I recently managed to improve the milky way's appearance quite a bit,...
Y'know, by any measure, I find the ****ting on what G0atmaster expressed in the original post to be far more irritating than the original expression thereof. Can't those of you who don't share his beliefs just do an "Ooh, pretty" and leave it at that, or do we have to turn this into GenDisc Craphole Part Whatever?
More on-topic, ooh, pretty!
Y'know, by any measure, I find the ****ting on what G0atmaster expressed in the original post to be far more irritating than the original expression thereof.
Can't those of you who don't share his beliefs just do an "Ooh, pretty" and leave it at that, or do we have to turn this into GenDisc Craphole Part Whatever?
Can't those of you who don't share his beliefs just do an "Ooh, pretty" and leave it at that
Well, to their credit, I did ask them to share their thoughts if they could stomach reading the whole post... I've learned to not take it personally when someone disagrees with me, however vehemently. It's only when insults and personal attacks start to fly that I have a problem.
You know, let's dissect this a little more. Looking back through the thread I see no ****ting whatsoever. Let's review. Most of the posts are about how the sky is pretty with a nice digression from Herra about skyboxes.I didn't really have a problem with what Nemesis said, because he did make it very low-key (and besides, I don't think the sentiment G0atmaster was expressing necessarily has much to do with irreducible complexity as covered in that video, but whatever). Honestly, it was your post that made me raise my eyebrows the most, much more because of your tone than what you were saying in it. No offense, but you've had a habit of taking on a holier-than-thou (lulz) attitude when expressing certain opinions, pulling a "This is how things really are and what you think is stupid and wrong herp" sentiment. I'd generally qualify that attitude as "****ting," and that's the same attitude I saw in your original post. There are many beliefs I encounter on a daily basis that I find to be rather silly, but I recognize that it's not always appropriate to state as much.
The only three posts that could possibly qualify as ****ting are those from myself, DarthGeek, and Nemesis. Nemesis linked a disagreeing viewpoint in a polite fashion. DarthGeek politely presented his own take on it, making it quite explicit it was a personal statement. I expressed my own views on the night sky in symmetry to G0atmaster's, and did not do so in a particularly rude matter.
I suppose you could argue Bobbau got involved too but mostly just said 'if you don't want to debate about it, fine'.
So there was hardly an issue at all instead you felt the need to make one. That's pretty crappy, kind of self-defeating don't you think?
Only people who agree with me have the right to express their beliefs? One side gets to say OH PRETTY HERE IS WHAT I THINK, the other side gets OH PRETTY?Yes because that is exactly what I implied by what I posted derp.
Nice. I wouldn't stand for that if it were your side getting the short end, pretty hypocritical of you not to take the same stance.
.it's about recognizing when it's a good time to speak up, and when it would be better to leave well enough alone. I think this thread definitely qualified as the latter.
I'd generally qualify that attitude as "****ting," and that's the same attitude I saw in your original post.
you're a BUTT
Metaphorically your entire argument boils down to 'wars are bad and ugly, therefore no one should defend themselves in wars (but we'll give the guy who starts the war a pass)'.
Of course I'm in the same boat as anyone else. To think otherwise would be silly.
Yes, in an ideal world, I do wish that G0atmaster would have limited his original post to the images themselves. However, I don't see that him "opening the can" gives everyone else free rein to dive right in and start wriggling around. We could have all chosen to just leave the can cracked a bit and not pried it the rest of the way open. But hey, look what fun ensued instead!
Mongoose, he invited people to post their own opinions here. And yes, that does give everyone who is so inclined leave to post their opinions, even those that disagree with the original sentiment expressed here. It's only when things really get abusive that we should moderate this.Fair enough. I didn't feel like this was the vein of response that G0atmaster was looking to get, but if he's fine with it, I won't continue to make an issue of it.
To prove the existence of God, I would use an in-depth analysis of the human condition and the evidences of such laid within the very soul of every man, woman and child alive.
In fact, upon doing a comparative analysis between the Bible and the myths of pretty much everything else, the narrative of the Bible is found to be quite unique indeed.
QuoteIn fact, upon doing a comparative analysis between the Bible and the myths of pretty much everything else, the narrative of the Bible is found to be quite unique indeed.
No actually it is quite remarkably similar to a number of other mythologies from around the time. read up about Enuma Elish (creation myth) and Gilgamesh (Noah's flood ect). but this irrelevant to it's factuality.
now, the basis of all of what you just said is constructed on assumption that you are right. you claim to prove God, by examining the soul, but the soul is just as insubstantial (i.e. lacking in substance, not physical) as God is. how would you first prove the soul? by examining the qualities of God? I hope you see how circular that is, and the fact that you are already using the soul to prove god shows you have an assumption and are trying to find evidence to fit to it, rather than looking at the evidence and deciding what it implies.
This also is moving in an unproductive direction, there very well could be a deist God that has not interfered with the universe since it's creation and set the universe up in such a way that discovering it would be impossible, arguing about an inability to disprove this is as useless as trying to disprove that we are in the matrix. The whole thing is rigged by definition such that it is unfalsifiable, and is therefore a useless concept as far as I am concerned. What I am interested in is not the things we cannot disprove, but the things we can (within reason) prove, and the means by which we determine their factuality.
now addressing each other holistically is not going to accomplish anything, I doubt either one of us wants to read over reams of the others idea of poetic treatment of their own beliefs, so let me try to determine a few simple things to see where you draw the line between poetic literature and factual recounting of history in the bible.
So, I believe you have stated point blank that you do not accept evolution, so does that mean that you wholly reject it or do you accept it to some degree?
do you accept common decent (all organisms on the planet were descended from a single common ancestor), or are you among those who believe that God made a certain set of 'kinds' which have since differentiated into the current diversity, or do you believe that all species on earth were created as they are now and have not changed at all since their creation?
do you accept the concept of heredity (offspring are similar to their parents)?
do you accept the concept of mutation (offspring will have some small random unique amount of difference not accounted for between the parents)?
do you accept the concept of natural selection (the creatures that fail to produce successful offspring will not have their traits expressed in future generations)?
how old do you think the earth is?
I agree with this. The problem I have, however, is in combining this with the idea of mutation to create a theory of evolution. How can mutations that are supposed to be random be guaranteed to bring about beneficial change? By Natural Selection, you say. Well then, what is to say that those same mutations won't reoccur later down the line?
Why does there seem to be an overall trend of what we would call advancement or progressiveness in increasing complexity?
Any designer will tell you that the more complex something is, the LESS likely it is to run efficiently, the LESS likely it may survive.
Furthermore, I find the whole argument itself to be rather circular. "The Environment changes to better meet the needs of the changing environment." WTF? Plus, this does nothing to account for the onset of what we call sentience, consciousness.
Also, to Jr2's point: Slashdot posted an article about a year back stating, essentially, that radioactive decay is not the universal constant that it was once thought to be. In fact, radioactive decay on Earth has to do with the Earth's distance from the sun. How trippy is that?
For example, everyone everywhere believes for some reason or another that there is a "right" way to live and a "wrong" way. There is no "naturalistic" explanation for this. For example, if two people were walking, and were mugged at gunpoint, it would be considered selfish and wrong for one man to leave his friend to become a victim instead of staying and helping him fight off the attacker. In this instance, the "herd instinct" and the "self-preservation instinct" are in conflict. Something else, something entirely different than any inborn instinct, causes us to choose one of these two instinctual responses as being a more just course of action. Why? This is not to say that everyone, everywhere, proscribes to an identical moral code. But we ALL do proscribe to SOME moral code, and we all readily admit to the fact that we CANNOT, no matter how hard we try, live up to our own ideal behavior.
I don't always have enough faith to believe some random internet dude that Google points me to.
I also like how you answered after a whole 6 mins, while doing a google search... did you even read my whole post or did you just zone in on that one thing so you could make a snide remark?
Respect is a 2 way street, good sir.
I missed the post before KJ's. I believed that the species in an environment, to a degree, make up that environment. What started the grand competition? Furthermore, if a single-celled organism would be better suited to survive if it became a multicelled organism, why are there still single-celled organisms around today? Doesn't Natural Selection dictate that the older, weaker, un-adapted species would die off?
Slashdot posted an article about a year back stating, essentially, that radioactive decay is not the universal constant that it was once thought to be. In fact, radioactive decay on Earth has to do with the Earth's distance from the sun. How trippy is that?
I'm not talking about arousal/dopamine response, I'm talking about long-term, vasopressin/oxytocin mediated 'true love'.
Furthermore, if a single-celled organism would be better suited to survive if it became a multicelled organism, why are there still single-celled organisms around today? Doesn't Natural Selection dictate that the older, weaker, un-adapted species would die off?
Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary ailments, such as congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism. Official pronouncements insisted that these individuals were a drain on the German people, both biologically and financially (see right). The law passed on this day ultimately led to an estimated 400,000 people being involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national goal of "racial hygiene," to eliminate handicapped descendants.
I don't understand why those without an understanding of a theory feel they can form opinions on it.
It's like arguing about the morality of quantum chromodynamics when you don't know what a color charge is. If you can make statements likeQuoteOnly if there is a multicelled organism filling the same niche more effectively than a single-celled organism. If the single-celler is better suited (more fit for) a given environment, then the single-celler will not be replaced.
you clearly don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion on it. And since God, if It exists, can create the world any way it damn well pleases, why is it important for you have to have an attitude on evolution? Just leave it to the scientists.
I don't understand why those without an understanding of a theory feel they can form opinions on it.
It's like arguing about the morality of quantum chromodynamics when you don't know what a color charge is. If you can make statements likeQuoteOnly if there is a multicelled organism filling the same niche more effectively than a single-celled organism. If the single-celler is better suited (more fit for) a given environment, then the single-celler will not be replaced.
you clearly don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion on it. And since God, if It exists, can create the world any way it damn well pleases, why is it important for you have to have an attitude on evolution? Just leave it to the scientists.
So when discussing such subjects, about creationism versus evolutionism
I don't understand why those without an understanding of a theory feel they can form opinions on it.
It's like arguing about the morality of quantum chromodynamics when you don't know what a color charge is. If you can make statements likeQuoteOnly if there is a multicelled organism filling the same niche more effectively than a single-celled organism. If the single-celler is better suited (more fit for) a given environment, then the single-celler will not be replaced.
you clearly don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion on it. And since God, if It exists, can create the world any way it damn well pleases, why is it important for you have to have an attitude on evolution? Just leave it to the scientists.
Yes, it was an oversimplification for the purposes of making a point. Which I admit is not very scientific, but I hoped it would help illustrate the point.
And I do (arrogantly) presume to have enough of an education in basic biology to actually be able to form an opinion on the subject, thank you very much.
My main gripe with evolution, no matter if i'm biased or not, is that what the theory of evolution is being used for. Eugenics, developed by Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin. The idea was very popular under the Nazis, for instance. One of such examples is the Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring).
I'm not completely sure which theories work better - The one described in the Bible or the one described by scientists. Both sides give me reasons to believe as well as to mistrust them. Losses of translation versus biased researchers; convenient quotation to convince people something's accepted by God, versus reaching pre-set conclusions to push through legislation. I'm not too convinced of both sides.
The main problem with that is that we all, sadly, don't have the needed information to make conclusions on whether Evolution(ism) or Creation(ism) is the correct explanation. I'm thinking it's something in between, or completely different.
I'm meaning to bring out what people -use- the ideas for, and they generally can turn bad, especially in the hands of a state religion/scientific theory. By convincing groups of people that theory A is correct, and you're able to mold theory A into your plans, what you're trying to reach, it's a problem that makes it hard for me to support such ideas.
Creation(ism) has it's own problems, though. Things that worked 2000 years ago because of the climate, the world of then, and it's population, combined with a less developed scientific model, makes using such information harder. If only the Bible was written from the current knowledge and time we live in, it would probably get closer to the, truth. Same can be said in different ways about evolution(ism) in my opinion, but mostly because of it being abused for, as said, political, sociological, and sometimes psychological reasons and goals.
Conclusion: I don't think any of these ideas are correct, though they give decent perspectives, theories, of what actually happened. It's like two somewhat unreliable narrators to the same story.
The most important thing is not to let such discussions divide you or make you think the opposite site are [fill in derogatory terms]. This subject is in dire need of more information and a lot less two-camps-claiming-total-knowledge.
Conclusion: I don't think any of these ideas are correct, though they give decent perspectives, theories, of what actually happened. It's like two somewhat unreliable narrators to the same story. The most important thing is not to let such discussions divide you or make you think the opposite site are [fill in derogatory terms]. This subject is in dire need of more information and a lot less two-camps-claiming-total-knowledge.
One time someone said to me that the center of the Milky Way looked like a cross and therefore god exists. Using that kind of BS reasoning I asked if the Sombraro galaxy was made by Mexicans. True story.Best post so far.
The main problem with that is that we all, sadly, don't have the needed information to make conclusions on whether Evolution(ism) or Creation(ism) is the correct explanation.
Basically, don't let incorrect spin-offs of correct theories/conclusions influence your judgment in a biased manner - I suppose that's what I mean to say with the example of Eugenics.ok, well, as far as I could tell this whole intercultural argument the human race has been colectivly having for the last hundred and fifty years or so has been focusing on the 'truthines' of evolution...
What I mean by it is, is that while the primary, main theory may be correct, a follow up, a spinoff, needs to be scrutinized perhaps double fold, to make sure it doesn't abuse the ideas brought from the primary to convince people to do things causing them to lose abilities, rights, or loss of material or life. So, instead of only discussing whether Creation or Evolution is right, it's also a good idea to look further, deeper into the situation, to find the pro's and con's of either theory, and to make sure that such theories cannot or will not be abused.
A person can have all the knowledge of the world, but it can be used against the entire world if intentions are less than good, instead of helping the human race develop further.
Anyone want to do some quick math? Measure the amount of decay in the rotation speed of the Earth. Now measure the amount of decay in the magnetic field of the Earth. Now calculate back 1,000,000 years.
More?
Ok, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
Measure the amount of sediment at the mouth of the major rivers on the Earth. Calculate back.
Measure the rate at which topographical features such as mountains erode. Calculate back.
The age of the Earth isn't a certain thing.
Anyone want to do some quick math? Measure the amount of decay in the rotation speed of the Earth. Now measure the amount of decay in the magnetic field of the Earth. Now calculate back 1,000,000 years.
Ok, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
Measure the amount of sediment at the mouth of the major rivers on the Earth. Calculate back.
Measure the rate at which topographical features such as mountains erode. Calculate back.
So, instead of only discussing whether Creation or Evolution is right, it's also a good idea to look further, deeper into the situation, to find the pro's and con's of either theory, and to make sure that such theories cannot or will not be abused.
Science does not look for things that are good or useful. It looks for things that are true.
How people use that knowledge is a separate matter.
Very good question. I suppose I must also state that I believe that, as the Bible claims, we are God's "masterpiece." His work of highest value. Now I also believe that the greater the "stuff" we are made of, the better, or worse, we can be. An amoeba cannot be very evil, nor can it be very good. A dog, on the other hand, can be vicious or nice. A human can be Hitler or Mother Theresa. Chimps obviously fall in there somewhere, and as a close genetic match to humans, I would say that they are a creature that has an essence that closely resembles a human soul.
Yet, they are not set apart like you or I. They do not contain within them the "pneuma" of God.
When the genius stop touching it and politics start to get involved in selling ideas to the public in order to gain more power.
JCDN, your problem is you are arguing something completely orthogonal to the current subject of the thread.
do you really want to start an argument about why we were arguing?
do you really want to start an argument about why we were arguing?
Depends on whether you're arguing that he's the culprit for the derailment.
do you really want to start an argument about why we were arguing?
Depends on whether you're arguing that he's the culprit for the derailment.
I feel G0atmaster started this as a troll thread. He just popped in after nearly two years of silence spouting about God on a generally secular forum. So I do feel you guys are being trolled softly.
No it is exactly what happened, I read it in my holy text about how religion and science began
No it is exactly what happened, I read it in my holy text about how religion and science began
do you really want to start an argument about why we were arguing?
Depends on whether you're arguing that he's the culprit for the derailment.
ah, so you would rather argue about who is responsible for the arguing about an argument about why we were arguing.
Anyone want to do some quick math? Measure the amount of decay in the rotation speed of the Earth. Now measure the amount of decay in the magnetic field of the Earth. Now calculate back 1,000,000 years.
More?
Ok, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
Measure the amount of sediment at the mouth of the major rivers on the Earth. Calculate back.
Measure the rate at which topographical features such as mountains erode. Calculate back.
The age of the Earth isn't a certain thing.
Ok, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
The age of the Earth isn't a certain thing.Depends what you call certain. It is very well supported. (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html)
Anyone want to do some quick math? Measure the amount of decay in the rotation speed of the Earth. Now measure the amount of decay in the magnetic field of the Earth. Now calculate back 1,000,000 years.
More?
Ok, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
Measure the amount of sediment at the mouth of the major rivers on the Earth. Calculate back.
Measure the rate at which topographical features such as mountains erode. Calculate back.
The age of the Earth isn't a certain thing.
Absolutely none of your proposed calculations is in any way practical or useful for deriving the age of the earth. As BW had mentioned the rotation speed of the earth actually can be tracked back quite a ways, but relating it to "the amount of decay in the earth's magnetic field" is completely nonsensical.
BW's done a good job discussing the ones involving geology. Now let's look at this one:QuoteOk, measure the rate of supernovae... now count the supernovae remnants.. calculate backward.
Biggest issue: how do you even correlate this to estimating the age of the earth?
Then, how do you go about actually counting supernova remnants? The expanding shells of debris of a SNR disperse back into the interstellar medium fairly quickly, within a million years. Just compare how much the Vela remnant has spread out (exploded ~11,000 years ago), with the Crab nebula (957 years ago), and SN1987A (24 years ago).
The dead stellar cores (neutron stars, pulsars, black holes) from a SNR do of course last much longer (essentially forever) but can be quite hard to detect. A solitary black hole or neutron star can be completely invisible, as can be a pulsar if its beam does not sweep past earth. You would need to take into account the relative number of remnants you can detect versus how many are out there that you cannot.
Finally, the idea has a major flaw in that the rate of supernovae occurrence is not constant. It is a function of how many young, massive stars there are at the given moment, which is dependent upon the rate of star formation, which is not the same from one galaxy to another, or even in one galaxy over long periods of time. As a galaxy ages there is less gas available to form new stars (since the process of star death does not return 100% of the gas back to the medium). Galaxy interactions can also affect the rate of star formation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starburst_galaxy)QuoteThe age of the Earth isn't a certain thing.Depends what you call certain. It is very well supported. (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html)
Those are all unrelated. Separate clocks, if you will. Just curious to know what they say. At the time value of 1,000,000 BC. Cause I for one would like to know how we evolved if the magnetic field of the Earth was so strong that the Earth was liquefied. And spinning so fast that it was flat like a pancake. And had mountains that reached the Moon.
Speaking of the Moon... I'm pretty sure it's orbit would do some rather interesting things too if tracked backward a bit. Unless we didn't have a Moon until recently.
Speaking of the Moon... I'm pretty sure it's orbit would do some rather interesting things too if tracked backward a bit.
Unless we didn't have a Moon until recently.To paraphrase Battuta,
P.S. Whatsisname, are you serious?? That article was written by two gentlemen, one whose first name is "Jihad," and the other whose last name is "Wisdom." And your forum handle is whatsisname. Oh the freakin irony.
P.S. Whatsisname, are you serious?? That article was written by two gentlemen, one whose first name is "Jihad," and the other whose last name is "Wisdom." And your forum handle is whatsisname. Oh the freakin irony.
A Second Look at Supernova Remnants
By Jon A. Covey, B.A., MT(ASCP)
Edited by Anita K. Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.
Let’s start with learning what a nova is and go from there. According to one idea, a nova is a star that suddenly ejects some of its matter, flares up and emits a tremendous amount of light that is about 10,000 times brighter than a normal star. This lasts for a few days or weeks and then fades away. The expanding shell of ejected gas may be visible telescopically for several years. Another idea is that novae are white dwarfs belonging to two-star (binary) systems. The companion star is a red giant which loses some of its matter to the dwarf. This influx of matter is heated up and flashes away as an expanding shell. [Abell]
What are Supernovae and Remnants?
A white dwarf star that acquires too much matter (possibly from a companion red giant) becomes unstable and explodes is a supernova. When the star’s mass exceeds that of the sun by 1.2 - 1.4 times, the star begins to degenerate and collapses. The star explosively releases the enormous gravitational energy the collapse generated. [Abell, p. 393-394] Alternatively, a supernova occurs when a star uses up all its fuel and cannot produce enough heat and pressure to maintain the weight of the star’s envelope, the star collapses and then explodes. The explosion propels the outer shell of the star into a rapidly expanding gas mass, leaving behind a pulsating star (a pulsar) such as the Crab Nebula of 1054 A.D. [Abell, p. 393-394] Davies says that the term "supernova remnant" refers to the huge cloud of expanding stellar debris that hurtles outwards from the origin at an initial velocity of upwards from 7,000 km/sec.
We can observe new supernovae visually. They are extremely bright, but after a short while, they can be seen only by radio wave telescopes. George Abell says that supernovae may occur in our galaxy at an average rate of between 30-50 years and that they are commonly observed in other galaxies. From this, one can calculate the number of supernova remnants that should be observable.
Craig Bracy mentioned that one could argue that possibly after 6,000 years supernova remnants (SNRs) are no longer observable. I was faced with this objection by some evolutionists on a CompuServe forum. I was about to reply to this objection when an astronomy buff chimed in saying, "And there are nebula that are significantly older than 6,500 years (modern detectors can detect a nebula that is about 150-200,00 years old. After that it has become too dim and diffuse)." Of course, I wanted to know which nebula were significantly older than 6,500 years and he replied that his Astronomy and Scientific American magazines were still packed and he would give me a reply when he unpacked them. He still hasn’t unpacked them, but he agrees that we should be able to observe SNRs well beyond 6,500 years. Initially, he thought I was referring to SNRs in the visible light range only, but when I explained to him that radio telescopes can observe them far longer, he agreed.
There are two things I would like to mention about supernova remnants (SNRs), contrary to what Hugh Ross said on Greg Koukl’s Stand To Reason program on KBRT AM 740 in March 1996. Hugh said that SNRs would be too dim to observe after 6,500 years. First, if there are any SNRs older than 6,500 years we would be able to observe them, and second, if stellar theory is correct, the number of first, second, and third stage SNRs we observe are consistent with a universe only 7,000 years and not with an older universe. Second, Hugh browbeat the caller’s source for this information, Keith Davies. The caller remarked that Davies had also reported that there weren’t enough detectable SNRs in our galaxy if it really was 10-15 billion years old. Hugh decided Davies didn’t have a very good grasp on big bang theory, missing Davies’ point altogether (perhaps because Hugh wants to push his big bang idea). The following comes from Keith Davies’ report in the Proceedings of the Third International Conference On Creationism 1994.
Time Limits for Observing SNRs
Supernova remnants go through three stages. In stage one, SNRs release prodigious quantities of energy. For a short while, a supernova can outshine an entire galaxy and releases enough neutrinos to power all the stars in a galaxy for several years (about 100 billion stars). The total radiative energy expended per second for second stage SNRs is about 1037 ergs. [Cioffi ] This computes to over 3 million years before a SNR radiates half its initial energy. Radio telescopes can easily detect SNRs during this stage. If we could see radio waves, we would see hundreds of luminous objects several times the diameter of the moon. The actual diameters of SNRs can be very big with older ones perhaps 300 light years across. If that doesn’t impress you, think about this. We could take every star in the our galaxy, about 200 billion, and fit them within a volume having as a radius out to the Pluto’s orbit without them touching. [Van Flandern] You could easily place every star in the known universe within the remnants boundary of one older supernova.
When supernovas enter the third stage they begin to thermally radiate, and they continue expanding to about 650 light years.
Expected Number of SNRs
How many supernova remnants should we expect to see based on t = 25 years (the shorter time span between supernova mentioned by Abell)? If the universe is only 7,000 years old, the number of supernova remnants actually seen for each stage is near the theoretical number that should be seen. Which universe (old or young) do these facts supports? Examine the table below and come to your own conclusion.
SNR Stage First Second Third
Number expected Old Universe ~2 2,256 5,033
Number expected Young Universe ~2 258 0
Actual # Seen 5 200 0
These results have raised some problems for astronomers. Cox remarked:
"The final example is the SNR population of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations have caused considerable surprise and loss of confidence...." [Cox]
Such a finding, that the number of SNRs is much less than they should be should cause loss of confidence in the belief that the universe is billions of years old, but for most astronomers a younger universe is an astrophysical heresy, inadmissible and unthinkable. They would have to redevelop the entire science of stellar evolution. However, Clark and Caswell still want to know:
"Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?" [Clark]
Over 10 years ago, the National Research Council suggested:
"Major questions about these objects that should be addressed in the coming decade are: Where have all the remnants gone?" [National Research Council]
They aren’t there yet. The universe isn’t old enough to have the expected number.
References
Abell, George O., 1984, Realm of the Universe, Saunders College Publishing, New York, pp. 389-390.
Cioffi and McKee, 1988, Supernova Remnants and the Interstellar Medium, Colloquium Proceedings, eds. Roger and Landeck, CUP, p. 437.
Clark and Caswell, 1979, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 174:267.
Cox, D., 1986, Astrophysical Journal, 304:771-779.
National Research Council, 1983, Challenges to Astronomy and Astrophysics working documents of the Astronomy Survey Committee, p. 166, National Academy Press.
Van Flandern, T., 1993, Dark Matter, Missing Planets & New Comets, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, p. 181.
in this study we extend trends until they hit one of the axes
Actually, I know Jihad means to struggle or to strive, usually in a religious context. And I barely had time to glance at the article.
Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang
by Jason Lisle, Ph.D.
The ‘distant starlight problem’ is sometimes used as an argument against biblical creation. People who believe in billions of years often claim that light from the most distant galaxies could not possibly reach earth in only 6,000 years. However, the light-travel–time argument cannot be used to reject the Bible in favour of the big bang, with its billions of years. This is because the big bang model also has a light-travel–time problem.
The background
In 1964/5, Penzias and Wilson discovered that the earth was bathed in a faint microwave radiation, apparently coming from the most distant observable regions of the universe, and this earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978.1 This Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) comes from all directions in space and has a characteristic temperature.2,3 While the discovery of the CMB has been called a successful prediction of the big bang model,4 it is actually a problem for the big bang. This is because the precisely uniform temperature of the CMB creates a light-travel–time problem for big bang models of the origin of the universe.
The problem
The temperature of the CMB is essentially the same everywhere5—in all directions (to a precision of 1 part in 100,000). 6 However (according to big bang theorists), in the early universe, the temperature of the CMB7 would have been very different at different places in space due to the random nature of the initial conditions. These different regions could come to the same temperature if they were in close contact. More distant regions would come to equilibrium by exchanging radiation (i.e. light8). The radiation would carry energy from warmer regions to cooler ones until they had the same temperature.
The problem is this: even assuming the big bang timescale, there has not been enough time for light to travel between widely separated regions of space. So, how can the different regions of the current CMB have such precisely uniform temperatures if they have never communicated with each other?9 This is a light-travel–time problem. 10
(http://i52.tinypic.com/15x8yky.gif)
The big bang model assumes that the universe is many billions of years old. While this timescale is sufficient for light to travel from distant galaxies to earth, it does not provide enough time for light to travel from one side of the visible universe to the other. At the time the light was emitted, supposedly 300,000 years after the big bang, space already had a uniform temperature over a range at least ten times larger than the distance that light could have travelled (called the ‘horizon’)11 So, how can these regions look the same, i.e. have the same temperature? How can one side of the visible universe ‘know’ about the other side if there has not been enough time for the information to be exchanged? This is called the ‘horizon problem’.12 Secular astronomers have proposed many possible solutions to it, but no satisfactory one has emerged to date (see Attempts to overcome the big bang’s ‘light-travel–time problem’ below).
Summing up
The big bang requires that opposite regions of the visible universe must have exchanged energy by radiation, since these regions of space look the same in CMB maps. But there has not been enough time for light to travel this distance. Both biblical creationists and big bang supporters have proposed a variety of possible solutions to light-travel–time difficulties in their respective models. So big-bangers should not criticize creationists for hypothesizing potential solutions, since they do the same thing with their own model. The horizon problem remains a serious difficulty for big bang supporters, as evidenced by their many competing conjectures that attempt to solve it. Therefore, it is inconsistent for supporters of the big bang model to use light-travel time as an argument against biblical creation, since their own notion has an equivalent problem.
(1) Early in the alleged big bang, points A and B start out with different temperatures.
(2) Today, points A and B have the same temperature, yet there has not been enough time for them to exchange light.
Attempts to overcome the big bang’s ‘light-travel–time problem’
Currently, the most popular idea is called ‘inflation’—a conjecture invented by Alan Guth in 1981. In this scenario, the expansion rate of the universe (i.e. space itself) was vastly accelerated in an ‘inflation phase’ early in the big bang. The different regions of the universe were in very close contact before this inflation took place. Thus, they were able to come to the same temperature by exchanging radiation before they were rapidly (faster than the speed of light1) pushed apart. According to inflation, even though distant regions of the universe are not in contact today, they were in contact before the inflation phase when the universe was small. However, the inflation scenario is far from certain. There are many different inflation models, each with its set of difficulties. Moreover, there is no consensus on which (if any) inflation model is correct. A physical mechanism that could cause the inflation is not known, though there are many speculations. There are also difficulties on how to turn off the inflation once it starts—the ‘graceful exit’ problem.2 Many inflation models are known to be wrong—making predictions that are not consistent with observations,3 such as Guth’s original model.4 Also, many aspects of inflation models are currently unable to be tested. Some astronomers do not accept inflationary models and have proposed other possible solutions to the horizon problem. These include: scenarios in which the gravitational constant varies with time,5 the ‘ekpyrotic model’ which involves a cyclic universe, 6 scenarios in which light takes ‘shortcuts’ through extra (hypothetical) dimensions,7 ‘null-singularity’ models,8 and models in which the speed of light was much greater in the past.9,10 (Creationists have also pointed out that a changing speed of light may solve light-travel–time difficulties for biblical creation.11) In light of this disagreement, it is safe to say that the horizon problem has not been decisively solved.
References and notes
1. This notion does not violate relativity, which merely prevents objects travelling faster than c through space, whereas in the inflation proposal it is space itself that expands and carries the objects with it. Return to text.
2. Kraniotis, G.V., String cosmology, International Journal of Modern Physics A 15(12):1707–1756, 2000. Return to text.
3. Wang, Y., Spergel, D. and Strauss, M., Cosmology in the next millennium: Combining microwave anisotropy probe and Sloan digital sky survey data to constrain
inflationary models, The Astrophysical Journal 510:20–31, 1999. Return to text.
4. Coles, P. and Lucchin, F., Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, p. 151, 1996. Return to text.
5. Levin, J. and Freese, K., Possible solution to the horizon problem: Modified aging in massless scalar theories of gravity, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology) 47(10):4282–4291, 1993. Return to text.
6. Steinhardt, P. and Turok, N., A cyclic model of the universe, Science296(5572):1436–1439, 2002. Return to text.
7. Chung, D. and Freese, K., Can geodesics in extra dimensions solve the cosmological horizon problem? Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology)
62(6):063513-1–063513-7, 2000. Return to text.
8. Célérier, M. and Szekeres, P., Timelike and null focusing singularities in spherical symmetry: A solution to the cosmological horizon problem and a challenge to the cosmic censorship hypothesis, Physical Review D65:123516-1–123516-9, 2002. Return to text.
9. Albrecht, A. and Magueijo, J., Time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology)
59(4):043516-1–043516-13, 1999. Return to text.
10. Clayton, M. and Moffat, J., Dynamical mechanism for varying light velocity as a solution to cosmological problems, Physics Letters B460(3–4):263–270, 1999. Return to text.
11. For a summary of the c-decay implications, see: Wieland, C., Speed of light slowing down after all? Famous physicist makes headlines, TJ 16(3):7–10, 2002. Return to text.
References and notes
1. Coles, P. and Lucchin, F., Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, p. 91, 1996. Return to text.
2. 2.728 K (-270.422°C). Return to text.
3. Peacock, J.A., Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press, p. 288, 1999. Return to text.
4. However, the existence of CMB was actually deduced before big bang cosmology from the spectra of certain molecules in outer space. Return to text.
5. Excluding sources in our galaxy. Return to text.
6. Peebles, P.J.E., Principles of Physical Cosmology, Princeton University Press, p. 404, 1993. Return to text.
7. For convenience, the commonly understood term CMB will be used without implying that the radiation peaked at the same wavelength in all epochs of the
model. Return to text.
8. Infrared radiation is part of the spectrum of light. Return to text.
9. This is an internal inconsistency for the big bang model. It is not a problem for a creation model; God may have created the distant regions of the
universe with the same temperature from the beginning. Return to text.
10. Misner, C., Mixmaster Universe, Physical Review Letters 22(20):1071–1074, 1969. Return to text.
11. Ref. 1, p. 136. Return to text.
12. Lightman, A., Ancient Light, Harvard University Press, London, p. 58, 1991. Return to text.
Cosmic background radiation is well explained as radiation left over from an early stage in the development of the universe, and its discovery is considered a landmark test of the Big Bang model of the universe. When the universe was young, before the formation of stars and planets, it was smaller, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled enough, stable atoms could form. These atoms could no longer absorb the thermal radiation, and the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog. The photons that existed at that time have been propagating ever since, though growing fainter and less energetic, since exactly the same photons fill a larger and larger universe. This is the source for the alternate term relic radiation.
...
In the Big Bang model for the formation of the universe, Inflationary Cosmology predicts that after about 10−37 seconds[5] the nascent universe underwent exponential growth that smoothed out nearly all inhomogeneities. The remaining inhomogeneities were caused by quantum fluctuations in the inflaton field that caused the inflation event.[6] After 10−6 seconds, the early universe was made up of a hot, interacting plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons. As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling caused the plasma to lose energy until it became favorable for electrons to combine with protons, forming hydrogen atoms. This recombination event happened when the temperature was around 3000 K or when the universe was approximately 379,000 years old.[7] At this point, the photons no longer interacted with the now electrically neutral atoms and began to travel freely through space, resulting in the decoupling of matter and radiation.[8]
We haven’t yet seen Jason’s “Distant Starlight” paper, of course. All we had when we wrote our post was Jason’s claim that his paper was nearly finished, that it would be “peer reviewed” by “qualified scientists with a correct biblical worldview,” and that if it passed that hurdle it would be posted at the AIG website — at something called the Answers Research Journal. That journal, like the Creation Museum, is part of the creationism conglomerate run by Ken Ham.
I'm not really convinced. If light from the farthest edge of the universe was reaching us the sky would be completely covered in starlight. Edgar Allan Poe knew that. And the paper you didn't prove where the CMB came from nor did it even mention that inflation predicts his observations.
I'm not really convinced. If light from the farthest edge of the universe was reaching us the sky would be completely covered in starlight.
The redshift hypothesised in the Big Bang model would by itself explain the darkness of the night sky, even if the universe were infinitely old.
So. Can you read (and please not fall over and die at the parts where God is mentioned, just... ignore it and get the jist of the article) this and explain how light traveled farther than your model of the universe allows? I'm not saying I'm right, (although I of course think so), I'm saying there is waaaay too much uncertainty on that date you quoted.
QuoteSo. Can you read (and please not fall over and die at the parts where God is mentioned, just... ignore it and get the jist of the article) this and explain how light traveled farther than your model of the universe allows? I'm not saying I'm right, (although I of course think so), I'm saying there is waaaay too much uncertainty on that date you quoted.
You know what's really funny? Seeing creationists with a "phd" next to their name try and pretend to write a scientific paper.
Holy crap. 3 pages have appeared since my last active debate posting... I better get started!
Reminds me of the Good Old Days (tm) (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=39227.0)
Reminds me of the Good Old Days (tm) (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=39227.0)
oh... that was a nice 6 months... I truly wish that jr2 or m WOULD have come back with the 2nd law of thermodynamics a month later. it got SOOO close to 1000... :(
Actually, I personally believe that the Earth was created scientifically (that is, if you want to explain it scientifically, lol).Wait what? Might want to run that by us again...
That's probably as good as it'll get. It is Marcov....Actually, I personally believe that the Earth was created scientifically (that is, if you want to explain it scientifically, lol).Wait what? Might want to run that by us again...
Actually, I personally believe that the Earth was created scientifically (that is, if you want to explain it scientifically, lol).
Science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Indeed, if there really is a God I kind of doubt he'd have given us brains so we could just attribute everything to him and not try to figure out how stuff works for ourselves through observation and experimentation.
This does not mean that a scientist cannot be religious. He just cannot be both at the same time.
Religion is about blind faith and trust, science is about empirical skepticism.
This does not mean that a scientist cannot be religious. He just cannot be both at the same time.
Religion is about blind faith and trust, science is about empirical skepticism.
I don't think that follows. A scientist can believe that all of creation was authored by God while still maintaining a perfectly professional and scientific attitude towards the investigation of that creation.
So long as his belief in God is left outside the scope of the empirically testable, remaining causally decoupled from the field of his work, there is no conflict. For example, a believer cosmologist could safely place God before the Big Bang, or before whatever event he discovers that precedes the Big Bang, and be as capable a scientist as his atheist coworker.
It's only when his belief begins to interfere with his work that there's a problem. Scientific theory will never be able to rule out the existence of an omnipotent being, though it may be able to rule out specific religion's takes on omnipotent beings.
ed: He can be empirically skeptical about anything he pleases in the material while maintaining faith in what he believes lies outside.
Religion is incompatible because it has a bunch of culture which is a sac full of "facts", "morals" and "theories" that are supposedly believed to be true by faith. If your empirical findings go against the religion you have faith in, you have a choice to make. Either you accept your religious tradition and just ignore the science, or you ignore the religious tradition and accept the science.
QuoteReligion is incompatible because it has a bunch of culture which is a sac full of "facts", "morals" and "theories" that are supposedly believed to be true by faith. If your empirical findings go against the religion you have faith in, you have a choice to make. Either you accept your religious tradition and just ignore the science, or you ignore the religious tradition and accept the science.
I think that's a false dichotomy. Rare is the believer who takes every aspect of a faith literally. Faith lives, it adapts.
QuoteReligion is incompatible because it has a bunch of culture which is a sac full of "facts", "morals" and "theories" that are supposedly believed to be true by faith. If your empirical findings go against the religion you have faith in, you have a choice to make. Either you accept your religious tradition and just ignore the science, or you ignore the religious tradition and accept the science.
I think that's a false dichotomy. Rare is the believer who takes every aspect of a faith literally. Faith lives, it adapts.
So your point is that religion isn't incompatible with science because people don't take religion seriously.
I mean, LOL.
QuoteReligion is incompatible because it has a bunch of culture which is a sac full of "facts", "morals" and "theories" that are supposedly believed to be true by faith. If your empirical findings go against the religion you have faith in, you have a choice to make. Either you accept your religious tradition and just ignore the science, or you ignore the religious tradition and accept the science.
I think that's a false dichotomy. Rare is the believer who takes every aspect of a faith literally. Faith lives, it adapts.
So your point is that religion isn't incompatible with science because people don't take religion seriously.
I mean, LOL.
Nope, try again.
Your first sentence is fallacious; you've misinterpreted the argument. The argument is that religion by its nature is a living thing and that anyone who takes religion seriously - any true believer - understands this.
God, after all, is omnipotent and all-loving.
All believers must strive to understand the will of God each and every day, to come to a place of understanding with the divine. It is not a static thing.
My argument is that religion is not a problem for science so long as people take it seriously.
I'd like to point out that taking religion seriously and taking the bible (or any other sacred text or myth) literally aren't two identical things.
Now, I'm not religious but I've actually met intelligent people who are. While I do find the terms "intelligent" and "religious" are often mutually exclusive, and by extension intelligent religious people a somewhat perplexing concept, they will all tell you that they do not seriously believe that there was no evolution, that the world was created in 6 days, that the human race only became mortal after the Apple incident (no, not talking about the delayed iphone 5 here) or that Noa really managed to preserve every species on Earth by putting a single pair of each onto a wooden boat.
They're taken as metaphors, stories designed to get certain points across to a very wide audience over a very long time period. To do that you need simplifications as a lot of people are.. well.. shall we say simple? There are, however, a bit more intellectual religious types who take those stories in the context they represent, take the message they were meant to convey, and discard the bs notions of creationism. Taking these things literally is a form of social atavism.
f we grant that religious stories are "metaphors", then nothing in the religious tradition survives.
From an Islamic standpoint, science, the study of nature, is considered to be linked to the concept of Tawhid (the Oneness of God), as are all other branches of knowledge.[28] In Islam, nature is not seen as a separate entity, but rather as an integral part of Islam’s holistic outlook on God, humanity, and the world. Unlike the other Abrahamic monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, the Islamic view of science and nature is continuous with that of religion and God. This link implies a sacred aspect to the pursuit of scientific knowledge by Muslims, as nature itself is viewed in the Qur'an as a compilation of signs pointing to the Divine.[29] It was with this understanding that science was studied and understood in Islamic civilizations, specifically during the eighth to sixteenth centuries, prior to the colonization of the Muslim world.[30]
According to most historians, the modern scientific method was first developed by Islamic scientists, pioneered by Ibn Al-Haytham, known to the west as "Alhazen".[31] Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, asserts that the very existence of science, as it is understood in the modern sense, is rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic civilizations during this time.[32]
I get the sense you're starting to catch on to the argument, but there may be a language barrier here, and you're drifting away from the original question of whether scientific and religious thought are compatible.
Science has absolutely nothing to say about the existence of an omnipotent, supreme being. Any given scientist or empirical thinker is therefore free to believe whatever they please about said omnipotent, supreme being, so long as the beliefs they hold do not interfere with the scientific method or their investigation of what they view as the wonder of creation.
Religion is a living thing. It is not challenged by the expansion of scientific knowledge because a true believer, one who takes religion seriously, seeks to know the mind of God, and the mind of God created the universe.
If the scientific method is the best way to understand the universe, then it is the best way to know the mind of God, and any valid product of the scientific method is compatible with religion.
There's nothing antiscientific there.
Quotef we grant that religious stories are "metaphors", then nothing in the religious tradition survives.
There's no reason to believe this. Holy texts are not the direct word of God. They were given to people a very long time ago and passed down by human hands. The core of religious belief does not lie in a text; it lies in a relationship with God. Very few faiths in the world have core beliefs which could be threatened by any sort of scientific discovery.
Consider, for instance, the Islamic view of science.QuoteFrom an Islamic standpoint, science, the study of nature, is considered to be linked to the concept of Tawhid (the Oneness of God), as are all other branches of knowledge.[28] In Islam, nature is not seen as a separate entity, but rather as an integral part of Islam’s holistic outlook on God, humanity, and the world. Unlike the other Abrahamic monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, the Islamic view of science and nature is continuous with that of religion and God. This link implies a sacred aspect to the pursuit of scientific knowledge by Muslims, as nature itself is viewed in the Qur'an as a compilation of signs pointing to the Divine.[29] It was with this understanding that science was studied and understood in Islamic civilizations, specifically during the eighth to sixteenth centuries, prior to the colonization of the Muslim world.[30]
According to most historians, the modern scientific method was first developed by Islamic scientists, pioneered by Ibn Al-Haytham, known to the west as "Alhazen".[31] Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, asserts that the very existence of science, as it is understood in the modern sense, is rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic civilizations during this time.[32]
Do you feel that this discussion would be productive for you? What chance do you think there is of your opinion changing, or of you taking away new information?
I'll give you an analogy. Imagine that in the middle ages, an astrologist would consider the careful observation of the stars as something that should be the inspiration of any astrologist and all astrology would only gain with it. But then subsequent people find that the astrological assumption that the stars influence human events is silly. To state that astronomy was only possible because astrology made it so, isn't a refutation to the basic claim that these two human activities are totally incompatible with each other.
That pressuposes that the religion is about searching for god, when it is not. Religion is the revelation of god to man about the truth of the cosmos, and this is universally true, even in Buddhism. So if you find about the cosmos scientifically, you are not doing religion any service. You may even, gasp, find inconsistencies with religion. And then you proudly proclaim that they *aren't* inconsistencies, if only we see religious thinking as *metaphorical*.
QuoteI'll give you an analogy. Imagine that in the middle ages, an astrologist would consider the careful observation of the stars as something that should be the inspiration of any astrologist and all astrology would only gain with it. But then subsequent people find that the astrological assumption that the stars influence human events is silly. To state that astronomy was only possible because astrology made it so, isn't a refutation to the basic claim that these two human activities are totally incompatible with each other.
I think this is exactly what you're missing. There was a time when religious doctrine dictated the Earth was the center of the universe. Science proved that wrong. Faith adapted, because the Earth being the center of the universe wasn't important to faith.
Any faithful scientist believes what the Muslims believed. To know the creation of the mind of God is to know the mind of God. Thus a very tiny and particular bit of faith and empiricism coexist in peace.
What an ancient book says about the nature of the creation of the world is irrelevant; of course it's metaphor.
Faith in a living God and his infinite love means a constant struggle to better our understanding of Him. What, after all, was God's first positive command? Was it not to go out and perform the first act of taxonomical science?
And of course I can define what a true believer is; faith is a personal experience, constructed by humans. On that I suppose we just disagree.
"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (1/28)
Evolution flies in the face of almost every religion in the world. The Vatican is inherently creationist, and proudly so.
And even if that wasn't true, the lack of inconsistencies between religious truths and scientific findings would only prove that they were lucky, not that they are compatible processes. Which they aren't.
Of course, you are cherry picking a very tiny proportion of people with faith out there.
We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.
QuoteEvolution flies in the face of almost every religion in the world. The Vatican is inherently creationist, and proudly so.
And even if that wasn't true, the lack of inconsistencies between religious truths and scientific findings would only prove that they were lucky, not that they are compatible processes. Which they aren't.
You seem to have a fixation upon religion as an institution, which isn't always accurate. Some may be heavily institutionalized, such as the Catholic Church, but others are not. The ones that focus upon the church rather than all the things Battuta has talked about tend to struggle with science, and that is why the Vatican usually seems to be stuck in the past.
However, some churches focus more on things like the desire to understand God or what role God wants people to play in the universe. People who follow this pattern of belief aren't inherently at odds with science. For these people, if a book written thousands of years ago is proven wrong by science, it doesn't really matter, since their belief in God was not dependent on that book.
That may be true, but I don't think that's the point. You're trying to say that all religion is incompatible w/ science.
I believe it is. The problem seems to be that some cannot fathom the concept that one can maintain faith in concepts and principles held by a set of beliefs whilst simultaneously striving to understand the natural universe and that which abides therein.
I don't need statistics.
Of course, you are cherry picking a very tiny proportion of people with faith out there.
I just have to remind you that the vatican is still partially creationisic (they couldn't be otherwise, or they would implode in their own theology). That should be a damned good indication of what a billion people living in rather well educated part of the world believes in. Now imagine the uneducated part.
But this means that the less incompatible religion with science is, the more liberal, vague and meaningless it becomes (with people sprouting meaningless new-age uncommited feel good placebos like you have been here).
Clearly, there are good scientists who have deep faith. I'm not disputing that.
I don't need statistics. I just have to remind you that the vatican is still partially creationistic
And who are we to say that the latter are the "Real" believers, like Battuta is saying, and not the former? For me, they are both believers.
I don't need statistics.
Of course you do; you made a statistical claim.QuoteOf course, you are cherry picking a very tiny proportion of people with faith out there.
What does the Vatican have to do with faith? How does the position of the Vatican speak to the absolute ability of a man of faith to use the tools of science?
QuoteBut this means that the less incompatible religion with science is, the more liberal, vague and meaningless it becomes (with people sprouting meaningless new-age uncommited feel good placebos like you have been here).
Interesting. You seem to legitimize the very types of faith you're arguing against while disregarding the history of many others. Faith is not a liberal, vague, and meaningless thing; it is something open to individual human experience, rather than something ordinated. Perhaps this has something to do with the context of religion we were raised with?
The fact that the scientific method as we know it apparently came from Islamic scientist-theologians suggests the two worldviews are not, after all, fundamentally incompatible.
QuoteClearly, there are good scientists who have deep faith. I'm not disputing that.
I think you have been; but it's good to see this point conceded.
Of course not. To have them both you only require an inconsistent mind. And alas, we are humans, so that's a given.More.
This does not mean that a scientist cannot be religious. He just cannot be both at the same time.More.
This is psychology, and I fully agree with that. As I said, we are inconsistent mammals, and we seem to get along just fine with a lot of crazy stuff between our ears, while doing our jobs perfectly well and competently. Just ask Newton.
Humans are wired for belief. There will always be belief in something. We need to be careful not to compromise science by turning it into another religion, rather than a set of tools.
QuoteI don't need statistics. I just have to remind you that the vatican is still partially creationistic
The Vatican may be, but it is not representative of Christianity as a whole, much less all of religion. I've met plenty of Christians who, while they believe in God, think the Vatican's clinging to a book written thousands of years ago as absolute truth is completely ridiculous.
QuoteAnd who are we to say that the latter are the "Real" believers, like Battuta is saying, and not the former? For me, they are both believers.
One believes in God just as much as the other, you can't point at one and say they are more religious.
I have answered to this non-sequitur quite well. What happens when a fervent creationist society goes embracing empirical reality in order to find God and then finding out about what really happened to the species in the Earth? How could such a person making this particular finding not lose his faith? Why is it the case that this is what precisely happened?
Religion can be many things, and while I agree that it would be great for it to be confined to a "personal experience", alas it is not. It's a social powerful institution as well.
This does not mean that a scientist cannot be religious. He just cannot be both at the same time.
There is a subtle relativism permeating this last sentence of yours, as if religion is okay, since science can't replace it, and even despite the fact that they are usually sprouting unverifiable nonsense, it's better than science taking over the discussion, because of the dangers of scientism or what have you.
You can perfectly have a spiritual and loving conversation in a post-religious society, and I just can't understand where this fear of "Science!" comes from, apart from some sci-fi retro movie or game where scientists are german nazis, etc.
QuoteI have answered to this non-sequitur quite well. What happens when a fervent creationist society goes embracing empirical reality in order to find God and then finding out about what really happened to the species in the Earth? How could such a person making this particular finding not lose his faith? Why is it the case that this is what precisely happened?
If 'what precisely happened' was nothing at all, I'm not sure I see the point here. If a society that believes that to know creation is to know God discovers the truth of creation, they rejoice.
QuoteReligion can be many things, and while I agree that it would be great for it to be confined to a "personal experience", alas it is not. It's a social powerful institution as well.
Certainly, but that's irrelevant to the point in contention: whether a scientist can hold faith.
QuoteThis does not mean that a scientist cannot be religious. He just cannot be both at the same time.
This is the point in contention; have you or have you not conceded it?
Fabricated; no such statement was presented. I think your mistake here is believing that by belief I meant religion. The human brain is hardwired for belief. Scientific methodologies require that we not deploy belief heuristics. Ergo, we must not come to believe in science.
Exactly why it is critical that we not put science in the place of religion; to do so would annihilate science and all its works.
The point is not whether if mammals can hold incompatible beliefs, which they prove time and time again that they can. And live well while doing so. The point is whether if those beliefs are incompatible with each other or not. This is the nth time I repeat this and you still don't get it.
No. A scientist cannot be competently skeptical of a particular position to which he is faithful to.
As I said previously (sigh), when he is confronted empirically with something that goes against his religious beliefs, he cannot logically ignore this point of contention. He has two choices.
Either he abandons his particular religious belief, to which he must, at least temporarily, abandon the very faith he was clinging on, or he dismisses empirical evidence.
I don't want to place anything in the place of religion. It's a void that is merely apparent. It needs no filling.
There you go again with the "true" and the "real"... your language is filled with metaphysics! :lol:
I don't need statistics. I just have to remind you that the vatican is still partially creationistic (they couldn't be otherwise, or they would implode in their own theology). That should be a damned good indication of what a billion people living in rather well educated part of the world believes in. Now imagine the uneducated part.
Take for instance, this quotation from the current pope:QuoteWe cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the 'project' of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.
Focus on the last two sentences. What is the gist of this barrier? Dualism. Evolution may have won the day of material evolution, he is saying, but surely it cannot comment on the issues of spirituality and "what it means to be human", etc.
Except that it clearly can. And yet, here we have Ratzinger, denying this possibility, as if we should have his holy permission to study these more intriguing questions within science and not within religion. How is this compatible with science?
Notice a pattern though. The less a particular religion is worried about securing the tradition of its own meaning, the less problematic it is with science. But this means that the less incompatible religion with science is, the more liberal, vague and meaningless it becomes (with people sprouting meaningless new-age uncommited feel good placebos like you have been here).
The point is not whether if mammals can hold incompatible beliefs, which they prove time and time again that they can. And live well while doing so. The point is whether if those beliefs are incompatible with each other or not. This is the nth time I repeat this and you still don't get it.
Oh, this point hasn't even been in contention. Of course belief in God and science are compatible. Belief in God is compatible with everything because God is omnipotent; he can alter the outcome of any experiment. God stands outside all scientific knowledge.
The question we've been debating is whether a scientist can hold religious belief and still be an effective scientist. You don't seem to dispute that?
QuoteNo. A scientist cannot be competently skeptical of a particular position to which he is faithful to.
As I said previously (sigh), when he is confronted empirically with something that goes against his religious beliefs, he cannot logically ignore this point of contention. He has two choices.
Either he abandons his particular religious belief, to which he must, at least temporarily, abandon the very faith he was clinging on, or he dismisses empirical evidence.
And as I said previously, this is a false choice. If he believes in God the omnipotent creator, he rejoices that he has come closer to knowing the mind of God, as the devout Muslim would. His science only adds to his faith.
Until the human brain is fundamentally rewired, there will always be belief. You believe in something; so do I. We all have our own religions, whether they are ourselves, opinions we hold, sports teams or political causes. The same wiring is invoked.
We have beliefs. To call them religions is offensive and I deny it wholeheartedly. I am stubburn, I am vile, I am many things, and I'm specially irritated when someone tells me that I'm more religious than the allegedly religious people. No, what happens is you're using the word wrong.
religion
Pronunciation:/rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
[mass noun]
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power , especially a personal God or gods:ideas about the relationship between science and religion
[count noun] a particular system of faith and worship:the world's great religions
[count noun] a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:consumerism is the new religion
It is precisely due to this point that science is incompatible with religion. God "can do whatever he wants", and thus "infinitely fool us", thus scientifically we must dismiss any metaphysics in order to carry on doing science. We must pretend that he or it or her never existed in philosophy and just focus on the facts of the matter. Else we are stuck with the arbitrariness of god's whims.
Depends if whether there is an incompatibility between the beliefs of the scientist and the field he's actually working on. An astrophysicist is not a good astrophysicist if he's a creationist.
So when a particular belief of his faith is shattered due to the evidence, this is further evidence of the awesomeness of his own god, thus science is compatible with religion?
We have beliefs. To call them religions is offensive and I deny it wholeheartedly. I am stubburn, I am vile, I am many things, and I'm specially irritated when someone tells me that I'm more religious than the allegedly religious people. No, what happens is you're using the word wrong.
OH. GOOD. GREIF.
Let's think about the Bible for an instant, a text which in some form or other has endured for THOUSANDS of years. And it was written by people THOUSANDS of years ago. Such people would not have had any concept of the intricate, lengthy processes by which the universe operates, whether it be by breaking down or building up. The ultimate function of Genesis is to relate that there is a form of functional order by which life as we know it came to exist.
This also happens to include God, whom the reader today should understand IS NOT bound to a physical universe or plane of existance as we know it (if you care to consider that God exists, of course).
What you're arguing here is official doctrines and beleif statements, which may vary considerably in ANY broad religious group. Note how even general scientific understanding operates in this fashion, especially in regards to the "bleeding edge" of science. And just like a set of flawed data within a scientific community, if a religious group (which is NOT stagnant) finds their understanding or doctrine to be inaccurate, they will re-analyze their beliefs and make a (hopefully positive) change.
Now, regarding the Pope's statement - ultimately understand that he holds to the belief that a God exists. As you noted, this can not be proved or disproved within the scope of the physical universe. Given that he also holds to the belief that human beings are accountable to this God, and that this being has an affect on thier lives, he remains as an important element within their being. So actually, no, there's really not a problem with his statement, considering that this is based around the concept that there exists a being which is not bound to the physical world, yet has an impact on human existance at some level.
What you seem to be exercising more than anything else is your own personal doctrine,
...which seems to be one of literalism with regards to beliefs which were never bound to science to begin with. This, you argue, makes religion invalid.
However, you fail to understand that religion IS NOT science, but rather a set of principals by which you exist within the world. Many, many accounts in a religious text are situational, written for a specific time and place, when a particular understanding endured. And they serve their purposes accordingly. Because you will not allow yourself to understand this, your misunderstanding of the point that religion and science continues. Science serves to further our understanding of the universe, while religion serves (ideally) to enrich our existance within the universe. The two are not incompatible.
We have beliefs. To call them religions is offensive and I deny it wholeheartedly. I am stubburn, I am vile, I am many things, and I'm specially irritated when someone tells me that I'm more religious than the allegedly religious people. No, what happens is you're using the word wrong.
Uh, religion is merely codified belief. And before you argue, the Oxford English dictionary would be considered the pre-eminent authority on the subject, which says:Quotereligion
Pronunciation:/rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
[mass noun]
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power , especially a personal God or gods:ideas about the relationship between science and religion
[count noun] a particular system of faith and worship:the world's great religions
[count noun] a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:consumerism is the new religion
Disregard, not disbelief. That's all that's required. Don't allow the religious belief to get caught in the workings of empiricism; view, instead, the empiricism as a tool to get closer to God, a form of prayer.
Of course not. But the fact that a creationist - who allows religious belief to interfere with empiricism - is not a good empiricist does not preclude other religious people from being so.
QuoteSo when a particular belief of his faith is shattered due to the evidence, this is further evidence of the awesomeness of his own god, thus science is compatible with religion?
How many religions have ever collapsed due to scientific discovery?
Doctrines and passages of scripture are not the heart of a faith. They can change. They do change.
They use the same neural wiring. They are the same things. I would describe my love for my partner, for example, as religious. Perhaps you're confusing religion with the sociopolitical structures of some organized religions?
Isn't that a form of turning science into religion?
Either way, I can see that kind of religion too. The problem is that there's nothing in "religiosity" that prevents anyone to see it exactly the other way around, that the curiosity of "god's creation" is as unholy as it gets. And lo and behold, the world is filled with that objection too.
So you say "what if we create a super-cool religion?", well I'd say it would be much better than 99.9% of all of what is out there, for sure, but it would still be religion. Why do you need it so much? Can't you just say that you are fascinated by the universe? Why this nauseating self-serving egomaniacal obsession for an imaginary friend that, gasp, happens to be the full blown creator of the world?
As I said, if you have a set of people whose beliefs do not interfere with their field of science, then there is, by definition, not a problem, at least pragmatically.
Christianity. Go read the percentage of europeans who are believers.
Doctrines are at the heart of faith. Strip a religion of the entirety of them, and you have destroyed a religion. You'll find no religion which has done this.
No, perhaps you are confusing the words you use one with another. You love your partner, that's great. You say that's your reliigion, but what you are doing is poetry. That's not religion. If your strategy of conversation here is to muddle the words in a Clintonian way, we should just end the conversation. English is a stupid *****y language that gives credit to this type of ambiguity, and if you want to discuss things in a rational way, you should not get distracted by its total disregard for clarity and combat it. Otherwise, everything is just everything and words become meaningless.
Um noWe have beliefs. To call them religions is offensive and I deny it wholeheartedly. I am stubburn, I am vile, I am many things, and I'm specially irritated when someone tells me that I'm more religious than the allegedly religious people. No, what happens is you're using the word wrong.
Uh, religion is merely codified belief. And before you argue, the Oxford English dictionary would be considered the pre-eminent authority on the subject, which says:Quotereligion
Pronunciation:/rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
[mass noun]
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power , especially a personal God or gods:ideas about the relationship between science and religion
[count noun] a particular system of faith and worship:the world's great religions
[count noun] a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:consumerism is the new religion
So you basically quoted a dictionary that falsified your assertion that religion is "merely" coded belief. So what? :confused:
Disregard, not disbelief. That's all that's required. Don't allow the religious belief to get caught in the workings of empiricism; view, instead, the empiricism as a tool to get closer to God, a form of prayer.
Isn't that a form of turning science into religion?
Either way, I can see that kind of religion too. The problem is that there's nothing in "religiosity" that prevents anyone to see it exactly the other way around, that the curiosity of "god's creation" is as unholy as it gets. And lo and behold, the world is filled with that objection too.
So you say "what if we create a super-cool religion?", well I'd say it would be much better than 99.9% of all of what is out there, for sure, but it would still be religion. Why do you need it so much? Can't you just say that you are fascinated by the universe? Why this nauseating self-serving egomaniacal obsession for an imaginary friend that, gasp, happens to be the full blown creator of the world?
Seems too self-centered to be desirable.
Again conflating belief in a particular aspect with an entire religion or a person's religiosity. If someone believes in creationism, and they encounter evidence of evolution, then their belief is in conflict with the evidence.QuoteOf course not. But the fact that a creationist - who allows religious belief to interfere with empiricism - is not a good empiricist does not preclude other religious people from being so.
As I said, if you have a set of people whose beliefs do not interfere with their field of science, then there is, by definition, not a problem, at least pragmatically.
No, how about you cite some specifics instead of telling us to look for them. You're the one making the claim.QuoteQuoteSo when a particular belief of his faith is shattered due to the evidence, this is further evidence of the awesomeness of his own god, thus science is compatible with religion?
How many religions have ever collapsed due to scientific discovery?
Christianity. Go read the percentage of europeans who are believers.
QuoteIsn't that a form of turning science into religion?
Nope, the results you get will be just as good by those from an atheist investigator. The beauty of science is replication should work for anyone with good methodology.QuoteEither way, I can see that kind of religion too. The problem is that there's nothing in "religiosity" that prevents anyone to see it exactly the other way around, that the curiosity of "god's creation" is as unholy as it gets. And lo and behold, the world is filled with that objection too.
Sure, but this isn't an argument about that; it's about whether it's possible for a scientist with faith to hold his faith and his scientific conduct together and still be a good scientist.
All it takes is one.
Christianity remains the largest religion in the world. It has hardly collapsed.
Exactly so - no religion has enough of its doctrines tied up in matters sensitive to scientific discovery for it to matter.
It's not poetry at all. Biologically and cognitively, the thoughts we hold and attitudes we maintain literally employ the same heuristics as religion. You use the same cognitions to think about your favorite sports team as you do to confirm your faith.
The human mind is hard-wired for belief. You're a believer. We all are. None of us can help it. The disease is in us, the biases, the cognitive shortcuts.
QuoteIsn't that a form of turning science into religion?
Nope, the results you get will be just as good by those from an atheist investigator. The beauty of science is replication should work for anyone with good methodology.QuoteEither way, I can see that kind of religion too. The problem is that there's nothing in "religiosity" that prevents anyone to see it exactly the other way around, that the curiosity of "god's creation" is as unholy as it gets. And lo and behold, the world is filled with that objection too.
Sure, but this isn't an argument about that; it's about whether it's possible for a scientist with faith to hold his faith and his scientific conduct together and still be a good scientist.
No it wasn't about that. It was about the inherent incompatibility between science and religion.
QuoteSure, but this isn't an argument about that; it's about whether it's possible for a scientist with faith to hold his faith and his scientific conduct together and still be a good scientist.
No it wasn't about that. It was about the inherent incompatibility between science and religion. I never negated that it is *possible* for a scientist to have faith and still be a good scientist, just as I will never negate that it is *possible* for a scientist to believe in any ludicrous claim, just as long as it doesn't interfere with his job.
Um no
"a particular system of faith and worship"
"a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion"Quote
So what exactly it is that I'm "worshipping" here, and what "system" of faith am I espousing? I'm slightly bemused by this segway.QuoteWait so are you still defending the claim that religion in and of itself is incompatible with science? You say there's nothing that prevents a religious person from being dogmatic, but you don't even imply that there's anything to enforce it.
I did not use the word dogmatic, it is irrelevant in that context. My point is that even in the most positive case that Battuta can dream of, religion only gets to be almost inofensive towards anything.QuoteWhy would someone need this hypothetical pro-science religion? Well, I dunno, being pretty atheist myself, but some people like to think there's some entity in charge of the universe which gives it "meaning", or something.
Again conflating belief in a particular aspect with an entire religion or a person's religiosity. If someone believes in creationism, and they encounter evidence of evolution, then their belief is in conflict with the evidence.
A good scientist accepts the evidence of evolution.
A faithful person does not allow the evidence to deter his belief in god. Not belief in creationism, but belief in god.
A good scientist and faithful person can do both, updating his view of the universe while still accepting that it is the work of a creator.
A stupid person ignores the evidence and retains his belief in creationism. This is the kind of person I'd like to think would drive god crazy.
No, how about you cite some specifics instead of telling us to look for them. You're the one making the claim.
science and the belief in an omnipotent creator are not incompatible at all.
QuoteA good scientist accepts the evidence of evolution.
A faithful person does not allow the evidence to deter his belief in god. Not belief in creationism, but belief in god.
It depends upon the "faith" involved. Either way, there is a conflict. Admit it.
science and creationism are inherently incompatible. science and geocentrism are inherently incompatible.
science and the belief in an omnipotent creator are not incompatible at all.
no U
no UU
NO UUUUUUUUUUUU
It's clearly not going anywhere, everyone's circled back around to restating their original positions. Everyone be on their merry way.
battuta has already stated many times that science is a method to gain knowledge about the universe (and therefore about god. Science is recorded and passed down, it spawns more advanced technology... blargh by that logic there's no reason for any religious person to live here in the first place.
Uh, religion is merely codified belief. And before you argue, the Oxford English dictionary would be considered the pre-eminent authority on the subject, which says:Quotereligion
Pronunciation:/rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
[mass noun]
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power , especially a personal God or gods:ideas about the relationship between science and religion
[count noun] a particular system of faith and worship:the world's great religions
[count noun] a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion:consumerism is the new religion
So you basically quoted a dictionary that falsified your assertion that religion is "merely" coded belief. So what? :confused:
Anything that bases itself upon revelation instead of investigation is not only incompatible with science, but actually a threat to it.
Anything that bases itself upon revelation instead of investigation is not only incompatible with science, but actually a threat to it.
let us assume this to be true, religion is not necessarily based upon revelation.
Anything that bases itself upon revelation instead of investigation is not only incompatible with science, but actually a threat to it.
let us assume this to be true, religion is not necessarily based upon revelation.
Ok, name me one recognizable religion that doesn't.
Anything that bases itself upon revelation instead of investigation is not only incompatible with science, but actually a threat to it.
let us assume this to be true, religion is not necessarily based upon revelation.
Ok, name me one recognizable religion that doesn't.
Anything that bases itself upon revelation instead of investigation is not only incompatible with science, but actually a threat to it.
let us assume this to be true, religion is not necessarily based upon revelation.
Ok, name me one recognizable religion that doesn't.
Buddhism. Unless I missed the memo where it was declared to be not-a-religion.
You got to be kidding me. Bhuddism may not be about the thunger god lightning up a pair of tablets, but it is about how Bhudda told everyone how he himself reached to be a "full enlightened being" (i.e., gain nirvana).
And there's also the whole conversation about how people are really rebirthed and stuff like that.
Bhuddism is different from the other major religions in the sense that the revelation of metaphysical reality does not happen through God's intervention, but through Bhudda's and his acolytes own meditations (iow, by being so awesome ).
****. Sudden understanding of how Christians/Muslims/Jews feel while being told what their religion is by atheists, check.
You got to be kidding me. Bhuddism may not be about the thunger god lightning up a pair of tablets, but it is about how Bhudda told everyone how he himself reached to be a "full enlightened being" (i.e., gain nirvana).
I'm just going to go with 'close enough', except that Buddha encouraged people to investigate the claims on their own, and criticize as they can rather than accepting them out of respect.
How does this have anything to do with revelation? Or well, anything?
I... erm... what revelation? Right knowledge isn't about understanding some metaphysical reality, it is about understanding the empirical world with a mind free of dogma and desire.
If only. If you are trying to redefine bhuddism as a philosophy of positivism, then you have all the work ahead of you, for you have to explain many, many beliefs espoused by bhuddists. Sorry, it doesn't fit.Only if you're saying that there's only one Buddhism.
****. Sudden understanding of how Christians/Muslims/Jews feel while being told what their religion is by atheists, check.
Well, *American atheists and agnostics do usually know more about the Bible than **American Christians... (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious)
Which is another nice point you bring up. The fact that religions diverge in their denominations, rites and metaphysical beliefs runs counter to the convergence that happens in science everyday, when hypothesis get falsified and consensus over overwhelming evidence towards one path or another emerges.If only. If you are trying to redefine bhuddism as a philosophy of positivism, then you have all the work ahead of you, for you have to explain many, many beliefs espoused by bhuddists. Sorry, it doesn't fit.Only if you're saying that there's only one Buddhism.
Until we hit the transhuman stage, religion is the fundament our minds are based upon, and we've got to rely on clumsy prosthesis to think scientifically.
Until we hit the transhuman stage, religion is the fundament our minds are based upon, and we've got to rely on clumsy prosthesis to think scientifically.
I'm sorry, did you just reject the possibility of science or indeed any sort of rationality before the computer or what?
No. But you can read the actual meaning in the second half of that sentence!
Most atheists I meet are deeply religious. Atheism is their religion
Most atheists I meet are deeply religious. Atheism is their religion
/*vomits*/
There is a difference between holding an opposing a concept and not accepting a concept.
Atheism is a matter of faith/belief, so, yes, it's as much as a religion as any theist or spiritual stance. It's the faith/belief in the absence of a higher power etc.
Religion: made by a guy hearing a voice telling him to burn a sheep while walking through the desert
Atheism: made after giving all evidence a fair examination and finding it unconvincing.
>>it is maintained the same way
Religion: god works in mysterious ways and you will go to hell if you question it
Atheism: constantly challenged by the majority and often reevaluated by the individual.
>>it is expressed in the same fashion
Religion: fish emblems on bumpers
Atheism: fish emblems on bum..p...er ok, so you have a point here
"But we shouldn't hoodwink ourselves into believing that we atheists are somehow free, unshackled minds."
no, confirmation bias is the bane of intellectuals everywhere, and most atheists who came to the position via a scientific mindset are well aware of this because they had to overcome it to get were they are. we know we are still subject to it, hence forcing ourselves to give any new argument a fair chance.
Example: when we have a debate about religion, there's no question the prototype of 'religion' we're deploying, the phantom we gesture to in all our arguments, is based on the available examples we can recruit tossed together into a big glut. It's not a balanced look at all the world's faiths; it's a chimera made of religious people we've encountered, religious things we've heard, religious services we've attended. For me, it's heavily Christian. My prototype of 'religion' is bad for discussing Suangodon's Buddhism or another member's Zen Islam.QuoteAtheism is a matter of faith/belief, so, yes, it's as much as a religion as any theist or spiritual stance. It's the faith/belief in the absence of a higher power etc.
On other days I've argued heatedly against this - I don't necessarily think that should be considered a religious belief, in just the same way that I don't think not having an opinion on the existence of the tooth fairy is a religious position.
But I suppose there's no denying that most atheists do not so much blink in incredulity at the notion of supernatural powers as they do actively reject the existence of certain, defined powers, which is in a sense a religious statement.
Made by what your parents teach you and the environment you grow up in.
AFAIK most atheists were born into religious families, I personally went to a Catholic highschool, my upbringing was no more endorsing of atheism than it was Stalinism
Maintained by self-confirmation bias and social echo chambering. Sure, you can argue one is empirically better, but that's not why we really believe things is it?
I personally an constantly on the lookout for ghosts or other supernatural things, I rarely find anything that gets past my first level evidence filter, but I am actively seeking out evidence to falsify my position. Atheism is after all a rather unhappy position, I would very much like to be wrong, I would very much like to have an eternal soul and exist forever. Atheism is not a cohesive body so I cannot speak for others but I would assume they engage in similar activities.
Sure, but it doesn't make us good at it - we're still battling our hardwiring. At least we give it a shot, though (sometimes).
at least we are trying at all, as opposed to all religions in the world that actively encourage it and set up an environment that sexually selects for the trait.
All beliefs eventually become self-justifying.
Yep, this is what I mean by belief being eternal. The fundamental wiring that produces and perpetuate religion is also responsible for most other human attitudes. Just as I don't really have a rational reason for most of the things I do - I just recruit reasons aftewards - Luis Dias doesn't have an array of evidence which converge to the conclusion that religion and science are incompatible. He begins from that belief and recruits reasons to believe it, just as selectively as Goober's belief that his religion is the only one with objective backing.
Most of us haven't even thought most of our attitudes out until we're pressed on them. We satisfice, because we're cognitive misers.
Most atheists I meet are deeply religious. Atheism is their religion; it shapes their worldviews as powerfully as Christ or Mohammed or what have you, and it shuts down rational thought just as effectively. In an ideal world, we'd be able to think rationally, apply the tools of empirical investigation to our own cognition - but we can't do it. We all hit affective death spirals and come to believe we, of all people, have won the great belief lottery and stumbled on the correct worldview.
Until we hit the transhuman stage, religion is the fundament our minds are based upon, and we've got to rely on clumsy prosthesis to think scientifically.
And because we're all misers, and we dislike effortful cognition (because it is expensive), in the end we're never very good at it. You can see it in internet arguments; rare is the post that asks 'Is this what you are saying? Have I understood it? I have processed it; allow me to resynthesize it from my own perspective'. Instead you see reflexive deflections and selective hunts for weakness.
But I suppose there's no denying that most atheists do not so much blink in incredulity at the notion of supernatural powers as they do actively reject the existence of certain, defined powers, which is in a sense a religious statement.
However, for a good deal of Atheists (certainly, in my experience), that reistance of any form of higher power is a matter of faith/belief, and therefore has a core similarity with religion. In that it is an *unproveable belief in something, even if it is a lack/absence.
All beliefs eventually become self-justifying.
All beliefs eventually become self-justifying.
I think this is an interesting statement, because it implies that all beliefs require continual rejustification. They only require rejustification when presented with new evidence.
In this particular case, it does not seem likely; part of the problem of religion and atheism is the inability to deploy substantive evidence to prove or disprove either concept, due to the unproveable nature of the topic discussed.
Of course this means neither is really a rational position...
All beliefs eventually become self-justifying.
I think this is an interesting statement, because it implies that all beliefs require continual rejustification. They only require rejustification when presented with new evidence.
In this particular case, it does not seem likely; part of the problem of religion and atheism is the inability to deploy substantive evidence to prove or disprove either concept, due to the unproveable nature of the topic discussed.
Of course this means neither is really a rational position...
Weak atheism IS a rational position.
Unless you mean to say that people who don't believe there's a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot) are not being rational.
Unless you mean to say that people who don't believe there's a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot) are not being rational.
So atheism regarding the Greek/Roman pantheon probably is a rational position. Atheism regarding the Abrahamic God, not so much.
:words:
Unless you mean to say that people who don't believe there's a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot) are not being rational.
The teapot can be rationally proved, though why anyone would bother is a pretty good question. Most of the time when you bring in a deity or deities that are either individually or collectively omnipotent, definitive proof of any sort in either direction is impossible.
So atheism regarding the Greek/Roman pantheon probably is a rational position. Atheism regarding the Abrahamic God, not so much.
What makes the big God any less of a silly idea than the small Gods?
Weak atheism is simply an attempt to lump more schools of thought into the atheist camp with semantics. We already had a word and if it's too hard for you to pronounce, **** off.
What makes the big God any less of a silly idea than the small Gods?
Because there is only one way to disbelieve in deities. :rolleyes:
What makes the big God any less of a silly idea than the small Gods?
Falsifiability and the ability to deny such. I can make provable statements about the Greek and Roman pantheons that they lack the powers and abilities to deny according to their own lore/supporters/whateverwecallit.
Because there is only one way to disbelieve in deities. :rolleyes:
Only one rational way, which was the subject of discussion. Forgive me for not cottoning to your efforts to newspeak up a plurality?
:words:
Your whole argument is predicated on the notion of a fundamental incompatibility between empirical and religious thought. But there are areas of knowledge impenetrable to empirical investigation and falsification. So long as religious belief confines itself to those areas, no conflict is necessary.
You argue that all religion must dictate firm secular principles which will be overturned when science dictates them, somehow 'destroying' the religion.
But this argument requires all religious people to be nutty fundamentalists slaving over scripture, and it ignores the fact that most scriptural obligations are basically harmless ritual and behavioral suggestions (go to Mecca, tithe to the poor, yadda yadda) that will never come into conflict with any kind of empirical investigation.
It's a manufactured conflict.
Luis, get out of these sort of discussions for your own good. You are unable or unwilling to have a rational discourse on them.
If God can create the world/universe from void in the Abrahamic tradition, he can sure as hell erase or alter all evidence of his existence. There's really no way around it. He is an utterly unproveable assertion.
Falsifiability and the ability to deny such. I can make provable statements about the Greek and Roman pantheons that they lack the powers and abilities to deny according to their own lore/supporters/whateverwecallit.
Wait, what?
Proof to back up that claim?
So, which is this rational way you speak of, since according to you, weak atheism isn't it?
Also, I note that you didn't prove there's a teapot between Earth and Mars...
Of course such an omnipotent being *can* do such a thing. The fact is that he allegedly *hasn't*, he even went to big trouble trying to die for us as a martir. So, in theory, a *theoretical* god could do such a thing, but Yawhe *allegedly* hasn't.
Ok, so a litmus test. For instance, can we say that christian prayers do not work?
If so, is this testable? Would you consider it a test of whether Yawhe exists or not?
Alleged by who? The concept of faith and works is central to Christian teaching; faith is defined as the belief in things unseen. It would thus behoove him to remove his fingerprints. Indeed one of the greatest divides in modern Christianity is whether you are saved by faith (Protestant) or faith and works (Roman Catholic, Orthodox to some extent). A Protestant version of YHWH would need to remove his fingerprints.
Is this testable? Certainly. Does it prove anything? It cannot. Sincerity is a required component to effective prayer, supposedly, so confirmation bias and/or self-fulfilling prophecy will bite you in the ass hard
but still alledgedly smart people deny the obviousness of it and still say shenanigan things like "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them.", or more subtle hints that the reality of god is more "mysterious" like "The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion,", which is the usual cop out, not coincidently also performed by chiropractists, acunpuncturists, herbal medicin preachers, magic tricksters, and all kinds of hucksters.
A segway, but the ridiculous notion that we have the "tools" to search and not only search but falsify the hypothesis that there is a golden teapot orbiting between venus and mercury is mind-gobblingly ignorant. Hint, no no you haven't, and you won't have for another century, at least.
It is alledged by the christians.
The facts are stated and affirmed. There was a virgin birth (way to parse a mistranslation), there was a man who ascended to the heavens, there were a legion of ressurections (a banality in those times, it seems), there is a whole bunch of "things" that have alledgedly happened to be the work of a living god.
The fact that these claims are believed to be true by the believers through faith is not something, that prima facie, should make you proud of, but traditionally and historically, this "characteristic" which would be painted as "gullibility" in any other area than religion, is now considered to be a religious virtue, a social fact that is astonishingly atrocious to me.
What are you saying, that prayers cannot be externally controlled?
Unfortunately nothing you're presenting is a good argument for a fundamental incompatibility between religion and science; you're still hammering on the point that because things do happen, they must happen.
Religious creeds about the existence of a compassionate God who will recover the soul after death and judge it on its actions during life carry no inherent incompatibility with science because they are not falsifiable. And your prototypes are showing more and more.
You've also got a weird habit of giving credence to religion and then using that to argue against religion - talking about the importance of disbelieving religion because if you don't think rationally your immortal soul will be in danger is a bit quixotic, don't you think?
I'm still of the opinion that what you're expressing is a violent reaction to the religious environment you grew up in more than a rational look at the actual interplay between science and religion, which speaks to great difficulties but no fundamental incompatibilities.
So long as revelation contains information which falls outside the scope of falsifiable scientific inquiry, it is harmless to science. It may be harmful to social justice, but it needn't be that either.
A segway, but the ridiculous notion that we have the "tools" to search and not only search but falsify the hypothesis that there is a golden teapot orbiting between venus and mercury is mind-gobblingly ignorant. Hint, no no you haven't, and you won't have for another century, at least.
You underestimate the amount of resources that we could drop into it if we simply did nothing else. 200-inch optical telescopes scattered between the orbits conducting searches for transient objects by the million. That's doable. It'd be really goddamn ugly for the future of the race and the planet, but it's doable.
It is alledged by the christians.
No it's not. I just provided you a crash-course in theology to demonstrate.
The facts are stated and affirmed. There was a virgin birth (way to parse a mistranslation), there was a man who ascended to the heavens, there were a legion of ressurections (a banality in those times, it seems), there is a whole bunch of "things" that have alledgedly happened to be the work of a living god.
Which due to the cloudiness historical record, could or could not have happened. Pretending to have magic powers was pretty popular gig back then, lest we forget, so there is a non-zero possibility someone with actual magic power could fly under the radar.
You propose an external control capable of accounting for the whims of an omnipotent being? Detail it.
(just for perspective on the non-religious cred here, ngtm1r wants to blow up God)
Yeah, sorry for being blunt and telling like the empirical reality seems to be rather than your wet dream is about.
So, if someone gets to you and states that if you don't kiss hank's ass you are completely incapable of rationally demolishing the problematic involved?
This is what you are implying, that we are incapable of judging the churche's (for instance) idea of, say, homossexuality practice leading you straight to hell, to be inane and completely unjustified and therefore we should not ignore it?
Your idea that religious practices are only about the "unseen", when they are clearly not, is ignorant. I've been telling you this, and you remain oblivious to obvious facts.
Do you actually believe that science doesn't have anything to say about conscience, human biology and eternal life?
QuoteYeah, sorry for being blunt and telling like the empirical reality seems to be rather than your wet dream is about.
Well that rather clinches the earlier point that you're acting out your own religious belief, doesn't it?
If you want to make an argument that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, you have to prove there are no black swans. You can't argue that most swans are white (especially if you don't have any data to present on how many swans are white). You have to prove that all swans, everywhere, under every possible condition that appears in nature, are white.
Remember, I believe that an empirical, agnostic worldview has the greatest practical utility. Ranting about how religion has caused harm and has interfered with science is both irrelevant to me and irrelevant to the point we're debating.
Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes.
This is rather surreal in its disconnectedness from the content it's intended as a reply to. I'll take it as a non sequitur.
I think you know the answer to that by now.
It's fascinating. Your entire argument about the irrelevance and incompatibility of religion is based on making a profound religious statement: that only certain classes of fundamentalist thought are 'true' religions. It's a beautiful orouboros.
I think what you mean to do be doing is attacking specific policies implemented by the Catholic church. That's an admirable project I could get behind. Unfortunately you seem to be going about this with a dogmatic, zealous approach that repeats the very mistakes you're condemning.
To expand, you're making a very loud, enthusiastic argument that religion has caused social and intellectual harm. Okay, that's nice, but it does not attack the point in contention, which is that this social and intellectual harm is a fundamental consequence of religious belief.
And you've not been able to locate any evidence for that. Your primary thrust in that direction is to define religion by harmful commandments located in the historical record - 'do not tolerate homosexuals' from a given Christian Church would be one of your picks, FGM would be one of mine. When I identify religious beliefs that are neither empirically falsifiable nor socially harmful - for example, belief in a loving God - you dismiss them as not real, not really characteristic of religion, which is itself a powerfully religious statement.
But this is no more a demonstration of a fundamental problem with religion than the Tuskegee Experiment was evidence of a fundamental problem with science. Even if you could demonstrate that these abuses of religion were a thousand times or ten thousand times as common (and frankly, I have no doubt they are), it would not be evidence for a fundamental incompatibility.
To be fundamental, an incompatibility must hold in 100% of all demonstrated cases. There must be an actual logical gulf. Many of the abuses you'd point to are polycausal - intolerance of homosexuality, for example, was more codified by religion than generated by it (though it is no less worth condemning).
Take the Congregational Church in the US. Its primary commandments are to love your neighbors regardless of color, age, sex, or orientation, cooperate in charity, pray to God for the well-being of the world, take joy in the glory of God's creation, undertake communion to free yourself of sin and bring the community together, do no harm, and generally be a decent person so that you will see your friends and family again in Heaven. Those who are not good people do not enter Heaven, but suffer no particular punishment.
I see no particular harm in these beliefs, nothing that would suffer scientific falsification, nothing that would interfere with clear empirical thought. Yet there were powerful believers in this church, who took great joy and comfort in the worship of God and the fellowship of the congregation, and then turned out to vote in favor of gay marriage and mail letters to their representatives asking for peace in the world and some more money for the schools - which, by the by, taught evolution.
Please enlighten me how the hell does the fact that I'm stating my opinions renders me as "acting out of [my] religious belief".
Again strawmanning. You think that the only "true" believers are the new age types who are deists or something.
No, no I don't. Because I would find it extremely disappointing that a scientific person thinks that these issues aren't scientifically discussable. Of course they are. We all know what happens to the mind when we destroy parts of the brain, etc.
I don't like arbitrary barbaric whims that are judged to be right because they were ordered by god himself (or herself).
So the lie that they will all be together after they are dead is "no harm", since they can't actually get to see that happening (and still one could always make the case that a mother of a bad son would suffer from thinking she wouldn't actually see him in heaven)?
Better. No I actually think that the causes are plentiful, but the one relating to religion is taking things on faith and educating people in that manner, and that such a particular teaching runs counter the ethical attitude a scientist should have. It degrades skepticism, it promotes blind following. The more of that, the less scientific a society becomes.
So a church isn't entirely bad, therefore it isn't bad?
QuotePlease enlighten me how the hell does the fact that I'm stating my opinions renders me as "acting out of [my] religious belief".
What level-headed rationalist makes a claim that they possess access to unfiltered reality and the other possesses access only to a constructed fantasy?
That kind of certainty only comes from one place.
Not at all. You are making an argument about ALL religious people - you wish to define all believers. I am making an argument about SOME. I have a fundamental advantage there.
QuoteNo, no I don't. Because I would find it extremely disappointing that a scientific person thinks that these issues aren't scientifically discussable. Of course they are. We all know what happens to the mind when we destroy parts of the brain, etc.
We have no idea what happens to the soul because the soul is an imaginary construct whose existence cannot be falsified; ergo any good positivist (which I am) has nothing to say about it at all beyond 'I have seen no evidence for its existence'. It is simply not of interest to empirical inquiry. We cannot rule out its existence; we cannot do anything at all to test its existence.
Science has everything to say about human biology, culture, thought, and morality. Religion has other things to say. This is why there is no incompatibility.
Neither do I. Again, though, you're failing to prove that no black swans exist. It's very clear to me by now that your argument is against bad things done in the name of religion rather than against religion.
QuoteSo the lie that they will all be together after they are dead is "no harm", since they can't actually get to see that happening (and still one could always make the case that a mother of a bad son would suffer from thinking she wouldn't actually see him in heaven)?
Again, religious thinking. A positivist has no reason to call this a lie. It is simply an untestable proposition that is not of interest to science, and, therefore, falls safely and harmlessly into the realm of religion.
At last you make a falsifiable claim. Test it. (You won't be able to.) Demonstrate that religious thought by necessity degrades skepticism when religious revelation can fall entirely into the real of the non-falsifiable. (You won't be able to).
Imagine a religion built on five pillars: the Prophet is the messenger of God, believers should go to a certain place to have their sins expunged, everyone should give money to help the poor, you should pray five times a day, and you should fast during a certain month of the year.
Not a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.
Indeed, apparently our entire scientific tradition derives from a culture built on those five pillars. Is it possible that a religious fanatic might come along and attack science? Of course it is. But for your point to stand, you must prove that it is INEVITABLE.
By the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.
in other news Luis Dias has conclusively proven that P != NP by establishing that absence of a current counter example necessarily implies that no counter example can ever be found or formulated.
Actually if you were paying attention (oh my bad) my argument isn't about people. We largely agree with people here. My argument is about religion.
Of course it can. Souls hypothetically define our consciousness and personality. All theologians agree with this basic definition. If we stick to this definition, and if we can scientifically produce a material construct of these traits of human minds, we have just falsified "souls".
Just like we did falsify the gods of thunder et al by discovering how lightning actually works.
Missed the point. My point is that broken clocks are right twice a day. It doesn't render such clocks "usable" or "not problematic" because they happen to be right some of the times. It's purely coincidental that they are so. So what if they are right twice a day, or if black swans do exist? Should we say then that broken clocks aren't ****ty?
You treat the word "religion" as if it's some kind of protection to silliness. "Oh wait, I know it's ****ing ridiculous statement about the universe, but it is religion therefore it's alright". What are you talking about? Positivism does away with metaphysics for good. It doesn't state that science for one, religious for the other, the only way that it separate waters is to say that some things are sayable while others are indistinguishable from white noise.
Yeah, so it's a religion that takes scapegoating as one of its fundamental tenets. Ok.QuoteNot a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.
Unless you happen to believe that "scapegoating" is something that would, in fact, interfere with scientific inquiry, rather than, say, take responsiblity for your actions and, say, take responsibility for your own scientific blusters, lies, omissions and anything that you may have erred on the past.
QuoteBy the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.
Clearly, you have low expectations of the world.
I'll take note that you didn't talk about why you deem agnosticism + positivism a better mental tool than "batttutism" or any other metaphysical shenanigan in what concerns science.
There's a hint in here wrt battutism. It's that perhaps the focus of believers in nonsensical propositions about things to find out about the universe may times to times dwell in ninjae'd shenanigans, when these followers start thinking they can actually discover something profound about Batttutism within science.
And then they lose a lot of time dealing with nonsense, rather than performing science. Just ask Newton about it. He just wasted more than half of his lifetime on religious shenanigans. Isn't that interference?
White noise is also known as "bull**** until shown otherwise".
Actually if you were paying attention (oh my bad) my argument isn't about people. We largely agree with people here. My argument is about religion.
Religion does not exist without people. Religion is only interesting in how it is instrumentalized in the believer - in short, in the empirical consequences. I care nothing for religion or faith except inasmuch as there are empirical consequences.
QuoteOf course it can. Souls hypothetically define our consciousness and personality. All theologians agree with this basic definition. If we stick to this definition, and if we can scientifically produce a material construct of these traits of human minds, we have just falsified "souls".
Just like we did falsify the gods of thunder et al by discovering how lightning actually works.
A soul can just as easily mirror consciousness and personality, then remain after death. There is no way to falsify this. A thunder god can create the mechanism of thunder and set it in motion, and we would not be able to falsify it.
QuoteMissed the point. My point is that broken clocks are right twice a day. It doesn't render such clocks "usable" or "not problematic" because they happen to be right some of the times. It's purely coincidental that they are so. So what if they are right twice a day, or if black swans do exist? Should we say then that broken clocks aren't ****ty?
If we've got a perfectly good working clock over here, and that broken clock doesn't impact our working clock, who cares?
QuoteYou treat the word "religion" as if it's some kind of protection to silliness. "Oh wait, I know it's ****ing ridiculous statement about the universe, but it is religion therefore it's alright". What are you talking about? Positivism does away with metaphysics for good. It doesn't state that science for one, religious for the other, the only way that it separate waters is to say that some things are sayable while others are indistinguishable from white noise.
Of course religion is silly. I think it's ridiculous, just like the Tooth Fairy. But it is nonfalsifiable. Science has nothing to say about it, it is simply disregarded. This is positivism. Of course, there are many brands of thought which fall under the term 'positivism'. I believe that if I can't test it empirically, I don't care about it - it is meaningless. There could be invisible time ninjas dancing on my head and I don't give a ****. If someone else gives a ****, I care only as much as it influences their behavior.
Personally I think that religion tends to cause trouble for scientific inquiry. I want religion to stay out of science. That's an empirical outcome. Where religion doesn't bother science, I don't care about it, people can think what they want.
QuoteYeah, so it's a religion that takes scapegoating as one of its fundamental tenets. Ok.QuoteNot a single one of these proscriptions would interfere with the conduct of scientific inquiry.
Unless you happen to believe that "scapegoating" is something that would, in fact, interfere with scientific inquiry, rather than, say, take responsiblity for your actions and, say, take responsibility for your own scientific blusters, lies, omissions and anything that you may have erred on the past.
A lunge, a miss. Sins are a religious concept. Nothing in that doctrine states an absolution of responsibility for action.
QuoteQuoteBy the standards you have laid out, you have been unable to demonstrate any bad at all.
Clearly, you have low expectations of the world.
An institution which promotes social cooperation, the expansion of rights for all humans, and funding for scientific research and education at no apparent empirically demonstrable cost? Sounds like a win-win and a QED to me. There is no fundamental incompatibility between religion and any form of scientific inquiry, nor, apparently, with liberal society.
QuoteI'll take note that you didn't talk about why you deem agnosticism + positivism a better mental tool than "batttutism" or any other metaphysical shenanigan in what concerns science.
So long as the empirical social outcomes are the same - namely, unconstrained empiricism - agnosticism and positivism is no better than Battutism. All I care about are the quantifiable outcomes.QuoteThere's a hint in here wrt battutism. It's that perhaps the focus of believers in nonsensical propositions about things to find out about the universe may times to times dwell in ninjae'd shenanigans, when these followers start thinking they can actually discover something profound about Batttutism within science.
And then they lose a lot of time dealing with nonsense, rather than performing science. Just ask Newton about it. He just wasted more than half of his lifetime on religious shenanigans. Isn't that interference?
It would be a ****ty Battutist who wasted time on nonsense. The invisible time ninjas would be all over her, and her family would kick her right out of that that rut before they got to her. The only way to defeat the invisible time ninjas and please God, after all, is to have better science.
But if you like to think that a science fiction writer can become a self-made prophet of a very succcessful religion, I think I don't need to name an example of exactly that which isn't exactly a heaven to "skepticism" and freedom overall.
Of course, conceptually the never increasing tautology never ends, but in actuality, it does end. There is a point of diminishing returns where people simply stop believing in thunder god given the overwhelmingly better knowledge about weather that we ended up possessing.
Exactly. There. Thank you. It is *meaningless drivel*. So you see that science *can* talk about it, it can say it *is* meaningless drivel.
You pile your sins over christ and eat his blood and flesh. Then you are rendered absolved of your sins. I see nothing here that is moral. Even CS Lewis agrees with me, ffs.
The exp.... Wow. Really? You think that the church is a force for good?
There's a loophole in there. Can't you see it? It's when they, in all their science investigations, actually find out that you invented all the ninja ****. It's inevitable, since it is knowledge to be made, just like we know today the mish mash that the Bible actually is all about.
QuoteBut if you like to think that a science fiction writer can become a self-made prophet of a very succcessful religion, I think I don't need to name an example of exactly that which isn't exactly a heaven to "skepticism" and freedom overall.
What does this have to do with the scenario proposed?
QuoteOf course, conceptually the never increasing tautology never ends, but in actuality, it does end. There is a point of diminishing returns where people simply stop believing in thunder god given the overwhelmingly better knowledge about weather that we ended up possessing.
How does this address the point at hand?
QuoteExactly. There. Thank you. It is *meaningless drivel*. So you see that science *can* talk about it, it can say it *is* meaningless drivel.
We do not; try reading it again more carefully.
QuoteYou pile your sins over christ and eat his blood and flesh. Then you are rendered absolved of your sins. I see nothing here that is moral. Even CS Lewis agrees with me, ffs.
Did you miss which religion we were discussing?
QuoteThe exp.... Wow. Really? You think that the church is a force for good?
Did you miss which church we were discussing? It's a very bad sign if you begin to lose track of these things in favor of monolithic homogeneity.
QuoteThere's a loophole in there. Can't you see it? It's when they, in all their science investigations, actually find out that you invented all the ninja ****. It's inevitable, since it is knowledge to be made, just like we know today the mish mash that the Bible actually is all about.
There was no such condition in the scenario; the religion arose socially in the distant past. Do you need additional clarification on the scenario?
Are there any other imprecisions I can help correct? I'm not getting paid any more so I'm just doing this for the benefit of the audience.
It should be clarified for Luis Dias' benefit, in case he's working from one of the classic formulations of strong positivism, that those philosophies are as dead as they come. I'm working from something a bit more post-Popper here.
1. The true world -- unattainable but for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.")
2. The true world -- unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents").
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible -- it becomes female, it becomes Christian.)
3. The true world -- unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it -- a consolidation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Konigsbergian)
4. The true world -- unattainable? At any rate, unattained, and being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning, The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism)
5. The "true" world -- an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating -- an idea which has become useless and superfluous -- consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast: return of bon sens and cheer-fulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)
6. The true world -- we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we also have abolished the apparent one.
(Noon: moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.')
Wait, what?
Proof to back up that claim?
None of them possess sufficient powers to prevent me from climbing Mount Olympus and looking around for their house (and seeing it's not there), or using satellite imagery to do so, or searching for the entrance to Hades in its specified location and not finding it, or soforth. The problem of the Greco-Roman pantheon is that it really, really liked to interact with people, and it wasn't very good at hiding because of this; none of them have the sort of masterful powers of illusion required to conceal themselves from prying eyes, as evidenced by the supposed poor bastards who saw some of them bathing and suffered horribly for it.
So, which is this rational way you speak of, since according to you, weak atheism isn't it?
No, I challenge your use of "weak atheism" as a loaded term, attempting to create an atheistic plurality with bad terminology.
Also, I note that you didn't prove there's a teapot between Earth and Mars...
Why should I? It's a red herring. Unless you're challenging my assertion that it is physically possible to conduct a search for the teapot? The volume is vast, but not infinite, and the tools required in many ways already existent. It is something that could be done, and thus an unsuitable metaphor for the task at hand.
One can make the claim that their home in Olympus is hidden from sight, and they've had no wish to interact with mortals from... whenever. Also, greek mythology doesn't state the exact powers its gods have. The fact is that one cannot make the claim that greek mythology is any less rational than say, hindu, or christian mythology.
If you use the term atheism to mean strong atheism, it's not me who's using bad terminology. :p
Believers in the teapot can always word the location and nature of the teapot to be as impossible to prove as any god you can think of. Hence, it's as rational to believe in the teapot as in god.
One can make the claim that their home in Olympus is hidden from sight, and they've had no wish to interact with mortals from... whenever. Also, greek mythology doesn't state the exact powers its gods have. The fact is that one cannot make the claim that greek mythology is any less rational than say, hindu, or christian mythology.
No, one cannot make that claim. That's making **** up ex post facto. They could have pulled that for Bellerophon. Artemis could have cast invisibility or barrier or whatever before she went skinnydipping. (In fact, there's exactly one cloak of invisibility running around Greek myth and it's never replicated, but it gets loaned out a ****load.) They don't. Absent evidence from their own stories they are capable of this sort of thing, you wish to assert, out of the blue, that they are?
This is theological bankruptcy. You know nothing of your subject and are in fact engaged in outright heresy. You have no argument.
(And it's fun to pull that on a lot of Protestants too when referring to certain beliefs that don't seem Biblical.)
If you use the term atheism to mean strong atheism, it's not me who's using bad terminology. :p
So basically, your assertion is that intuitive terminology is bad. Weak atheism as a term was constructed by people with an admitted atheistic axe to grind, in an effort to bring agnosticism into their camp. The answers "no" and "I don't know" betray a world of difference in attitude, but you want to lump them together as the same thing? For that matter, you would lump directly together the answers "I don't know" and "I don't care", one of which is essentially the exact opposite of the other. Intellectual rigor and total intellectual failure in the same house?
Believers in the teapot can always word the location and nature of the teapot to be as impossible to prove as any god you can think of. Hence, it's as rational to believe in the teapot as in god.
Not the metaphor you constructed. (And indeed, the metaphor you constructed was not the original metaphor.) You're backsliding. As long as you gave a physical location, that is, was, and forever shall be something theoretically provable. The assertion of an omnipotent diety is not. Your metaphor is bankrupt, and you have to move the goalposts to even try to make it work.
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
GB, most of this thread is a mad, murky mess, but your Battutism thought experiment is straight-up awesome. :yes:
GB, most of this thread is a mad, murky mess, but your Battutism thought experiment is straight-up awesome. :yes:
I do wonder how much of it was influenced by Dr Who though. :D
religion is very much about the concrete actual world, its social relations, power structures, ideological programming of individuals, etc.
religion is very much about the concrete actual world, its social relations, power structures, ideological programming of individuals, etc.
The religious systems you cherry pick and attack are like this.
I believe there is a God.
I believe that I should still be a good person.
I have no quarrel with sciecne, and in fact strive to better myself through it.
"HOLY ****! HE'S RELIGIOUS! HE MUST BE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO SCIENCE!" is the argument you're spouting, reduced to a microscopic level. See how retarded it is?
It's just a form of fundamentalism where he reduces all religion to a bizarre caricature from the outside instead of the inside.
There is no compelling rational reason to remain alive, for instance; the desire to live is simply a product of the fact that the desire to die extinguishes itself through natural selection. Science does not speak to these things; it is a tool for investigation and understanding of the empirical world, and must be carefully protected so it isn't compromised by ideology.
There is no teleological reason for anything. The universe has no purpose. This *is* a scientific finding, so your assertion that science does not speak to these things flies in the face of your entire speech about it, for if you were born two centuries ago, you would not believe in that sentence for a minute, for the reason for your existence would have been declared to have something to do with a man that was nailed to a cross two thousand years ago. Your paragraph is a self-defeated one.
So one more bull****. Bah. I can take it, Battuta, all of your cheap insults, that I am a fundamentalist, etc., but I'd even submit I'd rather be that, than the spewer of irrational and incoherent arguments you keep trolling this thread with.
QuoteThere is no teleological reason for anything. The universe has no purpose. This *is* a scientific finding, so your assertion that science does not speak to these things flies in the face of your entire speech about it, for if you were born two centuries ago, you would not believe in that sentence for a minute, for the reason for your existence would have been declared to have something to do with a man that was nailed to a cross two thousand years ago. Your paragraph is a self-defeated one.
Exactly what I've been saying. Yet in spite of the lack of empirical justification, everyone on Earth holds to and believes in purposes; it is why we act and live. The fact that we believe things that stand outside the empirical is precisely why religion is not incompatible with science. We all do it. Where science does not tread, nonetheless human beings do.
It's ironic that the paragraph you'd describe as self-defeating is perhaps the most compelling argument you've made against yourself so far.
As a methodological note to try to help you to be a better scientist: you should actually make weaker arguments above. Science has not found that the universe has no purpose; science never can. What you should say is that no evidence has been gathered to suggest a purpose or intentionality to the universe. An empiricist should be satisfied with this, because the statement is non-falsifiable and therefore not interesting.
You sound like you're having some trouble there. Disentangling the tools of empiricism from your own beliefs is a painful process, but when you're done, you will find that science as an instrument rather than science as a religion is far more powerful.
then you will understand that the last thing I want to do is turn science into religion.
The unjustified assumption in this paragraph above is the notion that we need to "believe" in this thing called "purposes" in order to live. I've yet to see evidence for this. Usually, when people talk about "purposes", they are describing long-term desires. I have the "purpose" of living a happy life. What does that have to do with belief, one distracted fellow may ask? Well, obviously, nothing, with the sole exception that there is a "belief" that stems from other people's experience, that living "a happy life" is something to fight for. But this isn't a religious belief in something "out of this world".
Ok, I'll accept that I was stretching my case a bit, but I don't think that it isn't necessarily a coincidence that the empirical finding of the mechanisms of evolution, of the wild chaotic and careless nature of the universe, etc., all come at the same time when mankind starts to get that the universe isn't telelological. I'd say that all empirical evidence we garner every day are totally pointing at one sole direction in that case. Only a fundamentalist would cling to the notion that perhaps there is still a case to be made for a teleological universe.
No, it doesn't seem to be working like that *at all*. And mind you, such thinking *does pollute your mind* if you are trying to understand evolution, etc.
Let me one up you then. When you find that religion and metaphysical thinking isn't anything to be substituted for, and that the minimal mind that you'll end up with will be so much better, then you will understand that the last thing I want to do is turn science into religion.
But you can't, because you are in a grave misapprehension. You still think that many (important) themes and questions are forever doomed to be within the realm of metaphysics, and if someone comes along and tries to state the (rather senseful) proposition that we could actually discuss them in a more proper rigorous manner, you call them religious.
Cute.
"Religion is diametrically opposed to science/rational thinking."
Is this or is this not your position? This is the macroscopic view, dealing with large-scale views and large-scale organizations/belief.
"A religious person is diametricaly opposed to science/rational thinking."
If this is inanely stupid, your whole premise is accompanied by more inane stupidity than most things on Earth.
He seems to be arguing a bit behind the curve. I think if he'd spent more time here he would be well aware that I view the universe as a vast and deterministic (if not discrete) machine in which all human morality and beliefs have been shaped by evolution working in the theater of a blind and purposeless cosmos.
Unfortunately he's been taught to believe this, rather than to know it. When you wield a tool, you have to know its limitations, or you'll break it on something you can't cut.
Science does not deal with the nonfalsifiable. It simply doesn't care about it.
It can analyze how they arose, of course, and what neural structures underlie them, and what confirmation heuristics maintain them - something I've spoken to at length in this thread - but it says nothing about the beliefs themselves.
But he's having trouble translating this into an argument for the fundamental incompatibility he asserted, and at the rate he's going I don't think he'll manage it.
And here you stay forever. Religion may have a very profound core that is unfalsifiable. But many, if not most of their proclamations are anything but nonfalsifiable. I've enumerated a lot of them, but you remain oblivious to them, as if nothing happened.
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Nonoverlapping Magisteria
by Stephen Jay Gould
I
ncongruous places often inspire anomalous stories. In early 1984, I spent several nights at the Vatican housed in a hotel built for itinerant priests. While pondering over such puzzling issues as the intended function of the bidets in each bathroom, and hungering for something other than plum jam on my breakfast rolls (why did the basket only contain hundreds of identical plum packets and not a one of, say, strawberry?), I encountered yet another among the innumerable issues of contrasting cultures that can make life so interesting. Our crowd (present in Rome for a meeting on nuclear winter sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) shared the hotel with a group of French and Italian Jesuit priests who were also professional scientists.
At lunch, the priests called me over to their table to pose a problem that had been troubling them. What, they wanted to know, was going on in America with all this talk about "scientific creationism"? One asked me: "Is evolution really in some kind of trouble. and if so, what could such trouble be? I have always been taught that no doctrinal conflict exists between evolution and Catholic faith, and the evidence for evolution seems both entirely satisfactory and utterly overwhelming. Have I missed something?"
A lively pastiche of French, Italian, and English conversation then ensued for half an hour or so, but the priests all seemed reassured by my general answer: Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a homegrown phenomenon of American sociocultural history—a splinter movement (unfortunately rather more of a beam these days) of Protestant fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean. We all left satisfied, but I certainly felt bemused by the anomaly of my role as a Jewish agnostic, trying to reassure a group of Catholic priests that evolution remained both true and entirely consistent with religious belief.
Another story in the same mold: I am often asked whether I ever encounter creationism as a live issue among my Harvard undergraduate students. I reply that only once, in nearly thirty years of teaching, did I experience such an incident. A very sincere and serious freshman student came to my office hours with the following question that had clearly been troubling him deeply: "I am a devout Christian and have never had any reason to doubt evolution, an idea that seems both exciting and particularly well documented. But my roommate, a proselytizing Evangelical, has been insisting with enormous vigor that I cannot be both a real Christian and an evolutionist. So tell me, can a person believe both in God and evolution?" Again, I gulped hard, did my intellectual duty, and reassured him that evolution was both true and entirely compatible with Christian belief—a position I hold sincerely, but still an odd situation for a Jewish agnostic.
These two stories illustrate a cardinal point, frequently unrecognized but absolutely central to any understanding of the status and impact of the politically potent, fundamentalist doctrine known by its self-proclaimed oxymoron as "scientitic creationism"—the claim that the Bible is literally true, that all organisms were created during six days of twenty-four hours, that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that evolution must therefore be false. Creationism does not pit science against religion (as my opening stories indicate), for no such conflict exists. Creationism does not raise any unsettled intellectual issues about the nature of biology or the history of life. Creationism is a local and parochial movement, powerful only in the United States among Western nations, and prevalent only among the few sectors of American Protestantism that choose to read the Bible as an inerrant document, literally true in every jot and tittle.
I do not doubt that one could find an occasional nun who would prefer to teach creationism in her parochial school biology class or an occasional orthodox rabbi who does the same in his yeshiva, but creationism based on biblical literalism makes little sense in either Catholicism or Judaism for neither religion maintains any extensive tradition for reading the Bible as literal truth rather than illuminating literature, based partly on metaphor and allegory (essential components of all good writing) and demanding interpretation for proper understanding. Most Protestant groups, of course, take the same position—the fundamentalist fringe notwithstanding.
The position that I have just outlined by personal stories and general statements represents the standard attitude of all major Western religions (and of Western science) today. (I cannot, through ignorance, speak of Eastern religions, although I suspect that the same position would prevail in most cases.) The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
In the context of this standard position, I was enormously puzzled by a statement issued by Pope John Paul II on October 22, 1996, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the same body that had sponsored my earlier trip to the Vatican. In this document, entitled "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth," the pope defended both the evidence for evolution and the consistency of the theory with Catholic religious doctrine. Newspapers throughout the world responded with frontpage headlines, as in the New York Times for October 25:
"Pope Bolsters Church's Support for Scientific View of Evolution."
Now I know about "slow news days" and I do admit that nothing else was strongly competing for headlines at that particular moment. (The Times could muster nothing more exciting for a lead story than Ross Perot's refusal to take Bob Dole's advice and quit the presidential race.) Still, I couldn't help feeling immensely puzzled by all the attention paid to the pope's statement (while being wryly pleased, of course, for we need all the good press we can get, especially from respected outside sources). The Catholic Church had never opposed evolution and had no reason to do so. Why had the pope issued such a statement at all? And why had the press responded with an orgy of worldwide, front-page coverage?
I could only conclude at first, and wrongly as I soon learned, that journalists throughout the world must deeply misunderstand the relationship between science and religion, and must therefore be elevating a minor papal comment to unwarranted notice. Perhaps most people really do think that a war exists between science and religion, and that (to cite a particularly newsworthy case) evolution must be intrinsically opposed to Christianity. In such a context, a papal admission of evolution's legitimate status might be regarded as major news indeed—a sort of modern equivalent for a story that never happened, but would have made the biggest journalistic splash of 1640: Pope Urban VIII releases his most famous prisoner from house arrest and humbly apologizes, "Sorry, Signor Galileo… the sun, er, is central."
But I then discovered that the prominent coverage of papal satisfaction with evolution had not been an error of non-Catholic Anglophone journalists. The Vatican itself had issued the statement as a major news release. And Italian newspapers had featured, if anything, even bigger headlines and longer stories. The conservative Il Giornale, for example, shouted from its masthead: "Pope Says We May Descend from Monkeys."
Clearly, I was out to lunch. Something novel or surprising must lurk within the papal statement but what could it be?—especially given the accuracy of my primary impression (as I later verified) that the Catholic Church values scientific study, views science as no threat to religion in general or Catholic doctrine in particular, and has long accepted both the legitimacy of evolution as a field of study and the potential harmony of evolutionary conclusions with Catholic faith.
As a former constituent of Tip O'Neill's, I certainly know that "all politics is local"—and that the Vatican undoubtedly has its own internal reasons, quite opaque to me, for announcing papal support of evolution in a major statement. Still, I knew that I was missing some important key, and I felt frustrated. I then remembered the primary rule of intellectual life: when puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents—a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large sectors of the American experience.
I knew that Pope Pius XII (not one of my favorite figures in twentieth-century history, to say the least) had made the primary statement in a 1950 encyclical entitled Humani Generis. I knew the main thrust of his message: Catholics could believe whatever science determined about the evolution of the human body, so long as they accepted that, at some time of his choosing, God had infused the soul into such a creature. I also knew that I had no problem with this statement, for whatever my private beliefs about souls, science cannot touch such a subject and therefore cannot be threatened by any theological position on such a legitimately and intrinsically religious issue. Pope Pius XII, in other words, had properly acknowledged and respected the separate domains of science and theology. Thus, I found myself in total agreement with Humani Generis—but I had never read the document in full (not much of an impediment to stating an opinion these days).
I quickly got the relevant writings from, of all places, the Internet. (The pope is prominently on-line, but a Luddite like me is not. So I got a computer-literate associate to dredge up the documents. I do love the fracture of stereotypes implied by finding religion so hep and a scientist so square.) Having now read in full both Pope Pius's Humani Generis of 1950 and Pope John Paul's proclamation of October 1996, I finally understand why the recent statement seems so new, revealing, and worthy of all those headlines. And the message could not be more welcome for evolutionists and friends of both science and religion.
The text of Humani Generis focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church—a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for "teacher." We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed "conflict" or "warfare" between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or "nonoverlapping magisteria").
The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.
This resolution might remain all neat and clean if the nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) of science and religion were separated by an extensive no man's land. But, in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer—and the sorting of legitimate domains can become quite complex and difficult. To cite just two broad questions involving both evolutionary facts and moral arguments: Since evolution made us the only earthly creatures with advanced consciousness, what responsibilities are so entailed for our relations with other species? What do our genealogical ties with other organisms imply about the meaning of human life?
Pius XII's Humani Generis is a highly traditionalist document by a deeply conservative man forced to face all the "isms" and cynicisms that rode the wake of World War II and informed the struggle to rebuild human decency from the ashes of the Holocaust. The encyclical, subtitled "Concerning some false opinions which threaten to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine" begins with a statement of embattlement:
Disagreement and error among men on moral and religious matters have always been a cause of profound sorrow to all good men, but above all to the true and loyal sons of the Church, especially today, when we see the principles of Christian culture being attacked on all sides.
Pius lashes out, in turn, at various external enemies of the Church: pantheism, existentialism, dialectical materialism, historicism. and of course and preeminently, communism. He then notes with sadness that some well-meaning folks within the Church have fallen into a dangerous relativism—"a theological pacifism and egalitarianism, in which all points of view become equally valid"—in order to include people of wavering faith who yearn for the embrace of Christian religion but do not wish to accept the particularly Catholic magisterium.
What is this world coming to when these noxious novelties can so discombobulate a revealed and established order? Speaking as a conservative's conservative, Pius laments:
Novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology.…Some question whether angels are personal beings, and whether matter and spirit differ essentially.…Some even say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance, should be so modified that the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism.
Pius first mentions evolution to decry a misuse by overextension often promulgated by zealous supporters of the anathematized "isms":
Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution…explains the origin of all things.…Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.
Pius's major statement on evolution occurs near the end of the encyclical in paragraphs 35 through 37. He accepts the standard model of NOMA and begins by acknowledging that evolution lies in a difficult area where the domains press hard against each other. "It remains for US now to speak about those questions which. although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith." [Interestingly, the main thrust of these paragraphs does not address evolution in general but lies in refuting a doctrine that Pius calls "polygenism," or the notion of human ancestry from multiple parents—for he regards such an idea as incompatible with the doctrine of original sin, "which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own." In this one instance, Pius may be transgressing the NOMA principle—but I cannot judge, for I do not understand the details of Catholic theology and therefore do not know how symbolically such a statement may be read. If Pius is arguing that we cannot entertain a theory about derivation of all modern humans from an ancestral population rather than through an ancestral individual (a potential fact) because such an idea would question the doctrine of original sin (a theological construct), then I would declare him out of line for letting the magisterium of religion dictate a conclusion within the magisterium of science.]
Pius then writes the well-known words that permit Catholics to entertain the evolution of the human body (a factual issue under the magisterium of science), so long as they accept the divine Creation and infusion of the soul (a theological notion under the magisterium of religion):
The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.
I had, up to here, found nothing surprising in Humani Generis, and nothing to relieve my puzzlement about the novelty of Pope John Paul's recent statement. But I read further and realized that Pope Pius had said more about evolution, something I had never seen quoted, and that made John Paul's statement most interesting indeed. In short, Pius forcefully proclaimed that while evolution may be legitimate in principle, the theory, in fact, had not been proven and might well be entirely wrong. One gets the strong impression, moreover, that Pius was rooting pretty hard for a verdict of falsity. Continuing directly from the last quotation, Pius advises us about the proper study of evolution:
However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure.… Some, however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.
To summarize, Pius generally accepts the NOMA principle of nonoverlapping magisteria in permitting Catholics to entertain the hypothesis of evolution for the human body so long as they accept the divine infusion of the soul. But he then offers some (holy) fatherly advice to scientists about the status of evolution as a scientific concept: the idea is not yet proven, and you all need to be especially cautious because evolution raises many troubling issues right on the border of my magisterium. One may read this second theme in two different ways: either as a gratuitous incursion into a different magisterium or as a helpful perspective from an intelligent and concerned outsider. As a man of good will, and in the interest of conciliation, I am happy to embrace the latter reading.
In any case, this rarely quoted second claim (that evolution remains both unproven and a bit dangerous)—and not the familiar first argument for the NOMA principle (that Catholics may accept the evolution of the body so long as they embrace the creation of the soul)—defines the novelty and the interest of John Paul's recent statement.
John Paul begins by summarizing Pius's older encyclical of 195O, and particularly by reaffirming the NOMA principle—nothing new here, and no cause for extended publicity:
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation.
To emphasize the power of NOMA, John Paul poses a potential problem and a sound resolution: How can we reconcile science's claim for physical continuity in human evolution with Catholicism's insistence that the soul must enter at a moment of divine infusion:
With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say However, does not the posing of such ontological discontinuity run counter to that physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry? Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation.
The novelty and news value of John Paul's statement lies, rather, in his profound revision of Pius's second and rarely quoted claim that evolution, while conceivable in principle and reconcilable with religion, can cite little persuasive evidence, and may well be false. John Paul—states and I can only say amen, and thanks for noticing—that the half century between Pius's surveying the ruins of World War II and his own pontificate heralding the dawn of a new millennium has witnessed such a growth of data, and such a refinement of theory, that evolution can no longer be doubted by people of good will:
Pius XII added . . . that this opinion [evolution] should not be adopted as though it were a certain, proven doctrine. . . . Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
In conclusion. Pius had grudgingly admitted evolution as a legitimate hypothesis that he regarded as only tentatively supported and potentially (as I suspect he hoped) untrue. John Paul, nearly fifty years later, reaffirms the legitimacy of evolution under the NOMA principle—no news here—but then adds that additional data and theory have placed the factuality of evolution beyond reasonable doubt. Sincere Christians must now accept evolution not merely as a plausible possibility but also as an effectively proven fact. In other words, official Catholic opinion on evolution has moved from "say it ain't so, but we can deal with it if we have to" (Pius's grudging view of 1950) to John Paul's entirely welcoming "it has been proven true; we always celebrate nature's factuality, and we look forward to interesting discussions of theological implications." I happily endorse this turn of events as gospel—literally "good news." I may represent the magisterium of science, but I welcome the support of a primary leader from the other major magisterium of our complex lives. And I recall the wisdom of King Solomon: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country (Prov. 25:25).
Just as religion must bear the cross of its hard-liners. I have some scientific colleagues, including a few prominent enough to wield influence by their writings, who view this rapprochement of the separate magisteria with dismay. To colleagues like me—agnostic scientists who welcome and celebrate thc rapprochement, especially the pope's latest statement—they say: "C'mon, be honest; you know that religion is addle-pated, superstitious, old-fashioned b.s.; you're only making those welcoming noises because religion is so powerful, and we need to be diplomatic in order to assure public support and funding for science." I do not think that this attitude is common among scientists, but such a position fills me with dismay—and I therefore end this essay with a personal statement about religion, as a testimony to what I regard as a virtual consensus among thoughtful scientists (who support the NOMA principle as firmly as the pope does).
I am not, personally, a believer or a religious man in any sense of institutional commitment or practice. But I have enormous respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me, beyond almost all others (with a few exceptions, like evolution, paleontology, and baseball). Much of this fascination lies in the historical paradox that throughout Western history organized religion has fostered both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heart-rending examples of human goodness in the face of personal danger. (The evil, I believe, lies in the occasional confluence of religion with secular power. The Catholic Church has sponsored its share of horrors, from Inquisitions to liquidations—but only because this institution held such secular power during so much of Western history. When my folks held similar power more briefly in Old Testament times, they committed just as many atrocities with many of the same rationales.)
I believe, with all my heart, in a respectful, even loving concordat between our magisteria—the NOMA solution. NOMA represents a principled position on moral and intellectua] grounds, not a mere diplomatic stance. NOMA also cuts both ways. If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution. This mutual humility has important practical consequences in a world of such diverse passions.
Religion is too important to too many people for any dismissal or denigration of the comfort still sought by many folks from theology. I may, for example, privately suspect that papal insistence on divine infusion of the soul represents a sop to our fears, a device for maintaining a belief in human superiority within an evolutionary world offering no privileged position to any creature. But I also know that souls represent a subject outside the magisterium of science. My world cannot prove or disprove such a notion, and the concept of souls cannot threaten or impact my domain. Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us.
As a moral position (and therefore not as a deduction from my knowledge of nature's factuality), I prefer the "cold bath" theory that nature can be truly "cruel" and "indifferent"—in the utterly inappropriate terms of our ethical discourse—because nature was not constructed as our eventual abode, didn't know we were coming (we are, after all, interlopers of the latest geological microsecond), and doesn't give a damn about us (speaking metaphorically). I regard such a position as liberating, not depressing, because we then become free to conduct moral discourse—and nothing could be more important—in our own terms, spared from the delusion that we might read moral truth passively from nature's factuality.
But I recognize that such a position frightens many people, and that a more spiritual view of nature retains broad appeal (acknowledging the factuality of evolution and other phenomena, but still seeking some intrinsic meaning in human terms, and from the magisterium of religion). I do appreciate, for example, the struggles of a man who wrote to the New York Times on November 3, 1996, to state both his pain and his endorsement ofJohn Paul's statement:
Pope John Paul II's acceptance of evolution touches the doubt in my heart. The problem of pain and suffering in a world created by a God who is all love and light is hard enough to bear, even if one is a creationist. But at least a creationist can say that the original creation, coming from the hand of God was good, harmonious, innocent and gentle. What can one say about evolution, even a spiritual theory of evolution? Pain and suffering, mindless cruelty and terror are its means of creation. Evolution's engine is the grinding of predatory teeth upon the screaming, living flesh and bones of prey.… If evolution be true, my faith has rougher seas to sail.
I don't agree with this man, but we could have a wonderful argument. I would push the "cold bath" theory: he would (presumably) advocate the theme of inherent spiritual meaning in nature, however opaque the signal. But we would both be enlightened and filled with better understanding of these deep and ultimately unanswerable issues. Here, I believe, lies the greatest strength and necessity of NOMA, the nonoverlapping magisteria of science and religion. NOMA permits—indeed enjoins—the prospect of respectful discourse, of constant input from both magisteria toward the common goal of wisdom. If human beings are anything special, we are the creatures that must ponder and talk. Pope John Paul II would surely point out to me that his magisterium has always recognized this distinction, for "in principio, erat verbum"—"In the beginning was the Word."
Carl Sagan organized and attended the Vatican meeting that introduces this essay; he also shared my concern for fruitful cooperation between the different but vital realms of science and religion. Carl was also one of my dearest friends. I learned of his untimely death on the same day that I read the proofs for this essay. I could only recall Nehru's observations on Gandhi's death—that the light had gone out, and darkness reigned everywhere. But I then contemplated what Carl had done in his short sixty-two years and remembered John Dryden's ode for Henry Purcell, a great musician who died even younger: "He long ere this had tuned the jarring spheres, and left no hell below."
The days I spent with Carl in Rome were the best of our friendship. We delighted in walking around the Eternal City, feasting on its history and architecture—and its food! Carl took special delight in the anonymity that he still enjoyed in a nation that had not yet aired Cosmos, the greatest media work in popular science of all time.
I dedicate this essay to his memory. Carl also shared my personal suspicion about the nonexistence of souls—but I cannot think of a better reason for hoping we are wrong than the prospect of spending eternity roaming the cosmos in friendship and conversation with this wonderful soul.
[ Stephen Jay Gould, "Nonoverlapping Magisteria," Natural History 106 (March 1997): 16-22; Reprinted here with permission from Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, New York: Harmony Books, 1998, pp. 269-283. ]
The unjustified assumption in this paragraph above is the notion that we need to "believe" in this thing called "purposes" in order to live. I've yet to see evidence for this. Usually, when people talk about "purposes", they are describing long-term desires. I have the "purpose" of living a happy life. What does that have to do with belief, one distracted fellow may ask? Well, obviously, nothing, with the sole exception that there is a "belief" that stems from other people's experience, that living "a happy life" is something to fight for. But this isn't a religious belief in something "out of this world".
The reason it is good to live a happy life is because evolution has produced a set of signals to indicate to you when you are living a life which is likely to produce high fitness. This we call happiness.
That is the empirical reason to seek happiness: because of evolution. That is why we seek happy lives.
It is also a rationally unsustainable position. There is no logical reason to want to be happy, to want to obey the selected behaviors of the fit organism. It occurs because it occurs, meaningless, without teleology. So we assign it teleology.
We talk about how we want to live happy lives. Why is living a happy life good? (Because those who didn't want to died out, science says). Because living a happy life is worth fighting for, you say. Worth. Value. Belief. We assign these things constantly. Science can tell us where they came from, but it does not bear on our day-to-day deployment.
QuoteOk, I'll accept that I was stretching my case a bit, but I don't think that it isn't necessarily a coincidence that the empirical finding of the mechanisms of evolution, of the wild chaotic and careless nature of the universe, etc., all come at the same time when mankind starts to get that the universe isn't telelological. I'd say that all empirical evidence we garner every day are totally pointing at one sole direction in that case. Only a fundamentalist would cling to the notion that perhaps there is still a case to be made for a teleological universe.
What you're talking about is called the semantic apocalypse, and it is one of my favorite things. Unfortunately for you, it does not bear on the argument at hand, which is the question of whether religion and science are fundamentally incompatible.
There is no empirical case to be made for a teleological universe, because the proposition is untestable. There could be an omnipotent God running it all. We could - of fare more concern to me - be in a simulation running in a Matrioshka brain. Both propositions are (more or less, in the latter case) untestable.
QuoteNo, it doesn't seem to be working like that *at all*. And mind you, such thinking *does pollute your mind* if you are trying to understand evolution, etc.
You have repeatedly made this claim using moralistic language and yet you cannot empirically substantiate it. A believer in a God who set the universe in motion - and he need believe nothing more than that, no commandments, nothing past it - may fervently desire to understand God's design, and so be driven to study evolution with great precision and care.
QuoteLet me one up you then. When you find that religion and metaphysical thinking isn't anything to be substituted for, and that the minimal mind that you'll end up with will be so much better, then you will understand that the last thing I want to do is turn science into religion.
But you can't, because you are in a grave misapprehension. You still think that many (important) themes and questions are forever doomed to be within the realm of metaphysics, and if someone comes along and tries to state the (rather senseful) proposition that we could actually discuss them in a more proper rigorous manner, you call them religious.
This would be a more compelling argument if I had any religious or metaphysical beliefs. Yet I am a pure materialist.
As such, I understand that there can never, by definition, be an empirical investigation of an omnipotent God, nor of any other non-falsifiable proposition. It is impossible.
Anyone who attempts to propose that this is possible has rendered science a religion. This is the crime you are committing; debasing science by using it as an ideology, by applying it to topics it has nothing to say about.
A deist will have less problems than a bible literalist. I've said this too, it's a strawman. A deist is a far less religious person, for he is less inclined to actually believe that the universe was designed with him in mind, that the rituals do mean anything to god, etc., etc. There is still a religious core in his mind, one which may have not issues with evolution, but may have issues if the hypothesis you bring up about the "semantic apocalypse" turns out to actually be a good renderization of what's going on. Will he accept such a conclusion? What will stop him from reaching the most rational conclusion, that his religious beliefs are nothing but the byproduct of a badly designed brain?
There we go, there we go, there we go. The issue you're hung up on, the reason I've called you a fundamentalist. Religion is belief. It does not exist (for me, the atheist) outside of human heads.
And that means that all that defines religions is what people believe. To argue that a believer is not a real believer if they don't believe the right things is to suggest that THERE ARE RIGHT THINGS TO BELIEVE. And when some of these beliefs are non-falsifiable, the only way to select right things is with NON-FALSIFIABLE CLAIMS.
And there: you have made yourself a believer. You cannot argue that the religious people you don't like are 'real', and the religious people you can't find reason to dislike are 'not real', without holding religious belief.
You are free to rant for pages and pages about the incompatibility between science and 'the proclamations', so long as the proclamations have empirical consequences. I don't care; I am well aware of the harm religion has caused in the world. But by admitting that the core of religion is unfalsifiable, you concede there is no fundamental incompatibility between religion and scientific belief. You have opened yourself to the existence of believers who hold no falsifiable claims and thus will never be challenged by the happy simultaneous practice of faith and quality empirical investigation.
If your argument is that religion often interferes with science and produces social ills, you could've saved yourself a few thousand words - I've no disagreement with that. But your claim of fundamental incompatibility is now sunk.
QuoteA deist will have less problems than a bible literalist. I've said this too, it's a strawman. A deist is a far less religious person, for he is less inclined to actually believe that the universe was designed with him in mind, that the rituals do mean anything to god, etc., etc. There is still a religious core in his mind, one which may have not issues with evolution, but may have issues if the hypothesis you bring up about the "semantic apocalypse" turns out to actually be a good renderization of what's going on. Will he accept such a conclusion? What will stop him from reaching the most rational conclusion, that his religious beliefs are nothing but the byproduct of a badly designed brain?
Religious statements.
Are you or are you not still arguing for a fundamental incompatibility between religion and science? That's the point of contention I am interested in, but you only seem to be arguing for a sociopolitical incompatibility.
What is your argument then, Luis? Answers in less than a paragraph welcome. Summarize your points.
Fact remains that the parts that are religious in your mind are *always* in contradiction with the scientific process. If you have no religious "opinion" on any scientific matters, if religion doesn't inform anything related to science, then of course you have found out an example where they don't interfere with one another, by ****ing fiat.
Thinking processes. Philosophical processes. It doesn't enter your mind, it's as if you have firewalls against wisdom.
so long as your religious beliefs concern the nonfalsifiable, they are safe
I don't mind. Have a good night, it's been fun.
GB, most of this thread is a mad, murky mess, but your Battutism thought experiment is straight-up awesome. :yes:
I do wonder how much of it was influenced by Dr Who though. :D
Directly inspired by, thank you!
Examples: The earth is not the center of the universe; Our solar system is not the center of the galaxy; Earth is not the center of the solar system; Life is not miraculous, but the design of chance and environmental pressures; Magical thinking substituted by mechanical thinking; The big bang as the direct result of M theory and not a personal will; The abandonement of the absolute morality theory in ethics and in practice; Neuroscientifical detailed findings about how the self is built upon the matter inside the skull.
I recommend another hiatus from this thread until you are.
To further reinforce Scotty's (maybe) statement that the Catholic Church wasn't against science, they actively encouraged scientific findings up until Galileo ticked them off. In fact, I think it might have been a bishop that encouraged Galileo to publish his findings.
This sinnergy is not healthy to a scientific mind. It may be helpful to a bunch of crazy mammals that call themselves "human", but we should remind ourselves that this beast has barely left its caveman-like thinking process.
IOW, we should not correlate what is apparently good for the human mind to what is actually good to the scientific empirical thinking process.
QuoteI recommend another hiatus from this thread until you are.
This is not the first time I've been the target of this kind of rudeness. Quite unreligious, if you ask me.
Quote from: SypheDMarTo further reinforce Scotty's (maybe) statement that the Catholic Church wasn't against science, they actively encouraged scientific findings up until Galileo ticked them off. In fact, I think it might have been a bishop that encouraged Galileo to publish his findings.
.... which is entirely irrelevant to the point at hand. Galileo was encouraged by the pope himself of doing his own amazing work, for they were very close friends, and the pope saved his arrogant ass quite a few times before the famous trial that got him arrested. The relationship between religion and science is very rich in its flavours, but it is only when it becomes evident that science can indeed shatter the self-centered vision that religion preached to man for so long, and it just doesn't "self-regulate" against doing so (the heresy!), that the real fireworks begin. Galileo's trial is majorly symbolic, for the actual events show more a story of a clash of self-righteous egos than a clash between "science" and "religion".
Here you adopt a more reasonable argument. If only you had been saying this for 15 pages now!
Are you guys unemployed or something? You must have a lot of free time to waste discussing topics like this. Is anyone going to change other people's mind? No. What are we supposed to expect here, except flames and consequent lock? Nothing.
Are you guys unemployed or something? You must have a lot of free time to waste discussing topics like this. Is anyone going to change other people's mind? No. What are we supposed to expect here, except flames and consequent lock? Nothing.
If people want to waste time with these threads because they have nothing better to do, so be it. Who cares... enjoy this topic!
Are you guys unemployed or something?
pics of cute girls
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
What exactly is your job?
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
Yeah, of course you do....
You are the problem with society today. :p
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
Yeah, of course you do....
You are the problem with society today. :p
Yeah, my years of painstaking effort and financial investment in my own education, leading to competitive placement at a job which allows me to be both socially productive and able to pursue my own writing (which is what I mostly do during downtime at work) is indeed a crippling problem common to many members of our society. :nervous:
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
What exactly is your job?
I write long beautiful sets of instructions to analyze complex data sets and then watch them execute in one window while I type in the other.
Well, Battuta is the closest thing I've encountered to a living human philosophical wrecking ball of scientific inter-dimensional posting on the Interwebs, so it's been an entertaining read.
I just tend to think he has way too much time on his hands. :D
I literally (this is not an exaggeration) make hundreds of dollars a day to post on HLP.
What exactly is your job?
I write long beautiful sets of instructions to analyze complex data sets and then watch them execute in one window while I type in the other.
The way you say it makes it seem like the code is not horribly unoptimized. :p