science

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There has been some discussion around the net over Paul Davies op-ed piece in the New York Times titled Taking Science on Faith. As you might imagine, believers like it, and non-believers don't. This paragraph contains the flammable claim that science too, requires faith.

The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” [that science is based on testable hypotheses and religion is based on faith] as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.¹

This claim, that science has its own faith-based system, is comforting or vindicating to religious believers, and something close to anathema to Atheists and probably some Agnostics.

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In tactical terminology and in Military parlor, there is a word called Offensive Defensive. This is one of the important military strategies in waging war. The strategy can be defined as the general methodology of action without getting into smaller details. As an example, US strategy today is seen to get hold of control over world’s oil output at different places and influence them to it’s advantage. (This should not be seen as blame towards the great nation.) The critics of US today are generally blaming US identifying with this. In offensive Defense during war, the troops hold our own ground mostly at the borders facing the enemy areas and they just do not hang on to their posts waiting for enemy actions. They send active and offensive patrols into enemy territory for gathering information about enemy sites, position and strength of gun locations, Tank (Armored fighting vehicles) placement and the nature and size of tanks, enemy defenses, movements and supply routes. At times, they even draw fire from enemy to know their strength, alertness, will and capabilities and types of weapons that have been deployed by the enemy. At times, minor quick attacks are also planned on isolated enemy positions apart from conducting ambushes against enemy patrols. Thus, defensive actions are not just waiting in locations awaiting enemy. There is greater military activity although troops are in defense.

Coming to the subject of God and his existence under discussion, it is opined that there has always been a clash between religion (Can not be generalized and termed fundamentalist) and those who do not subscribe to the concept of God.

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