Religious science and creationism are examples of attempts to explain quantifiable known data through the use of a model of the unknowable.
Putting that differently, you can’t explain quantifiable data with metaphysics and you can’t deny faith in a deity through astrophysics.
So Larry, I really think you are all wet on this. [/quote]
Why does there need to be an “explanation” per se of what is currently unknowable?[/quote]
I don’t there needs to be (in fact, “explaining” the unknowable sounds like and exercise in irony (or a Gary Larson cartoon).I was suggesting that apprehending the unknowable (which to me is akin to building a conceptual interface to deal with it) is a way of describing the role of religion.
[quote=larrylujack] And, what is unknowable changes over time: clearly what was unknowable 100 years ago is knowable now, as evidenced by the DNA as the genetic code, particle physics, to name a few. What is knowable 100 years from now, assuming the human race survives, will certainly be within the sphere of what is considered unknowable now. [/quote]I think this is intuitive and obvious.
[quote=larrylujack] What I think I am reading, is that the absence of proof of non-existence of a deity viz astrophysics can in a sense be used to support existence of a deity? [/quote] No. I was not asserting that. I don’t want this to turn into a lower-division philosophy/rhetoric class but that sounds like an “either/or” fallacy. My point was that the domain of one is squarely outside the domain of the other. Science cannot meaningfully answer questions of “why am I here” (I mean other than threadjacking and selling condos). Similarly, Religion is a crappy model for studying primitive achuelean tool industry (or neutrinos, or geophysical phenomena).
[quote=larrylujack]If my interpretation of your convoluted prose is accurate, I and most others in science would say that this is not a meaningful “model” to attempt to answer the unknowable if the goal is to actually seek knowledge: it is akin to throwing in the towel.
[/quote] Well if I were presenting it as a model to answer the unknowable, then you might have a point. Throwing in the towel only applies in a fight. I don’t see this as a fight.
