Seeing is Believing, Or So I Hear.


God is up for debate on the ABC, and is being promoted on the Sydney Morning Herald
Article

One of the debaters has his say in the Sydney Morning Herald in Another Article

This article is headed, Seeing is Believing.

The idea is that science sees things clearly, science is based on hands on observations, things we can see and prove but religion is in the realm of imagining.

I won't go into the use of computer modelling (all the global warming predictions and maps - simulated) in which there is no actual observation of the real world.

I won't go into modern astrophysics (a well respected diagram) where the greatest minds never even look at a telescope but sit and stare and scribble on a blackboard.

But let's ask, "How does science see things?'

When science looks at the stars it uses radio telescopes and infrared telescopes and creates a visual representation that we can see, that has no direct link to the reality. Yet we trust it to represent the reality. We can't see it, but we trust it.

When science looks a broken bone it uses an Xray machine or an MRI, and creates a representation (Image) of what the X ray reveals. This is not what it actually looks like. it represents what it is like in a two dimensional image. Yet we trust that that bone is not broken.

When Science studies microbiology we use electron microscopes to create representational images with false colours, because the biological functions are beyond our ability to see. Yet we trust it to detect what is there.

What we are seeing can't be seen, and yet we trust the tools to represent what is there.

When science studies the 1st century BC we call it history and use historical methods to study the historical records. When Science studies the question of God we can examine the gospels and the historical records of the New Testament. We can evaluate their data and use the objective tools of historical method to see what is there, and when the conclusion is that something remarkable happened in 1st Century Israel, that all these guys seem to be telling the truth, then, our response is...

Seeing is Believing.

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