God, Science and The Clock.

DeVore

I thought I'd share a revelation I've had recently. With my usual humility I'll call it "DeVore's Grand Unified Theory of God, Religion, Science and The Whole Lot". Its a working title.

It happened when my freemason mate challenged me to define what sort of "god" I believe in if any. (I'd been having quite a go at him before so I guess turn around is fair play). Other guys hang out and talk about tits and football, our session have a nasty habit of turning into a latenight Channel 4 discussion program.

We are both agreed that organised religion is a BAD THING, but really thats just a political standpoint. We both have strong beliefs in ethics and morality and are reasonably of a mind on what constitutes GOOD and EVIL.

He doesnt know the first thing about physics but is very very curious about it, particularly at the quantum level and the "nature of reality" or "space-time" side of things. He's also quite religious in that he has a strong faith in God.


I wont bore you with my views/beliefs on God but we fell to talking about the conflict of science and belief...
Now, I've never understood why people draw this distinction...
Its confused me for years and I havent been able to express my opinions clearly on it before now.

First I have to tell you something I find amazing. Utterly Amazing. Stephen Hawking was called to the Vatican by the Pope along with a handful of other physicists and warned against investigating the first second of the big bang (by looking at the extremely short wavelengths in cosmic radiation we can "see" the echos of the distant passed, its a bit like the light from collapsing stars only reaching us eons after they have already exploded... we get to see it now even though its old history). Anyway, they were told that the first second of the big bang was "God's Providence" and that it should be left uninvestigated.

My view is this: We live in a very very complicated clock. This clock has a manual (a rulebook of how the bits interoperate) but we dont get to see it. We have to work it out for ourselves because in the "working out" we'll grow as a species and we need to do that "growing" to be able to handle what we're going to find out when we *DO* work it out. Its a very clever way to do it imho.

But as we discover things like "the sun is not a God its really just a big ball of burning Hydrogen" or "the world revolves around the sun" or "matter warps space-time, creating gravity" someone always jumps up and says "God is dead!".
Its like we all agreed that God was hiding in a cupboard and we finally prise cupoboard open and HEY! HE'S NOT IN THERE!! HE MUST BE DEAD!

Can anyone else see God slapping his forehead and thinking "I'll be back in another millenia when you guys might have evolved a bitmore".

Back to the clock. So we are steadily moving towards collating the manual: The search for the Grand Unified Theory.... The indexing of the Genome... etc etc. People are seeing less and less "reason" for God to be "necessary". We dont need him to explain the sun rising anymore or the crops growing. Equally we dont need him to explain gravity or quantum mechanics now either. So more and more people are perhaps not saying "God is dead" but drifting away from the idea of a superior being. We dont need him to explain our world so we can dismiss him.

My point is that if we completely and comprehensively understood the manual for the clock, that wouldnt tell us ANYTHING about the man who made the clock. We couldnt say "this clock has no creator" or "this clocks creator looks like this or likes to act in this way".

I have a belief in a superior creator. I dont know what he is, how he operates, what he exists in and I *highly* doubt he gives two ****s about a curiousity of self-replicating proteins like me. I dont know what happens after death and I'd like it to be a LONG TIME before I do.


Just a thought... probably not even that much.

DeV.

seamus

My recent revelation came in the form of "God is in the process, not in the details".

IMO, we can discover as much as we like, and 'disprove' the existence of a God, but the very fact that it all happens in the first place is proof for me, of a higher being. To use your clock analogy, we can discover that 'oh this cog pushes this one, and which pushes.....". The real mystery is where did the cogs come from, and who decided that they'd interact together like that?

Beruthiel

Stephen Hawking was called to the Vatican by the Pope along with a handful of other physicists and warned against investigating the first second of the big bang

intriguing, I never knew that!
do you think the Pope knows something and is not telling?? after all, why would he warn them not to investigate unless he has a slight idea what the answer could be!

Kev

Why would you believe that a higher being exists simply because the universe exists ?
What is the higher being, if you can't define any of its characteristics of it why would you believe it exists ?
What difference does it make whether a higher being exists or not if you can't extrapolate anything further from that.

Wook

what about 'coincedence' ? or that there is structure in the chaos-theory ? In fact there is structure in everything around you..If De Vore's theory is about finding those building blocks would it not be possible that knowledge about point A opens a door to 'still have to investigate point 2' ? If every action causes a reaction..then surely that must be implemented into the theory of science and the clarification of 'knowing' ? (whatever there is to know).

And what if indeed we proof that the world was created by a 'Big banger' ..then what ? Most likely we go look for what caused the Big banger.. and so on... the quest for knowledge is endless.
which some people would think of it as 'pointless' ?
as in the '42' answer.

Kell

Hadent heard of the Hawkings incident- sounds a bit Christopher Coumbus to me. I'd agree with you that people have moved away from God but I would say more in the sense of using God as a crutch rather than a supreme being. Most would rather believe in something they can see i.e. Science rather than the work of some vast benevolent creature.

I would imagine, as I do of sorts, that a lot of people still believe in a greater force. To pass the creation of the Universe as we know it off as a coincidence is a little hard to swallow. My understanding of the big bang is that the explosion of a relatively small amount of mass reacted in such a way that an expanding universe was born from it and it is still expanding. That said, where did the relatively small amount of mass come from? Thats the biggie for me. There is also the negative big bang theory i.e. that when the Universe stops expanding it will collapse on itself.

Heres another theory in terms of an expanding and retracting Universe. Perhaps our Universe is a yo-yo on the end of a bit of string on the end of a finger of a child in a much larger Universe elsewhere...................to some that could be as plausible if not more plausible than a supreme being.

Hang on..... this is holding water. If time is a spiral and space is a curve, then the timeline of being flung outward is spiral as per a length of wound cotton string and as most things are cast in a curve the casting direction of the yo-yo would represent the curvature of space. Mnn. I never bought 42 anyway. Seemed a bit too convenient.

hussey

I've always believed that since people are now begining to 'unravel' the mysteries of Big Bang,the sun, getting fig in the Fig Rolls etc.
People are losing the 'Fear of God'

and because of this people are losing faith -maybe in the church rather than God.

Its alot easier now to say I dont believe in god/church, as what do we have to fear? Hell? - I'm sure we've all broken a commandment without asking for forgivness etc. and have no fear of going to hell.

I believe more people are saying 'I believe in god, but not the church'

As why should we believe in it?
in my opinion is being Gay wrong - NO
is having protected Se*x wrong - NO
Is Having s*ex outside marriage wrong - NO

I believe in 20 years time, the church will agree

ykt0di9url7bc3

I believe in the apostles creed....anything else from the church or anybodys opinion on the bible/god i take with a large pinch of salt....

where our origins are, thats evolution imho....

but considering the sheer fluke of human evolution on this planet its a bit mind boggling and some times hard to truely put to circumstance...(1 planetary do-over (colission with orpheous and the creation of our moon) 7 great extintions and then inteligent life appears and conquers)..was there divine intervention?


the church is/was there to establish objective morality (imho no civilisation in the world has achieved objective morality without religion) fear of god is now fear of Garda...society is filling in the blanks for religion, maybe this society can develope and sustain objective morality without the need for religion but it will be very tough to achieve



A few hundred years ago Newton gave us a window on the universe but where there was any blanks - God filled them in...

Einstien comes along and wiht great clarity re-draws the universe with his brush

Hawking goes deeper and further into the universe and time but things crop up such as the Big bang & naked singularities that really push the envelope of the Universe and human understanding

Not since Galileo has the church take so much interest in astronomy or more over interest in the results of astronomy



I hope to lead a good long life but imho I feal that I will not see any great results in my lifetime unless God decided again to take a more active interest in this planet...so I will really live my life on the same steady path cos i think i have developed good and proper respect for the world around me

as for 42....it only proves that we should be asking better questions!

JustHalf

I am always interested in finding out how people measure the plausability of things. When someone claims that the universe really being a yoyo on the end of a string flung by a child is possibly more plausable than the universe being created by God, I wonder "how do they measure this?"

I am of the opinion that this is a matter only of opinion, and not a rational determination based on fact (which you'd hope a matter of probability would be). Do you consider it this, Kell?

That's not to say opinion is wrong - I believe Joanne Colan is the hottest woman on television, but no-one seems to agree - just that my guess is that this is just opinion.

DeV, I'm glad to see you understanding that a universe grounded in physical rules does not mean there is no creator.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

but the fact that it does not mean there is none does not mean there is.. or that there has to be.
erm.. i think

JustHalf

Quite right. However, you'll find people who believe it does. "God doesn't exist because of physical processes".

Someone suggested to me recently that it was a "simpler" to explain the formation of everything within the universe as a series of physical processes rather than allow for a creator God that started these rules in the first place. I wonder how he judged how simple it was?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

's a good point, and I see where you're coming from.

I don't view it as being simpler to assume the lack of a creator.. in actual fact I really don't care, or see how it applies to me but the way I would look at it is. until proof of this creator is found, or evidence to suggest the existence of said creator, I will simply assume that there is none.

saying that there is no god because ""God doesn't exist because of physical processes"." is a tad absurd, and really depends on your definition of god
if there is a higher power, chances are it is way beyond us and for us to attempt to understand or empathise with it is futile, perhaps the rules of mathematics physics themselves are god, and this is how he works, *shrug*. we liken a creator to ourselves because it helps us to picture it but that is a gross over simplification which can often lead to confusion and innacuracies.


I am abstaining from sleep tonight and am a little woozy from the flu so please forgive me if I don't make 100% sense, but hopefully you can see what I'm trying to say.

Kell

Originally posted by JustHalf
I am of the opinion that this is a matter only of opinion, and not a rational determination based on fact (which you'd hope a matter of probability would be). Do you consider it this, Kell?

Yes I do consider it this way. Without real answers to where existence sprang from it can only be an entirely subjective issue based on personal opinion, because at the end of the day no-one can prove you right or wrong.

I thought Terry Pratchett came up with the idea of the world being a disc supported on the back on four giant elephants that in turn stood on the back of a giant turtle that swam though the cosmos, until I found out that there is a small religion in the states that supports this notion. Why they find it plausible when photographic evidence proves them wrong, I dont know, but then thats their subjective opinion and it works for them.

TBH I used to think about it a hell of a lot more a few years ago, then when I figured out that I am entirely insignificant in the grander scale of things, the wondering left my mind. Still interested though.

Kell

Would it be dumb to follow on from this in another thread and ask people their opinions as to how we came to be, and perhaps collectively come up with some answers. We cant all be astro physicists but there are some pretty sound thinkers in the replies.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

you are free to create the thread if you wish

what do you hope to gain from it though? all it would be is personal opinion, with little or no facts thrown in...

there are alot of very intelligent people on boards, but I don't know if any of them are qualified to speak on this subject, then again discussion is always fun.

DeVore

I thought Terry Pratchett came up with the idea of the world being a disc supported on the back on four giant elephants that in turn stood on the back of a giant turtle that swam though the cosmos, until I found out that there is a small religion in the states that supports this notion. Why they find it plausible when photographic evidence proves them wrong, I dont know, but then thats their subjective opinion and it works for them.

I might be mistaken but I think there is a very large religion in the east that also believes in it...


I'll sit down and reply to the replies here when I get a moment to compose some thoughts.

I'm kinda with Mord on this though... I see no implication (either in affirmation or denial) of a higher power in the order we observe in the universe.

One side has got as much impact on the other as the soccer results have on the existance of other life in the universe.

I find it personally believeable that if a higher being was going to create a universe they'd create it with a decent set of rules. But its just a belief... *shrug*.

When beliefs are proven or disproven they cease to be beliefs...

Justhalf, there are two ways I can think of to measure probability: Run the experiment a statistically large number of times and clarify your findings with whats refered to as a Confidence Level.

Or logically analyse the experiment and theorise the probability from sound principles. In that case your "Confidence Level" is directly related to the logical assuptions you make.
(eg: you look at a dice with 6 sides and with a few simple calculations determine the likely chance of rolling a 6 to be 1:6)

Unfortunately, neither of these work in this case. We cant observe a statistically large number of universes and we have no logical assuptions to make about state of things "before" the big bang.

Btw, it is accepted that time *began* with the big bang since time and space are really the same thing (time simply being a 4th dimension) so no universe... no "time" as we know it.
Also, its accepted that a singularity breaks all known physics and cannot be predicted, thus we cannot possibly interpret anything prior to the event of the big bang (even talking about "prior" is inherently incorrect).... so we are already certain that there will be no further discoveries "beyond" the big bang , no matter how closely we look.

DeV.

DeVore

Originally posted by Kell
My understanding of the big bang is that the explosion of a relatively small amount of mass reacted in such a way that an expanding universe was born from it and it is still expanding. That said, where did the relatively small amount of mass come from? Thats the biggie for me. There is also the negative big bang theory i.e. that when the Universe stops expanding it will collapse on itself.

Actually the Big Bang theory points to a very small volume of matter (infitely smal... a singularity) but extremely large actual mass. Of course, noone knows for *certain*.

The "Big Crunch" theory is reasonably well accepted at the moment. The universe is expanding more slowly as time passes and will eventually start contracting.... to a singularity.

When it does, its conceivable that it will (for reasons unknown, because we cant predict the physics of a singualrity) explode again and so the cycle repeats. Perhaps this has happened many times before *this* universe occured but agains since singualities cut off all possible receipt of information from "prior" events... we cant tell. Its an interesting theory though.

DeV.

Beruthiel

I find it personally believeable that if a higher being was going to create a universe they'd create it with a decent set of rules. But its just a belief...

unless of course, they were not 100% omnipotent and made a couple of little mistakes here and there.
Personally, I am a bit of a cynic and like to see the evidence in front of me before believing it.

rather than allow for a creator God that started these rules in the first place. I wonder how he judged how simple it was?

Justhalf, perhaps he just meant that at least the physical can be mostly explained to a better extent than explaining that god exists.

Doodee

TBH, this topic is explained perfectly in the film DOGMA


TEH CLAMS!

bonkey

Originally posted by DeVore
The "Big Crunch" theory is reasonably well accepted at the moment. The universe is expanding more slowly as time passes and will eventually start contracting.... to a singularity.

I thought all the current models pointed to an expansionist model, or have they changed their minds yet again???

Sheesh - I dunno about these theoretical cosmologists. They keep changing their minds on the important stuff like whether the universe gets crushed into a point or "stretched" to infinity. Sheesh

jc

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

maybe we oughta start a poll, it can't be too far off. I'd be interested in who turned out to be right

DeVore

Originally posted by bonkey
I thought all the current models pointed to an expansionist model, or have they changed their minds yet again???

Sheesh - I dunno about these theoretical cosmologists. They keep changing their minds on the important stuff like whether the universe gets crushed into a point or "stretched" to infinity. Sheesh

jc

Nope, its actually slowing about 100 times quicker then they would expect... this lead to the formulation of the theory of Dark Matter to accomodate the effects being witnessed.

I'll get you a source on that but I'm pretty sure of it.

DeV.

cerebus

Originally posted by bonkey
I thought all the current models pointed to an expansionist model, or have they changed their minds yet again

Sheesh - I dunno about these theoretical cosmologists. They keep changing their minds on the important stuff like whether the universe gets crushed into a point or "stretched" to infinity. Sheesh

jc

Latest stuff I've seen has favoured an expansionist model - sorry about it being from CNN - I'm sure some digging will find NASA/Princeton information.

Actually, just had a look and here's some stuff on the results of the WMAP mission

[Edit]Just fixed a couple of typos...

DeVore

Hmmm, that reports only a month old... I hadnt heard of it before though I've read their site and they say:

"For the theory that fits our data, the Universe will expand forever. (The nature of the dark energy is still a mystery. If it changes with time, or if other unknown and unexpected things happen in the universe, this conclusion could change.)"

Thats not exactly an e=mc^2 elegant proof... I have a friend who works for the European Space Agency in gamma ray burst study. (She's dead clever so she is ). I'll run a couple of questions past her, see how they are explaining dark matter (which was really "invented" to answer the collapsing universe observation...

DeV.

DeVore

ps: Bonkey, I'm beginning to see your point... lol!

DeV.

Zukustious

That's pretty detailed. I like what you said about God leaving people alone for a while. It's not that I beleive in God or don't beleive in it. I don't have to chose either he exists or doesn't. I've just said to myself that "I don't know" It's a matter of discovery to me.

I think if there is a god, she/he/he-she would not interfere way people live. Bad things happen and people say "Why God, why?" I prefer to think of it as a flavour of life.<The bad and good things being different flavours> I don't want eternal happiness. That's boring. Why are scary and sad movies made? To add flavour to life.

I'd say more but I don't have the time. Oh well.

Funky

I wonder where along the point of evolution someone came up with the concept of a higher being ...


it could have been fire , so we pretty much could be worshipping fire for all we know...

Shinji

I find this kind of reasoning pretty funny actually.

Primitive man is a scaredy cat. He's afraid of all sorts of things around him. Lightning storms, raging rivers, landslides, bush fires, tigers with big teeth, rampaging elephants. Most of all, he's terrified of the fact that he doesn't understand ANY of the stuff going on around him; and if there's one thing that man despises, it's not understanding things, because our brains are hardwired to think that once we understand something; once we can put a name to a thing or a process; it's almost under our control.

Ever see a child barely out of a pram chanting off the impossibly difficult latin names of dinosaurs? Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Pteranadon... Kids can't get enough of those monsters, and by naming them, they feel like they control them. It's a basic human behaviour pattern.

So primitive man, he does something a bit like that. He calls the sun, which can bake the earth and burn his skin, "Sun-god". Later he'll call it "Ra" or "Aten" or any number of other names. He makes up a whole family of gods, who are a bit like human beings; in fact, much more like comic book superheroes who control the elements and battle it out in the heavens than like the "god" that your granny fears so much now.

Tens of thousands of years later, the greatest game of Chinese Whispers ever played has taken its toll. For the most part, slightly-less-primitive man has settled on there being one super-powerful being. Call him Yahweh, call him Allah, call him God. Just be sure to call him, or you might get stoned to death; because in a move not very different to a future society on earth imposing huge punishments for denying that Spiderman exists, suddenly this Yahweh chap isn't open to interpretation. Oh... And although we now understand quite a few of the things we used to pin on him, we have PROOF that he exists, because at some unspecified point in the past, he used to get pretty actively involved in the affairs of man. Not recently, though. He's, you know, on hiatus or something. But it's written in books, the whole thing; and books NEVER lie!

Fast forward just a little bit more to present day.

We understand more about the universe than ever before. Still not very much - that's what's fun about it. We're also pretty big into the idea of freedom; we've managed to get rid of most of the chancers who set themselves up as emperors and kings and gradually managed to claim to be "gods". We still don't understand everything by any means at all, but we've evolved a little; the stuff that we don't understand is fascinating and a little bit exciting, not terrifying like it used to be.

Yet... Primitive man's scientific theory to explain everything - " a guy with superpowers did it" - has become a sacred cow. Otherwise intelligent people defend it to the hilt. You see, no matter how far back we push the boundaries of our ignorance, these people will always claim that "God" lies just on the other side of that boundary; it's not rational, or sensible, but it's a belief that's clung to like a rotten log in a flooding river.

Maybe they're still afraid. Maybe they're terrified of confessing to our ignorance; a surprising amount of intellectual arrogance could be attained by using the "supreme creator" excuse to tap the side of your nose and go "ahhh, a divine mystery" instead of "we just plain don't have a bloody clue". Maybe they're afraid of confessing that they're in control of their lives, nobody else, because then there's nobody else to blame when they mess up.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I accept that despite the lack of ANY scientific evidence for the existence of a creator, there is also no conclusive proof of the non-existence of one. It's how this kind of logic problem works, see; one tiny piece of evidence for the existence of god could tip the scales, because getting a proof for non-existence is near impossible. Bit weird then that after tens of thousands of years, many of which apparently featured some pretty damn interventionist policies (hey, it's all written in that book, remember?), we've not managed to find any of that evidence. God cleans up pretty well after himself.

So I'm not going to deny the outside chance that such a being exists. It's somewhere below "aliens visit earth on a regular basis" and "Atlantis really existed and had a more advanced level of technology than we do today" on my list of "things that I don't believe, but which are certainly theoretically possible".

But that doesn't mean that I can't find it damn funny that so many otherwise intelligent people are so desperate to prove to themselves that the ancient version of the X-men, dreamed up by Ug the Caveman to explain why a flood had swept away his best friend, really could exist...

DeVore

heheh... I like the way you put that Shinji. However I'm not trying to justify the whole "God is out there and if I'm REALLY GOOD he'll be my mate" thing.

You know the line in my sig "An idea isnt responsible for the people who believe in it".

What you say is (to me) absolutely true. Ifr crops fail... god is punishing us (God is punishing us coincidentally because you didnt do what *I* told you to do...). Floods wipe out your best friend... god is testing our faith.

Ok, thats all bollox and we can *now* see that for what it was. Charlatanism. (Unfortunately we still have a few charlatans hanging around...)

So ... zero the account, draw a blank slate and stop whacking the idea because people who were chancers used to use something *like* it to extract money from stupid trailer trash.

Now take the idea at face value, as a *belief* and simply say "I think that believeable" or dont. Noone has to (or can) prove a belief.

I think you are letting the charlatans trick you one last time perhaps!

What I am saying is that there is (to me) no inherent conflict between the complete knowledge of how the world works and whatever you believe created the world in the first place.


DeV.

Lafortezza

Originally posted by Shinji


Yet... Primitive man's scientific theory to explain everything - " a guy with superpowers did it" - has become a sacred cow. Otherwise intelligent people defend it to the hilt. You see, no matter how far back we push the boundaries of our ignorance, these people will always claim that "God" lies just on the other side of that boundary; it's not rational, or sensible, but it's a belief that's clung to like a rotten log in a flooding river.

Maybe they're still afraid. Maybe they're terrified of confessing to our ignorance; a surprising amount of intellectual arrogance could be attained by using the "supreme creator" excuse to tap the side of your nose and go "ahhh, a divine mystery" instead of "we just plain don't have a bloody clue".

Very interesting reply Shinji, to a very interesting thread.

I'd kind of disagree with you about the 'rotten log' bit (that is if I'm taking the correct meaning from your words)

Some family members, some friends I've talk to about this subject and myself, think that there is a God "just on the other side of that boundary". I don't see how this is not rational or sensible, its a belief, which excludes rationale or sense because there's no proof either way.
Personally, I'm not afraid that theres isn't a God, and I'm not afraid if proof crops up that proves it, I'll probably just carry on being the person I've always been.

I believe in heaven (and in God) like many more people, the simple reason is that it makes me happy to believe in it. To have a solid belief that if there's a place to go after we die on earth that provides eternal happiness, that makes me happy. According to religious teachings (the ones I know anyway) the only way to get in to this heaven is to be a 'good person' while on earth, and to ask for genuine forgiveness for your sins when/before you pass away.

When people have said to me that its a stupid way of looking at it (as has happened in discussions in the past), I say fair enough, your opinion, but in my mind that if believing in something like God and heaven makes me enjoy life, and makes me help others enjoy their lives, then who gives a bollix if its true or not, we don't know,and we'll never know as far as I'm concerned.

People I've talked to before who believe that there's no god and that organised religion is a load of rubbish, well, to me, they seem unhappy about it. Unhappy that there's no proof and there's no hope for what happens after we all die, therefore what the point of being arsed about what you do in this life?

anyway, I see your point Shinji about people being scared about there *not* being a god, but if it helps them be good people then who cares about rationality? Who cares about proof when conclusive proof will never be found (imho)?

L.

PS you guys should see my version of heaven, broadband for everyone, pints don't give you a beer belly, no hangovers, hot chicks tending to my every whim, and extra 2 inches on my...

Shinji

What I am saying is that there is (to me) no inherent conflict between the complete knowledge of how the world works and whatever you believe created the world in the first place.

Oh sure. But if you put it like that, you're not really talking about "god" any more are you? I mean, "God" is someone who gives a damn what happens here on this rock in the back end of nowhere. "God" sent us prophets and plagues, and "God" gets all upset when we kick the dog / don't pray during the angelus / have sex with people of our own gender / tolerate the infidels.

Some overarching intelligence that created the universe, well, that's as possible as a lot of other theories. But God? The watchful, benevolent father of humanity? It sounds to me like you don't believe THAT fairytale any more than I do.

I don't see how this is not rational or sensible, its a belief, which excludes rationale or sense because there's no proof either way.

I despise that line of "reasoning". People kill each other on the back of irrational, non-sensical beliefs. People fly planes into buildings because they think they're going to a land of milk, honey and eternal shagging. Young men go out to die horribly in ditches because they think "God" wants them to. Their reasoning in these beliefs is the same as yours; they don't have to hold them up to the light of scrutiny because it's FAITH, and somehow it's a virtue to believe blindly in "God" without a damn shred of evidence.

If I believed blindly in what was written on the literature that comes through my door about credit cards, I'd be stupid. If I believed the stories about Nigerian generals with millions of dollars to give me that flood my inbox, I'd be a collossal retard. But yet if I believed blindly in what's written in a heavily edited 2000 year old book, that would be "faith" and people would nod their heads sagely about what a wonderful thing it was.

People I've talked to before who believe that there's no god and that organised religion is a load of rubbish, well, to me, they seem unhappy about it.

Interesting. Most people I know who are very deeply religious are pretty unhappy about their lives here, so they choose to cling on to the fairytales about the afterlife rather than having the courage to try and sort things out NOW.

I know a lot more athiests who are prepared to "carpe diem" than religious types. And to balance that, I should point out that religion doesn't seem to be the morality exercise it claims to be for most people, either. Without the outward facade of religion, athiests and agnostics tend to just be good people, whereas a lot of the nastiest people I know do bad things during the week and then scuttle off to church on Sunday morning.

In all too many cases, religion is an IOU written by the morally bankrupt.

Lafortezza

Originally posted by Shinji

Young men go out to die horribly in ditches because they think "God" wants them to. Their reasoning in these beliefs is the same as yours; they don't have to hold them up to the light of scrutiny because it's FAITH, and somehow it's a virtue to believe blindly in "God" without a damn shred of evidence.

Somehow in the heads of these people it makes sense, possibly they think that it will make them a better person, or it will improve the lives of the people close to them, you'd have to ask them. Maybe they see religion as a war? I don't, so their reasoning isn't the same as mine, because war is not a part of my personal religious beliefs.

I don't feel its a virtue to have a blind faith in a god, its just something people do, usually for reasons they keep to themselves. Agreed, some people do it because they're told its the right thing to do by a priest, but I'm rather talk about people who have made up their own minds.

Am I right in saying that once a shred of evidence appears proving or disproving that there is a god, then it just becomes a matter of fact? How else can anyone hold up a belief or a matter of faith to scrutiny, without some proof to argue about? Is there some kind of Faith that has evidence to back it up?

Originally posted by Shinji

Interesting. Most people I know who are very deeply religious are pretty unhappy about their lives here, so they choose to cling on to the fairytales about the afterlife rather than having the courage to try and sort things out NOW.

I know a lot more athiests who are prepared to "carpe diem" than religious types. And to balance that, I should point out that religion doesn't seem to be the morality exercise it claims to be for most people, either. Without the outward facade of religion, athiests and agnostics tend to just be good people, whereas a lot of the nastiest people I know do bad things during the week and then scuttle off to church on Sunday morning.

Obviously we have experienced the views of different people, for me, members of my extended family (from all generations) and some of my friends would be classed 'deeply religious' by todays standards, all of whom would be the 'carpe diem' types.
And vice versa for those who don't believe in god and/or church.

Originally posted by Shinji

In all too many cases, religion is an IOU written by the morally bankrupt.

Or for some its the hope that by living in a certain way will make their lives and the lives of the people they know happier.
(I'm talking about religion as personal beliefs related to god, the afterlife and how we treat those around us, not the human institutional hierarchy or priests and nuns btw)

L.

Earthhorse

Sorry to start my reply with someone else's words on the issue but Philip K. Dick was a far more eloquent and intelligent man than I'll ever be.

This is from the note to "Faith of our Fathers" from the short story collection "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".

originally written by Philip K. Dick
The last word, however, on the subject of God may have already been said: in A.D. 840 by John Scotus Erigena at the court of the Frankish King Charles the Bald: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not because he transcends being". Such a penetrating - and Zen - mystical view, arrived at so long ago, will be hard to top.

My own thoughts, formed from the above and discussions with others, are that it does not matter whether he exists. I believe it is more important to ask whether you agree with him.

DeVore

Originally posted by Shinji
Oh sure. But if you put it like that, you're not really talking about "god" any more are you? I mean, "God" is someone who gives a damn what happens here on this rock in the back end of nowhere. "God" sent us prophets and plagues, and "God" gets all upset when we kick the dog / don't pray during the angelus / have sex with people of our own gender / tolerate the infidels.

Some overarching intelligence that created the universe, well, that's as possible as a lot of other theories. But God? The watchful, benevolent father of humanity? It sounds to me like you don't believe THAT fairytale any more than I do.

Er, no. Thats silly.

There are 100,000,000 galaxies that we are aware of... in those galaxies there are about 100,000,000 solar systems roughly (those are Hawkings estimates btw, not mine).

Around each solar system we could expect to find half a dozen planets at a guess... and probably one capable of sustaining life.

So thats 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets capable of sustaining life.

Consider a 6-sided die... you're chance of getting a 1 is 1:6.
If you roll it 6 times you expect to get one 1... 12 times and you'd expect 2. You could get none or you could get five 1's.

The chance of life evolving where its sustainable is actually higher then most people think (cf: "The selfish gene" and "The blind watchmaker"). It cant be calculated but there are some very good reasons to believe that SOME form of life is inevitable once you reach the stage of replicating proteins in a protein-soup. That in itself (given the right cocktail) isnt that hard either.

So imho we are probably one of many forms of life over time and space (literally).

So God watches over all these planets and species too?

I dont buy it. I class God as something much bigger then a guy with a white beard and a big stick.

DeV.

bonkey

Originally posted by DeVore
So thats 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets capable of sustaining life.

There's an excellent line at the end of Contact saying more or less the same thing. Cant remember it though and Im too lazy to go dig it up

I dont buy it. I class God as something much bigger then a guy with a white beard and a big stick.

Yup.

The one that always interests me is the incredibly intelligent decision of the Catholic church in recent years to encourage people to challenge their religious beliefs rather than just accepting them blidly.

Why is this intelligent? Simple...because they know how most people will react. If you base your belief on science, or our current understanding of it, you still only get an incomplete picture with certain things to be taken on faith (that word again), or gaps which cannot be filled - leaving plenty of space for the argument of god.

Then that gets coupled with the stark implication of science that [/]there is nothing before birth and after death[/]. Thats scary. Science says conscious thought is a result of some physical process. Remove the physical, and you remove the consciousness - the essence of being.

So....the church knows that most people will find this idea so damned terrifying that ultimately most people will still turn to religion for solace....and the Church is hoping that they stand to gain from the fact that they are willing to enter into discussion with scientists to help make sure that doctrine can be updated to not conflict with science.

Talk about a marketing coup - a religion which is willing to consistently update its beliefs to make sure they dont conflict wish science, but rather reshapes itself to fall neatly into whatever gaps in scientific remain at any given moment.

The giveaway for me is any claim of "divine inspiration". If god/God does indeed inspire the devout, or use the Pope (or other religious demigod/avatar/mouthpiece) as his voice on earth, then why on earth does he keep telling the wrong stuff??? Hardly bloody "inspired" to me. I can tell people the wrong stuff. Does that make me divinely inspired by anything?

I'm with Shinji , deVore and the others on this. Whatever about the possibility of a creator of hte universe, I do not believe in a tinkering, interfering, anthropomorphised God who is infallible but keeps making mistakes, knows everything but tells his devout the wrong stuff, and generally is nothing but a contradiction who we desperately want to believe in so that we think we go somewhere better when we die.

Originally posted by DeVore
PS you guys should see my version of heaven, broadband for everyone, pints don't give you a beer belly, no hangovers, hot chicks tending to my every whim, and extra 2 inches on my...

Some heaven if youre only making your monitor viewing area 2 inches bigger.

Oh wait...thats not what....never mind.

jc

DeVore

Bold bonkey!



Btw, I looked up the reference for that meeting between the Pope and Hawking and it occured in 1981 and he confirms what I stated, the pope instructed them (as catholics) not to investigate the first second of the big bang as that was Gods providence.

Hawking talks about it in one of the earlier chapters of A Brief History of Time and also in one of his short story collections.

I'd love to know more about that!

DeV.

DeVore

Ok, I got a mail back from my mate who works in Gamma Ray Burst research (she's dead smart like )

Thankfully, it hasn't all been figured out yet otherwise we would be out of job!

The dark energy is basically the equivalent of Einstein's cosmological constant that he put it his original theory in an ad hoc way. It then got taken out because there was no fundamental reason for it, except to make the solutions come out nicely. However, recently, Hubble space telescope data showed that in fact the universal expansion is no longer slowing down and that recently in fact, the expansion has speeded up again!! This is attributed to the so-called 'dark energy' (not the same as dark matter). No-one knows yet what the hell it is. To make the theory and the data from various experiments match, you need both dark energy to the tune of about 75%, dark matter of about 15% and the rest in protons and stuff (that's us).

Read the expert's view - Ned Wright is one of the main people involved
in MAP:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

So weirdly we're both right...it seems it was collapsing (or was *thought* to be collapsing) and now isnt (or is thought not to be).

I have to say that as a layman with an interest I think dark matter is a questionable concept and I think it will eventually be shown to be unnecessary.


DeV.

smiles

Hmmm... I used to have discussions like this with various people in the last few years, including 80 year old genius priests, 15 year old weirdo brainies and my dad

In the end the way I see it is that faith and religion are two totally different things.

Religion is a social experiment... and I think, in general, it works. The idea was to help create some sort of social order out of chaos, etc. Take the Ten Commandments:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain
4. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy
5. Honour thy father and thy mother
6. Thou shalt not kill
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Thou shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
10. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's

Beyond the first 3 purely religious ones, they're basically good rules for keeping society in some sort of general order.

Belief in a God is faith, it requires no religion or religious aspirations, for me I just *know* intrinsically that there is something more.

Originally posted by DeVore
So thats 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets capable of sustaining life.

A discussion I had with my dad last week surprised me (it actually started from us talking about that 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets capable of suporting life), he's what I would call a good catholic and yet he said that he would have no problem with "God" being some sort of higher power (as in extra-terrestial - from those 10 billion planets capable of supposting life, etc, there's bound to some a species advanced enough to have looked in on everyone else!) - that God could be some sort of alien caretaker who every so often looks in on us and gives us a little push in the right direction just to let us grow. (The examples he gave were that how the **** would Leonardo DaVinci just imagine helicopters... he suggests that the thought was "planted" in his brain by god/higher power while he was spaced out on drugs). Another point he believes in is that evolution doesnt necessarily contradict his beliefs, he accepts evolution but puts it that some kinda of higher power touched one of those species of apes and gave them a push towards something more, then left us for a couple of millenia to cop on and grow up...

If you think about it, we've barely been able to look outside of this planet for 50 years and yet "science" claims to have some of the definitive "proof" of the lack of an existance of a god, call me a science sceptic.

If I remember correctly Stephen Hawkings correctly in "A Brief History of Time" he said something along the lines of that hes not disproving the existance of a God, just merely limiting the amount of things that he could have done or when he could have done them.

<< Fio >>

DeVore

Exactly Fio.

However I'd say two other things:

1. I dont think Science is trying to disprove God. I think religious types are paranoid about that because for millenia the great religions have tried to prosletyse members away from the other great religions. They see science as a new "religion" and well, if you are a hammer ... everything looks like a nail.

2. I'd go further about religion being unrelated to God and say that the best parts of religion are the moral codes they originally tried to install in society. Thats a Good Thing [tm]. However there are parts of religion which are specifically encoded to establish self-perpetuation. Stuff thats designed to trap people emotionally, spiritually etc... Guilt. Sin. Forgiveness. Monotheism. Infallibility. Indoctrination.
These things are bad and may have been necessary before when the (well-meaning) religious leaders were trying to distribute the Moral Code but arent needed now and have become the reason rather then the vehicle.

I believe a time is coming when mankind is smart enough to logically see *why* we should act in a moral way without the threat of God or Hell. At least I'd like to hope so.

DeV.

mike65

Y'know I was going to contribute a lengthy, deep and meanfully post on this topic but then remembered others on BBC2 and Channel 4 can make much better programmes about the big questions than I can write about same...(know your level!;) )

Mike.

DeVore

why do you think their opinions are "above" yours? 'mon mikey, share with the group

DeV.

mike65

Dev I'd have to start thinking hard - that hurts!

Anyway whats to say? Is there a God/god well maybe, I'm an athiest not becuase I'm lasped
but because I never saw/felt anything to suggest such an entity exists. So
I belive the universe we inhabit was created by natural phenomenon, the only real argument is whether the current universe is the only universe and how it came into being, was it the big bang or does the universe "breath" ie gets larger then smaller but always exisits/has exisited (Oh and then theres the how many universes are there, debate).

Heres a thought - suppose everything we know life the universe and eveything is in fact inside say, a sealed biscuit tin, and that one day (one of our days) someone in another much bigger universe opens it up and suddenly we are overwhelmed by the view flooding in to our world. That'll blow your mind!

Anyway, I'm not anti other ppl believing though I'm hostile towards organised religion. But for me even
if I dont understand the science I'd sooner belive in that, rather than
think or rather assume that its all part of Gods plan.

Also if thee is a God why should he/she/it be any good at its job? Maybe God tried to create stuff but discovered it could'nt or at least got it wrong (why else do we have needless body parts!).

I'm rambling here....

Mike.

yossarin

The root of this discussion seems to be two views of god:

1: God as a big beard in the sky, who has made us in his image, and is *even now* prompting and cajoling us with a metaphorical pointy stick, testing his work.
All aspects of creation are constantly under his control, and everything is a test.

2: god / some entity as a initiator, he started the ball rolling but doesn't interfere, and is (maybe - you know not the time or the hour when ) watching us to see how it all turns out.

Whats intersting to me is that both versions seek to explain humanity, and provide a reason / justification for us to be what we are - constantly seeking to expand our horizons, trying to question everything in an effort to understand why anything, etc. I think thats what god *is* to us - the search for understanding, and to better ourselves. This brings us back to science - Science is the search to approximate or understand life through various disciplines. Maybe god was the first science.

anyhoo - this is my ratty looking faith. I believe in continuity, and structure, and patterns. having hope in anything means that you believe in somthing.

ps - funny redmeat last week

<edit>
pps Dev - I think that it might be the other way around - if you (the church) are a nail, eveything looks like a hammer
</edit>

ykt0di9url7bc3

I dont buy it. I class God as something much bigger then a guy with a white beard and a big stick.

this is fun!


consider that most of western society and maybe the world considers an "aliens" ( beings from another world) as "little green men"....we naturaly look for ourselves in an object/life/religion

more than likely God is unfathomable, beyond our wildest dreams/expectations because those dreams/expectations are ours....

and Shinji...dinosaurs are very simple to greek children!

smiles

Originally posted by DeVore

1. I dont think Science is trying to disprove God. I think religious types are paranoid about that because for millenia the great religions have tried to prosletyse members away from the other great religions. They see science as a new "religion" and well, if you are a hammer ... everything looks like a nail.

Well, here's where I think there's enough evidence in this thread that Science isn't trying to disprove God, but people are using science as ammunition to try and disprove his existance. ie. There's an evolution/big bag theory thats more than likely correct. Therefore there is no God. etc.

I believe a time is coming when mankind is smart enough to logically see *why* we should act in a moral way without the threat of God or Hell. At least I'd like to hope so.

Thats the problem isn't it? We are a flawed society, survival of the quickest/fastest/strongest may not be quite as explicit but it still exists. If we can take something that will make our lives better then why not, even if it does affect other people negatively?

Thats where religion steps in to add weight to our moral consciousness. Most people don't need it, but then there's always those who dont care who they affect and how other people will matter.

<< Fio >>

DeVore

Good people need to club together to make it unprofitable for bad people to do bad things.

Look at boards.ie... we *should* be swimming in spam ... almost no other community has managed to survive as spam-free as we are. We manage that by being really really nasty to spammers so its not that they have suddenly grown a conscience but because its counter-productive to spam here.

We as a race need to make it counter productive to be an asshole or an evil person... How we do that I dont know but I dont think that organised religion is the answer.

DeV.

CodeMonkey

Originally posted by DeVore
We as a race need to make it counter productive to be an asshole or an evil person... How we do that I dont know but I dont think that organised religion is the answer.

DeV.

Easy. The boards.ie members band together to help you take over the world. Once you are the overlord of this world, you can spank whoever is out of line. Better to have 1 evil dictator than millions of sinners right?

bonkey

Originally posted by smiles
The examples he gave were that how the **** would Leonardo DaVinci just imagine helicopters... he suggests that the thought was "planted" in his brain by god/higher power while he was spaced out on drugs). Another point he believes in is that evolution doesnt necessarily contradict his beliefs, he accepts evolution but puts it that some kinda of higher power touched one of those species of apes and gave them a push towards something more, then left us for a couple of millenia to cop on and grow up...

Hmmm. Has he been reading the Uplift series by David Brinn????

Seriously though...why is thinking of these things "impossible", but its (in some people's opinion) more plausible that some race managed to create themselves, then wander who-knows-how-long, create our planet/species, nudge us along the way, hide from us, come back, nudge some more, etc. etc. etc.

For me it all falls down at the first supposition...man could not have evolved "by chance" so we were created. Our creators, though, dont need to have the same rigid logic applied to them....because if they did, then how did it all start???? By someone evolving by chance! But if they can do it, why couldnt we?

If you think about it, we've barely been able to look outside of this planet for 50 years and yet "science" claims to have some of the definitive "proof" of the lack of an existance of a god, call me a science sceptic.

Science is such a loose term here, but given that we-re unlikely to stick inside any single discipline, lets use it here, but accept that its a bit vague.

Science attempts to offer models of how things work. It has no idea of the root question - the "why". Its models of how things work are incomplete and known to have limitations, but they have also proven surprisingly accurate in predicting hithertofore unknown "facts".

An example : we split the atom, creating the nuclear age. This was no accident, nor was it divine intervention. It was someone looking at a model of what had gone before, and putting the pieces together to figure out that if A, B, and C occurred, the equations meant there should be a ridiculously big bang.

There was.

It is very difficult, therefore, to say (for example) that the atomic model is incorrect. It may not be what is actually happening, but it calculates effect from cause to as accurate as we can measure and beyond.

To me the age or maturity of the science doesnt matter. its the maturity of its predictions that is important.

After countless thousands of years, religion and its divine intervention can manage nothing significantly better than chance when offering predictions....unless it bases its decisions on information from other fields.

Science, in the terms we are discussing here, is far younger. It is far less popular, less accessible, and less flexible. It is also far more reliable as a model, as it can and has successfully predicted many things in advance - the splitting of the atom, the bending of light by gravity, the existence of background radiation and of its non-uniformity, etc. etc. etc.

The other thing is that science rarely ever claims definitive anything. It can say that its models match observation, and can be predictive, but also acknowledges the gaps in its models, the flaws, and openly admits that the "whole picture" may never be understood.

Religion offers none of this. It claims divine inspiration, and yet is constantly having to revise its version of the truth as its earlier truths are shown to be..well...false. It offers no observable model, nor has it a reliably tested predictive nature. All it has is popularity and age.

I know which I'm skeptical of.

jc

JustHalf

Originally posted by DeVore
I dont think Science is trying to disprove God. I think religious types are paranoid about that because for millenia the great religions have tried to prosletyse members away from the other great religions. They see science as a new "religion" and well, if you are a hammer ... everything looks like a nail.

Unfortunately Tom, there really are people who pervert the tool that is science into the faith which is not. Time and time again I have heard atheist justify their faith, and criticise mine, based on the "fact" that science has disproved God.

I have no problem with science used as it is capable of being used. I have a big problem with things that are not scientific trying to gain the credibility of science by invoking its name (Computer Science springs to mind - I mean, what a joke! ).

When I think of the Pope asking those scientists to not investigate the first second of the universe, I laugh at how ridiculous the request is. How are we to build an idea of what the universe was like from the first second onwards if we don't think about what happened before? It's like the Lord of the Rings with the whole back story of the Ring removed.

I don't start to think "how DARE he ask that?". Lots of people have made pretty crazy requests in the past, and he is an ill old man after all.

DeVore

Yes but those are individuals... going the other way (religions that call themselves scientific) we have the Scientologists, the Christian Scientists and a number of other scary people...

My original point stands that if you had the full manual for a clock I made and gave to you , it wouldnt tell you who I am.

as I said in another thread.

stop...
a. putting god where he wasnt
b. demonstrating that he didnt
c. claiming that he isnt.


I dont know whether "God" exists but *nothing* we discover inside this clock is going to convince me one way or another.

DeV.

Talliesin

I dont know whether "God" exists but *nothing* we discover inside this clock is going to convince me one way or another.

What if we find a star-cluster in a yet unexamined galaxy that lets us do join-the-dots to get:

©YHWH 4004 BC. Patent Pending. I'll explain the BC bit in about 4000 years.