So think about it. A huge new field for scientists to explore with practically unlimited research funding. A researchers wet dream. Yet, no such thing.
This is because of the integrity of the modern scientific method itself. The absolute demand for evidence and peer review that has produced, unarguably, the most succesful and amazing advances in knowledge in human history.

The reason scientific evidence denies religion is for the exact same reasons that science denies astrology and alchemy. Both were at one time a dominant ideology that has since been shown to be empty of anything useful. Religion is the same, the religious just refuse to admit it.

^Well-worded and succinct.

Actually, my whole perspective on why the person of Jesus is the truth is almost completely based on "exclusive contradictory statements"........and how the person of Jesus brings them together.

The single cornerstone of Christianity is that Jesus is somehow all God/Deity and also all man/human (God incarnate - god in the flesh). For starters here are some exclusive contradictions:
God:
Eternal
Above time
Unlimited power
Perfectly good
Man:
Finite
Bound my chronological time
Weak (in any scheme once you get above say 10000' feet high)
Not so good....any goodness he can muster has limits

In all I hope to try to contribute here on this forum, I will be coming from this perspective.....this "apologetic": the paradoxical nature of Jesus (and by extension, his message/word) is huge and unique evidence/reason to believe that he is the "Ultimate Reality".

(hopefully my avatar will have more meaning to some now )

Dave242,

Please see the Rabbit trails thread for a question about your avatar.

I'm going to take what Dave just said and start a thread on a side bar thought.

I'm not agreed. These two cannot be considered simply contradictory based on their subjective natures. It would be like saying "Megan Fox is beautiful" and "Megan Fox is not beautiful."
Science refutes astrology and alchemy because they can be by and large disproved. The nature of Science is that if something can be disproved, it is not considered empirical, this is scientific method 101. Existence of a higher power, the root of most religions, cannot be disproved in the way we know that you cannot turn lead into gold.

The nature of science is that in order for something to be considered true, you must prove it. Alchemy isn't disproved. In fact we know exactly how to turn lead into gold. Just remove 3 of it's 82 protons (and a corresponding number of electrons) and tada! gold. Alchemy, as a practice, has been REPLACED by a science called chemistry because alchemy's methodology was flawed. Since then, chemistry has given us tremedous actual results whereas alchemy was a flop.

Science doesn't disprove anything. It offers proofs that something else is right. Science doesn't have to disprove religion, nor does it try to disprove religion. Science is nothing more than a tested and proven methodolgy for figuring things out. A large part of that method is experimentation and testing, which it does according to rigorous standards. It has repeatedly tested the claims of religion, like so called miracles or the power of prayer and found them to be false every time.

Again, it is up to the religious to provide real evidence that their claims are real. When the religious make claims that can be tested, someone will do so. So far, religion has a stunningly abysmal record.

I disagree. God is a being, an entity, a noun. It is the same category as saying:
A. DGCR exists
B. DGCR does not exist.
Either it does or it doesn't exist.

Beauty is an adjective that varies with one's subjective taste.

But not every issue can be proved by science.
History- can science prove that Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomatox?
Love- can science prove that a husband loves his wife?
Morals- can science prove that murder is wrong?

History bears us documents and records of events, along with arceological evidence that can say to varying degrees of certainty whether an event actually happened. Lee's surrender is well documented and is held as a high possibility of being factual.

God lacks any evidence.

Love is a highly complicated biochemical event in the brain. Science can map out electrical pathways that are "lit" up during different emotional expressions and are learning more and more about the workings of the brain.
Love as an emotion is as subjective as someone's idea of what is beauty.
So science can say alot about the physical and mental processes happening to make a person "love" But it can't say with certainty if one person really loves another one... Yet. But science continues to work on questions and to gather more evidence. That is why science progresses.

Can religion provide evidence that dad REALLY loves mommy? or can it only pose and prance and make meaningless declarations of certainty that it couldn't possibly know. But it can fake it and sound convincing long enough to pass the collection plate around again.

Break up to 2 posts...