Atheists, do you believe in science?

Question

I think I would have much more respect for an atheist that says that science can not explain everything and that even what science claims to be truth, relies on the belief of unkowns...so it may not be true.

Is Physics an absolute truth? What about the constant Alpha? It may not be an actual constant and may differ in space or time, that kind of puts a big hole in Physics does it not? You must put faith in the constant Alpha for you to claim Physics is a truth.

What about the law of gravity? It doesn't fit for the way galaxies spin, so science makes up the idea of "dark matter". There is no proof of it, they can't even start to describe what it may be. But they have to believe in it, or our understanding of gravity is completly false.

If you can put your faith in science and all the unknowns and "beliefs" that science must follow, then why is there a problem with others doing the same with God?

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

--- Albert Einstein

Thanks for all the replies. Most people assumed that I don't believe in science without me ever mentioning that, bravo. I in fact believe very much in science, I use science everyday. The question was more about the ability to believe in an unknown more so than it was about science. The conclusions that some answers make about me are very entertaining though.

Einstein actually was not atheist, he described himself as agnostic.
"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."
- Albert Einstein

The assumptions that are made by people astound me. According to some of the answers, I am a) I don't understand science. b) I'm trying to convert people c) I am somehow saying Einstein was a Christian by using a quote that was only to show that even he suggest we know nothing of the universe?

I sometimes question if people even read the question, or just let their emotions drive their answers.

Answer 1

A better question would be how can atheist believe in the concept of science which is founded on faith, which is a conept they refuse to accept.?

So how can an atheist truely be an atheist if they accept science thereby accepting something based on faith?

Therefore I state that there are no atheists, only people who place their faith in something other than the typical idea of a deity.

Answer 2

There is a way to detect dark matter now. They only found about a third of what was expected. So there is still not enough matter and that has been problematic. There are a few papers that suggest the central part of Newton's idea that gravity is the same everywhere might be wrong. The models that work actually have a higher constant in places. Gravity is a weird thing. No one really has a good idea how it works or why it is such a weak force.

But the point is they will work it out. No one claims that it has all the answers. My claim is that it is the way to GET the answers.

Answer 3

The fundamental (and, while in humour mode, fundamentalist) problem is this.

Science operates on the basis of certain working principles that are regarded as supported by observational evidence. Important among these are:

[1] Physical law is invariant with respect to time. In other words, once we alight upon a particular physical law, it remains the same regardless of when we subject it to experimental test.

[2] Physical law is invariant with respect to location. In other words, a particular physical law will be the same for an observer here on Earth as it is for an observer located somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Now, these principles began as assumptions way back in the earliest days of science, but they were testable. If there were any violations of these working principles to be found, observation would eventually alight upon them. Since we have been observing the physical world with some degree of precision for quite a long time, and have not observed any violations of invariance of physical law with respect to time or location, we are confident that these working principles are sound. Indeed, we have now reached the stage where we have determined that [1] above is an absolute necessity for stable ordered structures to exist at all.

No atheist has or will ever claim that science explains EVERYTHING. The idea of absolute truths is not a subject breached in science. That is a moral and/or religious notion.
Anybody is free to use the use the same tools scientists use, and they are also free to disprove these tools. Science is a transparent and open forum. Scientists aren't *forced* to follow beliefs and unknowns. Scientists must be consistent in their tests, allowing for reproduction and disproving.

I would have much more respect for a person who says that they just don't know, rather than one who says scientists can't explain dark matter, so my god is just as likely to exist.

Edit: It is funny to me (and many others, I would guess) that you choose only to address the responses that imply something about you (which is not necessarily unwarranted) and simply ignore the many responses that were well thought out and explained (not to say mine is). Were you asking your question simply to bait people into making assumptions that you could point out without denying, or did you want an actual discussion? Hmmm....

Answer 4

I'm afraid you're in way over your head here, kid.

You don't seem to know anything about science, physics, truth, evidence, faith, proof, or belief.

Here's a big example: Look at your "dark matter" example. You suggest that there is no proof of dark matter. That's true, but irrelevant: we're talking science, so "proof" is unimportant. Science is about evidence.

You say "they can't even start to describe what it may be". That's patently false. We know a lot about what dark matter would have to be in order for it to serve as a proper explanation of the observed phenomena. It has to have a certain mass, it can't be radiating very strongly (at least at any of the wavelengths we've observed), etc.

You suggest that somehow the fact that there are unanswered questions about dark matter push physics into the realm of faith. Were that true, physicists would not be conducting any observational studies, experiments, or any other kind of empirical data collection. But of course there's a LOT of empirical science going on aimed at improving our understanding of the phenomena that lead us to believe in dark matter. It's not a matter of relying on faith: it's admitting that we do not yet know all of the answers, and having the strength of character to go out on a limb and do the observations required to find the right answer.

That's quite the opposite of the whole "God" thing, which is all about ignoring evidence and being unwilling to put claims to the test. Your own claims here show that very clearly: you started with something you wanted to claim - that science is no better than religion when it comes to reliance on faith - and you deliberately ignored reality in order to make your case.

Answer 5

Science does not require belief or faith. Quite the opposite. To be a scientist means to engage the world with doubt and skepticism.
Science does not claim to know everything or to even be able to explain everything. Instead, science is the activity of asking questions even as answers become provisionally available. Best example I know of: Newtonian concept of gravity (a force acting at a distance) was subsumed into an improved concept (warped space-time).

The beauty of science is that it does not claim absolute truth and is willing to undergo changes in order to incorporate new evidence.
I'd much rather have a world with only ever-changing-science than with religious zealots that insist that I believe their "absolute truth".

Answer 6

Science has theories with concrete evidence and educated guesses. While not all parts of it are explainable, there is enough truth and evidence to postulate an answer.

Faith, however, relies solely on the individual's acceptance of what was, what is, and what will be without evidence. That's why people believe in the Christian God right? Even though there is no evidence of his existence you have "faith" that he does exist...

It is definitely ironic how you are quoting an atheist. Your quote doesn't mean for me what it means for you. From my perspective, yes, we do have a childlike mind where we look at the vastness of the universe and see something so daunting and unexplainable yet holds a certain patter amid the chaos. The ADULT in us seeks the answers to the questions through research and the scientific method.

Answer 7

Science is not a question of faith. It proceed from axiom to outcome logically, and is entirely testable by observation.

Of course it is not complete.

Indeed the Theory of Incompleteness may well preclude any complete theory (and would apply equally to religion if religion were true, meaning that religion could no more give a complete explanation).

Of course there are unknowns.

But unknowns are just a limitation - they are not evidence of an alternative explanation.

As for design - I see absolutely no evidence of design in the universe. You are clearly seeing things differently. That is a matter of perspective. However, this perspective is testable - if you can come up with an experiment that would DEMONSTRATE design rather than highlight your emotional desire to observe it then we would be interested.

Answer 8

Yeah, the reason science is constantly changing is because theories are modified to fit evidence. Whether dark matter exists or not makes very little difference of the outcome if you fall off a 700 foot cliff. (for that matter, the theory of relativity, which modified Newton's laws of motion, states your mass would increase and time would slow down for you as your velocity towards the ground increases, but guess what... you still go splat in pretty much the same fashion newtonian physics dictates).

Christianity's (I know, I'm assuming you're a Christian) holy texts do not change with new evidence. That's why we've learned more about our world in 200 years of scientific method than we did in 2000 years of religious dark ages.

Answer 9

TL;DR.

What exactly are you 'Searching' for, a larger hole to bury your head in?

Please stop criticizing things you don't have even the most basic understanding of.

Atheists do not 'believe in' science, as it it a very wide area of expertise and subject matter, none of which involves 'believing in' . That is for the religious and the awed and stupid.

EDIT
Just because you don't understand it does not mean it is wrong. I do not pretend to know anything about quantum physics or advanced mathematics. I am a normal person, who does not believe in god(s). You people find that simple thing so hard to understand and expect all Atheists to be physics professors, geneticists and mathematicians.

I have not substituted a belief in flying invisible creatures for a 'belief' in science. I know enough about science to know that without it I would not be currently typing on my PC. My basic common sense is what tells me that believing ancient primitive Hebrew superstitions is pretty damn stupid.

Answer 10

I don't have any problem with others beliefs in a god...

What I have a problem with is their attempts to insinuate their beliefs upon the public - in the public domain - using taxpayers money to do it.

Personally, I don't give a dam if someone worships trees...just keep it in your home and in your church and out of public places.

As for your take on science, you are certainly entitled to your own belief there, too. Much of science is a theory. Much has not been proven...but at least what we know is based on physical facts, not some fairy tale cooked up by a bunch of old men thousands of years ago who didn't understand the world around them.