Just curious. How could I in theory go about checking whether men walked on the moon? How would I go about proving this to myself or to a skeptic in a manner that would actually verify it happened without relying on someone elses word? I am an agnostic in this. I have to admit that some of the evidence for it looks and sounds pretty dodgy. Fortunately my faith in science doesn't rely on that. If it ever came out it was staged I would just shrug my shoulders. It just isn't that big of a deal if someone did that 40 years ago. But it isn't something that I can duplicate or that anyone else has the spare cash to duplicate.
If you could go to the moon (a big if, but bear with me), there would either be evidence that men walked there, or there wouldn't be. That's what "falsifiable" means: in theory, the assertion that men walked on the moon could be shown to be false, by a lack of physical evidence.
Some people are more sensitive to spiritual things than others. For them it is hard to imagine that other people may lack that extra sense that seems such a natural part of them. They don't understand how someone can not feel the things they do and attribute it to the other person not trying hard enough or blocking themselves from feeling it on purpose. If you were to tell them that their experiences were not duplicatible they might not believe that you had ever tried to actually duplicate the experience because when they experimented it worked for them. It takes awhile to figure out that we are not all made the same and to allow for that in our judgements of each other. Just because one person can do something and the other can't does not make them inferior or mean that they are lying or crazy or whatever.
I do understand what you mean here. An analogy I came up regarding this goes as follows: Imagine two people, one raised on land (living in the open air) and one raised deep under the ocean, surrounded by water. They would both find it uncomfortable, if not intolerable, to switch places. The first one would be disturbed by the increased pressure, while the second one would feel incredibly vulnerable without being immersed in the comforting sea.
Nevertheless, my main objection to religious experiences is not the fact of the experiences themselves. It's the idea that I should accept the experiencer's own religious explanation, when logically simpler ones exist, and the experiencer is not necessarily particularly qualified to come up with an explanation for the experience.
And you are right. It is nice that they have proof now. A whole new world of possibilities has opened up to their view.
Tash
Tash
More Important Than Soccer: Completely new type of DNA discovered
02/12/2010 04:48:51 PM
- 1428 Views
that is TOTALLY inappropriate
02/12/2010 04:58:47 PM
- 643 Views
Crazy awesome.
02/12/2010 05:07:49 PM
- 729 Views
So the movie Evolution was real!
02/12/2010 05:24:16 PM
- 638 Views
Wow. *NM*
02/12/2010 05:32:08 PM
- 393 Views
Dang. I thought it was naturally occurring. Missed the part where it was grown in a lab.
03/12/2010 02:16:16 AM
- 690 Views
I won't pretend I know enough about biology to understand the impact of this
02/12/2010 06:26:24 PM
- 713 Views
It's like finding a type of rock that eats laughter
02/12/2010 06:51:15 PM
- 559 Views
... without coming down and dealing with the nasty stomach cramps.
02/12/2010 09:49:06 PM
- 768 Views
I think I had an ex once that was made of arsenic. *NM*
02/12/2010 07:10:57 PM
- 350 Views
So, is it an alien?
02/12/2010 07:19:49 PM
- 701 Views
They haven't mentioned anything saying it's not from Earth, I think
02/12/2010 08:03:44 PM
- 708 Views
The bacteria in question is part of a known lineage
02/12/2010 08:07:34 PM
- 914 Views
see my note below
02/12/2010 08:13:35 PM
- 710 Views
Maybe
02/12/2010 08:23:16 PM
- 638 Views
So, apparently, this bacteria doesn't use arsneic for its DNA in its natural state?
02/12/2010 08:06:02 PM
- 588 Views
While awesome, it's a bit of a problem.
02/12/2010 09:04:22 PM
- 609 Views
True, but I'm not "looking for" anything in particular, so I just like it *NM*
02/12/2010 11:09:21 PM
- 391 Views
Less cool a revelation than I was hoping, but certainly not a complete disappointment. *NM*
02/12/2010 10:35:33 PM
- 345 Views
I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It always seemed common sense to me that there are
02/12/2010 10:40:22 PM
- 744 Views
I think it just makes them happy that they can widen the parameters for life-sustaining planets. *NM*
02/12/2010 11:00:31 PM
- 328 Views
yah. it's one thing to theorize, another thing to find something to hold true.
02/12/2010 11:10:23 PM
- 621 Views
It's much more than an educated guess.
02/12/2010 11:59:18 PM
- 778 Views
You can't "know" from this distance.
03/12/2010 03:13:05 AM
- 582 Views
Why not?
03/12/2010 04:42:15 AM
- 768 Views
obviously you have not learned to look at the back label on the car *NM*
04/12/2010 07:04:42 PM
- 336 Views
Yes, we can.
04/12/2010 06:04:48 PM
- 936 Views
The problem probably is with me.
04/12/2010 08:00:56 PM
- 601 Views
No, they aren't.
04/12/2010 10:01:25 PM
- 612 Views
Are you baiting me to bait you?
05/12/2010 06:41:49 AM
- 773 Views
I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:26:39 AM
- 772 Views
Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:08:04 PM
- 551 Views
Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
05/12/2010 07:56:43 PM
- 763 Views
Re: I'm just carrying on a conversation.
06/12/2010 03:15:37 AM
- 703 Views
I made my students watch the NASA channel for over two hours today
02/12/2010 11:11:40 PM
- 503 Views