When talking about things that science has difficulty exploring, how hard is it to say "we don't know?"

When talking about things that science has difficulty exploring, such as the origins of the universe (big bang and the concept of “before” it is still being brought up to debate), how hard is it to say “we don’t know?” instead of jumping into conclusions based on the writings of some ancient texts mostly written by people who don’t even know what science is?

That depends on who you ask and how bad they need an explanation to resolve itself succinctly.

Impossible for a lot of theists, because the whole point of theism is to have certitude and Answers. To sit with uncertainty is something they very much want & need to avoid.

For reasons I don’t understand, the more fundamentalist the theist, the more they hate to say" “I don’t know “. It’s almost as though they need to have an answer for everything - which might explain their choice of religion

I have no problem saying that I don’t know. But “I don’t know” is rage bait for Christians. They get so worked up about it. :laughing:

The typical “pitch” they give is that people are “searching for answers” and that the faith has those answers. This in turn tends to select for people who have a strong aversion to uncertainty, who may literally panic in its presence. It also means they adopt as a big part of their identity, that they have a correct understanding of reality, that it is reducible to simple, universal, un-nuanced black and white rulesets. So when you suggest that a thing isn’t certain and/or some assertion of theirs is demonstrably false, you create anxiety and also violate their identity, which is indistinguishable from their dogma. And that’s the source of the rage, the constant claims that they are being “attacked”, etc.

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The problem is compounded Natasha by the fact that it’s not only the ancient writers of these ancient texts who don’t even know what science is. Most religious people today don’t even understand what it is either.

They mistakenly believe that science delivers absolute truth. No, it doesn’t.
They mistakenly believe that all of science proves things. But only math and logic prove things.
They mistakenly believe that these ancient texts predict things only recently discovered by science.

:roll_eyes:

So, before we need to say “we don’t know” about something, they usually need to get their house in order and understand properly how science does work.

Thank you,

Walter.

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