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'Has Science Buried God?' Opening statement from my debate in Trondheim Norway

 
(Photo - hall starting to fill before the debate)
 
Here's my opening statement from today's debate with Christian evangelist and debater Peter Payne in Trondheim, Norway today.
 
HAS SCIENCE BURIED GOD?
 
Thank you to the organisers for inviting me to participate in this excellent event. I'm delighted to be here.
 
In one of his online resources Peter Payne says, and I quote:
 
"The net of scientific method, namely the net of hypothesis and experimental/observational test, is unable to demonstrate either the truth or falsity of the Christian faith, for it is simply the wrong kind of net to capture what is relevant."
 
Peter is not alone in thinking Christianity is off limits to science, of course. Many Christians would agree with him. However it seems to me Peter's claim is pretty clearly wrong. Science can be a threat to religious beliefs, and indeed to Christian belief. I'm going to explain how. Continues here.

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi,

I'm sorry that I missed your debate here in Norway. I would have loved to watch it, and I hope it went well.

Do you know if the debate was filmed, and if so, if it will be uploaded to the web at some point?

Best Regards,
Mikkel
Philolinguist said…
Talking about science and God, CERN will be firing up the Large Hadron Collider shortly, at 13 TeV, DOUBLE the previous voltage. Apparently, they've never heard of Murpy's Law. It's one thing to have something go wrong in a test tube in a teenager's basement (which is bad enough), and quite another to attempt to re-create the 'Big Bang' on the only planet we have.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/mar/13/large-hadron-collider-fires-up-in-a-bid-to-overturn-the-standard-model

From what I know about group psychology, this looks like a classic 'groupthink' scenario, by which individually clever people collectively do stupid things; because they're shielded from public scrutiny by their own expertise, thus allowing institutionalized conformity effects to operate within the isolated group. Such effects tend to discourage dissent, and as group members compete for peer approval, they tend to gravitate to more extreme views and take more risks.

To find out more about scientific concerns regarding the CERN experiments, go here:
http://www.lhcdefense.org/

Talking about science and the supernatural, have a look at CERN's logo:
http://design-guidelines.web.cern.ch/badge-logo

Notice anything? Maybe this will help:
https://youtu.be/RenPOg8vmNU
Philolinguist said…
An interesting piece of art at CERN is the large statue of the Hindu deity Shiva 'The Destroyer', that is lit in such a way that it casts an even larger shadow on one of the key buildings (see photo in the article below):

http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/11/10/in-the-shadow-of-shiva/

Shiva was the deity referenced in Robert Oppenheimer's famous quote from the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I have become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds," which Oppenheimer allegedly uttered on witnessing the first nuclear bomb test.
daz365 said…
There are no scientific concerns regarding CERN. just unscientific ones among trolls and nut-cases.

The CERN logo represents a synchrotron, a cyclic particle accelerator. you can only arrive at 666 by ignoring half of it.

To avoid this conspiracy theory nonsense may I recommend Stephen's book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Believing-Bullshit-Sucked-Intellectual-Black/dp/1616144114
Philolinguist said…
daz365 said "The CERN logo represents a synchrotron, a cyclic particle accelerator. you can only arrive at 666 by ignoring half of it."

In the logo, only three of the 'particle beams' touch the edge of the frame. Those three 'beams' form the stems of the sixes. The other two, shorter 'beams' don't reach the frame. Readers can draw their own conclusions about the rationale for that design. Of course, a diagram can illustrate two things at once. It can have an 'overt' meaning and a 'covert' meaning, and a bit of embellishment to make the 'covert' meaning less obvious.

As for the scientific concerns about CERN, readers can visit the website I cited above and draw their own conclusions. Anyway, we don't have long to wait to find out what happens. CERN is planning to fire up the LHC at almost full capacity (13 TeV) between March and June. The previous record was only 7 TeV.
Philolinguist said…
BTW, I just noticed another resemblance in the CERN logo. It looks like an eye, specifically the left eye (albeit tilted at an exaggerated angle). For the significance of that, watch this video (you might wish to speed it up to save time):
https://youtu.b/CNrfBKQlyZo?t=16s

... and this?:
http://abc7chicago.com/health/obama-uses-selfie-stick-to-remind-americans-of-health-care-deadline/515554/
Philolinguist said…
Sorry, that video link should be this:
https://youtu.be/CNrfBKQlyZo?t=16s
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daz365 said…
I did decide not to waste any more time on a obvious troll, but this is an interesting example of a conspiracy theory mindset.

This Cern nonsense shows most of the usual conspiracy traits

Philologist said "In the logo, only three of the 'particle beams' touch the edge of the frame. Those three 'beams' form the stems of the sixes. The other two, shorter 'beams' don't reach the frame."

Here we see pattern seeking and confirmation bias, the only reason to pick the three lines that reach the edge over the two that don't is for the purpose of confirming the desired conclusion.

If pick the two inner rings we could make 66, 99 96 69, even with the three why not 996, 966,999 etc.

The evil genius who covertly advertises his plan to destroy the world has it's place only in the movies and in the realm of fantasy.

Philologist said "As for the scientific concerns about CERN, readers can visit the website....."

Why would anyone listen to a bunch of amateur trolls and pseudo-scientists when they can take note of real professional physicists doing real research into the subject.

Philologist said "Anyway, we don't have long to wait to find out what happens"

And I'm guessing that after nothing happens you probably won't come back here and admit you got it all wrong.
There will probably be a recalculation on the power required, or maybe the Illuminati or the lizard lords have given us a stay of execution.
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Philolinguist said…
It's on folks, CERN has reached 13 TeV. Hang on to your hats and keys.

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/05/first-images-collisions-13-tev
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