angryoldfatman:
"We are mere animals, doomed to extinction at some point in the course of our universe's continued churning." I think what you're missing is a clear idea of the boundry line separating science and religion.
Today's word "science" is short for the term our Founders used: "natural-science" which they derived from the ancient term "natural-philosophy".
Today's science -- natural-science -- is based on some hugely important assumptions including: 1) there are natural explanations for natural processes, and 2) natural processes we see today operated the same way in the past.
So, the importance of science's natural assumption is that as soon as you attempt to answer your welt-angst questions by leaving the natural realm, now you've also left science for the realms of philosophy, theology and religion.
Science, by definition, cannot answer, stubbornly refuses to answer, such questions.
angryoldfatman: "Thus, science is futile and ultimately useless."
Philosophically... religiously, of course, since science was never intended to address such matters.
But science is vastly greater than "futile" or "useless" in devising methods for feeding, clothing, housing & finding employment for now seven point something billion human beings.
And anybody can easily see that while science continues to advance by orders of magnitude every generation, philosophically we are still stuck in the 1848 Revolution and Marx's Communist Manifesto, while any religious ideas are poisoned by political correctness and therefore are withering on our spiritual vine.
All of that is true, but the fault is not science, it's our own fallen natures, and our eagerness to close our eyes to the light of theological truth. </metaphor>
angryoldfatman: "And if science is the crowning achievement of mankind, then that makes mankind essentially a waste of time and space, as is anything and everything that exists.
Existence falls to non-existence, thus waste."
These are lessons most people first learn in their sophomore year, hence the term: sophomoric.
No, mankind's "crowning achievement" is not science, but rather long before there was such a thing as "science", in a place called "Golgotha", the crown was made of thorns.
Doubtless you remember it, FRiend.
I think what you’re missing is a clear idea of the boundry line separating science and religion.
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I think you truly have not thought out the full implications of your position. You can’t have an isolated belief; all beliefs come with a set of supporting a priori beliefs.
An isolated belief without support is incoherent.
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So, the importance of science’s natural assumption is that as soon as you attempt to answer your welt-angst questions by leaving the natural realm, now you’ve also left science for the realms of philosophy, theology and religion.
Science, by definition, cannot answer, stubbornly refuses to answer, such questions.
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Science, theology, religion, it all ends when we end.
If we had all the answers to all of the questions we asked of the universe, whether that is via science, theology, religion, or some combination thereof, those answers would be extinct as soon as we are extinct.
Is Darwin wrong? Do we not share flesh and blood with other animals that have gone extinct?
If he is wrong, that puts your entire premise into question. If he is wrong, then you are wrong.
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All of that is true, but the fault is not science, it’s our own fallen natures, and our eagerness to close our eyes to the light of theological truth.
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What happens when “theological truth” contradicts science? Does science “win”? In that case, theology is wrong. In that case, if you tout theology as being superior somehow to science, you are wrong.
Otherwise, you believe the same type of things that bucktoothed rednecks from South Alabamissipina do. Except for that whole nagging litmus test for intelligence called Darwinism.
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These are lessons most people first learn in their sophomore year, hence the term: sophomoric.
No, mankind’s “crowning achievement” is not science, but rather long before there was such a thing as “science”, in a place called “Golgotha”, the crown was made of thorns.
Doubtless you remember it, FRiend.
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There are lessons people learn in their pre-school years as well. To call seemingly forgotten philosophy “sophomoric” is the same as calling belief in God and Jesus Christ “pre-school”.
You may have not meant it as insulting, but it seems to me that you did.
But really, it doesn’t matter anyway.
The life of one man - a short one, not even forty years - will be consigned to oblivion like the entirety of mankind will. At the present rate, with more people realizing that they were NOT created, but formed as products upon products initially assembled by chance, the man’s life is doomed to oblivion long before Homo sapiens is.
His life, your life, my life, all life - gone. Science, gone. Theology, gone. Philosophy, gone.
Good, gone. Evil, gone. Fairness, gone. Justice, gone. Truth, gone. Falseness, gone.
So Darwin wasn’t even wrong. He, like all of us, is inconsequential and irrelevant.