Christian version of Darwin's Origin of Species

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

99% of christians believe those things, aside from whatever pseudo-neo-christian cult you and pandora subscribe to where jesus was just another hippy that got famous.

what's with the hate man? I keep saying I believe in nothing... I just think that believing in non-theism is dogmatic and thoughtless, almost as much as belief in theism, and your response ^^^ is a good example of how beliefs cause people to act out aggressively and recklessly... whether it is a belief in god or science or whatever. I don't "subscribe" to any sort of "pseudo-neo-christian cult" or any other belief system because beliefs are the birth of ignorance. Once you believe in something, in anything, all other points of view are ignored.

"I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.... I believe in nothing, everything is sacred"

soulsinging wrote:

science does not have texts like that... that have had their stories unchanged and unevaluated for thousands of years. even the backbone of evolutionary theory is maybe 200 years old and has already been corrected and revised in further research. darwin didn't nail evolution in one book and nobody out there is shutting down science labs to say "nope, darwin spoke and this is how the story goes, period." they are all working in their labs to improve what came before, not halt any further discovery in the name of it being sacred or divinely inspired.

I understand the differences between religion and science and I'm not saying that science is "like relgion" in that includes incredulous tales of super-human powers. I don't really know what the point is that you're trying to make.

the point i made is that it is absurd to claim that science is faith-based. and i stand by what i said. you claimed my view of christianity only applies to a small minority and i pointed out that 99% of christians have these faith-based beliefs, it's not just fundie bible thumpers. i say the view YOU have of christians is flawed, and that people like pandora (sorry for confusing you as one of them) are a very tiny minority.

your definition of faith is ridiculous... you're basically expanding it to such an absurdly inclusive and useless concept that you would say the fact that i think there's still water in my mug because i just filled it up and nobody drank out of it is an act of supreme faith, which is just plain absurd unless you're on acid. i cant sit on a toilet without having "faith" that it's coming out the normal end instead of mouth this time. that's the new age worthless psycho-babble i was talking about earlier.

your black and white box doesn't apply here, one can believe certain notions without closing the door to all other ideas. i believe in gravity becos it works and the evidence is compelling, not because it was written down in a 3000 year old book by a deity. but i'm willing to hear you out if you have something better to offer. but you have to give me evidence of it, not some abstract gibberish about how no one can know anything or believe anything without being closed-minded. i don't know what point YOU'RE trying to make? that we should all just sit here twiddling our thumbs pondering if this is an illusion? i mean, why get up to eat if we're not sure we're really eating food instead of poison!

he still stands

Well I keep getting misquoted - my 'definition of faith?', 'black and white box', I must be on acid, etc - so I'll end with reiterating my only point:

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

This is my argument against theism AND non-theism, not your personal beliefs, Soulsinging.

Alan Watts may have said it best of all: "The universe is a giant Rorschach ink-blot." Science finds one meaning in it in the 18th Century, another in the 19th, a third in the 20th; each artist finds unique meanings on other levels of abstraction; and each man and woman finds different meanings at different hours of the day, depending on the internal and external environments. We can all agree on concrete things like gravity and the world is round (although I can't prove either with 100% certainty... only 99.9999% certainty) but I thought we were discussing more abstract concepts here like the existence of god(s).

"It seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that causes most people, even the educated, to think that everybody must "believe" something or other, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X or the reverse of X." -

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING. -- John Gribbin, physics editor of New Scientist magazine.

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

Well I keep getting misquoted - my 'definition of faith?', 'black and white box', I must be on acid, etc - so I'll end with reiterating my only point:

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

This is my argument against theism AND non-theism, not your personal beliefs, Soulsinging..

but you also used this argument against science in an attempt to argue that scientific knowledge is no different from religious faith, which is absurd because the very definition of scientific thought and investigation is the exact opposite of the grandiose delusion you just espoused.

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

Alan Watts may have said it best of all: "The universe is a giant Rorschach ink-blot." Science finds one meaning in it in the 18th Century, another in the 19th, a third in the 20th; each artist finds unique meanings on other levels of abstraction; and each man and woman finds different meanings at different hours of the day, depending on the internal and external environments. We can all agree on concrete things like gravity and the world is round (although I can't prove either with 100% certainty... only 99.9999% certainty) but I thought we were discussing more abstract concepts here like the existence of god(s).

"It seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that causes most people, even the educated, to think that everybody must "believe" something or other, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X or the reverse of X.".

again, the opposite of what you've been saying thus far. you try to apply your lack of belief to even concrete concepts. and my point from the beginning is that science does revise itself regularly, religion does not and has not. the core of christian faith is unchanged in 2000 years. yet you continue to use the logic you rail against here... that those who dispute the core christian principles, must be dogmatic atheists. i don't have to run around throwing my hands in the air saying "i dont know anything" to have an open mind. i accept that science has some pretty strong support in a concrete sense, and that all the abstract god shit is probably irrelevant. you fail to realize that this is what most atheists subscribe to... not any certainty that atheism is the only true way, just great certainty that christianity and other religious myths are bullshit and irrelevant and that science is the best tool we've got to understand the world around us until someone offers something better. you haven't done so. so why would we abandon the best thing we've got without a convincing reason. that is why science is importantly different from faith. we only adopt views based on convincing evidence, rather than adopting views becos of faith and ignoring or dismissing any contradictory evidence.

he still stands

soulsinging wrote:

he still stands wrote:

but you also used this argument against science in an attempt to argue that scientific knowledge is no different from religious faith, which is absurd because the very definition of scientific thought and investigation is the exact opposite of the grandiose delusion you just espoused.

I don't think it is the exact opposite of the grandiose delusion. What you are talking about is called the demarcation problem... and if you think there has been a clear agreement in the scientific community about where to draw the boundaries between standard science, revolutionary science, pseudo-science, and religion, then you are mistaken. I'd suggest reading about it and the philosophy of science.

There are weird things happening in science that are fascinating and just reading about quantum physics will make you believe in things like magic and appreciate the unknown. The measurment problem is a good example. And we've already agreed that most of the science known 100 years ago has been proven false and there is no reason to suspect this won't be the case again 100 years from now.

It is not tantamount to faith in god or religion or spirituality or metaphysics or whatever... but science is not some immutable force that answers all our questions about the universe. In fact, atomic theory and quantum physics raise more questions about the unknown.

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

he still stands wrote:

but you also used this argument against science in an attempt to argue that scientific knowledge is no different from religious faith, which is absurd because the very definition of scientific thought and investigation is the exact opposite of the grandiose delusion you just espoused.

I don't think it is the exact opposite of the grandiose delusion. What you are talking about is called the demarcation problem... and if you think there has been a clear agreement in the scientific community about where to draw the boundaries between standard science, revolutionary science, pseudo-science, and religion, then you are mistaken. I'd suggest reading about it and the philosophy of science.

There are weird things happening in science that are fascinating and just reading about quantum physics will make you believe in things like magic and appreciate the unknown. The measurment problem is a good example. And we've already agreed that most of the science known 100 years ago has been proven false and there is no reason to suspect this won't be the case again 100 years from now.

It is not tantamount to faith in god or religion or spirituality or metaphysics or whatever... but science is not some immutable force that answers all our questions about the universe. .

i never claimed it was. i just claimed it was remarkably different from religion and has nothing to do whatsoever with the concept of faith. i also dont think most fo science has been proven false... the core principles of evolution, gravity, solar systems, etc are still largely intact. there are many new finds, and many questions that may turn these concepts on their head. but you act like we should ground every airplane in the world becos for all we know the theories of gravity and aerodynamics are completely wrong. that's ridiculous. perhaps we don't completely understand them, but they work and our ability to rely on those principles to fly thousands of planes per day is a helluva lot more sound than claiming a man rose from the dead. we have proof we're right every time an airplane lands safely. religion can only point to the bible or the koran for their contentions that a resurrection or whatever occurred. science is not perfect, but it is more sound than religion.

he still stands

"Bell's theorem, derived in his seminal 1964 paper titled On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox has been called "the most profound in science". The title of the article refers to the famous paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen purporting to prove the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. In his paper, Bell started from essentially the same assumptions as did EPR, viz. i) reality (microscopic objects have real properties determining the outcomes of quantum mechanical measurements) and ii) locality (reality is not influenced by measurements simultaneously performed at a large distance). Bell was able to derive from these assumptions an important result, viz. Bell's inequality, violation of which by quantum mechanics implying that at least one of the assumptions must be abandoned if experiment would turn out to satisfy quantum mechanics." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

so, either reality doesn't exist or locality (measurement doesn't effect reality, i.e. what we see, taste, smell, feel) doesn't exist. Either is just as incredible as the other, if you think about it.

Just something to think about is all...

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

"Bell's theorem, derived in his seminal 1964 paper titled On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox has been called "the most profound in science". The title of the article refers to the famous paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen purporting to prove the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. In his paper, Bell started from essentially the same assumptions as did EPR, viz. i) reality (microscopic objects have real properties determining the outcomes of quantum mechanical measurements) and ii) locality (reality is not influenced by measurements simultaneously performed at a large distance). Bell was able to derive from these assumptions an important result, viz. Bell's inequality, violation of which by quantum mechanics implying that at least one of the assumptions must be abandoned if experiment would turn out to satisfy quantum mechanics." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

so, either reality doesn't exist or locality (measurement doesn't effect reality, i.e. what we see, taste, smell, feel) doesn't exist. Either is just as incredible as the other, if you think about it.

Just something to think about is all...

yes, if you're on acid for me, in my day to day life, it doesn't mean a damn thing. i'm going to try that argument in court though after i murder a family. "your honor, according to bell's theorem, they probably never even really existed anyway, so i couldn't have killed them!"

this is no more relevant to my real life than jesus dying on the cross. they're both just mental masturbation.

and that link says the implications for this are that... quantum mechanics is incomplete. so what? so is evolutionary theory. so is the big bang. so are many others. what's the science response? let's write new papers and design new experiments to figure out what's going on. meanwhile, in religion, christians realize jesus never really talked about the implications of nuclear weapons, stem cell research, abortion, or even homosexuality. do they put their heads together to come up with a few relevant chapters to add to the bible touching on these subjects? no, they go back to an even older text that their text supposedly supplanted and draw out random provisions out of context and the attempt to fit modern facts into that box.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I like doobs. But I don't need to smoke one to have my mind completely turned on itself. I just have to read the last couple pages of this thread.

...now where did I put that bag of Doritos......?

Hugh Freaking Dillon

he still stands wrote:

so, either reality doesn't exist or locality (measurement doesn't effect reality, i.e. what we see, taste, smell, feel) doesn't exist.

so, if can touch myself, I don't exist? I don't WANNA exist if that can't happen at least once a day.

soulsinging

Johnny Sitar wrote:

he still stands wrote:

so, either reality doesn't exist or locality (measurement doesn't effect reality, i.e. what we see, taste, smell, feel) doesn't exist.

so, if can touch myself, I don't exist? I don't WANNA exist if that can't happen at least once a day.

you should think about the implications for sex. i was bangin this SMOKIN hot chick the other day, but halfway through i realized she was just an illusion and i wasn't real and the great sensation i got from my naughty parts was just me deluding myself into thinking it was really happening... tough to keep it up after that. it was a huge bummer. she totally didnt understand when i explained it to her either... i guess she's close-minded.

he still stands

soulsinging wrote:

yes, if you're on acid for me, in my day to day life, it doesn't mean a damn thing. i'm going to try that argument in court though after i murder a family. "your honor, according to bell's theorem, they probably never even really existed anyway, so i couldn't have killed them!"

this is no more relevant to my real life than jesus dying on the cross. they're both just mental masturbation.

did your belief system make you instantly turn away from that scientific theorem because it doesn't fit into your neatly catologued version of "real" science? Are your scientific beliefs getting in the way of comprehending what this would mean? I don't "believe" it but does it not raise more questions about the unknown since it is accepted in the scientific world and taught in college physics? (where I learned about it, btw)

And no it doesn't justify murder... it points to the locality problem. By observing something we make it come into existence. Uh oh here comes the metaphysical/buddhist/pseudo-science diatribe...

Schrodinger's Cat is another cool scientific problem... kind of similar to Bell's Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

edit: I was reading about Schrodinger's Cat in popular culture and found this... kinda cool: "In Rock Band, a daily battle of the bands was entitled Schrödinger's Cat. It featured the songs "Alive" by Pearl Jam, "Dead" by The Pixies and "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi."

Hugh Freaking Dillon

he still stands wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

yes, if you're on acid for me, in my day to day life, it doesn't mean a damn thing. i'm going to try that argument in court though after i murder a family. "your honor, according to bell's theorem, they probably never even really existed anyway, so i couldn't have killed them!"

this is no more relevant to my real life than jesus dying on the cross. they're both just mental masturbation.

did your belief system make you instantly turn away from that scientific theorem because it doesn't fit into your neatly catologued version of "real" science? Are your scientific beliefs getting in the way of comprehending what this would mean? I don't "believe" it but does it not raise more questions about the unknown since it is accepted in the scientific world and taught in college physics? (where I learned about it, btw)

And no it doesn't justify murder... it points to the locality problem. By observing something we make it come into existence. Uh oh here comes the metaphysical/buddhist/pseudo-science diatribe...

Schrodinger's Cat is another cool scientific problem... kind of similar to Bell's Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

edit: I was reading about Schrodinger's Cat in popular culture and found this... kinda cool: "In Rock Band, a daily battle of the bands was entitled Schrödinger's Cat. It featured the songs "Alive" by Pearl Jam, "Dead" by The Pixies and "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi."

this is the same thing as the age-old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound". Of COURSE it makes a sound. Sound need not be in the presence of an ear to exist.

in my eyes, there is no locality problem. if it exists, it exists, it doesn't take human eyes laid upon to make it so.

but just because we don't observe it, doesn't necessarily mean it DOES exist, either.

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

yes, if you're on acid for me, in my day to day life, it doesn't mean a damn thing. i'm going to try that argument in court though after i murder a family. "your honor, according to bell's theorem, they probably never even really existed anyway, so i couldn't have killed them!"

this is no more relevant to my real life than jesus dying on the cross. they're both just mental masturbation.

did your belief system make you instantly turn away from that scientific theorem because it doesn't fit into your neatly catologued version of "real" science? Are your scientific beliefs getting in the way of comprehending what this would mean? I don't "believe" it but does it not raise more questions about the unknown since it is accepted in the scientific world and taught in college physics? (where I learned about it, btw)

And no it doesn't justify murder... it points to the locality problem. By observing something we make it come into existence. Uh oh here comes the metaphysical/buddhist/pseudo-science diatribe...

Schrodinger's Cat is another cool scientific problem... kind of similar to Bell's Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

i didn't turn away from the theorem, i just think it doesn't matter to me. i covered my thoughts on it in the post you quoted:

"that link says the implications for this are that... quantum mechanics is incomplete. so what? so is evolutionary theory. so is the big bang. so are many others. what's the science response? let's write new papers and design new experiments to figure out what's going on. meanwhile, in religion, christians realize jesus never really talked about the implications of nuclear weapons, stem cell research, abortion, or even homosexuality. do they put their heads together to come up with a few relevant chapters to add to the bible touching on these subjects? no, they go back to an even older text that their text supposedly supplanted and draw out random provisions out of context and the attempt to fit modern facts into that box."

bottom line... bell's theorem does not prove your point, it proves mine. rather than being rejected becos it didn't jive with quantum mechanics, it has been endlessly explored and continues to be in order to find out how it fits into what we know about QM or even if it renders QM totally obsolete. religion does not and will not do this. thus why science is not faith. the very existence of that article disproves your contention that science operates on some form of faith and resistance to new ideas and theories.

he still stands

ugh... I didn't "contend" that science relies on faith or that it is faith. I said that your insistence of non-theism based on science is a faithful leap... just as is religion. "Becos" science is changing and has inherent flaws.

Your inability to comprehend these theorems is ironic given your compassion for it being an exhaustive and finite and immutable field. Bell's theorem says that all local experiments (quantum mechanics) are false (or that reality doesn't exist, which doesn't seem to be the case). NOT that it is incomplete. There is a distinct difference.

It proves my point because it shows the flaws of science... thus by relying on science to make a decision of "god or no-god" you are making a faithful leaped.

Science is my passion... but it doesn't prove shit about god. For example, the big-bang theory SCREAMS of creationism... which is why many atheist physicists HATE it.

People who are bystanders of science, who don't really know much about it, seem to think that it can dissprove god or spirituality or whatever. (it does certainly dissprove certain aspects of the bible). Increasingly, scientists aren't so sure. Hell, even Stephen Hawking met with the pope a few years ago.

he still stands

Johnny Sitar wrote:

this is the same thing as the age-old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound". Of COURSE it makes a sound. Sound need not be in the presence of an ear to exist.

in my eyes, there is no locality problem. if it exists, it exists, it doesn't take human eyes laid upon to make it so.

but just because we don't observe it, doesn't necessarily mean it DOES exist, either.

come on people... do a little reading before you form a baseless opinion:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observ ... in_science

"In science, the term observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed."

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

ugh... I didn't "contend" that science relies on faith or that it is faith. I said that your insistence of non-theism based on science is a faithful leap... just as is religion. "Becos" science is changing and has inherent flaws.

Your inability to comprehend these theorems is ironic given your compassion for it being an exhaustive and finite and immutable field. Bell's theorem says that all local experiments (quantum mechanics) are false (or that reality doesn't exist, which doesn't seem to be the case). NOT that it is incomplete. There is a distinct difference.

It proves my point because it shows the flaws of science... thus by relying on science to make a decision of "god or no-god" you are making a faithful leaped.

Science is my passion... but it doesn't prove shit about god. For example, the big-bang theory SCREAMS of creationism... which is why many atheist physicists HATE it.

People who are bystanders of science, who don't really know much about it, seem to think that it can dissprove god or spirituality or whatever. (it does certainly dissprove certain aspects of the bible). Increasingly, scientists aren't so sure. Hell, even Stephen Hawking met with the pope a few years ago.

you assume i made a leap from science to atheism. i didn't. i'm a lawyer by training, not a physicist. and in my field, if you want me to believe something, you have to prove it's the case. i disbelieve god becos nobody has ever given me any reason, proof or evidence to believe god exists and there is lots of evidence that he does not exist in the form contemplated by most modern religions, not becos i think science has disproved god. i only defend science here becos it is a far more reasonable basis for daily life decisions than religion, based on its openness to new information. i don't believe in santa clause either, not becos the physics of one guy visiting everyone's houses negates the idea, but becos there is no proof he exists and a mountain of evidence indicating he doesn't. my atheism is not some logical leap of faith from science to atheism, nor do i think that's the case for most atheists i know. it exists separate from science, simply by virtue of the fact that pro-god people have no proof, and the circumstantial evidence and what we know about the world, while imperfect, falls more on the no-god side of things than the pro-god side of things.

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

Johnny Sitar wrote:

this is the same thing as the age-old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound". Of COURSE it makes a sound. Sound need not be in the presence of an ear to exist.

in my eyes, there is no locality problem. if it exists, it exists, it doesn't take human eyes laid upon to make it so.

but just because we don't observe it, doesn't necessarily mean it DOES exist, either.

come on people... do a little reading before you form a baseless opinion:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observ ... in_science

"In science, the term observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed."

the effect of someone watching or not watching as a tree falls is so minimal as to be utterly irrelevant in any real sense.

he still stands

soulsinging wrote:

he still stands wrote:

Johnny Sitar wrote:

this is the same thing as the age-old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound". Of COURSE it makes a sound. Sound need not be in the presence of an ear to exist.

in my eyes, there is no locality problem. if it exists, it exists, it doesn't take human eyes laid upon to make it so.

but just because we don't observe it, doesn't necessarily mean it DOES exist, either.

come on people... do a little reading before you form a baseless opinion:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observ ... in_science

"In science, the term observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed."

the effect of someone watching or not watching as a tree falls is so minimal as to be utterly irrelevant in any real sense.

true... but it doesn't just apply to a lone random tree in a forest. Obviously... :?

soulsinging

he still stands wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

the effect of someone watching or not watching as a tree falls is so minimal as to be utterly irrelevant in any real sense.

true... but it doesn't just apply to a lone random tree in a forest. Obviously... :?

if you say so. let me ask... have you ever tried to walk through walls or kill animals with your thoughts, like these guys?

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/m ... areatgoats