He did give you credit for areas where you've shown growth. I've followed the thread, and wouldn't have realized that you'd made that kind of progress if he hadn't summarized it. You've come a long way from your initial post.

Religious people are capable of rational thought except they refuse to apply it to the subject that matters most to them.

Have not read this thread, but I consider buddhist and hindu philosophy to be pretty logical.

However, one question I would like to ask: what makes us so sure logic is the best way to describe reality?
What if reality is beyond logic?

Well in the absence of absolute knowledge let's use the best system we have instead of resorting to drug-fueled authors of ancient books.

What makes you so sure logic is the best system? (not an insult, just a question).

I am not sure at all nor do I really care because it gives testable predictions that are valuable in actual life. Anything beyond what we can test (science) is philosophy which is fine but you can never come to conclusions you can rely on. Obviously in astrophysics philosophy sometimes mixes with science but they are still treated separately, something most people don't realize.

The big bang is pretty much scientific theory (a theory is not a hypothesis) but it leads to some conclusions we don't understand. Same goes for singularities in black holes. I take it as far as science will let me go and distance myself from making (too) many conclusions about anything beyond that. It has been pretty much a perfect system for all earthly matters and it is self restoring. The moment evidence arises it can completely evaporate an established theory, something that spirituality doesn't do because nobody agrees with something in the first place. That's because there is no evidence which gives us thousands of religions and beliefs.

So would I rather be part of one of the thousands of different cults that have no prediction power or do I rely on a system that has been accurate for a long time, albeit not perfect. If I turn out to be wrong I want to be wrong for the right reasons.

Are you sure you mean "logic" here?

If I were you, I wouldn't go down the "theory vs hypothesis" line of reasoning. From what you've put forward, I don't think you really understand what you mean to say by this, and you're using it more like a conversation blocker than something that functions as an substantive distinction.

See this is why I don't do this stuff. Have fun talking to ghosts.

Yup. Just a conversation blocker. Saw it coming a mile away.

You're just another in a long string of people who aren't interested in knowledge and have no interest in learning to think carefully about things. It's just so much easier to say things authoritatively ("It's a *THEORY* and not a *HYPOTHESIS*") even though they're basically clueless about the distinction between the two (in reality, that there really isn't that meaningful of a distinction at all) because it makes them feel like they're smarter than others without realizing that errors of this type are a shibboleth of psuedo-scientific (un-scientific) reasoning.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

You are not actually kidding are you? Look up the definitions of these words please, until then stop trolling.

Yeah, like quoting the bible. Love the irony here. Besides quoting a theory is not quoting authority. A theory can still be wrong.

If you're just grabbing a dictionary, then you're clearly not well-versed in the philosophy of science. Go ahead and present your case and try to make a meaningful (that is, measurable) distinction between the two.

The irony that I never mentioned the Bible to you in this conversation and you're attributing Bible-quoting to me? Yup. I love the irony, too.

Oh boy... this is worse than I thought.

I'm retracting my first statement in this thread.

Thus confirming my beliefs with empirical data.

It's your option to choose boastful ignorance. It's not something you need to stick with, but it is the most common path taken.

Ah you figured out the difference between a theory and hypothesis - confirmation with data. Good for you.

<sigh>

Please tell me that you don't actually have a degree in an experimental science.

Please tell me you don't actually have voting rights.

LOL -- It's so awesome when people embarrass themselves for you.

Isn't that what this subforum is all about?

It happens that way a lot when people like you "participate" in the sense of chiming in with ignorance. There's a lot you can actually learn, but it requires you to do things that you clearly don't want to do... such as actually learn.

Next time I want to learn I'll go to church.

I think you think that this is somehow clever, but it only continues to portray deep ignorance and closed-mindedness.

That's what I am actually going to church for.

And you actually continue to embarrass yourself.

Then I will stop going to church.

And you think this somehow saves you from the embarrassment?

The embarrassing thing about your presentation has less to do with your ignorance (though it's not helping you), and more about how little it portrays any sense to grow out of it.