Mr. Perfect wrote:Astonishing strawman. I am becoming more intrigued by your responses here, you appear to be deeply triggered. It's very revealing.Simple Minded wrote: Much too sensible an opinion for this thread. I say we bet the farm on the all powerful god thing and that will cover all the bases, and end all debates and discussion forever.
I'm flattered Mr. P! I'm just throwing you some red meat.True enough and you will have Einstein et-al on your side. But it doesn't address the question what that experience-independent moon is like. To illustrate:Mr. Perfect wrote:The moon is the same when we don't look at it as when we do, barring observer effects and uncertainty which are nil at that size.
A classic misunderstanding.Mr. Perfect wrote:That standard model [SM] says there should be the same amount of anti matter as matter, and therefore matter wouldn't exist. We went over this already. Human beings can be wrong, especially scientists.The Standard Model and gravity are solely descriptions of the physical universe and have nothing to do with the metaphysical. Or a moral code. In other words, both ametaphysical and amoral.
I go back and forth on red meat. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.Simple Minded wrote:
You call it analysis, I call it projection!
Together, we make a great intellectual team.
I definitely think one of us understands this better than the other.Colonel Sun wrote: A classic misunderstanding.
When your model can't explain reality your model is wrong.The matter - antimatter asymmetry does not "prove" the SM to be "wrong".
Understatement of the year.Rather, it tells us that either the SM is incomplete or that there is some aspect of it yet to be understood.
250 years or so dominated by Christians.Vannevar Bush described it well as Science, The Endless Frontier.
That this is the type of open question being investigated only ~ 300 after the start of science is astounding.
A wide range of things. Inventing science, looking for the meaning and purpose of life, the source of morality and truth, what happens after we die, what is our eternal destiny if any.What have various religions and their sub sects been doing in the meantime?
You have to take it on a case by case basis. Sometimes that happens, other times it's over something else.Condemning, fighting, and killing each other over obtuse issues of dogma.
You're letting your imagination run away with you Mr. P.Mr. Perfect wrote:I go back and forth on red meat. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.Simple Minded wrote:
You call it analysis, I call it projection!
Together, we make a great intellectual team.
However, if I am projecting I'm not sure how. I would be interested in your thoughts.
For me it appears that if people intimate that there is a judgement bar coming where we will be accountable to an Almight for all we have done, you seem to come apart a little bit.
The implications are intriguing.
However, I'm open to other explanations.
Beautifully said. I remember one of my professors, who stuck me as one of the wisest men I ever met, and a devot Jew who said "Each of us have to figure out what gives meaning to our lives. What is it that makes it worthwhile to get out of bed in the morning?"kmich wrote:
I am a Christian who is overwhelmed by the mystery of life and of being a conscious creature in this world. There only remains my own responsibility to use the faculties provided by our creator to do what I can to broaden my vision, understanding, and humility, No construction of my religious imagination can relieve me of that duty.
"The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of our life's meaning... If we crave some cosmic purpose, let us find some worthy goal..."
this isnt so true anymore.Mr. Perfect wrote:A wide range of things. Inventing science, looking for the meaning and purpose of life, the source of morality and truth, what happens after we die, what is our eternal destiny if any.What have various religions and their sub sects been doing in the meantime?
Results vary, but science is silent on these issues.
I'm not sure that is what Jesus taught.kmich wrote:I am a Christian who is overwhelmed by the mystery of life and of being a conscious creature in this world. There only remains my own responsibility to use the faculties provided by our creator to do what I can to broaden my vision, understanding, and humility, No construction of my religious imagination can relieve me of that duty.
"The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of our life's meaning... If we crave some cosmic purpose, let us find some worthy goal..."
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Even more fascinating. It's like peeling an onion back.Simple Minded wrote: You're letting your imagination run away with you Mr. P.
Simply read what I write without reading into it, or projecting your own fears upon me.
IME, people who need to find a god that judges them for eternity, also manage to find a god that judges them favorably. Not a bad deal. Both symbiotic and Reciprocal.
Not sure what this means.As you like to say, you are "fighting."
If one wants to be a dragonslayer, one needs to find some dragons. Luckily, dragons are easy to find, both in cyberspace and in one's imagination.
Hah.Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Sagan was a Muppet........
Of course the universe was made for us, but it is a responsibility and a proving ground for creating our ultimate being. It was not intended to be a pen for treasured pets and morons bring this trope out when they want to argue that God doesn't 'exist'...... and, what? There may be valid reasons to style yourself anti-theist and this isn't one of them.......
My money is on your cat being right....noddy wrote:
Hah.
Ill happily go in the moron box then.
I cant see how all the everything in all directions forever is about us/me.
sure, we are part of it, maybe even an important part, but my cat is pretty certain life revolves around it, so one of us is wrong.
Back in the days... when people were drunk with what they then called the physical world. That immense Universe in which we are even less than a speck, randomly somewhere on a vast expanding canvas without end. Would not only a fool deny his smallness, his own insignificance?
Back in the days... when what was very far away only appeared small, its true nature becoming apparent when you moved closer to it. A speck of light in the night sky became a giant star the size of 100 suns. If only you were that close to it.
To know the true nature and size of things you made yourself as small...and insignificant as possible. Only then the truth would reveal itself. If your eye could be reduced to a 1 Planck unit sized observatory you would really know.. from the inside out, of anything. From the moment reality was considered an aggregate of small units creating bigger things, the greater truths were expected to be found in inversely smaller things. The humbled view won the gold medal. Small, insignificant and on our knees again. Looking up to the Great Being. Whether it be God or The Universe as we know it. Think to know it.
Little soldiers that make up an army will tell you the truth about armies. But also a soldier is a collection of billions of smaller units. To know the soldier you had to ask the chem-pack platoons of molecules and particles that vibrate in and through his body. And so forth down the lines of command. Finding the first voice who speaks. That smallest Planck-ish demon who gave the first order. Who would tell you ultimate truth. The smallest eye you wished you could have been to see everything from the inside-out. Or just hold reality in the palms of your hand and look at it from the outside-in like a God. But you aren't that small nor that big. You are nailed to the cross of life in between the extremes.
Is what appears in closeness revealing more truth than what appears at great distance? Isn't the truth of a star light years away that it is extremely small compared to you, whispering "Shhh...I am over here!" begging for your attention?
Back in the days... when people believed they lived inside the belly of a huge beast. In the cosmic womb of a Universe that didn't care. Yet unaware that this entire universe as they knew it to be with all its features of color, geometric form, with time and distance, with the very small and the very big, with the experience of living in a present where past and future seem to meet... totally unaware that all of that is a mental construction produced by the most complex computer-simulator known to date, the human brain? And to complicate things further, all we know about that brain of course is equally knowledge of a simulation, a representation...a model of itself by necessity?
Back in the days... when people were so mesmerized by what they saw around them, naively believing that this perception equaled objective reality as if the eyes are just a window through which you see the world directly and exactly as-is. As if they had no brain that constructs this reality with the visual cortex doing most of the work. They observed the world like naive children. It was me, the old Carl Sagan, too.
Back in the days... when science was booming, ironically the findings and implications of that same science discovering the structure and function of the human brain were ignored. For much too long. That time is over. A new journey of discovery is beginning. Space-Y is ready for take off.
Reactionary atheism too often replaces one set of beliefs with others: environmentalism as Gaia worship, cult of personality, progressivism with persecution of heretics.noddy wrote:reactionary atheism is rather boring as a whole, its just another edgy thing that needs a cartoon version of religion to define itself against , it doesnt make sense as a standalone school of thought.
Fascinating. It usually isn't about a need but a realization.Colonel Sun wrote: As someone who have never experienced the need to believe in a metaphysical deity,
That's really not very smart.noddy wrote:Pretty much same for me.
If their is a god, Im not convinced its deserving of worship anyway, maybe the correct response is fighting the bastard the whole way
They say the lord works in mysterious ways.Mr. Perfect wrote:That's really not very smart.noddy wrote:Pretty much same for me.
If their is a god, Im not convinced its deserving of worship anyway, maybe the correct response is fighting the bastard the whole way
I believe in God because:
a. The Universe, biological life on earth in particular, compels me to believe that a metaphysical, intelligent creating entity must exist to make it all possible. The ground of being I call God.
b. One or more holy scriptures convinced me that God exists.
c. I was raised in a religious environment where belief in God is normal and important. The reasons I can think of not to believe in God are rendered impotent in the same way I cannot change or ignore the mother tongue that spoon fed me.
d. A life without God is a life without a solid moral code and hence a slippery slope by default. It is also a life without hope. So for all practical purposes belief is a choice and necessary antidote against redundant suffering. Even if you have to be a bit crazy for such a leap of faith.
e. For existential reasons. Life can make reasonable sense thanks to science, even though there are enough gaps in our knowledge. But my God is not the God of the scientific gaps because this God is never personal. No scientific new discovery will ever tell me why I am here, a particular conscious human being and the only one having this first hand knowledge and experience of being me. The scientific 3rd person viewpoint, if believed it represents reality accurate enough, in fact renders my own 1st person reality meaningless, an optical delusion of sorts and existentially impossible.
Caveats: if science cannot explain the conscious me, there are two options:
1. If I do believe that physical (experience independent) reality is how science purports it to be, then my own conscious existence is rendered a BSOD. Then I myself are The Gap. To resolve The Gap I could bring in God to balance the budget. But then I might need to conclude I myself are God once the gap that was me is filled with the fullness of God. People with very strong convictions re the divine often conclude they are God, speak in his name, are closest to God whatever. It is only a hairs width away from madness.
2. If I don't believe the scientific 3rd person perspective can ever inform me sufficiently (if at all) about my own conscious existence here-now, then I can just let that go, stop fishing in 3rd person waters where there ain't no fish. I just turn around and walk away in the other direction. What will I find? It always will be a surprise.
