Sciences vs. Religion

[mkotova]

Can religion and science co-exist? Does one hinder the progress of the other? Copernicus and Galilei tried to make people see reason that one does not hinder the other. Did they succeed?
Copernicus: “it is an endeavor to seek truth in everything”
Galilei: "If we have these gifts from God (intellect, curious), why should we not use them and just let them sit"

[cafolini]

They have always co-ex-isted as they do today and will do tomorrow. Neither ever had to justify the other.

[mal4mac]

Religion and science cannot co-exist. Religion involves believing stuff without evidence. Science is about believing the evidence. Science should be used to “cure” the world of religion, not co-exist with it, apart from treating the religious kindly until they are cured.

“I hope for a world in which everyone is rational and believes things only when there is evidence in favor of them... And does not believe things because of tradition, authority, scripture, revelation… but only because of evidence.” - Richard Dawkins, http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/10/15/-an-appetite-for-richard-dawkins-portland-state-vanguard

[YesNo]

It looks like this is a duplicate thread.

I agree with cafolini. Science and religion do coexist. There is no problem with their coexistence.

In the other thread, mortalterror pointed out that the claim that they don't coexist was created in the 19th century by atheists. This "conflict thesis" is no longer widely supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis

In that Wikipedia article is the following:


Biologist Stephen Jay Gould said: "White's and Draper's accounts of the actual interaction between science and religion in Western history do not differ greatly. Both tell a tale of bright progress continually sparked by science. And both develop and use the same myths to support their narrative, the flat-earth legend prominently among them". In a summary of the historiography of the Conflict Thesis, Colin Russell said that "Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship".

Gould's use of the word "myths" above is appropriate.

[mal4mac]

Richard Dawkins, and others, have demolished Gould's "two magisteria" position. Religion does not, and cannot, be divorced from scientific matters or the material world. Dawkins writes, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." Gould's observation that "These two magisteria do not overlap..." does not consider the claims of many religions upon material reality, such as miracles or prayer.

[YesNo]

Richard Dawkins, and others, have demolished Gould's "two magisteria" position. Religion does not, and cannot, be divorced from scientific matters or the material world. Dawkins writes, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." Gould's observation that "These two magisteria do not overlap..." does not consider the claims of many religions upon material reality, such as miracles or prayer.

Dawkins is no authority for me on anything, scientific or religious. His claims need evidence and your quote provides none.

I don't see any inherent conflict between religion and science. There have been and are differences between people both within and across each of these two legitimate areas of human activity, but overall there is no need to remove one to benefit the other. They both lead to truth and the good life.

There is, however, a heated conflict between atheism and theistic religions. That certainly exists. However, it is a 19th=century atheistic myth that there exists some sort of conflict between science and religion and somehow atheists are on the side of science. Considering how 20th century science demolished materialistic determinism, I don't see atheists on the side of science except as one other their delusions.

[James Ada]

Can not co-exist?

Let me explain God in simple mathematics (without surpassing the laws of maths or science).

(I can also explain it using numerous different methodologies but I believe this extremely summarised and simplified explanation will be sufficient)


1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12……....…

Our numerical system has potentially a never ending amount of numbers. The more you count, the more we can plus another one.

But in truth……..

Only one number does exist

The number "1"

E.g 1 + 1 + 1 = 3

That is because "1" explains itself and every other number. In fact, every number is a repetition (more precisely a reproduction) of the number "1".

Not only does it explain every whole number but it also explains every type of number.
For example a fraction or a decimal point is a "part of "1"".

50% =
1/2 =
0.5 OF 1

"1" is the core of our mathematical numeric system. This is also the reason why binary system (the language of computers) is so successful.

What's so special about "1" is it is also complete

1 = 100%

In maths, when something is complete It MUST have a bound and an end.
In maths this is signified with brackets ( )

( <------bound, beginning

) <------end, finish

*****(We do not use the brackets because we consider it common knowledge.)
In maths we rarely use it but Brackets explain grouping pairs or completion in maths. That is why brackets are done first in arithmetical equation
e.g
(3+2) x (3+1) = 20
or
(5) x (4) = (20)
5x4=20


One is 100% completely bounded and ended to itself.

(1) or (100%)


Hence this instantly means "(1)", the number "1" is the finite because of is finite restriction.

ANYTHING that can be calculated is.

There is also another restriction of the number (1)

That is because by itself can not do much.

It needs a medium or a language to communicate.

x, ÷ , √ , Etc are all fancy and group methods of doing the core symbols of maths.

Addition and subtraction

Just like (1),

(+|-) addition and subtraction can explain themselves and every other type of calculations.

Example

3x2 =6

(1+1+1) + (1+1+1) = (1+1+1+1+1+1)

So inside every (1) we have (+|-).
E.g
Man = (1)
And he has (+|-) within himself.

Scientifically we know we are living in 1 (E=mc2)

My question is say we calculated everything that exists in our (1) universe.
Hypothetically lets say
everything = (100)

What would be

1 + (100) = ?

It can not be 101
Reason
Everything has already been calculated and it equalled (100)

Let me rephrase the question

from my brief explanation above what would be

1 + (finite)
1 + (maths)
1 + (1)
1 + (universe)
1 + (everything)
1 + (100%)
1 + (E=mc2)
1 + (+|-)


????

It must be something outside of the bound and end (brackets)
Our concept of this is called
Absolute Infinity
∞
Something beyond all bounds and ends

So in an equation
1 + (1) = ∞
Or as explained before the core language of (1) is maths (+|-)

The theory of Absolute Infinity
1 + (+|-) = ∞

What so special about this equation?

It explain outside of our brackets
God is complete 1
100%
Yet he is incomprehensible
∞

It explains that we have the option I'd either choosing a + path or - negative

If on the day of judgment "=" our good deeds out way our bad
1 + (+>-) = + ∞
You will end up in eternal positive or heaven
Respectively
1 + (+<-) = - ∞
Hell

God 1 = ∞
Created +
Everything (+-)
__________________

Quote: “If an object tries to travel 186,000 miles per second, its mass becomes infinite, and so does the energy required to move it. For this reason, no normal object can travel as fast or faster than the speed of light.”

So if something exceeds this limit (1) its mass becomes infinite.
1 + (1) = ∞
__________________

Mathematics studies the (+ | – ) laws to understand the (1) value.

Science studies the (1) value to understand the ( + | – ) laws.
__________________

Quantum Mechanics states for nothing to create something, laws must be in place for nothing to produce something.

The equation covers this aspect quite easily….

A law is something that governs its subjects. It is not an actual physical entity and can not be expressed as the value 1.
It is however an addition which must preexist our mathematical restrictions, as quantum mechanics states.

+ ( + | – ) This is the equation of Quantum mechanics,

And this (+|-) is what governing physics studies
__________________

Prisca Theologia

+(+|-) Atheist, understand natural law exist and Quanta

(1=∞) Pantheist, the universe is God

(1= ∞) Buddha said, look within yourself (1) and find your personal (∞) nirvana.

1 + (+|-) = ∞ Christianity,
father 1 = ∞
holy spirit +
son (+|-)

(holy spirit is the deliverer of the law, the son is earthly bound (+-) son

Islam
Surah 112
Say he is one
1
on all whom depend +
he begets not,
nor is begotten
(+|-)
and none is like him ∞

__________________

Cantor actually coined the word “transfinite” in an attempt to distinguish the various levels of infinite numbers from an Absolute Infinity 100% ∞ , an incomprehensible concept beyond mathematics itself, which then Cantor effectively equated with God (he saw no contradiction between his mathematics and the traditional concept of God)

I'm merely saying the same thing.
It doesn't matter if you call this concept Allah, God, Absolute Infinite. Whats important to understand is that a concept beyond anything calculable (including all the potential infinities) does exist, as Cantor proclaimed

[mal4mac]

I don't see any inherent conflict between religion and science. There have been and are differences between people both within and across each of these two legitimate areas of human activity, but overall there is no need to remove one to benefit the other. They both lead to truth and the good life.


Science is evidence based, religion is not. The more rational they are, the less part irrational things will play in their life. So little children drop belief in such entities as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy as they become more rational. When people become more rational, more scientific, they start dropping beliefs in such entities as Zeus and Yahweh, for which there is no good evidence. This is indicated by 97% of FRS not being religious, as reported in Dawkins, "the God Delusion".

[YesNo]

Science is evidence based, religion is not. The more rational they are, the less part irrational things will play in their life. So little children drop belief in such entities as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy as they become more rational. When people become more rational, more scientific, they start dropping beliefs in such entities as Zeus and Yahweh, for which there is no good evidence. This is indicated by 97% of FRS not being religious, as reported in Dawkins, "the God Delusion".

They are both evidence based. You might as well say there is a conflict between science and literature or science and art. All of these human activities deserve respect and approach truth in their own ways.

The reason atheists pick on religion rather than literature or art is because they represent a competing set of religious opinions that are opposed to opinions offered by theistic religions. It is dishonest, if not irrational, to pit science against religion when what is at stake are missionaries promoting their different world views. Theists are no less rational than atheists. They are no less scientific than atheists.

Atheists present a spaghetti monster view of the universe. The entities that atheists use to caricature the Gods of theists don't exist, but neither does that spaghetti monster universe of materialistic atoms deterministically interacting. Because that spaghetti monster universe doesn't exist, I don't see the point of atheism. Why pay attention to a religion or metaphysics whose view of the universe has been scientifically falsified?

Here's a further question that makes me suspicious of atheists, especially people like Dawkins. Why does it bother atheists so much that other people believe differently than they do?

[SentimentalSlop]

Science and religion can easily coexist. Being a Christian, none of my Catholic beliefs conflict with any scientific anything. Sadly, I think it is more the science community that has a problem with religion than the other way around. And why listen to Dawkins? He's a scientist, not a philosopher. He seems to me a bitter old man who's afraid to believe in something better. It's kind of sad. He's completely lost the child-like awe that opens up new perceptions.

I don't think science disproves religion, but even makes better arguments for it. It is strange, after all, how the world is so mathematically precise, and yet we believe that it was formed from some big accident. I mean, maybe, but one has to ask themselves why the earth came about so precise through such a random explosion, if that was the case.

[mal4mac]

Science and religion can easily coexist. Being a Christian, none of my Catholic beliefs conflict with any scientific anything.

You accept things without sufficient evidence, scientists receive years of training which encourages them to not do this. I can't see how they can compartmentalise their life into an "evidence based" aspect and "tooth fairy" aspect without doing great damage to their psyche. Fortunately only 3% of them attempt this.

[mal4mac]

I don't think science disproves religion, but even makes better arguments for it. It is strange, after all, how the world is so mathematically precise, and yet we believe that it was formed from some big accident. I mean, maybe, but one has to ask themselves why the earth came about so precise through such a random explosion, if that was the case.

Scientists don't make any scientific arguments for God; that would be to explain a mystery ("origin of the Big bang") by a concept without experimental backing ("God"). Scientists aren't in the business of doing that. There are some speculative hypotheses that look very promising, and that have no need to involve fictional characters ("Multiverse").

Science and religion can't coexist they can only, perhaps, exist as two non-overlapping magisteria (to use Gould's phraseology.) Though I take Dawkin's view that we can drop, and would be best advised to drop, one of these magisteria.

[YesNo]

Scientists don't make any scientific arguments for God; that would be to explain a mystery ("origin of the Big bang") by a concept without experimental backing ("God"). Scientists aren't in the business of doing that. There are some speculative hypotheses that look very promising, and that have no need to involve fictional characters ("Multiverse").

Science and religion can't coexist they can only, perhaps, exist as two non-overlapping magisteria (to use Gould's phraseology.) Though I take Dawkin's view that we can drop, and would be best advised to drop, one of these magisteria.

There is no need to follow Dawkins. There is also no need to drop either science or religion. It won't happen anyway. They are not at odds.

However, considering how science has discredited the materialistic determinism that grounds atheism, it might be rational and scientific to drop atheism as perhaps the least likely of any religion out there.

[Eman Resu]

There is no need to follow Dawkins. There is also no need to drop either science or religion. It won't happen anyway. They are not at odds.

However, considering how science has discredited the materialistic determinism that grounds atheism, it might be rational and scientific to drop atheism as perhaps the least likely of any religion out there.



I dunno - American politics has become a religion to some people. Maybe we should dispense with politics, and revert to the sort of theocratic government which existed in the Sumerian city-states prior to the politico-military leadership which arose 4,500 years ago. Look at the advantages - a government controlled by God, who never spoke, except through His priests, who were part and parcel to the citizenry, and who generally invoked the will of the people, and beautiful temples instead of that hideous pseudo-neoclassical White House. Not only would "hitting the opposition with a Bill" cease completely, since laws would be written on clay tablets, but we could turn the Pentagon into a dynamite roller rink.

[SentimentalSlop]

Scientists don't make any scientific arguments for God; that would be to explain a mystery ("origin of the Big bang") by a concept without experimental backing ("God"). Scientists aren't in the business of doing that. There are some speculative hypotheses that look very promising, and that have no need to involve fictional characters ("Multiverse").

Science and religion can't coexist they can only, perhaps, exist as two non-overlapping magisteria (to use Gould's phraseology.) Though I take Dawkin's view that we can drop, and would be best advised to drop, one of these magisteria.

I'm not saying science has any business in talking about God. Science can only talk about material things. All I'm saying is that science and religion do not contradict. I live comfortably with both (like most other Christians) and have no problem at all. I don't have to drop neither. How about that?

[mal4mac]

I'm not saying science has any business in talking about God. Science can only talk about material things. All I'm saying is that science and religion do not contradict. I live comfortably with both (like most other Christians) and have no problem at all. I don't have to drop neither. How about that?

What about water turning into wine during RC services? A bit of chemical analysis might help prove that. Of course you will now say that performing such tests destroys the magic, which is like parents saying to children that Santa will not come if you stay up and watch.

[SentimentalSlop]

It's wine turning into Christ's blood, not water turning into wine. How am I supposed to take you seriously if you get that important detail messed up?

[mal4mac]

It's wine turning into Christ's blood, not water turning into wine. How am I supposed to take you seriously if you get that important detail messed up?

Woops. Got me! I know that. Call it a senior moment. It's a bit difficult keeping all the different mythological ideas straight. Anyway, how about analysing the wine/blood before and after? And checking the wafer to see if it turns into some part of the human body?

[YesNo]

I dunno - American politics has become a religion to some people.

We're not supposed to discuss politics here, but religion is acceptable. I view Dawkins' atheism as a religion anyway.

As far as not knowing, I didn't understand the significance of this thread's topic either until further into it. However, the concept that there is some sort of conflict between religion and science is a 19th century atheist myth. There isn't any such conflict.

It is hard to understand how anyone could be an atheist. What atheists claim is that there is no God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?

They can't, but if they could get science to construct a theory that explained everything without needing any choice to be made, they could explain the universe without needing anything that could be called a God. This would justify their atheism and discredit theism. To even hope that science could do such a thing, they assumed the universe was deterministic and materialistic. So Draper and White in the 19th century, confident enough in science to deliver the explanation that suited them, started the science vs religion conflict.

Ironically, about the same time in the 19th century electromagnetic fields were being described. Fields are not materialistic particles. Then in the early 20th century quantum physics put a foundation on the new physics and introduced indeterminism. It also described quantum reality as not materialistic in any sense that word had in the past.

At this point, the project that atheists hoped would prove their ideology had failed. Even worse for atheists, it also became known in the second half of the 20th century that the universe had a beginning. Chance, a bogus cause at best, had even less time than was originally thought to get us to the state we are in now.

Today, looking at the supposed science vs religion conflict, about 150 years after the original claim that such a conflict existed, one can see that the problem is really atheism. Atheism's antagonism to theistic religion is well known, but the unhealthy relation of atheism to science still needs to be understood. As I see it, atheism, with its insistence on determinism to justify its own atheology, has been a drag on science boxing it in conceptually.

[SentimentalSlop]

Woops. Got me! I know that. Call it a senior moment. It's a bit difficult keeping all the different mythological ideas straight. Anyway, how about analysing the wine/blood before and after? And checking the wafer to see if it turns into some part of the human body?

It's not something to be analyzed. We don't believe that it's the same body he had 2000 years ago. We believe that he is taking upon himself a new body and new blood in the material presence of bread and wine. We're not supposed to taste human flesh and blood lol.

[JCamilo]

to quote Aquinas: Christ's body is substantially present in this sacrament. But substance, as such, is not visible to the bodily eye, nor does it come under any one of the senses, nor under the imagination, but solely under the intellect, whose object is "what a thing is". And therefore, properly speaking, Christ's body, according to the mode of being which it has in this sacrament, is perceptible neither by the sense nor by the imagination, but only by the intellect, which is called the spiritual eye.

It is obviously symbolic, not physical at all to be detected by a chemical analyse.

I however would like to ask: What theists claim is that there is a God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?

Btw, Materialism is quite strong on Religious philosophy, christian even. The clear influence is in the story of St.Thomas. He is a materialist. Obviously, the Catholic Church continual quest for miracles and evidences, are also a materialist influence. Materialsim is simple one of the ways philosophy approaches any theme. And thinking there is no atheism idealism is quite a hindsight. Charles Darwin for example, became and atheist due the death of his daugther. He just lost faith on God. He didnt build an empirical explanation at all such as "god does not exist because i have not found empircal evidence" on him. He just didnt like God anymore, a typical crisis of Faith rather some - i would say - theory of composition for atheism 101, where all steps towards atheism are logical explained with a precision that brings a bird to saw nevermore.

[mal4mac]

It is hard to understand how anyone could be an atheist. What atheists claim is that there is no God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?


How do you know there aren't tooth fairies or unicorns? I don't see any gods around here, just as I don't see other mythical figures striding down the streets. I don't know absolutely for sure that they don't exists, they might all be living together in Oz, which for some reason is hidden from me. But until I am given a Ryan air flight to Oz I'll continue being an atheist.


Ironically, about the same time in the 19th century electromagnetic fields were being described. Fields are not materialistic particles. Then in the early 20th century quantum physics put a foundation on the new physics and introduced indeterminism. It also described quantum reality as not materialistic in any sense that word had in the past.

None of these observations make it any more likely that Santa exists. Electromagnetic & quantum fields are useful models, by using them we can predict how material objects will interact. This has enabled us to develop many useful objects, like the computer you are using at this moment. The god concept has not allowed us to develop anything useful.


At this point, the project that atheists hoped would prove their ideology had failed.

Hardly. The number of declared atheists in Scotland has risen from 27% to 37% in the last decade, and remember that Scotland used to be a stronghold for extreme protestantism. To get an idea about what Scottish religion was like in the 18th century try reading "The View from Castle Rock" by the new Nobel prize winner Alice Munro. From that situation to 37% atheist... it gives me hope that places like USA might get to 37% in the not too distant future.


...the unhealthy relation of atheism to science still needs to be understood. As I see it, atheism, with its insistence on determinism to justify its own atheology, has been a drag on science boxing it in conceptually.

It's easy to understand, scientists require evidence. Why does atheism require determinism? It's simply a disbelief in gods. The world can be as indeterministic as you like and still not require any gods. All the leading quantum physicists were atheists, so atheism was hardly a drag on the development of quantum theory!

[Delta40]

We're not supposed to discuss politics here, but religion is acceptable. I view Dawkins' atheism as a religion anyway.

As far as not knowing, I didn't understand the significance of this thread's topic either until further into it. However, the concept that there is some sort of conflict between religion and science is a 19th century atheist myth. There isn't any such conflict.

It is hard to understand how anyone could be an atheist. What atheists claim is that there is no God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?

They can't, but if they could get science to construct a theory that explained everything without needing any choice to be made, they could explain the universe without needing anything that could be called a God. This would justify their atheism and discredit theism. To even hope that science could do such a thing, they assumed the universe was deterministic and materialistic. So Draper and White in the 19th century, confident enough in science to deliver the explanation that suited them, started the science vs religion conflict.

Ironically, about the same time in the 19th century electromagnetic fields were being described. Fields are not materialistic particles. Then in the early 20th century quantum physics put a foundation on the new physics and introduced indeterminism. It also described quantum reality as not materialistic in any sense that word had in the past.

At this point, the project that atheists hoped would prove their ideology had failed. Even worse for atheists, it also became known in the second half of the 20th century that the universe had a beginning. Chance, a bogus cause at best, had even less time than was originally thought to get us to the state we are in now.

Today, looking at the supposed science vs religion conflict, about 150 years after the original claim that such a conflict existed, one can see that the problem is really atheism. Atheism's antagonism to theistic religion is well known, but the unhealthy relation of atheism to science still needs to be understood. As I see it, atheism, with its insistence on determinism to justify its own atheology, has been a drag on science boxing it in conceptually.

Atheists make no such claims. Atheists simply reject the proposition that a god exists until such time as there is evidence to suggest otherwise. An atheist may have any number of ideas regarding the origins of the universe, simply not believing in a god doesn't tell you anything about what an atheist DOES believe.

On the physics front: I think you need to get up-to-date. Have you heard of Lawrence Krauss? We now know it is entirely possible for a universe to come from nothing, and our universe actually looks like a universe that came from nothing. The OBSERVABLE universe had a beginning ( big bang) but it's not as if there was a state of complete non-existence before that. Things existed, matter actually predates the big bang, and we don't know if that state of existence ever actually began. In fact, since energy is neither created nor destroyed, that would mean energy at least has always existed, making a first cause unnecessary.

And even if existence itself did begin to exist and we had no idea how it started, that wouldn't make it reasonable to assume it was a god any more than it would be reasonable to assume it was a transcendent, cosmic purple dragon. A gap in our scientific knowledge is not justification to insert anything you can imagine.

[mal4mac]

It's not something to be analyzed. We don't believe that it's the same body he had 2000 years ago. We believe that he is taking upon himself a new body and new blood in the material presence of bread and wine. We're not supposed to taste human flesh and blood lol.

Where is he then? If he has a new bodily presence then we should be able to go up to him and shake his hand. It's an intriguing myth! Does the wafer and wine tasted by all the congregations get "teleported" to one spot and used to generate Christ's new body. (Dan Brown please note - this is my idea and I'll be watching for copyright violations.)

[mal4mac]

to quote Aquinas: Christ's body is substantially present in this sacrament. But substance, as such, is not visible to the bodily eye, nor does it come under any one of the senses, nor under the imagination, but solely under the intellect, whose object is "what a thing is". And therefore, properly speaking, Christ's body, according to the mode of being which it has in this sacrament, is perceptible neither by the sense nor by the imagination, but only by the intellect, which is called the spiritual eye.

It is obviously symbolic, not physical at all to be detected by a chemical analyse.


OK, so it's nothing that exists, like a unicorn. This differs from SentimentalSlops account, does this bit of Aquinas still hold in the modern Roman Catholic church? Or do they have a hard story for the cleverer priests (Aquinas) and an easy story for the congregation ("It's really Christ's body!")?


Charles Darwin for example, became an atheist due the death of his daugther. He just lost faith on God. He didnt build an empirical explanation at all such as "god does not exist because i have not found empircal evidence" on him.

That's wrong, he states in his autobiography that lack of evidence was the main factor in his growing disbelief.

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, — that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible, do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, — that they differ in many important details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitness; — by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me." - Charles Darwin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin#Posthumous_Autob iography

He thought, as a young man, following William Paley's theory, that the complexity of nature could only be explained through supposing "God the designer". But through a lifetime of empirical research became convinced that natural selection was the better explanation. This, surely, was the main factor undermined his belief in God. Many Christians have lost children and remained Christians, which is hardly surprising as they think their loved one has gone to heaven.

[mal4mac]

On the physics front: I think you need to get up-to-date. Have you heard of Lawrence Krauss? We now know it is entirely possible for a universe to come from nothing, and our universe actually looks like a universe that came from nothing. The OBSERVABLE universe had a beginning ( big bang) but it's not as if there was a state of complete non-existence before that. Things existed, matter actually predates the big bang, and we don't know if that state of existence ever actually began. In fact, since energy is neither created nor destroyed, that would mean energy at least has always existed, making a first cause unnecessary.

Actually these ideas were around in the 1980s when I was doing my physics degrees, so don't give Krauss too much credit! (Though he is an excellent guy!)

I don't think atheists need to strain to provide alternative explanations of cosmic origins. Christians can just point out they are speculative, and they would be correct, and physicists would agree with them. Of course, they are interesting speculations, and speculating is part of the scientific process, but only a small part and not generally encouraged. (Boy do I know that! Being too interested in speculation derailed my physics career...)

For instance if a Christian asks, "If God didn't cause the universe then what did", you can just respond, "Why couldn't the universe have been around forever", and quickly get back on the tack that they can't respond to, that is, "Where is the evidence for God!"

[Delta40]

Actually these ideas were around in the 1980s when I was doing my physics degrees, so don't give Krauss too much credit! (Though he is an excellent guy!)

I don't think atheists need to strain to provide alternative explanations of cosmic origins. Christians can just point out they are speculative, and they would be correct, and physicists would agree with them. Of course, they are interesting speculations, and speculating is part of the scientific process, but only a small part and not generally encouraged. (Boy do I know that! Being too interested in speculation derailed my physics career...)

For instance if a Christian asks, "If God didn't cause the universe then what did", you can just respond, "Why couldn't the universe have been around forever", and quickly get back on the tack that they can't respond to, that is, "Where is the evidence for God!"

I don't feel under any obligation to disprove the existence of God - the burden of proof lies with the person making the fantastic claim. I haven't seen any evidence that a God exists - just a book handed down through history like Grimms Fairy Tales, which proves zilch. In fact, as far as I'm concerned it calls the claim into question even more since here we are in the 21st century relying on the word of earlier man whose understanding was far more limited than it is now. We have a duty to put all claims under the microscope and advance forward. That the human race is diverse in its beliefs yet continues to survive and evolve anyway is proof enough for me.

[cacian]

It's wine turning into Christ's blood, not water turning into wine. How am I supposed to take you seriously if you get that important detail messed up?

that sorcery isn't it? how does water ever turn into wine? the ingredients are missing. where is the grapes in there? even science would tell you that.
water on its own does not make wine and neither would Jesus turn it into win.e if he could then he would saved himself from dying. that's magic or that's Merlin for you. that's what a sorcerer does. turn things into things and save you from dying everytime.

[Delta40]

that sorcery isn't it? how water ever turning into wine? the ingredient are missing even science would tell you that.
water on its own does not make wine and neither would Jesus turn it into wine if he could then he would saved himself from dying. that's magic or that's Merlin for you. that's what a sorcerer does. turn things into things and save you from dying everytime.

Lol. Yeah, if a woman did that she would've have been burnt at the stake!!! Now I know why the RCC can't have a female Pope!

[JCamilo]

OK, so it's nothing that exists, like a unicorn. This differs from SentimentalSlops account, does this bit of Aquinas still hold in the modern Roman Catholic church? Or do they have a hard story for the cleverer priests (Aquinas) and an easy story for the congregation ("It's really Christ's body!")?

She did said actually it is not his real body and blood, so she is saying the samething. Also, the church always said it was symbolic and breed and wine still the same. You are just firing at the wrong place.



That's wrong, he states in his autobiography that lack of evidence was the main factor in his growing disbelief.

Meh, First at not momment Darwin mentions it is the main factor. Second, he is reflecting after his disbelief is set. Third he is saying he disbelief in the gospels and christianity. Fourth, read the article and notice how until Anne Death the majority his questions about God are in the realm of morality and how when she dies he questions how a god can allow evil. He is only materialist when considering God's influence on natural world and questioning OT, since Noah flood and such were the basic "myths" Llyel debunked.

There is letters, diary entries, etc. that show the importancy of Anne's death on Darwin's resolution, how this moved his foward to abandon all religiosity and embrace firmly the research since he knew Anne disease was genetical. Certainly, both the theory and the skepticism were there before, but It is Anne's death that changes his spirt and then, it was easier for him to rationalize and do this "futher reflecting".



He thought, as a young man, following William Paley's theory, that the complexity of nature could only be explained through supposing "God the designer". But through a lifetime of empirical research became convinced that natural selection was the better explanation. This, surely, was the main factor undermined his belief in God. Many Christians have lost children and remained Christians, which is hardly surprising as they think their loved one has gone to heaven.


He never claime Natural Selection was a better explanation to "existence of god". It is about God's interference on Evolution. He was refusing ID already. And you may notice, Darwin was quite worried about people going to hell and if Anne - naughty girl - would go to hell. It is even in the article that Darwin some of it:

"There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed."

Darwin is worried with the evil caused by such designer. It is his main question because he never found any evidence to disproof god at all or claimed to do so. This is man who saw his daugther suffer because the design is flawed. A man thinking about the origem of evil and considering all his friends will be in hell. This is not a materialist.

[mal4mac]

There is letters, diary entries, etc. that show the importancy of Anne's death on Darwin's resolution, how this moved his foward to abandon all religiosity and embrace firmly the research since he knew Anne disease was genetical. Certainly, both the theory and the skepticism were there before, but It is Anne's death that changes his spirt and then, it was easier for him to rationalize and do this "futher reflecting".


Maybe Anne's death spurred him on to become more public about his disbelief. He was notorious for keeping his opinions to himself, not publishing "Origin" until long after his views were formed, and only under pressure from friends who were afraid that Wallace would steal his thunder. Note that his wife refused to have some parts of his autobiography published after his death, so it's likely she influenced him not to speak about his beliefs before his death.

The wikipedia article says "His faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and he had stopped going to church." before the death of Anne. There is a strong sense of his belief dwindling away as he repeatedly looked at the poor evidence of the scriptures, and other sources, and finding no good evidence for God or the Christian "revelations". The moral impact of Anne's death might have had a "final straw" aspect that drove him to become more public, but all the evidence is that lack of evidence in the Christian revelations were the main factors in his disbelief, and certainly this is more in the character of the man. He was the "scientist's scientist" who spent decades doing pain-staking research to provide incontrovertible evidence of evolution by natural selection. Doesn't it seem likely that his disbelief came from similar pain staking research into the evidence for Christian revelation - and that his rejection of Christianity came form him not finding anything like sufficient evidence? He wasn't some romantic fool who reasoned "My child is dead, therefore God doesn't exist," on some kind of swooning whim.

[JCamilo]

Maybe Anne's death spurred him on to become more public about his disbelief. He was notorious for keeping his opinions to himself, not publishing "Origin" until long after his views were formed, and only under pressure from friends who were afraid that Wallace would steal his thunder. Note that his wife refused to have some parts of his autobiography published after his death, so it's likely she influenced him not to speak about his beliefs before his death.

Darwin never went public about anything. He crumbled down under pressure and Anne death wasnt more public than anything. His wife didnt pressure him, he had a limited circle already. Anne death was just too much form and his formal rupture with religion. His wife's censorship shows more she was protecting Darwin image than changing his tougths.


The wikipedia article says "His faith in Christianity had already dwindled away and he had stopped going to church." before the death of Anne.

There is his questioning, Anne death was the decisive factor. Not his research.


There is a strong sense of his belief dwindling away as he repeatedly looked at the poor evidence of the scriptures, and other sources, and finding no good evidence for God or the Christian "revelations".

It is not about evidence of god, which he never found to the end of his life yet, still considered it possible. Darwin was questioning christian morality, organized religion not god's existence.


The moral impact of Anne's death might have had a "final straw" aspect that drove him to become more public,

He didnt became public. You should read more biographies about Darwin.


but all the evidence is that lack of evidence in the Christian revelations were the main factors in his disbelief, and certainly this is more in the character of the man.

There is no evidence that what turned him was the lack of evidence. Quite the contrary, he died claiming there was no evidence to believe or disbelieve and supporting agnosticism. You are confusing that Darwin found evidences (not lack) that natural selection dismissed a ID God - which is what he claims - to extend it to a more spiritual/moral god, which is what he believed or considered and that Anne's death changed his view. The ID God (or the Jaheh like god) was done, but a spiritual god remained.


He was the "scientist's scientist" who spent decades doing pain-staking research to provide incontrovertible evidence of evolution by natural selection. Doesn't it seem likely that his disbelief came from similar pain staking research into the evidence for Christian revelation - and that his rejection of Christianity came form him not finding anything like sufficient evidence? He wasn't some romantic fool who reasoned "My child is dead, therefore God doesn't exist," on some kind of swooning whim.

Except only creationist strawman will claim natural selection disproves God. It does not, So obviously Darwin work as scientist cannot be the reason your claim. And his change of posture with Anne, more clear questioning and mentioning that one of the reasons behind his research was to give men knowledge to avoid pain like Annes shows her importance.

By the way, Evolution is romantic, he is the guy who considered his wife's reaction before publishing and 20 years research. Darwin is a romantic fool.

[mortalterror]

Hardly. The number of declared atheists in Scotland has risen from 27% to 37% in the last decade, and remember that Scotland used to be a stronghold for extreme protestantism. To get an idea about what Scottish religion was like in the 18th century try reading "The View from Castle Rock" by the new Nobel prize winner Alice Munro. From that situation to 37% atheist... it gives me hope that places like USA might get to 37% in the not too distant future.

Actually Mal4mac, 37% of Scotland is non-religious, which usually means that they eschew the formal institutions but often retain a personal non-denominational spirituality. Your interpretation that they are all atheist is a misreading of the statistics. For purposes of comparison, America has a demographic of 16.1% Unaffiliated. Of that unaffiliated group 1.6% is atheist, 2.4% is agnostic, 6.3% is secular unaffiliated, and 5.8% is religious unaffiliated. Non-religious does not necessarily mean Atheist. For instance, there was a study of prison inmates that found an unusual number of non-religious prisoners, in spite of the incentive they have to lie and claim to be religiously reformed:


In the federal prisoner statistics, a full 20% of the respondents either answered "none" or provided no response to the question on religious affiliation. Based on response patterns to similar questions on nationwide surveys, it is likely that all or nearly all of these persons would be in the "nonreligious" category (or the "atheists" category, to use the terminology from the atheist web page itself). Even without adding the ".209%" of the population that specifically identified themselves as atheists, the segment of the prison population which self-identifies as non-religious is approximately twice as large as found in the general population.
http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html (Based on a study by Denise Golumbaski, who was a Research Analyst for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The data was compiled from up-to-the-day figures on March 5th, 1997.)
But that doesn't mean that 20% of American prison inmates are atheists.

[mal4mac]

Actually Mal4mac, 37% of Scotland is non-religious, which usually means that they eschew the formal institutions but often retain a personal non-denominational spirituality.

I don't think it "usually means that" at all, and certainly not in a Scottish context.

"Spiritualty" is a term used by atheists to mean "higher aspects of the mind". So that 37% might still be thought of as atheists even if some define themselves as "spiritual". Actually "non-religious" is a stronger term as it means they aren't Buddhists, or members of some other non-God based religion. But not many Scots were ever Buddhist, so I think 37% atheist is probably a pretty good estimate from the fact that 37% ticked the non-religious box. England and Wales aren't far behind "In the 2011 Census, 14.1 million people, about a quarter of the entire population (25%) of England and Wales, said they had no religion, a rise of 6.4 million since 2001."



Your interpretation that they are all atheist is a misreading of the statistics. For purposes of comparison, America has a demographic of 16.1% Unaffiliated. Of that unaffiliated group 1.6% is atheist, 2.4% is agnostic...

If you read Russell and Dawkins you will see that the broadest definition of "atheist" includes what others might consider agnostics. So what definition of atheist was used in that list?

Actually across the EU, in 2010, only 51% said yes to the question, "Do you believe there is a God?" (This is heavily skewed by the big Catholic countries.) Given this, and the rate of people becoming atheists, it might be that atheists are now a majority in Europe!

[mal4mac]

It is not about evidence of god, which he never found to the end of his life yet, still considered it possible. Darwin was questioning christian morality, organized religion not god's existence.


Another quote from the autobiography:

"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists."

Summary: Darwin saw no evidence for the existence of God.

Being a good scientist he would never bluntly state, "there is no God", just as he would not state, "there is no tooth fairy", as evidence *might* turn up. But, by the everyday definition, I'd call him an atheist.



"... he died claiming there was no evidence to believe or disbelieve and supporting agnosticism. You are confusing that Darwin found evidences (not lack) that natural selection dismissed a ID God - which is what he claims - to extend it to a more spiritual/moral god, which is what he believed or considered and that Anne's death changed his view. The ID God (or the Jaheh like god) was done, but a spiritual god remained.


In the above quote he dismissed all Gods (Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc, ...) because the "inner beliefs" held by these believers cannot all be correct at the same time. What is this "spiritual god"? Have you a quote of him expressing belief in such a thing?



By the way, Evolution is romantic, he is the guy who considered his wife's reaction before publishing and 20 years research. Darwin is a romantic fool.

Given the intense discrimination against atheists at that time he was hardly a fool, just very cautious.

[mortalterror]

You accept things without sufficient evidence, scientists receive years of training which encourages them to not do this. I can't see how they can compartmentalise their life into an "evidence based" aspect and "tooth fairy" aspect without doing great damage to their psyche. Fortunately only 3% of them attempt this.

Mal4Mac, I'm looking at your numbers and they don't add up. I'm afraid you are misreading your statistics again. It's true that there is a distinct difference in percentage of scientists who believe in God versus the percentage of the general public, but your numbers are way off. I'd need to see the actual survey questions that got Dawkins to that 3% figure but I'm guessing that it was a result of push polling and too narrowly defining questions or definitions. In point of fact, the majority of scientists actually practice some form of religion. Consider this pew research poll:

A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public.1 Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view. http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
Alright, now lets look at what the scientists actually believe.

Given their much lower levels of belief in God or a higher power, it is not surprising that the percentage of scientists who are unaffiliated with any religion is much higher than among the general public. Nearly half of all scientists in the 2009 Pew Research Center poll (48%) say they have no religious affiliation (meaning they describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular), compared with only 17% of the public. Thus, it follows that most faith traditions are represented in smaller numbers in the scientific community than in the public as a whole. For instance, the scientific community is far less Protestant (21%) and Catholic (10%) than the general public, which is 51% Protestant and 24% Catholic. And while evangelical Protestants make up more than a fourth of the general population (28%), they make up only a small slice (4%) of the scientific community. One notable exception is Jews, who make up a larger proportion of the scientific community (8%) than the general population (2%).
http://www.pewforum.org/files/2009/11/Scientists-and-Belief-2.png
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
Okay, so looking at this graph, we can clearly see that 17 percent of scientists are atheists which is a significant departure from the 2 percent of the general population who are atheists. What is really interesting is that this religious attitude gap hasn't grown or shrunk in almost a hundred years.

The recent survey of scientists tracks fairly closely with earlier polls that gauged scientists’ views on religion. The first of these was conducted in 1914 by Swiss-American psychologist James Leuba, who surveyed about 1,000 scientists in the United States to ask them about their views on God. Leuba found the scientific community equally divided, with 42% saying that they believed in a personal God and the same number saying they did not.

More than 80 years later, Edward Larson, a historian of science then teaching at the University of Georgia, recreated Leuba’s survey, asking the same number of scientists the exact same questions. To the surprise of many, Larson’s 1996 poll came up with similar results, finding that 40% of scientists believed in a personal God, while 45% said they did not. Other surveys of scientists have yielded roughly similar results. http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
The answer to that is possibly because scientists tend to view science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria and not in conflict with one another.

The Pew Research Center poll of scientists also found that levels of religious faith vary according to scientific specialty and age. For instance, chemists are more likely to believe in God (41%) than those who work in the other major scientific fields. Meanwhile, younger scientists (ages 18-34) are more likely to believe in God or a higher power than those who are older.
Unless scientists lose their religion in old age, then this newest generation may actually be getting more religious, and we may see a trend in that direction. But what the poll also shows is how different scientific subjects are an indicator of how religious the scientists might be. This shows that scientists religious beliefs are less likely to be swayed do to pure reason and scientific method than by a culture of their peers.

Another interesting fact is that doctors tend to be more religious than the general population.

The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University and published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml
Physicians are educated, intelligent, trained scientists but their job often requires things like compassion, morality, empathy, and charity which synch up well with a religious lifestyle.

[mal4mac]

Mal4Mac, I'm looking at your numbers and they don't add up. I'm afraid you are misreading your statistics again.

It's you misreading forum posts again. As I said, the 3% figure relates to FRS scientists, and is correct. It's mentioned in the "The God Delusion", with details. That said, for really eminent American scientists (NAS members, equivalent to FRS) Dawkins quotes a figure of only 7% believing in God, quoted from a paper in Nature.

Your figures include the views of mediocre scientists, who may just be "going along with" the general population for an easy life. I've been around mediocre scientists for much of my life, and their general intellectual ability isn't anything to write home about. FRS and NAS levels scientists are, generally, in an entirely different league.

[JCamilo]

Another quote from the autobiography:

"At the present day (ca. 1872) the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God: but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists."

Summary: Darwin saw no evidence for the existence of God.

Only if you do not know how to read. He says "Inteligent god" and ends with " evidence of what really exists.", which is not the same "what not exist as you claim".

Darwin clearly argued evolutionists could believe in god, since his theory had no bearing on its existence, and you are trying to imply it is the reason behind his lack of faith. Of course, makes a lot of sense. The motive that lead him to not believe in God is motive that he see as not enough to stop others from beliving in god. Good Logic.


Being a good scientist he would never bluntly state, "there is no God", just as he would not state, "there is no tooth fairy", as evidence *might* turn up. But, by the everyday definition, I'd call him an atheist.

Good, so Dawkins is a bad scientist?




In the above quote he dismissed all Gods (Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc, ...) because the "inner beliefs" held by these believers cannot all be correct at the same time. What is this "spiritual god"? Have you a quote of him expressing belief in such a thing?

He didnt dismissed a single god there. The last sentence is agnostic as it gets. He leaves an opening "I do not know" And he is specifically talking about meddling active god.




Given the intense discrimination against atheists at that time he was hardly a fool, just very cautious.

He was a romantic fool. Being Atheist is a romantic foolishness.

You clearly want to find a tale of Darwin's that does not exists. He was a deist, he dismissed ID God figures or OT god, with constant interference even before his research, as he was inspired by Lyell, his friend, which already disproved biblical literalism. But he remained with questions - and accepting God part there - about afterlife, mortality, the human part, evil and good. A typical deist intelectual position of his time. Those questions will end after Anne death (it was not a cosmic event, that just turned him in one day but a long grieving process) Darwin no longer question those positions. There is no afterlife, no Hell, nothing as this. And that have nothing to do with his research, as Natural Selection cannot change anything about it, as Darwin reckons.

As this what lasted was the question of universe begin, which Darwin didn't had a position, which is basically why he called himself agnostic. But it is pretty much, what makes Darwin show no signal of faith ever again, was the experience with Anne. Not a result of scientific research or materialism. Darwin's spiritualism ended there. And you quoting Wikipedia about him specifically mentioning ID God will not change it.

[Volya]

Why can't religion and science co-exist? To believe otherwise is stupidity really, and is the kind of attitude that arrogant, militant atheists take. You can be a Christian and believe in evolution, the Big Bang, all that kinda stuff; and similarly you could be an atheist and still believe the world is flat.

[SentimentalSlop]

She did said actually it is not his real body and blood, so she is saying the samething. Also, the church always said it was symbolic and breed and wine still the same. You are just firing at the wrong place.

That's not what I said. It is "literally" his body and blood. That is Catholic doctrine. Anyone who doesn't believe it should not receive the Eucharist at mass. This is emphasized relentlessly, and it's the sole focus of the service. That is why we bow before the tabernacle (where the consecrated host is housed) before getting in and getting out of the pews. We also have Eucharistic adoration where the consecrated host (Christ's body) is in an ornate structure called a monstrance where we can spend time in Christ's physical presence. It is by no means symbolic. It is Christ, according to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Mere symbolism of the bread and wine is a Protestant approach to communion. That is why they are not permitted to go up and receive communion at a Catholic mass.

@Cacian
Turning water into wine is not sorcery if it is through God. Christians believe in miracles, and we believe that when a Christian person performs a miracle, it is by God's power and not theirs, but God has only used them as an instrument to demonstrate his power at that moment when performing the miracle. Any miracle performed without the aid of God is devilish. The devil can perform miracles, too.

[Eman Resu]

That is why they are not permitted to go up and receive communion at a Catholic mass.


Non-Catholics who believe in the Transubstantiation, and who have the consent or dispensation from the Diocese, can participate in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, but it is, in part, for the protection of non-Catholics that they're not permitted to participate - see 1 Corinthians 11:29-30.

[SentimentalSlop]

Non-Catholics who believe in the Transubstantiation, and who have the consent or dispensation from the Diocese, can participate in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, but it is, in part, for the protection of non-Catholics that they're not permitted to participate - see 1 Corinthians 11:29-30.

That's true, but generally non-Catholics are not admitted to communion. If they believe in Transubstantiation, they're usually encouraged to become Catholic.

[mortalterror]

It's you misreading forum posts again. As I said, the 3% figure relates to FRS scientists, and is correct. It's mentioned in the "The God Delusion", with details. That said, for really eminent American scientists (NAS members, equivalent to FRS) Dawkins quotes a figure of only 7% believing in God, quoted from a paper in Nature.

Your figures include the views of mediocre scientists, who may just be "going along with" the general population for an easy life. I've been around mediocre scientists for much of my life, and their general intellectual ability isn't anything to write home about. FRS and NAS levels scientists are, generally, in an entirely different league.
But the methodology of the survey, and the questions which got them to the 7% figure are flawed.

Are you confused? How can scientists be so like other Americans in one survey and so different in another? We can find part of the explanation in the considerable differences between the questions asked by Gallup and those asked by Leuba.

The wording of questions in any survey can influence the results. Gallup's questions are quite straightforward, well designed to reveal people's attitudes towards evolution. For reasons that will become important later in this article, a question that requests an opinion on only one issue is superior to one which queries attitudes about two or more.

First, let's look at Leuba's questions, which are, to be charitable, ambiguous. The "personal belief" question attempts to ascertain belief not just in some sort of God, but a very specific kind of personal God.

1. I believe in a God in intellectual and effective communication with humankind, i.e., a God to whom one might pray in expectation of receiving an answer. By "answer", I mean more than the subjective psychological effects of prayer.

1. I believe in a [personal] God...
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
27.7 7.0

Indeed, the percentage of "yes" answers in 1998 is strikingly lower than that in 1914. Does this mean that fewer scientists believe in God? Not necessarily. Consider how specific this question is. To answer "yes" to this question, one would have to believe that God is not only in communication with humankind, which many religious people do believe, but that God is in both intellectual and effective communication. What is the meaning of "intellectual" communication? "Effective" communication? Someone who believed that God communicated with humankind but not "intellectually" (whatever that means) would have to answer "no." Is "effective" used in the modern sense of the word meaning "something that works well", or in the more archaic (1914) use of the term meaning "to bring about"? Do scientists reading this question today interpret it in the same way as those in 1914?

The clause about answering prayers is also problematic.There are schools of theology that hold that God is personal in the sense of watching over and caring for humankind, but nonetheless, does not answer prayers. We do not know whether members of the general public would respond similarly or differently than scientists do to this definition of God: we do know that there is a wide variety of definitions of God.

Not only have there been changes in theology since 1914, which may be reflected in different Americans' definitions of God, but there have been improvements in survey research techniques. Experienced pollsters simply do not ask paragraph- long questions anymore because they know that they elicit contingent (and therefore difficult to interpret) answers!

Most educated, late 20th century Americans are "test wise" and know that the more components to a question, the more likely it is that the question is "wrong". I doubt that this was the case in 1914, when citizens 'were exposed to far fewer surveys than they are today. I surmise that modern survey-wise scientists would be more likely to answer "no" to a multi-component question like Leuba's number 1 than "yes".

What about Leuba's second question?

2. I do not believe in a God
as defined above.
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
52.7 72.2

How might this question be interpreted? There is more than one way—which means it's not a good question.You might answer "true" if you did not believe in God at all, which is how Leuba, and apparently Witham and Larson, interpret the question; they describe these answers as demonstrating "personal disbelief." But you might answer "true" if you believed in a different kind of God than Leuba defined! A "yes" on question 2 would include both non-believers and those who believe in a less personal God than that of question 1.

Leuba's third question also allows for multiple interpretations.

3. I have no definite belief
regarding this question.
AM&WS NAS
1914 1998
20.9 20.8

Well, there has been no change in the number of "yes" answers over time, but what does the question mean? To me, a "yes" means "I don't think much about religion in general" rather than meaning, as Leuba, Larson and Witham conclude, "I have 'doubt or agnosticism'." Nonbelievers might very likely answer this question "false", because they do have definite views on this question! Most of the atheists and agnostics that I know have quite definite views about belief in God! Just as with the other Leuba questions, a "yes" answer reflects more than one possible opinion. Positive answers to this question include those who do not believe, as well as those who are not especially interested in the topic.

What one might conclude from the 1998 Larson and Witham study of NAS scientists is that belief in Leuba's definition of a personal God has decreased over time among scientists. The main problem, however, is that Leuba's questions are not well designed for investigating the religious views of scientists (or anyone else).

The Gallup questions, which deal with views of God's role in evolution, rather than general belief or disbelief in God, are far less ambiguous. When these questions were used (Larson and Witham 1997), the answers showed that a large proportion (40%) of prominent scientists believe in a God that is sufficiently personal or interactive with humankind that human evolution is guided or planned. http://ncse.com/rncse/18/2/do-scientists-really-reject-god
The manner in which the survey was conducted and it's subsequent interpretation shows a pronounced bias. It's designed to overestimate atheism.

[Eman Resu]

That's true, but generally non-Catholics are not admitted to communion. If they believe in Transubstantiation, they're usually encouraged to become Catholic.

They are as a general rule, but those not born into the Catholic Faith who genuinely do believe in Transubstantiation, but who cannot convert - either owed to Matrimonial vows outside the R.C. Church, or because of an inability to be Confirmed (e.g. a Christian not Baptised into Catholicism who cannot support the Vatican stance on abortion) - haven't (at least not since the Third Nicean Council, at the beginning of the eight century) been denied the Sacrament as far as I'm aware, solely on the grounds of denominationalism.

Beyond this, battlefield Communion for non-Catholics who profess belief in Transubstantiation and who are, "in imminent danger," has a relatively long history with Priests, as does the Sacrament of Extreme Unction in similar circumstances.

[mal4mac]

Only if you do not know how to read.

Nope, I think *you're* misreading that passage, or reading it in another way.



Darwin clearly argued evolutionists could believe in god, since his theory had no bearing on its existence, and you are trying to imply it is the reason behind his lack of faith. Of course, makes a lot of sense.

Nope, I'm arguing that he didn't see sufficient evidence for God.



Good, so Dawkins is a bad scientist?


Dawkins doesn't believe beyond all doubt that there is no God, read "The God delusion" to see his subtle view.



You clearly want to find a tale of Darwin's that does not exists. He was a deist,...


You are producing no quotes that show this, here's another direct quote from his autobiography, "the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic." He's an agnostic in the same sense as Russell and Dawkins. Because Russell and Dawkins don't want to be labelled as wishy-washy, dithering agnostics they call themselves atheists (because their position is very near strict atheism).

[dralexisnoble]

I dunno - American politics has become a religion to some people. Maybe we should dispense with politics, and revert to the sort of theocratic government which existed in the Sumerian city-states prior to the politico-military leadership which arose 4,500 years ago. Look at the advantages - a government controlled by God, who never spoke, except through His priests, who were part and parcel to the citizenry, and who generally invoked the will of the people, and beautiful temples instead of that hideous pseudo-neoclassical White House. Not only would "hitting the opposition with a Bill" cease completely, since laws would be written on clay tablets, but we could turn the Pentagon into a dynamite roller rink.

Here here! I'm for everything but the abolishment of the White house and clay tablets. The roller rink, however, is a must!

[mal4mac]

But the methodology of the survey, and the questions which got them to the 7% figure are flawed.

Are they? Your link is far from convincing. The original survey was published in Nature, were your accusations of bias published in a journal of equivalent stature?

[JCamilo]

That's not what I said. It is "literally" his body and blood. That is Catholic doctrine. Anyone who doesn't believe it should not receive the Eucharist at mass. This is emphasized relentlessly, and it's the sole focus of the service. That is why we bow before the tabernacle (where the consecrated host is housed) before getting in and getting out of the pews. We also have Eucharistic adoration where the consecrated host (Christ's body) is in an ornate structure called a monstrance where we can spend time in Christ's physical presence. It is by no means symbolic. It is Christ, according to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Mere symbolism of the bread and wine is a Protestant approach to communion. That is why they are not permitted to go up and receive communion at a Catholic mass.

I have no idea how you use literary "We're not supposed to taste human flesh and blood lol" if saying literary is the body and blood of Jesus would imply it is blood and flesh and not wine and breed. And Catholicism let clear it is wine and breed, not blood or fresh also. You may say the presence of Christ is literal, but not, which is what a chemical test would discover, that it is literary the body of christ - which is what you said and made mention in my answer.

And this is obviously a symbolism, using wine and breed to represent christ presence is symbolic. Specially considering I am talking from a non-beliver point of view.

[JCamilo]

Nope, I think *you're* misreading that passage, or reading it in another way.

Sure.



Nope, I'm arguing that he didn't see sufficient evidence for God.

No, you are not just doing it. You claim he is an atheist, which implies he does not believe in god and not that he found litte evidence. You also claimed stuff as he dismissed all gods. You also said the lack of evidence make his disbelief - which implies not believing - grow.... and I not going to keep quoting you. You are obviously not arguing Darwin was agnostic, but that he is atheist and tried to imply his studies lead to it. So I repeat:

"Darwin clearly argued evolutionists could believe in god, since his theory had no bearing on its existence, and you are trying to imply it is the reason behind his lack of faith. Of course, makes a lot of sense."



Dawkins doesn't believe beyond all doubt that there is no God, read "The God delusion" to see his subtle view.

There is probally no god is a blunt way to say there is no god, because nobody is foolish enough to fail for Dawkins embroidment of speech.




You are producing no quotes that show this, here's another direct quote from his autobiography, "the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic." He's an agnostic in the same sense as Russell and Dawkins. Because Russell and Dawkins don't want to be labelled as wishy-washy, dithering agnostics they call themselves atheists (because their position is very near strict atheism).

"
You are producing no quotes to help yourself either and he remains agnostic because - it is in the wiki entry, so you can read it - 'I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic' (and a few other. Just go and read). He is not like Russell at all.

[SentimentalSlop]

I have no idea how you use literary "We're not supposed to taste human flesh and blood lol" if saying literary is the body and blood of Jesus would imply it is blood and flesh and not wine and breed. And Catholicism let clear it is wine and breed, not blood or fresh also. You may say the presence of Christ is literal, but not, which is what a chemical test would discover, that it is literary the body of christ - which is what you said and made mention in my answer.

And this is obviously a symbolism, using wine and breed to represent christ presence is symbolic. Specially considering I am talking from a non-beliver point of view.

Like I said, it is not the same body and blood he had 2000 years ago. We know the bread and wine is not supposed to taste different before or after it is consecrated. It is through faith that we believe Christ is present in the bread and in the wine. We take what Christ said at the Passover meal literally. His physical body and blood is now, here on earth, the consecrated bread and wine.

At Catholic mass, we state this in the Epiclesis: Therefore, O Lord, we pray: may this same Holy Spirit graciously sanctify these offerings, that they may become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ for the celebration of this great mystery, which he himself left us as an eternal covenant.

Catholics believe it literally. I can't repeat this enough. It is doctrine, and it's in the catechism. Protestants have fell away and see the bread and wine as merely symbols, so that is why a good number of them believe that us Catholics are idolaters.

[Eman Resu]

I have no idea how you use literary "We're not supposed to taste human flesh and blood lol" if saying literary is the body and blood of Jesus would imply it is blood and flesh and not wine and breed. And Catholicism let clear it is wine and breed, not blood or fresh also. You may say the presence of Christ is literal, but not, which is what a chemical test would discover, that it is literary the body of christ - which is what you said and made mention in my answer.

And this is obviously a symbolism, using wine and breed to represent christ presence is symbolic. Specially considering I am talking from a non-beliver point of view.


Nope - there's nothing symbolic about Transubstantiation; the Catholic belief is that the Eucharist becomes the body (and, concomitantly, the blood) of Christ, although to all outward appearances the Host remains unchanged.

Schroeder's translation from the original Latin of Session 13 (Chapter IV) of the Third Tridentine Council is quite good, really:


http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT13.HTM

"But since Christ our Redeemer declared that to be truly His own body which He offered under the form of bread, it has, therefore, always been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy council now declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine a change is brought about of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. This change the holy Catholic Church properly and appropriately calls Transubstantiation."

[JCamilo]

Substance is not a material trait. See Aquinas about it:

"I answer that, As stated above (A[1], ad 3; A[3]), Christ's body is in this sacrament not after the proper manner of dimensive quantity, but rather after the manner of substance. But every body occupying a place is in the place according to the manner of dimensive quantity, namely, inasmuch as it is commensurate with the place according to its dimensive quantity. Hence it remains that Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place, but after the manner of substance, that is to say, in that way in which substance is contained by dimensions; because the substance of Christ's body succeeds the substance of bread in this sacrament: hence as the substance of bread was not locally under its dimensions, but after the manner of substance, so neither is the substance of Christ's body. Nevertheless the substance of Christ's body is not the subject of those dimensions, as was the substance of the bread: and therefore the substance of the bread was there locally by reason of its dimensions, because it was compared with that place through the medium of its own dimensions; but the substance of Christ's body is compared with that place through the medium of foreign dimensions, so that, on the contrary, the proper dimensions of Christ's body are compared with that place through the medium of substance; which is contrary to the notion of a located body.

Hence in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament."

There is more places on his suma 528 where he make up the difference between Substance and Dimension, Substance is clearly different from presence on space, which is Dimension hence the conclusion "Christ body it is not present in the sacrament" , so the two parts of his body - blood and flesh are not there, unlike wine and breed. (Obviously, a christian believes he is there spiritually and do not believe they drink blood and flesh).

Aquinas adds:

'"The eye is of two kinds, namely, the bodily eye properly so-called, and the intellectual eye, so-called by similitude. But Christ's body as it is in this sacrament cannot be seen by any bodily eye. First of all, because a body which is visible brings about an alteration in the medium, through its accidents. Now the accidents of Christ's body are in this sacrament by means of the substance; so that the accidents of Christ's body have no immediate relationship either to this sacrament or to adjacent bodies; consequently they do not act on the medium so as to be seen by any corporeal eye."

Which is enough to show what the Trent Council will come with.

So, when we see the Council the following:

"Therefore, our Savior, when about to depart from this world to the Father, instituted this sacrament, in which He poured forth, as it were, the riches of His divine love towards men, making a remembrance of his wonderful works,[8] and commanded us in the participation of it to reverence His memory and to show forth his death until he comes[9] to judge the world. But He wished that this sacrament should be received as the spiritual food of souls,[10] whereby they may be nourished and strengthened, living by the life of Him who said: He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me,[11] and as an antidote whereby we may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sins.

He wished it furthermore to be a pledge of our future glory and everlasting happiness, and thus be a symbol of that one body of which He is the head[12] and to which He wished us to be united as members by the closest bond of faith, hope and charity, that we might all speak the same thing and there might be no schisms among us."

Where it calls it as a symbol. It does more than once in the text. And mentions the "spiritual food". Being symbolic does mean being false or unreal. Means one thing represents another. Obviously for a christian Christ is present and according the Church the changes are not physical but on "substance", the wine remais wine ,the breed remain breed. For anyone, wine and breed represents Christ presence - either you are christian or not - and symbolism is exactly when

"the art or practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations: as
a : artistic imitation or invention that is a method of revealing or suggesting immaterial, ideal, or otherwise intangible truth or states
b : the use of conventional or traditional signs in the representation of divine beings and spirits'

Since substance is invisible, then we do have exactly the merriam-webster definition of symbolism.

[Eman Resu]

Hence in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament."

It's accepted as such by Roman Catholics. Julius III's dictum at the Tridentine Council was made ex cathedra, and as such carries with it the understanding of 'interpretatio cessat in claris.' Read into Canon three centuries after the Summa Theologia was written, Aquinas' thoughts on the Eucharist - as moving as they might have been to Julius III - can't change what is, in this instance, "clear text."

I doubt that anyone here - Catholic or otherwise - would seek to deny your right to whatsoever interpretation you choose, nor to offer you any disrespect regarding your belief that Transubstantiation doesn't exist as viewed through the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Likewise, I'll assume that you'd offer no disrespect to anyone who embraced Transubstantiation as fact through their beliefs.

[JCamilo]

Of there is no offense.

Anyways, Aquinas is not here to change his future, it is to illustrate the meaning of Substance, in the text which refers to Christ body as having non physical presence (or the traditional physical presence that can be validade by empirical evidence, which was the proposal of the chemestry exame. The Church expect to have "wine and breed" as result and this in no way disprove the transubustantiation), which Julius confirms. It also confirms the symbolic nature of those elements in the sacrament (which from the logic does not imply it is false, the symbol is the thing in such rituals).

Simple as put, it is like an object (you, me) etc, to have more than one part. Substance , an excential invisible part and some material part. By mentioning - in the part you quoted - substance, they suggest that other part, a left over of sorts, is absent. This left over is what implies that to our mundane senses - it is wine and breed. Obviously, this show those guys are in no way ignorant, completely fools and had phylosophy and mostly, logic, present in their doctrines to the point they understood empirism quite well and analysed their miracles with that in view as well (which made Mal4mac challenge a bit foolish, the church had the answer well build 700 or more years ago for him).

This is Pope Paul VI, 1965.

'46. To avoid any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of nature and constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, (50) we have to listen with docility to the voice of the teaching and praying Church. Her voice, which constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in which Christ becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful conversion that the Catholic Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. (51) As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new "reality" which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.'

He uses the other symbolism a few times (he mentions it but consider a mistake praying with focus on Symbolism), uses here sign and end telling us, the body is present but not in the way bodies are in a place. He basically - even the use of substance - repeats and confirms Aquinas and the kind of interpretation I have. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium_en.html

and this is Vatican site compedium:

"282. How is Christ present in the Eucharist?

1373-1375
1413

Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist in a unique and incomparable way. He is present in a true, real and substantial way, with his Body and his Blood, with his Soul and his Divinity. In the Eucharist, therefore, there is present in a sacramental way, that is, under the Eucharistic species of bread and wine, Christ whole and entire, God and Man.

283. What is the meaning of transubstantiation?

1376-1377
1413

Transubstantiation means the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of his Blood. This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the “eucharistic species”, remain unaltered."

[mal4mac]

So are the carbon atoms in the wafer swapped with carbon atoms from Christ's body? Is Christ in bodily form in heaven teleporting his carbon atoms to the wafer and swapping these atoms with the wafer's carbon atoms? Does Christ allow for scientific advance? Given the current availability electron microscopes invisible transubstantiation might need to take place at the atomic level. As all carbon atoms are the same, why bother doing this? Is there an extra undetectable "spiritual oomph" in Jesus' carbon atoms? If so, how does this "spiritual oomph" work itself out in the human body? If it cures diseases, or improves complexion, such things should be detectable.

[JCamilo]

You are being childish and illogical. It is clear stated the change is not physical, nothing happens with atoms. Dont you think the first time a priest said to some pagan guy with a bigger sword "this is the body and blood of jesus" the guy didnt tasted and said "wine and breed for me"?And neither it is meant to cure diseases, it is more a way to fasten the bound with the community and the community with Jesus.

[mal4mac]

I'm being childish and illogical :) One of the posters said, "His physical body and blood is now, here on earth, the consecrated bread and wine." I'm just trying to draw out the implications of that. I think the whole discussion is daft, like arguing over how many angels dance on the head of a pin. Symbolic or real, big end of the egg or small end of the egg. I wish I had Swift's satirical gifts.

[JCamilo]

There is nothing wrong with her sentence. The discussion is not daft, what matters is not how many angels but to which tune they are dancing.

[Eman Resu]

I wish I had Swift's satirical gifts.

Oh, I don't know - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's satire regarding The Lady's Dressing Room wasn't bad either.

[YesNo]

On the physics front: I think you need to get up-to-date. Have you heard of Lawrence Krauss? We now know it is entirely possible for a universe to come from nothing, and our universe actually looks like a universe that came from nothing.

It was in a post Orphanpip made some years ago on Lit Net featuring Lawrence Krauss that got me interested in the Big Bang. I didn't realize it previously that there was scientific evidence that the universe came from nothing.

The way I see it now, rather than promoting atheism, this view of the big bang confirms what I understand to be a theistic, specifically Catholic, version of creation.

In any case, with the universe only 13.7 billion years old, chance has even less time to operate to get us to the state we are in now.



And even if existence itself did begin to exist and we had no idea how it started, that wouldn't make it reasonable to assume it was a god any more than it would be reasonable to assume it was a transcendent, cosmic purple dragon. A gap in our scientific knowledge is not justification to insert anything you can imagine.

I suppose it could be a purple dragon. Wouldn't you like to know if it is or not?

I see atheism as boxing in science with an assumption that there is nothing conscious out there besides ourselves and that any evidence from our own consciousness should be dismissed. The same thing goes for determinism. Science is still in a conceptual box that assumes determinism in spite of the fact that this has been discredited.

[YesNo]

I however would like to ask: What theists claim is that there is a God-like reality of any sort, anywhere, within the universe or without. How could they possibly know such a thing?


I assume you were referencing my previous post.

A theist would get enough evidence for assuming there are gods or other conscious agents able to make choices from the evidence that human consciousness exists and that humans can make choices. Using the mediocrity principle we can assume there is nothing special or unique about our consciousness.

This existence of consciousness and choice is a challenge for atheists and illustrates the conceptual box they have put science in. It is not science as such that requires this conceptual box. It is atheism that requires it. Science looks for patterns in repeatable events. It does not have to be deterministic nor unconscious.

Determinism was one way to remove choice. When that failed early in the 20th century, chance was relied on as a way out. When it was found that chance didn't have enough time because the universe was too young, random multiverse ideas were proposed. These are not agnostic scientific conjectures, but atheistic conjectures boxing science into its atheology.

[Delta40]

I suppose it could be a purple dragon. Wouldn't you like to know if it is or not?

I see atheism as boxing in science with an assumption that there is nothing conscious out there besides ourselves and that any evidence from our own consciousness should be dismissed. The same thing goes for determinism. Science is still in a conceptual box that assumes determinism in spite of the fact that this has been discredited.

What evidence from our own consciousness? Look, I endure Christians endlessly cherry picking passages from the Bible to substantiate their arguments and negating ones which cannot withhold scrutiny and now you say that atheists box in science. Perhaps you're suggesting that both camps are guilty of the same practice to suit their own ends. Does that make us fallible humans with a single common denominator or are you going to stick to your 'right to bear arms' guns and say no?

[YesNo]

How do you know there aren't tooth fairies or unicorns? I don't see any gods around here, just as I don't see other mythical figures striding down the streets. I don't know absolutely for sure that they don't exists, they might all be living together in Oz, which for some reason is hidden from me. But until I am given a Ryan air flight to Oz I'll continue being an atheist.

I don't see any evidence for "many worlds" either. Since the many worlds idea cannot derive the Born probabilities, why is it even discussed as an interpretation for quantum mechanics?

I don't think you support many worlds based on previous posts, but I am bringing this up to compare the many worlds idea with the tooth fairy. They are at the same level of explanation. Why is one considered more reasonable for "scientists" to discuss?



None of these observations make it any more likely that Santa exists. Electromagnetic & quantum fields are useful models, by using them we can predict how material objects will interact. This has enabled us to develop many useful objects, like the computer you are using at this moment. The god concept has not allowed us to develop anything useful.

The various god concepts, used by theistic religions, have built communities of believers who love their god. Even if one does not believe in any gods that is very useful. Just look at state atheisms to see the mess that godless ideologies have made. What is useless is atheism.



Hardly. The number of declared atheists in Scotland has risen from 27% to 37% in the last decade, and remember that Scotland used to be a stronghold for extreme protestantism. To get an idea about what Scottish religion was like in the 18th century try reading "The View from Castle Rock" by the new Nobel prize winner Alice Munro. From that situation to 37% atheist... it gives me hope that places like USA might get to 37% in the not too distant future.

I don't think the tendency you are viewing is really a growth of atheism so much as a growth of people who don't care about religion one way or the other. Depending on the question I might be placed in that category, but I don't think you would call me an "atheist".

What atheists need to be worried about is that very group they think is on their side. It could very easily turn against them and become anti-atheists, although not specific believers in any named God.




It's easy to understand, scientists require evidence. Why does atheism require determinism? It's simply a disbelief in gods. The world can be as indeterministic as you like and still not require any gods. All the leading quantum physicists were atheists, so atheism was hardly a drag on the development of quantum theory!

The determinism is required to remove choice. Choice requires some sort of consciousness. That consciousness leads to these gods.

Based on modern science, given that quantum physics has establish indeterminism, what is your justification that no God could possibly exist? I am not talking about satirizing other religious groups. I am asking for a justification why atheism has even a chance of being true in a universe in which consciousness exists.

In the 19th century, Draper and White, who created the science vs religion conflict could rely on determinism and the hope that science would create a deterministic theory that did not need superhuman agents. That determinism is gone. What do atheists rely on now?

[YesNo]

What evidence from our own consciousness? Look, I endure Christians endlessly cherry picking passages from the Bible to substantiate their arguments and negating ones which cannot withhold scrutiny and now you say that atheists box in science. Perhaps you're suggesting that both camps are guilty of the same practice to suit their own ends. Does that make us fallible humans with a single common denominator or are you going to stick to your 'right to bear arms' guns and say no?

I don't have a religion to defend. I am concerned with civil liberties and science. Were it Christians who were boxing in science insisting that we find some God to their liking, I would be equally annoyed.

Yes, we are fallible.

[Volya]

I'm still not seeing a good reason why religion and science aren't compatible (in general).

[mal4mac]

I don't think the tendency you are viewing is really a growth of atheism so much as a growth of people who don't care about religion one way or the other. Depending on the question I might be placed in that category, but I don't think you would call me an "atheist".


The box ticked by 37% in the 2011 British Survey was "non-religious". They ticked the box, so they cared! If you ticked that box I'd call you an atheist as only religions posit Gods.

[mal4mac]

I'm still not seeing a good reason why religion and science aren't compatible (in general).

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

[Eman Resu]

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!


Be careful what you wish for. Remember that during those "dark ages" - from the Council at Constantinople in 719, until the Council at Paris in 1212 - nearly five decades - that the only thing which saved the written word from extinction was the decree that harming books carried with it the Church's anathema.

[mal4mac]

Be careful what you wish for. Remember that during those "dark ages" - from the Council at Constantinople in 719, until the Council at Paris in 1212 - nearly five decades - that the only thing which saved the written word from extinction was the decree that harming books carried with it the Church's anathema.

Saving their own dark books from extinction. Big deal. They had already driven the written words of the ancients almost to extinction, and banned non-Christian works. Fortunately the Arabs were more enlightened about keeping alive ancient works.

[Eman Resu]

Saving their own dark books from extinction. Big deal. They had already driven the written words of the ancients almost to extinction, and banned non-Christian works. Fortunately the Arabs were more enlightened about keeping alive ancient works.


Far be it from me to trot out John William Draper's assertions that the "Arabs" burned the Library at Alexandria. That notwithstanding, vast numbers of classical texts in history and the sciences were copied out at monasteries throughout Europe in those "Dark Ages," and the works which ended up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum did so after the Middle Ages had ceased to be - at the hands of Pope Paul IV and the Council (the Pauline Index itself was 1559) . Truth be told, if you can read this, thank a thirteenth century Carthusian scribe.

[mal4mac]

The Christians got nasty in Alexandria as well, murdering Hypatia, for instance. A female intellectual! That really wound them up. Drapers views are questionable, I thought the consensus, now, was that there wasn't one burning of the library but several, and it's uncertain what actually happened (reports are hard to come by!) If it wasn't for the dark ages I might be reading this by the light of Arcturus. Anyway, all this is beside the point, *today's* religion is irrational and not compatible with science. Liberal secular humanists, like Dawkins or Stephen Fry, are not going to be burning any books or Christians.

[Volya]

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

This is just incredibly offensive and narrow-minded. I am an agnostic-atheist myself but to dismiss other peoples beliefs as 'mental incoherence' is just plain wrong. I have friends who are Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, and we all agree that the Big Bang, evolution, gravity, any kind of generally accepted science, is all perfectly okay by each of our own religious beliefs.

Also, I daresay Richard Dawkins wouldn't be averse to burning Christians or the Bible. He is not a very nice man.

[Eman Resu]

The Christians got nasty in Alexandria as well, murdering Hypatia, for instance. A female intellectual! That really wound them up. Drapers views are questionable,

Indeed they are; it was offered tongue-in-cheek.



I thought the consensus, now, was that there wasn't one burning of the library but several, and it's uncertain what actually happened (reports are hard to come by!)


Yep - that is the current view; studies have discovered several separate foundations, in fact.



If it wasn't for the dark ages I might be reading this by the light of Arcturus. Anyway, all this is beside the point, *today's* religion is irrational and not compatible with science. Liberal secular humanists, like Dawkins or Stephen Fry, are not going to be burning any books or Christians.


Tomás de Torquemada really was the first (1480s) to actively encourage the destruction of scientific books in the name of Catholicism (and by that time, that old thief Gutenberg was already taking credit for the accomplishments of Johannes Füst and Peter Schöeffer, et al, and printed books were becoming far-flung as Mankind brushed away the last of the Middle Ages' dust and opened the way for the Renaissance), and really did so in the name of Ferdinand, who exerted considerable pressure upon Pope Julius II (and, in fact, Sixtus IV actually tried the put an end to the Inquisition only a few years beforehand, but was pressured into withdrawing his Bulla of 1477 at the behest of the Spanish Crown, who genuinely used the Inquisition to personal political advantage) to do so.

I can't say that I agree with your assessment of modern Catholicism as being any more "irrational" than increasing to 17 trillion dollars, the debt ceiling of a country whose GDP is 1.5 trillion dollars less than that, or becoming a martyr in the hope of attaining "sensual Paradise" [as in Sunan Ibn Majah] populated by seventy-two virgins (imagine, for a moment, the incredible expenditure of energy and patience required to "educate" 72 wholly inexperienced woman - dear God, that's not Paradise - that's a nightmare!), or any of a thousand other "irrational" elements of the modern secular world, but you've certainly as much right to your opinion as does anyone else. Some wag once said, "everyone believes in God on their deathbed;" why should believing any earlier be seen as "irrational?"

[mal4mac]

This is just incredibly offensive and narrow-minded. I am an agnostic-atheist myself but to dismiss other peoples beliefs as 'mental incoherence' is just plain wrong.

Now you're suffering from mental incoherence.


Also, I daresay Richard Dawkins wouldn't be averse to burning Christians or the Bible. He is not a very nice man.

And I find that view very offensive, you have no reason to say that. But what can we expect from the incoherent?

[Volya]

I'd rather be incoherent than an arrogant jerk who has no respect for other peoples beliefs.

[mal4mac]

Well you obviously have no respect for my beliefs, and are very arrogant. Should we form a club?

[Eman Resu]

Well you obviously have no respect for my beliefs, and are very arrogant. Should we form a club?

I try to respect other views, but as to the club, will there be a secret handshake?

[Eman Resu]

...and what about bowling shirts with the club name on them?

[mal4mac]

I try to respect other views...

We'll help you with that problem.

[Eman Resu]

We'll help you with that problem.


Oh, trying to see new perspectives, affording respect for other people and not forcing my views on others isn't a problem, thanks. I'm not a scientist; I'm only a Christian.

[mal4mac]

...and what about bowling shirts with the club name on them?

No name, just any cartoon that might get you kicked out of the bowling arena. Jesus & Mo for me:

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2013/05/15/stupid/

[SentimentalSlop]

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

Maybe religion is irrational to you, but remember that humans are irrational creatures. Maybe there is a reason for that? Maybe there's a type of reason greater than human reason? You know, there's so much us humans don't understand, and yet we have the gall to say that there is no God. How can we possibly know that when our minds are so limited? Does that not strike you as conceited?

[Delta40]

How can we possibly know that when our minds are so limited? Does that not strike you as conceited?

It is the same with science. So much is yet to be discovered....

[mal4mac]

Maybe religion is irrational to you, but remember that humans are irrational creatures. Maybe there is a reason for that? Maybe there's a type of reason greater than human reason?

Once you admit & admire irrationality any excess is permitted. Why not believe in astrology or Zeus? They are just as irrational as Christian beliefs. Why not get really irrational and hold all these views at the same time? They contradict each other? This shouldn't bother an irrationalist.



You know, there's so much us humans don't understand, and yet we have the gall to say that there is no God. How can we possibly know that when our minds are so limited? Does that not strike you as conceited?

Again, sigh, who says that? There is insufficient evidence for God, just as there is insufficient evidence for the tooth fairy, therefore the rational persons holds that there is no God, just as there is no tooth fairy. Is it conceited not to believe in the tooth fairy?

[JCamilo]

That is like saying, because you love someone, support a football team or admire a opera - all irrational feelings - you must believe in all things imaginary (which are not the same as irrational). Poor argument and rather ilogical. I suppose you believe in astrology and Zeus now?

[mal4mac]

That is like saying, because you love someone, support a football team or admire a opera - all irrational feelings - you must believe in all things imaginary (which are not the same as irrational) ...

Love has a rational explanation, it's a combination of sexual attraction and friendship, both readily explained by evolutionary theory. Supporting English football teams is an irrational action that I have cured myself of. For instance, I followed none of the recent England football's team qualification fiasco, apart from catching the appalling racist remarks of their idiot manager.

You need to be careful with the broad and narrow definitions of rationality (You are assuming I'm using the narrow definition, I'm not, I'm using the broad definition.) Watching an Opera, if you like Opera, or think you could like Opera, is a rational act because it is a "sensible, sane, moderate, not foolish or absurd or extreme" thing to do. Believing in God is not sensible or sane, it's foolish and absurd, and often leads to immoderate, extreme actions.

[JCamilo]

Love is not the same as physical atraction, which is what you described but do you understand even having faith will be explained by evolutionary theory just like any emotions. And still, being irrational is absolutely normal and healthier. And still: we can be picky with our irrationalities.

Watching Opera can lead to extreme actions. People cry rivers of tears. There is sane, moderate, sensible, not foolish religious people. Aquinas's first cause is rational, it is logical and yet you keep saying there is no logical reason to believe in God. This is very irrational, a bit of absurd claim, since you just ignore a historical fact.

As you finding ridiculous people who is religious, it is ridiculous to not support a football team, even if your option is the English team.

[mal4mac]

Love is not the same as physical atraction, which is what you described but do you understand even having faith will be explained by evolutionary theory just like any emotions. And still, being irrational is absolutely normal and healthier. And still: we can be picky with our irrationalities.

I said love came from a physical reaction & friendship... maybe that's not quite correct in all cases, so I'll broaden it to say it comes from a physical & social reaction. Yes indeed "having faith" can be explained by evolutionary theory. On a recent video, Dawkins says he likes the idea that faith comes from inappropriate attribution of agency. For instance, if you hear the grass move, it's likely to be just the wind blowing, but it's probably of an evolutionary advantage to attribute agency to the movement, that is, assume a carnivore is behind you and run like hell. 99 times out of 100 it will be the wind, but it's worth running like hell 100 times for the one time it is a jaguar. Some people inherited the tendency to attribute agency to *everything*, so if a volcano erupts, "someone did it". Obviously not a jaguar, must be something bigger, must be God. So evolution installs irrational tendencies, sometimes, and they need to be opposed by rationality.



Watching Opera can lead to extreme actions. People cry rivers of tears. There is sane, moderate, sensible, not foolish ...


Not in England :) But I'll give you this, I think it's a positive thing. Some extreme actions are not good though, like burning heretics.


Aquinas's first cause is rational, it is logical and yet you keep saying there is no logical reason to believe in God. This is very irrational, a bit of absurd claim, since you just ignore a historical fact.

Aristotle's physics is considered absurd *today* because it obviously doesn't work, we can excuse Aristotle because not much was known about science, he had an excuse for his ignorance. I'm not sure if Aquinas was mad, bad, or ignorant; but today we can certainly relieve our ignorance. Just as Newton's ideas can be explained to 14 year olds, Aquinas' five proofs for God's existence have been shown to be vacuous today (i.e., irrational.) Dawkins does a reasonable job of this in "the God Delusion", though you can pick up many books of popular philosophy that do a decent demolition job.

The first cause argument comes from the idea that nothing is caused by itself, every effect has a prior cause. This infinite regress is terminated by a first cause: God. The first cause argument makes the entirely unwarranted assumption that God is immune to the regress, that God himself does not need to be caused.

[YesNo]

The box ticked by 37% in the 2011 British Survey was "non-religious". They ticked the box, so they cared! If you ticked that box I'd call you an atheist as only religions posit Gods.

Is that is all they had to do? Just tick a box for which religion they belonged to? I would probably have to tick the "non-religious" box depending on what the other boxes were.

It is irrational to assume that makes me an atheist.

People like Dawkins need to be careful that those "non-religious" people they are counting on for support don't turn anti-atheist.

[YesNo]

They are not compatible because having faith in a religion is irrational, because there is insufficient evidence for any religion. Believing in all sorts of irrational stuff leads to social & mental incoherence, and that is not a recipe for happiness. In the past, when the religious have gained power, they have burned heretics for irrational reasons. Such a world was an irrational, incoherent world, leading to great unhappiness. So religion is not compatible with science because it leads to social incoherence and presages a new dark age, just like the old dark age. To resolve this incoherence we need to argue religion out of existence, it has no good existence claims, so this should be possible!

When people say there is insufficient evidence for something, they are saying there is no evidence that they accept for something. This is the one of the problems with atheism's relationship with science. It would be the same problem no matter what religion dominated science. Atheists refuse to look at evidence that counters their belief system. They then use their influence to insist that scientists in general refuse to do so as well.

What science needs is a tolerant agnosticism, not atheism. Scientists need to have open minds.

Let us also not forget that when atheists gain power, they behave badly as well. To refuse to acknowledge the problems of state atheism and only focus on the problems of other religions opens atheists to the charge of hypocrisy and even bigotry.

Does atheism itself have any "good existence claims"? If atheists cannot argue other religions out of existence, is it acceptable, should atheists get political power, in the name of "science", in the name of "reason", in the name of whatever bogus idealism they currently embrace, to try to force other religions out of existence?

[mal4mac]

Atheists refuse to look at evidence that counters their belief system.

Hardly. There are many atheists who have studied the supposed evidence in great detail, as a quick Google search will show you.



What science needs is a tolerant agnosticism, not atheism. Scientists need to have open minds.


The best scientists do, they always keep open the *possibility* that Santa exists, they always remain open to new evidence.



To refuse to acknowledge the problems of state atheism and only focus on the problems of other religions opens atheists to the charge of hypocrisy and even bigotry.


How can you have 'state atheism'? You can't have a state whose only policy is "Don't believe in God!"



Does atheism itself have any "good existence claims"?


As its only claim is for the non-existence of something, it's ridiculous to expect an existence claim!



And if atheists cannot argue religion out of existence, is it acceptable, should atheists get political power, in the name of "science", in the name of "reason", in the name of whatever bogus idealism they currently embrace, to try to force other religions out of existence?

I would argue no, but that's because I'm a liberal. You can be a liberal atheist, Stalinist atheist, or an atheist of any political persuasion. You can also be a liberal Christian, in which case no force is necessary on either side, but a lot of lively arguments may be expected, and should be encouraged :)

[Eman Resu]

Can religion and science co-exist? They do; now more than ever, they're entirely interrelated. From an article in Physics For The Terminally Stupid Magazine, "How exactly do you produce a Higgs boson?"


"There are a few ways to produce Higgs bosons at the Tevatron at Fermilab which collides protons and antiprotons together. The primary way is when a gluon, which is the particle that holds the quarks together inside a proton, begins to collide with a different gluon from the antiproton. Some of the time, when these gluons have enough energy, and when there is a quantum fluctuation like a roll of a dice choosing a particular number, the gluons will exchange a top quark, and the top quarks will merge, and transform into a Higgs boson."



I guess that since the God Particle depends upon quantum fluctuation, it could be said that the variance which creates this merging of top quarks is... well, you can figure this out by yourself:

God's Particle depends upon
Two errant quarks to marry,
The force which causes this is called
The Blessed Mergin' Vary.

[YesNo]

Nice one about the Mergin' Vary, Eman Resu.

[Eman Resu]

Nice one about the Mergin' Vary, Eman Resu.


Thanks; when I read that I kind of lepton it.

[Melanie]

If "Science" is responsible for all of creation, then why did "It" choose our planet ONLY?? Science has no intelligence and can't choose, of course. And I'm well aware that all the elements needed are in place here…but why? Why not other places in the universe? You may say there could be others in other universes but why only our planet in all this vastness around us? Why such a perfect design here only? Think about the complexities of that design…why? Just "Why" about everything.

God is the answer to "Why?".

[Ecurb]

Science is not "responsible for all creation". Instead, science is a method, or a department of knowledge in which observed facts have been logically arranged and systematized, and are subject to verification or falsification.

You are correct, Melanie, that the universe SEEMS miraculous, and inspires awe and wonder. However, God is only one of a great many possible answers to the question, "Why"?

[cafolini]

Science is not "responsible for all creation". Instead, science is a method, or a department of knowledge in which observed facts have been logically arranged and systematized, and are subject to verification or falsification.

You are correct, Melanie, that the universe SEEMS miraculous, and inspires awe and wonder. However, God is only one of a great many possible answers to the question, "Why"?

God is the only answer and science is one of the Gifts of God and doesn't have any saying about Who God is or What He's supposed to do.

[Ecurb]

If God is the only answer, does that mean there is only one question? My only point was that the universe existed before science did – so “science” could not possibly be responsible for all creation.

[Melanie]

I agree that science could not possibly be responsible for creation. The word "science" isn't in the Bible because the word didn't exist but science existed and science was created by God, whether there was a name for it or not.

[MorpheusSandman]

When people say there is insufficient evidence for something, they are saying there is no evidence that they accept for something... Atheists refuse to look at evidence that counters their belief system... What science needs is a tolerant agnosticism, not atheism. Scientists need to have open minds. I absolutely agree with your first sentence, which is why I think it behooves people to consider what constitutes good and bad evidence to begin with, rather than just talking about good and bad evidence in the abstract. This is what I love about LessWrong and Bayesian Epistemic Rationalism. If you read that site from the beginning, you'll see how Yudkowsky builds from the ground up a way of assessing evidence in a manner that is as objective as we humans can get. I say AS objective, because Bayes itself acknowledges, in the existence of priors, the subjective nature of human experience, how every piece of evidence we observe is affected and affects our previous experiences and evidence.

That said, I completely disagree either that atheists refuse to look at the evidence that contradicts their belief system, or that scientists aren't open-minded. For the former, the people that write about atheism generally do so in the context of addressing the arguments and evidence from theism! Dawkins, eg, expresses his atheism through his attack on the "evidence" put forward for ID and Creationism, and how evolutionary biology is far superior in its evidence to either. Indeed, take way Dawkins' critiques of ID/Creationism and you take away the very basis for which we know him as an atheist! You can say the same thing about Krauss and Creationist cosmology, or Shelly Kagen and theistic morality, etc. In regards to scientists, having somewhat open minds is really part and parcel of what they do. As I've said before, however dogmatic individual scientists are, the nature of the scientific method and peer-review is very much a "watch dog" over that dogma turning into blind authority. If science didn't have an open mind, Darwin's theories never would've gained an ounce of footing to begin with, as the idea, back then, would've seemed far too absurd to even other scientists.

[Melanie]

Here's something God designed that scientists don't have a clue about. It just so happens to be at the core of creation.

Watch this TED video about the uncertainty of scientists as to the location of electrons and their "mysterious" behavior:

http://www.dump.com/locationelectrons/

This video is a scientific explanation that SCREAMS a Higher Power.

[MorpheusSandman]

Here's something God designed that scientists don't have a clue about... This video is a scientific explanation that SCREAMS a Higher Power.This is just the classic God of the Gaps (we don't know something, so God!), and is plain false is well. Science has an incredibly accurate probabilistic model of how electrons behave, and we have a perfectly deterministic one if we accept those models as real without adding anything unnecessary to them. It turns out, the reason they seem weird to us is because we are made up of particles ourselves, and one particle system cannot observe another without both of them being affected. Our "confusion" was entirely over not considering ourselves in the equation. Take ourselves into account and the weirdness goes away. Even if we DIDN'T know these things and DIDN'T have that model, our ignorance creating a mystery would never be evidence of a "higher power." See here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hs/think_like_reality/

Again, to quote the relevant:
Reality has been around since long before you showed up. Don't go calling it nasty names like "bizarre" or "incredible"... Quantum physics is not "weird". You are weird. You have the absolutely bizarre idea that reality ought to consist of little billiard balls bopping around, when in fact reality is a perfectly normal cloud of complex amplitude in configuration space. This is your problem, not reality's, and you are the one who needs to change.

Human intuitions were produced by evolution and evolution is a hack. The same optimization process that built your retina backward and then routed the optic cable through your field of vision, also designed your visual system to process persistent objects bouncing around in 3 spatial dimensions because that's what it took to chase down tigers... When you go down to the fundamental level, the level on which the laws are stable, global, and exception-free, there aren't any tigers. In fact there aren't any persistent objects bouncing around in 3 spatial dimensions. Deal with it.

Calling reality "weird" keeps you inside a viewpoint already proven erroneous. Probability theory tells us that surprise is the measure of a poor hypothesis; if a model is consistently stupid - consistently hits on events the model assigns tiny probabilities - then it's time to discard that model. A good model makes reality look normal, not weird; a good model assigns high probability to that which is actually the case. Intuition is only a model by another name: poor intuitions are shocked by reality, good intuitions make reality feel natural. You want to reshape your intuitions so that the universe looks normal. You want to think like reality.

[Melanie]

...Science has an incredibly accurate probabilistic model of how electrons behave...
How can "probabilistic" be "incredibly accurate"?? Interesting leap of faith you have there.


...and we have a perfectly deterministic one IF we accept those models as real…
"IF"???…..another leap of faith. You might as well throw in a leap of faith in a Higher Power while you're at it….just to be fair. Gotta' just love how God has a few mysteries that He's keeping scientists in the dark about (as well as all of us). He wouldn't want to unleash ALL of his secrets…that would be too much power in the wrong hands.


Even if we DIDN'T know these things and DIDN'T have that model, our ignorance creating a mystery would never be evidence of a "higher power."You just don't see it do you. You are saying that if you don't know these answers (which you don't) and don't have an accurate model (which you called probabilistic), are ignorant (your words not mine), and can't answer the mysteries…...then you would not be open-minded to another leap of faith concept ? Wait. Didn't you just tell YesNo that scientists are open-minded?

POST #100 from MorpheusSandman to YesNo…."I completely disagree either that atheists refuse to look at the evidence that contradicts their belief system, or that scientists aren't open-minded."

[YesNo]

Science has an incredibly accurate probabilistic model of how electrons behave, and we have a perfectly deterministic one if we accept those models as real without adding anything unnecessary to them.

The many worlds model doesn't add the needed assumption that allows it to generate the Born probabilities. Therefore it cannot construct a wave function. Therefore it is not an interpretation for how electrons behave. To believe in many worlds requires a "leap of faith", to use Melanie's term.

Considering the absurdity of many worlds and the absurdity of even wanting a strict determinism like it proposes, I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific since they fit reality better.

This particular thread is about science vs religion. However, science and religion are not at odds, especially not today with the introduction of fields as part of reality, the understanding that the universe is not deterministic and the realization that the universe is incredibly young. What are actually at odds are science and pseudo-science. I would put beliefs like many worlds in the pseudo-science category.

[MorpheusSandman]

How can "probabilistic" be "incredibly accurate"??If a system is innately probabilistic from our perspective then an accurate model would be probabilistic as well, the same way a coin flip is 50/50 or a die roll is 1/6. Are these probabilistic models not "incredibly accurate"?


"IF"???…..another leap of faith.I don't see that as a leap of faith at all. So far, every time we've accurately modeled reality it's been of real phenomena. People's reluctance to accept QM models as "real" stems from them upsetting their subjective perceptions/experience of what reality is. So, if you believe the models over our historically fallible perceptions, then the models are deterministic; if you believe our historically fallible perceptions, then you have some explaining to do. How many instances do we need of our perceptions being wrong and our scientific models being right before we start to trust our scientific models over our perceptions? You might as well say it's a "leap of faith" to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.

Nevertheless, it's foolish to put all "leaps of faith" under the same label as if the leaps are of equal length. Historically, people proposing gods behind natural phenomena are batting a perfect 0%, while science discovering natural causes behind natural phenomena are batting a perfect 1.000. So, now we find ourselves in the midst of another "mystery;" please explain to me why it's an equal "leap" to go with the theory that has been consistently WRONG, as opposed to going with the theory that has been consistently RIGHT? The sun rising is the same thing; sure, maybe the sun WON'T rise tomorrow, and maybe it's a "leap of faith" to believe it will, but to propose that both leaps of faith (it rising VS it not rising) are equal is patently absurd.


You just don't see it do you. Apparently you don't get it either. How is "I don't know" evidence for the theory that "God did it?" Especially from a historical perspective we've used gods to explain tons of things we didn't understand--lightning, the "movements" of the planets/stars, storms, waves, mountains, etc.--and have been wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME! That's not a good track record for gods being behind what we don't understand. However, we do understand quantum mechanics. Engineers use the models in several facets of modern technologies, like GPS and quantum computing. The models work, they're scary accurate. The debate is over how to interpret what they mean and, as I said, if you trust the models are representing real things, then they are deterministic and only become indeterministic from our perspective because we are bound up in the system we're observing.

[MorpheusSandman]

The many worlds model doesn't add the needed assumption that allows it to generate the Born probabilities. Therefore it cannot construct a wave function. Therefore it is not an interpretation for how electrons behave.Better to have an interpretation that simply says "there's more we don't know" (MW) than to have an interpretation that says "we know everything, but please ignore all of the absurdities and contradictions and violations of scientific, rational, and logical principles that our assumptions create" (CI).


Considering the absurdity of many worlds and the absurdity of even wanting a strict determinism like it proposes, I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific since they fit reality better.Yes, an invisible superman behind everything we don't understand is "more reasonable" and "fits reality better" than believing that our QM models are real. I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?


However, science and religion are not at oddshttp://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html


...realization that the universe is incredibly young.14 billions years old is young?

[YesNo]

Better to have an interpretation that simply says "there's more we don't know" (MW) than to have an interpretation that says "we know everything, but please ignore all of the absurdities and contradictions and violations of scientific, rational, and logical principles that our assumptions create" (CI).

Many worlds can't even face the facts that we do know.



Yes, an invisible superman behind everything we don't understand is "more reasonable" and "fits reality better" than believing that our QM models are real. I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?

It is far more reasonable than gazillions of parallel universes that in the end don't explain anything anyway.



14 billions years old is young?

Considering that the universe was previously viewed as eternal, 13.7 billion years is very young. In particular, it is too young, far too young, for chance to fill in the gaps and explain how we got to where we are today. The only God of the gaps is chance, but with the universe being so young, that God did not have time to do anything. Something else must be at work.

[MorpheusSandman]

Many worlds can't even face the facts that we do know.This is plain false, but don't let that stop you from saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.


It is far more reasonable than gazillions of parallel universes that in the end don't explain anything anyway.And, again, you're judging MW based on its complex consequences (the "gazillions of parallel universes") rather than its simple assumptions, the same simple assumptions that are consistent with everything we know about physics and history; and, again, you're ignoring that great complexity arising from simple premises is what we see all throughout nature within our own universe, not simplicity arising from complexity like Copenhagen; and, again, you're ignoring that MW's problem (Born) is much less significant than CI's multiple problems.


In particular, it is too young, far too young, for chance to fill in the gaps and explain how we got to where we are today. The only God of the gaps is chance, but with the universe being so young, that God did not have time to do anything. This is plain false, but don't let that stop you from saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.

I can't help but notice how you failed to meet this challenge: "I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?""

You did nothing to explain how theism was "scientific." All you did was pull out a big, honking argument from incredulity (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity) fallacy ("I can't imagine how a 14 billion year old universe could've created everything by chance, so God did it.").

[YesNo]

This is plain false, but don't let that stop you from saying it over and over and over and over and over and over.

I don't mind repeating myself. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I usually try to do it in different ways so I see it from a different angle.



I can't help but notice how you failed to meet this challenge: "I would love for you to explain how theism is the least bit "scientific." How is "we don't understand something, so God did it" scientific?""

You did nothing to explain how theism was "scientific." All you did was pull out a big, honking argument from incredulity (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity) fallacy ("I can't imagine how a 14 billion year old universe could've created everything by chance, so God did it.").

I don't know a lot about religion, and I can't speak for any particular theism, but I suspect the theisms that present God using the names of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Rama, Krishna, Saraswati, and the like, are not interested in their Gods being some "God of the gaps" or some "Intelligent Designer" of machines. They think more highly of their Gods than that.

The God of the gaps has a name. It is called "Chance" and it is the God determinists invoke when they can't explain something. They expect people to accept their God without question, but considering how young the universe is, arguments that this Chance God exists or could have achieved what they claim it did requires a statistical argument that they conveniently refuse to provide.

This is from the link that you cite:


Sometimes creationists compute the astronomical odds against a molecule having a certain structure from the simple probability of n atoms arranging themselves so.

That is exactly what those believing in the Chance God need to calculate. Instead of satirizing the "creationists", they need to get off their butts and show that whenever they claim something occurred by chance that there is a statistical likelihood that it could actually occur by chance.

Here's another quote:


Merely because one cannot believe that, for example, homeopathy is no more than a placebo does not magically make such treatment effective.

Homeopathy could well be a placebo effect without there being any "magic" involved. However, if the universe were deterministic and our consciousness made no difference since we are just machines, ideas these self-proclaimed "rationalists" tend to believe in, there should be no placebo effects. None at all. The existence of these effects means that the consciousness of the patient cured the patient, not the drug, because that patient didn't get the drug.

The general belief systems of theists are not in conflict with the data that science provides today. Their Gods are not spaghetti monsters, but they don't have to be in a universe where fields are possible. Their Gods are not deterministic, but they don't have to be because quantum physics has found uncertainty at the core of matter.

Again, I can't speak for specific theisms, but science doesn't stand in the way of these religions.

What I do find amazing is the extent today that atheists have to go to maintain their beloved mechanistic determinism. If there is anything that has been falsified by modern science it is this atheistic metaphysics.

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't mind repeating myself. Obviously. You don't mind repeating yourself even after you've been factually corrected. It vividly reminds me of Creationists who say "evolution has no idea where life came from so evolution is wrong!," then have it explained to them that evolution only seeks to explain why living things change, not where they come from, yet continue to state "evolution has no idea where life came from so evolution is wrong!" Your "evolution = abiogenisis" fallacy is "Bell disproves Many Worlds," amongst others.


...I suspect the theisms that present God using the names of Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Rama, Krishna, Saraswati, and the like, are not interested in their Gods being some "God of the gaps" or some "Intelligent Designer" of machines. They think more highly of their Gods than that.

The God of the gaps has a name. It is called "Chance" and it is the God determinists invoke when they can't explain something.Firstly, not a single thing in your post addressed my challenge to explain how theism was "scientific;" secondly, remember that "chance/coincidence" is not a "God" or "God of the gaps," IT'S THE DEFAULT POSITION BECAUSE IT'S THE NULL HYPOTHESIS! You yourself brought up the null hypothesis in the Lost & Found thread and was advocating its usage until you learned that the null hypohtesis and chance/coincidence are the same thing. It reminds me of when you were advocating Richard Feynman as an authority until you learned he was a MW advocate.


That is exactly what those believing in the Chance God need to calculate. Instead of satirizing the "creationists", they need to get off their butts and show that whenever they claim something occurred by chance that there is a statistical likelihood that it could actually occur by chance.This just shows that you know nothing of probabilities, and it's just the classic, teleological, "argument from big numbers" fallacy. If I go out and look up at the sky, the probability that I will see the exact cloud formation I do is incredibly small; If I'm driving home and note the license plate numbers of every car in front of me, the probability that I would've encountered precisely those license plates is incredibly small; if you calculate every outcome of every game in Vegas over the course of a single night, the probability of that outcome is astronomically small. Every single one of these three "incredibly small probability" events have one thing in common: they all happened by CHANCE. Unless you think there is some "grand design" in me seeing the cloud formation, or those license plates, or those Vegas outcomes, then you, also, would agree it was "chance." Remember, chance is the "null hypothesis," it's the claim that "there is no meaning/design/causal connection between these events." In order to argue it ISN'T chance requires more than just the big probabilities against those events happening. Just because we, as humans, find big probabilities against things that are relevant to us makes zero difference in whether there's some meaning, design, or causal connection in what we experience, including life itself.


However, if the universe were deterministic and our consciousness made no difference since we are just machines, ideas these self-proclaimed "rationalists" tend to believe in, there should be no placebo effects. None at all. Firstly, the universe being deterministic has nothing to do with whether or not our "consciousness" makes a difference. If you program an AI, the programming itself is what defines the AI! Defines what it thinks, says, and does. Our consciousness, if it is a real, physical thing as rationalists believe, would, itself, define what we think, say, and do. Just because we're deterministic would not change in the slightest how important our consciousness is to us. Secondly, I have no idea how/why you're making the connection between "the ideas rationalists believe in" and "there shouldn't be a placebo effect." As a rationalist myself, I believe that the human mind, consciousness, is a very real thing and what it thinks has a profound effect on how it feels and what it does. Just as thoughts can convince a person that they're sick, and, because thoughts are real things, can even MAKE them sick; thoughts can also convince a person that they'll get better if they take something and, because thoughts are real things, can actually GET better.


The general belief systems of theists are not in conflict with the data that science provides today.What "general belief systems?" It seems unfair to define "general belief system" as "anything in religion not in conflict with science." Meanwhile, Christian beliefs that see The Bible as the inerrant Word of God would believe that the blood of birds and incantations cure leprosy. (http://religionversusmedicine.blogspot.com/2010/11/biblical-medicine-1-how-to-cure-leprosy.html) What has happened in the wake of modern science (not to mention modern morality) is that people progressively shear away from their "general belief systems" those parts of their holy texts that are in direct conflict with science and modern morality; or, if they're like many fundamentalists in the US, they deny modern science, like evolution, in favor of believing the Genesis version of creation. One doesn't have to look hard to find religious beliefs that are, indeed, in direct conflict with science. What's more, the process that generates such beliefs are in direct conflict with the scientific method. There are no religious beliefs that have been reached because of the scientific method, unless you believe The Bible (http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/), which, conveniently, is no longer susceptible to the same modern method.


What I do find amazing is the extent today that atheists have to go to maintain their beloved mechanistic determinism. If there is anything that has been falsified by modern science it is this atheistic metaphysics.Speaking of something you've said repeatedly despite having been corrected...

Atheistic metaphysics have NOTHING TO DO WITH DETERMINISM. In fact, with the lone exception of a disbelief in gods, an atheistic metaphysics ENTAILS NOTHING ELSE. I'm sure there are plenty of atheists who believe in Copenhagen or another indeterministic interp. of QM. If science came together tomorrow and definitively determined that the world was indeterministic IT WOULD NOT CHANGE MY ATHEISTIC BELIEFS ONE IOTA. I don't know ANY atheist whose atheism is bound up in their belief in determinism.

There's also some wonderful irony to the above. Back when Newton first came along with his deterministic physics, most religious institutions and believers thought that this determinism was evidence FOR God's grand ordering of the cosmos. Likewise, when quantum physics seemed to show that things were indeterministic at the quantum level, many theists saw this as a challenge to this supposed Godly order, as they could see no reason why God would "play dice" in Einstein's phrasing. Really, I find it funny that you are SO SURE that indeterminism is evidence for theism while determinism is evidence for atheism. Personally, I see both as being COMPLETELY NEUTRAL on the atheism VS theism front.

Typically, though, you've convinced yourself that I believe in determinism because determinism is absolutely crucial to my metaphysical beliefs. This is just you projecting how YOUR mind works onto me. YOU have metaphysical beliefs and refuse to accept anything that goes against them. YOU put inordinate amount of evidential pressure on something like MW while completely ignoring all of the problems in indeterministic QM. I, on the other hand, am happy to accept anything, be it determinism, indeterminism, theism, etc. as long as the winds of evidence are blowing in that direction. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a rationalist. You, as a non-rationalist, believe that everyone thinks like you, that they have the same biases that are making them believe these things you don't believe. If you genuinely, honestly, appraised the evidence you'd understand why I believe what I do. You may still disagree with me, but you wouldn't be cooking up this cockamamie notions that I'm so desperate to maintain my atheistic metaphysics that I'm deluding myself into believing in determinism. I know why you believe what you do; you WANT to believe in indeterminism because you WANT to believe that human consciousness isn't a deterministic machine because THAT would make you feel insignificant. YOU are a classic victim of wishful thinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking). I don't see how there can be any progress in our conversations until you get over this bias/fallacy.

[YesNo]

You don't mind repeating yourself even after you've been factually corrected.

What facts?



In order to argue it ISN'T chance requires more than just the big probabilities against those events happening.

Instead of "chance" one should simply say one doesn't know.


As a rationalist myself, I believe that the human mind, consciousness, is a very real thing and what it thinks has a profound effect on how it feels and what it does. Just as thoughts can convince a person that they're sick, and, because thoughts are real things, can even MAKE them sick; thoughts can also convince a person that they'll get better if they take something and, because thoughts are real things, can actually GET better.

I see that we agree on something.



What "general belief systems?" It seems unfair to define "general belief system" as "anything in religion not in conflict with science."

I don't see science standing in the way of these religious beliefs. It does stand in the way of determinism.


One doesn't have to look hard to find religious beliefs that are, indeed, in direct conflict with science. What's more, the process that generates such beliefs are in direct conflict with the scientific method. There are no religious beliefs that have been reached because of the scientific method, unless you believe The Bible (http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/), which, conveniently, is no longer susceptible to the same modern method.

The determinism of many worlds is in direct conflict with modern science, specifically, the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. If it is OK for many worlds to be in conflict with science, it should be OK for these religious groups to differ as well.


If science came together tomorrow and definitively determined that the world was indeterministic IT WOULD NOT CHANGE MY ATHEISTIC BELIEFS ONE IOTA. I don't know ANY atheist whose atheism is bound up in their belief in determinism.

Atheism seems bound up with determinism, however, I agree that not all atheists are determinists. A mechanistic view of the universe seems to require determinism.



Typically, though, you've convinced yourself that I believe in determinism because determinism is absolutely crucial to my metaphysical beliefs. This is just you projecting how YOUR mind works onto me. YOU have metaphysical beliefs and refuse to accept anything that goes against them. YOU put inordinate amount of evidential pressure on something like MW while completely ignoring all of the problems in indeterministic QM. I, on the other hand, am happy to accept anything, be it determinism, indeterminism, theism, etc. as long as the winds of evidence are blowing in that direction. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a rationalist.

Well, the scientific evidence is in favor of indeterminism. Why don't you accept it?


you WANT to believe in indeterminism because you WANT to believe that human consciousness isn't a deterministic machine because THAT would make you feel insignificant.

It is not that complicated. My own experience tells me that I do make choices, no matter how restricted these may be. So, if I believed in determinism, I would have to deny the evidence of my experiences without any good scientific reason to do so.

[MorpheusSandman]

What facts?That Bell does nothing to disprove MW. If you don't know why then you either haven't been reading what myself and others have said, you don't understand what MW is, what Bell is, or you don't understand what you've been reading. Take your pick; but it is a factually factual fact that Bell does nothing to disprove MW.


Instead of "chance" one should simply say one doesn't know. The question isn't about absolute knowledge but about the most reasonable initial assumption. Chance/Coincidence is the null hypothesis, it's the most reasonable initial assumption. We should assume that something is chance until we have data that suggests otherwise.


I don't see science standing in the way of these religious beliefs.WHAT religious beliefs? You keep lumping all religious beliefs under one label and acting as if they're all the same. Any time a religious belief has something to say about external reality, I very much think science is "standing in its way" to the extent that no religious beliefs hold up to rigorous, scientific testing.


The determinism of many worlds is in direct conflict with modern science, specifically, the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.This is one of those factually incorrect things you like to repeat ad nauseam. Many Worlds explains the Uncertainty Principle, it is not in conflict with it.


Atheism seems bound up with determinismWhy does it seem this way? Have you taken a poll of atheists to see how many are determinists VS indeterminists?


Well, the scientific evidence is in favor of indeterminism. Why don't you accept it?Because it's not. The scientific evidence is in favor of determinism appearing indeterministic because of us being part of the systems we're observing and our perspectives being limited because of it.


It is not that complicated. My own experience tells me that I do make choices, no matter how restricted these may be. And your own experience tells you the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. How many times does science have to show that our experiences are limited because of our perspective? If the world was deterministic, you would only know if your brain was infinite in its ability to computer those processes, but it's not. Do you know that our brains make choices before we're even aware of it? http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind/brain-scans-can-reveal-your-decisions-7-seconds-before-you-decide

The "good evidence" to deny your experience are the QM formulas themselves (Shrodinger and Heisenberg). Take them as real, as all mathematical models of all natural phenomena has been throughout history, and don't unnecessarily add anything to them, as per Occam's Razor, and you get the determinism of MW. You actually have to unnecessarily add something to them, like a collapse, or unreasonably assume they're "non-real" in order to get indeterminism; and your "reward" for unnecessarily assuming they're non-real and unnecessarily adding a collapse are all of these seemingly irresolvable paradoxes like the non-locality of Bell (ironically, Bell's non-locality is SUPPOSED to be a challenge for CI, NOT for MW!), or the inexplicable mechanism behind the indeterminate collapse itself.

In your desperate attempt to maintain indeterminism, which you feel is necessary for free-will/consciousness, you hand-wave all of the problems and paradoxes that the one-world interps. of QM create, the same problems that physicists have been baffled by for almost a century. Instead, you could just obey Occam's razor, assume the reality of the wavefunction, and you end up with an interp. that is compatible with everything else we know about physics. No irresolvable paradoxes and mysteries. Of course, you don't WANT to do that because you WANT to believe in indeterminism.

[YesNo]

That Bell does nothing to disprove MW. If you don't know why then you either haven't been reading what myself and others have said, you don't understand what MW is, what Bell is, or you don't understand what you've been reading. Take your pick; but it is a factually factual fact that Bell does nothing to disprove MW.

What you are presenting are dogmas that you believe in. There is nothing factual about them.

The experiments that show correspondences between entangled particles separated and then measured show, to my satisfaction, that MW cannot realign the assumed split of these worlds in a way that would guarantee this correspondence can be preserved. That is enough to falsify the claim the MW is any more "local" than any other interpretation.

Now, you need to show how that correspondence can be maintained.



The question isn't about absolute knowledge but about the most reasonable initial assumption. Chance/Coincidence is the null hypothesis, it's the most reasonable initial assumption. We should assume that something is chance until we have data that suggests otherwise.

It is best to say that one does not know. There is no reasonable initial assumption. One doesn't actually know that chance was involved.

However, if one wants to claim some event occurred by chance, then one can test that. Just compute the probability that such an event occurred by chance. If the probability is too small, then one would have to reject that chance was the cause. When one rejects chance, all one knows is that something else was involved. We may not be able to find out what it was.



WHAT religious beliefs? You keep lumping all religious beliefs under one label and acting as if they're all the same. Any time a religious belief has something to say about external reality, I very much think science is "standing in its way" to the extent that no religious beliefs hold up to rigorous, scientific testing.

From my perspective, the differences are minor. Essentially religions guide a born again, kundalini or enlightenment experience using their various traditions, faiths and scriptures.



This is one of those factually incorrect things you like to repeat ad nauseam. Many Worlds explains the Uncertainty Principle, it is not in conflict with it.

It does not. Science is not in conflict with religion but with pseudo-science such as many worlds that calls metaphysical dogmas "facts" and speculations "science".



And your own experience tells you the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. How many times does science have to show that our experiences are limited because of our perspective? If the world was deterministic, you would only know if your brain was infinite in its ability to computer those processes, but it's not. Do you know that our brains make choices before we're even aware of it? http://exploringthemind.com/the-mind/brain-scans-can-reveal-your-decisions-7-seconds-before-you-decide

I'm aware of what is presented in that link. I looks to me that it shows that our consciousness is larger than our immediate awareness. It might even be useful as evidence that our consciousness is not generated by our brains.

To pursue this further, what or who prompted the brain to decide to do something? Why do we still call it our decision?



The "good evidence" to deny your experience are the QM formulas themselves (Shrodinger and Heisenberg). Take them as real, as all mathematical models of all natural phenomena has been throughout history, and don't unnecessarily add anything to them, as per Occam's Razor, and you get the determinism of MW.

Once many worlds removes the assumption that allows the Born probabilities to be computed, and supposedly gains some bogus Occam's Razor advantage, it loses touch with reality and scientific evidence. When it claims it is saying something significant about quantum physics, it becomes pseudo-science. Many worlds cannot generate a single wave function let alone make anything "real".


You actually have to unnecessarily add something to them, like a collapse, or unreasonably assume they're "non-real" in order to get indeterminism; and your "reward" for unnecessarily assuming they're non-real and unnecessarily adding a collapse are all of these seemingly irresolvable paradoxes like the non-locality of Bell (ironically, Bell's non-locality is SUPPOSED to be a challenge for CI, NOT for MW!), or the inexplicable mechanism behind the indeterminate collapse itself.

The issues with wave function collapse have been addressed by consistent histories. There is no need for many worlds anymore.



In your desperate attempt to maintain indeterminism, which you feel is necessary for free-will/consciousness, you hand-wave all of the problems and paradoxes that the one-world interps. of QM create, the same problems that physicists have been baffled by for almost a century. Instead, you could just obey Occam's razor, assume the reality of the wavefunction, and you end up with an interp. that is compatible with everything else we know about physics. No irresolvable paradoxes and mysteries. Of course, you don't WANT to do that because you WANT to believe in indeterminism.

Why do you want determinism so badly?

[MorpheusSandman]

What you are presenting are dogmas that you believe in. There is nothing factual about them. :banghead: This is not dogma. This is a fact that any theoretical physicist would confirm. I repeat, it is a factually factual fact that Bell does nothing to disprove MW. If you don't know why then you either haven't been reading what myself and others have said, you don't understand what MW is, what Bell is, or you don't understand what you've been reading. It's your insistence on repeating crap like this that makes me feel you're being intentionally dishonest or a troll.


It is best to say that one does not know. There is no reasonable initial assumption.:banghead: Pure BS. You yourself were promoting the null hypothesis and now you're backing away from it. The road you're going down would mean we could never assume chance for anything, like the order the leaves fell of a tree. There must be some grand purpose behind it. What nonsense.


However, if one wants to claim some event occurred by chance, then one can test that. Just compute the probability that such an event occurred by chance. If the probability is too small, then one would have to reject that chance was the cause. When one rejects chance, all one knows is that something else was involved. We may not be able to find out what it was.:banghead: This is not how one tests chance and again shows you know nothing of science or probabilities. I already explained this earlier, which is proof positive you don't read or understand what anyone writes. To copy/paste what I wrote just a few posts ago:

If I go out and look up at the sky, the probability that I will see the exact cloud formation I do is incredibly small; If I'm driving home and note the license plate numbers of every car in front of me, the probability that I would've encountered precisely those license plates is incredibly small; if you noted every outcome of every game in Vegas over the course of a single night, the probability of that outcome is astronomically small. Every single one of these three "incredibly small probability" events have one thing in common: they all happened by CHANCE... In order to argue it ISN'T chance requires more than just the big probabilities against those events happening.


From my perspective, the differences are minor. Essentially religions guide a born again, kundalini or enlightenment experience using their various traditions, faiths and scriptures.:banghead: THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THOSE TRADITIONS, FAITHS, AND SCRIPTURES BEING COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE! You said, and I quote, "I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific (than MW) since they fit reality better," yet you haven't done a single, solitary thing to show how ANY religious beliefs are the LEAST bit scientific.


It does not. Science is not in conflict with religion but with pseudo-science such as many worlds that calls metaphysical dogmas "facts" and speculations "science".:banghead: It does so. Many Worlds doesn't call anything a "fact" because it's a F'ING INTERPRETATION! It "interprets" the wavefunction as real and it "interprets" things like the Shrodinger equation and Uncertainty Principle as being a complete-in-themselves description of reality. Those are its "interpretations." You will not find a single MW advocate claiming any of its claims as factual. I dare you to.


I looks to me that it shows that our consciousness is larger than our immediate awareness.:smilielol5: Consciousness IS awareness!


To pursue this further, what or who prompted the brain to decide to do something?Oh, I don't know, how about those deterministic particles the brain is made up of?


Once many worlds removes the assumption that allows the Born probabilities to be computed, and supposedly gains some bogus Occam's Razor advantage, it loses touch with reality and scientific evidence.:banghead: It's actually Copenhagen that, once it adds the assumption that allows the Born probabilities to be computed, loses touch with reality and scientific evidence. You seem to keep forgetting the little problem CI has of being completely and inexplicably irreconcilable with everything else we know about physics. MW is compatible with those things, so MW is completely "in touch" with reality and the scientific evidence; CI is not.


The issues with wave function collapse have been addressed by consistent histories.Which still has the problem of erroneously assuming the wave equations are inexplicably unreal. Explain to me how we can have models of unreal things. Once you figure out how to do that, I may take CH seriously.


Why do you want determinism so badly?:banghead: I don't. To repeat what I said earlier:

You've convinced yourself that I believe in determinism because determinism is absolutely crucial to my metaphysical beliefs. This is just you projecting how YOUR mind works onto me. YOU have metaphysical beliefs and refuse to accept anything that goes against them. YOU put inordinate amount of evidential pressure on something like MW while completely ignoring all of the problems in indeterministic QM. I, on the other hand, am happy to accept anything, be it determinism, indeterminism, theism, etc. as long as the winds of evidence are blowing in that direction. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a rationalist.

I'll repeat further: I DON'T GIVE A FLYING RAT'S *** FLIP TAIL DONKEY HONK ABOUT DETERMINISM. If the collective sciences came together tomorrow and said to me "the universe is indeterministic! We've established this fact beyond doubt!" I'd give a shrug and a nod and say "OK." and would believe the universe was indeterministic and go about my daily life. The universe being (in)deterministic MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, NADA, ZERO, ZILCH, SQUATOLA TO ME! I merely BELIEVE it's deterministic because MW is the best current interpretation of QM we have for the millions of reasons I've given. If a better, indeterministic interpretation comes along, I will believe it. Again, it's YOU who have this desperate need to believe in indeterminism, so you've done everything in your power to discredit MW and ignore all the problems with all of the indeterministic interps. of QM. You are one the most obvious victims of Confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) I've ever seen.

[YesNo]

THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THOSE TRADITIONS, FAITHS, AND SCRIPTURES BEING COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE! You said, and I quote, "I think theistic beliefs are more reasonable and more scientific (than MW) since they fit reality better," yet you haven't done a single, solitary thing to show how ANY religious beliefs are the LEAST bit scientific.

The religious experiences that these traditions are concerned with can be viewed as non-deterministic resonances, or dances, between people and some divine reality. Since we know their experiences are real, the only question is whether that divine partner is real.

If science had validated mechanistic determinism, one might be able to claim that those believers were dancing by themselves with only an imaginary partner. However, that is not what happened. What happened was mechanistic determinism was falsified. That leaves open the question whether this divine partner is real or not.

Given the existence of these experiences and the falsification of mechanistic determinism, I find these theistic beliefs more reasonable and a better fit to reality than any atheistic objections to them. This voids any imaginary conflict between science and religion that atheists like to promote.

[MorpheusSandman]

What happened was mechanistic determinism was falsified.Blatantly false.


Given the existence of these experiences and the falsification of mechanistic determinism, I find these theistic beliefs more reasonable and a better fit to reality than any atheistic objections to them.Even ignoring the blatant falsity that determinism was falsified, whether you find theistic beliefs to be "reasonable" STILL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM BEING THE LEAST BIT SCIENTIFIC! Do you know what the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) is? Please explain to me how ANY religious belief is compatible with that method.

What's more, chance, coincidence, the "null hypothesis," does not depend upon determinism to exist (indeed, why would things NOT seem more random and meaningless in an indeterministic universe?); so explain to me how, even in an indeterministic universe, "Goddit" "fits reality better" and "is more reasonable" than chance? And you can't use the "argument from big probabilities" as I've already explained twice.

[YesNo]

Even ignoring the blatant falsity that determinism was falsified, whether you find theistic beliefs to be "reasonable" STILL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM BEING THE LEAST BIT SCIENTIFIC! Do you know what the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) is? Please explain to me how ANY religious belief is compatible with that method.

What I can say is many worlds is not scientific. I don't even think it is rational.

The view of reality that religious people provide, based on the religious experiences that people actually have, makes more sense given the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, the current knowledge that the universe had a beginning and the existence of reality in the form of fields.




What's more, chance, coincidence, the "null hypothesis," does not depend upon determinism to exist (indeed, why would things NOT seem more random and meaningless in an indeterministic universe?); so explain to me how, even in an indeterministic universe, "Goddit" "fits reality better" and "is more reasonable" than chance? And you can't use the "argument from big probabilities" as I've already explained twice.

I look at "chance" and "determinism" as paired metaphors. They depend on a mechanistic view of reality in which consciousness and choice are ignored. I don't think either one is more than an approximation to anything real.

[MorpheusSandman]

What I can say is many worlds is not scientific. I don't even think it is rational.Let's see:

Actual scientists say: Many Worlds is scientific
Actual rationalists say: Many Worlds is rational

YesNo says: Many Worlds isn't scientific, but religion is
YesNo says: Many Worlds isn't rational, but Deepak Chopra is

Hmmmm, I wonder whom we should believe here?


The view of reality that religious people provide, based on the religious experiences that people actually have, makes more sense given the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, the current knowledge that the universe had a beginning and the existence of reality in the form of fields. Again, this does not demonstrate how religion is the least bit scientific as you claimed it was. By this rationale, the flying spaghetti monster is also scientific. You have in no way connected The Uncertainty Principle to being evidence for God.


I look at "chance" and "determinism" as paired metaphors. They depend on a mechanistic view of reality...How in the hell does "chance" depend upon a "mechanistic reality?"

Plus, let me get this straight; you think there's no such thing as chance, correct? So everything from the way a leaf falls, to specific cloud formations, to the roll of a die, to the fact that I farted at the same time my team scored... none of those things happen by chance? There's some deep meaning and connection behind them all?

[YesNo]

Plus, let me get this straight; you think there's no such thing as chance, correct? So everything from the way a leaf falls, to specific cloud formations, to the roll of a die, to the fact that I farted at the same time my team scored... none of those things happen by chance? There's some deep meaning and connection behind them all?

If you believe in determinism, how does chance fit in that at all?

[MorpheusSandman]

If you believe in determinism, how does chance fit in that at all?First, let me define what I mean by chance.

By chance, I mean an event that, even if it is deterministic in an objective manner, we experience it probabilistically or indeterministically because of our limited experience (as in MW) or limited knowledge (what card in poker will come next) or limited ability to calculate (the coin flip) the deterministic forces. In MW the universal wavefunction may be objectively deterministic but it is subjectively indetermistic; "chance" is, essentially, not knowing whether "you" will see the cat alive or dead, since you can never see it both alive AND dead. In poker, even though the next card is decided after the shuffle, we can not KNOW what that card is; so "chance" arises from our ignorance. For a coin flip, even if we say that there are deterministic physical forces (General Relativity) controlling what side it lands on, we can not calculate them all in order to predict what side it lands on; so "chance" arises from our inability to calculate the deterministic forces.

What's more, in each of these cases (MW, coin flip, next poker card), there is nothing besides those deterministic, non-anthropomorphic, non-agent, non-intentional, forces "controlling" what happens. So by "chance" I also mean a lack of connection between the event and some other "cause" (be that cause supernautral or otherwise). In order for someone to establish a cause BESIDES chance requires the scientific method of removing variables and testing to see if there are connections between events and proposed causes. You can't just experience the event, and then say "God" (or whatever) after the event occurs, because that's when you end up with fake causality and crap theories like phlogiston. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/is/fake_causality/) God is basically phlogiston; it's something people evoke after the event has happened, but never use to make advanced predictions. That Phlogiston article precisely articulates what's wrong with the "God" hypothesis in all cases.

[YesNo]

What you describe, MorpheusSandman, is classical determinism where chance is based on ignorance of the deterministic forces. However, that determinism has been falsified through standard quantum mechanics. It has been replaced by uncertainty, not chance. I know you don't accept that it has been falsified, but I do and I have made my case in other posts.

I look at many worlds the way some might look on those who believe the earth is flat, or that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. These theories are interesting because they offer one a challenge to show why these views are wrong clarifying one's understanding of science. Other than that they have no value.

Let me suggest that you try to find a way to maintain an atheistic metaphysics in a consistent histories interpretation. At least then you won't be starting off opposed to modern science which can be used against your overall position.

[MorpheusSandman]

However, that determinism has been falsified through standard quantum mechanics.And this is a flat-out, false lie; one of the many that you insist on repeating ad nauseam. It's a false lie that no theoretical physicist would ever make, even those that believe in Copenhagen. Go ahead, I dare you to find one.


I know you don't accept that it has been falsified, but I do and I have made my case in other posts.You've made it badly, all based on a perpetual, willful misunderstanding of QM and MW that's been pointed out by four different posters.


I look at many worlds the way some might look on those who believe the earth is flat...No scientists believe the earth is flat; the majority of theoretical physicists (more probably if you just polled the leading th. phs.) believe in MW. You might try explaining why that is.

[Melanie]

The title of this thread is flawed…Sciences vs Religion. It takes two extraneous subjects and attempts to relate them. Through observation and experiment, "Science" studies and defines what's already been created in the physical and natural world. But science hasn't got all the answers as to "why" these things have a certain structure or behave in a certain way. For instance, they know that Quantum Magnetics underlies our universe. But they don't know why particles are charged. They don't know why objects with mass & energy attract each other gravitationally. Religion acknowledges the creator of Quantum Magnetics, and that the creator holds the answers to "Why". Religion is based sometimes on faith and sometimes on the obvious. Science is based on the obvious only, and with many unanswered "whys". Therefore, there's really no battle between science and religion. When Science defines what's been created, religions agree and also give credit to the creator.

[Skrat99]

Rather than cut and paste here, I'll suggest a visit to a website that may be able to help you out--check out theentrant.tateauthor.com in the "About the Author" section, sub-section, "The 'Science Good, Religion Bad' Misnomer." In essence, your perspective is just as religious and belief-based as any robes and candles cult. For example, your whole story begins with a form of cosmic evolution, akin to Tryon's dogma: "The universe began from a quantum fluctuation of a preexisting vacuum or state of nothingness." Is that science?

[Melanie]

…"may be able to help me out"?…my perspective is like "any robes and candles cult"?…my "whole story"?…"akin to Tryon's dogma?" I suggest, if you want to perpetuate good discussion, that you muster up some self-control and refrain from your emotionally charged, condescending stockpile of insults. Whatever else you had to say in your post got lost in the insults. Aretha has a message for you in a word: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0

[MorpheusSandman]

The title of this thread is flawed…Sciences vs Religion. It takes two extraneous subjects and attempts to relate them.Most all religions comment on the natural world, and most all religions comment on it with remarkable ignorance and idiocy, which should be enough for any honest person to doubt the rest of what the religion claims. The Bible even depicts scientific experiments to prove its truthfulness. See here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/


But science hasn't got all the answers as to "why" these things have a certain structure or behave in a certain way.Erroneously assumes there IS a "why". Just because we can ask a question doesn't mean the question has an answer.


Religion acknowledges the creator of Quantum Magnetics, and that the creator holds the answers to "Why".Religion proposes a creator of QM without a stitch of evidence or valid reason for doing so. Try again.

[Melanie]

"...most all religions comment on it with remarkable ignorance and idiocy…

You must be related to Scrat99. Sorry, but I don't discuss anything with those who have a stockpile of condescending insults peppering their post.


[melanie] erroneously assumes there IS a "why". Just because we can ask a question doesn't mean the question has an answer.

You erroneously assume; not all questions have an answer. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean the question has no answer. God tells us He knows all of the answers to all of our questions and that someday when we are face to face with Him we will also know all the answers..."For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood." 1Corinthians 12:13



Religion proposes a creator of QM without a stitch of evidence or valid reason for doing so. Try again.
I see you still haven't read Josh McDowell's "Evidence Demands a Verdict". It doesn't matter how often a believer "tries again". If you're spiritually deaf then you won't hear anything. Here's what god says about that: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Spiritual-Deafness

[YesNo]

I see this thread is active again.

Just to summarize my view on the OP, science is at odds with only one "religion" and that would atheism. The other religions have more substance and have better things to do.

This thread had led me onto other topics and so I'm grateful to all those who participated.

I'm currently reading D. Bohm and B. J. Hiley's The Undivided Unviverse which presents Bohm's interpretation of QM. Chapter 13 is a critique of many worlds. I also looked at Michael Redheads' From Physics to Metaphysics which introduced me to the idea of relational ontology.

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't discuss anything with those who have a stockpile of condescending insults peppering their post.Some insults are true. The people that wrote most holy texts were demonstrably ignorant about how the physical universe functioned, so they made stuff up, and sometimes the stuff they made up was idiotic, like the Biblical cure for leprosy.


Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean the question has no answer.I didn't say the question didn't have an answer, but you asked the question seemingly assuming that it did. I was merely asserting that it may not. What's more, answering "God" doesn't really prevent us from asking how/why God exists (assuming s/he/it does). It's what you call an infinite regress (asking why to the why to the why to the why ad infinitum), and in such situations it seems "God" is nothing but a semantic stop-sign. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/)


I see you still haven't read Josh McDowell's "Evidence Demands a Verdict". It doesn't matter how often a believer "tries again". If you're spiritually deaf then you won't hear anything.I see you haven't read Yudkowsky on understanding just what is evidence (http://lesswrong.com/lw/jl/what_is_evidence/) The phrase "evidence demands a verdict" is nonsensical when we're talking about reality being the "evidence" itself, because then the question is "evidence for what?" Which is where hypothesis and theory comes in, as well as our means for testing what evidence supports which hypotheses and theories. As for being "spiritually deaf," if that means not assuming there's supernatural agency behind the currently unexplained, then I'm happy to be deaf, since being otherwise would ignore hundreds of years of scientific progress to the contrary (ie, supernatural answers behind natural phenomena turning out to be wrong).

[MorpheusSandman]

Just to summarize my view on the OP, science is at odds with only one "religion" and that would atheism. Speaking of ignorance and idiocy, here's another steaming pile from our resident savant.

[Melanie]

To correct my typo…..Josh McDowell's "Evidence THAT Demands A Verdict" is the correct title.

[Calidore]

Historically, a god or gods have always been used as answers when we didn't have the real ones yet, but eventually we have. We know what the sun, stars, moon, lightning, wind, etc. are now. We know how the Earth was created. Not having an answer now doesn't mean there isn't one or that we won't have it eventually.

[MorpheusSandman]

To correct my typo…..Josh McDowell's "Evidence THAT Demands A Verdict" is the correct title.You've read the Christian apologist, now read the atheist response: http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/

[Melanie]

Why? I've already got a well-rounded view, know the viewpoints of unbelievers, and don't need to be "enlightened" by an atheist. I've made my educated choice and couldn't be more sure of my decision based on years and years of study.

[MorpheusSandman]

Sure you have. I'd be willing to be my life savings that you, like all theists I encounter, went into your "study" already knowing the answer and proceeded to be victims of confirmation bias. Even based on a brief reading of your own reference book (McDowell's), it seems to be the exact same thing. Filled to the brim with anything that could possibly support what a believer wants to believe, and giving it utmost credence while ignoring (or glossing over) any and all disconfirming evidence.

[Frostball]

Besides, being so sure that nothing could ever change your mind is not the right attitude. You should always allow whatever you currently believe to be open to question, no matter how many years you've spent studying said belief. To say that you are very sure of your belief is one thing, but to say that nothing could convince you that you are wrong is the defense of one who simply wants to believe what they want to believe.

[MorpheusSandman]

Besides, being so sure that nothing could ever change your mind is not the right attitude. Indeed. To quote Yudkowsky:
This is why rationalists put such a heavy premium on the paradoxical-seeming claim that a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If your retina ended up in the same state regardless of what light entered it, you would be blind. Some belief systems, in a rather obvious trick to reinforce themselves, say that certain beliefs are only really worthwhile if you believe them unconditionally— no matter what you see, no matter what you think. Your brain is supposed to end up in the same state regardless. Hence the phrase, "blind faith". If what you believe doesn't depend on what you see, you've been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.Of course, one of the "tricks" of having your brain end up in the same state of belief is confirmation bias. You go into an issue already "knowing" the answer, so you accept very loosely evidence that supports that answer and ignore or put undue pressure on contradictory evidence.

[Tor_Hershman]

Just google
youtube Giordano Bruno awesome history
for a real hoot.

How many ever heard of Giordano Bruno before this post?
The Pope doesn't want you to have heard of he, that's why most ain't.

Better yet here's the URL
youtube.com/watch?v=2j2NKHgZrGo

[Varenne Rodin]

God is like Santa, only some people never came to the awareness that they're both fairytales. Parents and churches told them there was a god. They believe the stories without evidence. They believe them even though human beings are fallible and frequently make mistakes. They believe that a bunch of people living in deserts, without internet, without electricity, without powerful telescopes, without paved roads or floors, with no awareness that the earth was round, with no running water, with no toilets, with poop on their butts, with peyote buttons and shrooms; they believe that these backward, naive, underdeveloped ancient humans somehow communicated with an invisible man in the sky and then wrote his words in a book.

If people living in the middle east tried to do this again today, if they claimed Jesus/Yahweh was speaking to them now, and that he was commanding them to write a new bible, the bible part 2, we would ALL collectively laugh our asses off at such nonsense. The middle east of today may seem uncivilized to some, but the people living there now are lightyears ahead of the old bible-writing shepherds of yore, and we still would not buy tales of religious discovery from them. Modern Christians would think it ridiculous, yet somehow can't make the connection to the ridiculousness of a dark and depressing age supposedly figuring out the meaning of life by magic.

[YesNo]

God, Santa or many worlds or Matrix-like universes or block universes of space-time or determinism: There are people who will believe in anything, especially after they think about it for some time, even if they are so-called "scientists".

That doesn't mean they're wrong. The real problem is how to tell if something can be dismissed or not. The fact that the idea occurred thousands of years ago among people who didn't have access to the internet is not real evidence that it is wrong.

[Varenne Rodin]

Well, large portions of the bible have been proven very wrong. Large portions of it are open to interpretation and manipulation. With that being the case, I might as well not believe a single thing in it. Even if there is still some minute possibility that it is not wrong, it is still infinitely improbable. We have much more evidence that there is no god and that magic never happened here than we have that there is a god. It is equally likely AND unlikely that there are hundreds of gods. So, for the majority of the planet to pick one idea from a time and population with a narrow view, and to say THIS IS IT! THE ONE TRUE GOD! THE REAL ANSWER...it's preposterous. It's egotistical and naive, sadly. It's unfortunate that as a species we're held back from seeking real answers because of this veil of delusion that's binding us all. If there's a god, I want evidence of that. I demand evidence of that. I won't blindly put my faith into a flimsy premise. We've been here for a while. God hasn't shown himself. Until he does, we should be a more open-minded society. Maybe we're missing out by putting all of our eggs into one basket.

[The Atheist]

It's unfortunate that as a species we're held back from seeking real answers because of this veil of delusion that's binding us all.

I agree with your perspective on religion, but I think you're overselling its ability to hold anyone back. I'm guessing you might be from USA, because the rest of the western world is largely irreligious, and even in USA and the fundies trying to teach creationism, it doesn't hold back scientific progress in any way.

Islam is a different story, however.

[YesNo]

Well, large portions of the bible have been proven very wrong. Large portions of it are open to interpretation and manipulation. With that being the case, I might as well not believe a single thing in it. Even if there is still some minute possibility that it is not wrong, it is still infinitely improbable. We have much more evidence that there is no god and that magic never happened here than we have that there is a god. It is equally likely AND unlikely that there are hundreds of gods. So, for the majority of the planet to pick one idea from a time and population with a narrow view, and to say THIS IS IT! THE ONE TRUE GOD! THE REAL ANSWER...it's preposterous. It's egotistical and naive, sadly. It's unfortunate that as a species we're held back from seeking real answers because of this veil of delusion that's binding us all. If there's a god, I want evidence of that. I demand evidence of that. I won't blindly put my faith into a flimsy premise. We've been here for a while. God hasn't shown himself. Until he does, we should be a more open-minded society. Maybe we're missing out by putting all of our eggs into one basket.

One of the big things some religious traditions got right is that the universe had a beginning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_creation), although they did not get the date correct (assuming we have it correct today). Just because they got that right doesn't mean one has to believe everything else presented by each of those religions. They can't all be literally true, but the universe having a beginning presents a challenge to those don't believe in any sort of God to explain why it began at all.

I agree with you that it is inappropriate for one group to try to force their cultural ideas about God(s) on others. That goes as well for cultural ideas that claim there are no Gods. The most tolerant answer is no one knows and each of us are welcome to live our lives as we see fit.

The main evidence for or against gods comes from how we interpret our own experience and the metaphysics we find believable. There is no obvious reason why we are here at all and yet we are. As far as "delusion" and "evidence" goes, I can't think of anything more delusional or supported by no real evidence than some of the pseudo-science that gets promoted today. I'm particularly thinking of things like "many worlds" and "superdeterminism".

[MorpheusSandman]

the universe having a beginning presents a challenge to those don't believe in any sort of God to explain why it began at all.No more than it presents a challenge to those who believe in a God.


As far as "delusion" and "evidence" goes, I can't think of anything more delusional or supported by no real evidence than some of the pseudo-science that gets promoted today. I'm particularly thinking of things like "many worlds" and "superdeterminism".And, again, the non-scientist who doesn't even understand the relevant science gets to decide what is pseudo-science rather than actual scientists, and that's not egotistical or naive in the slightest.

[YesNo]

No more than it presents a challenge to those who believe in a God.

It would depend on what those beliefs are. If the belief system insists on a different time frame, then it has been invalidated. If it emphasizes the key point that the universe had a beginning, then the religious belief system just has to associate the beginning of the universe with its own creation story.

The atheist on the other hand has to come up with a process explaining how this beginning occurred without any choice being made by some superhuman agent (God, demigod, or demon). For the atheist, the universe's beginning has to occur by chance. Not only that, since the current evidence puts a range within a few hundred million years on the age of the universe, change within the universe has to be explained without superhuman agency as well, that is, by chance not choice. The problem for the atheist, given the age of the universe, is to show that 13.7 billion years is enough time for chance to do its magic.

The scientific evidence for the big bang is just one of the discoveries that changed the relationship between science and religion. They are not in such opposition as the title of the thread assumes. Or to put this another way, we are no longer in the first half of the 19th century when that opposition was being promoted.



And, again, the non-scientist who doesn't even understand the relevant science gets to decide what is pseudo-science rather than actual scientists, and that's not egotistical or naive in the slightest.

We all get to make up our own minds on what is pseudo-science and what is real science as well as who are the pseudo-scientists and who are the real scientists. This also illustrates that the tension is not between science and religion, but between science and pseudo-science.

[MorpheusSandman]

If it emphasizes the key point that the universe had a beginning, then the religious belief system just has to associate the beginning of the universe with its own creation story. This is irrelevant to my point. The "First Cause" problem is synonymous with the problem of infinite regress, which simply means someone can always ask "how/why" to whatever cause is found or even proposed. God doesn't get around this. For most it's nothing more than a semantic stop-sign, a way of halting the questioning process; but for a thinking person there's nothing to prevent us from asking why God can exist without having been created (or with no beginning) but universes can't. The only thing that a believer has accomplished by saying "God!" is to back the question up another step, regardless of whether it's even the correct answer or not.


The atheist on the other hand has to come up with a process explaining how this beginning occurred without any choice being made by some superhuman agent (God, demigod, or demon).No, they don't. The only thing an atheist has to do is note that there's not a stitch of evidence for any supernatural hypothesis, and certainly not enough to believe in one. They don't actually have to propose an alternate origin to the universe; they can be completely agnostic on the issue. You never seem to understand that atheism only entails the disbelief in God, nothing more.


For the atheist, the universe's beginning has to occur by chance.Wrong again. An atheist can believe in a deterministic process that we don't understand that creates universes in a way we don't understand.


Not only that, since the current evidence puts a range within a few hundred million years on the age of the universe, change within the universe has to be explained without superhuman agency as well, that is, by chance not choice. The problem for the atheist, given the age of the universe, is to show that 13.7 billion years is enough time for chance to do its magic.I have no idea what you're saying with your first sentence. The response to your second sentence is given above (though it find it odd to think that a 13.7 billion year old universe somehow argues for a supernatural creator, assuming life and us were its ultimate purpose: why in the cosmos would they need 14 billions years?)


We all get to make up our own minds on what is pseudo-science and what is real scienceNo we don't, and how asinine of you to say so. What is and isn't science/pseudo-science is not subjective, no more than what is/isn't a mammal is subjective. These are clearly defined terms, and either a subject fits within one category or the other, there are no grey areas. They certainly are not terms that a non-scientist who has repeatedly demonstrated their gross ignorance of a subject gets to use because one subjects accommodates their beliefs and another doesn't.

[mal4mac]

Our current universe is 13.7 billion years old according to extrapolation of observations of galactic red shifts, and other such indirect time/distance methods. According to General Relativity theory, time began with the Big Bang, *but* General Relativity is only a theory, and we know it breaks down at Quantum dimensions, i.e., it isn't a theory of the very early moments of the universe, and we haven't any observations going back that far, so we know *nothing* about these first moments, we don't know if there was something before these moments, what happened in these moments, or anything else about them.

[MorpheusSandman]

Exactly, mal4mac (though I'd be cautious with the "it's only a theory" talk, since "scientific theories" mean a "rigorously tested hypothesis that has withstood every attempt at falsification," not in the same way that, say, conspiracy "theories" are "only theories"). Most scientists are quick to point out that we know the universe had a beginning to its expansion, but that everything "before" that is speculation based on other things we know. EG, quantum field theory can explain how we COULD get a universe from mere quantum fluctuations, but not, necessarily, that we did.

[YesNo]

This is irrelevant to my point. The "First Cause" problem is synonymous with the problem of infinite regress, which simply means someone can always ask "how/why" to whatever cause is found or even proposed. God doesn't get around this. For most it's nothing more than a semantic stop-sign, a way of halting the questioning process; but for a thinking person there's nothing to prevent us from asking why God can exist without having been created (or with no beginning) but universes can't. The only thing that a believer has accomplished by saying "God!" is to back the question up another step, regardless of whether it's even the correct answer or not.

It is not so much a first cause as whether some form of consciousness made a choice out of which our universe arose. That consciousness could be eternal.

By the way, the many worlds approach is also a way to halt the questioning process, but having the "correct answer" is what is important. We are betting our lives on the answer we each choose to follow.



No, they don't. The only thing an atheist has to do is note that there's not a stitch of evidence for any supernatural hypothesis, and certainly not enough to believe in one. They don't actually have to propose an alternate origin to the universe; they can be completely agnostic on the issue. You never seem to understand that atheism only entails the disbelief in God, nothing more.

Our existence is the evidence. If atheistic metaphysics were correct, we would not be here at all.



Wrong again. An atheist can believe in a deterministic process that we don't understand that creates universes in a way we don't understand.

I agree that the atheist needs either (1) chance or (2) an unknown deterministic process. Since that deterministic process is unknown, I restrict the options to chance. Since the universe has been in existence for less than 14 billion years, I eliminate chance as well. There is not enough time.

An atheist cannot have some agent making a choice, which is the only remaining alternative, since the atheist doesn't believe in the existence of such agents.



I have no idea what you're saying with your first sentence. The response to your second sentence is given above (though it find it odd to think that a 13.7 billion year old universe somehow argues for a supernatural creator, assuming life and us were its ultimate purpose: why in the cosmos would they need 14 billions years?)

I don't know why the cosmos needs 14 billion years for consciousness to reach the state we are in now. What seems reasonable is that it would take an eternity if it were up to chance. And even then it wouldn't happen.



No we don't, and how asinine of you to say so. What is and isn't science/pseudo-science is not subjective, no more than what is/isn't a mammal is subjective. These are clearly defined terms, and either a subject fits within one category or the other, there are no grey areas. They certainly are not terms that a non-scientist who has repeatedly demonstrated their gross ignorance of a subject gets to use because one subjects accommodates their beliefs and another doesn't.

I think it might be useful to view pseudo-science in terms of social psychology, specifically cognitive dissonance. Scientific evidence shows that the universe has only a short existence. Scientific evidence shows there is uncertainty at the quantum level. Both of these discoveries fit better into a religious context than they do into an atheistic context. Because of the need to resolve cognitive dissonance atheistic metaphysics gets transformed into pseudo-scientific speculations such as many worlds and superdeterminism.

[MorpheusSandman]

It is not so much a first cause as whether some form of consciousness made a choice out of which our universe arose. That consciousness could be eternal.I'm not sure why you think a consciousness "making a choice" out of which the universe arose is NOT a question of the First Cause. Anyway, you'd have to demonstrate how a consciousness could be eternal or exist outside the bounds of spacetime, especially when we only know of/experience consciousness via spacetime and our material brains.


By the way, the many worlds approach is also a way to halt the questioning process,It doesn't halt anything. MW proponents would still be "questioning" a model for early cosmology, quantum gravity, and the origin of the Born probabilities. All QM interpretations lead to more questions; MW just leads to fewer that seem more solvable.


Our existence is the evidence. If atheistic metaphysics were correct, we would not be here at all.Our existence isn't evidence for squat except that we exist. It's as much evidence for God as fire is evidence for phlogiston. And feel free to prove that atheistic metaphysics renders our existence impossible.


Since the universe has been in existence for less than 14 billion years, I eliminate chance as well. There is not enough time.What makes you say there's not enough time?


An atheist cannot have some agent making a choice, which is the only remaining alternative, since the atheist doesn't believe in the existence of such agents. An atheist could be agnostic on the issue of possible agents outside our universe that aren't, in themselves, supernatural.


I think it might be useful to view pseudo-science in terms of social psychology, specifically cognitive dissonance. Scientific evidence shows that the universe has only a short existence. Scientific evidence shows there is uncertainty at the quantum level. Both of these discoveries fit better into a religious context than they do into an atheistic context. Because of the need to resolve cognitive dissonance atheistic metaphysics gets transformed into pseudo-scientific speculations such as many worlds and superdeterminism.This is you being your typical non-sequitor self. It has nothing to do with what I said. Many Worlds is not pseudo-science. It's not even science; it's an interpretation of science. Scientists don't call it a theory or a hypothesis, they call it what it is, an interpretation. Like all interpretations, it fits the existing evidence. Like all interpretations, it creates other questions/problems that need to be addressed by science. The point, though, is that it creates FEWER problems than other interps., it is compatible with what else we know, and obeys Occam's Razor and other mathematical models for how we should treat competing interpretations that fit the evidence.

[YesNo]

I'm not sure why you think a consciousness "making a choice" out of which the universe arose is NOT a question of the First Cause. Anyway, you'd have to demonstrate how a consciousness could be eternal or exist outside the bounds of spacetime, especially when we only know of/experience consciousness via spacetime and our material brains.

The reason I am not interested in a first cause is because the universe is not eternal and I am not promoting any particular theology. All I am interested in is the existence of a choice that was responsible for the initial expansion of our particular universe. Once I have that choice, I can assume there was a consciousness underlying it. That consciousness would be outside our universe. Since there may be many universes, this does not have to be a first cause nor be associated with any specific deity.

I think our particular forms of awareness are generated by the brain, but I don't see why our consciousness as a whole is. Nor do I think our consciousness is specific to each of us. My reason for thinking that is because of the existence of psychic phenomena. These should not exist at all, that is, we should not hear any reports of them, if consciousness were totally generated and hence individuated by each of our brains.



It doesn't halt anything. MW proponents would still be "questioning" a model for early cosmology, quantum gravity, and the origin of the Born probabilities. All QM interpretations lead to more questions; MW just leads to fewer that seem more solvable.

I view many worlds as a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance associated with the discovery of uncertainty at the quantum level. That discovery means that the project of materialistic reductionism failed.



Our existence isn't evidence for squat except that we exist. It's as much evidence for God as fire is evidence for phlogiston. And feel free to prove that atheistic metaphysics renders our existence impossible.

If I am right about atheistic metaphysics, that it cannot rely on choices, then there is no way for us to get here at all. Our existence, or the existence of anything for that matter, invalidates it.



What makes you say there's not enough time?

I haven't calculated the likelihood that by chance alone the universe could have gone counter to entropy and created more complexity rather than the expected less. I'll leave it up to you to provide the calculations that it is possible. What we know about the age of the earth and the universe is that this had to occur within a finite amount of time.



An atheist could be agnostic on the issue of possible agents outside our universe that aren't, in themselves, supernatural.

I don't know what "supernatural" means. From my perspective everything is natural. If something exists or happens, that's the way it is and we have to face the evidence and not try to cover it up because it doesn't fit our metaphysics.

The way I see it, if there are agents outside our universe, friendly or not, who make choices, then atheism is false. Atheism is not agnosticism.

Some atheists (Sam Harris, for example) even claim that we aren't agents, that our ability to make a choice is an illusion. My view of the matter is that the belief in determinism is itself an illusion generated by a need to resolve cognitive dissonance.



This is you being your typical non-sequitor self. It has nothing to do with what I said. Many Worlds is not pseudo-science. It's not even science; it's an interpretation of science. Scientists don't call it a theory or a hypothesis, they call it what it is, an interpretation. Like all interpretations, it fits the existing evidence. Like all interpretations, it creates other questions/problems that need to be addressed by science. The point, though, is that it creates FEWER problems than other interps., it is compatible with what else we know, and obeys Occam's Razor and other mathematical models for how we should treat competing interpretations that fit the evidence.

I don't think many worlds is an interpretation of anything, but it might be an example of cognitive dissonance. Rather than accepting the evidence from quantum physics, many worlds tries to rework that evidence to generate results that are more in line with its preferred metaphysics. That is how they try to resolve the dissonance.

You might want to consider chapter 13 of Bohm and Hiley's "The Undivided Universe". They present a detailed critique of many worlds. David Bohm had his own interpretation of quantum mechanics and, whether one accepts it or not, his take on other interpretations needs to be considered.

One of the conclusions is the following:


In view of all these unresolved problems we have been led to ask why the many worlds interpretation seems to be so attractive to some physicists.
I think the reason why can be obtained from social psychology which Bohm and Hiley weren't considering.

[MorpheusSandman]

The reason I am not interested in a first cause is because the universe is not eternal and I am not promoting any particular theology.The first cause deals with, quite simply, the cause behind our universe's existence; whether that's God, quantum fluctuations, or your "conscious choice" by some unspecified consciousness is irrelevant.


I think our particular forms of awareness are generated by the brain, but I don't see why our consciousness as a whole is.Consciousness has always been equated with awareness; I have no idea how/why you're separating "forms of awareness" from "consciousness as a whole."


My reason for thinking that is because of the existence of psychic phenomena. These should not exist at all, that is, we should not hear any reports of them, if consciousness were totally generated and hence individuated by each of our brains.WHAT psychic phenomena?


I view many worlds as a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance associated with the discovery of uncertainty at the quantum level.I know you do, but like with most everything when it comes to MW you're wrong. You missed the point again, however. You said MW halts the questioning process. This is demonstrably wrong. No MW proponent has halted anything.


If I am right about atheistic metaphysics, that it cannot rely on choices, then there is no way for us to get here at all. Our existence, or the existence of anything for that matter, invalidates it.I'm simply not following your train of reasoning here: WHAT atheist metaphysics? What about it not relying on choices? What about choices being needed for us to get here?


I haven't calculated the likelihood that by chance alone the universe could have gone counter to entropy and created more complexity rather than the expected less.Oh, I see, you're another one that has a complete misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. 2L says that entropy happens in a closed system over time. The universe as a whole is a closed system. However, there are systems within systems, and even if the TOTAL entropy of the system increases, this does not mean that a particular system within the system cannot generate more complexity. What is needed is, primarily, a perpetual energy source; we have one, it's called the sun.

I don't know how you think it's even possible for someone to calculate the probabilities that it's possible after it's already happened.


if there are agents outside our universe, friendly or not, who make choices, then atheism is false. Atheism is not agnosticism.These agents need not be gods, though; at least, they need not be anything like the gods we've imagined. Atheism could still be correct in rejecting the man-made gods.


I don't think many worlds is an interpretation of anythingYou're wrong. I don't know how else to say it. MW doesn't rework anything. It interprets the QM models that exist. It takes Schrodinger as real as takes Heisenberg as expressing our subjective uncertainty due, in fact, to the entropy inherent in QM.


You might want to consider chapter 13 of Bohm and Hiley's "The Undivided Universe".... One of the conclusions is the following:


In view of all these unresolved problems we have been led to ask why the many worlds interpretation seems to be so attractive to some physicists.So what unresolved problems did they mention? The only one I know about is the Born Probabilities.

[Pendragon]

You're wrong. I don't know how else to say it. MW doesn't rework anything. It interprets the QM models that exist. It takes Schrodinger as real as takes Heisenberg as expressing our subjective uncertainty due, in fact, to the entropy inherent in QM.


How about "I cannot agree. IMHO, you are wrong."

The greatest statement on this kind of discussion was made by Charles Schultz through Snoopy. Snoopy is writing theological book and titles it "Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Could Be Wrong?"

You see when people ask for others to quit being close minded and consider something from another point of view, what they really mean is "Change over to what I believe."

There is a balance between science and religion in that both attempt to answer sometimes impossible questions.

Science want nothing that cannot be proven, even if that requires speculation, use of possible scenarios, and a lot of unsure statements such as "This MAY HAVE been the earliest ancestor of homo sapiens." They call it "Educated Guess" or drawing inference from known fact to postulate a theory, and a theory is just that, a theory.

Religion takes it for granted that God exists. From there comes everything, creation, evolution, space, the universe, man and beast. An all powerful God can do anything. I paraphrase here which I hope doesn't offend but Muslims have a saying I love: "As for Allah it is enough for Him to say "Be" and it is." Religion has an explanation for everything: God did it all.

The balance is that we who believe in God cannot prove to people who will not listen. that God even exists.
You who put your faith in science postulate things that no believer in God will ever accept.

Yet consider: Science has proof that the animals today evolved from animals long gone. I accept that. It doesn't mean I don't think God created everything. But he placed them here on earth and they continually evolved to survive an ever-changing environment. That is evolution from the original creation. It doesn't invalidate science at all.

Fossil remains show us that there were human-like creatures that evolved into homo sapiens. Consider: The Bible says "God created man from the dust." It never says what he looked like at the time.

Well, I'm not here to preach, so I will close.

God bless one and all

Pen

[MorpheusSandman]

How about "I cannot agree. IMHO, you are wrong.Because him being wrong isn't my opinion, it's a fact. Saying "Many Worlds isn't an interpretation of science" is as much opinion as saying "the Earth is flat." I don't care if you phrase it "I think the Earth is flat." The Earth is not flat; Many Worlds is not not an interpretation of QM. YesNo has had no less than 4 different posters across multiple threads tell him he doesn't know what the bleep he's talking about, yet he persists in repeating the same falsities ad nauseam, even after they've been pointed out to him. He also has this remarkable ability of completely avoiding the points being made by other posters. Half of his responses are non-sequitors. He's every bit as bad as YECs arguing against evolution; just maybe slightly less abrasive.

Look, I know good and well the difference between opinion and fact. Me saying "Many Worlds is most likely true given the current state of evidence" is an opinion based on what I know of the matter; YesNo's "Many Worlds isn't an interpretation of QM" is a flat-out falsity.


The balance is that we who believe in God cannot prove to people who will not listen. that God even exists.The problem is not that non-believers will not listen, the problem is that believers have a very tenuous grasp on what they think of as "proof" or even "evidence." Generally, the kinds of things believers accept as proof of God are things they wouldn't accept if a believer in a different God claimed as evidence as well. What's more, it tends to be the kind of evidence that is easily classified under various logical fallacies. It's also the kind of evidence that, when science DOES apply its rigors to it, falls apart completely, such as the major studies on intercessory prayer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer#The_STEP_project)


You who put your faith in science postulate things that no believer in God will ever accept.I put my faith in science for the same reason I put my faith in the sun rising tomorrow; because it's proven reliable and consistent over time. Every time religion has had "God did it" as a cause behind natural phenomena, science came along and explained what REALLY did it. Science is batting 1000 right now; the supernatural is batting 0. You mention you accept evolution, yet The Bible says nothing about evolution. It says man was created fully formed from dust, not that we evolved from hominids going all the way back to single-celled organisms. What's more, if you believe that, you'd equally have to believe that God allowed his creation to wallow in mostly abject suffering for millions of years before he even chose to reveal himself or "inspire" man to invent things like modern medicine.

[Vota]

We know so much and yet so little.

Anyone claiming their way is the only way, or the best way, is the first person you need to be very wary of. Philosophers and scientists have been coming up with "theories" and debunking each others "theories" since the beginning of philosophical discussion. Many atheists, and many scientists are atheists(philosophers as well), say that religion is a joke. I find it a joke that neither of these two disciplines can provide a concrete, factual answer as to how we got here. Big Bang. You cannot create matter from nothing. Well, like uh, ya....grumble grumble, still better than that God idea. IS it? Let's use Occam's Razor. It seems reasonable to me that when you have to justify the creation of the universe, the earth, man, animals, everything, that God created it is the simplest explanation. Now I'm not saying I believe this, but science and philosophy is a never-ending rabbit hole of theories and conjecture. The ENTIRE foundation of philosophy and science rests upon first principles, axioms, whatever you want to call them, and yet they cannot explain this. In this sense philosophy and science are founded on their faith in the truth of first principles in which they cannot prove. Yet atheists and scientists recoil at the word faith which is EXACTLY what belief in first principles is. If you believe in science then you believe in first principles. If you believe in first principles then you believe in things which cannot be proven. You can try to escape the word all you want, but in the end its the same thing as believing in a God that created all and is all. Faith. Scientists have "faith" in the scientific method. Observation and experimentation. They also love to infer a great many things that they cannot prove. Trilobite evolution is a fun one.

At this juncture in my life I am skeptical of both camps. What I am willing to commit to, is the belief that it is the pinnacle of ignorance and vanity for anyone to think they have the answer, that they have the brain power and capacity in their feeble mind to truly understand the scope, the grandeur of design of this universe, or universes. I'm willing to say that better minds have tried and none have been up to the task so far.

I'm all for science. I like this computer. I like my car. I like all the things science has made possible, and I am very excited to see what scientists can come up with over the rest of my life. Space fascinates me. The idea of alien contact blows my mind. Quantum computers, etc. Yet, who knows? Nobody knows for sure. Maybe God knows. Maybe gods know? Who knows? I know one thing though, you don't. You, as in every other human being on this planet. Maybe I'm wrong thinking that. Like I said, you have to be wary of anyone claiming they have the answer to anything so complex as the meaning of life.

[MorpheusSandman]

I find it a joke that neither of these two disciplines can provide a concrete, factual answer as to how we got here. Big Bang. You cannot create matter from nothing.Science knows both how we got here as a species, how the universe got to where it is from the big bang, and how a universe can come to be from quantum fields (see Lawrence Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing"). What has religion given us? A myth about man being formed from dirt and woman from a rib?


Let's use Occam's Razor. It seems reasonable to me that when you have to justify the creation of the universe, the earth, man, animals, everything, that God created it is the simplest explanation.No. It may SEEM like God is a simple explanation, but that's because linguistic simplicity covers up ontological complexity. See this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jp/occams_razor/

What we see in nature is complexity coming from simplicity; whether it's in the form of evolution creating the diversity it did, stars/planets creating galaxies, or particles becoming atoms becoming molecules. So, given this "simplicity to complexity" paradigm, the notion that a complex being outside spacetime (how does consciousness function outside of space and time, btw?) created something also complex like the universe is a direct violation of Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor would favor a theory such as the universe coming into being out of a quantum field fluctuation, which we know can happen, given the qualities quantum fields possess. What's more, we also know quantum fields exist, and that they are incredibly simple in and of themselves. So, if we're talking Occam's Razor, quantum fields slit God's throat with it.


science and philosophy is a never-ending rabbit hole of theories and conjecture. The difference is that science progresses in measurable ways, while philosophy (and religion) arguably don't progress at all. In fact, the only way philosophy progresses is when it incorporates the advances of modern science. There is no "rabbit hole" of science. It answers certain questions definitively and then moves on to the next one. We have a complete model of how most all objects move/behave via Einstein, and a complete model of how incredibly small objects move/behave via Schrodinger. Are there lingering mysteries? Yes, but the lingering mysteries are things that philosophers and religions didn't even know existed until science answered the questions that philosophers and theologians spent centuries pondering.


Yet atheists and scientists recoil at the word faith which is EXACTLY what belief in first principles is. If you believe in science then you believe in first principles. If you believe in first principles then you believe in things which cannot be proven.The problem is that you can't lump every kind of "faith" under one category and try to equalize it. Me having "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow is not the same as me having "faith" a fairy is going to land on my nose within the next 10 seconds. One is based an absolute consistency of sense experience, the other is not. Similar, when you say "faith in science," it's having faith in something that's proven time and again its value in answering basic questions about how reality functions in provable ways.

Are there are always unprovable first principles? Yes, but even some of these are more sensible than others. Me believing that rockets have been to the moon because I've seen them take off, land, seen pictures taken from space, seen astronauts talk about what it's like, etc. is all predicated on me trusting my senses; but that's really what all "first principles" come back to. On some level, we trust what we sense, and, further, we trust that our senses interact in particular ways with reality that by asking certain questions we can answer them by seeing how our senses change. EG, to believe "light interacts with my shoelaces and enters my eye and tells me "my shoelaces are untied,"" we can take away any of these elements--light, eyes, tied laces--and see how our senses change. With no light and no eyes we see nothing, with tied shoelaces we see tied, rather than untied, shoelaces. This changing perception by changing various elements about ourselves/reality are the kind of "first principles" we put "faith" in, and it's very different than the kind of "faith" religious believers have. Religious believers are usually very good about doing their darndest to make their "faith" unfalsifiable, which is the exact opposite of science.


What I am willing to commit to, is the belief that it is the pinnacle of ignorance and vanity for anyone to think they have the answer, that they have the brain power and capacity in their feeble mind to truly understand the scope, the grandeur of design of this universe, or universes. I'm willing to say that better minds have tried and none have been up to the task so far.I think the pinnacle of ignorance is for someone to say we understand EVERYTHING, yet, no scientist or atheist I know of says this. Rather, it's usually the theists that are both supremely ignorant about what we DO know, and supremely confident that, somehow, in some way, God is behind it all. Great minds have certainly "tried," but each generation of great minds build off those of the past and make distinct progress. The problem is that a great many (most?) are unaware of that progress. Just like you saying that you can't create matter from nothing. Well, yes you can, in a way. Quantum fields, which have no matter, merely potential energy, can, indeed, create matter, gravity, time, and space. Does this change what you think about needing God to create a universe? Probably not, if you have the mind most believers possess. Most believers, when such scientific revelations happen, will merely say "but you don't know where the quantum fields came from! Ha! God must've created that!" so it becomes the classic "God of the gaps" game.

[Vota]

You seem pretty convinced that you have the answers.

I don't have a better reply, than more power to you.

[Frostball]

So, if we're talking Occam's Razor, quantum fields slit God's throat with it.



This gave me chills. Spectacular wordplay.

[Pendragon]

People who believe in Science have to accept many things they have never confirmed for themselves as fact because someone with a lot of degrees at the end of his or her name said so. Have you ever seen what they refer to as "The God Particle?" The scientists aren't even sure they have but believe it. If science always is to be trusted remember "Piltdown Man?" That a dinosaur skeleton in the Smithsonian went over ninety years with the wrong legs? That they cannot cure the common cold? That they now have decided that Pluto isn't a planet after all? You have to accept what you cannot confirm for your self and sometimes what cannot be reproduced because it was discovered by accident and they haven't found where the deviation is that allowed their discovery in the first place. I'm not saying science is wrong, I'm saying some things science teaches must be accepted without proof positive. Sometimes they keep at it and right the errors, sometimes the error is just accepted until some person most of the scientists think is a screwball manages to catch the error.

Religion is hard to deal with because there is no proof. I'm a minister, and I say that right up front. I cannot prove God exists or heaven (or hell) is real.

Science is something that has a mass effect on us all. The laws of nature apply to everyone. The discoveries of today will affect the world for years to come.

Religion is personal. I can preach to a crowd of 250 people but unless they experience something that convinces them personally of a need for God in their life, nothing I say or do will make a difference. So I preach for the ones who have had that experience. In the average 250 people in a congregation two thirds are just there to say they attend church. So I preach for the one third. I am concerned about even a single person.

Science writes you off it you don't agree as ignorant, foolish, etc. Not all of us. I know the failures of Religion, the many arguments over whose God is God, etc. But like I said, it's personal. Thomas Jefferson said, "“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Likewise it does me no injury if the people who put their faith in science abound. It doesn't change my beliefs or make me a fool.

God Bless

Pen

[Vota]

It was late last night where I live, so I did not feel the inclination to field a systematic response to your post against mine Morpheus, but having some free time today I decided I would.

1. "Science knows both how we got here as a species". The Theory of Evolution is still a theory. There are no cat-dog hybrids. There is a great deal of variation within species, but each species is still recognizable what it is, and not something new. Evolution seems to have a really hard time dealing with this. Also, when you go back to Trilobites, people ASSUME that they evolved from arthropods, and yet considering the hard shell, complex eye structure of the trilobite, we should have some sort of evidence of an arthropod/trilobite mix. As far as I know we do not. I am only just delving into this so if you have a Definite proof that there is I would encourage it.

2. "What we see in nature is complexity coming from simplicity". Do we? The Trilobite is a very complex animal with no "Direct precursor" that can be adequately proven.

3. "how does consciousness function outside of space and time, btw?" I wouldn't know and with my feeble understanding of this universe and it's overriding laws I am willing to admit my ignorance and would not claim to have an answer to this, but neither does any scientist.

4. "quantum field fluctuation, which we know can happen, given the qualities quantum fields possess"-QFT, emphasis on the T, Quantum Field "T"heory. Also there are many criticisms such as the problem of quantum gravity, why the constants of cosmology have the values they have. One must also consider that QFT omits gravity, which is a GIGANTIC gaping hole in the theory. General Relativity and Quantum Theory don't sync up nicely which leads to string theory and other theories. So what you have is an unproven theory that people are trying to shore up with other theories. This is not convincing and certainly not simple.

5. "science progresses in measurable ways, while philosophy (and religion) arguably don't progress at all"-keep in mind that science and philosophy were indistinguishable in the beginning. Science would not exist without philosophy. Science is awesome, no denying that, but science still cannot answer the most fundamental questions. Why are we here? There are no definite answers, no observable proof based on the scientific method. There's distance and time, and theories, but that's what they are, theories. What is consciousness? What is moral? Science is amazing, but it isn't the end all be all and does not disprove of the existence of God or gods nor answer the fundamental questions. You can say what you want, but all you will produce are theories, many with gaping holes in them.

6. "We have a complete model of how most all objects move/behave via Einstein"-The Theory of General Relativity is still a theory. If it wasn't it would have been renamed The Fact of General Relativity. Also, why the probs with QFT?

7. "One is based an absolute consistency of sense experience"-our senses are horribly inconsistent. What we see, or think we see can be terribly inaccurate. What we hear, taste, touch, feel are all subjective. Science by it's very method is subjective relying on observation and experiment, which means that it fundamentally has the weakness of sense bias and inconsistency. Science has proven how woefully inadequate are senses are in knowing the truth, and what's ironic is that science is limited by the very limitations we all inherently possess. It was created by people with woefully inadequate access to the truth of what things really are. This gets really complex.

8. "I think the pinnacle of ignorance is for someone to say we understand EVERYTHING, yet, no scientist or atheist I know of says this." No, they only imply by saying there is no God which is the same as stating that you "know" God does not exist. Atheists by this very declaration imply that they have access to 100% empirical proof of the nature and origin of the universe which would disprove the existence of a creator, which they do not. Having this sort of proof is the only acceptable answer to the question of "Does God exist", and presently no such factual data, evidence, or theory exists. How can one make such a claim without proof? It comes down to "beliefs" that are based on science. Science doesn't have ALL the answers and many would say it still can't answer the most important questions.

9. "Rather, it's usually the theists that are both supremely ignorant about what we DO know, and supremely confident that, somehow, in some way, God is behind it all."-I could flip this, "Rather, it's usually the scientists and atheists that are both supremely ignorant about what we DO NOT know, and supremely confident that, somehow, in some way, theories are behind it all".

10. "Just like you saying that you can't create matter from nothing. Well, yes you can, in a way. Quantum fields, which have no matter, merely potential energy, can, indeed, create matter, gravity, time, and space."=I already mentioned the various issues with basing anything off QFT. Until the issues are resolved you cannot claim this. Also, QFT has a gigantic problem with vacuum values.

11. "Does this change what you think about needing God to create a universe? Probably not, if you have the mind most believers possess. Most believers, when such scientific revelations happen, will merely say "but you don't know where the quantum fields came from! Ha! God must've created that!" so it becomes the classic "God of the gaps" game."

You insult people that believe as having someone how a weaker or incorrect mind or belief system. There are many scientists, doctors, and even philosophers that believe in some sort of higher power. It's just as feasible that God created everything, as it is feasible that one in countless theories might be the correct explanation "of it all".

I would add that I consider myself an agnostic because I am not convinced by either side. Both sides have their positive, strong points, but neither side can claim they are necessarily right or that the other is wrong.

[Frostball]

I really can't help but address some of these points.

God Particle isn't what physicists call it, it's the Higgs Boson, and it has nothing to do with god at all. It has to do with physics.

Piltdown man was a hoax, yes, and for a time the scientific community accepted it. And so what? It was a short time, and who was it who figured out it was a hoax? Priests? Nuns? It was other scientists. The only cure for bad science is good science. Mistakes are inevitable. The same goes with the dinosaur. It's not as though all fossils come in neat packages with instructions. It's incredibly difficult, and mistakes are bound to happen. Once again, who finds these mistakes? It's the people who spend their lives studying the subject.

There is no such thing as a single 'common cold'. It's a virus that's constantly changing. As yet, there aren't any cures for any viruses, period. There are preventative measures, and we can help the body's own immune system to fight them off. But you know what? Science is working on it. In a race between prayer and science to find a way to cure viruses, I know who I'd put my money on.

The reason Pluto's classification changed is because we discovered other objects that are nearly the size of pluto and have elongated orbits just like pluto. Faced with these discoveries there were two options, either call these new objects planets, giving us something like 15-20 planets, or classify pluto along with them, as dwarf planets. It's not like Pluto changed, this is just a naming system--a nomenclature.

"Theory of evolution is just a theory." Give me a break, hasn't everybody learned this by now? When will people stop saying this? A scientific theory is an explanation that has withstood the test of time and countless attempts to disprove it. Theory is the ultimate pinnacle of a hypothesis; it doesn't get any better than that. There is nothing higher than a theory. Evolution is a theory, and a fact. The theory of a heliocentric earth is "still" a theory. Gravity is a still a theory, and a fact. Einstein's laws of relativity are, yes, "still" theories, yet if we didn't account for exactly what general relativity explains in our GPS satellites, GPS would not work. So it's not as though we aren't sure this stuff is really true or not. When scientists use the word theory they aren't using it in the colloquial sense that people often use it, the way that is something like a hunch, or a guess. The closest thing to that in scientific terminology would be a hypothesis.

The great, great, majority of atheists do not claim to know there is no god. It is almost always the case that an atheist posits that there is not enough evidence to justify a reasonable belief in god. Absolute certainty is generally the realm of "true believers".

These are the points I just had to speak to. Really, they were low hanging fruit.

[Vota]

If you aren't aware of the conundrums inherent with the theory of evolution then you really should become acquainted with them, and if you are, then you believe a theory is a fact that has some glaring inconsistencies.

"There is nothing higher than a theory."-no, give me a break.

"Einstein's laws of relativity are, yes, "still" theories, yet if we didn't account for exactly what general relativity explains in our GPS satellites, GPS would not work." Gps satellites and the creation and existence of this universe are two different things. How do you account for the glaring problems with relativity and QFT? The issues with QFT in and of itself?

"It is almost always the case that an atheist posits that there is not enough evidence to justify a reasonable belief in god."-definition of atheist, Merriam-Webster: one who believes that there is no deity. Wikipedia definition: Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.

So what we have here is a case of you misusing the term atheist, or confusing it with agnostic, or willfully creating your own definition for atheist/atheism. Atheists are just as dogmatic as theists. Period.

"Really, they were low hanging fruit."-here's a stool for ya.

[Frostball]

I can give you a break, but really, there isn't anything higher than a theory. What would it be? A super theory? Theories never turn into laws, that's just now how it works.

The fact that you talk about cat/dog hybrids shows a great ignorance of what evolution is, and how it really works. Everything we have ever discovered fits in perfectly with evolution. There are countless intermediate species between every species, and more are found all the time. Every time an intermediary species is found evolution deniers just point and say "Look, now there's TWO gaps".

I didn't say anything about QFT and I don't know enough about it to speak on it. Einstein's theories have nothing to do with quantum mechanics. I was merely showing yet another example of a theory about which there is no doubt to it's truth. A hypothesis only finally becomes a theory when every scientist in the field has tried as hard as he can and failed to disprove it, and when it makes useful predictions.

The entire reason it's done this way is because there is no such thing as being absolutely certain, so science never says "This is 100% correct" but can only say that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence for something, that it has led to a great many useful predictions, and that if it were found to be incorrect it would be worldview shattering. That's about as strong as science can ever get on something, and that's the level things like heliocentrism, evolution, and atomic theory are all on. Yes, the earth could be flat, we could be wrong and all our senses could have been lying to us all along. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's the case. I can't be certain, but certainty isn't important.

Ah, great, your dictionary definition proved me wrong. I guess you just win, then. But really, if you go out and talk to atheists, or even take a poll, I assure you, the great majority of people who identify as atheists are agnostic atheists--that is, they don't believe in a god but don't claim to be certain about it. Dictionaries might need to catch up to how people are using the term. Dictionaries don't decide the definition of words as if they are an authority proclaiming them. Rather it's how people use words that dictionaries base their definitions on. You're putting the cart before the horse.

[Vota]

It's pointless arguing with you.

[MorpheusSandman]

You seem pretty convinced that you have the answers.I don't know what you mean by "the" answers. I have "some" answers, just like science has "some" answers. Only religion claims to have "the" answer in the form of God. To believers, God is THE answer to every major question. Science is pretty clear about what answers it has and which it doesn't have.


This gave me chills. Spectacular wordplay.Thank you. :)

[Vota]

"Science is pretty clear about what answers it has and which it doesn't have."

This is extremely debatable.

[MorpheusSandman]

Pendragon, I'll avoid the points that Frostball already addressed, since I agree with him. Pluto, especially, is not an example of changing science but changing terminology, and is a good reason to subscribe to reductionism and avoid the fallacies of linguistic compression. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/)


I'm not saying science is wrong, I'm saying some things science teaches must be accepted without proof positive.Science doesn't really seek "positive proofs;" proofs reside in the realm of math. Popper's notion of scientific falsification is much more accurate. It simply states that Science seeks theories that are able to be falsified through experiment, and the theories that are "left standing" are those that have withstood our best attempts at falsifying them. I understand what you're saying about about us laymen having to accept what scientists say without being able to confirm it ourselves, yet when you see things like, eg, a rocket ship to the moon, and understand that such a thing was only made possible via our understanding of physics--gravity, combustion, rocket design, etc.--it's hard to explain how we could accomplish such a thing if scientists DIDN'T actually know what they were talking about. Plus, I think most of us would anticipate (http://lesswrong.com/lw/i3/making_beliefs_pay_rent_in_anticipated_experiences/) that if we got into the relevant scientific fields, we could confirm most of what science claims it knows.

Again, it goes back to what I was saying about the differences in faiths. If I put my faith in science/scientists even if I haven't confirmed what they've said for myself, I do so for several reasons: 1) Science has consistently taken what it's claimed to know and done remarkable things with that knowledge. 2) The scientific method itself offers a means for TESTING claims, and scientists spend a lot of time trying to falsify the hypotheses of other scientists. 3) Science has no obvious agenda for claiming it knows things it doesn't, because other scientists can get famous simply by proving them wrong, and such a thing would humiliate those claiming to know thing they didn't. I guess this is just a long way of saying that I see science as having a built-in system that prevents the kind of liberal hogwash spouting that's so prevalent in pseudo-sciences and gurus and, yes, religion. You ask a scientist how they know something and they can typically back it up with heaps of confirmable facts, tests, experiments, etc.; ask a religious guru how they know something and they, well, can't.


Religion is personal. I can preach to a crowd of 250 people but unless they experience something that convinces them personally of a need for God in their life, nothing I say or do will make a difference. So I preach for the ones who have had that experience.The problem, though, is that religion doesn't STAY personal. People's religious beliefs inevitably affect others, whether that's in something as simple as one believer shunning non-believers, or something as large as religious institutions trying to get Creationism taught in schools alongside evolution. If people had "religious experiences" and accepted this as proof of a personal God in their life and that was it, I'd have no problem. The problem begins when it doesn't end there, when you get people who promote their religion's versions of history or science over ACTUAL history or science, or their religion's morality over ACTUAL morality. I mean, I'm sympathetic to, say, Blake or Stevens' ideas on religion, where religion is more about art, the creator "God" within man that allows us to have transcendental experiences with nature and life and others, the parts that speak to the eternal aspects of our humanity. However, I, like Blake, feels compelled to rage against the OT lawgiver God, who's really a product of man's attempt to control his fellow man via religion. That's the line, I think, that I've drawn with religion between its positive and negative qualities.

[MorpheusSandman]

Vota, similar with Pendragon, I'll avoid the points Frostball has covered since I'd just be restating the same thing. You very much need to learn the difference between a scientific "theory" and the more colloquial notion of "theory," because Frost is right that "theory" is the end-point of science. Theories never graduate to laws or facts. I also think you need to do more research into evolution, since most of your points ("cat-dog") reveal your ignorance of the matter and sounds like you're getting your information from equally ignorant Creationist websites.


"how does consciousness function outside of space and time, btw?" I wouldn't know and with my feeble understanding of this universe and it's overriding laws I am willing to admit my ignorance and would not claim to have an answer to this, but neither does any scientist.Most scientists would claim that every aspect of consciousness we can study is linked with brain activity, and because the brain is a physical thing that requires both matter and spacetime to function, there's no reason to think consciousness can exist outside of either.


4. "quantum field fluctuation, which we know can happen, given the qualities quantum fields possess"-QFT, emphasis on the T, Quantum Field "T"heory. Also there are many criticisms such as the problem of quantum gravity, why the constants of cosmology have the values they have. One must also consider that QFT omits gravity, which is a GIGANTIC gaping hole in the theory.One thing to understand is that gravity itself is really just the relationship between matter and spacetime: matter tells spacetime how to curve, spacetime tells gravity how to move, as John Archibald Wheeler put it. Gravity is how we describe this relationship. However, in quantum fields there is no fixed matter or spacetime, merely fluctuations. So any gravity on this level would be in a similar state of flux. General relativity doesn't "communicate" with QM because GR is describing how matter/spacetime functions on a macro level, and as you get further down its laws break down into quantum chaos. What this tells us is that GR is only a partial description of reality at a certain level. We're still looking for more fundamental theories, yes, but right now we have these two theories that work quite well at two different levels. My own speculation is that looking for "quantum gravity" is going about things the wrong way; it would make more sense to look for something on the quantum level that could eventually scale up to gravity as we know it, just like how we know particles can scale up to, say, molecules.


5. "science progresses in measurable ways, while philosophy (and religion) arguably don't progress at all"-keep in mind that science and philosophy were indistinguishable in the beginning. Science would not exist without philosophy. Science is awesome, no denying that, but science still cannot answer the most fundamental questions. Why are we here? ... What is consciousness? What is moral? I'm well aware that science was born out of philosophy and even promoted/patronized by religion early on. It's equally true to say that it's grown into its own distinct entity; though I'm very much of the mind that the right philosophy is still relevant in science. As for science asking fundamental questions, most of those fundamental questions are wrong questions. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/og/wrong_questions/) They reveal more about our flawed thinking than they do about the failures of science.


our senses are horribly inconsistent. What we see, or think we see can be terribly inaccurate. What we hear, taste, touch, feel are all subjective. I almost entirely agree, except with the "our senses are subjective" part. The correct word is "relative," not "subjective." Our senses are feeding us information from reality that interacts without brains in particular ways. If the information was completely inaccurate we probably wouldn't have so much sense correspondence. IE, If my eyes are wrong about there being a wall 6 feet away from me, I probably wouldn't be able to walk over to it, touch it, smell it, taste it (ew), etc. Whatever the limitations and failures of our senses, they're really all we have in our attempt at mapping the territory of reality. (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_%28sequence%29) So it's fine to be aware of our senses' limitations and the subjective components in perception, but we must also keep in mind that this is all we have, so it's imperative to try and understand precisely what those limitations and subjectivities are.


8. "I think the pinnacle of ignorance is for someone to say we understand EVERYTHING, yet, no scientist or atheist I know of says this." No, they only imply by saying there is no God which is the same as stating that you "know" God does not exist.Most atheists I know of say they see no (compelling) evidence for God, and therefor do not believe one exists; yet, equally, most atheists and scientists I know would be open to evidence/proof of such a God. Lawrence Krauss once humorously quipped that if one night he walked out and the stars had rearranged themselves to spell out "God was here," that he'd have to seriously reconsider the possibility of God's existnece. I've often said that if another Jesus appeared and was performing miracles in a way that baffled modern medical science, then I'd have to reconsider my position. The problem, however, is that no evidence like this exists, and all of the evidence that DOES exist points away from such things. EG, the lack of correlation between prayer having positive affects on patients in various major studies on intercessory prayer. If God exists, and if prayer did what it was claimed to do, then those studies should've turned up some correlation. Likewise, there are plenty of things in The Bible that play by modern science's rules of falsification and provability, (http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprovable/) but you don't see anyone going around replicating such experiments.

So, I don't think it's a matter of atheists or scientists saying "we know God doesn't exist and we can prove it," but rather most saying that there's no compelling evidence for his existence, and that the evidence that IS out there seems to point away from God. Obviously, this isn't enough for proof, but, again, you could say the same thing about any mythological characters. We can't "PROVE" Santa or Easter Bunnies or fairies or Bigfoot doesn't exist, all we can say is that there's no good evidence.


9. "Rather, it's usually the theists that are both supremely ignorant about what we DO know, and supremely confident that, somehow, in some way, God is behind it all."-I could flip this, "Rather, it's usually the scientists and atheists that are both supremely ignorant about what we DO NOT know, and supremely confident that, somehow, in some way, theories are behind it all".And your flipping is wrong. Again, scientists know more than most precisely what we do and do not know. They're working on the parts that we do not know as we speak. And no scientists would say "theories" are behind what they do not know; that's preposterous. Theories are our attempts to explain what is going on in reality.


10. "Just like you saying that you can't create matter from nothing. Well, yes you can, in a way. Quantum fields, which have no matter, merely potential energy, can, indeed, create matter, gravity, time, and space."=I already mentioned the various issues with basing anything off QFT. Until the issues are resolved you cannot claim this.The issues you mentioned have nothing to do with quantum fields being able to create matter and spacetime.


11. "Does this change what you think about needing God to create a universe? Probably not, if you have the mind most believers possess. Most believers, when such scientific revelations happen, will merely say "but you don't know where the quantum fields came from! Ha! God must've created that!" so it becomes the classic "God of the gaps" game."

You insult people that believe as having someone how a weaker or incorrect mind or belief system. There are many scientists, doctors, and even philosophers that believe in some sort of higher power. It's just as feasible that God created everything, as it is feasible that one in countless theories might be the correct explanation "of it all".That isn't an insult, I've seen that exact response more times than I care to count. Of course "many" scientists doctors and philosophers believe in a higher power; what does this have to do with anything? Even great minds can have flaws. In fact, the reason I promote the website Lesswrong so much (as you may have noticed through my links) is because it addresses the flaws WE KNOW occur in our brains' cognition. Besides this, it's also a fact that there is much less belief amongst scientists than other people, and much, much less belief amongst top scientists. Finally, no, it isn't "just as feasible that God created everything." Firstly, we don't even know God exists; secondly, assuming he does, we know nothing about him; thirdly, amongst the things we wouldn't know is how he could create anything "out of nothing;" fourthly, we have no idea how such an anthropomorphic being could exist outside the bounds of matter and spacetime. Basically, there's no even remotely falsifiable/testable model for God existing or creating anything. This is not the case with quantum fields. We know they exist; we know how they function; we know that within that functioning there exists the potential to create matter and unvierses. That we don't know EVERYTHING about them seems rather trivial in light of us knowing NOTHING about God, even down to whether or not he exists. To state that it's "equally feasible" that something we know nothing about could've created everything VS something that we know a great deal about is just plain wrong.


"It is almost always the case that an atheist posits that there is not enough evidence to justify a reasonable belief in god."-definition of atheist, Merriam-Webster: one who believes that there is no deity. Wikipedia definition: Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.

So what we have here is a case of you misusing the term atheist, or confusing it with agnostic, or willfully creating your own definition for atheist/atheism. Atheists are just as dogmatic as theists. Period.Errr, Wikipedia itself says there are two meanings of the word atheism: the first deals with the "rejection of believe in deities," and the second deals with "the position that there are no deities." Something like Dictionary.com lists both as well. I rather like the model that uses a/theism to deal with BELIEVE and a/gnosticism to deal with KNOWLEDGE. So an "agnostic athiest" says "I don't believe in God, but do not claim to know he doesn't exist," while a "gnostic atheist" says "I don't believe in God and would claim to know he doesn't exist." I consider myself in the former "agnostic atheist" camp. But, as I've said before, agnostics themselves can range all the way from "pretty sure God exists" to "pretty sure God doesn't exist." Really, I wish people could just express their level of belief/disbelief in probabilities. Like, I'd say I'm about 99% God doesn't exist, and I preserve that extra 1% only on the basis that there is still, indeed, a lot we don't know, and it's possible, though I see no reason to think it likely, that God might exist out there in that 1% of what's unknown.


This is extremely debatable.How so? Scientists are usually quick to admit what they know and what they don't.

[Pendragon]

Science doesn't really seek "positive proofs;" proofs reside in the realm of math.

What you are saying is God is not quantifiable. There is no mathematical equation for God.

I don't need God to be quantifiable, I accept His existence based on personal experience.

I just wanted to point out that science does not negate God, nor does God negate science.

I see, however, that short of me saying, "OMG you're right! Science explains everything! God is not needed" you will continue to demean everything I say.

I have no problem with you or your beliefs. You seem to have one with mine. I have no quarrel with any of you.

God bless

Pen

[MorpheusSandman]

What you are saying is God is not quantifiable. There is no mathematical equation for God.No, this isn't what I said. I was pointing out that science doesn't work on proofs but on falsifiability.


you will continue to demean everything I say.What in the world in my post "demeaned everything you said?"

[mal4mac]

... Frost is right that "theory" is the end-point of science. Theories never graduate to laws or facts. I also think you need to do more research into evolution...

Nope, observations are the end point of science. Without observations theories are just that - theories - without any basis in reality.

Then agin, I might accept that "theories with overwhelming evidence in their favour" are end-points in science. Although, even then, they are not *final* end points. For instance, Newtonian mechanics looked like a final end point before certain observations were made that Newtonian mechanics could not explain and Einsteinian mechanics could. But Newtonian mechanic sis a sorta end point - in non-relativistic and non-quantum realms.

String theory is not an end point in physics - observations are needed. Nobel prizes are awarded only when the observations are in - like Higgs came up with the theory of the Higgs boson in the 1960s, but only gets the Noble prize now after the observations have confirmed its existence.

Most scientists would claim that every aspect of consciousness we can study is linked with brain activity, and because the brain is a physical thing that requires both matter and spacetime to function, there's no reason to think consciousness can exist outside of either.

In this case I think there are enough observations - at the very least we observe our own consciousness for sure! Also our consciousness is always obsrved to "come along with our body". There is no observational evidence at all for consciousness floating around free of bodies - no angels, spirits, or whatever. Consciousness always seems to need an active human brain. What's lacking here is an adequate theory - just how does consciousness emerge from brain activity?


Lawrence Krauss once humorously quipped that if one night he walked out and the stars had rearranged themselves to spell out "God was here," that he'd have to seriously reconsider the possibility of God's existnece.

Dawkins pulled him up on that one, suggesting aliens with a sense of humour would be a far more likely explanation. Conjurers with space ships and a bunch of mirrors. Krauss had to agree...



Of course "many" scientists doctors and philosophers believe in a higher power; what does this have to do with anything? Even great minds can have flaws.


Many scientists, doctors and philosophers don't have great minds! I'm reading C.P. Snows excellent novel "the search", a wonderful account of what a life in science is actually like, and one character makes the point that "It's too easy, any duffer can do it." Dawkins make the same point in his autobiography, although he then goes on to show how he isn't a dullard. Science certainly has great minds (Einstein, Darwin...) but everyday science is not difficult, and dullards get to occupy most professorial roles. So the universities are full of rather mediocre minds, hard working dullards. Sometimes their dull minds turn to religion... And as for doctors and philosophers, most aren't even good enough to be dull scientists.

[YesNo]

The first cause deals with, quite simply, the cause behind our universe's existence; whether that's God, quantum fluctuations, or your "conscious choice" by some unspecified consciousness is irrelevant.

The critical element is whether a choice was made to get our universe going. If there was a choice then there was enough consciousness to make that choice. That is all one needs, a choice.



Consciousness has always been equated with awareness; I have no idea how/why you're separating "forms of awareness" from "consciousness as a whole."

The brain, or more correctly, our bodies, modify our awareness. Some of us are color blind. Others are not. That would be how our individual bodies produce part of our awareness. Our memories, on the other hand, I don't think are completely generated by our brains, nor stored there.



WHAT psychic phenomena?

The typical psychic phenomena: out of body experiences, remote viewing, near death experiences, intuition, whatever gives someone an experience that should not occur at all if our consciousness were limited to what our brains could produce.



I know you do, but like with most everything when it comes to MW you're wrong. You missed the point again, however. You said MW halts the questioning process. This is demonstrably wrong. No MW proponent has halted anything.

If you can find a copy of Bohm and Hiley's "The Undivided Universe", we could go over chapter 13 which provides a critique of many worlds.



I'm simply not following your train of reasoning here: WHAT atheist metaphysics? What about it not relying on choices? What about choices being needed for us to get here?

If there is some agent making a choice that was responsible for the expansion of our universe or even evolutionary change, then that agent could be viewed as a God. It doesn't matter whether that God looks like quantum fluctuations or something else. It made a choice. Atheistic metaphysics assumes there are no Gods. It cannot tolerate any such agents.



Oh, I see, you're another one that has a complete misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. 2L says that entropy happens in a closed system over time. The universe as a whole is a closed system. However, there are systems within systems, and even if the TOTAL entropy of the system increases, this does not mean that a particular system within the system cannot generate more complexity. What is needed is, primarily, a perpetual energy source; we have one, it's called the sun.

The sun is not a perpetual energy source.



I don't know how you think it's even possible for someone to calculate the probabilities that it's possible after it's already happened.

The question is could it have happened by chance without any agent (aka "God") making a choice? What are the odds? A atheistic position relies on chance and determinism. It does not rely on choices by agents. Since we are here, we happened. What are the odds that we are here totally by chance?



These agents need not be gods, though; at least, they need not be anything like the gods we've imagined. Atheism could still be correct in rejecting the man-made gods.

I reject a lot of man-made Gods, but I am not an atheist because I really don't know what's out there. However, an atheistic position as distinct from an agnostic position, is that all of these agents must be rejected. It is way too extreme for me to accept.

The various religions acknowledge the existence of consciousness(es) that they can relate to and have cultural traditions that show their members how to establish such relationships.

This is why science and religion are not in opposition to each other. Science tries to get information about the universe; religion tries to build relationships with their various Gods. There is no opposition between these two. There is, however, opposition between theistic religion and atheism because atheists don't believe such relationships can be established.




You're wrong. I don't know how else to say it. MW doesn't rework anything. It interprets the QM models that exist. It takes Schrodinger as real as takes Heisenberg as expressing our subjective uncertainty due, in fact, to the entropy inherent in QM.

So what unresolved problems did they mention? The only one I know about is the Born Probabilities.

Bohm and Hiley differentiate many worlds as presented by Everett from the one presented by people like Deutsch. The original position Everett took is linked to many minds. They point out hidden assumptions in these two divergent views showing that many worlds fails to fulfill its own claims that it wins some Occam's Razor contest for fewest assumptions. They also look at the Born probabilities from a way that might be more favorable to your position.

That's what I remember at the moment.

If you can get hold of the book, perhaps it would be interesting to read this together. At least then we would have a text to refer back to when we have disagreements on what many worlds claims.

[YesNo]

Consciousness always seems to need an active human brain.

One of the examples Sam Harris mentioned in "Free Will" is whether we want to grant a fly enough free will to make a choice. For some odd reason, he seems to think we want to reserve free will only to our own species. Basically, is a fly consciousness enough to choose to get out of the the way when I try to swat it?

I can't speak for others who think we have adequate free will, but I have no problem with the fly having enough free will to choose to fly away and hence enough consciousness to do so.

There is research on slime mold making a choice based on patterns it left (external memory): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brainless-slime-molds/ Not only does slime mold not have an active human brain, it doesn't have a brain at all.

[Vota]

("cat-dog")-poor choice on my part, but considering how long many animals and specifically insects have been around on this planet, you would think there would be examples of species that have evolved into a new species vs. adaptations within the species. From what I have seen, it appears that The Theory of Evolution has ALOT of inference going on, which bugs me. I admit I am just getting started on my understanding of evolution, but I'm seeing alot of conflicting information. It's much the same with science vs. religion and whether God exists and how we got here etc. I'm trying to formulate beliefs and opinions, but its difficult sifting through all the information, and from what I have seen, I'm not convinced by either side.

Granted, I believe in science. I believe in technology. I believe that science, mathematics, physics, biology, cosmology etc, is making constant progress, and if we don't destroy ourselves with these advancements, then we are in for some interesting revelations in the future.

I mostly have a problem with people that poo-poo religious beliefs. I recently watched a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Hamm, and I couldn't help thinking that throughout the whole debate neither side really effectively refuted the other side, but that Nye attempted to make creationists look essentially stupid or as lacking a background in science, when in fact Hamm made it quite clear that his side was all for science and that he understood science very well.

Its things like that, that get me irritable with Atheists and some scientists. Not everyone that is not up on the cutting edge of science is ignorant when it comes to the topic of creation or the existence of God, because scientists do not have these answers, and until science can irrefutably, observably prove what they have to say about it, then anything they have to say is not the final word nor any more true than what a religious person has to say about it. We know the sun exists. It shines everyday. This is observable and repeatable. No such claims by scientists can be made concerning the creation of the universe and God. They have some pretty good theories, but The Big Bang isn't actually observable in the sense of seeing it actually happen, or what was going on before it happened, its all theory atm.

This is why I find it almost inconceivable to make the claim that there is no God vs. saying you aren't sure because there isn't enough compelling evidence. There is a difference between an atheist and an agnostic, and it seems many atheists are trying to skirt around the fact they do not believe in God or gods, which is to say that they maintain a certainty of viewpoint on the non-existence of supernatural entities or forces until new evidence sheds lights on the subject, vs. saying they aren't sure and so claim that they are undecided, which would be the stance of the agnostic. There is a significant difference, and it just seems to me that the former is both arrogant and ignorant. The latter may be ignorant, but I would posit not arrogant because the very belief of the possibility of something superceding human authority is not arrogant in and of itself.

If someone put a gun to my head right now and asked me, given all that I know and have experienced, which would I choose, a future without science, or a future without religion, I would choose without religion, BUT that doesn't mean I would be happy about making such a choice or even that I think that would be good for me or the world in the long run. Mainly because who the **** am I to be the judge of that, let alone anyone else?

That's kinda where I stand with all this stuff.

P.S. I would be totally willing to swear off any thoughts about religion if science can irrefutably prove there is no God and can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how the universe came into existence. I would also admit that legitimate alien contact would very probably cause a massive reduction in my interest in the religious and spiritual, if not my complete separation from it.

It is interesting when I think about it, that if God was proven to exist and/or manifested itself, provided it wasn't a higher level ET pulling one on us, I would still not eschew science because its too useful to live without. I certainly couldn't type this if it wasn't for science and I certainly am not for religion OVER science.

[MorpheusSandman]

Then agin, I might accept that "theories with overwhelming evidence in their favour" are end-points in science.These are usually what theories ARE, so that's what I meant. However, even without observation there are means of favoring certain theories and interpretations over others (Occam's Razor being one, Bayes another, Solomonoff another). For any given set of observations there's always multiple theories one could concoct to explain them, and often it's not always feasible to test between them.


There is no observational evidence at all for consciousness floating around free of bodies - no angels, spirits, or whatever... What's lacking here is an adequate theory - just how does consciousness emerge from brain activity?As for the former, most would cite NDEs and OBEs as evidence for out-of-body consciousness, though I'd contend that brain activity can still account for such experiences. As for the latter, I suspect that consciousness is not "one thing" but rather a great many things. The problem is that we've yet to reduce the one word to its constituent parts and understand that X brain activity corresponds to Y aspect of consciousness. I also suspect that consciousness is a spectrum rather than a binary thing, so animals with lesser intelligence have a degree of consciousness, the same way that children are generally less aware than adults.


Many scientists, doctors and philosophers don't have great minds! ...And as for doctors and philosophers, most aren't even good enough to be dull scientists.:yesnod:

[MorpheusSandman]

The critical element is whether a choice was made to get our universe going.That's the critical element TO YOU. Not everyone shares your biased concern about "choice" in relation to cosmology.


Our memories, on the other hand, I don't think are completely generated by our brains, nor stored there. Evidence?


The typical psychic phenomena: out of body experiences, remote viewing, near death experiences, intuition, whatever gives someone an experience that should not occur at all if our consciousness were limited to what our brains could produce.There's absolutely nothing about these things that "should not occur if consciousness was limited to our brains." Dreams, especially lucid dreaming, allow us to imagine ourselves outside our bodies somewhere else besides in our beds sleeping; yet I've heard very few people theorize that dreaming is happening anywhere but inside the mind of the dreamer. NDEs and OBEs are much the same; the conscious brain shuts down so other parts reconstruct the scene based on its memories and imaginations of it and puts the experiencer "there." There's nothing about any of this that's beyond the ability of the brain and, what's more, rigorous studies of these phenomena have failed to confirm any genuine out-of-body consciousness by, eg, having the NDEer correctly noting details about the space they couldn't otherwise have known. One such researcher placed a scrolling neon sign high up in an operating room with random messages changing every day. No NDEer has yet identified the message; I wonder why?


The sun is not a perpetual energy source.Technically you're correct in that the sun will eventually die out itself, but it's perpetual enough to generate the kind of energy over a long enough period of time to generate complexity within its part of the overall system.


The question is could it have happened by chance without any agent (aka "God") making a choice? What are the odds? As I've explained to you thoroughly before, the odds against us (or anything) being here has nothing to do whether or not chance, determinism, or agents were involved. This is not how probability works.


However, an atheistic position as distinct from an agnostic position, is that all of these agents must be rejected.As I said elsewhere, I find it useful to keep a/theism about belief and a/gnosticism about knowledge, so you can be an "agnostic atheist" and say "I don't believe in any Gods because I see no evidence for them, but I do not state that they certainly don't or can't exist." To me, this 4-way system better reflects how people actually think than the 3-point system of theist/agnostic/atheist.


This is why science and religion are not in opposition to each other. Science tries to get information about the universe; religion tries to build relationships with their various Gods. Except that this is not all religion attempts to do. It also lays down laws, morality, history, and, yes, natural science. The on-going conflict between Creationism and evolution is a direct example of religion conflicting with science.


Bohm and Hiley differentiate many worlds as presented by Everett from the one presented by people like Deutsch. The original position Everett took is linked to many minds. They point out hidden assumptions in these two divergent views showing that many worlds fails to fulfill its own claims that it wins some Occam's Razor contest for fewest assumptions. They also look at the Born probabilities from a way that might be more favorable to your position.

That's what I remember at the moment.What you remember isn't enough because you're just stating conclusions. Unless you can present a paraphrase of their arguments, there's nothing I have to respond to. It surprises me you can't remember anymore; it seems as if all you were concerned with was whether or not they agreed with you, but not in WHY they agreed with you. That seems to suggest confirmation bias on your part.

[Pendragon]

What in the world in my post "demeaned everything you said?"

More the condescending tone of your remarks than anything actually said. You seem to equate belief in God with stupidity. I assure you, I am not stupid, nor crazy. I resent being talked down to.

God bless

Pen

[YesNo]

If someone put a gun to my head right now and asked me, given all that I know and have experienced, which would I choose, a future without science, or a future without religion, I would choose without religion, BUT that doesn't mean I would be happy about making such a choice or even that I think that would be good for me or the world in the long run. Mainly because who the **** am I to be the judge of that, let alone anyone else?

There's no need to choose between science and religion. They are very different human activities and can live in harmony.

If someone put that gun to my head and asked which would I choose, a future without atheism or a future without religion, I would choose a future without atheism. And that is what is at stake here. It is not science vs religion, but atheism vs religion.

[YesNo]

There's absolutely nothing about these things that "should not occur if consciousness was limited to our brains." Dreams, especially lucid dreaming, allow us to imagine ourselves outside our bodies somewhere else besides in our beds sleeping; yet I've heard very few people theorize that dreaming is happening anywhere but inside the mind of the dreamer. NDEs and OBEs are much the same; the conscious brain shuts down so other parts reconstruct the scene based on its memories and imaginations of it and puts the experiencer "there." There's nothing about any of this that's beyond the ability of the brain and, what's more, rigorous studies of these phenomena have failed to confirm any genuine out-of-body consciousness by, eg, having the NDEer correctly noting details about the space they couldn't otherwise have known. One such researcher placed a scrolling neon sign high up in an operating room with random messages changing every day. No NDEer has yet identified the message; I wonder why?

How does a remote viewer know something about a location without physically being there? If the viewer's consciousness is totally generated by a particular brain, the viewer should not know anything about that location.

Now let me draw the conclusion--if our consciousness is limited to our brains no one should ever--not even once--report a successful remote viewing experience. Since they have been reported, an individual's consciousness is not totally generated by the brain.



Technically you're correct in that the sun will eventually die out itself, but it's perpetual enough to generate the kind of energy over a long enough period of time to generate complexity within its part of the overall system.

How does that happen? The earth has been around for about 5 billion years. There is a limited amount of time. Could we get to our present state with only chance or deterministic laws causing the change?



As I've explained to you thoroughly before, the odds against us (or anything) being here has nothing to do whether or not chance, determinism, or agents were involved. This is not how probability works.

The point is we are here. There are theories that we got here through only chance and deterministic laws, without the aid of any choices made by agents.

What I am asking is provide the odds that we could get to our present state using only chance and determinism in a 5 billion year period. It is a test of an hypothesis. Nothing more.



As I said elsewhere, I find it useful to keep a/theism about belief and a/gnosticism about knowledge, so you can be an "agnostic atheist" and say "I don't believe in any Gods because I see no evidence for them, but I do not state that they certainly don't or can't exist." To me, this 4-way system better reflects how people actually think than the 3-point system of theist/agnostic/atheist.

I am only interested in beliefs. As a belief, is it possible for atheism to allow for agents to make choices? These agents could be at any level from slime mold through humans to more powerful agents that could be perceived as deities.

I maintain that if atheism allows for any such agents, then it is no longer atheism. I suspect that ultimately atheism would have to claim that even we are totally determined and cannot make any choice whatsoever, that is, that no agents exist at all. Since we exist and we make choices, our own existence and behavior is evidence that falsifies atheism.



Except that this is not all religion attempts to do. It also lays down laws, morality, history, and, yes, natural science. The on-going conflict between Creationism and evolution is a direct example of religion conflicting with science.

Don't forget that atheism has itself behaved badly. Check out the Khmer Rouge or North Korea for recent examples.



What you remember isn't enough because you're just stating conclusions. Unless you can present a paraphrase of their arguments, there's nothing I have to respond to. It surprises me you can't remember anymore; it seems as if all you were concerned with was whether or not they agreed with you, but not in WHY they agreed with you. That seems to suggest confirmation bias on your part.

Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance are what I think are responsible for the creation of pseudo-science.

I don't know of any specific scientific datum that provides me with any dissonance tension at the moment. That is, I have no problem with current scientific evidence, from quantum mechanics through modern brain scans to big bang cosmology, and so it is unlikely that I would need to present a pseudo-scientific perspective to counter scientific evidence.

However, I don't understand the theories presented in The Undivided Universe which ultimately are Bohm's interpretation for quantum mechanics. You don't have to read this book. It may be difficult for you to get at your library.

[MorpheusSandman]

("cat-dog")-poor choice on my part, but considering how long many animals and specifically insects have been around on this planet, you would think there would be examples of species that have evolved into a new species vs. adaptations within the species... I admit I am just getting started on my understanding of evolution, but I'm seeing alot of conflicting information.The thing about evolution that a great many don't get is that small changes between one generation turns into huge changes over the course of, say, 1000 generations. You're very rarely going to have speciation within one generation. However, there have been plenty of observed instances. (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html) If you're just getting started, I highly recommend either reading a reputable textbook, or reading on a website like TalkOrigins which has a prolific database and a solid FAQ with links to further information.


I mostly have a problem with people that poo-poo religious beliefs. I recently watched a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Hamm, and I couldn't help thinking that throughout the whole debate neither side really effectively refuted the other side, but that Nye attempted to make creationists look essentially stupid or as lacking a background in science, when in fact Hamm made it quite clear that his side was all for science and that he understood science very well.The Nye/Hamm debate was terrible for both sides. Neither were good debaters and neither did a good job at addressing the others' points. However, debates are, in general, an awful way at really gauging either side of the debate; the format forces participants to truncate arguments that typically require a much more amount of time to properly dig into. However, Nye is hardly alone in thinking Young Earth Creationists are stupid; practically every scientist thinks this. The evidence for an old Earth and evolution are simply so overwhelming that YECs have to either ignore or excuse mountains of data to believe what they do. Nye's points about yearly ice layers, tree rings, and carbon dating can't be answered by YECs, and Hamm's "points" about historic evidence is a non-starter if we consider something like Nye's Crime Scene Investigation (a point I wish he'd pushed further). Hamm TRIED to argue that there was some "controversy" about dating methods, but there's really not. Carbon dating is not perfectly accurate, but neither is it off by large factors that would suggest things were millions of years old if they were only a few thousand.

I do want to stress, though, that it's possible to be religious without buying into the idiocy of YEC. Scientists like Michael Behe and Francis Collins and others are theists, as are many biologists that accept evolution, deny YEC, but still believe in a God of some sort. The mistake that YEC make is in reading the entire Bible literally, and such an approach is not supportable either by what we know via modern science or what we know about The Bible's literary origins. A great many of its books and stories are adapted from myths that already had a long history at the time: Noah being an adaptation of Gilgamesh's flood is one such obvious example. Likewise, origin myths were pervasive in cultures before the OT was written. Change a few elements and you end up with Genesis. The point being that such stories were meant as religiously inspired art, as allegories, no different than, say, Paradise Lost. Believers run into their greatest problems in trying to treat The Bible literally.


They have some pretty good theories, but The Big Bang isn't actually observable in the sense of seeing it actually happen, or what was going on before it happened, its all theory atm.You do know it was a Catholic priest that first proposed The Big Bang Theory, right? Anyway, yes, it's true that such a thing is not directly observable; however, such theory do have testable, observable consequences. EG, if there was a Big Bang we'd expect our universe to be expanding, and thanks to astronomical observations and things like redshift, we know this is true. Further, we can model that expansion and "rewind it" backwards to a point where our current models break down. So such things aren't just "a theory" as in "a guess," they're founded on confirmed predictions.


This is why I find it almost inconceivable to make the claim that there is no God vs. saying you aren't sure because there isn't enough compelling evidence. There is a difference between an atheist and an agnostic...I already addressed this in a previous post towards you. To copy/paste: "I rather like the model that uses a/theism to deal with BELIEVE and a/gnosticism to deal with KNOWLEDGE. So an "agnostic athiest" says "I don't believe in God, but do not claim to know he doesn't exist," while a "gnostic atheist" says "I don't believe in God and would claim to know he doesn't exist." I consider myself in the former "agnostic atheist" camp. But, as I've said before, agnostics themselves can range all the way from "pretty sure God exists" to "pretty sure God doesn't exist." Really, I wish people could just express their level of belief/disbelief in probabilities. Like, I'd say I'm about 99% God doesn't exist, and I preserve that extra 1% only on the basis that there is still, indeed, a lot we don't know, and it's possible, though I see no reason to think it likely, that God might exist out there in that 1% of what's unknown."


I would be totally willing to swear off any thoughts about religion if science can irrefutably prove there is no God and can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how the universe came into existence.You might consider asking yourself how science could irrefutably prove there is no God or how the the universe came into existence. With the former, as long as there's something we don't know, believers can always say that God exists "out there." With the latter, apart from us being able to create a new universe in a lab, I don't see how such a thing is feasible. Like I said, we already know that quantum fields are capable of producing a universe, so why is not logical to just assume they did rather than assuming that God exists and assuming he created quantum fields and assuming that he then created a universe either from the quantum fields or own his own? The former is just so much simpler, hence Occam's Razor.

[MorpheusSandman]

More the condescending tone of your remarks than anything actually said. You seem to equate belief in God with stupidity.I just carefully reread my last reply to you and I can't, for the life of me, understand what you're hearing as a "condescending tone." You said that the things science say must be accepted "without proof positive," and I responded by saying that science doesn't really seek proofs, and then explained why I was more willing to believe what scientists said. Then, to your point about religion being personal, I laid out my problems with religion when it doesn't stay personal, which, surely, you must agree happens.

I don't equate belief in God with "stupidity," but I do equate it with irrationality; that said, I think ALL people are irrational because irrationality is hard-wired into our brains. I tend to find that non-believers tend to only be slightly less irrational about that one subject, but not less irrational about anything else. I also think religious believers tend to be more ignorant (and ignorance isn't stupidity since everyone is ignorant about something; I know practically nothing about, say, medicine or law or politics or history) about science and, specifically, where science conflicts with their beliefs.

[Vota]

That was a good post Morpheus. I personally don't believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, nor that everything the bible says should be taken literally, but I'm open to listening to people, in this case Nye vs. Hamm.

I do feel that Hamm trying to discredit the reliability and accuracy of carbon dating, or snow layers was abit much. I understand the concept of half-lives and it doesn't take faith to accept dating methods of various sorts.

At this point I'm pretty much just keeping open as best as I can and holding off on coming to definite conclusions unless I am REALLY certain.

Whether God exists and created this universe may never be answered or refuted in my lifetime so I may have to hang in limbo there.

[Frostball]

"Keep an open mind - but not so open your brain falls out" --quote attributed to various people, including Richard Feynman and Bertrand Russell.

[Pendragon]

I also think religious believers tend to be more ignorant (and ignorance isn't stupidity since everyone is ignorant about something; I know practically nothing about, say, medicine or law or politics or history) about science and, specifically, where science conflicts with their beliefs.

Ignorance isn't stupidity? Huh. Since ignorance means "lack of knowledge: it sounds like stupidity to me, which no one likes to be called. Perhaps "uneducated about certain things" might be a better way to say it, because it leaves room for people to educate themselves if they chose. For me "ignorance" indicates a total lack of willingness to change belief. That isn't me.

For my part, I tend to find people for whom science is a religion arrogant, and rabidly arrogant at that.

A middle of the road is best, but neither will bend as a general thing.

Some religious people deny science, which is not what I have presented, because it is foolish to deny what you can observe and science explains. The earth goes around the sun. The earth is NOT flat. Animals and humans evolve.

Science lovers put their trust in chance for the creation of the universe. That is irrational due to the multiplicity of coincidences that must come up positive to make complex organisms from chance alone.

Let us agree to disagree. I still bear you no ill will. I would not that we part as enemies.

God bless

Pen

[Frostball]

Ignorance is "lack of knowledge or information" which is entirely different from stupid. It means exactly what you said you would prefer, "uneducated about certain things." That really is exactly what ignorance means. Everybody is ignorant about some things, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, in fact it's unavoidable. I think once again this is because in colloquial usage people just say "That person is ignorant" to mean the person is an all around stupid person. They are using the word wrong if that's what they are trying to say.

[The Atheist]

Science lovers put their trust in chance for the creation of the universe. That is irrational due to the multiplicity of coincidences that must come up positive to make complex organisms from chance alone.

You're making several errors here.

First off, scientists are not putting any trust in chance for creation of the universe. They don't put any trust in anything, in fact.

We know the universe exists, what it looks like, most of its physical characteristics, and its current behaviour. From those, scientists paint a picture of what is likely to have happened. Experiments at CERN and other places are helping us learn about the creation of the universe, but we are still ignorant about it to a large degree.

Given that it was >13 billion years ago, I don't think anyone has a problem with that ignorance. We may never know exactly how it happened, but suggesting anyone is putting trust in one specific formation theory is incorrect. Sure, there was a Big Bang, but why is the question that matters.

The other error is that evolution & abiogenesis couldn't have happened due to the almost infinite mathematical odds against it.

Again, we know that life did aruse because we are here, so the only question is actually abiogenesis. Mathematical models are available showing that the amount of time available was sufficient to bring about evolution as we see it every day. The christian argument against the time is constantly hampered by conveniently ignoring data. Viruses, for instance, can create amazing mutational shifts in extremely short periods of time, of which some may become successful and permanent.

In the case of the start of living organisms, no, we cannot say with any degree of certainty how it came about, so there is room in there for a creator.

If a creator's only action was to spark life then sit back and watch it evolve for 3 or 4 billion years, it wouldn't be much of a creator, in my opinion, but I agree the option is open for it to be there.

Scientifically, that's the only gap you have left.

[MorpheusSandman]

Pen, I think both Frost and The Atheist thoroughly addressed all your points. I DID mean "ignorance" as Frost defined it; in fact, the reason for my parenthetical definition is so you wouldn't think I was using it insultingly. If I say I'm ignorant about politics, and I am, then all that means is that I haven't studied that subject. Stupidity suggests both a lack of knowledge and a lack of an ability to learn; often these are related, but not always. Ignorance is just an inevitable result of living finite lives where nobody can devote the necessary time to every subject under the sun. Also, I don't know why you would bear me any ill will, or think that I bore you ill will, just because we disagree; as I said in my last post, I think you're reading hostility in my posts where none is or was intended. I'm just arguing points, not people.


Science lovers put their trust in chance for the creation of the universe. That is irrational due to the multiplicity of coincidences that must come up positive to make complex organisms from chance alone. There was a previous thread where YesNo and I debated this point quite thoroughly; if you care I could hunt for it, as I'd hate to try and repeat all the points I made. Perhaps the most salient one most simply stated is this: once an event is happened, the probability of it happening is 100%. Looking back retrospectively and calculating the odds against it doesn't really give us any relevant information. Consider if you were watching cars go by on a high way and started writing down license plates; do this for 100 cars, calculate the total number of possible combinations, and then figure out how likely it is you saw the EXACT combination you saw. OF COURSE the probability would be miniscule, but what does this tell us about what you saw? Absolutely nothing. Similarly, even though the probability of complex organisms arising "from chance alone" is incredibly small, that likewise doesn't tell us anything since we already know life is here.

That said, there are certain things that make such an event more likely than you might imagine. EG, when most look back and calculate the probability against it happening, they often forget to take into account how many trial runs such an event had. Given early earth conditions and how many biochemical interactions were happening, there were likely countless possibilities for such a thing to happen. I mean, the odds of rolling 20 dice simultaneously and them all landing on 6 is small; but if you have enough trials, it will happen eventually. What's more, modern interpretations of quantum mechanics, like MW, make such things not only possible, but inevitable, since every possible outcome happens in some world; we would just happen to find ourselves in the world(s) where life (and us) happened.

[YesNo]

The other error is that evolution & abiogenesis couldn't have happened due to the almost infinite mathematical odds against it.

Again, we know that life did aruse because we are here, so the only question is actually abiogenesis. Mathematical models are available showing that the amount of time available was sufficient to bring about evolution as we see it every day.

Do you have a link to support that there was sufficient time for this to occur by chance alone so that no agent of any sort was involved?


If a creator's only action was to spark life then sit back and watch it evolve for 3 or 4 billion years, it wouldn't be much of a creator, in my opinion, but I agree the option is open for it to be there.

Scientifically, that's the only gap you have left.

The only challenge worth presenting to a religious person is whether they can actually establish a relationship between themselves and some consciousness that they refer to as God.

[YesNo]

Ignorance is "lack of knowledge or information" which is entirely different from stupid.

There is no need to become defensive. If someone objects to the use of a word because they sense a personal attack is involved, stop using it in an argument. Think of another way to make the point.

[YesNo]

There was a previous thread where YesNo and I debated this point quite thoroughly; if you care I could hunt for it, as I'd hate to try and repeat all the points I made. Perhaps the most salient one most simply stated is this: once an event is happened, the probability of it happening is 100%. Looking back retrospectively and calculating the odds against it doesn't really give us any relevant information. Consider if you were watching cars go by on a high way and started writing down license plates; do this for 100 cars, calculate the total number of possible combinations, and then figure out how likely it is you saw the EXACT combination you saw. OF COURSE the probability would be miniscule, but what does this tell us about what you saw? Absolutely nothing. Similarly, even though the probability of complex organisms arising "from chance alone" is incredibly small, that likewise doesn't tell us anything since we already know life is here.

That said, there are certain things that make such an event more likely than you might imagine. EG, when most look back and calculate the probability against it happening, they often forget to take into account how many trial runs such an event had. Given early earth conditions and how many biochemical interactions were happening, there were likely countless possibilities for such a thing to happen. I mean, the odds of rolling 20 dice simultaneously and them all landing on 6 is small; but if you have enough trials, it will happen eventually. What's more, modern interpretations of quantum mechanics, like MW, make such things not only possible, but inevitable, since every possible outcome happens in some world; we would just happen to find ourselves in the world(s) where life (and us) happened.

Just for the record, we have never discussed anything in any thread "thoroughly".

Although the probability of an event happening is 100% after it has happened, the question is: how did that event happen? Specifically, in this case, were there agents involved who could make choices or not. When I refer to agents, I don't just mean deities, but any agents of whatever sort from slime molds (who apparently can make decisions) to humans to agents we are unaware of. So go back to this event and ask the question: could it have occurred without the involvement of any agents? If no agents were involved, it happened entirely by chance. If one finds that very unlikely then one has an argument for some sort of agency involved that made choices.

More reasonable and scientific interpretations of quantum mechanics would disagree with the pseudo-science of many worlds. If you are relying on many worlds then the grounds for your position is no stronger than that of someone promoting young earth creationism. Many worlds makes atheism look bad in the same way that young earth creationism makes Christianity look bad.

[Pendragon]

You're making several errors here. So you keep telling me. The feeling is mutual, as I think you are making errors as well.



The other error is that evolution & a bio-genesis couldn't have happened due to the almost infinite mathematical odds against it. And yet God alone knows how many times I have heard this type of argument "the chance is so miniscule" to protest against the existence of God. We had a thread here once on evolution versus creation that went on forever, and this was the general tone for the disapproval of belief in God. You seem more likely to stick to your belief without destroying mine. I agree with that. Others on here could tell you I have reproved Christians, Islams, or what ever if their way of debate is to call names and bad mouth. I am sorry for the misunderstanding, here in Southwest VA "ignorance" does indeed mean "stupid". I do apologize.




In the case of the start of living organisms, no, we cannot say with any degree of certainty how it came about, so there is room in there for a creator.



And you proved me right. If I don't agree with on everything, I do think this: Chance is a pretty much infinite rage of possibilities. So that the earth came about by some not as yet understood phenomena and that it was created by God are both in there.

God Bless

Pen

[The Atheist]

So you keep telling me. The feeling is mutual, as I think you are making errors as well.

Well, I've pointed out what yours are, so you could certainly help me by telling what errors you think I'm making.


And yet God alone knows how many times I have heard this type of argument "the chance is so miniscule" to protest against the existence of God.

There's a big difference. I've seen people displaying algorithms to show that the time, sporadic mutations becoming successful, and all the other factors of evolution actually work on a mathematical model.

That's real, concrete mathematics. I'm not saying the maths make evolution true, but it shows that it is a possible outcome.

I don't know how one would ascribe a mathematical value to the existence of god/s, so I wouldn't try that approach. I just ask for one piece of reliable evidence. Just one.


You seem more likely to stick to your belief without destroying mine.

What beliefs do you think I have?

I try very hard not to have any at all, beyond "reality actually exists" or cogito ergo sum. Everything else is subject to testing and replication.

You may think I "believe" in science, but that would be incorrect. I believe things that have been subjected to that testing and replication. Cogito ergo sum.


And you proved me right. If I don't agree with on everything, I do think this: Chance is a pretty much infinite rage of possibilities. So that the earth came about by some not as yet understood phenomena and that it was created by God are both in there.

Sure they are - that point is fine, but as I already said, if the god's action is limited to tinkering with the spark of life and/or the universe, then you're not far from Spinoza's god.


God Bless

Pen

As always, a pleasure!

You think we'd both be old enough not to write this stuff any more, wouldn't you?

Something about old dogs & new tricks, I suspect.

[MorpheusSandman]

So go back to this event and ask the question: could it have occurred without the involvement of any agents? ...If one finds that very unlikely then one has an argument for some sort of agency involved that made choices.You still don't understand that retrospectively calculating the odds against an event happening is in no way evidence for any agents being involved. This is the point I thoroughly explained that you never addressed. Take my license plate example: 100 observed license plates for which there are 6^100 possible combinations, yet you saw one of them. So the odds are one in 6^100 you saw what you did. Does the astronomical odds against seeing that combination even suggest that some agent was behind producing the exact combination you saw? Of course not! All that's necessary is for something to be possible, and you and every theist has utterly failed at arguing how it's impossible that we got here via the random events of the universe eventually leading to life, to evolution, to us.


More reasonable and scientific interpretations of quantum mechanics would disagree with the pseudo-science of many worlds. It's not pseudoscience, you annoying twit. You can't produce a single authority that says it is. You've repeatedly demonstrated you don't even understand what it is. You couldn't even paraphrase the criticisms Bohm had against it. What's more, anyone that promotes "remote viewing" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing#Scientific_reception) (something which the scientific community HAS definitively labeled as "pseudoscience" after several multi-million dollar studies and not a single positive result that found its way to peer-review) and Deepok Chopra is in no position to claim anything as psuedoscience. You're just talking out your ***, like usual.

If it weren't for your insistence on repeating lies like this, I wouldn't even respond to you anymore. But someone has to take the time to make sure others less knowledgeable don't fall for your crap; the same way so many scientists now have to spend their time fighting off nonsense like YEC.

[Pendragon]

You're just talking out your ***, like usual.



And demeaning comments like this have no place in our discussions on this thread. If you disagree with some one or think their statements have no merit, say so. No need to resort to this type of inflammatory statement.


Well, I've pointed out what yours are, so you could certainly help me by telling what errors you think I'm making.

Respectfully, you have pointed out where YOU consider me in error.


Allow me to do the same. You discount God and think He has no place in the Universe. It is a mistake to discount what you do not understand and do not believe. There is always room to wiggle, and you could be wrong. I believe in God but do not discount science's explanations for many things. If I cannot see how something is probable simply because it is possible, I try to do research.

God bless

Pen

PS Yeah, we are getting too old for this, mon ami! :D

[Ecurb]

What beliefs do you think I have?

I try very hard not to have any at all, beyond "reality actually exists" or cogito ergo sum. Everything else is subject to testing and replication.

You may think I "believe" in science, but that would be incorrect. I believe things that have been subjected to that testing and replication. Cogito ergo sum.



.

Since you ask, it appears that you believe in replicants, the super-human cyborgs from “Blade Runner”. At least, you believe in “replication”, possibly performed by the Tyrell Corporation in the production of replicants.

I suppose it is possible, instead, that you believe in Calvin’s “replicator” (from “Calvin and Hobbes”). Most of us remember how Calvin made replicas of himself who could attend school in his stead. Unfortunately, Calvin’s plan backfired, because his replicas were as bratty as he is.

It is vaguely possible that you mean you believe in testing that can be duplicated or reproduced to give credence to the first results. However, to say that you don’t believe in science, but believe in experimental tests that can be duplicated is equivalent to saying, “I don’t believe in science, I believe in science (or “the scientific method”).”

There are two problems with this approach. First, nothing can be “replicated”. All events are unique (I’m leaving “many worlds” out of the equation here –this refers only to our universe). Experiments can approximate one another, but cannot duplicate one another. It is true, of course, that approximately repeatable experiments can falsify our ideas about how nature works (can falsify the “laws of nature” which we have invented to describe and predict events). However, the “laws”, which are human inventions, do not take precedence over the events they describe or predict, and the events themselves cannot be repeated.

Second, how would your belief system allow anyone to operate in the world? Would we believe that John Kennedy has been assassinated only if he could be brought back to life and killed again? Would we have to divorce our wives and remarry before honoring our vows? Everything that happens is unique. We limit our knowledge of the world if we refuse to believe history. Even science involves not only repeatable experiments, but observation of non-repeatable events. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens happened whether we can repeat it or not. If Caesar said, “Et tu, Brute,” he said it only once. No “testing and replication” can either confirm or refute this historical anecdote. If (as is not the case) my wife gave me a kiss this morning, she gave me a kiss -- however unlikely that event is to be "replicated".

[The Atheist]

....irrelevant material excised....

A very quick point:

I did not mention anything about having any kind of belief in testing & replication.

If you actually read a post for a change, instead of assuming you know what it says, you will see I said that things are subject to testing & replication, not I believe in. Subtle difference, but I'm sure with the help of dictionary.com or some other resource, you'll catch up.


Allow me to do the same. You discount God and think He has no place in the Universe. It is a mistake to discount what you do not understand and do not believe.

I think you're still getting my stance wrong.

For instance, I could see where a god could fit quite nicely into the universe. I just see nothing to support the idea.

As to discounting things I don't understand, that's also incorrect.

Like you, if I don't understand something, I will try to learn about it and find explanations. So far, there are actually quite a few things that come into that category. Things like:

Gravity
Black holes
Dark matter/energy

and most of quantum physics, which is often counter-intuitive.

In the meantime, I accept that they occur/exist, but can't see where they fit any god hypothesis, so I wait for science to explain them.

[YesNo]

You still don't understand that retrospectively calculating the odds against an event happening is in no way evidence for any agents being involved.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding what I am looking for. We know we are here. We know about how long the earth has been around (say 5 billion years). There are two competing claims: (1) it is likely that these events occurred by chance, vs (2) it is unlikely that chance could have done this. Based on what I have read from both sides on the internet, it seems to me highly unlikely these events occurred by chance.

This doesn't prove that agents were involved, but it undermines the metaphysics that no agents whatsoever exist. The agents I am referring to need not be Gods, but slime molds (recently found to be rather intelligent even though they don't have any brain to speak of), microorganisms who I suspect make a choice every time they "replicate", as well as humans and anything else in the environment that ultimately "selects" them by its own existence and choices.

What I am looking for is a non-deterministic biological approach, with all the expected evolutionary processes, rather a deterministic chemical-physical approach to explaining the universe we are part of. The deterministic approach has failed to deliver its promise anyway.



It's not pseudoscience, you annoying twit. You can't produce a single authority that says it is. You've repeatedly demonstrated you don't even understand what it is. You couldn't even paraphrase the criticisms Bohm had against it. What's more, anyone that promotes "remote viewing" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing#Scientific_reception) (something which the scientific community HAS definitively labeled as "pseudoscience" after several multi-million dollar studies and not a single positive result that found its way to peer-review) and Deepok Chopra is in no position to claim anything as psuedoscience. You're just talking out your ***, like usual.

Bohm and Hiley's view of many worlds was quite negative. True, they didn't use "pseudo-science". If you agree to read this text, I don't mind discussing it with you in a separate thread.

I'm using term pseudo-science to characterize theories that claim to have the authority of science, and yet present views that undermine the data collected by science. I think cognitive dissonance underlies why this occurs. I apply the term to young earth creationism because it does not accept the data about the age of the earth. I apply the term to many worlds because it does not accept the data supporting Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

I don't know much about remote viewing. I am aware that people call these sorts of ideas "pseudo-science", but I don't know what scientific facts they are setting up a theory to counter. Mostly these groups just report events that they have observed and then the "scientists" freak out and say they could not have occurred, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Personally, I have more admiration for someone who reports an event than for someone who has to dismiss it because of the dissonance the data causes to their belief systems.

[Ecurb]

I did not mention anything about having any kind of belief in testing & replication.

If you actually read a post for a change, instead of assuming you know what it says, you will see I said that things are subject to testing & replication, not I believe in. Subtle difference, but I'm sure with the help of dictionary.com or some other resource, you'll catch up.


As you kindly point out in your latest post, you made two mistakes. First, you said, "Everything else (other than "reality exists") is subject to testing and replication." Since neither the assassination of Kennedy nor whether I smooched my (or anyone else's) wife this morning is subject to "testing and replication", this is clearly either incorrect or extremely limiting.

You then say, "I believe things that have been subjected to testing and replication." I'll grant that you didn't say, "I believe ONLY THOSE things....." So you have some wiggle room about whether you can believe any of those inumerable thngs that are not subject to "replication", which include everything that happens in this universe, including the results of scientific experiments, which are all unique. As mal4mac pointed out earlier in this thread, observations are the basis of (he said, "science", but I would say, "knowledge"). Observations of unique events (i.e. all events) are not "replicatable". What is replicatable is a failure to falsify a scientific theory through observing similar events (experiments) that have the potential to falsify the theory.

Scientific theories are not facts. They are explanations of facts, or predictions about facts, or ways of organizing and thinking about facts. The facts (i.e. what actually happens) are not subject to testing and replication, because they are unique, happen in time and space, and have already happened.

[Pendragon]

Take Lewis Carroll

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." :willy_nilly::willy_nilly:

[The Atheist]

The facts (i.e. what actually happens) are not subject to testing and replication, because they are unique, happen in time and space, and have already happened.
Had you ever considered not being deliberately obtuse?

No? I'm not surprised - I guess it becomes a habit after a while and saves on reading contextually.


Take Lewis Carroll

I would, except he used to carry around a lot of pictures of little naked girls, so I'm not sure I could take him many places.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

[Ecurb]

Had you ever considered not being deliberately obtuse?

.

Have you ever considered not being undeliberately obtuse? I suppose not.

[MorpheusSandman]

And demeaning comments like this have no place in our discussions on this thread. If you disagree with some one or think their statements have no merit, say so. No need to resort to this type of inflammatory statement.Listen, I've been over this with YesNo ad nauseam across countless threads. He's had no less than 4 different posters tell him he has no clue what he's talking about when it comes to quantum physics, yet he insists on making insulting claims like "Many Worlds is pseudoscience" without even understanding what MW is or being able to cite any authorities that support him. It's flat-out exhausting to argue with him because about 95% of the time he completely ignores what you say and responds with non-sequitors in between stating lies and falsities that he's been informed are lies and falsities. He'll endlessly repeat points he's made even after you've responded to them thoroughly. His "probability" argument in this thread is one which I've already responded to in another that, like usual, he completely ignored and has continued to make the same "point" as if I never said anything. His style was so frustrating that one actual physics student gave up addressing him (Cioran). After a while, one suspects that he's just a dishonest troll trying to convince naive minds that don't know any better, because his points may sound "reasonable" to anyone that knows little about these subjects.

So please don't think that what I'm saying about YesNo is extended to you or anyone else in this thread, and also don't think that it comes out-of-the-blue for no reason. I can link you to at least 4 other threads where we've been over this, and I can show you points I've made that he's ignored while continuing to repeat his same arguments over and over. Whatever his beliefs, it's the exact same tactics I see Creationists using; even after a point of theirs has been thoroughly refuted, they'll continue to make the point in hopes of convincing people that don't know any better.

[MorpheusSandman]

There are two competing claims: (1) it is likely that these events occurred by chance, vs (2) it is unlikely that chance could have done this. Based on what I have read from both sides on the internet, it seems to me highly unlikely these events occurred by chance.Again, we've been over this. You say "happen by chance," but I don't think you know what that really means. You agreed in a previous thread (probably before you knew what you were talking about) that the null hypothesis is the default position, and the null hypothesis is "chance." To move away from the null hypothesis requires more than just calculating the odds against something happening, yet this is all you're describing. There's no way to calculate the probability that something happened "by chance," there is only the probability of it happening for whatever reason. The probability against seeing those 100 license plates "by chance" is 6^100, which means it's astronomically unlikely. This in no way suggests it DIDN'T happen by chance, and to even begin arguing that requires more than just the probability of happening at all. So no matter how unlikely it is that life and us got here by the "chance" processes of evolution and natural selection, that's in no way evidence for or against agents being involved. Until you get this fundamental point I don't see any reason to continue.


Bohm and Hiley's view of many worlds was quite negative. True, they didn't use "pseudo-science".Not a single theoretical physicist would describe MW as "pseudoscience." Only someone like yourself that has no clue what it is would say that. What's more, only someone with no clue about the subject, in general, would be incapable of paraphrasing an argument against it that you read.


I'm using term pseudo-science to characterize theories that claim to have the authority of science, and yet present views that undermine the data collected by science.That's pretty close to the actual definition, and under that definition falls something like remote viewing.


I apply the term to many worlds because it does not accept the data supporting Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Yes it does! MW explains what is happening to cause Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle! In fact, the only real difference between CHI and MW is that the former says that a "collapse" is causing HUP while the latter says that decoherence is causing HUP. The former has no foundation either in the math or observations and conflicts with everything else we know about physics; the latter is actually taking the math as real, fits the observations, and doesn't conflict with everything else we know about physics.


I have more admiration for someone who reports an event than for someone who has to dismiss it because of the dissonance the data causes to their belief systems.Dude, there have been multiple multi-million dollar government funded studies done on remote viewing, and all of them were shut down due to a lack of results, after which the scientific community labeled it as "pseudoscience." I'm not dismissing it "because it causes dissonance with my belief system," there's already pretty definitive scientific data out there!

[Pendragon]

I'm not sure I could take him many places.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Just humor, mon ami. Running low on points as it matters little, we are at an impasse, because I'm not going to change and neither are you, which is as it should be. One should stand on their own principals, or one has no principals.

And Morpheus: I understand the frustration of dealing with someone who depends on the same old unsubstantiated points. I still say your comment was uncalled for.

I try to let people know I believe God created the world, but certain scientific facts do not change. Evolution is a fact, not just a belief. Laws of physics do not change. But as the Bible says "With MEN these things are impossible. But with God all things are possible." Humanity is required to follow only what can be done within the boundaries of science and physics. God by definition is not subject to these, but goes beyond them.

So I cannot defy gravity, go faster than the speed of light, produce more energy than I expend, be unaffected by inertia and friction, etc. But God as all powerful can.

I know this probably doesn't fit into your world view. That's fine. No fuss from me. I just believe what I believe, as do you.

God bless both of you

Pen

Oh, and Lewis Carrol posed his "naked little girls" with wings and gauze, showing no indecency and with parental permission. To him they were fairies and other fantasy beings. Yeah, perhaps he was weird, you never know. But he was pretty careful about the pictures.

[YesNo]

As mal4mac pointed out earlier in this thread, observations are the basis of (he said, "science", but I would say, "knowledge"). Observations of unique events (i.e. all events) are not "replicatable". What is replicatable is a failure to falsify a scientific theory through observing similar events (experiments) that have the potential to falsify the theory.

Scientific theories are not facts. They are explanations of facts, or predictions about facts, or ways of organizing and thinking about facts. The facts (i.e. what actually happens) are not subject to testing and replication, because they are unique, happen in time and space, and have already happened.

I woke up this morning realizing that I think I understand this and agree with you. Facts are unique. They can't be replicated. One can, however, replicate the failure to falsify a theory by doing an experiment again. I suspect one could also replicate falsifying a theory.

Correct me if I got this wrong.

[YesNo]

Dude, there have been multiple multi-million dollar government funded studies done on remote viewing, and all of them were shut down due to a lack of results, after which the scientific community labeled it as "pseudoscience." I'm not dismissing it "because it causes dissonance with my belief system," there's already pretty definitive scientific data out there!

If you look at the bottom of the Wikipedia article you originally cited there is a reference to Michael Persinger's work that "suggests positive results": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing#Recent_research

I wonder if the term "pseudo-science" could be extended to the dismissal of data as well as the construction of theories specifically designed to counter established data.

All I need is one example of a psychic exhibiting remote viewing for my argument about consciousness not being totally generated by the individual brain to make sense. If consciousness were totally generated by an individual brain, such events should not occur at all.

[MorpheusSandman]

If you look at the bottom of the Wikipedia article you originally cited there is a reference to Michael Persinger's work that "suggests positive results":Yes, one guy with "research" that "suggests positive results" obviously outweighs multi-million dollar studies done by multiple governments and shut down due to lack of results. You, of course, are not in any way a victim of confirmation bias, though.


All I need is one example of a psychic exhibiting remote viewing for my argument about consciousness not being totally generated by the individual brain to make sense. Yep, that's all you need. Good luck finding what governments with millions of dollars in research couldn't.

[The Atheist]

Just humor, mon ami. Running low on points as it matters little, we are at an impasse, because I'm not going to change and neither are you, which is as it should be. One should stand on their own principals, or one has no principals.

Other than your spelling (is that American?) I agree. I always get deeply concerned when a principal contacts me - it means one of the kids is in it again!

What a lot of people don't understand - and Richard Dawkins is among them - is that there is nothing wrong at all with religion until it head-butts with science. This is something the Catholic Church realised a long time ago. It is the people within religion who try to use it as a battering ram to force their beliefs onto others that are the problem.

I know you're not one of them.


Oh, and Lewis Carrol posed his "naked little girls" with wings and gauze, showing no indecency and with parental permission. To him they were fairies and other fantasy beings. Yeah, perhaps he was weird, you never know. But he was pretty careful about the pictures.

He may well have been just on a different plane of existence to the rest of us. Had he not been attracted to fairies, we might not have had Alice. I don't believe there are any accusations of abuse around him anyway.

[Pendragon]

TheAtheist, Hello, mon ami!

Yes I am American, but that was more depending on auto-correct than spelling goof~! The Principal always made me nervous as well. I stand on my principles, :D

[Vota]

Question for you Pendragon. How can you believe God created the world, but then state evolution is a fact? This would imply that you believe man is a product of evolution and not a direct creation of God's. The Holy Bible makes it very explicit that God created Adam, and then Eve from one of his ribs.

I'm just curious how you differentiate between the creation of the world and the appearance of man, and how you accept God creating the earth, but accept science's theory of evolution? The juxtaposition between the two is pretty big from my point of view.

I want you to know that I am just curious how you reconcile your beliefs with science here and your reasoning for these statements you have made.

[MorpheusSandman]

What a lot of people don't understand - and Richard Dawkins is among them - is that there is nothing wrong at all with religion until it head-butts with science. This is something the Catholic Church realised a long time ago. It is the people within religion who try to use it as a battering ram to force their beliefs onto others that are the problem.Although I agree with you in the abstract, the question becomes: how can religion--which deals with everything from history, to law, to morality, to metaphysics--stay "merely personal" and NOT affect the society in which it operates? While the conflicts between science and religion are amongst the most obvious clashes that display the harmful effects religion can have, certain civil struggles like same-sex marriage and feminism are also in large part due to religious conservatism, where a great many feel homosexuality is a sin and women have certain "places" in society. What I would say, however, is that I feel that these negative aspects would probably exist without religion (especially since I feel religion is man-made and merely an expression of what people feel about these issues anyway); but I also feel that religion gives people a sense of security in their opinions, as if those opinions aren't "their own," so much, but are decreed by an omnipotent, omniscient God who wrote them down in a Holy Book.

[Pendragon]

Question for you Pendragon. How can you believe God created the world, but then state evolution is a fact? This would imply that you believe man is a product of evolution and not a direct creation of God's. The Holy Bible makes it very explicit that God created Adam, and then Eve from one of his ribs.

I'm just curious how you differentiate between the creation of the world and the appearance of man, and how you accept God creating the earth, but accept science's theory of evolution? The juxtaposition between the two is pretty big from my point of view.

I want you to know that I am just curious how you reconcile your beliefs with science here and your reasoning for these statements you have made.

God created man, animals, plants, etc. Yet obviously the ones here now are not the same as the originals. For example, we know a modern horse came down to us from a Eohippus. Big cats came down from Sabretooth tigers. Man has gone through quite a few changes, although with some of their fossil evidence, I wonder if perhaps that single skeleton was merely a diseased or odd looking person. If we took the Elephant Man's skeleton alone, we might think man was deformed badly. If we took Robert Wadlow's we would think men almost nine feet high. If we went by Jyoti Amge and He Pingping (which gives us both sexes) we would think man was barely 2 feet tall and less than 20 pounds.

We know animals migrate and have to change to do so. When I was in elementary school, armadillos were only in Arizona and New Mexico near the southern border. Now they are seen around Nashville, a much colder clime for which they would have to adjust. The Coyote was a western pest, now they howl in the mountains here in Virginia just up the road a mile or so from where I sit typing this.

Why would it be odd to think things evolve from their creation point. If you believe that chance is the father of the universe, then what chance made had to evolve. As I believe it all began with God, the same applies. Things change adapt evolve from their creation and will continued to do so until their place in nature is no longer there.

Maybe I'm a bit strange, but I hope this answers your question.

God Bless

Pen

[The Atheist]

Although I agree with you in the abstract, the question becomes: how can religion--which deals with everything from history, to law, to morality, to metaphysics--stay "merely personal" and NOT affect the society in which it operates?

Some churches seem to manage it - or get very close to the ideal - while many christians treat their faith that way.

The Anglican church is the best example of a religion which tends to stay arm's length from insanity & interference.

They have their petty squabbles over gayness and women bishops, but they generally keep their religion under their hats.

Rastafari would be another [almost] harmless religion.

Few & far between, I'll grant you.

[Vota]

"Yet obviously the ones here now are not the same as the originals."

The Bible says God created man, not a chimpanzee or a neanderthal. From Adam and Even you get the whole lineage of their tribe. This directly conflicts with the theory of evolution. There is no evolution going on here except that descendants lives' gradually became less and less long-lived. If you believe in the theory of evolution AND that God created man then you either believe in God, but not Judeo-Christian God, or there is a direct conflict here.

"Why would it be odd to think things evolve from their creation point."

The thing is, in the bible they don't. In most religions they don't. I guess knowing what religion or spiritual system you proscribe to would clear this up. For some reason I assumed you believed in Jehova, but if you don't then that would clear things up.

Do you believe that God, or an all-powerful benevolent force exists and presides over the universe, but independent of any particular belief system? If so, then I could see how that would not necessarily conflict with evolution.

Thanks.

[Vota]

Another thought popped into my head. My philosophy professor made a comment that there are potentially as many religions as there are people that hold religious beliefs because everyone practices their religion THEIR way. I think it would be amazing indeed if you could find a single person that completely, perfectly, and literally lived their life according to their specific religion's or belief system's codes. I doubt such a person truly exists, for even one transgression, one violation of the prescribed codes however trivial would be this person's conscious or subconscious decision to do what they want regardless of any outside moral or civic influence.

Some of this sounds like some info I was reading about Sartre yesterday. Its funny how things you read sometimes work their way into your consciousness without you even realizing it.

[MorpheusSandman]

Some churches seem to manage it - or get very close to the ideal - while many christians treat their faith that way.I'm still skeptical. Assuming the people of such churches vote, and assuming their religion has opinions on what they're voting on, their religions really aren't keeping out of society.

[The Atheist]

I'm still skeptical. Assuming the people of such churches vote, and assuming their religion has opinions on what they're voting on, their religions really aren't keeping out of society.

I know it's different in your neck of the woods, but among christians down this end of the world, few few of their votes are swayed by their religious belief.

Our former Prime Minister, for example, was a fairly forthright agnostic/atheist, yet a massive number of christians voted for her, while the christian party polled under 1%.

A lot of religion in the western world outside of USA is actually both liberal and quiet.

[MorpheusSandman]

Fair enough. Perhaps it's just the prevalence of religious extremists in certain parts of the world that have engendered the notion that such "religious poisoning" (as Hitchens called it) is as prevalent everywhere.

[Pendragon]

The Bible says God created man, not a chimpanzee or a neanderthal. From Adam and Even you get the whole lineage of their tribe. This directly conflicts with the theory of evolution. There is no evolution going on here except that descendants lives' gradually became less and less long-lived. If you believe in the theory of evolution AND that God created man then you either believe in God, but not Judeo-Christian God, or there is a direct conflict here.

Man didn't descend from chimpanzees Volta. A Neanderthal is a man. 'chuckle' A few people still look like Neanderthal's. Check professional wrestler "Hacksaw" Jim Dugan!



The thing is, in the bible they don't. In most religions they don't. I guess knowing what religion or spiritual system you proscribe to would clear this up. For some reason I assumed you believed in Jehova, but if you don't then that would clear things up.

Citation please for this Bible statement. What religions think I am unconcerned. If horses have not evolved show me an Eohippus. Among their fossils appear not a single modern horse. Among fossils of mammoths, sabretooths, giant sloths appear no modern elephants, current big cats, or two toed or three toed sloths. They evolved and changed.

For the record I believe in Jehovah. You seem to say He couldn't allow animals and humans to adapt to changing environments. Tell me, what right do you have to say Jehovah is so limited in power that He cannot allow change? With God all, and when it says "all" it means "all" things are possible.


Do you believe that God, or an all-powerful benevolent force exists and presides over the universe, but independent of any particular belief system? If so, then I could see how that would not necessarily conflict with evolution.

Thanks.

Abraham Lincoln was asked during the Civil War if he believed God was on the Union Side. He stated: "I am not concern about God being on our side, I am concerned with being on God's side, because God's side is right." As for belief systems, to which are you referring? Christianity has as many beliefs as there are stars in the sky. The Jews also worship Jehovah, but Jewish sects are many. Islam believes in the same God as Christians and Jews whom they call Allah. How many interpretations of what Allah desires are there?

God operates outside of belief systems or even among Christians the vast majority would be wrong and a small group right. God is subject to no laws. We cannot limit God.

God Bless

Pen

[glennr25]

Science is a liar...sometimes. Take for example the pyramids of Egypt. To this day mainstream scientists are convinced that the pyramids were built with primitive tools such as hammers and chisels. However, there is massive amounts of evidence that shows they had to have had much more advanced technology to move these massive stones miles and miles, and then shape them into bricks as big as minivans. What scientists can't explain, they usually give up trying to come up with a viable explanation, or come up with something that makes no sense at all. Nicola Tesla was shunned from the scientific community when he tried to convince the world that AC power was more efficient and cost-effective than Edison's DC power. So you see, science, in many ways, is no different than religion at all. Both are flawed.

[The Atheist]

Science is a liar...sometimes. Take for example the pyramids of Egypt. To this day mainstream scientists are convinced that the pyramids were built with primitive tools such as hammers and chisels. However, there is massive amounts of evidence that shows they had to have had much more advanced technology to move these massive stones miles and miles, and then shape them into bricks as big as minivans.

Quite right - it was aliens. I thought everyone knew that.

Maybe if you checked what scientists involved with the pyramids actually say about their construction, you wouldn't make such ill-informed comments.

Also, please note that science does not lie. Cannot in fact. Scientists lie all the time - some to try to find fame, others a following. Just look at Michael Behe as a glowing example. Unquestionably a scientist, he lies all the damned time.

Science itself cannot lie, because it's a process, not an entity.


What scientists can't explain, they usually give up trying to come up with a viable explanation, or come up with something that makes no sense at all.

Utter nonsense, the evidence is enormously overwhelming that that's not what happens at all.

How many billion dollars have we spent on the LHC at CERN? The global array? Space exploration? Molecular biology?

And where have all the scientific discoveries from? Pasteur? Rutherford? Curie? Fleming?

Every scientific achievement has come about because scientists didn't know, so tried to find out - and we're still doing it, with CERN finding out new information and confirming or refuting theories in sub-atomic physics.


Nicola Tesla was shunned from the scientific community when he tried to convince the world that AC power was more efficient and cost-effective than Edison's DC power. So you see, science, in many ways, is no different than religion at all. Both are flawed.

I'm glad you mention that, because it's a perfect example of science changing and winning.

[glennr25]

Quite right - it was aliens. I thought everyone knew that.

Maybe if you checked what scientists involved with the pyramids actually say about their construction, you wouldn't make such ill-informed comments.

Also, please note that science does not lie. Cannot in fact. Scientists lie all the time - some to try to find fame, others a following. Just look at Michael Behe as a glowing example. Unquestionably a scientist, he lies all the damned time.

Science itself cannot lie, because it's a process, not an entity.



Utter nonsense, the evidence is enormously overwhelming that that's not what happens at all.

How many billion dollars have we spent on the LHC at CERN? The global array? Space exploration? Molecular biology?

And where have all the scientific discoveries from? Pasteur? Rutherford? Curie? Fleming?

Every scientific achievement has come about because scientists didn't know, so tried to find out - and we're still doing it, with CERN finding out new information and confirming or refuting theories in sub-atomic physics.



I'm glad you mention that, because it's a perfect example of science changing and winning.


Where did I say in my post that aliens were responsible for building the pyramids, or was that your own scientific theory? Science can't lie? Aristotle thought the Earth was the center of the universe, it was later disproved by another popular scientist, Galileo. But then Galileo thought comets were optical illusions, and that there was no way the moon could cause the ocean's tides, of course, his theory was later disproved by another well known scientist, Isaac Newton, who, mind you, would later die eating mercury. They all used science to come up with their theories. Thus science is wrong sometimes. Science is a tool, just like religion. If a smart guy tells you the Earth is flat, by God you believe him!

Here's a good article about the many lies of science: http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html

[The Atheist]

Where did I say in my post that aliens were responsible for building the pyramids, or was that your own scientific theory?

You didn't say it was aliens, but if it wasn't humans, who else is there? You say - with no evidence whatsoever - that the pyramids couldn't have been built with primitive tools. We know for sure Egyptians only had primitive tools, so if there's another explanation, I'd be glad to hear it.


Science can't lie? Aristotle thought the Earth was the center of the universe, it was later disproved by another popular scientist, Galileo.

Aristotle was a scientist, he was not science. But your example does again beautifully describe how science works - one scientist proposes a silly theory, another comes along and science changes. Bingo! Now, we all know - well, all except for the guy who used to try to tell us the earth is centre of the universe - that the universe does not revolve around planet Earth.



But then Galileo thought comets were optical illusions, and that there was no way the moon could cause the ocean's tides, of course, his theory was later disproved by another well known scientist, Isaac Newton, who, mind you, would later die eating mercury.

Apart from the idiotic premise that Newton died from eating Mercury, you're showing very nicely how science changes. As with the above example of Aristotle, science changed after developments by later scientists. You're contradicting yourself most brilliantly!

Newton possibly did die from mercury poisoning, but that's not by eating, it would be to do with chemical experiments and not recognising how poisonous is. SCIENCE has since taught us that mercury is a dangerous poison.



Here's a good article about the many lies of science: http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html

Riiiight.

Yeah, that contradicts science alright. All those guys with Nobel prizes and PhDs in science, and you're listening to some bloke who writes a blog.

Sounds legit.

[glennr25]

Science changes. Really? Is that the best you can do? Rats change, birds change, planets change, everything changes. You have to be a bit more specific.

As for the guy in the blog. I'll believe him over all those hotshot scientists out to pad their million dollar homes any day of the week. By the way if you did a little research you'll find that Denis Rancourt is a SCIENTIST.

[The Atheist]

Science changes. Really? Is that the best you can do? Rats change, birds change, planets change, everything changes. You have to be a bit more specific.

My apologies, but I can't be more specific than that. It's why science claims things as "theory", like evolution. Every scientist agrees it happened, but there are trillions of pieces of information to piece together, and since we lack evidence for a lot of it, the theory can only ever keep changing and improving.

If you want something rigid and inflexible to rule your world, try religion!


As for the guy in the blog. I'll believe him over all those hotshot scientists out to pad their million dollar homes any day of the week.

Yep, those scientists are so damned rich! Look at how many of them there are on the Forbes rich list!

As to money, check out how much your blogger pal makes from the ads splattered all over his site.

Look, you're welcome to believe what you like, but your nonsensical posts are not really arguing a point so much as going "Waaa, I hate science!".

I'll never understand why people feel that way, but since you're typing messages on a keyboard attached to/inside a computer, using the internet, powered by electricity, fibre-optic cables, servers and binary codes all given to us by science, it all seems a bit hypocritical.

[glennr25]

My apologies, but I can't be more specific than that. It's why science claims things as "theory", like evolution. Every scientist agrees it happened, but there are trillions of pieces of information to piece together, and since we lack evidence for a lot of it, the theory can only ever keep changing and improving.

If you want something rigid and inflexible to rule your world, try religion!



Yep, those scientists are so damned rich! Look at how many of them there are on the Forbes rich list!

As to money, check out how much your blogger pal makes from the ads splattered all over his site.

Look, you're welcome to believe what you like, but your nonsensical posts are not really arguing a point so much as going "Waaa, I hate science!".

I'll never understand why people feel that way, but since you're typing messages on a keyboard attached to/inside a computer, using the internet, powered by electricity, fibre-optic cables, servers and binary codes all given to us by science, it all seems a bit hypocritical.


If you practiced what you preached and did a bit of research, you would have found that Denis Rancourt is a well-known scientist. He is not just some blogger.

Where did I say I hate science? I'm a science-fiction writer. Take a gander at the quote below--from one of the most popular science fiction books ever written.

[The Atheist]

Oh, quelle surprise!

It's not as though the author of the blog, one Denis G Rancourt has anything to be a little sour grapes about, is it?

Maybe you should donate to his legal defence fund? Is your posting merely an attempt to gain hits and money for his legal fund?

Are you, in fact, Dennis G Rancourt?

[glennr25]

You keep making baseless assumptions. Hey! Kinda like a scientist.

[glennr25]

We can keep arguing about this until the cows come home. The fact remains, religion and science are both institutions. These institutions are governed by people, not robots, not angels, not aliens from Planet X. And just like any institution there are things that are left unexplored to keep its reputation intact. So when a Nikola Tesla, or Denis Rancourt, or Jesus comes along and tries to explore those taboo areas and show people the truth, they are automatically shunned and disbarred from the institution.

Science can be good but it can be bad too. Religion can be good but can also be bad.

The person who is trying to discern between the two has to take it upon themselves to make a decision. Their decision should not be made by Bill Nye the science guy or some random priest in a church.

It should be done on their own.

[The Atheist]

You keep making baseless assumptions. Hey! Kinda like a scientist.

Completely wrong again, sorry.

Like science, I am asking questions rather than assuming.

Have you ever considered being right about something? It's free of charge, you know.


We can keep arguing about this until the cows come home.

Looks like you're determined to. Fine by me - my job means I can take a quick 5 minutes here anytime I feel like it, and because you keep making totally erroneous posts, I'll keep playing.


The fact remains, religion and science are both institutions.

And there you go - 100% incorrect again.

You yourself say it even!


These institutions are governed by people, not robots, not angels, not aliens from Planet X. And just like any institution there are things that are left unexplored to keep its reputation intact. So when a Nicola Tesla, or Denis Rancourt, or Jesus comes along and tries to explore those taboo areas and show people the truth, they are automatically shunned and disbarred from the institution.

More nonsense.

You say people rule science? Point to them. Tell me which institution and people "govern science".

Note: your pal Rancourt has been barred from one university. He is still able to pursue scientific interests and publish his work. He is not in any meaning of the word "barred" from science. Even complete muppets like Behe are not barred from science. Laughed at, sure, but not barred.


Science can be good but it can be bad too. Religion can be good but can also be bad.

The person who is trying to discern which to believe has to take it upon themselves to make a decision. Their decision should not be made by Bill Nye the science guy or some random priest in a church.

It should be done on their own.

I'd answer that, but since it doesn't meet the standard of "better than word salad" I won't try.

[glennr25]

People don't rule science? Are you kidding me? Do you actually believe this stuff yourself? Tell that to the thousands of Japanese civilians that died when the atom bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

As for Rancourt, his reputation has been taken away from him, thus his future as a practitioner of science is rather bleak. The powers that be decided to make a mockery of him because he wanted to tell the TRUTH.

[The Atheist]

People don't rule science? Are you kidding me? Do you actually believe this stuff yourself? Tell that to the thousands of Japanese civilians that died when the atom bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Which scientist was piloting the Enola Gay that day? Which scientific institution ordered it to drop the bombs?

Seriously, your posts are becoming crazier by the post.

You credit science with the Hiroshima bombing, despite the fact that the attack was ordered by, and committed by, non-scientists, while laughingly deriding science on that keyboard I mentioned above. (That you also had no answer to.)


As for Rancourt, his reputation has been taken away from him, thus his future as a practitioner of science is rather bleak. The powers that be decided to make a mockery of him because he wanted to tell the TRUTH.

Well, of course. It's always about THE TRUTH, isn't it?

Tell me.

How come your boy Rancourt - a scientist - is believable when all other scientists are not?

Be honest - what relationship do you have to Rancourt? Why are you supporting him so fervently, accepting his word as THE TRUTH, while simultaneously calling all other scientists cheats & frauds?

Thanks in advance - I think you really should clear that up.

[YesNo]

We can keep arguing about this until the cows come home. The fact remains, religion and science are both institutions. These institutions are governed by people, not robots, not angels, not aliens from Planet X. And just like any institution there are things that are left unexplored to keep its reputation intact. So when a Nicola Tesla, or Denis Rancourt, or Jesus comes along and tries to explore those taboo areas and show people the truth, they are automatically shunned and disbarred from the institution.

Science can be good but it can be bad too. Religion can be good but can also be bad.

The person who is trying to discern between the two has to take it upon themselves to make a decision. Their decision should not be made by Bill Nye the science guy or some random priest in a church.

It should be done on their own.

I agree. We are the ones responsible for the decisions we make and the authorities we accept. I view shunning and sarcasm as hints of underlying irrationality.

[glennr25]

Here's a good article showing science isn't really that different from religion. Again, decide for yourself what you want to believe. I'm not trying to bash anyone's beliefs.

http://listverse.com/2012/12/15/top-10-reasons-science-is-another-religion/

[MorpheusSandman]

Here's a good articleI'm sorry, I must've missed where the goodness was. It got lost amongst a bunch of lies, idiocy, fallacies, and irrationality.

[glennr25]

Which scientist was piloting the Enola Gay that day? Which scientific institution ordered it to drop the bombs?

Seriously, your posts are becoming crazier by the post.

You credit science with the Hiroshima bombing, despite the fact that the attack was ordered by, and committed by, non-scientists, while laughingly deriding science on that keyboard I mentioned above. (That you also had no answer to.)



Well, of course. It's always about THE TRUTH, isn't it?

Tell me.

How come your boy Rancourt - a scientist - is believable when all other scientists are not?

Be honest - what relationship do you have to Rancourt? Why are you supporting him so fervently, accepting his word as THE TRUTH, while simultaneously calling all other scientists cheats & frauds?

Thanks in advance - I think you really should clear that up.

The Enola Gay was the vehicle. Science is the reason the atom bomb exists in the first place. How many people did the Nazis kill while trying to "advance" science?

I'm not saying he's believable. He created a shadow of a doubt on various topics covered within the institution of science, and he's been shunned from the scientific community. To me, when you try to silence someone because he's writing about things he BELIEVES (key word) in, then it's obvious the institution is trying to discredit him. Where else have we heard this before?

[The Atheist]

So, you do like some scientists - those with an anti-science agenda.

I love the way you're disproving all of your own premises by posting the ravings of scientists who write anti-science agendas. You're making it awfully plain that you're willing to sacrifice your anti-scientist scruples as long as they agree with your rather silly premises.

Anyway, from the link you generously provided, your guy makes good points.

Except that numbers 1-10 are all actually false.

You know, quite a few scientists are anti-science. Even Nobel chemistry prize winner, Kary Mullis is both anti-AGW and an AIDS denier, and he has seen little green men from outer space. I really do recommend you use him rather then the two feebletons you've picked so far.

Mullis has gravitas, and demonstrably no need of sour grapes; he achieved the pinnacle of success in science and has nobody to be beholden to.

Check him out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis

[The Atheist]

I'm sorry, I must've missed where the goodness was. It got lost amongst a bunch of lies, idiocy, fallacies, and irrationality.

Ah, you obviously saw all the same mistakes I did!

[The Atheist]

The Enola Gay was the vehicle. Science was the reason the atom bombs existed in the first place. How many people did the Nazis kill while trying to "advance" science?

Oh yeah, Godwin the thread. That'll turn out well.


To me, when you try to silence someone because he's writing about things he BELIEVES in, then it's obvious the institution is trying to discredit him. Where else have we heard this before?

Al Qaida? NAMBLA? The KKK? Stormfront?

I give up, which one do you mean?

[glennr25]

I'm sorry, I must've missed where the goodness was. It got lost amongst a bunch of lies, idiocy, fallacies, and irrationality.

Of course it did. Isn't that what any true believer of religion would say to back their beliefs?

[glennr25]

I'll leave you with Einstein's own view on religion and science and then I'm off to bed. As you're reading, note how he hints at the possibility of religion and science working together for the betterment of humankind. This is a quote taken directly from the text:

"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to this conception, the sole function of education was to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people's education, must serve that end exclusively.

One will probably find but rarely, if at all, the rationalistic standpoint expressed in such crass form; for any sensible man would see at once how one-sided is such a statement of the position. But it is just as well to state a thesis starkly and nakedly, if one wants to clear up one's mind as to its nature."

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

[MorpheusSandman]

Isn't that what any true believer of religion would say to back their beliefs?Probably, but there's a difference: what the guy says in that article is demonstrably false, not just "I don't believe it because I don't want to" false. I mean, it's false like saying the sun is made out of cheese is false. Your anti-science stance is cute, but unlikely to convince anyone with half a brain in their head.

[YesNo]

Here's a good article showing science isn't really that different from religion. Again, decide for yourself what you want to believe. I'm not trying to bash anyone's beliefs.

http://listverse.com/2012/12/15/top-10-reasons-science-is-another-religion/


I liked this line from the cite you mentioned about the High Priests of science:


Their opinions are received as sermons, and their statements are quoted like sacred texts.

That should be a good reminder to question authority more.

[glennr25]

Probably, but there's a difference: what the guy says in that article is demonstrably false, not just "I don't believe it because I don't want to" false. I mean, it's false like saying the sun is made out of cheese is false. Your anti-science stance is cute, but unlikely to convince anyone with half a brain in their head.

I never said I was anti-science. I'm a social sciences graduate myself, I think the scientific method is an awesome tool for mankind. But just like any tool it can be misused. Do you really think science, because of its way of doing things, is incorruptible? Is any creation of man in this world incorruptible? Is science at the end of the day not a creation of man? When a scientist tells the public that their method of scientific research should not be questioned, is that not man acting the part of God? That, because science is a perfect thing, there can be no mistakes. Everything must be taken as fact. That sounds more like a god complex to me, someone's--or more than one person's--fetish of having control over weaker minds. And what better way is there to carry out your fetish then by using quite possibly the greatest discovery of humankind.

[glennr25]

I liked this line from the cite you mentioned about the High Priests of science:


Their opinions are received as sermons, and their statements are quoted like sacred texts.

That should be a good reminder to question authority more.

Agreed.

[MorpheusSandman]

I liked this line from the cite you mentioned about the High Priests of science:


Their opinions are received as sermons, and their statements are quoted like sacred texts.Why am I not surprised that you like a quote that's a flat-out lie? Peer-review and the scientific method itself guarantee against the opinions of scientists being "received as sermons" or "quoted like sacred texts." That some scientists say some quotable things is no different than quotable things being written by novelists or poets or philosophers or anyone; nobody, however, considers them "sacred texts." That's just ridiculous.

[MorpheusSandman]

I never said I was anti-science.Sure, and Bill O'Reilly never said he was anti Obama.

Of course, science can be misused; nobody would question that. I don't know what about the scientific method is "corruptible." Even when there have been "corrupt" goings-on in science it was usually rooted out by other scientists doing what they were supposed to do. You never see the religious rooting out the corruptions in their organizations; on the contrary, they go to great lengths to cover it up and suppress (see the Catholic "guide" on how to deal with/hide/cover-up child molestation by Priests). Anyway, scientists don't "tell the public that their method of research should not be questioned," that's just another lie you made up. Scientists submit to the peer-review process that requires their research be picked apart by exacting critics that only exist to point out flaws in what they've done. Only after they've passed this process and, usually, after their results have been repeated, THEN their research may get published and brought to public attention. Obviously, any member of the public is free to look at the research themselves. There are dozens of online archives and journals where such stuff is published. None of it is hidden. There's no scientist Shaman shouting to the public the truth he's been divinely given after meeting God in a dream or by going up on a mountain. It's also hard to have a "god complex" in a field where your peers' only purpose is to bring you down, and every scientist has pursued dead ends or had flawed research or met with some resistence. This isn't to say they often don't have inflated egos, but you also find that in every single field known to man. I also fail to see how science is "controlling weaker minds," when they can't even get the majority of the US population to believe in evolution, probably the most strongly supported scientific theory there's ever been.

[glennr25]

Sure, and Bill O'Reilly never said he was anti Obama.

Of course, science can be misused; nobody would question that. I don't know what about the scientific method is "corruptible." Even when there have been "corrupt" goings-on in science it was usually rooted out by other scientists doing what they were supposed to do. You never see the religious rooting out the corruptions in their organizations; on the contrary, they go to great lengths to cover it up and suppress (see the Catholic "guide" on how to deal with/hide/cover-up child molestation by Priests). Anyway, scientists don't "tell the public that their method of research should not be questioned," that's just another lie you made up. Scientists submit to the peer-review process that requires their research be picked apart by exacting critics that only exist to point out flaws in what they've done. Only after they've passed this process and, usually, after their results have been repeated, THEN their research may get published and brought to public attention. Obviously, any member of the public is free to look at the research themselves. There are dozens of online archives and journals where such stuff is published. None of it is hidden. There's no scientist Shaman shouting to the public the truth he's been divinely given after meeting God in a dream or by going up on a mountain. It's also hard to have a "god complex" in a field where your peers' only purpose is to bring you down, and every scientist has pursued dead ends or had flawed research or met with some resistence. This isn't to say they often don't have inflated egos, but you also find that in every single field known to man. I also fail to see how science is "controlling weaker minds," when they can't even get the majority of the US population to believe in evolution, probably the most strongly supported scientific theory there's ever been.

Here we go again with the peer review and journals argument. For someone that has so much hate toward textual information, you tend to use it quite a lot as evidence in your arguments.

[glennr25]

Fact is people (yes, scientists included) write crap sometimes. Take a gander at this peer review study that reveals the flaws of the peer review system.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bogus-science-paper-reveals-peer-review-s-flaws-1.2054004

[The Atheist]

Your anti-science stance is cute, but unlikely to convince anyone with half a brain in their head.

The juxtaposition of your sentence and the next post is pure gold.