Re: [Phys-L] Science and Christianity

[Xavier Luminous <xavier.luminous@googlemail.com>]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 4:18 AM, brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 6/13/2012 12:53 PM, Aburr@aol.com wrote:
> > /snip/
> > > I'm not familiar with the Theological equivalent of this ability to
> > > grant equal validity to conflicting assumptions."
> > There are many examples. The one that comes first to mind is the concepts
> > of "free will" and "predestination"
>
> -it is said some Christian sects are more convinced than others  of a
> predestiny - I have
> heard it said of Presbyterians, for example.

I would argue that this question is essentially unanswerable.  If the
universe is quantum, which it seems to be, then the only statements
you can make about the future are statistical.  On the other hand, a
purely classical world still exhibits chaos whereby two arbitrarily
close states will diverge exponentially.  In either case there's no
way to predict the future, and therefore no way of knowing if our
actions are predestined.

-X