[split] a discussion on origins sparked by "The Order of Things"

[busker]

busker,

Tell me something.  Does Newton’s belief in god make it true that god exists?  Does his belief in god make god’s existence more likely?  If 100% of all scientists today believed in god’s existence, does that make it true that god exists?  If 100% of all scientists today believed in the existence of god, does that make it more likely that god exists?

And it's not ambivalence and no, you can’t have the similar sentiment toward “pretty much anything”, unless you’re arguing for solipsism.  Because unlike god(s), a lot of things that fall under “pretty much anything” have evidence to support its existence.

You have a very warped understanding of the word “faith”.  Why don’t you define it.  And define “belief” while you’re at it.  You seem to be misusing both words as well as equivocating the two.

And if the senses are not infallible, then you cannot trust the conclusion that they are not infallible.

Newton believing anything doesn’t make it true.
Again, go back to my post and read what I said, which was that the causal relationship you assumed between Newton’s lack of our present day knowledge and his belief in god, was bogus.

“Evidence”? Any evidence we have for the “Big Bang” theory is incomplete and hugely circumstantial. Which is why Narlikar even to this day thinks that the steady state theory has legs. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1964 “proved” that running the film of time backwards does lead to a singularity, but any number of new observations tomorrow may lead to an adjustment in that conclusion.
The presence of a universal background radiation doesn’t necessarily mean that there was a Big Bang. The universe may have been oscillating for all time.

In the inevitable absence of certainty, most people choose to have a model to explain the world. Not choosing to have a model is no great act of scientific bravery. If anything, it shows the subject to be lacking in creativity. Wegener believed in continental drift because it was an elegant explanation, even though its mechanism was understood much after his death. Einstein went to the grave believing in a universal theory of physics that would unify quantum mechanics and GR.

What is the distinction between faith and belief? Faith is the assumption that a belief is true at a given level of evidence (which may vary from 0 to 99.99999%). That’s how I see it. The rest is semantics.

Just to be clear, if you’re coming after me with some hocus pocus faith in Jesus argument aired on Alabama TV, don’t. I’m not American.