prove it, those who don’t, don’t have to prove anything.

You seem to believe that scientists or anyone else should have to “disprove” the existence of the supernatural, which has been manufactured in the minds of others, in order to “pronounce on the issue with any authority”.

Religious believers pronounce on the issue without any proof or authority whatsoever – and they fervently believe what they pronounce. Yet when asked to provide proof that “God” exists, they can’t and then claim that we must have "faith" (i.e. trust me I'm a priest). But they insist that because scientists can’t “disprove” such made-up stories, they can only be skeptics.

Maximus, the reason people who choose to believe know “no more, or no less” than those who don’t, is because science has discovered the information in spite of religion.

To say there is no God is to say you have enough knowledge to know for sure that there is no God.

Science can never be certain that there is no God. It will always have the dilemma of what created it all?

Science can only observe and deduce what was already there. Inventions and technical advancement are no doubt great, but these do not answer the “material” (creation from nothingness).

The human brain - that can conceive science in the first place - is largely taken for granted by the atheist scientist.

Evolution? Something has to exist first, then be given a reason for advancing in a specific direction, a motive to adapt, a knowledge to mutate, and a comparative system (standard) to reorganise itself constantly, until who knows where or what … super humans perhaps?

Give us a break, as long as there is the element of the unknowable, something outside our current knowledge, that something could include God.

Since no one can claim total knowledge, therefore atheism is self–refuting because no one can prove ‘there is no God’; the question becomes irrelevant and so does atheism.

Therefore, creation, intelligent design, however what it is called today, can never be ruled out as a potential alternative to other theories.

Evolutionist are worthless to humanity.Its just a hobby as far as I'm concern.Nothing but man made scrappy racist science.