1301. Fleabytes

Comment #139864 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 3:25 pm

And compulsive gambling..

1302. Fleabytes

Comment #139862 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 3:22 pm

According to quantum mechanics God is a compulsive gambler who bets the universe into existence. Does that count as design?

1303. Fleabytes

Comment #139859 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 3:19 pm

It was a joke. I don't think they will start preaching God the shitty designer at your nearest evangelical church any time soon.

1304. Fleabytes

Comment #139855 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 3:13 pm

here are all kinds of implications in physics. Before you claim why God has designed stuff, you had first better understand what you claim he designed.

Disproving design? Not so fast!

Whether the universe is designed and whether it is designed by a good designer,--if indeed it is designed,--are two related but separate questions.

It is possible that the universe is designed by an incompetent designer. There is plenty of evidence in biology alone in support of the thesis that God is a shitty designer with little foresight and poor workmanship if the universe is designed.

According to the Bible God wiped out all his creations by a flood because they didn't behave as planned, then he felt regret and promised never to do it again. He sent us his words in the OT, but later decided that he had to update the package with Jesus and NT, kind of like microsoft telling you to download an update from time to time. It shows a God severely lacking in foresight.

So the shitty designer theory is completely compatible with the bible and scientific evidence.

1305. Fleabytes

Comment #139843 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Steve you wrote in your blog

Jesus did not need the top quark.

Maybe Jesus was a bottom.

1306. Crossing the Divide

Comment #139838 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 2:43 pm

If JW come visit, we'll invite them back with a couple of Mormons, conservative Muslims and evangelical Christians. Serve them tea and let them fight it out in the living room. This will be so cool.

1307. Fleabytes

Comment #139784 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 1:45 pm

If homosexuality is genetically influenced - in the extreme case, if there is a gene or collection of genes that makes someone homosexual

This sounds like "If God exists, then..."

I don't know what is the evidence for the premise. Today Cartomancer tells us his identical twin is straight.

1308. Fleabytes

Comment #139779 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Such as?

Politics, sports, science, religion, philosophy, almost everything being discussed on informal internet forums like this one.

1309. Fleabytes

Comment #139769 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 1:24 pm

SG

Of course, people like Clearthinker would probably agree - as he says on his own web forum, "It is the robust biblical Christianity which stands up to Dawkins. Anything else just gets blown away"

I never understand why Dawkins would want to aim his gun at the "non robust" variety of Christians anyway.

His arguments seem to all boil down to "it is not true because it is not evidence based.." Well most of us hold a lot of opinions which are not evidence based on a variety of subjects we pontificate on, probably most subjects. There is no way that we can investigate all the available data on everything. I find the "non robust Christians" are actually not any more dogmatic than non religious people on practical issues which really matter. On that note Dawkins' own opinions on religion as it is really practised are probably not evidence based if you agree with Scott Atran, who studies religion as an anthropologist.

The ontological question of God's existence is really neither here nor there. Believing in a super natural being in and of itself says nothing about one's position on most topics on practical importance.

Listening to Dawkins I sometime get the impression that this is a guy who spends all his life in university, he is brilliant on ideas but seems to know little about people.

I await the canon balls and missiles flying my way.

1310. Fleabytes

Comment #139737 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Cartomancer.

And to make matters worse he gave me an identical twin brother with a tireless love of cheerful fraternal abuse and a vast stock of unpleasant synonyms to deploy...

Just out of scientific interest, is he gay too?

EDIT: Ok, you did say that he has an old and ugly girl friend, so that answers it. Sorry.

1311. Fleabytes

Comment #139708 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 12:17 pm

MaxD

I think I can suggest that some of what you are observing is simply that they tend to be an unreflective lot very much of the time.

Yes, but this doesn't contradict what I said about vaguely held religious beliefs by many believers. Indeed many people,--religious or not,--are not very reflective most of time.

They excuse their grief in the following way we greive for our own loss and not for them.

I don't think most of them intellectualize like that. Besides, where is the loss if they truly believe that they will be united eventually, like they say in funeral prayers?

Some will skip the grief altogether as you may know and skip straight to the God called them home and halleluja!

Since I don't want to cast doubt on your words I am sure you have met such people. But how representative are they among Christians? I haven't met one or heard of one who leaps to sing halleluja and opens the champaign to celebrate gradpa's passing. Maybe I need to go out more.

There are of course doomsday cults who crave the rapture, but it would be unfair to say that they represent the typical Christians. You can always caricature a group of people by using the worst of them to create a stereotype.

Catholics for instance couldn't be describe simply as fundamentalists as they believe alot of other wierd things and things that cause them great emotional trouble.

There are degrees of devotion within any sect. I remember reading surveys (no doubt you have heard of them too)that a vast majority of Catholics in North America practise birth control or don't see a problem with it. Since the prohibition of birth control is a major church doctrine it is no small matter to ignore it. We do hear out to lunch statements from Catholic school boards and the Catholic lobbies from time to time, but these are professional religious activists, they don't necessary reflect the opinions of everyday Catholics.

I think the tendency to believe in weird things depends on many factors such as cultural background and education.

An illiterate old Catholic lady from rural Italy is probably a lot more prone to believing in weeping virgin and other nonsense than a Catholic raised in a North American city with a university degree.

My family is Catholic, I went to a Catholic school for a few years and my parents have many Catholic friends. I in general find them to be "normal" people. They never talk about religion and miracles, let alone "droning" on them. I don't know any Catholic who actually believes that communion wine turns into Jesus' blood. Maybe except for the priests.

Incidentally, I don't know how it is here in North America, the law actually prohibits children under the drinking age from drinking the communion wine where I grew up, so the state surely doesn't take the Church's claim seriously. The priests and nuns in my school were fine with it.

That the AC in Canada is having this crisis is no mark of a nuanced view of the matter originating from within the cloistered walls of the, what did you call it, synod?
It is because the zeitgeist has moved the hell on!

Did I ever say otherwise? The point is the Church is influenced by the zeitgeist. Religious people don't live in a sealed bubble. Many of you seem to argue based on stereotypes and projections. Another point I made was that even being a devoted Christian doesn't mandate one to be hostile to gays, as Steve seems to be suggesting with his remarks about the COE.

1312. Fleabytes

Comment #139623 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 8:27 am

Steve

Feel uncomfortable with homosexuals? Well, pick an Anglican sect that makes you feel all warm and cosy about that view.

I think it is more subtle than that. The AC in Canada is in the mist of a big crisis because the synod is committed to gay rights and support same sex marriage. Some of the more conservative local chapters are splitting away as a result. The Church establishment takes a principled stance and a big risk on this matter (I can give you links but I have to run)

I also know a lot of atheist homophobes, the lack of religious justification doesn't make them any more rational, less virulent or more open to alternate views.

1313. Fleabytes

Comment #139618 by Bonzai on March 6, 2008 at 8:13 am

Paula wrote

Christians will no doubt argue that the truth claims of religion are the source of the comfort provided to believers and that you couldn't have the one without the other.

I find that attitude mostly confined to fundamentalists ("born again Christians") and some clergies who make a living out of religion such as Mr. Robertson here. Others are more wishy washy. They may get argumentative and make claims when backed to a corner by atheists, but even then I don't think they necessarily "believe" in what they say. Most people don't join religion to win arguments and we atheists tend to be an argumentative lot.

I think sometimes we (atheists) understand the word "belief" too literally and cerebrally, we expect an unrealistic degree of intellectual commitment and consistency from religious people regarding their beliefs. In reality, to many believers religion is much more simple and vague.

The truth claims, which Richard Dawkins thinks are the most important part of religion, IMO are almost an add on for the sake of completeness for many believers, they were told they have to buy the whole package, which they do, but many barely open the wraps.

Most people,--religious or not,-- don't have consistent beliefs, they pick and choose and can live with uncertainties. That's the way we muddle through life as a species. A Christian does grieve when a love one dies, that wouldn't make sense if he truly thinks they will be united in heaven. I suspect as some levels he knows that it is just a faint hope, or what we would call wishful thinking,

1314. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #139393 by Bonzai on March 5, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Ass? But that's what Jesus rode in on! That's blasphemy!
More of an arse man, meself...

Jesus of course rode on his arse!! Do you think he rode his ass on his belly?!

Still blasphemous, one lightning strike for you!

1315. Fleabytes

Comment #139336 by Bonzai on March 5, 2008 at 3:48 pm

I think you do assume, by claiming that there is something you observe going on in you which I cannot observe going on in you.

If you don't assume that is going on why do you bother to talk to him (assuming you exist)? You just pretend that you don't make this assumption when you're trying to play some kind of philosophical game.

This is an assumption if you want to put it like that, but a very fundamental one. More fundamental than even logic and all the philosophies put together, If we can't pin it down, at least we should have the intellectual honesty to admit that this is an open problem, which we haven't found a way to formulate in a way amendable to our methods and be open to the possibility that it may not be answerable.

What I find unacceptable is to try to dismiss the question out of hand by pretending that it is not a real question.

1316. Fleabytes

Comment #139308 by Bonzai on March 5, 2008 at 2:48 pm

MPhil,

If you don't like words such as "quila", let's be more precise. How do you understand "concepts" from neuron firing?

How do mental representations, language and abstractions fit into the scheme of neurons? These things are all indirectly observable,--psychologists and linguists study them.

Neuro network are very interesting for me because I am interested statistical mechanics and emergent phenomena, but neuro networks can only model low level "cognitive" behaviour such as pattern recognition. Well if you consider that "cognition" there are single cell organisms which also exhibit some proto-cognitive behaviour without any neuron.So how does that reduce to neuron firing?

The analogy with biology and physics is faulty - yes, all processes are physical processes, so from a hypothetically perspective of perfect knowledge about physics, statements in these other sciences would have to be reducible to statements in the language of physics. But we don't have a complete language -

'Reducible to" is not the same as "identical" to, which has been the point you tried to make with lightning.

You cannot "reduce" biology to physics unless you accept biology as a valid level to begin with. What you need for the "reduction" is not a "complete language",--whatever hell it means,--but a way to connect the two levels, that is a mapping problem.

What you are arguing is like saying biology is not a legitimate level to investigate, all we need are Maxwell equations because all biological processes (that we know) are just the results of electromagnetic forces.

you are producing propaganda, not arguments - and certainly not evidence. You are name-calling and making vapid assertions to defend magic.

You are the one who is spreading propaganda, which is more about validating certain philosophical dogmas than answering legitimate questions. You are the one who try to shout down others with dismissive terms like "magic" for raising questions that don't fit into the narrow scheme of Denett and Churchlland.

1317. Fleabytes

Comment #139292 by Bonzai on March 5, 2008 at 1:59 pm

roboholic

I really do agree with MPhil on the last few pages of this thread. You can't say something exists [qualia] just because you want to Steve.

You can't say something doesn't exist just because you don't want it to exist, don't have a theory for it, or it is in conflict with your philosophical dogmas.

Phenomenon precedes theorization. You and M Phil are trying to argue that certain data are inadmissable,--or actually don't exist,--just because they don't fit into your philosophical prejudice. To see the absurdity of Mphil's position, it is like saying cognitive science is physics, biology is physics, in fact everything is "identical" to physics because what is there beneath physics? So Churchland, Dennett et al can all go home and leave the podium to physicists.
.
To me the peril of "dualism" is a non issue. Physicists created quantum mechanics because it describes how nature works accurately and it makes amazingly good predictions, not because there was some philosophical agenda against "realism", If QM opens up some awkward philosophical questions, so be it. Science has never made any progress because of "-isms".

1318. Fleabytes

Comment #138882 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Otherwise you end up with dualism out of the inconceivability fallacy.

I don't see how that can be. But by now you should know I don't care for much about "-isms", I think your explanation is not convincing and that is all I care about. There are unanswered questions and your way to try to make the questions disappear with songs and dances of "-isms" and big words is just cheating :-)

Your example of lightning clearly shows the inadequacy of your argument. Also, as noted, thermodynamics "is" molecular motion in a sense, but they are not "identical", there is a real mapping problem here between the two levels and it is a important problem.

1319. Fleabytes

Comment #138874 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 11:07 pm

"Yes, but why does charge separation, leader formation and discharge produce lightning" (or respectively "Why is [...] identical to lightning")

Of course they are not identical, you can have charge separation and discharge performed in laboratory which don't produce lightning and these process also produce something else, like certain kind of chemical reactions which are not intrinsically related to lightning but depend on the medium in which the discharge occurs (and these reactions can be produced in other settings using other methods thus is not intrinsically tied to discharge either)

1320. Fleabytes

Comment #138868 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 10:58 pm

I agree with Steve that there is a mapping problem between the physical-chemical level and the level of experience.

IMO it is a cheap way to try to use a trick of word to get rid of the problem by saying mechanism in level A produces B they are therefore "identical".

A very deep problem in non equilibrium statistical physics is the dynamical origin of the second law of thermodynamics. The whole point is to bridge the gap between the molecular motions which is symmetric in time and the monotonic increase of entropy. It wouldn't be a problem at all if physicists just declare molecular motion and thermal dynamics as "identical" just because one produces the other.

1321. God, power and money

Comment #138852 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 10:25 pm

, Catholics pretend not to notice when one of their parlour tricks doesn't work every Sunday: changing wine into blood, except that after the Hocus Pocus bit, it's still wine...but you pretend that it isn't.

Does anyone know whether children under drinking age are allowed to drink communion wine?

1322. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138819 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 8:03 pm

qster

Consider that all mass is energy, all thought and mind (and spirit) is energy and energy can neither be created or destroyed - what is to say that my energy is not recycled into another being?

Reminds me of a comedy skit I saw when I was a child. This guy was taking his son to visit grand pa's grave. The kid carelessly stepped on a pile of cow dung. The father slapped him and said, "How dare you step on grandpa like that?"

Apparently Buddhism uses the world "reincarnation" in a very loose sense that a kind of interpretation based on conservation of energy is possible.

I have typed something along the line of Black Wolf's post. I wrote that if reincarnation is true some part of your "energy pattern" has to retain its integrity to the next life so that there is something uniquely "you" being passed on,--it doesn't have to be a "soul" but has to bear your unique signature in some way.


But then I found this on wikipedia:

According to the scriptures, the Buddha taught a concept of rebirth that was distinct from that of any known Indian teacher contemporary with him. This concept was consistent with the common notion of a sequence of related lives stretching over a very long time, but was constrained by two core Buddhist concepts: anattā, that there is no irreducible ātman or "self" tying these lives together; and anicca, that all compounded things are subject to dissolution, including all the components of the human person and personality. At the death of one personality, a new one comes into being, much as the flame of a dying candle can serve to light the flame of another.[13][14]

Since according to Buddhism there is no permanent and unchanging self (identify) there can be no transmigration in the strict sense.

However, the Buddha himself is said to have referred to his past-lives. Buddhism teaches that what is reborn is not the person but that one moment gives rise to another and that that momentum continues, even after death. It is a more subtle concept than the usual notion of reincarnation, reflecting the Buddhist concept of personality existing (even within one's lifetime) without a "soul".

So in Buddhism reincarnation is not a journey of the soul because there is no soul in Buddhism. To use Black Wolf's terminology, there is no need for any "hardware" to carry the information, because the information would be gone too,

It sounds reasonable to me. I am not quite sure why the Buddha used the term "reincarnation".Maybe I am missing something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation#Buddhism

1323. Fleabytes

Comment #138719 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 6:13 pm

Sorry Brain, there will be a lot more editing because I can't preview my message anymore. :)

1324. Fleabytes

Comment #138716 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 6:05 pm

Frankus,

I think memes are the cultural counterparts of genes and are postulated to be subjected to a selection process like natural selection, so the model of religion as memes is quite specific. Atran argues that it is wrong because religion is nothing like genes, the "patterns of behaviour" and "patterns of belief" associated with religion are much more fluid and are contagent to other factors in a very intimate way. Memes on the other hand must have a much stronger degree of structural integrity independent from the environment to be the units for selection,

1325. Fleabytes

Comment #138712 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Frankus

Dennett describes religion as a meme that has benefits for itself but not necessarily the host.

Just to get in a different view. Scott Atran thinks that this is nonsense. Religion is not a stable entity that get selected like genes, it get interpreted and reinterpreted as it is transmitted. According to Atran religion is often just a vehicle that provides a set of symbols and language rather than anything with a fixed content, hence it is not a meme.

I would trust Atran a lot more than Dannett because Atran is an anthropologist who studies real religions as practiced by believers and he has quantitative data to back him up.

You can google up his paper if you are interested.It is free for download.

1326. Fleabytes

Comment #138702 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Brain

Bonzai. I don't think any healthy human can be an uber-rationalist. Sometimes the best adaptive strategy is to be irrational

I agree.

Nietzsche said we have arts so that we don't die of the truth. :)

1327. Fleabytes

Comment #138689 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Frankus

So scientists need to have flights of fancy; to look at the world from odd angles. The ideas they come up with need to 'fit' however. Experimental results need to confirm the hypothesis or what you have is just an interesting idea.

I think that religion or the concept of god is an interesting idea that just doesn't 'fit'.

No disagreement here. I did say that in science original flights of fancy have to be tested against data and be worked out carefully,

I was only trying to provide another answer to the question why some outstanding scientists would believe in some weird things, My point was that very often original scientists are not the umber rationalists that they may be perceived to be by the public because of the way that science is presented.I tried to point out that non rational factors figure prominently in real science. Once we realized that the apparent paradox of scientists believing in strange things becomes less of a paradox.

1328. Fleabytes

Comment #138664 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Well, if not dogmatic, then dishonest. Anybody who gets up at mass (or whatever their creed calls it) on a Sunday and says the Nicene creed, which is a statement of dogma either does believe it, or is telling porkies.

It is a ritual. People participate in rituals for various reasons and knowing or agreeing with the words may not even be why they are there, It is like singing Christmas carols for some people, I know because I went to a Catholic school for a few years.

Some of my Jewish friends also tell me that they go to synagogues for Hebrew service even though they don't know any Hebrew, they are vaguely religious. Going to the synagogues and listening to sermon and old prayers is a ritual for them even though they don't know the language.

Rituals play a role in many communities and cultures but they are rarely interpreted literally by participants.

1329. Fleabytes

Comment #138655 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Brian

And many who were religious people are now atheists who aren't dogmatic anymore.

Not all religious people are dogmatic, having a vague belief in some God and believing in a set of fixed dogma are two separate issues. I also want to point out that most believers other than fundamentalists don't have consistent belief systems. Religion and God are probably just a visualizing device for them to articulate some deeply felt emotions, but the beliefs are vague and "diffuse" so to speak. Mr, Robertson here doesn't represent most religious people I know, understandably because he is making a living out of the bible so he has to be a lot more dogmatic to give the air that he knows what he is talking about.

Secondly, atheists can certainly be dogmatic without God. Our friend Scooternyc is a good example.

1330. Fleabytes

Comment #138644 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Robertson,

If you have to butcher big bang or the bible to make your point you are even more of an idiot than I think.

You know what, it was a priest who discovered the implication for the big bang from Einstein's equations (he was also a distinguished physicist). When the Pope tried to get some PR value out of it, like you are doing 80 years later now. He wrote to the Pope and basically told him to have some honesty and stop embarrassing himself and the Church, though more tactfully for sure.

1331. Fleabytes

Comment #138633 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 4:22 pm

Paula

I'm not at all sure I agree with that. There are far more constructive ways of dealing with problems and difficulties. It seems to me that both religion and pills (other than in cases of medical depression) simply mask the problem rather than actually deal with it.

Such as? Therapy works for some people but it is expensive and religion works for some. Pills work for some people but may have side effects, if you are lucky to be on a drug plan you don't have to pay for it,

I don't buy the assumption that religious belief is necessarily "destructive" just because it is false. Not all religious people are fundamentalists or creationists, not all religious people seek to impose their beliefs on others.

Some people may think abstract "truth" is more important than being well adjusted and happy, but many people don't think that way.

Let's say my neighbour is an ugly toad, but for some reasons he is under the delusion that he is a handsome prince and that delusional belief gives him the confidence to go out and meet people and have a social life. Should I, being committed to "truth", drag him to the mirror and tell him what an enormously ugly person he is so that he would end up being a recluse with his blinds drawn? I don't see what that would accomplish, really.

I am reminded of one of Hemingway's short story,this guy was talking to some Mexican Marxists, afterwards he thought to himself, "religion is opium for the masses, music is opium for the masses, sport is opium for the masses, as is sex.. as is the radio...Well what do you guys want to do with the masses, operating on them without anesthetics?"

1332. Fleabytes

Comment #138616 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 3:59 pm

But do you think that taking pills is the only alternative?

Probably not the only one, but the most common one.,

1333. Fleabytes

Comment #138611 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 3:54 pm

that it's a whole lot easier than actually facing up to them and doing something positive about them.

Well if someone is lonely and find friends in a church he is doing something positive. I don't know what you can recommend for people who find that they are anxious but believing helps. Do you think taking pills is a better route to address that?

I have no problem with people who use religion as a therapy, as long as it doesn't impair them in other ways.

1334. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138599 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Not just equally valid, but equally foolish, wrong, contradictory and divisive as well. What next?

Surly not equally divisive, I won't hold my breath for Muslims to say that all religions are equally valid like these teapotists do.

1335. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138591 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Dare say some are worse than others. Saudis are particularly virulent, even to the extent of destroying anything to do with Mohammed in case it becomes a shrine

I know that, The Wahabis built a parking lot on Mohammad's grave and they had tried to blow it up before.I always wonder where are the angry Muslim mobs around the world who should be shouting death to Saudi Arabia.

1336. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138590 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 3:25 pm

While the teapot cult is stupid it seems pretty harmless, The followers don't have a problem with other religions and the fun looking, amusement park like constructs might actually be great tourist attractions.

But no, Islam has to crush everything which it deems heretic. This got to demonstrate the fallacy that all religions are equally bad because they are equally false. Some are way worse than others.

1337. Fleabytes

Comment #138584 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 2:59 pm

I have another theory why some brilliant scientists believe in God (or other weired things, Newton was a weirdo and asshole besides being a theist).

Contrary to popular impression, science is not just about carefully checking hypotheses, carrying out observations and applying logic.

In practice it is an art in many ways. So so science may be just consisting of checking fact and proceeding logically, but not the truly brilliant science. It is a combination of taste, insights, and seeing things from odd angles which other people would not have thought of. It takes certain eccentric personality to enable the great scientists to formulate novel ideas and bold hypotheses. Of course they have to be followed by the usual experimental tests and logical scrutiny etc, but what separates a great scientist from her average colleague are those flashes of insights. As Pauli would say, a theory that is not even wrong is not interesting for cutting edge physics.

So in many ways the great scientists may share the temperament of the great artists, brilliant in their works but crazy in other ways,

1338. Fleabytes

Comment #138563 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 2:16 pm

And Max D,

You just provided me of an example of someone who lacks imagination and severely homour-challenged.

EDIT: Most problems in pure science are "frivolous" for the practical minded.

1339. Fleabytes

Comment #138557 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Quine

Next you have to ask if your creator deity(s) survived the event?

Indeed. In one version of Chinese creation myth God (Pen Gu) bursted out of a primal cosmic egg, spreaded out the heavens and then died of exhaustion,--an overdose of entropy. So the Chinese incorporated "first cause", the big bang and the second law of thermodynamics (and "God is dead" philosophy) in one genius stroke,-- Creationists and Quran "scientists" move aside.

But most beautifully, God is not around to give order and demand worship once his job is done.

1340. Fleabytes

Comment #138540 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Steve

I don't get it for the constants. The assumption of the existence of a mind (particularly with sufficient laboratory equipment to tweak the physical constants(*)) will be far harder to justify than the constants being what they are by chance, surely.

Just thought of a book I would like to recommend to you if you haven't read it already,

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521848411

1341. Fleabytes

Comment #138535 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Max D

I think it is one that science will be quite capable of answering.

It may and may not. The intellectually honest answer is we don't know. Otherwise it is just a statement of faith.

At this stage we don't even know how to formulate the question in a scientific way, let alone answering it The clues we gather from on going investigation may help to create the right definitions and ask the right set of questions, but answers are a lot harder to come by.

People who seek that kind of answers for personal reasons want them NOW. Science "may" have an answer 100 years from now is not a very assuring to them.

Besides, it is one thing to have an answer, quite another to be emotionally at ease with it, There are things that you know there is a rational explanation, but still feel not quite right. You know it in your head but don't feel it in the guts so to speak. I think that explains the
enduring appeal of religion.

1342. Fleabytes

Comment #138518 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 1:17 pm

I am afraid I have to disagree. I asked that question (and the others that Bonzai mentioned) as a child.

Of course I did too, and still do sometimes.

1343. Fleabytes

Comment #138514 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Steve,

The use of the word "mechanics" here is revealing - Newton saw the heavens as a mechanism, and saw design.

Well Newton might have seen a gigantic design but Laplace also called his book "celestial mechanics" so I don't quite get the point (For those who don't know, Napolean asked Laplace why he never mentioned God in his book, Laplace famously replied, "Your majesty, I have no need for that hypothesis")

Seeing the universe as "designed" doesn't logically necessitate an interventionist God by the way, unless one admits that the universe is a pretty crappy design which requires tuning up from time to time.

Again, I would have hoped that after the shock of the discovery of evolution - that imperfectly replicating systems can design themselves - that we would have learn the two lessons:

Well evolution does not explain how life got started in the first place, it doesn't explain fine tuning (which you are more inclined to see as a problem than many here do) and so on. I am not sure if Miller et al use God as a way to address the emergence of complexity,--the kind of questions that standard evolutionary theory answers readily. There are other reasons why people may find a gap to insert their Gods.

1344. Fleabytes

Comment #138503 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 12:57 pm

Could you write out these profound big questions?

Why do you find yourself here rather than there, now rather than some time else? Why is you not me, or vice versa? Why do I have a sense of self? "Who" am "I"?The kind of questions children ask before they are beaten out of us by education. I think they are vague, usually hard to formulate, seem to have some cosmic significance and have emotional appeals.

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Comment #138499 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Can anyone tell me why posts appear and disappear as I refresh the screen? It is a real pain that I cannot preview my post under the new system.

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Comment #138494 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 12:44 pm

Ah, but my usual argument when people mention Newton is that he lived before the publication of The Origin of Species!

Yeah, but his reason had nothing to do with biology, but celestial mechanics, which he was the master of. Darwin could have never answered Newton's question (Laplace did) I am saying there is a way to smuggle in God whenever there are unanswered questions.

On the other hand, I don't see anything that compels one to believe in God even before Darwin Hume didn't. The Chinese poet Qu Yuan asked Hume's question in a long poem called "interrogating heaven" back around 300BC, the relevant verse asked if the Goddess created us, who created the Goddess.

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Comment #138484 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Steve

I would have thought that inventionist supernatural entities are going to be problem for a scientist. A scientist says "what I can see and test, and no more", and I would have thought that a good scientist lives with their work in a way that would make it rather odd to allow the supernatural in in this way. I very strange (but in a way, comfortingly human) that they believe in a Christian God.

Well Newton not only invoked God as "the first cause" He believed in an interventionist God who nudged the planets from time to time to keep them in orbits because he couldn't work out the math that he himself invented. This was from Mr.Clockwork universe himself.

I don't know what Miller and Collin's Christian God are like, but a "Christian God" can be anything between Fred Phelps' God and John Spong's--which is more of a motivational prop. I think Miller had written a book trying to argue that his religion is compatible with evolution. Does anyone read it (obviously I haven't) Maybe that will give some hints to what kind of "Christian God" he believes in.

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Comment #138474 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 12:16 pm

I just made some editing.

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Comment #138469 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 11:59 am

Clod

Um....Sentient beings experience stuff and ask questions based on that expierience. I think most people would agree that answers and certainty are desirable but are they a necessity?

But scientists are not people! :-)

Neil deGrasse Tyson made an interesting point. He said it was unremarkable that the majority of elite scientists (note the word "elite", that was his word) are atheists, but what about the 6% who do believe in God? It seems that education and knowledge can combat religion to a degree, but it is not a sure fire way. He asked why that is.

Well I think you can always get to the point where you have questions but science can no longer provide an answer. I am not talking about fairly concrete puzzles like the molecular properties of exotic compounds,most people can live with not knowing that sort of things and remain emotionally detached,

I am talking the "big questions" to which science only has some hints but nothing close to anything reasonably definitive, and perhaps it never will be able to answer to our satisfaction. When evidence and scientific theories have no verdict we are in the anything goes realm.

Most scientists, because of the pragmatic ethos of modern scientific research decide that they can live admitting their ignorance, while the minority are old fashion in that they need something more reassuring. Now it is important to note that there is a difference in not believing in God and believing there is no "God",--whatever it means. Believing there is no God is a belief.

I attribute the majority consensus to the pragmatic ethos of science, which is a kind of social factor, rather than science itself. Some people argue that since Darwin there is no good reason to believe in God, I admit that I can't really see the logical connection. Evolution answers some questions but science as a whole always has gaps. Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins are probably not inferior to Richard Dawkins as biologists and they know a hell lot more about evolution than I do but they find no logical necessity that they must reject all God(s). Facts sometimes do admit multiple meta-interpretations, especially when these meta-"theories" are very wooly,

I was reading the other thread where a debate on Buddhism was taking place, I was struck by how some equal opportunity religion basher insisting on seeing Buddhism through the lens of the Abrahamic faiths, They kept coming with Buddhists believed in this or that, while it might not occur to them that some Buddhist sects actually don't believe in beliefs at all, except the belief that all beliefs are false in some sense and that includes "believing" in reason. What it betrays in the critics is the assumption that beliefs are "natural", which is a simplification and you're right, I am probably guilty of it here.

My own opinion is that there are indeed questions that science cannot answer, and probably never can in principle, like how do you know the weather three weeks ahead (it is a theorem that you can't make long term forecast because of chaos, so "science may progress to the point one day.." kind of arguments don't work, or subjective things like personal aesthetics and so on.. I would only say religion and any other systems would not be able to answer these questions either and leave it at that.

I read a fair bit of sciencey stuff at a laymans level but I don't feel any need to believe it in a concrete way because so much speculation is involved and something new is going to turn up next week.

Good for you. But it is also possible that they are not your questions to begin with, so you are not emotionally committed to knowing the answers You know how it is when you go to school, the teachers tell you a whole bunch of answers to questions that you never raised in the first place. It is not like the Socratic approach where inducing you to ask questions is more important than the answers.

Science used to arouse strong passion too.The pupil of Pythagoras who discovered that square root of 2 is an irrational number was reportedly murdered by drowning. Boyer's father wrote to him saying that he suffered massive nervous breakdown and was on the verge of suicide because he couldn't solve the puzzle regarding Euclid's parallel axiom after years of hard work.Ludwig Boltzmann did kill himself. He apparently got into depression because of harsh criticism from the positivists,--oh those nasty philosophers. Well you don't find this kind of serious commitment to science anymore. :)

BTW, cool wet suit. Is that you in the picture?

1350. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138420 by Bonzai on March 4, 2008 at 9:32 am

Does any body know what is Stenger's reputation as a research scientist?