you know the thought processes used to evaluate science can not be applied in the valuation and validation of God. different thought processes must come into play.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Aw man, who evere said we had absolute knowledge of anything ?? Not me , that's for sure. I only yearn for relative knowledge, but even that is ebnough to satisfy me that God has as much chance of existence as the Easter Bunny.
My refence point is teh Hubble photos of the Pillars of Creation. Massive nebulae of cosmic dust light years in dimension where you can see stars being born. The possibility of a power vast enough to create that with a thought and a wave of the hand is small enough to be approaching 1/infinnity.
then what did create that? i dont believe anything waves its hand to create it either, but i dont know what else could have.
Cos they are not on this board presenting their beliefs, mostly.
The political activity is something that draws fire from me. Liberalism is self-threatening by definition, becasue it allows the growth of elelments which would destroy it, but conservatism crushes them. I'm just doing a bit of liberalism standing up for itself, and protecting it's cave, so to speak.
Also I don't know as much about the other religions you mentioned, so to comment about them is worse than ignorance. Though I am an athiest, I have reasonable knowledge of christain theology.
that's a whole other debate. i can assure you the christians around here hate me becos i go off on them when they start talking about religious politics nothing makes me more angry than someone who justifies their voting by saying it's what their preacher told them to do.
IMO, the biblical God actually permeates anger, jealousy, pride, envy and so on.
The Bible teaches two contradictory concepts, free-will and determinism (God's Plan). The emphasis is placed on free-will, that one has the ultimate choice to choose the path of Good or Evil and the Bible describes what these paths are. The intentions of this may be good on an individual basis, it gives one incentives to make good choices. However, in a social context this paradigm is detrimental. Perhaps something not considered at the time of it's creation.
I will never forget the revelations that were swimming in my head last night. My current understanding is that at the level of profound truths, the opposite to a profound truth is another profound truth (credit to the amazing Mr Niels Bohr for that!) I have no problem harmonizing the "conflicting" concepts of free-will and determinism. I agree that with the bible beliefs you mention, that we have the choice to choose from the ideal option and the less ideal option at all times, and the consequences of our actions help us learn and evolve. I believe we are this one collective Soul ( ), individualized into varying perspectives. We are truly never free from being part of a much bigger picture with purposes beyond our individuality. And yet our individuality is a crucial part of this process.
All that anger stuff was about humans projecting their own unconscious flaws on this God. During my spiritual experiences, my "revelations" were perfect, Divine, and amazing, but the minute I consider them, or talk about them, etc, I distort them. Sort of like when we look at the quantum world and affect it by our effort to understand it. When I talk about this stuff, I cannot do it justice. My words are so far removed from the truth that it's frustrating.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
then what did create that? i dont believe anything waves its hand to create it either, but i dont know what else could have.
I dunno, that's pretty ineffable, totally ineffable actually, but it's existence causes me to wonder, nto to confine the answer to the paltry tale of Creation !!
I will never forget the revelations that were swimming in my head last night. My current understanding is that at the level of profound truths, the opposite to a profound truth is another profound truth (credit to the amazing Mr Niels Bohr for that!) I have no problem harmonizing the "conflicting" concepts of free-will and determinism. I agree that with the bible beliefs you mention, that we have the choice to choose from the ideal option and the less ideal option at all times, and the consequences of our actions help us learn and evolve. I believe we are this one collective Soul ( ), individualized into varying perspectives. We are truly never free from being part of a much bigger picture with purposes beyond our individuality. And yet our individuality is a crucial part of this process.
All that anger stuff was about humans projecting their own unconscious flaws on this God. During my spiritual experiences, my "revelations" were perfect, Divine, and amazing, but the minute I consider them, or talk about them, etc, I distort them. Sort of like when we look at the quantum world and affect it by our effort to understand it. When I talk about this stuff, I cannot do it justice. My words are so far removed from the truth that it's frustrating.
I just want to elaborate with you on this dualistic concept in the Bible. If taken to mean that free-will is the ability to make decisions to influence one's own fate. And God's plan is taken as those things which we cannot control. There are two ways of interpreting this. One is that simply our ability as human beings to make decisions is a key part of our survival, our health, happiness and so on. Every moment of our lives we make decisions. Each one affecting us in chaotic ways. Every decision we make has far greater consequences than we are aware of. God's plan or the determinism, ultimately says that those decisions are much more than the work of consciousness alone. One could feel forgiveness and love for their fellows knowing humans are imperfect. Alternatively, where I think the message gets distorted; is believing that God's plan is not a big part of decision making. Placing all the burden on the individual shoulders. I think the idea of the Bible is that emphasis on determinism, but also the emphasis on decision making, the two key important things that I'm also concerned with. The problem I have with the Bible, or any religion teaching the same thing, is that it's obscured by fancy stories and idols. The basic message gets lost in all the stuff built up around it. I take a more blunt approach to the whole thing.
It's just the way everyone behaves. I think much of Freud's theories and a lot of psychology, is based around the way people think in western culture. But neuroscience has shown that things are much more fundamental than that. It's like assembly language, machine code, and programming languages, different levels that computer software and hardware operate. At the very fundamental level of human software, we could develop any kind of system. The brain is so plastic that people can manipulate it with their own thoughts. When people go to regression therapy, it's a known fact that memories are often implanted through the procedure. That is the potency of suggestion alone on the plasticity of the brain. At that level, it's pretty obvious how everything works. Not many, if any neuroscientists are dualists or indeterminists. Total determinism predates christianity, it's the oldest thing in the book. It's essentially proven by modern science. Christianity acknowledges it as well, as the ultimate decider. I think this whole free-will thing is blown way out of proportion. That's my problem with the history of this culture. Hard determinism sets straight the way people think about reality. Dualism leaves the door wide open for people to pick and choose what events and decisions were an act of free-will and what was not.
An excerpt from http://www.brainsource.com/criminal_brain.htm
Research is converging from many fronts significantly linking serious crime with brain abnormalities. Cultural understanding and treatment of criminal behavior must keep pace with neuroscientific advances. Mitigating circumstances to criminal behavior does not excuse the behavior; understanding those factors provides the foundation for humane understanding and treatment that goes well beyond locking someone up and throwing away the key, or worse.
In a way, I don't even care if there is a such thing as free-will, or God or any of that bolagna. I just want society to change it's ludicrous ways. Between pride, envy, consumerism, nationalism, capitalism, usury, sexism, racism, even the school yard bullying. It's all built on this dualist/indeterminist concept, based on determinism, all that stuff is aweful. How can a person have an ego, if they never learned the concept of free-will, if they were consistently taught hard determinism?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I dunno, that's pretty ineffable, totally ineffable actually, but it's existence causes me to wonder, nto to confine the answer to the paltry tale of Creation !!
Creation is a paradox. I've never understood the assumption of creation. The idea is that things exist, so they must have been created, but to presuppose a creator would be paradoxical, because it would be infinity thereafter. It's the old turtle problem.
The most widely known version today appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which begins with an anecdote about an encounter between a scientist and an old lady:
A well-known scientist (some say it was the philosopher Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
It is possible that the lady's comment came after Russell's 1927 lecture Why I Am Not a Christian where, in discounting the "First Cause" argument intended to be a proof of God's existence, he comments:
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I just want to elaborate with you on this dualistic concept in the Bible. If taken to mean that free-will is the ability to make decisions to influence one's own fate. And God's plan is taken as those things which we cannot control. There are two ways of interpreting this. One is that simply our ability as human beings to make decisions is a key part of our survival, our health, happiness and so on. Every moment of our lives we make decisions. Each one affecting us in chaotic ways. Every decision we make has far greater consequences than we are aware of. God's plan or the determinism, ultimately says that those decisions are much more than the work of consciousness alone. One could feel forgiveness and love for their fellows knowing humans are imperfect.
EXACTLY. This is why the Truths in the bible are no different than what you propose regarding determinism. It's about rising above the programming with an understanding of ourselves and others beyond our egos, or who we think we are which is about the lower level flaws we've learned. This is also completely consistent with the basic psychological concept of becoming one with who we really are--the Self--which is FAR more than this tiny, false contrived egoistic self most people relate to.
The things people hate about religion--the things an athiest sees as flawed within religion, including with the highest religious leaders, is their human animal base flaws, errors and contradictions. And again, this is part of the human experience. This is what the Truths in religion at it's essence are about: we are deeply flawed or "sinful". Until we can accept that our basic nature as humans is this, we'll continue to make all these "sinful" errors. The true basis--the true spirituality beneath the false human errors put on religion, is exactly what you or I perceive--the truth about the way out.
The one thing I would say differently than what you said is when you said "God's plan or the determinism, ultimately says that those decisions are much more than the work of consciousness alone." I agree in the sense that those decisions are much more than the work of the individual consciousness, or the ego, alone. (in psychology, for example, they perceive our individual consciousness to extend into the collective consciousness. This is considered natural, not supernatural)
There ARE churches, religious leaders, etc,--and I see them all around--whose basic point is to open people to exactly what you are I are trying to open them to, through this concept. They were started for this purpose--to awaken people to what is real. The thing is that people who are programmed to believe in authority look to church for an authority that they will trust to tell them about this. And churches know what they need to do in order to give people what they need to progress.
Consider onelongsong for a minute, here. He and I have had a deep understanding that we've shared for this past year. Both of us have had unusual situations with our brains that have allowed us to step outside the usual human view/perspective. Due to our situations, we both have this fundamental understanding, of seeing how people are oblivious to the truth of life beneath the human smokescreens or illusions. We both recognize the fundamentals beyond what human personalities and interpretations have put upon such Truths. The Truths themselves are so big and pervasive and so beyond what we know. Interestingly, you also seem to know this, although you speak it in a different language. And also, you have had "brain issues". Maybe you can understand what I see as the paradox of the deeper and complemetary truths...they fit perfectly without opposing each other. Like with the contradictions in classical physics and quantum physics. The "brain damage" onelongsong, yourself or I have had, appears to be the actual mechanism that has allowed us to see outside of the basic hypnosis. While it's an illness or problem in one way of looking at it, on another more fundamental level, it's the Truthful way of seeing. This is why on spiritual levels, the human brain is seen as what keeps us focussing on our scripts, and programming. What is seen as amazing, and the saving grace to the average person--our brains, on another level is what keeps us separate from the truth.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Alternatively, where I think the message gets distorted; is believing that God's plan is not a big part of decision making. Placing all the burden on the individual shoulders. I think the idea of the Bible is that emphasis on determinism, but also the emphasis on decision making, the two key important things that I'm also concerned with. The problem I have with the Bible, or any religion teaching the same thing, is that it's obscured by fancy stories and idols. The basic message gets lost in all the stuff built up around it. I take a more blunt approach to the whole thing.
Keep in mind that the bible and religion is not intended to teach you and your minority style of learning. Religions are there to teach the entrenched masses, who are looking to authority figures. There is a distinct group of people who are just at this stage in their evolution. In terms of personal evolutionary developmental stages, every human in their development goes through this period of rigidly believing authority. So this method is right for individuals at that stage. People such as myself, or philosopher Ken Wilber are bent on preserving the healthy aspects of these stages, to support and enable the people at such stages to be able to go through it in as healthy was as possible. We recognize that they WILL go through the stage, and that it's necessary in order to get to the other side. Some will stay in this stage, because their energy is too bogged down for them to progress out, but they still make individual progress within this stage throughout their lives. This stage of individual human development WILL include polarized ideas of "right/wrong". Also keep in mind that many people might perceive an Einstein God, and still go to church and weed through the authoritarian "sin"/blame aspects. I see that a LOT.
I agree with you that at that level of awareness, and from our perspective, the Truth does get distorted. If you keep in mind that humans at many stages (and I still work with this) see a split, dualistic view. They are not able to understand that the power and the ability is IN them--the Truths. Remember that Jesus' method was to teach that God was within. And that God is our Father--the parent to our very being. This is an awesome metaphor to depict this concept to someone who can't otherwise understand it.
It's just the way everyone behaves. I think much of Freud's theories and a lot of psychology, is based around the way people think in western culture. But neuroscience has shown that things are much more fundamental than that.
Yes. This is why there are people such as myself who recognize that basic science truths are the same thing as basic religious truths--seeing beyond the programs. The science/religion split is another false dichotomy like right/wrong. The problem in both science and religion is about human flaw and dogma that is about human psychology, and not truth.
If you are saying that science shows us that how we think is much more fundamental than our surface psychology, I completely agree.
It's like assembly language, machine code, and programming languages, different levels that computer software and hardware operate. At the very fundamental level of human software, we could develop any kind of system. The brain is so plastic that people can manipulate it with their own thoughts. When people go to regression therapy, it's a known fact that memories are often implanted through the procedure. That is the potency of suggestion alone on the plasticity of the brain. At that level, it's pretty obvious how everything works. Not many, if any neuroscientists are dualists or indeterminists. Total determinism predates christianity, it's the oldest thing in the book. It's essentially proven by modern science. Christianity acknowledges it as well, as the ultimate decider. I think this whole free-will thing is blown way out of proportion. That's my problem with the history of this culture. Hard determinism sets straight the way people think about reality. Dualism leaves the door wide open for people to pick and choose what events and decisions were an act of free-will and what was not.
The thing I see, though, is that determinists still have false dichotomies in areas beyond the pure science Truths. Just like religious people do beyond the pure religious Truths. Because when the human psyche is split, which is normally the case, we will see the falseness. I think you believe, like I do, that this can be rectified.
An excerpt from http://www.brainsource.com/criminal_brain.htm
Research is converging from many fronts significantly linking serious crime with brain abnormalities. Cultural understanding and treatment of criminal behavior must keep pace with neuroscientific advances. Mitigating circumstances to criminal behavior does not excuse the behavior; understanding those factors provides the foundation for humane understanding and treatment that goes well beyond locking someone up and throwing away the key, or worse.
I completely agree, as you know.
Here is where I agree with what soulsinging was saying in one of these debates: due to our dichtomous and false perceptions, the majority of people will still drastically distort these truths when they are filtered into the masses. Just like most people distort religious or science ones all the time--because of fundamental problems in the human condition. On all levels from that of scientist, to psychologist, on down to parole folk, or jailers. So for everyone you or I teach of our "great revelations", for as many people as we help, a negative backlash will also move into action. However, since I plan to unleash myself on the world with this as a self-help person, I've pondered this problem for years. We will be teachers of the truth. That can never, ever be diminished. The dichotomous ways these truths will become distorted is natural and is evolutionarily sound. People will move in a two steps forward, one step back way. That's how it works. There are benefits, and there will be fallout. But it is still within the processes of evolution and hence purposeful and progressive.
In a way, I don't even care if there is a such thing as free-will, or God or any of that bolagna. I just want society to change it's ludicrous ways. Between pride, envy, consumerism, nationalism, capitalism, usury, sexism, racism, even the school yard bullying. It's all built on this dualist/indeterminist concept, based on determinism, all that stuff is aweful. How can a person have an ego, if they never learned the concept of free-will, if they were consistently taught hard determinism?
Ultimately, I think it's cool that we can influence it all, and play an evolutionarily front-running role. That has amazing rewards! Especially when I learn more and more what I can change, and what I must align with. It's all set into play, it all Is what it Is and will be.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Just another poll I saw that I thought was interesting on scientists who believe in God from Live Science Magazine.
"About two-thirds of scientists believe in God, according to a new survey that uncovered stark differences based on the type of research they do.
The study, along with another one released in June, would appear to debunk the oft-held notion that science is incompatible with religion.
Those in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences, the study found.
The opposite had been expected.
Nearly 38 percent of natural scientists -- people in disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology -- said they do not believe in God. Only 31 percent of the social scientists do not believe.
In the new study, Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund surveyed 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities, asking 36 questions about belief and spiritual practices.
"Based on previous research, we thought that social scientists would be less likely to practice religion than natural scientists are, but our data showed just the opposite," Ecklund said.
Some stand-out stats: 41 percent of the biologists don't believe, while that figure is just 27 percent among political scientists.
In separate work at the University of Chicago, released in June, 76 percent of doctors said they believed in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife."
Seeing visions of falling up somehow.
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I dunno, I've said this many times in threads like this, but for me, there always remains that old problem about the end of the explanation chain. It seems to me, however successful our scientific explanations may be, they always have certain starting assumptions built in. Where do these laws come from in the first place? What is the origin of the logic for which all scientific reasoning is founded? I think we have to concede to the idea that the 'ultimate' questions will always lie outside the scope of empirical science as it is usually defined. However, I believe it is worth pursuing the path of rational inquiry to its limit, even if it is to 'prove' the chain of inference is incomplete.
Many scientists are religious, although most leave their religions 'at the door'. If any at all try to harmonize their spiritual side to their scientific side, it usually entails taking a very liberal view of religious doctrine and imbuing the world of science with a significance that some of their fellow scientists would find silly.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
I believe in the universe and all it's wonder. I stand in awe at the light of the moon at night. I do not believe in God, I do not worship the almighty creator of all things, my universe is not beyond the laws of nature, it is nature.
as to the thread....if a scientist believes in god...they're pretty selective in choosing facts..and would very much scrutinize their scientific conclusions.
I dunno, that's pretty ineffable, totally ineffable actually, but it's existence causes me to wonder, nto to confine the answer to the paltry tale of Creation !!
im not confined to creation, and i do wonder. and i fully support any and all investigation into it. but at a certain point, you go back and the source seems to defy logical thought... big bang? what caused and where'd the matter come from before it exploded? etc etc. you get to a point where the scientific explanation is so mind-bendingly weird and abstract that it seems to defy the human capacity to properly grasp it... that is what i consider god, something beyond the reach of human understanding. yes, we constantly make progress and learn more and resolve things that previously seemed incomprehensible, but it seems every time we do, we end up with even more questions after. it's awe-inspiring.
Those in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences, the study found.
The opposite had been expected.
that's weird. why would they expect social scientists to believe less? because of the traditionally liberal politics of social scientists? cos the survey results are almost exactly what i would have expected... physical sciences provide far more challenges to religious doctrine than social sciences would. i dont know why anyone would have expected the opposite. i think this is evidence of the success of the propaganda about liberals (social scientists) being godless heathens and conservatives being pious men.
Creation is a paradox. I've never understood the assumption of creation. The idea is that things exist, so they must have been created, but to presuppose a creator would be paradoxical, because it would be infinity thereafter. It's the old turtle problem.
The most widely known version today appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which begins with an anecdote about an encounter between a scientist and an old lady:
A well-known scientist (some say it was the philosopher Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
It is possible that the lady's comment came after Russell's 1927 lecture Why I Am Not a Christian where, in discounting the "First Cause" argument intended to be a proof of God's existence, he comments:
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
this is ridiculous because it attempts to apply science to creationism. science cannot tell us where all the matter in the universe came from or how it suddenly exploded or when time began either. not yet anyway. religion, rather than throwing up its hands and saying "we dont know," says well, this indescribable entity called god must have been behind things at that point, becos no other current explanation makes sense at this moment. the POINT of god is that god exists outside the human understanding of science and the universe and is not subject to things like physics or mathematics. SCIENCE is what says everything must have a cause, but it cannot supply the root cause. god is simply an attempt to explain the unexplainable. when we were young, it explained the moon and sun. now it explains the big bang. and so on. the problem with religion is when it ceases to become interprative and becomes prescriptive. instead of saying "i dont know how this works, so until i find a better explanation i will call it god," it begins to say "i believe in god and my god looks like this and therefore whatever i discover must adhere to this code or i will disregard it."
this is ridiculous because it attempts to apply science to creationism. science cannot tell us where all the matter in the universe came from or how it suddenly exploded or when time began either. not yet anyway. religion, rather than throwing up its hands and saying "we dont know," says well, this indescribable entity called god must have been behind things at that point, becos no other current explanation makes sense at this moment. the POINT of god is that god exists outside the human understanding of science and the universe and is not subject to things like physics or mathematics. SCIENCE is what says everything must have a cause, but it cannot supply the root cause. god is simply an attempt to explain the unexplainable. when we were young, it explained the moon and sun. now it explains the big bang. and so on. the problem with religion is when it ceases to become interprative and becomes prescriptive. instead of saying "i dont know how this works, so until i find a better explanation i will call it god," it begins to say "i believe in god and my god looks like this and therefore whatever i discover must adhere to this code or i will disregard it."
I don't see the concept of God as explaining the unexplainable, it's unexplaining the unexplainable. It does nothing for explanation at all. God is not a root cause either, it's just a variable place-holder. It does nothing to explain anything. There is still a turtle problem with God.
By the way, Creationism set foot into the realm of science with Intelligent Design, or any other time it professes to be a science, then it is subject to scientific inquiry, it is not a valid scientific theory.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
that's weird. why would they expect social scientists to believe less? because of the traditionally liberal politics of social scientists? cos the survey results are almost exactly what i would have expected... physical sciences provide far more challenges to religious doctrine than social sciences would. i dont know why anyone would have expected the opposite. i think this is evidence of the success of the propaganda about liberals (social scientists) being godless heathens and conservatives being pious men.
I figured it was be because social science understands the common reasons for why people believe things, such as conditioning, culture, etc, and objectively looks at such issues. It demystifies the spiritual. Psychology at face value takes all the mystery out of things like spiritual experiences, etc. I was surprised, though, as well to hear that they thought social scientists would believe less.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Scientists can test things.. and predict the future with relatively good results.
they can theorize about how the earth formed and how humans originated
buy they don't know why.. they don't know what came first - whether space was created intelligently or not.. they can only look at it and see what it does..
they can perhaps with relative certainty disprove some of the stories of the bible - but that does not disprove the existance of God or Jesus as his son...
Many Christians make claims that are scientifically unlikely.. but that is not what religion is about...
Science does not come close to eliminating intelligent design.. they only can show the unliklihood of many specific claims.
Scientists can test things.. and predict the future with relatively good results.
they can theorize about how the earth formed and how humans originated
buy they don't know why.. they don't know what came first - whether space was created intelligently or not.. they can only look at it and see what it does..
they can perhaps with relative certainty disprove some of the stories of the bible - but that does not disprove the existance of God or Jesus as his son...
Many Christians make claims that are scientifically unlikely.. but that is not what religion is about...
Science does not come close to eliminating intelligent design.. they only can show the unliklihood of many specific claims.
It doesn't matter if science can explain everything, nothing can explain everything, neither can Christianity or Islam. They don't do any better job of explaining anything.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I don't see the concept of God as explaining the unexplainable, it's unexplaining the unexplainable. It does nothing for explanation at all. God is not a root cause either, it's just a variable place-holder. It does nothing to explain anything.
what is wrong with that? it does not impede science. what is wrong with a god that occupies the shadowy grey area outside the realm of science?
By the way, Creationism set foot into the realm of science with Intelligent Design, or any other time it professes to be a science, then it is subject to scientific inquiry, it is not a valid scientific theory.
i know. i was just using it as a lazy example. intelligent design and creationism are pretty laughable in my humble opinion.
what is wrong with that? it does not impede science. what is wrong with a god that occupies the shadowy grey area outside the realm of science?
I don't know, I just find it to be pointless. It's like 'I don't know how the earth does not fall, so there must be an elephant under it, who's standing on a tortoise.' It just doesn't really mean anything.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Scientists can test things.. and predict the future with relatively good results.
they can theorize about how the earth formed and how humans originated
buy they don't know why.. they don't know what came first - whether space was created intelligently or not.. they can only look at it and see what it does..
they can perhaps with relative certainty disprove some of the stories of the bible - but that does not disprove the existance of God or Jesus as his son...
Many Christians make claims that are scientifically unlikely.. but that is not what religion is about...
Science does not come close to eliminating intelligent design.. they only can show the unliklihood of many specific claims.
Exactly Abu. I completely agree. They don't know why. They can see what it does.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Exactly Abu. I completely agree. They don't know why. They can see what it does.
Nobody else knows why either. So it's pretty pointless to single out science.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
they can perhaps with relative certainty disprove some of the stories of the bible - but that does not disprove the existance of God or Jesus as his son...
Many Christians make claims that are scientifically unlikely.. but that is not what religion is about...
scientists that try to disprove the works of God are only fools in my opionion. who has the mind of God? certainly not some scientist who thinks they can disprove a miracle done by a creator who is perfect. i was watching CNN late last night and they were trying to come up with a scientific way of Jesus walking on water. face it, it was a miricle so stop trying to put some scientific spin on it. until some scientist creates a human being out of nothing then i'll start paying more attention.
I died. I died and you just stood there. I died and you watched. I died and you walked by and said no. I'm dead.
yet you single out religion. how is that less pointless?
I've given props to religion for some of it's goals. But all in all, it's detrimental to society.
Remember the coin flip?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Nobody else knows why either. So it's pretty pointless to single out science.
I'm saying that it leaves the questions of meaning and the "why" part up to us to individually discover and/or intuit, sense or feel for ourselves. This is in a level of human experience, where the only right or wrong is about what is right or wrong for each one of us.
I would now like to say a few words about the old discussion of the freedom of the will. This, of course, is not related in any way to physics. Moreover, though attempts have been made through the ages, it is quite impossible to relate this problem to determinism; for a rigorous deterministic approach leaves no room for the concept of free will. On the other hand, it is clear that, like many other commonly used words, the word freedom is quite necessary to describe the richness of conscious life. Now, what do we use it for? In some situations we like to say that we have the feeling that it is possible for us, so to speak, to make the best of things. Speaking very loosely, it is simply a problem of cause; it is not possible to say whether we have the feeling that we are going to do something because we have the feeling that we can, or whether we can only because we will.
The problem is this, to see that we use the words "free will" to describe our situation in just as clear a manner as we use such words as "responsibility", "hope", and the like, all of which cannot be applied or defined unambiguously, except on the basis of the situations in which they are used.
He refers to free-will as being in the category of hope and responsibility. This is in a different aspect of life than science. This is in a realm where things ARE ambiguous, and have different meanings, depending on the person considering them, and depending on the context. For many people there is a complete assuredness of free-will as that richness of conscious life. That is between us and our philsophies and religions in a subjective place. As Niels Bohr says in the second paragraph, this is not objective--it can only be certain within the context used. This is the aspect of life that is subjective, within each individual.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I'm saying that it leaves the questions of meaning and the "why" part up to us to individually discover and/or intuit, sense or feel for ourselves. This is in a level of human experience, where the only right or wrong is about what is right or wrong for each one of us.
The other day you and I said these comments:
After that I found a speech given by Niels Bohr, the founding father of quantum phsyics. He said this in 1957:
He refers to free-will as being in the category of hope and responsibility. This is in a different aspect of life than science. This is in a realm where things ARE ambiguous, and have different meanings, depending on the person considering them, and depending on the context. For many people there is a complete assuredness of free-will as that richness of conscious life. That is between us and our philsophies and religions in a subjective place. As Niels Bohr says in the second paragraph, this is not objective--it can only be certain within the context used. This is the aspect of life that is subjective, within each individual.
I get what Bohr is saying, but it doesn't sound like indeterminism to me. It sounds like he's speaking on context of subjectivity, which he should not be. The philosophical question of free-will, is not a question of wether we feel free-will, it's wether or not it actually exists. Anyone, including determinists as hard as Susan Blackmore or myself, will say "yes, I feel free-will, do I actually have it? no.".
It sounds like Bohr is saying the term "free-will" suits the experience of it, what he's not saying in that speech is what causes free-will. He actually says "Speaking very loosely, it is simply a problem of cause; it is not possible to say whether we have the feeling that we are going to do something because we have the feeling that we can, or whether we can only because we will."
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Comments
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
then what did create that? i dont believe anything waves its hand to create it either, but i dont know what else could have.
that's a whole other debate. i can assure you the christians around here hate me becos i go off on them when they start talking about religious politics
All that anger stuff was about humans projecting their own unconscious flaws on this God. During my spiritual experiences, my "revelations" were perfect, Divine, and amazing, but the minute I consider them, or talk about them, etc, I distort them. Sort of like when we look at the quantum world and affect it by our effort to understand it. When I talk about this stuff, I cannot do it justice. My words are so far removed from the truth that it's frustrating.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
I dunno, that's pretty ineffable, totally ineffable actually, but it's existence causes me to wonder, nto to confine the answer to the paltry tale of Creation !!
I just want to elaborate with you on this dualistic concept in the Bible. If taken to mean that free-will is the ability to make decisions to influence one's own fate. And God's plan is taken as those things which we cannot control. There are two ways of interpreting this. One is that simply our ability as human beings to make decisions is a key part of our survival, our health, happiness and so on. Every moment of our lives we make decisions. Each one affecting us in chaotic ways. Every decision we make has far greater consequences than we are aware of. God's plan or the determinism, ultimately says that those decisions are much more than the work of consciousness alone. One could feel forgiveness and love for their fellows knowing humans are imperfect. Alternatively, where I think the message gets distorted; is believing that God's plan is not a big part of decision making. Placing all the burden on the individual shoulders. I think the idea of the Bible is that emphasis on determinism, but also the emphasis on decision making, the two key important things that I'm also concerned with. The problem I have with the Bible, or any religion teaching the same thing, is that it's obscured by fancy stories and idols. The basic message gets lost in all the stuff built up around it. I take a more blunt approach to the whole thing.
It's just the way everyone behaves. I think much of Freud's theories and a lot of psychology, is based around the way people think in western culture. But neuroscience has shown that things are much more fundamental than that. It's like assembly language, machine code, and programming languages, different levels that computer software and hardware operate. At the very fundamental level of human software, we could develop any kind of system. The brain is so plastic that people can manipulate it with their own thoughts. When people go to regression therapy, it's a known fact that memories are often implanted through the procedure. That is the potency of suggestion alone on the plasticity of the brain. At that level, it's pretty obvious how everything works. Not many, if any neuroscientists are dualists or indeterminists. Total determinism predates christianity, it's the oldest thing in the book. It's essentially proven by modern science. Christianity acknowledges it as well, as the ultimate decider. I think this whole free-will thing is blown way out of proportion. That's my problem with the history of this culture. Hard determinism sets straight the way people think about reality. Dualism leaves the door wide open for people to pick and choose what events and decisions were an act of free-will and what was not.
An excerpt from http://www.brainsource.com/criminal_brain.htm
Research is converging from many fronts significantly linking serious crime with brain abnormalities. Cultural understanding and treatment of criminal behavior must keep pace with neuroscientific advances. Mitigating circumstances to criminal behavior does not excuse the behavior; understanding those factors provides the foundation for humane understanding and treatment that goes well beyond locking someone up and throwing away the key, or worse.
In a way, I don't even care if there is a such thing as free-will, or God or any of that bolagna. I just want society to change it's ludicrous ways. Between pride, envy, consumerism, nationalism, capitalism, usury, sexism, racism, even the school yard bullying. It's all built on this dualist/indeterminist concept, based on determinism, all that stuff is aweful. How can a person have an ego, if they never learned the concept of free-will, if they were consistently taught hard determinism?
Creation is a paradox. I've never understood the assumption of creation. The idea is that things exist, so they must have been created, but to presuppose a creator would be paradoxical, because it would be infinity thereafter. It's the old turtle problem.
The most widely known version today appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which begins with an anecdote about an encounter between a scientist and an old lady:
A well-known scientist (some say it was the philosopher Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
It is possible that the lady's comment came after Russell's 1927 lecture Why I Am Not a Christian where, in discounting the "First Cause" argument intended to be a proof of God's existence, he comments:
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
The things people hate about religion--the things an athiest sees as flawed within religion, including with the highest religious leaders, is their human animal base flaws, errors and contradictions. And again, this is part of the human experience. This is what the Truths in religion at it's essence are about: we are deeply flawed or "sinful". Until we can accept that our basic nature as humans is this, we'll continue to make all these "sinful" errors. The true basis--the true spirituality beneath the false human errors put on religion, is exactly what you or I perceive--the truth about the way out.
The one thing I would say differently than what you said is when you said "God's plan or the determinism, ultimately says that those decisions are much more than the work of consciousness alone." I agree in the sense that those decisions are much more than the work of the individual consciousness, or the ego, alone. (in psychology, for example, they perceive our individual consciousness to extend into the collective consciousness. This is considered natural, not supernatural)
There ARE churches, religious leaders, etc,--and I see them all around--whose basic point is to open people to exactly what you are I are trying to open them to, through this concept. They were started for this purpose--to awaken people to what is real. The thing is that people who are programmed to believe in authority look to church for an authority that they will trust to tell them about this. And churches know what they need to do in order to give people what they need to progress.
Consider onelongsong for a minute, here. He and I have had a deep understanding that we've shared for this past year. Both of us have had unusual situations with our brains that have allowed us to step outside the usual human view/perspective. Due to our situations, we both have this fundamental understanding, of seeing how people are oblivious to the truth of life beneath the human smokescreens or illusions. We both recognize the fundamentals beyond what human personalities and interpretations have put upon such Truths. The Truths themselves are so big and pervasive and so beyond what we know. Interestingly, you also seem to know this, although you speak it in a different language. And also, you have had "brain issues". Maybe you can understand what I see as the paradox of the deeper and complemetary truths...they fit perfectly without opposing each other. Like with the contradictions in classical physics and quantum physics. The "brain damage" onelongsong, yourself or I have had, appears to be the actual mechanism that has allowed us to see outside of the basic hypnosis. While it's an illness or problem in one way of looking at it, on another more fundamental level, it's the Truthful way of seeing. This is why on spiritual levels, the human brain is seen as what keeps us focussing on our scripts, and programming. What is seen as amazing, and the saving grace to the average person--our brains, on another level is what keeps us separate from the truth.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
I agree with you that at that level of awareness, and from our perspective, the Truth does get distorted. If you keep in mind that humans at many stages (and I still work with this) see a split, dualistic view. They are not able to understand that the power and the ability is IN them--the Truths. Remember that Jesus' method was to teach that God was within. And that God is our Father--the parent to our very being. This is an awesome metaphor to depict this concept to someone who can't otherwise understand it.
Yes. This is why there are people such as myself who recognize that basic science truths are the same thing as basic religious truths--seeing beyond the programs. The science/religion split is another false dichotomy like right/wrong. The problem in both science and religion is about human flaw and dogma that is about human psychology, and not truth.
If you are saying that science shows us that how we think is much more fundamental than our surface psychology, I completely agree.
The thing I see, though, is that determinists still have false dichotomies in areas beyond the pure science Truths. Just like religious people do beyond the pure religious Truths. Because when the human psyche is split, which is normally the case, we will see the falseness. I think you believe, like I do, that this can be rectified.
I completely agree, as you know.
Here is where I agree with what soulsinging was saying in one of these debates: due to our dichtomous and false perceptions, the majority of people will still drastically distort these truths when they are filtered into the masses. Just like most people distort religious or science ones all the time--because of fundamental problems in the human condition. On all levels from that of scientist, to psychologist, on down to parole folk, or jailers. So for everyone you or I teach of our "great revelations", for as many people as we help, a negative backlash will also move into action. However, since I plan to unleash myself on the world with this as a self-help person, I've pondered this problem for years. We will be teachers of the truth. That can never, ever be diminished. The dichotomous ways these truths will become distorted is natural and is evolutionarily sound. People will move in a two steps forward, one step back way. That's how it works. There are benefits, and there will be fallout. But it is still within the processes of evolution and hence purposeful and progressive.
Ultimately, I think it's cool that we can influence it all, and play an evolutionarily front-running role. That has amazing rewards! Especially when I learn more and more what I can change, and what I must align with. It's all set into play, it all Is what it Is and will be.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
"About two-thirds of scientists believe in God, according to a new survey that uncovered stark differences based on the type of research they do.
The study, along with another one released in June, would appear to debunk the oft-held notion that science is incompatible with religion.
Those in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences, the study found.
The opposite had been expected.
Nearly 38 percent of natural scientists -- people in disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology -- said they do not believe in God. Only 31 percent of the social scientists do not believe.
In the new study, Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund surveyed 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities, asking 36 questions about belief and spiritual practices.
"Based on previous research, we thought that social scientists would be less likely to practice religion than natural scientists are, but our data showed just the opposite," Ecklund said.
Some stand-out stats: 41 percent of the biologists don't believe, while that figure is just 27 percent among political scientists.
In separate work at the University of Chicago, released in June, 76 percent of doctors said they believed in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife."
Pensacola '94
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St. Louis '22
No - it's because scientists would be the ones most closely studying God's creation and works.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Many scientists are religious, although most leave their religions 'at the door'. If any at all try to harmonize their spiritual side to their scientific side, it usually entails taking a very liberal view of religious doctrine and imbuing the world of science with a significance that some of their fellow scientists would find silly.
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
as to the thread....if a scientist believes in god...they're pretty selective in choosing facts..and would very much scrutinize their scientific conclusions.
im not confined to creation, and i do wonder. and i fully support any and all investigation into it. but at a certain point, you go back and the source seems to defy logical thought... big bang? what caused and where'd the matter come from before it exploded? etc etc. you get to a point where the scientific explanation is so mind-bendingly weird and abstract that it seems to defy the human capacity to properly grasp it... that is what i consider god, something beyond the reach of human understanding. yes, we constantly make progress and learn more and resolve things that previously seemed incomprehensible, but it seems every time we do, we end up with even more questions after. it's awe-inspiring.
that's weird. why would they expect social scientists to believe less? because of the traditionally liberal politics of social scientists? cos the survey results are almost exactly what i would have expected... physical sciences provide far more challenges to religious doctrine than social sciences would. i dont know why anyone would have expected the opposite. i think this is evidence of the success of the propaganda about liberals (social scientists) being godless heathens and conservatives being pious men.
this is ridiculous because it attempts to apply science to creationism. science cannot tell us where all the matter in the universe came from or how it suddenly exploded or when time began either. not yet anyway. religion, rather than throwing up its hands and saying "we dont know," says well, this indescribable entity called god must have been behind things at that point, becos no other current explanation makes sense at this moment. the POINT of god is that god exists outside the human understanding of science and the universe and is not subject to things like physics or mathematics. SCIENCE is what says everything must have a cause, but it cannot supply the root cause. god is simply an attempt to explain the unexplainable. when we were young, it explained the moon and sun. now it explains the big bang. and so on. the problem with religion is when it ceases to become interprative and becomes prescriptive. instead of saying "i dont know how this works, so until i find a better explanation i will call it god," it begins to say "i believe in god and my god looks like this and therefore whatever i discover must adhere to this code or i will disregard it."
I don't see the concept of God as explaining the unexplainable, it's unexplaining the unexplainable. It does nothing for explanation at all. God is not a root cause either, it's just a variable place-holder. It does nothing to explain anything. There is still a turtle problem with God.
By the way, Creationism set foot into the realm of science with Intelligent Design, or any other time it professes to be a science, then it is subject to scientific inquiry, it is not a valid scientific theory.
there are thousands of Christian Scientists silly.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
they can theorize about how the earth formed and how humans originated
buy they don't know why.. they don't know what came first - whether space was created intelligently or not.. they can only look at it and see what it does..
they can perhaps with relative certainty disprove some of the stories of the bible - but that does not disprove the existance of God or Jesus as his son...
Many Christians make claims that are scientifically unlikely.. but that is not what religion is about...
Science does not come close to eliminating intelligent design.. they only can show the unliklihood of many specific claims.
It doesn't matter if science can explain everything, nothing can explain everything, neither can Christianity or Islam. They don't do any better job of explaining anything.
what is wrong with that? it does not impede science. what is wrong with a god that occupies the shadowy grey area outside the realm of science?
i know. i was just using it as a lazy example. intelligent design and creationism are pretty laughable in my humble opinion.
I don't know, I just find it to be pointless. It's like 'I don't know how the earth does not fall, so there must be an elephant under it, who's standing on a tortoise.' It just doesn't really mean anything.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Nobody else knows why either. So it's pretty pointless to single out science.
scientists that try to disprove the works of God are only fools in my opionion. who has the mind of God? certainly not some scientist who thinks they can disprove a miracle done by a creator who is perfect. i was watching CNN late last night and they were trying to come up with a scientific way of Jesus walking on water. face it, it was a miricle so stop trying to put some scientific spin on it. until some scientist creates a human being out of nothing then i'll start paying more attention.
yet you single out religion. how is that less pointless?
I've given props to religion for some of it's goals. But all in all, it's detrimental to society.
Remember the coin flip?
The other day you and I said these comments:
After that I found a speech given by Niels Bohr, the founding father of quantum phsyics. He said this in 1957:
He refers to free-will as being in the category of hope and responsibility. This is in a different aspect of life than science. This is in a realm where things ARE ambiguous, and have different meanings, depending on the person considering them, and depending on the context. For many people there is a complete assuredness of free-will as that richness of conscious life. That is between us and our philsophies and religions in a subjective place. As Niels Bohr says in the second paragraph, this is not objective--it can only be certain within the context used. This is the aspect of life that is subjective, within each individual.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
I get what Bohr is saying, but it doesn't sound like indeterminism to me. It sounds like he's speaking on context of subjectivity, which he should not be. The philosophical question of free-will, is not a question of wether we feel free-will, it's wether or not it actually exists. Anyone, including determinists as hard as Susan Blackmore or myself, will say "yes, I feel free-will, do I actually have it? no.".
It sounds like Bohr is saying the term "free-will" suits the experience of it, what he's not saying in that speech is what causes free-will. He actually says "Speaking very loosely, it is simply a problem of cause; it is not possible to say whether we have the feeling that we are going to do something because we have the feeling that we can, or whether we can only because we will."